Ill Noise

The Eight-Year College Reunion

petemnguyen — Mon, 14 May 2012 04:34:20 +0000

We are walking around the building where the massacre took place, whispering, peering into the auditorium for anything familiar. “Everything looks so different,” Tina says. Kevin wraps his arm around his wife’s shoulder. Scott lifts up his phone to take (…)

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Ergo

petemnguyen — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 07:37:17 +0000

Schema format. 1a. Nonlinear circular narrative structure. Begin with overwrought shopping list description of apartment {N.B.: the more words, the better}. Stream of a caffeinated consciousness meets alienation. 1b. Somewhere sneak in: “flanked by several loosened-tie yuppies who are exaggerating (…)

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Hopefully soon your friend, Kevin

petemnguyen — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 02:02:11 +0000

The man who passed away over the weekend was an old man, a homeless man that would occasionally show up for my sister’s small group bible studies. I felt uncomfortable around him, because all of my sister’s friends are in (…)

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Times I have felt American

petemnguyen — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 23:40:46 +0000

September 11, 2011, 12:02 pm I’m at Buffalo Wild Wings waiting for Dave’s ass to get here for the kick-off. On TV, they’ve unfurled an impressive United States flag that covers the entire field. The mood is quiet, solemn, poignant, (…)

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Fly

petemnguyen — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 03:57:06 +0000

I sketched a drawing of an old man on the bus this morning. He caught my attention because he looked like he’d seen some terrible things in his life, things he’d locked up inside himself since childhood but which escaped, (…)

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Day Off

petemnguyen — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:47:31 +0000

Woke up the same time I usually wake up during the workweek, even though I had today off. Jogged. Spent about two hours at my computer, analyzing baseball statistics. There are people in this neighborhood who don’t have real jobs (…)

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Reasons

petemnguyen — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 06:38:06 +0000

While we waited we made funny faces, told jokes, stories. “Eetz not, a toomah!” we’d say, just like Schwartzenegger. Hours passed. Dad told me the waiting room smelled like chicken noodle soup. Lynn slumped back into her chair, rarely looking (…)

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Coach Schatzeder He Was a Good Coach

petemnguyen — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 03:25:55 +0000

This guy we called him Schatz, or Coach. Anything else he hated being called. He was our high school PE instructor. He resembled that actor Daniel Day-Lewis from Gangs of New York. This one time Coach embarrassed me at the (…)

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Hand Me Down

petemnguyen — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 02:16:05 +0000

Thirty years ago today my parents got married. I was born five months after that, and later in life when I was old enough to do the math I asked my mom if she’d given birth to me prematurely and (…)

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If a Tree Falls in the Woods

petemnguyen — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 17:07:43 +0000

OK so sometimes I wonder where technology will take us. Will we someday all be gods, where all complete knowledge of everything is literally at our fingertips, where the trajectory of the human race can be mathematically plotted out like (…)

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