I used to collect vintage hardback books and rip out the inside pages, with the intention of writing my own stories and binding them on the inside. My favorite is one called Life Through the Ages, with a Paleozoic Era Rhinoceros on the cover.

One day I’ll fill it with a new story. But first, I’ve got to rip out the old pages, making space by burning them away.

Given my particular circumstances,  I don’t often have the opportunity to kill things. Or at least maim them, a wild cross check into the boards or a blinding flash grenade at least. Unless, of course, as per my duty at the Cafe it’s a fresh, young thai coconut, in which case, I behead it with a cleaver for the fresh nectar inside.

But the whole process is very healthy, the electrolyte and overall mineral content of the water, very life giving, nothing really to satisfy a very old current of human energy, the most rote muscle memory maybe, the last and final foothold of our incisors, that lust for raw and, sometimes, merciless carnage–the same flow, I think, that has us love Gerard Butler’s 300 so much as to have a brave and select few of us wear Spartan costumes this past Halloween in homage.

But I’ve found something really good & gratifying to really stick a spear into. Something calling to be decked by a heavy gauntlet. Something my Goodness has simply tolerated far too much, that demands a Clint Eastwood kind of mean, a very pleasing mean: for a Spirit of poor ferocity >> a blunt edge finally sharpened, a true grit now ground.

Stories. I was raised on good storytelling. And when I grew up, I started making up my own. And with all my practice, They still don’t have the epic plots of a good and worthy classic. One where you see the Points of View of every single character, all mounting drama to a final denoument.

Because, in my stories, I am always right. Even if, at the end, I lose too.

It’s very difficult for sense to sink into this dense mule head; especially if you’re a character in one of my stories, and moreso if you’re the antagonist. I’ve gotten good at spinning yarns about me versus you. So good, my stories come true. So whatever story I have about you, that’s a rap, and good luck trying to change my mind about that.

But stories like this become all too boring. Because, see, stories always have a finite volume, like a cup of coffee. And a cup can’t hold both Coffee and Juice. Or Water and Pop. Or Resentment and Love. It’s always one or the other. And when old stories become too old and Being Really, Really Right is a lose // lose, and the Juice begins to sour, it’s time for those stubborn stories to go.

But they won’t go without a fighting back.

Good news for Good people. Finally, something OK to kill.

You know the stories that need to go–like the one that’s left my fiancee with no choice but to be mean, saying just the right things to piss me off because it’s the only thing she knows to do to get me to listen.

And when my cafe’s Coconut Cleaver guillotines those stories, and love returns and fills the cup, and you’ve become rather efficient at the killing, more will come like drones of droids, ’cause being right is a Human Industry. And we’ve automated the production far better than cars or planes or toys.

So, for all of us Good Hearted People out there that would never lay a finger to dole out a bit of death–but want to anyway >> Good news, Good People. There’s an unlimited source of stories deserving to die. A farm of them right behind our eyeballs, in the place where Righteousness Lies. One needs only to pull those clay pigeons, bring the shotgun to the shoulder and fire tirelessly away.

Today, may Love fill the cup, and rise from our many, many deaths.

My Honda hasn’t properly prepared me for the maintenance required to hang with a truly magnificent woman. It runs just fine with very little attention. It’s withstood an 11 month gap between oil changes, 3 break-ins, 1 theft, 2 stolen stereos, one smashed windshield, and all the subtle bumper nicks from ultra tight, late night parking miracles on the hills of Queen Anne.

The car is resilient for having been maintained as little as it has been, to the tune of 20 empty coffee cups stacked neatly in the broken glove compartment, doubling now as an excellent shelf. The car’s been dependable. Even if it looks like a Chop Shop’s mascot. It could run off pop rocks and Bath and Body works bubble bath blended with banana peals before it even clunked out.

It’s a low maintenance vehicle, which might sound convenient, but behold a pile of dirt! It also low maintenance and all you can do is sit on it or shovel it from here to there. And don’t let the speeding through Seattle traffic mean signs of a healthy, purring machine. It’s more the laboring hum of tortured movement, like when I sit cross legged for more than 2 minutes then get up quick to answer the doorbell.

My Honda has made me a lazy maintainer. Or, more accurately, I’ve been a lazy maintainer and I have a Honda. O, if I had only the one thing that could prepare properly for the great maintenance called for by marriage. Something as high performing, delicate and powerful as matrimony. The Honda simply doesn’t do. The British made McLaren F1, 0-60 in 3.2 seconds … maybe.

Now a jet fighter … a Jet Fighter the perfect tool for any young man to maintain in preparation for a truly magnifient woman.

See you can’t fly a jet fighter with holes in center or the sides. Or one made of cardboard, stapled together and decorated in broad crayon. You can’t wheel it to Jiffy Lube. You can’t eject in the middle of flight expecting it to fly home and be nice to you later. You can’t smooth a jet fighter over if you forgot to tune it up. It will go down.

Jet Fighters require training and high precision instruments. They call for oxygen masks and nicknames spraypainted right on the nose. And for bravery in the air, all jet fighter pilots get a nickname. And I hereby declare that all husbands should have nicknames too ::: Iceman, Blue Valkrie, Green Hornet, Wild Ginger, Totem Bear.

Little boys at the age of 3 should be given jet fighters to care for in preparation for husbandry and fatherhood. Big, 16 million dollar war birds with sidewinder missiles and bombay payloads capable of incalculable damage. It’d be a model at first of course, maybe out of legos, BIG legos, then gradually smaller, more technical pieces. One needs to be sensitive to the hazards of gobbled plastic blocks by very young people.

Taking care of something so beautiful and complex is a high risk proposal, but anything worth anything, and anything worth You needs to be maintained a million times shinier than the shiniest spit-shined shoe. Thanks be to God that it is that way! And then, the afternoon drive, and the walk down the aisle, are a sterling wonder and every little bit of work worth calling home and telling Mom all about.