My Way Back To You

I get annoyed when bloggers use pictures of people who aren't, you know, them on their, you know, blogs. By this, I mean I dislike when a blogger I respect gets nervous and deploys sweet images of plastic strangers. Thus, I am a complete hypocrite this evening because that face is not my face. I am vain. Grief and stress have made me look and feel run down, so let's not kid ourselves. If you think I'm taking pictures of myself wearing an herbal masque, sipping chardonnay through a bendy straw and watching General Hospital, you are mistaken. I found that green gal in Google Images; I like her quizzical What, me wrinkle? expression. She probably even likes chardonnay and kind of resembles Siobhan's younger sister. Yahtzee!

Today, I was reading my email at my desk and heard myself laugh. I was so surprised I stopped laughing. But that's silly, so I went back to reading what made me laugh, and it was still funny.

Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.

Jim Guigli
Carmichael, CA

Feel the glee! Depending upon one's taste and peculiar education, one may find the funny in some entries and not so much in others.

"I know what you're thinking, punk," hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, "you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?' - and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' - well do you, punk?"

Stuart Vasepuru
Edinburgh, Scotland

Do I? I'm a damn blogger! The competition has interesting categories you might expect. In the category of Detective Fiction:

It was a dreary Monday in September when Constable Lightspeed came across the rotting corpse that resembled one of those zombies from Michael Jackson's "Thriller," except that it was lying down and not performing the electric slide.

Derek Fisher
Ottawa, ON

Fantasy Fiction:

It was within the great stony nostril of a statue of Landrick the Elfin Vicelord that Frodo's great uncle, Jasper Baggins, happened to stumble upon the enchanted Bag of Holding, not to be confused with the Hag of Bolding, who was quite fond of leeks, most especially in a savory Hobbit knuckle stew.

Camille Barigar
Twin Falls, ID

Purple Prose:

Her angry accusations burned Clyde like that first bite of a double cheese pizza, when the toppings slide off and sear that small elevation of the oral mucosa, just behind the front teeth, known as the incisive papilla, which is linked to the discriminatory function of the taste buds except, where Clyde was concerned, when it came to women.

Pamela Patchet Hamilton
Beaconsfield, Quebec

Romance:

Sex with Rachel after she turned fifty was like driving the last-place team on the last day of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race, the point no longer the ride but the finish, the difficulty not the speed but keeping all the parts moving in the right direction, not to mention all that irritating barking.

Dan Winters
Los Altos Hills, CA

And my favorite, Special Salute to Breasts Category. Is it hot in here?

As she sashayed out of the police station, her high heels clicking a staccato rhythm on the hard tile floor, like a one-armed castanet player in a very bad mariachi band, her ample bosom held in check only by a diaphanous blouse, and bouncing at each step like a 1959 tricked out Low-rider Chevy with very good hydraulics---she smiled to herself as she thought of the titillating interrogation from Detective Tipple about the Twin Peaks Melon Heist.

Wayne Spivey, Major, USAF Retired
Huntsville, Texas
When she sashayed across the room, her breasts swayed like two house trailers passing on a windy bridge.

Stan Higley
Fairport, NY
Although Brandi had been named Valedictorian and the outfit for her speech carefully chosen to prove that beauty and brains could indeed mix, she suddenly regretted her choice of attire, her rain-soaked T-shirt now valiantly engaging in the titanic struggle between the tensile strength of cotton and Newton's first law of motion.

Mark Schweizer
Hopkinsville, KY

On Saturday, Siobhan and I have appointments at a spa for massages and facials. You may hear laughter from wherever you are.