{"id":11393,"date":"2009-07-19T10:32:33","date_gmt":"2009-07-19T10:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/?p=11393"},"modified":"2009-07-19T10:34:21","modified_gmt":"2009-07-19T10:34:21","slug":"friend-helmet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/friend-helmet\/","title":{"rendered":"Friend Helmet"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Blake Butler. <\/p>\n

1. grover was my best friend when i was little | i talked to grover all the time | one time my family and i were going to dinner | i was like 2 | and grover started telling me where we should turn | to go to dinner | and we ended up at some expensive italian restaurant like 15 miles from my house | and we ate there<\/p>\n

2. i like to think of myself as being part of an oil machine | more often i feel fecal | but maybe one day we can run our cars off shit | i imagine someone somewhere has invented the adapter<\/p>\n

3. i don’t know what to think about anything any more | i want to make you happier | that’s all<\/p>\n

4. last night | did not warrant you yelling at me for as long as you did<\/p>\n

5. i’ve been exhausted all week | today’s the first day i feel back to normal<\/p>\n

6. i open a new package of napkins | and in the middle | are 3 napkins with what looks like splotches of blood | someone in a napkin factory somewhere may be in trouble<\/p>\n

7. i just wish i felt like that guy putting his balls in that girl’s ass | 24-7 | all day all night 4ever | just really accomplished and excited about life<\/p>\n

8. i am going to kiss you tonight | on the neck | and the face<\/p>\n

9. you seem to have no conception of yourself sometimes<\/p>\n

10. i don’t like drinking with people because of how i act when i get drunk and i worry about how i affect people a lot | i mean | i’ll still drink a lot | but i may become very quiet | etc<\/p>\n

11. i’m not trying to be a jerk | nothing is going right | there is a dumpster on the other side of the pool from us<\/p>\n

12. i need to get milk and bananas from the store | if u want you could get them | kisses<\/p>\n

13. you make me shudder more consistently than anyone i know<\/p>\n

14. last night i dreamt that my hair was coming out in chunks | and i asked my friends if they’d still like me if my hair was short | and they said no<\/p>\n

15. rain affects me too much | remind me to take laxative tonight<\/p>\n

16. i don’t know what i feel like doing<\/p>\n

17. starting today with no internet and then walking outside and having an asian woman blow dust in my face with a leafblower | then talking on speaker phone to comcast covered in soap<\/p>\n

18. i made coffee. i had a dream that my mom was a prostitute. i climbed up to the upper windows and fixed the miniblinds | i had another dream that i found out that i was an asian… and adopted by white people | the sun coming in unattenuated ruins my morning dreams. i wish you coulda seen me in my dream when i found out i was asian<\/p>\n

19. i want to be haunted by a 12 year old version of myself | giving me the early version of a look i’ve since perfected<\/p>\n

20. These messages were sent while you were offline: ok | I am here<\/p>\n

21. i woulda come already but i thought that u’d be sleeping<\/p>\n

22. my head is so full of snot | and i’ve blown my nose so much | my ears are stuffed | i can’t hear anything<\/p>\n

23. too much coffee today | too much<\/p>\n

24. 2 days ago i was on treadmill | and i thought, i am going to write a salable mystery novel that starts with hidden cameras<\/p>\n

25. its raining a little | men keep walking back and forth in front of the apartment | i exfoliated the hell out of my face<\/p>\n

26. it’s important to look like you were just born polished<\/p>\n

27. i’m convinced that the place is making me ill. the smoke, the heat… i feel like i’m rotting from the inside<\/p>\n

28. i don’t think this would make sense to anyone | but i know something is following me around | that’s not paranoia or ‘overgeneralizing’ | something is systematically fucking everything i try to do<\/p>\n

29. i’ve been pissing out my ass 3 mornings in a row now<\/p>\n

30. i think i’d like to see you.<\/p>\n

31. i got shower curtain and liner | we should clean up tonight and rent some movies, you can pick them | no beer<\/p>\n

32. i just got my cat tattooed on my forearm<\/p>\n

33. i just want to kiss your dang head | and sit and smile<\/p>\n

34. everything is just so depressing lately | no english, 3.45 an hour | i got coffee this morning and a woman was yelling at the worker “i want an early gray tea!” | she just kept saying EARLY GRAY TEA<\/p>\n

35. every year at challenger elem we had a memorial service for them where 7 special kids got to hold up giant portraits of the astronauts | i can remember their faces | went there for 7 years<\/p>\n

36. ok | i’m goinginvisible<\/p>\n

37. i feel big tired and unable to focus and unable to think of what to do | big, tired<\/p>\n

38. i was having an awesome dream. i was just taking flight and going back in time and you fucking kicked me | i wanted to hit you | ruiner even in sleep<\/p>\n

39. you have been a little scary for the past two days. i plan to just continue staying out of your way<\/p>\n

40. i’m making beef stew and peach crisp. it will be here when you get home so think about being hungry.<\/p>\n

41. one time a midget came to my house and i saw him making out with his full-sized gf | i thought, “this is tender”<\/p>\n

42. i can’t take much more of this life | wee | i’m gonna get a hell of a tax return | i’m going to keep working here hard<\/p>\n

43. we need to start dressing in the traditional garb of our forefathers <\/p>\n

44. i’m painting the fucking bathroom green | again. yes. again. yes.<\/p>\n

45. what is a good equation to signify infinite replication?<\/p>\n

46. what if google is an arm of god? | today stock in god’s arm went up 1.64%<\/p>\n

47. no one wants to be calm<\/p>\n

48. things always come together. | we are not retarded. the terms of this life are retarded | probably<\/p>\n

49. tonight is a blanket | i am excited for when all is in place<\/p>\n

50. you used to hate a lot of things before i turned you into the light<\/p>\n

\"blake-butler\"ABOUT THE AUTHOR
\nBlake Butler<\/strong> is the author of EVER<\/em> (Calamari Press 09) and Scorch Atlas<\/em> (forthcoming from Featherproof Books). His work has been published in Ninth Letter, Fence, Unsaid, New York Tyrant<\/em>. He edits HTML Giant<\/a> and blogs here<\/a>. This list was almost entirely composed from words stolen from instant message conversations between the author and those he loves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"blake-butler\"1. grover was my best friend when i was little | i talked to grover all the time | one time my family and i were going to dinner | i was like 2 | and grover started telling me where we should turn | to go to dinner | and we ended up at some expensive italian restaurant like 15 miles from my house | and we ate there 2. i like to think of myself as being part of an oil machine | more often i feel fecal | but maybe one day we can run our cars off shit | i imagine someone somewhere has invented the adapter 3. i dont know what to think about anything any more | i want to make you happier | that’s all 4. last night | did not warrant you yelling at me for as long as you did 5. i’ve been exhausted all week | today’s the first day i feel back to normal<\/p>\n

By Blake Butler<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flash-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}