a)
Take tango lessons.
b)
Eat a polish sausage.
c)
Pick someone else’s nose with oversized pliers.
d)
Pee in a glass half full of water.
Which statement do you feel is most true about eating a hotdog?
a)
It takes too long to accomplish.
b)
It is a heartbreaking task.
c)
It gives you greasy thighs.
d)
It tastes nothing like a hotdog.
What you you associate with the phrase “pocket diversions”?
a)
The letter P of the letter V.
b)
Collapse and survival.
c)
A handmade, handsomely bound 4½” x 7”? book of epitaphs.
d)
A roadmap to Hell.
How do you feel about the sex act?
a)
It is overrated.
b)
It is undervalued.
c)
It is like picking someone else’s nose with a kielbasa.
d)
It is necessarily complicated.
Which image is closest to the first image that comes to mind in picturing
your significant other fornicating with a person other than yourself?
a)
An agitated bag of fish and chips.
b)
A white stallion with purpled, flared nostrils.
c)
Your mother stuffing an impossibly small kielbasa.
d)
A used toothpick.
How many slices of bread reside in a standard-issue loaf?
a)
22.
b)
11.
c)
Depends on the size of the rolling pin.
d)
What the fuck is this?
Which kind of strategy do you prefer in times of war?
a)
Lemonade stand-offish.
b)
Hospital duplicity.
c)
Electric Amish.
d)
Fashion.
How do you feel right now?
a)
Gypped, but in good stead in the eyes of the law.
b)
Stymied, frazzled, and gaseous.
c)
Like a conscientious objector in the battle of the sexes.
d)
Hyper-gendered and old.
BRILLIANT: Sharp or dull, often liable, the speaking likeness of a pain or wound. The imitation of cranes, something that draws a new red line or illustrates the unwillingness to budge formally or fashionably.
ENIGMA: The game of games, something misunderstood, ill-understood, or not understandable, but engaged in nevertheless like mourning morning. A mistake made like a knot for someone else to undo.
GARDEN: A place for sinners in the holy city. A kiss swollen shut, a heavy door that crushes a left foot, a space in which to hide a ridiculous paranoia, panic, or pair of cold feet.
LOOP: The impossibility of guessing how many pebbles fill the washed-out grape jelly jar. Looking outside for a guarantee, a last-minute hook-up, a last stay against the forces of wish evaporation.
PASSPORT: To travel on a divan, lying down, watching the land, people, cities, and ruins passing by. Low energies wiped across large distances for the purpose of identification and, if necessary, intercourse.
RESTRAINT: Cross-hatched salt grass, mettle of nettles, metal against metal, how to open a strongbox, how to play with a thimble. A pressure put upon a single moment, a way of loving that moment too much or not ever enough.
TOMATO: Smaller than a watermellon, larger than an olive, the color of fresh blood: the mitochondria of the salad. Strong, carnal, the right red in tender. The tin can kind permissible in a pinch. In house wars, the object thrown or un-thrown or simply resting on the kitchen table waiting to be consumed at any cost.
UNCERTAINTY: A heavenly manna transformed into a mantra: "Zero is my hero."
VARIATION: A pattern of alternating currents especially the type zapped through a hand glazed with cloudy bath water. The vibration between chill and crunch, maintained by a lot of pleading. A fatal while.
WALK: A path of undetermined length and stride ending in a make-up, a fight, or a draw. Never neutral, always inviolable, always in the way of something else of equal importance, e.g. sitting, sipping tea, screwing, screaming.
YOGURT: The color of fair confidence, akin to free ice cream during a depression. A semi-solid food, soured but succulent, often enhanced unnecessarily with honey, fruit, or spices.
barchan: n. a sand dune formed in the shape of a crescent, with the ends pointing away from the direction of the wind.
blue-sky law: n. a security law protecting citizens from fly-by-night schemes, which have no more basis than so many feet of blue sky.
decahedron: n. a solid with 10 faces.
ébauche: n. a basic watch movement made without jewels, case, etc.
ensilage: n. fodder stored in a silo.
festina lente: Latin. make haste slowly.
hexarchy: n. a group of six states, each with its own ruler.
interdigitate: n. to interlock, like the fingers of both hands when clasped.
isopag: n. a line on a map linking all points where winter ice exists at approximately the same time.
leishmaniasis: n. infection by a certain flagellate protozoan.
microelectrophoresis: n. a technique used in chemistry for examining under a microscope the migration of minute surface particles under the influence of an electric field.
ossicle: n. a small bone.
pseudoparalysis: n. a state which is not true paralysis but in which a person is unable to move a part of the body because of pain, shock, etc.
pteridology: n. the scientific study of ferns, horsetails, clubmosses, etc.
raphe: n., pl. a seam-like joining between two halves of an organ, as of the tongue.
retrobular: adj. behind the eyeball.
runcible spoon: n. a sharp-edged fork with three broad curved prongs.
sic transit gloria mundi: Latin. thus passes away earthly glory.
seta: n. a bristle or bristle-like process.
sextan: adj. of a fever recurring every fifth day.
test-ban: n. an agreement between nations not to test nuclear weapons or to test them only under certain prescribed conditions.
thaumatrope: n. a card with a different picture on each side, which when rotated swiftly causes the two pictures to appear combined as one.
wurst: n. sausage, esp. in combination as liverwurst, bratwurst.
yegg: n. (in colloquial usage) a traveling petty burglar; a vicious ruffian.
yellow-dog contract: n. a contract by which an employer agrees to employ a worker who in return agrees to leave or remain outside a union.
zarf: n. a decorative, usually metal, holder used in the Levant for handling coffee cups made without handles.
zugzwang: n. a situation in a game of chess where all the moves open to one player will cause damage to that player’s position.