electric snowflake

Some dread from yesterday must have carried over and I'm dragging my feet. It isn't that my desk chair isn't comfortable, rather that a skullplate lowers from the ceiling and an invisible mediocre hand starts tightening the nonprofit screws into my skull. One way to describe my role would be that of a fat guy riding a bike in a snow globe. Another would be of the same guy trapped in a nagging loop of sell and explain, sell and explain, the same guy selling used cars that turn out to be concept papers for really amazing cars that (if used) would transform society, the guy selling used cars that run with amazing speed and grace but require uranium-235 for fuel, the same guy selling used cars to be driven only by the extremely poor; the cars get 2 miles per gallon and travel 2 miles an hour and the rich gather to praise themselves for providing the deserving poor with such elegant means of transportation.

Story of a new parent: He had work early today but last night his daughter was fussing, she wouldn’t fall asleep. He’d been charged with the task and he couldn’t figure out how to sit her just right so she’d sleep. She clearly wanted to but she’d been out of all day, he said, and she was just fussing. He tried setting her lying face forward, then held face up in the crook of his arm, then curled in variations between the two. It was maybe a half hour now, or an hour. It hadn’t been smart to keep her out all day. Now was time to pay for it. He kept trying different positions. Usually they could find a way to click if he just paid attention. Finally she let out a solid fart, almost like the fart of a grown person, and fell asleep.

As far as I can tell no one has yet invented an emoticon for snowflake, for an electric snowflake. It would be pretty. The flakes could sprinkle out beyond the browser or Word window in which they were typed, wending a wind-blown path, hitting the bottom of the screen and melting at first, then finally accumulating and drifting there. When enough had stuck, you could click with the mouse to gather it in piles, for throwing, or sculpting, or building.