“I’d rather be a peasant than a queen.”
I looked at my lady. That line just popped out of her mouth. Probably said by 1,000s of other poor folk over the centuries. A quick internet search would probably pop up even more references to it than that. Why she said it at that very moment, while we were lying in bed, covers on her and off of me, that I had no clue. I just knew that it made me happy.
She turned towards me and gave me a small kiss on the cheek. I could feel her breath on my head. These are the moments that keep me sane. And the moments that used to drive me insane when they were taken away. It’s hard to remember those times now. Like a glass of orange juice. You savor it while you have it, but afterwards, that acidy feeling sits in your throat. Yet every time you get breakfast, an orange juice isn’t far behind. Why? Because it’s good for you. Just like a woman.
Today was supposed to be my first day at a new job. But three weeks after accepting it, two weeks after giving my notice at my other job, the human resources lady - Linda - called me to tell me there had been an error in processing. My job was actually given to someone else. When she said those words, I waited for my turn in the conversation and asked simply “You said my job. What exactly does that mean?”
She was a bit flabbergasted by my tone, I have a feeling, and it was meant.
“I meant to say the job we offered you…” I didn’t allow her to finish her thought. “And I accepted.”
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Jones,” but you were not supposed to be offered the position. Someone else was.”
“Well, tell Mr. or Mrs. Was to enjoy working for a you,” I said. “Good bye.”
At that moment, I felt nothing. I knew I had to tell her when she got home. I fucked up again. But this time, really, it wasn’t my fault. I wish that conversation with Linda had been recorded.
We had that conversation last night. There were heated words exchanged. What was going to happen to our nice rented apartment, which was a bit out of the price range of a zero-income family, which we now were. “I’ll figure something out,” I said. That usually meant charging stuff on my credit cards. I always swept in like Clint Eastwood in “Two Mules for Sister Sarah” and saved the day. However, in the end, I was more like Clyde from the “Every Which Way and Any Which Way” movies in the end.
After we figured out that our savings would last a couple of months, it got better. A bottle of wine for her and a six pack of Shiner for me helped the cause. We passed out naked, without a care, at least for the night. The record player played my favorite album, Side 1 of Tennessee, all night long. I didn’t even notice it was playing when she woke me with those words.
“Baby, you left the stereo on all night again,” she said next.
“Think of it as mood music,” was all that came out of me.
“I know what that album reminds you of, so I’d rather not have you in that mood,” she sort of snapped. But before I could get angry or sad or anything, she hopped up out of bed and skirted over to the window. I wondered if our neighbors -- a college professor and his mistress (what he called her) -- think about my gorgeous girlfriend standing in the open window naked every morning? I can say that I enjoy it quite a bit.
“Baby, there are a lot of birds out today.” I developed a kind of truce with the birds over the summer. For some reason, they congregate in our yard. Not anywhere else in the neighborhood. They were noisy. They ate everything in sight, which in our dirt, not grass, covered yard was saying something. And they never seemed to leave. Yes, you’d go outside and they’d flap, flap, flap on up to the wires above. Then sit there looking down, cackling the entire time. It made writing tough. Not that I was getting anywhere with it anyway. My story didn’t have an end. As much as I tried, it always seemed forced. Probably because I only believe you can write what you know. And I don’t know much. Especially an ending that isn’t heartbroken and callous. This story deserves better than that. My publisher even said so. “We all know you can write about a broken down man. How about a little redemption this time?” That’s what Pete, my man at the publisher said to me.
“Well, when it happens, I’ll write about it,” I said.
“Asshole, it has happened,” Pete yelled. “You’re living in your dream town. With your dream woman. You can’t hold down a job and you listen to LPs all day with a cold beer in your left hand and a pen in your right. What else have you ever wanted?”
“Fuck you.”
“Exactly. Be happy, dude. One day, you’re gonna wake up either dead or she’ll be gone.”
“Same thing.”
“Bye.”
I looked around the room. Saw my shorts on the floor and got out of bed. While walking across the hardwood floors I passed by the same window she looks out of every, single day. There was the professor, staring at me. My flaccid penis and my beer belly must have been a heavenly sight. He waved. I waved back.
Not the best way to start a day, but certainly better than most.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
ring...ring
Echoes are the first thing you notice walking into this once-proud room. Even if moccasins are being worn, footsteps are impossible to hide.
Friends and enemies alike are gone. Debates are few. Arguments, non-existent.
When a phone rings now, the person at the desk cringes. Because the person at the other end could be a few rooms away. With a stack of papers for you to sign. Sign away your last ditch effort at wanting to do something good. Something important. Something that matters. Eventually, the numbers will fall the right way. It has nothing to do with luck. Not how good or bad you are. Those days don’t exist anymore. Instead, you’re an item on a spreadsheet. When your worth becomes less than your cost, the knife it falls.
Unions concede wages now and consider it a big victory. Pensions are gone. That 401k match? Ha. We promise we’ll get it going again by the end of the next fiscal year. All the while the bonuses at the top of the food chain continue. $1.3 million here. $2.2 million there.
I never wanted to be at the top. I figure other than great white sharks, grizzly bears and maybe piranhas, I was in a pretty good place, why did I ever want to be a CEO or Executive Editor? Seemed like too much awfulness.
Now, I’m in a newsroom with very little news people in it. If you dare rock the boat, you’re labeled a trouble maker, a malcontent, or maybe even just an asshole. I’ve been called all three by editors in the past. All those editors are out of the business now. None of them were bought out. None of them seemed to care. They were fired. Simply put, for being bad at their jobs.
As I sit at my cubicle, waiting for what’s coming next, I think of the day I made a mistake in my career. The only one, really. I quit one job before I should have. That led to bad choices for quite a while. Not mistakes, because I was trying to do the right thing, just bad choices as they turned out.
The last job I had, the phone rang on a warm January day. I had come in to work early to get some stuff done ahead of time. Interviews were complete, story half written when I saw a co-worker get a call. He went into the HR office. Ten minutes or so later, he came out, head hung low with a cardboard box in his hand. Soon, he was gone. The scene repeated for another co-worker. The day of reckoning had finally come to this little place.
Finally, my phone rang. Ever since my first days on the job, I kind of expected that call. I was paid well for the first time in my life. And I was happy doing my job. A relationship had sputtered, sending me into an emotional hell, which cost the company money. And, never being the ass-kissing type, I didn’t make the right friends.
Ring. I picked it up on the first ring. My boss looked a me in horror. He’d brought me into this. Now, he had to watch me leave.
“Well, it’s been fun,” I said as I got up to go to the HR woman’s office.
“Sorry man,” my boss said. I didn’t believe him then, still don’t.
I walked in to the HR office. Where the HR head and the EE were sitting. I took off my ID badge and toss it on her desk.
“Where do I sign?” I asked with a smile.
“Thanks for making this easy,” the EE said.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” I replied. “It’s the way of the beast now.”
“Sadly, it is,” he said. Not looking at me.
I felt a wave of euphoria come over me when I exited the building. Honestly, other than a few first kisses and a slow dance I hadn’t felt this good, this relieved, this happy since pushing the accelerator to begin my first solo cross-country drive in 1994.
Everything was a blank slate. Well, everything but my debt, which I wasn’t too worried about at the moment. What was next? Anything was possible.
So, that begs the question: why are you back in Eastern North Carolina, sitting and waiting for a phone call? I guess I wasn’t ready for the unknown. The change. The exit.
This time, however, I am. Seven months of toil, with one major rejection later, I know it’s time to say goodbye. To a lot of things. One by one I’ve tried working through them. Some I tossed aside. Others I made a shaky peace with. Lastly, that telephone call needs to come.
And I know it will. It’s just a matter of patiently waiting.
…
Friends and enemies alike are gone. Debates are few. Arguments, non-existent.
When a phone rings now, the person at the desk cringes. Because the person at the other end could be a few rooms away. With a stack of papers for you to sign. Sign away your last ditch effort at wanting to do something good. Something important. Something that matters. Eventually, the numbers will fall the right way. It has nothing to do with luck. Not how good or bad you are. Those days don’t exist anymore. Instead, you’re an item on a spreadsheet. When your worth becomes less than your cost, the knife it falls.
Unions concede wages now and consider it a big victory. Pensions are gone. That 401k match? Ha. We promise we’ll get it going again by the end of the next fiscal year. All the while the bonuses at the top of the food chain continue. $1.3 million here. $2.2 million there.
I never wanted to be at the top. I figure other than great white sharks, grizzly bears and maybe piranhas, I was in a pretty good place, why did I ever want to be a CEO or Executive Editor? Seemed like too much awfulness.
Now, I’m in a newsroom with very little news people in it. If you dare rock the boat, you’re labeled a trouble maker, a malcontent, or maybe even just an asshole. I’ve been called all three by editors in the past. All those editors are out of the business now. None of them were bought out. None of them seemed to care. They were fired. Simply put, for being bad at their jobs.
As I sit at my cubicle, waiting for what’s coming next, I think of the day I made a mistake in my career. The only one, really. I quit one job before I should have. That led to bad choices for quite a while. Not mistakes, because I was trying to do the right thing, just bad choices as they turned out.
The last job I had, the phone rang on a warm January day. I had come in to work early to get some stuff done ahead of time. Interviews were complete, story half written when I saw a co-worker get a call. He went into the HR office. Ten minutes or so later, he came out, head hung low with a cardboard box in his hand. Soon, he was gone. The scene repeated for another co-worker. The day of reckoning had finally come to this little place.
Finally, my phone rang. Ever since my first days on the job, I kind of expected that call. I was paid well for the first time in my life. And I was happy doing my job. A relationship had sputtered, sending me into an emotional hell, which cost the company money. And, never being the ass-kissing type, I didn’t make the right friends.
Ring. I picked it up on the first ring. My boss looked a me in horror. He’d brought me into this. Now, he had to watch me leave.
“Well, it’s been fun,” I said as I got up to go to the HR woman’s office.
“Sorry man,” my boss said. I didn’t believe him then, still don’t.
I walked in to the HR office. Where the HR head and the EE were sitting. I took off my ID badge and toss it on her desk.
“Where do I sign?” I asked with a smile.
“Thanks for making this easy,” the EE said.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” I replied. “It’s the way of the beast now.”
“Sadly, it is,” he said. Not looking at me.
I felt a wave of euphoria come over me when I exited the building. Honestly, other than a few first kisses and a slow dance I hadn’t felt this good, this relieved, this happy since pushing the accelerator to begin my first solo cross-country drive in 1994.
Everything was a blank slate. Well, everything but my debt, which I wasn’t too worried about at the moment. What was next? Anything was possible.
So, that begs the question: why are you back in Eastern North Carolina, sitting and waiting for a phone call? I guess I wasn’t ready for the unknown. The change. The exit.
This time, however, I am. Seven months of toil, with one major rejection later, I know it’s time to say goodbye. To a lot of things. One by one I’ve tried working through them. Some I tossed aside. Others I made a shaky peace with. Lastly, that telephone call needs to come.
And I know it will. It’s just a matter of patiently waiting.
…
Saturday, November 20, 2010
news...
yeah. you'll come to expect me not to fulfill my promises. but, the last two days, found out news that may change things for me. not for the bad, really, even though it could be perceived that way.
writing is on pause tonight. maybe i'll hit this thing up after the fights tonight. but for now, i'm taking my mind off things with UFC, grilling and beer.
writing is on pause tonight. maybe i'll hit this thing up after the fights tonight. but for now, i'm taking my mind off things with UFC, grilling and beer.
Friday, November 19, 2010
repeat...(door slam)
had one of those days at work today. need to rest up for another one today. had an idea to go with "that question." i'll try to go with it tomorrow when i get out of work early. or maybe in the morn.
here's a repeat from my other blog. i kind of liked where this one was going...and hey, i actually finished this one, ha!
Door Slam
Chapter 1
as the miles roll by on the greyhound bus, my mind can't focus on anything but the abusively lound conversation going on behind me. there are two people, both who like the sound of their voice, going on and on about nothing. topics range from viagra and it's greatness to barack obama and why they voted for him. their conversation also veers into this kind of territory: getting him (i don't know who him is) "a man", the internet, smoking crack, driving a pick up truck, jacksonville (don't know if it's florida or NC, leaning towards fla...), and on and on...
it doesn't get any better than this, i start to think...
and of course that loud ass conversation -- the only one on the bus -- is directly behind me.
ugh. this in a jamaican accent...
and of course, the chair in front if me is leaned all the way back into my knees.
next door to me, a fat ladyd in a redskins starter jacket has just woken from her snore-filled snooze to pull a greasy breakfast biscuit from her pocket. yum. of course, after two bites and hopefully a swallow or two, she starts to fall asleep again, buscuit still in dirty, stubby hand.
then, a phone rings. loudly.
gasp, in a jamaican voice:
"you have the wrong number, because if you're not, you're playing with your life mother fucker."
it amazes me how much this guy sounds like peter tosh. now i've got 'steppin' razor' in my head. not a bad thing at all. thank you crazy bus riding, loud mouthed jamaican guy.
how else can one describe this scene? i've been on a greyhound before. actually many, many times. the last time being my eight hour trip from phoenix to las vegas...anyway, while texting mandy, she said 'you're dealing with livestock' and i think she hit it right on the head. are we headed towards some kind of slaughter?
sleeping beauty has dropped her buscuit on the floor twice now, her head bobbing up and down, then slowly the buscuit slips from her grip. eventually, she notices and stretches to the floor, very gingerly for some reason, scooping up the parts and putting them back in the wrapper. the first time, it was almost immediate the reaction. the second, not so fast.
now, here we go, a third time...and once again she struggles to stay awake, then falls asleep, then drops the buscuit. as the road goes by in the background, and my urge to chuckle out loud subsides, she reaches down and paws at the food again...looks around, then takes a bite.
all i can think is why bother as she juggles with the complexity of it all. pick up, drop. pick up, drop. now almost like somekind of comedy skit that just is too absurd to draw a laugh from anyone with a heart...
but damn it is funny. like a dripping faucet at night, however, it is enough to drive one mad.
hey, the conversation behind me has turned to weaves now. and how removing my hair and replacing it is good. and suddenly, switching to running out of gas while driving to buy some juice.
i feel bad, once again, for finding humor in the sadness of it all. of course, it's sad that i'm here, listening to this. somehow i got in this position...
#30#
Chapter 2
maybe i should have taken it as a sign when the bus driver closed the door in my face as i was trying to board this thing? i mean, the army guy cut right in front of me, guess i was too slow walking for him -- a guy that tried to get on the bus while it was still unloading and was scolded by the skinny, yet fat guy who would soon have my life in his hands at 60 mph...
anyway, my dad came home to pick me up from my parents' house at about 9 a.m. why he came early, i'll never know. i said i needed to be there at 10:15. it's about a 20 minute drive. about a 1/2 hour later, he's asking me 'you ready to go?' i know that means he needs to go, so i say 'yeah.'
we drive, chit chat about my car, his car, mom's car. not much else really. kind of funny, kind of typical.
about halfway out of hopewell -- my hometown -- i ask if we can stop at mcdonald's. i really have a craving for an egg mcmuffin. mcdonald's was the topic of conversation at work the other day. how no one goes there. personally, i don't believe anyone, but does it really matter? i want an egg mcmuffin, and i'm going to get it.
we pull up to the mcdonald's the line is about 15 cars deep, so i get out and go inside, where shockingly, there is no line, no wait. just a smiling 23 year old (or so) puerto rican girl. her name tag is covered by some kind of necklace thing, so i can't write it down. guess i could just make one up -- so puerto rican gal, you shall be named Celestina. anyways, Celestina smiles and says 'may i hep you' and i say hello, good morning, i'd like two egg mcmuffins.' we make eye contact, and there is nothing there. both ways. she says '4.66' so i hand over a five. she counts out my change and i wait.
there are no other customers in the place. kind of weird, but i guess no one wants to get cold. it's probably 35 or so degrees outside, cloudy and very dry. that wintry dry that leaves you all ashy. but i have dry skin, so maybe it doesn't have that same effect on you. who knows?
a minute or so later, i get my bag of mcfun and leave.
my dad still sitting in the suv, waiting for me. it's my sister's old SUV a toyota that leaks oil and skips in first gear sometimes. i drove that car to florida back in may of 2006. the last time i ever saw emily. packed that thing up with my stuff, six years worth plus a lot of the years before as well. we barely spoke that hot late spring day in gainesville. i cried. i tried not to cry. she and her (and my) friend tracy just tried to really stay out of my way. i had hoped to have a conversation, but it was obvious she wanted nothing to do with that. she and i said good bye. i said 'you know, i still want to be friends.' she said 'i know.'
that was the last conversation i had with emily. the woman i dated for six years.
it's kind of funny/tragic looking back at it.
anyway, back to the SUV...we drive by the fort lee base. it's growing. very fast. i wonder if the end of the bush wars in the middle east will slow the growth. the thing that everyone in the tri-cities (hopewell, petersburg and colonial heights) is counting on to save them...i have my doubts.
we drive into petersburg. it's a shit hole. there's the old nightclub that used to be a strip club, a discoteque and i think once again a strip club. for a little bit it was a restaurant, but that didn't last long. this strip looks a lot like what i think detroit looks like now. boarded up businesses and closed places with lots of memories and very little life.
there are three porno shops within a one mile stretch, however. so that industry appears to be booming. they even still have 25 cent peep shows. who would've thunk those would still be around? but i guess it still doesn't take too long to do what you have to do with a peep show.
i guess it really is true that some things never change.
we take a couple of turns to get to downtown, and dad misses the turn for the busstop. we circle back around, and he drops me off.
"keep me posted." he says.
"i will," i reply and shut the door.
it's 9:58 a.m. my bus leaves at 11:20.
i walk up to what i figure is the door to the station.
"that's not a door," a black guy with an orange hat that is way too big for him says.
clearly it IS a door, but i take him seriously, he looks like he knows what he's talking about.
"which one is it?" i ask. seeing clearly there is only one other choice.
"that one," he says, taking a drag from his cigarette and pointing at that door. which is glass, but you can't see through it. dirty. smudged nastiness.
i try to touch as little of it as possible as i enter the station.
it's now 9:59 a.m.
#30#
Chapter 3
after pushing the doors open, i look down at the floor. it's an old habit of mine, probably born out of my shyness during my 'formative' years. you know, the 'oh shit, she's walking right at me' thing when in high school and the cheerleader walks by in her short skirt.
this floor is old. it's been through a lot. it's black and white and it looks as if it was made out of pieces of marbles that were smashed with a hammer, then smoothed over and varnished. and then puked on by years of filth. years of the rank and file, the poor, and the folks stuck without a train ride or plan ride. you know, steve martin and john candy in planes, trains and automobiles.
i see the cashier and i pull out my printed out receipt from the internet. he's got a ski cap on. it's orange and blue. maybe somekind of chicago bears hat. but without any kind of identifying mark. he's chomping on some kind of fastfood, i'm assuming it's a breakfast kind of thing, but i really don't know. he takes a swig on his soda, with a straw of course, and chats with the lady in front of me.
i step up behind her, about five feet back or so.
'hey man,' he says. 'get behind the line!'
i look down, nothing. i look behind me, and there is a faint outline of a line. it's covered in dirt and dust and who knows. it's red, i think.
there's no sign telling you to stay behind the line. nothing.
but i step behind it.
the other 10 or so folks in the station look at me. a television, most likely made in 1980 or so, blares in the background.
'amateur' they must all be thinking.
all i can think about is my car. sitting at home, not working. the only reason i'm standing in this bus station in petersburg, virginia, which happens to be the town i was born in 37 or so years ago.
i look around some more. the bathrooms are to the right, near where i entered. they have locks on the doors. the ones that you have to put a quarter in to get them to open. i wonder how many dirty hands have touched those locks, hoping it would just open without an insertion.
and how long it's been since they've been cleaned.
'don't want to know,' the voice in my head says. damn that voice. sometimes i wonder if i'm mouthing those words, or even saying them outloud. judging by looks i sometimes receive, it must happen sometimes. hell, everyone i've ever become friends with, at some point in our relationship will have a 'huh?' moment and ask me what i said.
usually, it was something i didn't even know i said out loud.
towards the front of the building are big windows. the view of the city isn't very awe-inspiring. but really, what is at a greyhound station?
there's a doctor's office. a bank and a drive up teller. a car is sitting outside of it, grey smoke billowing out of the exhaust pipe. killing a few more leaves in the amazon.
on the other side of the view is a hotel. the kind of place i used to stay at when i was 22 and didn't know any better. the kind of place i stayed when i was 32 because i couldn't afford anything else. the kind of place at 37 that i'd consider staying in over my car on a cold night...
'next!' the guy behind the counter says loudly.
since i'm the only one in line now, i can only assume i'm next.
'need to get my tickets,' i say.
he looks at me. kind of giving me the once over.
'where you headed?' he asks.
'greenville, nc.'
'you pay already?'
'yep. here's my number.'
he looks at it. types into his computer, that i can't see, but only assume it's a computer. i kind of giggle inside, hoping that it's a wang computer from the 1980s. 'heh, heh. wang.' i think in my best beavis and butthead voiceover.
'here's your ticket'
i take it, put in my backpack and go walk away.
there's a vending machine. sodas cost $1.75. a 1 1/2 ounce bag of chips is a buck. no wonder poor people stay poor. but i've got experience at that.
i look at the seats. a lot of empty ones, but very few around the television. there is a group of blacks taking up one row. a mother and daughter, what i can only assume is a sister, cousin or whatever and a grandmother.
in another spot, two guys dressed in camoflauge -- desert camo -- are counting change to get a gatorade.
one of them gets up and puts it in the machine. gets a red.
second guy plops his money in. pushes the button.
nothing.
'shit man, this thing took my money,' he says.
the sign on the machine says 'no refunds,' but the guy, probably no older than 19 goes up to the ticket desk. the guy is gone, but in his place is the guy who had been standing outside when i arrived.
'hey, that thing too my money,' the army brat says.
'so.' the outside guy says.
'damn.'
'did you try kicking it?' outsider retorts.
'nope.' and he walks up and gives it a swift kick.
nothing.
for about a minute, he proceeds to kick, punch and shake the machine. nothing.
finally, the outside guy steps up and kicks it.
maybe he had the special spot, but soon the cla-clunking sound of a gatorade bottle falling down the shute emits from the machine. out plop two gatorade limes. outside guy leans down, picks them up and flips one to the army guy.
'here ya go, man' he says.
'thanks, you're a life-safer. that was my last bit of change.'
i turn around and eat my two english muffins. it makes me thirsty. but i don't get a drink. not really in the mood for kicking.
a lady in her early 30s walks in and sits near me. a few seconds later, a girl -- about 16 or so, sits next to her. i look at them and they look at me. no smiles, no nothing. just looks.
this is obviously a mother and daughter. they look too much alike not to be.
finally, the young girls speaks...'do you care if i turn it?'
my initial thought is turn what? but finally my slow mind drifts toward the noise beside me from the old TV. one of those morning talk shows is on.
'nah, do what you want' i say and smile.
no reaction. except she gets up and turns the channel. to the maury povich show.
'oh, i love this show,' the younger black girl screams.
it's about secret crushes. i go back to my place in my mind.
halfway through, i glance up. all 10 folks in the place are within five feet of the TV. riveted by maury povich's corny lines laced with bad sexual innuendo. so bad, i don't even think gene raburn or chuck woolery would have ever uttered them. maybe bob barker in an after the 'price is right' wrap party, but no one else.
for some reason, one of the people on the show is salsa dancing.
'i can dig me some salsa!' a woman, who i hadn't seen before, says. she has dreadlocks (sort of) and a david letterman/madonna gap between her teeth. she then proceeds to salsa dance.
it's actually good, too.
maury povich ends. and a bus pulls up. everyone but one army guy leave.
quiet envelops the building. except for the opening credits of the steve wilko show. amazing, i think. the bouncer from jerry springer got his own show. what a great country...
i pull out a book and read. fully expecting a bill hicks moment to occur at any time...but, like every other time i think maybe it will happen, it doesn't.
soon, i'm standing outside, getting ready to board my bus.
i wait at the right spot, but military guy doesn't. he tries to get on, but is told to get in line as the folks getting off in petersburg, get off.
he backs up behind me. then when the people stop getting off, he dashes in front of me and goes in.
the doors slam in my face.
#30#
Chapter 4
the slam of the door pops only one thought into my head...that of arizona.
i open up the door to my classic suburban home. it's probably 110 degrees outside, and all i can think about is 'why the fuck are we fighting?'
the last couple of days have been pretty bad. we hang out, we smile, we kiss, we fuck, and then usually sometime later, we fight. i've never been in a realtionship like this. it's oddly fun. and i don't like thinking about it that way. but of course, maybe that's just me thinking back upon it.
much like i know now why we fought so damn much. to quote ronnie lane via the voice of rod stewart 'i wish that, i knew what i know now....'
but it don't work that way...never fucking will.
sometimes a bright flash gives you perspective...but this time it doesn't. i see the sun, the dead grass all around. but who really waters their lawn in arizona in the middle of the summer? not a bunch of drug adled morons and me, the college student.
i don't even remember what we are fighting about. it's probably something i said, something i did, but i seriously don't remember.
maybe i didn't do something the right way.
all i know is she's saying this 'i don't want to be with you anymore.'
i plead all i can to keep her around. but it doesn't seem to matter. i'm not crying, because at this point, i really hadn't learned how to yet.
well, not true, exactly, but honestly, i think i'd only cried over things that i should never have cried over....mainly because really i'd never suffered real pain.
pain, yes. real pain? no.
after a few back and forth barbs, the fighting calms down. she's crying now, like she does a lot. i wish i knew how to keep her from crying. i wish i could fix it. yet, i have no idea.
obviously, i am not prepared for such things.
these emotions continued for years. the fights? they continued for years.
in between, there were a lot of miles, a lot of great times. a lot of strange times. a lot of fights.
through it all, i didn't waver.
until i left.
until she told me the truth.
not about us. well, yes, about us. and it changed me. i don't think it changed her. but it changed me. and the way i perceived us.
i wasn't emotionally strong enough of a person to deal with it. so i shrunk. i balled myself up.
and i got on a bus and got out of town. well, symbolically. metaphorically.
now, here i am, so many years later and the bus door just slammed into my face. and all of that popped into my head. i didn't think it all through immediately. but seconds later i did. and the words flowed from my hand to my pen to the paper. mostly random, but i knew what it all meant. i knew where it was headed.
i wish i could turn it off. turn it off like a faucet. just reach up and twist. and the flow stops. never to be heard from again until someone comes along and twists it again.
fuck. life isn't that orderly. at least not for me. maybe for the librarian here in town. maybe for the guy who stands on the side of the road in an uncle sam suit during tax time. maybe for the woman at big lots with the tribal tattoo on her neck for everyone to see who actually perked up when i asked how she was doing after she asked me and i answered in a way that wasn't just "good."
anyway.
the doors on the bus open up.
'oh man, i didn't see you there too,' the bus driver says.
'not a problem,' i say.
i look up the aisle. a lot of eyes are upon me. i'm not uncomfortable about it, but they arent' friendly eyes. reminds me of some old movie where the innocent child somehow ends up in the forest and the eyes of the beasts of the forest are upon her.
so i look down at the ground, then up again, getting my bearings.
there is one place with two open seats.
i make a b-line for it. sit down and sigh.
'whew,' i think. 'only five, six hours to go!'
next to me is an overweight black woman in a redskins starter jacket. behind me, the beginnings of a conversation. a man and a woman.
one has sort of a southern mixed with new jersey accent. the other, quite obviously is jamaican.
'this should be interesting....."
The End.
here's a repeat from my other blog. i kind of liked where this one was going...and hey, i actually finished this one, ha!
Door Slam
Chapter 1
as the miles roll by on the greyhound bus, my mind can't focus on anything but the abusively lound conversation going on behind me. there are two people, both who like the sound of their voice, going on and on about nothing. topics range from viagra and it's greatness to barack obama and why they voted for him. their conversation also veers into this kind of territory: getting him (i don't know who him is) "a man", the internet, smoking crack, driving a pick up truck, jacksonville (don't know if it's florida or NC, leaning towards fla...), and on and on...
it doesn't get any better than this, i start to think...
and of course that loud ass conversation -- the only one on the bus -- is directly behind me.
ugh. this in a jamaican accent...
and of course, the chair in front if me is leaned all the way back into my knees.
next door to me, a fat ladyd in a redskins starter jacket has just woken from her snore-filled snooze to pull a greasy breakfast biscuit from her pocket. yum. of course, after two bites and hopefully a swallow or two, she starts to fall asleep again, buscuit still in dirty, stubby hand.
then, a phone rings. loudly.
gasp, in a jamaican voice:
"you have the wrong number, because if you're not, you're playing with your life mother fucker."
it amazes me how much this guy sounds like peter tosh. now i've got 'steppin' razor' in my head. not a bad thing at all. thank you crazy bus riding, loud mouthed jamaican guy.
how else can one describe this scene? i've been on a greyhound before. actually many, many times. the last time being my eight hour trip from phoenix to las vegas...anyway, while texting mandy, she said 'you're dealing with livestock' and i think she hit it right on the head. are we headed towards some kind of slaughter?
sleeping beauty has dropped her buscuit on the floor twice now, her head bobbing up and down, then slowly the buscuit slips from her grip. eventually, she notices and stretches to the floor, very gingerly for some reason, scooping up the parts and putting them back in the wrapper. the first time, it was almost immediate the reaction. the second, not so fast.
now, here we go, a third time...and once again she struggles to stay awake, then falls asleep, then drops the buscuit. as the road goes by in the background, and my urge to chuckle out loud subsides, she reaches down and paws at the food again...looks around, then takes a bite.
all i can think is why bother as she juggles with the complexity of it all. pick up, drop. pick up, drop. now almost like somekind of comedy skit that just is too absurd to draw a laugh from anyone with a heart...
but damn it is funny. like a dripping faucet at night, however, it is enough to drive one mad.
hey, the conversation behind me has turned to weaves now. and how removing my hair and replacing it is good. and suddenly, switching to running out of gas while driving to buy some juice.
i feel bad, once again, for finding humor in the sadness of it all. of course, it's sad that i'm here, listening to this. somehow i got in this position...
#30#
Chapter 2
maybe i should have taken it as a sign when the bus driver closed the door in my face as i was trying to board this thing? i mean, the army guy cut right in front of me, guess i was too slow walking for him -- a guy that tried to get on the bus while it was still unloading and was scolded by the skinny, yet fat guy who would soon have my life in his hands at 60 mph...
anyway, my dad came home to pick me up from my parents' house at about 9 a.m. why he came early, i'll never know. i said i needed to be there at 10:15. it's about a 20 minute drive. about a 1/2 hour later, he's asking me 'you ready to go?' i know that means he needs to go, so i say 'yeah.'
we drive, chit chat about my car, his car, mom's car. not much else really. kind of funny, kind of typical.
about halfway out of hopewell -- my hometown -- i ask if we can stop at mcdonald's. i really have a craving for an egg mcmuffin. mcdonald's was the topic of conversation at work the other day. how no one goes there. personally, i don't believe anyone, but does it really matter? i want an egg mcmuffin, and i'm going to get it.
we pull up to the mcdonald's the line is about 15 cars deep, so i get out and go inside, where shockingly, there is no line, no wait. just a smiling 23 year old (or so) puerto rican girl. her name tag is covered by some kind of necklace thing, so i can't write it down. guess i could just make one up -- so puerto rican gal, you shall be named Celestina. anyways, Celestina smiles and says 'may i hep you' and i say hello, good morning, i'd like two egg mcmuffins.' we make eye contact, and there is nothing there. both ways. she says '4.66' so i hand over a five. she counts out my change and i wait.
there are no other customers in the place. kind of weird, but i guess no one wants to get cold. it's probably 35 or so degrees outside, cloudy and very dry. that wintry dry that leaves you all ashy. but i have dry skin, so maybe it doesn't have that same effect on you. who knows?
a minute or so later, i get my bag of mcfun and leave.
my dad still sitting in the suv, waiting for me. it's my sister's old SUV a toyota that leaks oil and skips in first gear sometimes. i drove that car to florida back in may of 2006. the last time i ever saw emily. packed that thing up with my stuff, six years worth plus a lot of the years before as well. we barely spoke that hot late spring day in gainesville. i cried. i tried not to cry. she and her (and my) friend tracy just tried to really stay out of my way. i had hoped to have a conversation, but it was obvious she wanted nothing to do with that. she and i said good bye. i said 'you know, i still want to be friends.' she said 'i know.'
that was the last conversation i had with emily. the woman i dated for six years.
it's kind of funny/tragic looking back at it.
anyway, back to the SUV...we drive by the fort lee base. it's growing. very fast. i wonder if the end of the bush wars in the middle east will slow the growth. the thing that everyone in the tri-cities (hopewell, petersburg and colonial heights) is counting on to save them...i have my doubts.
we drive into petersburg. it's a shit hole. there's the old nightclub that used to be a strip club, a discoteque and i think once again a strip club. for a little bit it was a restaurant, but that didn't last long. this strip looks a lot like what i think detroit looks like now. boarded up businesses and closed places with lots of memories and very little life.
there are three porno shops within a one mile stretch, however. so that industry appears to be booming. they even still have 25 cent peep shows. who would've thunk those would still be around? but i guess it still doesn't take too long to do what you have to do with a peep show.
i guess it really is true that some things never change.
we take a couple of turns to get to downtown, and dad misses the turn for the busstop. we circle back around, and he drops me off.
"keep me posted." he says.
"i will," i reply and shut the door.
it's 9:58 a.m. my bus leaves at 11:20.
i walk up to what i figure is the door to the station.
"that's not a door," a black guy with an orange hat that is way too big for him says.
clearly it IS a door, but i take him seriously, he looks like he knows what he's talking about.
"which one is it?" i ask. seeing clearly there is only one other choice.
"that one," he says, taking a drag from his cigarette and pointing at that door. which is glass, but you can't see through it. dirty. smudged nastiness.
i try to touch as little of it as possible as i enter the station.
it's now 9:59 a.m.
#30#
Chapter 3
after pushing the doors open, i look down at the floor. it's an old habit of mine, probably born out of my shyness during my 'formative' years. you know, the 'oh shit, she's walking right at me' thing when in high school and the cheerleader walks by in her short skirt.
this floor is old. it's been through a lot. it's black and white and it looks as if it was made out of pieces of marbles that were smashed with a hammer, then smoothed over and varnished. and then puked on by years of filth. years of the rank and file, the poor, and the folks stuck without a train ride or plan ride. you know, steve martin and john candy in planes, trains and automobiles.
i see the cashier and i pull out my printed out receipt from the internet. he's got a ski cap on. it's orange and blue. maybe somekind of chicago bears hat. but without any kind of identifying mark. he's chomping on some kind of fastfood, i'm assuming it's a breakfast kind of thing, but i really don't know. he takes a swig on his soda, with a straw of course, and chats with the lady in front of me.
i step up behind her, about five feet back or so.
'hey man,' he says. 'get behind the line!'
i look down, nothing. i look behind me, and there is a faint outline of a line. it's covered in dirt and dust and who knows. it's red, i think.
there's no sign telling you to stay behind the line. nothing.
but i step behind it.
the other 10 or so folks in the station look at me. a television, most likely made in 1980 or so, blares in the background.
'amateur' they must all be thinking.
all i can think about is my car. sitting at home, not working. the only reason i'm standing in this bus station in petersburg, virginia, which happens to be the town i was born in 37 or so years ago.
i look around some more. the bathrooms are to the right, near where i entered. they have locks on the doors. the ones that you have to put a quarter in to get them to open. i wonder how many dirty hands have touched those locks, hoping it would just open without an insertion.
and how long it's been since they've been cleaned.
'don't want to know,' the voice in my head says. damn that voice. sometimes i wonder if i'm mouthing those words, or even saying them outloud. judging by looks i sometimes receive, it must happen sometimes. hell, everyone i've ever become friends with, at some point in our relationship will have a 'huh?' moment and ask me what i said.
usually, it was something i didn't even know i said out loud.
towards the front of the building are big windows. the view of the city isn't very awe-inspiring. but really, what is at a greyhound station?
there's a doctor's office. a bank and a drive up teller. a car is sitting outside of it, grey smoke billowing out of the exhaust pipe. killing a few more leaves in the amazon.
on the other side of the view is a hotel. the kind of place i used to stay at when i was 22 and didn't know any better. the kind of place i stayed when i was 32 because i couldn't afford anything else. the kind of place at 37 that i'd consider staying in over my car on a cold night...
'next!' the guy behind the counter says loudly.
since i'm the only one in line now, i can only assume i'm next.
'need to get my tickets,' i say.
he looks at me. kind of giving me the once over.
'where you headed?' he asks.
'greenville, nc.'
'you pay already?'
'yep. here's my number.'
he looks at it. types into his computer, that i can't see, but only assume it's a computer. i kind of giggle inside, hoping that it's a wang computer from the 1980s. 'heh, heh. wang.' i think in my best beavis and butthead voiceover.
'here's your ticket'
i take it, put in my backpack and go walk away.
there's a vending machine. sodas cost $1.75. a 1 1/2 ounce bag of chips is a buck. no wonder poor people stay poor. but i've got experience at that.
i look at the seats. a lot of empty ones, but very few around the television. there is a group of blacks taking up one row. a mother and daughter, what i can only assume is a sister, cousin or whatever and a grandmother.
in another spot, two guys dressed in camoflauge -- desert camo -- are counting change to get a gatorade.
one of them gets up and puts it in the machine. gets a red.
second guy plops his money in. pushes the button.
nothing.
'shit man, this thing took my money,' he says.
the sign on the machine says 'no refunds,' but the guy, probably no older than 19 goes up to the ticket desk. the guy is gone, but in his place is the guy who had been standing outside when i arrived.
'hey, that thing too my money,' the army brat says.
'so.' the outside guy says.
'damn.'
'did you try kicking it?' outsider retorts.
'nope.' and he walks up and gives it a swift kick.
nothing.
for about a minute, he proceeds to kick, punch and shake the machine. nothing.
finally, the outside guy steps up and kicks it.
maybe he had the special spot, but soon the cla-clunking sound of a gatorade bottle falling down the shute emits from the machine. out plop two gatorade limes. outside guy leans down, picks them up and flips one to the army guy.
'here ya go, man' he says.
'thanks, you're a life-safer. that was my last bit of change.'
i turn around and eat my two english muffins. it makes me thirsty. but i don't get a drink. not really in the mood for kicking.
a lady in her early 30s walks in and sits near me. a few seconds later, a girl -- about 16 or so, sits next to her. i look at them and they look at me. no smiles, no nothing. just looks.
this is obviously a mother and daughter. they look too much alike not to be.
finally, the young girls speaks...'do you care if i turn it?'
my initial thought is turn what? but finally my slow mind drifts toward the noise beside me from the old TV. one of those morning talk shows is on.
'nah, do what you want' i say and smile.
no reaction. except she gets up and turns the channel. to the maury povich show.
'oh, i love this show,' the younger black girl screams.
it's about secret crushes. i go back to my place in my mind.
halfway through, i glance up. all 10 folks in the place are within five feet of the TV. riveted by maury povich's corny lines laced with bad sexual innuendo. so bad, i don't even think gene raburn or chuck woolery would have ever uttered them. maybe bob barker in an after the 'price is right' wrap party, but no one else.
for some reason, one of the people on the show is salsa dancing.
'i can dig me some salsa!' a woman, who i hadn't seen before, says. she has dreadlocks (sort of) and a david letterman/madonna gap between her teeth. she then proceeds to salsa dance.
it's actually good, too.
maury povich ends. and a bus pulls up. everyone but one army guy leave.
quiet envelops the building. except for the opening credits of the steve wilko show. amazing, i think. the bouncer from jerry springer got his own show. what a great country...
i pull out a book and read. fully expecting a bill hicks moment to occur at any time...but, like every other time i think maybe it will happen, it doesn't.
soon, i'm standing outside, getting ready to board my bus.
i wait at the right spot, but military guy doesn't. he tries to get on, but is told to get in line as the folks getting off in petersburg, get off.
he backs up behind me. then when the people stop getting off, he dashes in front of me and goes in.
the doors slam in my face.
#30#
Chapter 4
the slam of the door pops only one thought into my head...that of arizona.
i open up the door to my classic suburban home. it's probably 110 degrees outside, and all i can think about is 'why the fuck are we fighting?'
the last couple of days have been pretty bad. we hang out, we smile, we kiss, we fuck, and then usually sometime later, we fight. i've never been in a realtionship like this. it's oddly fun. and i don't like thinking about it that way. but of course, maybe that's just me thinking back upon it.
much like i know now why we fought so damn much. to quote ronnie lane via the voice of rod stewart 'i wish that, i knew what i know now....'
but it don't work that way...never fucking will.
sometimes a bright flash gives you perspective...but this time it doesn't. i see the sun, the dead grass all around. but who really waters their lawn in arizona in the middle of the summer? not a bunch of drug adled morons and me, the college student.
i don't even remember what we are fighting about. it's probably something i said, something i did, but i seriously don't remember.
maybe i didn't do something the right way.
all i know is she's saying this 'i don't want to be with you anymore.'
i plead all i can to keep her around. but it doesn't seem to matter. i'm not crying, because at this point, i really hadn't learned how to yet.
well, not true, exactly, but honestly, i think i'd only cried over things that i should never have cried over....mainly because really i'd never suffered real pain.
pain, yes. real pain? no.
after a few back and forth barbs, the fighting calms down. she's crying now, like she does a lot. i wish i knew how to keep her from crying. i wish i could fix it. yet, i have no idea.
obviously, i am not prepared for such things.
these emotions continued for years. the fights? they continued for years.
in between, there were a lot of miles, a lot of great times. a lot of strange times. a lot of fights.
through it all, i didn't waver.
until i left.
until she told me the truth.
not about us. well, yes, about us. and it changed me. i don't think it changed her. but it changed me. and the way i perceived us.
i wasn't emotionally strong enough of a person to deal with it. so i shrunk. i balled myself up.
and i got on a bus and got out of town. well, symbolically. metaphorically.
now, here i am, so many years later and the bus door just slammed into my face. and all of that popped into my head. i didn't think it all through immediately. but seconds later i did. and the words flowed from my hand to my pen to the paper. mostly random, but i knew what it all meant. i knew where it was headed.
i wish i could turn it off. turn it off like a faucet. just reach up and twist. and the flow stops. never to be heard from again until someone comes along and twists it again.
fuck. life isn't that orderly. at least not for me. maybe for the librarian here in town. maybe for the guy who stands on the side of the road in an uncle sam suit during tax time. maybe for the woman at big lots with the tribal tattoo on her neck for everyone to see who actually perked up when i asked how she was doing after she asked me and i answered in a way that wasn't just "good."
anyway.
the doors on the bus open up.
'oh man, i didn't see you there too,' the bus driver says.
'not a problem,' i say.
i look up the aisle. a lot of eyes are upon me. i'm not uncomfortable about it, but they arent' friendly eyes. reminds me of some old movie where the innocent child somehow ends up in the forest and the eyes of the beasts of the forest are upon her.
so i look down at the ground, then up again, getting my bearings.
there is one place with two open seats.
i make a b-line for it. sit down and sigh.
'whew,' i think. 'only five, six hours to go!'
next to me is an overweight black woman in a redskins starter jacket. behind me, the beginnings of a conversation. a man and a woman.
one has sort of a southern mixed with new jersey accent. the other, quite obviously is jamaican.
'this should be interesting....."
The End.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
45 minutes
I shaved my head. Nothing unusual there. Well, other than the fact I’d never done such a thing before. But it had to be done. The balding Prince Valiant look just isn’t sexy. No chance of it. Even when Brad Pitt or some other caricature of a Hollywood heartthrob has it. Just ask Luke Perry. Well, he doesn’t have it, but have you seen the photos of the guy at some autograph session? It’s horrible.
However, pretty quickly I had a revelation. Nothing that will cure AIDS or get a man on Mars before I die, but it was pretty cool to have. And it made me realize that sometimes you really do have to do something different if you want to understand something else.
I put my baseball cap on. It seemed to fit differently.
I pulled it up a little. Like some of the silly looking fools do. And it stayed up. For the first time in my life, a baseball hat stayed pointing up on my head. Funny. All these years I’d wondered how rednecks and chew-spitting dunces kept their hats up like that. It always slumped down when I put mine up like that. Not that I ever wanted to do something like this, except in a jovial way.
The secret is the hair. A close up hairdo gives your head Velcro. Who woulda thunk it?
Ha. Score one for trying different things.
***
My car pushed its way through traffic. It’s four cylinders pushed to the limit. Almost whining in how much they had to work to keep up. But I needed to get there first. She’d be waiting for me. But only for another 45 minutes. And I’m 48 miles away.
This isn’t what I thought would happen when I first met her. I figured we would get married the old fashioned way. In a church. Families and friends all around. A stupid bachelor party. A lame attempt to get me to grab a redhead stripper’s ass. And then a honeymoon.
Instead, we dated for a pretty long while. We had a lot of fun. We also had a lot of shit. Mostly caused by our pasts. And our inabilities to deal with it. Such a shame really. I think it may have worked, had we met at a different time. A different place. But, that’s silly to think about. Why? Because that doesn’t happen. Except in a Twilight Zone episode. Or a Family Guy one. Science fiction for sure.
But right now, she needs me. We haven’t seen each other in a while. Longer than I’d like, and longer than she’d like. She called one day last week. I don’t remember which day, I was drunk. I’m always drunk it seems. Someone was after her she said. Did something to her cat. I wondered if it was true. It had to be. We didn’t lie to each other. Anymore.
Her blonde hair used to drive me insane. It was blonde like my hair was when I was 6 years old. Bleach blonde. Except it was real still for her. My hair had turned greasy blonde a long, long time ago. If I got a lot of sun, it almost turned blonde again. At least when I had hair.
Now, I’m thinking about her hair. About the time I cleaned out my old car, and some of her hair was still there. Years after we’d decided it was better to not see each other anymore. Well, one of us decided that. The other? Well, the other died a little bit more that day.
That hair made me stare. It was sitting in the back seat of the car.
That car is long gone. Just like every trace of her. Except for a few things. Books. Photos. That kind of artifact.
But for now, I have to keep my mind focused. I nearly wrecked two miles back. And I wasn’t thinking then. Now I’m thinking. Need to stop.
I turn up the radio a little louder. It’s Stiff Little Fingers’ “Alternative Ulster.” That’ll do.
38 minutes to go. 33 miles.
I come up on two cars. Playing that awesome game that so many in this fucking state seem to want to play -- I’ll stay in this lane, you stay in that one. And we’ll go the same speed.
My car edges close to the brown Chevy Blazer in the left lane. This guy is a hunter. I can tell because he’s wearing an orange hat. The woman in the car on the right is about 65 years old. Grey-haired and balding. Not the best combo for sure. But she is driving a silver Jaguar. It can go faster than 53 miles per hour in a 55. I look behind me. Two cars are creeping up. I have to make a decision. I chose left. The blazer guy.
I flash my lights. The international sign for get out of my fucking way. He looks in his rearview. Then he taps his brakes.
“Fucker,” is all I can think. By now, the two cars have caught up. They are in the right lane.
I see a gap as the Jag has pulled ever so ahead of the Blazer. I gun it. All four cylinders put their gerbils to work. I get in the gap. She slows. But not before I swerve over in front of the blazer.
I floor it.
32 miles. 32 minutes. Damn. Falling behind again.
My mind wanders for a second. Her voice pops into my head. That southern drawl, just like Judy Davis from “Barton Fink” or Jane Alexander from “Brubaker”. No wonder I love those movies. The dames in them sounded so much like her.
Back in the road. Back on the road. Going 87 mph. The 35 mph zone is coming up.
27 miles. 30 minutes.
However, pretty quickly I had a revelation. Nothing that will cure AIDS or get a man on Mars before I die, but it was pretty cool to have. And it made me realize that sometimes you really do have to do something different if you want to understand something else.
I put my baseball cap on. It seemed to fit differently.
I pulled it up a little. Like some of the silly looking fools do. And it stayed up. For the first time in my life, a baseball hat stayed pointing up on my head. Funny. All these years I’d wondered how rednecks and chew-spitting dunces kept their hats up like that. It always slumped down when I put mine up like that. Not that I ever wanted to do something like this, except in a jovial way.
The secret is the hair. A close up hairdo gives your head Velcro. Who woulda thunk it?
Ha. Score one for trying different things.
***
My car pushed its way through traffic. It’s four cylinders pushed to the limit. Almost whining in how much they had to work to keep up. But I needed to get there first. She’d be waiting for me. But only for another 45 minutes. And I’m 48 miles away.
This isn’t what I thought would happen when I first met her. I figured we would get married the old fashioned way. In a church. Families and friends all around. A stupid bachelor party. A lame attempt to get me to grab a redhead stripper’s ass. And then a honeymoon.
Instead, we dated for a pretty long while. We had a lot of fun. We also had a lot of shit. Mostly caused by our pasts. And our inabilities to deal with it. Such a shame really. I think it may have worked, had we met at a different time. A different place. But, that’s silly to think about. Why? Because that doesn’t happen. Except in a Twilight Zone episode. Or a Family Guy one. Science fiction for sure.
But right now, she needs me. We haven’t seen each other in a while. Longer than I’d like, and longer than she’d like. She called one day last week. I don’t remember which day, I was drunk. I’m always drunk it seems. Someone was after her she said. Did something to her cat. I wondered if it was true. It had to be. We didn’t lie to each other. Anymore.
Her blonde hair used to drive me insane. It was blonde like my hair was when I was 6 years old. Bleach blonde. Except it was real still for her. My hair had turned greasy blonde a long, long time ago. If I got a lot of sun, it almost turned blonde again. At least when I had hair.
Now, I’m thinking about her hair. About the time I cleaned out my old car, and some of her hair was still there. Years after we’d decided it was better to not see each other anymore. Well, one of us decided that. The other? Well, the other died a little bit more that day.
That hair made me stare. It was sitting in the back seat of the car.
That car is long gone. Just like every trace of her. Except for a few things. Books. Photos. That kind of artifact.
But for now, I have to keep my mind focused. I nearly wrecked two miles back. And I wasn’t thinking then. Now I’m thinking. Need to stop.
I turn up the radio a little louder. It’s Stiff Little Fingers’ “Alternative Ulster.” That’ll do.
38 minutes to go. 33 miles.
I come up on two cars. Playing that awesome game that so many in this fucking state seem to want to play -- I’ll stay in this lane, you stay in that one. And we’ll go the same speed.
My car edges close to the brown Chevy Blazer in the left lane. This guy is a hunter. I can tell because he’s wearing an orange hat. The woman in the car on the right is about 65 years old. Grey-haired and balding. Not the best combo for sure. But she is driving a silver Jaguar. It can go faster than 53 miles per hour in a 55. I look behind me. Two cars are creeping up. I have to make a decision. I chose left. The blazer guy.
I flash my lights. The international sign for get out of my fucking way. He looks in his rearview. Then he taps his brakes.
“Fucker,” is all I can think. By now, the two cars have caught up. They are in the right lane.
I see a gap as the Jag has pulled ever so ahead of the Blazer. I gun it. All four cylinders put their gerbils to work. I get in the gap. She slows. But not before I swerve over in front of the blazer.
I floor it.
32 miles. 32 minutes. Damn. Falling behind again.
My mind wanders for a second. Her voice pops into my head. That southern drawl, just like Judy Davis from “Barton Fink” or Jane Alexander from “Brubaker”. No wonder I love those movies. The dames in them sounded so much like her.
Back in the road. Back on the road. Going 87 mph. The 35 mph zone is coming up.
27 miles. 30 minutes.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
bass solo, take 1
I walked out of work, apathetic as hell. Just moments before, I was sitting in my cubicle, surrounded by other cubicles. Listening to two people burp constantly, one guy imitate a fucking awful ring tone over and over and a third talk about his baby.
The one that bothered me the most was the baby guy. Not that I give a damn about people who constantly talk about their baby and how perfect he is. Never cries. Never shits. Never does anything but be a perfect baby. No, what bothers me is this guy, just months ago, was sitting in the very same cheap office chair with his damn name taped to the back of it to “prevent switchage”, saying he’d never be one of those parents that blathers on endlessly about his/her kid. “Those people are human sewage,” he said.
Yesterday, I mentioned human sewage while he was showing Facebook photos of his kid, and he gave me an evil glare. And this is one of the people in this place that I actually get along with. I’d even go so far as to say I like the kid.
Well, before I started to feel a lump in my back, I’ll name it Cito, I jumped up from my cubicle and dashed straight for the back door. This is always a gamble, since this is where the smoking section is, and to get out into the fresh air, one usually has to navigate a toxic cloud of cigarettes and cloves. Today, thankfully, only one Vietnamese lady is sitting outside on the picnic tables. Those tables that are the color of piss and dirt. But if they ever get wet, usually from someone spilling a Red Bull on them, they show the true color of white that they are. I take a breath before heading outside, holding it through the nicotine stained walls of the outside corridor and head to my car. When I get 10 feet away from the smoker’s bunker, I exhale. Then inhale. Sweet Jesus. The chemicals coming from the press room have seeped outside today, I see.
“Wah, wah, wah.” Yes, I do feel like the non-smoker parody from Bill Hicks’ smoking routine. Fuck off, right.
I get in my car. Turn on the engine and sit there. The radio is turned way up from my drive in. Metallica’s “Kill ‘em All” plays. Song two, side one. “The Four Horsemen.” It seems to fit nicely. I turn up the volume just a little bit more. This draws the attention of two guys hanging out by the loading dock. One points. The other chuckles. Such is the day…
I pull out of the parking lot. I really have no idea where I’m going, I just know I need to do something to get away from the office for a moment or two. Jacksonville, North Carolina at 4:46 p.m. is not the best place in the world to be driving aimlessly. The Marines are bustling about, but I figure I’m still beating the rush.
The first road is “Freedom Highway.” So awful. So predictable. But perfect. I turn right. On the right side of the road is a big-ass club. It’s been there as long as I have been in North Cacackalacka, and I’m assuming long before. It looks like the kind of place where someone like me would be so uncomfortable, but would not leave after paying to get in. If I wasn’t 40 years old, I’d most likely go inside one night. Just to do it. But, at this ripe old age, I see it as a path of no point. Yeah, I could sit there, drink a beer, watch guys muscle about in Ed Hardy shirts and crew cuts. All the while the ladies from this town would be scoping out who they thought were the easiest targets to get a military baby out of. Yeah, a little bit Officer and a Gentleman, but shit that stuff goes on all the time.
Speaking of which, I ended up pulling into the parking lot of a pretty crusty old strip mall. One of those big ones. Spread out all over the place. Almost like an outlet mall, but not quite. Thrift stores and tattoo parlors dominate this place. It’s also the only place I’ve seen a Peebles other than my hometown strip mall in Hopewell. This must just be another Hopewell? Reason No. 1 to leave. ASAP.
I go into the Big Lots. I need some blank DVDs and this is the source for cheap ones. I walk up to the door and there is an older man, lighting one cigarette with another -- unfiltered of course -- who appears to be holding the door for people. He’s got on orange pants, which match the décor of Big Lots. However, he doesn’t have one of those awesome smocks they make retail stooges wear. I had a blue one in my days as a Rose’s Department Store employee. $4.25 an hour straight out of college with a degree in economics. Oh, how proud my dad was of me in those days. Yet, I was chasing after a woman. An unobtainable one, at that.
The old guy looks at me approaching and lets go of the door just a few seconds before I get to it. Completely making sure I have to open it as it’s swinging forward. I look back at him, he’s now holding the door for a couple of teenage girls.
Good for him, I think.
I got back to the back of the store and grab my DVDs. I also stare at the DVDs for sale. A “Bullit and Papillion” double feature disc for $6 is almost enough to get me to spend some extra cash. But it’s not. Instead, I go to the food section, grab a $1.50 meal of past and cheese dust and Sprite. On the way back to the front, I see something that I won’t soon forget. (See, I told you I’d get back to the military baby stuff).
There in front of me is a thing of beauty. She’s no more than 5-foot-3, with dark hair, with bands cut out. She’s making a clicking sound with her tongue over and over and over again. In her orange Big Lots shopping cart is a little boy. Completely not paying attention to the clicking. But, her mom has no interest in the baby either. Just wandering around the store, pushing the cart, clicking her tongue and staring into space.
What amazes me is her beauty. She’s a completely perfect combination of Natalie Portman and Winona Ryder. Stunningly beautiful. With black eye makeup that is a little bit smudged. Still with just a little bit of fat left over from having the kid as well. All I can think is wow. This all takes five seconds.
I am amazed. She had on a marine wife shirt too. It was dirty and wrinkled. Wonder if the kid is a military baby? Or if she really fell in love with one? And does she regret it? I’d love to talk this over with her over drinks. It won’t happen. Not because it couldn’t, but because I’d never have the guts to ask.
My steps lead me to the cashier. I pay. Say hello and have a great one to the lady, who is obviously too old to be still working here, but, most likely can’t afford not to.
I get in my car. I think about that woman for a second or two. Then turn the key. I look in my rearview. A couple of 20-something black guys are jump starting an old Nissan. I’ve only heard bad things about Nissans. And only known one person who drove one. He stole a security deposit from me. Fuck Nissans.
Cliff Burton’s bass solo greets me. I turn it up again. Time to go back to work.
The one that bothered me the most was the baby guy. Not that I give a damn about people who constantly talk about their baby and how perfect he is. Never cries. Never shits. Never does anything but be a perfect baby. No, what bothers me is this guy, just months ago, was sitting in the very same cheap office chair with his damn name taped to the back of it to “prevent switchage”, saying he’d never be one of those parents that blathers on endlessly about his/her kid. “Those people are human sewage,” he said.
Yesterday, I mentioned human sewage while he was showing Facebook photos of his kid, and he gave me an evil glare. And this is one of the people in this place that I actually get along with. I’d even go so far as to say I like the kid.
Well, before I started to feel a lump in my back, I’ll name it Cito, I jumped up from my cubicle and dashed straight for the back door. This is always a gamble, since this is where the smoking section is, and to get out into the fresh air, one usually has to navigate a toxic cloud of cigarettes and cloves. Today, thankfully, only one Vietnamese lady is sitting outside on the picnic tables. Those tables that are the color of piss and dirt. But if they ever get wet, usually from someone spilling a Red Bull on them, they show the true color of white that they are. I take a breath before heading outside, holding it through the nicotine stained walls of the outside corridor and head to my car. When I get 10 feet away from the smoker’s bunker, I exhale. Then inhale. Sweet Jesus. The chemicals coming from the press room have seeped outside today, I see.
“Wah, wah, wah.” Yes, I do feel like the non-smoker parody from Bill Hicks’ smoking routine. Fuck off, right.
I get in my car. Turn on the engine and sit there. The radio is turned way up from my drive in. Metallica’s “Kill ‘em All” plays. Song two, side one. “The Four Horsemen.” It seems to fit nicely. I turn up the volume just a little bit more. This draws the attention of two guys hanging out by the loading dock. One points. The other chuckles. Such is the day…
I pull out of the parking lot. I really have no idea where I’m going, I just know I need to do something to get away from the office for a moment or two. Jacksonville, North Carolina at 4:46 p.m. is not the best place in the world to be driving aimlessly. The Marines are bustling about, but I figure I’m still beating the rush.
The first road is “Freedom Highway.” So awful. So predictable. But perfect. I turn right. On the right side of the road is a big-ass club. It’s been there as long as I have been in North Cacackalacka, and I’m assuming long before. It looks like the kind of place where someone like me would be so uncomfortable, but would not leave after paying to get in. If I wasn’t 40 years old, I’d most likely go inside one night. Just to do it. But, at this ripe old age, I see it as a path of no point. Yeah, I could sit there, drink a beer, watch guys muscle about in Ed Hardy shirts and crew cuts. All the while the ladies from this town would be scoping out who they thought were the easiest targets to get a military baby out of. Yeah, a little bit Officer and a Gentleman, but shit that stuff goes on all the time.
Speaking of which, I ended up pulling into the parking lot of a pretty crusty old strip mall. One of those big ones. Spread out all over the place. Almost like an outlet mall, but not quite. Thrift stores and tattoo parlors dominate this place. It’s also the only place I’ve seen a Peebles other than my hometown strip mall in Hopewell. This must just be another Hopewell? Reason No. 1 to leave. ASAP.
I go into the Big Lots. I need some blank DVDs and this is the source for cheap ones. I walk up to the door and there is an older man, lighting one cigarette with another -- unfiltered of course -- who appears to be holding the door for people. He’s got on orange pants, which match the décor of Big Lots. However, he doesn’t have one of those awesome smocks they make retail stooges wear. I had a blue one in my days as a Rose’s Department Store employee. $4.25 an hour straight out of college with a degree in economics. Oh, how proud my dad was of me in those days. Yet, I was chasing after a woman. An unobtainable one, at that.
The old guy looks at me approaching and lets go of the door just a few seconds before I get to it. Completely making sure I have to open it as it’s swinging forward. I look back at him, he’s now holding the door for a couple of teenage girls.
Good for him, I think.
I got back to the back of the store and grab my DVDs. I also stare at the DVDs for sale. A “Bullit and Papillion” double feature disc for $6 is almost enough to get me to spend some extra cash. But it’s not. Instead, I go to the food section, grab a $1.50 meal of past and cheese dust and Sprite. On the way back to the front, I see something that I won’t soon forget. (See, I told you I’d get back to the military baby stuff).
There in front of me is a thing of beauty. She’s no more than 5-foot-3, with dark hair, with bands cut out. She’s making a clicking sound with her tongue over and over and over again. In her orange Big Lots shopping cart is a little boy. Completely not paying attention to the clicking. But, her mom has no interest in the baby either. Just wandering around the store, pushing the cart, clicking her tongue and staring into space.
What amazes me is her beauty. She’s a completely perfect combination of Natalie Portman and Winona Ryder. Stunningly beautiful. With black eye makeup that is a little bit smudged. Still with just a little bit of fat left over from having the kid as well. All I can think is wow. This all takes five seconds.
I am amazed. She had on a marine wife shirt too. It was dirty and wrinkled. Wonder if the kid is a military baby? Or if she really fell in love with one? And does she regret it? I’d love to talk this over with her over drinks. It won’t happen. Not because it couldn’t, but because I’d never have the guts to ask.
My steps lead me to the cashier. I pay. Say hello and have a great one to the lady, who is obviously too old to be still working here, but, most likely can’t afford not to.
I get in my car. I think about that woman for a second or two. Then turn the key. I look in my rearview. A couple of 20-something black guys are jump starting an old Nissan. I’ve only heard bad things about Nissans. And only known one person who drove one. He stole a security deposit from me. Fuck Nissans.
Cliff Burton’s bass solo greets me. I turn it up again. Time to go back to work.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
a boy can dream
Wilford Brimley mocks me. Every single day.
Not just because an average meal for me lately has been pizza and crullers, but also because that’s what I think he was put on this earth to do. Mock. Not just me. But you. And him. And her. And that dog over there. And maybe even the fish swimming in the ocean.
Speaking of the ocean, the waves are blasting tonight. It’s almost like I have a microphone down there and it’s pumping the sound of crashing waves into my living room. It’s most magical. In fact, this may be the coolest night that I’ve experienced since being here. So much so, I get up from this typing machine and open my front door to listen in Doubly as Nigel so nicely put it.
I hung up a picture of the diabetes man in my cubicle a few months ago. It was a funny lark back then. But since I moved him to a more prominent position, above me and too the right, he has taken on a whole other meaning.
People stop and laugh at his picture. Some just look at him, then look at me. After which, they may shake their head in disbelief or shrug in that defeated way so many of us do every day.
I put him as the front wallpaper of my phone last week. It’s almost like he’s the alien from The Thing, taking over parts of my life one by one. I suppose if I ask for Cocoon on DVD for Christmas, I might be in trouble. I’ve already pondered making a Wilford Christmas decoration for my new tree. It’s a fake one, which is troubling in its own way. However, it is also the first tree I have ever purchased for myself.
Over the years I’ve bought a pink tree for a friend. A couple of fake ones for girlfriends and I think that is it. I’ve picked out the one for my family many times.
But, every year I’ve been alone, even when I was dating someone, I never bought a tree for myself. And I think that was dumb. Which is why I’m fixing it this year.
I think it’s been a gradual process. At first it was finding a copy of Santee in a thrift store in Petersburg about 8 years ago. Then the year after Emily, I bought a strand of lights to hang over my window. And now this, a four foot fake tree, with lights.
Next thing you know I’ll be carrolling the night away.
Not decorating without someone to help decorate was kind of my tradition. A constant so to speak. Like Wilford Brimley. He’ll always be around. At least that’s how one feels. But, like everything, Mr. Brimley will die one day. A lot more people will just say Di-ah-bee-tus that day than feel bad. Which, I guess isn’t completely unexpected in this day and age.
I’ll say a little prayer for him when it comes. But hell, he may outlive me by a decade. Who knows? That freight train of diabetes could hit me tomorrow and take me out, no health insurance and all. Can I get a free glucose monitor without insurance Mr. Brimley? Mr. Obama? Mr. Cheney?
Oh, hell. I gave up on politics too long ago. It seems like another life when I used to debate such things with Sharon. Taking the side of Richard Nixon just to get under her skin. It worked. She liked me. I liked her. We dated. I was too chicken to try to take it somewhere further. Bad decision in the short term, not long term. How reversed is that one compared to the rest of this life?
Anyways, I wonder if Wilford Brimley would sit on my porch, eat leftover pizza from last night’s Monday Night Football game and listen to the ocean with me? Anyone got his phone number? Seems like a perfectly plausible thing. How about a movie, like Andy Kaufman’s “Breakfast with Blassie” but instead, it’s “Leftover pizza with Wilford.”
We could talk about the proper diet for us kinds. Maybe even discuss prostate issues.
I’m sure he’d love to chat about “The China Syndrome” or my all-time favorite of his “Brubaker”. He could remind me he was in “Remo Williams” and kicked ass in “The Natural” -- one of my favorite books and a book I actually own.
I wouldn’t want to shoot it in a Sambo’s, however, as that would be too redundant and plagiaristic. Instead, a Bojangles maybe? Or an In-and-Out burger. Maybe have Steve Buscemi stop by?
It gets a little bit more interesting, at least for me, with every added layer.
We could even get Wesley Snipes to come over and re-enact the “always bet on black,” scene -- with musical cues -- from “Passenger 57.”
Sounds plausible.
Not just because an average meal for me lately has been pizza and crullers, but also because that’s what I think he was put on this earth to do. Mock. Not just me. But you. And him. And her. And that dog over there. And maybe even the fish swimming in the ocean.
Speaking of the ocean, the waves are blasting tonight. It’s almost like I have a microphone down there and it’s pumping the sound of crashing waves into my living room. It’s most magical. In fact, this may be the coolest night that I’ve experienced since being here. So much so, I get up from this typing machine and open my front door to listen in Doubly as Nigel so nicely put it.
I hung up a picture of the diabetes man in my cubicle a few months ago. It was a funny lark back then. But since I moved him to a more prominent position, above me and too the right, he has taken on a whole other meaning.
People stop and laugh at his picture. Some just look at him, then look at me. After which, they may shake their head in disbelief or shrug in that defeated way so many of us do every day.
I put him as the front wallpaper of my phone last week. It’s almost like he’s the alien from The Thing, taking over parts of my life one by one. I suppose if I ask for Cocoon on DVD for Christmas, I might be in trouble. I’ve already pondered making a Wilford Christmas decoration for my new tree. It’s a fake one, which is troubling in its own way. However, it is also the first tree I have ever purchased for myself.
Over the years I’ve bought a pink tree for a friend. A couple of fake ones for girlfriends and I think that is it. I’ve picked out the one for my family many times.
But, every year I’ve been alone, even when I was dating someone, I never bought a tree for myself. And I think that was dumb. Which is why I’m fixing it this year.
I think it’s been a gradual process. At first it was finding a copy of Santee in a thrift store in Petersburg about 8 years ago. Then the year after Emily, I bought a strand of lights to hang over my window. And now this, a four foot fake tree, with lights.
Next thing you know I’ll be carrolling the night away.
Not decorating without someone to help decorate was kind of my tradition. A constant so to speak. Like Wilford Brimley. He’ll always be around. At least that’s how one feels. But, like everything, Mr. Brimley will die one day. A lot more people will just say Di-ah-bee-tus that day than feel bad. Which, I guess isn’t completely unexpected in this day and age.
I’ll say a little prayer for him when it comes. But hell, he may outlive me by a decade. Who knows? That freight train of diabetes could hit me tomorrow and take me out, no health insurance and all. Can I get a free glucose monitor without insurance Mr. Brimley? Mr. Obama? Mr. Cheney?
Oh, hell. I gave up on politics too long ago. It seems like another life when I used to debate such things with Sharon. Taking the side of Richard Nixon just to get under her skin. It worked. She liked me. I liked her. We dated. I was too chicken to try to take it somewhere further. Bad decision in the short term, not long term. How reversed is that one compared to the rest of this life?
Anyways, I wonder if Wilford Brimley would sit on my porch, eat leftover pizza from last night’s Monday Night Football game and listen to the ocean with me? Anyone got his phone number? Seems like a perfectly plausible thing. How about a movie, like Andy Kaufman’s “Breakfast with Blassie” but instead, it’s “Leftover pizza with Wilford.”
We could talk about the proper diet for us kinds. Maybe even discuss prostate issues.
I’m sure he’d love to chat about “The China Syndrome” or my all-time favorite of his “Brubaker”. He could remind me he was in “Remo Williams” and kicked ass in “The Natural” -- one of my favorite books and a book I actually own.
I wouldn’t want to shoot it in a Sambo’s, however, as that would be too redundant and plagiaristic. Instead, a Bojangles maybe? Or an In-and-Out burger. Maybe have Steve Buscemi stop by?
It gets a little bit more interesting, at least for me, with every added layer.
We could even get Wesley Snipes to come over and re-enact the “always bet on black,” scene -- with musical cues -- from “Passenger 57.”
Sounds plausible.
Monday, November 15, 2010
maps
“Whaddya mean you don’t have a freaking map?” I regretted the tone and the volume of my question almost immediately. Almost. But really, who goes on a road trip and doesn’t have a map in the car? Heck, I don’t go anywhere without a map in my car. You just never know when you’ll either actually need it, or just want to take a different turn on your way somewhere. Break up the monotony of life.
“You don’t have to yell,” she said. She was right. I didn’t have to yell. It’s a curse that I deal with. I get frustrated in the car, I yell. It’s really the only place that happens. “I thought my GPS on my phone would get us there.”
Ha. GPS. I read somewhere that they are making us dumber. I believe that.
“We are in the middle of nowhere, fifty miles past nothing and 10 years from no place. Did you really think that would work here? It doesn’t work in your parent’s house.”
Fuck, I’m a douche bag. Why she even gets in a car with me, I’ll never know.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Me too. It’s not like I put one in my bag.”
We kiss. Make up. And then look around. We really are in the middle of nowhere. Not that there is much of anywhere in Montana, but this, this is nowhere.
My mind slips into daydream mode. I try to figure out my wanderlust. And my love of maps. I have never liked those GPS things. When my sister got one, she used it to come visit me. Said “it only took me 4 and a half hours to get here.” I instantly said, well, I can get you home in four and some change. We turned on the GPS, and I gave her the turn-by-turn directions to beat it. Over and over again, that annoying Brit woman’s voice told us to turn around.
We got to my sister’s house in 4 hours and 17 minutes. Take that Brit bitch!
I remember as a kid, my dad having a drawer full of maps. He was a recruiter for Firestone. Used to go all over the country looking for the best and brightest who would take a job in a factory. I assume all of this because I have never had a conversation with my father about what he does for a living. He took me to his office once, I remember how awful it was. Wood paneling and brown carpet. A couple of plaques on the wall. Papers and filing cabinets all over the place. I vaguely remember my grandfather being there too.
So, he used to go to all these college towns. It’s why I grew up with an endless supply of shirts with college mascots on them. Florida Gators. Arizona State Sun Devils. Tulane Green Wave. University of Virginia Cavaliers. Texas A & M Aggies. Louisiana State Tigers. On and on it went. I was looking at photos at home not too long ago, and didn’t even remember having some of those shirts.
But other than T-shirts for me, he brought maps. From all over the place. And he’d stick them in that drawer. The top one, underneath the marble top. In the main entrance to the house. It’s still there today, all these years later. Most likely, still full of 1970s maps. Obsolete in their oldness, but awesome in their coolness. I’ll definitely take them when they move out, which seems to be something that may happen soon. It’ll be weird not having the old 108 Sherwood Drive to go home to anymore. But, unless you inherit and move in, I guess it happens to everyone.
Those maps used to put me in a trance. All these places out there that my dad’s been. Exotic pictures and advertisements covered them as well. Gator farms in the South. Big steaks in Texas. Snow drifts in Ohio. And these strange road signs. Route 66. Highway 61. The great America that I wasn’t getting to see. Sure, I did more traveling as a kid than most. We’d drive to Jersey and Philly all the time. Went to a bunch of Washington Redskins’ games. Even sat near George McGovern. Took a roadie to Texas at 12. But there was so much more out there. And I used to soak it up in these maps.
There was a cost, however. There always was when you messed with my dad’s stuff. Much like the giant pile of Playboys that precariously sat next to his bathroom, these maps were supposed to be off limits to me. Which, of course, made them all that more exotic and enticing.
I’d take one out when I got home from school. Run up the stairs and unfold it in my room with the door locked tight. My mom must have thought I’d found masturbation much too early. But, that wouldn’t happen until one night at the age of 13, so she had time to not worry about stained sheets and shirts and such.
On my floor I’d trace the lines of highways. Mapping out a course I’d take if I had the keys to my mom’s big brown station wagon. Faraway towns like Kansas City, Amarillo, San Francisco, Billings and New Orleans seemed as far away as Japan or the Soviet Union to this kid. But I wanted to see them all more than any foreign country. Guess that’s why, here at the age of 39, the only foreign land I’ve ever stepped on is Mexico. And if I wanted to go back now, I couldn’t. No passport and all.
Inevitably, I’d have to put the map away before going to bed. That meant a stealthy mission impossible. Folding the maps sometimes was a problem. In my haste, I’d do it incorrectly. But not notice. This is usually how I got caught, not in the act of slipping it back into the drawer, but later, when dad went to the drawer. He’d see a miss-folded map. And the scream of “Randy!” would boom throughout the house. Those were bad times.
“Have you been in my drawer?” he’d say. I knew it wasn’t a question, but an accusation. But there would be no trial. I was guilty and he knew it.
“Um, yes,” I’d stutter.
Whack! The belt upside my ass. Sometimes just once, if mom was around. But if not, it could be 10 times. I’d run back upstairs crying out loud and cursing under my breath. It would be years before I had the guts to cuss at my father.
Yet, it never stopped me from going back to the drawer. Staring at another map. Losing myself in other places that weren’t where I was. It’s why I read encyclopedias, too. And hung out at the library way too much for a kid.
When I interned in Alabama, I would drive from one end of the state to the other, sometimes in the same day. And when I got back to my little hovel of an apartment, I’d mark off the towns I’d visited. It kept me sane in that place. Still the only home that had a bed that folded up into the wall. Good times, for sure. That and a one-legged woman who always wanted me to drink with her. Thinking back, I should have taken her up on those. But I was scared. Of hurting my girlfriend’s feelings. And of what I might do.
That map ended up with 100s of Xs on it. I lost it a while ago. During a bad part of my life. I lost a lot of me then. Some of it good. Some of it bad. “One day, you’ll regret doing that,” my buddy Mike told me right after. He was right. But, it also pushed me forward in life. So, in some regards, I don’t. I wouldn’t be where I am right now if I hadn’t.
“Darling, we’ll find our way,” I said with a smile. “And now it’s more of an adventure.”
She smiled and looked at me, shaking her head. The fading sunlight hit her face just perfectly. It was that time of day. When everything looks beautiful, no matter what.
“And that’s just fine,” she said, leaning over and kissing me on the cheek.
**proving that inspiration comes from odd places, this is thanks to agg's facebook post**
“You don’t have to yell,” she said. She was right. I didn’t have to yell. It’s a curse that I deal with. I get frustrated in the car, I yell. It’s really the only place that happens. “I thought my GPS on my phone would get us there.”
Ha. GPS. I read somewhere that they are making us dumber. I believe that.
“We are in the middle of nowhere, fifty miles past nothing and 10 years from no place. Did you really think that would work here? It doesn’t work in your parent’s house.”
Fuck, I’m a douche bag. Why she even gets in a car with me, I’ll never know.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Me too. It’s not like I put one in my bag.”
We kiss. Make up. And then look around. We really are in the middle of nowhere. Not that there is much of anywhere in Montana, but this, this is nowhere.
My mind slips into daydream mode. I try to figure out my wanderlust. And my love of maps. I have never liked those GPS things. When my sister got one, she used it to come visit me. Said “it only took me 4 and a half hours to get here.” I instantly said, well, I can get you home in four and some change. We turned on the GPS, and I gave her the turn-by-turn directions to beat it. Over and over again, that annoying Brit woman’s voice told us to turn around.
We got to my sister’s house in 4 hours and 17 minutes. Take that Brit bitch!
I remember as a kid, my dad having a drawer full of maps. He was a recruiter for Firestone. Used to go all over the country looking for the best and brightest who would take a job in a factory. I assume all of this because I have never had a conversation with my father about what he does for a living. He took me to his office once, I remember how awful it was. Wood paneling and brown carpet. A couple of plaques on the wall. Papers and filing cabinets all over the place. I vaguely remember my grandfather being there too.
So, he used to go to all these college towns. It’s why I grew up with an endless supply of shirts with college mascots on them. Florida Gators. Arizona State Sun Devils. Tulane Green Wave. University of Virginia Cavaliers. Texas A & M Aggies. Louisiana State Tigers. On and on it went. I was looking at photos at home not too long ago, and didn’t even remember having some of those shirts.
But other than T-shirts for me, he brought maps. From all over the place. And he’d stick them in that drawer. The top one, underneath the marble top. In the main entrance to the house. It’s still there today, all these years later. Most likely, still full of 1970s maps. Obsolete in their oldness, but awesome in their coolness. I’ll definitely take them when they move out, which seems to be something that may happen soon. It’ll be weird not having the old 108 Sherwood Drive to go home to anymore. But, unless you inherit and move in, I guess it happens to everyone.
Those maps used to put me in a trance. All these places out there that my dad’s been. Exotic pictures and advertisements covered them as well. Gator farms in the South. Big steaks in Texas. Snow drifts in Ohio. And these strange road signs. Route 66. Highway 61. The great America that I wasn’t getting to see. Sure, I did more traveling as a kid than most. We’d drive to Jersey and Philly all the time. Went to a bunch of Washington Redskins’ games. Even sat near George McGovern. Took a roadie to Texas at 12. But there was so much more out there. And I used to soak it up in these maps.
There was a cost, however. There always was when you messed with my dad’s stuff. Much like the giant pile of Playboys that precariously sat next to his bathroom, these maps were supposed to be off limits to me. Which, of course, made them all that more exotic and enticing.
I’d take one out when I got home from school. Run up the stairs and unfold it in my room with the door locked tight. My mom must have thought I’d found masturbation much too early. But, that wouldn’t happen until one night at the age of 13, so she had time to not worry about stained sheets and shirts and such.
On my floor I’d trace the lines of highways. Mapping out a course I’d take if I had the keys to my mom’s big brown station wagon. Faraway towns like Kansas City, Amarillo, San Francisco, Billings and New Orleans seemed as far away as Japan or the Soviet Union to this kid. But I wanted to see them all more than any foreign country. Guess that’s why, here at the age of 39, the only foreign land I’ve ever stepped on is Mexico. And if I wanted to go back now, I couldn’t. No passport and all.
Inevitably, I’d have to put the map away before going to bed. That meant a stealthy mission impossible. Folding the maps sometimes was a problem. In my haste, I’d do it incorrectly. But not notice. This is usually how I got caught, not in the act of slipping it back into the drawer, but later, when dad went to the drawer. He’d see a miss-folded map. And the scream of “Randy!” would boom throughout the house. Those were bad times.
“Have you been in my drawer?” he’d say. I knew it wasn’t a question, but an accusation. But there would be no trial. I was guilty and he knew it.
“Um, yes,” I’d stutter.
Whack! The belt upside my ass. Sometimes just once, if mom was around. But if not, it could be 10 times. I’d run back upstairs crying out loud and cursing under my breath. It would be years before I had the guts to cuss at my father.
Yet, it never stopped me from going back to the drawer. Staring at another map. Losing myself in other places that weren’t where I was. It’s why I read encyclopedias, too. And hung out at the library way too much for a kid.
When I interned in Alabama, I would drive from one end of the state to the other, sometimes in the same day. And when I got back to my little hovel of an apartment, I’d mark off the towns I’d visited. It kept me sane in that place. Still the only home that had a bed that folded up into the wall. Good times, for sure. That and a one-legged woman who always wanted me to drink with her. Thinking back, I should have taken her up on those. But I was scared. Of hurting my girlfriend’s feelings. And of what I might do.
That map ended up with 100s of Xs on it. I lost it a while ago. During a bad part of my life. I lost a lot of me then. Some of it good. Some of it bad. “One day, you’ll regret doing that,” my buddy Mike told me right after. He was right. But, it also pushed me forward in life. So, in some regards, I don’t. I wouldn’t be where I am right now if I hadn’t.
“Darling, we’ll find our way,” I said with a smile. “And now it’s more of an adventure.”
She smiled and looked at me, shaking her head. The fading sunlight hit her face just perfectly. It was that time of day. When everything looks beautiful, no matter what.
“And that’s just fine,” she said, leaning over and kissing me on the cheek.
**proving that inspiration comes from odd places, this is thanks to agg's facebook post**
Sunday, November 14, 2010
love isn't enough < all you need is love
Nola was different that all the other women. And that scared me a little bit.
I watched her get up this morning. She tried her darnedest not to wake me up. Tip-toeing from the bed to the bathroom. Not flushing the toilet after peeing. Even putting on her slippers after she left the room, despite us not being able to afford heat and the floor in our bedroom being made of concrete.
She was so beautiful. She smelled of watermelon and dogwood flowers all the time. I never quite could wrap my mind around how on earth that was possible. We could have made love for two hours, then fallen asleep sweating from the 92-degree inside heat in the middle of summer. But when we woke up the next morning, I’d reek like a sack of onions but Nola, she always tasted sweet. Her secret, I guess, and probably one I don’t want to figure out.
It’s why I kick myself for not falling in love with her. Or maybe the better answer is not allowing myself to fall in love with her. I love her, there’s no doubt about it, but I haven’t taken the leap into the unknown that Yyves Klein so beautifully explained.
“Come with me into the void!”
Maybe my problem is that damn poem. The unrealistic expectations of what love should be. And what it really is.
Instead, I should take the Johnny Thunders approach. Simple and direct. When you’re in love, god damn it, you’re love.
“Oh baby I love you. I really do. There’s no one like you. Baby, I love yooooooooooooouuuuu.”
Looking out the window, I see the Spanish moss hanging from the limbs of the dying tree in our front yard. I’ve been meaning to get that cut down for a year now, “take care of it” my father would have told me. He married my mom while he was still in college. They made it over 50 years before he finally succumb to the half a pint of vodka a day he’d been ingesting for decades. I stopped drinking six years ago. Kind of funny. I feel like a Robert Duvall character in my own life. Playing a bartender that doesn’t drink. A cop that doesn’t go in the streets. Me, I’m a lover who can’t love.
Of course, the Duvall character was always a drunk before an AA member. A gung-ho crime buster before being shot. Me? I used to not be afraid of love. I used to dive in like I was a 14 year old Arkansas farm boy who just discovered a new swimming hole. Now? I skitter on the edge, hoping love finds me instead of me finding it. Knowing full well that if you wait too long, it’ll pass you by. The effort has to be there, I guess.
It’s why the words “Love isn’t enough” echo through my brain way more often than they need to. The supposed love of my life said those words to me. She never told me why it wasn’t. Just that it wasn’t. Up until that day, my only belief was the same as John Lennon’s, that love is all you need, the rest will just sort of happen the right way.
Nola knows this about me. It’s why I’m surprised she sticks around. We used to have drunken barstool conversations that began at noon and ended at closing time. Never at one bar. We’d move around a lot. We both had that wanderlust, even when it came to martinis for her and bottled beers for me. It may have had to do with our constant need for new entertainment too.
I never had any problem talking with her. Always a good sign. I remember one night we were going to see Lucero play in my old college town. On the highway driving up, there was a wreck, unbeknownst to us. This tractor trailer almost drove off of a bridge. The road was closed for five hours before we even got near it. But there were no signs. So we sat on that highway for nearly four hours. Just talking. About nothing and everything. Well, everything except for us. She did offer me a blow job. Thinking back on it, I wonder if it really was a joke? Or could I have had a nice BJ while sitting in traffic. Never had one while still driving before. Heavy petting for sure. I should ask her about it. But then again, maybe not.
I watched her get up this morning. She tried her darnedest not to wake me up. Tip-toeing from the bed to the bathroom. Not flushing the toilet after peeing. Even putting on her slippers after she left the room, despite us not being able to afford heat and the floor in our bedroom being made of concrete.
She was so beautiful. She smelled of watermelon and dogwood flowers all the time. I never quite could wrap my mind around how on earth that was possible. We could have made love for two hours, then fallen asleep sweating from the 92-degree inside heat in the middle of summer. But when we woke up the next morning, I’d reek like a sack of onions but Nola, she always tasted sweet. Her secret, I guess, and probably one I don’t want to figure out.
It’s why I kick myself for not falling in love with her. Or maybe the better answer is not allowing myself to fall in love with her. I love her, there’s no doubt about it, but I haven’t taken the leap into the unknown that Yyves Klein so beautifully explained.
“Come with me into the void!”
Maybe my problem is that damn poem. The unrealistic expectations of what love should be. And what it really is.
Instead, I should take the Johnny Thunders approach. Simple and direct. When you’re in love, god damn it, you’re love.
“Oh baby I love you. I really do. There’s no one like you. Baby, I love yooooooooooooouuuuu.”
Looking out the window, I see the Spanish moss hanging from the limbs of the dying tree in our front yard. I’ve been meaning to get that cut down for a year now, “take care of it” my father would have told me. He married my mom while he was still in college. They made it over 50 years before he finally succumb to the half a pint of vodka a day he’d been ingesting for decades. I stopped drinking six years ago. Kind of funny. I feel like a Robert Duvall character in my own life. Playing a bartender that doesn’t drink. A cop that doesn’t go in the streets. Me, I’m a lover who can’t love.
Of course, the Duvall character was always a drunk before an AA member. A gung-ho crime buster before being shot. Me? I used to not be afraid of love. I used to dive in like I was a 14 year old Arkansas farm boy who just discovered a new swimming hole. Now? I skitter on the edge, hoping love finds me instead of me finding it. Knowing full well that if you wait too long, it’ll pass you by. The effort has to be there, I guess.
It’s why the words “Love isn’t enough” echo through my brain way more often than they need to. The supposed love of my life said those words to me. She never told me why it wasn’t. Just that it wasn’t. Up until that day, my only belief was the same as John Lennon’s, that love is all you need, the rest will just sort of happen the right way.
Nola knows this about me. It’s why I’m surprised she sticks around. We used to have drunken barstool conversations that began at noon and ended at closing time. Never at one bar. We’d move around a lot. We both had that wanderlust, even when it came to martinis for her and bottled beers for me. It may have had to do with our constant need for new entertainment too.
I never had any problem talking with her. Always a good sign. I remember one night we were going to see Lucero play in my old college town. On the highway driving up, there was a wreck, unbeknownst to us. This tractor trailer almost drove off of a bridge. The road was closed for five hours before we even got near it. But there were no signs. So we sat on that highway for nearly four hours. Just talking. About nothing and everything. Well, everything except for us. She did offer me a blow job. Thinking back on it, I wonder if it really was a joke? Or could I have had a nice BJ while sitting in traffic. Never had one while still driving before. Heavy petting for sure. I should ask her about it. But then again, maybe not.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
exactly
Two and a quarter beers in, and I’m done. The beer doesn’t do what it used to do. Now, it’s just the depressant that it is. Making me feel bad. Taking the desire to live away.
So I stop drinking. I pace around for a while. Trying to find something to occupy my mind. It’s not easy when there’s nothing around.
Downloading an Elvis Costello concert diverts my attention for a moment or two. Finally, I dig into the boxes of VHS tapes that I cling to for just this reason. “We’re No Angels” grabs my attention. I plop it into the VCR. Push play. Start watching. It’s got to be better than the other options.
The quarter drunken beer sits on the coffee table. Staring at me. By now, it’s warm. Well, as warm as it can get when you don’t turn the heat on in the middle of November. But this is North Carolina. Not North Dakota. So, it’s not freezing cold. Inside. Yet.
The itch is here. To do something wrong. Something dumb. Stupid. Ignorant. Would it make Dennis Hopper proud? Hell no. I feel too sorry for myself. But maybe he felt sorry for himself sometimes to. Hell, who doesn’t? Assholes and cereal killers. But they smell and have bad teeth. Wait a second…
Just five minutes ago I was thinking about going to bed. Calling it quits at 11:45 p.m. Instead, I’m typing. Sitting in my mind, trying to come up with some way to get 750 words into this Microsoft Works Document. I looked at my old diary on disc while I was at home earlier this week. My mom threw away the old Brother Word Processor that I typed them on. Of course, I threw away my journals from the rest of my life up until 2008.
Still bitter about that one aren’t we? No remorse. No repent. We don’t care, what it meant…
My mind wanders back to the TV for a moment. The absolute awfulness of 1980s movies that took themselves seriously makes me chuckle. The music, straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. David Mamet. Ha. But he’s a writer. Of films and such and so much more. Me? I used to be a reporter. A decent one. Best thing I could do was write features and the like. My gamers tended to be too wordy. But my leads were usually spot on. I just need someone to tell me -- “write 10 inches dipshit, not 35.” All those years I wished for an editor. Which is why, I think, I went back to being just a reporter. But the editor was a friend. A friend who sometimes had a complex about being an editor. Just not a good thing.
Now, I’m just a squatter. My posture has gotten worse. My attitude better in some ways, a whole lot worse in others. I can feel my depression seeping away the more letters I type into words. No matter how silly what I type is. How banal. How insipid. Hey, fun with words without a thesaurus. It can happen. Not that you care.
I thought about my ex girlfriend today. Which one, you may be asking? But probably not. And really it doesn’t matter.
The phrase “love isn’t enough” echoed throughout my empty skull for most of the drive home tonight. I hate those words put together. They killed me once. And I try every day and night not to let them kill me anymore. It’s why I feel so god damned one-dimensional. I can only write about one thing. No matter what I’m writing about, it’s always about that. Hell, I remember a few times I’d see it seeping into my newspaper stories. I’d have to stop myself and consciously keep the words from steering that direction.
How stupid is that?
I got an e-mail earlier this week. Or late last week. It’s hard to keep that straight when I go on trips. And that’s a damn good thing. It was from forbes.net. It was the one I sent to myself five fucking years ago. However, it was addressed to her, not me.
I saw the message title. It made me happy for a second. Until I opened it up.
Guess it’s better than it being in an envelope. That would have meant effort involved in the matter. I did get a postcard this week. From another. It made me smile. I wish we tried harder with people. I like letters. Writing them and getting them. Yet, I don’t send them. So why should I think I should get them?
Exactly.
So I stop drinking. I pace around for a while. Trying to find something to occupy my mind. It’s not easy when there’s nothing around.
Downloading an Elvis Costello concert diverts my attention for a moment or two. Finally, I dig into the boxes of VHS tapes that I cling to for just this reason. “We’re No Angels” grabs my attention. I plop it into the VCR. Push play. Start watching. It’s got to be better than the other options.
The quarter drunken beer sits on the coffee table. Staring at me. By now, it’s warm. Well, as warm as it can get when you don’t turn the heat on in the middle of November. But this is North Carolina. Not North Dakota. So, it’s not freezing cold. Inside. Yet.
The itch is here. To do something wrong. Something dumb. Stupid. Ignorant. Would it make Dennis Hopper proud? Hell no. I feel too sorry for myself. But maybe he felt sorry for himself sometimes to. Hell, who doesn’t? Assholes and cereal killers. But they smell and have bad teeth. Wait a second…
Just five minutes ago I was thinking about going to bed. Calling it quits at 11:45 p.m. Instead, I’m typing. Sitting in my mind, trying to come up with some way to get 750 words into this Microsoft Works Document. I looked at my old diary on disc while I was at home earlier this week. My mom threw away the old Brother Word Processor that I typed them on. Of course, I threw away my journals from the rest of my life up until 2008.
Still bitter about that one aren’t we? No remorse. No repent. We don’t care, what it meant…
My mind wanders back to the TV for a moment. The absolute awfulness of 1980s movies that took themselves seriously makes me chuckle. The music, straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. David Mamet. Ha. But he’s a writer. Of films and such and so much more. Me? I used to be a reporter. A decent one. Best thing I could do was write features and the like. My gamers tended to be too wordy. But my leads were usually spot on. I just need someone to tell me -- “write 10 inches dipshit, not 35.” All those years I wished for an editor. Which is why, I think, I went back to being just a reporter. But the editor was a friend. A friend who sometimes had a complex about being an editor. Just not a good thing.
Now, I’m just a squatter. My posture has gotten worse. My attitude better in some ways, a whole lot worse in others. I can feel my depression seeping away the more letters I type into words. No matter how silly what I type is. How banal. How insipid. Hey, fun with words without a thesaurus. It can happen. Not that you care.
I thought about my ex girlfriend today. Which one, you may be asking? But probably not. And really it doesn’t matter.
The phrase “love isn’t enough” echoed throughout my empty skull for most of the drive home tonight. I hate those words put together. They killed me once. And I try every day and night not to let them kill me anymore. It’s why I feel so god damned one-dimensional. I can only write about one thing. No matter what I’m writing about, it’s always about that. Hell, I remember a few times I’d see it seeping into my newspaper stories. I’d have to stop myself and consciously keep the words from steering that direction.
How stupid is that?
I got an e-mail earlier this week. Or late last week. It’s hard to keep that straight when I go on trips. And that’s a damn good thing. It was from forbes.net. It was the one I sent to myself five fucking years ago. However, it was addressed to her, not me.
I saw the message title. It made me happy for a second. Until I opened it up.
Guess it’s better than it being in an envelope. That would have meant effort involved in the matter. I did get a postcard this week. From another. It made me smile. I wish we tried harder with people. I like letters. Writing them and getting them. Yet, I don’t send them. So why should I think I should get them?
Exactly.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Just a titty-fucker in a titless universe.
“You were late every Friday for the past two months.”
My boss said those words, but I could not believe they were springing forth from his mouth. I knew he was wrong. He knew what he was saying was bull shit. But there it was, nice and neat on a spreadsheet. Days and times of late editions in orange. And every single, god damn Friday night deadline, my name was beside a page in orange.
I’d fought for a little bit more time on Friday nights after three weeks of the football season and us -- a supposed newspaper -- having late next to 83 percent of the scores during that time.
“This is futile,” I made my case to the managing editor. “Why bother holding for the extra hour and a half if this is what we get? If you hold for 15 more minutes, we’ll get in almost every single game. It’s that simple.”
I laid out my case. Logically. Factually. Calmly.
Two days later, I was given the proverbial “thumps up” in an e-mail to go ahead and tack on 15 more minutes. But don’t “ever” push that any further.
So, for the past two months, I’d been sending pages after the original deadline, but never coming any later than 11 minutes past it. Which meant, to me, I was early by at least four minutes each day. Until today. When I was shown a piece of paper that pretty much said “you, Randy, have been late every fucking Friday and cost you and your co-workers lots of bonus money. … Muuah-ah-ah…”
The evil laughter really wasn’t on the piece of fucking paper, but it was there in my head. And certainly in the bosses’ heads as they crunched the numbers and pocketed the money ear-marked for our bonus into their evil billfolds. And yes, I believe they would call them that, just to piss me off.
“Is this fucking real?” I said to my boss, loud enough for his boss, just a pane of glass separating us, to head.
“Yes it is. Look at the numbers.”
“Well, I was given permission to exceed the deadline on Friday. I think if you look at every other night of the week, where I make deadline, they’d see this and know I’m doing a good job.”
“They don’t.”
“But the managing editor (I’ve not used his name, or a close approximation because he’ll cry about it in his dodge-ball loving girlfriend’s arms), said I had 15 extra minutes.”
“Well, Randy, my man, that was bull shit.”
“Well, you can tell them to take their spreadsheet and shove it up their mother fucking asses!” once again, loud enough for the office next to us to hear, and for the entire room to hear. “I’m sick and tired of being fucked over by people in this office. Especially talentless fucks and members of the lucky sperm club.”
Now, these tirades -- especially the out loud ones -- are the real reason I haven’t done too well with my career. Well, pretty well, until the layoff, but who’s counting other than me?
For no reason whatsoever, the Black Oak Arkansas song “Jim Dandy” popped into my head. And, I started singing it out fucking loud.
“Jim Dandy to the rescue … Jim Dandy to the rescue…Jim Dandy to the rescue…
But no one took up the hot-as-hell redhead’s part for me…
“Go Jim Dandy! Goooooooooooooo!”
So, I slumped back into my cubicle and stared at my computer screen, which 15 minutes after my arrival was still booting up its almost a decade old version of Windows. That, and the Adobe CS2 that we are still using -- two behind my fucking bootlegged copy -- just makes my fucking day. Every day.
“Hey man, you OK?” my co-worker Mitchell says with a laugh. He knows full well that if I even thought for a second that he was serious in asking me that, he’d be without a hand by now.
“Dude, this place, it’s not worth getting mad over. I try to tell you that every day, spare you the decade and a half of angst, but every now and again, it fucking tit-fucks me. And, seriously, I like tit-fucking, but I don’t like being titty-fucked.”
“Righteous, man. Righteous. You should fucking write that down.”
Little did he know, I was already thinking about doing exactly that.
The only woman in the place that I think is really attractive, and not just office-hot, walks by right after my titty-fuck tirade. I wonder if she heard it, then I realize how stupid it is to wonder that since I know damn well she heard it. But, she’s married anyway, so it doesn’t freaking matter.
Speaking of titty-fucking, I start to wonder why the fuck I’m still at this job. One that I hate a little more every day. Especially that weasely fuck that I hired my first time around. But, that’s for another time. I don’t want to waste thought seconds on him. You can never get them back, you know.
Why am I not in New Orleans? I should be freelancing my ass off down there, drinking booze when I’m not and enjoying the Mississippi River and streetcar rides. I almost did it twice. But my life is a whole serious of almosts. And that gets me down. So I stop thinking about it, and go back into daydreaming mode. Hell, I could probably titty-fuck someone in New Orleans without really trying. Just tell ‘em I’m a writer.
Ha. Writer. I haven’t written anything that got published since January 24th of 2009. That’s almost two fucking years. Well, except for some briefs and re-writes that I did early on in my current gig of employment. Then I stopped doing that. Why? No one cared to ever even just say “hey, thanks for doing that.” That’s if they even noticed.
My boss said those words, but I could not believe they were springing forth from his mouth. I knew he was wrong. He knew what he was saying was bull shit. But there it was, nice and neat on a spreadsheet. Days and times of late editions in orange. And every single, god damn Friday night deadline, my name was beside a page in orange.
I’d fought for a little bit more time on Friday nights after three weeks of the football season and us -- a supposed newspaper -- having late next to 83 percent of the scores during that time.
“This is futile,” I made my case to the managing editor. “Why bother holding for the extra hour and a half if this is what we get? If you hold for 15 more minutes, we’ll get in almost every single game. It’s that simple.”
I laid out my case. Logically. Factually. Calmly.
Two days later, I was given the proverbial “thumps up” in an e-mail to go ahead and tack on 15 more minutes. But don’t “ever” push that any further.
So, for the past two months, I’d been sending pages after the original deadline, but never coming any later than 11 minutes past it. Which meant, to me, I was early by at least four minutes each day. Until today. When I was shown a piece of paper that pretty much said “you, Randy, have been late every fucking Friday and cost you and your co-workers lots of bonus money. … Muuah-ah-ah…”
The evil laughter really wasn’t on the piece of fucking paper, but it was there in my head. And certainly in the bosses’ heads as they crunched the numbers and pocketed the money ear-marked for our bonus into their evil billfolds. And yes, I believe they would call them that, just to piss me off.
“Is this fucking real?” I said to my boss, loud enough for his boss, just a pane of glass separating us, to head.
“Yes it is. Look at the numbers.”
“Well, I was given permission to exceed the deadline on Friday. I think if you look at every other night of the week, where I make deadline, they’d see this and know I’m doing a good job.”
“They don’t.”
“But the managing editor (I’ve not used his name, or a close approximation because he’ll cry about it in his dodge-ball loving girlfriend’s arms), said I had 15 extra minutes.”
“Well, Randy, my man, that was bull shit.”
“Well, you can tell them to take their spreadsheet and shove it up their mother fucking asses!” once again, loud enough for the office next to us to hear, and for the entire room to hear. “I’m sick and tired of being fucked over by people in this office. Especially talentless fucks and members of the lucky sperm club.”
Now, these tirades -- especially the out loud ones -- are the real reason I haven’t done too well with my career. Well, pretty well, until the layoff, but who’s counting other than me?
For no reason whatsoever, the Black Oak Arkansas song “Jim Dandy” popped into my head. And, I started singing it out fucking loud.
“Jim Dandy to the rescue … Jim Dandy to the rescue…Jim Dandy to the rescue…
But no one took up the hot-as-hell redhead’s part for me…
“Go Jim Dandy! Goooooooooooooo!”
So, I slumped back into my cubicle and stared at my computer screen, which 15 minutes after my arrival was still booting up its almost a decade old version of Windows. That, and the Adobe CS2 that we are still using -- two behind my fucking bootlegged copy -- just makes my fucking day. Every day.
“Hey man, you OK?” my co-worker Mitchell says with a laugh. He knows full well that if I even thought for a second that he was serious in asking me that, he’d be without a hand by now.
“Dude, this place, it’s not worth getting mad over. I try to tell you that every day, spare you the decade and a half of angst, but every now and again, it fucking tit-fucks me. And, seriously, I like tit-fucking, but I don’t like being titty-fucked.”
“Righteous, man. Righteous. You should fucking write that down.”
Little did he know, I was already thinking about doing exactly that.
The only woman in the place that I think is really attractive, and not just office-hot, walks by right after my titty-fuck tirade. I wonder if she heard it, then I realize how stupid it is to wonder that since I know damn well she heard it. But, she’s married anyway, so it doesn’t freaking matter.
Speaking of titty-fucking, I start to wonder why the fuck I’m still at this job. One that I hate a little more every day. Especially that weasely fuck that I hired my first time around. But, that’s for another time. I don’t want to waste thought seconds on him. You can never get them back, you know.
Why am I not in New Orleans? I should be freelancing my ass off down there, drinking booze when I’m not and enjoying the Mississippi River and streetcar rides. I almost did it twice. But my life is a whole serious of almosts. And that gets me down. So I stop thinking about it, and go back into daydreaming mode. Hell, I could probably titty-fuck someone in New Orleans without really trying. Just tell ‘em I’m a writer.
Ha. Writer. I haven’t written anything that got published since January 24th of 2009. That’s almost two fucking years. Well, except for some briefs and re-writes that I did early on in my current gig of employment. Then I stopped doing that. Why? No one cared to ever even just say “hey, thanks for doing that.” That’s if they even noticed.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Baltimore nights, Chapter 1
“Our girls have teeth!”
We both looked at each other. That certainly was an interesting way to lure a customer into one’s establishment.
“Should we?” Joe asked.
We both looked at the guy who just spoke the words that had us contemplating entering a house of some ill-repute. He was wearing a green coat, kind of dirty around the ends of the sleeves. His hat was brown, but it was too dark to see what kind of logo it used to proudly display.
The neon lights above us blinked on and off in blue and green and yellow. Not exactly the colors I would have chosen, but, I’m not in the skin trade either. And, we were contemplating going inside.
“Nah,” I replied. “I’d rather go back to Shula’s. Let’s go Sanchez.”
“You’re choice,” Joe said. For some reason, I had started calling him Sanchez during the night. It stuck, much to Joe’s adamant protests. “And stop fucking calling me Sanchez. I’m not even fucking Mexican.”
“Don’t matter, amigo,” I said with a grin.
“You owe me a fucking beer.”
“Well, let’s get drinking, drinkers.”
We stumbled down the street a little bit further. Looking at the police station, I could only think of “The Wire.” I kind of wanted Omar to come strolling around the corner with his shotgun. But we weren’t in his neighborhood. And fuck, Simon killed him off anyway. Bad decision really. He would have made a great spin off. Not that that kind of thing would have happened with one of his shows. Eh. It’s too damn cold out. We need to find the fucking hotel. And the comfort of a stool in the world’s worst sports bar, Shula’s 2 in downtown Baltimore, Mary-fucking-land.
Another block down the road, I noticed that Joe was talking to me.
“Dude, where the fuck have you been? You’re just staring off into space. Lucky your ass hasn’t been mugged yet. By me.”
On cue, there is a smell. No. An odor. Coming directly from behind us. We turn our heads in unison to check out who, what or whatever is giving off this stench.
“Howdy, boys!” a very nice looking, but smelly black man says. “You looking for something to do?”
“Nah, buddy, we’re just going to our hotel,” Joe says.
“What’s your name?” the smell says to me.
“His name is Sanchez!” I say a little too eagerly. I look at Joe. He’s pissed. I love it.
“Sanchez? You ain’t Mexican. You look I-talian.”
“Exactly,” Joe says.
“But his mom, well, she got around. So there’s no telling if he’s Mexican, I-talian, or even Republican,” I say, this time not hiding my absolute pleasure in the look that I know Joe is giving me, but I’m not even thinking of looking at him now.
“Republican? Now that’s a good one,” smell chortles. “I just want to let you guys in on something.”
We’re now in front of the Hyatt. It’s not our hotel. But it’ll do.
“Well, buddy, sorry. You’ll have to catch us next time, this is our hotel,” I say.
“Good meeting ya,” Joe says as we enter the revolving door.
“Ass hat,” Joe says to me when we get inside.
“I thought I did pretty well. We’re not still talking to him. And we have all our cash. Mission accomplished.”
“Sanchez.”
“Fuck you.”
We go back outside. We’d only bee inside maybe 45 seconds. The smell is now making his speech to a couple of hookers. Maybe strippers, but definitely into showing skin when it’s 38 degrees outside, which the bank clock right above them clearly states in L.E.D. lights.
“You think they have teeth?” Joe says.
“Go ask, Sanchez.”
“It never gets old, does it?”
“Hells no.”
We finally get back to Shula’s. There are a couple of people at a table. Three at the bar, including a single, solitary woman. She’s blonde. In some kind of suit-blouse combo thing. Clearly someone who was here for business earlier and has since fallen into disrepair.
The bartender, Steven, is a balding guy. Only about 28 years old by my guess. We sit down at the bar, leaving one seat between us and the lovely mess.
“A Yuengling for me and a Bud for my boy Sanchez!” I gleefully say, eyeing the drunken lady. She looks back at me, smiling a bit and holding up her glass -- most likely vodka, maybe tequila -- and smiling. I get my beer, tilt it at her, and clink glasses with Sanchez and then her. One swig and me and Joe/Sanchez begin our witty banter about teeth, concerts and stumbling around in Baltimore.
Before I know it, she’s in the middle of the conversation, but it has clearly been steered towards what she wants to talk about -- her asshole of a husband.
Her words. Not mine.
We both looked at each other. That certainly was an interesting way to lure a customer into one’s establishment.
“Should we?” Joe asked.
We both looked at the guy who just spoke the words that had us contemplating entering a house of some ill-repute. He was wearing a green coat, kind of dirty around the ends of the sleeves. His hat was brown, but it was too dark to see what kind of logo it used to proudly display.
The neon lights above us blinked on and off in blue and green and yellow. Not exactly the colors I would have chosen, but, I’m not in the skin trade either. And, we were contemplating going inside.
“Nah,” I replied. “I’d rather go back to Shula’s. Let’s go Sanchez.”
“You’re choice,” Joe said. For some reason, I had started calling him Sanchez during the night. It stuck, much to Joe’s adamant protests. “And stop fucking calling me Sanchez. I’m not even fucking Mexican.”
“Don’t matter, amigo,” I said with a grin.
“You owe me a fucking beer.”
“Well, let’s get drinking, drinkers.”
We stumbled down the street a little bit further. Looking at the police station, I could only think of “The Wire.” I kind of wanted Omar to come strolling around the corner with his shotgun. But we weren’t in his neighborhood. And fuck, Simon killed him off anyway. Bad decision really. He would have made a great spin off. Not that that kind of thing would have happened with one of his shows. Eh. It’s too damn cold out. We need to find the fucking hotel. And the comfort of a stool in the world’s worst sports bar, Shula’s 2 in downtown Baltimore, Mary-fucking-land.
Another block down the road, I noticed that Joe was talking to me.
“Dude, where the fuck have you been? You’re just staring off into space. Lucky your ass hasn’t been mugged yet. By me.”
On cue, there is a smell. No. An odor. Coming directly from behind us. We turn our heads in unison to check out who, what or whatever is giving off this stench.
“Howdy, boys!” a very nice looking, but smelly black man says. “You looking for something to do?”
“Nah, buddy, we’re just going to our hotel,” Joe says.
“What’s your name?” the smell says to me.
“His name is Sanchez!” I say a little too eagerly. I look at Joe. He’s pissed. I love it.
“Sanchez? You ain’t Mexican. You look I-talian.”
“Exactly,” Joe says.
“But his mom, well, she got around. So there’s no telling if he’s Mexican, I-talian, or even Republican,” I say, this time not hiding my absolute pleasure in the look that I know Joe is giving me, but I’m not even thinking of looking at him now.
“Republican? Now that’s a good one,” smell chortles. “I just want to let you guys in on something.”
We’re now in front of the Hyatt. It’s not our hotel. But it’ll do.
“Well, buddy, sorry. You’ll have to catch us next time, this is our hotel,” I say.
“Good meeting ya,” Joe says as we enter the revolving door.
“Ass hat,” Joe says to me when we get inside.
“I thought I did pretty well. We’re not still talking to him. And we have all our cash. Mission accomplished.”
“Sanchez.”
“Fuck you.”
We go back outside. We’d only bee inside maybe 45 seconds. The smell is now making his speech to a couple of hookers. Maybe strippers, but definitely into showing skin when it’s 38 degrees outside, which the bank clock right above them clearly states in L.E.D. lights.
“You think they have teeth?” Joe says.
“Go ask, Sanchez.”
“It never gets old, does it?”
“Hells no.”
We finally get back to Shula’s. There are a couple of people at a table. Three at the bar, including a single, solitary woman. She’s blonde. In some kind of suit-blouse combo thing. Clearly someone who was here for business earlier and has since fallen into disrepair.
The bartender, Steven, is a balding guy. Only about 28 years old by my guess. We sit down at the bar, leaving one seat between us and the lovely mess.
“A Yuengling for me and a Bud for my boy Sanchez!” I gleefully say, eyeing the drunken lady. She looks back at me, smiling a bit and holding up her glass -- most likely vodka, maybe tequila -- and smiling. I get my beer, tilt it at her, and clink glasses with Sanchez and then her. One swig and me and Joe/Sanchez begin our witty banter about teeth, concerts and stumbling around in Baltimore.
Before I know it, she’s in the middle of the conversation, but it has clearly been steered towards what she wants to talk about -- her asshole of a husband.
Her words. Not mine.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
penis grafitti
Never eat breakfast buffet eggs. Especially when you know you’ll be eating and drinking too much of a good and bad thing later.
Sitting at the table, I’m hung over. The decision to just “go back to Shula’s” was definitely Joshy’s. I had no desire to sit in that awful pit of lousiness for another minute. An afternoon and a late night there should have been enough.
Must not have been for him. I’d like to think it isn’t because it’s easy. The easy way out is always the wrong way out. Well, I’m sure there are times when it’s not, but it sounds better to say always. It’s more dramatic. Nah, that’s the wrong word. Emphatic. That’s what I was feverishly searching my slowly eroding vocabulary for. I always tell myself to read more. Those words will come back to you if you read. Instead, you continue to write (well, I don’t write anymore) and work for a newspaper. And the drivel that gets in the newspaper I work for, it dumbs me down just a little bit extra each day. Something to look forward to. Kind of like driving almost five hours to get to work today as the end of my little mini-vacation ended.
I do think I worked all of two hours today. That’s always fun. I did send a message to the redhead that doesn’t. She responded via text. I haven’t responded to that. I want to go to this show. I tried to get Joshy on board. He balked. Ditto Alli. Now the redhead that won’t seems interested. And, it’s her birthday weekend. Funny how that all seems to happen. Now, the question is do I dare try to take extra time off of work? We’ll be down a person again. I really don’t give a shit, however. Life is for living, what’s living for?
Where the hell was I?
Eggs. Yeah.
I ate lots of eggs at Shula’s. Quite possibly the worst sports-themed restaurant in the world right now. I’d much rather sit in a NASCAR themed place in Pickeral, New Jersey, than Shula’s in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. Fuck, I already hate the city with a passion just because that’s the place that pretty much ended what I thought was the best thing that ever happened to me. But, since it shat on my head, it couldn’t possibly be that. But this bar sucked.
And really, just because of the televisions. They were all old. Not flat screens at all. Just big-ass televisions from the late 1980s. All over the place. Hanging in the air, waiting for the old pieces of wire and metal holding them up to collapse from the shear weight of them all. Shear? Sheer? Fuck. There goes my awfulness again.
The televisions are so shitty, you can barely make out an image in some of them.
We watched LSU and Alabama play. We watched the Breeder’s Cup. I boldly proclaimed that Zenyatta would lose and I’d bet my life’s savings on Blame about a half hour before the race. When the race began, I was the only one cheering against Zenyatta. Baltimore being a horse-racing kind of town. Right? I cheered when I was right. Then I realized I didn’t really win anything but bragging rights with Joshy. And that won’t take me far. Kind of like picking the trifecta for the Derby in 2005. Didn’t put the money down, so it don’t matter a bit.
Anyways, the bar proved to be a good place to get a buzz, though. Which we did. Then we walked to the show.
After the show, we went back to Shula’s. Seems dumb, but we did. There I met Jennifer. But that story will have to wait, as I was talking about eggs.
Eggs. And bacon. And French toast. And sausage.
I ate them all. And 10 hours and 250 miles or so later, I was sitting on a toilet in the Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville as my favorite band in the world started to play the opening chords to their opening song. The girl I came to the show with was standing out in the pit by herself.
And I’m staring at graffiti on the wall. “Bob Dylan sucks. Long live Ha Ha Tonka!” It said. That and a penis. Why do guys draw penises on the bathroom stall doors? It baffles me. At least draw the old half McDonald’s trick.
This is one of those shits that you try to keep from coming out. I was wary of eating a cheeseburger and fries when I did about 45 minutes earlier. But damn, I was hungry. Hadn’t eaten since the eggs. It also kept me from drinking at the show. I had planned on getting drunk, finally (well, maybe) making a move. Who knows?
Now? I’m on a toilet. Embarrassing myself in a Dumb and Dumber way. But at least the only people hearing it, and smelling it, are random dudes at a concert venue. And that goodness for a door at the Jefferson.
Anyway, I finally finish and go out. Wash the hands and enjoy the end of the second song. I get the look, the knowing look, from my concert-going friend. She hands me her ginger ale. I take a swig. I start to tap my feet and sing along.
By the end of the night, we’re outside, cold, but happy. Sometimes things work the way you planned, and sometimes you get the shits.
Sitting at the table, I’m hung over. The decision to just “go back to Shula’s” was definitely Joshy’s. I had no desire to sit in that awful pit of lousiness for another minute. An afternoon and a late night there should have been enough.
Must not have been for him. I’d like to think it isn’t because it’s easy. The easy way out is always the wrong way out. Well, I’m sure there are times when it’s not, but it sounds better to say always. It’s more dramatic. Nah, that’s the wrong word. Emphatic. That’s what I was feverishly searching my slowly eroding vocabulary for. I always tell myself to read more. Those words will come back to you if you read. Instead, you continue to write (well, I don’t write anymore) and work for a newspaper. And the drivel that gets in the newspaper I work for, it dumbs me down just a little bit extra each day. Something to look forward to. Kind of like driving almost five hours to get to work today as the end of my little mini-vacation ended.
I do think I worked all of two hours today. That’s always fun. I did send a message to the redhead that doesn’t. She responded via text. I haven’t responded to that. I want to go to this show. I tried to get Joshy on board. He balked. Ditto Alli. Now the redhead that won’t seems interested. And, it’s her birthday weekend. Funny how that all seems to happen. Now, the question is do I dare try to take extra time off of work? We’ll be down a person again. I really don’t give a shit, however. Life is for living, what’s living for?
Where the hell was I?
Eggs. Yeah.
I ate lots of eggs at Shula’s. Quite possibly the worst sports-themed restaurant in the world right now. I’d much rather sit in a NASCAR themed place in Pickeral, New Jersey, than Shula’s in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. Fuck, I already hate the city with a passion just because that’s the place that pretty much ended what I thought was the best thing that ever happened to me. But, since it shat on my head, it couldn’t possibly be that. But this bar sucked.
And really, just because of the televisions. They were all old. Not flat screens at all. Just big-ass televisions from the late 1980s. All over the place. Hanging in the air, waiting for the old pieces of wire and metal holding them up to collapse from the shear weight of them all. Shear? Sheer? Fuck. There goes my awfulness again.
The televisions are so shitty, you can barely make out an image in some of them.
We watched LSU and Alabama play. We watched the Breeder’s Cup. I boldly proclaimed that Zenyatta would lose and I’d bet my life’s savings on Blame about a half hour before the race. When the race began, I was the only one cheering against Zenyatta. Baltimore being a horse-racing kind of town. Right? I cheered when I was right. Then I realized I didn’t really win anything but bragging rights with Joshy. And that won’t take me far. Kind of like picking the trifecta for the Derby in 2005. Didn’t put the money down, so it don’t matter a bit.
Anyways, the bar proved to be a good place to get a buzz, though. Which we did. Then we walked to the show.
After the show, we went back to Shula’s. Seems dumb, but we did. There I met Jennifer. But that story will have to wait, as I was talking about eggs.
Eggs. And bacon. And French toast. And sausage.
I ate them all. And 10 hours and 250 miles or so later, I was sitting on a toilet in the Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville as my favorite band in the world started to play the opening chords to their opening song. The girl I came to the show with was standing out in the pit by herself.
And I’m staring at graffiti on the wall. “Bob Dylan sucks. Long live Ha Ha Tonka!” It said. That and a penis. Why do guys draw penises on the bathroom stall doors? It baffles me. At least draw the old half McDonald’s trick.
This is one of those shits that you try to keep from coming out. I was wary of eating a cheeseburger and fries when I did about 45 minutes earlier. But damn, I was hungry. Hadn’t eaten since the eggs. It also kept me from drinking at the show. I had planned on getting drunk, finally (well, maybe) making a move. Who knows?
Now? I’m on a toilet. Embarrassing myself in a Dumb and Dumber way. But at least the only people hearing it, and smelling it, are random dudes at a concert venue. And that goodness for a door at the Jefferson.
Anyway, I finally finish and go out. Wash the hands and enjoy the end of the second song. I get the look, the knowing look, from my concert-going friend. She hands me her ginger ale. I take a swig. I start to tap my feet and sing along.
By the end of the night, we’re outside, cold, but happy. Sometimes things work the way you planned, and sometimes you get the shits.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
MIA
my little baby went a mia...
anyways, sorry 'bout no posts the last few days. been on the road, enjoying life for a bit.
i return home wednesday, and will get back to work.
see ya.
anyways, sorry 'bout no posts the last few days. been on the road, enjoying life for a bit.
i return home wednesday, and will get back to work.
see ya.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Cusack Cliche
Rewind. Play. Pause. Play. Rewind. Play.
My life is a VHS tape. Bought brand new, watched over and over, then put on a shelf or in a box when DVDs came out. But then, I became retro-cool for a little while. The bumps and blips in the tape were character, not flaws.
I so need to be on the road right now. I’m not sad by the same things anymore. Just in general. And that’s no good. It will only lead me to one thing -- drinking. And I don’t want to feel that way. I like drinking. I always will. I won’t ever stop completely. Unless I become Mickey Mantle or something. However, I don’t want to drink because I feel it’s the only thing left.
That pit sucks. I spent too many years there. Some of those were even happy ones. I just kept drinking then because it was habit. Much like being unhappy becomes a habit. Surround yourself with guilt. With pain. With hatred. You’ll be there too. Please don’t join me.
The path out of that place is easy. All you have to do is do it. It really is that simple. Always has been. You pop out of the hole, you’re not in the hole. But your mind can put you right back in it.
Yesterday, I realized how happy I was just driving to a new place. Even though it was a place I’d pass, shit, 125 times or so going to work five times a week. Then you multiply that by going past it twice a day, and it becomes something that isn’t new. Except it was. That ability to find something interesting out of nothing has been missing too long.
Yeah, it comes back for little bits sometimes. But never stays. I want to make it stay. Grab a hold of that feeling. Of that ability. Of that desire. And not let it get away. So, I’m forcing myself to do it. So far, every day has been interesting. But, it’s only been three. Today is the fourth. I’m sure I’ll hit a snag at some point. The “woah is me” will appear and I’ll want to sit on my ass and cry about it.
Hopefully, I won’t fall for that again.
Sorry for diary-ing this writing session. While everything that comes out of my fingers as some point of reference in my real life, even the incredibly sick stuff, which there hasn’t been much of -- yet -- I don’t want it to turn into a journal. I already have one of those. Hell, if you count the print one’s I’ve got dozens. Not as many as before “the purge” but eh, why bring that bitch up?
Sad songs that had really harsh emotions attached to them haven’t been raw lately. I think I mentioned this already. My memory ain’t what it used to be. And it never was very good. It’s also selective. Which is worse than being completely absent-minded. Believe me. The arguments and shitty days and nights that come about because of a simple “oops, forgot to ask” moment are too many to list.
I learned a new word today: Cupidity. I had no idea it existed. It seems like it should be the combination of cupid and stupidity. A sort of Love Stinks summed up in just one word, and two less letters. Or how stupid it is to fall in love too easily, maybe…That guy, he’s full of cupidity. I do think I tend to fall in love too easily. But usually, the conversation doesn’t last. But when it does, it is great. Until it ends. And so far, they’ve all ended.
I look at my facebook page. There are a few people who married their high school sweethearts on there. Some made it, some didn’t. I wonder about those that did make it. They’ve never experience heartbreak. I can’t imagine that. I think back through my life, and I’ve seemingly always been dealing with it. I mean I was 11 connecting with “Somebody’s Babe” by Jackson fucking Browne. Pining for a girl that I’d fallen for in third grade, then seen twice over the next three years. Then lastly when I was 13. Who does that? John Cusack clichés, that’s who. Ha. Cusack Cliché. Good band name.
Anyways, I found that girl on facebook too. Damn facebook. At least Emily’s not on there. But back to the other. She’s married, apparently. And, she lived just a county over all those years of pining. I kind of figured that, since I kept seeing her. But I never saw her after 13. And I was at her school. I have this vague recollection of hearing her name or something at a soccer match at her school my senior year. But I wrote it off as a dream sequence.
Ha. I’m insane.
Always have been obsessively compulsed to chase the unobtainable. I’m the dog without a tail, but still chasing it.
My life is a VHS tape. Bought brand new, watched over and over, then put on a shelf or in a box when DVDs came out. But then, I became retro-cool for a little while. The bumps and blips in the tape were character, not flaws.
I so need to be on the road right now. I’m not sad by the same things anymore. Just in general. And that’s no good. It will only lead me to one thing -- drinking. And I don’t want to feel that way. I like drinking. I always will. I won’t ever stop completely. Unless I become Mickey Mantle or something. However, I don’t want to drink because I feel it’s the only thing left.
That pit sucks. I spent too many years there. Some of those were even happy ones. I just kept drinking then because it was habit. Much like being unhappy becomes a habit. Surround yourself with guilt. With pain. With hatred. You’ll be there too. Please don’t join me.
The path out of that place is easy. All you have to do is do it. It really is that simple. Always has been. You pop out of the hole, you’re not in the hole. But your mind can put you right back in it.
Yesterday, I realized how happy I was just driving to a new place. Even though it was a place I’d pass, shit, 125 times or so going to work five times a week. Then you multiply that by going past it twice a day, and it becomes something that isn’t new. Except it was. That ability to find something interesting out of nothing has been missing too long.
Yeah, it comes back for little bits sometimes. But never stays. I want to make it stay. Grab a hold of that feeling. Of that ability. Of that desire. And not let it get away. So, I’m forcing myself to do it. So far, every day has been interesting. But, it’s only been three. Today is the fourth. I’m sure I’ll hit a snag at some point. The “woah is me” will appear and I’ll want to sit on my ass and cry about it.
Hopefully, I won’t fall for that again.
Sorry for diary-ing this writing session. While everything that comes out of my fingers as some point of reference in my real life, even the incredibly sick stuff, which there hasn’t been much of -- yet -- I don’t want it to turn into a journal. I already have one of those. Hell, if you count the print one’s I’ve got dozens. Not as many as before “the purge” but eh, why bring that bitch up?
Sad songs that had really harsh emotions attached to them haven’t been raw lately. I think I mentioned this already. My memory ain’t what it used to be. And it never was very good. It’s also selective. Which is worse than being completely absent-minded. Believe me. The arguments and shitty days and nights that come about because of a simple “oops, forgot to ask” moment are too many to list.
I learned a new word today: Cupidity. I had no idea it existed. It seems like it should be the combination of cupid and stupidity. A sort of Love Stinks summed up in just one word, and two less letters. Or how stupid it is to fall in love too easily, maybe…That guy, he’s full of cupidity. I do think I tend to fall in love too easily. But usually, the conversation doesn’t last. But when it does, it is great. Until it ends. And so far, they’ve all ended.
I look at my facebook page. There are a few people who married their high school sweethearts on there. Some made it, some didn’t. I wonder about those that did make it. They’ve never experience heartbreak. I can’t imagine that. I think back through my life, and I’ve seemingly always been dealing with it. I mean I was 11 connecting with “Somebody’s Babe” by Jackson fucking Browne. Pining for a girl that I’d fallen for in third grade, then seen twice over the next three years. Then lastly when I was 13. Who does that? John Cusack clichés, that’s who. Ha. Cusack Cliché. Good band name.
Anyways, I found that girl on facebook too. Damn facebook. At least Emily’s not on there. But back to the other. She’s married, apparently. And, she lived just a county over all those years of pining. I kind of figured that, since I kept seeing her. But I never saw her after 13. And I was at her school. I have this vague recollection of hearing her name or something at a soccer match at her school my senior year. But I wrote it off as a dream sequence.
Ha. I’m insane.
Always have been obsessively compulsed to chase the unobtainable. I’m the dog without a tail, but still chasing it.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Frank Sinatra and Super Bowl III
Sleep is the enemy. Something to be fought off like the advances of an obese and drunk woman. Not a drunk woman. Nor an obese woman.
It comes from out of nowhere most of the time. Lurking. Creeping. Sneaking up on an unsuspecting prey. Zapping all strength, mostly of the eyelids. Slowly taking roost in the lungs, causing slower breathing and eventually snoring comes about.
Sometimes fighting it becomes hopeless. So, drinking until passing out becomes an option. Or taking drugs, both prescription and over the counter. NyQuil will take the edge off of any lingering thought if taken at just the right moment.
The actual act of sleep itself is quite a good thing. Dreams fill the mind with wonder and amazement. The soul is free to do the things it never would. Fuck the prom queen. Have a martini with Frank Sinatra while watching Super Bowl III in his suite in Vegas. Jumping from the top of cliff into the Pacific Ocean. All of these things happen in dreams. But so do nightmares.
Some remember everything from sleep. Others nothing but scattered thoughts.
Drifting in and out of sleep usually provides more memories of them. Or the quick jolt of energy that comes with being woken up suddenly.
The one thing that always comes with sleep, however, is the quick passage of time. Night becomes day. Day becomes night. Yesterday becomes today. Today never, however, becomes yesterday. That seems somewhat cruel. To always take away, and never give back.
It’s why this traveler, he never wants to sleep. Turn on the television. Surf the internet. Read a book. Take a long walk. Sit outside in the rain. In the cold. In the sweltering heat. Write some meaningless words in a journal. Answer an e-mail. Write a letter. Think about the past. Never the future.
As sleep wraps itself around the mind, fighting isn’t useless. Caffine will work for a little bit. So will sugar. Loud noise helps. But they all fade into the recesses of dreams. Sleep will win.
“I don’t want to sleep,” the little boy says.
“Why on earth not,” mother asks.
“Because today will end and tomorrow begins,” he replies.
“Silly boy. Why do you feel this way?”
“Because, mommy. I know what is in store for me tomorrow. And I don’t like it.”
“Then do something different,” mom says while smiling and patting his head.
“You won’t let me,” he screams, pulling the covers up to his eyes, but not covering them.
“I will,” she says, cooing in his ear. “Just dream it, and you will do it.”
The boy believes his mother and closes his eyes smiling. As she walks out of the room, his breathing has slowed and he is no longer holding the blanket. It has fallen down towards his chin. She does notice one thing. A frown on his face.
The same frown that’s always there at night. And gone in the morning. That boy has too much on his mind to be so young, she thinks as she turns out the light. Another night on the couch for her. It’s much more home to her than the bed. Her husband snoring the night away. Loud, drunken snores that even the kids complain about. The boy even gets up in the middle of the night to close the door. The door dad never wants closed. She takes the blame for it being closed. And he hits her. But she never lets her son know that. Even though he does know.
I hope he dreams of a better father, she thinks.
Little does she know, he doesn’t dream that. He only dreams of falling. Of laughter. Spiders crawling on his neck. And of lightning.
Oh how he loves lightning. Stands on the porch during violent storms. Running inside when a clap of thunder is too loud. He says he knows when it will strike close. “You can smell it mom,” he says, adamantly.
“Lightning doesn’t smell,” she says, egging him on.
“If I could bottle that smell, I’d let you take a whiff,” he said. “But I’m afraid that if you do that, lightning will find you.”
It seemed very innocent that comment. He was just eight years old. Now, as she stared at him, dressed in a dark blue suit with a balding lawyer with a smushed up nose standing beside him, remembering that day brought a chill to the back of her neck. So bad was that chill, her entire body became covered in goose pimples. Just then, she noticed the judge looking at her. He smiled.
The trial was over. The verdict had been delivered. Now, she wondered if he’d ever sleep again.
It comes from out of nowhere most of the time. Lurking. Creeping. Sneaking up on an unsuspecting prey. Zapping all strength, mostly of the eyelids. Slowly taking roost in the lungs, causing slower breathing and eventually snoring comes about.
Sometimes fighting it becomes hopeless. So, drinking until passing out becomes an option. Or taking drugs, both prescription and over the counter. NyQuil will take the edge off of any lingering thought if taken at just the right moment.
The actual act of sleep itself is quite a good thing. Dreams fill the mind with wonder and amazement. The soul is free to do the things it never would. Fuck the prom queen. Have a martini with Frank Sinatra while watching Super Bowl III in his suite in Vegas. Jumping from the top of cliff into the Pacific Ocean. All of these things happen in dreams. But so do nightmares.
Some remember everything from sleep. Others nothing but scattered thoughts.
Drifting in and out of sleep usually provides more memories of them. Or the quick jolt of energy that comes with being woken up suddenly.
The one thing that always comes with sleep, however, is the quick passage of time. Night becomes day. Day becomes night. Yesterday becomes today. Today never, however, becomes yesterday. That seems somewhat cruel. To always take away, and never give back.
It’s why this traveler, he never wants to sleep. Turn on the television. Surf the internet. Read a book. Take a long walk. Sit outside in the rain. In the cold. In the sweltering heat. Write some meaningless words in a journal. Answer an e-mail. Write a letter. Think about the past. Never the future.
As sleep wraps itself around the mind, fighting isn’t useless. Caffine will work for a little bit. So will sugar. Loud noise helps. But they all fade into the recesses of dreams. Sleep will win.
“I don’t want to sleep,” the little boy says.
“Why on earth not,” mother asks.
“Because today will end and tomorrow begins,” he replies.
“Silly boy. Why do you feel this way?”
“Because, mommy. I know what is in store for me tomorrow. And I don’t like it.”
“Then do something different,” mom says while smiling and patting his head.
“You won’t let me,” he screams, pulling the covers up to his eyes, but not covering them.
“I will,” she says, cooing in his ear. “Just dream it, and you will do it.”
The boy believes his mother and closes his eyes smiling. As she walks out of the room, his breathing has slowed and he is no longer holding the blanket. It has fallen down towards his chin. She does notice one thing. A frown on his face.
The same frown that’s always there at night. And gone in the morning. That boy has too much on his mind to be so young, she thinks as she turns out the light. Another night on the couch for her. It’s much more home to her than the bed. Her husband snoring the night away. Loud, drunken snores that even the kids complain about. The boy even gets up in the middle of the night to close the door. The door dad never wants closed. She takes the blame for it being closed. And he hits her. But she never lets her son know that. Even though he does know.
I hope he dreams of a better father, she thinks.
Little does she know, he doesn’t dream that. He only dreams of falling. Of laughter. Spiders crawling on his neck. And of lightning.
Oh how he loves lightning. Stands on the porch during violent storms. Running inside when a clap of thunder is too loud. He says he knows when it will strike close. “You can smell it mom,” he says, adamantly.
“Lightning doesn’t smell,” she says, egging him on.
“If I could bottle that smell, I’d let you take a whiff,” he said. “But I’m afraid that if you do that, lightning will find you.”
It seemed very innocent that comment. He was just eight years old. Now, as she stared at him, dressed in a dark blue suit with a balding lawyer with a smushed up nose standing beside him, remembering that day brought a chill to the back of her neck. So bad was that chill, her entire body became covered in goose pimples. Just then, she noticed the judge looking at her. He smiled.
The trial was over. The verdict had been delivered. Now, she wondered if he’d ever sleep again.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
a giraffe drinking
I pull up to the house. Go inside with the groceries. Go back outside to check the mail. Yep, another bill. I can’t remember the last time I got a letter. No one writes ‘em anymore. That’s for sure. I tried to. But no one wrote back. So, I gave up. Maybe I’ll try again. I still have all those postcard stamps and Hemingway stamps.
After putting the groceries away, and taking out a frozen pizza and stuffing it in the oven, I drop my pants to the floor.
Kind of a sad existence. Come home, drop your pants on the ground. Not like anyone is going to see it, yet it still makes me feel, I don’t know, awful? Poor? Trashy? Hell, who cares. I’m comfortable not having long pants and shoes on now. I just don’t like wearing them anymore.
Here’s to living somewhere that is hot all the time. Anyone know a way to get a job in Ecuador? When you can’t speak Spanish?
Speaking of, a few days ago, I was in the office talking about wanting to move to Cuba. No one understood it. Why, they asked, would anyone want to do that? It’s dirty there. It’s under Communist rule. They drive shitty cars.
I said “Exactly. And, it’s a freaking island paradise. I look around Jacksonville, North Carolina, and all I see is dipshit Marines driving their sooped up cars and flying the flag. Not really understanding much about why they are doing either, I would hazard to guess. A few, I’ll agree, know what’s going on, but there is a reason they used to be called the few, the proud, etc…
Back to walking around in underwear. I wonder if I’d do this if I had neighbors? Well, I did it in my apartment. I didn’t do it in my sister’s house.
This is the shit that goes through my mind. I’m a waste sometimes, that’s for sure. Sometimes?
***
What the fuck moments, like Booger tells Lestat are good for the soul.
I took a small one a couple days ago by shaving my head. No big deal when you think about it, but when you’re the person doing it for the first time it is. But then you do it, and it wasn’t a big deal.
Like kissing a girl for the first time. That first time is nerve-wracking. Well, for me it is. I’m sure for some dudes it’s nothing. It’s like taking a pee or shooting a basketball. In other words, routine. I’m glad it has never been like that for me. I couldn’t imagine it being anything but a magical moment. Even the bad ones. You get so damn scared, so petrified. What if she doesn’t want to kiss? What if she turns her head? What if she smacks me? Those thoughts have all popped into my head.
I’ve also been so scared that I didn’t do it. Only one of those times did I regret it. And only twice did I not end up ever kissing her. And of those, only one is a “regret” so to speak. I still think about that girl from time to time. But that’s no cause for shock with me and my mindset. She’s completely disappeared, which is extremely tough in this internet age. I guess if I knew the high school she went to, I might be able to find her. Or how old she really was. It’s funny, I always assumed she was younger than me, but I now believe she was probably a year older. If anyone has a way to find someone that apparently isn’t on the internet, let me know. Oh, and it needs to be free. I’m broke. Always have been, always will be it seems. But that could just be the pessimist in me.
Hell, I know I’m going to fall in love again. In many ways, it happens to a degree most days. Just that degree is usually 1 not 100.
So, I guess I should say this:
“I’m going to not be in debt one day. I’m going to own a bar, a bar that has bands. And hopefully, one day, Lucero will play that bar. I won’t say, they will, because they could break up. They could hit the “big time” or whatever. But I will one day make these things happen.”
And then I’ll be happy. Happier than a giraffe drinking. Or a monkey curling. And definitely more so than a cat flushing a toilet.
After putting the groceries away, and taking out a frozen pizza and stuffing it in the oven, I drop my pants to the floor.
Kind of a sad existence. Come home, drop your pants on the ground. Not like anyone is going to see it, yet it still makes me feel, I don’t know, awful? Poor? Trashy? Hell, who cares. I’m comfortable not having long pants and shoes on now. I just don’t like wearing them anymore.
Here’s to living somewhere that is hot all the time. Anyone know a way to get a job in Ecuador? When you can’t speak Spanish?
Speaking of, a few days ago, I was in the office talking about wanting to move to Cuba. No one understood it. Why, they asked, would anyone want to do that? It’s dirty there. It’s under Communist rule. They drive shitty cars.
I said “Exactly. And, it’s a freaking island paradise. I look around Jacksonville, North Carolina, and all I see is dipshit Marines driving their sooped up cars and flying the flag. Not really understanding much about why they are doing either, I would hazard to guess. A few, I’ll agree, know what’s going on, but there is a reason they used to be called the few, the proud, etc…
Back to walking around in underwear. I wonder if I’d do this if I had neighbors? Well, I did it in my apartment. I didn’t do it in my sister’s house.
This is the shit that goes through my mind. I’m a waste sometimes, that’s for sure. Sometimes?
***
What the fuck moments, like Booger tells Lestat are good for the soul.
I took a small one a couple days ago by shaving my head. No big deal when you think about it, but when you’re the person doing it for the first time it is. But then you do it, and it wasn’t a big deal.
Like kissing a girl for the first time. That first time is nerve-wracking. Well, for me it is. I’m sure for some dudes it’s nothing. It’s like taking a pee or shooting a basketball. In other words, routine. I’m glad it has never been like that for me. I couldn’t imagine it being anything but a magical moment. Even the bad ones. You get so damn scared, so petrified. What if she doesn’t want to kiss? What if she turns her head? What if she smacks me? Those thoughts have all popped into my head.
I’ve also been so scared that I didn’t do it. Only one of those times did I regret it. And only twice did I not end up ever kissing her. And of those, only one is a “regret” so to speak. I still think about that girl from time to time. But that’s no cause for shock with me and my mindset. She’s completely disappeared, which is extremely tough in this internet age. I guess if I knew the high school she went to, I might be able to find her. Or how old she really was. It’s funny, I always assumed she was younger than me, but I now believe she was probably a year older. If anyone has a way to find someone that apparently isn’t on the internet, let me know. Oh, and it needs to be free. I’m broke. Always have been, always will be it seems. But that could just be the pessimist in me.
Hell, I know I’m going to fall in love again. In many ways, it happens to a degree most days. Just that degree is usually 1 not 100.
So, I guess I should say this:
“I’m going to not be in debt one day. I’m going to own a bar, a bar that has bands. And hopefully, one day, Lucero will play that bar. I won’t say, they will, because they could break up. They could hit the “big time” or whatever. But I will one day make these things happen.”
And then I’ll be happy. Happier than a giraffe drinking. Or a monkey curling. And definitely more so than a cat flushing a toilet.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
and then the bird shit on my windshield
Turn left. Turn right. Park there. No, park here. The decisions you make in a car are important ones. If you take a wrong turn, you’re late. Or you miss your destiny. Park in the wrong spot and a bird shits on your windshield or a shopping cart slams into your door.
Today, I didn’t make any wrong turns. But, I would debate that I didn’t make a right one either. I went to work. Did my job. And left. So dull. So humdrum. With nothing but a keyboard and a stereo at home, it gets lonely. It could be worse, though, and I understand it. I could be a vegetable on a cot in a home for vegetables. My days could be filled with bullets and bombs raining from the sky.
Or I could have married Crystal.
So, yeah, I know things could be worse.
It’s why I’m trying to make them better. Tough when you’ve got nearly 40 years of sadness wrapped up in a tortilla on the plate. Doused with hot sauce and just calling out your name…Wow, that was awful. I try to hard too often.
That was what I call funny. Think about it, maybe you’ll find it funny, too.
I put on some Neil Young. It becomes instantly obvious why I am so depressed all the time. I listen to Neil Young too much. Funny thing is, he’s probably a really happy person. Gets it all out in song. Which is why I have decided to just write. Even meaningless shit that a person who one days stumbles upon this because he/she/it searched for the Ben Affleck Jerk Off Video (somewhere Eric is smiling as I put another fucking hit generator in my shit) or maybe even the more elusive “women fucing in stool”. That one came from Abu Dhabi. So, I’ve got fans everywhere.
And there I go. Trying to tell a story and I get distracted my awful wit.
Meanwhile, Neil Young is singing about Mother Nature and burned out basements and I’m staring at a wart on my knee. It’s ugly. And kind of big. I finally bought some Compound W today. After months of contemplating it. The last time I got some, I didn’t close the cap tight and it turned into rubber cement and became useless. Seven bucks down the drain. That wart was on my finger. I just cut it off. It didn’t come back.
This one on my knee, however, it’s been there off and on for years. Since I was in college. The second time around. Just rip out the core, someone once told me. And I’ve done that. It never works. Well, it does for a while. Sometimes a few years. But it comes back. Always in the same place. I’m not very patient about such things. I want to get rid of the fucking thing. It’s gross to look at. And I’m sure any prospective woman in my life (ha!) feels the same way. Kind of like the half-assed hair cut that I’ve had for the past two years. As my buddy John was cutting my hair last night, it came up about the shitty way it was cut. How the Super Cuts ladies always seem to want to leave me with the front a little big longer. To. Cover. Up. The. Baldness. Guess what, honey (honeys, I guess), it doesn’t work.
Every damn time I’ve said “just cut it short. And don’t worry about me balding. I’m not concerned about tit.” And every time, they leave it too long. The do a good job covering it up. And I don’t notice until the wind hit’s the hair. Or it grows for two days. Except this one time. It was in the store in New Bern. A black lady I’d never seen was the only person there. She was cutting one lady’s hair and three people came in and left when they saw her, saying only, I’ll come back later. I sat there, waiting. I don’t care who cuts my hair. I especially don’t care if she’s got long fingernails and is black, which this lady, named Tanya, had and was.
My favorite was this short blonde-haired douche. He had on one of those Wal-Mart Ed Hardy rip-off shirts on. And torn jeans that were brand new except for the tears. I’ll never understand people who do that. Tears in jeans have to be earned. Even if you just go out and skateboard in them for 5 minutes, EARN them you bozos.
Anyway, this guy comes in and asks if anyone else is working. Just like that.
“Hi, I’m Tanya, the waits going to be 20 minutes or so.”
“Is anyone else working?” douche says very loudly.
“No, it’s just me today.” she replies. It’s almost sexy. But those fingernails make it hard.
“Guess I’ll come back tomorrow.”
He turns and walks toward the door. Then flips back and says “are you working?”
“No.”
“Great.” And he leaves.
People really are dickheads. It’s shit like that that makes one wonder why we want to couple up. But then you remember how good that actually is. And I’m not even talking about the sex. Well, not all of it. Not like I really remember what sex is. Jerking off? I can tell you stories…
Exactly. We’ve all got stories. The hopes and dreams of the common man are just as noble as those of a king.
Shit. There I go stealing Barton Fink’s prose. I should be ashamed.
The horror. The horror.
Today, I didn’t make any wrong turns. But, I would debate that I didn’t make a right one either. I went to work. Did my job. And left. So dull. So humdrum. With nothing but a keyboard and a stereo at home, it gets lonely. It could be worse, though, and I understand it. I could be a vegetable on a cot in a home for vegetables. My days could be filled with bullets and bombs raining from the sky.
Or I could have married Crystal.
So, yeah, I know things could be worse.
It’s why I’m trying to make them better. Tough when you’ve got nearly 40 years of sadness wrapped up in a tortilla on the plate. Doused with hot sauce and just calling out your name…Wow, that was awful. I try to hard too often.
That was what I call funny. Think about it, maybe you’ll find it funny, too.
I put on some Neil Young. It becomes instantly obvious why I am so depressed all the time. I listen to Neil Young too much. Funny thing is, he’s probably a really happy person. Gets it all out in song. Which is why I have decided to just write. Even meaningless shit that a person who one days stumbles upon this because he/she/it searched for the Ben Affleck Jerk Off Video (somewhere Eric is smiling as I put another fucking hit generator in my shit) or maybe even the more elusive “women fucing in stool”. That one came from Abu Dhabi. So, I’ve got fans everywhere.
And there I go. Trying to tell a story and I get distracted my awful wit.
Meanwhile, Neil Young is singing about Mother Nature and burned out basements and I’m staring at a wart on my knee. It’s ugly. And kind of big. I finally bought some Compound W today. After months of contemplating it. The last time I got some, I didn’t close the cap tight and it turned into rubber cement and became useless. Seven bucks down the drain. That wart was on my finger. I just cut it off. It didn’t come back.
This one on my knee, however, it’s been there off and on for years. Since I was in college. The second time around. Just rip out the core, someone once told me. And I’ve done that. It never works. Well, it does for a while. Sometimes a few years. But it comes back. Always in the same place. I’m not very patient about such things. I want to get rid of the fucking thing. It’s gross to look at. And I’m sure any prospective woman in my life (ha!) feels the same way. Kind of like the half-assed hair cut that I’ve had for the past two years. As my buddy John was cutting my hair last night, it came up about the shitty way it was cut. How the Super Cuts ladies always seem to want to leave me with the front a little big longer. To. Cover. Up. The. Baldness. Guess what, honey (honeys, I guess), it doesn’t work.
Every damn time I’ve said “just cut it short. And don’t worry about me balding. I’m not concerned about tit.” And every time, they leave it too long. The do a good job covering it up. And I don’t notice until the wind hit’s the hair. Or it grows for two days. Except this one time. It was in the store in New Bern. A black lady I’d never seen was the only person there. She was cutting one lady’s hair and three people came in and left when they saw her, saying only, I’ll come back later. I sat there, waiting. I don’t care who cuts my hair. I especially don’t care if she’s got long fingernails and is black, which this lady, named Tanya, had and was.
My favorite was this short blonde-haired douche. He had on one of those Wal-Mart Ed Hardy rip-off shirts on. And torn jeans that were brand new except for the tears. I’ll never understand people who do that. Tears in jeans have to be earned. Even if you just go out and skateboard in them for 5 minutes, EARN them you bozos.
Anyway, this guy comes in and asks if anyone else is working. Just like that.
“Hi, I’m Tanya, the waits going to be 20 minutes or so.”
“Is anyone else working?” douche says very loudly.
“No, it’s just me today.” she replies. It’s almost sexy. But those fingernails make it hard.
“Guess I’ll come back tomorrow.”
He turns and walks toward the door. Then flips back and says “are you working?”
“No.”
“Great.” And he leaves.
People really are dickheads. It’s shit like that that makes one wonder why we want to couple up. But then you remember how good that actually is. And I’m not even talking about the sex. Well, not all of it. Not like I really remember what sex is. Jerking off? I can tell you stories…
Exactly. We’ve all got stories. The hopes and dreams of the common man are just as noble as those of a king.
Shit. There I go stealing Barton Fink’s prose. I should be ashamed.
The horror. The horror.
Monday, November 1, 2010
peace
I’m going to try and write something before embarking on this journey. I’ve grabbed a notepad and it will serve as the official document of it, but, as I’m wont to do, I will type here as well.
The reason for the new notepad is to record a journey. One that begins today, and ends, well, never. I have made it my point of existing for the next while to take a trip every day. And observe. Now, most days will revolve around me going to work. But, to make it possible, I have to stop somewhere new every day. And that will be the “journey” for that day.
Boring? Probably. But something has to happen to knock me out of this rut that I’m stuck in and don’t want to be stuck in anymore. It’s been probably the longest rut of my life. At least when girls dumped me and left me suicidal, I drank copious amounts of alcohol and took stupid road trips to nowhere.
As of right now, the stupid road trips can’t happen because I can’t spring for the gas. I really need a roommate or something. This 700 a month rent payment is bogging me down. A lot more than it should, but my debts are an anchor of stupidity. It’s a reminding of some good times, and bad decisions. Definitely two things that I have a lot of experience with.
My first act in this crazy drama of nothingness will be to have my buddy John shave my head. If you know me, which most of you who stumble here don’t, I have never not had hair on my head. Well, maybe as a baby, but I doubt it then too. I cut my head open back in 1994 or so, and they gave me the option of stitches and a shaved head or staples and keeping my flowing locks and I chose the staples. I guess I may finally see what that left my head with. A nice scar or a sickeningly awful one. Or, of course, nothing much at all, which will be a disappointment. As one of my stories will have a boring ending. Ha. One of them.
Right now my hair looks awful. I kind of call it my Phillip Seymour Hoffman. But he really wasn’t or isn’t balding. But his hair always looked horrible. Except in Capote. But of course…
Anyway. I have hair that is passable when there is no wind. But when it kicks up, and believe me it does here at the beach, it looks like a toupee flapping in the breeze. And, I’m done with it. Hell, not having to buy shampoo will be one less thing to worry about. I do know I’ll probably be wearing my knit beanies a lot more. Knit beanies? Really. That’s the official name for those things? I liked ski hats better.
I’m also ready to start seriously considering the move. Which I guess could be the final chapter of this notepad-based tome? Stranger things have happened. I wonder what will happen along the way? Probably not much of anything. That’s been my theme the past two years, for the most part, minus that whole falling in love with someone I shouldn’t have thing.
Heck, I might read the bible on top of a rock overlooking Hopewell. Ok. That’s not going to happen. But the absurdity of it is pretty tempting.
I think I realized too late in my life that I need change a lot. It’s probably not too late to become a roadie or a truck driver, so I’m leaving things open. I know I don’t want to be staring at the cubicle walls of the Daily News when Fall rolls around in 2011. Much like that e-mail that I sent to myself almost five years ago as part of one of those sites where they send it to you five years later, I don’t want to be disappointed in myself. That e-mail, if it ever comes, will start a night of drinking. I do know that. But, in all honesty, what it says won’t be that hard to deal with anymore. I hate what happened. But I’ve come to grips with it. I accepted it for what it is, and that I can’t do a damn thing about it. No matter how hard I may want to, or even try to.
It’s now time to go get in my car. Find something, anything, better than this.
Peace.
The reason for the new notepad is to record a journey. One that begins today, and ends, well, never. I have made it my point of existing for the next while to take a trip every day. And observe. Now, most days will revolve around me going to work. But, to make it possible, I have to stop somewhere new every day. And that will be the “journey” for that day.
Boring? Probably. But something has to happen to knock me out of this rut that I’m stuck in and don’t want to be stuck in anymore. It’s been probably the longest rut of my life. At least when girls dumped me and left me suicidal, I drank copious amounts of alcohol and took stupid road trips to nowhere.
As of right now, the stupid road trips can’t happen because I can’t spring for the gas. I really need a roommate or something. This 700 a month rent payment is bogging me down. A lot more than it should, but my debts are an anchor of stupidity. It’s a reminding of some good times, and bad decisions. Definitely two things that I have a lot of experience with.
My first act in this crazy drama of nothingness will be to have my buddy John shave my head. If you know me, which most of you who stumble here don’t, I have never not had hair on my head. Well, maybe as a baby, but I doubt it then too. I cut my head open back in 1994 or so, and they gave me the option of stitches and a shaved head or staples and keeping my flowing locks and I chose the staples. I guess I may finally see what that left my head with. A nice scar or a sickeningly awful one. Or, of course, nothing much at all, which will be a disappointment. As one of my stories will have a boring ending. Ha. One of them.
Right now my hair looks awful. I kind of call it my Phillip Seymour Hoffman. But he really wasn’t or isn’t balding. But his hair always looked horrible. Except in Capote. But of course…
Anyway. I have hair that is passable when there is no wind. But when it kicks up, and believe me it does here at the beach, it looks like a toupee flapping in the breeze. And, I’m done with it. Hell, not having to buy shampoo will be one less thing to worry about. I do know I’ll probably be wearing my knit beanies a lot more. Knit beanies? Really. That’s the official name for those things? I liked ski hats better.
I’m also ready to start seriously considering the move. Which I guess could be the final chapter of this notepad-based tome? Stranger things have happened. I wonder what will happen along the way? Probably not much of anything. That’s been my theme the past two years, for the most part, minus that whole falling in love with someone I shouldn’t have thing.
Heck, I might read the bible on top of a rock overlooking Hopewell. Ok. That’s not going to happen. But the absurdity of it is pretty tempting.
I think I realized too late in my life that I need change a lot. It’s probably not too late to become a roadie or a truck driver, so I’m leaving things open. I know I don’t want to be staring at the cubicle walls of the Daily News when Fall rolls around in 2011. Much like that e-mail that I sent to myself almost five years ago as part of one of those sites where they send it to you five years later, I don’t want to be disappointed in myself. That e-mail, if it ever comes, will start a night of drinking. I do know that. But, in all honesty, what it says won’t be that hard to deal with anymore. I hate what happened. But I’ve come to grips with it. I accepted it for what it is, and that I can’t do a damn thing about it. No matter how hard I may want to, or even try to.
It’s now time to go get in my car. Find something, anything, better than this.
Peace.
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