My Prank War With The Dog

My dog is getting too cleaver for his own good.

One night, about a month ago, I took my dog to the park at the end of the street. He had a new collar and it didn't fit quite right. And that son of a bitch Dr. Charles Winston Kilroy knew that. Why? Because he's a doctor. You know that band Dr. Dog? Chuck probably loves them.

Anyway, that night, he runs full force down a hill and when I go to pull on the leash, he does a spin move on me and runs backwards, so that the collar comes up to his head. As I run towards him politely yelling swear words and threats, he jumps backwards out of his collar. He stands that for a moment staring at me and the collar and then I spend the next twenty minutes chasing my dog through a playground of merrily screaming and hysterically laughing kids, trying to keep them calm like Keanu Reeves in Speed.

Now, last night, my dog and I were playing a game of tag at the park like we sometimes do. He's still on a leash, but the game is that he runs toward me and tries to dodge my hands. If he's tagged, he loses. If he gets by me, he wins. It's kind of like stoner bullfighting.

So, Chuck runs circles around me and I move the leash around my head like a maypole, so it doesn't get wrapped around my legs. As I'm swinging it around my head, Chuck makes a quick sprint to the left, so I end up punching myself in the head with the leash handle pretty goddamn hard. As I get dizzy and start mumbling incoherency, Chuck just stands there watching me stumble.

I think he planned it. My dog and I have officially entered into a game of pranks. And I'm gonna win.

Vagina Storytime

30 Minutes of Silence.

LIBRARY SPEAKERS: Pardon the interruption, but it’s Pajama Storytime. Join us in the main room for a story!

GUY NEXT TO JAKE: Did she just say Vagina Storytime?

JAKE: No, she said Pajama Storytime.

GUY NEXT TO JAKE: Oh man, ok, because I thought she said Vagina Storytime and I thought, “Alright! I’ll go to that!”

90 Minutes of Silence.

My Balanced Weekend of Productivity and Laziness

I had what felt like the perfect balance of productivity high points and low points. At moments, I thought, "Man, I am getting stuff done," but either hours earlier or hours later, I was thinking, "I need to get my life together."

FRIDAY
HIGH POINT: Playing basketball for two hours.
LOW POINT: Deciding it was too much effort to find and melt butter for my toast and then using chocolate sauce instead.

SATURDAY
HIGH POINT: Writing and recording a song I really dig in its entirety (called "Autumn Magician" for now) from start to finish.
LOW POINT: Getting kinda drunk on Irish whiskey with my dog while writing and recording said song.

SUNDAY
HIGH POINT: Cleaning out two boxes and setting up my CD rack.
LOW POINT: Watching several episodes of Bones instead of writing.

Before Christ, After Drugs

GREG: Canada's like that with medical marijuana too. They're just really relaxed about it.

JAKE: Word. I remember when I was in Vancouver, the whole city seemed to have an Amsterdam sort of thing going on.

GREG: Yeah, it's kind of like a "don't ask, don't tell" policy with drugs in the B.C.

RAY: Well, yeah, it was Before Christ, so it was kind of, like, anything goes, man!

Thanks For The Invite

I think if you sarcastically tell me, "Oh, thanks for the invite," then you should already know why you weren't invited in the first place.

"RE:"

"RE:"
a mere excuse for a poem by jake kilroy.

"Recess," said the kid.

"Reflect," said the teenager.

"Remember," said the twentysomething.

"Regret," said the adult.

"Repent," said the senior.

{"Rest in peace," said the crowd.}

Dear Souplantation

Dear Souplantation,

I think I've outgrown you. You no longer get me stoked or, as my mother says like a goddamn Russian immigrant, "stoke me." Either way, I am without stokedness in your what-the-hell-year-is-it-and-what-state-are-we-in decorative interior.

When I was younger and you allowed my friends and I to eat and yell and basically run amok, that was different. In the last few years, I have become semi-cultured (meaning I've read the first few pages of a James Joyce book and have not giggled at dick jokes on occasion).

I am now a cultured man with elegant tastes. I've had asparagus soup that was orange, I've had wine I couldn't afford, I've even ordered Italian food from actual Italians. I mean, shit, I've had meals on four continents and in eleven countries. I've seen beyond the walls of America, dearest buffet kitchen and eatery.

Also, I opened my own restaurant when I was 6 with the help of my family (eEvita's) and then literally built a restaurant in my own fuckin' backyard when I was 22 with the help of my friends (Dive Bar). I know how to have a restaurant where the food is good and the service is exceptional. Sure, yeah, eEvita's was just a one evening thing and Dive Bar was only open for two nights, but the point is...well, I don't know what the point is.

I guess I'm just saying that I think I've outgrown you. I wear ties now. I have dress shoes. I've seen Sunset Blvd. I OWN A FUCKING QUILL, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.

*sigh*

You were once like this kind of attractive girl who let me and my friends hook up with you in turns and the booty was sweet. I knew you weren't the prettiest girl, but you were a whole lot of fun to mess around in (eww). But, now, you've let yourself go. It's like your hair's knotted, your dresses are wrinkled and you have this loud cough that you do. But there's only one thing you do now that's good. Let's say your back massages suck (i.e. your baked potatoes), but your kisses are incredible (i.e. your cornbread and honey butter). I just have to seriously evaluate what I want out of my evening, you know?

I'm sorry. I honestly went to you tonight with a full heart, but I instead left with a full stomach and a promise to take a long hard look at myself before I return to you. We all grow out of our young flames at some point and I can only hope that you find another group of teenage anarchists to welcome.

Love,
Jake

The Heartache of Friends & The Evenings That Come

In a strange, bogus turn of events, a friend of mine was broken up with by his girlfriend in the form of a letter somewhat out of nowhere. I guess the story goes that she kissed him, handed him the three pages and said, "All I have to say is in this letter." Now, I find this surprisingly cinematic scene peculiar for several reasons, but it mostly has to do with the two of them being together for nearly five years and we're all in our mid-goddamn-twenties. Also, it was written in green ink. It was like some epic mistake on behalf of the space-time continuum. Her break-up style seemed closer to "we've been dating for three weeks in tenth grade and I just realized that I don't understand my hormones" than being "ok, seriously, we're fucking adults now."

What made it seem all the more intriguing is that the friend was one of my closest in high school, and we even stayed close some time in college. But, like many good things (including that clichéd phrasing), it didn't stay that way. We've grown apart, though when we do see each other, it's like no time has passed and I feel as if I'm walking in a dream. With my high school friends, any amount of time can pass and I still feel and act like I just saw them last week.

And that's the wildest thing about nostalgia: it seems so recognizable after an astonishing amount of time has passed. You can move through it like the mist of autumn evening chills and you're at a destination soon enough with a hazy feeling of familiarity and wonder.

It's been a long time since this friend has counted on me too, but, sure enough, we found ourselves sitting on the floor of my bedroom talking about girls, just like high school. The similarities of then and now were noticeable and quaint while the differences ranged from my room having more books to both of us being much calmer and more reasonable men (probably...hopefully). Later, the third member of our high school trio showed up and it felt laughably remarkable to find ourselves back where the misadventure of maturity started. Or it was one of the places in the very least.

To keep with the high school sudden reawakening of break-up, as well as our mini-reunion, we revisited high school as best as we could, looking through old pictures and retelling stories. Wanting to get out and do something (as aimless faux teenager twentysomethings do, I guess), we went to the driving range to smoke cigarettes, talk about women in disgusting honesty and hit golf balls into the water. We stayed past closing and the owner turned the lights off, but he didn't come for us. So, the three of us stayed there, cackling in the darkness, whacking our bucket of balls into the unknown (it just sounds better to be ominous sometimes).

Soon, we found ourselves at Del Taco and, out of a ploy for one more string pull of nostalgia, I ordered what I always got in high school when I had the metabolism of a racehorse on speed pills. This included a macho Cherry Coke, which, for the record, is like fucking poison to an adult body. I have no idea how I drank those daily. I could've eaten entire tubs of ice cream and been better off. Jesus Christ, I really wanted diabetes or something back then.

Then we arrived at the top level of our preferred parking garage and stared over the flattish city of Orange with what can only be described as a dismal skyline on its best of nights. But city lights remain the stars of the earth and they're spectacular, even if they don't rise too high for the occasion. Security came and asked us to leave, just like old times, and I missed spending many of my most aimless evenings sitting at the top of a six story parking garage in an area that is a coy, weak attempt at a downtown. On our way home, we sat in the downtown plaza and watched young drinkers stroll and stumble from bar to bar, all wondering when the quality of women improved. I suppose that's what guys do, especially when one of them is down on their luck and heart.

In fact, I’m not sure what the two of us friends planned on doing for our downtrodden chum. But I suppose we went with the ever classic plan of laughing and reminiscing about the old times, even reliving them in some instances, just to remind the quietest guy of the group that it wasn’t always like this. It wasn’t always complicated. It wasn’t always one long seizure of adulthood. There were times when things could be categorized and nothing could be compartmentalized. Your heart was just one big Jackson Pollack painting where you could pick out the colors but not the actual picture or theme.

We came to the agreement that adulthood isn’t bad. It’s most certainly not. But it’s just fun to leave home sometimes.

They dropped me off and I made the age-old suggestion of not letting months go by. It was around midnight, but I couldn’t go to bed, as I couldn’t shake off the weariness of time travel just yet. So, instead, I watched Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam with my brother and wondered if Humphrey Bogart knew something about women that has totally escaped mankind since (aside from the slapping and shooting, of course).

And, finally, keeping with the teenage vibes, I made sure everything seemed more important than it actually was in this reflection. I mean, shit, all we really did was hang out, hit golf balls, eat fast food and drive around. But, for whatever reasons left to the crusading sense of insanity that fills teenagers everywhere, everything seemed important once. I hardly see my friends from high school, so it's always this strange feeling that stirs up. Maybe it's just that and that's all it is. We're all different but kind of still the same now (variations, I suppose) and it's just weird to find yourself churning up the old times to make a friend feel better. Shrug. Things don't seem as important to me now, but it's nice to find worth in it all and look back like those memories were meant to be overvalued. Christ, the hearts of teenagers are like sneaky auctioneers. They just really know how to drive up the price, you know?

It makes you smile and wince at the same time, I guess. And, sometimes, the unfortunate events of the heart and soul bring about a lovely laughter all the way to bed.

Five Quirks About My Social Skills

I have always paid attention to how I interact with people. I constantly wonder why I do what I do in social situations.

When I was a kid, I talked non-stop (my second grade teacher called my parents on the first day of school to let them know that she couldn't teach her class with "Motormouth" in there). As a teenager, I hit a pretty good balance of things. In my early twenties, I shot my mouth off a lot. Now, in my mid-twenties (actually considering myself a real-life adult for the first time, since last summer anyway), I've tried to examine a balance of loud and quiet in me. I'm extraordinarily more patient, understanding and reserved while being less vulgar, obnoxious and all-around hectic.

And, in this examination, I've begun to notice quirks in the way I interact with people in my life. I don't know if they've all always been there, but some of them seem more prominent now that I'm an adult and not some wily, mouthy teenager or early-twentysomething. I mean, I'm not saying they're severe or terrible or anything. They're just things I've noticed in myself within the last year.

Some musings...

1. [Awkward] Silences kill me.
I have been like this since I high school. I don't know what it is, but I can't sit through them. As a kid, you and all of your friends are talking non-stop for the most part. You're a rambling anarchist until high school, I think. Then, once you discover all the quieter things you didn't know about (such as poetry, heartbreak, regret, goth music, the color black, etc), you realize that you can have an entirely new half to you. But the problem is that so many teenagers sink into that and they get quiet. But that didn't really happen for me, so it started making me uncomfortable when my friends became quieter folk. They were or wanted to seem distant, moody or abstractly philosophical. Well, I started talking through those car rides and hang outs and it became somewhat of a compulsive thing. Awkward silences get me all anxious. I think I have the unrealistic fears of being a bad talk show host.

2. When my brain breaks, it sort of really breaks.
Someone will say something like, "Well, it's different now that I have a new car." As I'm about to ask, "When did you get a new car?", I interrupt my own brain with another question, "Did I already know this person had a new car?" Soon, I can't figure out if the person has a new car or not. Then I start thinking of people that have recently purchased new cars and who exactly I was getting this person mixed up with. By the time I have reached some inane mental conclusion, I have appeared awkward to everyone present or the conversation itself has moved on without me ever figuring out when said person got their new car. Later, someone will pull me aside and say, "Hey, why'd you get so weird about the new car?" I won't know what they're referring to, because I didn't get weird about the new car, so then, instead of explaining it, I'll make up an excuse or a joke that sounds even crazier. I believe this has caused people to think I've gotten uncomfortable or saddened or surprised by something when I have, in actuality, just stopped working.

3. I space out, like, for real.
It happened in college a lot. I'd be paying attention to the professor and then I'd be distracted by an attractive woman or a funny-looking meathead jock or some goofy t-shirt I was reading and then, all of a sudden, it was five minutes later. I space and it's like space where nobody can hear you scream. I think I've creeped out a lot of people with this, probably women especially. I don't where I go during those minutes, but I go full speed ahead into the nothing.

4. I ask a stupid amount of questions.
I'm intrigued by people. I know what's going on my life. That's old news, so I want to find out what's going on with everyone else (work, school, free time, romance, traveling, etc). So, as a habit almost as much of an interest, I ask a possibly annoying amount of questions. I believe I've always done this, but it probably accelerated when I began writing a lot in my free time in the later years of my teenage stint. It wasn't just social curiosity, as it was sort of research too. I can only hope that it's improved my ability to write characters because I'm able to pull from so many stories and little detailed nuances of people I know. I'm just generally very interested in people. I just like hearing what's going on with them. However, I've noticed that I also do this about things/activities that I find interesting but don't want to really do (surfing, rock-climbing, etc). I want to know every little thing about it, and so I ask about every little thing, but when I'm offered a chance to do it, I politely turn it down. I'm just very interested in knowing everything that's going on around me and those in my life.

5. If I'm not prepared for a compliment or some kind of attention, I don't know what to do.
If I did something that I think might garner later compliments or attention (say, if I got a poem published or I discovered alien life in my backyard), I'm ready and the interaction goes wonderfully. But if I'm not ready for it, I have no idea what to do and come up with a response as quick as possible. When it's attention, I say the first joke/thing that comes to my head (not thinking it through). When it comes to a compliment, I either compliment the person right back about something else unrelated, shrug it off awkwardly, try to make an endless string of jokes about it or say something that is meant to be a joke but comes out sounding like some declaration of insanity. I have no problem with compliments or attention (as people shouldn't), but, man, when a person or a room focuses on me without any hint or notice, I swear there's an office fire in my head and all of my brain cells are running around to find the one document that they're supposed to save. Wild.

"The Poet Laureate Of The Bedroom Scene"

"The Poet Laureate Of The Bedroom Scene"
written on the way to bed by jake kilroy.

So you think you're the poet laureate of the bedroom scene;
the Keats, the Yeats, the Chaucer, the Poe and fiends-
the balancin’ act of a wayward head,
thinkin’ you’d jump from bed to bed
without trippin’ over bodies or sheets,
without hearin’ laughter in backseats;
merely a player to be tucked in tight,
while the rumor mill is creakin’ slight-
thinkin’ of yourself as fireworks true,
the red, the green, the yellow, the blue,
primary in color and second in lives;
though channelin’ Bukowski late at night
after a couple of bad drinkin’ fits,
slurrin’ the words of a shrug of a kiss,
draggin’ your shoulder against the wall,
beatin’ the drum of your own soul’s call,
changin’ the words of songs you know,
hopin’ no one sees you headin’ home,
prayin’ you never hear the truth:
you’re the only book left in the library
in the deserted morning hours after two.