Dominiq and his Friend

Dominiq carved a monkey out of foam and ran a wire up its butt. The other end of the wire was concealed in his pocket, so that when he he gave it a small tug, the monkey would nod its head.

Through practice, the monkey gained a range of emotions, beginning with nagreement, then adding affection, hunger, and rabidity. Dominiq wore the monkey on his shoulder when he went to clubs, so he say to the women there, "Excuse me, I can't get my monkey to eat anything. Do you think you could try?"

When the women did, they would have a conversation. When the didn't, Dominiq would build a cage out of their bones.

You could claim that he was a masoginist serial killer and ought to be locked away, yes. But among the serial kilelr community, he was a man who cared deeply for his puppets and a genius at buildig cages while wasting no part of the victim. He was more efficient than the American Indians when it came to waste not, want not.

When Dominiq went to jail, he was given lethal injection. The monkey was placed in a cardboard box with handles cut into the side, and remains in police evidence to this day, thereby depriving the world of a really cool monkey puppet with an intriguing back story.

Sprinkles

Sprinkles the Cat had fuzzy white hair, an adventurous spirit, and an owner named Janie.

Janie's dad collected Cracker Jack toys. He had a vast menagerie of tinted magnifying glasses, penny whistles, and little rubber lizards. But the most prized toy of all was the engagement ring he'd given his wife. ten days after the accident, he visited her in the hospital bed and removed it from her comatose hand.

When her body finally died, ten years after her brain, he placed that ring in a glass case that he kept in her sewing room.

Therefore, the vet's words, "Sprinkles will probably pass it in a week," were a great relief to him.

New Watch

I have a brand new watch in my pocket. I'm not keeping it on my wrist.

A bit of backstory (cue video montage reel):

I had the same watch from ages 15 to 23. I replaced the band several times. Once, I broke a small edge off of it and repaired the job with superglue. It was a shoddy job, and dried glue remained on the watch for the rest of our time together. Still, I was proud of that dried glue; it was something I had done to help my watch.

The watch was perfect. it was digital (which was a drawback, but not when I was 15), had a leather/cloth band, and was the perfect size for my skinny girl wrists, without actually being a girl's wrist watch.

Then, one week before I left for my internship with Good Morning America, I was wrestling with my nephew. He grappled for my wrist, found my watch, and tore it off. The part where the band attached--that I had glued years earlier--had been shattered.

I was devastated.

Searching for some significance, I told myself the breaking of the watch was a symbolic act, a breaking of my old life in Ohio. I carried the watch around in my pocket, and lost it shortly after I arrived in New York City.

But my old life in Ohio was not broken. I moved back home, and stayed long enough to have my heart broken and take time off to be depressed.

Now I'm working as a summer camp counselor. I have to be a time clock for the kids, telling them when to wake up, eat, and sleep. And I don't have a watch. I'm constantly asking, 'Got the time?" and tapping my wrist. I have a bruise there.

We (that is, me and a car full of Austrailians and Kiwis high on being out of camp) make a midnight trip to Wal-Mart. The watches there are great, because they are only 6 dollars. But I kept looking at them, missing my old watch. I settled on one that is not too big, because I have tiny baby wrists, but also not a woman's timepiece.

It still doesn't feel right. It feels, somehow, like I'm cheationg on my old watch. So it stays in my pocket, and I pull it out when I need to know the time. But its weight is just as obvious next to my thigh as it would be strapped to my wrist.