Fred Aiken Writing

December 16, 2024

real estate lotto

each year my real estate agent
gifts me a lottery ticket for xmas,
one of those $2 scratchers that
you   can win   (maybe) $20k....or a couple of bucks,
more than likely just a couple of bucks,
and i figured she sends me this just in case i win
the $20k and want to use that sweet, sweet lotto winnings
as a down payment on a rental property,
so that i can have tenants that don't like me,
and something akin to passive income,
but i don't what that sort of stress,

though i'm not sure i'm ready
to tell my real estate agent that yet

November 24, 2024

old, but not that old, so stop whining

my back hurts,
i am 35,
i’m tired,
i’m 35,
i’m overweight,
i’m 35,
it’s not that old,
but it’s not 25,
i need to go to bed at a decent hour,
i’m 35,
i have to go to work tomorrow,
i’m 35,
i probably need to schedule my next doctor’s appointment,
i’m 35,
i look up when i need to get a colonoscopy,
i’m not that old,
i’m 35,
	35
		35

November 14, 2024

celebrity names

i had an afternoon dream
	where i 	met		u	m	a	thur(man)
and discussed for what felt like an inordinate amount of time
like toomuchtime for it to be considered reasonable, sociable, acceptable,
discussing how to pronounce her name, ooohhh-ma, 
ouuue-mae-ma
ooooo-ahhhhh-maaaaaa
oohh-maaaai,
though before long
i realized	that i 		spent too much money on my vowels
so i woke up without getting to ask uma thurman,
(the version of uma thurman
	in my dream)
whether she had ever met jim carey,
which prompted the rest of my afternoon looking 
through their respective imdb’s to see if
uma thurman and jim carey had ever worked together