The Crosswalk

I just had the funniest idea.

Imagine somebody waiting patiently, just oh so very patiently, for the crosswalk signal to turn white, or green or whatever color they use on your planet, so that they can cross the street.

Then, when it finally turns the right color and you're allowed to cross, wouldn't it be hilarious if you had to make this big show and prostate before the crosswalk light after you crossed, and give all kinds of thanks to it, and even have to offer a sacrifice or something? Like, your pinkie knuckle, or something else that's bloody? Or else you get a ticket? Or you get run over next time?

Wouldn't that be hilarious?

I thought it would be anyway, for a minute or two.

Wouldn't that be funny though?

Ow

What it feels like the next day, after shaking hands with a moving vehicle:

Like you got put through an ass kicking machine.

A strange day today.

Today was a strange day. Pretty strange. And I only just realized how strange about two-and-a-half minutes ago.

This morning my stomach hurt pretty bad. I thought that was going to be a precursor to the quality of my day, but it turned out to be just a normal, average day, despite the tummy ache. Nothing particularly good or bad was obvious, until I got hit by a car. That part sucked pretty good.

It was a young girl driving, and after I was ok, I really let her have it with the screaming. She hardly reacted at all. I feel bad about it now. You may think that somebody just doesn't give a flip because they don't react at all about a thing, but it's most likely that they're just overwhelmed. I think that poor girl was hurt worse than I was about the whole hitting me with the car thing.

Boy, did I ever scream and cuss and just let it go at that girl. It hurt, yeah. Getting knocked flat onto your ass by a car, even a slow moving 10 mph one, sucks!  But hell... here I am, pretty sore, a little bit bumped and bruised, but otherwise okay and with no broken bones or blood or anything. And every now and again today I'll think about that girl, and her Blank Stare, and how she just stood there. Her standing there after she stopped and got out of her car. How she was after she had gotten out of the car. She didn't apologize or anything. She just said, "I didn't see you." and "I didn't mean to."

Somehow I think she came out worse for wear from the whole situation. I so wish I hadn't screamed at her.

Then, about fifteen minutes ago, I was walking home from a walk, and I was just about to climb the steps up to my abodingness when I saw a sharp sparkling at the foot of the stairs. I almost said F it and walked right by it and ignored it, because at first it just looked like a piece of broken glass. Then I decided to turn around and get a closer look, and I bent down and picked it up, and it's an earring. A nice, sparkly one. One that just goes in with a fastener. It doesn't really matter what it's made out of, it was made for my ear, and that's what made me happy right then, just about a few minutes ago.

Then a real miracle occurred! I've been looking for a wire coat hanger for the past month, and you'll never know how rare a wire coat hanger is until you don't have one and you really really need one. They just aren't to be found, anywhere, ever! Just  the plastic ones, and I need a wire one. I just do, ok? I need a wire one. You can shape wire coat hangers into things. Like, 3D wireframes of things.

What happened was, only about ten seconds after I had found that sparkly earring, I found a wire coat hanger at the top of the stairs.

It was a weird day today. Can you see that now? How you would probably think that it was a weird day too, if you had experienced it?

Don't say nothing, just think about it.

Drama

Just now, as I was walking around inside of the weird outside small hours, I was thinking about the word drama, and wondering what it really means.

There's storytelling drama. Drama, as a description of a happening, like in a movie. It's a genre of storytelling. That's usually what most people think of as drama, I think. The story.

That's not what I'm interested in though. I'm not interested in the definition of drama which pertains mostly to made up, dramatic situations, for the purpose of entertainment.

What I'm wondering about is real drama, not fake drama. I'm assuming that the whole idea, or the essence of drama was originally inspired by real things and real situations that really happened, to real people... exciting and/or emotional things must have happened, Once Upon a Time, to somebody, or to some people. Whoever those things happened to remembered those things as having happened, and the definition of real drama, followed by drama as a storytelling device, came out of the memories of those happenings.

What this is getting down to, or what I'm getting down to, is the recognition of drama as a real thing, fundamentally, and not just solely a method of storytelling. And since that's the case, then people must experience drama as a matter of course fairly regularly, or else no one would be able to relate to the idea of drama as entertainment. That's why drama is entertaining, right? Because we relate to it, right?

So what the heck is drama anyway, and is it really necessary? Can life be described without drama?

Essentially, what I'm asking is this:

Is it possible for a life to be lived and experienced without any trace of drama inside of it, whatsoever? Is it possible for drama to not even exist as a concept? Or is it fundamental to the experience of being alive?

I don't know. Maybe under extremely controlled conditions, it could be expunged? Would a person need to invent drama if everything they ever experienced was static, unchanging and reliable? If a person were only ever exposed from birth, and ever onward confined, to an environment consisting of the utmost stability, would that person need to go insane for the sole purpose of inventing drama so that they could experience it?

Is drama an inherently human condition, or is it an indulgence?

Simply put, I guess, in essence...

Will a person naturally die of boredom? I guess that's actually what I'm saying here, or what I'm asking. Whatever.

Who cares? Wow. I just experienced the drama of nobody giving a shit about any of this crap that I constantly post. Nobody wants to talk about this shit.

Wow!

Smeeping, smeading, thandoking and stompoking.

About six or eight months ago I was loafing around outside the store with a broom in my hand and smoking a cigarette. I also had the rug for the front door draped over the fence out there at the edge of the parking lot because I was about to give it a thorough whomping on with the broom, so as to beat the shit - I mean, the dirt - out of it. It's not really a bad rug, per se; it just deserves a severe beating every now and then. Such is the life of a doormat.

I wasn't quite ready to commence the beating of the rug though, as there are other things that take precedence. Like smeeping (smoking and sweeping), for instance. Smeeping always comes before other outside-at-work activities, like emptying the trash and the beating of the rug. However, smeading (smoking and reading) trumps everything, and that's what I was doing right at that moment. Smeading, and getting ready to smeep the parking lot before I stompoked (standing, whomping and smoking) the doormat.

As I was thandoking (thinking, standing and smoking) about the severity of which that rug was about to get whomped on with the broom (a violent stompoking, that is), this girl rode up on a skateboard and stopped next to the fence where I was smeading, thandoking and stompoking, and started talking to me.

'Hey!'
Said she.

'Hey.'
Said I.

'Don't you ever get to go home?'

'Nope, never. They sentenced me to here as punishment for something from my past life. Reincarnated as a rug beater for a sin that I don't even remember doing.'

'Wow. So this is your penance, to beat this rug with a broom for all eternity?'

'Yeah, looks that way. Six years down, only infinity to go... at least I'm not the rug though, right?'

'And at least you're not the broom, too.'

'Hmmm... yeah.'

'Yeah...'
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'So, which would be worse, getting reincarnated as the rug or as the broom? Or the rug beater?'

'Well, wait a second. Not the rug beater, because you're the one who gets to punish the rug and the broom.'

'Huh... yeah, I guess that'd be right. What kind of shenanigans would you had to have pulled to get reincarnated as the rug though, I wonder?'

'Probably crapping on the rug would get you turned into the rug.'

'Like dog crap?'

'Yeah. Dogs that crap on the rug come back as rugs. But not just dogs though, pretty much anything that shits on the carpet will get the rug treatment.'

'So you're saying... what you mean is, that if I had shat upon this rug just now, that I'd be reincarnated as a door mat?

'Yup.'

'Dang. Wow, that's good to know. Thanks!'

'No problem.'

'Because right before you rode up, I was thinking about taking a squat on this very rug, just for shits and giggles.'

'Really? Well, then it's a good thing that I got here when I did, because you just slipped...'

'... slipped through the cruel fingers of fate. I know, right?'
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'What about the broom, then?'
Said I.

'Kitty litter that's clumped up with cat piss and kittyshit that's been kicked everywhere, just all over the floor and the adjoining rug and the clothes hamper - even on the bed, because you'd have to use a broom on it, and how could a broom possibly enjoy that? So, yeah. The broom is reserved solely for cats. Cats get the broom, and nobody else. Just cats... those stuck up, ungrateful little free-loading shits.'
Said she.

'I suppose I'm in aggreeance for the most part... but an infinitesimally tiny yet significant portion of kiki-meows are actually friendly and not assholes. I actually like those kitties.'

'Well, I've never met one.'

'So the hierarchy would go like this, from top to bottom - rug beater, broom, rug, kitty litter stuck all up in a broom, dog shit on a rug...? No, wait. There's the customer, who would have to be one rank higher up than the rug beater.'

'Why?'

'Because the customer is there to torment the rug beater.'

'Ha! The customer gets reincarnated as a rug beater!'

'Uh...yeah.'

'Whatsa matter?'
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'Oooooooooh...'
Said she.

'Yeah. Well, that answers THAT question, at least.'
Said I.

'What question?'

'What is the Matrix.'

'What is the matrix?'

'Are you asking me what the Matrix is, or are you repeating what I said just to make sure you heard it right?'

'Uh... both, I guess.'

'Ok. First, yeah, that's what I said. And to answer your question: The Matrix is a virtual representation of hell, into which your consciousness is uploaded at the exact instant of your corporeal death, where it will experience the rest of eternity doing penance for mortal sins.'

'DAYUUUUM! That SUCKS!!!'

'An eternity of fun.'
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'What's your name?'

'Ash.'

'Really? Cool name!'

And so it proceeded. She said she liked my long hair, and I asked her if she goes to UNT and if she rides her skateboard everywhere. She doesn't go to UNT, but she does ride her skateboard everywhere, and I responded with reciprocal information, but by walking everywhere as opposed to riding. Back and forth it went like that, for a little while.

Then she noticed my fingernails.

'Hey, cool. I like your nails.'

'Oh! Thanks. See, what happened was, way back in the 20th century I lived in Austin with a roommate. Becky was her name way back in the olden days of yore, but she goes by Rebecca now. I like Becky better. Anywho, one day Becky and I were sitting on the couch in the living room, just chillin'. I think I was reading or playing a video game or something, and Becky was painting her fingernails. The next thing I knew, Becky had ahold of my left hand and was painting the thumbnail with blue fingernail polish. I was so stunned that I just sat there, slack jawed and drooling, watching as it happened. After I'd recovered my wits, I decided that I kinda liked having my thumbnail painted, so I started doing that to all of my nails. Black though, not blue.'

'My nails are painted blue, but it's chipping and falling off, as you can see. And I only just painted them day before yesterday.'

'I use this stuff called miracle gel or something. It's a clear coat that goes on over the black, and it lasts for a couple of weeks.'

'Gel what? Gel? Miracle gel? What's the brand name?'

'That's it, I think. Gel is printed on the bottle so I assumed that was the brand.'

'I should get some of that.'

'Oh, but it's stupid expensive. About $8 a bottle. And that's two bottles - the color one and the clear coat. It makes it stay on longer though.'

'Holy cripes on a crutch!'

'Yeah, me too... I can't believe I just gave nail polish advice to a chick.'

Long story short, guess what happened several months ago? I actually gave fingernail polish advice to a chick.

Superman is stupid.

The other day I was watching Man of Steel, and getting seriously pissed off about the whole being able to fly on Earth thing, but needing this four-winged bugblatter beast to fly on Krypton.

WHY?

According to Jor-El, it's because Kryptonian cells can drink up yellow radiation like it's a magic potion or something - which is just flat out fairy tale bullshit - but also because the Earth's atmosphere is more nourishing. What the...?

Yo, Jor. Premier scientist of Krypton and all Kryptonians. Food is nourishing. Not air. FOOD.

Ok, you're not from around here, and your crappy telescopes only show the Earth as a shiny, gray ball of mud. I get it. You don't have a lot work with, so here's some bona-fide info about planet Earth, from an actual Earth man.

Earth air does two things. It oxygenates the blood, and it keeps it from boiling. That's it. There is no nourishment in air. That's what food is for. Food, Air. Food, Air. Two separate things. One provides nourishment, the other provides oxygen. This is common knowledge on Earth. Don't you guys have food and air on Krypton? Come on, man. You're supposed to be a scientist.

There is one more reason that Jor-El gives, that at least isn't completely retarded, which could actually maybe kinda sorta explain the flying thing. It has to do with the Earth having weaker gravity than Krypton. Here's the theory.  In order to withstand the crushing gravity of Krypton, Kryptonians had to evolve anti-gravity organs, and on Earth, those anti-gravity organs don't have to fight against the crushing gravity of Krypton, so you can just use 'em to fly around.

Ok, that's it. Just had to get that off my chest.

I'm not a weirdo.

I just realized something. You see, my mom called me weird. In a loving way though. The lovingliest of ways, don't get me wrong. When my mom says it, it's the same thing as saying that I'm imminently lovable.

But, it also made me realize this right here, what I'm about to say. Here it is.

I am weird. I am weird inside of weird, pounding on the weird, trying desperately to escape the weirdness. But, there's no escape from the Weird. None. It's permanent.

I was a weird newborn, I was a weird toddler, I was a weird little boy, I was a weird prepubescent child, I was a weird teenager, I was a weird young man, I was a weird thirty-something, and now I'm a weird 40ish is the new 20ish. I'll be a weird old fart, I'll be weird on my deathbed, my corpse will be weird, and my everlasting essence will be even weirder.

Weird. I love that word. I don't really like the word 'weirdo', though. I dunno why, it's just one more letter, and an extra syllable. Maybe it's because of that Radiohead song...

I'm a creep, I'm a weirdooooo....

Yeah, that's it.