Paradoxes, chapter 1 ....

So here's the paradox of relationships, gay and straight alike: I need someone to confide in, but I don't care what you think. I'm not confiding in you because I don't know what I think. (I always know what I think. Duh.) I'm confiding in you because I need some love. So shut the fuck up and listen.

It often surprises me that you don't understand that.

Neighbors

See, now this is just the lovely thing about living in what is essentially a very cozy budget hotel. We often get new guests, but unlike most guests, they end up staying not three nights but three months. So my new neighbor Jim is a very hip and cool locksmith, a child of the 60s whose brain nonetheless functions like an adult in the 12s. The 2012s, I mean, or whatever the hell year it is. Forgive me. I'm terrible with years.

Jim and I share what is essentially a selfish habit but perfect for developing a friendship: We keep the same strange hours. (Once your time is your own, you will never be sad again.) 2AM is 2PM to Jim and me. We'll be up all night at something -- drinking, writing and tripping the moonlight fantastic to some Doors or Bill Shakespeare, or whoever the hell wrote that song. And Jim has this insane pot that is unquestionably the best pot I have had in thirty years. The last pot this good, pot that actually makes you hallucinate, came into the country in a DIPLOMATIC BAG.


But here's the thing: Jim is a true Southern gentleman. He knows the South looks insanely dumb to us Northerners, but damn if they don't often have bedduh mannuhz than us Yanks. And that's all there is to it. He politely requests that I not discuss politics during a smoke, and the smoke is far better for it.


Trip to the moonlight. It's fantastic.

the Clumsy Chronicles, cont'd ....

So you may have been the victim of my infamous clumsiness on many occasions in the past. (Do tell!) But what you may not realize is that no one is penalized by my clumsiness more than me: I was visiting a friend last night to watch ... the game. And hang out. You know, to keep it real. Also, I am very fat. The reason this is important is that my jeans are constantly being pushed southward by the large tire around my midsection, sometimes causing them to slip under my shoes.

I go upstairs to pee, because my buddy is remodeling the downstairs bathroom and the toilet is unplugged. His stairs are uncarpeted because of a recent paint job, and further coated with some sort of super-slippy sealant. It immediately becomes apparent that I have failed to fully lift my jeans after doing my bidnis, because my feet go airborne on the second step of the descent. My upper back is the first to smash into the stairs, fracturing a shoulder blade. (It's like breaking off the edge of a potato chip.) And I have severe whiplash from the snapping of my head. So lifting my arm or turning my head are extraordinarily painful.

What is more painful, however, is that I bit off a decent chunk from the left side of my tongue when my head broke the stair. When I try to inform the nurse about this additional injury, it comes out as: "Ahh bih mah tun'." ("I bit my tongue.") I spit out some blood for dramatic effect. Nonetheless, she asks if I am drunk due to the slurring of my speech. I try to convince her otherwise: "Ahhm naw drun'. But ahh thin' I hah uh kin-kush-ih."


So the lesson to be learned is this: Please do not remodel your home during one of my visits. Really, your home is quite lovely as is.

Fields of faith ....

So the anecdote of the day goes to WC Fields, compliments of a customer.

Fields, a devout atheist his entire life, was apparently caught thumbing a Bible on his deathbed. His daughter reputedly asked: "Uncle Bill, did you convert?!" To which Fields replied: "Nah. Just lookin' for loopholes."

Brilliant.

thumbing away the fun ....

You know what sucks about the digital revolution? What sucks is that you can't give music as a gift anymore. Remember when you could wrap an album or a CD and stick it under the tree? Then the recipient would open it and see an attractive group photo of the Dixie Chicks on the cover, and everyone could share in the fun. But the damn thing is so small you can't put it under the tree, to say nothing of the fact that you can't fit a picture of the Dixie Chicks on the exterior of a thumb drive. In short, there is no fun in presenting a thumb drive as a Christmas gift:

"Gosh, a .wav file! Just what I always wanted!"

Where Are The Colorful Camels?

So here is why you never go back to check on your old girlfriend, even at XMAS when she is lonely.

You stop by with a gift or two, including a camel-hair scarf that was not inexpensive even on sale. She replies: "That's not my color." I'm already up to a minimum of 30 Hail Marys at my next confession, so I won't call her what she is. What is also obvious is that camels only come in one color, namely brown. There are no blue or purple or red scarves of camel hair.


You should have gone with the coal, dude. Coal is definitely her color.

peeve of the day

You know what these fucks at Epson and HP have done? They have adopted the same business model as Monsanto, the seed company that forces poor farmers to buy new soybean/corn/wheat seeds from Monsanto each and every year. Even if you don't use your printer, your ink now has an annual expiration date. And new ink costs $60.

I suggest a worldwide Stop Printing day.

Stand 5: It's a toughy!

You will love this one, goilz:


I pull up in front of an ordinary house in Lower Falls -- Stand 5, to you civilians -- for what I guess to be a couple of kids heading down to The Last Drop in Oak Square, which is what you usually get around midnight on a Saturday. But instead an Indian woman waddles out, frantically caressing her giant tummy. I inquire as to her destination, and she replies in the overpolite and sing-songy British accent unique to Indians: "I am in labor." I am hoping against hope that she means "as opposed to management." Alas, her husband is in management, and away on a business trip. So it's just me and Marja. I already like Marja, so I refrain from quibbling that "labor" is not the answer to my question. ("WHAT IS YOUR DESTINATION?") I nonetheless grant that we are all in labor from an existential viewpoint, because life is truly a bitch.

I ask about the time between contractions. She says three minutes, and I know from picking up doctors over the years that Newton-Wellesley is less than two miles away. Newton-Wellesley is our biggest account, you see, and the MGH residents fulfill their community-hospital requirement there. (They also leave me great reading material like the British Medical Journal/Lancet, so I have a working knowledge of basic medical emergencies buried somewhere in the subconscious.) But she doesn't want Newton-Wellesley. She wants Brigham & Women's on Brookline Ave, where her doctor awaits. And she cries out at every bump on Beacon Street, making me feel extraordinarily guilty. Moreover, she cries out when there is not a bump, clearly suggesting a contraction. And they are currently closer than three minutes. ("How many centimeters, Marja?! .... Please don't say '10!' ".) Far worse, we are nowhere near Brookline Ave, despite running every light in Cleveland Circle and beeping the horn at anything and everything in our way. This includes more than a few useless college students. If you don't have the brains to step out of the way of a speeding cab, college can't help you.

We make a break for the Pike. About a mile before the Allston tolls, the contractions stop and the water breaks. I have never heard water break before, but there is no doubt that the water-balloon-bursting-on-the-pavement sound spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E. Clearly, the bumps and the speed have increased her anxiety, to say nothing of mine. "I'm more anxious than you, Marja." It turns out that she has been through this before. At the risk of stating the painfully obvious, I have not been through this before.

Marja asks if I have a knife or something sharp. I inform her that I am a Certified Sommelier, and offer a corkscrew instead. She also asks if I have something soft, like a towel. (My bowels are soft at this point, but I don't think that's what she's after.) I further inform Marja that I have a clean fleece -- I just washed it last night, than God -- and several unopened, i.e., moist towelettes. We pull over between the traffic cones at the Allston tolls with my corkscrew and moist towelettes, and Marja's water on the floor.

In less than five minutes it is Monty Python's The Meaning of Life Part IV: Live Birth. During the breach of the pelvic brim -- Lancet! -- I swear I see a lefty wink of the eyeball. ("Relax: You're not fucking this up, dude.") We, Marja and I, catch with the fleece. We cut with the tiny knife on the corkscrew. We clamp with the clasp from my bag of Cape Cod chippies. We rub off the thick greenish baby-pea-soup with moist towelettes. We rinse with my Poland Springs bubbly water. The ambulance finally arrives. ......

"Not to worry, guys. I'm on it."


P.S. I called Marja today and all is well. Little Rajneesh is flirting with the buxom nurses. That's my boy!

zee French ...

I get to talk French every so often. I generally avoid it for reasons of avoiding humiliation. But after I speak French, I am always pleased that I did.

Americans speak very little French, or any other foreign language. This is why international businessmen are always laughing at the Americans. The American businessmen should at least have the decency to be humiliated by his social ineptitude, for language is the most social thing of all.