Workin' the cool

My sister Michele is coming into town today.  Yipee!  And we're all going to the Jazz Fest.  Which reminds me of a Jazz Fest memory:

Back in '08, we all went to the Jazz Fest.  I was all decked out on my grungified gear... combat boots, cut off jeans shorts, flannel shirt, shades, and my dragon doo-rag.  I had brought a book with me because, hey, I'm likely to get bored at a place where there are 10 different stages with bands playing and 5000 people dancing and drinking.  So, I'm sitting in a lawn chair, reading my book with people dancing all around me and the band blaring, looking just as cool as a cucumber, and I feel this tap on my shoulder.  A guy is standing there with a fancy schmancy camera, one of those film kinds with a long lens.  He says, "Hey man, I got some great shots of you.  I just wanted to say thanks!"

Wow!  I must have really been working the cool factor.

Later I was wandering around aimlessly, drinking a beer and exhuding cool, when Heather's mom pranced up to me, grabbed one of my hands and put another around me, and danced me in a circle to the music of the band that was playing on stage.  When she was done, she smiled this big tipsy smile, and said, "Thanks!"

That was the second time someone had just up and taken advantage of my cool factor that day.  Man, my ego was fit to be tied, I can tell you.

So, today, I'm gonna BRING THE COOL to the Jazz Fest.  Unlike last year when I just moped around and left after an hour.

Oh dear.

It's a distinct possibility that I might be going batshit insane.  Allow me to elucidate.  For years now, my brain has been hiding things from me.  Para ejemplo... if I'm looking for my lighter, or my phone, or a pen, or anything that is about the size of a pack of cigarettes (or when I'm looking for my cigarettes), every once in a while my brain will find it hilarious to just block these things from my vision while I'm looking for them.  On numerous occasions I've been looking directly at the thing I was looking for, and just DID. NOT. SEE. IT.

This started, I think, about 20 years ago, when I was looking for a library book I'd checked out from the local community college I was attending.  I scoured my room for that book, but finally I just gave up and paid for the damn thing.  About a week after that, I was going through my closet for whatever reason, and there was the book, sitting right on top of everything, in plain view.  That was the first time this kind of thing had happened that I remember, and for a long time nothing like it ever happened again.

Now though, for the past several years, this has been happening more and more frequently.  Like I said... lighters, keys, smokes, phone, jewelry, flash drives, anything that's sufficiently small... my brain will just ix-nay it from my vision.  Then, usually minutes or hours later, I'll discover it lying right out in the great wide open where I'd already looked.  Is this funny, brain?  Do you get a kick out of driving me to the brink of insanity?

The day before yesterday was the grandaddy of all practical jokes that my brain has decided to play on me up to this point... that is, unless my entire life and everything I've seen and heard and felt up to now has been just one big joke, and all of these little incidents are just jokes within the joke.  Now wouldn't that be funny?  I bet my brain thinks it would be... anywho.  The things I'm about to describe, I remember clearly, as if they really happened.  They are distinct memories, and I can refer to them.  I remember them happening, just like I remember, say... picking up my cigarettes, pulling one out of the pack, lighting it, taking a drag, and setting it in the ashtray about 45 seconds ago.  I remember them just like that. 

So, the day before yesterday, I distinctly remember picking up my phone charger and putting it in my left breast pocket, right above my smokes, before walking to work.  When I got to work, I clocked in and then went over to the register to wait for Steve to finish counting.  When he was done, I removed all of the items from my pockets... smokes, phone, charger, prayer book, and lighter... just like I always do, habitually, every day... and put them next to the register.  I checked a few customers, and then went into the cooler to order beer.

That took about an hour, and when I came back to my register, my charger was gone.  I looked high and low for that thing, because I DISTINCTLY REMEMBER putting it down next to the register, just as I DISTINCTLY REMEMBER putting it in my breast pocket before walking to work.  I asked Chiy and Lin and Brian and Matius and everybody if they'd seen it, and nobody had.  It was a frikin mystery.  My phone charger had spontaneously evaporated.

That night I came home and looked for it in the usual places... my computer desk, on the arcade cab, on the dresser, plugged into the wall... but I didn't find it.  I went to work yesterday and looked some more, and yup, you guessed it.  It still wasn't there.  Every now and then Chiy would ask me, 'You find your charger?  Why it not there if you put it there?  If you put it there, it should be there!'  Yeah, Chiy, I agree 100%.  You're absolutely right.  I've never heard more irrefutable logic.  It should definitely be there if I put it there, and I believed whole-heartedly that I had, in fact, put it there.  I finally gave up and resigned myself to getting used to life minus phone charger for a while, and decided to just order another one.  And although the odds are a godzillian to one, it is scientifically and statistically possible that my phone charger had simply undergone spontaneous existence failure.

So, here I am, sitting at my laptop, and just before I started writing this, about 15 minutes ago, I was checking to see if my Wacom was plugged in so I could photoshop this comic I'm working on, and FUCK ME if my phone charger wasn't RIGHT THERE.  Right where I'd looked yesterday!  Sitting there, in plain view, an inch from my mouse.  The same mouse I'd been using last night to cavort all over the internet. 

This is the first time my brain has invented a memory of me seeing something that wasn't there, as opposed to vice versa.  What's next?  Will I be in the cooler, ordering beer, and completely miss the six foot stack of Miller Lite 12 packs and order 20 more, thinking that we're out?  Or will I see a stack of Budweiser 18 packs that isn't there, decide that we have enough, and then stare like a drooling retard at the empty spot in the cooler when we run out two days later ?  Or will I finally just frolic off to La-La-Land with Julie when she comes to pick me up in the Mothership?

I think I might be going slightly mad.  Yes, I'm going slightly mad.  It finally happened, I'm slightly mad.  Oh dear! 

And there you have it.

I'm a genius

I've discovered a cure for depression!  Write limericks about it until the situation just seems absurd. 

Limericks about whatnot and somethingoranother.

One of these days I'll get around to just being over this already, and I'll move on to a brand new something or another that will make me crazy or miserable or deliriously happy or scared shitless.  Always something new to look forward to!  Ain't life awesome?


There once was a girl named Leah
With whom I just wanted to be-ah
Although it's a year
Since she said 'goodbye, dear'
I'm still wishing that she was with me-ah.


When he and she both became friends,
There was one thing which I didn't ken...
That once he unfurled
His designs on my girl,
She'd be gone just like dust in the wind.


Those limericks are both full of shit
They're full of self pity, not wit
'Cause the times that were good
Are the things that I should
Keep inside me and never forget.


In Soviet Russia we rhyme
About love, which undone, becomes crime
Such doggerel is rough,
For in battle is tough
To dodge bullets and scrawl at same time.


In Soviet Russia we say,
'You don't break heart, heart breaks you, okay?'
If is too hard to take,
Well, then go jump in lake.
What?  Is not even frozen today!

...and the one I wrote for her

There once was a girl named Julie
Who gave not a shit 'bout the rule-ie(s)
She gave us the slip
When the great mothership
Picked her up because she was so coolie.

She's always talking about being picked up by the mothership, for anyone who's reading this.  And I figure some people might be, because in my stats, it shows that people from around the world type strings into Google like 'photomasks' and are presented with my 'Science of Fart Eating' blog.

In response to grandmothers limerick

An awesome limerick that Julie wrote for me.

"There once was a man named Elias (that's you)
Whose goal was to be good and pious.
He's not always perfect, but there's a good verdict,
Cuz Jesus loves him without bias. ♥

Oh, and...

Fever dream

I saw boobs today. She was wearing a really loose shirt that was only buttoned halfway, and she put her two bottles of wine that she just bought on the floor and just fiddled with the bags for about a minute, with her boobs just hanging out right there in plain view. I think she wanted me to see them. It got ridiculous, how long she was leaning over, just fiddling with those plastic bags. At first I was shocked, and then I thought it was hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing after she left. Brittney asked me what was so funny, and I said, "I just saw that girls boobs plain as day."

I just laughed and laughed for about 10 minutes after that, and got all kinds of weird stares and nervous smiles from customers.

I'm sick. I started coughing halfway through the shift, and got chills, and I'm running a fever again. I felt kind of delirious all day after that. Maybe that's why I thought it was so funny, the blatant boobage that was bestowed upon me today.

"Here, cute mustachioed 7-Eleven guy, a magnificent display to brighten your day. I have intentionally worn a shirt 4 sizes too big with the top half unbuttoned. Gaze upon my splendiferous fleshy orbs as I fiddle inconsequentially for an entire minute with this wine that I deliberately put on the floor. It is a gift that I offer you, may you revel in the memory with hearty guffaws." Yes, that's exactly what she said, I'm pretty sure.

My schedule for tomorrow

10:40 - Bug out to it
2:06 - Arrive at work
4:13 - Put googly eyes on stuff
7:59 - Bite cuticles
10:01 - Refer to third shift as turd shift for being late
11:30 - Stare at the space just above my computer screen
4:23 - Watch Bulblubulbous turn the sad blue sausages in cartoonland