It's all over but the crying
An invitation to my 10-year high school reunion has arrived in the mailbox. I pick it up, contemplating the small print. Please join your graduating class for an evening of dinner and dancing, it says. I try and think of a situation which would deliver more trauma, something conceptually more grim than this scenario, and have trouble coming up with anything. Even death itself can be less methodical and slow: a car crash can occur instantaneously, truncating your life abruptly and swiftly, but an evening of dinner and dancing could last for hours. I show Adam the invitation, who is also a member of my graduating class. “I’m not going,” I tell him. He chides and goads me on before I tell him more definitively, “No, it’s final.”

Life has turned out less than optimal. These gatherings only seem to provide a forum for putting on display lives that have turned out optimally, and then giving those people others to situate their own optimal-ness on. And I’d just rather not be a part of the situating process. My own life seems evocative of Kilgore Trout, and gargantuan portions of failure, which is not something I want to be showing around. Although it does occur that Trout touts his failing. And so maybe that’s something.

We are sitting in front of the house when Adam brings this up again. Drunk on a Wednesday night. We laugh at this fact. It is 2:30 am, and it feels pretty low. Shouldn’t we be somewhere else right now, doing something more adult? But it’s true that we need some kind of diversion from our jobs, which just happens to come in the form of a mid-week bender. “I’m going to go to the reunion,” he tells me, before offering up his carefully conscripted rationale. “I know it will be the worst day of my life. And that everyday thereafter—whether I’m at my job or in some other sordid scenario—it won’t be that bad, because I will have already experienced my life’s worst moments.” I soak this in a minute, taking in the optimism inherent in the gesture. It does sound pretty genius, I have to admit, so cripplingly low of an idea that it might just be true. And so it’s settled: we’re going, because things couldn’t be worse.

Sleeping is the only love
Sitting in the kitchen, in the gray light of a new day. This is the rote life of the routine. I read a week-old paper and depress myself with old news. On the cover is a picture of a train in ruins, totally ablaze. In two seconds, accompanying this imagery, is my housemate’s alarm is going off at full tilt. It’s one of those beeping-variety alarms which would have most people out of bed in moments. But I listen as it goes off for four minutes, and then 20. The beeping, at some unspecified point, begins to invert and turn in on itself, like syncopated drumming. And then on top of the syncopated alarming, his mobile phone’s alarm begins to go off, creating a symphony of the damned. I just sit there, not having the heart to go in and wake him. Silently, I go out of the door, closing it behind me with an audible thud. It is a new day, I assure myself, full of vigor and hope and optimism. Anything can happen.

Joy, my hapless coworker, is conjecturing over days off when I arrive. On her calendar she has the projection of making it one whole month without taking a day off, noted by a graphic x drawn in black sharpie on today’s date. “If I can just make it through the rest of this week,” she tells me facetiously, “I think I might be able to do it.” There is no possible way of this actually happening, but it’s a nice thought. Last week alone she missed two days, and it could be the guilt factor of not living up to expectations (nix), or just a futile nod in the direction of approximated rightness. But either way, I would not bet on her making it a month. Her only hopes of actually carrying out this outrageous plan are erroneously premised on the idea that we have one 4-day week coming, but she’s got it wrong. “Aw, shit,” she intones under her breath when she finds out they are full workweeks. She dials a friend, canceling her plans for that day. And when she’s had enough of talking, she tells the person on the other end of the phone that her court shows are coming on, and hangs up the phone with a clunk.

Everyday is the same, virtually. What changes mostly, are the conversations, inserting random greetings and garble before sending on my way. In 8 weeks I feel subverted totally, crushed into dimensions that are beyond me. My coworkers poke fun at me, laughing about how I don’t listen to their stories or remember anything. And it’s true. I can’t remember anything, and all I seem able to do is sit there with a docile stare, totally unable to understand. An article I have recently read about the Maine National Guard tells about how families were provided with life sized cardboard cutouts for family members in Iraq, and I keep thinking if I could just get one of those, weekend at bernies-style. That’d be good. In the meanwhile I could go out and do the things that I actually do, which are also shrouded in total mystery but are more or less horrific, clacking away on a keyboard somewhere.

The drizzle just seems to keep on coming today. And some days are that way. I see the receptionist seeing me on the way out. "Forgot your umbrella," she says to me, motioning towards the weather. They have the standard issue work umbrella, unimaginably. Oh, well, I tell her, before hustling out. Another day, another dollar. The alarm is sounding, but we are inert and lifeless and dead. The most unimaginable variety also, where the silence does not sound.

Go dangle your fishhook out in the gutter again
I am downloading the new Grizzly Bear album on a computer with a 50.60 Kbps connection. As you might imagine, it takes an insanely long period of time. I usually download one song per day, and it’s the whole instant gratification that you lose out on in the meanwhile. If the song sucks you actually did just waste that much time, but mostly you appreciate it more. You find something in there that’s worthwhile, to validate the fact that you did not just waste twenty minutes downloading a song, like it’s 1999. This is the whole neo-Luddite stance I’ve taken in relation to my computer. Yeah, I work with one all day and download songs and things, but it’s a compromise. In not paying for the ultra-fast connection, I am in fact skipping out on the insipient ADD and gratification that is part in parcel of a culture that has spun out of control. The future, you might say, is going to be dumb ã. But I have absolved myself, partially, while still only being able to hold marginal conversations with people, spacing out momentarily before rejoining or talking about something else entirely.

Things have gotten out of control in my life. I don’t think it’s quite at the point where I need my friends and family to unsuspectingly appear in my bedroom, in some Leif Garrett-type intervention scenario, but I have taken notice. I woke up this morning with a gigantic phallus drawn in green magic marker on my hand and only a vague recollection of the circumstances which may have led to it being there. And some other random and haphazard events which lend no real congruity to the fact that I woke with a green penis drawn on my hand. But I do remember thinking, late in the night, just before sleep: people, they are the strangest thing, really. And there is no accounting for all of the strangeness and the problems they cause while together. Accompanying this thought was the imagery of sickly molecules coming together and going apart again. I still don’t know if it’s my abundant understanding of these strange people which cause me to be alienated and think thoughts like, I really just should keep to myself and stay locked up in the attic. But I continue to think them anyway, all the while reminding myself that I could have it wrong about someone, something.

More and more now I find myself in some horrible bar with a friend, talking over our pseudo girl situations, and better times. A character in a movie I have recently seen bemoans his fate, and how horribly things turned out, and here I find myself doing the same thing. It’s pretty embarrassing. “Why are all of the people we know such psychos?” I am asked. I don’t really know, I tell him, but I think it might have something to do with the internet.

Last night I happened on a grown woman weeping in a Dunkin’ Donuts at 2:30 am. She was sitting with her face in her hands, and her head drawn to the side. And then I realized, watching as people came and went, that she was crying. Her boyfriend had just broken up with her, I imagined, and had left her at the Lark Street Dunkin’ Donuts to run off with another woman. Or she had just lost a relative or a loved one. Or she is just really broken up over a world in need of repair, where its inhabitants are cracked and drunk and interchangeable. I sat there for a moment, wondering what I would do. I really would have liked to go over and offer her some form of consolation, buy her a doughnut or something, but in the end I opted not to. And so we sat there, and suffered some more. It is a long life, sometimes. And a cruel one. But it does have its redeeming factors. And then the song comes on that I have just downloaded. It was worth the wait. The singer sings: Cheer up, cheer up, cheer up, cheer up. I would like her to hear it. And more than anything, I would like for all of the broken life form of the Lark Street Dunkin’ Donuts to stand up and break out in song, singing in unison in pretend microphone fists. Everything is going to be OK, I am at least partially sure.

Three Chord Blues
I watched that movie The Devil and Daniel Johnston last night, which is quite possibly the best movie I’ve seen all year. Check this out if you do not believe: there is a scene where Daniel Johnston loses his shit for the third or forth time in the film, removing the keys of the single-engine airplane he is flying in with his dad and throwing them out of the window, thoroughly and totally crashing the plane into the ground. They then cut to pictures of the plane in ruins on the ground and the survivors standing next to it, Daniel Johnston standing there with a big smile on his face. All of this, by the way, is elicited by some haphazard viewing of a Casper the Friendly Ghost comic. How’s that for action? You don’t really get this kind of thing out of your run-of-the-mill blockbuster. But what this scene sets up actually, is not only the ostensible crashing of the plane but the fiery and ruinous careening of mental state. And as things get worse, the songwriting gets better, and then just plain bad or non-existent, with the onset of meds. But we like our artists mad, veritable wrecks beyond belief. And that’s kind of the weird thing about Daniel Johnston, is the whole limbo of psychosis, the choice you have to make as art interpreter between mad person/ exploited individual and genius. But that’s what genius sometimes asks of you.

The last few weeks have been a tasteless feast of insipid banality. But for the most part I’ve been avoiding interpretive readings of Casper comics, insisting instead on drinking myself into a catatonic state and then asking for the mandatory ride home. That is, really, why drinking exists, I’m pretty much sure, aside from ease with which it facilitates late night banter. And as the vice of work becomes more prominent, so do the catatonic states and accompanying rides home. It seems pretty self destructive whichever way you look at it, but that’s how things broil down, I’m pretty much sure. I just want to break free from here, run into the tree-adorning meadow I can see from my desk right now, go straight edge. Listen to a Daniel Johnston song. That’s not so crazy, I don’t think.

Transmissions from the satellite parts
I went to a concert last weekend, in Boston, Massachusetts. The particular venue that I went to had a seating chart and seats, unlike so many of the other shows I may attend at any given time, in some sordid basement somewhere. And so it was my lack of demographic appropriateness which may have contributed to my overwhelming sense of confusion and inability to figure out the seating chart, presenting with all of the acuity of a backwoods hick contemplating a New York City map. Perusing my ticket, I noticed that it had a row and seat number, while blithely ignoring the “section” portion of the ticket in a dark light. Arriving to my designated seat, I was greeted by two people who were already sitting in the seats where we were thought we were supposed to be situated. “—Hey,” I said to said revelers, “I think you’re in the wrong seats.” A girl with straight hair and a plain face looked back at me, and registering as she did some far off hitch in my memory. “—No,” she shouted back at me over the music, “You must have it wrong. This is Row N, Seat 14.” I looked at my ticket again and talked to her some more. This exchange may have lasted for several minutes or more in the ill-lit pavilion, as I assured her that she must be the one who has it wrong. As anyone whose ever tried to communicate even the simplest gesture in an environment with loud music playing knows, it’s nearly impossible, and so I may well have been translating a complicated love letter or economic theory. It was totally pointless. And then, all at once—simultaneously—her eyes locked on mine, and there was a moment of clarity. I recognized this person as someone I knew—someone I had gone to high school with and had recently sat next to at a wedding. “You look like someone I know,” she said randomly. And then she did not believe. “—Oh, hey!” I shouted at her, everything coming clear. “It’s me!” But still, she did not believe. And then there were the ensuing moments of awkwardness where I had to convince her of my authentic self, and that I was not some guy who shows up at concerts playing some complicated gag on people. IT’S ME!! I shouted, convincing her some more. IT’S ME! I repeated this several times, until it seemed like I was convincing even myself, imagining almost, the reverberations of this statement eminating out, like a sound wave, throughout the pavillion, IT'S ME!
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They returned McBeans’ ashes in an obscene gray box this week. My grandmother has placed it by the doorway of her home, afraid of bringing it any further indoors. “What are you supposed to do with it?” she asks me. “I don’t know what to do.” I pick it up, contemplating the cold gray box in my hands. It seems weird to me for Mcbeans to be reduced to the pile of ash that I am holding in my hands. He was, it seems to me, just moments ago, a tail-wagging ball of energy and enthusiasm, and now this is all that is left. “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” is all I can tell my grandmother. I’m not sure.

Life feels weird in the absence of McBeans. I enter dog licenses into a computer all day at work and so I think about it, show up to my grandmother’s, feel like I’m going to cry. The house still contains the peculiar smell of a cracker, and his leash hangs idly by the door. The difference is, however, there is no McBeans. Sometimes I go inside, expecting him to come charging out of nowhere, bowl me over with enthusiasm for another day, another walk in the woods. But there are no more walks, and there is no more enthusiasm. All I seem able to discern is the concrete weightiness of death, and how quickly it can come. And how much I miss McBeans.

It’s hard for me to define what was so special about my dog. And maybe it’s just really inappropriate to put into words. You can only pin things down for so long before you realize how much of a jerk you are. And sometimes you just have to let things stand for how they are, and how they make you feel, illogical as that may seem. And so that’s what I miss the most, I think, is everything I’m unable to put into words. It feels kind of weird to say. And it kind of makes me feel like a dork. But mostly, it’s the truth. I might have to convince you.

Mensch-Maschine
Dentists, I have recently read, take their lives more than any other profession, barring tollbooth workers and doctors. This statistic seems to make some amount of sense to me, seeing that what this profession mostly entails is standing over another person with your hands crammed down their throat as you ask them questions which can only be answered in monosyllabic grunts and garbled incoherence. So close, you are, but so far away. The same could be said of toll booth workers, who (with the exception of the dude at the Hudson exchange, where you pick up the Rip Van Winkle bridge, who mirthfully takes your change at 2:00 am as you make your way from Bard college, haphazardly ripping through the mountainside with reckless abandon) also have the most overtly pointless interactions with human beings. I think about this as I whiz down Washington Avenue in the back of a car last week, driving past the girl lifelessly waving traffic by whatever baroque construction they have set up there in the middle of the night. No traffic is on the road at this time, and no one appears to be doing any work, but there she stands, in her reflective orange uniform, waving your car through with an illuminated glow stick. “Is that what that girl does all night?” I want to know. “That’s totally outrageous!” I tell everybody. I cannot believe. It seems, at least, evocative of some kind of statistic, but mostly I use it as conversational fodder throughout the night, telling this to people who look back at me blankly and walk away.

Oh, man, I get so uptight about working conditions. I can’t believe a job like mine even exists, and that they haven’t refined computer systems to a point where they can more efficiently load that information in there. Charlie Chaplin made this commentary 80 years ago in Modern Times, but we don’t seem to be so up-to-date, here in modern times. What my job basically entails is entering dog-licensing information into a computer database for future referencing. I keep getting paranoid about sitting in front of a computer all day, the cancerous tubers it’s planting in my brain. And then I come home and look at my own computer, clack out an email, fret over another blog entry. It all seems pretty self-destructive to me. I explain this to my sister later, telling her all about how relaxed the actual job atmosphere is. No constraints are there in Information Systems, and no allotted work to be done. Mostly, it’s the job itself, I explain indignantly: the actual work, and the malleable worker robot drones who I have to work with all day. It’s kind of alienating. What is your problem, my sister wants to know. I don’t know, is all I can tell her. I don’t know.

Tonight is another night, the same as every other night. A light drizzle comes down, fogging over the windows in a car. I have to go to the bank, slicing through town, driving in a straight line past the capitol building to where I need to go. I end up see the girl waving construction through on Washington one more time, and I look out at her, my face pushed right up against the fogged window of the car. Her eyes lock on mine and she waves at me, sitting for moment that seems suspended in time. And then the light turns green and she motions to me with the bright orange glow stick of a wand she carries, magically, unenthusiastically.

Get me back on your leash
Office work coincides with respiratory illness. There’s something about the airtight atmosphere, built to minimize distraction by locking all productivity inside, and with it a host of airborne poxes, sweeping over me like easy prey. I’m new yet. I have yet to build up an immunity, and sick time. Joy, however, my porcine cohort and proletarian muse, has accumulated an entire onslaught of free days off with pay, and so it is with no indiscretion that she calls in sick once a week. There’s kind of an office in-joke about, with which I am greeted yesterday. “I hate work,” she tells me. “I guess I’m just kind of lazy.” I think this over for a bit, wondering what else I might have in common with this Frosted Flakes-consuming, popcorn-crunching co-worker. “I just like to lie in bed all day and eat,” she tells me cheerfully. And so it is with no surprise that she does not show up for work today. We knew she wasn’t coming, another coworker tells me. Whenever she brings her sweater and starts saying she’s cold that’s usually an indication that she’s not coming in the next day. She’s been doing this about once a week for years now. Apparently, two years ago, she went so far as to throw her work in the trashcan, which earned her a trail, whereby she got to spend the next two years at home with pay before getting her job back, and with it a whole bunch of vacation time. And so now, here she is, entering dog licenses into a computer and using her vacation time with all of the frivolity of a teenager with a limitless allowance. Such is the nature of working in the public sector, an environment where you can demonstrate your disdain for your job by actually throwing your work into a trashcan and not get fired. I spend my days in deep contemplation, peering out of a window that reveals a serene meadow. It will be fall soon, I think. Things will be changing.

Everyone I’ve encountered here is incredibly bizarre, but then I’m probably not the right person to be offering commentary on mental sanity. I like to think I have one up on other people because I’ve spent the entirety of my life avoiding situations precisely like this one, but I always find myself in the strange predicament of talking to these same people and wondering, why don’t I have any vacation time? A question which never reveals a whole lot of clarity. But I really just have to come clean and admit, this place is not too bad. Where else can you openly throw your work in the trashcan and be rewarded two years off, with pay? I read True Romance magazine in the break room and eat the free apples that someone has left. What’s so true about these stories, though, I don’t know. Today’s tale is all about the disillusionment of life in the big city, the dream gone astray, and the boy left behind in the small town. Is there any going back? Will he still be there on returning. I never find out, because I almost pass out from inertia.

Back in the office, my coworkers are still discussing Joy’s departure, and how unfair it is that they have to come to work. They’re getting all riled up and trying to get me to join in. I don’t really get it, though, honestly. Although her days off don’t affect any of us negatively (except for me of course, who is without humor for the majority of the day), they still insist on bemoaning the fact that she doesn’t come to work. “What do you think?” they want to know. But all I can do is blow my nose and cough out loud. I’d like a day off. But the whole thing is, I’m only temp. I don’t have any.

A spoonful weighs a ton
Coffee with G. at a Starbucks. Looking on as she fiddles with her chair, and then denounces the chairs altogether. What’s so weird about the chairs in here, I don’ t know. She makes fun of me some and then looks around for other people to make fun of, which there is apparently no shortage of in this environment. In the meanwhile, I size up G., looking on as she looks at everybody else. I’ve taken to the curious pastime of sizing up my various friends and trying to figure out where they would fit within the DSM-IV. What maladies would this biblical text render them with. My guess is some sort of confluent Bi-polar/ manic problem, with the corresponding medicine. What would it label me, I don’t know. I keep trying to figure out if it’s my own sense of stasis that offsets G.’s turbulence, or if I’m misinterpreting the situation altogether and it’s the other way around. Either way, it seems like one of us is not getting a favorable rating.

My birthday was this week. My mom made a big lasagna, and so I’m going to hang out around. I feel pretty bad about it, and I articulate this same thing to G., who gives me a weird look. My mother keeps producing the most bountiful spreads even imaginable, and all I can think about is how quickly all of that will give me a heart attack. The woman loves ingredients, I tell you: saturated fats, butter, cheese. It’s all in there. I grew up in a veritable bakery, the kitchen a production center for cookies and pies and cakes, all of which are now currently lost on me, here in the present day. It’s no big deal. It would probably take someone who was never allowed to eat these things by their parents to make them truly appreciate—the kind of person who thinks they’re putting one over on somebody by eating fast foods—the same behavior patterns which make people smoke cigarettes and snort industrial grade cleaners in the bathrooms of public bathrooms. I’m becoming increasingly stoical, I guess, but it seems like there are worse ways to be.

I end up arriving too late for the festivities, the dinner already a done deal, my parents having gone ahead and eaten without me. Minus one for me. My mom harangues me for missing dinner. Sorry, mom. You know, I mixed up the time. I’ll make it up to you, I swear. I keep expecting my parents to disown me, change the locks on the house, pretend they don’t recognize me in a crowd. They never do, but it seems like they should. A lifetime of bizarre behaviors and lifestyle choices does not seem to deter them, however. And I am thankful for that. Because actually, they really should. My mom packs up a spread that I bring home to my little domicile—cake, lasagna—the whole bit. I give these items to A., which he devours with no restraint, as I look on in amazement.

It seems easy to get down about another birthday, another year. Sometimes your life comes to resemble an unraveling ball of twine, which just continuously comes on undone. And your birthday only serves as a continuous reminder of the unraveling. But that’s only one point of view. And I keep thinking that maybe I could just elude the aforementioned descriptions of the DSM for a while longer, dodging and weaving. I contemplate the uneaten portion of birthday cake that my mom made for me sitting on the counter, the massive chunk of cake that I’ve been trying to give to everybody. I look at it sitting there in its plastic wrap, the fancy blue decoration around the perimeter all smooshed up against the plastic. I pick it up, unwrapping as I do, and mash a big bite into my mouth, the vanilla frosting sweet and light. It’s pretty good, actually. I probably should indulge more. Or at least increase my caloric intake.

You are now in a deep sleep
As just one more event in the vast and interminable nebula of agitation that is my waking life, the people who live next door to me are rebuilding the Boo Radley construction that under some broad definition might be considered a house. Not only have the rats scuttled from their collective domicile but an entire miasma of radon and god knows what has been floating in the air, causing me to wheeze. The whole situation has forced me to realize what a recluse I’ve become. With the onset of symptoms, I have come to the conclusion that with the exception of a three-hour period that I left to do some obscure errand, the symptoms have not disappeared. And that, actually, I’ve been spending way too much time at home lately. You have to get out every once in a while, soak up whatever insane stimulus the outside world has to offer you—which just happens to manifest as an outdoor barbeque that is by all turns short on insanity. Since I can hardly breathe, however, I check in on the festivities, showing by with all the gracefulness of a one-winged bird.

I enter the backyard to little kids scuttling around and their parents gathered around a picnic table, who are people I know. The crowd gives a general nod in my direction, registering my presence after a one-year absence. These are mostly friends I went to high school with, people I end up seeing annually at best. What’s going on, man? How you been? You process the scene after a 365-day absence, realizing the subtle changes, the addition of a new vehicle or child. It seems weird to me that people my age are having kids, getting married—entertaining anything, basically, which is not completely self-serving in some unambiguous way. It just seems right and natural to me that you would choose self-direction as the only direction. But then, they seem happy, I reason, checking in on their children, making sure Johnny doesn’t spill his sordid orange juice box down the front of his shirt like he is currently doing. I try and imagine myself in this same kind of role, and then realize there just are no real reference points. No—when I think of the future, I imagine a one-bedroom apartment on the periphery of town somewhere, a stack of books, and some unending supply of doom and despair. But then, it’s probably a worldview like that one which has me issuing forth statements like I commonly do, offending people’s sensibilities. I’m talking to a friend about a mutual acquaintance we have both recently seen. “—Yeah, she’s married, with children and stuff,” I say derisively, in an audible range of every other person here, who is married, with children. The needle skitters from the grooves as I realize my error, the tone of voice which is suggestive of the complete and utter insanity of such an idea. But there is no taking it back. My words have hung there in the air long enough for everyone to hear, and for a friend to shake his head at me. The eating then resumes and the moment passes, but it has been marred. A little ball of soot has it been adorned with it now and there is no taking it back. Ah, well, I think. It could have been worse. And it’s not like I’m intoning racist jokes like the guy sitting at the end of the picnic table. Who invited that guy anyway? I think to no one in particular.

The night ensues, to more or less fanfare. It feels like September out, I think, before realizing, oh, wow—it pretty much is September. People are drinking domestic beer and talking about their lives as the sun goes away. I am sitting at the edge of the table with Adam Lynch as he contemplates the whole situation, with more or less of a positive spin. “I need one of those,” he tells me, looking down at the cooler. “What?” I ask him, not understanding. “Another beer?” He just laughs at me, ignoring the wife as inanimate object and/ or Budweiser beer connection that he has just made. What the hell are we even doing here? I want to know, contemplating the domestic living scenario. It’s totally freaking me out. I talk to Adam some more and he tells me about this bar around the corner from his house that he wants to go to. It’s more of a neighborhood bar, he explains, out of range from the increasingly annoying downtown establishments, filled with the vapid masses. “Yeah,” he says, “It looks pretty good. I must have driven by it like a hundred times before noticing. I guess it’s sort of an older-person, more relaxed-type place.” And then he adds, “I guess I just don’t really fit in anywhere.” It seems somewhat true, I have to admit. There’s nowhere good to hang out around anymore. But I don’t know if he understands the implications of that statement. And I don’t really want to be a part of all of that, while realizing at the same time that I probably am. Or at least I will be.

Life, it turns out, is a lot like the mold spores originating in the Boo Radley house. You end up floating around a bit before sticking to something indefinite. And it’s the sticking which ends up defining you, with more or less fanfare and agitation. But all I seem able to do is float and not breathe. And since I can’t go home or anywhere else, I’ll probably just end up checking in on that pub later.

It’s only the end
Was it just last week that I was motioning to the maps, pointing at the landmass and cutting my pants as some tacit suggestion of seasonal prediction? I guess it was. All of that seems far away now. The summer doesn’t officially end until sometime in September, but for those of us residing here in the Northeast, it actually ends a whole lot earlier. I would probably characterize the end of summer as the first succession of days in which the weather breaks and responsibility looms. Those are pretty much the characteristics first imbued upon you in grade school, when you find yourself at the end of August, the smell of new cotton and a falling heart. Or at least those were my associations with going back to school. I don’t know how it was for you.

Somehow I have managed to pass the summer away, not befalling much commitment to anything or anyone. In fact, I don’t even really remember much of it at all. Somehow, I seem to remember specific blips which will come to serve in my collective memory as a summation of that time. Those things might involve ending up at certain concerts or cities, but which ones or where all seems very blurry to me now. As it says in the bible, though, I think, all goods things must come to an end. And such is the prevailing sentiment. Everyone keeps asking me what I’ve been doing all day, and when I’m going to get my shit together, and it seems almost sensible to come up with some sort of an answer now.

I managed to get up early enough yesterday to see some rare presidential news conference. It’s amazing, really, how our world leaders seem so bent on hurtling us into world war 3. You hear a lot of rhetoric during these things, a lot of the same phrases being repeated over and over. And it seems barbaric, entering a tiny pocket of grim-ness beyond stupidity, to hear some of the things being uttered, like staying the course. What does that even mean? I wonder. And then I remember. You learn a lot just checking in on these things. And since the end is pretty much neigh, it gives being irresponsible a whole new profoundity. That’s what I think, anyway. Are there any good shows happening today? A dance party somewhere, where we can usher in the impending apocalypse to a throbbing BPM? Maybe I’ll see you there.

If I try I could fly right through that window
My sister Kari does social work. It seems like one of the only jobs a liberal arts major can latch onto with some modicum of success, and I know a lot of people who do this same thing. One of the words you can never utter around these people is the expletive “retard.” Back in the day, this was considered far less of a social faux pas. A videotape of some 1970’s news broadcast found at a garage sale confirms this, the stodgy news anchor looking into the camera and reporting that a retard had been found accountable for the crime. Listening to a report like that in the present day context, with all of its pc fitting, is just totally hilarious. And one of the many benefits of my sister working for an agency which acts as a sponsor for the mentally-challenged (or however you say), is all of the anecdotes I end up hearing about later. It’s kind of like adult babysitting and there never is a shortage of great stories. One of my all time favorite possessions, in fact, came from one of the people she works with, given to my sister as a parting gift. It’s a blank piece of paper, with incomprehensible words written in different colored ink on the front. It seems to sum everything up for me, in some all-encompassing way. It’s really great.


One of the stories my sister has recently related to me centers around one of the women she has to supervise. The woman, apparently sound of mind to live independently, has bouts of mild dementia, which is not unlike many people I know. The difference is, however, that instead of spending her time hanging out in bars and consuming toxic elixirs which become the rationale for such behaviors, this woman has to check in with my sister everyday. Part of this extensive checking also centers around contact with the owners of the apartment complex, where the woman lives. Recently, my sister has received a call from the owners, who have notified her of some extensive cleaning bill. The woman, apparently involved in the process of making a cake with decorative blue icing, proceeded to spill her creation on the floor, leaving a blue stain mashed into the new hallway carpeting. The culprit, however, made a hasty exit, leaving as it were a blue stain uncovered and uncleaned. The evidence of which produces in a surveillance video of the hallway, featuring said miscreant nervously pacing back and forth in front of the stain, in the attempt to cover or at least wish away the evidence. It proved pointless, however. And I cannot help but think of the evidence of the videotape, the besmirched blue carpeting, and the irrefutability of all that. It seems so crushing to me. Hours and hours did the woman foment an excuse, I imagine, when really, she should have remembered 9th grade reading, and Orwell.

My sister working at this job and being apparently so great at it has predictably lead to the totally insane suggestion that I try the same profession. At different points I even remember it being suggested by my sister directly. I think this over, recounting the details to my friend Adam one night. “Can you imagine the irony?” I point out to him, whipping up Washington Avenue in a car. “The whole point of the job, basically, is to find mentally disadvantaged people work. So basically, instead of doing all of those horrible jobs, I would be sending other people out to do them, and be paid the prevailing wage for doing so.” It just seems so wrong, we gathered, in all of the right ways.

While I cannot subscribe to all of the aforementioned character traits, I really just do seem totally bewildered lately. A recent trip to the grocery store has me scratching my head. A random survey of the grocery baggers may look at any time like a smattering of the bands being reviewed on pitchfork.com, and it makes me think, is pitchfork really that influential? Is their opinion so pervasive now that you can’t go anywhere without seeing its legions of card carrying members? It seems that way. It takes me a while to remember that the things I found culturally endearing are just everywhere now, making those same things a lot more reprehensible. There is no culture. It gets me all uptight. Walking through the line has me getting all upset in a way I cannot explain. I explain this to a friend one night, lying out my increasingly predicable dogma. And then he tells me, “Oh, those people are just retards.”

I could never do my sister’s job, of course. Custodial worker, grocery bagger, sure. These are professions that seem more aligned to my proclivities. And I’m totally down with vicariously experiencing the stories which may come along with this profession. Or even just receiving the accompanying gifts, which may manifest as incompressible words written on paper, incongruously scratched out any old way. It’s not a pretty assemblage, but it’s something. I guess you could call it that.

More than ever it seems true to say things won’t always be this way
Throwing off the shackles of unfashionable existentialism, I produced forth to my sister the other night alien phrases. We were driving east, in the wayward direction of Boston, Massachusetts, with the check engine light coming on in her car, as I spewed forth things I may have fully believed in a coffee-addled state. It’s easy to do, really: living in the first world, you have all sorts of examples. There’s no deep digging to be done, really. If you want something to make you feel really great about your life, just try rigging up some construct about South Africa, and how bad the people there have it. Sure, you say, tearing yourself from a lowly state, those people have it really bad, and comparatively, it makes you feel really awesome for two seconds. But I think I may have actually meant some of those things. Some conceptual shift has taken place, and I’m able to recognize the minute good sometimes. It’s all part of my late day paradigm shift of not jumping off a bridge, and I can feel myself backing from the precipice. “Things aren’t all bad,” I told my sister that night, much to her own befuddlement, wondering if I had not been replaced all together with someone who shared a striking resemblance. “Not everything’s going to end in a horrible disaster,” I said cheerfully, “We’ve had OK lives, good parents.” I went on at length, showing off a little, like a guitar player adding in a tricky little solo for effect. But I could tell, even as I said these things, that I had produced a spell. Surely something bad was going to happen now that I had said these things. A car crash, imminent death, I did not know what—something, though, surely. That’s the power of positive thinking. There are people in charge. That’s the basis of most superstition, really. Some benevolent figure, you imagine in your head, is waiting there all the while, to will something into existence. The converse is true too, obviously; just find yourself saying or doing the wrong thing, and the next thing you know things are slipping away—the framework of benevolence and good turns to rot and decay, and it all comes unrelentingly crashing down around your head.

McBeans is not going to live. I should have known as much. The fancy little chart in the examining room of the veterinarian’s office tells you his age in human years. 88-years-old, it lets you know, sizing up any potential ailments. You can do the math, figuring things out in your head. And you can tell, on a walk, that his legs are not good. But nothing can prepare you for his immediate collapse, the festooning tumor in his stomach that was there all the while. Or for your own inexplicable response to this series of events, lying down on the floor of your grandmother’s kitchen and praying in the light of a new day beside your sick dog. Please, do not take McBeans away from me. It makes me feel like Candy in Of Mice and Men, groveling over his old dog. It makes me really sad.

The veterinarian explains the situation to me in detail, illuminating the x-ray in the examining room. He outlines the dense mass all around the spleen, and the crippling arthritis. There is not long, he explains compassionately. And it makes you contemplate the nature of his job. Not everybody could do it. You would need a sense of compassion that goes well beyond general human suffering and forays into entirely different realms. Not everybody is capable. But this guy has toiled away in the pursuit of this, and it makes me feel some gratitude toward this total stranger, telling me my dog is going to die. I look over at the dog on the examining table. He’s there all the while, completely absolved from his own predicament. No idea does he have of what we’re even doing here. And when the anemia has temporarily vanished from his system, when the toxicity has been reabsorbed, he holds the leash triumphantly in his mouth and wags his tail. All I can do is shake my head. It seems weird to take example from a dying dog, but then it could be worse, too.

The kids just off from basketball beat me in my head
I feel like my life has degenerated into one of those weird movie shorts they show you between programs on the IFC. All I seem able to do is saunter around in a pair of cutoff shorts and complete mundane errands, gathering no real conclusions from any of these activities. I keep waiting to work out the secret algorithm, the sweeping statement which will sum everything up for me. But more and more I realize that there are no answers. It’s a confusing movie, totally abstract in scope, and all there is are dramatic angles, awkward pauses and bewildered looks. I’ve got that much worked out, at least.

Grandma fell on her face today. She called me up in the early am to tell me so. I have no idea how to react to this situation so early in the morning and find myself drifting off, mid-conversation, ignoring all of the actual details. The overarching question remains: how exactly does one fall on her face? Some obscure thought process takes place, and instead of sticking out your hands, your face goes first. Doesn’t that confound natural instinct? Defy the laws of logic? I guess not, because my mom experienced a similar mishap a while ago (although, I guess that does little to further the statistical probabilities). How this happens, I cannot fathom. I go over to my grandmother’s house to check things out. Most of the time I cannot take the things she says seriously as she constantly attempts to wring the maximum amount of attention out of every occurrence. But she did in fact fall in some way, as there she is sitting limply in a chair, with the beginnings of a bruise on her arms and face. “Is there anything I can get you?” I say with futility. “An ice pack or something?” It makes me think of grade school, where the panacea for any number of maladies is one of those squishy icepacks that they give to you in the nurse’s office. You tell them about your stomachache and end up walking away clutching an icepack, unctuous blue ooze dripping from the inside. It makes you feel alright for two seconds, the placebo effect of remedy. Well, let me know if you need anything, I say to her.

Back out into the day, jingling the leash for McBeans, who comes trotting along. Man, I think, contemplating McBeans’ form; he really is the greatest. The dog can hardly walk, but there he is, hustling right along beside me. We’ve had to reduce our walks lately out of concern for his failing legs, but mostly he’s still vibrant. I try and take inspiration from this, but mostly I keep waiting for some external force to come and crush me. Or at least the camera crew for the Dr. Phil Show to come hustling around the corner, taking me off for a special taping of an episode titled “responsibility and those who shirk.” It’s a nice day out, though, and so I decide not to sweat it- for one day at least. A blue sky stretches out indefinitely in every direction, and a warm wind dances across your skin. Things are good like that. In a bold declaration of seasonal commitment, I cut another pair of pants into shorts the other day. And it makes me feel weird to recognize my own commitment to such frivolity. I’m listening to that Fiery Furnaces song “Benton Harbor Blues” on headphones, and I’ve come to recognize this song as the soundtrack for my summer. Over and over, I find myself listening to this one song, striding around the neighborhood in the most ludicrous outfits imaginable. It’s kind of a carefree tune, the repetitive little keyboard part almost warbling out into the air. It’s the transitional, action sequence of the b-movie you’re watching, and the character is doing all of the things she’s singing about in the song: riding a bike through the snow, heading down to the mini-mall. It’s totally fantastic. An ice-cream truck comes rolling up the street, and I order a Nutty Buddy ice cream treat from the driver. Thank you, I tell her, watching as the bright orange vehicle pulls away from the curb, emitting as it does the peculiar music, which strangely resembles a Fiery Furnaces' song.

Sometimes you catch yourself spontaneously recounting the details of your life, reflecting in the totally subsuming way which encompasses the pathways and corridors that have lead to the precise moment. I catch myself doing this more and more, sitting on a stoop or anywhere at all. And it’s in such moments that you find your life taking on the dramatic quality of cinema. It’s a strange movie, with all manner of narrative flaws. But mostly, I realize it’s wrong to characterize life as some pretentious art film. Because actually, it’s an action movie, the camera cutting away, with all matter of dramatic angles. It’s a flailing figure, I imagine, arms extended, and it appears to be falling swiftly, steadily.

K-I-S-S-I-N-G S-E-X-I-N-G C-A-S-I-O B-O-K-E Y-O-U M-E I
Watching, in a detached way, as my finger presses the doorbell. Over and over, it makes this connection, which causes the circuit to close, emitting this peculiar sound. The dog goes into a frenzy as I do this, wildly barking to no end. It’s pretty funny: he’s outside of the door, watching as I do this, but still he cannot refrain. You learn about Pavlov’s dog early on, and here I see this manifesting in real life. Won’t he ever learn, I wonder? How long could I stand here ringing the doorbell to produce a different reaction? And what good would it really do, anyway? Some intruder would end up breaking in and the dog would just lie there on the ground, not frightening anyone. The house would be robbed and it would be all my fault. I ring the bell once more, and my grandmother makes an appearance in the doorway, asking me what I’m doing. “—Oh,” I say to her, “I’m just kind of ringing the bell.” She shakes her head at me and walks away. She will later relate this anecdote to the rest of the family as the latest piece of evidence in the overwhelming case of insanity she is building against me. Clearly, something seems to be wired wrong up there.
__________________________________________________________________

New York City, you are a big city; there’s probably room for me in you. I like saying shit like this. I’m getting older, now- not quite at the age where I start spontaneously singing commercial jingles like my dad, but old enough to issue forth ridiculous nonsense, addressing places as though they were actual people. And then, hurtling up I-87 and producing forth obscenities as the nonexistent Albany skyline comes into a view, which is, actually, a shopping mall. It’s all plain and natural, now. It always was. The lights are on, but nobody’s home.

I packed my suitcase and threw it away
These are the following observations that we have about The Hold Steady, who played at Valentine’s Saturday night:

1. They are total dorks. While listening to a Hold Steady album may provide you with similar information, the lead singer sounding like some agro version of Pee-Wee Herman, we were definitely not prepared for these doses of nerdom. Although, with song lyrics like Charlemagne in Sweatpants and overt references to “Stevie Nix,” I guess, what did you really expect?

2. They have weird fans. I have never seen the kind of disparity of audience members as I saw in attendance at The Hold Steady concert last night. While one might have expected sweaty drunk men, one got sweaty drunk middle-aged and mustachioed men, as well as their totally confounded-seeming female companions. Making it, I guess, not quite unlike certain other venues around town.

3. Dual encores are pretty dope.

If I did not know better, I would think that these guys worked at Last Vestige and were all from Albany, and lived in their mothers’ basements. Seriously: there’s not much to do around, and so it’s not that hard to imagine the following scenario, which is that these dudes hang out at the Palais all night, talking about Thin Lizzy and how great it would be to start a band. Just think: we could combine our love of Budweiser (sic) and strange affinity for 1970’s classic-rock bands and come out with a concept record. And so it makes perfect sense to me that people turned out en masse, and were getting just totally crazy, wildly hooting, and jumping in that unconditional way that seems to denote either massive approval or retardation. What distinguishes The Hold Steady from some wack-ass jibs from Albany, however, is that these guys actually carried this insane plan out to its logical conclusion. They did record an album and go out on tour, which has resulted in the terminus moment of the guy in front of me popping the top of his beer all over everyone, to the apparent lack of chagrin of anyone I can see. There seems to be a corresponding audience for this sort of thing anyway. It was pretty good. Maybe you know.

Your city's a sucker/ my city's a creep
Saratoga Springs, New York: it’s not that great. Some people come here in the summertime for a weekend repreive. If you’ve ever read Flannery O’Connor, or know that dude from the Kelsey Grammer show, maybe you’ve heard of it. There’s a decent liberal arts college here and an OK record store. The bagel shoppe is actually pretty decent, too. But most people come for the horse racing. Mostly, I just like to check out the insane fashions and the Bourgeoisie (which often seem to go hand in hand).

The ticket window is a scene of pandemonium at post-time. One time my dad took me here as a child and I got lost at the ticket window, which may or may not have something to do with my present day ambivalence regarding this place. Today it seemed an environment in a perpetual state of agitation, as people were trying to stay clear of bursts of rain. Mainly, I was trying to avoid the scent of testosterone and listen to the new DJ Kicks album on headphones. It’s pretty good, I should let you know.



Today was also hat-day. This clever hat was advertising pantomiming art as representing animal life. It was, basically, some appropriation of a Bud Light 12-pack made to look like a horse's head. It was pretty nice. I think it took 1st place.



These guys are what my aunt would explain as exercise riders. Their main job is to escort the actual race horses to the starting gate, making them some variety of the chump horse. It all seems a little redunant to me. She's the horse trainer, though, so I don't know.

I didn't win this race. In fact, I didn't win any race at all. My main source of business on the day was consuming Italian Ice and agitating Kari Ann, who chided my betting-style, which has nothing to do with consulting the confusing statistics they give you in the racing form and more to do with picking cool-sounding names. That may have something to do with my startling inability to win.

Aside from getting in your car and driving from the middle class neighborhood of Loudonville and ending up in Arbor Hill a scant two minutes later, the Saratoga race track is probably the most overt demonstration of class dichotomy available to you in Upstate New York. The box seats are preceded only by the bleacher rows, where they imaginably serve you food followed by a hot towel. These people, I think, were in the wrong section. Or rather, their aircraft had crashed, like in Brave New World, and they were checking in on the savage life below.


Senator and rumored presidential candidate Hillary Clinton showed by, sans Bill, and was escorted by some pretty heavy duty-looking people not featured here. She seemed graceful enough, I guess, snapping a picture with some nicely coutured people. Sadly, I was unable to get a picture with her. My afro-charged hair and tattered shirt may have been the deal breaker.

Afterward we went out for Mexican and I a huge burrito that fell apart in my hand. I was down on the race I didn't bother to bet, which ended up winning. That race featured a 1 and 1a horse, meaning that if either of those comes in you win. Which just goes to show, sometimes you've got to go with the statistics.

You don't know anything so don't ask me any questions
Yo, motherfuckers: if it’s my fingers which operate the keyboard, and my arms attached to my hand, it mine as well be my arms that are attached to my soul. And it is blurting what may or may not sound like a horrendously played trumpet. The kind which you appreciate from the audience of your 9-year-old niece’s 5th grade recital, with total and all around bewilderment.

While I cannot seem to make a heads or tail of anything in the world right now, I can assure you of one thing: It is going to be a good weekend, probably. While other cities around this glorious continent might be hosting elaborate music festivals this weekend which you can only gnash your teeth at for your complete and total lack of geographical appropriateness (and, let’s face it, pure and unabashed demographic squareness), we here in old Albany, New York have our own small goings on to appreciate. It’s going to be—how do you say—a doozy of a weekend.

I really should not make predictions like these ones, however. Really. Sunday night will find me lying in a gutter and wondering how I got there. Talking to a friend yesterday, in the confines of a hot and humid car, with the rain coming down outside, I found myself saying things that I would not normally say. Scratch that from the record, I told her. And so thus I offer you: Scratch that. It would make me feel better, at least.

It’s the nature of the experiment/ it’s the parable of my temperament
A pretty girl in the market. Cowboy boots with a white dress. And a t-shirt that says, “Music Makes Itself.” What does this mean, I wonder? I’m standing behind her in line and so I ask. “Oh, I’m not really sure what it’s all about,” she tells me. “It’s my brother’s shirt.” Oh. It’s the crafty musician brother. He probably plays in a band or something. “Well, it sounds pretty good,” I tell her, not really knowing what to say. “Yes,” she agrees, trailing off a bit, “I guess it kind of does.”

Outside, it is a perfect night, on a pure skin surface level. Some light breeze runs across your arm and you can’t help but think how nice it is to be alive. It's a long life. A crazy one, really, with no apparent meaning that I can determine. But you can’t help but notice how good it feels, sometimes. It’s the thinking about it, rather, which gets you down. A friend of mine made this same pronouncement last week at the Palais Royale. “Man,” he told me, “Humans got such a bad deal. All I want to do is go to work and come home and not have to think about anything. I end up thinking about my life and it gets me all depressed.” And on some square level, I guess that’s pretty objectively true. There’s no lightweight premise that I’ll run across and not find myself unraveling like a ball of twine. And, I know, that’s weird. We have devised a culture where thinking about things is an outdated mode of being. There’s nothing that isn’t inherently designed to distract you to a point of indecision. And that’s all well and good. But you lose something when you only appreciate things on the skin surface level. And so I spend all my time thinking about things, driving myself over the edge. I can’t really say it’s doing me too much good.

In the car, I hit the preset buttons and skip over the voice of Willie Colon, the DJ for the Latino show on the college radio station. Minutes later, I turn it back to where he’s still talking in incomprehensible blips, which are the changing stations of the mind. “Gentlemen! Let me tell you about the women on the street!” he says, “One minute they’re shy, reserved, and the next thing you know they’ve had two of those—what do you call it—Long Island Iced Teas, with the 6 different liquors in them. And let me tell something about Willie Colon, Willie Colon likes New York City! If you call Willie Colon’s home and he’s in a bad mood, it’s only because he hasn’t been to New York City in a while. But never call Willie Colon’s house if he hasn’t given you his number! Little Cookie is at home and she don’t like that.” On and on, he does this, and I find myself laughing out loud. He then repeats the entire monologue in nonstop Spanish at twice the speed, and you find your head spinning at about 33 1/3, wondering when the next record is going to be played. Clearly, the main premise of this program is to talk about himself. People really seem to be into it, though, as the phone line is blowing up. “Willie cannot take calls while he is on the air!” he emphasizes. The guy, evidently, is a little bit crazy. At least it’s entertaining, I think. He announces one of the other DJs, and then he finally plays the record, causing lightweight salsa music to dance from the speakers of your car.

Over and over and over and over/ the smell of repetition really is on you
Even though I have an endless expanse of time to do basically anything I feel like within the limitations of geography and budget (about $2.50, more or less), I still like to keep things in context, for the day when I may own up and actually find employment. For some reason Saturday seems like the day to run mundane errands, for no particular reason. Although, it may also have something to do with being able borrow my mom’s vehicle on that day, while my own car is in the shop. And so I can drive around town making loaded eye contact with strangers, and not really impress anyone all too much, because, let’s face it, my mom's car isn't that sweet.

I have to drop some stuff off at the Salvation Army, and while I'm there I look around. The main problem with shopping thrift, however, as with most things, is the other people who shop there (a recent conversation with a friend, based around all the weird people in our lives, turned out to reveal that we, in fact, are the only inhabitants of the high moral plain of non-weird people we know—pretty weird, I know). I have not yet degenerated into the type of human who wears an iPod everywhere I go, and so I have to contend with the masses. Which broils down, pretty much, to an entire onslaught of sketchy vagrants and some dude yelling at his 3-year-old son. “Cameron,” he intones in an authoritative voice, “get back over here.” He goes through this routine a few times, the child obediently returning to the guy’s side before being debilitated by some weird stimulus on the miscellaneous rack, which has him wandering away again. I look up from the clothing rack to find the father going after the kid with a determined look. Oh, no, I think; he’s really going to let him have it this time. He brings the kid back around to the other side, yelling in a tone which has the kid bawling and carrying on. It’s kind of peculiar cry, and I listen in on the different variations, which has me thinking twice about my iPod pronouncements. It’s kind of a guttural moan, coming from way deep down. He does this for a while and then begins to ask for his mom to no avail. “No,” the guy says, “You would not behave for mommy, and so you’re just going to have to stay here with me. You don’t listen.” I look over at this guy, wondering if there’s some better way to go about this. The kid then increases the intensity of the crying and I find it becoming the background music for my shopping experience. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, he cries, crescendoing to a peak, and then back down again, my own eardrum seemingly beginning to reside in the shill and grainy wah-producing part of this kid’s throat. I’ve got to get out of here, I think, tossing aside the shirt I have and hustling for the exits.

Out of doors. Taking in a breath of the gauzy, mid-summer air. Oh, dear god, I think; this is horrible. It’s hard to take sometimes, this climate. I have asthma, a respiratory condition thereby inflaming the bronchial tubes and decreasing the lungs’ capacity for taking in air. Sometimes you can feel yourself, on the verge of death, as some kind stranger brings you medication, placing an asthma inhaler between your purple lips, and having you breath the contents deep inside. The medicine I take is expensive, and is illicitly taken from the office of a doctor one of my mom’s friends works at. Mostly, they are free samples, without which I would not be able to breathe. And it’s weird for my existence to be so precariously situated on this act of altruism. Thank you, I would like to say to my mom’s friend. It means a lot. What’s weirder, though, is to inhabit a body which makes a mad dash towards death every time you stop paying attention. Walk into a moldy basement and that could be the end for you. There are worse afflictions, though, I’m sure. My own aunt, actually, has asthma ten times worse than I do, and was forced to retire from her job because of some type of work place allergens (sic). And surely, there are all manner of other afflictions which an older age has yet to reveal to me. The moral of which is, be thankful for the lungs of the body which carries you around in.

The medicine I take costs about $150.00 for a one-month’s supply, meaning that it costs about $5.00 a day without health insurance to breathe. That’s not easy to come by, I think, $5. 00 a day; I had better make all this breathing worthwhile. The air is heavy today, weighted down with humidity. You can feel it making its way into your lungs, as you stride into the superstore, little jets of air blasting you from above the automatic door. What do I need, I think, surveying the store, which stretches out at my feet like an absurd dream. I’m pretty much sure that I have enough money in my bank account to afford the basic survival items, which are apples and bread. Strolling around the store, as I often do, I begin to entertain the fantasy that I could get a cart and fill it with whatever items I like. That’s what separates you from being truly bourgeois, I realize, the kind of cart you’re wielding. And I’m not even carrying a basket.

I arrive to the checkout with the essential items. The guy bagging groceries today has the nicest afro I have ever seen in my entire life, which is not even some appropriation of a hairdo from long ago but is actually the anachronistic style of someone who never stopped believing, accompanied by a walrus moustache. Nice, I think. The apples and bread are slid down to the afro-coifed person on a conveyor belt, which he dutifully places in a bag. Shortly, I am being told by the cashier that my bankcard has been rejected. Incredible. Amazing, I think. I have enough money in my pocket for at least two apples, but instead I just walk away, past the walrus moustache grocery person, who is holding my groceries.

Back out into the day, the sun blazing down on my ignominious brain. I nod to the homeless man on the corner, as I always do. He’s an asthmatic, I conjecture, cannot eat because he can breathe. I think of asking him, strolling right on over as he strums his acoustic guitar but decide against it. I can’t eat right now, but I recognize the upshot, which is that I will be able to breathe long enough to realize how unlucky that is. Now if someone would make me dinner. Or drop some money into my change cup. That might prolong my existence long enough to make some other kind of mind-blowing discoveries. I probably should find a job, now. Preferably something with benefits. That's a killer.

I found out that the lowest form of life is the buffer nubber
The following "conversation" took place between me and my friend, Gail, on instant messenger relay chat, and is probably more of an overt demonstration of my late-day reticence and bad spelling and grammar. Brief sections were deleted for relevance and/ or face-saving value. I'm Arniegr8pe:

Arniegr8pe (10:00:55 PM): so i was thinking
Arniegr8pe (10:01:07 PM): i'm embarking on a career in rap
Arniegr8pe (10:01:13 PM): and i need to come up with a name
madratty69666 (10:01:28 PM): no you are NOT
Arniegr8pe (10:01:34 PM): i was thinking: the young professional
madratty69666 (10:01:46 PM): how about the white asshole
Arniegr8pe (10:01:55 PM): no, the young professional
Arniegr8pe (10:02:10 PM): and the whole thing is, i'm going to drop like shit about marx and whatnot
Arniegr8pe (10:02:19 PM): and i'll rap about the communist manifesto and things
Arniegr8pe (10:02:26 PM): and i'll be called the young professional
madratty69666 (10:02:42 PM): sweet
madratty69666 (10:02:48 PM): good luck with that bro
Arniegr8pe (10:02:53 PM): yeah, i'll tell you more about it later
madratty69666 (10:03:10 PM): something tells me lil bow wow is more street than you
madratty69666 (10:03:22 PM): and he was raped by his bodyguard
Arniegr8pe (10:03:33 PM): well, the young professional brings a different angle to the rap game
Arniegr8pe (10:04:48 PM): the young professional will not be raped
Arniegr8pe (10:05:07 PM): unless it's by legions of young women (professional or no)
madratty69666 (10:05:11 PM): yea, just like tyra is bringing a different angle to the daytime talk show arena
Arniegr8pe (10:05:24 PM): believe.
madratty69666 (10:05:42 PM): BRING A BOOK
madratty69666 (10:05:47 PM): thats all i have to say
Arniegr8pe (10:05:58 PM): right...
Arniegr8pe (10:06:56 PM): ...so, what's new with you
Arniegr8pe (10:07:26 PM): did you see the world cup final today
madratty69666 (10:07:43 PM): between france and italy?
Arniegr8pe (10:07:48 PM): yes
madratty69666 (10:07:52 PM): shit was hot
Arniegr8pe (10:08:07 PM): yeah.
Arniegr8pe (10:08:13 PM): the weather did appear to be hot and humid
madratty69666 (10:08:41 PM): yea
madratty69666 (10:08:46 PM): im sure it was
Arniegr8pe (10:08:59 PM): it was pretty good, though, right?
Arniegr8pe (10:09:08 PM): the headbutt to the chest.
madratty69666 (10:09:20 PM): there was a slew of hot things about that game
Arniegr8pe (10:09:20 PM): that's how i mess up my enemies
madratty69666 (10:09:32 PM): i dont think i saw that part
madratty69666 (10:09:38 PM): i wasnt glued to it
Arniegr8pe (10:09:39 PM): yeah, mostly it seemed pretty hot in germany
Arniegr8pe (10:09:57 PM): i didn't know you were so into weather
madratty69666 (10:10:08 PM): like some people have the time to watch tv and whatever
Arniegr8pe (10:10:22 PM): yeah: like the young professional

This part of the discussion briefly segued into a rambling digression about something or other, and resumed with the rather dour display of personal fantasy and/ or other random things which should definitely be omitted but which will stand, as some kind of testimony about the author and/ or friend.

Arniegr8pe (10:19:54 PM): i think i'm getting a bad posture
Arniegr8pe (10:20:02 PM): i need, like, a massage or something
madratty69666 (10:20:05 PM): getting?
Arniegr8pe (10:20:11 PM): yeah.
madratty69666 (10:20:12 PM): haha
Arniegr8pe (10:20:21 PM): i need a beautiful woman to rub oils on me
madratty69666 (10:21:05 PM): i need that shit too
Arniegr8pe (10:21:12 PM): yeah.
Arniegr8pe (10:21:16 PM): that would be good
Arniegr8pe (10:21:30 PM): or even for a beautiful woman to tell me everything is going to be ok madratty69666 (10:21:32 PM): i always fall asleep when i go
Arniegr8pe (10:21:42 PM): like just to whisper that in my ear.
Arniegr8pe (10:21:47 PM): even if it was a lie
Arniegr8pe (10:21:57 PM): i think i would like that ok
Arniegr8pe (10:22:10 PM): haha
Arniegr8pe (10:22:16 PM): (sorry)
Arniegr8pe (10:22:22 PM): i'm only partially joking, though.
madratty69666 (10:22:50 PM): haha. i would love to tell you everything will be great, but i think i would need some surgey to get to the whole beautiful status
madratty69666 (10:22:51 PM): ha
Arniegr8pe (10:23:13 PM): i wonder if it would be a lie, though.
Arniegr8pe (10:23:46 PM): but that would be nice
madratty69666 (10:24:22 PM): yea
Arniegr8pe (10:24:26 PM): no, i'm joking.
Arniegr8pe (10:24:31 PM): everything is going to be ok
madratty69666 (10:24:31 PM): ok
madratty69666 (10:25:40 PM): i know
Arniegr8pe (10:26:05 PM): good

Let it be known the the author of this post has no idea if everything is going to be "OK." That, in fact, it is his oft-espoused belief that things are going to end in a fiery hail of smoke and gunfire and insanity. Anything, actually, but OK-ness. But let it also be known that he realizes you cannot go around dropping shit like that on people, and that's why he needs to be assured of his own OK-ness and often reveals this same fact to others--even though it is competely and almost insanely untrue.

madratty69666 (10:28:07 PM): so what else is going on with you?
Arniegr8pe (10:28:20 PM): i don't know.
madratty69666 (10:30:16 PM): haha
Arniegr8pe (10:30:29 PM): is there really a sufficient answer to that question
madratty69666 (10:30:31 PM): im sorry
madratty69666 (10:30:39 PM): i dont know
Arniegr8pe (10:31:43 PM): you can tell me what else is going on with you if you want
Arniegr8pe (10:31:55 PM): if it will make you feel better
madratty69666 (10:32:14 PM): no thats ok
Arniegr8pe (10:32:21 PM): ok.
Arniegr8pe (10:32:37 PM): mostly
Arniegr8pe (10:32:46 PM): what i've been experiencing lately
Arniegr8pe (10:32:59 PM): is just some peripheral feeling of anexiety about ever finding a job
Arniegr8pe (10:33:15 PM): or something that i won't spend my time doing that is absolutely terrible
Arniegr8pe (10:33:29 PM): i think that's a pretty attainable goal
madratty69666 (10:33:58 PM): are you picky about where you work
madratty69666 (10:33:59 PM): ?
Arniegr8pe (10:34:09 PM): a little bit.
madratty69666 (10:34:10 PM): more than average pickiness
Arniegr8pe (10:34:22 PM): but i guess i conceptualize things as a career
madratty69666 (10:34:22 PM): im getting that feeliong
Arniegr8pe (10:34:36 PM): like i'm thinking about what i'm going to do long-term
Arniegr8pe (10:34:46 PM): but i can be that way in any arena
Arniegr8pe (10:34:48 PM): you too?
madratty69666 (10:35:09 PM): like if someone told you about a job loading trucks where you get 13 an hour and benefits you would rather wait to get a 10 job grading papers?
madratty69666 (10:35:10 PM): haha
Arniegr8pe (10:35:21 PM): yeah.
Arniegr8pe (10:35:56 PM): i think i factor different things into it, too, though
Arniegr8pe (10:36:05 PM): like i don't want to work places where i'm going to get beat up
madratty69666 (10:36:05 PM): no, ill do a shitty ass job if i get money for it
Arniegr8pe (10:36:22 PM): or places where there are sketchy people, which there just may be at any job
Arniegr8pe (10:36:28 PM): but i've worked enough different places to know
madratty69666 (10:36:42 PM): you wouldnt get beat up somewhere
Arniegr8pe (10:36:47 PM): yeah, i have before
madratty69666 (10:36:56 PM): what happened?
madratty69666 (10:37:04 PM): were you talking shit
Arniegr8pe (10:37:20 PM): i used to work at keeler mercedes, on rt 7, when i first started college
Arniegr8pe (10:37:28 PM): i would like mop floors and stuff
Arniegr8pe (10:37:39 PM): ...and there was a pretty fringe element who worked there.
Arniegr8pe (10:37:49 PM): and i got into a fight with this guy
madratty69666 (10:38:00 PM): over what though?
Arniegr8pe (10:38:08 PM): i don't really know, is the thing.
Arniegr8pe (10:38:17 PM): i think he thought that i told on him or something
Arniegr8pe (10:38:26 PM): because i was pretty much in charge of making sure everything got done
Arniegr8pe (10:38:37 PM): and i think our boss said something to him, and whatever...
madratty69666 (10:38:46 PM): oh
madratty69666 (10:38:50 PM): what the fuck
madratty69666 (10:38:58 PM): why didnt you kill the guy
Arniegr8pe (10:39:09 PM): i didn't know he was going to fight me
Arniegr8pe (10:39:16 PM): i was just like, "hey, what's up?"
Arniegr8pe (10:39:26 PM): and he just punched me in the face
madratty69666 (10:39:31 PM): omg
Arniegr8pe (10:39:34 PM): and i had all this stuff in my hands
madratty69666 (10:39:39 PM): what a douche
Arniegr8pe (10:39:40 PM): so he got me pretty good
madratty69666 (10:39:49 PM): did he get fired
Arniegr8pe (10:39:54 PM): yea
Arniegr8pe (10:40:33 PM): it was pretty funny, actually
madratty69666 (10:40:34 PM): so he didnt accomplish much by hitting you
Arniegr8pe (10:40:42 PM): i had a black eye for like a week
madratty69666 (10:41:26 PM): christ
Arniegr8pe (10:42:02 PM): so i don't like working at places where i could potentially get beat up
Arniegr8pe (10:42:09 PM): and i've worked at various places like that
madratty69666 (10:42:25 PM): oh
Arniegr8pe (10:42:57 PM): not to generalize, but anywhere that requires the basic skills of handtruck usage is probably not somewhere i want to work at
madratty69666 (10:43:17 PM): right
Arniegr8pe (10:43:18 PM): what's your ideal job scenario
madratty69666 (10:43:37 PM): paycheck
madratty69666 (10:43:52 PM): and at least 40 hours of available work
Arniegr8pe (10:43:59 PM): really
madratty69666 (10:44:12 PM): thats why i am looking for something now
Arniegr8pe (10:44:20 PM): so do you think i suck for saying that
madratty69666 (10:44:40 PM): i reeally dont care what i am doing though
Arniegr8pe (10:44:46 PM): why not?
madratty69666 (10:45:31 PM): as long as there is no old people or bodily fluids involved
Arniegr8pe (10:45:33 PM): if you're going to spend 40 hours a week doing that particular thing
madratty69666 (10:46:05 PM): yes?
Arniegr8pe (10:46:36 PM): well, why not care about what you are doing
madratty69666 (10:47:48 PM): b/cwhen people say the most important thing is doing what you like its wrong
Arniegr8pe (10:48:04 PM): i may agree, but why
madratty69666 (10:48:07 PM): sometimes you have to do what you have to to survive
madratty69666 (10:48:35 PM): and you have a whole life ahead of you to improve
Arniegr8pe (10:49:34 PM): well, i think there's some kind of gulf between doing what you need to to survive and doing things which genuinely suck
Arniegr8pe (10:49:38 PM): although maybe not always
madratty69666 (10:51:46 PM): work is work
madratty69666 (10:51:50 PM): thats all i know
Arniegr8pe (10:52:17 PM): did your parents make you do lots of chores as a child
madratty69666 (10:52:25 PM): yes
Arniegr8pe (10:52:29 PM): haha
Arniegr8pe (10:52:32 PM): i thought so.
Arniegr8pe (10:52:34 PM): mine did, too
Arniegr8pe (10:52:39 PM): i don't know where it all went wrong
Arniegr8pe (10:52:51 PM): my dad used to have me do insane chores
Arniegr8pe (10:53:03 PM): like things that were so retardedly stupid, like sweeping the driveway
madratty69666 (10:53:17 PM): my father was sick for a long time, so we all did everything
Arniegr8pe (10:53:22 PM): and my friends would come around and be like, "why are you sweeping the driveway"
madratty69666 (10:53:50 PM): like masonry and shit
Arniegr8pe (10:54:09 PM): what are you talking about
madratty69666 (10:54:25 PM): is it weird to sweep the driveway?
Arniegr8pe (10:54:38 PM): yeah, like how clean do you need your driveway to be?
Arniegr8pe (10:54:44 PM): it was perfectly fine.
Arniegr8pe (10:54:56 PM): but i think, even at that age, i could see how transparent the actual chore was
Arniegr8pe (10:55:02 PM): and i thought: this is totally pointless
Arniegr8pe (10:55:11 PM): it was all just to teach me some kind of lesson
Arniegr8pe (10:55:18 PM): which, in the end, backfired horribly.
madratty69666 (10:55:20 PM): its pride in what you worked for, to sweep a driveway
Arniegr8pe (10:55:43 PM): are you serious?
madratty69666 (10:56:03 PM): yes
Arniegr8pe (10:56:26 PM): so what's so great about the clean driveway
madratty69666 (10:57:34 PM): you have a nice looking driveway it shows you care about your home
madratty69666 (10:57:39 PM): i dont know
Arniegr8pe (10:58:00 PM): right.
Arniegr8pe (10:58:48 PM): nobody really seems to
madratty69666 (10:59:08 PM): seems to know
Arniegr8pe (10:59:19 PM): it's a mystery
madratty69666 (10:59:42 PM): i understand why someone would sweep a driveway
Arniegr8pe (10:59:57 PM): why, then?
madratty69666 (11:00:09 PM): i just told you
Arniegr8pe (11:00:25 PM): but my dad didn't care
Arniegr8pe (11:00:30 PM): because he was making me do it
madratty69666 (11:00:32 PM): its about being proud of what you worked for in life
Arniegr8pe (11:00:52 PM): this is a total revelation
madratty69666 (11:01:00 PM): a house is the biggest investment a person makes in their life
Arniegr8pe (11:01:36 PM): so this investment is tied to something or other
Arniegr8pe (11:01:45 PM): it's a symbol of how great you are
Arniegr8pe (11:01:53 PM): how much you kick ass
madratty69666 (11:02:02 PM): no
Arniegr8pe (11:02:05 PM): and besides, i thought you told me you will always rent
madratty69666 (11:02:11 PM): it shows that you care about something
madratty69666 (11:03:08 PM): it shows that you worked for something for yourself or you family
madratty69666 (11:03:23 PM): its not to rub shit in other peoples faces
madratty69666 (11:03:57 PM): unless you are that kind of person
Arniegr8pe (11:04:01 PM): haha
madratty69666 (11:04:15 PM): and no, i want a house someday
madratty69666 (11:04:32 PM): whatever
madratty69666 (11:04:58 PM): its just what i think about it, i dont have to be right
Arniegr8pe (11:05:12 PM): it's very cute
madratty69666 (11:05:37 PM): so if you think i sound stupid its not my problem
Arniegr8pe (11:05:44 PM): haha
madratty69666 (11:05:48 PM): why is it cute?
Arniegr8pe (11:05:50 PM): i didn't say that (not your problem)
Arniegr8pe (11:06:03 PM): i don't know, it's just very simple
Arniegr8pe (11:06:22 PM): but i think there's a lot more complexity involved
Arniegr8pe (11:07:46 PM): i don't think you sound stupid
madratty69666 (11:07:55 PM): well if there was it was your father trying to show you that you shouldnt be afraid of work
madratty69666 (11:08:36 PM): i dont know, it just seems like you are like whatever bitch
madratty69666 (11:08:49 PM): so we can talk about something else
Arniegr8pe (11:08:52 PM): no, i'm not.
Arniegr8pe (11:09:12 PM): but i'm definitely taken aback by your stances on the whole, uh
Arniegr8pe (11:09:31 PM): thing
madratty69666 (11:09:40 PM): why?
Arniegr8pe (11:10:03 PM): i just wasn't prepared for you to so righteously defend this
Arniegr8pe (11:10:12 PM): but you are also a parent
Arniegr8pe (11:10:19 PM): so maybe you've thought about it differently
madratty69666 (11:10:56 PM): ive always thought like that, more or less
Arniegr8pe (11:11:15 PM): so you must think i'm a real jerk
madratty69666 (11:11:25 PM): no not at all
Arniegr8pe (11:12:00 PM): why not
madratty69666 (11:12:21 PM): why would i?
Arniegr8pe (11:12:58 PM): well, i guess because my value system differs so drastically
madratty69666 (11:13:17 PM): you can think whatever you want and place value in whatever you want
Arniegr8pe (11:13:40 PM): yeah, but if i value things that are so radically different.
Arniegr8pe (11:14:44 PM): do you know?
Arniegr8pe (11:14:52 PM): like there's always going to be fighting in gaza
madratty69666 (11:15:14 PM): yea
madratty69666 (11:15:23 PM): so you are saying...
madratty69666 (11:15:52 PM): someone who thinks that they should have pride in their home
Arniegr8pe (11:16:00 PM): haha
madratty69666 (11:16:10 PM): wouldnt be interested in shit going on in the world
Arniegr8pe (11:16:43 PM): i mean, our opinoins and our belief systems often cause us to get on with others
madratty69666 (11:16:52 PM): haha
Arniegr8pe (11:16:54 PM): or sometimes strap a bomb to our chests and blow up a bus
Arniegr8pe (11:17:43 PM): i guess it would determine how much you believed in those things, though
Arniegr8pe (11:17:46 PM): but i won't go on about it
madratty69666 (11:18:01 PM): ok

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.

The world is a rock that’s spinning so fast it will give you the jimjams
A dead squirrel on the side of the road while walking McBeans today and yesterday. The first day it was pristine, newly dead, lying there on the roadside. I stare down at it contemplatively, trying to figure out what brought this squirrel to its sad demise. Did it get caught in a period of spasmodic vacillation, as squirrels are prone to doing, not knowing which side of the road to go to, frantically running back and forth as your quickly approaching vehicle strikes it down. Or, looking up, I think, did it fall from a tree? The possibilities are limited. Today it looks horrific, the bone of its tail protruding from where a bushy tail once was, and cloudy black eyes staring up at me. In three more days it will be mashed into the pavement totally, and its existence will be noted by no one but me, as I walk by the spot. It seems like a bad sign.

The summer’s heat stultifies. Its moisture and intensity producing a lethargy heretofore unknown to man, and bad hair like you would not believe. The days are getting shorter, now. The change is minute, and you will not notice until a drive home from work 6 weeks from now reveals that the sum total of all these minutes have added up, and there you are, with a now-altered daylight. In Norway, where my uncle lives, it occurs to way less fanfare. The summer months reveal an all-encompassing daylight, in some parts of the country amounting to nearly a full 24 hours of sunlight. The inverse is true in the winter, of course, and it’s then that you tend to get the depressing phone calls from your weird Norwegian relatives, telling you how horrible it is. They must really feel like someone is pulling the wool over their eyes, a fact which is relatively true on all levels, as you tend to need a scarf on leave the house at all during the winter months.

I don’t know if it’s the manic weather which holds some kind of strange allure, but I would like to live in Norway someday. I feel a little embarrassed to be an American, although I’ve never really identified with much that has to do with living on this continent outside of the easy access to totally confounding the other inhabitants of this particular country, with statements precisely like these. But I like the Norwegian ethic, the hedonistic way of living, which states that it’s pretty much right and natural to appropriate Go-Gos’ song lyrics like, vacation’s all I ever wanted, and not feel like too much of a dork about it. Because, let’s face it, that's a pretty great song.

Summer aesthetic, while once grounded in minimalism and all around simplicity, has forayed, inexplicably, into looking more like a 1970’s tennis player. For whatever reason, the idea to forgo shaving for a few days has revealed a staggeringly new look, while the moisture-infused weather has to an entirely new plateau of faux-pas induced hilarity, my hair taking on an entirely new dimension of the afro. I catch myself in a mirror today and can do nothing but laugh. Winter, clearly, is my thing.