Festering Carbuncle

Watch the little daisies grow, little daisies grow

Although the last post makes light of such notions, my heart does, in fact, hurt.  A couple years ago a friend described me as "perhaps the most unsentimental person" he knew, which is a way, I suppose, of calling me hard-hearted.  The statement was offered as neither a compliment nor a criticism, but I couldn't help but feel at least a tinge validated, because I try to hide my sentimentality, even from my closest friends, knowing that if they were wise to my "feelings," they could use them to hurt me.  When I am all alone, though, away from those who intend to do me harm, or, those who will hurt me sooner or later, during those periods I wallow in sentimentality.  In the interest of full-disclosure, I also wallow in filth and vulgarity, and, on special occasions, Franco-American Spaghetti.

In Berlin in 1936, the Nazis put yellow spots on the cars of people who honked unnecessarily.

The other night I pulled into a Burger King drive-thru* behind a car displaying a trip permit, or temporary tag, that expired in two days.  I knew they were trouble when I saw them pull out of the parking lot before re-entering just before me.  They pulled up to the ordering menu** and I sat behind them for, literally*** an hour while they rattled off an endless list of items, or so it appeared, as the menu display board was filled from top to bottom.  Eventually they pulled away, I pulled up, ordered my "thing with the thing," was told it would be five bucks, and pulled ahead.  As I approach the window I see the car with the permit ahead of me, getting one of the smallest bags I have ever seen from the cashier, as well as two small drink cups.  Upon receipt of the second drink cup the driver starts giving the clerk what I presume to be the business, based on his gestures, and the clerk does one of those things where she snaps and makes a zig-zag with her hand before the car finally drives away.  But the car doesn't actual drive away, it merely pulls forward far enough that I have to, figuratively, push him ahead with my bumper.  Eight seconds later she thanks me, I thank her, and I look forward where I see that the car is still on my bumper.  I look back at the clerk, kind of begin to smile and she say, "Honk!"  I say, "What?!?" and she reiterates, "HONK!"  I look at my steering wheel, then back at her, then at my steering wheel, and I figure, fuck it, and honk the horn.  The driver, in a very deliberate manner, pulls forward towards the exit, then stops at the curb in front of me, hangs his tiny little drink out of the window and hurls it to the ground, presumably out of spite.  I was, as one would expect, wounded.  I pawed at my chest, but it provided no comfort, and I drove all of the way home traumatized both physically and psychologically.  You see, like some of your mothers, I am not much of a honker.

* That's how they spell it...  What can you do?
** That's what I call it, I have no idea what they call it****
*** In a hyperbolic sort of way
**** I'm sure we both wish that I wrote Nicholson Baker level footnotes.

That sickly scent is always, always there

Around a year ago, probably a few months more than a year, actually, but nonetheless, around a year ago, a friend made some crack about the way I was laughing, and how that it sounded more like that I was wheezing instead of laughing, and that if I was, in fact, having trouble breathing, then maybe she should go and get help for me, rather than to continue wasting time criticizing the manner in which I express mirth.  She was right to criticize, though, as I was laughing, and not dying, but I chided her anyway, as it had been years since I heard myself laugh, thus I had forgotten that I often make a funny noise that sounds somewhat wheeze-like both before I laugh, and intermittently while I laugh, and I had been blessed, up until that point, as it were, with friends that were not prone to pointing out my shortcomings at the slightest opportunity.

One of the first things I remember noticing about my mom's brothers was how unnatural and disgusting their laugh was.  It was the kind of thing, well, more of a thang, really, the kind of thang that bothered me, not only while I was in their presence, but afterward, hours from when I had left their company.  I would dwell on how miserable and unsettling the sound of their laughter was, even going so far as to try imitating it, the way one might repeatedly tug at the stitches in their forehead to verify that it was, in fact, as painful as they had remembered it to be.  It existed in my mom and her sisters, also, but it wasn't as pronounced, or perhaps it didn't contrast with the actual laughing portion of the outburst so drastically...  In any case, I can't be certain why, but the female version had a certain subtlety about it that was completely absent from the male version.  That being the case, it wasn't something I was exposed to on a day to day basis, and as such I never fully grew to accept it as anything more than just merely tolerable, just another of the many hardships of polite familial relations, like digging mashed potatoes out of your ear with a napkin after someone at the table carelessly utters the phrase, "spit it out," within earshot of your nephew; you accept it because you want your relatives to continue harboring the delusion that you love and accept them, which allows you to harbor the delusion that they love an accept you.

So here we are, some decades later and I am told I sound just like those miserable, alcoholic, deadbeat fucks.  I was in denial about it for most of the last year, but today I heard it for myself.  It was one of those weird, out-of-body experiences, the kind that you have, but I wasn't hovering across the room watching myself being defibrillated, instead, I was sitting in the chair next to myself, trying to position my head in such a way as to, if not completely eradicate, at least diminish the sound of my own laughter.  As is always the case with such situations, you can never get your ears in just the right place to avoid the sound.  I'm sure it is just elementary physics, fluid dynamics or some such, but it feels like one of god's* all too common cruel jokes.  Not nearly as cruel, mind you, as saddling me with this horrific laugh related affliction, but still, it's pretty fucking cruel.

* No, not that god.  Fuckin' amateurs...

tinny collections

The reason dying children present such a tragic scene is that they represent extinguished potential, and you represent squandered opportunity, and, when juxtaposed, that is pretty sad.

A cop once told me that putting your hands in the air and backing away sometimes just isn't enough to indicate that one is not a threat.  He was a douche, but he was right in the sense that sometimes doing the right thing, the thing that you are supposed to do, sometimes that just isn't enough.  The other day the tv told me that one in every one hundred people is a psychopath.  It went on to clarify that the vast majority of psychopaths aren't of the serial killer variety, but that the all share a difficulty in feeling empathy.  On a completely unrelated note, I have mentioned to more than a couple people over the past few weeks that the thing that separates successful people from normal people isn't talent, but rather something else that allows them to succeed in spite of their mediocrity, but only god knows what that could be.

Hey, where are Duncan and Courtney?

I've been buying beer from the same guy at the seven-eleven for nearly a year now, and I still can't understand a word that comes out of his mouth.  I just say things to him, listen to his incomprehensible reply, spend a second mulling over what the most likely response to what I said would have been, and continue the conversation as though that is what he said.  It works out in the long run, I suppose.  I mean, I get beer, he gets my money, which, I guess, he then turns over to his employer, but then his employer gives him some of that money back.  So, whatever, it's symbiotic in one way or another...

Acoustic Sugar

I think it is in Jailbird that Kilgore Trout admits to not being much of a writer, but making up for it by having good ideas.  I think it is in Jailbird, but really I'm just guessing.  It seems that I have become a better writer as time has passed, still not much of a writer, mind you, but better nonetheless.  I also seem to be making up for this by having ideas that are greatly inferior to the ideas I used to have.  The fact that I had a good idea flitter through my brain tonight just serves to highlight the infrequency with which it occurs, and the sad fact of the matter is that tonight's idea is probably just a pale recollection of a better idea from years ago.  It is, however, starting to get better, or it seems like it might be, at least.