Shoulder Angel Wins Again

originally written 2/17/04, Stockbridge, Ga.

Tonight I was taking a long walk through the grubby collection of fast food hovels next to an interstate that passes for civilization around here. Trudging by the McDonald’s, I looked up at the marquee sign. In letters so disparate they looked like a backlit ransom note, the sign said:

NOW
HIRING
CLOSERS!

As I stood in the muddy grass, staring up, the little devil on my left shoulder said, “Man, it would be totally 100% hi-freaking-larious to steal that ‘C.’ Everybody driving by tomorrow morning would be spitting up their coffee it would be so funny.”

Then the angel on my right shoulder said, “Jeff, that would be theft, and the people who work here might feel bad when they see it. Also, the sign is too high. You’d need a stick or something.”

Bellybutton Lent

For Lent I gave up Cokes (i.e., “sodas” for people outside the former Confederacy) like I usually do, because I drink a lot of Coke, and I enjoy Coke tm, and I’m told that it’s bad for me. It’s the ideal Lent thing.

This year, I decided to do more than sacrifice a negative. I added a positive. I only allow myself to drink water and fruit juice. What I drink must be healthy. No “juice.” Only real juice.

As I’ve done that, it’s been an easy step to eat more fruit.

Since I have been able to make food choices for myself, I have never been a healthy eater. I don’t care about food, really. Hamburgers are predictable, plentiful, easy, tasty, and filling. I’ve eaten a hella lot of hamburgers because they work, and I don’t have to think about them. If I could take a Calorie and Nutrient Pill, the only thing I’d miss would be hanging out with people while we eat. I’m far more interested in people than food.

But that’s tangential, so let’s get back to the story.

As an unintentional by-product of a Lenten sacrifice, I’m eating well. Observations:

• I’ve played with the idea of vegetarianism for years. I’m one step closer now.
• I feel good. I’m unclear whether that’s an effect of RDA fruit consumption. I’m in a mood upswing right now. On a strict french fry diet I might still feel pretty good.
• I’ve lost weight. Fruit has a lower caloric content than hamburgers, so I eat a meal and then I’m still hungry. Regardless, I’m pulling in fewer calories.
• I’ve always associated eating well with boring people. The sorts of people who eat well are also the ones who never have time to hang out -- or who must planto hang out. They always have some agenda that doesn’t involve enjoying the people they’re with. I’m all for goals, but man, life is going on! Live with us!
• More on boring people who eat well: They’re frequently fretting about what/how they’re going to eat instead of just rolling with what’s in front of them. Yes, corndogs are not great, but sometimes they’re all that’s available. Enjoy a fucking corndog.
• I’m intrigued with the prospect of eating well, but not becoming a boring person.
• Being semi-employed, I’ve got plenty of time to think about food. I usually get a little healthier when I have more time on my hands.
• The absence of Coke might also factor into any of these bullet points.

Once Lent ends, once it’s no longer a discrete spiritual exercise, the discipline might fail. But I’d like to continue the experiment and see what happens next.

Web 2.0 Baby Names

These are my favorite flagrantly fake spam sender names:

• Propositional B. Jigsaws
• Ridiculous E. Indefensibly
• Eggbeater K. Unbeaten
• Resistance H. Eyeglasses
• Undervalue C. Firing
• Minored B. Flintlocks
• Needlessly H. Hackneys
• Contravened P. Swimming
• Failings G. Torrent
• Traumatize E. Doting
• Hag I. Howdies

I want to write a mystery short story about a spammer company and use these as character names. The victim is found brain dead with an astonishingly engorged member. Death by girth. Whodunnit? The low, low rate mortgage lender? The cheap prescription drug seller? The barely legal lesbian teens? The Nigerian intern?

This masterstroke could reignite the demand for short stories in American popular literature.

Just kidding! There is no popular literature in America!

Turn-Offs, Part 2

When I ask, "What is your opinion?" and she replies, "Whatever you want."

In Twain's hierarchy of untruths, this answer falls between lies and statistics.

My Latest Million Damn Dollar Idea

I start a business to install two horns on your car: a friendly horn and an angry horn. So when you want to say “Excuse me, will you please let me in?” or “You’ve got the right of way,” or “I recognize you and request your attention!” there is the friendly horn. The angry horn is for when you hate everyone in front of you.

I realize there are bugs to be worked out, chiefly, when you’re reaching for a horn, you rarely have time to deliberate what level of emotion you’re putting behind it. This is okay, because we can install a third horn for that.

I Burned My Finger for Lent

Tonight at church we had a thing where you write down something you want to repent of, something you want to leave behind for Lent, and then burn it, thus symbolically leaving [whatever] behind you.

So I did that. What I burned was a paragraph long, and I’m not sure I actually wrote the thing down itself that I would like to repent of, but by the time I’d filled up an index card with small writing, I thought I had at least an emotional grip on what I was talking about, even if I couldn’t explain it in a sentence.

I think the idea was approximately that I wanted to repent of... fear and aloneness. But I don’t always have control over the times I feel fearful and alone, and so there was a wish, a prayer, at least a desire, to be forgiven and rid of pride that requires me to tough through fearfulness alone when I could get help.

I don’t know... because frequently, I would be happy to be helped during those times, if someone really were helping me, rather than trying to help, but really requiring me to describe how they can help, and therefore what they’re doing is not helping, and then suddenly we’re dealing with their feelings about trying to help instead of my feelings which are the reasons we’re here in the first place.

You know what? I had a whole different place I was going when I started this. I was going to talk about the burnt spot on my finger.

I burned the tip of my index finger when I was burning my symbol of fear and aloneness tonight. I’m tempted to assign symbolism to this, a hidden meaning in burning my finger. Holding on to things too long? Burned by the cleansing flame?

I don’t think there’s any symbolism. I wanted to make sure the card was good and burned, because I didn’t want there to be any chance ever that anyone would read any of it, any of my floundering. And I was playing with the candles a little, trying to get it to burn in two spots.

There is hidden meaning there, in what I just wrote, but not symbolism. My desire to make sure no one sees me struggling to communicate – this is a symptom of the fear and aloneness that I want not to have any more. Even though I feel strong and well now, this is the kind of thing that will keep me huddled in my cave next time I don’t.

That’s why, even though I’m still not sure I’ve got the idea down, I’m putting this here. What I’m writing here isn’t smart, well written, or even entirely representative of what I was trying to say. But I need to be seen floundering. In a non-symbolic way, this thing I'm writing now is an act of contrition, a repudiation of pride, letting you, whoever you are, see me struggle and fail.

Whoever you are, please be merciful with what you read here.

5:47 R8 to Chestnut Hill West

originally written 11/12/04

The gentleman across from me, in his 50s perhaps, reads the Inquirer. He’s gray, balding, with a goatee and mustache. His face is thin, and he looks mentally active. He wears thin-rimmed silver spectacles. Like some absent-minded professor, his weekly train pass is wedged between the side of his head and glasses frame. The card is at a jaunty angle. In a hat band it might look rakish instead of pragmatically dorky. Another good argument for the return of the hat, I suppose.

The poignant part of this—don’t miss it!—is that I have seriously considered doing the same thing. I only abstained because I thought, “I bet that looks dorky.”

Turns out, I was right. But twenty years on, that is so me.

8 Crimes

Here's a game* I made up to pass time at the game table when it's not your turn.

Get a bunch of 8-sided dice. Divide them into teams by color. Roll them all in a contained area.

Treat the faces of the dice as arrows pointing in the direction that the number is most easily read. Starting with 2s and working your way up, a higher number "kills" the closest lower number it's pointing at. Equal numbers kill each other. Higher numbers are unharmed. Remove killed dice from the area immediately.

Once the killing ends, count up remaining number values. Highest team value wins.

It's almost like fun!


*not really a game

Does It Include, Like, Taft?

I'm not going to work tomorrow, and I was lying in bed this morning thinking about that. About Presidents Day. Or Presidents' Day. Or President's Day.

Lots of people get off work, and it's a great time to buy a mattress. But what's the deal behind this holiday? When I was a kid, there was Washington's birthday and Lincoln's birthday, and around the time we decided to start honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. with his own holiday, one of these Rushmoric figures in the American pantheon got the boot. Is that fair?

Like I know anything about fair. But I have research, which is more interesting than fairness. The rest of this post is a synopsis of Wikipedia and Snopes, so pretend that I cited accurately. I've tried to avoid pure plagiarism.

Attempts to combine George and Abe's cake days started in the early '50s, well before MLK's martyrdom. Nixon is also said to have issued a proclamation to combine the two during his administration, but no one has found any record of it.

Instead, in 1971, a law was passed designating the third Monday in February as "Washington's Birthday," a holiday for federal employees. Apparently, the draft of the bill that became this particular law never got around to being changed from "Washington's Birthday" to "Presidents Day." Lincoln just gets the shaft.

But wait! Dig deeper, and you learn that Lincoln's birthday has never been a federally recognized holiday. It was a state recognized holiday in many states, which accounts for my stacatto Februaries in Tennessee.

But Congress could not have been moved to pass a bill to care less, and with the rising popularity of MLK in the 80s and 90s, most states ditched our grandest Civil Rights proponent for our sexiest.

Furthermore, since Washington was actually born on February 11 (1732), his birthdate can never be celebrated by the date formally set by the federal government (which falls somewhere between the 15th and the 21st). So, suck it George! Neither of you gets his birthday celebrated!

Finally, only the calendar makers call it Presidents Day, because no official source does. And none of the Hallmarkers can figure out if or where an apostrophe goes, so pick one you like and use it with impunity, because there's no standard!

As an occasional copy editor, I recommend no apostrophe. Because it's shorter.

Quitting My Job Again

Sometimes I wonder if there's something horribly broken in me that keeps me from settling into a job. I'm in good company for pinballing through the first half of my adult life -- lots of interesting people go down this road. But nobody, I think, does it because it seems like a good idea. You just do it when you don't know a better way.

A friend offered me a job at a game company in San Diego last month, and for the first time as an adult, when I had an opportunity to jump off into a new, weird life, I didn't. Because I'd have to move.

I'm not in love with this town. I give Philly a 6. But it's an okay place to stop for a while. Maybe... maybe some things can catch up with me.

A Story: I was driving across country a few years ago and stopped to hike in the Grand Canyon. I didn't bring sunscreen, but at a rest point, a young married couple let me use theirs. We swapped Cliff's Notes life stories. When I said I was just driving around, doing whatever seemed like a good idea, the husband said, "You are so lucky. Man, I envy you."

I didn't have a good response. Later, on the road, I thought:

"I am lucky. But so are you. If I had a pretty young wife to go on vacation with into the Grand Canyon, and if I was talking seriously about a baby on the way... I don't think I'd envy me. I'm only here because I can't figure out where else to be. If I had a clear mission, I'd be doing that."

Five years on, I still don't know what my mission is. But lemme tellya Houston, as of next week, it won't involve Vanguard no more.