sane or insane?
hey you ljers, i've been ponderin lately about my own mental levity. i mean as far as i can determine, i'm perfectly ok. but as soon as i place myself amidst the general garbage heap of humanity, i begin to wonder. supposedly no man is an island. and i'm no exception. i like most people. and fact is, i'm one of the friendliest fellas i've ever known. no shit. so what now? well, since there's really no other yardstick to measure by, i sometimes consider how i stack up with with, say, my neighbors. now i own an average-type home in an average to affluent suburban community. unfortunately (or fortunately) that's about where the comparisons end though. i mean i try to keep my fukin lawn mowed and get rid of weeds and plant flowers and shit like that and keep my driveway seal-coated and everything so i won't run other people's property values down or nuthin. but, still, i think everyone knows me as that sorta mysterious (or odd) guy who lives all alone (didn't he lose a daughter?), does some kind of art business, and is never home during normal hours like the rest of the fine residents. when all my pals are well-bedded down, i'm just gettin home. when they're all headin to work and dumpin kids at school, i'm sawin zzz's. but i tell ya, the lady across the street is worse than that delores kravitz character (the nosey neighbor across the street in the popular 60s tv sitcom "bewitched" for you youngsters). hell, if i take a smelly shit annette knows about it. sometimes i'm gettin ready to leave the house and i see her outside. when that happens i immediately duck and cover just like they taught us to do in grade school if the air raid sirens go off. there's been times when i've been late for appointments because i was sweating it out waiting for her to go back inside. i mean there's no other way out of town. the point is, what's brought this all to mind, is this weekend is the annual dwyer avenue block party. i actually don't mind attending. there's good eats, and sometimes there's even a new model recruit who is the daughter or relative of a new person on the street whom i've never met. i'll show up with my hawaiin shirt on and a 12 pack of cold ones. but jesus it's kinda hard to talk to most of those stiffs. they're all flapping their gums about their kids, their new cars, their second homes in florida or arizona, their investments, their new boats, and tons of other really interesting tripe like that. truth be told, i really don't give two shits about that stuff. i got a new car. so fukin what? this is where the mental levity issue comes to bear. it boils down to the fact that i just don't do well with people in my actual age group. my peers, so to speak. they basically bore the snot out of me. and the younger family types, up-and-comers who have achieved a fair amount of success--i don't take it away from them--well, i have nothing much in common with them either. they're too busy climbing their respective ladders and playin softball and being soccer moms ya know. the real old people who've lived there forever and are still hangin on before movin on to "senior housing options" are ok though. you can talk about anything to them. it doesn't even have to make sense. anyway i don't really like being a square peg, but that seems to be the case. i actually prefer the company of much younger individuals with unpolluted minds. the kind who mostly live in the city in crowded, congested neighborhoods in apartments and stuff like that. but shit i really don't want to live there myself. i get so claustrophobic. so i just regard the block party much like a client function, in that i will mix and practice social intercourse as well as anyone, but lack any sort of intimate connection with anybody. all of this has led me to the belief that--in terms of modern society--i may very well be a person who is functionally insane. it really doesn't bother me personally, but i just hope all the grand people of dwyer avenue don't think of me that way. or do i care? mr. T.