Bagel

I no longer feel like myself. But I'm fine with that.

Once, I was a formless mound of dough. In my formative years, I was kneaded gently, and later on beaten, often cruelly. It wasn't an easy life, for the most part, but no life worthy of note ever is. Those days seem like an eon ago now; and while I'm pretty sure they were hell at the time, I still look back on them fondly.

This isn't a metaphor.

Eventually I was molded. Crudely by some standards, handsomely by others. The end result was probably a mixture of both, like a pretty girl with a snaggletooth. The ingredients were there, but all it takes is a snowflake to start an avalanche, and in my case a strand of hair, black, spoiled me. Nobody wanted me.

I was tossed aside. I became bitter and lonely. What was I? I was made for something, I thought, believed, but what?

I wanted to play the piano in front of a sell-out audience at Rockefeller Plaza, to make the game-winning basket in the NCAA Final. Yet there I was, growing stale in a bin of day-olds while ladies with eyes as big as Death Stars looked down upon me and evaluated me pitiful.

I was nothing. My shelf life was over, or so I thought.

As unbelievable as it sounds, a German woman took me home with her. I don't know what she saw in me, but I'm grateful. To this day, the memory of her smile makes me happy. She drove a blue Volkswagen. I rode shotgun, in a brown paper bag.

Have you ever been cut in half, friends? The very idea used to terrify me immeasurably, but it's not so bad. It hurts a little at first, but after you've come to terms with your current state, you actually feel more whole than you did before.

This life has been an abundant one. As I sit shrouded in cling wrap in Mrs. Zurbrück's refrigerator -- top crisper, next to a desirable head of lettuce who must by now detest my yarns yet still nods approvingly at every pause -- I am calm. I'm separated from my lower half by a slice of tomato, a slice of processed cheese, and what smells like horseradish.

And I'm happy. Because tomorrow I will be eaten. Kindly.

Time Left

It feels really good to have nothing in my pockets. I’ve gained a little bit of weight over the holidays, so it’s somewhat comforting that the absence of a cell phone, wallet, pack of cigarettes and a lighter in my pants pockets isn’t providing me extra padding. It’s pretty cold, though. I could use a coat right now. Stupid me, I forgot to take one with me when I left. Doubt I’ll make the same mistake twice. Wouldn’t that be funny?

And I have no shoes. I’m shivering, and my hair is wet, but my legs are fine. The snow crunches under my bare feet and wets the legs of my jeans. I start out running then ease up into a light jog. Each breath is illustrated before me briefly as a cloud of white mist. This is beautiful.

It doesn’t take long to warm up. My ears are a little numb, especially my left, and the cold is keeping my legs from performing at their best, but all things considered I’m in pretty good shape. If I don’t get frost bitten and lose my feet, that is. Ha.

Look here, there’s a woman pushing a stroller. She’s wearing a cotton mask to protect against the flu. Her baby is pushed before her in a vinyl chariot replete with nylon mesh and zippers. Royalty. I jog past the basketball court. No one is there, given the season. I’ve long held the belief that living in a country with hot summers and cold winters builds the best of characters, but what cruel god would deny outdoor basketball for three to four months every year? It just seems vindictive, like Zeus gave us winter as punishment for being good looking.

I almost slipped on a patch of ice. These soles provide no traction. Ha. Strangely, as I whip past – an exaggeration of the highest degree – a group of middle-age ladies doing calisthenics, I’m reminded of a girl I once knew. Her name was Charlotte. She wore a wig on our first date, for reasons I initially never bothered asking and forgot to inquire about before our relationship burned out. It was probably nothing, but questions like that will make a man lose his mind sometimes.

I’m almost out of breath by the time I approach three middle school kids ahead. The tallest of the trio, a boy with brush-bristle hair, kicks a ginko tree as soon as his mates are directly under it, showering them with snow. Their curses of indignation and surprise contain a note of endearment particular to adolescents’ dual frustration and love for their peers. I still remember that sound.

I might head on home, or maybe not. It depends on the weather. The sun is setting and the temperature is dropping. To be sure, it’s a long walk back. But what other option do I have? I might check into a hotel if I hadn’t left my wallet, and the credit card contained within, back at my apartment. But I didn’t so I can’t. All I have is what I took with me, which isn’t a lot.

Blue and red lights flicker by as I try not to notice them, instead looking up at the fat snowflakes blowing up, down, and around on this fiercely assertive winter’s day. A fireman walks up to me and says, “We’re going to lift you up now,” but I am elsewhere.

Ho, Ho, Ho

I Forgot What I was About to Say

So instead here's Lord Finesse to fill in the blanks.





PS - If you're still here, go! Leave! Stop looking at me like that!

Things to Do in the Desert (Fifth Entry)

Am I being too literal?

Wisdom

My teeth are yellowed. Not so much that it's noticeable unless you look at them from inches in front of my face (and why would you do that unless you're a dentist? I'm a married man, lady), but they are. Like the pages of an old paperback.

And that's how I like them. Yellow. Off-white is a better description, or perhaps slightly pee stained. Regardless, my teeth aren't flawless. My mouth is used. 20% off discount, this Sunday only.

I don't want to upgrade my teeth. They work fine. They look fine. Unless I change my career path and start appearing on TV, I have no desire for my chompers to resemble bleached tombstones. Character.

I've never had a cavity. Braces in middle school corrected my crooked mouth but couldn't correct my crooked smile. Nothing has corrected my warped mind, and I've eaten human flesh (by accident), but I'll take that over worrying whether my teeth are straight, white, tight.


* and my breath stinks

Bawdy Gaudy

Drool

The door slammed and I awoke feeling guilty. Claudia had left for work, mad, and here I was ensconced in the cloud of blankets that were her late mother's duvet and bed sheet: a siren's song more sleep-inducing than any pharmacological anti-depressant prescription.

I was dreaming about rowing a sailboat up a flooded hill. It was vivid. It involved Robert Downey Jr. and contraband cigarettes. It was epic.

I would have liked it to have continued uninterrupted.

I was numb when the door slammed. It was like being under water, and the new day was a breath of air -- just air, neither fresh nor frozen. I felt I could wake up, even though I didn't want to. Dead ends in my dreams have that effect on me. They creep into my present life.

I wasn't tired, though, just mentally exhausted. Tiredness has to be earned to be appreciated, and my card wasn't valid. I can have a doctor prove I have a heart murmur and an employer tell me I'm no longer needed, but no one can tell me I'm not awake on my grind or mentally sound. If they do, they're full of shit. Because the only job I've ever not given a shit about is the one I didn't have.

When Claudia came home she was livid.

"Are these cum stains in your underwear?" she asked. She had obviously been through my laundry.

I couldn't stifle a laugh despite myself. Claudia looked at me hard. I'm a genius in many ways, too many to count, but the stealth of infidelity isn't one of them.

"Tell me, who was it?" she asked.

I refused to answer.

Gegenschein

    There is no light to be found anywhere but here, yet it isn't a light that can be felt, seen, or otherwise experienced without having relinquished the inveterately jejune conceptualization of forbearance in which you place the utmost importance, and to do that (yes, that) would require some unknown trait readily, perhaps sardonically, misidentified as apathy.

    Eighty-six seconds from this very point in time, a stop sign shall be uprooted, hexagon and shaft alike, from its earthly mooring and subsequently tossed into the somber heavens above; by whom and for what purpose need not be elucidated, though it stands to reason that the sign is bound to return whence it came, give or take a few meters, miles, or misshapen intentions. Ultimately, the particulars of its descent to Earth, be that an Earth of grass, concrete, steel, or for that matter, flesh, are unimportant since knowing the sign's trajectory and moment of arrival would be of little, if any use to you. If it were to scathe, to pierce, to ruin someone or something, and if that undisclosed entity were you, precognition would prove equally futile, as looking up or out is analogous to looking down - if you're to be struck, you're to be struck and there's no sense in lamenting the actuality of said possibility.

    In all likelihood, the makeshift spear is set to impale something else: you grasp the concept, yet the light eludes you still. The scenario is neither a conundrum nor a Zen koan. What this is, to the best of your knowledge, is unmistakably anticlimactic and like all levelheaded people, you demand something different, or something more.

    Truth be told, they always do.

Of Tooth and Paste

Don't act like your shit don't stink, Crest!