Kerry Allen

My good local radio station changed format from rock/alternative to “a sunny mix of the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s,” which makes for a jarring mix of The Supremes, Tom Jones, The Rolling Stones, and Wang Chung with perhaps one decent song every three hours, bookended by ear-rotting audiofungus.

We can’t afford to download any songs or subscribe to a radio service right now, and we’re not down with the other local radio fare of perkypop or country, so Angelic Daughter has been getting her music fix from YouTube, and I’ve been listening to my playlists until everyone (except Boyfriend, of course, which may have something to do with having 53 hours of music to choose from there…) is pretty much making me sick at this point.

Then I found Pandora, and Lo, the angels sang, and life was good again.

You don’t have to pay anything. You don’t even have to register if you don’t want to save your history. Simply type in the name of an artist you’re in the mood to listen to, and Pandora, that clever bitch, will hook you up with a seemingly endless supply of music in the same vein.

Being in a snarly, antisocial frame of mind (and feeling unimaginative), I plugged in Boyfriend and was served up Tool, Deftones, Filter, Rage Against the Machine, A Perfect Circle, Manson, System of a Down, Alice in Chains, Incubus, Stabbing Westward, and so on and so forth.

Four hours so far today, and I’ve yet to hear anything that sucks, which is not something I have EVER been able to say about actual radio.

My snarly, antisocial frame of mind is in danger of improving…

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

She broke her vow not to cry. She was quiet about it, but in that close, musty space, her tears smelled like spring rain, overpowering the aroma of earth and mildew and long-dead things decaying in the walls.

Nate knew the smell of her tears. He’d always hated it.

She’d been crying the first time he saw her, sitting on the sidewalk with her freshly skinned knees pulled up to her chest, sucking air in the weird reverse-sob little kids did that usually preceded an ear-shattering wail. Like any self-respecting seven-year-old boy confronted with a weeping female, he would have run in the opposite direction—if not for the blood.

Three days into a fast imposed by his father, he was experiencing hunger for the first time in his life. It nipped at him like one of his mother’s yappy little dogs. In another day or two, he knew the Big Bad Wolf would be chomping on him. A taste of blood would buy him a few agony-free hours. He might earn another week of punishment for feeding against orders, but there was a slim possibility he would get away with it under the circumstances. If the old man hated anything more than disobedience, it was waste. The blood had already been spilled. No one could begrudge him a lick.

No one except Amanda Tessler, who swatted him on the nose with a stern No! Bad vampire! before swiping her hands over her knees and smearing the remains of those precious red droplets on the front of her Barbie T-shirt.

See the rest of “Beyond the Darkening: Chapter 4″

His face was cursed, his features odd,
Most resembling the homely cod.
Nonetheless, the ladies were awed,
For he had been endowed by God
With bulging manroot so lengthy and broad,
Even harlots swooned at sighting his bod.

They worshipped him where’er he trod.
At his clothing, they ripped and clawed.
Countless frigid flowers he thawed,
Both domestically and abroad, 
Using his lance of love to thrust and prod
With the vigor of a whole jousting squad.

Years passed, his horny spirit flawed,
Wastrel, scoundrel, drunken sod,
Pressed into service for a vicious bawd 
Until his turgid pleasure rod,
Having blown its final glorious wad,
Exhausted, spent, was permitted to nod.

_____________________________________

Dedicated to those whose search for purple penile euphemisms leads them here.
You are many, you are weird, and you are in good company.

Statistics for the last 12 months consistently indicate Monday through Wednesday are average-traffic days, Thursday is busybusybusy, Friday drops off, and weekends are dead, which is pretty much the pattern I hear from others, as well.

Lesson: Be full of awesome on Thursdays.

Although I actually get to interact with about 6 people around here (which I figure is about 5-1/2 more than I deserve), I had 1047 unique, nonrobot visitors in October, which means 1041 unsuspecting victims at least glanced at my insanity.

Lesson: There are more eyes upon you than you think. (Your choice whether to let that muzzle you or continue to let it all hang out.)

Of course, many of those visitors arrived here by chance after searching for such terms as “boob flesh graffiti” and “turgid pleasure rod.”

Lesson: Search terms can be a real eye opener in terms of your blog content. Also, people type some weird stuff into Google.

Someone arrived here by searching for “goofy.” There are 18.6 million results. I checked, and I wasn’t in the first 10 pages.

Lesson: Some people have a lot more patience combing through search results than I do—if I can’t find what I want in the first 2 pages, I try better keywords. Also, the fact that I’m “goofy” is a matter of public record.

Over 300 visitors in October hung out here for over an hour at a time.

Lesson: Or left their browser open while they had a potty break, went to lunch, defragged their hard drive, or surfed in another window. This one is pretty useless, as far as stats go, but my nerd side still likes looking at all the pretty tables and graphs.

This one will certainly haunt me for many years to come:

“Honestly, sometimes I just don’t know WHAT gets into my vagina.”

Blurted after I was accused of being a misogynist because I don’t adore women I find revolting simply because we have common reproductive organs.

As you can no doubt imagine, the discussion subsequently took a turn…