Nov
19
In Remembrance and Celebration of Your Beautiful Girls
Filed Under Best Of, Existential Angst-astic, Social Ishizzles, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 7 Comments
Thank god for Tragedy Coworker. That’s all I’m saying.
I don’t work with him directly. I don’t even see him that often. He’s still had a bigger impact on my life than anyone who’s ever filled out my performance report. Managers have spent years trying to make me stop oversleeping and peppering my flowcharts with bubbles like “NOD AND PRETEND YOU KNOW WHAT ‘FIDUCIARY’ MEANS” and “OH, SHIT : NOW YOU’RE REALLY FUCKED.” Without trying - without even being aware of it - Tragedy Coworker made me grateful. Permanently grateful. Reverent, even… praising everything from chaos theory to the solar winds for my undeservedly-blessed little life.
He’s tall, dark and one of the nicest men you’d ever hope to meet…. friendly, funny and open with everyone from guys with name tags on their shirts to guys with conference rooms named after them.
A few years ago, something awful happened to him. We’re talking the worst thing in the world. We’re talking something so horrific that I can’t talk about it. Hell, I hold my breath when I think about it, lest the idea get too comfortable in my body.
You can probably guess. Read more
Oct
30
Bad Poetry - “Shortly After You Were Created Your Mama Walked Into a Greyhound Terminal”
Filed Under Bad Poetry, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 1 Comment
In one of my best and worst dreams
I am in a park
It is chilly, gray, deserted
Except for me and two little boys
with my hands and other peoples’ eyes.
They are laughing, running, wrestling.
I am laughing and crying.
Oct
20
Gimme Fiction - “Thrusting Away Atop an Unenthusiastic Universe” - Pt. II
Filed Under Gimme Fiction, Long/Multi-Part Pieces, The Compleat Thumbscrew | Leave a Comment
As Wikipedia would later inform us, cocaine can be administered via injection, inhalation and the ever-popular insufflation. It cannot be administered via the IKEA-ocular method… that is, by setting in on your coffee table and staring at it in horror. Nonetheless, within minutes of locking the door and bolting down the stairs, we were babbling like drug-addled idiots. Jason had provided a thirty-second explanation; it began with “I really hate the smell of guacamole” and ended with him dropping a stout, cellophane-wrapped bundle on top of my physics textbook.
“Holy shit! Please tell me that’s not what it looks like,” I blurted, recoiling against the couch.
“I don’t know what it is, Amy! I just know it looks like… you know…”
“Something Tony Montana would use to prop up a wiggly table leg?”
“Very funny. Did you lock the door? Would you mind checking it?” I darted up the stairs, jiggled the deadbolt, darted back down.
“Locked,” I panted, “Babe, this makes no sense. Maybe it’s… flour?”
“Would you bake snickerdoodles with that?” said Jason. He shoved his hair away from his eyes, sighed and ripped a sheet of looseleaf from my notebook.
“… maybe from the organic food co-op?” I ventured, “People don’t throw out drugs! They throw out VHS tapes and ThighMasters and stuff. What are you doing?” Jason had popped open his Swiss Army knife and was gently sliding the blade against the top of the bag. The fear in his eyes had been replaced by something bright and incisive. I knew the look… equal measures daredevil and disobedient toddler. It had earned him innumerable broken bones, admission to (and expulsion from) two well-respected technical colleges and my total adoration. Read more
Oct
2
Gimme Fiction - “Thrusting Away Atop an Unenthusiastic Universe” - Pt. I
Filed Under Gimme Fiction, Long/Multi-Part Pieces, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 1 Comment
The basement was semi-finished. It smelled damp, it felt damp and we spent all our time huddled under quilts on the orange sofa, trying not to touch the floor or the walls for fear we’d contract some kind of fungus.
We were semi-fungal ourselves, pasty and pudgy, squirming beneath low ceilings and low spirits. Seven years post-graduation, we still hadn’t reached legitimate adulthood. The Five-Year Plan was our scissor jack, each bullet point another quarter-inch between us and several thousand tons of self-loathing and suburban rancher.
The honor roll kids were buying condos. We were on couch arrest, sleeping and studying and scheming and screwing on a few feet of threadbare velour. We paid Jason’s father rent and complimented his mother’s casseroles. We progressed in infinitesimal increments.
One day, in case you were wondering, is 0.054% of five years. Read more
Sep
18
Writer’s Catechism
Filed Under Existential Angst-astic, Geekery, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 1 Comment
This is why we do it:
Because we have to.
Because it’s impossible to be an impartial observer unless you’re a Zen Buddhist or a fence post. Because chewed-up ballpoints feel better than splinters or koans.
Involvement empowers. Neutrality protects. There are those who are fundamentally compelled to grasp live wires just to see what they feel like. When that handful of amperage is figurative - when you’re walking into a war zone, a strip club, a border crossing - there are no better rubberized shoes than pen and pencil.
Because there is a right way to say things. Not one right way - a right way. It isn’t like solving for X. It’s more like weaving an afghan with dandelion fluff and straight pins. In other words, equal parts charming and finicky.
If you’re doing it correctly, it’s more craft than art. The craft keeps you improving. The art keeps you interested. Artistic discipline is a seventh-grade earth science teacher. She doesn’t explode or ignite things too often… just frequently enough to keep everyone awake, alert and receptive to marvels which aren’t actively ablaze. Read more
Aug
30
And Heaven Is a Place You Can Never Find Your Cigarettes - Pt. III
Filed Under Existential Angst-astic, L'Amour, Long/Multi-Part Pieces, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 8 Comments
[Apologies for the enormous delay. While exhausted and bombarded, we're all doing swimmingly. And we're now the proud owners of a pen specifically designed so inmates can't use it as a weapon or a crack pipe. Eat it, Mont Blanc.]
I lurched into a parking spot adjacent to the courthouse, jumped out, slammed my door and ran. As I hyperventilated in the lobby, a kindly lawyer steered me towards the pre-trial area.
“Is the person you’re looking for already incarcerated?” he asked.
“Not unless he gave His Honor any sass-mouth,” I said.
“Well…,” smiled the lawyer, guiding me out of the elevator, “Let’s just hope he didn’t.”
I scurried across the dim marble atrium, grabbed {@Boyfriend} by his freshly-purchased suit and held tight.
There hadn’t been any sass-mouth. There’d been a bloodthirsty assistant D.A., a pile of unfriendly case law and a judicial ultimatum. Everyone - including {@Boyfriend’s} attorney - seemed to agree: this wasn’t winnable. Sure, he could’ve exercised his right to a trial. But in some cases, standing on principle just makes you an easier target. In most cases, a definite bitch-slap is preferable to a potential beat-down. There are those who can afford to risk brutal legal penalties, and kudos to them. May they never be forced to graduate and exchange their Che Guevara t-shirt for a captain’s hat. Read more
Aug
7
And Heaven Is a Place You Can Never Find Your Cigarettes - Pt. II
Filed Under Uncategorized | 5 Comments
Corporate America has been pretty good to me. It’s kept me in roller ball pens and out of the pool hall. It’s paid for copious quantities of Goldfish crackers. It’s allowed me to visit highly-trained medical specialists instead of Chinatown Cyst Removal & Dumpling Shack.
Capitalism has a Dark Side, however (NASDAQ symbol: NODUH), and it has occasionally bitten me on the ass.
My 401(k)’s third-quarter performance… the after-effects of the cafeteria’s Bechamel sauce… these were mere love-nips compared to the chomp delivered the week before {@Boyfriend}’s trial.
“What do you mean I can’t take next Monday off?” I gasped.
“I’m sorry,” said my boss, “I usually try to work with you, but Conrad’s going to Aruba that week, so we’ll be short-handed already…”
“Listen.” I paused and took a deep breath. Take it easy, I warned myself, You catch more flies with honey than by threatening to apply an electrified binder clip to your supervisor’s testicles.
“I wouldn’t usually push the issue. But someone I know might… um… be going to prison that day.”
“Really?”
“Well, it’s technically jail, but… well… yes.” Read more
Jul
28
Better or Verse - “Lodestones and Keychains”
Filed Under Bad Poetry, The Compleat Thumbscrew | Leave a Comment
[Note: prison story to be concluded shortly. He didn't get shivved or anything, I've just been busy.]
sparkly belt
C-section scar
he knows where
the bad hurts are
gloss bitten lips
a thing for pain
half of her life
all of eighth grade
what they might be
they will not feed
truth by teaspoon
what she might let
they will not get
tears to jazz june
unworthiness
nervous untuck
she knows well
that blacked-out suck
carries self-hate
drags self-effacing
yanks hard at hope
combat boot lacing
what they might be
they will not bleed
your unfurled gauze
what he might let
they will not get
hand tuned to your
station: because
Jul
7
And Heaven Is A Place You Can Never Find Your Cigarettes - Pt. I
Filed Under Best Of, Existential Angst-astic, L'Amour, Long/Multi-Part Pieces, Social Ishizzles, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 6 Comments
So here’s how it went down.
It was a mistake. It was One of Those Things. It was also what’s known as an “ungraded misdemeanor”, which is a deceptively cutesy term. Rip the tag off your mattress? T.P. the sheriff’s Taurus? That’s an ungraded misdemeanor, pal.
As it turns out, the legal definition is the only benign thing about it.
It’s not the sort of thing you laugh about with friends years later. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania may not grade it, but most people eagerly issue a big ol’ “F”, for “fuck-up”. So do a number of public interest groups. Viewing the offense a little less disdainfully is a one-way ticket to Wingnut Terrace. It’s not quite “publicly raping the corpse of the puppy you just murdered with an Iraqi-manufactured shovel”… but suffice to say, it’s not a hell of a lot more popular.
______
During a particularly raw patch last winter, {@Boyfriend} and I split up. We were apart for thirteen days, each enlightening as it was grueling. Discoveries were made. Plane tickets were purchased. Diet Coke was employed as a food group. The fourteenth night, I borrowed my mother’s Buick and flew up the turnpike, blinking back tears and blasting spooky, atonal college rock. “A lot’s happened in the past two weeks,” I’d meekly offered, “And, y’know, I still have some of your socks…”. When I arrived, we sat at opposite ends of the couch… both thinner, more washed-out, wiser. Not wise enough to know exactly why I’d come, but enough to stare and squirm until it became apparent.
______
We lasted about fifteen minutes before touching knees… then foreheads… then grabbing one another, tight, like the last strong sapling at the edge of the ravine.
Relationship v2.0 has been more… More. Better and harder, truer and more complicated.
One of the complications? The looming specter of my beloved’s incarceration.
It will be a brief stint, admittedly. In addition to the wildly popular “seven to ten” and “twenty to life”, our penal system also dishes up smaller offerings…. an extra-value meal, if you will, of sentences measured in hours rather than days.
This is less of a consolation than you’d imagine. There is only one ideal length of jail time. It is the same as the ideal rib to fracture, or the ideal quantity of trichinosis colonies on your pork chop: none. Anything else is a bitter compromise.
______
“Let me get this straight,” I’ve joked, “We were apart for two weeks and you managed to incur criminal charges? Truly, my love is an umbrella which shelters men from their deviant impulses!”
Joking’s one of the only things you can do, really, other than gnawing your cuticles and re-ironing your trial clothes. Whether you stand accused of murdering or littering, you’re innocent until proven guilty. Assuming you can post bail (and weren’t littering, say, fragments of prostitutes’ skulls), your first lambada with the law is liable to be brief. The wait is the surprising part… surprising and absolutely maddening.
______
Televised justice has a lot more in common with porn than reality. It’s dispensed hard, fast and smokin’ hot. One minute, they’re hauling a body out of a greenhouse. The next, they’re interrogating a mulch distributor. There’s a Lysol commercial, witness badgering (”Are we to believe that soil aerator embedded itself in the victim’s sternum?”) and then - et voila! - wrongs are righted, handcuffs are applied and it’s time for Jeopardy!
In actuality, weeks, months or - in the case of particularly heinous charges, years - may elapse between crime and punishment. The court system’s a massive Rube Goldberg machine; it’s easy for cases to ping-pong through multiple delays and postponements. Even under ideal circumstances, both sides must be given sufficient time to build their cases. However, criminal defense attorneys aren’t usually keen on client participation. They’re more personal assistant than therapist. They take your information, they take your money, then they scurry off into the shadows, presumably to polish their horns and practice Sam Waterston-style eyebrow acrobatics. As the defendant, your duties are limited to writing checks and refraining from further shenanigans. Your only reminders of the impending Big Event are an empty wallet and uneasy stomach.
Pre-trial anxiety’s a nasty little gremlin, though. At first, it’s small, fuzzy and easy to cram under the bed and ignore in favor of more pedestrian pains-in-the-ass. But as the day of reckoning grows closer, the beastie under the bed gets progressively louder. Work problems, family problems, small appliance fires… they’re all drowned out by a shrieky, screechy, gavel-banging, bone-rattling fear.
_______
The day before {@Boyfriend}’s trial was a productive one. We ran errands, made phone calls, composed neat little bulleted lists. At around 11 PM, we stopped at a gas station to check off a few final items, like fueling the car and stockpiling cigarettes.
Oh, and finally losing it.
“You want anything?” I asked, walking towards the mini-mart. “Soda? Snack? Some… ummmn… jail money?”
The ride home was miserably grim. {@Boyfriend} focused on the road; I stared at streetlights and attempted to keep my tear ducts clamped by force of will alone. After a few miles of silence, {@Boyfriend} murmured, “Hey… I’ve got the perfect song for this occasion,” and turned on the stereo.
Fucking indie rock. You wouldn’t expect Kryptonite to be quite so twee, would you?
I’d held it together for months. I’d made hundreds of anal sex jokes. I’d been fine, fine, perfectly fine.
“Will you come visit me when I’m in prison?” lilted The Beauty Pill, “My outside sweetheart / Bring me birthday cakes with contraband inside / Outwit the guards?“
The second the parking brake was up, I buried my head in his t-shirt.
“What’s wrong?” he said, stroking my hair.
“This… this is just… really, really sad!” I said, wiping my eyes on his shoulder, “I’m sorry…”.
We held each other, tight, terrified little saplings bracing themselves for Hurricane Justice. After a few minutes, we grabbed our assortment of jail supplies and headed inside to stare at the ceiling and count the hours.
Jun
20
I’m In Love With That Album - “Stay Positive” - The Hold Steady
Filed Under La Musica, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 3 Comments
First thing: it’s not Boys and Girls in America. It’ll never be Boys and Girls in America. So stop comparing them, okay? You could pine for Boys and Girls‘ bad-boy charms, or you could surrender to the older, wiser embrace of Stay Positive. This isn’t to say it doesn’t rock - that it does, and with all due hardness. But beneath the balls-out gusto is some serious contemplation. The kids have been places, seen things, given testimony. Their hands are still eager… but they’re also a little shakier and a lot dirtier.
2006’s Boys and Girls was a joyous cacophony - lauded, loved and, like, totally loaded. Its recurring cast of miscreants couldn’t walk upright, but B&G deftly strode the line between wry and wide-eyed. It was philosophical fist-pumping, equally comfortable on critics’ year-end lists and puke-splattered jukeboxes… bar rock about rocking out to bar rock, man.
Stay Positive’s a different little baggie entirely. Read more
May
29
God Only Knows What I’d Be Without You (An ADD Autobiography) : #1 & 2
Filed Under Best Of, Existential Angst-astic, Long/Multi-Part Pieces, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 7 Comments
Memory isn’t stored in neat, contiguous sheets, like cerebral lasagna noodles. It’s more like pasta salad. Events, places and sensations are wound into a multitude of tight little spirals. With every conscious moment, they’re stirred and stirred again… rising to the top, sinking to the bottom, falling beneath the picnic table of time. The whole bowl’s slippery and unstable. Your personal history doesn’t always cling together in chronological order - or any discernible order at all. The scent of Mr. Sketch markers can nestle beside the taste of your first girlfriend’s lip gloss, or the time you ate a bad batch of mussels, or any one of a thousand other things, depending on the day. Memoir usually ignores this, as well it might. Human memory is a turbulent goo. It’s messy, mayonnaise-y and doesn’t lend itself to narrative clarity.
These are my memories, however, and they and I agree: narrative clarity can suck it.
A straight line may be the quickest jaunt between points A and B, but it’s not the most scenic. Life may be linear, but that’s not necessarily the most beautiful or truthful way to document it. It’s difficult for an audience to empathize with a life in full, or for an artist to portray it with Kodachromatic vividness. Individual moments, though? Forget noodles - they’re more like bullets. Small enough to hit the mark, big enough to blow things open.
You’ll see what I mean. Read more
May
16
Put Your Hands On Your Desk and Sit Still - Pt. III
Filed Under Existential Angst-astic, Long/Multi-Part Pieces, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 6 Comments
I spent a month with my hands on my desk, sitting still. Neither self-discipline nor negative consequences had managed to pin me down. The thing that finally did the trick wasn’t Ritalin, per se… it was one of its unexpected side effects. Perspective. Lots of it. Heavy as lead and twice as dangerous.
Stillness invites introspection. It’s why we’re drawn to forests and mountaintops. It’s why prisoners devour Bibles and G.E.D. coursework. Our brains can churn away almost anywhere (insert obligatory titty bar joke here). When given a small pocket of peace, though, they can delve into real mischief. Ask your average hermit. Ask Ted Kazcynski.
Left to its own devices, my brain churns like an epileptic Amishwoman. It screeches and crashes, slaps on new gears while gnashing existing ones. Methylphenidate manacles a small piece of the contraption. A few cogs and sprockets are segregated, slowed and stopped. They’re able to kick back in a lounge chair, enjoy a nice cold slug of WD-40… and finally comprehend the lunacy of the greater whole. Read more
May
2
Put Your Hands On Your Desk and Sit Still - Pt. II
Filed Under Existential Angst-astic, Long/Multi-Part Pieces, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 1 Comment
Thing is, I was hoping the game would be changed from Intramural Shoe-Gazing to something a little more, I don’t know… normal? Popular? Liable to result in varsity letters, half-naked cheerleaders and glory?
I’d spent so much time feeling lazier and ditzier than the glut of humanity. I imagined other people’s brains as Habitrails, with thoughts darting through neat little tubes. Mine felt more like a hamster wheel… stuck in a weird frantic stasis. I secretly hoped it would be a simple swap. A trip to PetSmart, a Schedule II controlled substance… end result, whirring metal is replaced with sleek acrylic and everyone’s happier. After a single pill, however, I knew that wasn’t gonna happen.
There aren’t any physiological effects… at least not for me. Pity. Some members of the neurotypical hoi polloi find the stuff rather delightful. Me? My hands, heart rate and temperement remain rock-steady. However, there’s never any doubt that the relevant molecules have been absorbed and begun raising a ruckus. So how does it feel? It feels like… it feels like… analogy time! Read more
Apr
24
Put Your Hands On Your Desk and Sit Still - Pt. I
Filed Under Existential Angst-astic, Long/Multi-Part Pieces, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 5 Comments
Maybe it really is a task, and I’m not up to the task, maybe the answer is don’t ask.
The Loud Family - Don’t Respond, She Can Tell
Carve out a place of quiet within your body
Failing that, within your mind
Failing that, rant and rave and
kick shit over until
(mercifully for all involved)
You die.
J. Thumbscrew
I. It’s the only drug I’ve ever taken for which there is no ritual. Everything from penicillin to the Pill has merited some consumption-time commemoration… licking off the plastic dropper, giving my abdomen a celebratory poke. Recreational substances, of course, are all ritual; the thrill begins well before they hit your lungs, your nose or your frontal lobe.
Methylphenidate (that’d be Ritalin, to those of you with advanced degrees or brand-name drug coverage) defies ceremony. I clutch each tablet firmly, as though I’m afraid it’ll squirm free of my grip or be swiped by a roving band of junior high schoolers. Open mouth, slug beverage, pop in pill. It seems like the next step ought to be “await greatness”, but it’s not. A physician friend noted, “… it’s not a feel-good drug,” and right she was. It’s also not a feel-bad drug, really. It operates on a different continuum. Well… for me, at least. Read more
Apr
12
how do you like your browneyed girl ETS
Filed Under Bad Poetry, Quickie | 1 Comment
[Ed. Note: it was a gorgeous spring day when I walked out of the GRE, drained but semi-confident. Don't think I knocked one out of the park, but I'd bank on a base hit.]
it was sunny when i went in
it was sunny when i came out
the green squishy spongy
springitude
in/under my
step, ‘tween
double-door crash
and parking lot dash
indicated
three solid hours of rain
drizzling dryden, dripping dreisser
gushing gertrudestein
(what a fucking pain)
but winter’s done,
my scantron’s flung
fatalistically, optimistically
into the scrubbed and scrunchied’s stack
(if the sun’s come back)
why NOT mingle lead-dust with the young?
teenage trees toss shadows
across parking lot puddles
and off in the distance
teenage girls wearing
matching cute shorts,
matching cute smiles,
do softball drills
to “sunglasses at night”
erratically (albeit cutely)
there is not a goddamned thing wrong with cute teenage girls,
nor cherry petals like organic glitter
falling,
falling,
falling,
shaken gleefully onto
asphalt construction paper.
Apr
7
All Lit Up Again
Filed Under Geekery, The Compleat Thumbscrew, Uncategorized | 8 Comments
For the past month, I’ve been studying my pale flat ass off. The subject of my efforts is as broad and shallow as my recently-detached fundament itself… the GRE “Literature in English” exam. Oddly enough, I have little interest in English literature. Nor am I planning to enter graduate school. I’m far too flitty and irreverent for academia. Asked to present my dissertation, I’d be liable to raise an eyebrow and purr, “I am gonna dissertate you SO HARD, baby!” This would be followed by fifteen minutes of pelvic thrusts, as well as my immediate expulsion from the institution in question.
Nay, I’m applying nose to grindstone for more practical purposes. About a year ago, I discovered that my college awards thirty undergraduate credits for each successfully-conquered subject-matter GRE. Thirty! Three-zero. The GRE’s test fee is $130. Thus, each credit winds up costing a little more than a McFish and a little less than an Extra Value Meal. Discovering this tidbit in the back of a course catalogue was like stumbling over the philosopher’s stone. Better, even - any old Tom, Dick or Olympiodorus can transmutate lead into gold. Magicking a stack of ScanTron sheets into a degree is something rare and mystical indeed.
My first GRE-ttempt was Psychology. My studying could’ve been more diligent; I remember sitting in the parking lot the morning of the test, chugging an energy drink and pawing through an intro-level psych textbook. “The anterior amygdala influences sexual behavior,” I muttered to myself, sprinting into the classroom, “Ergo: do the anterior amygdala from behind!” Despite my stupid mnemonics and stupider study habits, I netted a respectable 22 credits. Alas, it was immediately apparent that the English Lit test would be more than just sweetness and lobotomy. It had a reputation for being difficult… and that was among English majors. My loophole-laden approach to higher education meant that I hadn’t majored in… well… anything. Reading my first English Lit sample test, I got a much-needed bitch slap to my smug little head. Read more
Mar
25
This Is Your Heart Flashing Before Your Eyes
Filed Under Dating/Mating, Existential Angst-astic, L'Amour, Long/Multi-Part Pieces, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 1 Comment
We wandered in around sunset. It was located next to a Sunoco and labeled, simply, “RESTAURANT”. It was the perfect destination for two easily- and perpetually-amused souls who’d spent the day tooling around the Poconos, subsisting on trail mix and laughter. I’m sure we were each hoping that the menu would be as brusque as the sign… “COW! VEGETABLE! STARCH!”
RESTAURANT was actually DECENT. The food was passable, the waitress was friendly and the restrooms had vending machines full of hilarious adult novelties. Midway through our meal, a young Mexican family sat down in the booth behind us. They had two children - a girl of about four, and a boy who was still small enough to be toted around in a baby-bucket car seat. The girl was sweetly rambunctious. The boy reminded me a bit of J.Q., who as an infant had been similarly dusky and dark-haired. When his father stood him up on the table, he looked around in wobbly, wide-eyed amazement. After a few minutes, I caught his eye. He gave me one of those slow-blooming baby grins. I grinned back, popped a potato chip in my mouth and began wondering what the hell I was going to do with my life.
It’s damned unfair, isn’t it… how constricted we are by a single lifetime, by a strictly linear timeline? We get no do-overs. You can be resuscitated a thousand times in a video game. You can switch jobs, phone companies, fabric softeners. You can exchange your burger for a BLT. But every “choice” is a single stitch in a contiguous whole. It’s a vast lumpy sweater knit from a single thread, and knit only once. You can vary the pattern at any time, but you can never pick up missed stitches. You can’t look back on your deathbed and say, “Oh, fuck it… I’m going to unravel this thing and make an afghan instead.” Read more
Mar
12
Advice You Didn’t Ask For : Weight Loss
Filed Under Best Of, Existential Angst-astic, Long/Multi-Part Pieces, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 16 Comments
Once upon a time, I was fat.
Not “chubby”. Not “curvy”, except perhaps by a definition broad enough to also include Epcot Center and the Hindenburg.
I couldn’t cross my legs. Couldn’t wear corduroys without the thighs growing mangy. Couldn’t wear a bra without red welts circling my torso… angry lashes from the Gods of the Underwire.
Mar
4
The Calmative
Filed Under Existential Angst-astic, Quickie, The Compleat Thumbscrew | Leave a Comment
[Note: if you've never felt like this, you've probably never done anything worthy of horrific guilt. Maybe you should try harder?]
In order that it be given proper reverence, What You Did must be experienced alone. To be understood in its entirety, it must be the entirety… the same shade staining your hands, your skies, your soul.
In this vein, self-denial is not self-punishment. It is clarification by way of purgation. Self-flagellation is explosive. The crack of the lash and the film of frenzied sweat are both bits of shrapnel, bursting outward into the world. Purgation is implosive. It is sodium hydrofluoride - burning from within, leaving skin unscathed while turning bone to chalk. You watch all the supports snap. The tense little linkages unhinge; the spine crumbles. Structure collapses, slides to the floor and into grotesquerie. And at the center of that malformed mass lies the heart of the matter.
The first things to go are the essentials. No use starting slowly. Rose-colored glasses are inappropriate eyewear for staring down the sun.
Food. It represents nourishment and renewal, and is therefore out. The body must be periodically placated - the perils of starvation outweigh those of sustenance. Any protein, fat and starch must be consumed sans pleasure. They are a necessary evil. They are the dregs of fuel required to accelerate into a brick wall.
Sleep. Sleep is out. It repairs and - more importantly - it distracts. Healing is a venal sin. Hiding beneath pillowy unconsciousness is a mortal one. Wounds of this type should not be fixed by the body or ignored by the mind. No matter how heavy your eyes grow, there is a degree of will capable of keeping them open.
Small automatic comforts. Adjusting an itchy clothing tag, relaxing into your subway seat. Watching the sun slide behind skyscrapers. Slipping an ice cube in your drink. No. No, no, no, no.
Yours is not a world of comforts. It is the center of the blast, the day after, preserved perfectly within your chest cavity. Everything is itchy and uncomfortable and gray. Everything is hushed, sanctified, turned towards the one thing which still matters… the fallout.
This is your place of reflection. Alone, unwashed hair, cloak of dust, eyes burning, mouth dry. It is possible to focus on other things in a temple, on an ashram or atop a yoga mat… not here. There’s no hiding, no looking away. You stare down your transgression. You let it surge and swell and wash over you, unsure of whether you’ll wind up cleansed or fossilized.
No deities will be dispensing forgiveness from on high. This is a private matter between you and yourself. It ends when it is over.
When is it over?
When blinking isn’t cowardice.
When breathing isn’t decadence.
When your fingers unclench, the branding iron drops and what’s done - and what’s been done - is done.
Feb
25
The Wonders of Time (And Heroin)
Filed Under La Musica, Quickie, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 4 Comments
Since when did Mike Doughty get so fucking cute? Possibly around the same time I did?
I first cut school was at the ripe old age of fifteen. I’d scored tickets to see a midweek Soul Coughing performance at a wee little recording studio on Delaware Ave. It was the coup to end all coups. As Geekarella, I wasn’t really getting the behind-the-bleachers make-out action I craved. Thus, the bulk of my damp and dewy teenage love was directed towards The Band. I wasn’t about to let frivolous bullshit like “education” and “parents’ explicit veto” restrain the ultimate expression of my adoration… man!
It was one of my first major acts of parental defiance. And it was beautiful. I saw my idols in a twenty-by-twenty room. They played a fun, fantastic set… for a crowd of twenty sitting crossed-legged at their feet. Afterwards, I posed for a picture with Doughty, too geeky and gawky and overwhelmed to mumble more than a few words.
That day of hooky was the existential gateway drug which shaped the next few years of my life… the watershed moment where I realized, “Wow, I not only broke the rules, I ground them to dust under my Skechers. And it was awesome!”
There were, of course… consequences. For me, for Doughty. They’re the Taco Bell hot sauce packets of an interesting life… you get ‘em whether you ask for them or not.
Twelve years later, I’ve had more adventures than some people twice my age. Doughty, no slouch, has kicked a junk habit, toured Asia and launched a solo career.
Sometimes life’s like a briar patch… you come out the other side ripped to shit.
Sometimes, though, it’s like a rock tumbler. All that impact and abrasion turns out something surprisingly pretty. Geekarella and that weird bald dude at the mic both cleaned up pretty well.
Here’s lookin’ at you, Mike.
Feb
20
Say a Prayer For the Youth of America
Filed Under Geekery, Quickie, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 4 Comments
So my company periodically invites groups of high school freshmen to spend a day “job shadowing”… basically, tagging along behind a corporate mentor and learning about the care and feeding of a l@w f1rm.
This morning, some of the mentors were stupid enough to bring the children by MY desk. Usually I limit my remarks to, “Want to fix Blackberries your whole life? No? Then GO TO COLLEGE,” but I was feeling frisky today. A few choice quotes:
Me: “So, yeah… on this server, I can do this little thing which is all like, ‘KILL SEQUENCE INITIATE!’ and which will wipe out a stolen Blackberry. Doing that is the most exciting part of my day. Unfortunately.”
Mustachioed Freshman: “So let’s say there’s someone you don’t like - ”
Me: “Oh, there are plenty of people I don’t like.”
M.F.: “… could you wipe their Blackberry and really mess up their day?”
Me: “Well, here’s the deal. We’re like the lawyers’ pit crew. We may not all be Dale Earnhardt - and thank the lord for that - but we can at least help get Dale back on track. Or could do so if he were not dead.” Read more
Feb
18
Turning Japanese
Filed Under Best Of, Existential Angst-astic, Geekery, Social Ishizzles, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 11 Comments
Dancing on the legs of a newborn pony
Left right, left right
Keep it up, son
[...]
You are a fever
You are a fever
You ain’t born typical
- The Kills, “U.R.A. Fever”
The difference between having a typical and an atypical young adulthood is like the difference between being Japanese and waking up in a gutter in Tokyo.
There’s no preordained path for teenagers and twentysomethings. Some paths, though, bear more boot-prints than others. It’s not what you do - go to college, go to work, go to the red-light district in Amsterdam - so much as the number of people in your peer group meandering alongside you. If you stick to well-populated trails - “high school”, “college”, “job at ExecuCorp”, “vacations in Cabo” - you’re able to define your place in the world. Scrawling your initials in common mile-markers helps you establish where you’ve been, where you’re going, where you fit.
It’s like being a salaryman named Hattori. You were raised in Japanese culture. You were educated in Japanese schools. You have a Japanese name, Japanese friends, familiarity with Japanese customs. You’re capable of ordering take-out, buying a bus pass and discussing game shows on which housewives debase themselves to win small appliances. These things seem simple and mundane. They’re not. They are a massive, complex set of skills, a doctoral degree in gliding smoothly through life. Read more
Feb
12
Art Skool - “Antifatalism”
Filed Under Art Skool, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 4 Comments
Feb
7
El Surprise! Tu Es En Mexico! Pt. II (Someone Who Loves You For You)
Filed Under Busted Heart Blues, Long/Multi-Part Pieces, The Compleat Thumbscrew | 3 Comments
I’d always relished the idea of foreign travel. I envisioned myself as a border-hopping daredevil, each passport stamp representing another few notches in my belt. I’d scale ruins in Thailand, explore catacombs in Paris, slurp monkey brains directly from the poor creatures’ skulls in sub-Saharan Africa.
It’s ironic that I didn’t include “plunge headfirst into a guano-pile in the Amazon”… because I was utterly, completely full of shit.
I spent roughly ninety minutes exploring Tijuana. I did not consume any new and delicious areas of the pig. I did not I did not forge any ephemeral yet beautiful friendships with the locals. I did not even purchase a photo with one of the godforsaken zebra-painted burros. The first thing I purchased was a large soda… at Burger King… in order to use their bathroom. “Nice work, Carmen Sandiego,” I muttered to myself, exiting El Rey de Carne’s Americanized confines, “Where you gonna expand your cultural horizons next, Fuddruckers?”
I’d like to give myself the benefit of the doubt… to assume that, under more ideal circumstances, my first trans-national trek would’ve been a richly enjoyable experience. My circumstances, however, sucked. They really sucked. They sucked hard enough to don a pleather skirt and lip liner and charge by the hour for their suckitude. Read more
Jan
31
(Rousing conclusion of “El Surprise! Tu Es En Mexico!” coming soon…)
As name-checked in Electric Six’s “Dance Epidemic”. Intersection contains no actual residential housing. Way to destroy my dream, Los Angeles. Read more