A Day In The Life Of An Adult
2002-05-20 - 11:07 a.m.
I�m getting� awfully friggin� siC. Coughing up what seems to be whole mucous membranes. Lugi shares are increasing in value to ten per day, with a further increase in blood expulsion. Drinking coke didn�t help, too acidic. Being dehydrated didn�t help, lost ten pounds. Drinking bog water while camping with Mitch certainly did not help.
Later: I have officially gone from expulsion to propulsion. Asked dad to make an appointment for me with the hospital (I haven�t been in years) but chances are that I�ll have conquered the beast before they even make the appointment. And only the fittest children will survive.
The following is what I wrote at the peak of this infection. �have to hold onto stuff to walk across the house and when I got there and realize that where I am is not the same as where I wanted to be, so I have to double back, or forget what I came for, full knowing that by the time I get back, I will have forgotten wh- someth *scribble* similar to ing, forgetting what you�re writing.�
Art: I thought up another something that can�t be (or has not yet been) caught on film: the effect of vibrating phones on humans. Take an assemblage of people, a weekend seminar or businesspeople, say. And construct a device to ring all of their phones at the same time. Now, freeze time, and look at their faces. Everyone opens their eyes a little more from the surprise, pupils dialate. Some people smile with anticipation, some smile because they�ve already realized what you�ve done, and others sime because vibrating phones are silly things. Ten thousand pictures of this audience, with their ayeballs out in the open, that would be an art.
Smegol is my kitty. Has been for a long time. My kitty, he beats the other cats up, sits on their heads. That�s how you win catfights, when you�re a half-coon kitty. He opens doors; it must be the Siamese in him, because I certainly didn�t teach him to. He even plays chess, although he�s never made more than one official move per game, because he prefers to sleep for days between moves. On the occasion, In general, I can tell where his thoughts are headed, and I�d like to think that he has a basic understanding of me. This is the quality that made cats into gods. Anyway, so I have this feline critter, this Smegol, and he�s got this critter, this funky new skin condition which would suggest that his back has decided to grow hair in clumps rather than organized columns and rows. I�m gonna make an appointment for him to be at the vet�s soon-as-soon-is.
There�s a spot on the floor in the attic. I named it Spot. Sometimes, when I want to put it on the spot, I ask it, �Spot, what�s a spot like you doing in a spot like this, and what sort of tough spot were you in to land you there?� Because all floor stains were at one time a full cup of juice, all splats on the windshield a full, living bug.
Driving around in the herse with my boss, Tony. Seems a good name for a funeral director, short and strong and dignified; but then I realized that his whole name is Anthony. Suppose every name has to start somewhere. There was a something about this day that made me seriously rethink my current choice of occupation. Of course, this was odd, because I don�t do serious thinking often [hell, I can�t even do it now]. The scene was a quiet, Maine-cold sunless day, the way burial services are �supposed� to be (unless they�re �supposed� to rain). Meeting the first couple of people didn�t seem too bad...but after that I sort of lost interest. And that�s something a funeral director is never supposed to do, even on Maine-cold rainy days. And then there was a bucketload of nervousness, because I really had no reason to do anything, and several reasons to do nothing, which, of course, is something I�m not used to doing. But I�m going to see how funerals go, and embalmings, and see how the rest of the year goes, because in all likelihood, it was just an awkward day. Back to Tony? He does some things that I just wouldn�t; waves to Everyone, and only has 11 caskets in his display room (3 of which are 18-gauge steel) but of course both of these things are probably regional. And fortunately (unlike some of the other funeral directors I�ve met) I otherwise like the manner in which he runns his business.
�It�s like falling off a bike; nobody can really teach you how to do it, but there isn�t much you can�t learn from going out and doing it for yourself.� -Nemo
*trying to dust off my monitor with my GUI pointer*
Nomination for The New Catch Word of the Year: Literally. Just like totally, people tend to use it for over-emphasis, �it�s literally hot as hell�. But the thing that really gives it�s edge over the other nominees is that it really bugs the hell out of this guy in Illinois. So, literally Roge, what�d�ya think about that? *Roger growls* So, in the future, I may sometimes say literally, and by using it I will sometimes, but not always, mean it in the figurative sense of the word.
*sigh* So far it�s been a pretty lame summer, excepting the stay at Mitch�s house, where I was reminded that people really can laugh without having drunk alcohol beforehand. Vuts all over my hands because Gateway didn�t leave me room for a port I wanted to use, and hard drives crapping out- *pen explodes*. Becca�s spending the summer in Portland. So chances are that I wont be seeing her anytime soon.
In short, I don�t like the way adults play. It�s all about almost-but-not-quite putting your thumb in your coffee while you drink it, and what you wear to work in the morning, versus what you wear out. Indeed, many time it seems the only thing worn out is yourself. But there are many other workers in the factory, who are just as worn, just as oddly recognizable as the blue suits they wear out. And what do button-up shirts do anyway, show the world that we know how to put a button in a hole? A star for you, businessboy. And another star for that shmuck wearing the scarf even though it�s not winter, with the noose that hangs down to cover the place where his belly button would be. Ties developed to hide outies and stains on people who wanted others to know they could button their own buttons. In short, they�re not much more than overgrown children. Give me jammies or give me nothing, says-I [so long as it�s not to shivery in my timbers]. Aye mate, it�s a child�s life for me.
Went damning with Mitch-i-poo. He calls it fishing. He even made me buy a fishing license, so that we could legally go damning out in the woods of Maine. For those not in Maine (or those who are unfortunate enough to live down south where lobstas grow), damning is the fine art of saying phrases with the word �damn� located in them somewhere. Of course, this is the sort of sport that needs inspiration, and one of the few places that allows for this unique types of inspiration is camping in Maine. I showed up in early afternoon after my grandmothers burial service in central Maine, and when I went to pick up some things at his house, we upped an decided to go damning...eventually. There was a whole escapade of us doing the dishes while my father takes a shit and subsequently gets lost in Mitch�s bathroom, but I�m not going to get into it, because. Ran around getting food together, losing the key to the car, crashing Mitch�s computer, and finding money for a license. Of course, we hadn�t brought with us one of the things we really should have taken: the key to get into his camp. We also forgot to bring a real vehicle, but that, as far as *this* sentence is concerned, is irrelevant. [the following sentences contain no such diversion from the fact that we had driven to camp in a Geo, and expected to put a canoe INSIDE it.] Ended up strapping the canoe on the top of the thing and Irode halfway outside the car, holding- �Damnit damn damn, ouchdamn!� the canoe in place. Like a a new Olympic Sport, Mitch careened between potholes and I held on for both our dear lives as we tried to get down to the river and set up camp before nightfall. Once again, we couldn�t figure out which of the three poles was the long one, even though it�s clearly longer if you lay the poles out, and is a different color than the others. And once again, we failed to use the propane stove, but we really only bring it with us for the sake of damning...to carry something heavy without needing it is to say damn. The next morning, and upon finding Mitch�s lost* knife, we went damning in the most official sense of the word. We took only the bare equipment, in the hopes that we would soon lose camp and not have to haul the Tackle, fishing-pole-halves, and- �Damn the damn damning of the damndest gall-darn damn� the propane tank. Still dunno exactly why we brought this with us in the canoe, but it probably had something to do with the beavers. See, to get into the river, we needed to go right over a beaver dam, because they had blocked up the whole thing. Of course, this whole dam situation sparked a string of damning before we actually headed down into the river, and afterwards there followed more beaver-curses. We even spotted one and followed it for a while, but the slimy little buggar hid his tracks and got away. We sat around and fished for a little while...shot the shit about artificial intelligence and why it doesn�t work. Dropped the reel of my fishing pole into the river, (the closed reel) but I managed to get it back after Mitch kicked me nearly bodily in after it. And then we went home, and did it all in reverse. Nmad!
�To make a long story short, chop off two legs. If and only if that doesn�t succeed, chop off the third.� -Nemo
*I will still argue the point that I did give him back the knife. I did. He just didn't have his hand out to get it when I gave it to him...wasn't really paying attention when I gave it to him...okay, so I'm only pretty sure that he was sitting right next to me. As I look closer at the situation, there is a chance that he was off taking a piss...and as I look at it closer, there is a very good probability that he was out taking a piss...and as I look even closer, I can be almost cretain that either the piss had taken him, or he never existed. Damn electrons. So the knife was temporarily lost to timespace, as the beer bottle in Fight Club (TM), and the whole thing was kinda funny; it woulda been funnier if it wasn't so serious.
