I am extremely careful when cutting peppers. Slicing, dicing, mincing, whatever. I eat the damn things in just about everything, so I’m doing it a lot, too. Invariably when I’m working with peppers, especially really hot ones, my body does weird things, like my eyes will itch or my junk will need to be adjusted. Every. Damn. Time. And I will forget and rub my eye. Or worse, stick my hand down my pants and “shake hands with Mr. Happy.” Then I will have a case of the dick burns, which, I am fairly certain, only a blowjob can cure.
Money is so whatever. I have chosen this path and…period. Success is defined by that alone. This is what I am going to do until I die. “All other priorities,” as Ash says creepily in Alien, “are rescinded.” I have made money before and it was not that fun. The having it, I mean. The making it was fun. The building of a completely unconventional lifeplan that resulted in so much money, now that was fun. It was like I had pulled a practical joke on the universe and the universe totally fell for it. But having lots of money bred boredom with the unusual, which is a terrible way to be. It generated stuff, none of which, I realized, I wanted. I mean, why did I buy an enormous oak table with four enormous oak chairs when I only eat in bed while watching Seinfeld dvds? If my rent is paid (I wouldn’t ever own a house) and my car is running and my fridge has food and beer in it and there’s a twenty dollar bill in my pocket, I’m good. The rich say money cannot buy happiness and the poor say easy for you to say. The poor say it’s easier to cry in a mansion than a shitty one bedroom apartment, but it isn’t. It’s fucking shameful.
Silk boxers give me wood. Every step I take it’s “Oh, baby.”
Do not be fooled by your life. Do not think that at some point—when you graduate, get married, get promoted, have kids, buy your first home—your life will begin. Life, John Lennon wrote, is what happens when you’re busy making plans.
I find it very telling that the basic morality one finds among atheists, called in a sort generic, pop psychology way “being a good person”, is the same basic morality you find in any other religious expression. Tolerance, generosity, kindness, compassion, etc., are the moral bedrocks of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and any other religion you can think of. There is a reason for this, but no one can tell me what it is. Christians will tell you “God says so,” which don’t cut it, and atheists will just shrug and quote some more Carl Sagan. There is an underlying truth to all religions. Atheistic humanism is simply man being religious and behaving morally without (so he imagines) a god. If anyone can explain to me why us humans have the same basic idea of goodness, despite a religious or non-religious bent, I will give you five bucks.
Prisca Theologia, bitches! \m/
I am officially sick of lists of things writers should (or shouldn’t) do. Top ten this, top ten that. Eight things blah, blah, blah. Sure, there might be some gems in all these stupid lists, but that doesn’t make ‘em any less stupid. Some are pretty pompous and downright incorrect, though. For example, I saw one that told me I shouldn’t write in the first person. Excuse me, I mean HIM. It told HIM he shouldn’t write in the first person. And what are the qualifications for making one of these lists? Just making one, that’s all. “I made a list. I’m a writing expert!” Or maybe just having a blog. Hell, it’s 2012. My cat has a blog. Anyway, here’s my own list, THE TOP ONE THING WRITERS OF WRITING ADVICE LISTS SHOULD DO.
1. Stop.
February 2012
January 2012
So I have a kid, right? And I love him and yadda yadda yadda, but this week he got his first apartment. Although only 18, he is an independent man living on his own. I kind of helped matters in that department by immediately packing my bags and moving the fuck away the day after he graduated high school. If that ain’t a hint, I don’t know what is.
What bugs me is that his apartment is bigger than mine. I just got off the horn with him and he was all bragging about it, the little fucker. “You know your whole living room and bedroom?” he goes. “Yeah, my bedroom’s a little bigger than that.”
Additionally, he has a dishwasher. I do not. “Tried it out it tonight. Very cool. I just filled it up with dirty dishes, put some soap in it, pushed a button, and went and sat on my ass. An hour later, BOOM! Clean dishes.”
Know what else? He has a cool neighbor. “Yeah, I met him in the hall and he invited me over for a few beers. The first thing I saw when I walked into his apartment was a huge stack of Vonnegut books. He’s also into meditation.”
My neighbor? He beats his dogs and throws trash all over the yard.
Where did I go wrong in raising myself???
I had my long hair back and I was in my old hometown, a place I haven’t lived for 20 years. Everything was abandoned, caving in, falling down, boarded up. The ground was covered in skeletons.
I dream the above scenario time and again. Hundreds of times now. Variations occur, variations on a theme if you will…
This time, for example, my hair was black. When I was young, my hair was dirty blond or light brown. It only turned black in my late twenties, after I shaved it all off. I was walking through the empty streets, stepping over the skeletons. There were thousands of them. Thousands and thousands.
I am heading, for some reason, to the grocery store. I don’t know why. I feel compelled to go there. Just as I approach it, a young boy runs up and asks for my help, saying “Please, Mister!”
I begin to follow him and suddenly we’re in the woods outside of town. The darkness of the abandoned, death-smeared town is gone and we’re in the brightness of the forest. Summer sun, high noon, cloudless sky bright. Greens everywhere. Heady smells.
The boy is crouching above a man a few feet away. The man’s chest is torn open and his heart is exposed. I can see it beating wetly.
“Please, Mister!” the boy says again.
I hurry over and kneel beside the man, who is barely conscious. I try not to look directly at his exposed heart. It seems like nudity to me, but the boy and I both know something needs to be done and that I am the one to do it. The boy’s eyes are filled with tears as he looks at me desperately.
Finally, I look at the exposed heart. I reach out to it and touch it, feeling it squirming and twitching in my hands, which are quickly covered in blood. I try to put it back into his chest, into the large hole. I hear a ripping sound. One of the veins or arteries has severed and blood is shooting up in the air.
The boy screams, piercingly, making my ears ring, and runs off into the forest. I look at the man’s face and he is dead, staring straight with waxy and vacant eyes. I stand up quickly and look into the flat blue cloudless sky. I notice how there is nothing up there and that it isn’t a real sky at all, but a fake one, a painted-on sky, covering up a terrible black secret.
I look down again at the man and he is a skeleton. My hands, which once held his heart, have also become skeletal. I look at them poking out from the ragged flesh of my wrists. They are like aliens.
That’s when I woke up screaming.
Jesus.
I just saw a televised marriage proposal (TMP) tonight. It was typical: the guy yammering about finding his “soul mate”, tearing up, lower lip quivering. They bring the woman out. She’s all surprised. He gets down on his knees….
You know the story.
My fingers were crossed for a “No.” Alas!
She of course said “Yes.” They almost have to. Shit, she’s in front of God and everyone. Millions of overweight Americans are watching from their couches. Talk about pressure.
It would’ve been sweet if she turned him down, told him to get lost, or that she only “wants to be friends.” What would the poor sap do? Cry? “But I bought you a shiny rock! Hundreds of Africans were exploited for it! Come on, we’re soul mates!”
“Sorry, bub,” and off she goes, free as a bird, the luckiest woman in the world…
“I don’t understand all that anger and violence you guys were into,” he said.
“Yeah?” said the 45 year old punk. “Well, I don’t understand all that peace and love crap you guys were into.”
Just then a 25 year old hipster walked by and they both burst out laughing.
he prefers to be by himself.
Was it not cool? Was the piano really that much better? Why? I like it, kinda. Very different. Goldberg Variations are quite different played on one. I’m not saying better, but….different. Goldberg Variations were originally written for harpsichord, if I’m not mistaken.
You’ll remember the Variations from Silence of the Lambs. It was what Hannibal Lecter was listening to as he killed and ate (some) of his guards, then made his escape by stealing one of their faces. It was played on piano then and usually is these days.
On the harpsichord it is less haunting and less deep, but has a dainty prettiness…or something.
Also, whenever I hear a harpsichord, I feel like putting on a cravat. How cool is that?
Mildly buzzed. This is perfect. I truly dislike being all drunk, but I like to be nice ‘n silly. I feel healthier, a warm glowing feeling. I have switched to tea.
I have been formally invited to my class reunion this summer, which is a bit odd considering I’m a high school dropout. I din’t even make it into a month of my sophomore year and I was outta there. No worries, though. I went to college and got two degrees. But why do they want me to come? Odd. I feel no connection to those people. Very few of the names on the Facebook event page even ring a bell. Everybody’s pretty tubby and old-looking. I am in shape, sorta, and look awesome. Maybe I will go and strut my stuff. Give ‘em shit. “Oh, too bad you smoked all those years. Now you look like a catcher’s mitt. Have another cigarette! Eat some more burritos!” Hahahahahahah.
And then I will leave.
They’ll love me.
My kitty is emanating cuteness like radiation as she lounges on my bed. Every time I walk by I attack her with kisses. I can’t even handle her right now.
I need to trim my bonsai, and no, that isn’t a double entendre.
I broke a bowl tonight while doing dishes, so now I am down to one. I have one bowl. I’m a one bowl man, baby. Note to self: buy two more bowls tomorrow.
You know, you can ask me something if you want.
Oh, remember how I told you guys about becoming involved in my local Food Not Bombs thing? Well, turns out the guy who invited me and or running it is something of a religious fanatic. Hmm. On second thought. Actually, maybe he’ll be cool about it. He invited another friend of mine (who’s female) to meet his religious buddies, but told her she would have to dress “demure”. She was wearing a t-shirt and jeans at the time. What the fuck? We’ll see how this goes….
Anyway.
Obvious to anyone who’s ever read anything I’ve written, but antique when used as a verb bugs me. AnTEEKing. The very nice lady at the very cluttered consignment shop asked me if I was anTEEKing. Also, she wondered if I was an anTEEKer.
A resounding “No” on both. “I’m just browsing,” I told her. “I am a browser.”
I got a really cool oil lamp with a red dome for FIVE BUCKS. Awesome. I have a real thing for oil lamps and lanterns and candles (unscented). Any kind of firelight. My Grandma Bonnie used to collect oil lamps and she had dozens. One time when I was a kid, she lit them all up at the same time and I loved it. The glow, the intimacy. How it seemed to have made a truce with the darkness it could not totally defeat.
I only have four oil lamps now. I despise material things, so could never have dozens. The more stuff you have, the more it ceases to be stuff and turns into shit. As in, “All this shit.”
Whenever I am in a consignment shop, I wonder about the 8-track tapes. They’re always dusty and forgotten. Nobody, but nobody, is gonna buy them. They always look so lonely to me. There was a stack today at the consignment shop, six or eight of them. Dusty. Forgotten. One was an Eagles album. Perhaps, I thought, around 2050 they will be collector’s items. Right now, though, in 2012 they are garbage.
I also went to the Good Will and bought a Giorgio Armani suede blazer for FOUR BUCKS. I was looking for some sort of maroon pants. I got up this morning wishing I had maroon pants and that’s why I left the house and went to all these places. Maroon pants. A darker red. Something. Wool, or some sort of heavy fabric. I had it all in my mind, but didn’t see it. There was some pretty nifty purple pants, but they were 36 waist. Too big. I need a 34. At that point I realized I would never find maroon pants that were precisely 34 waist, so stopped looking.
Now I’m going to drink some beer and do my dishes. See ya.
It isn’t “too much”, but it is, in fact, information:
I occasionally look for jobs. Not very often, being lazy. Having a job, I’ve noticed, really cuts into my sitting around time. But, yeah, I occasionally go out and look for them, saying to myself “I’m being a productive member of society!” or some such shit.
The last time I looked for a job was early December. I guess I was bored or something, but I filled out the stupid application and even met the person for an interview. I totally showered for it and everything because I actually kind of wanted to work there. I suspected the place and people would give me lots of emotions and material.
It was a pretty standard interview, except for the last question, which was “What’s your spirit animal?” That was a new one. I’ve been to many different job interviews in my 87 years on Earth, but never have I heard that.
“Snoopy,” I answered without hesitation. I mean, what else could it be?
It made the guy laugh. I always make the guy laugh. It’s one of my powers and the reason no one who wears a tie takes me seriously, thank god.
But he thought Snoopy was a funny answer, even though I was dead serious. He thanked me genuinely for coming in and then hired someone else.
His loss. I would’ve worked for minimum and changed all the names to protect the guilty :)
