but i did visit him last week. any questions must be creative and specific, 123go.

EDDIE AND WANTON: GET OFF OUR DICK!

did you do anything you regret during daylight hours within 30 miles of mark thomas's domicile?

You went with your daughter, right? What did she think of him?

What does he smell like? Would you say more like oranges, or more like dust? Or any other compelling odeurs.

Hey, I was going to ask that! Then I thought that might be insulting even though I didn't intend it to be. I imagine he smells like newspapers or old books. Like paper.

Cookies. He smells like fresh baked cookies...

up here in the forest, we take scent-marking seriously. we take mark-scenting seriously, too. i imagine mark's would be sandalwood, the beach in winter, chamise chapparal, bergamot, crisp shirts, that cold canned air you clean things with, sometimes a slight hint of gun oil, in other words all the best stuff. or perhaps it is pork chops and spermatazoa. if i ever find out for myself, i won't tell. agatha is bound to be acting under post-hypnotic suggestion, so can we trust anything she says?

can we afford not to?

What kind of shoes was he wearing? You can tell a lot about a man by his shoes.

Did he play anything for you while you were at his house? What was in his refrigerator?

good questions. i'll go backwards so i can scroll up as i go. 1. i forced him to play when we first woke up all too late in the morning. he didn't really want to. the only song i remember the name of was the wichita vortex cathedral? i think, by phillip glass. he played some shostakovich, i think it was, and some other russian guy. it was all wonderful. i especially enjoyed watching his posture and his spastic leg keeping count as he played. such a skinny leg that boy has. 2. there was a tray of uncovered cooked chicken from the night before in the fridge. i found that just slightly disturbing, and was relieved when he told me he had decided not to eat it. there was also water and a couple other things in the fridge. it was mostly empty, although i suspect that the freezer was probably full. i neglected to check. he had nice mugs, and some heavy white restaurant plates that i coveted. he drank instant coffee out of a styrofoam cup. although i don't usually drink instant, i must say it was quite tasty. 3. the shoes i noticed were some nice hiking style sneaker/boots. brown and green and beige type variety. i was hoping he would come out of the shower with only a towel on, but he did not accomodate my wishes. he takes very long showers. his water pressure is mediocre at best. 4.the smell when i arrived in his apartment was that of cooked chicken, which i found in the fridge later. after that smell cleared out, i would say the predominant odors were dust and paper and wood. it was a pleasant, library like smell. mark himself smelled sort of humanlike. he is a pretty clean fella. 5. cleo liked him quite a bit. i told her to hold his hand in the airport, which she had no issues with. he gave her a rubber ball when we arrived, and when we got to his apartment she proceeded to throw it all over and chase it, giving mark a heart attack and waking all of his neighbors. she is not the most polite child, i have to say. she's not used to modulating her noise levels at all. i'm not, either, come to think of it. 6.not that i can recall. we ate at a lame overpriced restaurant, but that wasn't even too bad and they had pretty good bloody marys. cleo tried really hard to knock every beverage on the table into swine's lap, but failed on all but one count. thus ends this installation of "i am not mark thomas."

cleo's take: 1. it was good. 2. i do not know! 3. i do not know! 4. fresh air. 5. i thought he was pretty nice. well, umm, no! don't write that! i don't know! hey! i liked about he gave me the ball. 6. yes. it was when i was playing the piano, and it wasn't very good sounding.

Agatha: Tell me what Swine looks like! I know you've hung out w/him before & I know he recently shaved his head. But I've always pictured him as being a cross btwn Mario Van Peebles (son of Melvin & QUITE a honey!) & a young Sidney Poitier. I'm wondering how close the flesh comes to matching the fantasy...

not very well. this guy i work with (thomas, the resident knucklehead) has been calling me YB lately. he says it's because i look like a black yul brynner and laugh like a king. i don't see it, but it's been cracking that little bastard up for the past week. he's got half the department calling me YB now. i shaved off the dreads back in '94 and have been shaving daily ever since. anyway, you know exactly what i look like. you've seen pictures of me before.

did mark thomas smile? if so, how often? did he laugh? did mark thomas say something that made you laugh for real? if so, what was it?

Nah-ah! I haven't, Swine! The only photo of you I've ever seen was that warped picture you had posted at yr old site. You must be confusing me w/someone else. BTW/when is yr new site going up? Got any big plans for tomorrow nite?

i could post a picture of swine right now if i wanted to. what's it worth to you?

Depends. Does it show his naughty bits? :) And is he finer than Natorious?

Oh, stop. Swine doesn't have any naughty bits. He's just a big puddy-tat. Agatha - when Mark bent over could you see the top of his underpants? or something much worse? Don't tell me you weren't looking cuz I won't believe you.

LOL! I never though of Mark w/a cracked rear view.

Are you saying he has a plumbers butt? He,s too skinny,I say he probably has a flat bottom just like me.

mark has no plumber's ass at all. he is quite wiry. i think one of the funniest moments of our visit is when my sister changed into her sleeping type clothing and came out from the bathroom with a tshirt on that said, "i support castration of child molesters." mark looked at the shirt and visibly started. it was really funny, but you may have had to be there. mark smiles quite regularly. he laughed a couple of times at really random things. there was really no predicting what he would find amusing. he thought cleo was pretty funny. swine is a very good looking young man. he looks more like sidney poitier than mario van peebles, but he really doesn't look like either of them. i caught him checking out my sister when she bent over to get something off the floor. i may have been imagining things, though. i have pictures of swine, too. highest bidder takes all.

You still didn't answer my question about his underpants. I refuse to believe you could have met him and not seen his underpants, at some point. People are very careless about that sort of thing, you know. I see underpants all day long!

What's the starting bid?

$25 that's my bid

I bid $26 -- but only if it shows some of his naughty bits. And I shd get a dollar off becuz Swine thinks he sent me his picture when he didn't. And becuz I can't hardly access the boards/except at work. Plus/I had the worst crush on Sidney Poitier as a teenager. Can you say the same, Nate?

yeah, well fuck you all. i just came back home to find my lights on, my beer cold, my bank account still intact, and my deep green herbs still juicy. HA! I WIN!!!! WIN!!!!!!!! FUCK YOU ALL!!! HAH AHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!!HAHHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!HAHAHHAHAHHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!HAHAHHAHHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STICK IT UP YER Y2kHOLE, YOU MISERABLE BASTARDS!!!! YOU'LL NEVER SEE MYU TWISTED UGLY MUG!!!!!!! HHHAAAAAAAHHHHAAAAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! okaty. so that was totally injapprropriate. so let me part with these words of love and peace: fuck you, elvis, john wayne, richard nixon, farrakhan, ronald reagan, puff daddy, m.c. hammer, vanilla ice, the guy who made "st. elmo's fire", the guy who wrote "the bell curve", anheuser busch, duran duran, the smiths, the guy who made the soundtrack to "SCARFACE", my 7th grade math teacher, whatever asshole stold my midi cables out of my synth at rick's place, squirmy greg, joo-say loo-say, giuliani, the NYPD, LAPD, FBI, CIA, every single one of the mother-fucking Bush's, (that means YOU, George) the entire state of florida, the entire state of idaho, all of seattle, los angeles, nebraska, and every god damn urban cowboy leather-bar in new york city. TO HELL WITH YOU ALL!!!! HA!!HAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAH!!!!!!! I WIN!!!!!!!! g'night y'all. coma again.

whoa. was that me? my bad. right now i have a hangover like the wrath of God. my transgressions are being paid in full. consequence is a serious bitch. anyway, Happy New Year. much love. ps: fuck "kid rock", too. i hate that guy.

$30

What does he think of us? $31.00

$35.00

$35.01

i didn't see his underpants. scout's honor. he thinks almost everyone on the boards is dandy. he reads the boards too, which was surprising to me. i didn't think he gave a crap anymore. i have stated my theory on that before, and mark actually posted in rebuttal. i was proud of that. anyone willing to go above $35.01? swine, are you going to be mad if i post a picture?

he won't be mad.

Agatha! your pants are on fire you know why

i do not. why?

$36.50 & that's my final offer! Now, post da goodies, Dave & Agatha!

$40.00

pay to see a photo of swine-o-matic? actual money? sorry, not gonna happen. more like, *you* pay *me* to look at it.

i'm suprised that Swine ain't trying to get in on this action. That was cool posting agatha. It's good to see someone's perception of Mark Thomas. It's good to know he reads this stuff too. Thanks again, Mark!

$43.79 [by proxy, of course] Is there any scratch and sniff involved?

i could probably arrange to have some dirty undies thrown in, if you must. i'm glad you liked it, sem. hope you had a fab vacation.

whose dirty undies? i stopped wearing underwear years ago. you folks should take up knitting. or something.

$45 for swine's knitting.

can i post a pic of that quilt you just pieced, swine?

enough. here. here's a picture mark took of me and kelsey's sister at the java cafe. and for the record, i wasn't checking out courtney. she's not really my "type". whatever that means.

damn!

OK, so you don't look like Seal (re: my latest post on "I had a dream about Nate"...)

i take that back. how much do i owe? i think i just had a religious awakening.

$45.01?

He looks a bit like the brother from "The Practice". Big & buff -- ooooh!

Agatha's sister looks nice, too.

$45.02

he's actually kind of flabby, like a bald mase who can't rap.

What ainute - I could be pulling the wool over my own eyes, but I just looked at that first picture of swine for the first time, and that's definately the guy from my dream. I only said seal beacuae that's the onlyguy I could think of that reminds in a way of how swine sounds here (just by the way he looks). That's fucking weird. I wonder if my dream was a foretelling of some future sorabji fest?

she's cool people. pretty much everybody i met when i visited kelsey and dave in seattle were cool people. even the people they made themselves. cleo is mad cool. you can qoute me on that.

did you ever see margret's site? the same pic is up there, only distorted

actually the shaved head and goatee make me think of Captain Bejamin Sisko on Deep Space Nine (aka Avery Brooks)..... http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Hollow/3259/siskosc2.jpg I also liked Avery Brooks on Spencer For Hire, he always dressed to the nines, had the big assed Colt Python gun and drove a jaguar.

i love that picture. swine looks so true to form, telling some bullshit story to my sister. heh.

i take it all back. those people are a bunch of assholes. except for cleo. she's still cool.

That red-headed girl with the nose-ring is Agatha's sister? She's really cute. Is that her natural hair color? I like it. Swine doesn't look anything like I thought he did. He doesn't look like the sort of person who needs to be taken care of (no offense). I was expecting someone kind of wirey. Like a big stick with an attitude. he actually has a kind look to him. I'm not sure how this affects my fascination. You're a nice looking boy, Swine. cute smile.

LOL! You thought Swine wd look like someone who needed taking care of. This from a guy whose handle is GrandpaDolemite? BWAHAHAHAHAHA! But calling him 'a bald Mase who can't rap' was mean,Dave! You wdn't want him to start signifyin' on you!

sorry, blindswine.

he's cute. but I like him better clean-shaven. so what is your type, swine?

i disagree. the chin thing is way sexy. dang. fuck. i better keep out of this thread before i lose my shit entirely. i will not eat glass. no sir.

Even though he has that sweet smile,he looks big enough to be a quarter-back,I wouldn,t want to piss him off.

that is not my sister's natural hair color. she is in a band called "vandemonium", in case they ever make the big time. isn't she cute? isn't swine cute? aren't we all cute, each and every one of us?

speaking of cute, doesn't anyone have any more mark thomas questions?

not really. but what did you expect?

whew. thanks for changing the subject. so did you look in his medicine cabinet? if you did, what was in there?

And gummy bears, were there any gummy bears on the premises?

i did not look in his medicine cabinet. he did have a comb in his bathroom that looked like it was made in the 1950's. it was this crazy faceted tortoiseshell plastic. i liked it. i did not see any gummi bears. he didn't have a lot of food in his house, save the aforementioned chicken in the fridge which frightened me. i expected that there would be more questions about mark thomas. that's what i expected. duh.

ok, then. What was the weirdest thing that happened while you visited Mark?

what did you talk about while you were there? make a list. what does his voice sound like? what did he order when you went out to eat?

*wiping dribble off chin* Does Mark's place have a good view? Did he cook for you? and if so what?

Is Mark an innie or an outie? Did he say anything about Dolly Parton when you were there? What is the defining thing about Mark in person? What is it about Mark that the casual passerby would notice first? Which is his favorite Spice Girl? What is the bid for Swine's knitted underpants (PS thank you RC for calling them 'underpants' much better than panties or briefs or other such words)

i get turned on when a girl says "panties"..... that and "pantaloons"

hey. I say Underpants all the time and I don't remember anyone thanking me.

ugh i hate that word. panties. honestly it ruins the effect of erotic fiction if they use the word panties. *shudder*

Pantaloons? What's the colour of Mark's favorite pantaloons?

panties = To Kill A Mockingbird (wasn't it? where the judge instructs the audience... ) underpants = i see London...

Hmm...you ll have to cite that quote. I don't seem to remember it. And it's my favorite book of all time. I see France...

One of mine and Jimbo,s too.

I want to know why Jem and Scout never called their father "dad". I really want to freaking know that. and what kind of name is "Jem" for a boy? Did he have magical earrings that turned him into a rock star?

Gee - thank you for calling them Underpants. In fact thank you to the entire word of underpant callers. I think they called their Dad by his first name because it was some kind of 'single Dad' thing. I do not know about any earrings, magical or not however. I hate 'panties', though I can respect the right to be turned on by whatever. Panties sounds embarrassing and somehow diminutive. It makes me feel icky.

I use to work in the lingerie department of Mervyns,nothing was more miserable than hanging them on a tiny hanger,or having people return underwear you had to pick up with a pencil.

"panties". ick. Sounds so flimsy, like all-lace pink silky thin things that you can only wear for a moment until they fall off or fall apart. i guess that would be a turn-on. (p.s. in the second pic swine reminds me of the white fuzzy dragon creature from Neverending Story. sorry swinebaby, had to mention it. very cute;)

it's a turn on in the sense that it is very innocent like, or so it seems, no fruffy, lace shit and it doesn't sound good from every mouth...

In the lingerie department,theres not much that is sexier than a garter and stockings that end mid thigh.Just knowing I have this on can be a little power surge,the "nobody knows" syndrome I guess. Strutting around in it, can just make me feel sexy.

i wear bologna in my shoes because it makes me feel sexy.

Yes, bologna is well revered for its aphrodisisc power.

I find having a salami shoved up my ass with a pack of starving dogs thrown in to be so exciting.

I'd pay a good $5 to see that, YOU HEAR ME? $5!!!!!!!! You could work the Tijuana circuit with that one J

I think he's serious. Take the $5 while you can - it's tax free income!

Woof!! Woof!!!!! $10 (CDN)

Hmm...I always called my father by his first name. Maybe I'm just wierd that way.

Yes, I think you are.

Ten bucks,you bastards,anyway I want to be in the circus,I can ride` a unicycle,do some major gymnastics,and I,m well rounded,can play a mouth harp and (God this hurts,a tuba)a very little?

I can stand on my head with 18 lit cigaretts in my mouth & juggle a cat w/my feet. How much is that worth?

And Sarah -- you are a fool! "Baloney in my shoes" made my day! And Agatha: Speaking only for myself but expressing sentiments that I believe others here probably share in kind/I actually have tons of questions to ask you abt Mark. But I fear invading his privacy & embarassing him or myself in the process. (But hey -- wdn't be the first time, right?) What type of person did he seem like to you? Meaning/if I were sitting in a diner reading & he was there having coffee & scribbling in one of his notebooks/what wd I think when I saw him? Is M.T. in person like the M.T. in his stories? His writing really hits me hard sometimes. In both good & not-so-good ways. And I wonder what kind of person can talk so intimately abt themselves/abt the way their mind works -- even when that shit is as bizarre as hell? Does he seem approachable when you 1st meet him? Does he have a quiet, melancholic air abt him/or does he laugh a lot? Is he talkative? What does his voice sound like? (Gawd/I sound like a schoolgirl w/a crush!) I've heard his audiofiles/but nobody ever sounds the same on tape as they do in person -- esp. audio that's going over the web. What was the most significant thing you noticed in his apt. other than his piano? How is it decorated/meaning what do his tastes run to? Did you hug him when you first met/or no? Does he seem like the sort of person who wd welcome a hug/or not? Does he wear cologne & if so/which one? Did he do that neat trick w/his veins for you? When he shakes yr hand/does he have a killer grip? I've always imagine he wd. How does he dress for work? Like all the other corporate drones/or does get snazzy w/wild ties or crazy socks/something to give his attire a subtle "Fah-Q, buddy!" air? When he sleeps/does he snore? Was he very shaggy when you saw him/w/a beard & all/or had he cut his hair? Okay/I'm embarassed now/so I'll stop.

Depends.....are you inhaling and is the cat declawed?

woah there psycho.

Good one MapleLeaf, R.C.if you can do that I,d pay $50.00 if I could take pictures.Maybe we can get an act together and take it to Vegas.

I do inhale. And my cat is declawed (not my doing -- she was like that when I fund her). But Six has a Union card -- won't work for less than scale. So you'll have to supply the feline.

Mine is declawed too,they can be declawed as long as you can juggle,look out Sigfried and Roy,Wayne Newton,we,ll run them out of town.

mine aren't and they are still irritable that we left them for 5 days.....

wierdest thing while visiting mark: i think it must have been when my friend sent mark a semi-threatening email, begging him not to murder me and cleo and my sister. actually, what she said is that if he needed to murder anyone, it should be me, because cleo has her whole life ahead of her. she will get cleo if dave and i die, i signed some paper saying it to be so. mark was taken aback by my friend's directness, and maybe slightly offended as well. i think she was kinda kidding, but you've gotta know her to love her. mark also gets these strange answering machine messages for some guy named joe or something, they sound like creditors trying to find some poor sucker who owes him money. the morning after we got there, the answering machine picked up and it said something like "joe? are you there, joe? goddammit joe, pick up the phone!" it was pretty funny. what did we talk about? jesus, sarah, that's kind of vague. we talked about lots of stuff. we talked about all of you at sorabji, we talked about his work, we talked about apartment hunting, we talked about items in his house and room, we talked about college and all of the exploits mark encountered in his younger years, we shot the shit. just stuff. his voice is quiet and modulated, he sounds vaguely southern. actually, he sounds like he may have once had a southern accent but that he's mostly lost it. he has a nice voice. when we went out to eat, i think he ordered a burger. i can't exactly remember, i just remember him being famished after not eating all day. he didn't really eat whatever it was, because he wasn't feeling very well. later that night, at like midnight or something, he made himself a bologna and cheese sandwich, or something like that. he wolfed it down. he did not want any of my sleepytime tea. in the morning, we went to this greek diner and he got coffee and a fruit cup, i believe. mark's apartment does not really have a view of anything in particular. his office, however, has a great view. he is moving into a lower office i this month, where he will still have a good view, but now he has an amazing view. he is really high up in the air. he works in a really nice building. he did not cook anything for me, although he did make me some tasty instant coffee. hard to believe, but it's true. i have never had a cup of instant coffee that was good before. i didn't see mark's belly button. he didn't mention dolly parton, that i can recall. he didn't mention the spice girls, but i'll ask him and report back. the defining thing about mark is that he would blend into a crowd, but if you're actually paying attention you can tell that his rivers run deep. he looks like he's always thinking about something important. he also doesn't look at all corporate, which i think is funny considering where he works. that's all i'm going to say about that, to keep his privacy intact. okay, here come rc's questions. this should take about an hour. i'm skipping some of them because i feel like i've already answered them somewhere else. i think he's pretty similar in real life to his internet persona, except maybe a little more polite on first impression. he is somewhat reserved initially, but i am an overtly friendly person so it didn't put me off at all. i think he would be hard for a shy person to talk to, but he was talkative with me because i kind of forced him to talk. i think he felt pretty comfortable with me, and he talked freely about all sorts of stuff. i enjoyed listening to his stories, because i am usually the blabbermouth who needs to fill the silence with incessant chatter. it was nice that i didn't have to do that for the most part, because it can be really annoying, even for me. he laughs fairly regularly, i wouldn't say he laughs a lot. his apartment is not very decorated. it looks like a guy's apartment. his bedroom is the only room that really looks lived in, that's where most of his stuff is. i would say his tastes if he was forced to live with a woman and think about that stuff would run towards modern, minimal stuff. there are barely any knick knacks around the house, or pictures on the walls. i think he has like two or three pictures up in the whole apartment. one of them is a signed photograph and letter from vladimir horovitz? i think that's who is was. his apartment looks kind of like he just moved into it. i think he gets the urge to move pretty frequently. i told him his apartment looked sparse, and i think he was slightly offended. however, keep in mind that i live in a house that is jam packed full of stuff. every room is painted a different color. i have eight pictures hanging in my living room alone. so, compared to me, most people's tastes would seem minimal. he doesn't seem like the type of person that you would just run up to and hug, no. he is pretty reserved. i hugged him immediately, and he hugged me back. then, he gave cleo a rubber ball. i said, "cleo- hold the strange man's hand." and she did. he thought that was pretty funny. he doesn't wear cologne. he's not vain enough to wear cologne. he didn't do the vein trick. i didn't shake hands with him, but i don't think he has a killer grip. i think he has a regular grip. he didn't work while i was there, but i don't think he dresses up at all for work. i think he wears whatever the hell he wants to. he mostly wears tshirts, or regular button up type shirts, and kinda normal beige or black pants. he does not snore, i'm pretty sure, although his apartment walls are really solid and thick. he said my sister snored, however. he was shaggy. he's very clean, though. he takes long careful showers. the end. phew.

Thanks, Agatha. Everything I always wanted to know abt His markness but was afraid to ask! One more: Does he like to play any kind of games? Scrabble/Poker/Monopoly/Candyland?

Oh & did you see his new chair?

he likes scrabble. his new chair was not there yet, he just got it last week. your welcome- anytime, girl.

He says he can,t get off of it.

Horowitz? Cool.

Does he really like to get lewd e-mail?

I know what I forgot to ask Agatha -- Did he play his Bose radio for you? And is the sound really as amazing as the ads claim?

yes it is hi R.C.

yes. it is awesome. i want one real bad. he likes to get interesting email. lewd, i'm not so sure. it's possible. it's snowing in olympia, by the way. i'm so excited.

where is that photo of cleo on mark's floor posted?

it's on the imitation free speech thread

STOP OCELOTING ME!

which is under what topic? the search engine is not resolving.

weeds