floorpie

…the one you are and me. I’ve been sick for days now, trying mostly to ignore it, except for the two days that I stayed home feverish and with the cold sweats. Other than that I’m running live at work, burning through my energy stores until I can barely make it home, and now I sit. Labor Day Weekend. Outside briefly to get more kleenex and sweating profusely from the effort.

Most people, maybe ALL people, want to be coddled when they are sick. Can you get me some soup? Do you know where that pillow with the picture of the spaceship on it is? When I’m sick, I just want to be left the f-alone. Except I don’t. When I turn off the TV because I realize that it’s been on for 6 hours straight, and the silence settles down around my shoulders like a thick velvet blanket, I get lonely. I don’t turn on lights. I’m typing in black and I feel disconnected. I want to be able to step out of existence until I get better, and then step back in as if I’d never left. I want to be missed and not forgotten. I want the world to stop turning just a little bit.

But at the same time, don’t look at me. Text me but don’t call. Call me but don’t expect an answer. Leave me a message so I can listen to it over and over but consider me unreachable. I want you hear for 10 minutes but not 15. Just enough for me to recharge.

I feel like I need to entertain. You came over, you called me, I need to have a story to tell you or something new for you to play with. I need to be dynamic and interesting because that is why you are here…not to get me a blanket or refill my water. You are here for the material. This is how I feel, and I don’t have the energy for The Material right now. Or, more correctly, I DO have the energy, but I am loathe to use it on you right now. I am sick, it is my one time for me to live for me. I will hoard it, and ultimately waste it in sitting in the dark typing missives to no one.

Or so I’m told pretty regularly. I don’t know that I’m the same kind of weird that you’re thinking of…in fact I’m sure of it. I think it’s more the name I get called because people don’t have another word on the tip of their tongues for someone who’s a little unique and odd and looks at things a little differently some of the time…so they default to “weird”.

You’re probably thinking, “Well how about ‘unique’ or ‘odd’?”. Which is a perfectly reasonable thing to say if you don’t know me; which, more likely you don’t. Not because the vast amount of my readership doesn’t know me, but, more because I don’t have a vast amount of readership. I have nearly none at all. So, more likely than not, you don’t know me because you don’t actually exist.

“Unique” doesn’t really describe me because, at least outwardly, I’m not all that unique. I have a normal job like most, I have the usual interests, I have my natural hair color in the prevailing style, I have clothes that are reasonably cool but not overly so, I have typical views on the important issues in life…actually that last one is only partially true. But, there isn’t all that much to point to that is different (unique) to only me.

Same with “odd” though I think that word describes me somewhat better, if only for it’s close proximity to “weird”. My theory is that “odd” is just not a word that comes readily available to most people…not nearly so as does “weird”.

I don’t say the above to add to my mystique; I say the above because I’ve been called weird all of my life, and at least three times, by three different people, in as many days.

The thing is, it’s not a conclusion that people come to immediately. It takes a few hours/days/weeks and a fair amount of time together before drawing that conclusion, and it bubbles out of the proclaim-er like a Touret’s curse, or an involuntary sneeze. Always at times that, to me, seem just like the times right before it, and very similar to the times before that. So does that mean that I’ve been weird all along during you short relationship with me, or that I had just done something exceptionally odd after the hours/days/weeks interacting; the personal bravery to do so created by our extended time together.

In short, if it’s not you, is it me?

I’ve only recently (re: the last 5 minutes) ever really thought about it, and I don’t have a satisfactory conclusion to the question of why I am called that. I don’t feel like I’ve done anything particularly odd. I don’t hear anything coming out of my mouth that seems different to the norm. Yet somehow, at what seems to me a perfectly normal time, “You’re weird” pops out like a jack in the box and I’m left their to process it.

Am I? “yes”
What makes you say so? “I dunno, you’re just weird”
Is that a bad thing? “not in your case, I like it, actually”

I like weird people..perhaps in keeping with my own altered sensibilities. I don’t know whether I celebrate how weird they are because I respect the actual details of their oddness (that guy’s wearing two different colored shoes. she is talking to herself about Barbie, etc etc); or if I instead celebrate the odd simply because I am so against the vanilla. Not because I demand unique and exciting experiences in my life all of the time, more so because I don’t like the idea of a homogenized society. I don’t much believe in therapy, which I believe does just that.

Who wants a bunch of the same exact person running around with a slight smile and spring in their step? A utopia for sure, but who wants that?

“The only people for me are the mad ones…” (with apologies to Mr. Kerouac)

I’m 34 years old. I have friends in various and sundry places around America and a few in other countries…like the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, Singapore…

When I “talk” to those friends (through skype or email), it always struck me funny how they would abbreviate the names of their country. “Oh, it’s hot here in SG, lah” (for Singapore). Or “come to BKK (Bangkok) and blah blah blah”.

In my mind, abbreviating the country meant that it was a second-class state, not worth mentioning in full.

I am 34 years old; and just realized that I live in the US.

“If I had a peanut allergy, I’d just DIE!” One phrase, two meanings…efficient!

That phrase popped in my head for no apparent reason other than that I had had Thai papaya salad with dinner that has a sprinkling of peanuts in it. That phrase popped into my head, in a girl’s voice, as if she were exclaiming it…that I can’t explain. The girl has no face, no form at all really; and there is no memory associated with it, or play-acting of a fantasy. Just a phrase, heard only in my head, as I reached for my toothpaste having just grabbed my toothbrush.

I mulled the words over in my head as I unscrewed the cap and realized that the sentence could be taken in two ways…one with “I’d just DIE!” in the slangy Valley-girl way, and the other in the actual literally deceased way. Efficient communication! One sentence, twice the meaning, and only the tone of “her” voice to guide you down the correct path (it was the Valley-girl version).

Then, as I wet my toothbrush under the faucet, I reflected on how I would just die (Valley-girl again) if I had a peanut allergy because peanuts are one of my favorite things. They remind me of my Dad, from which I was introduced to the concept of filling up one bowl with salted in the shell peanuts and taking another identical bowl to place beside it for discarded shells. Do this on a large scale. Enjoy. It’s one of our “things”. Without it, I’m not sure what we’d have other than backgammon and teasing my mom to fall back on.

That 15 seconds was one of the most enriching of my day.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I’m typing on a netbook. That being the latest in the string of gadgets that I keep purchasing for myself. I justify it to myself by saying that I really need it because my home laptop’s harddrive crashed rendering it useless. Of course, I could have always used my company laptop to get on the Internets. Or my iPhone. Or my Wii…

Add to that the DSLR I just bought recently, my other cell phone, my iPod(s), terabytes in external harddrives, and GPS and at any given moment you can find me with several hundred to thousands of dollars in electronic equipment on me.

In fact, I sometimes think about that when I walk around the particularly “nice” section of Hollywood that I spend most of my time at amongst the cracked-out transvestite hookers and pimps…”Hmmm,” I think to myself, “I have about $4200 worth of electronics on me in the form of my laptop, iPhone…” etc etc.

It’s getting to be re-goddammed-diculous. I wonder what a non-digital tree looks like?

There are two kinds of people in this world: the fuck-hole who realizes he needs to be in the left-turn lane and sits stopped at a green light blocking all the thru-traffic until the left arrow comes on and he can cut in front of all the other patiently waiting left-turners with enough moistened brain cells to be ready and waiting in the first place…and me.

This douchebag didn’t hold me up, he didn’t cause me to miss the light, he didn’t do anything to me other than give me another salient reminder of how fucking full of themselves people are. You are that important, are you, to literally stop traffic because you’re too stupid or lazy to drive up a half a block and make a legal U-turn? The seconds you’ve saved in your own miserable existence will be put to better use than the seconds you’ve wasted of the 10’s of people behind you? When a butterfly beats its wings in Hong Kong a tornado lands in Kansas…I wonder how many people in that line of frustrated victims was now off their fated time just enough to be clipped by a red-light runner they might otherwise have missed?

My frustration isn’t really the driving part, honestly…it’s the lack of consideration. I’m pretty widely regarded as an asshole because of my caustic and preternaturally quick wit; but, I am at least considerate. I would never have dreamed of inconveniencing so many perfect strangers, I don’t stop in the middle of doorways, and I say “Bless you” when you sneeze whether I believe it will save your non-existent soul or not. I’m just not that guy. I recognize your needs and if not provide them, at least do nothing to hinder them. Why? Because as arrogant and self-absorbed of a prick I may be, I’m not that selfish to think that I’m any more important than anyone else.

And I’m not.

And neither are you. Get over yourselves, humanity, and get the fuck out of the way.

This message was brought to you by 3 hours of sleep.

One thing I have learned about Chicago for Lollapalooza is that you CAN keep drinking after your 10th drink and 5th shot because, thankfully, Chicago is a giant brewery.

Also, there are really tall women in the
Midwest. I’m making no comments about their attractiveness, positive or negative; I’m just saying that I’ve seen more than my usual average of +6′ tall women here.

Though we moved around a fair bit while I was growing up, and I was brought up elsewhere(s), I was technically born in St. Louis; which is just a short hop, skip, and a jump from here. These could be my people, this could be my life.

I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, yet.

People seem, how shall I say this?: more “forgiving” in terms of body shape/size out here…at least if the talent at the bartop burlesque show we stumbled on to is any indication. This is not bad. This is not good. This is an observation.

People are also a hell of a lot more friendly out here… at least if the phone numbers from strangers to act as tour guides and the drinks bought for me are any indication.

Could I live here? Would these people be my friends? Possible. Though I doubt I’d survive the winter. I love LA.

724. Why can’t they make plastic shower-curtain liners where the ends don’t fold in on themselves?
725. A shot that will make it so #724 doesn’t bother me so much
726. A pill that does the same as #725 for the weak of heart

And if you say, “what about those cloth shower-curtain liners?” I will slap you straight in the face.

You know just as well as I do that those things billow out and touch you just as you’re moving around to sculpt your perfectly-formed soul patch.

Creepy.

I don’t know, it’s what just popped in my head. If I wake up tomorrow and this doesn’t still make me chuckle for some reason, you won’t see it to be able to judge for yourself.

On a side note, did you know that I started this thing 8 years ago?! No, of course you didn’t; and, I didn’t either until just a moment ago when I scrolled down my archives for some reason. 8 years! That is, sadly(?):

.: 2 years longer than any relationship I’ve ever had
.: a little over a quarter of my lifetime (!!!)
.: half as many times as I’ve moved
.: the punchline to the “I 8 the sandbox” joke

I was a lot funnier (virtually) 8 years ago. I’d like to think I retain that ability to be funny, just now in the real world. I also, upon closer inspection, retain the ability to be dark and foreboding.

Like a castle. At night. In a storm. With a vampire. And meeeeeee! (*curtains pull back, can-can dancing ensues* “This is it people! Our big number! And smiles! and jazz hands! and YES!YES!NO!YES!”)

Note to self: read 8 years worth of dribble, see if you can remember any of it.