guts

I saw today that a former friend of mine got a new job. He got out.

It would be nice to follow in those footsteps. I got out the first time by being laid off. The second time by being fired.

Here’s hoping the third time, is a fucking shitastic awesomefest.

And that I get to make the choice.

Of course, I’m the one who keeps diving back in.

Gluttony and all. It’s my deadly sin.

I stopped writing months ago. Even though I get paid to write now. I feel like, rather, I know that I don’t write anymore. I got inspired for about 15 minutes today. At the desk. I threw out some e-mails and got some responses and then flat-lined.

It had more to do with a feeling than a fact, but I still have to face it. Head on. You know, for the penis.

I wonder too much about the past. I don’t wonder about the future. I don’t care about the future. At least that’s what I tell myself. I lie a lot. Not to other people.

Scorching forcing eating bumbling stifling working forking fasting fucking.

One time the girl looked at me and I didn’t look away. She laughed seconds later. I’ll never know if she was laughing at me or not. Because I didn’t have the guts to ask. I did have the guts to not look away, like usual, but I didn’t ask. She wanted to tell me. I didn’t have the guts to ask.

My mind still wanders over to her side of the bed. Every day. I can’t stop it from happening. No matter what. I’m happy now. Happier than I was before. Before what? I don’t know. Can I say I’m happier now, more content, more whatever than I was then? No. But I can’t say I’m not either.

It’s weird. I don’t know what’s right or wrong. What happened and what I want to have happened. It’s all a blur. I guess it helps one cope, the memory’s ability to play tricks on you. If we all remembered things exactly as they happened, every fucking second, we’d go crazy. We’d go mad. And I want that. I want to be mad, because of it. Not be mad because you think you are.

My head explodes with pain now. The teeth are rotten. The sinuses are infected. My heart probably is waiting to explode or just stop or whatever happens when they don’t have the strength to go on. Like a person, I guess. Sometimes they just quit. No warning. No reason given. It just happens.

Bye bye.

I stopped drinking soda for over 5 years once.

I dated the same girl for over 5 years once.

I drink soda now.

I’ve dated six girls since.

Why does that matter? Why do I type it? Fuck you. Fuck you in the ear. Or maybe a bloody eye socket after the eye was ripped out by feral cats. Sure, yeah, that sounds like fun. To watch. Maybe to make happen.

Probably not though.

You see? You see?

No. You never do.

Romanticizing the past like it’s some great place. Like a 78-year old who wants the 1950s back. Why? Because he's a racist shitbag. That’s why.

I don’t hate anyone. There are plenty of people, individuals I can’t stand. But I don’t hate. It’s a waste of time. It really is. Try not hating for a moment.

Of course, that’s a lie. Many times I’ve hated myself. Most would say I still do. I’m not sure anymore. I guess my behavior kind of says I hate myself.

Fucked up.

Do it. Smell it. Eat it. Fuck it. Lick it. Write it down. Drive the extra mile. Take the wrong turn on purpose so you can talk for another five minutes.

Why? Because you’ll be dead one day.

Either of old age at 91 or run over by a semi while getting a box of diapers for your newborn baby.

Which is more likely? Depends on the level of hatred. The size of the dick. The blue of the eyes.

I bought a new car two and half years ago. It’s going to pass 80,000 miles in a day or so.

Even the mechanics at the dealer go “Damn, dude. You drive a lot.”

No shit.

And I’m tired of doing it.

Not because of the deed itself, but the destination.

Then change it, asshole.

I’m working on it, I’ll say.

You’re always working on it.

It’s part of my charm.

And your destiny.

The girl in green...

My house, like my teeth, is a ticking time bomb of decay.

I stepped on a soft spot on the floor today, and I thought it would collapse and I’d soon be under my house like Walter White grabbing his cash, covered in cobwebs and moldy dirt.

I don’t seem to have the want to call the landlord to get it fixed. It would mean weeks of construction workers ambling about my house, tearing up the floors and making my life miserable. I’d rather just not jump on my floor much. A simpler solution.

Speaking of, let’s talk drinking. Last night, I drank a few beers. It seemed like a very good idea. It ended up just being an idea. No great prose seeped out of my brain. No mindstorm. It ended up just being me, sitting on the couch, watching great old movies such as “Panic in the Streets” and “California Split.” At some point, I started sending massive Twitter messages. When those hashtag wars start, I just want Patton Oswalt to see mine. He doesn’t need to approve of it, or hate it. Just see it.

When I finally was ready to pass out, I went to my room and thought about masturbating. Key word being thought. I was asleep before I could spit on my hand.

I was woken by thunder sometime around 7 a.m. It’s a great feeling. The bed seemed to shake from one particularly large one. I laid there thinking about how nice it would be to live in the jungle, where such storms were an everyday occurrence and not a nice respite from the ordinary. Of course, then, thunderstorms and rain might become the ordinary.

A woman walks by my house. She’s wearing a green one-piece bathing suit. It makes her legs look awfully long – in a good way. I watch those legs the entire stretch of the block I can see from my window. I know if she saw me there, shirtless and in my underwear, she’d think about calling the cops. I guess luckily for me, she didn’t. I look at her car in the parking lot across the street. It’s a green Ford Focus. Her thing for green intrigues me. Does she like Green Day or even Green Jelly. Remember that song they did – “Three Little Pigs”? Maybe her mother read her “Green Eggs and Ham” as a child. Her favorite movies? Well, “The Green Mile” and “Soylent Green”, for sure. I decide to put on some clothes and go stare inside her car. I put on a green shirt and green shorts. If it were cold out, I’d put on green soccer socks. My Adidas Sambas have green stripes. Maybe we are a perfect fit, I allow myself to think for a moment as I walk across the street.

I hit the gravel of the parking lot when another car comes screeching in. They are playing “House of Pain” very loudly and drinking Coronas. My will to live is somewhat halted at the moment of their introduction to my life.

They park right next to the green car and get out. I decide to stop where I’m at and turn around. I get back to my carport and sit on my stool. Yes, it’s green.

The three clowns in the car get out. Two have Ed Hardy shirts on. The other has no shirt on, but appears to have Ed Hardy designs tattooed on his chest. I think of Brock Lesnar’s “sword” tattoo on his chest. I wonder if the artist did that on purpose? It really looks like a penis. Anyway, our parking lot villains proceed to take out their beach chairs and their cooler and place them in the parking lot ground. Instead of going to the beach – two blocks away – they have decided, it appears, to hang out in the parking lot of a shag dance club.

I sigh and go inside. I have to be leaving for work in about 45 minutes. So, I need to shower. I’ve already shit today, which was necessary after the night and day of drinking beer and eating shitty food. Of course, all of the turds floated. Too much fat in the diet when they bob around the bowl.

The will to go to work is not strong today. Not that it ever is, but lately, it’s been willless – to attempt to invent a word of usefulness. I wonder if Mike Ness would use them? That would be careless of him. I should send him the words in an envelope – but it would be fruitless. I really like Les Nessman’s newscasts. They do more with less.

At some point, I have to stop. The bills must be paid. The game must be played. Until it’s completion.

Do people ever use the world nadir? I used it the other day, and two people went “Huh?” with their eyes.

I’d like to use mulct in conversation. But I don’t want to talk politics.

I used to love politics. The first girl I ever fell in love with, we used to talk politics. I used to take the Republican side just to mess with her. I think she ended up believing I believed in the “cause”. She and I didn’t date very long. I still send her Christmas and birthday cards. Her and her girlfriend. She thinks my birthday is April 1. It’s April 9. I don’t know when that shift occurred. I used to get the cards around the 9^th, then one year, it became the 1^st. I’m guessing it means at some point she decided I was a joke. One that had to keep being told. At least that’s what my warped mind wraps itself around. Seems to fit.

The girl in green comes back to her car.  She didn’t stay at the beach long. She is walking up the street. I wonder what she thinks of the douchebags hanging out around her car. She seems them. She starts running towards them. When she gets to the cars, she hugs the guy without a shirt on. Then kisses him.

Well, there goes another imaginary relationship. Time to get ready for work.

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.