There is a loud blast, and a fwoosh!, accompanied by the sweet, chemical smell of turpentine. Before I turn to see where the sound had come from, I notice that the from the ground plumes of oily, black smoke curl up towards the sky, and there are thousands of tiny fires peppering the landscape.
"It was those people," says a low, gravelly voice, and I know that it is the balloon itself that has spoken to me. "They fell like bombs to the earth, and now everyone burns." I turn around.
Sean is standing in the center of the wooden compartment, which as near as I can tell is roughly the size of my bathroom. His head is shaven and his face is dotted red with acne. His eyebrows are thick and black, and his eyes seem to have a sound of their own as I remember his voice clearly. He smiles at me and then looks upwards through the hole in the balloon and pulls on a long brass chain with links two inches thick, releasing a gust of whitish-blue flame with another fwoosh!
I knew it was a misunderstanding, I think. People like Sean didn't die. And people like me didn't- I knew it was all a mistake. I'm so happy. I'm so relieved.
"Why did you not go into the mountain?" the voice of the baloon says to me again. "You were supposed to."
"I tried," I say. My answer is half-hearted, obligitory. I am much more interested in talking to my friend.
"Hey, fucker," I say to him, giving him a punch in the ribs. "Where have you been?"
Sean says nothing, but he smiles that dry old smile of his that always preceded his obnoxious laugh, the laugh that sometimes would also precede an even more obnoxious scream. I used to wonder what was in that scream that made it so forgivable, how it was that Sean was able to wear his punk-rock-styled obstreperousness well. After he died, and all that amazing energy exploded into all of us, changing us, I came to understand that it was that his body, tough as it was, was unable to contain the abundant lifeforce he generated, and when from time to time he let it blow out through his superhuman vocal cords we all got to see just for a minute what it was to be Sean, and it felt good.
In which I shamelessly abuse the internet.
Monday, February 21, 2005
My Dream Pt. 3
I sink through the blackness immediately, the water rushing so quickly past my ears that I feel as though it digs a channel through them, eroding my brain and pouring out the back of my skull like a jet stream. Instinctively squeezing my legs against my chest with clenched fists and tight arms I seem to offer no buoyancy to the water, and sink deep and deeper, leaving the raft and the sunlight and the unexplored mountain far behind me. I expect to feel at any second the sharp tearing of my body against the rusted, twisted junk that I know litters all levels of the water. I expect to hear a fleeting crack and see an explosion of light behind my shut eyes just before I die.
But it is when I shut my eyes that I understand that this was never water at all, and through my eyelids I see that I am falling through the grey sky high above an intricate network of roads and cultivated farmland. I can barely suppress a scream as the sense of vertigo overtakes me, but the thrill of mortal severity my situation injects into my bones is wonderful, and I feel alive and clear-headed for what seems like the first time since my childhood.
All around me many others are falling as well, and I know that they each have something they are trying to tell me, if only they could manage to direct the course of their descent to coincide with mine. As they zoom by, limbs flailing, I catch bits and pieces of their message that they scream to me over the wind that howls in my ears. "...wwwASN'T ANYTHING YOU COULDA DOonne..." shouts a blond, middle aged woman wearing denim overalls. Her face is twisted into a mask of violent glee as she calls to me, her hair flickering above her, and her voice cuts off abruptly as she whips away from my field of vision. A fat man, also grinning maniacally, swoops toward me, his neck bent awkwardly as he tries to catch my eyes from slightly below. Streaks of blood course over his shiny, bald head, trailing from his nose and ears, and beneath the wiry stubble on his face his skin looks grey and dead. He opens his flapping jowls and I hear "...nnnoOBODY SEES IT THAT WAY But yoou..."
All the while we race toward the earth, and more of the landscape before me looks green and alive. The people spin by more quickly, each one seemingly more ecstatic than the last, though I feel their frustration at their inability to move close enough to me so that we may fall together and talk. Soon their fleeting voices blend into a wall of noise that ripples my attention, and then finally it becomes a single, wailing siren as if from a distant ambulance sweeping over the city where I live. No earthly sound has every caused me so much unrest as the type of siren that now penetrates into my dreamworld; it sticks in my brain like bacon grease. The sound disappears after only what seems to be a few seconds, fortunately, and I open my eyes to find that they are gone, and I realize that I am no longer falling, but standing in a small, wooden compartment, floating in a hot air balloon, still far, far above the earth. And someone is in there with me.
But it is when I shut my eyes that I understand that this was never water at all, and through my eyelids I see that I am falling through the grey sky high above an intricate network of roads and cultivated farmland. I can barely suppress a scream as the sense of vertigo overtakes me, but the thrill of mortal severity my situation injects into my bones is wonderful, and I feel alive and clear-headed for what seems like the first time since my childhood.
All around me many others are falling as well, and I know that they each have something they are trying to tell me, if only they could manage to direct the course of their descent to coincide with mine. As they zoom by, limbs flailing, I catch bits and pieces of their message that they scream to me over the wind that howls in my ears. "...wwwASN'T ANYTHING YOU COULDA DOonne..." shouts a blond, middle aged woman wearing denim overalls. Her face is twisted into a mask of violent glee as she calls to me, her hair flickering above her, and her voice cuts off abruptly as she whips away from my field of vision. A fat man, also grinning maniacally, swoops toward me, his neck bent awkwardly as he tries to catch my eyes from slightly below. Streaks of blood course over his shiny, bald head, trailing from his nose and ears, and beneath the wiry stubble on his face his skin looks grey and dead. He opens his flapping jowls and I hear "...nnnoOBODY SEES IT THAT WAY But yoou..."
All the while we race toward the earth, and more of the landscape before me looks green and alive. The people spin by more quickly, each one seemingly more ecstatic than the last, though I feel their frustration at their inability to move close enough to me so that we may fall together and talk. Soon their fleeting voices blend into a wall of noise that ripples my attention, and then finally it becomes a single, wailing siren as if from a distant ambulance sweeping over the city where I live. No earthly sound has every caused me so much unrest as the type of siren that now penetrates into my dreamworld; it sticks in my brain like bacon grease. The sound disappears after only what seems to be a few seconds, fortunately, and I open my eyes to find that they are gone, and I realize that I am no longer falling, but standing in a small, wooden compartment, floating in a hot air balloon, still far, far above the earth. And someone is in there with me.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
My Dream Pt. 2
The rock peninsula does not appear to be drawing any closer, though I am certain that a good deal of time has passed, and the swampwater churns gently as I am driven steadily ahead. As I realize this I find myself standing at the foremost edge of the raft. The displaced water slaps the wood, chills my bare feet. I look down at my toes curling over the edge and find that from this vantage point the water appears again to be dark and cold. I am suddenly aware of the thick, ominous space that spans between the bottom of my feet and the swamp's murky, unimaginable depths. It imposes itself on me, and I feel heavy, drawn into it. The blackness of it permeates throughout the limits of my awareness, eclipsing the warmth and lightness the ubiquitous sunlight of the open day had inspired. What I feel as I peer into it is not fear but a sense of desperation in the face of its strength and inevitability, though as I stare beyond my own warped, inscrutable reflection I am conscious of the paranoia and irrationality that bubbles over it.
Anxious to disembark, I lean forward, toward the stoic mountain, convinced that by doing so the speediness of the raft will be somehow increased. There are often moments in my day-to-day life in which my own brain betrays me by imagining in vivid, horrific detail the most tragic sequence of immediate events possible. Sinisterly, this internal tourette's usually deals with someone whose well-being I care for much more than my own. Sometimes it is as simple as playing out the immediate alternate future of a near miss, such as seeing my cat, Obie, suffering terribly, gasping for life with a crushed and ruined body after I have unsuccessfully avoided stepping on him. Other times, however... A CTA train rushing toward me as I stand waiting at the platform with my Anna... A moment in which if I were to push her only slightly she would...
Because I can not control these sickening images I see this as the darkest evil within myself, and it seems to me to be a curse that can hurt me at any time. A curse that intends to terrify me that one day I will succumb to the impulse in an instant of insanity that will destroy my life and the life of someone I care for forever.
It is this same curse to which I attribute the tendency of my dreamworld to take its cues from my immediate fears. In the instant in which I see the possibility of plunging into the dark water I find myself smacking its surface.
Anxious to disembark, I lean forward, toward the stoic mountain, convinced that by doing so the speediness of the raft will be somehow increased. There are often moments in my day-to-day life in which my own brain betrays me by imagining in vivid, horrific detail the most tragic sequence of immediate events possible. Sinisterly, this internal tourette's usually deals with someone whose well-being I care for much more than my own. Sometimes it is as simple as playing out the immediate alternate future of a near miss, such as seeing my cat, Obie, suffering terribly, gasping for life with a crushed and ruined body after I have unsuccessfully avoided stepping on him. Other times, however... A CTA train rushing toward me as I stand waiting at the platform with my Anna... A moment in which if I were to push her only slightly she would...
Because I can not control these sickening images I see this as the darkest evil within myself, and it seems to me to be a curse that can hurt me at any time. A curse that intends to terrify me that one day I will succumb to the impulse in an instant of insanity that will destroy my life and the life of someone I care for forever.
It is this same curse to which I attribute the tendency of my dreamworld to take its cues from my immediate fears. In the instant in which I see the possibility of plunging into the dark water I find myself smacking its surface.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
My Dream Pt. 1
I am standing on the waterline of a swamp. Behind me is a sheer, rocky, volcanic cliff wall that stretches off to my left, to the east, as far into the distance as I am aware. Around me the boulders are fused together and enormous, and their shadows are dark. The water immediately before me is black and still, but sweeping away from me it blends first into a deep, pine green, then grows more vibrant until it coagulates into an algaeic lime so rich it glows through the underbrush. As I scan the area of the swamp I see it ripple at the base of many thick clumps of tall, dry grass that waves in the breeze.
I find myself navigating a wooden raft between the weeds and around small islands that support gnarled, stunted trees. Though I am unaware of the specific position of the sun, it seems now to me that it is simultaneously early morning, midafternoon, and late evening. It is hot, and the heat strikes me suddenly. I remember the cool rocks at the shoreline, I almost miss the shade the cliff face provided.
The weeds have become sparse, and the raft now seems to move under its own power toward the pinnacle of a jagged peninsula just west of where I had been standing. It is there, I know, that I will find a cave, and a tunnel, and something like an ancient temple or pyramid buried beneath the volcanic mountain, which I will explore. I have the sense that this is a route that I have taken many times before; a secret route that I have often used to make my way from place to place. I am filled with a childlike thrill. I am happy.
As I float through the swamp images come to me of other places I have visited via this path. I see faces of cheerful people who wait for me there, of whose existence no one is aware but me. I miss them.
I find myself navigating a wooden raft between the weeds and around small islands that support gnarled, stunted trees. Though I am unaware of the specific position of the sun, it seems now to me that it is simultaneously early morning, midafternoon, and late evening. It is hot, and the heat strikes me suddenly. I remember the cool rocks at the shoreline, I almost miss the shade the cliff face provided.
The weeds have become sparse, and the raft now seems to move under its own power toward the pinnacle of a jagged peninsula just west of where I had been standing. It is there, I know, that I will find a cave, and a tunnel, and something like an ancient temple or pyramid buried beneath the volcanic mountain, which I will explore. I have the sense that this is a route that I have taken many times before; a secret route that I have often used to make my way from place to place. I am filled with a childlike thrill. I am happy.
As I float through the swamp images come to me of other places I have visited via this path. I see faces of cheerful people who wait for me there, of whose existence no one is aware but me. I miss them.
Monday, December 13, 2004
Be Frank
In response the growing anti-obesity sentiment in this country, we have this anti-anti-obesity backlash from a company whose food product is about as healthy as cigarettes. It features a big fat guy called Frank that eats franks and is frank. And they came up with a new word for "fatass." READY? Here it is: "Girthy." The words "Girthy is good," meaning "it's okay to be a great, big fatass," are emblazoned all over the CTA redline cars, thank GOD. I've always wanted to endorse a hotdog.
BE BIG. BE MEATY. BE FRANK.
BE BIG. BE MEATY. BE FRANK.
AAAAHHHH!!!
This is the conversation I had to have tonight with my roomate:
Jason, would you mind if we moved your tape deck so I can fit the video
game system in there?
“Where are you gonna move it?”
I don’t know, somewhere else.
“Well, then, yeah.”
You mean, you do mind?
"Well, where are you gonna put it?"
How about your room?
“There’s no room in there.”
Okay, how about the closet?
“I’m not putting that thing in the closet.”
Okay, how about your other room?
“Maybe.”
Jason, would you mind if we moved your tape deck so I can fit the video
game system in there?
“Where are you gonna move it?”
I don’t know, somewhere else.
“Well, then, yeah.”
You mean, you do mind?
"Well, where are you gonna put it?"
How about your room?
“There’s no room in there.”
Okay, how about the closet?
“I’m not putting that thing in the closet.”
Okay, how about your other room?
“Maybe.”
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Monday, December 06, 2004
Sunday, December 05, 2004
Spiders
I'm supposed to be writing a seven page paper on NAFTA right now, but I don't want to so...
It actually wouldn't be that bad if I could talk about the EFFECTS of NAFTA, but I have to write about how it fits into a specific foreign policy model, and I'm boring myself to suicide even writing about it right now on this blog.
I wonder if other people live amongst as many spiders as I do. They mostly keep out of sight, but occasionally they figure hey he's never squished any of us yet and they forget to hide when I'm around. There's a big bastard of a spider just hanging out on the heating duct right above my head. Once or twice, while I was writing on my computer in the dark, a spider just lowered itself right onto my screen. There are webs EVERYWHERE.
I can't decide if I don't care about it because I'm kind of a Thoreau-inspired naturalist, and like I'm just not bothered by it and am in fact a kind of dirty elitist in the sense that I view my peaceful co-existence with spiders and filth as representitive of a healthy relationship with good old mother nature; or I'm just lazy. Everytime Anna comes over she talks about sweeping all the spider's webs down. She doesn't really mind spiders either, which is I guess lucky for me and the spiders.
Man, NAFTA is so boring. I wrote a song about it as part of a presentation I have to give tomorrow in class, and hopefully it will figure heavily into whatever I get for an overall grade, because the paper isn't going to be much more than some long quotes I ripped out of some books from the library stitched together with a whole bunch of bullshit.
I wonder if anyone else has ever written a song about NAFTA. It's pretty good, actually.
It actually wouldn't be that bad if I could talk about the EFFECTS of NAFTA, but I have to write about how it fits into a specific foreign policy model, and I'm boring myself to suicide even writing about it right now on this blog.
I wonder if other people live amongst as many spiders as I do. They mostly keep out of sight, but occasionally they figure hey he's never squished any of us yet and they forget to hide when I'm around. There's a big bastard of a spider just hanging out on the heating duct right above my head. Once or twice, while I was writing on my computer in the dark, a spider just lowered itself right onto my screen. There are webs EVERYWHERE.
I can't decide if I don't care about it because I'm kind of a Thoreau-inspired naturalist, and like I'm just not bothered by it and am in fact a kind of dirty elitist in the sense that I view my peaceful co-existence with spiders and filth as representitive of a healthy relationship with good old mother nature; or I'm just lazy. Everytime Anna comes over she talks about sweeping all the spider's webs down. She doesn't really mind spiders either, which is I guess lucky for me and the spiders.
Man, NAFTA is so boring. I wrote a song about it as part of a presentation I have to give tomorrow in class, and hopefully it will figure heavily into whatever I get for an overall grade, because the paper isn't going to be much more than some long quotes I ripped out of some books from the library stitched together with a whole bunch of bullshit.
I wonder if anyone else has ever written a song about NAFTA. It's pretty good, actually.
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Obake
My cat loves me so much I almost can't even believe it. He sleeps in my bed every night, even though I live in a shitty, smelly, freezing cold basement. He comes to visit me in my little office area because he knows I will always stop to play with him a little bit and then let him purr on my lap while I'm working. He digs his claws into me because he can hardly sit still, he loves me so much. But he never digs too hard because he doesn't want to hurt me. He's doing it right now.
Here are the top ten reasons why he is the greatest kitty that the world has ever seen:
10: He can jump halfway up the wall to try and catch the laser dot, even though he's fatter than a big, white basketball.
09: He lets me cradle him on his back and play with his little kitty nipples.
08: He likes it when I tug on his ears.
07: When you scratch his chin, he closes his eyes and his nose bunches up on his face like a raisin.
06: He's a tough motherfucker, he can kill anything he wants to.
05: He loves it when I play piano or guitar and especially when I sing to him, and he just sits and listens.
04: His name is MONSTER, and he LIKES IT.
03: He thinks any space in between me and Anna while we're laying in bed is prime real estate.
02: He's way smarter than most of the people I went to highschool with.
01: His nose is fucking PINK.
Here are the top ten reasons why he is the greatest kitty that the world has ever seen:
10: He can jump halfway up the wall to try and catch the laser dot, even though he's fatter than a big, white basketball.
09: He lets me cradle him on his back and play with his little kitty nipples.
08: He likes it when I tug on his ears.
07: When you scratch his chin, he closes his eyes and his nose bunches up on his face like a raisin.
06: He's a tough motherfucker, he can kill anything he wants to.
05: He loves it when I play piano or guitar and especially when I sing to him, and he just sits and listens.
04: His name is MONSTER, and he LIKES IT.
03: He thinks any space in between me and Anna while we're laying in bed is prime real estate.
02: He's way smarter than most of the people I went to highschool with.
01: His nose is fucking PINK.
Thursday, November 18, 2004
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
!st Place
I'm supposed to be writing a folktale right now, but I'm procrastinating. Instead I'll write a little entry in my blog for once.
I actually wanted to do my laundary today. About two weeks ago our landlady finally installed a washer and a dryer in the apartment. I've been meaning to do my laundary since then, but I just haven't gotten around to it. I tried to do it today but the stupid door is locked! So many obstacles. All my clothes smell horrible. I can't stand it anymore, it's getting to the point where I don't even want to go out until I have a chance to wash them.
About a month ago I won a thousand dollars from this writing contest this hoity-toity club in Chicago called the Union League holds every year. I got first place, and my story was published in their anthology. Here are the initial, direct repercussions of this:
1. I got really drunk the night I found out and crashed my bike into a parked car because I was staring at the street under my feet while I was riding, thinking to myself, "I'm going to crash." I hit the ground and had to wait until these four other drunk people came by and untangled me from my bike. One of them wanted to take off my shoes, for some reason. I walked the rest of the way home, half crying, half laughing hysterically because I seriously injured my arm. It still hurts, and now every time I straighten it out it pops.
2. I paid both mine and my roomate Jason's rent with the big bucks, with enough left over for me to pay what I owed the gas, electric, and phone companies, plus a little extra.
3. I bought a BB gun with the little extra. This is something that I've always wanted. Nothing has made me feel more like an immature little kid than the experience of aquiring this thing, which I've pretty much been consistently firing since I got it monday. I spent three hours on two different websites looking at all these different air-soft guns until I finally bought one off of ebay for 40 dollars. It took a week to get here. The night before it was supposed to arrive I could barely sleep, and I had all these terrified dreams about being cheated or the thing not showing up or showing up as just a little keychain gun, for instance. I woke up extra early, but kept slipping back into half-sleep with my ears fixed on the front door, anticipating the UPS lady's arrival. Finally at noon she pounded on the door and yelled "UPS!" I was naked so I couldn't answer the door right away, and for a second I was scared I might not find any pants in time and the UPS lady would leave, but Anna knew where my robe was, so I signed for it and got back under the covers and opened the box while it rested on mine and Anna's lap. She was like "Oh, God" and made jokes about me putting together a gun before breakfast. Two words: Laser. Sight. There are little orange BBs all over the apartment now.
I actually wanted to do my laundary today. About two weeks ago our landlady finally installed a washer and a dryer in the apartment. I've been meaning to do my laundary since then, but I just haven't gotten around to it. I tried to do it today but the stupid door is locked! So many obstacles. All my clothes smell horrible. I can't stand it anymore, it's getting to the point where I don't even want to go out until I have a chance to wash them.
About a month ago I won a thousand dollars from this writing contest this hoity-toity club in Chicago called the Union League holds every year. I got first place, and my story was published in their anthology. Here are the initial, direct repercussions of this:
1. I got really drunk the night I found out and crashed my bike into a parked car because I was staring at the street under my feet while I was riding, thinking to myself, "I'm going to crash." I hit the ground and had to wait until these four other drunk people came by and untangled me from my bike. One of them wanted to take off my shoes, for some reason. I walked the rest of the way home, half crying, half laughing hysterically because I seriously injured my arm. It still hurts, and now every time I straighten it out it pops.
2. I paid both mine and my roomate Jason's rent with the big bucks, with enough left over for me to pay what I owed the gas, electric, and phone companies, plus a little extra.
3. I bought a BB gun with the little extra. This is something that I've always wanted. Nothing has made me feel more like an immature little kid than the experience of aquiring this thing, which I've pretty much been consistently firing since I got it monday. I spent three hours on two different websites looking at all these different air-soft guns until I finally bought one off of ebay for 40 dollars. It took a week to get here. The night before it was supposed to arrive I could barely sleep, and I had all these terrified dreams about being cheated or the thing not showing up or showing up as just a little keychain gun, for instance. I woke up extra early, but kept slipping back into half-sleep with my ears fixed on the front door, anticipating the UPS lady's arrival. Finally at noon she pounded on the door and yelled "UPS!" I was naked so I couldn't answer the door right away, and for a second I was scared I might not find any pants in time and the UPS lady would leave, but Anna knew where my robe was, so I signed for it and got back under the covers and opened the box while it rested on mine and Anna's lap. She was like "Oh, God" and made jokes about me putting together a gun before breakfast. Two words: Laser. Sight. There are little orange BBs all over the apartment now.
Friday, October 01, 2004
Goldeneye
I wrote this song about Goldeneye, the revolutionary video game for the N64, for my old band Plague of Yeti. It's called "Box of Goggles."
SHow me the scenery!
Find out if I stand a chance
Wrong guy but oh well!
One more victime of circumstance
I've got my PP7!
Point it at the bad guy's hat,
But before I shoot it off,
Some asshole shoots me in the back and I die!
Bond is a bad ass...
So is Natalia...
I will protect her...
Kill if I have to...
Destroy all the bad guys...
THen straighten my bow tie...
I am 007!
I am 007!
Crouch and aim respectively
Hope that nobody can hear me
One more life that i have taken!
Make sure my martini's shaken!
Down on the floor
This mission isn't over yet
Hit bad but oh well
There's armor on the parapet
My silenced PP7
Can't silence cries of agony
I don't care I enjoy it!
Noone is a threat to me!
The Yeti Rap
"Are you ready?"
Said the Yeti to the Sasquatch
"Watch what I do
And listen to what I tell you.
Centuries ago in the woods of Oklahoma
All the planets were aligned
And all the seas began to foam.
About a quarter past midnight there came from the ground
With a sound
Like Bees flying 'round
A beam of light illuminating identical stones,
Three was their number
And under the sky that day
Was conception of a plan, by these three
Our Messiahs
And with faith we would come to partake in their trials...
The rocks split apart
Three Yeti then arose
They were gaunt,
and stout,
From the toes to the nose
'We arise!' came the cry
When the rocks split apart
At last they have come, to the soaring of my heart!
I don't think I had control over the next thing that I did
But I walked out from the safety of the shadows where I hid
And what I saw
Just dropped my jaw to the ground,
Millions and Millions of Yeti all around!
Then I began the glow
and to grow
and to go to the light
With all the Yeti in sight
I began to merge
and to purge all my individuality,
Now one with the ones who became my new reality
Our knees
Touching the tips of the trees
We leapt to the seas
Now the earth is tremulous
Our efforts nearing strenuous
And their grip on life was tenuous
In the face of a great tsunami
From Japan
To Miami."
Friday, August 13, 2004
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Some random thoughts...
Walking down the street, overhearing other people's conversations, especially if they are on cellphones, I often hear people earnestly using the adverb "really" to emphasize just how strongly they feel about something, and in fact more often than not the word is accompanied by several repetitions, like "I really really really liked that part when..." I can't help but think that I would be much more likely to trust someone's convictions if they left the adverb out entirely, and that it is the fear that most people nowadays are accustomed to lies flowing freely that drives us to over emphasize rather than trust our words will be understood and taken seriously. Also, the pretentious side of me sees it as a sign of a weak grasp of vocabulary.
Some people say that when you get old you get the face that you deserve. This makes sense to me. Our faces are so expressive so that emotions can be understood without speech- thus do they reflect our state of mind unless controlled- and over time the emotive facial muscles are probably toned just like any other muscle in our bodies. Also, the act of attempting to control facial muscles seems linked intrinsically to that of controlling one's emotions- relaxing the face is meditative.
There is this sentence my friend Karina once showed me. It is free of punctuation of any kind, and what you do is show it to someone and have them place punctuation within it. It's supposed to reveal a lot about the person's character, depending where they choose to place a comma or colon, or whether they do, etc. This is it:
Woman without man is nothing
Feminism aside, if I were asked to come up with my own character revelatory question, I think I would ask people what they think would happen if the human race produces a unified theory of physics.
More another time...
Some people say that when you get old you get the face that you deserve. This makes sense to me. Our faces are so expressive so that emotions can be understood without speech- thus do they reflect our state of mind unless controlled- and over time the emotive facial muscles are probably toned just like any other muscle in our bodies. Also, the act of attempting to control facial muscles seems linked intrinsically to that of controlling one's emotions- relaxing the face is meditative.
There is this sentence my friend Karina once showed me. It is free of punctuation of any kind, and what you do is show it to someone and have them place punctuation within it. It's supposed to reveal a lot about the person's character, depending where they choose to place a comma or colon, or whether they do, etc. This is it:
Woman without man is nothing
Feminism aside, if I were asked to come up with my own character revelatory question, I think I would ask people what they think would happen if the human race produces a unified theory of physics.
More another time...
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
I Am Dirty
Here is my wisdom. May it aid you.
“How To Get Away With Almost Never Going To the Laundramat”
The first thing you need to keep in mind is that not everyone can really get away with this. Some people just really fuckin stink. Not much they can do about it- they just do, and it sticks to their clothes even if they’re out swimming in a chlorinated pool and they only just throw on a t-shirt real quick to go out an get more beer. Could be their diet’s got way too much beef in it, who knows.
Anyway, you know who you are if you smell like garbage all the time, so you might as well just stop reading this because it’s not going to help you. All you other people, though, you should listen up, because if you’re anything like me just about every surface of your room, and maybe even some of the common areas like the kitchen table or the couch has dirty clothes flopped over it. And you probably have more clothes than most people, at the very least more t-shirts and socks, because the more you have the less often you have to wash them. Good for you. You may even have a small collection of other people’s socks, if your friends are one of two things:
1. Not too concerned about their personal belongings remaining in the proximity of their person, or
2. Really fuckin sick of your feet smelling like vomit and fritos every time you come over to watch The Simpsons or CSI or something. (Note: I don’t care if you almost never have to take a shower because you sweat ice cream or your skin is made out of lilac petals, your feet are going to stink like death if you don’t change your socks for a week, even if you are just sitting around your apartment downloading internet porn all day.)
Right. So. To begin with, lets hammer out the details. First of all, certain types of clothing last a little bit longer than others, as far as how long it takes for them to become unwearable. We’ve already touched on the socks a bit, but we’ll get back to those. Just remember the main thing with socks is that you can usually wear them for three or four days in a row before the soles start to get stiff from the dried sweat, unless you have shoes that don’t breathe very well, in which case that could happen after only one day. You can prolong the life of a single sock by simply turning it upside down, so the softer cotton is on the bottom of your foot and the black, soiled part is on the crest of your foot.
The next logical article to address would of course be shorts- but I’m going to save that for a little bit later. They get their own special attention.
In fact, let’s go from the top down. We’ll start with sweaters. Sweaters, they are great, because you almost always wear at least one or two shirts underneath. Let that be lesson number one: Multiple Layers Act As A “Buffer” For Your Stench. Since the weave for a sweater is much more sparce than most other clothing, if you have to you can just wave it around outside for a second if its carrying that musty, rusty-iron dirty laundry smell. Take it by the shoulders, give it a good flick to shake the lint and dust free, being careful to “avert your head” so the dust doesn’t get into your eyes and lungs, and then wave it in the breeze for maybe a minute. Trust me, you will be smelling like Jesus only wished he could. And another thing about sweaters is they don’t wrinkle. Honesly, I can’t tell you how many times I was running late for something, digging through all my piles of dirty laundry and a sweater saved my ass. Not everybody is a sweater person, but I highly recommend you have a couple of them laying around.
Next come the button-downs. You know, dress shirts. Again, these are advantageous because there is another shirt underneath (see Rule Number One.) And they mostly look real sharp- all you have to do is button yourself up and the whole package is 300 percent neater. It’s like making your bed. No matter how much crap you got lying all over the place in your room, as soon as you make the bed the place neat as a showroom floor at IKEA. But the problem with dress shirts is that they get wrinkled easily. It’s the only item of clothing that can give you away at-a-glance. There are a couple of different ways to get around this.
First, if you have to take a shower anyway, you can hang the shirt up in the bathroom, preferably right on the other side of the shower curtain from you, to steam it out. This will also attack the stink, if there is a stink, which there more than likely is. Steaming your shirt in this way will slightly relax the fibers, so the sharp creases of the wrinkles won’t be as obvious. Plus, because you yourself are freshly clean from your shower, there is the illusion that you have actually just washed the shirt, too, and you might be able to go through the whole day happily deluded in this way.
Next, there are ways to actually physically cover a large portion of the surface of the shirt. Remember: this is a dress shirt. You can accessorize. That’s what they’re for. So let’s say a few weeks ago you went straight to MacDonald’s after work. Don’t know why you would do that, but let’s just say. Actually, forget MacDonald’s. Let’s forget that such a place even exists. Let’s say instead that you went up to Demon Dogs, that tasty hotdog joint right underneath the redline. So you order yourself a nice, big, double dog, and you have them drown it in that yellow shit someone somewhere decided was cheeze, and then you pile on all kinds of onions and peppers and tomatoes and shit. You grab a stool over by the window so you can watch the people waiting out in the cold for the bus, even though there is this huge white sign with big black letters that says “CTA Commuters, feel free to wait inside.” And you’re munching on your cheezy double-dog and fries, absently dipping your hand repeatedly into the paper tray, not really paying all that much attention to what you’re doing because one of the guys waiting for the bus is talking on his cellphone so loud that you can hear him through the glass, and you are fantasizing all kinds of evil things to suddenly happen to him. Like the bus hops the curb and flattens him against Demon Dogs, or sparks from the redline fall down on him and he catches fire because his cologne is flammable, and he has to run away screaming while the person on the other end just keeps on saying “Hello? Hello?” The bus comes and he goes off to bother someone else, and by then you have finished your double dog, and you don’t feel like finishing the fries, but when you look down to see how many are left, you notice cheeze has drooled all the way down you shirt.
Napkins, even if they are soaked with water, will not remove all of the evidence of this when you find it weeks later. There will still be dark splotches from the oil they pour into that crap. This is why God created TIES. The wider the better, never mind if you think you’d look like a square. That’s right, wrap that thing around your neck and let it hang down over your cheeze stains, and noone will ever know the difference. In fact, they, whoever they may be, will think you are the kind of guy that goes that extra step to make an impression. How about that.
And let’s not forget suit jackets. Talk about sharp. When you’re wearing a suit jacket, your dress shirt can be wrinklier than your gramma’s gramma, and you’d still cut a fine figure under light scrutiny.
Moving right along, we get to the t-shirts. There are two different kinds of t-shirts: The t-shirt you like, that expresses your personality in some way, and the strictly functional t-shirt. The function of a t-shirt, again, is covered in Rule Number One.
Both kinds of t-shirts are functional, when you get right down to it, but the key is to have plenty of them. Because for the best results, it is a good idea to get into the habit of wearing TWO t-shirts at once. This may sound silly and redundant if you aren’t used to the idea, but think about it for a second. Double the buffer, first of all (Rule Number One.) And second, you already have your wardrobe picked out for the next couple of days. If you are going to be seeing the same people tomorrow, just turn the whole ensemble inside out! Now you still have two t-shirts, and there you are with a whole new outfit. (If you don’t like wearing t-shirts inside out, then you can take the extra step to readjust the outer layer, but you should be aware that wearing t-shirts inside out is not forbidden ground. Who cares? It doesn’t look all that different, really. And it will hide other cheeze or coffee stains, for the most part. Don’t cheat yourself by limiting your options.)
This brings me to Rule Number Two: Who Says You Have To Change Your Clothes Every Day? Especially if you are NOT going to be seeing the same people two days in a row. What’s a day but hours stacked onto other hours?
But if all of your t-shirts are disgusting because you have been following the first two rules for weeks (good for you), then there is no alternative but to take them to the bathroom sink. This process is easy, but it will be covered here later on, so hang in there.
Pants. Let me take a second to say what a wonderful word is “Pants.” I really like to say It, over and over. Pants pants pants pants pants.
Depending on your personal preference and monetary situation, you may have any number of different kinds of pants. Some pants don’t last long after many days of consecutive duty, some pants can go practically forever without ever being washed at all. The longer they can go without being washed, the more difficult they are to get clean when they start to rot, if they can get clean at all. But the key here is that pants can be worn every day, just like your shoes, if you do it the right way.
Whatever kind of pants you like, whatever you do, don’t think that white pants are sharp. They’re not. If you buy white, or even light colored pants, all you’re doing is wasting your time and cash, and you end up looking like Don Johnson from Miami Vice, which is NOT sharp. It’s LAME. Go with dark tones. Dark tones will hide almost everything, and even if there are visible stains they usually blend in well and it looks like you live an active lifestyle, which is respectable and interesting.
Right. So, like I said, some hold up better than others. Denim jeans are the most rugged, were in fact originally designed, at least according to my eighth-grade history teacher, Mrs. Steidle, by Enrico Levi, who also invented the cotton gin, to stand up to the rigors faced by the wealth-seekers of the Great American Gold Rush in 1492. He made more money than most of the bozos out there ripping up the earth and draining the rivers in search of gold, because they had to give it all to him, because he had such great pants, when they found their flimsy cotton pants were hanging off of their asses in shredded bits and pieces.
So jeans are great for long term use, but they are difficult to wash. You can’t really get around having to throw them in the washing machine, and usually if you wear them like they were designed to be worn, which is to say, all the time, they need to go in more than once, and the next thing you know you’ve been sitting in a laundrymat for hours, wondering who the hell thought it was a good idea to seal the television behind a plate of plexiglass so no one could turn the damn thing off, or at least turn down the volume.
If you’re like me, though, jeans aren’t really your cup of tea, as they say, so for the most part you have cotton, wool, and polyester to choose from. You are not reading this if you wear silk or leather pants. Corduroy is another option, I suppose, but I don’t know anything about corduroy pants, and I’m not even sure how to spell corduroy, so forget them. Of the three, polyester is the most sturdy, wool the warmest, obviously, and cotton the most comfortable.
Like I said, wool pants are nice and warm when you are outside, but you end up sweating them all up when you are sitting inside for any length of time because they are too warm. After only two days they start smelling like a dirty sock, and that’s no good. And they’re not very comfortable, anyway. In fact, I don’t think very many people even really wear wool pants. Stay away from them, too.
Cotton pants are okay, but they wear out easily (and they are usually more expensive.) Eventually that faded spot on your knees or you ass will fray into a little tear, and then the tear will open into a small hole, and then the hole will widen everytime you wear them, and then they are no good. Holes in denim jeans are alright, because it looks like you earned them, but holes in cotton pants look dumb.
Which leaves polyester pants. Polyester pants are made from scientific chemicals, and they don’t biodegrade. Like plastic. Seven million years from now, if the sun hasn’t swallowed up the earth, any galaxy-trotting alien archaeologists digging through the endless mountains of fast food containers and plastic water bottles will find pockets of polyester pants planted in the ground like rose-bulbs all over the planet. If you don’t believe me, try dropping your cigarette in your lap once. The burning cherry just pushes the material out of the way, leaving a little cauterized hole that never gets any bigger.
So polyester pants can last at least a lifetime. But we are talking about more than just hardiness here. Let’s not forget about the smell. See, polyester doesn’t breathe very well, you end up stinkng them up after a few days. They stink in their own, special way, especially from the crotch, because that’s the warmest place on your body. It smells like when you leave the dishes in the sink for way too long and there is that slimy, brown film coating all of your plates and siilverware. A eye-stinging, rotten, invasive smell, like dead cats covered in their own dirty litter. Bad, bad, bad. The heat drives the smell out prematurely, too, so you have to stay on top of it.
Which brings us back to the bathroom sink. When you find yourself sleeping naked because every single article of clothing you own, with the possible exception of that stupid ankle sock you have no idea why you keep in your dresser drawer, is utterly unpleasant to behold, let alone wear, there is no alternative but to do some washing. Sorry, you have no choice. Pick out the clothes that you are going to wear tomorrow and haul them up to your bathroom. An extra pair of socks wouldn’t hurt, while you’re at it. Turn on the water, adjusting it to a comfortable temperature. Do NOT plug up the sink. The water is just going to get filthy, and you will be working against yourself if you let the clothes sit in a pool of dirty water.
Now stuff the pants into the sink. Soap is not necessary. After they have absorbed as much water as they will hold, keep them under the running water and begin to knead the pants by grasping them with both hands, with your fingers fanned out as wide as possible, and then squeezing them closed as if to make a fist, thus wringing much of the water out. Watch with satisfaction as the water turns black. Then release the pants, allow the fabric to briefly soak up more water, grasp them in another spot and squeeze again, but this time slightly raise the pants from the surface of the bowl as you find a new grip. This will allow the filthy water which has begun to collect to drain away. As you continue to knead the pants pockets of air will form and you will see tons of little bubbles boiling out of the fabric as you compress the pants. This is good- the bubbles will help to loosen the dirt, and it makes a cool gurgling noise, like if a bear was trying to breathe through a stuffy nose.
Soon the water will begin to turn from black to brown or gray. When this happens, just toss them into the bathtub and repeat this process with the rest of your clothes until you get to the socks. There is no way that you are going to get all of the filth out from your pants, so just be happy with them not smelling horrible anymore.
Your socks require a bit more attention. They are going to stink much, much worse than anything you would ever want to go near. Turn on the hotwater and just throw them in the bowl. Don’t even touch them- leave them alone for a few minutes. The air in the bathroom will start to get a hint of the stink because the rising steam is carrying it up. Deal with it. The socks will be plugging up the sink. Let them. After the bowl is just about filled, turn off the water. You might have to add some cold water into the steaming soup of socks before you can plunge your hands inside. Then pull the socks away from the drain and let the water seep away. Turn the water back on, adjusting the temperature so it is comfortable again. This is the only part where you might benefit from a little bit of soap, although it is definitely not necessary. Black soles of your socks are not ever going to look nice and new. It’s way too late for that. But if for some reason you are struck with an unexplainable desire to attack the stain, you may grab the bar of soap that is sitting half sogged in the striated shelf situated just below and to the right of the medicine cabinet. Planting the sock lengthways along the surface of your palm, rub the soap on the black stain until you feel little or no friction. When you are through messing around with the soap, hold the socks one at a time under the water and begin to squeeze them repeatedly. There is no need to wait for them to reabsorb water between successive squeezes- the socks are small enough to become resaturated almost immediately following each squeeze. If you soaped them up, then continue to do this until the bubbles that fall into the sink pop right away- they do that because there is no more soap to preserve their curvature.
I know it’s probably getting late by this point, because you have undoubtedly waited until twenty minutes past the time you told yourself you needed to go to sleep before admitting that this washing procedure had to be done. One last thing, and then you are ready to go to sleep. You need to know how to wring them out.
You have to wring out your clothes as best as possible because you are going to let them hang dry in the bathroom, and there is only six or seven hours for them to do that. The last thing you want is to put on wet clothes. (Although most articles of clothing will dry against your body heat in only a few hours.)
Each article of clothing can be wrung in a similar way, so I’m going to use the socks to illustrate. This is a very meditative motion. It can help you in all kinds of ways you can’t even guess at right now. Think “Paint the Fence” or “Wax the Car.” In fact, let’s call this section “Wring the Sock.”
“WRING THE SOCK”
Fold the wet sock in half and grasp one end with your right fist, leaving no part of the sock peaking beyond your pinky finger. Close your arm and raise it so that the elbow is pointing out directly in front of your chest, keeping our palm side up, as if you were about to lift a heavy set of barbells. Then, scoop your left hand toward your chest, under the part of the sock that is dangling beyond your thumb, and grasp it. Make sure your left thumb is touching your right thumb, and, gripping the sock firmly now with both hands, push the sock away from you, gradually unfurling both of your arms and bending your wrists, so that when the motion is complete your elbows are locked and each respective wrist bent in the opposite direction from its position at the beginning of the motion. As you do this water will stream out- be sure to leave the right wrist above the left. This is so that the wrung part of the sock is above the as yet un-wrung part, and gravity will not be re-sogging your work.
“SHORTS” (Disclaimer- this is not the nice part, as it mentions unmentionables.)
Here are some important things to remember about your shorts, if you want them to last a long time without having to wash them:
-Have lots of them.
-Remember what your mama taught you: Be sure to wipe your ass good and clean after heavy business, or any business at all.
-Why wear them to bed? Get soft sheets if it bothers you.
-Don’t eat things that make shit dribble out of your ass when you fart, like taquitos or just about any kind of meat typically used in mexican food.
-If you have to masturbate outside of the shower, use a sweat sock or a load rag.
That about covers it. Too bad we aren’t covered in fur like apes or cheetahs. Then none of this shit would be necessary, get me?
“How To Get Away With Almost Never Going To the Laundramat”
The first thing you need to keep in mind is that not everyone can really get away with this. Some people just really fuckin stink. Not much they can do about it- they just do, and it sticks to their clothes even if they’re out swimming in a chlorinated pool and they only just throw on a t-shirt real quick to go out an get more beer. Could be their diet’s got way too much beef in it, who knows.
Anyway, you know who you are if you smell like garbage all the time, so you might as well just stop reading this because it’s not going to help you. All you other people, though, you should listen up, because if you’re anything like me just about every surface of your room, and maybe even some of the common areas like the kitchen table or the couch has dirty clothes flopped over it. And you probably have more clothes than most people, at the very least more t-shirts and socks, because the more you have the less often you have to wash them. Good for you. You may even have a small collection of other people’s socks, if your friends are one of two things:
1. Not too concerned about their personal belongings remaining in the proximity of their person, or
2. Really fuckin sick of your feet smelling like vomit and fritos every time you come over to watch The Simpsons or CSI or something. (Note: I don’t care if you almost never have to take a shower because you sweat ice cream or your skin is made out of lilac petals, your feet are going to stink like death if you don’t change your socks for a week, even if you are just sitting around your apartment downloading internet porn all day.)
Right. So. To begin with, lets hammer out the details. First of all, certain types of clothing last a little bit longer than others, as far as how long it takes for them to become unwearable. We’ve already touched on the socks a bit, but we’ll get back to those. Just remember the main thing with socks is that you can usually wear them for three or four days in a row before the soles start to get stiff from the dried sweat, unless you have shoes that don’t breathe very well, in which case that could happen after only one day. You can prolong the life of a single sock by simply turning it upside down, so the softer cotton is on the bottom of your foot and the black, soiled part is on the crest of your foot.
The next logical article to address would of course be shorts- but I’m going to save that for a little bit later. They get their own special attention.
In fact, let’s go from the top down. We’ll start with sweaters. Sweaters, they are great, because you almost always wear at least one or two shirts underneath. Let that be lesson number one: Multiple Layers Act As A “Buffer” For Your Stench. Since the weave for a sweater is much more sparce than most other clothing, if you have to you can just wave it around outside for a second if its carrying that musty, rusty-iron dirty laundry smell. Take it by the shoulders, give it a good flick to shake the lint and dust free, being careful to “avert your head” so the dust doesn’t get into your eyes and lungs, and then wave it in the breeze for maybe a minute. Trust me, you will be smelling like Jesus only wished he could. And another thing about sweaters is they don’t wrinkle. Honesly, I can’t tell you how many times I was running late for something, digging through all my piles of dirty laundry and a sweater saved my ass. Not everybody is a sweater person, but I highly recommend you have a couple of them laying around.
Next come the button-downs. You know, dress shirts. Again, these are advantageous because there is another shirt underneath (see Rule Number One.) And they mostly look real sharp- all you have to do is button yourself up and the whole package is 300 percent neater. It’s like making your bed. No matter how much crap you got lying all over the place in your room, as soon as you make the bed the place neat as a showroom floor at IKEA. But the problem with dress shirts is that they get wrinkled easily. It’s the only item of clothing that can give you away at-a-glance. There are a couple of different ways to get around this.
First, if you have to take a shower anyway, you can hang the shirt up in the bathroom, preferably right on the other side of the shower curtain from you, to steam it out. This will also attack the stink, if there is a stink, which there more than likely is. Steaming your shirt in this way will slightly relax the fibers, so the sharp creases of the wrinkles won’t be as obvious. Plus, because you yourself are freshly clean from your shower, there is the illusion that you have actually just washed the shirt, too, and you might be able to go through the whole day happily deluded in this way.
Next, there are ways to actually physically cover a large portion of the surface of the shirt. Remember: this is a dress shirt. You can accessorize. That’s what they’re for. So let’s say a few weeks ago you went straight to MacDonald’s after work. Don’t know why you would do that, but let’s just say. Actually, forget MacDonald’s. Let’s forget that such a place even exists. Let’s say instead that you went up to Demon Dogs, that tasty hotdog joint right underneath the redline. So you order yourself a nice, big, double dog, and you have them drown it in that yellow shit someone somewhere decided was cheeze, and then you pile on all kinds of onions and peppers and tomatoes and shit. You grab a stool over by the window so you can watch the people waiting out in the cold for the bus, even though there is this huge white sign with big black letters that says “CTA Commuters, feel free to wait inside.” And you’re munching on your cheezy double-dog and fries, absently dipping your hand repeatedly into the paper tray, not really paying all that much attention to what you’re doing because one of the guys waiting for the bus is talking on his cellphone so loud that you can hear him through the glass, and you are fantasizing all kinds of evil things to suddenly happen to him. Like the bus hops the curb and flattens him against Demon Dogs, or sparks from the redline fall down on him and he catches fire because his cologne is flammable, and he has to run away screaming while the person on the other end just keeps on saying “Hello? Hello?” The bus comes and he goes off to bother someone else, and by then you have finished your double dog, and you don’t feel like finishing the fries, but when you look down to see how many are left, you notice cheeze has drooled all the way down you shirt.
Napkins, even if they are soaked with water, will not remove all of the evidence of this when you find it weeks later. There will still be dark splotches from the oil they pour into that crap. This is why God created TIES. The wider the better, never mind if you think you’d look like a square. That’s right, wrap that thing around your neck and let it hang down over your cheeze stains, and noone will ever know the difference. In fact, they, whoever they may be, will think you are the kind of guy that goes that extra step to make an impression. How about that.
And let’s not forget suit jackets. Talk about sharp. When you’re wearing a suit jacket, your dress shirt can be wrinklier than your gramma’s gramma, and you’d still cut a fine figure under light scrutiny.
Moving right along, we get to the t-shirts. There are two different kinds of t-shirts: The t-shirt you like, that expresses your personality in some way, and the strictly functional t-shirt. The function of a t-shirt, again, is covered in Rule Number One.
Both kinds of t-shirts are functional, when you get right down to it, but the key is to have plenty of them. Because for the best results, it is a good idea to get into the habit of wearing TWO t-shirts at once. This may sound silly and redundant if you aren’t used to the idea, but think about it for a second. Double the buffer, first of all (Rule Number One.) And second, you already have your wardrobe picked out for the next couple of days. If you are going to be seeing the same people tomorrow, just turn the whole ensemble inside out! Now you still have two t-shirts, and there you are with a whole new outfit. (If you don’t like wearing t-shirts inside out, then you can take the extra step to readjust the outer layer, but you should be aware that wearing t-shirts inside out is not forbidden ground. Who cares? It doesn’t look all that different, really. And it will hide other cheeze or coffee stains, for the most part. Don’t cheat yourself by limiting your options.)
This brings me to Rule Number Two: Who Says You Have To Change Your Clothes Every Day? Especially if you are NOT going to be seeing the same people two days in a row. What’s a day but hours stacked onto other hours?
But if all of your t-shirts are disgusting because you have been following the first two rules for weeks (good for you), then there is no alternative but to take them to the bathroom sink. This process is easy, but it will be covered here later on, so hang in there.
Pants. Let me take a second to say what a wonderful word is “Pants.” I really like to say It, over and over. Pants pants pants pants pants.
Depending on your personal preference and monetary situation, you may have any number of different kinds of pants. Some pants don’t last long after many days of consecutive duty, some pants can go practically forever without ever being washed at all. The longer they can go without being washed, the more difficult they are to get clean when they start to rot, if they can get clean at all. But the key here is that pants can be worn every day, just like your shoes, if you do it the right way.
Whatever kind of pants you like, whatever you do, don’t think that white pants are sharp. They’re not. If you buy white, or even light colored pants, all you’re doing is wasting your time and cash, and you end up looking like Don Johnson from Miami Vice, which is NOT sharp. It’s LAME. Go with dark tones. Dark tones will hide almost everything, and even if there are visible stains they usually blend in well and it looks like you live an active lifestyle, which is respectable and interesting.
Right. So, like I said, some hold up better than others. Denim jeans are the most rugged, were in fact originally designed, at least according to my eighth-grade history teacher, Mrs. Steidle, by Enrico Levi, who also invented the cotton gin, to stand up to the rigors faced by the wealth-seekers of the Great American Gold Rush in 1492. He made more money than most of the bozos out there ripping up the earth and draining the rivers in search of gold, because they had to give it all to him, because he had such great pants, when they found their flimsy cotton pants were hanging off of their asses in shredded bits and pieces.
So jeans are great for long term use, but they are difficult to wash. You can’t really get around having to throw them in the washing machine, and usually if you wear them like they were designed to be worn, which is to say, all the time, they need to go in more than once, and the next thing you know you’ve been sitting in a laundrymat for hours, wondering who the hell thought it was a good idea to seal the television behind a plate of plexiglass so no one could turn the damn thing off, or at least turn down the volume.
If you’re like me, though, jeans aren’t really your cup of tea, as they say, so for the most part you have cotton, wool, and polyester to choose from. You are not reading this if you wear silk or leather pants. Corduroy is another option, I suppose, but I don’t know anything about corduroy pants, and I’m not even sure how to spell corduroy, so forget them. Of the three, polyester is the most sturdy, wool the warmest, obviously, and cotton the most comfortable.
Like I said, wool pants are nice and warm when you are outside, but you end up sweating them all up when you are sitting inside for any length of time because they are too warm. After only two days they start smelling like a dirty sock, and that’s no good. And they’re not very comfortable, anyway. In fact, I don’t think very many people even really wear wool pants. Stay away from them, too.
Cotton pants are okay, but they wear out easily (and they are usually more expensive.) Eventually that faded spot on your knees or you ass will fray into a little tear, and then the tear will open into a small hole, and then the hole will widen everytime you wear them, and then they are no good. Holes in denim jeans are alright, because it looks like you earned them, but holes in cotton pants look dumb.
Which leaves polyester pants. Polyester pants are made from scientific chemicals, and they don’t biodegrade. Like plastic. Seven million years from now, if the sun hasn’t swallowed up the earth, any galaxy-trotting alien archaeologists digging through the endless mountains of fast food containers and plastic water bottles will find pockets of polyester pants planted in the ground like rose-bulbs all over the planet. If you don’t believe me, try dropping your cigarette in your lap once. The burning cherry just pushes the material out of the way, leaving a little cauterized hole that never gets any bigger.
So polyester pants can last at least a lifetime. But we are talking about more than just hardiness here. Let’s not forget about the smell. See, polyester doesn’t breathe very well, you end up stinkng them up after a few days. They stink in their own, special way, especially from the crotch, because that’s the warmest place on your body. It smells like when you leave the dishes in the sink for way too long and there is that slimy, brown film coating all of your plates and siilverware. A eye-stinging, rotten, invasive smell, like dead cats covered in their own dirty litter. Bad, bad, bad. The heat drives the smell out prematurely, too, so you have to stay on top of it.
Which brings us back to the bathroom sink. When you find yourself sleeping naked because every single article of clothing you own, with the possible exception of that stupid ankle sock you have no idea why you keep in your dresser drawer, is utterly unpleasant to behold, let alone wear, there is no alternative but to do some washing. Sorry, you have no choice. Pick out the clothes that you are going to wear tomorrow and haul them up to your bathroom. An extra pair of socks wouldn’t hurt, while you’re at it. Turn on the water, adjusting it to a comfortable temperature. Do NOT plug up the sink. The water is just going to get filthy, and you will be working against yourself if you let the clothes sit in a pool of dirty water.
Now stuff the pants into the sink. Soap is not necessary. After they have absorbed as much water as they will hold, keep them under the running water and begin to knead the pants by grasping them with both hands, with your fingers fanned out as wide as possible, and then squeezing them closed as if to make a fist, thus wringing much of the water out. Watch with satisfaction as the water turns black. Then release the pants, allow the fabric to briefly soak up more water, grasp them in another spot and squeeze again, but this time slightly raise the pants from the surface of the bowl as you find a new grip. This will allow the filthy water which has begun to collect to drain away. As you continue to knead the pants pockets of air will form and you will see tons of little bubbles boiling out of the fabric as you compress the pants. This is good- the bubbles will help to loosen the dirt, and it makes a cool gurgling noise, like if a bear was trying to breathe through a stuffy nose.
Soon the water will begin to turn from black to brown or gray. When this happens, just toss them into the bathtub and repeat this process with the rest of your clothes until you get to the socks. There is no way that you are going to get all of the filth out from your pants, so just be happy with them not smelling horrible anymore.
Your socks require a bit more attention. They are going to stink much, much worse than anything you would ever want to go near. Turn on the hotwater and just throw them in the bowl. Don’t even touch them- leave them alone for a few minutes. The air in the bathroom will start to get a hint of the stink because the rising steam is carrying it up. Deal with it. The socks will be plugging up the sink. Let them. After the bowl is just about filled, turn off the water. You might have to add some cold water into the steaming soup of socks before you can plunge your hands inside. Then pull the socks away from the drain and let the water seep away. Turn the water back on, adjusting the temperature so it is comfortable again. This is the only part where you might benefit from a little bit of soap, although it is definitely not necessary. Black soles of your socks are not ever going to look nice and new. It’s way too late for that. But if for some reason you are struck with an unexplainable desire to attack the stain, you may grab the bar of soap that is sitting half sogged in the striated shelf situated just below and to the right of the medicine cabinet. Planting the sock lengthways along the surface of your palm, rub the soap on the black stain until you feel little or no friction. When you are through messing around with the soap, hold the socks one at a time under the water and begin to squeeze them repeatedly. There is no need to wait for them to reabsorb water between successive squeezes- the socks are small enough to become resaturated almost immediately following each squeeze. If you soaped them up, then continue to do this until the bubbles that fall into the sink pop right away- they do that because there is no more soap to preserve their curvature.
I know it’s probably getting late by this point, because you have undoubtedly waited until twenty minutes past the time you told yourself you needed to go to sleep before admitting that this washing procedure had to be done. One last thing, and then you are ready to go to sleep. You need to know how to wring them out.
You have to wring out your clothes as best as possible because you are going to let them hang dry in the bathroom, and there is only six or seven hours for them to do that. The last thing you want is to put on wet clothes. (Although most articles of clothing will dry against your body heat in only a few hours.)
Each article of clothing can be wrung in a similar way, so I’m going to use the socks to illustrate. This is a very meditative motion. It can help you in all kinds of ways you can’t even guess at right now. Think “Paint the Fence” or “Wax the Car.” In fact, let’s call this section “Wring the Sock.”
“WRING THE SOCK”
Fold the wet sock in half and grasp one end with your right fist, leaving no part of the sock peaking beyond your pinky finger. Close your arm and raise it so that the elbow is pointing out directly in front of your chest, keeping our palm side up, as if you were about to lift a heavy set of barbells. Then, scoop your left hand toward your chest, under the part of the sock that is dangling beyond your thumb, and grasp it. Make sure your left thumb is touching your right thumb, and, gripping the sock firmly now with both hands, push the sock away from you, gradually unfurling both of your arms and bending your wrists, so that when the motion is complete your elbows are locked and each respective wrist bent in the opposite direction from its position at the beginning of the motion. As you do this water will stream out- be sure to leave the right wrist above the left. This is so that the wrung part of the sock is above the as yet un-wrung part, and gravity will not be re-sogging your work.
“SHORTS” (Disclaimer- this is not the nice part, as it mentions unmentionables.)
Here are some important things to remember about your shorts, if you want them to last a long time without having to wash them:
-Have lots of them.
-Remember what your mama taught you: Be sure to wipe your ass good and clean after heavy business, or any business at all.
-Why wear them to bed? Get soft sheets if it bothers you.
-Don’t eat things that make shit dribble out of your ass when you fart, like taquitos or just about any kind of meat typically used in mexican food.
-If you have to masturbate outside of the shower, use a sweat sock or a load rag.
That about covers it. Too bad we aren’t covered in fur like apes or cheetahs. Then none of this shit would be necessary, get me?
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Hugo Chavez
Hey, have you guys ever heard of Hugo Chavez? He's the president of Venezuela?
Chavez won his presidency in a free election in 1998 with 60% of the vote. The working people like him because he is trying to put control over more of the country's wealth back into the hands of the people. The American government supported a failed coup against him in 2002, right after he was elected, and now there is a propaganda campaign against him in the american media.
I myself was wondering about what kind of a leader he has turned out to be. I'm still not sure he was totally genuine, but he seems to inspire strong, real emotions resembling love in the venezuelan people, something I can't possibly imagine any other leader in the world, with the exception of Nelson Mandela, of course, doing. I talked to my friend Ingrid, who is from Colombia, about him. Her parents are in Venezuela now. I'd just seen a short news bit on him on the BBC News, (channel 26 at 10pm every day of the week, for you Chicago people) that said he is trying to keep foreign investors out of the country as much as possible. He believes that this is the new way powerful countries conquer other, smaller ones: By getting their greedy fingers in control of their industries and fucking up the country's economy, polarizing the classes and making them dependent on the big guys. He is 100% right on the money, so to speak. By foreign investors and businessmen, he is of course referring to rich American people- they who acquire new territory in the same way they run a Kentucky Fried Chicken Franchise. I can't wait until countries start getting renamed after all our dopey corporations. Then I will at last be able to root for apocalypse conscience-free. Anyway, I asked Ingrid about this kind of idealism, and she expressed a dislike for Chavez. She thinks that the people in Venezuela don't have the capabilitity for taking control of and running their own industries. I guess we'll see.
Here is this other guy's opinion on Chavez, in case anyone else is wondering if he's really a good leader. I want so hard to believe that he is.
Here is another person in whom I would love to have faith: Barak Obama. Read his speech transcript from the democratic national convention on my friend Jesse's Blog!
Chavez won his presidency in a free election in 1998 with 60% of the vote. The working people like him because he is trying to put control over more of the country's wealth back into the hands of the people. The American government supported a failed coup against him in 2002, right after he was elected, and now there is a propaganda campaign against him in the american media.
I myself was wondering about what kind of a leader he has turned out to be. I'm still not sure he was totally genuine, but he seems to inspire strong, real emotions resembling love in the venezuelan people, something I can't possibly imagine any other leader in the world, with the exception of Nelson Mandela, of course, doing. I talked to my friend Ingrid, who is from Colombia, about him. Her parents are in Venezuela now. I'd just seen a short news bit on him on the BBC News, (channel 26 at 10pm every day of the week, for you Chicago people) that said he is trying to keep foreign investors out of the country as much as possible. He believes that this is the new way powerful countries conquer other, smaller ones: By getting their greedy fingers in control of their industries and fucking up the country's economy, polarizing the classes and making them dependent on the big guys. He is 100% right on the money, so to speak. By foreign investors and businessmen, he is of course referring to rich American people- they who acquire new territory in the same way they run a Kentucky Fried Chicken Franchise. I can't wait until countries start getting renamed after all our dopey corporations. Then I will at last be able to root for apocalypse conscience-free. Anyway, I asked Ingrid about this kind of idealism, and she expressed a dislike for Chavez. She thinks that the people in Venezuela don't have the capabilitity for taking control of and running their own industries. I guess we'll see.
Here is this other guy's opinion on Chavez, in case anyone else is wondering if he's really a good leader. I want so hard to believe that he is.
Here is another person in whom I would love to have faith: Barak Obama. Read his speech transcript from the democratic national convention on my friend Jesse's Blog!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)