Unbearably in love

I mean, I imagine this is how it will be, if there is such a person out there for me.

Creature of instinct

Who let us have pointy things?

You are beautiful to me

Internal solutions

Contingent happiness

Healthy choices

You need help

You're wrong about one thing

I am mystified

Retreat into the depths

And then, in that basement:

Valuable contributions to society

Necessary groundwork

Be our guest

Employment opportunities

Mental Health

In hindsight, the job had looked too good to be true, but Ron persuaded himself that in this economy, he couldn't afford to reject even the thinnest shred of the possibility of employment as a professional pizza model. 

Of course, the job listing had purposely obscured the fact that he was to be made into a pizza, then displayed. As he grew more aware of his predicament, Ron vowed to start reading more carefully if he ever got out of the factory alive.

Collaborative art

Dressing it up

Mental Health

Rolf dug around in the fridge for lettuce and spinach, tomatoes and carrot shreds. He rinsed the leaves and dried them. Somewhere in the kitchen, he had some sunflower seeds. As Rolf went looking for them, unbeknownst to him, white vans were parking in his driveway. People with bulky video cameras were entering through his side and back door, setting up their equipment on tripods. 

He found the sunflower seeds and added them to the basic salad in the bowl. He returned to the fridge, rummaging around before sighing in dismay; Rolf was out of salad dressing. But in that moment, he heard a voice behind him.

"Some dressing?" it asked, sounding smooth and cheap, like soybean oil.

Rolf turned and saw a figure dressed entirely in black, including a ski mask, which looked at him, head tipped slightly in curiosity. He saw that it held a plastic bottle in its hand, marked "Raunch Dressing". He did not notice the camera crew surrounding both of them at different angles.

He was too surprised to think clearly, too surprised to be afraid. "For my salad?" he asked.

The figure shook its head patiently. "For you."

The cameras got this and the ensuing action all in one take, and the film went on to earn high praise...in certain circles.

That's the smell of progress

Am I crazy, or would this be a hit? Maybe while I'm waiting for it to happen, I'll buy a book-scented candle (which I just checked and yes, they exist) to enhance my reading experience.

What you want most says a lot about you

Mental Health

After a lifetime of minor finds at obscure thrift shops, Harriet thought she had seen it all. But when she got home with her latest haul and began to clean the small, oriental lamp she had intended to resell, she was astonished to witness a genie emerging from it.

"Look at you, so lucky," the genie said with a voice like bored cigar smoke hanging in an unventilated room. "I'll grant your three greatest wishes, but here's the thing: I'm in a real hurry, so you have 60 seconds to make the wishes before I disappear. Starting...now."

And that was how Harriet discovered that she had never, in her entire life, actually known what she wanted. The genie seemed to find that very funny as he dissipated into apparent nothingness.

meanwhile...

Me all along

Making good things happen

"Wait. Maybe something good will happen to you, or to me?"

"...to both of us, maybe?"

"..."

"Can we please just try it and find out?"

Solving the human condition

What you mean to me

Mental Health

"Good enough," said the unenthused editor, whose every breath in and out was a feeble sigh. Every day, the bar for 'good enough' seemed to sink lower and lower, like the posture of the editor in the old office chair.

Your ideas, my ideas

Obey the Silver Rule

The conquest of the self

Mental Health

Ernest had not only talked himself out of his self-destructive self-loathing and hypercritical, self-defeating attitude. He was so far beyond his own brain that he had also thoroughly convinced himself to buy several bridges.

Sick reasoning, bro

Democratically elected lizard

Nutrients

Getting ahead of yourself

Experiential knowlege