Ken Toole was a strange person. He was extroverted and private. And that’s very difficult. He had a strong . . . desire to be recognized . . . but also a strong sense of alienation. That’s what you have in Ignatius Reilly.

Madeleine and I would be driving in the car, and I would say “Scream!” and we’d both start screaming in unison. Man that was good. We did that like every single time we drove somewhere.

Also, I remember my dad always giving me “horse bites” when I was a kid, where you surprise someone by clamping their thigh with your hand just above the knee. Anyway I used to do that to Madeleine all the time. I’d say “Horse bite!!!” and then squeeze her leg and she’d start laughing because she was ticklish, and then she would push my arm away. I did this under the dinner table when we were at her parents’ house once. I did it during movies! God, man. We had some good times. We had our own jokes between the two of us that nobody else knew about.

“And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.”

get me off this rock

ok i know what my apartment in austin is going to look like

i would rather go to a job interview and tell them that i am a serial killer than tell them i am “detail-oriented”

and i’ll say it again: i would rather have a police record than a linkedin dot com profile

you want to take everything good about this world, and what it means to talk to people and work with and for them, and so on, and turn it into THIS

for god’s SAKE, people

you know when the elders prophesied the coming of the star sailor—that great big worthless idiot from space who would nonetheless befriend mankind and be good at parallel parking—i don’t think they knew that son of a bitch was going to be an edge-walking pariah with a credit card balance.

this world just ain’t gotta let me out of its jaws until it has completely crushed me into a pulpy mass of once-was, huh.

man! i don’t take things personally when it comes to the indifferent universe and all its chaos, because they don’t give a shit at all, and god love them for it—but i can’t help but take it personally when a human shreds me like newspaper for no good reason. you really do have to navigate this place knowing that there’s no reward waiting for you at the red light. you have to do good and thoughtful things for your own sake, to keep your own sanity, because as long as i have been here i have known that you will almost never be afforded the same courtesy. i have so many holes in my history and they all wear human faces. i miss those faces. as selfish as it sounds i can’t help but wonder if i’m a ryan-faced hole to someone else. and do they miss me too?

yes

“and though the news was rather sad
well i just had to laugh”

yeah

well, i don’t know how i managed to do this, but i got a short-term lease on a studio apartment in austin and it’s four blocks from my old house.