a thousand nothings deep, or fifteen questions

• To not be or to be? (that's where every naked vernixed baby starts)
• Can you be tied up in nots?
• Have you been a little noughty boy or girl or other?
• How many noughty problems are you trying to solve?
• Is it all for nought?
• Exactly how do you not do something?
• Will she even know about the myriad midnight moments you texted her but did not press Send, the relentless repetition of uncertainties, declarations of love posing as a litany, the anvil of No in your chest radiating its metallic pulse out to the tired sheets?
• Have you learned any lessons from that course you took on set theory, the difference between a null set and an empty set?
• How does one measure nullity-zero-none? 
• If you're trying so hard to not do something, aren't you doing more than if you were doing nothing? (we're talking again about her cited above)
• Why is it harder for you to say No than Yes (except when Yes would clearly be better than No, or vice versa)?
• Have you noticed that to forgo the habit of Yes you have to acquire the vernix-covered habit of No, which requires more discipline, resolve, will, and anonymity, because after all who pays attention to your silent No, Not This Time, the No that is mined in the night or in the day when you are mumbling with your earbuds in?
• When is enough enough, more accurately, when is not enough finally enough?
• Are they always lying, at the least fibbing, when they assert, No, it's nothing, nothing at all, that is not what I meant at all?
• How do you (yes, you; no, not you) spell No?

Ghosts in the Machines

Last night, while struggling to fall asleep, with a fan and an air conditioner thrumming, I thought I heard voices outside, or maybe instrumental music, or singing. Just barely.

Then, upon leaving the room, going to a non-AC portion of the house, I couldn't hear the voices, music, or singing.

Help me out here.

Was it a psychotic fugue (to use musical nomenclature)?

My imagination?

Or...

Or...was it one of those deals where the AC window unit somehow acts like a radio receiver, the way they used to say someone's braces or dental fillings could work like a radio?

People have really claimed that, and I guess it's true.

Just thought I'd ask.

A Dollar and a Dream (Or a Fraction Thereof)

Look, my goal here is to make money while I sleep. Isn't that your goal? I just checked, and so far this month I have made* $US 0.60 (as in, "sixty cents American," worth about 0.00000054338 euros) from my web store, laughorism.com. This revenue stream, or rivulet, or droplet, or spike in relative humidity, originates from my selling one Kierkegaard magnet and one Kierkegaard oval sticker, to the same person, in Arizona. (It's pending; if the buyer returns the goods, I lose out.) I guess I had better stick to my day job. Speaking of which, I received an unexpected work compliment today, which I received graciously, which is funny, because the absence of such praise is the seeds of discontent for someone like me. Someone wiser than me once counseled that it is virtuous to accept both praise and blame equally.

I ain't there yet.

*I didn't "make" any money. Revenue does not equal profit, not even in the microeconomics of micro amounts.