shabby raze the stranded sea serpent who owns the house you live in has stolen something that belongs to you and left a leather couch in its place. green and grinning and gutless. it could be his twin. you confront him on his front porch and plead your case. he leads you into his garage and shows you what you've come for, dismantled and stowed in a red wagon. he says it weighs twenty thousand pounds. he offers to sell it back to you for the same amount of money he demands in cash at the top of each month as an unlawful add-on to the rent so he won't have to claim it on his taxes. with one hand you choke him until he sees stars. with the other hand you take back what's yours. you walk through the same door that saw you out in time to catch him in the kitchen, lunging at your father with an electric carving knife. you yell at the man who made you to grab the garbage pail. he hugs it to his chest — a shabby shield just sturdy enough to absorb what would have been the killing blow if you were half a step slower in getting back to the piss-soaked hell you call home. 250909 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Not the dream, but the word brings to mind a random moment from tutoring: a high school boy laughing after reading a sentence where a house is described as "shabby" because "shabby" sounds like the word for "stupid" in Chinese, and the idea of a house possessing or not possessing intelligence strikes him as funny. 250909 what's it to you? who go blather from