Ants Marching
I went into the back bathroom just now to wash my hands (there’s nothing I hate more in the world than sticky hands). And so mundane was the task that I didn’t notice a few black smudges in the sink, paralyzed as the cold water rushed over them, until one of them moved. O, yes- the back bathroom has been infiltrated by tiny black ants. They crawled in the vast porcelain bowl, back to their business as if nothing had happened. Except that two of them remained still.
So this is the meaning of life. Never taking chances, just going about your daily life no matter what catastrophic events occur around you. Sounds correct, think you?
I went to the doctor’s two hours or so ago. Dr. Wilson, a beautiful, glamorous young woman, stuck a needle into my cyst and injected it with (gasp!) steroids. As at the time I hadn’t yet eaten anything all day, I was feeling pretty lightheaded. Anyway, it all ended with a burning question- was I a qualified, bonafide Acutane candidate? This acne medicine that takes three months to even start working? The issue will resolve itself in a week or so when I visit my shrink, and find out if there are any unfavorable interactions. Well, I’m not supposed to take Motrin because it fucks with my kidneys or liver, and over the past three days I probably took 30 of those pills. I don’t care about my kidneys or liver. And you bet your ass I care about my face. Anyway, I am starting to notice some improvement in my cyst.
The family ran off to the game at the Palestra. I know goddamned well I should start some of my shitloads of schoolwork but I am too much enjoying sitting here and staring out the window, listening to the Dave Matthews Band. I should go outside. When my cyst gets better I am going to run on the path along the road. Pale golden sunlight is now shining on all the trees. Behind them are stormy clouds mixed with pure, brilliant sky. I love it when good and bad weather collide. At my high school graduation, it was raining while the sun was shining, and afterwards was a tremendous, gorgeous rainbow. Now the sun has gone behind a cloud. Now it is back.
Do I have anything better to do with my life than observe the minor fluctuations in the weather while melting to #34? They say the Impressionist painters such as Cezanne really couldn’t see right and that’s why they painted things the way they did. Without my glasses, colors are just a little more saturated. And you know that I can see the wind? You know I’m going crazy now. I can talk to it, too, and summon twisters and tornadoes. Here everything is friendly, but add a little drop of drama and everything blows up. Good thing I am sitting behind the glass here and just listening to Ants Marching and singing obnoxiously along.
Back then I conceived a character named Jimi Cosa. He was madly in love with Ryan, besides being a total badass and landing himself in jail for stealing a refrigerator. Never mind it was chock full of alcohol. Sometimes I take a Jimi thing, just to keep me swingin.’ He really knew how to chill, to take a dull day and turn it into a veritable day spa for Spanish gay guys in a country where everyone is Spanish and a world where everyone is gay.
That book will never get written. Amy, you said your book was too short. That means you get to add more of what you love. Yes, it’s time for the defunct novelist blues! I could quit right now if I wanted to! That means, I could stop being a worthless motherfucker, and pull up some old documents and work my wonderful writer magic and add a couple thousand words to what is already way too long. If I realized anything during my semester and a half of science major shit, it’s that my chance for literary prowess is long, long gone, and that I’d better get used to scrutinizing shit under a microscope because I’ll never make a career out of scrutinizing shit through reading glasses. Literary agents analyze character, not chemicals.
I really need to go outside. But everything looks just as pretty from right here. Is that how guys view girls? If I sit right here on my lazy ass, if I maintain the status quo and just view her from the same angle, without making some changes to my stinking, stagnant outlook, can I see her for who she really is? Fuck no! Move your ass and dig a little deeper! I wait on the other side of this big glass pane. If you come outside, you can feel the wind and smell the wild Earth, experience the richness of the sky and the ground and the LIFE; you will find yourself in her magnificence. This must be God. And I am writing about her, sitting in her body, but I cannot find her. If I cannot see her, how can anybody else?
Some eternal questions. It is almost six o’clock PM, my family is down at UPenn, far, far away from this little piece of heaven in Lower Makefield Township. I will spread my wings.