My brain’s the burger and my heart’s the coal
An extreme driving maneuver in rush hour traffic, causing the guy in the rusty pickup truck to honk his horn. I can see him gesturing wildly in the rearview mirror, pointing his finger at me as we come to a red light. “Are you fuckin’ stupid or something?” he wants to know, holding his head from the window of his truck and cursing at a level that well exceeds the volume of my own radio. I do not know how to react to this situation, do not have the ability to convey the importance of my whereabouts in ten minutes, and just stare straight ahead until the light changes. Minutes later, I am alarmed when I notice the same rattling pickup truck following closely behind, and flags of palpable danger emerge when I enter my neighborhood and realize the truck still following behind. This person’s dedication to letting me know what’s what is clearly impressive. I pull up in front of my house, as the driver of the pickup pulls along side of me, leering at me from his vehicle, as he clenches a cigarette between his teeth. “—Oh, hey: sorry, guy,” I casually produce, getting out of my car. “What the fuck?” he wants to know, which seems to be a general inquiry into my reputedly horrible driving. I notice my neighbors in the immediate vicinity pricking up their ears, and casting an eye in my direction. Oh, great, I think: as if my everyday behaviors weren’t sufficient validation of the fact that my life is a total wreck, this incident is going to send things over the edge. A leaflet will be produced, and I will be run out of the neighborhood, as has been coming for a while now. “Well, I did not see you,” I explain to the indignant driver, who seems unwilling to demonstrate any magnanimity today. “Well, fuck you,” he bluntly recites to my face before pulling off at top speed. Did he really just follow me all the way to my house to tell me this? I wonder. Intend to fight me right there in the street? That would have been pretty funny, I have to admit. Snatched from the jaws of a broken jaw. Plus one for me.

Ambling forth, through the day. I really have very few worries right now, and that makes me worried. Something must be wrong, having nothing wrong. I need something, I realize. A plan—a lobotomy, actually. Something. All I can do is take my dog around on walks and contemplate chipmunks and squirrels and things. I really am becoming horribly middle-aged, and the fledgling beard is definitely not helping matters. My grandmother tells me about a job opportunity she heard about today. $13.50 an hour for unloading trucks at the Pepsi distributing plant. There’s even room for advancement, she says. "It seems a little repetitious," I end up telling her, trailing off. “–And I just cannot support the corrosion of childrens’ teeth,” I say. It seems wrong to me. Coercion? she says. “—Uh, yeah,” I say, whatever. I keep thinking that I’m going to be hit by some falling debris. Or a long range nuclear weapon is going to absolve me from any and all responsibility in my life. It’s not a sound way to live, but then, have you read the paper recently? Either that, or I’ll just continue in my trend of nearly getting pummeled in some ludicrous street fight. Either way, really.

Where there's a will there's a whalebone
Standing in line at the SuperCenter. The nerve-frayed woman in back of me has lost track of one of her spazzy children, pulling me from my neon-lighting induced trance. “Ronnie,” she calls out, “Where are you? –Ronnie?” The first hints of hysteria creeping up in her voice as she cries out his name. The other children in her custody also begin whining in synchronicity, and the general public starts casting eyes about, to see where Ronnie has disappeared to. He could be half way to crossing state lines by now, in the back of somebody’s Buick. But then, thankfully, he produces from a clothing rack, turning what was about to be a 5 O’clock news’ story into the rather tepid affair of being reunited with his mother. “Ronnie, don’t you ever do that again,” the woman scolds him, as the squirrelly little child clings tightly to her leg. Yeah, Ronnie, I think, what the hell is wrong with you?

Bronchitis has prohibited any and all contact with other people for the last three days. Hasn’t modern science advanced to a point where you can somehow eradicate the common cold? It seems weird to me. Oh, well: I haven’t been sick in a while and so whatever. I bide my time by watching television and find myself transfixed with Run’s House, the MTV reality series about the life of former Run-DMC member, Joseph Simmons. It’s hard to say exactly what it is I like about this show. At first it seems scripted, as “Rev Run” continuously issues forth statements that are evocative of fortune cookie distribution. But then there’s these other moments too, like when he’s talking to his son about getting better grades. “What if I decided to just do second-best,” he admonishes, casting a glance around the room, “then you wouldn’t have your sneaker collection and all these nice things.” There’s something that carries in the tone of Run’s voice, something mellifluous and easygoing while simultaneously being able to convey the essential message at the heart of all that. The kid is shaken by Run’s rhetoric and agrees to try harder. Amazing. Another great part of the show is that the end of every episode features one of those moments, like they used to do it on Doggie Houser, MD, where he would summarize the show in a paragraph on his Commodore 64 computer. Run breaks out his BlackBerry while sitting in a bathtub and pecks out the message, the moral of today’s program. “Do you struggle to balance your work life, your family life and your mission in life? Well, I've got news for you: Life is a struggle, and the harder you work the more alive you should feel. So embrace the effort and you'll discover that the balance will find you. God is love.” I love these standard deductions, the ability for someone to produce forth some sweeping statement, with nuggets of wisdom and Zen Buddhism. I find myself getting really psyched for the next episode of Run’s House and then I realize: I’ve probably just been taking too much cold medicine. I’ll probably be better soon. Maybe I’ll see you around.