20030929 
Somedays it's really really hard to get out of bed.
Sometimes it's easier just to go home.
Some years just feel like they drag on and on.
The problem with hope, with faith, with desire.. it's patience's worst enemy. And sometimes these things are just a pain in the ass.
Which is why it's hard to get out of bed sometimes and why, year after year, as people get older and the world around just stays the same age, it's easy to start to care less and less.
At first there is caring. Then, with each day and each week and each year there is a little less trying, a little less listening and not quite as well, no more effort. More weezing at the end of a run and more laying in bed - just a little longer. Now, when things are at their worst - that is, nothing is wrong at all but nothing is right either - bed seems like a pretty comfortable sanctuary.
Sure, it's the curse that is the cure. It's the one place where solitude and thought come together to make for hours and hours of woe-is-me commentary inside the brain. It's mentally painful just to think about but it's the human condition - tired and panting, waiting, always self-inflicting narcissssssistic and booooring.
No one wants to hear it. So climb in bed and curl up a little too hot a little too cold but always easy to solve - throw the blankets off. Wrap up in the blanket. All the other problems seem so gigantic but these little ones - this hot this cold - they are immediate and simple. Like mini-marathons it's a happy time to be warmer or cooler and have accomplished something, quenched a desire. Those other issues seem so far away.
Like a hot tub. Hot and warm and relaxing but oddly tiring, sapping the energy out from under you like a magician, like a carni, like pulling the tablecloth out from under the china before you even notice a thing and you're tired.. very tired. That's just the thing about bed. It's self-perpetuating. Sleep too much and become more tired. It's the depressive's dream. Self loathing and then loathing the self-loathing only to love it, to embrace it, like a victum embraces their kidnapper. Love. Self love. Self hatred. Hating the love and loving to hate. The mixing of the two like coffee and cream, the hatred as the black coffee, dark and warm sometimes hot - burning to the touch - but the cream, oh the cream - cool and silky and pure. white. clean. - mixing, always more coffee than cream. Always more hatred to make the love seem that more special - to embrace the love the little tiny nugget of self-love inside and hold on hold on hold on for dear life. To become one's own worst enemy. To feel defeated. To fall asleep.
Sometimes sleep brings dreams. Bad dreams - dreams of death or flying and falling, of holding on, scrambling climbing back up over the precipice, only to have to face the dragon the demon the decon the mother father sister brother. Sometimes. But it's special different not real - easy to wake up and smell the coffee and let it all go go go go away. And then it's back in the bed, the monster demon gone away and nothing left but self-loathing and self-loving and back to normal back to feeling like crap all over again - back to the comfort of feeling like crap. Back to feeling like crap because it's what is known, is familiar and comfortable and that's why we don't take the drugs it takes away the pain and what's the fun in life if there is no pain? How good is the pleasure the guilty pleasure of enjoyment without the sacrifice the hurt the guilt the self-inflicted pain? No good no good at all because it's hollow empty shallow - means nothing. Doesn't make sense. Like cheese without the wine. How can you enjoy the cheese without the whine? The whine is completely necessary - is a part of the cheese - is part of being part of existing. Part of hating and loathing and beating one's self up and loving and kissing and making out with one's self and not even bothering to wear a condom with one's self. Self-deprecating and self-inflicting and self self self self.
Like alcohol down a drain. Spiraling downward into itself, all of it's toxic and clear but poisonous self.
Like glue in a bottle. Sticking to the insides. Glomming onto anything and not letting go not letting go literally having to be squeeeeezed out, protesting every movement.
Like the simple form of a water droplet. A beautiful one-time water droplet sitting atop a rock, a leaf, a blade of grass. A droplet curved in on itself - it's chemical powers of attraction pulling tugging tucking into itself. It's self love. It's self. self.
20030926
Okay, so I didn't watch the game last night. I was at work and at the gym and then in my kitchen cooking up some good food and I didn't watch the game. So shoot me. I did manage to listen to the first few innings in the car. I heard the Garp hit a three-run homey and I heard them take a 7-0 lead early on the Birds from Baltimore. Then, all sweaty and clammy heading home from the weight room I heard them make it 12-0 in the 5th. *12 to Zip*.
Ortiz, Wakefield, Walker, Manny.. they're all pretty excited to be going to the post season and I'm excited for them.
Final score was 14-3. Finally got a playoff berth and finally are going to play in the postseason against the A's of Oakland.. who are going to the postseason for the fourth straight year.
It's gonna be tough but at least they're going to get a shot at it this year.
20030925
"Yahoo! has a story on how it took less than an hour with a final vote of 412-8 to approve the 'do not call list'. "Votes to overturn the judge's order are expected mid-afternoon in both chambers, according to Republican leadership aides." The President is expected to sign today. Some choice quotes: "Fifty million Americans can't be wrong." and "This bill will pass faster than a consumer hanging up on a telemarker at dinner time." CNN also has the story."
| The Potion Maker |
|---|
| delphinium is an opaque, oily beige liquid leeched from the bones of a whale. | | Yet another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern |
Tony always tells everyone to write write write. Write all the time, he says. It's not exactly new advice, or original.. I mean what writing teacher hasn't said write all the time? Isn't it obvious? If you want to fly you gotta flap your wings, right? But it's still good to hear it - to be pushed into trying and working at it. It helps to be snapped at sometimes, to break out of that funk. Plus, Tony always makes me chuckle when he does it. He always manages to say it in a different way each time. Tells you to write write write. Throws a little sex and drugs into it and then tells you to write write write. Tells you to rock out with your cock out and then write write write.
write all the time. i say write every day. i actually say write many times a day, but write. write when youre bored, write when youre inspired, write when youre tired, write after you 69ed a girl for a half hour and then flipped over and banged for a half hour more. write about not getting any, write about getting more that you deserve, write about sports, write about politics, write about your car, your cat, your dog, the shit between your toes, write about the shit between your toes that smells like your dog.
Clearly the dude is taking his own advice.
20030924
Fuckers towed my bike. Towed it right out from under me and then acted surprised that I wasn't so happy to pay to get it back.. that I wasn't so happy to have to get up early, wake a friend up early, drive out to who the hell knows where and fork over my cash to a bunch of fat guys sitting around in a dingy trailer/office. Fuckers.
So I went to work and I let the toil burn the hate out.. like leeching like bleeding only work was my leech and sweat was my blood and now I'm pretty much over it.
Thing with getting fucked is that it will drive you completely insane if you don't do anything about it. You need to be proactive. I chose, in this case, to get up as early as possible and get the whole thing over with as quickly as I could. I chose to put it behind me in the most succinct manner possible and now I can move on. I still hate those fuckers but time heals all wounds and my bike didn't have any scratches so here I am - see? No complaints.
So I trudge to sleep at 2am only to roll, groaning, from my sheets at the ripe time of 4:40am to sit upon my porch, wait, and ruminate. By 4:45am I am inside a car driving to the outskirts of the city - to the airport - I am dropping off two baggage laden folks - they just beginning their trip so awfully early in the morn and I, I am returning home - returning to my bed - returning to my sanity, however thin, seethrough, and sheet like it may be.
But I had a note on the car this morning. As I was running about the house looking for my wallet (I haven't lost my wallet in over 12 years.. it took a few swims in the lake, but it hasn't been properly lost) in a panic this early morning (early 4:45am early - in order to get some folks to the jetport..
no, seriously.. that's what they call it here - the jetport) I looked out the window to see a yellow piece of paper fluttering on my windshield.
"What now?" I thought.. as if this week hasn't already tried my patience. As if one more thing could go wrong.
I couldn't find my wallet and one more thing did go wrong. My neighbour hit my car. A nice white streak on the rear quarter panel to match her nice white car but I suppose I shouldn't complain too much cause she managed to streak the exact spot that was rusting. You all know what that means. It just sucks because now I actually have to feel bad about getting it fixed.. I have to feel bad about her insurance rates going up and I have to feel bad for "putting her out". It's not like I bought the car yesterday. It's not like it's 2 years old or 5 years old or even 8 years old.. It's over 10 years old now. And I'm going to have her insurance rates go up and heck, the way they work these days, maybe my insurance rates will go up just for the hell of it - just cause - why not? It is insurance afterall.. ain't workin if it ain't going up, right?
So this all after my wallet - lost, my bike - towed, my sanity - gone. Fine. Let me go to work, go to the grocery store first so I can confirm that my wallet is in fact not there. Confirm the likelyhood that it is now in the hands of a subversive element and all credit cards are - 12 hours later - completely maxed out. Confirm that there is an extremely high possibility that my wallet is now in the hands of terrorists - saudis, muslims, jews, croats, whatever - and I am now, in fact, indirectly funding the onslaught of jyhad terror being reigned down upon the unsuspecting - and, let's just say it out loud folks, clearly undeserving and unprovoking - people of this fine and upstanding nation. I am, in fact, a terrorist myself.
I am, in fact, on the do-not-call list - clearly an illegal document in and of itself. Clearly, I am a felon. Clearly. Clearly, the Oklahoman U.S. District Judge Lee R. West finds my actions - my desires to sit at home and eat my dinner and not be inundated with tens, hundreds, thousands of calls soliciting me to change my phone carrier, change my magazine subscription, change my life. Clearly.
Direct Marketing Association, one of the plaintiffs, said it was happy with the ruling, even though it "acknowledges the wishes of millions of U.S. consumers who have expressed their preferences not to receive telephone-marketing solicitations - as evidenced by the millions of phone numbers registered on the FTC list."
Which is to say, quite clearly and in fairly obvious double-speak: "We don't care about the U.S. consumer, don't care about their preferences about solicitations, and in fact will continue to not care in the least bit."
The DMA, a nonprofit trade organization representing 5,000 U.S. companies, said it will work with its attorneys, the FTC and the FCC during the next few days to evaluate what the ruling will mean for consumers and businesses.
Which is to say, quite clearly and in blindingly obvious terms: "We're going to do whatever we can to ignore the rights of the common citizen in this country for as long as we can. We don't care one lick about the individual - the very building blocks of this nation. We care only about the bottom dollar, the dollar almighty - the magnificent shinny silver dollar.. One Nation, Indivisible (except by 1s, 5s, 10s, and 20s), with lay-away, and no justice for the small"
The telemarketing industry estimates the do-not-call list could cut its business in half, costing it up to $50 billion in sales each year. Telemarketers would have to check the list every three months to see who doesn't want to be called. Those who call listed people could be fined up to $11,000 for each violation.
Which, basically sounds like a wonderful idea. $11,000. No problem. A large amount - for each instance - perhaps.. but..
Apparently $11,000 is really, in fact, a tiny insignificant tiny puny little tiny amount. $11,000, in fact, nothing. A drop in the bucket.. who says this? who is telling me this? Well, none other than the very business community that is baulk at such numbers - the very corporate structure that wants to charge me $150,000 for each instance of music copyright violation I perpetrate. In fact, the same corporate system that wants to sue my grandmother for downloading "I'm a Thug," by rapper Trick Daddy through kazaa when in fact she has a mac (which can not run kazaa). This is the same system that, when shown the errors of it's ways - when shown that it's methods for collecting information of those who have violated copyrights are seriously flawed and when shown that my grandmother, in fact, did not download thousands of rap songs - replies haughtily and contritely:
"Please note, however, that we will continue our review of the issues you raised and we reserve the right to refile the complaint against Mrs. Ward if and when circumstances warrant,"
Fuck YOU.
Fuckers.
And then, I got to work - the sun shining and the air warm and bright - and I had some coffee. I did some good work. I worked hard and when I turned around there was my wallet on the floor in front of me as if presenting itself to me for my efforts. The sun the sky the stars didn't fall down, I got one more telemarketing call today, and my car is a little more worse for wear. My wallet is lighter, but in my hands, and my folks are safely in Wisconsin.
Someone even told me it was National Ass Grabbing Day..
Fuckers.
20030922
I suspect this place could serve a better purpose. I suspect there could be some sort of debate here that, when carried through, would result in some drastically cool ideas. I suspect you may not have noticed but I am working in the background to come up with something, maybe drastically cool. A shift, as Nissan would say. I don't have anything to say about it now but it's on my mind so I thought I'd mention it.
Words are so delicious sometimes. They're all wrapped with wit and sarcasm and sadness. Or biting and caustic and harsh - sharp. Sometimes they just sound cool together. It's a marketing game.
Brand Trueboy.
I don't know what that means. I don't know if she means "brand" as in brand.. I don't know if it's like kleenex brand brand, or if it's like branded with an iron brand, or what. I'm not sure that it matters.. it's just a damn cool moniker. And so I'm over there today, over at trueboy (the other poster to that site, by the way, is sterling fassbinder.. holy cow) and there is a screenshot of good 'ol Q*Bert. I mean shit. Q*BERT! Ah it's been a long time but how cool is that? What does that name mean? Does it have any sense to it at all or is it complete nonsense?
Now, I know the 70's were kind of struggling according to a lot of you. I know the clothes were a little.. well.. weird. I know the whole disco thing scared a lot of people into serial murder and I know that Carter was pretty goofy looking.. but really, think of the arcade games. Sooo many cool names there. Galaxian. Q*Bert. Pac-Man. Tron. Gyruss. Zaxxon... I mean come on folks - Zaxxon. Does it get much better than that? ( let me point you over here for all your free online arcade needs.)
raymi the minx
Like.. not just raymi - which is odd enough to begin with - but 'the minx' too. Just enough to make you wonder. Just enough to peak your interest.
Blubber.
Now that's just a really cool word. It's fun to say. It makes your mouth feel funny when you repeat it over and over. It's good for cooking and keeping things warm. blubber. blubber. It's no wonder Disney ripped it off for that whole flubber movie.
20030921
It's been about 20 days since I chewed my last fingernail. If you'll recall, I informed the world here, 20 days ago, that I promised myself I would stop chewing my fingernails. I wrote it and I repeated it and then I walked away and mostly forgot about it and now, 20 days later, I haven't chewed a fingernail yet. It's really quite amazing because I haven't been hankering and I haven't even noticed and it wasn't, for the most part, any sort of work to pull off. It just sort of happened.
The problem, however, with trying to quite chewing your nails is that having no nail clippers in the house leads quickly to having very long fingernails.. and I don't have to tell you that the most inviting thing for a nail-biter is some luciously long fingernails to hanker on. Especially if it's been 20 days.
And after awhile it becomes pretty unruly, anyhow. After you're done leaving the house and when you can't even button your jeans cause they get in the way and after you do the howard hughes bit for awhile with the creepy curled and hanging look.. well.. even the most non-nail-biting person ever in the world... don't tell me they wouldn't want to nibble the damn things off. Just to get rid of them. Just to free one's self from the shackles of creepy long curled and twisted fingernails.
It's funny we call them nails because they're really not that at all. Cats don't have nails and dogs don't have nails. Bears and hawks and goats, neither. Makes you wonder why we called them nails. They're flat and brittle and not particularly good for much and certainly residual in the human tail bone sort of way and we come out with nails? That's the best we can do? I think maybe hardened cuticular bed sounds better. Think about it.. it sort of rolls off the tongue really;
"Hey, joe, you still biting your hardened cuticular beds?"
"Oh yah man, I can't quit"
and
"Hey man, can you scratch your hardened cuticular beds on my back?"
and even
"Hey, stop at the store - I need to pick up some hardened cuticular bed polish"
Yah see? Much better than nails. Nails makes it sound like you're chewing on metal. Nails is harsh - cold. No personality in that. Hardened cuticular bed.. now that's a name.
There are a few phrases out there that can make me go from smile to cringe in a nanosecond.
I'm not one to complain is a prime example. This phrase pretty much means, in double-speak, hey, listen to me, I'm about to whine about something. Alanis would have you believe it's "ironic".. I just find it irritating.
Hey, how about this weather, huh?. People, it seems, can be amazed by anything. One time, this summer, there was a stretch of sunny days. It wasn't too hot, not obnoxiously so, but then again I was in Maine. I think it might have rained a few times during these set of days, too.. maybe once at least. So, here we had some sunny days with a little rain and this kid goes to me "Hey man, how about this weather?" like he truly couldn't believe it. Like the Red Sox won the world series. Like Bush got impeached. He seemed truly surprised by this sunny weather, in the summer, in Maine. Amazing.
It's like Dennis Leary said in his Asshole song, he wanted to "drive around in the summertime saying: how about this heat?"
You know you really are an asshole?
20030920
From arseburger:
I raed oevr at Lsia's taht the biarn can raed wrdos wtih ltreets in any oderr peviodrd taht the fsrit and lsat lrettes are cerrcot.
By prue ciincncdoee, I aslo dversoiecd a sicprt taht gnrteeaes the scmrebald wdors for you.
creeeeepy. not entirely surprising, though.. I mean, it seems pretty natural that evolution would account for poor spelling, no?
20030919
MESSAGE TO: Alex Schwartz
Hello everyone,
My name is Niva and I am a member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated on the UCSB campus. We are hosting our 3rd annual Freestyle FridayZ contest on Friday October 17 in IV Theatre I. The pot is at the very least $100, but most likely more. For those of you interested please contact me ASAP cause the brackets fill up quick.
Thanks and have a great day.
Niva
"To live life judging the weightless treasures of others
is but a lost one." -- Siniva Tulua
REPLY TO: Siniva Tulua
Niva,
You might be interested, you might not, but here it is anyway.
The 'one' at the end of your quote doesn't refer to 'life' earlier in the
sentence, as I think you mean it to. 'One' in this sentence is referring to the
whole infinitival phrase ('To live life . . .') - it just doesn't make any sense.
It's like saying 'To play piano badly is but a lost one.' What you probably mean to say is 'A life spent judging the . . .' In that sentence, 'one' would refer to the noun phrase, 'a life.'
Also, do you really mean 'weightless?' What would it mean for symbolic treasures to be weightless? I think you probably mean 'immeasurable,' or 'boundless.'
I'm not intentionally being a dick; I thought you might appreciate the suggestions, as everyone that gets an email from you gets to see that sentence.
later,
Alex
Am I a fucking dork, or what. I couldn't just let that go. It was really fucking irritating me, and I am sure my anxiety level will decrease if when writes me back having changed it. I don't even know her.
But she's probably hotter than I can possibly imagine. Campus is UP and running again . . . I biked past the sorority registration yesterday on campus. All I can say is, BRAIN FUCK. I could literally hear my circuits overloading. I'm not even exaggerating. After a while, I just had to look away. I told the married guy I was with that it was almost better to have a significant other in this situation. The brain power lost to senseless calculation of mate value is just extraordinary.
Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.
Now, I understand the technicalities here. I understand that stumbling, in the middle of the night, into a dark bathroom only to find yourself firmly wedged inside a toilet bowl, bum cheeks dipping into the chumwaters - well that ain't the most fun a girls ever had.
But, along the same vein, stumbling into a dark bathroom in the middle of the night only to urinate all over the seat of the toilet, only to have to clean it up, that's no cake and ice cream either.
That's all I'm saying.
Jaime just wrote about a girl with an Egyptian eye tattoo on her pubic bone.
I dunno about you but if I was lying down with a girl, peeling back the layers of clothing, pulling off her pants, in the throes of passion... and I saw this. Yipes. That would freak me out.
Then again, hers probably doesn't wiggly around like that, huh?
20030918
OK. I'd like to sort some shit out.
Reply to MAYBE: There's no maybe about it; you are changing. Looking at it as a progression to something is fine, but I believe more accurate is simply being aware of the change. I appreciate the tension . . . the opposing arguments, the two sides to the coin, but I truly believe that life experience, even narrative, truly can't be fit into a progression towards anything. No Potential: at that level it's like yoda says. I am waking to this. I furthered the waking just yesterday. I played frisbee with some undergrads, and I cooked dinner for some friends. Playing frisbee on the beach now, I am pretty fun to watch. And I never really bust it out if I playing with anyone, but nonetheless, the kids were impressed. Awestruck even. And one of them said, "I wish I could play disc." Here's what I'm saying. Those thoughts, anxieties, I would say, to be more accurate, are not about potential. I don't fucking know what I could or couldn't do. If the anxiety gets strong enough, I get off my ass. Then I change, just as I would have changed otherwise. It is simply a matter of differential practice.
OK. Next point. Sleeping & Dreaming: Absolutely amazing. I agree that the sensation is entirely otherworldly. If that's what happens when I die, I'll be really excited. Also, I totally appreciate your sentiments about incoherence when awaking.
Third. I am dubious to the extent that anyone reading this blog thinks that you or I are stupendously bright, or, I am dubious to the extent that anyone reading this blog thinks that you or I are any brighter than anyone else writing a blog. I do not doubt that you are terrifically bright, but I am doubtful the blog conveys this. You know why? When I peruse other blogs out there, I generally perceive the author of every blog I read to be very intelligent. Now, it's just a numbers game. I know through actual experience that most people are not really intelligent. I say that with the confidence that I do not judge people by 'intelligence,' as that is a lame criterion to judge people with. Continuing, if only about 3% of the population is really bright, and I perceive everyone I see on the internet to be so, then one of two options must be true. I choose the 'faulty perceptions' option, and furthermore, I generalize that option to the rest of the population. Concluding that nobody really believes you a genius based on the blog. Sorry there, pal.
Fourth. AMEN on the type conversation. Dude, this is an extension of my lifelong fantasy that some chick (always cute in my fantasy . . . ) should know everything about me, and come by in my hour of need, and comfort me, and then we fall in love. It would fit so perfectly into that paradigm if just by reading what I wrote on a blog would turn out to be that person. Alas, never to be. But, I think that's part of the attraction of writing here. I don't know if it is for you, as well.
Sports: I would like to give my piece about what is going on here. Let's say sports are part of a human coalitional psychology that calculates the outcome of conflict (like power/status struggles) without incurring the cost of actual fighting. They have probably existed as long as people have been living in groups. They were once very important, as Power/status was probably tied to stuff like ability to fuck shit up on the playing field, and still today, that ability grants some kind of power. Anyway, people's attraction to coalitional fights (Sports, reality TV, Inter-office spats) is the same attraction to war with THEM, exploitation of THEM, and whatnot. So, though sports themselves may be insignificant in the grand scheme, the phenomenon is stirring shit up.
I feel you dislike my style of writing to you, as if it was just an email, on a blog, which is not a email at all, but rather a blog. Therefore, for the benefit of the rest of those motherfuckers out there in internectorland, I will write a poem.
To the internectorites.
I like to sing while in the street,
I like to look at people while they eat.
Uncomfortableness is great
To stir shit up and fun create.
Life is crazy, and more so
Than you or I will ever know,
So instead of fighting the universal trend
Become a crazy, and reality bend!
It's fun to take a chance on those
People unknown and folks that one knows:
Ask a stranger about her day
Tell you coworker about a good lay.
No prescription do I mean,
Rather a idea I like you to glean
Life is short, so while you're here
Decide how much you want to be decided by fear.
What now.
I've never bought a lottery ticket in my whole stinkin' life. Not once. Here in Maine the jackpots are usually a little anemic anyway: 1.3 million one week, .9 the next. .9 million dollars is not a whole lotta cash, folks. Not at all. Not when you just got a bill in the mail for $89 Billion.
But Powerball doesn't happen here in Maine and we're probably better off for it. Hoping for a chance at $168 million dollars every year is bound to put a toll on the human heart, as only dashed hope can. Imagine that great job, the one you've wanted your whole life, imagine it opening up and imagine going in for the interview. Imagine, if you will, the clean pressed clothes and happy plastic smile you'd be wearing at the interview and the hearty handshake you'd give. Imagine all that want, that need, bottled up inside, right behind that plastic smile. Think of all the pressure the guilt the anxiety the love the want the hate the greed the need. And then, when you're done with all that, think of loosing all the control you might have had in that situation. Imagine it is all left to chance.. a tiny impossibly small chance. Imagine they want to pay you $168 million dollars.
That's what the powerball is to me and it's dark and evil in all it's bright-eyed hopefulness. I think I'd honestly rather a chance at 100 dollars with a $10 ticket than I would $168 million for a $5 ticket. Economics of scale - but in an inversely proportional sort of way.
Imagine everyone around you getting cancer. Think of all your friends getting AIDS and Ebola and SARS. Consider yourself lucky as you walk, free from any diseases, from one hospital bed to another. Imagine all your friends looking up at you in awe, in hope, in fear of what will happen to them if you don't touch them with your pure heart, your clean soul, your healthy body. Think of the power the pressure the hurt the pain.
That's what the powerball would be like to me in all it's glory. A curse a plague an epidemic of health when all around you lay sick and dying people.
I'm not saying money solves all problems. I'm saying money solves all hope. With money there isn't any need for hope or faith or love anymore and that can only be dark and evil.
I did play a scratch ticket once.
I lost.
20030917
Oh to be a sports announcer. What a chill job. You get to sit around behind the mask of supermodel athletes on glowing green fields (for your face is never really shown, no one wants to see your ugly mug) and you get to yell about stuff - even when it doesn't matter.
Sports, my friends, never matter. They don't effect the world futures market. They don't spin straw into gold. They can't even stop the moon and the stars, so what good are they really?
We'd all like to pretend that the 1980 U.S. Hockey Team saved the world from crippling communism. We'd even like to pretend that little Kerri Strug solved world hunger by taking the weight of the global problem all on that little ankle of hers.
But get real. Sports don't matter.
Doesn't mean you shouldn't be excited about the Red Sox, though. Screw Tony and his super cubs, they're doomed. The Red Sox..okay, they're doomed too.. but we can hope. We can imagine beautiful things from this little franchise. We can imagine world peace, goodwill towards all men, free ice cream.. We can imagine it all - if only the Red Sox could win.
I want to be a sports announcer when the Red Sox break the curse, when they slap old bambino in the ass like a bum horse - get out of here. I want to be able to yell:
Red Sox Win! Red Sox Win! Red Sox Win!
Of the few people who wander by this little taco stand every once in awhile I imagine most of you out there have this idea in your heads that this guy - this typist (for let's call him what he really is) - he's kinda bright. He's got most of his i's dotted and t's crossed and he writes a funny line but I can at least understand him. He at least seems to make semi-coherent thoughts. He appears to have the power - the brain capacity - to formulate ideas onto paper, into the computer, out to the screen. So genius? No, not by a long shot but interesting, perhaps.. enough to come back once in awhile and gander at the new pickings.
Oh, I dunno.. maybe it's like watching a train wreck or a car accident. Maybe there is hope in the wretched of the earth?
Whatever. I'm here right now to tell you that you are wrong. Wrong if you think I got anything going on upstairs. Wrong if you think there are gears turning and whirring and spinning. Wrong if you think the marbles haven't rolled out the door and down the street yet..
Cause in matters of the heart, I am truly a lost cause. I'm a complete hopeless mess. I've not the foggiest thought in my head, not even a hint of an idea, the inkling of a solution, or a smidgen of a plan. Not when it comes to matters of the heart.
I've discussed before, in these pages, a matter of slight heartedness. Slight in the slight of hand sense. A good act a good show, Encore! Encore! Even I was hooked. The episodes came fast and furious at first and there was suspense. The story climbed quickly but perhaps too quickly and it wasn't long before it became strung out and tired.. but my point (I still have one, you know) is that it was more for the sense, the feel, the excitement than it was for the truth. Let's be honest, the doktor wasn't my type, now was she?
Okay. You're right. What's my type? I don't know. Do I have a type? What are types? It's an archaic system, to be sure.. these "types".
But if I had a type it wouldn't be the doktor. It wouldn't be some girl who, upon discovery of a blog in which she is discussed at length (and in favourable light, I might add) decides that it is certainly not acceptable, certainly a horrendous deal and she wants out.
If anyone knows what I'm talking about, bravo for studious attention.
So the doktor outs me - or we're presumed to think so based on the anonymous comment left. They out the blog and her role in it and adds "maybe she didn't call because she has been reading everything you've written"..
Saved by the bell. Saved again, really, by the natural wonders of the internet. The girl, ladies and gentleman, was not a keeper. And I say that with the utmost respect. I don't mean she isn't lovely and wonderful.. just certainly not my type.
Some would argue that I made a mistake in there somewhere. I guess that's my point. I made a mistake. In this case it happened to work out in my favour, my bumbling antics, but I can't always count on favour and luck. Sometimes I just have to make mistakes.
Today I wrote a piece of poetry. Not poetry really, but a few simple lines of text. This shouldn't be a big deal considering my relative diahrea of the keyboard daily displayed here.. but it was a big deal because it was particularly bad poetry. It was also particularly badly timed. And nothing, my friends, nothing is worse than badly timed bad poetry.
There is something - I like to call it the cheesy-80's-movie-dilemma - that we all experience every once in awhile. It usually involves matters of the heart and the dilemma is usually whether or not to do something really dumb in front of or for a special someone. This can be anything from going over to your favourite girls house to do stupid human tricks on the lawn to holding your boom box over your head in the middle of the night on your girlfriends lawn to camping out for eight days on your crushes lawn.. okay.. see a trend here?
You thought I meant the lawn.
No, I'm talking about the girl. And the bit about doing stupid shit. You know, I'd like to be of the school that says if they like you, if you have a living chance in hell, then no amount of stupid dumb shit will ruin it. But everyone flunks out of that school, and for a good reason.
If a butterfly flaps it's wings in China, we get hurricane Isabella over here.. And as things are with matters of the heart. Cause and effect. Tiny causes. Huge effect.
I had more to say but I'll be honest. I just lost it. It's a little too late and I'm a little too tired. Let me just end with this universal warning for you all - girls and boys alike:
Think before you act. Don't do dumb shit. Especially dumb shit like this:
you are quite a lovely flower,
Oh to be your honey bee.
20030916
I was unsure last night. Wasn't quite myself. Had half awake fits where I decided weird things were happening to my bedroom. Broken ceiling. Leaning wall. Structurally unsound. Dangerous, even. The last thing you want to happen to you as you sleep is to have your bedroom wall fall on you.. especially when you imagine that bedroom wall heavy enough to crush your tiny little heart.
I got up and stepped back. Protected my interests, my tiny little heart, and starred bleary-eyed at the wall. I tried to push it back, align it a little better with the other walls so maybe I could act normal if someone burst through my door at 4 AM expecting to catch me not being normal.. because that would normally happen.
Sleep walking is kind of like being on drugs. You can get used to it but the paranoia never truly goes away.. and it's unfounded paranoia, too. It makes no sense. Your arms didn't fall off. What are you worrying about?
So I pushed the wall a little bit and looked at my bed and it looked normal. I turned the light on and starred, probably 2 or 3 minutes straight, at the angled ceiling above my pillows to see if it was moving at all.. even a tiny millimeter.. anything. It stayed put. I reasoned with the little child part of my brain while the angry part paced back and forth in a fury, just out of range.
5 AM - I sat bolt upright in bed. I'd been talking to someone but no one was there. I don't know what I was saying or how important it was but I looked, wide-eyed, around the room to make sure no one was laughing.
These are the problems with bringing people into your life.. into your bed. It's willingly showing one's shortcomings, airing one's laundry. What if you do say things in your sleep? Not just mumbling jibberish but real fears and needs and wants? What if they find out? What if they know?
At some point they're going to think you're pretty crazy for trying to push the wall back into place at 4 AM like you have no other choice. They will think your attempts to blend into the farm scene by quacking like a duck is lunatic material. They will, undoubtably, laugh.
Laugh. Don't get me wrong, it's some of the funniest shit in the world to see. Dead people doing dead things, acting alive. That's what sleep really is - it's like a temporary sabbatical into that other world. And to see people, asleep - dead really, acting out very alive things, it's crazy. It's side-show circus at it's best. They are dead but they are alive.. alive but dead. Dead to the world anyway.
But in a vunerable state, just awake from having slept walk, it's like becoming a child all over again. A child can't understand why his parent is mad at him, why they are laughing and pointing. A child can't make any more sense of these things than to become paranoid. Ball up, run away, hide. These are the things a child knows to do.
Next morning - relate a story. It's fine. Everyone is awake and understanding. The actions make little sense, but that makes sense, because they were sleep walking. It's funny now, and funny for everyone. Funny even for the sleepwalker, the sleeptalker, and the daydreamer.
It's funny now.
Maybe.
Maybe I've stopped experimenting. I've stopped trying and changing and improving. I've stopped the motivated process of growth. If I was a cog in the machine before then I was a raw widget, unrefined. Society took me out from beneath the metal stamping machine, and it molded me. Sanded me down, smoothed the rough edges. Sculpted as it saw fit. Now... now I fit into the machine. I'm a cog a widget a wheel. From now on out it's wear and tear, fix and replace. No more sanding or improving. No more making better.
Maybe.
Maybe not. Maybe it's the dawn of a new day and I'm just awaking and I have my whole life ahead of me. Maybe... just maybe.. I am but a rough prototype of my final self. A sketch. A blueprint not yet approved. An idea on paper, not yet executed. The world has some thoughts about me.. has found a place and a time for me.. but I'm not sure if I want to go there. I may not go there. I may just stay behind. I may sneak out the back and run away faster and faster.
Maybe.
Maybe I'll write about it, like a rough sketch - the idea being mulled and thought about but not committed to. Maybe I'll say maybe. Maybe that'll be enough. Someday, somewhere, for someone, maybe is enough.
Maybe.
Maybe the potential is killing me like the weight of a good book. Maybe the pressure is like a thousand men pushing back at the door you're trying to get through.. shuffling about, feet stomping on other feet and sweaty hands pushing through to the front, pushing at the door, making sure you don't get through.. but even a thousand men.. they make mistakes. Individual mistakes, sure, but even mistakes as a whole.. like a snake without a head, writhing and twisting in the dirt, doing itself no good. Maybe the mass of men the force will shift. Maybe it will not be able to control it's own power like a leaderless faction. Implode in on itself if only for a moment. Maybe, in that split second of questionable doubt, maybe you or I or the whole of society, squished into it's smallest form, can make it through the crack in the door.. out the other side and down the alley way running running and glancing back in fear but running and not seeing anything coming and then free. Bursting through to the other side to the street to the open air and the trees and the light. Free.
Maybe.
20030915
I don't know how people do it sometimes.
I really don't.
Going out every night. Eating out every day. Getting up and doing their laundry and making sure there aren't any dust bunnies under their bed. Sleeping 5, maybe 7 hours a day and working 9 and then off to the gym to kill themselves for that roast beef at lunch. Then off to the bar or the restuarant and into the late night diner and out onto the street.. walking down towards home or maybe riding in a cab. Climbing in bed with whomever and waking early enough to sneak out, maybe a note, and into yet another cab and off to yet another day of drudgery.
And they're happier? Maybe. But they spend an awful lot of cash, I bet. I know two people who make about the same amount of money. I won't say who or how much but one of them manages to spend about every penny and then some. They go out and eat out and buy clothes and pay for people. The other person I know who makes the same amount of money doesn't nearly spend so much. Cooks more. Eats in more. Drinks less. Splurges less.
I'd like to say one of them is happier than the other. I'd like to say one is good and the other is evil because if there is anything that humans can understand it's your basic good and evil. I'd love to be able to say "Look, this one is right. This other one is wrong." But I can't because I'm not so sure there is a huge difference. They live in the same town. They go out to the same bars. They both worry about money and they both worry about girls. Every once in awhile they don't worry and they just have fun. Not always together or on the same night or in the same way but what I'm really saying is that it really is all the same. There is very little difference there.
I know a guy who can spend and spend and spend if it's on plastic. He'll slap that thing down any time all the time without even the slightest thought as to the process that will begin to happen the second that little card is swiped through the machine. The millions of little electrical signals that will criss-cross the country. The calculations that will be done. The paper that will be printed and mailed and thrown away and mailed again and again and the phone calls. The funny thing about it all is that if you give him a wad of cash, some green he can actually feel and hold, he clams up. Things become a little too expensive. He clutches the money close to him and doles it out sparingly. He looks for bargains. He counts his change.
I'm just the opposite. I don't know why. If I have cash in my pocket then someone else has cash in their hands and my pocket is empty. It's almost an automatic instantaneous situation. Like a time-warp holodeck light beam thing. Money goes in the pocket, money is scanned.. split into a billion tiny pieces of light - not even light but pieces of light. particles of particles. The money then flows out of the pocket - straight through the cotton and the jean and the polyester, around the fibers and over the hand (placed protectively, as if it could), and out into the world. Maybe into someone else's pocket or into a bank or a store cash box or onto the street.. I don't know where.. just not here. If I have cash I spend it freely like it's water or air like it's a natural resource that flows and always flows and like a creek bed it may dry up but wait long enough and once again it will flow and flow.
Plastic though is my bottle neck. Everytime it goes down on the counter, every time I scribble out my name I'm painfully aware of the implications. I spend sparingly and with regret and never ever do I like doing it.
The most fun I've had spending money was always in cash.
But some people... I just don't know how they do it. They get a thrill from spending.. anything, really. They spend time and money and effort and they like it. They put everything into it. Shopping, it's a lifestyle. Some people are born to shop and that's all they do for their whole lives. They're shopping for shoes and clothing and cars and husbands and wives and lives. But mostly lies.
All lies.
Big fat greenback lies.
20030913
I am absolutely positive that I have a virus, but It can't be found. Everytime I try and log on to something it adds an extra character at the end of my password, fucking it up. I am scared to use my computer. I am scared the feds have taken residence in my pc and are tracking my activities. check out blankespoor.pitas.com/ I saw this girl on frienster, and she has great taste in music, and I'm in love with her. But she lives in DC, and I'm not interested in moving. alas
Why am I not your friend yet, asshole?
20030912
ABCNEWS.com :Johnny Cash is dead and gone. Done.
And I'm left here to wonder: whose left?
20030911
How is it that I complain? Every day is good things and bad, free boba with a buy 8 get one free card, denied health insurance claim, parking meter with 43 minutes already on it, bird shits on the windshield. Lose the keys, find the keys. It all evens out.
See? Kitty gets it. I get it. Do you get it?
Maybe not. Maybe you missed the bus today and your car broke down and the boss laid you off and you lost your wallet so you can't even buy lunch. Maybe your filling fell out and your crown broke and your tooth chipped and seven little dwarfs danced a jig on your tongue in their dirty boots. Maybe your dad yelled at you, your mom died, and your sister shot at you... from her trailer... because you wouldn't give her child support money.
Maybe.
See? It can always be worse. I could start complaining right now and keep on complaining through the whole day. My kneck hurts. I think I slept on it wrong last knight. It's all kinky and knotted. After fixing one muffler on the bike last week the other one has broken. My car registration was up last month and I have a krink in my kneck.
See? I told you I can complain. But what's the point? No one will listen anyway. No one cares about my questionable body effluvium. No one is worried about my bum knee. No one is looking out for my glasses that I lost three, four, five months ago. No one.
Not even me, because if you can't beat 'em join 'em, right? If no one else gives a shit about it why should I? Am I so much better that, when everyone else deems the situation un-worry-worthy, I will worry? Am I so much less for caring when caring is so out of style?
See? I can go with the flow. The sun is out. It's shining high in the sky yet is providing a very amenable level of heat, as if it listened, this morning, to my sleeping thoughts on weather and what a wonderful day it would be if the sun wasn't so hot, but just mild and soothing.
I am drinking coffee and it tastes good. Not every day does coffee just taste good, just like that. Sometimes you have to cajole it into good taste.. like a nerdy friend with bad style: "No, really, try these pants.. they'll make you look normal". Sometimes you have to add sugar and milk and cream and equal. A little cancer-causing agent never hurt no one, right? Sometimes you have to let it cool and make sure not to burn it in the first place and sometimes.. sometimes.. you gotta mix. Flavoured coffee is usually horrendous but if you mix it with a little regular than it's not so bad. Think of it in gas terms: You got your Premium (think espresso), your Mid-Grade or Supreme or whatever the hell they call it (I like how they make both choices sound good - like 50's motown bands with shiny white teeth, I bet their fillings didn't fall out) and then you have plain.. old... regular. Regular is what regular people get. Normal people. The people that give you those pants and say "try these, they'll make you look normal". And I don't mean in a conformist way. I don't mean in the way that some dude who has his own style going on gets bumraped into wearing Polo and Structure. I mean in that way where you take the strugglin dude.. the guy wearing stone washed jeans not because he likes them but because that is what was cool last time he bothered to think about fashion.. and you teach him a little something.
You introduce him to the mall and outlet stores and the beauty of mannequins. You teach him that style is fine, having one's own look and feel is fine, but not having it - making no decisions about clothing and fashion and what kind of gas he uses - that's just not acceptable. Regular gas is the kind of gas that normaly works just fine. Everything else is posing.. except that bio-diesel crap, which is anti-posing - the ultimate pose itself. Bio-diesel is like decaf. WHO the hell drinks that shit? Posing posey poser posers. That's who. Decaf is like the scourge of society. Decaf is like Tab soda - only I think Tab soda actually has some redeeming qualities. Decaf is like snorting powdered sugar up your nose just to blend in with the stock brockers. Decaf is smoking oregano and thinking it's cool. Decaf is Bud Light on a budget. Decaf is adult go-kart racing at it's finest - hay bail barriers and everything.
You see? I can complain too. I can complain and maybe you'll read it but you're not going to stop drinking decaf. You're not going to stop using premium. You're not going to step out of those stone washed jeans (no worries, they'll come back eventually). So I can talk and talk and talk at the wall because I'll get as much response out of the wall as anyone else. At least I can bounce a rubber ball off the wall. At least I can sit here and drink my good tasting coffee.
The Italians estimated as many as 4,000 elderly died this summer from the heat wave. Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, that is about 1,000 more than in the September 11th attacks on the U.S. that we are now celebrat... mourning the anniversary of today. In contrast, approximately 26,000 Americans will commit suicide this year. Over half a million will die of cancer.
And despite it all, regardless of the facts, the sun is shining and I'm drinking decent tasting coffee and all I have to complain about is a krink in my kneck. It's benign, I'm sure. A benign krink. I should go to the doctor and get it checked out. Have a sample taken and maybe some tests done.. but I'm confident that they would come back negative. The doctor would explain the disease to me:
"Malignancy rates in kneck krinks are suprisingly low and you usually don't have to worry about it unless it's a cronic situation and you often get seven dwarves dancing with dirty boots on your tongue. Although I must say seven dwarves in and of themselves are not a sign of a malignant kneck krink. If Snow White shows up, however, it is worth getting tested.. even if she may be only a pigment of your imagination."
I shouldn't complain. I really shouldn't.
While posting my ramblings last night I noticed two new options on blogger's BlogThis! form - spell check and the ability to mark a post as a draft for later publication. At the time it just registered in my mind as blogger slowly adding new features, as they seem to have been doing lately. Today, however, I noticed a slashdot article explaining the change: Apparently Blogger Pro is no more. Most features from blogger pro are being folded into the free version and there is an announcement about it here.
* frosh was so fucking fun. when we were the leaders, especially. And we met Hamilton. Damn, those were good times. Never again, like that. Good times, but different than those. Making the brave choice: Going to experience the gain and the loss . . .
Dude, I remember the story about that show. I don't think I was in MTL for it. I felt as good as I have in SB tonight . . . I went out with my friend Deep. It was his b-day. We went over to the RC shindig . . . this is, Resident Coordinator. Now, for about the first time since I have left montreal, here is a group of people that I could see myself hanging out with on a regular basis. And I think to myself . . . Is it just that, after about a year, you have found a group of good people? Or is it that these guys are in the middle of a good vibe training - something reminiscent of Frosh* - and I meet them during this point and am very attracted. There is a girl, dude! with whom I danced a lot tonight, and I think it was mostly just platonic, and good dancing, but she has lovely skin, and is persian . . . and is going out with someone in the same circle. This would be like someone that brian introduces to the group coming in and stealing Lisa away from Tom. No matter how much we liked this guy . . . that shit would not fly! So that's my fucking dillema. But you know what? I am being much more fucking proactive. I already wrote about my teusday night. And you know what? At the bar, I saw this one guy that I know with his friends, and this other girl I know with her friends, and the one guy and I were catching up, and he bought TWO FUCKING BOTTLES OF CHAMPAGNE!!?! What the hell? He's fucking poor ass broke. I returned to find two bottles of champagne, which I assumed to be empty, only to have a glass thrust in my hand, and him say . . . "I thought there were more of us." NEither of his two friends were drinking! What the fuck. So I said - you got the champagne, I'll get the girls, and I went, and I shmoozed with the girl I knew, and I dragged her over, at which time she dragged her friends, and I was in the middle of girls and champagne and goodness. The guy & friends and I all talking spanish too, which mde us ULTRA cool. And then I had to go. But you know what? They will not soon forget that I hooked them up tonight. Myt friend Deep, who's b-day it is, got real drunk, called an ex, got real sad, and told me about the phone conversation for the rest of the night. Until he puked in my batchroom, (ha ha!, typo, but I'll leave it!) and missed the toliet by a mere one or two inches. I let him clean it. I am too old for that shit. But not too old to get wrecked . . . that's obvious.
The girl that I dig in this group told me several times what a good dancer I am. And being that I know I am NOT a good dancer, this makes me all the more interested. Damn. Dude. I did enjoy myself though. Once again, hit the pain killer. The hurt-no-more-substance. And you wanna hear a thought I had tonight? The edgiest music, no matter how anti-establishment . . . you are hearing that because some record producer out to make some dough has bought it and produced it, and distributed it. The man decides what we listen to, including the extremely purported anti-norm music like rap. They are saying, "look, I don't fucking like you, I am in jail, I am smoking weed all the time, I am angry at you and what you represent . . . " and look who buys it. Fucking middle america! Fucking, the kids in santa barbara! They're fucking establishment as pontius pilate. Hmmm. Didn't really think about that simile before wiritng it. Trying to figure out now whether it makes any sense. You bastard, btw, are taking me away from my sweet journal time. I love your girl, dude. I am sure she is the nicest girl in the world. I imagine that we will be friends, chatting near a christmas tree that you cut down one day.
Deep told me he loves me many times tonight. I don't doubt it. A year is enough time, easily, I think, to conjure up that emotion. I am really interested to see what you think of these folk when you come. I don't remember if I'm not supposed to talk to you during my rant, but fuck it. All you other people that are bored by my talking to batch . . . bring it. Bring it to a sign near you. Any kind will do. I will be so fucking tired tommorow.
But you know what . . . ? I don't even remember how bad I felt on monday. I remember that I felt bad, but can't even really understand why! That's to all you who need instpiration out there in web land . . . Better times are just around the corner. For me especially. Blaz e. With the accent at the end. That's the word I intended to use the other day. Go fuck yourself. I have used to virus detection software packages, and the bastards have found nothing, and my curser still moves as if possessed. What up? You know what else I reaized? That everyone has a life as intricate and interesting as ours . . . For example, my grandparents! They have had terribly interesting lives. "May you live through interesting times," is a Chinese CURSE! Isn't that fucking interesting? My grandmother used to say that very often. I am working on universal love. Did I tell you that the fucking european is coming. She wants to stay for two weeks. Fuck. She better put out if she is staying that long. That's right. I'm a guy, and all I care about is SEX. So fuck the rest of you. I'm not misogynistic. I am just compelled by my brain to sleep with women, and to feel bad when I don't. I masturbated five times yesterday. That's right! once before going to bed, after writing my blog. SO FUCK YOU ALLL!!!!!!
Haah haaa. They don't care. But that was still funny. In a 'swinger's' kind of way. I myself am tempted to drunk dial. But instead I'll just post and publish. I think I'll print these out and paste them in my journal. Peace out.
A
Caught my ferry and caught the one on the way back, too. Funny how much I worry about stuff like that. Catching the bus. Catching that flight. Catching the meeting. My whole life.. all it's anxiety is based in these things. Could be a lot worse, I suppose. Worrying about making the rent or even getting my next paycheck. Could be worrying about where to get my next meal and how I'm gonna get the kids through school. Could be worrying about the cancer eating away on the inside or society eating away at the outside.. and here I'm worrying about catching the bus.
I shouldn't complain at all.
Sometimes it amazes me that Tony never writes about missing the bus.. it being the busblog and all. He'll write about the route, the weather, all the crazy people on the bus, and where he's going but he never ever mentions missing the bus.
But what I really wonder about is what makes everyone else's clock tick. I know what makes mine tick (beer and some mac and cheese, mostly) but I don't know about anyone else. I don't know what other people worry about. Some people seem to get upset about the oddest things. Lost keys and spilt milk. I don't get it all the time.. but maybe those people aren't worried about missing the bus?
I don't really know why I worry so much about missing the bus cause it hardly ever happens. The last time I missed a bus was about 6 years ago. It was cold and miserable at about 2:30AM in the morning out on the south shore near Montreal. It was January maybe and we'd just gotten out of some local bar that had this band play, Spirit of the West. They were good and lively and had the celtic flair and all but the McDonalds food before hand sort of did a number on most of us and by the time we got to the bus stop everyone but me had purged there systems in one way or another. I was just feeling like shit. We showed up at the bus stop, 2:35AM maybe, only to realize the night bus ran every hour, not every half hour, and the last time it ran was 2:30. Off by just 5 minutes. Almost an entire hour we waited on the edge of the highway staring into the wind.. It was pushing 10 below that night, maybe more with the wind chill... and that's about the time it hit me. Big grumbling complaints from the lower region. Gaseous exodus in frightful volume. Churning of the most uncomfortable kind. It became quite apparent quite quickly that I would not be able to wait the 40 or so minutes for the bus let alone the 35 minute bus ride back into the downtown core. It was certainly questionable, too, whether I would be able to trek the mile back through suburbia to the bar in order to make a deposit and manage to make it back in time for the bus. Heck.. i wasn't even sure I could walk 300 feet, let alone a mile or two.
At this point we were right off the highway near some commercial buildings. Store fronts and a bank, maybe, but not much else. It was sort of desolate, really, with ice covering everything. It was a bad winter and the snow was plowed up into berms higher than I was on either side of the road. The freezing rain from a few nights before had left a hard shell on everything and it glimmered in the light of the street lamps.
"Over there," one of my friends said, pointing at a narrow alley with a dumpster
"No, try that place," another said, suggesting a darkened store entrance.
I hobbled around the back of a smaller building and found a bit of privacy on the back stoop where two snow banks created a sort of "room" with the back door. Sure there was no roof, the wind was blowing at 10 knots, and it was 3:00AM in the morning, but at this point I wasn't going to start getting picky.
I was quick about things and managed to keep everything well away from me and my clothes. If I didn't take thermodynamics I'd swear it froze before it hit the ground. It was at once a hardened pile or puddle - the leftovers of a disagreement that happened up in my stomach, rolled out the back like a bar brawl into an alley, into my lower intestines, and finally.. well.. out onto the back stoop of an unfortunate business near the highway in the Montreal suburb of Pointe-Clair.
But let me tell you it made me feel a whole heck of a lot better. The bus rumbled up almost as I was pulling my pants up. I rushed across the street and luckily the bus was fairly empty since my group of friends quarantined me to the back of the bus while they made drunken faces at me from the front.
If we had made the 2:30 bus I would have exploded half way into Montreal. Maybe near Saint-Henri or thereabouts. I would have had to crumble in the back of the bus, or pull the chain and rush out into the street to explode mid-step (wish I have done, in technicolour beauty, as you all know, if you read regularly.. but that was at a lumberjack competition). If I had made that bus I'd be down a pair of pants and maybe a pair of friends and public transit would be that much worse for wear.
Even when I miss the bus it works out for the better. And I'm complaining?
20030910
Luckily my friend Alex has been picking up in the slack on this website for the last few days, as evidenced here by a late night drunken write-up, and that is a good thing because I, my friends, have been sllllllacking. No two bones about it. I will freely admit to my failings as a human being. As a productive element of this society. As a blogger.
I will freely admit because I know I'll just be denying it a few days from now and really, what's more fun than a little he-said-she-said? A little controversy? A little no I did not say that you mother fucker?
That being said I am going to do my utmost (see, I even used a neat word there: utmost) to ramp up production in the following week or so since things have been a bit slow around here. I have some interesting ideas floating around and I am looking forward to screwing up there implementation here on this blog.
This would be a better post if I didn't have to run and catch a ferry.
Yours,
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078
Dear Mr. Williams:
Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "93211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post... Hominid skull." We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago. Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety that one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the "Malibu Barbie." It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior findings were loathe to contradict your analysis. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:
1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.
2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic millimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.
3. The dentition pattern evident on the skull is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.
This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:
A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.
B. Clams don't have teeth.
It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon-dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to carbon-dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon-dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly, we must also deny our request that we approach the National Science Foundation Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name Australopithecus spiff-arino. Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin.
However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a Hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your Newport back yard.
We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to
pay for it.
We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous metal in a structural matrix that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm
Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.
Yours in Science,
Harvey Rowe, Chief Curator
Antiquities
Opus the Penguin returns to the comics page on Nov. 23rd
If you'll recall, Opus and his pals were featured in an amazing strip called Bloom County done by Berkeley Breathed which eventually won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1987. He ended that reign in '89 but continued on with Outland in the Sunday comics but in my mind it never really had the same feel as Bloom County.. it didn't have that daily thing going on. I guess he is coming back now to do a half-page spread in the Washington Post every Sunday but man.. what I wouldn't give for a daily..
Disgusted that half of the newspapers that syndicate the excellent and wonderful Doonesbury chose not to run this completely acceptable sunday strip: Doonesbury 09-07-2003
Wow. I'm really glad the RIAA is finally clamping down on the rampant music stealing going on in this country. I'm glad that this girl, 12 and living in a housing project with her single mother.. I'm glad the RIAA managed to squash that threat before she did any real damage. I mean, you let one 12 year old girl run rampant and hell.. they'll all follow. All those little 12 year olds will run amok and wreak unmentionable havoc on record industry sales. I'll have to pay, oh, gosh.. maybe $16.00 instead of $15.00 for my CDs now. And really, $15 is so very much a fair and just price but $16.... $16 is just.. unruly. unacceptable!
My computer has a virus. I know because sometimes my mouse moves by itself, and funny things happen. Icons appear out of nowhere. I got the virus from a download that claimed to be a picture of a naked angelina jolie. That's right. I've been downloading porn. For the first time in mee adult life, actually. Pretty interesting. I masturbated four times this afternoon. I feel pretty good about that. That's right. I have no shame about masturbating. If this blog gets hijacked by the virus and sent to all my friends and relatives, I'll say, 'no shame, friends.' Four times is a lot. It was the porn. And the fact that I am not getting any action, nor have for a long time. I went to a bar tonight with my kiteboarding friend brian. He said, as he dropped off some equipment at my house today, 'do you want to come out tonight?' And I said yes. No hesitation. I was feeling lonely, and thought that would be an excellent opportunity. And I went, and we were two hours early for the band he wanted to see. So we walked with beer (that I purchased, as he is underage!) to the new recruit in my dept. that I have been seeing a lot of lately, Annie and her boyfriend Ben. Ben lived in Doug in '98. G house. He knew kareem from his theater days, and met mike woz during that time too. Fucking interesting. The two of us reminisce like there was no tomorrow. I like him a lot. I like Annie a lot. I will not let myself think about annie in any other way than a friend, as that would be wrong, and immoral, as I like Ben so much. Even though annie is fucking cute as hell. Anyway, we had some beaz with ben&annie, walked back to the bar (which was allowing 18 and up in). and the punk music began. that's right punk music. which I was kind of excited about, until I saw nobody dancing. this one girl was bobbing to the music, but they were all underage and self conscious. And so I bought myself a beer. And the bobbing girl showed up, and without even thinking about it, I asked her if I could buy her a beer. It must have been all the advice I've given in my day coming back to haunt me*. So she informed me that she was drinking margaritas, which turned out to be 8 dollars, as opposed to my 2.50 beaz, but, whatever. I had already offered. And so I bought her a drink. I got her name wrong, and we went back to the music. and I kind of ignored her. went to talk to brian. And then I got frustrated, because my eardrums were being raped, but there was no dancing reward for it all. so I went up to her (she happened to be the sister of the lead singer) and asked her what was up with nobody dancing. And she informed me that she was in charge of making sure people danced. but she herself was only bobbing. so I started to rock out. and she upped her dancing a little, and finally kind of did the mike meyer's style rocking out through the just-post-pubescent crowd. And she looked at me beseechingly, and said, 'your turn?' She's pretty cute. Cute in the hat backward kind of way. Cute in the, 'alex schwartz is a little cute' kind of way. That's right. I'm not that good looking, notwithstanding the fact that when I look in the mirror, I see a hot motherfucker. Anyway, I rocked out much harder through the people. It turned out to be their last song, and I noticed the kids looking at me as if I was the least cool individual in the universe. Less cool than their parents. And you know what? I didn't care then, and I don't care now. Erin and I went back to the bar. I ordered another beer, and she nursed he overpriced marguerites. She kept touching me. She told me about her job; she's a manager of a naturopathic healing company called quantum life. Something to do with energy, and the double helix, she informed me. Energy passing (from a computer program that they sell, through 'elements' and) into head, wrist and ankle-bands that her company provides. For a modest fee, no doubt. Dude, this is cult heaven, and I plan to be part of it. Ask me about it some time. So, I talked to her roommates, and as she was leaving commented that we should go out for a drink sometime. I told her, with my best blaze voice that if she gave me her number I would call her. Not too interested, because I really wasn't. Do you think it was the four masturbations that did it? Anyway . . . I still haven't looked at her number, but am confident that it is in my pocket, and that she will sleep with me if I call her. Because I am desirable. And not terribly interested in her. And that's all I need. Alas. Dillemas posed by single life.
* advice I've given to you, motherfucker.
Alright. This was not so much chronicling success, so much as my evening. I am being proactive about my loneliness. That's the message I'm communicating. "I'm not being a hypocrite," says I. Fuck the po-9. Let's go for number five.
20030909
20030908
That was very pleasing. That's tonight, eh? Holy shit. I feel so . . . close to you.
I am feeling pretty bad. Pretty fucking bad. Much better, actually, after reading your posts. But still not so good. Here is how my evening (spent mainly in the shower) goes:
Alex: It's just that I don't feel like my life has meaning.
Alex: Asshole, I assure you that it's not just a feeling - life has no meaning.
Alex: But I want to feel like it does. Isn't the absence of meaning why I feel so bad? If I thought I was needed, valued . . . wouldn't I feel better?
Alex: Perhaps - but mainly, you're just fucking lonely. Remember how you felt before you and sharon got together? No, of course not. But you did just read your journal entry from that time which informed you that you felt pretty horrible. And now? Sharon is gone, your other two friends here don't need you / are in santa barbara for a limited time only / are in bad places themselves. And your good friends are hundreds of miles away. And, like the rest of humanity, care very little for your kitesurfing ventures, the only thing that you perceive to be interesting enough to report to them.
Alex: Alas.
Alex: Tell me about it.
Actually, that was pretty close to it. I've been feeling like this for a while now. On friday, I felt like this and thought, "you should probably not intoxicate yourself, because drug use to the end of escaping bad experience is worst form of drug use." Journal entry (selection) from friday:
the present moment. the present moment feels much better now that you're high.
Self medication. Potentially very dangerous, meethinks, and yet, I am pretty sure that I did feel much better from the smoke. The confound is, of course, that it was done with my friends . . .
Alas. My clothes are clean because I washed them on Saturday. I went kitesurfing today, and really did as well as I've ever done, which makes my feeling bad feel even worse. I know this too shall pass. I know that. And I am trying not to dwell, because I know that effort spent when it comes unnaturally sometimes pays off the most. Hence I am learning some dance moves in the mirror.
This is therapeutic. Thank you.
Does the girl read this?
I want a girl. I want to watch T.V. I want not to go to work tommorow.
In what respects the 'hottest' campuses?
20030907
The people to the right of me are talking about golf.
I hear it's a nice course here
They're pretending to have a conversation or they are actually having a conversation. I'm not sure which.
A waitress is carrying a large tray of wine glasses - 15 maybe - all empty. She just made her second round and she is starting to look nervous that no one has taken any?
An old guy with a limp has a bag. He is collecting free pens. Lipitor. Bextra. People's Bank. Army National Guard. He just raided one booth's candy jar.
Don't leave your booth unattended.
Eyeing the alcohol I watch for cash exchange. No one likes a cash bar.
I'm sure Mr. Mullet Man is a wonderful bell-hop, but can't he afford a haircut?
If I get drunk I won't have to care anymore. Someone else will care for me.
Have you ever seen the Big Kahuna? You know - Danny Devito - Kevin Spacey? Yah. I'm living that. Minus all that bible crap. (No, I haven't started drinking yet)
The cute strawberry blonde at the pfizer booth put her hair up. It was better down.
Everyone I see here I've also seen in movies.
They were all bit parts.
No one is openly staring at me for writing furiously on this notepad (free - bextra) with this pen (free - lipitor) but I'm sure they're wondering. Business notes? Weirdo?
Pfizer girl - wedding ring.
Beer #1
18.
18 is the number of far side comics that are framed in front of the 'Adult' urinal (you know, not the one 5 inches off the floor) at this joint. How am I supposed to read 18 far sides, laugh, and get my piss on? They're gonna think I'm playing with it.
Three drinks in and I'm mouthing the words I write out loud. Shoulda ate more lunch.
Far Side #18:
Alligator on the witness stand: "Well, of course I did it in cold blood, you idiot! I'm a reptile!"
Comedian - obese, but not so funny. Made the doctors laugh at fat jokes though.
One of these pieces of paper will undoubtably have an amazing idea sketched out on it. It will, undoubtably, be the one piece of paper out of the entire lot that I lose.
Bad hotel bands playing Santana covers.. mmmm.. Made that much worse by the existence of not one but two real actual mullets and the east bumfuck New Hampshire locale.
Did you notice how I tried to sound high brow with the use of the word locale in that last post? Yah. I'm cool. mmhm.
H.I.V. - Honeymoon In Vermont.
I think that's a gay joke but I'm not entirely positive.
New Hampshire.
Live Free Or Die.
Go figure.
I think I'm going to get beat up now for even hinting at negative vibes towards these people.
80's Love Ballads..
ahhh..
The stuff hotel bars are made of.
The last thing you'd expect in the north woods of New Hampshire (live free or die) is Russian visa waitresses. Go figure.
There is a door behind the bar. Solid. Green. Bolt lock higher than normal, bathroom style pull handle. All the employees go home through that door. Right now I'd just like to step through that door. Just for a second.
We've progressed to Aerosmith. 90's Aerosmith even. Heck, at least the foreign waitress knows this one. She doesn't sing half bad, really.
What the hell is a valdecoxib tablet?
What sort of crazy hotel doesn't have tvs in their rooms? The same hotel where everyone at the bar on a Saturday night (including bar tender) knows each other.. and they're all probably going home late tonight to watch tv. fuckers.
Waitresses whispering in each other's ears. Only 4 or 5 people in the whole bar. If I was a paranoid motherfucker I'd think they were talking about me.
Same time people are talking about some guy born on 9-11 (isn't it funny how many people were born on 9-11?) the band comes on. Not the band but The Band. The Weight. Take a load - Take a load right on me.
Did I mention the Big Kahuna?
Ouch.
Regardless, did the bar tender have to be that condecending?
Shit.
Nevermind.
He mixes strong and he mixes deep. I take it back.
How many more places? How many more times do I have to hear it?
I hear that place is beautiful this time of year
Cause this place is ugly? Fuck you. This place is beautiful.
If half the people had 1/3 of the smarts of 1/4 of the people.. Shit. We wouldn't be doing so bad.
Holy shit. They're talking about Hussein.. like it's important - whether "we" get him or not. Whether he or..
I can't even finish that sentence I'm seething so much.
Did the guy who invented the tall bar also invent the foot bar, or was that someone else? If it was, what was that first guy thinking? Hanging legs only feel good off docks. Get real.
Old guy chummin at the bar. Knows the staff.
I've never been drunk in my life before..
I've been over-served, but never drunk. It's always those damn bartenders
The three guys left in the bar are talking about drinking.. Go figure.
.. he used to come over with a 12 pack of beer and pound them back with my dad. I figured that's what you did when you were a baseball coach..
The three guys left at the bar are talking about drinking. Go figure.
.. he used to come over with a 12 pack of beer and pound them back with my dad. I figured that's what you did when you were a baseball coach..
Wake up calls are great. Think about it. Everyone gets someone to blame - someone to yell at when the 'alarm' goes off, plus, isn't it easier to get up when someone is talking to you? It's like a random hook-up with no guilt... no morning sex either.
20030906
It seems to work for Bunnie - offsite blogging or, as some people would call it - actually picking up a pen and writing something down. So here I am, pen in hand, giving it a whirl.
I'll try anything once, twice if it feels good, thrice if it puts money in the bank.
So I guess this will be a one time thing.
Problem with the whole pen and paper dealio is the itch to sketch. Can't really transpose that onto a computer screen real well, can yah?
So here I am up in the boondocks of Northern New Hampshire. I'm staying at this huge resort-in-the-clouds type places that used to exist by the dozens in upstate New York, Vermont, Maine even, until FDR had to ruin things with that whole interstate highway thing and airlines pushed that whole air travel thing and now people go to Mexico or Hawaii, Florida or Bermuda. No one goes into the woods anymore - not as a vacation anyway. Maybe they go visit their friends second house in the Pocanos or their bosses cabin (he calls it a cabin but it's a mansion compared to their sorry ass split ranch) in the Adirondacks. But shit.. it's all weekend trips. No one goes to the woods for vacation anymore.
And it's a real shame because there is a lot of good stuff to be done - to be seen - in the woods. There is wet damp mildewy undergrowth. Mosquitos. No-see-ums. Gnats. Black flies.
Ohhhh the black flies. People are really missing out these days. They think they got it going on with their complimentary pina colada down in Cozumel, laying on the beach with the sexy latino men strolling by in their speedos.. but shit.. the black flies man.
So here I am in the middle of the woods and I'm surrounded by so many service industry jobs the damn black flies can't even get at me. There are bell-hops and clearks, waitresses and valets. They have an elevator man. An elevator man! I really can't handle it.
I brought a half-full back pack with me and I was forced - against my will mind you - to put it on a dolly and follow - morosely mind you - the bell-hop up to my room where he taught me how locks and keys work. Very nice man, though perhaps a bit pushy with that dolly.
Prospective clients keep walking by, oblivious to the trap I have set.. and then I remember - I'm a software engineer, not a hunter. I'm a conscientious objector, not a salesman! What am I doing here, shotgun in hand, salt spread on the floor in front of me..
Oh right.
Appendectomy.
20030905
Whoops. So I'm sitting here with the biggest cup of coffee possible - lotsa cream lotsa sugar - trying to gulp it down as fast as possible so the ride up to NH is bareable (side note - NH should be two states. North New Hampshire and South New Hampshire. They really are logically and socially separate already, why not give them different states??).. I'm on time - early even - and sitting around waiting for my ride. 7:30am. It's not coming. I wait. 5 min. late... 8 min late..
You'd think business trips were more succinct. All clipped speech, quick instructions, polished shoes, and starch.. especially at the beginning - before the devolution into the sneaking beers right before lunch.. before happy hour.. before the shots and the strip clubs.. this is the time when business is still at the forefront of thought.. the time before the ADD kicks in and the little boys in their suits go running like chimps into the buffet, hooting and hollering and throwing lewd comments around like they were going out of style. This is the not so happy hour.
If bars really knew what they were doing they'd have not so happy hour specials. I mean hell, if I'm so f'ing happy, why would I be worried about getting good deals on my drinks? Am I wrong, or is this a major marketing snafu on the part of franchised watering holes everywhere? Think about it.. you're just out of work. You're tired and cranky but actually really happy that the day is over and you just want a drink. Are you really worried about the price? The last memory you have in your head is working. The last memory you have is of making money. It's not too much of a leap.. a few synapses, really.. to jump to spending that money instead of earning it. No.. not at all. We need not so happy hours. 5 to 8 am. 25 cent drafts and $2.50 mixed drinks. Two for ones and Heineken specials. PBR, served in a can, for $1 all morning long. Free flaming sambucas for the ladies in the back booth.
12 min late... 15 min late... Then I get a call.
Whoops. Guess my partner in crime, my marketing dude, my sales guy - his wife had an appendectomy this morning at 3am. 3am, if introduced from a dead sleep, is not such a happy hour either - especially when you're about to get some of your innards pulled out.
How is that for fouling plans? Now I don't even know if I'm going. It's like a bad Chevy Chase movie. Richard Pryor maybe. Maybe I can weasel my way into a nice quiet day in front of the computer.. (oh wait, I do that every day.. what about variety? spice? I should go.. why don't I go?) but I don't know if I'll have to go. I don't know if I want to go. Golf, huh? Golf. I haven't played that in a year at least.
But I'm rambling.. can't you tell? I was trying to give you a nice long post this morning.. leave you all with a big fat gob of gooey to at least get your hands dirty.. the beauty, of course, is that you won't know it's all a bunch of bunk till you get down here to end.
Ha.
20030904
Tony tells me that UCSB was in the top 12 hottest colleges as named by the recent Kaplan/Newsweek college guide of 2003. He didn't make much ado about it, but McGill was too
the 12 hottest colleges:
Arizona State University
Boston College
University of California, Santa Barbara
Davidson College
George Washington University
Kenyon College
Macalester College
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
McGill University
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Pepperdine University
University of Washington at Seattle
Oh Summer how you dis me so and so.
You came and went before I even noticed spring.
You made me sweat and stink and l don't like that but now you're almost gone and it's autumn almost, yah.
Autumn so kicks your scrawny butt, summer. Kicks you in the kiester and sends you flailing.
Oh Summer you can play those dating games. You can kiss me on the swings and send me tumbling in the sand but you don't know me, I know that. You're a sneaky bastard rat.
Autumn is better than you, don't you know. You're slow now and fall has come, it's wind will blow. Blow and puff and push you away and I won't have another thought of you till May.
Summer you can tell me I write bad poetry
It won't bother or even hurt me.
I know my talent is better than yours.
And Spring and Winter and Fall are cool seasons. And you suck.
Yah.
I know that website! I went there once and thought it was hilarious, and almost bought a t shirt from them for christmas.
I don't mind you coming and taking up my time! I guess your just what I needed!
I have a journal entry that I will post later. It's about acceptance.
20030903
Sometimes things stop being funny and start being just curious.. and strange.. and questionable. Like those jokes you're not sure whether to laugh at or just sort of feel shitty.
you're not funny any more
Sometimes, though, the human condition gets us and we laugh and laugh and laugh. Without humour, what have you got?
Doctor: "Do you want the good news or the bad news first?"
Patient "Well, I guess I'll take the good news.."
Doctor: "Looks like they're going to name a disease after you."
See.. if you're not stifling an out-loud laugh from that joke by the end of this sentence than maybe you need to get your head checked. Maybe they're going to name a disease after you. They'd call it the That's-Not-Funny disease and visiting that ward in the hospital would be a real bummer, lemme tell you. Even Chris Rock would be sniffling through his morning cheerios and Mike Myers would cry there. Really truly cry. Mike Myers. No joke. So go back and read the joke again and laugh this time. You don't want to be that guy. You don't want a disease named after you.. do you?
Sometimes things are more curious than they are funny. Intriguing, life twisted in a pretzel you've never seen before. Makes the mind think and that ain't such a bad thing either, you know?
Graffiti - is it art? You tell me (from the arseburger himself).. It's not funny, but it's work to see it and fun to read it so it's art and what's not to like about art - it's all a little funny on the inside.
Sorta like this post. Going nowhere fast but with lots of silly links today.
If I could I would but I can't so I won't.
20030902
A long time ago I promised myself I would stop biting my finger nails.
Firstly, it is sort of unbecoming. I guess no one likes the sight of chewed up fingers, all stubby with half-moons peaking out from under the cuticles.
Secondly, it's just a pain in the ass habit. No one wants to watch someone biting their nails - it's like watching a dead man's walk. That nervous twitch of the needy and unsure.
People who bite their nails all have a way about them. Slightly shifty. Lots of sideways glances. They're used to watching people with their heads slightly tilted, fingers curled up in a half-fist and crammed into their mouths, eyes darting about. No one likes getting caught chewing their nails.
But if there is one thing nail biters can't stand more than being caught it's not biting their nails.. So we bite. We get caught and like a deer in headlights we freeze, mid-bite, and stare. We might stop, let our hand fall to our side or even pretend to be wiping our nose or scratching our chin.. but if there is anything a nail biter can't do it's ignore that half-chewed nail.
We always go back. Leave no hang-nail behind. It's sort of an unspoken mantra, like the army but only without all the heroics involved. It is, afterall, just a goddamn finger nail.
We don't need them, you see. These nails are residual. Left-overs. We need them about as much as a house-cat whose worst survival problem is getting more friskies into the bowl.
Okay, maybe more. There are, afterall, CD cases to open and stickers to be peeled and panels to be pryed open. There are backs to scratch - maybe claw even, grrr - and in a pinch - lotto ticket winnings to reveal.
So what? So they might be useful but they're also more stress relief than a punching bag and less trouble than breaking dinner-wear. So we bite. We chew. we pull and nibble and sure, it makes some people cringe.
Some people stare and wonder aloud how much it hurts or how we can manage to get them down to the stubbly length that we do.. they just don't understand. Nothing to do about it. Just chew. The rest of it works itself out.
I promised myself I would stop biting my finger nails today. I promised no more tearing and pulling and snipping. I suppose in order to do that I'll have to replace my missing nail-clippers. I suppose I'll have to stop being a nervous wreck. Stop the anxious chatter and snap out of it.
I promised myself I would stop biting my finger nails today.
I promised myself I would stop biting my finger nails today.
I promised myself I would stop biting my finger nails today.
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the guys: philogynist jaime tony - the gals:raymi raspil
