Inge Güllensmirtch thinks she's emninently qualified, after 42 years of faithful service putting her nose into drafts of technical manuals spanning everything from Abrams tank weapons systems to Field Sanitation to 'Venereal Diseases: The Soldier's Guide to Prevention & Cure,' "Whilst [I] was wore down upwards of 2,117 blue-leaded editing pencils and saved every stub..." in her duties as the top Mil-Specs Pubs proofreader for the Department of Defense (DoD)…

< the link is the pre-quel>

http://mdjb.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/this-came-for-you/

She used both hands to pick up the box, firmly pushing the door shut with…

"I can't earn too much b'cos  I'll lose my food stamps an' stuff, so what I love is that it's parttime, outside, the kids is always nice for the most part, I get to wear my favorite straw hat with the flowers or Lakers cap, sometimes, and I have good feelins b'cos my safety record's perfect and what's more important than your kids, you know what I'm sayin'?

"Me and my foldin' chair show up about 7:45  and the janitor rolls out the "School Zone 15mph No Passing in a School Zone" sign…

I'm barely under thirty and figure to knock down over $160K this year (more I think than many of my college peers who went into medicine and law and high finance), on track to own two more big homes in the next five years.

Every--and I mean every--time someone asked me what I did for a living, the consequences were disastrous, resulting in zero dates, zero invitations to…

My parents beamed so much when they saw my NYU diploma"William Randall Clariveaux, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Summa Cum Laude," that it's framed on their mantle (writing major, lit minor).

 For considerations of budget and distance to work, I share a flat with a relative stranger whose work schedule is the opposite of mine. 

 For a couple hundred a week, I spend afternoons as a bicycle messenger and later don a white apron, pulling down over $600 more  a week, mostly tips, serving…

He whetted and whetted the scavenged marine's k-bar knife over the Arkansas stone--also 'appropriated'--made for that purpose. He tested the edge with the pad of his thumb from time to time until, as lightly as he could touch it, a slice drew blood. He pulled a huge leaf from a nearby shrub, held it a foot above the blade and released it. He nodded in appreciation as watched the leaf get sliced in half from its own weight falling across the upturned blade. He skinned lots of dead animals,…

He should've ironed his shirt instead of trusting the dryer, and I can barely make out his name badge ("G. Myrblinski") in the shadows of his econo-sized cruiser.

"Sir, Hummingbird Meadows is a gated community and I don't recognize you as a resident, so I gotta ask, are you registered with the guard gate?"

"Don't think he even saw me because I breezed through the gate while your brother officer was strip-searching a banana and investigating the sports section, but as you can…

Did the title creep you out because it kinda gives me the shivers.

A parallel reality or universe, but what if it really existed?

What would scare me more:  the contributors with their faces as avatars, or the graphic avatars? OMG, and could you imagine how graphic those avatars could be.

Do Would I have anything on as I…

"Dad, I hate my name and want to change it because who wants to go through life as "Boniface!"

"Son, it's pronounced "bŏn'ə-fəs," not "bony-face..."and what's so wrong with the Catholic tradition of being named after a saint!?"

"Well, it's kind of sick because... like, the major…

It's at Headseeds. It's in the altogether with some added material. It's getting unencumbered of 6Structurization so you wont suffer from semicolonitis. It's like old denims, smoothed and soft. Sometimes all I have to do is write what's right there in front of me, visualized and easy except for the putting it into words part. If you've attended a HoW, or have the burning desire, then read this piece and tell me you'd turn down her…

Offers occasionally come in to buy everything Mrs. C. has realized here, and her charm isn't lost in polite declines, verbalizing words to the effect that there isn't anyone who has been able to come up with a price to own her dreams.

Income from Michael's first book, critically acclaimed and complex, brought untold money to him, yet he seems content to live here and has convinced me he'll stay should his second book brings millions; he's found himself, and his voice, here, again,…

Blistering heat of midsummer finds the house less visited than other months, and I get more fishing time in, as Michael takes week-long jaunts to wherever, and Mrs. C. entertains her kids and grandchildren, while the other ten months find the the house humming along smoothly like the efficient manor it is, bed 'n breakfast style, save for the 'commercial' bookings that put us all on hyperdrive to provide everything that sustains us.  

Holidays are celebrated in style, here, and the…

Mrs. C's place could easily adorn the cover of Coastl Living and the only reason I think this place hasn't done so is that she's designed the interior for creature-comfort furniture and motif rather than opulence it could easily sustain and warrant with any other owner.

The writers come and go, some at her invitation, other's by written requests that either trigger an 'application,' requiring the writer's bio and publishing history (with samples) or generate a kindly worded, personal…

The mansion's just over 12,000 square feet of livable space, has an expansive front lawn leading to the water's edge, and contain's an out-building that's a combination of boathouse/tool shed and caretaker's quarters.

The South end of the home has four bedrooms upstairs and four down, with the center of the home dedicated to common living areas, upstairs containing the 16-seat theater, bar-lounge with large screened television and mini-kitchen, and the library, where, the…

“Words have weight, sound and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look at and good to listen to.

"Have common sense and stick to the point

“To write simply is as difficult as to be…

We play gin rummy in the dayroom and I  fling cards across the table onto the floor, sometimes. Lavelle skootches his chair across the tile with that awful sound, and whines about "Why you do me like that all the time, Shereen, when I'm nice enough to play." I think he's liking the pink Haldols I sneak into his coffee before he heads to the nurse's station to refill his mug. The flyer in the hall says their company picnic's Saturday and they'll have lots of beer, so I'm gonna put two in his…

We know where we were and I'm pained about where we are.

One company, Cantor-Fitzgerald, lost 658 employees on the 105th floor of one of the felled towers, more than 20% of the death toll from the September 11th attack.

A pundit observed that September 11th memories will fade as we die-off, relegating the date to equal regard of December 7, 1941's Pearl Harbor attack.

Yes, it's hallowed ground at 'Ground Zero," and it's also privately owned real estate.

Wal-Mart…

Curtains of rain gave closure to each side of the port cochere as I stood awash in breezes carrying the aroma of freshly laundered air.

It knows how to rain in New Orleans, and the proof was audible in thunder-boomers articulating different movements of The Downpour Symphony better than the cannon of the "The 1812 Overture." 

The squall intensified and lessened, delivering…