stuff
First off, I’d like to apologize to Theater Guy. He invited me out to see the comedy troupe he performs with (French Club Dropouts- Thursday’s at the West End Comedy Club in Dallas, TX), even set up a comp pass for me, and me being me, antisocial, and reclusive, didn’t go. In my defense, my part time lactose intolerance-y reared its ugly head when I ate some ice cream grandma gave me. I don’t mind when she sends food home with me… I just don’t like it when it adversely affects my gut. Plus, I’m like totally broke (-51 dollars in the bank baby!), and have no gas in my car, so I wasn’t about to drive down into the heart of touristville Dallas.
I was afforded the opportunity to go through some old notebooks, and files saved on old floppy disks and found some stuff that I’d forgotten I’d written… and I wonder if it’s even mine at all… it’s my handwriting but… I found this on one page; the page had nothing else written on it but this…
It’s called being decisive Hamlet.
No, it’s called a political asset Ophelia.
I’ve read Hamlet once, seen the movie once, so it’s not like I’m an aficionado on the play, meaning I must have lifted this from something… but I have no idea where. Maybe I did write it, but I don’t know why. I imagine Hamlet and Ophelia arguing about Hamlet’s future… Hamlet of course wavering about going off to the army, or whatever it was his uncle/father wanted him to do. Then I found a little poem, that I don’t remember writing or why (some of this stuff dates back 10 years or so)…
I woke up this morning, I started my day
I got up, I showered, I shit, and I shaved
But it wasn’t until I pulled on my pants
That the memory bug bit me
And I remembered your rants
The original conversation made me quite nauseous
But you warned us you told us to be very cautious
I wished we were discussing baseball or bowling
But no it was the subject of the almighty colon
You said we should be careful, that we should be wary
For inside the colon it can get really hairy
With things that have been tossing and turning for years
Festering and pestering the colon and its peers
I wanted to puke, I wanted to vomit
Hearing such talk I took off like a comet
I couldn’t take it anymore, thought it was bad conversation
I had to wash the taste out of my mouth with a liquid libation
So although I like you with full zeal and great zest
I think keeping colon talk to a minimum would be for the best
No idea on earth as to why I would have ever written that. In fact, I thought it might have been from someone else, but there are edits, my edits with my handwriting right there in the margin. Plus it’s not like I lifted it from Whitman or anything. I found some notes in a letter that date back to the year 2000…
I am going to start training to be an Olympic swimmer. Don’t laugh, don’t laugh. If I start training now, I might be able to make 2004. I’ll be in the prime of my swimming life. Now I’m not a big fan of swimming, but I’ll just have to get over that. So why have I chosen swimming you ask? Swimmers get the best damn nicknames. There’s that guy, the Russian Rocket, somebody else was called the human dolphin or something dumb like that. I want to be a swimmer for the nicknames; and I want to have as many nick names as possible. I’ve already decided that I’ll at least be called Jeffrey Michael: The Great American Fishboy, The H2O Kid. I will also ask to be introduced to Hulk Hogan’s old music, “I Am A Real American.”
I haven’t decided on any other nicknames yet. I know that I’ll ask the announcers to say things like, “Jeffrey Michael, the Great American Fishboy! The H2O kid speeds past the Russian Rocket with his motor feet of doom!!!” And the color guy would say, “He’s telling the Russian Rocket to eat the pools chlorine!!” I would of course write FISHBOY across my chest every time I swim.
Unfortunately for you swim fans out there, that never happened. And finally, to complete this nostalgic journal “mail-in” (I’ve told you very little about what’s going on in my real life, and instead you get to read things that I’d written many, many years ago) I found this article I’d written for some ‘zine. I don’t remember whose ‘zine, I don’t thing my article got picked up… but I was given a word, and well you’ll get the gist…
So they ask me if I want to write a series of short somethings, whether they are essays, or poems or fictional stories dealing with random words assigned to us. I, thinking I have all the time in the world, as I am apt to do, say, “Yeah, sure, I’d love to do it. When do you need it by? Next Tuesday? Plenty of time!”
So, with the deadline looming over my head I get to work. It’s amazing how difficult it was to think of something to say about the word comfort. When they assigned us the words to write about I immediately had ideas for the words donkey, and foot, but comfort; that put me in what some people would call, “A pickle”. There’s a certain irony involved. My word is comfort, and yet, it’s been nothing but a pain in the ass to think of something to write about. I think maybe it’s because my bedroom is a mess. There are clothes strewn across the floor. Books, magazines, and comics are tossed haphazardly across coffee tables, and bookshelves, and the nightstand. Watching television has become a chore, as I can’t find the remote. It’s undoubtedly buried in a pile of clothes. So, as one can imagine, I’ve had a bit of a difficult time focusing on the word comfort.
I didn’t want to write a poem, because I can’t write poems, I’m just not in touch with my inner poet. I thought about writing a really short story, but I tend to be a bit long winded in the writing, and we’re limited to how much we can write. I thought about writing some kind of beat/slam/spoken word kind of thing, cause I saw a spoken word show last time I was is New York, and I thought, “I wish I could do that.” but I can’t. I’m more of a simple straight forward write till I have nothing left to say kind of fellow. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything to say.
I spent one day working on a couple of things for the word donkey. I wanted to start writing something for comfort, but I couldn’t think of anything. So I played FreeCell on the computer, then goofed around on the internet, went and saw a movie, called up some friends, went out to eat, did a little drinking, came back home, plopped myself down in front of my computer and still drew a blank. I thought, “After a good nights rest I’ll be able to think of something.”
So I wake up the next morning, go to work, eat a smoothie for lunch, read a little from each of the five books I’m reading, go to the gym to work out, sit down at my computer, and write this line, “So this is what comfort feels like?”
I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I stared at what I had written, deleted what I had written, and decided that I needed a second night of good hearty sleep. I was starting to get a little worried. What if I had nothing to say about the word comfort? What if, in real life, I was uncomfortable? I was troubled at the prospects. It wasn’t until day three that it hit me, what I would write about.
So, what finally triggered the sudden inspiration from the muses you ask? I was sitting in the most comfortable seat in the house, trying to finish On The Road, and it occurred to me, that I was really comfortable, I should write about this moment.
And so now, I will tell you that at that moment, I was reading a book, pants around my ankles, taking a shit. That was comfort.
“Jesus Mary and Joseph!” I could almost hear my father saying that when he reads this, should he ever read this. Not that he ever says “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph” but it would be kind of cool if he did.
The only Stephen King book I’ve ever read was On Writing. He said something about being really comfortable while “taking a movement” in the bathroom. I thought about trying to find the quote, but I couldn’t even find the book. He said something to the effect that the person who sits on the toilet has, “a certain vulnerability.” There’s the old saying, “caught with your pants down” which infers that one has been caught unaware, being unguarded, susceptible to the elements, just you, and whatever may pop into your fully open mind, such was case with me, such is the case with everybody. You always see people crying in bathrooms on television. The now no-longer-on-television Alley McBeal had whole segments dedicated to the wheeling and dealings that went on in their unisex bathroom. David Kelly’s isn’t a chump, he knows that people open up in the bathroom; cause when you’re in the bathroom it’s just you, and the wall that sits directly in front of you. There are no televisions, there is no music, there might be a book or a magazine, but that’s it. And it’s not like you’re going anywhere until you’ve finished whatever it is you’re doing… so you’re stuck there, all alone with your thoughts. It’s a great place to think. I’ve never really meditated; except for once I had to for a religion class in college, but I’d imagine being on the crapper is kind of like meditating. It’s you alone with your thoughts and your poop. You’re getting rid of the bad stuff, and thinking about the good stuff. I’m sure all the great philosophers of the world did their best work while pooping. Can you imagine what Plato would have come up with if he had the luxury of indoor plumbing, and one of those padded seat cushions? The possibilities are endless.
So really my advice to anyone, is if you need a moment alone with your thoughts, if you need some time to compose yourself, to COMFORT yourself, go to the bathroom, you’ll be glad you did.
It seemed like good advice then, and you know what? It seems like good advice now.
I was afforded the opportunity to go through some old notebooks, and files saved on old floppy disks and found some stuff that I’d forgotten I’d written… and I wonder if it’s even mine at all… it’s my handwriting but… I found this on one page; the page had nothing else written on it but this…
It’s called being decisive Hamlet.
No, it’s called a political asset Ophelia.
I’ve read Hamlet once, seen the movie once, so it’s not like I’m an aficionado on the play, meaning I must have lifted this from something… but I have no idea where. Maybe I did write it, but I don’t know why. I imagine Hamlet and Ophelia arguing about Hamlet’s future… Hamlet of course wavering about going off to the army, or whatever it was his uncle/father wanted him to do. Then I found a little poem, that I don’t remember writing or why (some of this stuff dates back 10 years or so)…
I woke up this morning, I started my day
I got up, I showered, I shit, and I shaved
But it wasn’t until I pulled on my pants
That the memory bug bit me
And I remembered your rants
The original conversation made me quite nauseous
But you warned us you told us to be very cautious
I wished we were discussing baseball or bowling
But no it was the subject of the almighty colon
You said we should be careful, that we should be wary
For inside the colon it can get really hairy
With things that have been tossing and turning for years
Festering and pestering the colon and its peers
I wanted to puke, I wanted to vomit
Hearing such talk I took off like a comet
I couldn’t take it anymore, thought it was bad conversation
I had to wash the taste out of my mouth with a liquid libation
So although I like you with full zeal and great zest
I think keeping colon talk to a minimum would be for the best
No idea on earth as to why I would have ever written that. In fact, I thought it might have been from someone else, but there are edits, my edits with my handwriting right there in the margin. Plus it’s not like I lifted it from Whitman or anything. I found some notes in a letter that date back to the year 2000…
I am going to start training to be an Olympic swimmer. Don’t laugh, don’t laugh. If I start training now, I might be able to make 2004. I’ll be in the prime of my swimming life. Now I’m not a big fan of swimming, but I’ll just have to get over that. So why have I chosen swimming you ask? Swimmers get the best damn nicknames. There’s that guy, the Russian Rocket, somebody else was called the human dolphin or something dumb like that. I want to be a swimmer for the nicknames; and I want to have as many nick names as possible. I’ve already decided that I’ll at least be called Jeffrey Michael: The Great American Fishboy, The H2O Kid. I will also ask to be introduced to Hulk Hogan’s old music, “I Am A Real American.”
I haven’t decided on any other nicknames yet. I know that I’ll ask the announcers to say things like, “Jeffrey Michael, the Great American Fishboy! The H2O kid speeds past the Russian Rocket with his motor feet of doom!!!” And the color guy would say, “He’s telling the Russian Rocket to eat the pools chlorine!!” I would of course write FISHBOY across my chest every time I swim.
Unfortunately for you swim fans out there, that never happened. And finally, to complete this nostalgic journal “mail-in” (I’ve told you very little about what’s going on in my real life, and instead you get to read things that I’d written many, many years ago) I found this article I’d written for some ‘zine. I don’t remember whose ‘zine, I don’t thing my article got picked up… but I was given a word, and well you’ll get the gist…
So they ask me if I want to write a series of short somethings, whether they are essays, or poems or fictional stories dealing with random words assigned to us. I, thinking I have all the time in the world, as I am apt to do, say, “Yeah, sure, I’d love to do it. When do you need it by? Next Tuesday? Plenty of time!”
So, with the deadline looming over my head I get to work. It’s amazing how difficult it was to think of something to say about the word comfort. When they assigned us the words to write about I immediately had ideas for the words donkey, and foot, but comfort; that put me in what some people would call, “A pickle”. There’s a certain irony involved. My word is comfort, and yet, it’s been nothing but a pain in the ass to think of something to write about. I think maybe it’s because my bedroom is a mess. There are clothes strewn across the floor. Books, magazines, and comics are tossed haphazardly across coffee tables, and bookshelves, and the nightstand. Watching television has become a chore, as I can’t find the remote. It’s undoubtedly buried in a pile of clothes. So, as one can imagine, I’ve had a bit of a difficult time focusing on the word comfort.
I didn’t want to write a poem, because I can’t write poems, I’m just not in touch with my inner poet. I thought about writing a really short story, but I tend to be a bit long winded in the writing, and we’re limited to how much we can write. I thought about writing some kind of beat/slam/spoken word kind of thing, cause I saw a spoken word show last time I was is New York, and I thought, “I wish I could do that.” but I can’t. I’m more of a simple straight forward write till I have nothing left to say kind of fellow. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything to say.
I spent one day working on a couple of things for the word donkey. I wanted to start writing something for comfort, but I couldn’t think of anything. So I played FreeCell on the computer, then goofed around on the internet, went and saw a movie, called up some friends, went out to eat, did a little drinking, came back home, plopped myself down in front of my computer and still drew a blank. I thought, “After a good nights rest I’ll be able to think of something.”
So I wake up the next morning, go to work, eat a smoothie for lunch, read a little from each of the five books I’m reading, go to the gym to work out, sit down at my computer, and write this line, “So this is what comfort feels like?”
I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I stared at what I had written, deleted what I had written, and decided that I needed a second night of good hearty sleep. I was starting to get a little worried. What if I had nothing to say about the word comfort? What if, in real life, I was uncomfortable? I was troubled at the prospects. It wasn’t until day three that it hit me, what I would write about.
So, what finally triggered the sudden inspiration from the muses you ask? I was sitting in the most comfortable seat in the house, trying to finish On The Road, and it occurred to me, that I was really comfortable, I should write about this moment.
And so now, I will tell you that at that moment, I was reading a book, pants around my ankles, taking a shit. That was comfort.
“Jesus Mary and Joseph!” I could almost hear my father saying that when he reads this, should he ever read this. Not that he ever says “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph” but it would be kind of cool if he did.
The only Stephen King book I’ve ever read was On Writing. He said something about being really comfortable while “taking a movement” in the bathroom. I thought about trying to find the quote, but I couldn’t even find the book. He said something to the effect that the person who sits on the toilet has, “a certain vulnerability.” There’s the old saying, “caught with your pants down” which infers that one has been caught unaware, being unguarded, susceptible to the elements, just you, and whatever may pop into your fully open mind, such was case with me, such is the case with everybody. You always see people crying in bathrooms on television. The now no-longer-on-television Alley McBeal had whole segments dedicated to the wheeling and dealings that went on in their unisex bathroom. David Kelly’s isn’t a chump, he knows that people open up in the bathroom; cause when you’re in the bathroom it’s just you, and the wall that sits directly in front of you. There are no televisions, there is no music, there might be a book or a magazine, but that’s it. And it’s not like you’re going anywhere until you’ve finished whatever it is you’re doing… so you’re stuck there, all alone with your thoughts. It’s a great place to think. I’ve never really meditated; except for once I had to for a religion class in college, but I’d imagine being on the crapper is kind of like meditating. It’s you alone with your thoughts and your poop. You’re getting rid of the bad stuff, and thinking about the good stuff. I’m sure all the great philosophers of the world did their best work while pooping. Can you imagine what Plato would have come up with if he had the luxury of indoor plumbing, and one of those padded seat cushions? The possibilities are endless.
So really my advice to anyone, is if you need a moment alone with your thoughts, if you need some time to compose yourself, to COMFORT yourself, go to the bathroom, you’ll be glad you did.
It seemed like good advice then, and you know what? It seems like good advice now.