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List of 50 (3 of 50): DEFECTIVE DATABASE PARTITION
Blake Butler

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Matthew Simmons


Blake Butler lives in Atlanta. This list is the 3rd in a series of 50 such lists of 50, left-brainedly titled: 2500. Other lists in the series, as well as other types of writings, are published at McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Elimae, The Citizen, etc., and can be found at www.deadwinter.com.





Photo by Sean Carman




1. When I was sixteen I wrote a poem that started: As the years press down, I will remember you.

2. I have no idea who I was talking about when I wrote that.

3. Which means, I guess, that I was lying.

4. Which makes me wonder now if I'm lying while I write this list.

5. Possible candidates for object of my promise to remember: mother, grandmother; possibly myself; father; the pencil I once stepped on that went straight on through my foot; Candace Cameron; Pamela Anderson; Jennifer McDade or Kerry Doyle; all kinds of candy, most breakfast cereal; McDonald's chicken nuggets; ice cream; mashed potatoes; cheese grits; cake.

6. I'm still really not sure.

7. List item 7 should be something about the impermanence of memory though I can't think clearly enough about it to say anything good.

8. If only I'd had email back then; so much remembered through archived email.

9. This list for instance is being written in a Gmail composition box, which includes various content-related sponsor links in the right-hand margin, currently including: Low Lying Fog, Lying Husband, Sentimental Gift, Memory Pillows, Love Poem on Pillow.

10. Wondering what links will be there if I refresh when this list is almost over.

11. Wondering if I mention how more than once as a teenager I stole bikini briefs from a department store and went home and put them on and stared in the mirror and touched myself, if that will be reflected in my Gmail sponsor links.

12. I was lying when I wrote list item 11.

13. Perhaps a more apt expression: As the years press down, I will continue getting older until I die.

14. My greatest fear my mother dying.

15. My second greatest fear waking up in the middle of the ocean at night.

16. Google ads I might actually click: Portal to Eternal Parent; Sleep Life Preserver; Free Jelly Belly beans for Life.

17. Percentage of my lifetime caloric intake attributable to candy (estimate): 18.

18. Where I'd like to see that number: 80.

19. My entire motivation for running two miles a day being to justify a sugar diet.

20. Four consecutive pieces of Watermelon Wave Bubblicious making my head seem to expand.

21. My already enormous cranium, for which I can not find a fitted hat.

22. One size fits all never fit me.

23. I used to lie about my weight.

24. My first driver's license claiming Weight 160, though my cheeks and neck spanned the entire width of the inlaid photo.

25. I was lying when I wrote list item 12.

26. According to Schopenhauer, even Jesus lied.

27. John 7:8-10 (New International Edition): "You go to the Feast. I am not yet going up to this Feast because for me the right time has not yet come. Having said this he stayed in Galilee. However, after his brothers had left for the Feast, he went also, not publicly, but in secret."

28. No one can resist a feast, especially when there's homemade mac and cheese.

29. I'd like to taste human flesh before I die.

30. A dash of Texas Pete; a slice of bread.

31. Little girl brought into work today, talking to her mother: "Who made our eyes? Our bodies?"

32. When told 'God,' she shook her head.

33. God may have made me, but I made me fatter.

34. How awful a 260 lb. sixteen-year-old looks in bikini briefs.

35. As the years press down, I will remember bikini briefs -- at least that much is certain.

36. To the extent that anything is certain.

37. The crudded inseam of my brain.

38. List item 38 believes it is certain of itself, and as a result it will not appear.

39. I should say nothing. I should save it.

40. Certainly nothing should appear.

41.

42. Sponsored links during line item 42: Columbus Ohio OB/GYN, Women's Health Encyclopedia, Firefighter Ringtones.

43. I am a target of ill-aimed marketing.

44. I'd like a Spam folder in my brain.

45. A folder where, like Google's browser, items still around longer than 30 days will be automatically deleted unless I move them.

46. I'd like to be in the automatically deleted Spam of certain other people's folders.

47. I'd like to be the dick enlargement ad in the email of the gym coach who made me spend extra time on pushups because I couldn't.

48. I'd like a Google database of my life.

49. I'd type in 'stupid fucker' and read hits 1 through 15,000.

50. I'd type in 'girls i wish i touched' in the Google Image Search.