This is the beginnings of a short story inspired by my 9th grade students yesterday morning. We started out talking about the relationship between Space and Time and whether or not anyone could be said to own either. Then we talked about things and why we use that word. I don’t know where this is going. What you’re reading is a first draft.
“What do you mean, thinghood?”
“I mean how we call everything a thing.
“Huh?”
“Like what I just did. I said we call every thing a thing.
“Well, yeah. What else you going to call a thing? Now pass that thing over here.”
“See? That”s what I mean,” Conrad said holding the wine bottle over his head. “This isn”t a thing. It”s a wine bottle. Specifically, a 99-cent bottle of Annie Green Springs” Country Peach, vintage, oh,” he turned the label in the light, “a week-ago Thursday.”
“OK, asshole, pass me the 99-cent bottle of Annie Green Springs” Country Peach, vintage a week-ago Thursday.”
Conrad screwed the cap on tight and lobbed the bottle in a high, spinning arc.
“Shit!,” Caitlin squeaked as she dove to save the bottle from the diner parking lot asphalt. “Hey. Maybe a buck doesn”t mean much to you, but it does to me. The tips aren”t that great in there.”
“So you care more about the cost of the bottle than the bottle itself?”
She unscrewed the cap and took a long pull. “Why can”t you talk regular, like everybody else?”
“Come on, tell me. Do you care more about the cost of the bottle or the bottle itself?”
“Why should I care about a bottle? It”s just glass and apple wine and this screw-cap. And I paid for it so I get to decide what I care about.”
Conrad leaned forward. “Because the bottle is important. That”s why.”
“Why is the bottle important?”
“All of this,” he said, sweeping his hands apart to indicate the panorama in front of Betty”s Dinner on 2nd street in Vincent, Ohio, “is important.”
“All of this ain”t shit,” Caitlin said, taking another long pull on the bottle, and then screwing the cap back on. “Vincent is a pimple on the world”s ass and the world is just this tiny speck of dust that nobody gives a shit about.”
“I give a shit,” he said, crawling towards her on his hands and knees to recover the bottle.
“Say please,” she said, holding the bottle behind her back.
“Please, Caitlin.”
“Please, what?”
“Please, may I have the bottle back so I can take another drink?”
“Yes, you may,” she said as she held the bottle out to him like the sommelier she”d seen in an old movie with Cary Grant down at the Colony Theater for 50 cents.
Conrad stayed where he was, pulling his legs together to sit Indian fashion. “I”m serious, Caitlin. I care about everything. I”m doing a shit job of explaining it. I know. But you”re the only person I know who I might be able to make sense to.”
Caitlin brushed her frizzy red hair out of her eyes. She hated her hair. She wanted it to be long and straight like Cher”s. She wanted to be able to toss her head and have her hair swing around her face like a horse”s mane. Instead her flaming bush seemed to do this infuriating delayed bounce thing like a jack-in-the-box swaying to a stop after the music box played the pop in Pop Goes The Weasel.
“I know, Conrad. I don”t mean to be such a bitch. I feel so squeezed by this place. Like someone is piling rocks on me. I don”t want to care about it. I want to leave it.”
“Yeah, we both do. You know that. And we”ve only got one more year of school and we”re out of here.”
“God. A year. That”s forever. I wish we could just wave a magic wand or find a genie in a bottle or something and just get be gone from here.”
“See, you did it again.”
“Did what?”
“Said, something.”
“OK. I said something. It”s what people do when they speak. They say things.”
“No. That”s not what I mean,” he said, setting the bottle at his side and rocking forward. “I mean you used the word some thing.”
“What, I”m not allowed to use the word thing?”
“Jesus, I wish I knew how to talk. No. It”s like this,” Conrad said, pushing his tortured-poet”s hair out of his eyes. “I was reading this book. About tribes in the South Pacific. And the writer talks about how names are secret there.”
“If names are secret, how do you know what to call someone?”
“Because everyone has a public name too.”
“Like a nickname?”
“No, it”s something different. It”s like you know me as Conrad and I know you as Caitlin, but those aren”t our real names. Only our parents and maybe our brothers and sisters know our real name.”
“What”s the point of that?”
Conrad unscrewed the cap and took a sip of the wine. “The point is that if someone knows your true name, they have a kind of power over you.”
“What kind of power? Like you”re they”re zombie or something?”
“No, and you just said some thing again.”
“You are make me so mad sometimes,” Caitlin said, leaning to one side and standing up.
Conrad stared at the flash of white cotton panties as she stood up and felt a jolt in his crotch. “You are so lame,” he thought to himself, and pushed himself to his feet and leaned back against the front fender of his dad”s Buick.
(To Be Continued…)
My Soundtrack: The Essential Leonard Cohen, Disc 1, by Leonard Cohen.
I wonder some times if the talking-point robots have any shame. Then I read a week or so ago about this special conference call that they all get each morning. It’s all so ’30s.
Chas Rich of 
One of the things that has bugged me about the Internet is that there is no vetting process. I have no problem with anyone posting their opinions, but when facts are posted without attribution, it becomes very easy to get sloppy. No place is this more evident than in the use of quotations; don’t just tell me you heard it someplace, tell me where.
This is what happens when you ignore necessary chores. The pile is too big for just one mucking out. So, here’s installmanet two of web items that struck my fancy for one reason or another as potential blog topics. I confess that I have little idea why they did. So, back to shovelling: scoop, lever, heave, scoop, lever…
Reader 
If there is one theme that 
How often do we feel this way? How often in our modern world do we raise our fists against the idiots and evil villians who obviously can’t see what they’re doing? How often do we clench our teeth so tightly that our jaws hurt and the tension runs down necks? How often do we stop to think: what do they see?
…But I’m not. Instead I’m listening to the 
