How do I resolve my...mislike of Wal-Mart with my desire for fun new activities for the twins?















This is how.

We took it relatively easy on the poor, discriminatory corporation. It was a valuable field exercise. At times I would instruct Ender or Remy to put an item back where they got it, not to touch certain items, and to walk closely with me. Mostly they listened. I do not want them to assume that they can act this way whenever they walk into a store. That's another reason I chose Wal-Mart; nobody will give me a second glance if I whoop their collective butts up and down the aisles.

One day, when they're ready, we three will get ourselves kicked out of Wal-Mart. And every Wal-Mart. When they're ready. I'm not sure what we'll have to do to get kicked out. I felt that I let them go much crazier than I've ever dared, but we got no scrutiny from the employees whatsoever. Some people remarked on their cuteness and asked the usual twin questions but that was all. I filmed a bit, also, and my plan at that time was to say I was doing a sociology project for class. If pressed, I would say my major was in Projects.

So the plotting begins. I think I can dress them up in Wal-Mart brand winter clothes and send them into the freezer section. Not the aisles, I mean opening the door and running around inside the actual freezer.

That may not even work, because I plan to hide immediately and watch. If and when some employee actually responds, I'll run up panting and say "There you are! I've been looking all over for you two! What in good heavens are you doing?!"

Another plan is to put them in little stained wife-beaters and jeans and then let them play with cans of beer. Once again, I'll be hiding.

I'm not sure what else to do, but the possibilities are as endless as the supply of Chinese children living in factory houses that produce most of Wal-Mart's crap.

I know it won't really solve anything, and probably only impact the immediate employees, and that essentially I am just being an ass and attempting to rationalize it, but hey, I have to set an example.

I'm not sure what the future holds for my twins, or what challenges they will face. One day, they will have to look into their own souls and decide if they will use their powers for good, or for awesome.

In the meantime, I plan to get them kicked out of all the places I don't want them to go.

I wonder if I could get them into a strip club. One by the airport, and I could say I flew in to spend my one weekend a month with my kids and why you giving me a hard time, half these dames got kids anyway?

The audacity of hope, indeed.

[from the journals: 7-18-08; 2115]

Pagan Angels slither underneath the cemetery leaves. Long sleeves and pants in the summertime. This is my stylistic legacy. Caked mud on my Gore-tex boots. This is not goodness. It is not goodness I seek right now. Tangled in my wires and mired in the conversation of others. My fingers do not want rings. Decorations are best kept under the skin. These still suffer damage and are seldom stolen.

Buoyant we.

Today while I slept and dreamt I had conversations I would have had on my cell phone, were my service active.

Vivid voices and likely words woke me with its conviction. To sleep, then, to continue our conversations.

Music drowns out the conversations around, avid discussions of which film to see or if there's time to eat before.

With my aural blinders on I imagine they speak of having dessert as the first course for the rest of their lives, in case they do not survive to the end of dinner.

That couple there speaks in hushed tones, planning a conspiracy of theatre, friends and family stumbling into passages of Borges.

Another calls a friend over to where he has been waiting and asks his help to shatter every mirror in his house.

A woman in a red dress licks ice cream off her finger. The evening is warm and the shop was out of napkins. My people today carry vast technologies in their pockets and no handkerchiefs. She listens to another woman monologue about her master plan to rule the world by controlling all vectors of disease and unleashing viral horrors on all who oppose her. The woman in the red dress has finished her ice cream and stares into her paper bowl, nodding.

Two boys swagger along with skateboards under their arms. A girl in a pink tank top clutches her purse, intent on a similar rolling along.

A brick fireplace fed by gas chatters angrily, a funeral pyre jailed by fountains on this side and sofas on that.

A man, stocky with small spectacles, points to the ground as he and his companion walk over it, noting the spot where on the exact opposite side of the world, his mother met the man who was his father, but is not his father now.

A girl in a striped shirt, jeans, and several strands of fat beads, glistening black plastic like spilt oil on a seal's coat. She paws at the air over her shoulder to beckon her friend along. She assures her that spontaneous combustion happens once every twelve seconds, but only once, so it may be years before one of them bursts into flame, if ever. Besides, she adds, milkshakes will lower our core temperature.

A woman in the movie theater points to a seat set apart from the others. "They usually don't last long after they've been separated from the herd>"

I hope this is not true of all things.

Perhaps when we are in our formative years, the teeniest tiniest babies, we need to love completely and without thought of ourself, so that one day, perhaps, when we grow up, we can recognize the feeling if it ever comes again.

I'm going to see The Dark Knight in the Cine Capri at Tempe Marketplace at 10:30 pm. I've seen the film once and now I'm ready to handle it in all its majesty. If all goes well, I plan to see it in the IMAX. If all goes well.

I'm going alone, because I'm lonely, and I hate being lonely around people. After I "officially" stop babysitting my nephews (during which I usually jackass around on the computer while they jump on my bed, on the dog, and steal things from my room) my solitude seems more profound. I'm enjoying it now, because it is a Special Thing when I open my door after a time within and the babies, thus hearing it, dash over yelling wildly and try to climb into my arms.

I try not to take it for granted. I look at my parents now and think how strange that they carried me once, that I would sleep in their arms and run to them when I was hurt. I suppose they changed and I changed both, but really I believe that I think I am above such things, too dignified to admit that I was ever loved them so, that they were ever my whole world, my titans.

Rather, I tell myself that if ever some extreme situation arises, I would rush to their defense, fight off villains and scale obstacles to save them. Why do I believe I can move mountains for them, then, when I do not move the pebbles in their path everyday?

I will think on this.