Jeremiah's School of Levitation

Behold this product: The VibraExciter.


The photo should tell you all you need to know about what this thing is, but in case you have no imagination, this is a goddamned remote controlled vibrator. The company leaves it up to you as to where you "put" the business end, but they suggest that the user choose "their own erogenous spot" and in case you need guidance on where that might be, they add that "it is designed to be placed inside underwear".

However, the photo doesn't give the complete picture of how it's supposed to work.

You see, you can program it to "activate" when you receive a cell phone call, or text message, from anyone. In other words, you and your cell phone will "emit a tone" when you get a call. This, of course, extends the decidely primitive vibrate feature of the cell phone itself, which I'm not sure anyone has used for this purpose. If they have, though, using the VibraExciter instead is infinitely more avantageous as it doesn't place you in the annoying and potentially awkward situation of having to retrieve your cell phone from your underwear in order to answer it. (However, as a workaround in this case, if you don't have the VibraExciter and have indeed placed your cell phone in your underwear (I don't want to know you), you can just maneouver deftly to click the answer button and just speak into your zipper,... which, on second thought, is just as weird as pulling the phone out of your pants--but potentially funnier).

The VibraExciter is marketed to men and women and is considered a nice gift for your loved one to let them know you're thinking about them. Trouble here is that, as I mentioned, these things start shimmying with any phone call, including those that come in on a nearby cell phone. So, not only is it possible that anyone who has your cell phone number is the one lighting you up (yikes), but also, your paramour could also be a complete stranger. What's more frustrating is that you can't see that complete stranger who's giving you that anonymous love tap, so you will never know if the caller may actually be the one for you, considering the sensual and visceral way that they said "Hello, there." That is, unless you inquire about the caller to the stranger who recieved the phone call. Again, that's a potentially awkward situation, because it would be difficult to word that question.

The Good or Bad News is that the VibraExciter, once it's activated, will go on about your business for the entire duration of your phone call (or, for just 30 seconds if you get a text message). The Good or Bad News about the time limit is that you can manually stop it. You also have the option of just manually starting it, in case no one calls you anyway. Or, for added fun, you can just call yourself and fake a phone call while you're buzzing yourself, which would be nice to watch, if you're a girl, and if I could be so fucking lucky.

All I can really say, in conclusion, is "jeez"! Also, I can say that I do like an alternate idea for areas, like waiting rooms, that have banned the use of cell phones, but still have to deal with the arrogant "Surely They Don't Mean Me" crowd who still use their cell phones in these areas. The area supervisors could get some sort of turbo version of the VibraExciter that vibrates rapidly enough to turn glass back into sand and install that in the waiting room seats.

Of course, in that instance, it should be noted that it won't be any fun at all to then take down all the "No Cell Phones" signs, now would it?

They returned too late, apparently.

At the party, the wine flowed, then the music got snaky and the voices began to warp and warble. In the faces, they saw all sorts of smiles--smiles faked, smiles growing tired, smiles genuine, smiles infectious, smiles graceful and apropos, and smiles that were turning into something else. By the time the last wine bottle exhaled, the place was clearing, creaky, awkward adults who'd said too much to each other and probably had hugged so and so much longer than they should have. Wives gathered coats and husbands shook hands, made gestures, and said things about the playoffs. And, into the night, the slimy wet night. The sidewalk is so slick that it looks like a snail crawled over the whole neighborhood, she said. A giant snail. Got any salt? he said, and she laughed, and though it sounded like the rehearsed laughs from the party, he still thought that the night would end with lovemaking, a frantic twist in the mess of sheets.

But, they returned too late, and the babysitter had to be driven home and the kids, who had fallen asleep in the adult beds, had to go back in their beds, and the dog needed to go out. Hazy light in the refrigerator as he reached for the water. A beer winks at him. No more alcohol, he says, no more. Too much of that already.

Stinging eyes as they silently slide into bed, tired girl and restless guy. He hears the gentle wheeze of her inhalations. He lays there listening to her for a bit, then he gets up, angles himself downstairs to the kitchen. Hazy eyes looking in the refrigerator. He reaches for the water again.

This time, though, he takes the beer.

There's a hole in me today.

Hell visited three families in Richmond over the last 10 days. A recent killing spree, allegedly by two seperate groups of individuals, claimed the lives of 10 people there, all of them killed in their homes, at the cusp of a fresh, inviting new year. However, as sick as I was over all of them, I couldn't sleep when I heard what happened to the Harvey family, how sickenly invasive the whole episode was. How a human could inflict such wounds upon children, and walk away, run away, without not going directly to bury themselves in dung and slit their own throats. But, rather, keep walking, heads upright. The saddest thing I've done in years was to see the photo of the Harvey's two smiling young girls, Stella and Ruby, 9 years old and 4 years old, trusting and innocent faces, wide with the panorama of earth's possibilities, and think that somebody tore their bodies. How? How do you do that?

I did not sleep much the night I read about it all, about how someone trapped the family in their own home and killed them within their own sole source of security and privacy. When I did sleep, I dreamed I had a silent conversation with Bryan Harvey, alone, in the stillness of his basement, where he died. I had nothing to say to him. What can you say? I just watched him as he curled up on his bed and looked into the sun falling on his backyard. Silent. He was thinking it was all his fault, attempting to have a beautiful life. It hit me hard because, well, I'm just trying to do the same, in my own private realm, under a warm sun, and hopefully surrounded by friends every now and then, and I can stretch and yell and cry and tell obtuse jokes in my own home, in my own space, and think that I have left the horrors outside. I never think that they may want to get in and disrupt and destroy a life that has nothing at all to do with horror. Nothing at all. You don't have to live by the sword to die by it.

It was the single most haunting dream I've had in years.

I'd like to think that the world is bright, has its havens, and your own place to play your guitar, or, like Kathryn Harvey, a place that presents to you your own dreams, so that you can do something like open a toy store, and love life enough to call your store The World of Mirth, like Kathryn Harvey did, but still, still you are visited by hell. Still, as much as you give heart to life, there's always hell, always.