I like attractive girls as much as anyone who likes attractive girls, but I cannot stand discussing them like they’re an event in one’s life. Case in point:
“What’d you do this weekend? I hit a few new bars. There were lots of hot girls. One blonde in particular…”
Hot girls being the point of his question, you see. He did hot girls (or tried, men lie about these things). And he’s still talking. I can hear the noise. I’ve stopped listening.
We’re all assholes in some form or another.
Squirrel! Shot.
Sunset! Shot.
Reading! Shot.
Neighbor! Shot.
Speak! Shot.
Sit! Shot.
Shot! Shot.
Standing a few feet ahead of the Safeway entrance, I’m looking at peaches. They’ve got bundles—99 cents a pound. Peaches for days by my count. I grab a small plastic baggie and start to size up the lot. Peaches and white peaches. The white peaches look hardier. I pick one up and start to apply a little pressure when I hear someone speak.
So, what’s the difference between peaches and white peaches?
I turn and it’s an older woman, a little stout. She’s smiling. I smile instinctively, being friendly.
Well, I say to her, it’s a few things. Your traditional peach is softer than the white peach. It’s got a feel like it’d give at the slightest squeeze. It takes a more careful hand with one of those, whereas the white peach’s more tough. You could bounce it off the wall. Means the white peach’ll outlast a peach by several days.
She nods, still smiling.
Biting into this one’s also a different result. The traditional peach’s like a mango or watermelon, all juice. One bite and it’s a guaranteed waterfall. Some people like that, of course. Now, this white peach, it’s more subtle. It takes more tooth to get into and it doesn’t overflow the way a peach does. It’s also not as sweet, and it’s not right to go digging through it as quickly as possible. The flavor’s in tearing off a piece and allowing it to melt a bit, sort of like good chocolate. The white peach’s the patient man’s peach. I love them.
She’s still smiling.
And, I suppose, the color. A white peach is white.
She finally chuckles. Sure, of course.
I apply a little more pressure to the white peach and roll it around in my hand. It feels right. The stout woman goes and walks away.
jamiedrew asked: I had an idea for 24 that FOX never went for. Let me paint you a word-picture: the titles come up first, and Keifer Sutherland’s voice, a half-whisper, a half-growl, narrates:
“My name is Jack Bauer. And this is the happiest day of my life.”
The following 24 episodes concern Jack Bauer’s wedding day.
“There’s a bomb in the cake! Repeat, there is a bomb in the cake!”
[to flower girl] “WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR?”
“Tony, I need you to find my daughter.”
“Alright.”
“Promise me!”
“Sure.”
…
“Jack, I don’t know how to tell you this, but she’s fallen into the gazpacho, been chased into a tree by the best man, and raccoons have torn her dress apart.”
“Ma’am, I need you to trust me. The security of this entire nation is at stake.”
“Okay, okay. We’ll send back the yellow flowers.”
“Do you take Jack Bauer to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do.”
“And do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR?”
Theory tires me. The more I delve into concepts and abstracts, the more I want for facts, practical execution, and results. Rather than always think about things, I want to realize them. I will never be the philosopher or the academic. That is quite alright. The old lesson I have discovered is not to focus on what I am not, but who I am. I began the search a while ago and I suspect something like this never dies once it is embarked upon and pursued.
The part of me that does venture off into unknown territory is limited to bursts of thought that seem to rise up of their own accord and rack my mind into scenarios that I ultimately write on paper as if written by an unseen man whose wild eyes see things I will forget about, just like this. The frogs in your eyes are hopping into me, hopping into me. My eyes see them hopping closer, raging red, South American babies torn apart and sold for meat to us the fat men. They are mixed with wood pulp from their forest homesteads and ground into fine vittles. We walk one foot apart toward the pet shop and pick out the nicest this and that, forgetting about the gangly ones and ugly ones who are just as pretty green. Their fur is golden fleece and ours is dumped in the toilet. Curly curls. Bye, babies. We are allowed to cry now, you may weep and I may sigh. They will find no pleasure in heaven but perhaps the lack of surprises will keep them sustained.
I continue to imagine everything I own sold, shipped, and flung off into the trash. A far drive follows and before I reach the woods I find a prostitute to carelessly fuck. When the disgust of the detached act reaches my nostrils I leave the jeep behind and walk further and further into these nameless woods. I never return.
And now there is no theory. It is all executed. Flush.
Foolish men building their houses. Hammer and saw the wood. Hammer the noun, hammer the verb. Pounding a woman. The flesh sound, siren’s call. Hungry man dinner don’t last long. Search for the ilk. Clothes been tardy to laundry. Closet’s awake. Inside’s a box, a box’s full of me. Tired of hundreds I don’t really know. One size FEEDS ALL.
“Would you kill for a beer?” on my wall. Plans to drink beer. Plans to miss.
Fragmented sentences. Katydid vagueries. Either too many words or in a strange order. Bury my book in the marsh. Sit by my book by my lake.
Shaving my head earlier tonight, I was reminded of my impulsive ways and willful disposition. The reasons were piling up: It rustled, the warmth was annoying the hell out of me, it was looking thin along the front, and because I could. I picked up the trimmer and it went. One long buzz after another. The numbness of exposed scalp as familiar as any other state of hair being after years impulsiveness and exclaiming ‘Fuck You, Summer!’
Hair was once of great concern. It was a decade ago, now. Like clockwork, I drove to the barbershop in the caramel Oldsmobile and its faux fur-lined interior. Caballeros was a barbershop you could walk into with the confidence that it would be a good haircut regardless of whose chair was up. Like clockwork, after school, one ten dollar haircut. Always even, smooth, slick. Every other Friday. Girls waited around in the Carl’s Jr. across the street while their boys waited in line to get a fade. I never waited around for a salon or nail appointment, I’ll tell you that. The reason, of course, is it wasn’t like the 20 minutes from waiting in the chair to dusting off the stray hairs and leaving a two dollar tip. It was a process. The cost of beauty was above the male mind. Still, an effort had to be made to look good.
I don’t even remember when I stopped. It must mean that the cessation of giving a shit was gradual. A few days here, a week there, an acceptance of hair long enough to take hold of on sweaty days. Then, more gradually, the taking hold of an impulsive nature long kept at bay by notions of civility and courtesy to others. Hair today, bald tomorrow. Naturally, a certain laziness has also been at play.
The shaving left me more streamlined. It fits with my recent animalistic visions. Tendons, active muscles. I could see rifts and valleys in the comparatively fair skin of my scalp. The sensation of distinguishing the frontal from the parietal from the temporal with the tips of my fingers was like mapping a great wall hidden beneath the layers. Scars from long distant tumbles and skull thuds shone brightly. I remembered head butts and blood streaming down my face. The door wide open and naked as an ape, I growled and I huffed. I slapped on the lotion usually reserved for the odd shave of my cheeks and neck. It felt like dancing around the fire. I stepped out into the cooler air of the living room. Knees up and down, ahoo ahoo, singing to the moon. My story is on my head.
I am not deriving satisfaction from life.
Friendships come to me easily. I am approachable, likable, clear in my opinions and statements, and generally affable in my demeanor. I have met a great many amazing strangers as a result, very few of which became anything more. It is the way of this world to bring us together and rend us apart, and it need not be a reason to despair. As for more permanent relationships, they are a difficulty for me. My paranoia of old has been subsiding for some time, and yet trust is not something I shell out to anyone. I seek no one, but they seek me, and every once in a great while I encounter a person or two who are genuine in their approach to life and good to themselves (my theory is goodness to oneself begets goodness to others). These people are human. I believe this is part of the reason we become as enamored as we do with blogs and the online world. In a blog, we believe we are witness to someone’s soul, or true self. We become engaged, perhaps discuss topics not meant to be relayed in small pockets of text. Too personal, too safe, too distant. This is not to say I don’t value the friendships and communication I have with people, because I have met people who mean a great deal to me, but when the safety of distance wears off it is replaced with the most basic of human social needs—physical presence.
The girl I’m talking to doesn’t talk much anymore, and I can only wonder so many times if she’s finally cut me out of her life before I accept the hurt, get angry, harden, and move on. I do not abide casual and have learned from experience that things for me must be certain. I will not be some other man, should that be the case. But I also have found bitterness to be a waste, and do not linger in such a place. I love her, regardless of whether or not we work out or how much I simply desire to fuck her. I want her to see that she is as beautiful, intelligent, and strong as I have always known her to be, notwithstanding the idiosyncrasies and flaws of character that we must all accept. What is most difficult for me to accept in this world is that someone I want (rare as it is) does not want me. It is the way of life. In spite of how foolish, demanding, or plain needy I am, I want the best for her, as I would hope she wants for me. The conclusion I’m leading to here is: be good enough for you.
Work is becoming the same old bore again. I am becoming obstinate, far more than at any previous time in my life. I cannot stand being told what to do as if I am a subordinate, and cannot stand when someone doesn’t do as I state, even if it is in my most instructive or helpful fashion. The upside is that the work is much more manageable and therefore less stressful (a far cry from the time when I nearly descended into dementia). The sole reason to remain in this corporate world is good money. That which binds me also sustains me. It allows me to engage in travel and the luxuries of hobbies such as learning to pilot an aircraft. I do not have debt, as I abhor the feeling of “owing” anything to anyone. So this success keeps me constant and secure, but the work drains me of my desire. “In this economy…”
The uncertain future of someone who writes for a living (as vague a notion as being the President or Rock God) still calls to me. Just when this will happen I do not know, but this path is chosen and I will see it through or die in the effort.
I am volunteering at the humane society. Several years ago, I briefly adopted a lanky German Shepard named Shep. He was a handful at a time when I was barely equipped to handle myself and I felt he was better placed with someone far more adequate. Now, I see the care that goes into simply learning to walk a dog, or groom an elderly cat. I see this joy and sorrow that animals, all of us, experience on a daily basis, and it is far more than I ever expected. Getting out of one’s head is a necessary part of the human experience. For me, it is a relatively new one. I never truly cared for other beings, even in my past relationships and familial duties. I cared for myself. I am still deciding on the balance between the two.
There is no way of knowing what our ancient ancestors must have considered to be satisfaction. Food, shelter, a mate…? all common, and yet all now expanded into a world of endless decisions. Every seemingly simple choice leads to another, and another, and another. I do not fear having to tread paths and would rather stride forward than stagnate, but is this the carrot I should choose to follow?
And then I think, hell, if this was the ancient world I’d be dead by now anyway, and there’d be no questions left to ask nor words to futily pursue.
I hold a woman’s hand. Her husband is dead, buried long ago in a cemetery somewhere in this state of rain and gloom. She tells me it was cancer of the lungs. He smoked heavily. Her eyes are hidden beneath flaps of skin as she discusses his shortcomings and the outright failures of his long life. He worked at a bank, owned a store in the sticks, they had no children. They are a beautiful couple whose long history lines the cabinet near the kitchen table where we sit. Their wedding photograph is in sepia tone. Two smooth skinned young people, far younger than I am now, embarking on something as foolhardy as lifelong commitment. I hold her hand because I am there with her. They tremble when she becomes emotional. My own coarse hands do what they can. They accomplish far more than any word could do.
The first time is when we meet in the bar by the power station where you can hear them buzzing during a smoke. The gravestones sit in the dark lot across the highway and the jazz is terrible. Inside it’s people in their thirties ready to give up, and then further along to the ones who worry about comfortable living. The fog rolls into hills of this phantom zone between San Francisco and who knows what the hell down there. He sees me alone, my mistake. When he offers himself like a boy raised on gruel I politely accept. He kisses my shoulder after the jazzies are gone and we’re sliding on a wet fender. He fucks like five years ago. It feels good in that kind of way.
When it’s supposed to be a memory he finds me again. I work the customer service counter at Ross a month or more after that. Again, my mistake. He grins and I don’t know. He tells me hello and I still don’t, I need help. It’s not busy and I wish and pray for a tracksuit with a pleather purse to come my way. You’re someone I know, but he uses my name. Name remembering frightens me. He tells me he didn’t get my number when I didn’t give it. It’s, I don’t. Here. He says okay, me. Nice to see you again. He says nice. I don’t. It’s over quickly and it’s more dead than before him. I go home and suck a pipe until it feels less dead even if it’s not. Then it’s coffee at a special bookstore he told me to drive to. Special for a Barnes and Noble might mean two floors.
We ride the escalators together. He never asks me if I like books even if I do. He likes The Catcher in Rye. I think it’s horrible and really childish. Polls don’t support me but I tell him it’s in my opinion. It’s a debate he wants. I don’t want to. He moves hair behind my ear and now I know this it. This poor person. He’s too deep in everything. The last time is when we’re sitting on this wooden bench at the mall next to the Barnes and Noble. He’s unhappy when I tell him. He doesn’t even try to keep himself inflated. He stares at the water and the tall potted palms on the four corners of the tile pool. The waxy floor is a kind of vinyl they can lay out like carpet. It’s white and beige spotted with little black streaks that will never come out. The sun is hanging down in strips. This is a life I could do without while he keeps his sad face at the pool. I tell him it’s just pennies in a well.