Turpentine Mouthwash

I'd note that Mandy was wearing her Happy Egg Gnome hoodie while at the gun range.

I'm usually not one for public moaning about the trials and travails life brings. Usually, I keep my trouble to myself, at least on the internet. But this month deserves mention, if only because it has raised the bar of terrible months. I want you to understand, this is coming from a person who once slept in parks, who has broken both his legs, and has, on several occasions, lost all his friends and have to pack up and move. Even with the above sloppy shit sandwiches in mind, August, oh horrid August, will go down as one of the crappier months I've ever had. First, Mandy learns that her mother died. I'm not going to claim that as a bad thing for me, but it is hard to watch someone you love in pain. So she has to fly out to her hometown, which is one way or another, gonna cost money. For the record, most people don't realize just how tough and resilient Mandy is. She has not had an easy life and she's still a genuinely nice person. I know lots of childr...

Tonight, Madeline Waffles was hit by a car and died. She was a sweet, loving, loud and skittish little thing. She loved to sleep beside me and Mandy, wriggling between us until she'd achieved the maximum surface area exposure to snuggles possible. She'd follow the chinchilla around the house at a safe distance, then leap out of the way when the fearless Elmo would trot right up to her. Madeline was tiny and scared of her own shadow. A couple months ago she decided she would climb a tree outside out apartment. The tree led to the roof of the apartment next door. She naturally jumped onto the roof. Two hours later, I'm climbing up a rickety painting ladder up the side of a two-story building with a bag of kitty treats in my hand to lure her away. Stanley is walking around the house crying. They were inseparable their whole life, and now he's on his own. My wife-to-be is trapped in Virginia dealing with a death in her immediate family. I had to call her to tel...

Do You Trust Your Mechanic? Barring an unlikely intervention, he figured he had a minute before he was rendered sterile. It was moments like these (if by 'like these' one referred to dangling above the exhaust thrust, being pelted with cosmic radiation, and hoping one's EVA shield holds up) that he finally felt he understood the vast, incomprehensible stupidity of his lifelong dream. Jupiter lounged in the star field, turgid and inviting. Something childish and primordial in his brain tried to convince him that is wasn't all that large and quite likely very soft, like a massive beanbag. A boost in that direction and who knows, he could be sitting in the first relaxing position he had in nine years. The electromagnets wobbled in their moorings, millions of tiny craters dusting the ceramic and carbon shell of the exhaust assembly. Up close, the whole contraption looked slipshod, an amateur hack to keep the rocket looking stereotypically rocket-like. He pried the pa...