Will Shoot Pool for Egg Sandwiches

Anyone who says money can’t buy happiness has never been very hungry.

Many of you know this, or are close to someone who knows this, from firsthand experience. Perhaps one can’t simply walk to the market and purchase happiness. “Say, my good man, I’d like to see your selection of smiles and goodwill this fine day!”

But you can sure as hell buy a loaf of bread and some peanut butter. And to a hungry person, that’s as close as you can get.

I mention this because there was a time, more recently than I’d like to admit, that the hungry person was me. Not so much in that I was unfortunate, but unwise. There were other things that demanded the bulk of my earnings, such as rent, utilities, gas, overdraft fees…and of course, a certain drink that starts with an “R” and hilariously rhymes with “bum.”

I’m thankful to say that those days are fading into old memory, the way a real zinger of a nightmare does when exposed to the light of day, and those thanks are largely owed to the two jobs that keep me in the money and out of trouble.

It’s also thanks in part to the fact that I’m a cheating bastard.

I was always good at pool. No master, by any means, but above average. I carry my own cue when I go to dive bars. I bitch when there’s no chalk around. It’s rare I can find someone who bests me more than half the time.

The first few games I played after discovering my power, I didn’t cheat. It may or may not be boasting to say that it wasn’t necessary. Then I played some overlarge frat boy, one of those you see strutting around in pink polo shirts, named Kyle or Kelly or something along those lines. He was an okay shot, but my lead was strong, one ball to the eight when he still had four.

I turned around to grab my drink (let the Captain take the wheel, so to speak) and saw him, out of the corner of my eye, pot one of his balls by hand.

This got my drunken blood to boiling, so I decided at that moment that turnabout was fair play. We played five more games, twenty dollars per game, and I walked home with an extra hundred dollars.

It wasn’t so hard to cheat undetected. Give the cue ball a little push sideways as it rolls to the target ball. Put the brakes on his nine a little short of the pocket. Nudge my four when it comes up just a bit shy.

After that night, I’m sorry to say that the temptation to employ my talent this way was simply too great to ignore.

I pick out similar types – loudmouth kids with more alcohol in their bloodstream than sense in their heads, and if they have a pretty little college girl nearby they’re trying to impress, so much the better. A couple hours hitting up the dive bars downtown can net me three or four hundred dollars, so long as I’m careful to play small stakes and not stay in one place too long.

I try all sorts of ways to rationalize this venture to myself. I needed the money, true. I’m simply using what God or Allah or the Flying Spaghetti Monster gave me, true. Asking me to stop would be like asking a wide receiver who was particularly fast to slow down so the defense would have a chance at catching him.

Right?

Instead of gesundheit? Shocked silence.

I know, I know. It’s been a while since I last posted. Things have been a little crazy, but rest assured, I’m still alive and well, and as of yet not been bundled off to some government lab to be shocked, prodded, questioned, and cut up in the name of science.

If you’re new to my blog (rawr!), that may have not made a lot of sense to you, so you may want to scroll down a bit and start at the beginning.

Done? Alright, now that we’re on the same page, I can go on.

It’s been a little over two months since I discovered I was telekinetic, and it’s amazing how quickly it became…mundane. It’s like being able to taste, or see. It’s become so integrated in my everyday life that I take it for granted. When I’m alone or reasonably certain no one will see, I hardly ever move things by hand anymore.

Because of this, so many of life’s tiny inconveniences simply don’t exist for me anymore. Ever get in the shower before getting the temperature right? No need to suffer the water, I can just give the knob a little twist from the safety of the other side. Want the passenger side window cranked down without risking a car wreck? That one is easy; I don’t even have to look at it anymore.

That being said, the power isn’t exactly under complete control.

Sneezing sometimes causes that little brain-muscle (as I’ve come to think of it) to flex involuntarily. Usually this manifests in a little arc in front of me, scattering small objects, but if I happen to be touching something as I sneeze, it gets hurled…sometimes in a random direction, but usually straight at me. After a close call with a steak knife I decided to keep the mental handling of dangerous objects to a minimum.

Also, I know I move things in my sleep – a webcam recording settled that suspicion with a quickness. I had woken up several times with that mild headache that usually follows a good workout, with my things misplaced.

It seems that I’m much stronger in my sleep. Awake, I can sustain one small object in the air, maybe two. But in the video, at times I had six or seven things floating around the room in nonsensical patterns. Ghost hunters would have a stroke over the footage. At one point, I even had my office chair lifted a few feet off the ground, by far the heaviest object I’ve managed so far.

I have to wonder if this is more of a cognitive limitation, as opposed to strength. Maybe the mass of an object doesn’t mean as much for this ability as I think it should. Either way, I haven’t been able to duplicate these feats awake.

Wish me luck – I’m off to work, and I have the sniffles.

Fifth Wheel in the Sky?

I bought a new keyboard, the cheapest one they had at a popular electronics retail store that shall remain nameless (let’s just say their staff may or may not include a squad of geeks). I suppose I should have spent a little more. The keystrokes are loud enough to wake the dead. This is the kind of thing that gets to be unbearable at three in the morning after a fourteen hour work day.

I just recently started working a second job, and the combined hours are keeping me fairly busy, but the money? Entirely worth it. If I can keep this pace, I may reach the specific goal I've yet to share.

Anyone can push a pen around, but so far as I know, I’m the only one who can push a pen around. Now that you understand the distinction, I can tell you that I’ve begun to exercise.

It’s mostly little things. I take small objects –quarters, thumb tacks, you name it – and move them around. I’ve found that it’s much easier to cause a quick burst of force than it is to sustain even a small weight.

In other words, I can push or pull a paper clip around all day, but I can’t lift a coffee mug and hold it up; when I tried, it just popped up and crashed back down (hence the new keyboard; should have tried it empty first…live and learn). Anything more than a couple pounds is too heavy to move at all.

Just like the kind of exercise any other person might do, it can be exhausting. Sometimes I’ll develop a mild headache. If I exert myself too much, I get what I call brain yawns. Imagine your whole head is shivering, just like it feels when you yawn, except your mouth is closed and your eyes sort of wobble in their sockets.

I keep these exercise operations clandestine, using the semi-reliable laundry basket method I’ve discussed previously. So far, not one of my four roommates has caught me at it.

You read that right, four roommates. Two couples and I...the fifth wheel-ness of the situation can be a bit isolating at times, but it isn’t nearly as bad as you’re probably imagining.

Yet, with four other people living in the house, it’s only a matter of time before they see something move when it shouldn’t, maybe too often to ignore. Questions will be asked.

What will I say then?

Seriously, don't try this at home

I caught a Star Wars movie on TV the other day. Not one of the originals, but one of the abominations that slimed out of George Lucas’ money-lined uterus. If you’ve struggled as hard as I have to forget this particular movie existed, you may not remember a scene where a Jedi is able to jump onto a ledge far above his head. This got me wondering if I could do the same thing.

The short answer is no, I cannot. I hope to be off the crutches in the next few days. In the meantime, I’ll be content pushing paper clips around my desk while no one is looking. And yes, I’ve been keeping it a secret. Occasionally I’ll forget to use my hands to pick up a small object, but you’d be amazed at the ability people seem to have to ignore what happens right in front of them.

My worst slip so far was at work. My co-workers and I were clustered around the front door, waiting for opening time, when the manager dropped his pen. Being a good little go-getter, I pulled that pen off the ground and handed it to him, right in front of no less than sixteen people. Only one of them so much as glanced at me, and she didn’t seem the least bit startled.

I’m not sure why I haven’t told anyone. I’m not afraid of becoming some sort of government guinea pig or anything like that. Once this hits the media, my life is going to become a goddamn circus, and that’s just not something I’m ready for. There’s no way to get the lid back on this particular can of worms.

I’ve also considered that this whole thing may be a very convincing hallucination, and that spreading the news would be a one-way ticket to the loony bin. Even if it is real, there will be press conferences, interviews, emails. People will want me to explain it, to teach it…I don’t think that’s possible.

It’s also the only remarkable thing I have going for me. The only remarkable thing that’s ever happened to me. It feels like sharing it with the world would diminish it, somehow. The knowledge of it makes me feel more confident; a concealed weapon, the perfect come-back, the best damn joke you ever heard. I know something and if I told you what it was, it would deflower your world and not even call it the next day.

One more thing I should mention before I sign off. I’m not able to leap thirty feet into the air, or lift boulders the size of station wagons. But the more I push paper clips and pens around, the easier it gets.

This power, gift, whatever you want to call it…it’s getting stronger.

-Allan

Looks like I'm not crazy, after all...

So, for starters, I've always hated the word "blog."

I'm Allan. Being a somewhat normal guy in his mid-twenties, I've never had the desire to chronicle my life before. But something big is happening. I'll get to that later; for now, I want to talk about that God-awful word.

"Blog" might be the most horrible word to come from the internet. It somehow manages to sound equal parts pretentious and what a swamp monster might say before it rips the head off the ethnic character in a Sci-Fi Channel movie starring Lorenzo Lamas.

Or maybe it's not so bad, and I'm just putting off the inevitable, the whole reason I started this thing. You ready for this?

As it turns out, I can move things. Without touching them. You know, with my mind.

I've spent a lot of time researching this and let me assure you, I do not belong on the fringe of society were these conspiracy theorists and general nutjobs reside. Up until last week, you might say I was fairly unremarkable - just another young guy working two jobs, chasing girls and wasting his life away in bars. I never believed in ghosts, aliens, snake people or telekinesis (or I wouldn't have, had I given any of these things a moment's thought).

It started out simply enough. Life, as it turns out, isn't like the movies, where these revelations come at times of great stress, usually with explosions and whatnot. I was laying on the couch watching TV when my cell phone rang. I had left it on the coffee table, well out of reach. A brief internal battle, laziness versus curiosity, ensued. Curiosity won, so I answered the call.

The conversation was nothing special (I can't even remember who it was), and it was several minutes before I realized that I hadn't gotten up to get the phone. The damn thing had come to me.

At first, I thought something was seriously wrong with me. Had I simply forgotten that I had stood up, walked the few feet to the table, and grabbed the phone? And just imagined the part where it flew, of its own accord, over to me? If it really happened, had it happened before without me noticing? Had I completely lost it?

It was a long time before I could gather the courage to find out. The next evening, I sat at my desk after securing the door as well as I could (a full laundry basket shoved in front of it), and placed a pen down in front of me. It felt ridiculous, but I sat there and stared at that pen for a full minute, willing it to move. Nothing happened. I was just about to give up when a different approach occurred to me - I focused on what the pen would feel like, were it in my hand. Suddenly I could feel it, even though I was sitting on my hands. I tried picking it up but it felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. I gave it a little push and it rolled a few inches across the desk.

That's when it became real to me. The phone hadn't flew to me of its own accord; objects don't have an accord. It moved because I moved it.

Looks like I'm late for work again. More later.

-Allan