http://www.shabbydollhouse.com shabby doll house Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:14:53 +0000 http://www.shabbydollhouse.com en http://shabbydollhouse.com/Three-Decisions http://shabbydollhouse.com/following/shabbydollhouse.com/Three-Decisions Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:14:53 +0000 shabby doll house 4910463 By DJ Berndt Art by Jesse Vaughan <img src="http://payload130.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/4910463/jv-shabby_905.jpeg" width="900" height="650" width_o="900" height_o="650" src_o="http://payload130.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/4910463/jv-shabby_o.jpeg" data-mid="27691214" border="0" align="left"/> ME OR EVERYWHERE Ask me how fast I can run and I’ll show you. I’ll run through a forest or over a mountain or to your house. I like to run fast. I like when my skin stretches out like a trampoline as the hair bounces off my legs. I like how my muscles evaporate and are reincarnated as something newer, something stronger. I want to move my body until it’s unrecognizable. I have to destroy myself until I’m camouflaged. If you’ll run with me, we can go fast or we can go slow. When we run slow, we focus on harvesting our potential energy. We are batteries. Did you know there is energy everywhere? Did you know you can only see its potential if you run slow? If you’ll run with me, we’ll have to choose if we run fast or if we run slow. We’ll have to decide what is invisible. NIGHTS OR MORNINGS One night you asked me what I wanted for dinner, and I answered you by moving my body into yours. The next morning we couldn't get out of bed so we shared secrets until our hearts began to beat. We did some research. We learned how all this time, gods were keeping us alive while we crawled through clouds. Now we know there’s no shame in feeling broken and no pride in feeling whole. Last night as you were sleeping, I jumped on your back and held onto your bones as we slid all the way down. Tonight our fears will return because we’ll tell them they have names. We’ll do our chores in silence even though we don’t believe in grudges. Tomorrow morning we’ll take our chances and leave the umbrella at home. We won’t run any faster when it starts to rain, we’ll just walk a little closer together. Tomorrow night I’ll tie a leash around the sun and a noose around the moon, and you will have to make a decision. ASKING OR SLEEPING You break the treeline naked and alone. You wander through the forest asking every creature you find. Human explanations mean nothing to you anymore, but the animals may have something to offer. You want to see from a new perspective. You want a fresh start. You quickly learn that nothing wants to answer. The bugs are too busy with their swarm and the birds are too busy in their nest. You encounter a mother bear and her hungry cubs, slapping the river for fish. She tells you there is no life to be found in the hunt. She says there is more life here in the drought, where the stream is running low and you must slap harder to unlock it. You ask the stars but they won’t answer. You ask the trees but they don’t care. Night falls and you stop asking because you are so sleepy. You sleep despite the swarms and the nests. You sleep under the stars and trees. You sleep knowing you made the right decision. * DJ Berndt lives in Lancaster, PA. * http://deejberndt.com * Jesse Vaughan lives in San Francisco * http://www.jessevaughan.com/ By DJ Berndt Art by Jesse Vaughan ME OR EVERYWHERE Ask me how fast I can run and I’ll show you. I’ll run through a forest or over a mountain or to your... http://shabbydollhouse.com/Selected-Interviews-Vol-1 http://shabbydollhouse.com/following/shabbydollhouse.com/Selected-Interviews-Vol-1 Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:14:52 +0000 shabby doll house 4910131 By Timothy Willis Sanders Art by Adam J. Kurtz <img src="http://payload130.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/4910131/i-am-willfully-ignorant_o_905.jpg" width="905" height="641" width_o="1800" height_o="1275" src_o="http://payload130.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/4910131/i-am-willfully-ignorant_o_o.jpg" data-mid="27407642" border="0" align="left"/> New York Times Book Review: Can you share a Christmas memory with us? Brett Easton Ellis: I went to the very back of my parents' closet. Under some clothes and boxes I saw a bag. Wrapped inside the bag were two G.I. Joe men and an Etch-A-Sketch. Next Christmas, I went to the same spot in the closet. Under some clothes was a bag, and inside the bag were three boxes. The first box had a note in my dad's handwriting that read "Nothing Here" and so did the rest of the boxes…I've had difficulty trusting people since. Cat Fancy: Do you prefer living with female or male humans? A Cat: Well I was coming down off a ~2 hour catnip binge and I'd just laid down in a strip of sunlight on the bed. He came in holding a magazine with a female human on the cover. He laid down next to me. I thought of curling up on his ribs so I could fall asleep to the sound of his heartbeat, when he scooped me up and threw me on the floor. I looked back at him and watched him take something out of the nightstand. I stood there and blinked at him. He made a loud noise that freaked me out so I ran. That's when I decided to become an artist. Butt Magazine: Have you ever been in a fight? Lance Armstrong: Greg went to sit down and I pulled the chair from under him. He fell and I laughed the loudest out of the whole class. He dislocated his hip and chipped a tooth. After school, Greg walked up to me on the basketball court. He punched me in the eye. I knelt, cried, and then ran home. My mother called the cops. I transferred to a different school district. Later, when I was in high school, Greg transferred to my school district. He told everyone how he punched me in the eye and I cried and my mom called the cops. I looked him up on Facebook recently and his tooth is still chipped. * Timothy Willis Sanders lives in Texas * @timothysanders * Adam J. Kurtz lives in Brooklyn * http://www.adamjkurtz.com/ http://jkjkjkjkjkjkjkjkjkjk.com/ By Timothy Willis Sanders Art by Adam J. Kurtz New York Times Book Review: Can you share a Christmas memory with us? Brett Easton Ellis: I went to the... http://shabbydollhouse.com/Toads http://shabbydollhouse.com/following/shabbydollhouse.com/Toads Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:14:50 +0000 shabby doll house 4910470 By Kelsea Basye Art by Emily Horn <img src="http://payload130.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/4910470/frog_final.png" width="595" height="480" width_o="595" height_o="480" src_o="http://payload130.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/4910470/frog_final_o.png" data-mid="27690611" border="0" align="left"/> “Well, the difference between toads and frogs is, a toad lives on land and in trees, and frogs live in water.” “Cute,” I said. “Toads and frogs. Can I get a frog?” “Yeah. Get a frog.” We drove to PetCo to get a frog. At PetCo I walked directly toward the fish section. The fish section was a long rectangular alcove with black walls that was lit mostly by bright white aquarium lights. The white lights were filtered blue through the fish tanks. I stood twenty feet away from the fish section and vibrated with excitement. “Where are you going?” “To get a frog,” I said. “The frogs are probably in the reptile section.” “Frogs aren’t reptiles,” I said. “Frogs are amphibians.” “Fish are fish.” The fish tanks lined the three walls of the fish section. Leading up to the fish section were several aisles with fish tanks, bags of pebbles, bags of marbles, tank decorations, fish food and other fish supplies. There was also a small shelf that had a dozen small plastic jars each containing a single betta fish. I walked down the aisle that mostly displayed tank decorations, and stopped to look at several plastic marine plants. “I want a real plant,” I said, while twisting a sprig of green artificial hairgrass around itself. One of the walls of the fish section held tanks with salt water fish. The other two walls were for the freshwater fish. To one side of the fish section was a white cooler about the size of a normal household refrigerator. Near the freshwater fish was a free-standing tank with maybe six hundred goldfish. Several of the goldfish were dead. I approached the tanks in the fish section feeling like an aquarium princess. I basked in the filtered blue light. I walked slowly along the columns of fish tanks that lined the walls. Fat goldfish with bulging eyes. Fat goldfish with bulging brains. Skinny silver tetra fish. Bright yellow fish. Small blue fish. See-through fish. Angelfish. Lionfish. Clownfish. A solitary pufferfish. No frogs. “No frogs,” I said. “Can I help you,” said an employee. “Where are the frogs?” I asked. “The frogs are by the reptiles,” said the employee. “Frogs are amphibians,” I said. “The frogs are by the reptiles,” repeated the employee. We left the fish section in search of the reptile section. We walked through the aisles of fish supplies and past aisles of other kinds of pet supplies. We walked by the mice, rats, hamsters, gerbils and guinea pigs. We walked by the rabbits, ferrets and hermit crabs. We walked near the bird section and heard loud squawking. We avoided the bird section. We found the reptile section. The reptile section was underneath a giant sign that said ‘CATS’. “They should move that.” “They don’t even have cats here,” I said. “Sometimes they have one or two in cages near the front. Cats for adoption.” “The last time I was here I asked an employee if they had any cats and she said, ‘we never have cats,’” I said. “Sometimes they have one or two.” We approached the reptile tanks. There were mostly various snakes and lizards. I walked quickly and uninterestedly by these. I stopped walking in front of a tank that held a massive black tarantula in the act of devouring two crickets. “Whoa, gross,” I said. The tank was situated at about knee-level. I crouched down for a better view and watched the spider walk in circles with the two crickets half-in and half-out of its mouth. It then scurried under a hollowed out piece of wood to hide. “Guess it got shy,” I said, standing up. “My friend had a tarantula but she killed it by accident. You’re only supposed to feed them one cricket at a time. She dumped an entire box in with the tarantula. I guess that’s bad.” “Jesus.” At eye-level was a tank filled with about a dozen hissing cockroaches. “Are cockroaches insects?” I asked. “They’re definitely not reptiles. This reptile section is a total sham. It’s even labeled wrong.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about. These all look like cats to me.” “Here are the frogs,” I said. I stood in front of a column of tanks that had frogs in them. Near the column of tanks that had frogs in them was a free-standing tank with frogs entirely submerged in water. On the tank there was a sticker label that said ‘African Dwarf Frogs’. “I like the ones in the water,” I said. “Why? Those ones are all brown. The other ones come in cool colors.” “The other ones aren’t in water,” I said. “They must be toads.” “No. They are frogs. They are by water.” “You said frogs live in water. Those frogs don’t live in water. They are just clever toads,” I said. “Can I help you,” said an employee. “I want a frog,” I said. “What kind of frog?” asked the employee. “A frog,” I said. “One of the water frogs.” “Okay,” said the employee. “Let me get my manager. I’m still training, I’m not allowed to take the products out of the tanks yet.” He disappeared swiftly. “Did he just say ‘products’?” I asked. “Yes.” “No he didn’t,” I said, “I misheard him.” “He said ‘products’.” “Can I help you,” said an older employee wearing a nametag that said ‘manager’. The employee-in-training stood behind him, watching eagerly. “I’d like to sample your product,” I said. “Pardon?” said the manager. “I want a frog,” I said. “What kind of frog?” asked the manager. “We have--” “She wants one of the African Dwarf Frogs!” the employee-in-training eagerly announced. The manager produced a drawer from the column of tanks that held the frogs that live by the water. In the drawer was a stack of clear plastic baggies, labels, and a small green plastic net. Taking a bag, a label, and the net out of the drawer, the manager asked me, “Do you have a tank?” “No,” I said. “You will find one suitable for African Dwarf Frogs by the fish section,” he said. “The fish section,” I said. “Yes,” he said. “I would recommend a ten-gallon or larger tank.” The employee-in-training produced a pamphlet on African Dwarf Frogs seemingly out of nowhere and handed it to me. The manager began a short lecture on how to properly care for an African Dwarf Frog, while opening the tank filled with the frogs using a small plastic key. He stuck the small green plastic net into the tank and led a small, fat frog into a plastic bag he’d lowered halfway into the water. “So!” said the manager, cheerily. “I’d suggest you get all your supplies now so you don’t have to make a second trip.” “What do they eat?” I asked. “Bloodworms!” chimed the employee-in-training. “Bloodworms,” I said. “Bloodworms,” said the manager. “It says that on your pamphlet. They also eat shrimp. You can find those in the cooler in the fish section.” “The fish section,” I said. “Yes. I can show you to the fish section if you would like,” offered the manager. “Why don’t you put the African Dwarf Frogs in the fish section?” I asked. “It is easier if we keep the frogs together,” said the manager. “Why don’t you put all the frogs in the fish section?” I asked. “It’s easier if we keep the frogs in the reptile section,” he responded. “Frogs are amphibians,” I said. “Did you need me to show you to the fish section,” said the employee. “That’s okay,” I said. We walked back toward the fish section. I carried the plastic bag with the fat little frog in it. We walked near the bird section and heard loud squawking. We avoided the bird section. We walked by the hermit crabs, ferrets and rabbits. We walked by the guinea pigs, gerbils, hamsters, rats and mice. I nearly tripped staring at the tiny frog, who used all four tiny legs to propel himself around in circles in the plastic bag. “He’s so tiny,” I said. “Look at that sign.” “I looked up. We were in front of the fish section. Above the fish section was a giant sign that said ‘REPTILES’. “Reptiles,” I said. In the car on the way home I diligently read the pamphlet on the care of African Dwarf Frogs. At home I filled up the tank exactly according to the directions and put the frog inside the tank. The frog swam around indifferently. “Look at him,” I said. “He doesn’t care that he’s secured a loving home with two nice people.” “He doesn’t know what ‘loving’ or ‘nice’ means. He’s a frog.” “How do you know that? You don’t know that,” I said. “He’s a frog.” I looked at the frog for a while. “We forgot to name him,” I said the next morning. “Should I name him Cat? Or Toad?” “I knew a guy named Rat-Toad once. Name him that.” “What kind of guy was Rat-Toad?” I asked. “No idea. He was insane. He talked about PCP a lot. Or maybe he smoked PCP a lot. No idea. He was insane.” “I don’t think I want to name him Rat-Toad,” I said. “I’m naming him Kitten.” “Name him Tarantula.” “Tarantula is cute,” I said. “Do you think he knows he’s cute? Do you think he has self-awareness? Does he have an ego?” “He is a frog.” “Do frogs have egos?” I asked. “I don’t know.” “Do you think he has any idea how tiny he is?” I asked. “I don’t know. Probably not. He is a frog.” “That means nothing,” I said. “‘He is a frog’. Frogs could be the most enlightened creatures in the entire universe.” “I think we would know if frogs were the most enlightened creatures in the entire universe.” “Maybe not. Maybe the frog knows that the best possible thing to do as a living creature is to just be a frog,” I said. “If that is the case, the answer to your question is still ‘he is a frog’.” “I want to be a frog,” I said. “No you don’t.” “Yes I do,” I said. “Look at him. He is so indifferent to everything. The other frogs in his tank at PetCo were probably his family members. He will never see them again. He doesn’t even care. He will be alone for the rest of his life. He doesn’t care.” “Would you want me to care if I never saw you again?” “Well, yes,” I said. “It is better if we are not frogs.” I sighed and looked at the frog. “Tarantula,” I said. * Kelsea Basye lives in Wheeling, WV * www.moontempleuniverse.tumblr.com * Emily Horn lives in Toronto By Kelsea Basye Art by Emily Horn “Well, the difference between toads and frogs is, a toad lives on land and in trees, and frogs live in water.” ... http://shabbydollhouse.com/Head http://shabbydollhouse.com/following/shabbydollhouse.com/Head Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:14:50 +0000 shabby doll house 5105341 By Patrick Lee Art by Stephen Michael McDowell <img src="http://payload140.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/5105341/lucy3_905.png" width="900" height="900" width_o="900" height_o="900" src_o="http://payload140.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/5105341/lucy3_o.png" data-mid="27693196" border="0" align="left"/> When my friend Lucy died from suicide at age thirty-two she put her head up for auction. This annoyed me greatly as I had been promised her head. Even though she had warned me it might be in high demand. She had promised me the head and I’d said I would put it on a plinth in my living room. She first made me this promise at age 24 and I had imagined my living room as having a fire and a fine mantel and a child to run past Lucy’s head, which would either be in a screaming expression, or in a twisted, sneering expression. I didn’t ever really think Lucy could do a neutral facial expression. Her eyes became too wide and her mouth in a straight line actually went down a little bit and she looked pleading, rather than neutral. It was the expression she used when she wanted an energy drink. I would tell my child, in my head a four year old little girl with brown hair who was cute and running and disorientated, to be mindful of the plinth because we didn’t want Lucy’s head falling on the floor. The little girl (Amy? Anna?) would be totally fine with it because it had been there since she was born. My Polish wife would polish the head when cleaning. Sometimes I’d be walking by humming a little tune and would see the head and stop and breathe on the forehead and then rub it with my elbow until it was squeaky-clean. Then I’d pick it up and put it right in the faces of our dinner guests and say “booyeah!” No, it would be just be very well polished and I’d feel that Lucy’s expression was turned to me a little more, a little happier, in her horrible eternal twisted expression in death. But she didn’t leave me the head. She went and put it up for auction instead and so I had to go to a worn-out cold warehouse in Blackburn in Northern England where seats had been set up and Lucy’s possessions were just another load of itemized objects. There was the harp; her type writer; manuscripts; recordings; her huge fern; an old record player; the skull of a former lover which she used to keep on her desk and requested to be buried with but complicated legal matters had prevented; a painting of her in the nude by a now highly successful artist; her pet baby gazelle which was in a cage and kept bleating and whenever it did a strange sneaky looking man came and poked it with an electrified stick, forcing it to make an electrified bleating sound which was basically a high pitched buzz noise; and then there was her embalmed head, facing us all. The harp sold first and made the most money. I was resentful of the harp and the couple who bought it, who had no musical taste and whose friendship with Lucy I had never approved of. He was a stifling Wall Street type who seemed to speak through his sinuses and she was an unbearable gossip. I had no idea of Lucy’s affinity with them. She had even dedicated her most renowned novel, Icarus, to the wife. I didn’t bid on anything yet. A well-dressed man taking bids via phone, believed by most there to be a representative for a connection in the music community, bought the gazelle, the fern and all her old recordings. He bid a huge sum and nobody competed with him. Finally it was time to bid for the head. I immediately bid £100 and was shocked by an immediate rebuttal: £500 by the small, sneaky looking man who had been taming the gazelle. He was holding his bowler hat at chest level and was twirling it around and hopping from foot to foot and making strange, posh sneering noises. He was probably just over five feet tall. He looked at me and then the head and then back at me and made an alarming, posh sneering expression. I bid £600 but again he immediately bettered me, offering £1000. Lucy had been my great friend. I had recently read through all our correspondences and felt remorse at how much of what she said I had misunderstood. She had so many ideas I failed to act upon. She had always told me the date at which she planned to die, and how she planned to do it, but I hadn’t even called her to say good bye. I bid £1500. £500 over my limit. He shot right back £2500. It sold. The little man clicked his heels and began making small, self-congratulatory noises under his nose. He twirled through the crowd and I saw him politefully decline the plinth using a gesture of waving his hands, and instead impatiently grab Lucy’s embalmed head from the auctioneer who was still on stage and was speaking down to the man and who looked dismayed and re-adjusted his monocle as the strange little man walked off, holding Lucy’s head lovingly. The small man was staring at my friend’s head as he walked as if it were the head of a lover. A lover who was alive and in the prime of health and joie de vivre. Just as the little man left the dusty warehouse door I saw his caressing hand stroke further down Lucy’s face, and he inserted one of his fingers into her mouth. Lucy’s expression was in terrified screaming position and also seemed quizzical. I pushed through the crowd and into the cark park. Most people were jostling in the lines to enter the new underground road system, and several were mounting their different forms of transport. The sneaky man was heading for one of the only traditional motor vehicles around: a large white van. As I got closer I heard him making the strange, eel like sneering noise while struggling with his possessions, keys, and Lucy’s head. He opened the doors to his van, paused, and then threw Lucy’s head with all his might high into the back. I heard a very large crash as she hit the back wall of the van. He made a delighted little sneer and a high-pitched gleeful sound. I planned on breaking in and taking the head, but I saw him chain and lock the van’s back doors with two huge chains and padlocks. I thought of Lucy’s head, and her headless corpse underground, and her sad neutral face expression that she tried to use in life. I ran to the van window and banged hard on the window. The van was very high. The window was rolled down and instead of seeing the small dwarfish man, I saw a large, vested man, with stains on his vest, smoking the very last vestiges of a cigarette, which he spit out of the van by my feet, and then he began to wheeze. “Please, I have to know, is there anything I can do to get that head? She was one of my best friends.” The large man looked across to the smaller dwarf, who was making excited noises to himself and was staring straight ahead, excitedly kicking his feet which did not reach the floor. The driver looked back down to me and said “I don’t think so mate.” I looked up at him, squinting from the sun that was above the van. I said, “please” He shook his head and said “na” I said “For God sake, what does he intend to use it for? He could have smashed her all up throwing her into the van like that. Why does he want her in the first place? Lucy would never know him. What will he even do with her head?” He looked across again at the dwarf, who was making “come along” sounds and was waving his limp, downward facing hand forward, gesturing he wished to leave. The bigger man started the engine and lit another cigarette. “Trust me mate, you don’t want to know.” I continued to protest and as the van started to move the dwarf started squealing with delight and turned to face me and began moving his arms and legs around in fast circular movements and then they drove from sight. They drove from the car park and into the high sun burning onto the long, empty fields of Lancashire wasteland. I would never see her face again. “That’s why you don’t put your head up for auction,” I thought. * Patrick Lee lives in England * Stephen Michael McDowell lives in Maryland * http://www.stephenmichaelmcdowell.com/ @steeephenmm By Patrick Lee Art by Stephen Michael McDowell When my friend Lucy died from suicide at age thirty-two she put her head up for auction. This annoyed me... http://shabbydollhouse.com/New-York-Rose http://shabbydollhouse.com/following/shabbydollhouse.com/New-York-Rose Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:14:49 +0000 shabby doll house 5112881 By Leo Stillinger Art By Mitch Ryan <img src="http://payload140.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/5112881/17590024_905.JPG" width="905" height="600" width_o="1544" height_o="1024" src_o="http://payload140.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/5112881/17590024_o.JPG" data-mid="27587808" border="0" align="left"/> Amelia felt like a human lung. Sitting on the balcony of her apartment she watched wind rise and fall, and birds living in trees. She smoked a sad cigarette and thought about how the cigarette was fulfilling its life dream of being smoked. She casually fingered the cell phone in her pocket, thinking about what it would contain, thinking about icicles in March, and pollution. She moved her eyebrows up and down like a caterpillar. “It would be better if things weren’t this way,” she half-said to the air. She tried to think of kind people but everybody seemed mean. I know kind people, she thought; I have friends. She wanted a ghost to come and comfort her, to wrap her in a warm blanket. Amelia wondered if it was too early or too late to go to bed and decided it was certainly one or the other. She drank a Clementine flavored Izze soda in a wine glass and watched the sun set and thought, against her own will, I thought it would be better than this. Things feel romantic in a lonely way for Amelia. She remembered her kind friends and smiled and felt sad because you’re fucking up if you have kind friends and are lonely, her sister told her once. She felt too hot inside, like her internal fan was broken. “I could use a haircut,” she said, “or a cat.” Amelia lived in the future. An exciting place. A futurecity had been built secretively in the Middle East. Amelia read newspaper articles about it and thought, I could live there. But things would only be worse. She stared blankly at her father’s paperback copy of On the Road, unread for 20 years, trying to feel something, in a daze. With tired eyes. Amelia tried to whisper “Fuck” and succeeded. Amelia phone rang as she was putting on her pajamas. She answered it nude. “Hello,” she said. “Amelia,” said the voice, “hey, we should do something, yeah?” “Yeah, sure, okay,” she said.” “Sweet.” “Like what,” said Amelia. “Uh, Marty and Julie were coming over to mine tomorrow night, if you’d like to come.” “Oh, yeah, sweet, that would be nice, yeah,” said Amelia. “Alright. We’ll probably jaunt around town a bit. Go to a record store. You know.” I DON’T KNOW thought Amelia forcefully and ecstatically. “Alright, uh, sounds good,” she said. “What time?” “Uh, six, I guess.” “Okay, sweet. Thank you.” Amelia’s kind friend Brian said sure and hung up. Amelia jumped up and down naked on her bed. This is pathetic, she thought while jumping, but important. Amelia felt like a swarm of bumblebees. Amelia fell asleep thinking of clouds. Her apartment was warm and empty and she smiled as she dreamed and woke up and brushed her teeth. Amelia thought about human teeth and whales and lungs and rust and paperback novels, a set of ideas that put a clear aesthetic in her mind, of brown coats and beige burlap sacks and boats and gray skies. Amelia lay on her bed and watched her mind drive through empty Bavarian planes in vintage film. Amelia thought, when I was younger the future was more of an adventure, but it is just sitting and doing things. I want to see things, not do things. She smiled because she knew that she had actually not been doing anything for a month, and the city was so large, but it was like a giant trash dump and she was a sad fly. Amelia thought, I am going out tonight. I will have pleasant experiences with people who are my friends. Yes. Amelia ate a peanut butter sandwich at 2:32 for lunch and then ate a pink otter pop and it snowed briefly and she went outside and watched snow happily and then it was 5:54 and Amelia thought of an exclamation point three times as she put on nice clothes and got in her car and drove to kind Brian’s house. She rang the doorbell and Brian answered and she went in and everything was nice. There was a living room and Marty and Julie were there, and another person, a person with a sweater and dark jeans, dang this person looked good. “Hey what’s up?” said Marty. “Oh not much,” said Amelia. “Well, we’re all here,” said Brain. “Should we do something,” said Marty. . Amelia thought, we’re a gang! and her emotions smiled. The gang walked on the street together. Julie had brought a Polaroid camera and Amelia thought, oh my god, I’ll have flattering retro polaroids for Facebook, and smiled broadly. Everywhere was lights. Lights and music. It all floated. Amelia felt like a dog and the world was a dog bone. Everything sparkled. They went into a subway and found themselves in a different part of town. “This is a good jaunt,” said Amelia. “Yes it is,” said the mysterious person laughing. Haha, thought Amelia. I said something and the person laughed. “We should go to an art gallery,” said Brian. “Yeah alright,” said everyone. They walked into an art gallery and there was a band playing in the corner and the guitarist had gauges in his ears and there were people with purple hair. And the music was even good. “Did you guys read about that city in the Middle East?” said Brian. “Yeah,” said Julie. “The Middle East is some crazy shit.” “Imagine living there,” said Brian. “Seems like there will be some kind of Godzilla thing that attacks it,” said Amelia. “Yeah,” said Brian. “That will be cool.” They walked out of the art gallery and into the night, and Amelia violently remembered a swing-set in her childhood, besides a line of train tracks, where she’d go with her sister, and then later with her various boyfriends, how she’d get pushed and feel romantic, how everything seemed so small, how the world was so big and one day she would just jump on the train and ride it to the city, she’d have to do that soon, she thought on the swings. And Amelia though Haha towards life and irony and friends and loneliness, she thought Haha I did it, and she walked with her gang to a Starbucks and drank coffee and posed for a Polaroid which made her look very cosmopolitan and happy. Amelia thought, what if the person comes home with me, and the person did not, which was a relief somewhat because it meant that her night was safe and clean and nothing would ruin it. They took a subway back and walked to Brian’s house and Amelia said “thank you” seven more times than she should have, and as she drove home she felt like a butterfly. Amelia saw colorful stars on the ceiling of her bedroom as she lay in bed and tried to think, Everything is not completely okay, there are still problems, I still have problems, but she couldn’t think that, not honestly. Suddenly everything seemed very quiet, in a different way than before. Amelia falls asleep like a yawning cat, and the world is silent for a moment; and then, somehow, somewhere, the world makes a sound. * Leo Stillinger lives in Salt Lake City * http://leostillinger.zzl.org/ * Mitch Ryan lives in Brooklyn * http://hellinanutshell.tumblr.com By Leo Stillinger Art By Mitch Ryan Amelia felt like a human lung. Sitting on the balcony of her apartment she watched wind rise and fall, and birds living in... http://shabbydollhouse.com/If-I-Lived-in-Vegas-I-d-Be-Married-7-Times-Over http://shabbydollhouse.com/following/shabbydollhouse.com/If-I-Lived-in-Vegas-I-d-Be-Married-7-Times-Over Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:14:48 +0000 shabby doll house 5108476 By Jacob Steinberg Art by Genesis Crespo <img src="http://payload140.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/5108476/genesis_905.jpg" width="905" height="1075" width_o="1500" height_o="1783" src_o="http://payload140.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/5108476/genesis_o.jpg" data-mid="27587366" border="0" align="left"/> I want to dress up and run through the streets, shouting spells like a madman who thinks he’s a warlock. I am a madman who thinks he’s in love Wandering back and forth, seeking to prophesy our future. The emotions within me cannot be settled, and that is why I had to flee home. I’m tossing croissant crumbs and counting as I throw. He loves me… He loves me not… One. Two. Three. And poof, do you love me? I wish things could be easy. I wish you would kiss me. If youth was just a huge nest of fuck ‘em and forget-about-em adulthood is a rock in Iceland, waiting for someone to kick it. And when you are sad, cling to the one you love. And when you feel alone, dissolve into your surroundings. I wish you would sleep in my bed. I wish I could tie you up so you’d never leave. I wish I could cross your fingers with mine, and once again, just kiss you. A blue smoke is drawn around me and it makes me delirious. I picture myself at your side and everything is alright. Put my heart in a ziploc and save it for tomorrow; Because from now on I am yours, like a trustworthy canine… Or an Orthodox woman. * Jacob Steinberg lives in New York * @posnoventista * Genesis Crespo lives in Philadelphia * http://genesiscrespo.com/ * By Jacob Steinberg Art by Genesis Crespo I want to dress up and run through the streets, shouting spells like a madman who thinks he’s a warlock. I am a madman... http://shabbydollhouse.com/Moving-Home http://shabbydollhouse.com/following/shabbydollhouse.com/Moving-Home Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:14:47 +0000 shabby doll house 5105484 By Meggie Green Art by Sarah Jean Alexander <img src="http://payload140.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/5105484/rsz_sc01404eb9_905.jpg" width="710" height="538" width_o="710" height_o="538" src_o="http://payload140.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/5105484/rsz_sc01404eb9_o.jpg" data-mid="27459820" border="0" align="left"/> I. When I move home from New York with Natalie in July, we take 81-South through the Appalachians and I drive most of the way while she plays with her phone and props her bare feet against the dash. We’re wearing jean shorts and our hair is up and we listen to whole albums by Third Eye Blind and Fleetwood Mac through battery-powered purple speakers we bought at a Walmart near Ocean City. The mountains loom ahead of us and everything’s green and glowing in the sunlight, and the way the road stretches out and then bends back into itself makes me think of the tiny road that winds up the mountain back home. From the top you can see small farming towns and the Arkansas River, which in the early morning is obscured by another river of fog. There are moles and wild turkeys and trees that at their midsections grow horizontally for 12-15 inches and then back up again, creating makeshift chairs of varying heights. At night the fog crawls back over the river and animal shapes are lost to the darkness, but their noises carry through the trees, rhythmic and slow. II. We stop twice in Pennsylvania, first for coffee and then to eat Subway sandwiches. I put chips on my Veggie Delight and smash them between the bread and realize I only do that when I feel comfortable around someone. I tell Natalie this and she smiles. I say the last time I ate Subway I sat in my car in a hospital parking deck while outside the weight of snow bent branches to the ground. I put chips on my sandwich and watched the sunrise and stared at the dark red specks on my fingernails I got from holding a bag of my mom’s blood that drained from a thin tube attached to her upper thigh. She ate jello and watched “Wife Swap” and when the bag got full I carried it to the bathroom and emptied it into the toilet. The room was so cold that I wore my jacket and scarf while I slept, and when I woke up my mom was moving her toes in small circles. When I think of my mom’s long hair falling over her hospital gown I think of the old house, of her stepping out of the bathtub and wrapping a towel around herself, her dark hair dripping and pools of water collecting on the tile floor. I think of her in my room at night, smoothing my hair, checking for snakes, rubbing my back until I fell asleep. I think of how I treat my stuffed animals and boyfriends and dogs with the same learned tenderness, how I still have a strong urge to rub his back until he falls asleep because it’s pleasing and reassuring and asks for nothing, and that seems like the kindest thing you can give a sleepy person. III. It’s storming and we’re still wired from Adderall when we stop at a Motel 6 in Virginia. We discuss driving 8 hours out of the way to go to the beach the next day, and I tell Natalie it feels like we’re trying to prolong the trip and not move home at all. She nods and says she knows. After we take showers and dry our hair we go to a gas station for beer and snacks, and we fall asleep on the bed looking at our phones and eating Doritos. In the morning we wake up late and hungover and don’t go to the beach, and I have a text that says, “I just walked into my room and was surprised to not see you, peripherally, in my bed.” I think of his room the first time I saw it when I knocked on his door two years ago, and seeing it again when we left yesterday morning. There were stacks of papers on his desk secured by bobby pins of mine he’d found in the sheets. I think of waking up in a warm square of refracted sunlight on his bed and feeling momentarily confused by the speed of light through glass. IV. In North Carolina we drive through a long tunnel that delivers us to the other side of the Smoky Mountains. When the sun finds us again our pupils constrict and adjust to the daylight. I think about when he visited me three months ago, about the cab ride back to my apartment, how our driver stopped to get chicken nuggets and in the drive-thru I lay my head on his lap and looked up at his beard, the broad slope of his nose, the menu’s fluorescent lights caught in his glasses. I think about how our hands found each other through our coats and when he leaned his head over mine I closed my eyes and watched the darkness grow and thought of a small animal in the shadow of a larger animal. I am always thinking of him in terms of animals, and if two people are ultimately unknowable to each other, then an animal must be more unknowable still. I regard him with the same stubborn concern that I do the dog, and yet her loyalty is unmatched by his. My immutable idiot love for him is maybe not love, but then what is the gnawing feeling I get for nonhuman animals whose kind eyes belie a fundamental lacking? V. I think of the last time I called him from my roof, how I dangled my feet over the ledge while he read me a poem by his friend, how I cried silently when he said, “And no one has leaned over and kissed me for a long time.” I wiped my nose on my sleeve and said, “That’s really good.” I told him that when we got off the phone I’d send him a picture of the sun going down over the bay so he’d get to see two sunsets. Each state we drive through is made more colorful by its own highway wildflower program, and in Arkansas this time of year the roads are lined on either side by Ox-Eyed Daisies and Purple Coneflowers. When I talk to him on the phone I want to live inside the phone call and not where I’m calling from. When I drive toward him on 40-West my whole body feels like a nervous engine and my stomach is where it shakes the most. VI. I text my mom when we cross the Mississippi and she texts back emoticons that mean she’s very excited to see me. I imagine lying on the kitchen floor while the dog licks my face and sniffs my bags, my grandma drinking wine and playing online poker, my dad on the mountain wearing a wide-brimmed hat and carrying armfuls of branches to the fire. I think of pounding beers with my sister and then walking alone and tipsy to his house and standing on his front porch, wondering if he’ll hug me and how tightly, what’ll be different about his room, whether he’ll look at me when I’m not looking and look away when I look at him. I text him a picture of a sign that means we’re an hour from Little Rock. I glance at my phone and feel like I have to pee but decide I can hold it until Natalie has to go too. There are beads of sweat on her nose and our knees are pink from the heat radiating through the windshield. I roll down my window when we cross the river and watch the shadow of the U-Haul move across the bright, rolling water. Natalie’s driving the last stretch of the trip and as the sun gets lower it hits her hair and she and the sky behind her are the same golden color. I look at our city’s sparse skyline and think of the curves of his arms, the hair that snakes around his ribs, the way he folds his towels. I feel tired and think of the things I say that mean, “I have made myself believe you are essential to me.” When our exit gets close Natalie plays her favorite Usher song and we both sing along with windblown hair, and somewhere deep in my belly I feel like I got off at the wrong stop or boarded the wrong flight, like I am hurtling dumb and witless to a dead place. * Meggie Green lives in Arkansas * http://funyeah.tumblr.com * Sarah Jean Alexander lives in Baltimore * http://sjwritten.wordpress.com * By Meggie Green Art by Sarah Jean Alexander I. When I move home from New York with Natalie in July, we take 81-South through the Appalachians and I drive most... http://shabbydollhouse.com/Saturday-Night-Babestation-Viewer http://shabbydollhouse.com/following/shabbydollhouse.com/Saturday-Night-Babestation-Viewer Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:14:46 +0000 shabby doll house 4910451 By Giles Ruffer Art by Anna Crooks <img src="http://payload130.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/4910451/sdhannacrooks_905.jpg" width="905" height="618" width_o="2048" height_o="1400" src_o="http://payload130.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/4910451/sdhannacrooks_o.jpg" data-mid="27332680" border="0" align="left"/> The first I hear about dinner, I decide I don’t like the sound of it at all. I never have. Penny says I have to behave and makes me promise that I will. She does this over the phone on her lunch break. After she gets back from work, has a shower, changes her clothes and is ready, we leave the flat and walk into town. It snowed this morning and some still hangs in the leaves and branches of the bushes next to the pavement. But most has melted to slush now. As we walk, we look straight ahead. We hold hands. Our conversation is something like murmurs. We know what these noises mean. We turn a corner. Twenty feet beneath us a train runs past. Over a cast-iron fence, the lights and dim outline of carriages can be seen as it passes through the town, not slowing to stop. We turn again. We are on The Broadway. The Broadway is the road that essentially makes up the entire town center. There are several restaurants on The Broadway, but no pubs. There is Café Rouge, Peking Palace, Prezzo’s and a place called Zanzibar’s, which neither of us has ever been in. There are also some other places I can’t remember the names of. Penny lifts her hand to a couple waiting by the entrance of Café Rouge. They both wave, smile, and say hello in a variety of different ways. ‘Hi, I’m Nina,’ says a woman in her mid-thirties, maybe. ‘Nice to meet you. Penny’s told us a lot about you.’ A man standing next to her who looks like he might be another ten years older—or not (I’m not very good with age)—says, ‘Nothing bad, don’t worry!’ ‘She hasn’t told you about the beatings then?’ I laugh. And then apologise when no one else does. On the way in Penny nudges me in the back of my knee making me temporarily lose my balance. I suspect this is on purpose but she looks at me with an innocent expression when I ask her what she thinks she is doing. We take our seats on a table for four, each couple next to their partners with Ben opposite Penny, and Nina opposite me. Penny reaches for my hand underneath the table while looking straight ahead. I look at her side-profile, the shape of her nose and lips, the curve of her chin into her neck. The conversation moves on and I listen quietly. I begin to examine the couple opposite. Out of boredom, I imagine what it is like when they have sex. Aggressive, I conclude. I brush my hand over the sleeve where I had earlier burnt myself with a fork. I can feel my skin itch. The waiter arrives with a bottle of wine. Ben asks if he can try some first and the waiter pours a mouthful into his glass. I imagine Ben spitting the wine out in disgust, eyes clenched, cheeks puffed, a ridiculous amount of wine coming back out – more than he has taken in. I like Ben, I decide. He is a character. He rinses the wine around his mouth, swallows, smiles and nods to the waiter. The waiter pours wine into everyone else’s glasses. The waiter asks if we are ready to order. I realise I have not even looked at my menu yet and am surprised to see that everyone else is relatively sure of what they want to eat. The waiter says he will return in a moment. I watch him walk to the counter before I leave the table, telling everyone I need to pee. On my way, I pass a family. A girl in her early teens—the oldest of four children— sits, distant, clearly wishing to be somewhere else as she watches her younger siblings fight. The father asks her what she wants to eat and she replies with a loud sigh and a stare out of the window, away from the family. When I return to our table, all three of them are looking, pointing and laughing at something on one of the menus. I look at the cover my menu, folded in front of where I had been sitting. I stand behind my chair and gently push it back under the table. ‘I...,’ I stutter. ‘I think I’m gonna head off. I’m not feeling too well.’ I am told to stay but I have already made up my mind. I bend down to kiss Penny on the temple and pull away with a strand of her hair in my mouth. I pull it out, give it back and say goodbye. — I walk into the flat, taking off my coat and scarf, removing my shoes with my feet, leaving the laces loose but still tied. I go to the bedroom and pick up the laptop that has been left to charge on the dresser, check my emails, look at a soup maker I am bidding on on eBay, then turn off the laptop, placing it on the floor. I undress and walk naked to the bathroom, let the shower run for a minute and sit on the toilet. I watch for steam but the water does not heat up. The boiler has this button you press and a red light comes on and then after sometime there is hot water. I press the button. This is going to take a while, I realise, so I wrap a towel around my waist and sit on the sofa in front of the TV. Some time passes and I get up to go to the bathroom again and come back with a wad of toilet paper. Not long after, Penny walks through the front door. I look up and rewrap the towel over my lap. ‘You’re back early,’ I say. She begins to laugh, astonished, and looks at the TV then back at me. ‘What is this,’ she says. She knows what it is. She begins to mimic the facial expressions of one of the girls, lying on her stomach in her underwear, talking on a phone. Penny is very bad at impressions. I turn the TV off with the remote as she moves towards me. She seems drunk. She grins and looks at me as she removes the towel from my lap. ‘Sorry,’ I say. As she leans in to kiss me on the mouth, the muscles in my neck tighten, almost involuntarily, pulling my head away from her. We make eye contact for a long moment before she turns away from me. * Giles Ruffer lives in Brighton, UK * libraryofdust.blogspot.co.uk * Anna Crooks lives in Baltimore * http://akcrooks.tumblr.com/ @especiallyholy By Giles Ruffer Art by Anna Crooks The first I hear about dinner, I decide I don’t like the sound of it at all. I never have. Penny says I have to behave and... http://shabbydollhouse.com/I-Know-Because-It-Works http://shabbydollhouse.com/following/shabbydollhouse.com/I-Know-Because-It-Works Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:14:45 +0000 shabby doll house 5148043 By Bob Schofield Art by Samantha Conlon <img src="http://payload142.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/5148043/samcon_905.png" width="905" height="636" width_o="946" height_o="665" src_o="http://payload142.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/5148043/samcon_o.png" data-mid="27690499" border="0" align="left"/> I’ve been sleeping with you in a jar for months now, on and off, but you haven't noticed me yet. It’s okay. This can still work. I used to live in the arctic. You are just a lighthouse or maybe wooden pier. I used to be a dim outline in the cold, attempting to steer impossible ships. Bird Scheme I make chalk sketches of you up and down the sidewalk, but then the birds come and scuff them up. Birds are jealous animals. They see your face and want it in the sky. I can't blame them. I’m no different. I also lie awake at night scheming about your hair, and how hiding my eggs in it could make them grow. * Bob Schofield lives in Philadelphia. * http://www.anothertower.com/ * Samantha Conlon lives in Finland * http://samanthaconlonart.tumblr.com/ * By Bob Schofield Art by Samantha Conlon I’ve been sleeping with you in a jar for months now, on and off, but you haven't noticed me yet. It’s okay. This... http://shabbydollhouse.com/If-Reporters-Chased-Me http://shabbydollhouse.com/following/shabbydollhouse.com/If-Reporters-Chased-Me Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:14:44 +0000 shabby doll house 5152968 By Leo Frank Art By Tommy Doyle <img src="http://payload142.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/5152968/tommy.png" width="514" height="671" width_o="514" height_o="671" src_o="http://payload142.cargocollective.com/1/6/221029/5152968/tommy_o.png" data-mid="27691378" border="0" align="left"/> IF REPORTERS CHASED ME & ASKED ME FOR A COMMENT ON THE UNIVERSE I WOULD SAY I AGREE WITH IT ok ok ok im serious though, please listen: a book told me all the US flags on the moon are faded to white. a book told me that the natural inclination of the universe is to be infinitely still & cold. i stand on a tall thing & feel ok with the view. anywhere you can think to place the tall thing, i plan to stand on it there and feel ok with the view there. i am ‘fine with anything.’ but still. i am trying to make an impression. i spit on your rug & leave through the wrong door. as a ghost i haunt the automatic doors at your local walmart. i trigger the motion sensors with my ghost body: the doors open & close & i watch, floating an inch above the ground & calmly thinking ‘anarchy’ to myself. (this doing & undoing does me fine) but still. a book told me the only flags left on the moon were white ones & another book told me that someday all energy would leak away, leaving the universe infinitely still & cold. but still. the muscles that move your eyes remind me that a small number of things have been, are currently, & will for a while longer, be warm. our highest duty is this: stay together on a rock & be warm at the universe. * Leo Frank lives in Buffalo, NY * Tommy Doyle lives in San Francisco * tommypdoyle.com/ By Leo Frank Art By Tommy Doyle IF REPORTERS CHASED ME & ASKED ME FOR A COMMENT ON THE UNIVERSE I WOULD SAY I AGREE WITH IT ok ok ok im serious though, please...