The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt
The Green Lantern by Jerome Charyn
Possession by A.S. Byatt
Boomsday by Christopher Buckley
September 27, 2007
Recommended Reading:
Exit Ghost by Philip Roth
The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt
The Green Lantern by Jerome Charyn
Possession by A.S. Byatt
Boomsday by Christopher Buckley
The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt
The Green Lantern by Jerome Charyn
Possession by A.S. Byatt
Boomsday by Christopher Buckley
September 25, 2007
The Ex.
A long long time ago (circa Fall 2002), in a land far far away (Russia, in the Kurgan oblast) I dated a girl for a few weeks. I tend to blame it on the water, that there was something funny in that well, but really it was just a stage. At the time, I considered myself bisexual, and she knew it, and while it didn't work out, it wasn't my fault.
And I bumped into her last week.
I recognized her before she recognized me, and I wasn't sure what to do. It would have been easy for me to twist and keep myself out of her line of sight. I eventually decided to go for it, on the hopes that she had kept in contact with people I haven't heard from since high school. Eventually I emerged from my little hiding place on the other side of the door, and she did a double take, and it was awkward.
Turns out, she transferred and now goes to my alma mater. I'm still not used to calling it that; it's been less than a year. She's an education major, and she's student-teaching, and her class went on a field trip to my place of employment. Which would explain why there were rude misbehaving 12 year old boys congregating around her.
The conversation was more than half dead space, dead air, with the occasional little brat running up to her complaining that someone pushed him or permission to use the restroom. A lot of nodding, both of us had our arms crossed in an almost standoffish pose.
Worst part is, she didn't even have any juicy gossip for me. I've kept in contact with enough people, and have randomly found old friend's myspace pages to know who's engaged, who's dropped out of school, who's pregnant, everything that's surprising and yet at the same time, isn't. She ran off after a few minutes to keep a closer eye on the kids, and I breathed a sigh of relief that it was over.
Eventually the school bus returned and it was time for them to leave. Somehow she found me, even though I had gone back into hiding, and asked for my number in order to grab coffee sometime. Reluctantly I gave it to her, not being able to think of a reason why not.
I really hope she doesn't call. I don't want to have to put up with that again.
At least she was really tired and looked like crap. And she's gained weight. That's always nice to see in an ex.
And I bumped into her last week.
I recognized her before she recognized me, and I wasn't sure what to do. It would have been easy for me to twist and keep myself out of her line of sight. I eventually decided to go for it, on the hopes that she had kept in contact with people I haven't heard from since high school. Eventually I emerged from my little hiding place on the other side of the door, and she did a double take, and it was awkward.
Turns out, she transferred and now goes to my alma mater. I'm still not used to calling it that; it's been less than a year. She's an education major, and she's student-teaching, and her class went on a field trip to my place of employment. Which would explain why there were rude misbehaving 12 year old boys congregating around her.
The conversation was more than half dead space, dead air, with the occasional little brat running up to her complaining that someone pushed him or permission to use the restroom. A lot of nodding, both of us had our arms crossed in an almost standoffish pose.
Worst part is, she didn't even have any juicy gossip for me. I've kept in contact with enough people, and have randomly found old friend's myspace pages to know who's engaged, who's dropped out of school, who's pregnant, everything that's surprising and yet at the same time, isn't. She ran off after a few minutes to keep a closer eye on the kids, and I breathed a sigh of relief that it was over.
Eventually the school bus returned and it was time for them to leave. Somehow she found me, even though I had gone back into hiding, and asked for my number in order to grab coffee sometime. Reluctantly I gave it to her, not being able to think of a reason why not.
I really hope she doesn't call. I don't want to have to put up with that again.
At least she was really tired and looked like crap. And she's gained weight. That's always nice to see in an ex.
September 24, 2007
Losers.
No one wins, and no one gets second prize, either.
The contest was, for those of you just joining us, was guessing the word or phrase that I uttered in bed Thursday night while in the midst of... various activities, that kind of makes sense in the context, but caused both of us to burst out into laughter until Initials kicked me out of bed. He then told me to blog about it.
SHAZAM!
Yeah, it's a reference to Family Guy. So what?
Second prize goes to me. Not that there was a second prize, but as I was telling my roommate the story, she said that the word was probably the most inappropriate thing I could say in bed. Funny as fuck, but not appropriate. I replied with "There are tons of things I could have said that are more inappropriate... like... 'OW! My uterus!'"
Third prize goes to Martin (no blog URL given) who went for a Harry Potter reference--Expelliarmus!.
The contest was, for those of you just joining us, was guessing the word or phrase that I uttered in bed Thursday night while in the midst of... various activities, that kind of makes sense in the context, but caused both of us to burst out into laughter until Initials kicked me out of bed. He then told me to blog about it.
Yeah, it's a reference to Family Guy. So what?
Second prize goes to me. Not that there was a second prize, but as I was telling my roommate the story, she said that the word was probably the most inappropriate thing I could say in bed. Funny as fuck, but not appropriate. I replied with "There are tons of things I could have said that are more inappropriate... like... 'OW! My uterus!'"
Third prize goes to Martin (no blog URL given) who went for a Harry Potter reference--Expelliarmus!.
September 20, 2007
Contest
About a half hour ago, while Initials and I were in bed, ahem doing the horizontal mambo, I made a mistake. No, not a terrible mistake. Lord knows I know the ins and outs (tee hee) of the horizontal mambo. I've had some practice and watched more than my fair share of dance videos.
I had, well, stopped dancing and was waiting for Initials to twist and twirl and get off the dance floor. I was letting him take matters into his own hands, dancing by himself (cue the Billy Idol song), encouraging him with some sounds. When I got it into my head to say something. A word so shocking, and hilarious in context that saying it would at once both summarize and ruin the moment completely.
So I said it.
And after the fits of laughter subsided, he poked me repeatedly with his finger, calling me a jerk and saying "You're going to blog about this, aren't you." And then it took him like, ten more minutes to finish what he was doing. I wasn't allowed to help anymore. So I went into the other room and started blogging.
Instead of just typing the word, I've decided to spice things up in here, and turn this into some sort of contest. If anyone can guess the hilarious, semi-appropriate word that I exclaimed in bed, they will get a prize. I haven't decided what is will be yet, but it will be fantastic. (Deadline is Monday when I wake up.)
I had, well, stopped dancing and was waiting for Initials to twist and twirl and get off the dance floor. I was letting him take matters into his own hands, dancing by himself (cue the Billy Idol song), encouraging him with some sounds. When I got it into my head to say something. A word so shocking, and hilarious in context that saying it would at once both summarize and ruin the moment completely.
So I said it.
And after the fits of laughter subsided, he poked me repeatedly with his finger, calling me a jerk and saying "You're going to blog about this, aren't you." And then it took him like, ten more minutes to finish what he was doing. I wasn't allowed to help anymore. So I went into the other room and started blogging.
Instead of just typing the word, I've decided to spice things up in here, and turn this into some sort of contest. If anyone can guess the hilarious, semi-appropriate word that I exclaimed in bed, they will get a prize. I haven't decided what is will be yet, but it will be fantastic. (Deadline is Monday when I wake up.)
September 17, 2007
I Hope So
Last week, it was storming cats and dogs and buckets and all sorts of metaphors. Initials and I had just finished running in from his car, carrying plastic bags filled with groceries for dinner. We were bounding up the steps, soaked and slightly annoyed that we both forgot our umbrellas at my place, when he slaps his head with the palm of his free hand in a classic tv-show setup in an expression of how stupid he feels about forgetting something. He didn't quite say "D'oh" but he did make an annoyed grunt, then muttered "We forgot dessert."
As he fumbled with the keys to open his apartment door, I tried explaining to him that we didn't need dessert. We were both on 'half-diets,' which means that both of us have noticed that our pants are fitting a little tight lately but neither of us are motivated enough to do things like work out more or count calories. Instead, we just try and do things like eat fewer burgers and more sub sandwiches when we go out to eat, and not complain so much when we don't find a good parking space.
My explanation fell on deaf ears. He wanted dessert, and so after he plopped his grocery bag on the kitchen table and made a cursory greeting towards his overweight lesbian roommate and her overweight girlfriend, he said he was going to run out and grab some ice cream, and maybe some more alcohol. He opened the cookbook to check the temperature and preset the oven, and then ran out while I put away the chicken breasts and pomegranate spread.
I finished putting away the foodstuffs and went into his bedroom, mostly to avoid hanging out with those two lesbians, because they add absolutely nothing to table except for unshaven legs and really generic jokes contrasting Bush-the-president and bush-the-slang-for-vajayjay. They were watching a rerun of "So You Think You Can Dance" and I don't think I could have cared less. I turned on some music on his desktop and checked my email.
A few minutes later, I could hear one of the lesbians waddling towards me and knocking on the door. (I know, I know, I'm making a lot of fat lesbian jokes. But these ladies are incredibly fat, to the point where his roommate can't walk down the hallway to Initials room without walking sideways. When the company she works for was bought out in June, she was forced to lose 20 lbs because the new insurance policy wouldn't cover people who weighed over 450 lbs.) (Oh, and I should probably mention that it's not genetic or health-based. Her sister is average sized, and the pictures of her parents she has on the walls show them to be only slightly overweight in a middle-aged suburbia sort of way. She's just a lazy lesbian who eats a lot, and I don't feel bad about making fun about them.) Long story short, I hate them.
She sticks her head in, and says "I think you should head in here. Initials fell on his way to the car."
Oh shit. I rushed out into the room. Initials was in the kitchen, standing by the sink, slipping his right hand under running water and grimacing painfully, tears forming in his eyes as the red filled the sink and swirled before going down the drain. Blood was also rushing out of his knee and pooling on his bare foot.
"Oh shit. What happened?"
"I was running to the car and I slipped where the grass turns into the gravel part of the driveway, and I got some gravel stuck."
"Stuck?"
Instead of responding, he removed his hand from the running water and I could see a black bulge under the skin near the wound as the blood pooled around it before dripping large drops into the sink. It was incredibly gross, and the face I made made it clear that I do not do well with gore.
The lesbians yelled from the living room that they were about to head out to dinner (Hometown Buffet, no joke). I went down on my knees with a big roll of paper towels, dabbing his scraped knee with the wet paper and folding the pants of his shorts up and out of the way of the blood.
Eventually, the blood subsided and Initials was able to remove all of the gravel from under the cut. I ran to his bathroom and looked from some medical equipment. I brought out his hydrogen peroxide and let him clean his wounds. I said I would run out to Walgreens and pick up some gauze and medical tape to keep the bandage covered, since most of his band-aids were small and aimed towards papercuts.
"No you won't."
"Huh?"
"You will walk carefully out to Walgreens to pick up the stuff. It's still raining really hard."
"Well, I'm going to take your car, but point taken. I promise to be careful. And hurry."
I stuck my hand in his right pocket and grabbed his keys. I walked carefully in the rain, holding an old newspaper over my head to keep some semblance of dryness. My feet were soaked from the puddles.
The entire drive to the store was filled with worry. The windshield wipers were in overdrive, and the streets were empty. Would I have to bring him to the hospital? Has his insurance kicked in yet? (It hadn't--he just got a new job, and his insurance won't kick in until 6 months.) What if it gets infected? It's so gross looking. I hope he can debride it himself. Oh, I feel so bad for him.
I was filled with worry and dread. And care. And... love? When I first saw him standing by the kitchen sink it was like my heart dropped. He's in pain, I need to do something. I felt this surge of care and energy and concern and doggedness, like when you hear stories about housewives lifting up SUVs to save their baby. Nothing should happen to him. It's not allowed.
I may not be in love with him, but there's definitely something. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it's definitely there, and it's definitely good. The question is, which I probably should have made more clear in my previous post, is if that something is going to be enough for the long haul. And depending on my mood, the answer varies from "Probably not" to "I hope so."
Oh, and he's recovering nicely, FYI.
As he fumbled with the keys to open his apartment door, I tried explaining to him that we didn't need dessert. We were both on 'half-diets,' which means that both of us have noticed that our pants are fitting a little tight lately but neither of us are motivated enough to do things like work out more or count calories. Instead, we just try and do things like eat fewer burgers and more sub sandwiches when we go out to eat, and not complain so much when we don't find a good parking space.
My explanation fell on deaf ears. He wanted dessert, and so after he plopped his grocery bag on the kitchen table and made a cursory greeting towards his overweight lesbian roommate and her overweight girlfriend, he said he was going to run out and grab some ice cream, and maybe some more alcohol. He opened the cookbook to check the temperature and preset the oven, and then ran out while I put away the chicken breasts and pomegranate spread.
I finished putting away the foodstuffs and went into his bedroom, mostly to avoid hanging out with those two lesbians, because they add absolutely nothing to table except for unshaven legs and really generic jokes contrasting Bush-the-president and bush-the-slang-for-vajayjay. They were watching a rerun of "So You Think You Can Dance" and I don't think I could have cared less. I turned on some music on his desktop and checked my email.
A few minutes later, I could hear one of the lesbians waddling towards me and knocking on the door. (I know, I know, I'm making a lot of fat lesbian jokes. But these ladies are incredibly fat, to the point where his roommate can't walk down the hallway to Initials room without walking sideways. When the company she works for was bought out in June, she was forced to lose 20 lbs because the new insurance policy wouldn't cover people who weighed over 450 lbs.) (Oh, and I should probably mention that it's not genetic or health-based. Her sister is average sized, and the pictures of her parents she has on the walls show them to be only slightly overweight in a middle-aged suburbia sort of way. She's just a lazy lesbian who eats a lot, and I don't feel bad about making fun about them.) Long story short, I hate them.
She sticks her head in, and says "I think you should head in here. Initials fell on his way to the car."
Oh shit. I rushed out into the room. Initials was in the kitchen, standing by the sink, slipping his right hand under running water and grimacing painfully, tears forming in his eyes as the red filled the sink and swirled before going down the drain. Blood was also rushing out of his knee and pooling on his bare foot.
"Oh shit. What happened?"
"I was running to the car and I slipped where the grass turns into the gravel part of the driveway, and I got some gravel stuck."
"Stuck?"
Instead of responding, he removed his hand from the running water and I could see a black bulge under the skin near the wound as the blood pooled around it before dripping large drops into the sink. It was incredibly gross, and the face I made made it clear that I do not do well with gore.
The lesbians yelled from the living room that they were about to head out to dinner (Hometown Buffet, no joke). I went down on my knees with a big roll of paper towels, dabbing his scraped knee with the wet paper and folding the pants of his shorts up and out of the way of the blood.
Eventually, the blood subsided and Initials was able to remove all of the gravel from under the cut. I ran to his bathroom and looked from some medical equipment. I brought out his hydrogen peroxide and let him clean his wounds. I said I would run out to Walgreens and pick up some gauze and medical tape to keep the bandage covered, since most of his band-aids were small and aimed towards papercuts.
"No you won't."
"Huh?"
"You will walk carefully out to Walgreens to pick up the stuff. It's still raining really hard."
"Well, I'm going to take your car, but point taken. I promise to be careful. And hurry."
I stuck my hand in his right pocket and grabbed his keys. I walked carefully in the rain, holding an old newspaper over my head to keep some semblance of dryness. My feet were soaked from the puddles.
The entire drive to the store was filled with worry. The windshield wipers were in overdrive, and the streets were empty. Would I have to bring him to the hospital? Has his insurance kicked in yet? (It hadn't--he just got a new job, and his insurance won't kick in until 6 months.) What if it gets infected? It's so gross looking. I hope he can debride it himself. Oh, I feel so bad for him.
I was filled with worry and dread. And care. And... love? When I first saw him standing by the kitchen sink it was like my heart dropped. He's in pain, I need to do something. I felt this surge of care and energy and concern and doggedness, like when you hear stories about housewives lifting up SUVs to save their baby. Nothing should happen to him. It's not allowed.
I may not be in love with him, but there's definitely something. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it's definitely there, and it's definitely good. The question is, which I probably should have made more clear in my previous post, is if that something is going to be enough for the long haul. And depending on my mood, the answer varies from "Probably not" to "I hope so."
Oh, and he's recovering nicely, FYI.
September 10, 2007
Another Potter Pals Episode
Somewhere around the 1:27 mark, the puppet Harry Potter pounds his head against the wall, repeating the word 'angst' with every bash. And you know what? I'd like to second that emotion. Or action. Or whatever.
I suppose a better visual aid for angst might be Munch's The Scream, but after it was stolen last year, and now its damaged beyond repair, it's just not the same.
At any rate, it's all Initials fault. I can't really blame him. I just don't know what to do.
The relationship is never going great, just good enough. It's like the opening credits to a movie about an affair, where the husband and wife are mostly just going through the motions: a peck on the cheek, polite conversation at dinner, sleeping on the opposite sides of the bed.
It's not that he's a bad guy. He's probably a better person than I am, all told. And he makes me happy. The question is, does he make me happy enough? The more I think about it, the more the answer becomes "Probably not." And it sucks.
September 8, 2007
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