July 18, 2009 9:21 p.m.

Light up and breathe deeply. You are smelling the residue of my last fifteen minutes.

There are, according to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. They are not necessarily experienced in order, and not everyone goes through every stage. When I quit smoking four weeks ago, I skipped the first three stages and went straight to depression. Real, genuine depression. In the interest of full disclosure, I was also reading Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" that week, a combination that in hindsight was not a cocktail for emotional contentment.

And now I've found a new stage, one which hasn't made the textbooks yet. It's the one you learned from your parents.

I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed.

July 15, 2009 9:17 p.m.

Peeling back the rind to find a juicy center. My last fifteen minutes.

Tonight I began systematically purchasing fruit in a futile effort to stave off my inevitable demise. The fruit has been acquired with the intent of consumption, kind of like when you bought that Nautilus Bowflex machine with the intention of getting back into shape. Now it sits in your rec room room, mocking you, and performing admirably as a constant reminder that even your most modest aspirations are apparently unattainable.

I have the same relationship with fruit. For example, I just purchased more grapes than I have ever consumed previously over the course of my life, which is equivalent (in weight) to approximately one and a half pounds. This is not an exaggeration. And when faced with my failure, and the fact that I don't really (as it turns out) like grapes that much, I will bring them to work where frankly anything could happen to them. My wife thinks I'm being healthy, and I don't have to process the silent mockery of a bag of grapes on a daily basis. Everybody wins. Try doing that with a Nautilus.

Not that all of my exposure to fruit have been unpleasant. Some of my favorite fruit related experiences:

Orange juice
A slice of lime in my gin and tonic
The poem "This Is Just To Say" by William Carlos Williams
Watermelon Bubble Yum


This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

--William Carlos Williams

This Is Just My Dinner

I have eaten
several tacos
that I found in a
Mexican restaurant
near our house

although I purchased
grapes and told you
earlier
that I would eat them
for dinner

Forgive me
they were delicious
so warm
and so crunchy

--Jack Altmiller

July 13, 2009 10:09 p.m.

Shifting gears as I approach the onramp to the information superhighway. Destination: my last fifteen minutes.

I am pondering whether material possessions can truly bring emotional fulfillment. Whether felicity can be bound to computer chips and LCD screens. It has been said that money cannot buy happiness, but that it can buy a better brand of sadness. And I am all about brand loyalty. So, behold the technological poetry that is the LG enV. Humble yet confident, its reach never exceeds its grasp. A numerical face before an alphabetical heart.

This new addition to family follows on the heels of the loss of the bad seed that was the Verizon Trio. A gift from my partner that became a curse upon all of our houses.

Can a cell phone be evil? Good question. The answer is yes. Those who knew me in the dark days of early 2009 have heard of my deep and abiding hatred of this malevolent tool. So poisonous that it was not safe to allow it near any other electrical devices. Its poor design and difficulty of use was complimented by its tendency to call random individuals (seemingly at its own whim) and to cease working entirely for reasons known only to its own black heart, and (perhaps) its diabolical creators. If the phone performed the task you intended, you could be certain that it was only the result of coincidence. Hatred is a strong word. It is appropriate here.

The facts. Yes, I did fantasize about the violent death of this device. I did suggest that I would set about to killing the phone, while making it appear to be an accident, or perhaps even a suicide. But I am innocent in its disappearance, which occurred while hiking in the wilderness of northern Westchester County. In the real world, that phone could hold a charge for no more than eight hours; it sucked more power than a small village. In the woods, it probably wouldn't have lasted until dusk without a charger. Search parties were not deployed.

Back home, they informed me that the machine was insured. Really? Yes, we can send you a new phone in a few days. The same phone? Yes. The same model? Yes, it won't cost you anything. No thanks, I'd rather spend the two hundred dollars to own a phone that doesn't suck so badly that I've had detailed hallucinations about what it would like if it was on fire. Shhh. The nightmare is over.

I am released.

June 10, 2009 4:24 p.m.

Relax. You are feeling very sleepy. And now, my last fifteen minutes.

Bob Slydell: You see, what we're actually trying to do here is, we're trying to get a feel for how people spend their day at work... so, if you would, would you walk us through a typical day, for you?

Peter Gibbons: Yeah.

Bob Slydell: Great.

Peter Gibbons: Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me, heh heh - and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour.

Bob Porter: Da-uh? Space out?

Peter Gibbons: Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working.

Peter Gibbons: The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.

My office is strangely quiet. The only constant sounds are the hum of my computer and the distant pecking of keyboard from a cubicle outside, as I sit in a dark office that looks like it came straight from the set of a David Fincher movie. The sound of my thoughts, normally loud and distracting, are now dark and syrupy. I have to get out of here right now. Slipping out the back door. I'm done with you people.

I am missing.

June 6, 2009 8:38 a.m.

They can't all be winners. My last fifteen minutes.

The Lord have mercy and protect us, I've been eating soup for breakfast. I make odd food choices. This is widely understood.

I just realized what Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup tastes like: disappointment mixed with acceptance. It is the comestible incarnation of your sense that you will probably never even graze the bottom of your aspirations, but that, on the bright side, you probably won't starve to death. Cold comfort in a warm bowl.

I feel nourished.

June 3, 2009 9:38 p.m.

Consciousness, diffuse and slippery, cries for a narrative. Therefore: my last fifteen minutes.

Falling into the rabbit hole of Facebook, I realize how this new drug acts as an intensifier. Excitement becomes expanded. Sadness is now more textured. Boredom finds a new sun to orbit. I took the Facebook "How Annoying Are You?" test and learned that the answer was "Incredibly" [capitalization in original]. When will the "How Ironic Is This?" test be available? I can't wait. Seriously.

I feel vacant.

May 30, 2009 8:38 p.m.

Temporal joy and momentary regret. My last fifteen minutes.

I just watched a good beer die.

May 14, 2009 1:05 p.m.

An epicurean odyssey. A culinary apocalypse. My last fifteen minutes.

Hit and run at Chipotle, and now this guy is working its way through my intestinal justice system, just trying to taste freedom like Andy Dufresne. Will it come out angry, or will it escape triumphantly?

May 12, 2009 12:16 a.m.

It's all coming at you. Brought to you with a smile. My last fifteen minutes.

Spending the last fifteen minutes in South Carolina with my best friend Mike. Talking about politics, religion and--of course--my blog. There's a name in computer programming for the this self-referential loop. But Mike can't remember this term. It frustrates him. Failure unfolds before me. My time slips away.

I am at sea.

May 4, 2009 8:15 a.m.

Fifteen minutes ago I was asleep. It was bliss.

May 3, 2009 1:02 p.m.

Sharing my momentary existence. My last fifteen minutes.

It's raining now. On my way back from the Jiffy Lube, I bought a bubblope at CVS for my wife. As I begin to work, I can hear the muted sound of the rain on the deck. The lights are out in the house, and the day seems coated with the gray patina of emptiness. Everything is broken.

I'm tired.

May 2, 2009 11:14 p.m.

This is dedicated to the moment. Life as it happens. The last fifteen minutes of my life.

What have I been up to? Let's see. Well, I've been typing this post. Before that I set up this blog. That took a few minutes. Of course, I had to come up with the idea. Actually, that didn't take long. I was watching the basketball game before that--wait, that might have been twenty minutes ago. Things haven't been that eventful. It's not like I've been grabbing life by the throat lately.

What I've really learned in the last fifteen minutes is that the moment is usually rather uninteresting, at least in comparison to what has happened and what will happen. I have come to grasp the true nature of futility and despair. Don't bother. Most ideas aren't that great, and this is one of them.

I'm bored.