No photos of buttons today.

I Am No One’s Hero

I sometimes have the distinct and clear impression that I am not looked up to by anyone. This clearly isn’t true, because I’ve got my young assistant at work and at least one or two fans on the internet. However, I never seem to get anything right enough anymore to actually attain anyone’s admiration. Anyone still hanging on at this point is only hanging on from before, when I was a promising young scribbler and it looked like I might be going somewhere. But somewhere turned out to be no where and the promise went unfulfilled. I’ve got some stories written down, and I’ve told what might be some interesting tales, but nobody cares. It’s very hard to keep writing when it feels like no one is reading.

Yes, I could have done more to try and attract attention to my writings, but a lot of what is required is either beyond my means or beneath my character. And to what end? There has been very little in the way of practical encouragement, and we know what I mean by practical. Yes, those of you who have read for a long time keep reading, but I don’t seem to be engaging any but a small few. That’s incredibly frustrating, and it doesn’t help that my own scattered brain has kept me from providing a coherent run of regular content that would keep coming back every Tuesday. Even when I have premade content, I forget to post it.

Besides, I could almost sum up the whole debacle that followed my slink from “Promising/Young” status by using one of the worst lines from Pearl Harbor, “And then all this happened.” We all know what happened, we don’t need to dwell on the whole story, just an alliterative list will do. Deaths, disintegration of relationships, depression, desperation, but not drunkenness, for which I deserve a fucking cookie or something. Yeah, there is no point to this, you’ve just got to trust me that I’ll make a point later. That’s probably not a good thing to trust me on though, I seem to make so few coherent points lately.

Trouble abrewin'

"First they came for the rich, and I said nothing. Because, you know, fuck those guys."
-- Steve Davis upon Winning the Snooker World Championship.

I do hope the Oakland Police enjoyed themselves today. This is one more step in a chain, and pretty soon some asshole is going to decide to do something stupid and push back against the police. I must remind you, this is America. Home of the free, land of the fucking armed to the goddamn teeth. And make no mistake, it is extremely stupid to allow this thing to get violent. I admit that, even though I'm thinking that violence is the logical end of this series of events. I’ve got history on my side on this one, and the history says that violence begets violence until some motherfucker gets his motherfucking head cut off and put on a motherfucking pike.

People take to the streets as a last resort, many of them have nothing to loose and everything to gain. They’re scared or they’re angry, and many of them are just plain frustrated enough to be swept up once the shit hits the fan. And history tells me shit will hit the fan, because we’ve had a taste of the good life and we’re just selfish enough to go to stupid drastic measures to get it back.

This will not be a good thing. In all honesty, revolt sucks. Counter revolt sucks harder. Remember, there is nothing like overwhelming support of the OWS movement. Lots of people would want to fight such a revolt simply because it is a revolt and they disapprove of that sort of thing. Waves of petty recriminations, back biting and infighting suck to the limit and beyond. I don’t actually want to see bankers dragged out of their offices and beaten to death in the streets, because that story ends with the death of some poor bastard whose only real crime was being a little too smug about a car he could afford through no actual effort or fault of his own. Sadly, we’ve already seen that the police in many cities haven’t quite worked out what kind of movement this is and seem to think they’re going to crush it when really all they can do is transform it.

I’m not interested in bloodshed, but I fear that’s where this thing is headed and the harder either side pushes, the faster we’ll get there. The problem is of course, pushing is everyone’s natural response. The other problem is, telling everyone on one side to go home won’t work and neither will telling everyone on the other side to stop being fucknuggets. Sooo, I guess we’re likely in for some trouble. As far as I can see, it’s not just down to betting on when the balloon will actually go up.

Greenfield Village & The Henry Ford Museum Photos

The Return of Jack Collier (Chapter Forty-Five)

The Return of Jack Collier

A Jack Collier Story

By Brett N. Lashuay

 

Chapter Forty-Five: Suspension

Alice Liddell’s Diary

 

            Things happened the way I expected them to for the next two days. Reporters had questions, but I was able to do it all in a single press conference with a few of the higher ups around. Then there was the thing I’d been hoping to avoid. Someone at CNN got a look at me and I was put out front because I’m mildly attractive. That was the start of an annoying bit of celebrity I could have done without.

 

            I’m not going to go into that right now. Instead I would rather focus on what happened when I got back to Washington. I’d been in my office for half an hour when Jim called me to his office for a conference. I knew what I was going in for, I knew how much trouble I was in. I knew that a review board made up of a dozen of my most jealous co-workers was going to be the best I could hope for. There was so much that I’d screwed up and so much had been screwed up for me, I’d be lucky to maintain a desk. I was in deep trouble.

 

            When I got into Jim’s office it was clear how much trouble I was in. Krendler was there, and Richard Wragg himself had come down to Jim’s office to bawl me out. I sighed as I looked at the three of them and started to walk into the room.

 

            “Morning Jim.” I said to him as I went to the single chair that was left vacant near his desk. “Mister Krendler, Mister Wragg.”

 

            “Alice.” Jim started as I sat down. “This may be uncomfortable, and it may be trouble.”

 

            “I understand.” I told him. “I’m ready.”

 

            “I’ve looked over your report.” Wragg said. “Did Collier shoot King?”

 

            “Sir?”

 

            “You have a relationship.” Krendler said. “It’s not impossible to believe you said King shot himself to protect Collier.”

 

            “No sir.” I said. “King shot himself because he didn’t want to be taken in.”

 

            “Even just among the three of us?” Jim asked.

 

            “Jim?” I asked.

 

            “I’m just asking.” He said. “Is there anything you changed? Anything you didn’t say?”

 

            “Why?” I asked.

 

            “We’re concerned that information has been passed from this office to Red King’s organization.” Krendler said.

 

            “I seriously doubt that you screwed up badly enough to expose yourself like that.” Jim said. “Someone had to have told them where you’d be and when you’d be most vulnerable.”

 

            “Frankly, you’re lucky not have been killed.” Krendler added.

 

            “Lucky.” I said. “If luck comes in the shape of a man willing to stick another man’s head in a car door and kick it as hard as he can, I guess I did have luck on my side. It’s nice to get lucky like that.”

 

            I could see that made them all uncomfortable. I’m going to admit that I liked that. It was something Debbie had suggested, throwing out phrases that could be thought of as a double entendre, but isn’t really. You could see them trying to decide if I’d meant getting lucky as a sexual thing, and then caught themselves thinking about a female colleague in sexual terms and tried to get the idea out of their head so they wouldn’t be typical men in our field.

 

            “Yes, well.” Jim said, clearing his throat.

 

            “You also broke protocol though.” Wragg said. “You shouldn’t have been vulnerable like that.”

 

            “Yes sir.” I said. “I’m aware of that.”

 

            “She was working under my order.” Jim said. “An order you approved.”

 

            “I know that Jim.” Wragg said.

 

            “We’re not trying to accuse you Alice.” Jim said. “We’re trying to find out how you were given away, and if possible we’d like to know who did it. Whatever procedural irregularities you may have needed to engage in can be dealt with later.”

 

            “Maybe we should go over your report.” Krendler said. “You can answer any question we may have.”

 

            And that lead to a four hour dissection of my report, my career, my relationship with Jack, his relationship with Debbie and Karen, and of course the invasion of my private life from the age of four. That sounds like I’m glossing, and I guess I am. I have no desire to relive that interrogation with two bad cops and one good cop. At the end everyone had made a lot of notes, and what would amount to about three type written pages worth of corrections to my report had been written out.

 

            At least I managed to remain in the closet, and with Krendler and Wragg I remained inscrutable as far as to what degree things had progressed. They don’t need to now if I’m still actively sapphic, or if I agree that Jack can stick it wherever he wants into whoever he wants. I didn’t tell them anything either way, but I hinted that something might be going on, which is a childish game to play but I did it anyway. I did have to admit where the silenced Rutthowers came from, but I think they decided to leave it out for the time being. After all, they’d been taken away and Jack didn’t feel like claiming them.

 

            “I’m afraid I’ve got no other option right now.” Krendler finally announced. “We’ll have to hold an internal investigation on this matter.”

 

            “Agreed.” Wragg said, and I could feel my career sinking right along with my heart. “We’ll have to put you on leave Agent Liddell.”

 

            “Sir.” I didn’t whine, even though I could feel it wanting to happen.

 

            “I’m sorry Liddell.” Wragg said standing. “We’re going to have to sort all of this out though. This whole King affair has turned into a shit storm and we’re going to have to make sure we make good.”

 

            “So we put the cute girl up as a blood sacrifice so the bureaucrats can keep their cushy offices?” It just… well it just came out. “You know when Red King announced a sacrifice he had the guts to actually take physical action rather than just hide behind petty official bullshit.”

 

            “Alice!” Jim yelled.

 

            “Give your weapon and identification to Agent Palvier.” Wragg said, “Coming Paul?”

 

            “Give me a minute.” Krendler said. “I’ll be right there.”

 

            Wragg left as I pulled my gun off my belt and placed it on Jim’s desk. Krendler stood up and came to Jim’s desk as I set my ID wallet down next to the holstered gun. I sort of thought that I wouldn’t be coming back here again. Maybe I could get a job with the Collier Investigations company, I had an in with the boss after all.

 

            “This isn’t going to be a witch burning Liddell.” Krendler said standing next to me. “Wragg chose a bad way to express it, but we’re not looking to hang anyone out to dry.”

 

            “It’s just a little administrative leave.” Jim said. “We’ve done this before, and you know what it amounts to. Some senator gets angry, yells at us in private, we announce stronger training or some bullshit and we all get back to work.”

 

            “It’s not like Red King was some kind of saint.” Krendler told me. “This has been a difficult case and we’re still not really done with it. People are going to want to call it over because King is dead, but we all know better.”

 

            “What’s most important is that we find whoever has been handing information over to the opposition.” Jim said. “Probably any irregularities in your work could be explained through that. Work on that, we’ll get together and write up a report about how you were getting worried about leaks and things.”

 

            “Yes sir.” I said. “I’ll work on that.”

 

            “It’ll be alright Agent Liddell.” Krendler said.

 

            “Sure it will.” I sighed.

 

            “Take a few days.” Jim said. “We’ll hold down the fort here for a while. You take a little vacation or something.”

 

            “I’ll do that sir.” I said.

 

            I made it all the way to my car before I started to cry. Despite their claims I knew I was going to be the one on the cross when the time came. I’m supposed to be an independent career woman, tough as nails. I am. I think I am anyway, but I needed support then. I did what anyone else would do at a time like that, I called my boyfriend. How silly does that sound? A grown woman calling a grown man her boyfriend? Particularly since, if anything, I was really calling Debbie’s boyfriend. He hadn’t made an official statement to me yet, and I didn’t know if he was going to. I needed the support though, so I called him.

 

            People who work in normal offices with normal office politics don’t get what happens when you put law enforcement and office politics together. They always think you’re just being paranoid when you complain about them being after you, or trying to blame the current debacle on you. Of course they don’t understand screwing the Merkowski account, which hurts the company profits, is nothing compared to screwing up a criminal investigation where people die. It makes putting someone on the alter and sacrificing their career a lot easier if you can blame a death on them.

 

            I called Jack and I told him what was going on. He didn’t call me crazy though, he didn’t tell me I was over reacting, for the most part he didn’t tell me anything. What he did was quietly sat and listened as I poured out the entire situation to him combined with my fears and worries thrown in. It took the better part of an hour and I was back in my place by the time I was feeling that I was about done.

 

            “And that’s it.” I said as I came to the end.

           

            “Okay.” He said and there was a silence for a few seconds before he spoke. “Tell you what? I think we can turn this to our advantage.”

 

            “How?” I asked.

 

            “I’ve been watching the news this morning.” He said. “And I can’t help but notice that a lot of people have questions about the young and beautiful federal agent that was in the center of the latest Jack Collier bloodfest.”

 

            “Yeah.” I sighed. “I know.”

 

            “So use it.” He said.

 

            “Pardon?”

 

            “Do some interviews, tell them things.”

 

            “I can’t just talk about an on going investigation like that.” I said.

 

            “Even better.” He said. “Tell them nothing about this case, but talk about everything else.”

 

            “I’m not sure I can do that.” I said,

 

            “I think you can.” He said. “We’ll tell them all about the Wonderland case, all about the Columbia Freedom case, just let them get a look as you and those perfect blue eyes.”

 

            “The Freedom case was a debacle.” She said. “So was the Wonderland case.”

 

            “That’s not important.” He said. “What is important is letting them see you, letting them get used to looking at you, letting them see how cool you’re being under pressure.”

 

            “But I’m not being cool.”

 

            “You will be.” He said. “When it comes down to it, you’ll be cool.”

 

            “Who should I start with first then?”

 

            “Why don’t you come up here?” He asked. “We’ll talk about how best to take the interviews. I’ll get you in touch with a true crime writer I know. Get a book deal going, get famous, they won’t dare burn you then.”

 

            “They might for going public with things.” I said.

 

            “Nonsense.” He said. “You know what to tell and what not to, you’ve done this before. You just get them to fall in love with you and it’ll make getting rid of you a very dicey proposition. If you get some people who are even more powerful than the ones who are dangling swords over you to say how great you are the danger will fade back a little.”

 

            “You think so?”

 

            “Yeah.” He then laughed. “And if it doesn’t work that way, we’ll open a D.C. Office and put you in charge of it and that’ll show ‘em. They’ll quake in fear at the very thought of me coming to town to help in an investigation.”

 

            “They might at that.” I laughed.

 

 

Less Sex These Days

We used to have a sub-genre called the rape and revenge story. Over the years, the rape has dropped of until you can pretty much call that sub-genre the revenge story. The rape has, more or less atrophied and vanished. Yes, there are vestigial remnants, but it’s mostly gone leaving only the tailbone or the threat of rape these days.

I think the reason for this is feminism, but not in the way most people would think. It’s not feminist complaining, or writing essays about how women should be portrayed or any of that. Let’s face it, some writers will deliberately write a rape scene just to annoy a feminist and will use the fact that the book sells to say they were right. So I don’t think feminism is directly responsible. They are to credit, but not to blame.

I’ve noticed that a lot of rape is used in literature by writers who, over all, are fairly insecure about sex as a whole idea. They’re unsure about what goes where, they’re uncomfortable about who does what to whom and how often, and they’re sort of scared of the idea of women on the whole. When society was a lot more repressed, you got a lot more rape stories, both directly violent and indirectly threatened violence. But then the Women’s Movement came and brought with it an interesting dichotomy. Suddenly there were women who A) Weren’t going to put up with this shit any longer and B) Were willing to get their tits out on occasion. The freeing of female sexuality, and the rise of sexually aggressive women, allowed a lot of men to discuss their own sexual urges and longings in honest ways that they weren’t able to do before. As a result, the confused expression of sexuality has become slightly more informed.

I think this is one of the reasons nudity dropped off in movies as well. In the 70s, when nudity was new and all the boobs were firm ones, movies went a little nuts with the whole thing. There was a period of about 5 years where every movie had a nude scene, whether it needed it or not. Hell, Clash of the Titans has nudity in it. Not the new one, the original. That’s how far the nudity trend went. But then, something happened, and the demand for T&A dropped off. You could claim the internet, but it dropped off before then. You could claim the MPAA became more tyrannical, but that doesn’t do it either because R rated movies don’t have as much sex now either.

Nope, once again I’m going to the feminists. They’ve freed up our sexuality and we don’t really need vicarious sex anymore. We don’t need the shower scene, enough of us have made our own shower scene. More people than ever have just plain fucked. Not made love, not had sex, not experienced something lovely with a partner*… FUCKED! They got down and dirty with someone and humped until they’d forget their name if their partner wasn’t screaming it. This is also why so many people think they’re god when they do it. As a result, we don’t get that unnaturally excited about sex anymore. We’re no longer as scared, confused, repressed, hiding, or alone as we used to be. Even if you’d like to dress up like a squirrel and fuck someone dressed a badger, there is an entire sub-culture for that. Even better, if you want to dress up like and squirrel and NOT fuck in it because that fursuit cost thousands and you don’t want lube and fluids on it, most the community understands and also doesn’t want fluid on their fursuits.

My point is that we’re not as scared about sex as our forebears used to be. We’re allowed to be more expressive and the vicarious need to see these things in fiction has dropped off lately. I think this is why violence in movies remains pretty steady. We’re still scared of that, as we should be, and we still want it to happen to someone else. We’ll probably never come to grips with violence the way we’re coming to grips with sex. In a way, I hope we don’t. I’d hate for violence to become such and everyday thing that we don’t need to see it on the movie screen where it’s completely divorced from us and reality.

So yeah, we’re cooler with sex now, and our fiction doesn’t need to include it in quite the same way as it used to. We’re still not there yet, but we can just about see if from here and that’s something.

*Or partners, more people have tried group sex now than ever before.

I have written a cover letter.

I have written my cover letter, let me know what you think.

Greetings and Congratulations,

What you hold in your hand, is possibly the single most important document you may ever touch. This not just a list of accomplishments, qualifications and history, but an opportunity that rarely comes once in a lifetime and never twice. You are currently in possession of the resume of Brett N. Lashuay, possibly the most important employee that you have hither fore failed to have in your organization. However, it cannot all be put upon your shoulders. He has been engaged with other projects for sometime and is only now allowing his extensive wealth of experience to be placed at the disposal of your company.

Allow me to be simple about what the situation before you is my friend. This is one of those times when you should look no further than the contact information and the only course of action is to make contact and request an audience with Mister Lashuay so that he might interview you for the position of being his employer. Failure to act can only result in missing this unique opportunity and the untold benefits that can come from taking hold of the future and selecting the correct choice.

Ignore the woefully inadequate written facts; there are things that cannot be put on a resume. Genius can’t be nailed down, brilliance can’t be quantified, and Brett N. Lashuay is greater than the mere scrawlings on the next sheet. Allow me to be frank with you my hypothetical friend. You need things done, many and various, and you need someone who can perform all the little tasks, many of which you may not even be aware of until they have been performed. You need someone who can spot all the tiny details, who can make quick decisions and has the leadership skills to inspire his fellow workers to greater heights than any of them had ever dreamed.

This is hardly a once in a lifetime opportunity for you. Only once in a hundred years does a prospect this golden come the way of a lucky individual such as you. I’m sure you’ll make the right choice.

Yours sincerely,



Fancy (Ruler of the Universe)



Since I'm pretty sure I'm not qualified for any of the jobs I've been told about recently, I figure why not try for the insane route? Right?

You said you wanted pics

I have now added "Dry Aged Steak" to my repertoire

Hey, internet, have you heard about dry aging beef?

I’d heard about it before, and even tried it once last year, but I got it wrong. Today, I got it RIGHT and oooooh man! This is clearly how steak is supposed to taste. I didn’t even notice at first that my steak was basically rare. The texture is so different that I wasn’t aware of the doneness level. See, one of the things that puts me off rare steak is how damn chewy is can be, no other word for it. However, as I’ve said, the texture was so different that I didn’t even notice until I happened to look down and see that the steak was a dark mahogany color, which I normally eschew. It tasted good though, and it didn’t have that raw meat ickyness I don’t like, so I shrugged and kept eating. I was really pleased with the result.  

It’s pretty easy to do. You get a good piece of steak, rub salt all over both sides and let it sit (uncovered) in the refrigerator, on the lowest shelf please. You’ll need to have it on some kind of rack so that all sides of the meat are exposed. Put paper towel under the rack, just in case of juice flow. Now, from what I understand, 7 days is probably the maximum you need. I went with four days. On day one, I put salt all over both sides. On day two I turned the steaks over, putting more salt on both sides. One day three and four I turned the steaks, but didn’t add any more salt*.

Then I cooked them like I would normally, seared in a pan and popped in the oven for a few minutes. We had it with a tomato sauce I’d made and some pasta, but next time I think potatoes and a whisky cream sauce will be more the order. The steak has such a strong flavor (in a good way) that it doesn’t need to have the tomato sauce fighting for prominence.

Mostly I’ve only ever seen people do this with large hunks of meat, like three pounds of prime rib or something, but the little steaks I was working with turned out admirably. The only thing is that you have an obvious time element to work with. This is a planned meal, and you have to know you want it at least three days in advance. Not a big deal, it’s no thanksgiving turkey scenario where you have the soak the motherfucker in brine for a month before you even begin to drown a baby duck in rabbit tears if you want this to turn out right, but you do need to plan when you’re going to eat and all that.

So yeah, point being, dry aging: it works bitches.

Go tell the world.

*The last time I tried, I added salt everyday, which resulted in a steak that tasted of nothing but salt and it was terrible.

Why I Hate Man Food

When I hear the phrase Man Food, what I really hear is… “I’m a MAN! And I’m gonna prove I’m a MAN by eating lots of BEEF and RIBS and things! Because I’m a MAN and not a faggit and I sure don’t want to be fucked up the ass or nothing. I’ll prove how straight I am by eating loads of hotdogs and drinking beer and OH GOD PLEASE SOMEONE SODOMIZE ME! I need it so bad… my butt is waiting.”

So yeah, talking about Man Food sort of makes me think you’re very, very gay. I know, I know, I shouldn’t use gay as a pejorative, and I’m not really. Nothing wrong with being gay, so long as you know what you are and accept the fact. It’s when men try to prove themselves to be Extra Manly with Manly Sauce that I stat looking at them and shout “GAY!” because if you were really confident that you’re a hetro man, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to convince both me and yourself.

Few things are as pervasive as the gender identity roles for men. They extend far further than you think, run much deeper than we’ve previous suspected and are far, far more stringent than those for women. While the consequences for women might be much direr in the long run, many of those consequences revolve around men who are unable to escape the grasp of their gender identity. So really, I shouldn’t make fun of guys who can’t let go of pork ribs and football, but they all come off as so amazingly gay to me. Even though, really, it’s an expression of desperation and fear from someone who probably isn’t gay, but is terrified of being perceived as gay… and I just called them gay. Yeah, you can’t fucking win. Might as well wear a pink angora sweater and ride a big penis shaped rocket while waving your hat Slim Pickens style. If someone is going to call you gay no matter what you do, then why pretend?

And all of this is a side issue to the fact that women eat ribs and chili and drink beer and burp and have even been known to get into football of all things.  How can it be Man Food if girls are allowed to eat it? And, is there any such thing as woman food? Quiche? Strawberry Cheesecake? Calzones? Oysters? Tacos? Cherry Pie? Orchids? Cellos? Perhaps two semi-spherical mounds of panna cotta set next to each other with a cherry on each one? No… that’s too Caucasian-Centric, and I’m already being quite hetro-normative with this as it is. Besides not even all white chicks have pink nipples and certainly not cherry red ones.

Because Goddamn QUICHE, GODDAMNIT!

I'm going to write a cookbook entitled "Real Men Are Secure Enough in Their Sexuality to Eat Whatever the Hell They Want!"

Not a joke. Will start writing now.

If anyone wants to suggest a recipe, please make a comment and mention how you’d like to be credited.

We're back on the photos again

First Conctact Bias

I have an idea about why so many people think of vegans and atheist as being obnoxious and always trying to push their lifestyles on other people, despite it not really being the case. Mostly, both groups are just getting on with their lives, albeit a bit smugly, but if I took a hammer to the head of every person who went about smug and self-satisfied, there wouldn’t be a religious house of worship left in the world and most the universities would be empty, not to mention the months I’d have to spend in Hollywood and Wall Street. My arms would get tired and the joy of smashing in heads would quickly turn to dull drudgery is what I’m saying.

I will admit that I find vegans to be a bit exasperating when trying to feed them, but that’s more because I have to keep a constant tally in my head about whether or not a particular food item is allowed. After all, you learn just how oh so many things have some kind of animal product in them when you hang out with a vegetarian for a while, and vegans are even stricter. In fact, I knew one that refused to eat some plant based things because animals are wantonly harmed during their manufacture. Okay, fair enough, if you’ve decided not to eat bacon because of how the pigs are treated then you probably shouldn’t eat processed broccoli burgers or tofurky when you learn that they murder a kitten every time they make one. They do you know, just out of spite. Still, it’s a more or less valid lifestyle choice, and if you have to choose a lifestyle then denying god or eating only veggies is as valid as eating bacon or going to church every week.

However, back to the point I started with. Why do people find them so obnoxious when they’re usually not terribly pushy? I would like to suggest the concept of first contact as an explanation. Think about it, who was the first vegan you met and when did you meet them? Probably between 14 and 19 right? And they were about your age, yes? And like all teenagers who had single-handedly discovered something, they were endlessly obnoxious about trying to justify their new blasphemy by trying to convert everyone around them. I’ve got an idea that most people who have just discovered something are usually pretty unsure about it, and convincing other people to join makes them less unsure. In trying to convince other people to do it, they get to be pretty obnoxious and in the case of Christian Missionaries, down right evil. BTW, if you think I’m being hard on Missionaries, I will remind you I’m related to those fucking people and that I have extensive first hand knowledge about how down right evil those fucking people, and the groups they work with, are. This extends to the fact that I refer to them, consistently as “those fucking people” instead of say… my relatives.

Back to the point I was making though. If the first vegetarian ever you met would openly weep when you would eat a hamburger, or show you pictures of pigs being slaughtered when you’d think about bacon then perhaps you might get it in your head that vegetarians are all assholes and that vegans must be even worse. You don’t ever even have to meet an actual vegan, just by extension that they’re stricter than normal vegetarians, means they must be bigger assholes. Ipso to the Facto amirite? Well, no, since most your actual day-to-day vegetarians over the age of 21 aren’t all that obnoxious. Yeah, you’ll still get one now and then, but I’ve found holding their heads underwater for 10 minutes usually sorts that out.

When a person comes to this sort of lifestyle as an adult, their attitude is entirely different. They’re calm, willing to explain things, rarely try to convert anyone, and above all they’re respectful of those who don’t wish to follow their path. I know, you can always find an example of the one asshole, but that’s the point, it’s usually just one asshole, not the group as a whole. Sadly, by that time, the first contact bias has worked its way into your brain and it doesn’t matter how mature or intelligent they are, they still seem like a dick to you because that’s what you’re expecting of them.

I’ve found the same to be true pretty much across the board. After the age of 21 or so, most your teenage atheists either settle down to calmly not believing in god, or they slide back into belief and become complete assholes again. Sadly religionists very rarely convert like an adult. They’re always just a 14 year old who has discovered that vegetarianism can make them feel special via the act of trying to judge what everyone else is doing. Yeah, I’ve got my own first contact bias on religionist, but they so often give themselves a bad name and stories like this just don’t help. Even so, I know lots of people who subscribe to one religion or another who are perfectly decent people who don’t molest children or anything… and yes, I find it pretty fucking sad that I feel the need to clarify that fact. Of course, if you really sat down and examined my views on humanity on the whole, you would probably find it all pretty depressing.

Also, if I might just add as a final note: if you call yourself a vegetarian, but you still eat bacon, you are not a vegetarian. Seriously, you eat fucking bacon. That is the meatiest of all meats!

Drop a penny in the hat, every penny helps.

I would like to remind you of my friend’s appeal for help. Or, if you want to buy something, go visit her store where you can buy much interesting jewelry.

There is also Syd's page on Extra Life, which helps kids in hospitals.

I make a pretty damn good quiche, even if I do say so myself.

I make a pretty damn goo quiche, even if I do say so myself.

I forget why I decided to make one the first time I tried, but I wanted to make something Syd could have as soon as she got home, and would keep form a while. The internet says that they can keep for a week or two in the fridge and a couple of months in the freezer. They are also fairly cheap, and better for you than a Big Mac (which I’ll admit is not saying much) so they’ve got that going for them.

I can actually cook many, many things, but today I’m bragging about quiche because I can. It was moist and delicious, it was F’in good ham quiche. I don’t normally go in for eggs, but I’m okay when they’re mixed up with ham and spinach and cheese and other things. I don’t make pie crusts though, I buy them. No one has ever noticed, but I’m sure you’ll all pretend to now.

It me thinking about cooking though, and how I went about it.

I started with lunch, because I wanted to feed myself. My mother once didn’t want to go to the trouble of making me something, probably alphabet soup, and instead of waiting for her, I did it myself. After that, it got easier and easier to cook for myself. Still though, until I was about ten or eleven I only ever made lunch type things.

I made Dinner because I wanted to cook for others. Well… partly I wanted to cook for other people, partly I wanted to control what we were eating. I wanted to have the dish I wanted to have, and who was going to stop me from making dinner? Still though, because I was getting to an age where being able to cook was a good thing. Most my friends could not or would not cook, so my doing it meant that I fed a lot of people in my time.

Finally, I learned to make breakfast for… the most obvious of reasons. Maybe they’re not obvious to you, but three people who know me just nodded their heads sadly. I don’t actually eat breakfast myself, but I understood that females do sometimes eat the most important meal of the day. So I learned to cook pancakes, fry and egg, make an omelet, and of course... waffles! I can now produce a range of breakfast items, most of which I don’t actually eat myself. However, by the time making breakfast for a lover who had stayed the night became an issue, the complexities had already been established and making breakfast isn’t the same under those circumstances. Still, I can make Syd an omelet now and then, so it all works out and I make a good damn quiche.

No I am not stalling! I am going to look up those recipes in a moment, I just happened to have this on my mind and thought I would share. Okay?

The Return of Jack Collier (Chapter Forty-Four)

The Return of Jack Collier

A Jack Collier Story

By Brett N. Lashuay

 

 

Chapter Forty-Four: All For You

 

 

It's hard to say what it is I see in you, wonder if I'll always be with you, words can't say it, I can't do enough to prove, it's all for you

Sister Hazel

 

 

            They didn’t like the idea of arresting me, which is what Jack always tells me when relating these stories later, so they sent Alice in to talk to me. She entered the room, looking harassed and tired. We weren’t in one of the rooms with mirrored glass, so I was pretty sure they weren’t watching us. Maybe there was a little camera, but at the moment it seemed like we were actually alone.

 

            “Got tired of talking to them?” She asked as she pulled the chair around the table so she could sit next to me instead of across.

 

            “I want to go home and go to bed.” I said. “I’m tired and I need a shower. And I just want to lay down in bed and hold onto Jack and never let him go.”

 

            “Me too.” She said.

 

            “What are we going to do Alice?” I asked.

 

            “Well, in a little bit I’ll make them let you go home and have a shower.” She shrugged. “And I’ll see about making them let Jack go.”

 

            “Does he go home with you or me?” I asked.

 

            “Is that the ‘what’ you were asking about?” She asked.

 

            “Yeah.” I said.

 

            I felt her hand on my knee then felt her fingers run across my thigh and grasp my hand. I grabbed back, because it was nice to have someone’s hand to hold. I found myself thinking that I did like her, she was nice, and how it wouldn’t be a bad match if the three of us were together. I shouldn’t have been thinking like that. We were in a lot of trouble, and there was going to be more trouble to come, I shouldn’t have been thinking how beautiful the line of her jaw made her.

 

            “Maybe I can bring him to your house.” She said. “Maybe he can sleep between us and we’ll split curling up against him between us.”

 

            “Maybe.” I agreed, except I know for a fact Jack never sleeps if you try to put him in the middle. I thought though that it wasn’t important to tell her that, and if she could sleep in the middle I sort of thought there were worse things that could happen then sleeping next to her.

 

            “Is this going to work?” She asked. “You were there first. Are you going to have… problems?”

 

            “I don’t know.” I said, wondering if she was thinking along the lines I was. “I don’t think so.”

 

            “We could give it a try for a while.” She said. “I think I’m about to have a long stretch of administrative leave anyway.”

 

            “We could give it a go.” I agreed. “We’ve just got to get Jack to agree.”

 

            “Do you think he won’t?” she asked,

 

            “He’s bad about deciding important things.” I told her. “He’ll have to do something, but he’s going to drag his feet.”

 

            “I see.” She nodded, “I’ve sort of noticed that.”

 

            “He thinks about you all the time though.” I told her.

 

            “Does he?”

 

            “I can sort of tell when he’s thinking about you.”

 

            “Can you?”

 

            “Yeah.”

 

            “Oh.” She blushed. “He’s like that is he?”

 

            “Yeah.” I told her. “You’ve just to forgive the fact that he thinks no one could ever possibly reciprocate a feeling towards him. He’s sort of an idiot like that.”

 

            “I don’t know how soon I can get him out of here.” She said. “I’ll do my best.”

 

            “Okay.”

 

            I was only there another ten minutes after that, and mostly it was waiting for Jack to be able to come and talk to me before I left. He looked like he wanted to start slapping cops when he got to the room where I was.

 

            “They’re going to let Alice take me back to your grandmother’s.” I told him as he closed the door behind him.

 

            “Okay.” He sat down across from me and looked at the table. “You’ll need the keys.” He pulled his keychain out of his pocket and slid it across to me. “The one with the G symbol is the back door. That’s the one we came in through. I assume you know what the two with the heron on them are.”

 

            “Yeah.” I smiled looking at those, my very own classic. “The round one is the door, the square is the ignition, right?”

 

            “That’s right.”

 

            “Can I ask something?”

 

            “Sure.”

 

            “How did you survive that fall?”

 

            He smiled like a little kid who was just asked how the magic trick worked. I could see that for a moment he didn’t want to tell me.

 

            “There was a tree.”

 

            “A what?”

 

            “A tree.” He said. “About half way down the hill there was a tree. I aimed for that, which is why I had to jump myself. The limb I hit broke, but I caught the trunk and I didn’t fall. Then I just pressed against the hillside really flat and when they were done shooting I started climbing up.”

 

            “Oh.” I said. “That makes sense.”

 

            “The rest will have to wait until I can sell the book rights.” He looked at his cell phone for the time. “Right now I’ll have to go see what they want to do about Jill.”

 

            “You know how long they’re going to keep you?”

 

            “No.” He shook his head and looked annoyed. “However Alice said she’s starting to get annoyed and that she may announce we’re done as soon as the local superior gets her and gives her the green light.”

 

            “Are you going home then?” I asked, trying not to ask leading questions about coming to my place and curling up next to me. I didn’t want to look too eager. “I mean if you wanted to come to my place and curl up next to me that would be nice. You could even bring Alice if you wanted, I wouldn’t mind.”

 

            I didn’t say I succeeded, I said I was trying.

 

            “Funny.” He said. “She asked roughly the same thing. Only she said she was sure you wouldn’t mind if we came over together. She was talking about sleeping on the couch, but you two have clearly conspired differently.”

 

            “Not yet.” I tried to smile, but I was tired.

 

            “Karen is probably the only one left at my Grandma’s house now.” He was holding his head up with his arms, and just looked tired now. “Unless they brought her here too. We’ve got to get Cindy back to Chicago, ask Greta to come get her or something. Find out which guys they killed, do something for their families.”

 

            His arms fell on the table and he fell forward. His head made a pretty good thunk sound as it hit the table. He muttered something that sounded like ow, but I couldn’t be sure. He looked so tired, I wondered if snoring wouldn’t be too much effort for him today.

 

            “I’m pretty sure things can be done tomorrow.” I told him. “Right now, Cindy probably just wants a shower and a bed like the rest of us.”

 

            “Aren’t I sleeping with enough of you?” He asked and then giggled. “You’ve got a pretty big bed but it ain’t that big.”

 

            There was a knock at the door and some cop who knew Jack well enough to call him by his first name popped his head in.

 

            “Jack?” He asked.

 

            “Mmm?” He asked, not lifting his head.

 

            “Miss Piper says she needs you.”

 

            “Oh?” He asked.

 

            “Well, she’s a little scary anyway.”

 

            “Why?”

 

            “When they told her that her father had been killed she just said ‘Good’ and asked if we’d get you.” He said.

 

            “Two minutes.” Jack waved.

 

            “Okay.”

 

            “That is another complication.” He didn’t even bother raising his head up to look at me. “Jill is…”

 

            “Still enamored of you?” I asked.

 

            “Yeah.” He nodded with his forehead on the table, which meant most of his body moved instead. “That’s a way to put it.”

 

            “And you slept with her because she’s a pretty girl and you’re Jack Collier.” I told him. “You didn’t mean it to happen like this, but it did and now she thinks she planted a flag on your pole and you’re not sure about the whole thing.”

 

            “Um…”

 

            “And she’s not going to take kindly to being shoved to one side.”

 

            “No.” He shook his head.

 

            “But we really don’t have to shove her aside.” I told him.

 

            “Maybe.” He said. “I’m not sure. I don’t know.”

 

            “You’re going to have to come to a conclusion about that sometime.” I got up and gave him a kiss on the ear. “For now though, claim that things are moving very fast and you don’t want to hurt anyone and that’s why you can’t dump any of us. You’d hurt one of us, and make the rest of us think you were a cad if you decided to stop with any one of us. You’ll have to just keep the plates spinning for now.”

 

            “I do love you.” He said. “You know that right?”

 

            “Yes.” I said. “And I love you.”

 

            “I didn’t sleep with Cindy.” He said that like it was really the most important part of all. “I didn’t sleep with Shiri either, but she’s a lesbian and in a committed relationship.”

 

            “I’m choosing to view that as an oversight on your part.” I told him. “You just haven’t had an hour with her since she actually turned eighteen. Now that she has, I’m sure you can slip in an hour with her.”

 

            “I’m so glad my claims of love mean that much to you.”

 

            “I never doubted that you love me for a second.” I said as I opened the door to go. “I just know you can love so many other people, you show concern for so many, and you do have a limited skill set in that you can get girls to go to bed with you and then b so good that they pant after you for another ride. Don’t think I’m insulting you, but I’m perfectly willing to stay with you forever without an exclusive contract, so just long as I get a regular dose of affection.”

 

            “Love you.”

 

            “Love you too.” I told him, and I went to get my car and go home.

 

DO NOT TRY TO EAT AT BAGGER DAVE'S!

There is a new burger place called Bagger Dave’s in our area. AVOID THIS PLACE! Do not go there, they will fuck up your order, a lot. I got my order fucked up three times and after that I didn’t even look at it to see if it was right. I can’t say that I ate at this shit hole, I can only say I tried to eat there. Also, fucking over priced! Had they not decided to take the food I wasn't able to eat off the bill, magnanimously I should add, it would have cost us about $80 to eat there. FOR BURGERS!

The first problem is in ordering, you don’t just look at a menu and order. There are little slips of paper, each one has a series of options fore things you can have on your burger that you check off. I’m not sure why they do this, because they clearly don’t pay attention to what you’ve selected. Every person at our table had their order screwed up to various degrees. Mine was not right in any way. It was completely screwed up.

They made mine a double large, when I’d selected a small burger, and they covered it in all kinds of crap like green olives that I didn’t order. My fries were similarly screwed. Nothing was right about the first order I got, mine was the worst of the bunch.

Now here’s the funny part, the waitress argued with us about what we ordered. She told us that, no, we totally ordered that. She could have brought out the cards, but instead she just decided to tell us we were stupid for complaining about them screwing up our order. I explained, as politely as I could, that I did not want green olives on my burger and she would kindly send it back and get me a new one.

So I sent it back, and they brought back the wrong order again. A different wrong order, I’ll admit that, but still wrong. The single through line of these burgers was the inclusion of those green olives, which the waitress kept insisting that I wanted. The third time the fries were right, but the burger was still covered in green olives. And when I say covered, we’re talking about a quarter of a cup of the fucking things. There was more green olive than meat on this burger. At this point, I was so annoyed that I didn’t even want to look at the thing so I set it on the floor.

When the waitress came back she looked at the table with confusion and then at everyone but me who was pointing at the floor. I was no pointing at the floor because I was asking Syd at what point was I allowed to just leave this fucking place. The waitress picked the burger from the place I'd deposited it (on the plate, I’m not a complete asshole) and set it on the table and asked me what was wrong with it this time. To which I pulled the top of the bun off, showed her the incredible mountain of green olives and spoke. “The main point in telling you I didn’t want green olives on the burger, was that I didn’t want green olives on my burger.”

Now mind, this was the THIRD burger she had brought, and this was the THIRD time I’d explained my position on the green olive issue. This was the third time we were going through this bullshit song and dance of her telling me what I ordered and my telling her that I didn't want what was presented and that she should make an adjustment. At this point the waitress saw the light of day and admitted that maybe I didn’t want green olives after all and that she had been misunderstanding what I thought was a simple point of “I don’t want green olives” to somehow mean that I wanted more green olives that anyone had ever had before. She got me a fourth burger, which I didn’t even look at because I was so disgusted with the process at that point.

No one at the table enjoyed their burgers in case you’re wondering. “Sub-Red Robin Levels” was the judgment from the panel of burger eating experts. Also, at Red Robin, they usually get my order right the first time. I'm not even all that fond of Red Robin, but they aren't complete and total fuck-ups like the shit heads at Bagger Dave's are.