Mr. Benislav? I was hoping we could have a chat in my office. Please come over after your last class.
Sure thing, Ron. The good kind of talk, I hope. Lots of performance enhancing compliments.
Just be in my office.
--------------------
What's up, Mr. Benislav?
Oh, nothing Natalie. Just had a weird run-in with Mr. Tenner. I might have gotten myself in some trouble somehow. Maybe because I didn't bring my geography class to the assembly. No matter, they're better off for it and he damn well knows it. So, did you find anything for me?
I got a nice infographic from the UN-
Scum
-on hunger on Somalia.
A graph they no doubt spent all their time and money on. How nice. What about that thing Crystal was yammering about yesterday? About surgeon general warnings.
Yeah, I've got a few links to a recent study that suggests that she's right, warnings result in more smokers. Increases the appeal, I guess?
You know what they call that? The avuncular state.
Oh, also. I already told Mr. Tenner and Mrs. Kaylon but I thought you'd want to know. I was walking over here after my geometry class, passing through the palms, hoping your horde had already made their exit-
Watch it now-
-and while approaching I see this guy who's clearly too old to be a student but is also clearly trying to pass for one. And he's hovering around your class, like he's waiting for something.
I don't think I like this
-uh huh, so I ask him, perfectly composed but basically Hey Buster, can I help you? I'm a TA for this teacher, ya know. So what do you think he asked about. Your little law tribe. Just told him I was going to get security. Soon as he left, I saw Mrs. Kaylon walking by the assembly hall. We went off to tell Mr. Tenner.
Oh Jesus. You didn't think that might be what Ron- alright, did he look like a reporter.
Like I know what a reporter looks like. Want I google that? And for the record Mr. Tenner wasn't angry, just confused. Anyway wouldn't a reporter better than, like, a lawyer? Mrs. Kaylon and I got to considering that-
Natalie honey, I'm a lawyer! If Mr. Tenner tries to shut down the Bleacher High Gentleman's Law Club, then he'll need a lawyer to protect himself. From me.
So you'll still support those limpdicks-
Natalie, now don't get emotional. I support the free exchange of ideas and I know that you do too.
But they're paralyzing the school. A dozen students shouldn't be able to dictate to the school what kind of dances it throws or what kinds of fundraisers or what speakers get invited. That has nothing to do with ideas. Whatever you think about their ideas and I really hope you don't really believe that stuff about feminazis for your sake but still, it's not about ideas. It's powere relations. They've got too much of a say. They believe they're so important and they deserve so much that they're supposedly not getting and it's bad enough we let them get away with it like they really are the silverback alphamale cocks of the walk they pretend at. The school shouldn't cave in. That's irresponsible. It sets a bad precedent. You guys are training an army of pricks. Limpdick pricks in fact, because I stand by that adjective.
Well, they do have their rights. And one of those rights is the right to argue their case. If they can make a convincing argument and attract enough support for their cause, then so be it. If it means silly traditions and well-intentioned but deeply flawed attempts at alleviating alleged ills done to women, especially, say, if these attempts are the products of a liberal, let's say, superciliousness well then all the better. And if you have to resort to vulgarity to rebut their argument, well...And besides, what's wrong -on a mature and rational level please- with the club really, and watch the language. I mean sheesh.
Is it vulgar for me to wish your wife gives you a good backhand-
Boy you know what I give you a chance, I treat you like-
-no no, listen, hear me out because if she heard what your kids were saying. They're more than fine with hitting women. More than fine. You know what they say about wife-killers. They're "winners in a world of fail" I've been trapped here typing up your study guides while they go on and on and on about how sad it is that husbands who off their wives so often end up killing themselves. That it's a tragedy someone so committed to the cause is lost like that.
And they're obviously kidding. You need to stop being so sensitive, Natalie. But you know what, I'd rather get this sorted out sooner than later. I'm going to be in the principal's office. If period 5 shows up before I'm back just hold the fort, okay. Quiz them on the Reconstruction. Oh and by the way, you need to stop hanging out with that closet leftie Shonte. Took me a moment to realize where that talk about power relations was coming from. You'd have made a better point if you didn't fall back on Marxist cliches. Okay, I'll be back.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Friday, January 15, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Fahrenheit 198.4 aka They Live in Utopia: A Neuromance for a Brave New Age(chapter1)
In the unlit fireplace sits a pile of haphazardly stacked books just itching to cascade at the feet of the conversationalists purple in the cold and panicking in overwrought prose, pacing from one corner of the twilit living room to another. Uncomprehending of the tortured talk of the these teary-eyed tenants, the dusty artifacts quietly abide in the stone-walled dark and dustier artifact amid the artificial artifice of this iron-wrought architectual ejaculation. Once this would have been a church. In later eras this would have been a factory. Later a courhouse, its perched gargoyles administering a Foucaldian gaze of justice upon this stone and steel city. Later it could have been an arthouse. Or a slaughterhouse. Today it is just a halfway house for homeless refugees, for authors and their ilk. There's a banging at the door, shouts, violence! The books see nothing and wait 'til tomorrow.
Now it is tomorrow. The books are dustier. The fireplace hasn't felt the warmth of flickering flames in an epoch now. The city is less stone, less steel. The city, the county and the State are almost entirely composed of plastics and electronics. It's an ugly muck-up of post-industrial design and city planning so long as you're not wearing your glasses. But no one would be caught dead without their glasses. It's the year 21**, for goodness sake. Might as well go out without clothes, ya silly! How can you navigate around town without seeing the news cyberreports viewable only on your glasses. Or the neuronews, or the microtetris. And that's how it goes. To leave your house without your glasses is a punishable offence: endangering self and others, misdemeanor. abandoning civic duty, misdemeanor, the practice and promotion of Luddism, a felony.
That this eyesore has survived the era of the Internet is amazing. That these books have survived the Censor's Sickle is truly astounding. Neither pose any danger to contemporary sensibilities. Inside the virtual reality the glasses provide, the building is nothing more than a kinetic wire framework in which advertising, street signs and digivision programs are enmeshed. All matter fades into the background, even this monstrous monument to a dessicated history. And with the conversion of sky to structure, what former scholar Rex Presley refered to quaintly as the "departmentstore-ization or Macysication of the ecosphere", modern man is not wanting for space.
That the books go unthreatened is nothing remarkable. What threat are books when all intelligent people are all-but-functionally illiterate. Literature is a dead language. Most likely no one today would know just what are these brittle, tree-scraping-derived things covered in webbing and dirt. Not that there is anymore a state-sanctioned force who would have cause to worry over such trivialities as censorship or cultural inculcation/indoctrination. Not that there is a state anymore. The closest modern analogue is the community court where civic duty is enforced, but not according to any national mandate or authority beyond the will of the community. There's no one left to stifle freedom. By definition, this is the freest much of mankind has been in a millenium.
Wait, there's a echo in this building. A young woman is pacing where the artists and author's of past revolutions paced. What is she doing here? Why is she crying? Watch, as she throws he glasses into the cubbyhole extending out of one side of this dry room. As the glasses strike them the books finally topple over, potential energy finally bearing fruit. And as we know from our digital lectures in the city center plasti-park, for every action there is a reaction.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Now it is tomorrow. The books are dustier. The fireplace hasn't felt the warmth of flickering flames in an epoch now. The city is less stone, less steel. The city, the county and the State are almost entirely composed of plastics and electronics. It's an ugly muck-up of post-industrial design and city planning so long as you're not wearing your glasses. But no one would be caught dead without their glasses. It's the year 21**, for goodness sake. Might as well go out without clothes, ya silly! How can you navigate around town without seeing the news cyberreports viewable only on your glasses. Or the neuronews, or the microtetris. And that's how it goes. To leave your house without your glasses is a punishable offence: endangering self and others, misdemeanor. abandoning civic duty, misdemeanor, the practice and promotion of Luddism, a felony.
That this eyesore has survived the era of the Internet is amazing. That these books have survived the Censor's Sickle is truly astounding. Neither pose any danger to contemporary sensibilities. Inside the virtual reality the glasses provide, the building is nothing more than a kinetic wire framework in which advertising, street signs and digivision programs are enmeshed. All matter fades into the background, even this monstrous monument to a dessicated history. And with the conversion of sky to structure, what former scholar Rex Presley refered to quaintly as the "departmentstore-ization or Macysication of the ecosphere", modern man is not wanting for space.
That the books go unthreatened is nothing remarkable. What threat are books when all intelligent people are all-but-functionally illiterate. Literature is a dead language. Most likely no one today would know just what are these brittle, tree-scraping-derived things covered in webbing and dirt. Not that there is anymore a state-sanctioned force who would have cause to worry over such trivialities as censorship or cultural inculcation/indoctrination. Not that there is a state anymore. The closest modern analogue is the community court where civic duty is enforced, but not according to any national mandate or authority beyond the will of the community. There's no one left to stifle freedom. By definition, this is the freest much of mankind has been in a millenium.
Wait, there's a echo in this building. A young woman is pacing where the artists and author's of past revolutions paced. What is she doing here? Why is she crying? Watch, as she throws he glasses into the cubbyhole extending out of one side of this dry room. As the glasses strike them the books finally topple over, potential energy finally bearing fruit. And as we know from our digital lectures in the city center plasti-park, for every action there is a reaction.
TO BE CONTINUED...
High School Follies, ch. 1
The Bleacher High Gentleman's Law Club was first formed by sophomore Dustin Myers early last year at the suggestion of his father, Brent Myers, a well-known attorney well-known primarily as an outspoken & ardent promoter of respect for Law and Man. His history of lawsuits against "ladies nights" and other "egregiously patent examples of systematic reverse discrimination on a national level" which have granted him a profitable notoriety suggest that his emphasis is decidedly on the men-promotion. Not that anyone could so much as suggest it at a school or community gathering without embarking on a shouting match. Not that anyone who isn't already among his choir would bother saying anything to him on any subject in the first place. The man's collected quite the enemies list. Even the conservative city council dreads his attendance at public meetings. Understandable given the lawsuits he's shot like automatic rounds of rubber darts in every direction in the hope that one or two will stick. The Chamber of Commerce considers him a menace to capitalist enterprise. When Chuck's mirror & glassware shop on Pierce Ave. was handing out pink ribbons to little girls to promote breast cancer awareness Myers made the biggest and silliest stink a grown man is capable of, which of course entailed manly threats of a courthouse beatdown. The next day when Chuck relented & handed him a ribbon, Myers made an ostentatious show of tossing the ribbon down to the ground because, he loudly noted, if testicular or prostate cancer doesn't merit a ribbon then neither does breast cancer. He'd be universally detested were it not for the membership of the Bleacher High Gentleman's Law Club, to whom he's a hero.
Teachers are starting to talk. Some of their brightest students are developing an annoying habit of being arrogant, insulting dickwads. The principal is fielding complaints from teachers and librarians of sexual harassment at the carefully, pointedly un-grabby hands of sixteen year-olds. The student body is predictably oblivious. Most of the male population is either not interested in or not worthy to join the Bleacher High Gentleman's Law Club. It seems the uninterested are carelessly crushed deep under the cover of their own complacency, whereas the merely uninitiated are almost as obnoxious as the club members, only lacking the style and grace to be truly repugnant as opposed to slightly repulsive. The female population is enamored with the deep and mysterious down-putting gaze of the alpha males. This new social order is stable and enduring. There may not be anything that can be done.
In Mr. Benislav's class, (he being the only teacher supportive of their mission), the Bleacher Gentleman's Law Club enjoys their meeting:
"The matriarchy's whipped mankind into submission & yet I still hear the whores in geometry complain that they can't find a good guy. No one is ever good enough for these over-entitled girls. No wonder they can take the whole baseball team in one sitting. They're just trying to find the right guy." "Well it goes without saying that they're morons." "True story. And of course, if you got around like the girls at this school do you'd be a douchebag. All the scrawny, limp dick beta males would say so so it must be true. I mean, they know everything don't they?" "You mean Ryan, right. Ryan fits the trope to a tee. Heard him trying to talk up Kate Neston by raving about some pretentious indie band and I'm like, see, see, don't bitch about us just because we can get laid because you see? You do it to yourself, you boy bitch." "Did you really tell him that? Someone's got to explain the difference between a boy and a bitch to him before he's stuck straddling the line." "Say, those girls? You said they were in your geometry class, right?" "Yeah. Samantha something and I think the other one was Brigette" "Get their next test scores. I want to compare math grades by gender."
"Hey, I've been wondering. How do you guys feel about Sadie Hawkins?" "Well, it's PC bullshit meant to keep girls happy." "Psychobabble perpetrated to empower women like they aren't in power already." "Crap, plain and simple. We don't have some specially sanctioned dance wherein we're in charge. Where's the man's analogue." "So then I'm wondering...think it's illegal?" "Clearly it's illegal, that's not up for debate. What matters is whether we could convince some bitchified PC brigadier court. Remember, in this day and age facts and truth don't matter. Everything's relative..." "Relative to women, you mean." "True story, yeah. Double standards are standard ontology, it's not up for debate. But the hiveminds pushing their matriarchal propaganda take that as the natural order. Natural order's been fucked like a slut and the court is the whorehouse. No one denies this." "Look, equal protection clause. There you go. Because any sexual advance is hostile action and assault, according to the leading feminazis, so why are men allowed to be violated. It's bordeline rape. Court would have to be schizo to reject that logic." "C'mon guys. You're serious? Everyone serious about this? Alright then, easy enough, I'm gonna call my dad. Shit like this is why he went to law school. He'll know how to argue this." "No no no, this is ours. Your dad gets all the fun. If anyone's going to take this school down it might as well be us. Have you heard what some of the teachers have been whispering like some covenous conspiracy about us? The Bleacher High Gentleman's Law Club has made a name for itself. I say we justify it."
TO BE CONTINUED...
Teachers are starting to talk. Some of their brightest students are developing an annoying habit of being arrogant, insulting dickwads. The principal is fielding complaints from teachers and librarians of sexual harassment at the carefully, pointedly un-grabby hands of sixteen year-olds. The student body is predictably oblivious. Most of the male population is either not interested in or not worthy to join the Bleacher High Gentleman's Law Club. It seems the uninterested are carelessly crushed deep under the cover of their own complacency, whereas the merely uninitiated are almost as obnoxious as the club members, only lacking the style and grace to be truly repugnant as opposed to slightly repulsive. The female population is enamored with the deep and mysterious down-putting gaze of the alpha males. This new social order is stable and enduring. There may not be anything that can be done.
In Mr. Benislav's class, (he being the only teacher supportive of their mission), the Bleacher Gentleman's Law Club enjoys their meeting:
"The matriarchy's whipped mankind into submission & yet I still hear the whores in geometry complain that they can't find a good guy. No one is ever good enough for these over-entitled girls. No wonder they can take the whole baseball team in one sitting. They're just trying to find the right guy." "Well it goes without saying that they're morons." "True story. And of course, if you got around like the girls at this school do you'd be a douchebag. All the scrawny, limp dick beta males would say so so it must be true. I mean, they know everything don't they?" "You mean Ryan, right. Ryan fits the trope to a tee. Heard him trying to talk up Kate Neston by raving about some pretentious indie band and I'm like, see, see, don't bitch about us just because we can get laid because you see? You do it to yourself, you boy bitch." "Did you really tell him that? Someone's got to explain the difference between a boy and a bitch to him before he's stuck straddling the line." "Say, those girls? You said they were in your geometry class, right?" "Yeah. Samantha something and I think the other one was Brigette" "Get their next test scores. I want to compare math grades by gender."
"Hey, I've been wondering. How do you guys feel about Sadie Hawkins?" "Well, it's PC bullshit meant to keep girls happy." "Psychobabble perpetrated to empower women like they aren't in power already." "Crap, plain and simple. We don't have some specially sanctioned dance wherein we're in charge. Where's the man's analogue." "So then I'm wondering...think it's illegal?" "Clearly it's illegal, that's not up for debate. What matters is whether we could convince some bitchified PC brigadier court. Remember, in this day and age facts and truth don't matter. Everything's relative..." "Relative to women, you mean." "True story, yeah. Double standards are standard ontology, it's not up for debate. But the hiveminds pushing their matriarchal propaganda take that as the natural order. Natural order's been fucked like a slut and the court is the whorehouse. No one denies this." "Look, equal protection clause. There you go. Because any sexual advance is hostile action and assault, according to the leading feminazis, so why are men allowed to be violated. It's bordeline rape. Court would have to be schizo to reject that logic." "C'mon guys. You're serious? Everyone serious about this? Alright then, easy enough, I'm gonna call my dad. Shit like this is why he went to law school. He'll know how to argue this." "No no no, this is ours. Your dad gets all the fun. If anyone's going to take this school down it might as well be us. Have you heard what some of the teachers have been whispering like some covenous conspiracy about us? The Bleacher High Gentleman's Law Club has made a name for itself. I say we justify it."
TO BE CONTINUED...
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
My Wizard Buddy
Popped off my objects easy enough this silly night, yes indeedy. The blues won't see my signatures, won't hear the echo of my location, no no no. I quickly gather my gear and get myself gone. 3/4 steps and a snap of my fingers, bobbing of my head. Bums know me, think they know me, the wild & crazy dude. They don't know what I do to keep myself crazy. No one could pick up on this trail. 1-2-&-1-2-&1-2.
The beach chills me nicely, icily. After a rush I need this kinda comedown. Like a wet solid slap to the face. I feel the feel of the moonlit winds and their incessant bite. Gripper and Mentor yapping behind the door. Always yapping. No one but me comes wandering this way so I don't know what they're worrying about. Then again, good to know that if any prowlers or police get to wondering about this shack, well, so much for their throats.
I 'dore my dogs. They protect me when I'm not right and lick my wounds when I get myself into trouble. They understand me like no one else in this world has managed and I like to think I understand where they're coming from. I consider whether I'm going to sleep tonight. When I was in college I had a laptop my somebody's somebody had bought me thinking I could put it to good effect. Thinking I'd graduate. I am getting tired but this laptop had some energy to it. I'd burn my stomach when I'd lake back and rest it on my waist. Hot and heavy and so offering of everything I could ask for. It was probably my downfall, showing me a freedom studies couldn't. Never could get work done on that thing. Anyway, I am what I call an auto-didact. But this laptop, for real, it had the sleep cycle I wanted. I could leave that thing running for two weeks straight and you'd hardly notice. Eventually it would start to putter and moan and slow down like I do after two days sleepless. I've heard a couple of hits talking about this drug Profigil or some such that'll fix me up like my old laptop. I'd like to give that a shot. I'll ask my next client if he knows where I can store some. Maybe I'll stip that on my contract. Didn't like the taste of Ritalin back in school. Things are different now. I've been a dog, for one thing.
Yeah, when it was close to graduation but I knew I wasn't going to graduate I stopped attending classes. Started walking. Walked right up to a wizard. Wizard said, son, I will you grant you a wish. The air wasn't right, like it was frozen, like I'd cut myself on it if I ran too fast. But I've never had need to run from anything. I angled myself up and looked at that wizard and said wizard, let me into Rita's heart. Who's Rita, my child? Rita was a girl in my Psychology class who drove me crazy. Possibly literally, if that's possible. I want to be in her heart and by her side for a year. Just to see what it's like. What it's like? Yeah, what it's like to get close to someone. It's never been my thing. I have what I call a preternatural disposition to distance myself. It's for the safety of everyone, really. But sometimes I wonder if I'm not missing out on a whole world of fun, as the song goes, ya know, wizard? Ya know what it is to get a little lonely on Sunday mornings when you're dragging yourself out of bed at noon? Guess that's not really morning is it? Ya know what I mean, what it is to not know a Sunday morning for like a want of getting up at an early hour? My child, if that is what you wish...
Boom Pow I was reborn a dog. A damned little tiny dog in a pound type dog too. Confusing from every angle. Angering, if you will. And there wasn't much in the way of upside potential considering each other dog was twice the size of me. Turns out I was the cute dog, the one Rita wanted. Ooh, isn't he the cutest? Why yes, I guess I am indeed. Flattering start to my next year.
I was easy enough to train, quiet with the barking and very affectionate. She loved me and I loved her. I lied to the wizard, I don't even know why. She wasn't just some girl with a banging body, though yes she was this. In point of fact she was my ex-roomate's girlfriend. Still remember when I first fell in love with her. He and I (and unknown to the landlord so was she) were just getting settled in our room. I don't make ice-breakage come easy. Still though they were kind enough not to be creeped out by me. I'd lie back with my computer on my lap, headphones on listening to sports radio every night while they were busy watching anime. Anyway one night they invite me to go out with them, just to hang out. I say sure, why not. They ask me where I want to go. I say the beach.
It was something close to midnight when we got to Huntington Beach. We parked a block into town before walking tight-lipped, tense onto the beach. We walked circles into the sand listening to the waves lightly lap like a big slow whale sipping from a saucer. Next thing I knew I was talking about my years in Hawaii, and we were sitting by the pier and then we were running and joking 'bout how awesome a frisbee right then would be but I don't think a single one of us was at all athletic-like. There were some dudes who spooked us from way in the distance, dressed in dark clothing and erratic but turns out they were filming some school project. Chill dudes. By two Rita, Ron and I were running around drunk on exhaustion and the release of a nice night out which not a one of us was used to. Never returned to the beach but no need, we were good free and easy friends from then on in. They were a couple years ahead of me so graduated sooner. Didn't keep much in contact much after that. For the best given my sorely hid feelings born that night.
She took me to that beach the second week she had me. She indeed brought a frisbee. It was paradisical. Here Gatsby, she'd squeal, catch the frisbee catch the frisbee doggy! And I'd always catch it for her and her alone. To see her smile. And yeah, I've read that book so I know. I know. I prefer not to think to much on that. Makes me set to doubt myself. Like doubt that my sanity was exactly preserved. Not a legitimate care, though. I was happy. The year went too fast. Deal's a deal though and who was I to have regrets. I'd made out like gangbusters.
So anyway, I was always a good shot. Shot Ron dead to make Rita happy. The client who never had to ask. Then retired to the beach with two thankful strays. Went on with my life. Found a career. Found a rhythm. Found a freedom. Finally found my natural smile. Got my objectives, my gear, my dogs, and my future. Can't seem to lose my smile, can I? Sleep tight.
The beach chills me nicely, icily. After a rush I need this kinda comedown. Like a wet solid slap to the face. I feel the feel of the moonlit winds and their incessant bite. Gripper and Mentor yapping behind the door. Always yapping. No one but me comes wandering this way so I don't know what they're worrying about. Then again, good to know that if any prowlers or police get to wondering about this shack, well, so much for their throats.
I 'dore my dogs. They protect me when I'm not right and lick my wounds when I get myself into trouble. They understand me like no one else in this world has managed and I like to think I understand where they're coming from. I consider whether I'm going to sleep tonight. When I was in college I had a laptop my somebody's somebody had bought me thinking I could put it to good effect. Thinking I'd graduate. I am getting tired but this laptop had some energy to it. I'd burn my stomach when I'd lake back and rest it on my waist. Hot and heavy and so offering of everything I could ask for. It was probably my downfall, showing me a freedom studies couldn't. Never could get work done on that thing. Anyway, I am what I call an auto-didact. But this laptop, for real, it had the sleep cycle I wanted. I could leave that thing running for two weeks straight and you'd hardly notice. Eventually it would start to putter and moan and slow down like I do after two days sleepless. I've heard a couple of hits talking about this drug Profigil or some such that'll fix me up like my old laptop. I'd like to give that a shot. I'll ask my next client if he knows where I can store some. Maybe I'll stip that on my contract. Didn't like the taste of Ritalin back in school. Things are different now. I've been a dog, for one thing.
Yeah, when it was close to graduation but I knew I wasn't going to graduate I stopped attending classes. Started walking. Walked right up to a wizard. Wizard said, son, I will you grant you a wish. The air wasn't right, like it was frozen, like I'd cut myself on it if I ran too fast. But I've never had need to run from anything. I angled myself up and looked at that wizard and said wizard, let me into Rita's heart. Who's Rita, my child? Rita was a girl in my Psychology class who drove me crazy. Possibly literally, if that's possible. I want to be in her heart and by her side for a year. Just to see what it's like. What it's like? Yeah, what it's like to get close to someone. It's never been my thing. I have what I call a preternatural disposition to distance myself. It's for the safety of everyone, really. But sometimes I wonder if I'm not missing out on a whole world of fun, as the song goes, ya know, wizard? Ya know what it is to get a little lonely on Sunday mornings when you're dragging yourself out of bed at noon? Guess that's not really morning is it? Ya know what I mean, what it is to not know a Sunday morning for like a want of getting up at an early hour? My child, if that is what you wish...
Boom Pow I was reborn a dog. A damned little tiny dog in a pound type dog too. Confusing from every angle. Angering, if you will. And there wasn't much in the way of upside potential considering each other dog was twice the size of me. Turns out I was the cute dog, the one Rita wanted. Ooh, isn't he the cutest? Why yes, I guess I am indeed. Flattering start to my next year.
I was easy enough to train, quiet with the barking and very affectionate. She loved me and I loved her. I lied to the wizard, I don't even know why. She wasn't just some girl with a banging body, though yes she was this. In point of fact she was my ex-roomate's girlfriend. Still remember when I first fell in love with her. He and I (and unknown to the landlord so was she) were just getting settled in our room. I don't make ice-breakage come easy. Still though they were kind enough not to be creeped out by me. I'd lie back with my computer on my lap, headphones on listening to sports radio every night while they were busy watching anime. Anyway one night they invite me to go out with them, just to hang out. I say sure, why not. They ask me where I want to go. I say the beach.
It was something close to midnight when we got to Huntington Beach. We parked a block into town before walking tight-lipped, tense onto the beach. We walked circles into the sand listening to the waves lightly lap like a big slow whale sipping from a saucer. Next thing I knew I was talking about my years in Hawaii, and we were sitting by the pier and then we were running and joking 'bout how awesome a frisbee right then would be but I don't think a single one of us was at all athletic-like. There were some dudes who spooked us from way in the distance, dressed in dark clothing and erratic but turns out they were filming some school project. Chill dudes. By two Rita, Ron and I were running around drunk on exhaustion and the release of a nice night out which not a one of us was used to. Never returned to the beach but no need, we were good free and easy friends from then on in. They were a couple years ahead of me so graduated sooner. Didn't keep much in contact much after that. For the best given my sorely hid feelings born that night.
She took me to that beach the second week she had me. She indeed brought a frisbee. It was paradisical. Here Gatsby, she'd squeal, catch the frisbee catch the frisbee doggy! And I'd always catch it for her and her alone. To see her smile. And yeah, I've read that book so I know. I know. I prefer not to think to much on that. Makes me set to doubt myself. Like doubt that my sanity was exactly preserved. Not a legitimate care, though. I was happy. The year went too fast. Deal's a deal though and who was I to have regrets. I'd made out like gangbusters.
So anyway, I was always a good shot. Shot Ron dead to make Rita happy. The client who never had to ask. Then retired to the beach with two thankful strays. Went on with my life. Found a career. Found a rhythm. Found a freedom. Finally found my natural smile. Got my objectives, my gear, my dogs, and my future. Can't seem to lose my smile, can I? Sleep tight.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
My Buddy The Wizard
I met a wizard whilst walking down the street one day. Twenty-seven at the time, I'd lived a long and unfulfilling but at least stably uninteresting life. The bulk of my waking time was split between surfing the web, even at that point an archaic expression but the most common mode of time-wasting among my circle of e-friends, and working for minimum wage on an unset schedule of unfixed hours at a theme park. Meeting a wizard was thoroughly unlikely. I rejected by turns him, my state of alertness, my senses, my sanity, the un-druggedness of my morning coffee until finally I could only reject my skepticism, my materialism, my operational systematic schema of the world and what is in it, what is real and what matters. I'd finally rejected myself. And in all that time of doubt he never rejected me. So I said hello and asked him who he wanted me to kill but to this he waved me off. Unnecessary. Instead I was remade in his image, unreal.
To repeat because I think this warrants an extra-special level of your attention, I met a wizened old wizard on a corner down the road from the Subways I occasionally frequented. I asked him what he wanted of me. He kindly explained to me in the most soothing, most sonorous voice of anyone I'd ever met whose visage included a flowing beard and literal fire in his eyes that I was mixed around. Oh yes, I said to Him. Until I found you, my lord wizard I was lost but now I too am found. We have found each other. And finders' keepers until the end of time. Are you sure there isn't anyone I could kill for you, my liege. To prove my devotion. Perhaps my boss?
No, he sonorously, soothingly snorted in derision. I am YOUR servant, for the moment at least. I offer you one wish. Understand that I can move mountains if you so desire. Understand further that that is not a limit to my power but but a trifling example. I can move metaphorical mountains just as easily. I can move fictional mountains. If you so wished I could move The Magic Mountain to Tokyo circa 2020. Thomas Mann will have been a crucial influence on anime. I can move a mountain on top of a mountain and the entire scope of human understanding of gravity and all study of geology will be revised without a single scientist being the least aware. I am the photoshopper of the Gods. If I so wished, I could transform high and might Zeus into a mountain. How about Abe Lincoln? The railsplitter would be less than a snap. Reality would warp in place to bridge the gap from your reality to the revised one and it will make perfect sense to you that the 16th president was master of oratory who happened to be a member of the Appalachians. It goes without saying that I've played such games with your timeline and spacetime and euclidean spaceways before. But I will never let on, coquettish me. I must admit it amuses me to shape universes according to my whim. I'm sorry, my child, I am rambling and I wish to grant you your wish before sundown. So get on with it.
As you can imagine, reader, I was startled by this being and the scope of his powers. I asked him who he was. With a sigh and a tap of an allegorical wristwatch he recited his tale. Before the Big Big Bang (not our big bang which he referred to with a repulsive, propulsive chuckle as "the pop and fizzle of one soda can in the corner of an ice box the size of Jupiter" but rather the BIG Big Bang) he was a spirit of the ether. Apparently the last multiverse after eons upon eons of expansion dissipated into some kind of ether which he described as a cob web of snapped and unspooled bits of dusty, decayed Membranes. In this void he first experienced consciousness (whatever his existence prior he has no recollection), upon the web he first began to wander, gaining experience and thus wisdom along the way. He occasionally came across other solitary souls born of the ether. He harvested them, gaining their knowledge. In time he was the wisest being in all existence. In fact he was the only being. With that tidy summation he concluded his story as if I could and should be satisfied. What about the birth of the multiverse? How'd that happen? What've you been doing in all this time? - That was like yesterday to me, he explained. What do you mean what's happened? You call this multiverse "happening"? I mean really.
I was a tad insulted. Dismayed that I'd offered my devotion to this Star Trek reject, I asked him why he was granting me a wish. Was he bored with being like unto a god? Yes, he said. Being like unto a god was rather boring but that's why he became a wizard a millennium prior. It was a nice way to wile away his infinite time spent waiting for the inevitable return of the ether and with it new souls upon which to feast. Also, he enjoyed plying his trade. So much so that he was intent on plying it upon me. Why me, I asked. He seemed to be growing angry, if a rapid-fire barrage of cursing was symptomatic of godly psychology.
Aladdin never game me this much shit! Fucking Americans! Fucking self-consciousness. Literature has ruined you as a species, I swear.
After he was done venting (and I encouraged him to do so. He clearly had some issues to work through) he gave me an ultimatum: make a wish or say farewell to my flesh. In a way I was happy he was pushing me on my way as, in all honesty, I really kind of wanted my desires realized, and right away. With that gift-horse-in-the-mouth looking out of the way I began to give serious thought to what my greatest desire might be. That led to thinking about my second greatest desire. Down the list I went. I began the chin-scratching operation to combine desires. I performed some off-the-cuff game-theoreticals. Calculations of utility. Cost-benefit analyses. At one point I had a crisis of ethics and wondered whether I should take into account the global "I" who'd want world peace or an end to all suffering as opposed to the personal "I" who'd prefer round the clock sexual stimulation. Ahh, but there's the rub, that maybe the best of all possible worlds might actually suck in a counter-intuitive way, whereas hot-and-cold running orgasms could only be awesome.
In the meantime the wizard had materialized a row of four chess sets with Jean Luc Picard, Jesus, Blaise Pascal and a clone of myself as opponents. Picard may have given him the most trouble, which the wizard heartily enjoyed, but the wizard took particular glee from demolishing the clone of me who, like me, was a shambling monstrosity at the game. After my clone lost the wizard took even greater glee setting my clone on fire repeatedly while screaming "Hellfire for you!" I tried not to interrupt this form of his grim glee. At least he was smiling was my thinking. But after a while of this I began to lose patience. Hey, wizard, I've made my wish. I will now bid you to do my bidding. -Let me just set you on fire a few more -No!
My wish is simple, wizard. I want you to rewind my life to the freshman year of high school. What I do not want is to lose any memory of my present life. In effect, I will be living the past half of my life over again.
Huh, really? Well that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. OK whatever, so be it. So how was it?
I need you to grant me another wish!
Of course you do! Of course you do! Not ten seconds ago I said to myself, self can you believe what that human just wished for? But I granted it nevertheless because your wish was my command. Your one wish. WAS my command. What do you know? Ten seconds have passed and here we are. So how was it?
Ten seconds? For the past 12 years I've been fucking my life over, and the past ten of them have been spent waiting for this moment when I'd have told you I learned my lesson and you'd fix everything and maybe I could wish for ten grand or a eternal youth or a donkey or fucking anything. Your ten seconds, my ten years knowing you'd be here waiting for me, waiting to get your laugh in and waiting to say alright give it another go. I spent the past five of those years trying to remember the exact date and time our meeting occurred. I got an apartment down the street with a telescope at the window fixed on this corner so I could stare over here and start my long awaited sprint to meet you to your face again. I knew you'd be here again! 15 years of fucking my life over in ways I never even imagined it would be fucked.
Oh, I know. I'm not omniscient but I've got something analogical to a head on my for-lack-of-a-better-word shoulders. Do you imagine I designed my physical form to grow this bundle of whiskers if I didn't have the sagacity to match. I have some common sense, human. What subject-matter was your feeble brain fumbling with those long hours you kept me waiting? Was it pornographic in nature? Were you imagining how great it would be to woo the homecoming queen. That's what teenagers still wet their dreams about, right? Or has that world-wide-webamathingy profoundly disrupted the natural order of sexual fantasy for you as it has so many of your pitiable generation? If I was you, the prior you, I would have considered asking someone who's had some life experiences under his belt for advice. Perhaps maybe me? If I was you I'd have asked me and I'd have told you that a quick cure for your obvious psychological neuroses would have been your best bet. Some rewiring, some DNA manipulation, some chemical re-balancing, maybe a new environment complete with better, more supportive friends, a fulfilling career...and boom, instant happiness. But you had to do things the hard way. Oh well, fuck off.
And without a sound or a flash or a ray of light or an animated anthropomorphism into a dove with or without a puff of smoke he was gone. So reader, I might as well tell you what happened.
I guess I didn't realize how much I loved my life. Not that I loved my life, but that there was a significant portion of my life that I loved. A portion I didn't want to alter. In fact, I didn't even want to change the major life choices I'd made in life: the schools I went to, the friends I met, the jobs I worked. And in order to preserve later aspects of my life I did my damndest to preserve earlier aspects of my life to the point where everyday I'd be writing impromptu scripts for myself. Besides which I didn't want to alter the world butterfly-effect style by alerting the public, even one member of the public, to major events of concern. Or so I at first decided until I realized I could never forgive myself if I let people suffer when I could have prevented it. But then wouldn't I be arrested as a loon or a co-conspirator when I said to high officials Hey, two planes are going to hit the WTC and they're like, whatever son, and then it happens and they're like, how did you obtain this information and I'm like, shrug? And then I'm in Guantanamo Bay. And even on a smaller scale how could I preserve my personal timeline as I'd first lived and loved it if I was playing hero, diverging so drastically from script? And the actual acting out of it! Imagine going back to a random day in your sophomore year and have to act like your maturation and adulthood had never happened and hey, these awkward kids you forgot ever existed are your friends and you can't stand them any more but you have to pretend you do and pretend that you have the same interests and pretend like you remember what you were like when you were their friend because you are a stranger to yourself at this point but you can't just say nah, fuck this and go hang out by yourself or skip school entirely because then you wouldn't have gotten the social support you did, specifically the homework help and essay ideas and that one teacher who really liked you wouldn't even understand you and how in the hell are you going to preserve that precious relationship because you need to get into the university you ended up in where you met Melanie, the girl you'd fall in love with, the girl you couldn't admit you loved, the girl on whom this whole wish was centered because all you wanted to gain by reliving life (you realized too late) wasn't to fix the experience of high-school which was unfixable but rather just to make the love of your life love you. Hell.
Of course of course of course it never worked. I went half-mad pretending I was my teenage self in high-school, writing essays like my pre-college self would write them, struggling to let nothing of my future life slip. It was torture, self-perpetrated on a daily, minute-by-minute basis. Twilight Zone episodes have been constructed of scenarios less psychological horrifying. Every moment I didn't scream was a victory. I lost my grip on my own personality. Faking my own smile at all that I encountered that refused to once more amuse, gratify or surprise me left me without a genuine smile of my own. Laughter, too, became nothing more than a prop.
Not all of my time was spent on routine self-deconstruction. My sanity would be nothing more than shreds in a pile at the base of my skull of perhaps pulp shot out into the front yard if I didn't have something to stimulate me. I could explore new music now that I'd heard everything KROQ had to offer the first time around. I was the first person in my neighborhood to discover Cat Power. I could watch movies I'd never had the time for the first time around. Napster was still in service so I could search out what the neighborhood Blockbuster didn't have in stock, which was practically everything it turned out. Of course, internet was a series of tubes at this point, bits of binary being run through by carrier snails, so I had to master a patience the practice of which I'd long forgotten. I finally mastered the guitar, and the keyboard while I was at it. Instead of asking for a playstation for christmas, I asked for a hip hop sampler and began playing with beats as I'd eventually have wanted. I wrote poetry that wasn't actually any better this go around but at least diverged from form. But none of it mattered so long as I was intent on running into Melanie again. And at this point it was my only intent. And then time wore on. It wore on me and it showed. By 17 I was balding, which was an unexpected, baffling and hope-obliterating development. So things were going kind of badly. Clearly I couldn't run through the good parts of my life exactly the same as I had before. Maybe Melanie wouldn't have been my friend if I was bald. Maybe this was a mistake to the likes of which jumping head first into a lion's mouth couldn't compare.
Caring was no longer an option for me. About anything. And then 9-11 happened. I posted a warning on my blog, not that I had any followers. I attempted suicide but couldn't bring myself to master that skill. I rationalized: Not so long as there was a chance of fixing everything. Not so long as I could meet up with the wizard again. And thus my plan was set. I had a new purpose to my life, a purpose that negated entirely everything I'd cared about in this existence. Hopefully, a purpose that would negate this existence entirely. I never went to college. I never met Melanie, not that I'd want to ruin her life by entering it, my own life in shambles. I worked a lot of odd jobs which is something I didn't even know I could do until I completely quit caring. I mean, it always sounded so cliche! Odd jobs? But it actually exists as a pseudo-career of sorts. I managed by it, waiting intently all the while for the reset button to be pushed. The reset button that doesn't exist. Maybe the wizard doesn't exist. Maybe He really made me in my image when I deified Him. Maybe he made me unreal in His image. I don't know anymore. I didn't kill myself when he disappeared. I didn't do anything. Th next day I went back to work.
To repeat because I think this warrants an extra-special level of your attention, I met a wizened old wizard on a corner down the road from the Subways I occasionally frequented. I asked him what he wanted of me. He kindly explained to me in the most soothing, most sonorous voice of anyone I'd ever met whose visage included a flowing beard and literal fire in his eyes that I was mixed around. Oh yes, I said to Him. Until I found you, my lord wizard I was lost but now I too am found. We have found each other. And finders' keepers until the end of time. Are you sure there isn't anyone I could kill for you, my liege. To prove my devotion. Perhaps my boss?
No, he sonorously, soothingly snorted in derision. I am YOUR servant, for the moment at least. I offer you one wish. Understand that I can move mountains if you so desire. Understand further that that is not a limit to my power but but a trifling example. I can move metaphorical mountains just as easily. I can move fictional mountains. If you so wished I could move The Magic Mountain to Tokyo circa 2020. Thomas Mann will have been a crucial influence on anime. I can move a mountain on top of a mountain and the entire scope of human understanding of gravity and all study of geology will be revised without a single scientist being the least aware. I am the photoshopper of the Gods. If I so wished, I could transform high and might Zeus into a mountain. How about Abe Lincoln? The railsplitter would be less than a snap. Reality would warp in place to bridge the gap from your reality to the revised one and it will make perfect sense to you that the 16th president was master of oratory who happened to be a member of the Appalachians. It goes without saying that I've played such games with your timeline and spacetime and euclidean spaceways before. But I will never let on, coquettish me. I must admit it amuses me to shape universes according to my whim. I'm sorry, my child, I am rambling and I wish to grant you your wish before sundown. So get on with it.
As you can imagine, reader, I was startled by this being and the scope of his powers. I asked him who he was. With a sigh and a tap of an allegorical wristwatch he recited his tale. Before the Big Big Bang (not our big bang which he referred to with a repulsive, propulsive chuckle as "the pop and fizzle of one soda can in the corner of an ice box the size of Jupiter" but rather the BIG Big Bang) he was a spirit of the ether. Apparently the last multiverse after eons upon eons of expansion dissipated into some kind of ether which he described as a cob web of snapped and unspooled bits of dusty, decayed Membranes. In this void he first experienced consciousness (whatever his existence prior he has no recollection), upon the web he first began to wander, gaining experience and thus wisdom along the way. He occasionally came across other solitary souls born of the ether. He harvested them, gaining their knowledge. In time he was the wisest being in all existence. In fact he was the only being. With that tidy summation he concluded his story as if I could and should be satisfied. What about the birth of the multiverse? How'd that happen? What've you been doing in all this time? - That was like yesterday to me, he explained. What do you mean what's happened? You call this multiverse "happening"? I mean really.
I was a tad insulted. Dismayed that I'd offered my devotion to this Star Trek reject, I asked him why he was granting me a wish. Was he bored with being like unto a god? Yes, he said. Being like unto a god was rather boring but that's why he became a wizard a millennium prior. It was a nice way to wile away his infinite time spent waiting for the inevitable return of the ether and with it new souls upon which to feast. Also, he enjoyed plying his trade. So much so that he was intent on plying it upon me. Why me, I asked. He seemed to be growing angry, if a rapid-fire barrage of cursing was symptomatic of godly psychology.
Aladdin never game me this much shit! Fucking Americans! Fucking self-consciousness. Literature has ruined you as a species, I swear.
After he was done venting (and I encouraged him to do so. He clearly had some issues to work through) he gave me an ultimatum: make a wish or say farewell to my flesh. In a way I was happy he was pushing me on my way as, in all honesty, I really kind of wanted my desires realized, and right away. With that gift-horse-in-the-mouth looking out of the way I began to give serious thought to what my greatest desire might be. That led to thinking about my second greatest desire. Down the list I went. I began the chin-scratching operation to combine desires. I performed some off-the-cuff game-theoreticals. Calculations of utility. Cost-benefit analyses. At one point I had a crisis of ethics and wondered whether I should take into account the global "I" who'd want world peace or an end to all suffering as opposed to the personal "I" who'd prefer round the clock sexual stimulation. Ahh, but there's the rub, that maybe the best of all possible worlds might actually suck in a counter-intuitive way, whereas hot-and-cold running orgasms could only be awesome.
In the meantime the wizard had materialized a row of four chess sets with Jean Luc Picard, Jesus, Blaise Pascal and a clone of myself as opponents. Picard may have given him the most trouble, which the wizard heartily enjoyed, but the wizard took particular glee from demolishing the clone of me who, like me, was a shambling monstrosity at the game. After my clone lost the wizard took even greater glee setting my clone on fire repeatedly while screaming "Hellfire for you!" I tried not to interrupt this form of his grim glee. At least he was smiling was my thinking. But after a while of this I began to lose patience. Hey, wizard, I've made my wish. I will now bid you to do my bidding. -Let me just set you on fire a few more -No!
My wish is simple, wizard. I want you to rewind my life to the freshman year of high school. What I do not want is to lose any memory of my present life. In effect, I will be living the past half of my life over again.
Huh, really? Well that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. OK whatever, so be it. So how was it?
I need you to grant me another wish!
Of course you do! Of course you do! Not ten seconds ago I said to myself, self can you believe what that human just wished for? But I granted it nevertheless because your wish was my command. Your one wish. WAS my command. What do you know? Ten seconds have passed and here we are. So how was it?
Ten seconds? For the past 12 years I've been fucking my life over, and the past ten of them have been spent waiting for this moment when I'd have told you I learned my lesson and you'd fix everything and maybe I could wish for ten grand or a eternal youth or a donkey or fucking anything. Your ten seconds, my ten years knowing you'd be here waiting for me, waiting to get your laugh in and waiting to say alright give it another go. I spent the past five of those years trying to remember the exact date and time our meeting occurred. I got an apartment down the street with a telescope at the window fixed on this corner so I could stare over here and start my long awaited sprint to meet you to your face again. I knew you'd be here again! 15 years of fucking my life over in ways I never even imagined it would be fucked.
Oh, I know. I'm not omniscient but I've got something analogical to a head on my for-lack-of-a-better-word shoulders. Do you imagine I designed my physical form to grow this bundle of whiskers if I didn't have the sagacity to match. I have some common sense, human. What subject-matter was your feeble brain fumbling with those long hours you kept me waiting? Was it pornographic in nature? Were you imagining how great it would be to woo the homecoming queen. That's what teenagers still wet their dreams about, right? Or has that world-wide-webamathingy profoundly disrupted the natural order of sexual fantasy for you as it has so many of your pitiable generation? If I was you, the prior you, I would have considered asking someone who's had some life experiences under his belt for advice. Perhaps maybe me? If I was you I'd have asked me and I'd have told you that a quick cure for your obvious psychological neuroses would have been your best bet. Some rewiring, some DNA manipulation, some chemical re-balancing, maybe a new environment complete with better, more supportive friends, a fulfilling career...and boom, instant happiness. But you had to do things the hard way. Oh well, fuck off.
And without a sound or a flash or a ray of light or an animated anthropomorphism into a dove with or without a puff of smoke he was gone. So reader, I might as well tell you what happened.
I guess I didn't realize how much I loved my life. Not that I loved my life, but that there was a significant portion of my life that I loved. A portion I didn't want to alter. In fact, I didn't even want to change the major life choices I'd made in life: the schools I went to, the friends I met, the jobs I worked. And in order to preserve later aspects of my life I did my damndest to preserve earlier aspects of my life to the point where everyday I'd be writing impromptu scripts for myself. Besides which I didn't want to alter the world butterfly-effect style by alerting the public, even one member of the public, to major events of concern. Or so I at first decided until I realized I could never forgive myself if I let people suffer when I could have prevented it. But then wouldn't I be arrested as a loon or a co-conspirator when I said to high officials Hey, two planes are going to hit the WTC and they're like, whatever son, and then it happens and they're like, how did you obtain this information and I'm like, shrug? And then I'm in Guantanamo Bay. And even on a smaller scale how could I preserve my personal timeline as I'd first lived and loved it if I was playing hero, diverging so drastically from script? And the actual acting out of it! Imagine going back to a random day in your sophomore year and have to act like your maturation and adulthood had never happened and hey, these awkward kids you forgot ever existed are your friends and you can't stand them any more but you have to pretend you do and pretend that you have the same interests and pretend like you remember what you were like when you were their friend because you are a stranger to yourself at this point but you can't just say nah, fuck this and go hang out by yourself or skip school entirely because then you wouldn't have gotten the social support you did, specifically the homework help and essay ideas and that one teacher who really liked you wouldn't even understand you and how in the hell are you going to preserve that precious relationship because you need to get into the university you ended up in where you met Melanie, the girl you'd fall in love with, the girl you couldn't admit you loved, the girl on whom this whole wish was centered because all you wanted to gain by reliving life (you realized too late) wasn't to fix the experience of high-school which was unfixable but rather just to make the love of your life love you. Hell.
Of course of course of course it never worked. I went half-mad pretending I was my teenage self in high-school, writing essays like my pre-college self would write them, struggling to let nothing of my future life slip. It was torture, self-perpetrated on a daily, minute-by-minute basis. Twilight Zone episodes have been constructed of scenarios less psychological horrifying. Every moment I didn't scream was a victory. I lost my grip on my own personality. Faking my own smile at all that I encountered that refused to once more amuse, gratify or surprise me left me without a genuine smile of my own. Laughter, too, became nothing more than a prop.
Not all of my time was spent on routine self-deconstruction. My sanity would be nothing more than shreds in a pile at the base of my skull of perhaps pulp shot out into the front yard if I didn't have something to stimulate me. I could explore new music now that I'd heard everything KROQ had to offer the first time around. I was the first person in my neighborhood to discover Cat Power. I could watch movies I'd never had the time for the first time around. Napster was still in service so I could search out what the neighborhood Blockbuster didn't have in stock, which was practically everything it turned out. Of course, internet was a series of tubes at this point, bits of binary being run through by carrier snails, so I had to master a patience the practice of which I'd long forgotten. I finally mastered the guitar, and the keyboard while I was at it. Instead of asking for a playstation for christmas, I asked for a hip hop sampler and began playing with beats as I'd eventually have wanted. I wrote poetry that wasn't actually any better this go around but at least diverged from form. But none of it mattered so long as I was intent on running into Melanie again. And at this point it was my only intent. And then time wore on. It wore on me and it showed. By 17 I was balding, which was an unexpected, baffling and hope-obliterating development. So things were going kind of badly. Clearly I couldn't run through the good parts of my life exactly the same as I had before. Maybe Melanie wouldn't have been my friend if I was bald. Maybe this was a mistake to the likes of which jumping head first into a lion's mouth couldn't compare.
Caring was no longer an option for me. About anything. And then 9-11 happened. I posted a warning on my blog, not that I had any followers. I attempted suicide but couldn't bring myself to master that skill. I rationalized: Not so long as there was a chance of fixing everything. Not so long as I could meet up with the wizard again. And thus my plan was set. I had a new purpose to my life, a purpose that negated entirely everything I'd cared about in this existence. Hopefully, a purpose that would negate this existence entirely. I never went to college. I never met Melanie, not that I'd want to ruin her life by entering it, my own life in shambles. I worked a lot of odd jobs which is something I didn't even know I could do until I completely quit caring. I mean, it always sounded so cliche! Odd jobs? But it actually exists as a pseudo-career of sorts. I managed by it, waiting intently all the while for the reset button to be pushed. The reset button that doesn't exist. Maybe the wizard doesn't exist. Maybe He really made me in my image when I deified Him. Maybe he made me unreal in His image. I don't know anymore. I didn't kill myself when he disappeared. I didn't do anything. Th next day I went back to work.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Incidentally
ChickdelaLynch's
recent move should result
in a decreased fart-reference-per-post average but
nothing in this world is certain and I, your faithful, affably disconcerting,
& far less liable to fart-posting host Henry promise you nothing so much as nothing and continued uncertainty. For now. Maybe. Adieu.
recent move should result
in a decreased fart-reference-per-post average but
nothing in this world is certain and I, your faithful, affably disconcerting,
& far less liable to fart-posting host Henry promise you nothing so much as nothing and continued uncertainty. For now. Maybe. Adieu.
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