gone on holiday for a bit

there will be nothing new on here, probably, until May 5th (unless i am in an internet cafe or something).

early responses to 'Paul Simon'

responses to the 'Paul Simon's i sent in the post are now trickling in. here are some excerps:

"I read half and threw the other half away."

"What a crock of shit."

"How did you get my address?"

"Thanks very much."

"I gave it to my mum to read, and she read it out to me, and then we had dinner (sausage and mash -- yum!!)."

final day to get a free 'Paul Simon'

email if you live in the UK and want a free copy of 'Paul Simon'. if you live outside the UK i will email back the word doc. (or rtf. or whatever file you would like it in).

today is the final day to email your address and receive a free 'Paul Simon'. i will post the final post 'Paul Simon's tomorrow, probably about 'lunchtime'. after that i am going to give some to people in New York (i am going to New York for a week, starting this Saturday), and then when i come back, either give away the remaining copies or save them for future 'love of my life's. each time i meet a 'love of my life' i will give him/her the 'Paul Simon' and they will be awe-struck with my writing prowess and fall in love with me 4-5% more. it is a sure-fire method.

i don't know what i'm saying. i keep listening to the mastodon album 'leviathan' at the moment. it is about moby dick. it is gigantic metal. i feel like a teenager. here are the lyrics to 'blood and thunder' ("this ivory leg is what propels me / harpoons thrust in the sky / aim directly for his crooked brow / and look him straight in the eye / white whale - holy grail!").

join my band

if you want to join wig of blood, please post your name in the comments section and i will add you to the page and you will be a member of wig of blood.

thanks.

'extremely important' Paul Simon update

i posted some more 'Paul Simon's today. you should receive your 'Paul Simon' two days after emailing, as i'm posting them 2nd class. i think the first batch of 'Paul Simon's arrived today. i received a couple of nice emails, anyway. thanks.

this is the 'extremely important' update: i have about 24 'Paul Simon's left, but tomorrow is the last day to get a post 'Paul Simon'. if you live in the UK email me tomorrow and i will post you one. after that i am going on holiday and will just give away the rest of them.

ethan hawke

i made another wig of blood song today: ethan hawke, circa 1996.

(i used the miniature keyboard, soundforge, and acid 4.0.)

facebook

i just deleted my facebook account. if you were my facebook friend: sorry, it's nothing personal. if we were halfway through a game of scrabble and you were winning and excited about it: sorry, maybe we could have a game 'IRL'? (i learned that piece of 'internet jargon' yesterday.)

also, nothing to do with facebook, i think this is a really good idea. i left a message.

Paul Simon update

i posted twelve 'Paul Simon's today. if you emailed yesterday, your 'Paul Simon' is in the post (second class, so i guess maybe Wednesday?). there are a remaining 34 'Paul Simon's. i will post you one if you live in the UK. just email me your address. if you live outside the UK, email me and i'll send you the word doc.

i really liked looking at the things in this short film:

the five obstructions

i was still awake late at night and chatted on gmail chat with Brandon Scott Gorrell. we decided to do something a bit like 'The Five Obstructions'. we decided to each write a story, following five rules. we each had 1 hour to write the story. i had to write my story by 2:45am. we emailed rules to each other. i emailed 5 rules to Brandon. Brandon emailed five rules to me. to see the five rules i emailed Brandon and the story he wrote, click here the five rules Brandon emailed back to me were:

1. it must take place in an underground, maze-like network of caves
2. the sentence 'WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WHILE WE GMAIL CHATTED' must appear at least once in the story, 'logically.' and it has to be in caps.
3. a character must burn to death from getting a molotov cocktail thrown into their face
4. you must fit the lyrics to a popular paul simon song into the story, logically
5. the first line of every paragraph needs to be a haiku, if you were to break it up into three parts. the parts where you would normally put line breaks, you have to put commas. this includes 'paragraphs' that are just like a line of dialogue.

here is my story, following those rules:

We have not had sex, I feel worried about her, and slightly awkward. She is taking all the things out of the bin and putting them on the floor. This is only the second time we’ve met. She is taking a piece of crisp out of her mouth and putting it on the floor. We stayed in my flat and drank whiskey. Now I think we should have gone out and looked at things. She is the same amount drunk as me – we drank exactly the same amount of drinks – but somehow she’s way more drunk. She seems dangerous. She seems like she wants to make me squirm for some reason. She’s saying reckless things, I think, to either try to hurt me or ‘break up’ with me, even though this is only the second time I’ve met her ‘IRL’ and really I shouldn’t be thinking of things in terms of a ‘relationship’, anyway. I went to go visit her once. Now she’s here. Before that, we only spoke on the internet. But we have chatted on the internet more than I’ve ever talked with a girlfriend in real life. I’m thinking, ‘Just don’t say anything, in the morning she will be okay.’

‘I’m in love with him, I want to be with him now, I don’t love you now,’ she says, sitting on the floor, trying to set fire to her leg with my lighter.

I am underground, a maze-like network of her, some kind of terrible joke. She is talking about her American ex-boyfriend, which up until now I’ve not really heard of, because she has only mentioned him in passing and I have looked at his band’s myspace page. He sounds amazing. I don’t know what’s happened. We had things to say when we didn’t know each other in person, when we lived in different cites. I put the album ‘Graceland’ by Paul Simon on. She says, ‘What the fuck is this?’ and I say ‘Graceland’, wanting to turn it off but thinking, ‘I should leave it on or I will seem weak.’ She is strange. She is here in my living room, and I have wanted her to be here for maybe a year and a half, and now the best thing I can think of is for her to leave. I feel ridiculous. I feel over the top. ‘I don’t want to end up like a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard,’ I think. ‘You Can Call Me Al’ is playing. I feel stupid for thinking something simultaneously to a Paul Simon album.

We met on facebook, we thought we had things to say, she said I was sweet

Now she’s here with me, she’s come to stay in my flat, and I feel confused. She‘s doing something with the bottle of whiskey and a bit of tissue.

She’s looks at me odd, lighting the lighter badly, touching it to the tissue. ‘WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WHILE WE GMAIL CHATTED?’ she shouts at me.

‘What are you saying, please don’t throw that thing at me, who the fuck are you?’ I say.

She looks really pissed, like she might try to kill me, I am in a dream. She is holding the bottle and lighting the bit of tissue and aiming it at my face. ‘I WAS IN ANOTHER RELATIONSHIP,’ she shouts at me. ‘YOU CHEATING BASTARD,’ she shouts. ‘I AM IN LOVE WITH AN AMERICAN MAN,’ she shouts. ‘I WANT TO DESTROY YOU,’ she shouts. She is looking at my penis. ‘Not my penis,’ I think. ‘Please, not my penis.

She throws the bottle, it smashes on my penis, I go up in flames.

afterwards, we sent emails criticising the stories. here is the email Brandon sent me:

chris, you have broken a number of my rules for you. my rule was for the story to be in a cave. your story was in your flat. or is your flat in an underground network of caves? maybe i am wrong. but i think you broke that rule.

you broke the haiku rule, but you didn't mean to. the paragraph starting with "I am underground, a maze-like network of her, some kind of terrible joke" is 5-7-7. a haiku is 5-7-5. i think all the other ones were correct. this is not necessarily like 'breaking a rule', because you tried to abide by it, but if i was a government office and you were filling out a welfare application or something, and you messed up filling out the form, i would tell you that you needed to do it again. that it hadn't mattered if you tried. that you did it wrong.

i liked how you did the 'WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WHILE WE GMAIL CHATTED' rule.

i think you followed the paul simon lyric rule. i don't know any paul simon lyrics. i am assuming that 'I don't want to end up like a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard' is a paul simon lyric.

you broke the molotov cocktail rule. the rule was for it to hit someone's face. it hit your penis.

Paul Simon promo

i just made a promo for my short book 'Paul Simon' (see post below). i am eating toast in it, which is why my mouth moves around strangely a couple of times.

Paul Simon

i wrote a small ten-part thing today called 'Paul Simon'. i posted it on here, but took it down again. i have made it into an A5-sized little book. the book is fourteen pages long. four or five of those pages are blank. it is just over 3,000 words long. i am going to print 50 copies. if you live in the UK and would like a copy of 'Paul Simon' please email me with your address and i'll post you one. if you live outside the UK and would like to read it, email me and i'll send you the word document. if you click on the photos, they get bigger. if you click on the second photo you can read parts #2 and #3 of Paul Simon.



update: 41 print copies left.

despondency

[reposted from two posts down, and here, here, here and here:]

I am wiped out and tired. It has been one of those long days at home that I hate. There has been raining and sleeting. The patterns are squashed against my windows. One of those long days at home and alone that I hate. There is very little light now in my flat; my sofa feels dull, it supports my wait. There is no sound in my flat. I am feeling just awful. My nose is running. I hear a noise that sounds like a scratching. In the corner of my floor there is a black garden beetle. Why is it in my flat? My flat is on the sixth floor of a building. There are no gardens anywhere near my flat. The beetle is very big for a beetle, I have never seen a beetle as big as this beetle. Its back is shining. I feel as though the beetle is going to start speaking to me any second. One second later the beetle starts to speak to me. It has a high pitched voice and is terrifying. It says, "You are boring. Why are you so boring, little man? You have never done anything that is worthwhile. You are a lazy and fat little man of no worth." The beetle is right. That is one clever beetle. "You don't have any hope. I hate you little man. Nothing you do has ever been good. Why don't you say something back to me little man?" The beetle's words are seriously hurting my feelings. I feel animosity towards the beetle. I look at the window and the rain, and the grey light. "Waster. You are a waster." I tread on the beetle and sit back down.

small blog post that turned into a large blog post; posted 'recklessly', not even drunk (but still something i'll probably wake up & regret tomorrow)

there is nothing happening on the internet.
i wanted to write a poem.
i wanted to write this.
i am going to go to New York soon.
i have nothing to complain about.
i feel like a dreadful waste of time.
i feel like a humourless literary novel by a sixty-year-old male writer from America.
i feel like a complete and dreadful waste of time.
i feel like a packet of salt and vinegar crisps.
i feel like a complete and dreadful waste of a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, sixty years old, somewhere in America.
something spilt onto a wood floor, onto sawdust and trodden in.
i am going to write my next novel as if i was a sixty-year-old male writer from America and send an excerpt of it to the New Yorker.
i am going to go into the bathroom and wish my sixty-year-old American penis was working better.
i am going to 'specialise' in something so dull but 'relevant' that people will queue up outside my house.
they will be holding things, outside my house.
i will put my hand through the letterbox and they will put the things in my hand.
the things will be:
copies of Vogue (the smaller version), hundred dollar bills, 3D plasticine models of facebook, terrifyingly realistic plaster-casts of their 'reproductive organs', letters to their grandmas, and sometimes just things picked up off the pavement in panic (cigarette ends, bits of greyed chewing gum, etc.) because they had been queuing so 'hard' that they only realise at the front of the queue that you are supposed to be offering something to the hand that is extending out of the letterbox.
put some cigarette ends in the hand.
fold the fingers of the hand over the cigarette ends and run away.
go home and catch the end of Home & Away because you do not have to go to work today, and can do anything you want.
start a book from the library.
read four pages, 'listlessly', and then talk shit about it at the pub.
attach an ipod shuffle to your arm and go jogging next to the sea wall.
make a sandwich.
go on.
make a hummus and spinach sandwich.
stand in a room.
eat a packet of crisps, with 'extreme panache'.
i am going to eat a packet of crisps 'so hard' tomorrow that it will make a 'cosmic dent' in the 'collective psyche'.
everything will weep.
all things will contort into silly, pre-pubescent shapes, like a gigantic version of a playgroup.
my own face will becomee a thing unrecognisable to me.
it will be a person seen on the bus somewhere, and i will feel glad that i am not that person.
it will be a thing with crisps in its mouth.
salt and vinegar flavour.
tom cruise.
ethan hawke, circa 1996.
my legs at school.
your face remembered, 100X, and smiling.
two squirrels.
a pigeon.
the flex off a mini kettle.
my entire life, chewed up and shitted out.
please sleep in my bed and then wake up in the morning and write me a letter and post the letter to me and then go to sleep in my bed again and then wake up the next morning and go to the front door and fetch the post and get back into bed and read the letter to me.
please make an unrecognisable hand gesture at me from behind a frosted glass partition, and then make me feel like an idiot for not understanding what you were trying to communicate.
please lie about the food.
please touch me in places on my body.
please stop the war in palestine.
please tell father christmas what i want next year, December 25th (a tiny kitten, dressed up like this).
etc.

despondency

[reposted from Chicken and Pies by Socrates Adams-Florou:]

I am wiped out and tired. It has been one of those long days at home that I hate. There has been raining and sleeting. The patterns are squashed against my windows. One of those long days at home and alone that I hate. There is very little light now in my flat; my sofa feels dull, it supports my wait. There is no sound in my flat. I am feeling just awful. My nose is running. I hear a noise that sounds like a scratching. In the corner of my floor there is a black garden beetle. Why is it in my flat? My flat is on the sixth floor of a building. There are no gardens anywhere near my flat. The beetle is very big for a beetle, I have never seen a beetle as big as this beetle. Its back is shining. I feel as though the beetle is going to start speaking to me any second. One second later the beetle starts to speak to me. It has a high pitched voice and is terrifying. It says, "You are boring. Why are you so boring, little man? You have never done anything that is worthwhile. You are a lazy and fat little man of no worth." The beetle is right. That is one clever beetle. "You don't have any hope. I hate you little man. Nothing you do has ever been good. Why don't you say something back to me little man?" The beetle's words are seriously hurting my feelings. I feel animosity towards the beetle. I look at the window and the rain, and the grey light. "Waster. You are a waster." I tread on the beetle and sit back down.

FLUX magazine + armwrestling + Hamsun article

i went to London. i found a copy of FLUX magazine in a Borders. here is a picture of it:


i have a story in it. here is a picture of my story:


i just found that they've also posted it on their website. click here to read the story.

i went to London for a Canongate party. it was fun. i met some nice people. i got a bit drunk and 'humourously' challenged Geoff Dyer to an arm wrestle. good lord. thankfully, Geoff Dyer was very polite and didn't take me up on the offer. i met some of my foreign editors, too.

The Bird Room will now be published in Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands.

Canongate have updated their website. i have an article on the new website about how i think Knut Hamsun is a funny writer. you can comment and vote on the article. i don't know exactly what the voting does, but please vote on the article. (maybe i will win a small prize or something, like an easter egg or a pen.)

new story

i have a short story in the new issue of FLUX magazine, which has just come out. i haven't seen a copy yet. i am quite pleased with the story, though. i think you can find FLUX in whsmith's and borders and places like that. they also sell it in the Cornerhouse in manchester.

you, the living

holy cow. i saw a film called You, the Living tonight at the Cornerhouse. it was about 100x better than i thought it was going to be. i really, really, really liked it. i still feel excited thinking about it. i want to phone certain people up and tell them to go and see it before it finishes (this Thursday).

critical essay + competition winners

a person called Kemel Zaldivar has written a long critical thing about my story in the new Lamination Colony. it's a long, 'proper' essay. i kept scrolling down and seeing that there was something written about my story, but forced myself to read up to it, feeling scared -- as it felt like it could 'go either way'. i wasn't sure if he would like or dislike my story. i read up to the bit where he wrote about my story, 'steeling myself' in case it was awful ...

see for yourself what he wrote.

also, there are three 'winners' of the competition below. entries are now closed.

please post things to:

Amanda Pants,
123 Butthole Road
Penisville, Pennsylvania
FartFartFartFartFArt
USA!

Emily McPhillips,
10 Scarisbrick Ave
Didsbury
Manchester
M20 6EU

and

Tao Lin,
228 montrose avenue, #3
brooklyn, ny
11206
USA

i think Emily said she doesn't want anything 'awful'. maybe if you have a small magazine you make or something or a CD or a strange postcard or something you could post it to her. i think Tao Lin would like books. and if you have some 'overwhelming' urge to send something 'awful' in the post, like an old sock or a dead animal or whatever, please send it to the fake address Amanda has supplied.

enter the competition

i changed the bird room site a bit -- the short excerpts have changed (sometimes imperceptibly) and now 100% reflect the final final draft version of the novel. i'm pretty sure, though, that even if you've been on the website more than once and read the excerpts, you could probably still read them again and not notice any difference whatsoever.

i'm going to run a competition. i just decided as i was typing this. it is probably a bad idea. the competition is: if anybody is able to spot any kind of difference on the website, email me or mention it in the comments section, and i will post you something. i don't know what yet. you will also gain status as my '#1 fan'.

i am changing the competition. i just thought about the competition. it is disgusting. sorry. the new competition is: write something in the comments section. write your address in the comments section. the first three people to write their addresses in the comments section will get things in the post.

i am changing the competition again. this will be the last time the competition changes, i promise. i had another 'good idea' (which is probably terrible). the new competition is this:

be the first person to read this post all the way through, and get to here, and then to type your address in the comments section. i will send you something in the post, and encourage everyone who reads this in a further post to also send you things in the post. i am sure maybe one other person apart from myself will send you something in the post. it will be nice. i'm sure no one will send you anything terrible. the only 'criteria' is that you don't mind me putting your address on a future post on my blog. okay. that is the new competition. good luck.

new story

i have a story as part of the new Lamination Colony. i am excited to be associated. it looks really good. it wasn't working earlier -- it wouldn't connect to the page for some reason -- so i haven't had much of a chance yet to look at things, but what i've looked at looks really good. i think if i was going to do an online magazine i would aspire to do something a bit like Lamination Colony. there is also a mixtape/audio/download thing to accompany it, and it has two songs i really like on it ('Feather of Forgiveness' by Polvo and 'Reprobate's Resume' by Les Savy Fav) which makes me want to email Blake Butler excitedly and tell him that i like those two songs a lot and try and become best internet friends with him.

disco dancing

everybody loves disco dancing:

new wig of blood song

there is a new wig of blood song up: i like raymond carver.

it is quite quiet. i can't do anything much about that, except suggest that you turn up the sound on your headphones or pc or whatever.

it has 'guest vocals' on the 'chorus' from Vim Cortez who edits the Paris Bitter Hearts Pit. thanks, Vim.

it is a rap song, kind of.

the lyrics are here.

i did the music on this miniature keyboard, and recorded it using the free program 'audacity'.

recording of me reading a short story

about a month ago, i read a short story at the Cornerhouse to promote this anthology. the comma people recorded the readings and put them up on the website. i had a listen to the recording of me reading my story and felt dreadful -- i sounded very strange and terrible, due i think to too many drinks and other 'strange' factors.

i really felt quite awful about it.

so i recorded a new version in my room last week and now that version is up on the website instead. i feel much better now. click here and follow the link if you would like to hear the new recording of me reading my short story 'blue + yellow'.

the story is an 'old one' (maybe two years?) but i'm still quite happy with it.

two 'failed' email love affairs:

a while ago the miniature plastic horse made a plea for emails. people have been emailing. the miniature plastic horse has now had two 'failed' email love affairs 'under his belt'.

here is 'failed' email love affair #1:

March 15^th

i heart to me

Dear Mister Miniature Plastic Horse,

I've been thinking about you a lot, Mister Miniature Plastic Horse. I think you are the handsomist Miniature Plastic Horse I've ever seen.
I want to write you a poem, but I am afraid that you might laugh.
I am shy, Mister Miniature Plastic Horse.
I hope one day I will over come my shyness and meet you and perhaps we will fall in love with each other.

My shoe size is a six. I hope that this shoe size isn't too small and isn't too big for you.
I hope it is 'just right'.

Bye
(Please write to me soon)

Love from
'a secret admirer of Mister Miniature Plastic Horse'

March 16^th:

miniature horse to i

Dear "ASAOMPH",

thank you for your email.

i don't know how to take compliments.

i felt like a soft breeze was blowing over me as i read your email. then the email was over. i read it again, but the breeze wasn't there the second time. i don't know what that means.

i would like you to write me a poem. please send me a poem.

i am shy too. sometimes i wish i was wearing clothes.

size six does sound 'just right' to me.

i am not sure if we will meet. i don't get out much.

your friend,

Miniature Plastic Horse

March 16th:

i heart to me

I'm glad you don't mind me sending you a poem Mister Miniature Plastic Horse, no one has ever said that sending a poem was OK. No one has ever said that my size six feet were 'just right' either. Maybe my poem will change that. I hope not. You seem like a really understanding miniature plastic horse - the nice kind.

Anyway, it's sort of an ode. Sort of one that is to you but is also to me, which I think will be OK because I don't think you're the type of horse that would want so much 'focus' on yourself. So that's why it's about you and me - but not about 'you and me'.


I made myself small once to see
What it was like to be
Small.

I couldn't see over the bus seat
And the only way I could to touch the floor was with the tips of my
toes.

My favourite fruit are bananas and those large orange you have at half time on the football pitch.
It made them particularly hard to
eat.

I soon missed being bigger though I liked being able to
sneak under doors and listen to clandestine conversations but really I grew
bored.

But when I tried to make myself big again
With the magic 'reversing' spell I'd bought from an old man at B&Q it didn't
work.

So I stayed small.
And now I'm a small (but not quite miniature) stuffed felt clown with size six
shoes.

(the end)


It's also a poem that's a confession as well as an ode because my size six shoes are really big and I fall over a lot and I think you should know that before we carry on our correspondence. Stairs are particularly hard to navigate. I have a bungalow now. With really low work surfaces. I make a really good chilli con carne. My knives and forks are small too. I got them from Fisher Price in a clear out

Anyway, Mister Miniature Plastic Horse thank you for reading my poem. If you do ever 'get out' then you can come over for tea - I have a lovely tea set from the Just Like Home range from Toys R Us (http://www.toysrus.co.uk/Category.aspx/TruOrFindUsing/TruAZOfBrands/TruLearningJustLikeHome)
I'm quite practical like that and thought you may have problems making tea as well. I think the kettle they sell is fantastic but I wouldn't recommend the vegetables. They're made from plastic but you don't find that out until they've been delivered and you've spent ages getting them out of the box and you've got some butter and garlic frying in the pan.

Anyway, bye

Love from

The small (but not quite miniature) stuffed felt clown with size six
shoes
(Formerly 'a secret admirer of Mister Miniature Plastic Horse' - though I add that the admiration hasn't ever gone away, it's just that you know I'm a clown now. That's the only thing that's changed).

March 18th:

miniature horse to i

Dear TS(BNQM)SFCWSSS,

thank you so much for the poem. i felt 'empathy' and 'excitement' and 'sadness' and then 'excitement' again.

i would like to send you a poem back, but i don't think i can write poems. i just found that out. i had never tried before. the poem i just tried to write went:

horse
horse
horse
horse
horse

i feel shy about it. i don't think it will 'win any prizes'.

if i ever get out, yes, the tea set looks good. will those little girls be there too?

i don't mind that you are a stuffed clown. are the size six shoes adult or children's size six?

what do you do all day? recently i have been feeling paranoia about this. people have been emailing me and asking what i 'do all day' and i feel strange about telling them that most of the time i just stand on top of a speaker next to a computer and look over at the bed. sometimes i am knocked off the speaker and lay on my side until i am put back on the speaker again. one time i fell behind the desk for a few days and was forgotten about. those were 'dark days'.

your friend,

Miniature Plastic Horse

[then nothing for 17 days …]

here is 'failed' email love affair #2:

March 29^th:

Miniature Plastic-Jockey to me

I am real. I have been looking for so long. For you. Will you let me? Could we? I hope to find you one day. I can't stop hoping that you are real.

Please be real. Here is a picture of me to treasure.

March 31st:

miniature horse to Miniature

Dear Miniature Plastic Jockey,

i feel terribly excited. i think we 'could'. i don't know.

i feel a bit 'guarded' too. i am real. i am definitely real. are you real?

could you send me another picture of yourself, maybe next to today's newspaper or something?

also, are you a man or a lady? (i couldn't quite tell from the picture)

i look forward to your reply,

Miniature Plastic Horse

March 31^st:

Miniature Plastic-Jockey to me

Dear Miniature Plastic Horse,
I am a woman, I hope that this isn't a problem. I am real. I will send you a picture of me next to today's paper. That will be tomorrow - I hope that's not a problem. Where are your stables? I have a saddle, if you are looking to "mix things up" a bit.
Your love,
Miniature Plastic Jockey

April 1^st:

miniature horse to Miniature

Dear Miniature Plastic Jockey,

i am 'forward thinking' -- women jockeys are 'just fine' with me.

i don't have stables. i usually just stand on top of a speaker next to a computer. do you know of any miniature plastic stables anywhere?

the saddle sounds good. would you include a photo of the saddle, too?

i feel so excited right now.

i hope this isn't some kind of april fool's joke or something.

'neigh',

Miniature Plastic Horse

[then nothing for three days …]

[note: this one might still be 'pending'. the miniature plastic horse might just be being impatient. but in his mind the email love affair is now 'over'.]