FireVaney

The blue scale in the bathroom, the one that’s been there all your life, it was off by three pounds. This was this morning this was. Even after adjusting its small black knob, it’s still off. The dial-thingy should’ve stopped spinning at 135. The thin red line over the clear plastic shield should’ve cut right through the 3 of 135. So, you jumped. Which, once the dial-thingy stopped spinning, didn’t change anything. So you jumped, again. And you jumped higher. Now, anyone who steps on that old blue scale, they weigh in at 270. Even before you step on it, that’s what you are—the thin red line cutting through the 7 of 270 telling you so.

All the conversations I’ll never have, I have in the shower. This is what you might call the Pre-Shampoo ritual before the Sudsing-Up of Soap ritual.

If not for drugs, or to cut you open, the doctor’s paid to tell you: “Drink plenty of liquids.”

Today’s big thing learned: That an MRI feels like the crammed inside of the Enterprise NCC-1701 photon-torpedo bay, and, the half-hour you’re to keep perfectly still in there, the sound is old Atari Pac-Man mixed-in with Yar’s Revenge. And the TV volume's cranked loud as it’ll go. The head guard they put over your face, it’s exactly like being fitted with Darth Vader’s helmet.

Four years ago, roughly, Pop was having dizzy spells. That’s when the doctor told him he needed by-pass surgery. So that happened. The day after, Pop had his stroke. He’s much better four years later, but I stick around just to keep an eye. Now I’m having the dizzy spells. At least, for the past forty-eight hours. No chest pains, though. I’ve been popping aspirin, just in case. What’s funny is, when I’m at the gym, pumping iron, the dizziness goes away. But by the time I get home: Hello, vertigo! I’m sure it’s all temporary. Like the spots in my eyes—that was temporary. And the feeling of sweat down my temples, but on the wrong side of the skin—temporary, too. Mostly temporary. It’s probably the madness of not having a legitimate nine-to-five gig. Something like with what happened to Zelda Fitzgerald. Oh, and I’m really not into doctors. So if the End Is Near, So Be It. The closest thing to a Christian Scientist non-practicing Jew just-shy-of-being-an-atheist, that’s me. So, tomorro...

First day of summer, whatever that means. The past three weeks have already seen thermometers push their red past ninety. But, “yay!” It’s Summer! Now, the heat is official! All that heat before today, it was just for practice. None of it counted. Another Spring gone by without love, that’s what it means. And more fucking bugs. More opportunity for Pop to get bit with that West Nile virus, because he doesn’t like the stickiness of repellent. More opportunity for skin cancer, too, because he doesn’t like the smelliness of sun-block. Snowstorm or drought, will an elderly man “brave” the elements today because there may not be a tomorrow? Or maybe they go out into it because, deep down, they don’t want a tomorrow. Maybe it’s just in the programming. Swear to God, I see more old men walking about when it’s ninety-five than when it’s twenty degrees cooler (and, given the property taxes ‘round here, this not for want of air conditioning). 'Round here, they’ll be out in the below-zero...

What I thought I was doing was reading DeLillo out loud. And what I said was, “…when he dropped the water of glass.” And then I realized, a paragraph later, what I had said, and, of course, what I had said was not what DeLillo had written. What I thought he had written was this: “…when he dropped the glass of water.” But I was wrong again. What he actually wrote was this: “…when he dropped the water glass.” This novella, The Body Artist , it makes me dizzy. It’s Hemingway on an acid trip. Sort of. If the muses of Hemingway and Beckett could ever mate, this book would likely be their offspring. But maybe I exaggerate. But just a bit. Mind you, I’m not saying it’s a good book. I’m saying it makes me dizzy. Which, really, isn’t a bad thing for a book to do...which may mean that, yes, it is a good book, after all. Or maybe I’m still vertiginous (thank you, Roget’s Super Thesaurus) from watching Batman Begins this afternoon in an IMAX theater. Yes, my second time through. And in a way ...

Hold down a job? Check. Pay bills on time? Check. Save money? Check. Obey the Rules of the Road? Check. Recycle? Check. Observe common courtesy (holding open doors, giving up seats, etc.)? Check. Charitable? Check . Exercise? Check. Avoid junk food? Check. Eat your Wheaties? Check. Find someone who’ll love you back? Find someone who’ll love you back? Find someo— Shut up. But it’s always something else, isn’t it? Isn't it? Shut up, I said. You’ll have love, but you won’t have money. Love, but no job. Love, but you’ll be sick with cancer, AIDS, or MS. You’ll have love, but you’ll also have alcoholism; you’ll have an addiction to crystal meth. Love, but you’ll be in jail. Love, but suicide bombers are blowing your world to bits. You’ll have love, until everyone around you starves to death. Love, but you’re in a Persistent Vegetative State . Love, but you've purposely overstated last year’s earnings by several billion. And you just got caught…

AMY: How are you? BEN: Fine, fine. Yourself? AMY: I’m alright. BEN: Good. Now. What did you really want to ask?

I keep grabbing the comb to comb the hair I’ve shaved off…

Below and beyond the Red Line stopped at Addison, a sea of baseball fans, every head capped with red, white, or blue official MLB merchandise. Collectively, it’s looking too close at a living painting by Seurat. It’s striking—all these distant cotton, wool, and mesh dots, snug over salty-wet brows, swarming around Wrigley Field and the surrounding bars…

Instead of: “You need to be humbled,” say: “You need to be fucked up the ass.” Unless, of course, such an activity inflates the ego of the one in need of the humbling…

ETHEL Wounded people. FRED Yes. ETHEL Baggage— Cargo planes full. FRED Whatever. ETHEL Why? FRED If they don’t want…or need …caring for…what’s the point? ETHEL But with all that to deal with… FRED I don’t mind. I rather fancy being...being clung to. ETHEL Then. You’re one of the few.

WE’LL CALL HIM AL Where’s your tattoo? WE’LL CALL HER BETH What makes you think I have a tattoo? WE’LL CONTINUE CALLING HIM AL You seem the type. You seem the type to have more than one…

She’s running the treadmill—goin’ on an hour and a half. ‘Least that’s since you’ve made your daily appearance. The machine will stop you at ten miles, but nuthin’s to stop you from resetting the machine; goin’ another ten. And another. And another. Nuthin’s to stop you… save for the club’s close-time. Or your legs giving out. She’s wearing the purple T-shirt because , printed on the back, in bold white over the big 3 , is the name: MIKE . Or, that’s your guess. It occurs to you how many times here , at this arm’s pit excuse for a gym, just how many times you’ve mistaken tears for sweat…

These two kids dressed to catch home runs at Wrigley, they’re lying on the seats behind me, on the Red Line. One’s reading—out loud—the train’s overhead advertising; the other, he asks, “Is it called the ‘L’ because it’s elevated, or because it’s electric?” His friend—the one reading out loud the bankruptcy and divorce lawyer notices, the Instant Loan notices, the free HIV testing notices, the latest HBO series on DVD notices, and the “Don’t be Jack” CTA notices for aspiring mass-transit criminals—what the ‘L’ means, he doesn’t know. I’ve got the urge to turn and tell them… But what’s the point? What does it matter? To validate my existence? These two kids, if you’re not looking at them, they’re young enough to sound like girls. But their sound is the sound of girls who pick up drinking and smoking way too early in life. The sound, it’s got a slight raspy quality about it. It’s the sound of age before maturity—but only when emanated from teenage girls… Hearing it, that sound, takes me...

You keep looking at whatever you are looking at until whatever you are looking at could not possibly be any kind of screen-shot —not anymore. Now, it could only be what you are witnessing in real life. Your life is not just like a movie. Unless your life is a manufactured lie.