Winter Cleavage

Christmas flew by as if it was only one day. It's the 26th of Decemburr; it's 29 American degrees and I'm shivering by the fireside. My proxy-life as a Philadelphia sports fan is shaping up nicely if my guy Joelly can stay healthy. My promising writing career is in the eternal draft-box—we've been through this! Bout to blow my X-mas cash on lottery tickets and a Large Fry. Listening to a bit more music of late—let my public radio guy blast some indietastic year-end mix with occasional political updates. For NPR(-affiliate), I'm Nick Blogger-and-this-is-All-Things-Considered. It's the twenty-sixth of December, forever, and the eerie dub-techno I'm listening to isn't helping me get over this breakup. Switch to some Fiona for the feel(ing)s—didn't like that shade of mascara anyway. "I don't wanna talk about anything," she emotes so controlled and delicate. Tears race out of my ducts, giving my laptop some semblance of humanity I guess. I'ma go read or s/t. 💔

Barren Leafs

Gotta write this review and I'm procrastinating. Staring at my waiver wire prospects and avoiding listening to the album of the got-damn year. Gas's "Untitled 4" in my ear-holes while the weather outside seems like Fall. It makes sense I guess; hope everyone is doing well in the real-er worlds. In my timeline these sentences connect a bit better. Whirs and waves–ambient staples for an October diarist. If one more leaf grazes the living room window I'm going to:

Gotta live it up, gotta live it up–must be happy

Mid-October keystrokes hit a little too close to home. I'd rather the rain drop than just stare. One of the worst living word-compilers. I thought maybe poetry was my thing but I need some breathing room. ESPN Fantasy notification: league taco dropped T.Y. Hilton's "bum-ass" after a 2.7 showing. Took a flier on him and Josh Doctson to withstand bye-week Hell. QB: Rivers. RB1: Gordon.

No one cares about your fantasy team!

Lips shut, leg(s) resting upon my 3.5'' desk with at least seven posts sitting snugly in the draft-bin. Aggressively tabbed out of eBay and threw some trade offers to the community discord. No one will take my Lynch despite his ferocious 1.3 YPC on 17 touches per game. Dumping my Chiefs D/ST and heading outside. First I must print out this week's "Love/Hate" column–and use it as a tissue.

Dalton Darts

It's ten-ten, twenty-seventeen. Looks like the best day of summerfall yet. Seventy with a mild breeze. Leafs blooming and my Maple Leafs cruising. For the two or three sporting fans in the audience, October is a big month. Baseball postseason, football midseason—hockey & hoops begin their marathons. My fantasy teams are on the IR. Excited to see what the consensus album of the year is. Need to refill my coffee-cup and figure out which sugar-packet to use. It's a decision I'm not equipped for—so I go black. Carefully caffeinated, I stroll through my Tumblr feed. Then I return to present time. Fixin' my roster in light of the upcoming footie games. Wish meh luck.

Sports Ball

     Reviewing my fantasy football team one last time before TNF. Hyde or Rodgers as my RB2? Going with my gut instinct: the venerable and well-built Mixon of the Cinci Bengals.
     The league's tough this year with our local book-keeper racking up 269.3 points after two weeks. Stole Hunt in the fourth and the rest is history.
      Cold coffee staring at my dusty Asus notebook. Seems like just yesterday I was an in-house publisher for Penguin—now I'm just a lonely transcriber for scattered NPR leftovers.
      "Hi, I'm Terry Gross, and welcome to the fucking show!" That's how they all start, but eventually she cools down a bit and the guests begin to relax. "My next guest is Nicholas Rapper," Mrs. NPR continues. "He writes for The Fictional Gardening, a brand new web-log that has caught the attention of the Blogmmunity."
     "Hi Terry, that's not what we call it," I respond. "Can I talk to Ira, though? He's my personal hero."
     "Mr. Nicholas Rapper, of The Fictional Gardening web-log and entertainment conglomerate, Ira is not part of NPR; his show is pro—"
     "What? Welp, that sucks. Can you help me with my fantasy football league?"
     Fug, she hung up. Back to /r/gaylads I guess.

Bad Accounts

The mirth-man has returned for another Wordapalooza. Back from my walk and directly onto the lap-top dancefloor. Sandwich in the fridge is too far and too fattening. Where's the DJ? Play my Mega-Mix—the one with the chunes. Income-ing, the new pay-per-wordsmith. We used to have fun in this Blogtopolis; now we just kinda print money. I can tell already this'll be a short 'un. 39% battery and a dream. Gotta write a music review for my good comrade Brown Friend. Already wrote the intro and the outro—the middle is the middling miscellany: obscure references & assured sentences. Why would I need friends when you have Posts Like These? September is one of those months—can't waste its embroidered creative whisper-pleas. The energy of the twenty-seventeen New York Jetropolitans. I'm working on my Other Post.  See you-all there.

Prevalent Purveyors

     Snapchatted a little too hard and ended up breaking my Galaxy S1. Hello friendoids—what's up with y'all? I'm an em dash fiend—a true over-relier on the double-hyph (industry term). My girlfriend from Russia aka CSGO is on the other window but I'll get back to you, trusty Blogger. 12 x'd out tabs later. Oh.

     Satiating you bloghoes and cutie-patooties for now with this appetizer. I'm prepping a fairly large fetish pasta (tasty) for my feminine patrons. Sounds delicious—but at what cost? If my blog was (is) a restaurant, and you delicate matrons were waiting this long for your entrée, and it never came—

      Then you'd probably leave. But you're stickin' around because you trust that—you're just addicted to em dashes. Em splashed all over my shitty wall of prose. Where were we? Stop paragraphing and start planning to prepare this party post for print. This thing will be fridge-material for all the families that have adopted me over the years.

      Whoops. It just kind of just happened. Dedicated to my great friends over the years, including: Dave S, Angelo C, Warren R, Ryan C, and Jim from Accounting. Also dedicated to the girl in the comments section that never comments: you are appreciated. I know you're there, and I know my work has saved you from pulling that fateful trigger. Yes, I am a hero—but you are too (you're not btw). Simply by existing (by wasting precious space that could be taken up by me), you give this blog content to be realized (you fucking wasted my only good paragraph, you whore).

      It's fall and it's about 63. Perfect weather for outdoorsy coat-wearing Starbloggers like myself. This guy sitting beside me is clearly bothered that I haven't removed my jacket yet. "Hey buddy," I begin, but then my barista Janet summons me for my Pumpkin Latte con Leche (I'm in SoCal). Janet's lattes are—quite inaccurately—so much better than the other coffee machine-abusing workerbees' cheap overpriced concoctions. Janet will read this post. Janet makes coffee in her sleep; she is that good at it, and has somnambulism that developed.

      Holy fuck my Discord server is empty as fuck. Dave is literally fist-fighting with the bot. This could get ugly; I'm gonna go investigate.

Stray Lines

     Headed upstairs to see what's cooking on the top-floor (i.e. the attic). There are thirteen people here—way more than I expected. Eliza and Marissa wax poetic about their city jobs while sipping Blue Points. I'm at the top step; they are slightly too close to the entryway considering the amount of open space surrounding us. At the far top-leftest corner is Edmund, his big swarthy body sprawled upon the mini-sofa. My eyes now set upon an inspired match of beer pong. Two girls I don't know face off against my good buddies Theo and Sean. Two cups remain for each pair; Sean launches a ball that glides ten feet past the table and clanks with a window-shade.
     On the right side of this big, claustrophobic room is a setup for poker. Matt, Nico, Warren, and Trevor sit hunched over a green-clothed table, their social and emotional vulnerabilities stashed away from the rest of the field. Nico lays down a pair of 2s that mated gracefully with the river; he pumps his fist and rakes in a hefty pot. Allison and Luke make up the final two attic denizens. The former is shadowing the beer pong girls; the latter is changing the song on the communal iPad. Where is he going after that? What's his story?
     "Nick," he calls, as "The Whistle Song" whittles away the night.