I feel like a cokehead

because I keep wrinkling my nose. Not like a closeted witch or a bunny, but with my lips and my squinted eyes and my knuckles dragging across my nostrils. I look like a mess.
I accidentally snorted some shampoo in the shower. That's why.

I make it a habit to smile while I'm walking. It makes me seem different. I don't need to be substantially different. I don't need to create or anything frivolous like that. Silly. I need to have the pretension of being different and warm and caring.
It's all about the image. I'd resign if it wasn't for that.

I don't understand the iPad, other than a nasty joke. It's an iTouch, right or an iPod, something beautiful that can capture attention. I don't need people. I can interact with my friends, designated by the queue on my iPad. What the hell is it?
It's a trinket, a bauble. It's an indulgement.
But have you played the toilet paper app, Joel? Don't knock it 'til you try it.
I have to invent a new pocket for it. That's when it becomes unnecessary.
The first man to build a house didn't need it, right Adam Smith?

I'm tired of schoolwork, by the way. I love communes and Islam and women and poverty and theory regarding the former sobjects, but I don't feel the drive to be an intellectual anymore. I want to be a man of the people. I don't want to limit my discussion to only those who know a analogous set of facts as I do. I want my words to be as bland as they can be. I want to make up in marketing what I lack in intelligence,
or something.

My rants get so strange. I make both sides seem ridiculous.



I had a great aunt that was one of those figures that you were supposed to love because they were family, but you only loved them, ignorant as you were because they were family. Those people were real characters before you met them. They were round and susceptible to mistakes and failures of reason.
When you meet them they love feeding you and giving gifts, the synagogue and game shows.
Age isn't fair to real characters.

She was loud and opinionated. Sometimes hateful. God spat on her when her daughter came out as Catholic and her eldest son gay. She grew past these prejudices and was loud and opinionated again, but like a tire will lose its air over time, so did she.

By the time I was aware of her as a person she would call me Josh. I've had teachers and professors alike calling me Josh. That's not my name. I don't look like my second cousin named Josh. I'm not Josh, but she was deflating.

It's hard to face that one day you'll be empty,
so I don't, personally.

Perspective, again

That's a buzz word. I should probably go into writing the news, manning the teleprompter, filling the pundits like cream pies,
but I may not. I may just pretend to know how to write and work in a South American embassy. We'll see.

My suite is getting a little frazzled. There was a pile of garbage with liquor seeping, mopping the floor beneath it. Flies materialized, I swear through black magic. Our pile of dishes started curing staph infections. There was a feeling of rancour because of the singing, the bleating of sheep emitted from the throats of grown and growing men. It was getting bad is the point.

Everyone seemed displeased. Or maybe I was displeased and I imagine the feelings of others to be the same as mine. The passive and the aggressive wrote notes condemning a behavior but they themselves would behave in a way that was condemned by another scratch on the wall.
I'm complaining. I'm a complainer.
Solutions. Solutions.
Okay.

Here's a short story illustrating a point, not necessarily mine:

Susy sauntered into her home, oblivious. She unlocked the door and removed her scarf, placing it loosely on a coat hook. Her mother greeted her. "Hiya Suz! How was school today? Learn anything interesting?"

"Good afternoon, Mother! School was great today, yeah, actually I learned about—"
"Gosh DARN!" Susy's father bellowed from the dining room.
Thinking perhaps her father had stubbed his toe or chipped a tooth, Susy and her mother raced over the earthy Persian rugs and into the dining room. "Gosh, you better Darn EVERYTHING Straight to Heck!" shouted her father.

"What is it Father?"
"The raise I got at work," he continued to shout, slamming his red fists on the table, "pushed us into a new tax bracket!"
Susy thought to herself. She understood that tax brackets were somehow bad and that more is better than less.
"Father, I'm sorry, but what does this mean? I don't understand."

He began breathing again, her father. His breath at first coming in short pants. He skin became the normal polished ivory and he explained: "Susy, I'll put it simply. We will have to give up one of our jetboats. This is like a darn swear on my ears. I'm livid."

Her mother rubbed the back of her husband slowly and apologetically. "Our taxes will be higher, Susy. That's all. We can't afford all of the wonderful Gosh-blessed things we've been given and pay taxes."

"But won't we be making significantly more money?"
"Yes, but the new bracket has a higher ceiling. Honestly, Susan Skylar, do you listen? I just told you."

Susy stood an uffish while in thought while her mother crushed Advil into her father's whiskey and stared at the tax forms.

"Can we get a smaller boat?" Susy asked ignorantly.

"No, stupid Susy, you're so stupid. We want only the best for our family," her mother said, lightly slapping Susy on the face repeatedly.

"I see. Woe is us."

"Woe is us, indeed," said the father grimacing.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Susy, what did you say you learned in school today?"

"Oh, nothing, mother. Ethnic civil war seems so irrelevant now."

Some thing is off

Seriously.
I felt odd all day. Like when you wake up before an alarm and know that you shouldn't have.

No, body. You are wrong. Go back to sleep.

I was angry in class.
I made negative, critical comments about white culture and the upper class.
Oh, wait, I'm at Lang where upper class and white is the norm.
That makes me want to swear,
but I have family subscribers.

Here's to you, Hayes!
Hannah's and your pictures are up on my wall.

Well, as it turned out, something was afoot. Not everyone is well.
Bomb threats, not here, but not far
an airplane crash in Texas,
a couple falls and Kaiser is ignorant.

Law is blind.
Justice is blind.
Order is blind, or blurred, I guess.

It all came falling today.
I was doing well, but it all came today.
Packaged by Amazon.
I didn't order this book. Did I?

I don't think I honestly ordered The Temper of Our Time by Eric Hoffer. I don't know why it arrived.

I hope you're alright. I hope you're fearless.

But things are not obscured.
Mercury is no longer retrograde,
so shut it Bloc Party.

What can I do right?

Around once a fortmonth, I travel to Philadelphia to visit my grandmother, my aunt, Abby and new friends. Abby was busy so I spent most of my time listening to my grandmother tell a skewed version of history and arguing with my aunt.

She's great, don't get me wrong. My aunt is like my father in that she is self-righteous, liberal and swears sometimes. She's quiet though. Most of her yelling she does silently with her expressions. She looks at me as if I'd slapped her when I say I want to eat a cheesesteak for breakfast.

We talked about (500) Days of Summer for a while. She argued that Summer acted and spoke respectfully. She did not deceive Tom. It was in his head, he led himself onto fantasy. No pretense, Joel.

I disagreed. I said that she (Summer, not my aunt) did not take into account the feelings of Tom. She should have known.

"'Should' has nothing to do with the equation, Joel.

"I can't believe you think that."

Her and I also discussed a satirical piece of short fiction where a man, about to kills himself, races past the Apocalypse to greet his newborn daughter. The moral of the story that it isn't the end of the world to have a baby. Life goes on.

She said it was disgusting fiction. Ugly.

I mean, she's right. It absolutely is, but that was the point.

But I want to sell it at some point. I don't know. I mentioned an audience and she decried it.

"You have to write for yourself. You can't write for an audience."

Fine. Fine, Aunt. I'll read something pretty and sweet and we'll watch Big Love.

Weekend vacation.

Make It Big, Wham! (The path to success is littered)

with

Nutria

Fairest pelt!
Cousin Winter curses and glares,
but you, Nutria, have provided
at cost-effective rates!
the finest coat in all of Sellwood.

Sickness and woe
are mere surrealities. You, warm nutria,
did not perish without meaning.
You, itchy nutria, Prince of Mediocrity, have
missed the A-C of bulging teeth,
the 1-2 of white, puffed ears,
the N of Wings!
Burnt sepia mass, searching
wandering in the river.

No one speaks for you, fair Madame
Queen Nutria, guide your vessel;
nay, you lack the vision.
No Roosevelt, you.
It is a doubt you could save yourself.

Cousin Winter, wrinkling in his
agéd speak, he plays with mirrors, but
Scraggly Nutria, you will suffice.
Just enough.
You with wandersome eyes, you filth,
only good when you're dead.
Die for warmth, proletariat.

Become the fairest, most beauteous coat
from fat, ugly beaver.

You want a big word? I'll give you a big word

Everest.
Evercest, also. Quite a connotation.

Yo, but seriously. It's a mad crazy world out there. You just can't stop.

I started reading D.H. Lawrence a couple of days ago. He has control of language. He's dropping word bombs on my peaceful village. Sometimes, I have no idea what language he's writing. Who is he, Lewis Carroll?
Stop making Lewis Carroll jokes, Joel. Not only are they not funny, but they're tasteless. The man was a Saint.

I don't think James Joyce is God.
That must be why I dropped Intro to Fiction.

I missed the Superbowl for the first time in my conscious life. It's a travesty, I know. Life is full of them, Superbowls. I'll catch the next one.

I want to complain tonight. I want to rabble until my heart turns blue and some jazz musician will ask me "Are you Blue?" and I'll totally say yes, for once, I am blue.

The fear is gone. I can take on any academic obstacle. I can honestly take down most obstacles at this point. I'll top my dreams by making them reality.

At work, there were extra posters of Laurence Fishburne as Thurgood Marshall. I set him up so he stares out my window. I hope someone has noticed.

Ushering today, I couldn't help but write poetry in my mind:

The world is full of ugly men,
each ugly in their own way.

Darn Tootin'!

Intro to Macroeconomics is the best thing for me, as a sad sap with broken, sad sap dreams.

I was walking away from class trying to shake off the knowledge bestowed upon me, and I was thinking about being sad, so I asked myself,
"Self, what are the costs and benefits of being sad?"

Well, I would have the ability to write great poetry if I was sad.
and I would have a topic for a morose (BORING) blog.
and I would eat more, I know how I love food, right?

But the costs: I would be less productive. I may say something stupid and regret it instants after it is uttered. I'll be less confident therefore impregnating less women.
The list goes on.

Joel, you are living the dream. You are a god (lowercase. I know my audience) among men. What in the heck do you have to be sad about?

I have toothpaste dribbled dots on my jeans.
I am alone surrounded by millions.
I forget basic articles of speech.
I'm balding.

But I decided I would be more efficient if I was not sad. Dang, if I don't waste my time feeling anything, I can do so much!