I bet you could throw pee out your window on a very regular basis and not get caught for a long time, if ever. You would have to live four or five floors up for it to fly, but I bet you could really do it.
People would never know what was going on because they would just think it was the air-conditioners dripping down, like when you’re walking and drops hit you in the face you just think ‘that drop that just hit me must be from an air conditioner.’ Or something along those lines, I can’t be sure, people think in different sentences.
The first time it happened to me, I had no idea what it was. For a second I thought something was up, that someone close was doing something bad. Like someone many floors up was spitting or, indeed, throwing pee out the window. Then when it kept happening, my first thought was that everyone was doing it, like I had picked the block full of the sickos, me walking unsuspecting along the sidewalk, while masked on the other side of brick and glass were a community of hunched and naked freaks, each keeping a trained eye on the pavement below and a hand in a bowl brimming with the fluid of their choice.
All this was making me increasingly concerned so I dared to glance upward in the hopes I could get a glimpse of some sweaty ghoul pressed up against the window pane, so then at least I could be justified in running and screaming like a madman. “Run for your lives!” I would warn everyone. “They are throwing pee out the windows!” All I saw, however, was a background of air conditioners and a foreground of drops. I caught them all for a second, they hung in my vision, thousands of drops, and then disappeared as my focus shifted again to the air conditioners. I was relieved it was not other fluids.
Think about it: that many air conditioners, that many drops, you could do it, no problem, you would almost have to be stupid to screw it up. And if they do catch you (for shame if you are that sloppy), it would be the stuff of legends – like that guy who put the feces in the Deli salad bars. Evidently, by the time they arrested him he had been doing it for a while. Like a long time.
Every time I go into a deli that has a salad bar I think of it. I mean, come on already, of course someone was going to do that with their feces sooner or later. Those salad bars are completely open to the air. We don’t trust other people in the city enough to buy candy to “support their basketball teams,” yet we all dine from the same bin of open-air food. We might as well just put on bibs and gorge ourselves en masse. The hospital employee, the high-powered CEO and the madman with the bag of feces vying for a spot at the food pile. Forgot your fork? Why just help yourself to the community silverware – just be sure and rinse it off when you are done. What is wrong with everybody?
I really don’t know how people eat out of those deli bars. If for no other reason than the smell that hits you as soon as you walk in: like an overpowering stir-fry and jello-mold aroma soup.
So when they catch you and when the story got out, what you’d been doing, the terrible thing you’d been doing, almost no one would emerge unscathed. Physically, no one would be harmed, but it would be a tremendous mind-fuck. Presumably, millions of people would scan through the previous month of their lives, thinking of the time spent outside, racking up the instances and hesitantly recognizing the likelihood that they…no, don’t think it! It never happened! You think you remember getting a drop yesterday. Do you remember it burned a little, or is it just your imagination? You could have sworn you smelled something funny under those air conditioners on that sales call Tuesday, or not, it’s so hard to remember! Wait, that time you got the drop in the eye last week on your lunch, you rubbed it in. Think of the potential diseases!
Of course, now that I think about it, all this might not be as easy as I predicted initially. It’s one thing to sit here and imagine raining pee down on unsuspecting passersby, it seems incredibly simple, but it’s a little more complicated than whipping out your genitals and letting fly. You want to avoid a stream. I don’t think pee would disperse too well unassisted – if you just went out the window, it would probably hit someone the same way: like getting doused in the face with pee. And then where are you? Your game is over before it got started. You haven’t reached millions, you are just some disturbed asshole who peed out the window and got arrested for it. You probably wouldn’t even do time. I bet they would just fine you and make you go to a psychiatrist. Ooh man, that would be a funny one to explain to the psychiatrist.
“Why did you pee on the people?”
“I guess I did it because it seemed like one of those things you think about whimsically but that you would never actually do. I mean, who the hell would go and do something like that? Me. That’s who.”
Word to the wise: you should make sure you have a compelling answer to that question if you’re going to do something like this, or you could find yourself in some crazy trouble. Don’t turn to me. I have no idea what you could possibly ever say. I’m not the one doing this: I’m merely disseminating the idea.
Your best bet is to either pee or (for the ladies) throw your pee directly into the back of a fan, thereby misting it and rendering it indistinguishable from the water of nearby air conditioners. Of course, now this is getting into a lot of maintenance. Yes, this thorough approach will ensure you committing your atrocity for months or even years to come, but the time you will spend cleaning your equipment might make you think twice about this one. Of course, I’m operating on the assumption that we are all relatively normal people who like to keep a nice place, you know, maybe have some people over sometime, some friends or a date – and if that is the case, you must erase any hint of urine from the air in your apartment. Here are some things to keep in mind:
1. Clean your fan immediately after every use. Really – douse the thing, wash it well. If getting it wet ruins the fan, you have to get a waterproof fan. You cannot let it go thinking ‘I’ll wash it later.’ Wash it now, I’m can’t stress that more.
2. Keep your “work” fan separate from your “home” fan. Do not double up. If you don’t have air-conditioning, buy a second fan. Seriously. Don’t convince yourself that you “got the smell out.” You didn’t. Are you that cheap? Buy two fans.
3. Don’t get any pee on the floor or walls or furniture. Throw down plastic and then towels and then more plastic and more towels (like four layers – not just haphazard – the point is you should have no need for the second layer of towels). There is literally no room for error here.
4. Don't brag to your friends. They won't get it. This is a joke between you and me. But don't tell me, either. I don't want to know.
5. Don’t convince yourself that you are crazy. You are just a hilarious person fulfilling an elaborate what-if scenario. You are not a maniac. Do not let you convince yourself that just because you are doing something heinous and disturbing in complete secrecy that there is anything wrong with you. You’re all right!
On that note, it is important to maintain a healthy attitude about all this. When you get into devising complicated methods of misting pee and all the upkeep that follows, the lines can become a little blurred. Why exactly did you get into all this in the first place? Was it just for fun or was it a matter of science? See, because then that would strike me as a little weird.
Now, all this is ignoring the possibility that not only is someone already doing it, but that thousands of people are doing it. There could be an underground secret society of people who throw their pee out of their apartment windows. I am sure I am not the first person to come up with this idea, this is a very big city. It is entirely possible that, say, one in three drops that hits you in the face is some kind of bodily fluid. Think about it. Or don’t, more like.
Of course, when you get caught as you most certainly will, in all likelihood everyone will react in the same way they did with the Deli Pooper. They would spend about an hour completely aghast and then promptly forget all about it, while you spend the next year all tranqed out on meds. What else can you do? After all, nobody knows anyone who died from poop-food or pee-eye. Until they make air-conditioners that don’t drip, there is nothing you can do outside leaving the city for the entire summer. So if you are prone to such extreme behavior, then by all means – go be a wacko. For the rest of us, just keep walking, wipe off the drops, and what about that sick feeling of foreboding you feel when this happens? Why it’s nothing more than the bills you forgot to pay on time this month. Silly you. Just keep walking, and don’t forget to stop off at the deli before you get back to work.
People would never know what was going on because they would just think it was the air-conditioners dripping down, like when you’re walking and drops hit you in the face you just think ‘that drop that just hit me must be from an air conditioner.’ Or something along those lines, I can’t be sure, people think in different sentences.
The first time it happened to me, I had no idea what it was. For a second I thought something was up, that someone close was doing something bad. Like someone many floors up was spitting or, indeed, throwing pee out the window. Then when it kept happening, my first thought was that everyone was doing it, like I had picked the block full of the sickos, me walking unsuspecting along the sidewalk, while masked on the other side of brick and glass were a community of hunched and naked freaks, each keeping a trained eye on the pavement below and a hand in a bowl brimming with the fluid of their choice.
All this was making me increasingly concerned so I dared to glance upward in the hopes I could get a glimpse of some sweaty ghoul pressed up against the window pane, so then at least I could be justified in running and screaming like a madman. “Run for your lives!” I would warn everyone. “They are throwing pee out the windows!” All I saw, however, was a background of air conditioners and a foreground of drops. I caught them all for a second, they hung in my vision, thousands of drops, and then disappeared as my focus shifted again to the air conditioners. I was relieved it was not other fluids.
Think about it: that many air conditioners, that many drops, you could do it, no problem, you would almost have to be stupid to screw it up. And if they do catch you (for shame if you are that sloppy), it would be the stuff of legends – like that guy who put the feces in the Deli salad bars. Evidently, by the time they arrested him he had been doing it for a while. Like a long time.
Every time I go into a deli that has a salad bar I think of it. I mean, come on already, of course someone was going to do that with their feces sooner or later. Those salad bars are completely open to the air. We don’t trust other people in the city enough to buy candy to “support their basketball teams,” yet we all dine from the same bin of open-air food. We might as well just put on bibs and gorge ourselves en masse. The hospital employee, the high-powered CEO and the madman with the bag of feces vying for a spot at the food pile. Forgot your fork? Why just help yourself to the community silverware – just be sure and rinse it off when you are done. What is wrong with everybody?
I really don’t know how people eat out of those deli bars. If for no other reason than the smell that hits you as soon as you walk in: like an overpowering stir-fry and jello-mold aroma soup.
So when they catch you and when the story got out, what you’d been doing, the terrible thing you’d been doing, almost no one would emerge unscathed. Physically, no one would be harmed, but it would be a tremendous mind-fuck. Presumably, millions of people would scan through the previous month of their lives, thinking of the time spent outside, racking up the instances and hesitantly recognizing the likelihood that they…no, don’t think it! It never happened! You think you remember getting a drop yesterday. Do you remember it burned a little, or is it just your imagination? You could have sworn you smelled something funny under those air conditioners on that sales call Tuesday, or not, it’s so hard to remember! Wait, that time you got the drop in the eye last week on your lunch, you rubbed it in. Think of the potential diseases!
Of course, now that I think about it, all this might not be as easy as I predicted initially. It’s one thing to sit here and imagine raining pee down on unsuspecting passersby, it seems incredibly simple, but it’s a little more complicated than whipping out your genitals and letting fly. You want to avoid a stream. I don’t think pee would disperse too well unassisted – if you just went out the window, it would probably hit someone the same way: like getting doused in the face with pee. And then where are you? Your game is over before it got started. You haven’t reached millions, you are just some disturbed asshole who peed out the window and got arrested for it. You probably wouldn’t even do time. I bet they would just fine you and make you go to a psychiatrist. Ooh man, that would be a funny one to explain to the psychiatrist.
“Why did you pee on the people?”
“I guess I did it because it seemed like one of those things you think about whimsically but that you would never actually do. I mean, who the hell would go and do something like that? Me. That’s who.”
Word to the wise: you should make sure you have a compelling answer to that question if you’re going to do something like this, or you could find yourself in some crazy trouble. Don’t turn to me. I have no idea what you could possibly ever say. I’m not the one doing this: I’m merely disseminating the idea.
Your best bet is to either pee or (for the ladies) throw your pee directly into the back of a fan, thereby misting it and rendering it indistinguishable from the water of nearby air conditioners. Of course, now this is getting into a lot of maintenance. Yes, this thorough approach will ensure you committing your atrocity for months or even years to come, but the time you will spend cleaning your equipment might make you think twice about this one. Of course, I’m operating on the assumption that we are all relatively normal people who like to keep a nice place, you know, maybe have some people over sometime, some friends or a date – and if that is the case, you must erase any hint of urine from the air in your apartment. Here are some things to keep in mind:
1. Clean your fan immediately after every use. Really – douse the thing, wash it well. If getting it wet ruins the fan, you have to get a waterproof fan. You cannot let it go thinking ‘I’ll wash it later.’ Wash it now, I’m can’t stress that more.
2. Keep your “work” fan separate from your “home” fan. Do not double up. If you don’t have air-conditioning, buy a second fan. Seriously. Don’t convince yourself that you “got the smell out.” You didn’t. Are you that cheap? Buy two fans.
3. Don’t get any pee on the floor or walls or furniture. Throw down plastic and then towels and then more plastic and more towels (like four layers – not just haphazard – the point is you should have no need for the second layer of towels). There is literally no room for error here.
4. Don't brag to your friends. They won't get it. This is a joke between you and me. But don't tell me, either. I don't want to know.
5. Don’t convince yourself that you are crazy. You are just a hilarious person fulfilling an elaborate what-if scenario. You are not a maniac. Do not let you convince yourself that just because you are doing something heinous and disturbing in complete secrecy that there is anything wrong with you. You’re all right!
On that note, it is important to maintain a healthy attitude about all this. When you get into devising complicated methods of misting pee and all the upkeep that follows, the lines can become a little blurred. Why exactly did you get into all this in the first place? Was it just for fun or was it a matter of science? See, because then that would strike me as a little weird.
Now, all this is ignoring the possibility that not only is someone already doing it, but that thousands of people are doing it. There could be an underground secret society of people who throw their pee out of their apartment windows. I am sure I am not the first person to come up with this idea, this is a very big city. It is entirely possible that, say, one in three drops that hits you in the face is some kind of bodily fluid. Think about it. Or don’t, more like.
Of course, when you get caught as you most certainly will, in all likelihood everyone will react in the same way they did with the Deli Pooper. They would spend about an hour completely aghast and then promptly forget all about it, while you spend the next year all tranqed out on meds. What else can you do? After all, nobody knows anyone who died from poop-food or pee-eye. Until they make air-conditioners that don’t drip, there is nothing you can do outside leaving the city for the entire summer. So if you are prone to such extreme behavior, then by all means – go be a wacko. For the rest of us, just keep walking, wipe off the drops, and what about that sick feeling of foreboding you feel when this happens? Why it’s nothing more than the bills you forgot to pay on time this month. Silly you. Just keep walking, and don’t forget to stop off at the deli before you get back to work.
Nothing is worse than when people sing Cartman songs and try to sound like Cartman. If you don’t know who Cartman is, he’s the fat kid on
And when he does perform Cartman, it is always uncomfortably apparent that this person has spent a lot of time working on Cartman’s songs, probably in front of the mirror without a shirt on. The words are perfect, the inflection is spot-on, and the rhythm is precise. Funny thing, rhythms. Fast or slow, they’re always very relevant to the piece when you’re listening to a professional recording, but when jackass keeps to the original time, even Kyle’s Mom’s a Bitch becomes an aria, so sit back, and try as best you can to keep that placating smile fresh. It’s going to be a long and agonizing while, and the only two places to look are the floor or directly into the eyes of Cartman’s Eager Understudy, because you just know he’s looking into yours, for tonight is his moment to shine.
Please excuse my referring to “him” with no acknowledgement that someone such as this could be “her,” but we all know that holding parties hostage in the name of “this funny song I can sing” is a strictly male phenomenon.
And it doesn’t just stop with Cartman. Maybe he has a guitar upstairs that’ll only take him a minute to tune. Perhaps he has recorded a demo that just happens to already be in the CD player, and with any luck, the genre will be electronic, and he’s really starting to get the hang of it. He’s also the same guy that extols the virtues of Dave Matthews, citing a specific and, to hear him tell it, particularly stirring moment in one Dave’s songs, then he plays it, not letting you speak until the moment comes, which it inevitably doesn’t until 4:37 into the song, at which point Dave shouts a raspy grumble over as much mounting tension as one can accomplish with a violin and a horn, and then the guy acts like the glory moment has come and gone and he’s just too spent to comment on it, yet he’s looking at you as if to say ‘fuck yeah, right?” And what do you do then? If you’re me, you go, “I think Dave Matthews is really good. He’s really passionate but I don’t really listen to him,” and I begin immediately haggling with God – you grant me respite, I stop regarding your existence with such ironic suspicion – deal?
No deal. Dave may be done but have you heard Cartman do Kyle’s Mom’s a Bitch?
Yeah, but that was the short version they did on the show. Have you heard the long version?
No. The long one.
You haven’t?!?!
How to Be a Gentleman helped me realize what good manners I don’t have. I think I used to. But that was when I was a kid and adults were able to placate me with their no-logic subjective answers for everything. Now I’m suddenly grown up, and I seem to have unconsciously discounted everything I ever learned that doesn’t have strong logic behind it. So if I’m confronted with the question of which fork to use for which course, I will try to rely on reason, which only leaves me wanting to bypass the utensils entirely and eat the food with my hands.
A Gentleman, however, does not eat food with his hands. Except for chicken fingers and asparagus. Yes, it is okay for a Gentleman to eat asparagus spears with his fingers. Although I suppose that might not apply if they’re laden with grease as they so often are. The book fails to specify. Being a Gentleman requires an adherence to a decorum whose rules and reasons escape me. Because maybe a Gentleman does eat greasy asparagus with his fingers. There are some things that, surprisingly, a Gentleman doesn’t give a shit about. For instance, if he puts something unpalatable into his mouth, he removes it “quickly and does not even attempt to disguise his actions behind a napkin.” I would never have guessed that. So maybe he does pick up greasy asparagus, maybe it’s totally obvious. But it could just as easily be obvious in the negative! I don’t know!
I’m going to get it, though, and when I do, it will come as a great relief to my friend Paul, I’m sure. It’s one thing to sit around with my peers and yuk it up about what respect we don’t have for anything, but Paul is a few years older and does care about manners, and when I’m in his presence, I tend to give manners the respect I so often resist. Paul also has a bit more of a career, and is a little more accustomed to luxuries like “salad forks” and “cloth napkins” and every now and again I find myself "eating" with him at a “restaurant.”
Under normal circumstances eating at a restaurant wouldn’t be such an ordeal. But inevitably something throws me early on – like someone will give me a hot towel for my hands or place my napkin on my lap for me – this will come unexpected and set me on a trajectory that will have me second-guessing all my thoughts and actions throughout the remainder of the meal. Next thing I know I have spilled my drink on my chest because I missed my mouth and have scattered various food particles on the table around my plate from over-zealous cutting. I'll glance up at my wine glass and wince at the thumbprint on the globe. What the hell am I doing putting my fingers up there? Hold it by the stem.
Not that Paul really cares about things like that. It’s just that going to dinner with him makes me realize that I am out of practice in regards to behaving respectably, and all my dating failures and frustrations of late don’t seem quite so baffling in light of this new perspective.
Paul has often tried to give me advice, which I have received with all attention and spotty follow-through. One time he suggested that I always carry a $20 on me. That way if I, or someone in my party, needs any kind of incidental, I have money at the ready.
Funny Paul. That’s assuming I have $20 in the bank at any given time, and frankly, that’s a wild assumption. But instead of saying that I just nodded, proclaimed it a really good idea, and pictured a day when I could go and withdraw $20 any time I pleased, me dancing away from the ATM, kicking my heels as I head down the road in the path of the sun, waving my inconsequential $20, not even checking my receipt, because who cares, I am more interested in finding someone to spend it on.
And, sure, I don’t carry $20 on me at all times, but maybe the doing of the thing is not as important as the thinking of it. Having the physical $20 on hand is great etiquette, but ultimately one can go pick up money at an ATM, and even though it takes time and is inconvenient, it’s actually not that much of a problem. The greater benefit is the desire to have $20 for no other reason than to spend it on someone else.
Paul has a remarkable perspective regarding the value of money. He gives it freely and discusses it never. More than anyone else, he helped me realize that money is nothing more than the rag-paper it is, and to revere it, to prioritize it and to worry it is to waste precious stress that (I’ve realized) can be better applied to sexual frustration and fear of failure. But money? Forget it. Give it away.
Because you can give it away. And if you do, you can make people happy. I think about the work I’m always feverishly trying to stay on top of, the love I seek helplessly and artlessly, and these are fine things to strive for – they bring a genuine sense of satisfaction when completed and attained, but they are very hard to complete, they require dedication and no small amount of toil and frustration. But there is also a real sense of achievement in giving someone an extra 5 or 10 dollars, and what does that require? Nothing more than the energy expended in grabbing an extra few bills for your poor friend’s drink or putting a 1 in front of the 4 in the tip field of your credit card receipt. And with that effort, that miniscule effort, you have made someone’s night better. You have presented an opportunity for them breathe deeply and relaxed, if only once, and at what cost to you? At no cost because money isn’t worth anything. Happiness, on the other hand, even when manifested as fleeting joy or a sigh of relief, does. It means a great deal.
Opinions on the inherent benevolence or malignance of human nature will vary, but I don’t think many people will argue that moments of happiness outweigh moments of dissatisfaction, and maybe as humans evolve we will give happiness the priority it deserves. Because so far, we have not, and if we have tried, we have failed.
A Gentleman realizes that there is a dearth of happiness among everyone he knows and everyone he does not know, himself included. He also realizes that money can be used as a means to alleviate that deficit in others, and consequently, in himself. He adheres to this belief as blindly as a child adheres to parental advice given with no supporting logic, because some things are as clear as what comes around goes around, and for no other reason than because.
A Gentleman, however, does not eat food with his hands. Except for chicken fingers and asparagus. Yes, it is okay for a Gentleman to eat asparagus spears with his fingers. Although I suppose that might not apply if they’re laden with grease as they so often are. The book fails to specify. Being a Gentleman requires an adherence to a decorum whose rules and reasons escape me. Because maybe a Gentleman does eat greasy asparagus with his fingers. There are some things that, surprisingly, a Gentleman doesn’t give a shit about. For instance, if he puts something unpalatable into his mouth, he removes it “quickly and does not even attempt to disguise his actions behind a napkin.” I would never have guessed that. So maybe he does pick up greasy asparagus, maybe it’s totally obvious. But it could just as easily be obvious in the negative! I don’t know!
I’m going to get it, though, and when I do, it will come as a great relief to my friend Paul, I’m sure. It’s one thing to sit around with my peers and yuk it up about what respect we don’t have for anything, but Paul is a few years older and does care about manners, and when I’m in his presence, I tend to give manners the respect I so often resist. Paul also has a bit more of a career, and is a little more accustomed to luxuries like “salad forks” and “cloth napkins” and every now and again I find myself "eating" with him at a “restaurant.”
Under normal circumstances eating at a restaurant wouldn’t be such an ordeal. But inevitably something throws me early on – like someone will give me a hot towel for my hands or place my napkin on my lap for me – this will come unexpected and set me on a trajectory that will have me second-guessing all my thoughts and actions throughout the remainder of the meal. Next thing I know I have spilled my drink on my chest because I missed my mouth and have scattered various food particles on the table around my plate from over-zealous cutting. I'll glance up at my wine glass and wince at the thumbprint on the globe. What the hell am I doing putting my fingers up there? Hold it by the stem.
Not that Paul really cares about things like that. It’s just that going to dinner with him makes me realize that I am out of practice in regards to behaving respectably, and all my dating failures and frustrations of late don’t seem quite so baffling in light of this new perspective.
Paul has often tried to give me advice, which I have received with all attention and spotty follow-through. One time he suggested that I always carry a $20 on me. That way if I, or someone in my party, needs any kind of incidental, I have money at the ready.
Funny Paul. That’s assuming I have $20 in the bank at any given time, and frankly, that’s a wild assumption. But instead of saying that I just nodded, proclaimed it a really good idea, and pictured a day when I could go and withdraw $20 any time I pleased, me dancing away from the ATM, kicking my heels as I head down the road in the path of the sun, waving my inconsequential $20, not even checking my receipt, because who cares, I am more interested in finding someone to spend it on.
And, sure, I don’t carry $20 on me at all times, but maybe the doing of the thing is not as important as the thinking of it. Having the physical $20 on hand is great etiquette, but ultimately one can go pick up money at an ATM, and even though it takes time and is inconvenient, it’s actually not that much of a problem. The greater benefit is the desire to have $20 for no other reason than to spend it on someone else.
Paul has a remarkable perspective regarding the value of money. He gives it freely and discusses it never. More than anyone else, he helped me realize that money is nothing more than the rag-paper it is, and to revere it, to prioritize it and to worry it is to waste precious stress that (I’ve realized) can be better applied to sexual frustration and fear of failure. But money? Forget it. Give it away.
Because you can give it away. And if you do, you can make people happy. I think about the work I’m always feverishly trying to stay on top of, the love I seek helplessly and artlessly, and these are fine things to strive for – they bring a genuine sense of satisfaction when completed and attained, but they are very hard to complete, they require dedication and no small amount of toil and frustration. But there is also a real sense of achievement in giving someone an extra 5 or 10 dollars, and what does that require? Nothing more than the energy expended in grabbing an extra few bills for your poor friend’s drink or putting a 1 in front of the 4 in the tip field of your credit card receipt. And with that effort, that miniscule effort, you have made someone’s night better. You have presented an opportunity for them breathe deeply and relaxed, if only once, and at what cost to you? At no cost because money isn’t worth anything. Happiness, on the other hand, even when manifested as fleeting joy or a sigh of relief, does. It means a great deal.
Opinions on the inherent benevolence or malignance of human nature will vary, but I don’t think many people will argue that moments of happiness outweigh moments of dissatisfaction, and maybe as humans evolve we will give happiness the priority it deserves. Because so far, we have not, and if we have tried, we have failed.
A Gentleman realizes that there is a dearth of happiness among everyone he knows and everyone he does not know, himself included. He also realizes that money can be used as a means to alleviate that deficit in others, and consequently, in himself. He adheres to this belief as blindly as a child adheres to parental advice given with no supporting logic, because some things are as clear as what comes around goes around, and for no other reason than because.
“What’s the commotion?”
“Eric’s quarters have been vacated.”
“What?”
“He’s gone.”
“…”
“…”
“King Roger isn’t going to like this-”
“I know!”
“Where do you think he went?”
“Outside. Somewhere in the city.”
“He didn’t get his morning dose, did he?”
“No. Those drugs are going to wear off soon.”
“Do you think he’s going to freak?”
“What would you do if you woke up four years later and you were dressed like a court jester in New York City?”
“Do you think he’s going to remember what…King Roger did to him?”
“Don’t speak out against your King.”
“I’m just saying-”
“I know, and I’m just saying that you behave a certain way and next thing you know, you’re His Royal Highness’ new court jester.”
“Yeah right.”
“Well who else do you think it’s going to be?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. It was always just Eric.”
“Well start thinking. He got out on your watch.”
“Oh no. How long till the King wakes up?”
“He’ll be calling for his Jester soon.”
"How soon?"
"Soon."
“We gotta find Eric.”
“Did you check up the block?”
“Yeah, no sight of him.”
“What about the subway?”
“No. You think?”
“Maybe.”
“He’s a jester. He wouldn’t get on the subway.”
“He might. He’s bound to be pretty groggy.”
“He might not even realize he’s dressed as a Jester.”
“Probably doesn’t.”
“He probably just thinks he’s riding the subway, going to work or something.”
“Yeah, like he’s just like everyone else.”
“Poor Eric.”
“Uh oh.”
“What?”
“King Roger.”
“No…”
“Wants his jester.”
I am standing on the subway across from a girl whose mouth is drawn into a frown that is almost perfectly semi-circular and makes her look like a human-cartoon hybrid. And it appears by all indications to be her natural state of being. I cannot take a picture of her, as that would be a lousy thing to do. I did, however, draw her so you can get a good idea of what she looked like. (Hopefully my rendering of her will not give her away – I changed the eyes a little, and I think the real girl had hands.)
It makes me wonder what would make a person that way, how serious and tense their lives must be. Or what they’ve made of their lives, at least. She’s also reading a book, and to see her doing it with that look on her face makes her seem like one of those people who read for the benefit of all the world, frowning themselves apart from the rest of subway humanity. She has her own carefully crafted air of primness and affected intelligence, and it’s just so conscious that it makes me think she might be hiding something, and I have an idea or two about what that might be (average intelligence, that’s what she’s hiding, and oh, how it makes her frown!)
Or maybe she just has a semicircular down-turning mouth and she’s a really cool person. Maybe. Not bloody likely. I am generally of the opinion that things like that are never true. Maybe you can’t judge a book by its cover, but I can. Which is not to say I can’t be swayed by a lackluster cover that promises quality reading. It’s just that I appreciate a nice design on a book just as I appreciate not looking like an idiot on a person.
It’s her lips. Her lips are pursed, pursed for dear life it seems, which only reinforces my assumption that she’s a subway intellect, pursing away the filthy New Yorkers all around with her taught frown. It’s very intentional.
Of course, she could have some sort of medical condition where the nerve cells at the corners of her mouth have died, and she has to purse her remaining lip strength so that the rest of her lips don’t fall into an open gape, which they inevitably will as time and disease claim her remaining lip nerves. Oh no. That would be terrible. It’s a surprisingly believable explanation, too. It strikes me as the kind of explanation I would think up, decide that no, it couldn’t be true, and then I would go out and do something that hinges on it not being true, and lo and behold, it’s the thing I originally thought it was. But I only thought it for second. And then I decided no way. And now look at what an ass I am.
I can’t believe I thought such cynical things about that poor disabled girl. Nice, Matt. Real nice.
Better to have loved and resorted to drastic cinematic tactics and lost than to have never made a complete idiot of yourself at all, right?
Or maybe it’s not a question of better and worse, maybe it’s just a case of, as Popeye would say, “I yam what I yam,” and I clearly yam the type of guy who, in a fit of passion, would compose the most romantic letter he ever composed and put it in the hands of someone who lives in your building, and instruct them to slip it under your door - all on a lark, a misleading lark and cruel.
Now if you’re thinking, ‘That sounds like a very romantic thing to do. I wish someone would do that for me,’ then all I have to say is I would never pick someone like you to shower my ridiculous behavior on – the whip-scarred masochist who managed to overthrow my subconscious a few years back simply wouldn’t allow it, and I only get “good feelings” about people who “don’t love me.”
And the worst part isn’t the humiliation of the thing – that comes quick and severe in the hour it takes me to fall asleep (since sleep seems to be the only course of action after getting shot down in a blaze of self-delusion). In the time I allow the humiliation free reign to consume me, I come up with any number of furious and childish theories about how “life makes you feel like you have so much, so many options, and then it rips everything out from under your feet to reveal what you truly have: nothing,” or “getting your hopes up means you will fail,” and then I cycle through my list of favorite suicide scenarios until I fall asleep.
Next day, though, everything is cool. I mean sure, the previous night’s theoretical revelations still stand, but it doesn’t get me down. In the light of morning, it’s more of a duh: that’s life, kind of reaction.
The thing that kills me, though, is the tone of voice a person uses when there is absolutely no way that they feel the same way about you as you do about them. It’s just so non-negotiable. When a person is simply reluctant to acquiesce to romantic advances, there is a buried encouragement, and then you can deliver a thousand heartfelt reasons why, and, if you’re worth your salt, you emerge victorious.
But the “we’re just friends,” tactic is the worst, I am all of a sudden a kid in a classroom getting scolded by the teacher in the middle of my best joke. It’s a power surge to the brain combined with an inability to say or do anything, and although the tantrum-philosophy and suicide dreams take on their own charm by morning, the echo of a tone that suggests you never had a chance rings long and excruciating.
But it’s good to know that what I did was “sweet,” and that she “appreciated” it. I just wish she had been as “flattered” as all the others from years past, but if she was, she did not say so.
“Okay. So I’ve got that external hooked up in my bedroom and I’m able to get to it wirelessly from in here, which is cool because now I have a place to save all the TV shows I record and I can access them anywhere in the house on any computer. I do love that hard drive. It looks like HAL with that blue eye on it. It’s so cool that it’s like staring at me. I wish it was thinking something. Ew, if someone else was in here with me they would be like “Maybe it is,” but no, idiot, it’s clearly not. So now this is all great and everything, but what I really need is a way to stream the TV shows wirelessly back to the TV, for an effortless experience. Man, I don’t know how I will be able to manage that. I don’t think they even make the hardware. Maybe I will figure something out – it’s kind of imperative that I do, actually. I wonder if I could stream any of it to my phone…”
“Yo.”
“You came just in time! I hooked it all up! We can watch TV now on any computer in the house without wires! It’s like streaming it over the air!”
“Neat.”
“It is actually.”
“Is what?”
“I said it was like streaming it over the air, but it’s not like that. It is that.”
“I don’t have a computer.”
“You use mine all the time. You can watch TV on it now.”
“I watch TV on the TV.”
“Yes but now you can take it with you anywhere you want in the apartment! Maybe you want to watch it on the balcony, or the bathroom, or, actually, I don’t know if you should take my computer in the bathroom with you, and the balcony, also that too.”
“Why not the balcony?”
“I don’t know. It’s high up.”
“I’m not afraid of heights. You think I’ll break your stupid computer just because it’s high? When was the last time I dropped your computer?”
“Yesterday.”
“I’m so sure I dropped it. I was putting it down and it fell the last few inches. That is technically just putting it down rough.”
“You threw a stack of books on it the other night. You put a dent in it.”
“Listen, we were very wasted and you said it was okay. Like you said it was no problem. I was trying to think of anything I could do to make it better short of spending money and you were very sincere and you said it was really okay.”
“Yes, it was okay. It is okay.”
“Then you can’t bring it up in this context.”
“But-”
“Especially because if you pursue it any further I’m going to pretend to be really affected and then I’ll start trying to think of ways to make it better without spending any money again and you’ll get all back-tracky and guilty over how you’ve made me feel.”
“That’s true. Why do I do that?”
“You’re spineless.”
“What?”
“You’re spineless.”
“I am not!”
“Just insofar as your tendency to never assert yourself and always cave in.”
“Hmmm. Interesting. Very, hmm, interesting. Wow. You’ve really given me a lot to think about. Food for thought. A real think-piece. A real stink piece. A real pink theice. A theal prink-”
“Shut up.”
“You know in light of these revelations, maybe you should buy your own computer.”
“I told you, I’m fine with just using yours.”
“Get your own and then you will be able to watch TV!”
“I already can watch TV!”
“Not the way they watch TV in the future. I mean, I was watching it in the kitchen today while I made my food! It was like the freakin’ – oh, that’s another…I mean, you can if you promise to be really careful about not getting food on it-”
“I’m not going to watch your stupid computer while I make food, Ben.”
“Fine.”
“Yo.”
“You came just in time! I hooked it all up! We can watch TV now on any computer in the house without wires! It’s like streaming it over the air!”
“Neat.”
“It is actually.”
“Is what?”
“I said it was like streaming it over the air, but it’s not like that. It is that.”
“I don’t have a computer.”
“You use mine all the time. You can watch TV on it now.”
“I watch TV on the TV.”
“Yes but now you can take it with you anywhere you want in the apartment! Maybe you want to watch it on the balcony, or the bathroom, or, actually, I don’t know if you should take my computer in the bathroom with you, and the balcony, also that too.”
“Why not the balcony?”
“I don’t know. It’s high up.”
“I’m not afraid of heights. You think I’ll break your stupid computer just because it’s high? When was the last time I dropped your computer?”
“Yesterday.”
“I’m so sure I dropped it. I was putting it down and it fell the last few inches. That is technically just putting it down rough.”
“You threw a stack of books on it the other night. You put a dent in it.”
“Listen, we were very wasted and you said it was okay. Like you said it was no problem. I was trying to think of anything I could do to make it better short of spending money and you were very sincere and you said it was really okay.”
“Yes, it was okay. It is okay.”
“Then you can’t bring it up in this context.”
“But-”
“Especially because if you pursue it any further I’m going to pretend to be really affected and then I’ll start trying to think of ways to make it better without spending any money again and you’ll get all back-tracky and guilty over how you’ve made me feel.”
“That’s true. Why do I do that?”
“You’re spineless.”
“What?”
“You’re spineless.”
“I am not!”
“Just insofar as your tendency to never assert yourself and always cave in.”
“Hmmm. Interesting. Very, hmm, interesting. Wow. You’ve really given me a lot to think about. Food for thought. A real think-piece. A real stink piece. A real pink theice. A theal prink-”
“Shut up.”
“You know in light of these revelations, maybe you should buy your own computer.”
“I told you, I’m fine with just using yours.”
“Get your own and then you will be able to watch TV!”
“I already can watch TV!”
“Not the way they watch TV in the future. I mean, I was watching it in the kitchen today while I made my food! It was like the freakin’ – oh, that’s another…I mean, you can if you promise to be really careful about not getting food on it-”
“I’m not going to watch your stupid computer while I make food, Ben.”
“Fine.”
Go here and make everyone you know. But not yourself. Other people have to make you.
South Park Creator
South Park Creator
Sometimes when I’m on Canal Street I get the suspicion that a ways back I must have stepped in lard, for it is as though I am ice-skating on dry concrete, my feet sliming me thickly to and fro. But I only have to smell the fish and rot in the air or take note of the shiny glaze on the mucky sidewalk to know that while there may be lard on my feet, it’s not because I stepped in a puddle of it. It’s because Canal Street secretes it from its gunky pores. The street is alive, not in the sense that the residents of Chinatown are determined to make their way in this country, but in the sense that somehow they seem to have actually built the entire part of town atop an enormous, lethargic slug. A slug that smells like fucking crap.
And I’m always here on the grayest of afternoons, when there’s a mist in the air, a gathering slurry on the ground, and it’s packed, so packed with tourists, people selling watches, tiny, fast, and surprisingly aggressive women nudging you out of the way with their carts, and little men tossing buckets of glop. Usually I try to bypass the gathering mobs at the corners by walking out into the street, but you simply can’t avoid every mob, and here I am, smashed in good. I sense the hustle of things, I see mouths flapping and aggravations surfacing from all around me, but their voices and the roar are lost to me. And I say a prayer of thanks to Apple for inventing the iPod, the single most effective weapon in the war against obnoxious idiots. Over here is some fat bald jerk flapping his liver lips at a car that cut too close. Funny how his mouth almost matches up with Kelly Clarkson’s. Over there a fuzz-headed old bird woman is having a hard time gathering her many shopping bags, which are getting snagged on hurried and aggressive pedestrians. I can smell her perfume, and I can see her ancient beak, but I cannot hear her squawk. I smile serene. Bored of Miss Independent, I decide to keep the mood up, at least until I’m out of this mess, and I switch to Come What May from Moulin Rouge. I can’t help it. I am a sucker for love, true love.
Never knew I could feel like this. Like I’ve never seen the sky before.
And then I see her. One of those pixie model girls that gather around SoHo. The kind of girl you forget exists until you are right up in her delicate little face gazing into her anime eyes, and then you realize that yes, they are real, they are elusive but here’s one! Here’s one now!
Want to vanish inside your kiss. Every day I love you more and more.
How can I get her?! How do you lure a pixie? I search my pockets for sparkles or gumdrops but all I have is a pack of stale Big Red and if there’s one thing I know, this girl chews sugar-free. Light-blue Extra.
Listen to my heart, can you hear it sing? Telling me to give you everything!
All of a sudden I get a strange and vivid image of me and the pixie girl. The two of us are in a studio working with some other artists toward a collaborative goal. We are trying to make new show, a Great New Show, and it is not going well. Heads are braced on hands, sighs heave abundant, and the fan is blowing pointless in the stuffy room – all around there is the sense that unless something tremendous happens in the next 20 minutes, that this one is over, and really that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. So out of duty I get up to try something out and I look over at Gwen (I would want that to be her name) and all of a sudden we freeze, engaged and mesmerized. Had we ever really looked at the other before? Silently and separately we reflect for all of a millisecond before I take control of the scene.
“Peter. Give us some music.”
At this point I give Peter (for that is the pianist’s name as well) some sketchy musical instructions that in real life I wouldn’t know how to give, but I accomplish this in my fantasy by recalling some dim version of Marty McFly in Back to the Future explaining to the band at the dance what he wants them to play while he leads them.
“…and try to keep up.”
Seasons may change, Winter to Spring…
He plays, and the song he plays is the song I’m listening to. It is Come What May from Moulin Rouge only there is no such thing as Moulin Rouge, there is only the magic of the world’s greatest impromptu performance - Gwen and I gazing deeply into each other’s eyes as we allow the depths of passion therein free reign of our minds and bodies, and the result is love immaculate, communicated in the song we never knew we knew, in service of a joy we never knew we could feel.
But I’ll love you-
And on the street Gwen catches my eye as we pass each other, and in that instant, that glorious instant, we are as we are in my imagination. Reality fragments for just that one moment, and I wonder, does she hear the music? Her eyes must read clearly what mine are wondering at hers because her smile deepens almost imperceptibly but enough to say what she means to say.
Until the end of time.
Which is when I walk head on into an oncoming hot dog cart. I smack my head enough to send me spaceward for a split second and I reach out to brace myself. Luckily my hand finds the hottest part of the steaming cart to grope at, for the pain in my head is immediately preempted by the hot metal and searing release of steam as a panel slides loose.
Thump. Tss. “Ow!”
The man who was pushing the cart mouths something at me, something that seems like an apology, which is a little surprising because I would just as likely expect him to yell at me for displacing his hot panel and depriving him of expensive steam. “That steam ain’t cheap!” He might say. “It’s a living.”
But no, he apologized and I didn’t hear him anyway, nor was I interested in anything in the world other than the girl who is now gone, long gone, across the street, around the corner, disappeared into Bloomingdales or into a cab. Definitely not the subway. Gwen doesn’t ride the subway.
COME WHAT MAY! COME WHAT MAY!
At this point I begin to wish my iPod would display a little consideration and cut it with the love song, but they don’t make empathetic iPods, not yet at least, and it blares on, as though the end was a happy one, as though I got the girl instead of a head lump and a second degree burn. On top of that, the man with the cart seems to be expecting a response from me, and is he just the slightest bit irritated that I’m wearing those white headphones that aggravate all who don’t have them? He asks his mute question again, a little more emphatically.
I…. WILL LOVE YOU!
All of a sudden I am suffering from too much input – between the confusion and my wounds and the music in my ears that won’t let up – the magic moment may be done but no one told my iPod, my iPod thinks I ran off with the girl! And the guy keeps talking to me, what does he want?!
UNTIL MY DYING DAY!!!
And that’s when I shake my head like a retarded kid who is overwhelmed by too much stimulus and run off down Canal.
“Matty wants cake!” I scream, clutching my head.
And I’m gone.
Two blocks down the street, I pause to reflect. The muck is thicker here, it is gathering into a river, an actual river of garbage and fish guts, and the current catches me and begins to carry me away. As I bob and pitch in the stream, I think about Gwen and speculate upon whether or not it is possible that my dream of us spontaneously creating Moulin Rouge could possibly exist for us, somewhere in the universe. Probably not.
But what of a parallel existence where the hot dog cart was not coming down this particular corner? One where we were able to stop, dreaming at one another, whereupon one of us would summon the will to break the spell, and what an effort it would take just so say “hi.” And what would become of us thereafter?
As I drift down the river which is gathering into an ocean, an improbable yet very real ocean of slime and trash, the city quickly withdrawing to a pinpoint on the gray horizon, I wonder whether or not this reality isn’t the alternate one, and whether the universe I knew continues on, having swapped me in that unbelievable moment the two of us shared when our eyes met and our existences found their nexus. The possibility that right now, as I drift out to sea, Gwen and I have departed Canal Street for the comfort of some tea house or café, each feeling so lucky, and so happy that we did not let the moment go.
Probably.
And I’m always here on the grayest of afternoons, when there’s a mist in the air, a gathering slurry on the ground, and it’s packed, so packed with tourists, people selling watches, tiny, fast, and surprisingly aggressive women nudging you out of the way with their carts, and little men tossing buckets of glop. Usually I try to bypass the gathering mobs at the corners by walking out into the street, but you simply can’t avoid every mob, and here I am, smashed in good. I sense the hustle of things, I see mouths flapping and aggravations surfacing from all around me, but their voices and the roar are lost to me. And I say a prayer of thanks to Apple for inventing the iPod, the single most effective weapon in the war against obnoxious idiots. Over here is some fat bald jerk flapping his liver lips at a car that cut too close. Funny how his mouth almost matches up with Kelly Clarkson’s. Over there a fuzz-headed old bird woman is having a hard time gathering her many shopping bags, which are getting snagged on hurried and aggressive pedestrians. I can smell her perfume, and I can see her ancient beak, but I cannot hear her squawk. I smile serene. Bored of Miss Independent, I decide to keep the mood up, at least until I’m out of this mess, and I switch to Come What May from Moulin Rouge. I can’t help it. I am a sucker for love, true love.
Never knew I could feel like this. Like I’ve never seen the sky before.
And then I see her. One of those pixie model girls that gather around SoHo. The kind of girl you forget exists until you are right up in her delicate little face gazing into her anime eyes, and then you realize that yes, they are real, they are elusive but here’s one! Here’s one now!
Want to vanish inside your kiss. Every day I love you more and more.
How can I get her?! How do you lure a pixie? I search my pockets for sparkles or gumdrops but all I have is a pack of stale Big Red and if there’s one thing I know, this girl chews sugar-free. Light-blue Extra.
Listen to my heart, can you hear it sing? Telling me to give you everything!
All of a sudden I get a strange and vivid image of me and the pixie girl. The two of us are in a studio working with some other artists toward a collaborative goal. We are trying to make new show, a Great New Show, and it is not going well. Heads are braced on hands, sighs heave abundant, and the fan is blowing pointless in the stuffy room – all around there is the sense that unless something tremendous happens in the next 20 minutes, that this one is over, and really that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. So out of duty I get up to try something out and I look over at Gwen (I would want that to be her name) and all of a sudden we freeze, engaged and mesmerized. Had we ever really looked at the other before? Silently and separately we reflect for all of a millisecond before I take control of the scene.
“Peter. Give us some music.”
At this point I give Peter (for that is the pianist’s name as well) some sketchy musical instructions that in real life I wouldn’t know how to give, but I accomplish this in my fantasy by recalling some dim version of Marty McFly in Back to the Future explaining to the band at the dance what he wants them to play while he leads them.
“…and try to keep up.”
Seasons may change, Winter to Spring…
He plays, and the song he plays is the song I’m listening to. It is Come What May from Moulin Rouge only there is no such thing as Moulin Rouge, there is only the magic of the world’s greatest impromptu performance - Gwen and I gazing deeply into each other’s eyes as we allow the depths of passion therein free reign of our minds and bodies, and the result is love immaculate, communicated in the song we never knew we knew, in service of a joy we never knew we could feel.
But I’ll love you-
And on the street Gwen catches my eye as we pass each other, and in that instant, that glorious instant, we are as we are in my imagination. Reality fragments for just that one moment, and I wonder, does she hear the music? Her eyes must read clearly what mine are wondering at hers because her smile deepens almost imperceptibly but enough to say what she means to say.
Until the end of time.
Which is when I walk head on into an oncoming hot dog cart. I smack my head enough to send me spaceward for a split second and I reach out to brace myself. Luckily my hand finds the hottest part of the steaming cart to grope at, for the pain in my head is immediately preempted by the hot metal and searing release of steam as a panel slides loose.
Thump. Tss. “Ow!”
The man who was pushing the cart mouths something at me, something that seems like an apology, which is a little surprising because I would just as likely expect him to yell at me for displacing his hot panel and depriving him of expensive steam. “That steam ain’t cheap!” He might say. “It’s a living.”
But no, he apologized and I didn’t hear him anyway, nor was I interested in anything in the world other than the girl who is now gone, long gone, across the street, around the corner, disappeared into Bloomingdales or into a cab. Definitely not the subway. Gwen doesn’t ride the subway.
COME WHAT MAY! COME WHAT MAY!
At this point I begin to wish my iPod would display a little consideration and cut it with the love song, but they don’t make empathetic iPods, not yet at least, and it blares on, as though the end was a happy one, as though I got the girl instead of a head lump and a second degree burn. On top of that, the man with the cart seems to be expecting a response from me, and is he just the slightest bit irritated that I’m wearing those white headphones that aggravate all who don’t have them? He asks his mute question again, a little more emphatically.
I…. WILL LOVE YOU!
All of a sudden I am suffering from too much input – between the confusion and my wounds and the music in my ears that won’t let up – the magic moment may be done but no one told my iPod, my iPod thinks I ran off with the girl! And the guy keeps talking to me, what does he want?!
UNTIL MY DYING DAY!!!
And that’s when I shake my head like a retarded kid who is overwhelmed by too much stimulus and run off down Canal.
“Matty wants cake!” I scream, clutching my head.
And I’m gone.
Two blocks down the street, I pause to reflect. The muck is thicker here, it is gathering into a river, an actual river of garbage and fish guts, and the current catches me and begins to carry me away. As I bob and pitch in the stream, I think about Gwen and speculate upon whether or not it is possible that my dream of us spontaneously creating Moulin Rouge could possibly exist for us, somewhere in the universe. Probably not.
But what of a parallel existence where the hot dog cart was not coming down this particular corner? One where we were able to stop, dreaming at one another, whereupon one of us would summon the will to break the spell, and what an effort it would take just so say “hi.” And what would become of us thereafter?
As I drift down the river which is gathering into an ocean, an improbable yet very real ocean of slime and trash, the city quickly withdrawing to a pinpoint on the gray horizon, I wonder whether or not this reality isn’t the alternate one, and whether the universe I knew continues on, having swapped me in that unbelievable moment the two of us shared when our eyes met and our existences found their nexus. The possibility that right now, as I drift out to sea, Gwen and I have departed Canal Street for the comfort of some tea house or café, each feeling so lucky, and so happy that we did not let the moment go.
Probably.
When I sneeze and hold it in and the back of my head hurts afterward, does that mean I’m having a brain hemorrhage? Like not a serious one but a small one? Probably. What else could it be, after all? (Many things. Don’t answer that.)
I can feel it right on the crown of my head toward the back. Pulsing. And then I do this thing I always do when I get headaches – I shake my head from side to side – it’s how I know if I have a headache or not. If I shake my head, you know, slosh my brains around a little and my head hurts afterwards, that means I have a headache. Of course, if I don’t have a headache, I end up giving myself one, and if I do have one, shaking my brains around always makes it worse. It’s more of a habit than a conscious attempt at making myself feel pain.
Off topic, why is the word brain funnier when you call it brains?
Back on topic, I have always thought of hemorrhages as pretty cool things, but that’s probably just because I enjoy thinking about brains. For instance, when I was kid and heard that “such and such loved one died of an brain hemorrhage,” I couldn’t help but get excited thinking about the blood traveling through their brains, building up too much pressure and escaping, ruining it all – off limits, out of bounds, game over, you unruly blood, you.
All in all it was a sci-fi adventure for me, I was piloting the miniaturized spaceship traveling through the blood vessel until it was time to fire my lazers at the artery wall, thus rupturing it, and then I could travel freely about the brain and what a wonderland that was! Miles and miles of bulbous landscape, glowing neon purple underneath a black sky! What I wouldn’t have given to ride around on someone’s hemorrhage. I should have been a doctor. An evil doctor.
A doctor like Hannibal Lecter.
No. I couldn’t be like Hannibal Lecter. I’m not as smart as he is, and I don’t want to be some kind of half-assed psycho. I’m not fishing for compliments, incidentally. You’re not as smart as he is, either, so for you to tell me I am as smart as Dr. Lecter would only be empty since neither of us even know what it is like to be that smart in the first place. The point is, if I’m going to go nuts, I have to go nutser than anyone has ever gone, and for that reason and that reason alone we’re all safe. (Just kidding. After 9/11 no one is safe.)
I do spend a lot of time thinking about brains. I would say they are one of my favorite things to think about. I imagine it’s because I (and probably everyone, or manyone at least) have an innate fascination with things that are bubbly and tubular and translucent. It’s probably something Freudian.
It would be cool to play around with brains some. Squish ‘em in my hands. I even kind of want to bite down on a brain, just for the texture. To feel my teeth bouncing on its rubberiness. I actually wouldn’t mind eating one – but only if it tasted like gummy candy. The reality of eating a brain (at least a raw one) is that it would be very membranous and there would be an overabundance of fluids, and that would be gross. But if they tasted the way that they looked, I might be inclined to have a bite.
They should make a gummy brains candy! But it should not be a little bite-sized candy. It should be the actual size and shape of an adult human brain – that way you can have all the fun of eating brains without having to harvest them or taste them as they naturally taste!
No doubt eating a raw brain would be totally disgusting, but what of a cooked brain? This naturally gets me thinking once again about Hannibal Lecter and how he cooked Ray Liotta’s brain (also fed it to him, which I think was totally great – served him right, the dick.)
At the risk of saying something unpopular, I might…like…to taste a cooked human brain. But only if Hannibal Lecter gave it to me, waited until I ate it, and then told me what it was. I would certainly be horrified plenty at first but then I would probably be glad for the opportunity. It would satisfy a curiosity.
But no, he would have to tell me what it was beforehand, as I refuse to eat non-fish meats. (Yeah, I’m one of those. And I don’t do it because I care about animals yet somehow not about fish. I do it so my friends will yell at me.)
If Hannibal told me what it was, though, that it was not an animal but in fact a cooked human brain, I would probably eat it all the same. To imagine being told by a very smart and charismatic madman that what he’s offering you is a brain – I think at first I would be absolutely horrified and fearful for my safety, but that might rapidly dissolve into a co-conspiratorial air between him and I – because what am I in this situation other than Eve and what is he offering me if not something mysterious, unknown, and forbidden? And really, if he was Hannibal Lecter, it’s not like I would have a choice. He gets you to do what he wants you to do.
Besides, to be offered a bite of brain would be a once in a lifetime thing. I would probably feel a little bad afterward, but it’s not like I had a hand in the harvesting, after all, so I don’t think the guilt would give me too much trouble. Plus, a dick like Ray Liotta’s character deserves to lose his brain. I would just have to assume parallel circumstances.
Yeah, I would definitely eat it. It would be a very special occasion, and I am not one to shrug off a holiday.
I can feel it right on the crown of my head toward the back. Pulsing. And then I do this thing I always do when I get headaches – I shake my head from side to side – it’s how I know if I have a headache or not. If I shake my head, you know, slosh my brains around a little and my head hurts afterwards, that means I have a headache. Of course, if I don’t have a headache, I end up giving myself one, and if I do have one, shaking my brains around always makes it worse. It’s more of a habit than a conscious attempt at making myself feel pain.
Off topic, why is the word brain funnier when you call it brains?
Back on topic, I have always thought of hemorrhages as pretty cool things, but that’s probably just because I enjoy thinking about brains. For instance, when I was kid and heard that “such and such loved one died of an brain hemorrhage,” I couldn’t help but get excited thinking about the blood traveling through their brains, building up too much pressure and escaping, ruining it all – off limits, out of bounds, game over, you unruly blood, you.
All in all it was a sci-fi adventure for me, I was piloting the miniaturized spaceship traveling through the blood vessel until it was time to fire my lazers at the artery wall, thus rupturing it, and then I could travel freely about the brain and what a wonderland that was! Miles and miles of bulbous landscape, glowing neon purple underneath a black sky! What I wouldn’t have given to ride around on someone’s hemorrhage. I should have been a doctor. An evil doctor.
A doctor like Hannibal Lecter.
No. I couldn’t be like Hannibal Lecter. I’m not as smart as he is, and I don’t want to be some kind of half-assed psycho. I’m not fishing for compliments, incidentally. You’re not as smart as he is, either, so for you to tell me I am as smart as Dr. Lecter would only be empty since neither of us even know what it is like to be that smart in the first place. The point is, if I’m going to go nuts, I have to go nutser than anyone has ever gone, and for that reason and that reason alone we’re all safe. (Just kidding. After 9/11 no one is safe.)
I do spend a lot of time thinking about brains. I would say they are one of my favorite things to think about. I imagine it’s because I (and probably everyone, or manyone at least) have an innate fascination with things that are bubbly and tubular and translucent. It’s probably something Freudian.
It would be cool to play around with brains some. Squish ‘em in my hands. I even kind of want to bite down on a brain, just for the texture. To feel my teeth bouncing on its rubberiness. I actually wouldn’t mind eating one – but only if it tasted like gummy candy. The reality of eating a brain (at least a raw one) is that it would be very membranous and there would be an overabundance of fluids, and that would be gross. But if they tasted the way that they looked, I might be inclined to have a bite.
They should make a gummy brains candy! But it should not be a little bite-sized candy. It should be the actual size and shape of an adult human brain – that way you can have all the fun of eating brains without having to harvest them or taste them as they naturally taste!
No doubt eating a raw brain would be totally disgusting, but what of a cooked brain? This naturally gets me thinking once again about Hannibal Lecter and how he cooked Ray Liotta’s brain (also fed it to him, which I think was totally great – served him right, the dick.)
At the risk of saying something unpopular, I might…like…to taste a cooked human brain. But only if Hannibal Lecter gave it to me, waited until I ate it, and then told me what it was. I would certainly be horrified plenty at first but then I would probably be glad for the opportunity. It would satisfy a curiosity.
But no, he would have to tell me what it was beforehand, as I refuse to eat non-fish meats. (Yeah, I’m one of those. And I don’t do it because I care about animals yet somehow not about fish. I do it so my friends will yell at me.)
If Hannibal told me what it was, though, that it was not an animal but in fact a cooked human brain, I would probably eat it all the same. To imagine being told by a very smart and charismatic madman that what he’s offering you is a brain – I think at first I would be absolutely horrified and fearful for my safety, but that might rapidly dissolve into a co-conspiratorial air between him and I – because what am I in this situation other than Eve and what is he offering me if not something mysterious, unknown, and forbidden? And really, if he was Hannibal Lecter, it’s not like I would have a choice. He gets you to do what he wants you to do.
Besides, to be offered a bite of brain would be a once in a lifetime thing. I would probably feel a little bad afterward, but it’s not like I had a hand in the harvesting, after all, so I don’t think the guilt would give me too much trouble. Plus, a dick like Ray Liotta’s character deserves to lose his brain. I would just have to assume parallel circumstances.
Yeah, I would definitely eat it. It would be a very special occasion, and I am not one to shrug off a holiday.
“I'm really glad you could meet me here tonight.”
“Well hey, I'm happy to meet you.”
“That's good.”
“In fact, I'm just really surprised to hear from you. I thought I wasn't going to hear from you anymore.”
“Huh.”
“Which I thought was odd, because we had such a fun time when we went out the other week.”
“Did we?”
“Excuse me?”
“Was the time that we had really all that fun?”
“Well sure.”
“Name one fun thing about it.”
“We talked a lot.”
“Talking is not fun.”
“Yeah, it's fun.”
“No, it's exhausting. I guess maybe you find things that are exhausting to be fun depending on your religious upbringing.”
“Well, we hooked up.”
“Yeah but we were both so drunk that neither one of us could make anything work.”
“No, we sort of could.”
“Point is, I wanted to talk about our status on Friendster.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we met on Friendster and only ever went out on one date. I mean, in the haste of everything I added you as a friend and accepted your testimonial when maybe that wasn't in the best interest of my profile.”
“Okay, so what? You want to get rid of my testimonial?”
“Yeah.”
“Like, take it down?”
“Yep.”
“Will you like copy and paste it so that you always have it to read if you ever want to read what I wrote about you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don't think you're getting me.”
“Well, I'm sorry, but all this is happening a little fast, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I mean, Jesus, first you ask me to dinner and now you're telling me essentially that you want me off your profile.”
“Yes, that's it. That's exactly it.”
“Why?”
“Your testimonial is idiotic.”
“I'm sorry. What?”
“Idiotic.”
“It is not idiotic.”
“It is. It is for idiots.”
“What does it say?”
“You don't even remember what you wrote?”
“Well, I don't know. You know testimonials, you just try to be better than the other testimonials.”
“You wrote ‘Kelly is a real cool chick who is hard to keep up with. You keep goin' girl! Youre so crazy!’"
“Oh yeah, now I remember that.”
“You don't think that is idiotic?”
“Idiotic nice, maybe. No - just nice.”
“Look, I didn't ask you here to discuss this. I asked you here to tell you that I'm deleting your testimonial.”
“Man. That's cold.”
“I'm sick of logging on to Friendster and seeing a collage of my awkward dating attempts, okay? Because not everyone who goes out on one failure of a date should make the other person their Friendster.”
“Our date was not a failure!”
“Then why didn't I ever call you back?”
“Because...I don't know...weren't you going out of town?”
“No, you assumed that in the third message you left. I texted you to reject you, for God's sake.”
“I didn’t get it.”
“Yes you did.”
“Okay. I'm sort of seeing a few things fall into place here.”
“Now listen-”
“No, no. I don't need you to sugar coat it for me. Next thing I know I will be under the make-believe impression that this dinner-date actually went well.”
“This isn't a date.”
“Maybe I will listen you your apologies and mistakenly think that someone cares about me, you know? Maybe I will start to foolishly think that I have someone in this world, you know?”
“Well, I'm not going to give you that impression.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, I don't know if you do or do not have anyone in the world who cares about you-”
“I don't.”
“Well, I'm sorry about that, but all I can really control is whether or not I care about you, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Kelly?”
“Yes?”
“Do you care about me?”
“Are you listening?”
“Yeah. What do you mean?”
“No, I don't care about you. That's the reason I called you to dinner.”
“See, though? Why would you call me here if you didn't feel bad about hurting my feelings? If you didn't care about me.”
“Oh. Ha. Touche. I’m meeting a number of Friendsters here tonight. That’s why we have to wrap this up fast. I’m cleaning up my profile.”
“Oh.”
“But listen. I guess you could say I care about you in the way that I would care about drowning a puppy. You want to give it a little kiss on the forehead, but that doesn't mean youre not going to drown it.”
“Oh, I...what?”
“Bye now, little puppy.”
“Wait, so what? We're totally not friendsters anymore? You're deleting me as a friend?”
“Aw. Still wagging your tail like a cutie little puppy. Time to go drowny-byes.”
“Kelly, don't delete me! We're only loosely connected by a degree of three people! Any day now you might find us forever unconnected and then it will be too late!”
“Puppies can't talk.”
“Well, you'll be sorry then.”
“Puppies can't talk.”
“Fine, Kelly. I thought you were more than this.”
“I'm sorry but I don't speak pupplish or doglish or whatever goddamn language is coming out of your mouth. It sounds like so much barking and snorting to me.”
“Okay, I don't know what is going on here, but I'm just going to let you do this. Who knows, you might be going through a tough time. What can I say? You're a real cool chick who's hard to keep up with. You keep goin’ girl. You’re so crazy.”
“Bark bark to you too, puppy who refuses to drown.”
“Bye Kelly.”
“Arf.”
“Well hey, I'm happy to meet you.”
“That's good.”
“In fact, I'm just really surprised to hear from you. I thought I wasn't going to hear from you anymore.”
“Huh.”
“Which I thought was odd, because we had such a fun time when we went out the other week.”
“Did we?”
“Excuse me?”
“Was the time that we had really all that fun?”
“Well sure.”
“Name one fun thing about it.”
“We talked a lot.”
“Talking is not fun.”
“Yeah, it's fun.”
“No, it's exhausting. I guess maybe you find things that are exhausting to be fun depending on your religious upbringing.”
“Well, we hooked up.”
“Yeah but we were both so drunk that neither one of us could make anything work.”
“No, we sort of could.”
“Point is, I wanted to talk about our status on Friendster.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we met on Friendster and only ever went out on one date. I mean, in the haste of everything I added you as a friend and accepted your testimonial when maybe that wasn't in the best interest of my profile.”
“Okay, so what? You want to get rid of my testimonial?”
“Yeah.”
“Like, take it down?”
“Yep.”
“Will you like copy and paste it so that you always have it to read if you ever want to read what I wrote about you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don't think you're getting me.”
“Well, I'm sorry, but all this is happening a little fast, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I mean, Jesus, first you ask me to dinner and now you're telling me essentially that you want me off your profile.”
“Yes, that's it. That's exactly it.”
“Why?”
“Your testimonial is idiotic.”
“I'm sorry. What?”
“Idiotic.”
“It is not idiotic.”
“It is. It is for idiots.”
“What does it say?”
“You don't even remember what you wrote?”
“Well, I don't know. You know testimonials, you just try to be better than the other testimonials.”
“You wrote ‘Kelly is a real cool chick who is hard to keep up with. You keep goin' girl! Youre so crazy!’"
“Oh yeah, now I remember that.”
“You don't think that is idiotic?”
“Idiotic nice, maybe. No - just nice.”
“Look, I didn't ask you here to discuss this. I asked you here to tell you that I'm deleting your testimonial.”
“Man. That's cold.”
“I'm sick of logging on to Friendster and seeing a collage of my awkward dating attempts, okay? Because not everyone who goes out on one failure of a date should make the other person their Friendster.”
“Our date was not a failure!”
“Then why didn't I ever call you back?”
“Because...I don't know...weren't you going out of town?”
“No, you assumed that in the third message you left. I texted you to reject you, for God's sake.”
“I didn’t get it.”
“Yes you did.”
“Okay. I'm sort of seeing a few things fall into place here.”
“Now listen-”
“No, no. I don't need you to sugar coat it for me. Next thing I know I will be under the make-believe impression that this dinner-date actually went well.”
“This isn't a date.”
“Maybe I will listen you your apologies and mistakenly think that someone cares about me, you know? Maybe I will start to foolishly think that I have someone in this world, you know?”
“Well, I'm not going to give you that impression.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, I don't know if you do or do not have anyone in the world who cares about you-”
“I don't.”
“Well, I'm sorry about that, but all I can really control is whether or not I care about you, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Kelly?”
“Yes?”
“Do you care about me?”
“Are you listening?”
“Yeah. What do you mean?”
“No, I don't care about you. That's the reason I called you to dinner.”
“See, though? Why would you call me here if you didn't feel bad about hurting my feelings? If you didn't care about me.”
“Oh. Ha. Touche. I’m meeting a number of Friendsters here tonight. That’s why we have to wrap this up fast. I’m cleaning up my profile.”
“Oh.”
“But listen. I guess you could say I care about you in the way that I would care about drowning a puppy. You want to give it a little kiss on the forehead, but that doesn't mean youre not going to drown it.”
“Oh, I...what?”
“Bye now, little puppy.”
“Wait, so what? We're totally not friendsters anymore? You're deleting me as a friend?”
“Aw. Still wagging your tail like a cutie little puppy. Time to go drowny-byes.”
“Kelly, don't delete me! We're only loosely connected by a degree of three people! Any day now you might find us forever unconnected and then it will be too late!”
“Puppies can't talk.”
“Well, you'll be sorry then.”
“Puppies can't talk.”
“Fine, Kelly. I thought you were more than this.”
“I'm sorry but I don't speak pupplish or doglish or whatever goddamn language is coming out of your mouth. It sounds like so much barking and snorting to me.”
“Okay, I don't know what is going on here, but I'm just going to let you do this. Who knows, you might be going through a tough time. What can I say? You're a real cool chick who's hard to keep up with. You keep goin’ girl. You’re so crazy.”
“Bark bark to you too, puppy who refuses to drown.”
“Bye Kelly.”
“Arf.”
