Soul kiss

"Vesta La Viesta, Discoverer and
Poet Laureate of the Soul Kiss"
OK, wow again.
My mom showed me some things packed inside an antique trunk in our living room, including my grandfather's grade school notebook (which displayed evidence that racism was actively taught in the public school system) and a pack of postcards (one of which implored a potential guest not to wear out his horse). Also in the trunk, a small box of colorful folded paper napkins collected by my great-grandmother. On each, she had written the dates and events where the napkins were collected, such as family picnics and Thanksgiving dinners. All were from 1908 or 1909 -- photos are below. But an extra surprise: Among the napkins was this yellowed Milwaukee Journal article by Jacob Waldeck. Notable that my great-grandmother chose to clip out and save this article and no others. (I thought my greats were stodgy midwestern farmers, but apparently I come from a long line of kooks.)


NEW YORK, Aug. 9 -- Vesta La Viesta, mystic and cosmologist, after two years of silence, has emerged to unfold to us the wonders of the soul kiss. No such rapture is known to humans in the present state of knowledge, she says.
Asked what it was like, she answered that when you have been properly developed and try on the soul kiss, your whole being responds to a perfect delirium of ecstasy. It is like the fusing of two great forces when responsive souls meet in this exercise.
It may last for hours, but whatever the length of it you do not breathe except cellulary.
What's that?
Why, breathing through the pores of the skin, of course. Education makes it possible.
Another strange feature of the soul kiss is that it is wireless. When you have learned it you can send one to your affinity through mountains and over seas.
The trouble with most people is that the solar plexus is not aroused, and for that reason, they are unable to enter the higher spheres. La Viesta's mission, in addition to teaching the occult, is to develop the solar plexus much as the mind is improved.
La Viesta was taught the soul kiss by her affinity on the planet Neptune.
The article also included a poem of standard Victorian flourish and sentiment. For more on Vesta La Viesta, including her trip to Mars, click here.

Destructive pet

OK, wow. I'm sorry about the month-long blackout on Purple Houses. I'm up and running again, I swear. More later on what I've been up to.

Here's a fun writing assignment from the group I meet with at a local coffee shop. (Thanks, Wade) Confront your neighbor about his/her unusual pet and the damage it has done to your property. For extra credit, don't directly name what kind of pet it is.

Give the assignment a try yourself. Offer it up as a discussion topic at dinner and see how many different pet ideas develop. I ran with my dad's suggestion. Here's the result:



As usual, it took my neighbor several minutes to answer the door. Through the screen, I heard his familiar hacking cough as he walked through a beaded curtain. He poked his bearded face outside.

“I believe this belongs to you,” I said, and handed my neighbor his pet. Its lime green leash dragged on his concrete porch. “The leash doesn’t help, by the way.”

“Oh,” he said, seeming perplexed. “Where did you find him?”

“The same place I found him last time,” I said, and handed him a bill for my new living room window.

“He went through it again?”

“Yes. Again.”

“Who would do that? There’s no love there, man.”

I handed him a bill for a new plasma TV. “This time, he hit the big screen. While I was watching Buffy. And that’s just unacceptable.”

“I’m really sorry,” my neighbor said, holding the bills in a way that would make it easy for me to take them back if I found it in my heart to forgive him. I didn’t.
His arm dropped along with the expression on his face. “It’s not my fault, you know.”

“But he belongs to you. This is what happens when you leave him in your front yard and some jokester decides to through him at our house.”

“I can’t help what someone else decides to do! This world is messed up.”

“Well, if you find ‘someone,’ then you can get reimbursed by ‘someone,’ but in the mean time, that’s your ‘pet,’ and that’s my house, and as you can see, it’s broken.”

He looked down at the pet in his hand. Its sad, painted eyes looked up at him. “But it’s so cute.”

“It was cute in nineteen-seventy. Now, it’s just lame. And while you’re at it, you might want to think about updating your house paint. The psychedelic daisies on your garage door make me look like I’m living next to the frigging Partridge family.”

He took the bills and retreated into his smoke-filled haven. I retreated to my broken window and broken TV, wondering how long it would be before I received another unexpected visit.

Death

Here's a story for Three Word Wednesday. The words are efficient, optimize, treacherous.


He called her Death because that’s all she talked about.

So when Death cooked him eggs for breakfast she always served up a side of murder and mayhem along with them. Lately she’d been on a disease kick.

“There are cancer cells floating around in your body right now,” Death would say, biting into an underdone slice of bacon. “All they need is an excuse.”

She’d discuss the fragility of life with the efficiency and relish of an assassin while she cleared the dishes. A plane crash would bouy her for days. She optimized even the near misses. “The water filled in to their necks,” she’d said. “Their necks!”

Once he caught Death intently examining a small wrinkle around her mouth, as if trying to extract an expiration date from its appearance. After that she went to bed and stayed there for days.

He brought Death dinner but she wouldn’t touch it, mumbling something about treacherous conglomerates loading the food supply with GMOs. Flowers depressed her. So all he could do was turn on CNN and let Death absorb the coverage of one war or another until she felt ready to face the world again.

From the archives

Somewhere in the Maritime Provinces...

Words I Made Up While Doing Schoolwork in a Hurry #21

Tell me, what is a "psychgo?"

Another round

Many apologies for the hiatus -- this grad school thing is keeping me occupied. Here's another episode of rural digital distortion -- but I think I'll have to cut this out because I'm starting to have dreams about people with faces like this.

Landscapes