LMF

2012-01-18T19:51:00.001-08:00

2011-12-09T18:05:00.001-08:00

2011-11-29T19:41:00.001-08:00

2011-11-26T17:15:00.001-08:00

2011-11-22T20:36:00.001-08:00

2011-11-18T15:36:00.001-08:00

2011-11-16T15:13:00.001-08:00

2011-10-18T22:21:00.001-07:00

2011-08-26T07:14:00.001-07:00

2011-08-22T21:37:00.001-07:00

2011-08-19T16:57:00.001-07:00

2011-08-16T01:11:00.001-07:00

2011-08-14T20:25:00.001-07:00

2011-08-09T14:52:00.001-07:00

2011-08-09T00:08:00.001-07:00

2011-08-05T10:27:00.001-07:00

2011-08-02T13:09:00.001-07:00

2011-07-26T11:52:00.001-07:00

2011-07-11T12:53:00.001-07:00

2011-06-18T16:49:00.001-07:00

2011-06-12T12:07:00.001-07:00

2011-06-12T11:34:00.001-07:00

2011-06-11T15:16:00.001-07:00

2011-06-05T11:45:00.000-07:00

Old pieces from college

2011-06-05T11:41:00.000-07:00

2011-06-01T12:17:00.000-07:00

THE DOCTOR

The doctor handled people's feet gingerly, as if they were the pages of old books. When he worked on a patient's feet, he kept up constant conversation. He saw that many of them had a special discomfort about their feet adn just wanted to get things with the doctor over with. he didn't mind, though.

His assistants were Latin girls from the neighborhood. They did a good job with the patients and helped those with casts or walkers to get around. The office was full of the clicking sound of their acrylic nails on the keyboards. A photo of the doctor and his four assistants, all with curly black hair, hung at the front desk. It was from last year's office Christmas party.

He held his practice in a three-story building that he shared with a handful of other tenants. In its time it must have been cutting edge, but now it stood like a dusty black block next to a crumbling strip center and a vacant lot. The rooms inside his office were just big enough for a chair and a bed. Sliding doors and faux wood paneling made each one seem more like a closet than an examining room.

The doctor's heart beat so fast sometimes, and so slow other times. Often he awoke gasping for air as if his heart had been reset. He asked his doctor friends about it, but no one knew a cardiologist. He looked one up in the phone book and took a rare day off.

The cardiologist's office was inside of a new hospital. It was twenty stories high and plated with glass. Wings shot off the main building and parking garages surrounded the complex like a moat. A large mall sprawled near the hospital with a long tube connecting the two structures.

The doctor checked the address he had written down and pulled into one of the garages. People rushed around the hospital without glancing at each other. After consulting a few maps and riding a few elevators, he arrived at the cardiologist's office.

Half an hour later, he was ushered to the back by a blonde nurse. The examining room was completely white and the view made him dizzy. He fiddled with his watch as he waited. The cardiologist appeared with a single knock. His jaw was chiseled; maybe he was Greek. He selected on of the high tech machines and stuck wires to the doctor's chest. Then he disappeared and the blonde nurse took the doctor to a smaller room. She handed him a dressing gown and instructed him to change.

He sat on the bed and looked at the sonogram machine. It hummed sweetly in the dark room; the glowing buttons made him think of a Christmas tree. A different nurse came in and told him to lay down. Her low voice matched the stillness of the room. She turned down the lights so that only the buttons blinked and pulsed. The nurse squeezed petroleum jelly onto the doctor's chest and placed a smooth white probe over his heart.

The doctor's heart materialized on the black and white screen atop the sonogram machine. The heart jiggled up and down. The heart beat filled the room; it sounded as if it was under water. The nurse guided the probe around the doctor's chest, photographing views of his heart. The doctor knew what a heart looked like from his training long ago in medical school. But seeing his own heart pushing and pumping on the machine's small screen was enchanting and dreamy.

The door cracked open and the nurse was called into the hall. She put the probe in its holster and left. The doctor laid next to the machine and stared up at the dark ceiling. How fitful and small his heart had looked. It reminded him of a money purse with coins dancing inside. After a moment, he took the probe from its holster and placed it again over his heart. As he watched his heart beat and bump on the screen, he fell asleep.

2011-05-23T20:20:00.000-07:00

THE SPHINX

Once there was a sphinx that lived in a garden. The hedges and paths of the garden stretched for miles and miles, but the sphinx was the only inhabitant. The sun never stopped shining and the sphinx's body was always bathed in light. The sphinx was coated in gold and covered in fur; its body sat rigid as stone but could move in a flash. Its feet were those of a lion's, its tail was a coyote's. Long feathered wings were folded at its sides. Strangest of all, it had the face of an Egyptian woman.

Though night never fell on the garden, the sphinx had a dream that repeated itself over and over. In the dream, a man came to the garden. He stood before the sphinx and examined it. The sphinx was desperate to open its mouth but could not; it always emerged from the dream buzzing and boiling.

The dream frightened the sphinx. It spent many days thinking in the sun. At last it devised a simple but perfect riddle.

When the man arrived, he looked just as he did in the dream. But as the man gazed at the sphinx, he realized that all he had seen before belonged to a different world, to a different pair of eyes. Its mismatch parts shimmered in the sun. Here was a creature that defied all logic. The man was frightened.

The sphinx asked its riddle but received no answer. Despite its visions, it had never decided what to do when the man failed to answer. The sphinx considered the man as he stood in the sun and wondered something else: why had he come? Since neither had an answer, the sphinx gobbled the man up.

It went on like this for a long time. Men approached the sphinx, failed to answer the riddle, and were eaten. The sphinx's riddle was so perfect that it never left its mind and it began to repeat it even when alone. The sphinx fell into a haze; it existed only for the riddle.

The riddle's power was so great that it overcame the sphinx. Its once strong body withered and atrophied to a husk. Only its mouth had grown larger from eating men and reciting the riddle. A man appeared. As he looked at the distorted creature, he did not think of the world he had seen before. He just waited to be asked the riddle.

The sphinx narrowed its eyes at the man. In a voice grown loud from practice and pride, it boomed the riddle. The man thought for a moment and gave his reply. It was the correct answer.

The garden was immediately shrouded in darkness. No noise was made as the sphinx turned in on itself. Bit by bit, it swallowed its deteriorating body with its gaping mouth. Glimmering feathers and fur washed the ground until there was nothing left. The man looked at the pile of gold on the ground for a long time. Then he saw it was time to go.

2011-05-14T19:59:00.000-07:00

2011-05-13T14:50:00.000-07:00

2011-05-13T14:23:00.000-07:00

2011-05-13T13:26:00.000-07:00

2011-05-10T23:54:00.001-07:00

2011-05-10T20:49:00.001-07:00

2011-05-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

2011-04-29T12:03:00.000-07:00

2011-04-29T09:32:00.000-07:00

2011-04-16T21:22:00.000-07:00

2011-04-14T20:24:00.000-07:00

2011-03-18T18:13:00.000-07:00

2011-03-16T19:51:00.000-07:00

2011-03-03T17:21:00.000-08:00

2011-02-26T16:09:00.000-08:00

2011-02-21T17:00:00.000-08:00

2011-02-13T16:27:00.000-08:00

2011-01-17T15:42:00.000-08:00

2011-01-05T18:42:00.000-08:00

2010-10-21T23:22:00.000-07:00

2010-10-19T21:08:00.000-07:00

2010-10-19T20:56:00.000-07:00

2010-09-30T15:29:00.000-07:00

2010-09-28T17:27:00.000-07:00

2010-09-09T18:45:00.000-07:00

2010-09-06T15:29:00.000-07:00

2010-09-03T15:17:00.000-07:00

2010-09-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

2010-08-25T18:13:00.000-07:00

2010-08-24T19:42:00.000-07:00

2010-08-19T18:08:00.001-07:00

2010-08-12T20:38:00.000-07:00

2010-08-10T21:17:00.000-07:00

2010-08-08T15:03:00.000-07:00

2010-07-17T14:38:00.000-07:00

2010-07-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

2010-07-12T19:17:00.000-07:00

2010-06-25T09:08:00.000-07:00

2010-05-24T16:39:00.000-07:00

2010-03-01T10:53:00.000-08:00

2010-02-27T16:17:00.000-08:00

2010-01-26T07:41:00.000-08:00

2010-01-13T13:46:00.000-08:00

2009-11-03T16:02:00.000-08:00

2009-10-26T08:51:00.000-07:00

2009-09-15T20:20:00.000-07:00

2009-09-07T15:04:00.000-07:00

2009-07-21T14:49:00.000-07:00

2009-06-09T16:52:00.000-07:00

2009-06-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

2009-05-26T17:05:00.000-07:00

2009-05-21T05:29:00.000-07:00

2009-05-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

2009-05-01T08:47:00.000-07:00

2009-05-01T08:19:00.000-07:00

2009-05-01T07:44:00.000-07:00

2009-05-01T07:31:00.000-07:00

2009-05-01T07:26:00.000-07:00