Posts

There Was Nothing

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You walk into a bar and spot your crush. She spots you back and waves and squeals your name. Anyone else who notices, they smile—a few even go so far as to turn and smile—but they keep their waves and squeals to themselves. Not that you’re undeserving of waves and squeals, but, don’t fool yourself, you’re a bit player in a large cast of characters. She saw you first because her booth seat faced the door. You didn’t think she’d be at this bar. You figured she’d be at the other bar, the louder bar, in the neighborhood. It’s younger, hipper, trendier. You feel relief and frustration. Let’s unpack that: You feel relief because, here, you can keep an eye on her. And, perhaps, when the time comes, she’ll ask you, in some roundabout way, for a lift home. And then, who knows, maybe she’ll even invite you in. You feel frustration because, here, you can watch her flirt with all the boys and girls who are much cuter than you are. But, dude, you gotta quit kidding yourself. Let’s be realistic....
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Envy

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Rare is the natural-born chick magnet. Or, rather, rare in MY experience—which is, admittedly, severely limited—and, further, limited to Northern Flapjackistan. Regardless, my (admittedly) unsolicited advice? Young man: Take FULL advantage. Just my “two cents.” Just in case you aren’t already. This presumes that you are not a religious man. Presuming my aforementioned presumption is none too presumptuous, then, by all means, you absolutely MUST look upon this gift of yours as a biological FORCE of life—a FORCE you are, no less, of course, IMBUED with. YOU, sir, have a responsibility. Feel no guilt. But DO use protection. Please, by all means, SPREAD the “wealth” —and ONLY the “wealth,” if you catch my drift. * As for me, I’ll be up in the “stands,” so to speak, rooting you on. Best I can do. (MOST I can do, really, as I would not want to interfere.) But if I am lucky, perhaps some of your pheromonal magic will, in due course, rub off on me. Mayhap, just by hanging around you long enou...
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s t r e A M # 4 6

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Be careful, more careful, with your declarations. Why? Because you’ll always find a way to rebel against them. For example, you’ll state, for the record, that you listen to one thing, and then, shortly thereafter, you’ll stop listening to it altogether. You’ll say you write one way, today, and then, tomorrow, you’ll write in a completely different way. In this way, by making such declarations, you’ll embarrass yourself. Ergo, unless you have something to gain from the act of sharing, don’t share—ANYTHING—until it is absolutely necessary. Don’t set yourself up for failure by making declarations. Or promises. Lead, instead, by example. (How trite. How hackneyed. Well, you ARE a bit hungry.) You always overdo it: the declaration thing. You give too much away. Nobody wants that. They want mystery. They want to be teased. Stop giving away so much. Or, stop giving so much away. This over-zealousness must cease. It embarrasses you; it scares everybody away. Nobody buys it. I ask you: When has...
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Known Associates

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His yellow toenails jag as if bitten off by some terrible two-year old. His skin flakes white specks under his five o’clock shadow. His wifey’s tremulous fingers clutch a cigarette between two fingers. You want to ask about her caveman’s painting of the sun tattooed to her calf, but you never will. Both hubby and wifey drink cheap wine out of what’s clean—coffee mugs. You’ve heard that hubby’s got a hernia. You won’t ask about that, either—though you’d like to. What’s he gonna say anyway? “Yeah, I got a hernia.” What with their fried burgers every summer night, both hubby and wifey, they’ll be lucky if they make it into their mid-fifties. Not that you’re a happier, or a healthier, or in any way a better person. Ho, no. You’ve told them that your former wingman was a con-artist. Really, though, he was just a bit of a hustler. But given his uncompromisingly spiffy aesthetic, he didn’t have much choice. *  15 July 2005  * [“I've wasted a greater part of my life looking for money ...
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The Birthday Card

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Today is Uncle Redacted’s birthday.  How old he is EXACTLY, I'm not sure.  He's over fifty, I know that .  I got him a card, but I don't know what to write in it.  It already says, "Have a Happy Birthday."  The front of the card shows someone's hand just barely pressing a long, presumably sharp, needle to a large, red balloon. The inside of the card reads: "Have a Happy Birthday, or the balloon gets it!"  Under that, I don't know what to write other than, "Love, Pop, Betty, and Howie."  Pop and Betty don't yet know that I've purchased a card. I'm pretty sure they don't even know that it’s Uncle R.’s birthday. Pop can barely recall his own daughters’ birthdays, let alone those of his three sons-in-law. Yes, he’s old—older than most—but, to be clear, he’s not mentally diminished. Remembering birthdays and mailing cards was always Grandma’s job.  Uncle R. lives one suburb to the south, so I'll just drive over and slip t...
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Time Management

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We regret to report that we’ve replaced your newish Timex digital alarm clock (id est, the one with the recorded water and forest sounds) with your grandmother’s ancient Westclox (id est, the one with the slowly sweeping second hand and orange sherbet-colored “Dialite”). This ought to serve as an vitally important reminder: Whilst the complication— any complication—makes money for the capitalist, one often finds comfort in the simplest of things. (exempli gratia, a crisp apple.) This is not to suggest that simple things are perfect. No, no. Set the aforementioned Westclox to buzz its buzz at five o’clock and it will buzz its buzz at four-fifty. But perhaps this “bug” or “feature” wasn’t always so. Whoever wasn’t the early-bird (whether Grandma or Grandpop), they’d left the aforementioned Westclox in the basement to collect dust, mold, rust, and/or other forms of rot. But then it’s entirely possible that it wound up in the basement thanks to its overzealous alarm setting. We’ll never kn...
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Orange Dot, Et Cetera

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This morning, for breakfast: a “Home Made Daily” ham and cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee from the hospital cafeteria in the basement. My first question: In whose home was this sandwich made? My second question: What’s the deal with the white writing on the orange dot sticker stuck to the sandwich’s cellophane sleeve? It says, “SAT.” Below that, it says, “SABADO.” Today is Sunday. (Pop’s spending his worst birthday in ninety-three years up in room 4132.) So has my sandwich expired? Or is this orange dot telling me that it was made yesterday? (Not the dot, the sandwich .) I didn’t notice the dot until I finished eating the sandwich. Yesterday, and the day before, for breakfast: doughnuts and roast beef sandwiches and coffee. The doughnuts at the hospital are much tastier than the doughnuts from the Dunkin’ Donuts up the street. But then, as far as hospitals go, this one’s a bit ritzy.  July 2005
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s Tr eA m # 4 5

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Happy birthday, Hemingway! You’re one in a million. No, you’re one in a billion. No, you’re one in a trillion. No. You’re one. Yes. You’re one. Well, you WERE one. And, you’ve won! A brand–new toaster–oven. You like toast, don’t you? Who doesn’t like toast? My grandfather only likes toast in the morning. After that, he refuses anything that is or could be toasted. He thinks that toast, later in the day, will be too hard on his teeth. For the record, I do not burn his toast. The toast I toast for him is always lightly toasted. So I don’t know what he’s talking about. But he is beginning to act his age. Or, rather, more and more, he’s beginning to act his age—you might say he’s “running on automatic pilot,” that is, so to speak, more and more. He can’t process most new data. He’s content to recycle all of the old data—rather, what’s left of all the old data. But he does like crackers. He’ll eat crackers any time of the day. He doesn’t crush the crackers into his soup. Rather, he’ll sl...
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Oft

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Pop got up early today. I was awake early, too, but I didn't get out of bed until I heard him lumbering down the stairs.  Usually, I'm downstairs at least an hour before Pop wraps up his morning routine—id est, brushing his teeth, making his bed, dressing, a bit of weight lifting, and a ten-minute walk on his bedroom treadmill. Normally, while he's upstairs doing that, I'm in the kitchen organizing the day's regimen of pills, slicing the banana he takes with his meds (he needs a little banana to help stretch his "smaller-than-average" esophagus), sweeping and/or mopping the kitchen and living room floors, fetching the paper from the driveway, and straightening up his "piles" of letters and financial statements.  Most days, after Pop’s through with the Trib, he spends his waking hours reading financial and business periodicals.  Sometimes, for a change of scenery, I drive him over to the library. There, he reads different financial and business pe...
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Answers? Questions!

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What are your answers? The answers you provide are few and far between. Worse, your answers bleed ambiguities. That’s right, your answers are the mutilated corpses of an at-large serial killer. In other words, your answers, they have no life. They suck the life force out of every question posed, your answers do. Worse still, your answers embarrass my questions. More oft than not, when you’re around, my questions run for cover! To answer my questions—as to what your answers are—they are deadly, and, thusly, they are worthless. Indeed, worthless. I cannot overstate just how worthless your answers are , but I will try. Your answers have less worth than a single atom in a grain of sand. And you may ask, “How many atoms in a grain of sand?” And I may answer (correctly), “Quintillions.” And I will have you know, sir, that there are more atoms in a single grain of sand than there are grains of sand on all of the beaches on the entire planet! But, sir, your answers provide no hope. Your an...
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