Overthunk

Pants. Pants and a sock. Pants that didn't appear to be poop-soiled. Pants that didn't even appear to be old or much worn. Not hobo pants. Just black jean pants. Right smack in downtown Dallas , not a side street or culvert. Where people perambulate, not where they sleep on benches or burn barrel fires. Non-hobo pants, near a cathedral, seen shortly after Chinese New Year. Crumpled waist down, as if Clark Kent had lost weight, making their fit too loose, and they slipped free of his waist as he raised his arms to the sky, and Super-flew into the blue, a freak gale or greedy grackle snatching a souvenir sock from one foot.

Yep, that's a tiny cellphone-captured moment of a schoolbus sitting in the parking lot of a liquor store on a rainy afternoon about a month ago. The name of the package store in question is Centennial Fine Wines and Spirits (which you can read if ya squint hard enough at it), on Central Expressway, Dallas, Texas. (In the same liquor store where I once met that Sam Elliot lookalike guy, as a matter of fact.) (But I don't frequent it that often, honest.) (No, really.) The name of the district who operates the school bus had been obscured with black paint.

Didja ever... ...get fired after one day of being a shitty telemarketer by a manager with B.O.? ...hide all the knives in the house so you wouldn't be killed in the night by someone you were sitting for? ...rend your own flesh asunder by gnawing? ...wrestle a hulking autistic girl to keep her from banging her head repeatedly on the wall? ...somersault gently from a crushed hulk of a vehicle into the warm, summer Arkansas grass? ...walk home, stoned and alone? ...get a whole barful of drunk college kids rocking out to Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me," then kiss a stranger upon leaving the stage? ...tramp through a Louisiana cornfield where bits of hay eerily whirled high into the air and where bears had recently been seen? ...spend most of an autumn day reading in an old horse trailer? ...listen to a schizophrenic grandma argue with people you can't see? ...start a paper cup fight of epic proportions at a now-defunct outdoor music festival? ...confiscate $600....

This man crafts literary crack. This is John Updike. He writes books that I cannot put down. They cause me to neglect the myriad obligations of life. I simply can't be arsed. I'm reading. I must finish the next part (cruelly he doesn't write in chapters much, just puts three-dot divisional markings between sections). Right now I'm battling my addiction to his Rabbit series. It's not polite. It's not politically correct. It's chock full of sex. It's dated (published in the 60's and 70's). It makes me laugh, cry, and agape with wonder at the power of its images. Still, like all junkies, I think you should try it. If you have any appreciation at all for how difficult writing is, it will make you bow before it. You might even see God in some of its shadowed corners. But I warn you: you will have to apologize to people for the things you did not do.

Don't get me wrong. Mostly I exist in a fog where exhaustion, anxiety, cynicism or paranoia spin a wheel to see who's watch it is, b ut sometimes... I drift into this cozy, mellow headspace where I am really present, living in the moment, and just revel in the beauty of life as it is right then, some kinda hippie-ass universal warmth lighting and radiating through my being. It's happened a couple of times on sunny days driving home with the windows open, but it also happened today while eating Hamburger Helper cheeseburger macaroni -- a reverence and appreciation for what is, a genuine humility. No Xanax, no wine, no cannabis. Just the Symphony of it all or somethin'. ---------------------------- "Just let your love flow." - The Bellamy Brothers

Listen to a marginally interesting tale of gas station cooperation!

(Or, Why I Should've Had a Blog in 2002) And NOW! FORGOTTEN CRAP FICTION THEATRE PRESENTS: Couch The notice came in the mail about 24 days after it first began sitting on the curb. It was once my Grandma’s couch. Hell, people who weren’t even alive anymore had spent nights nestled among its vaguely comfortable splattering of brown flora. Eventually it had made its way to my house, after the dividing up of the stuff. I needed a couch, and it had served well. But then, a jobless person had come to visit. For weeks and weeks. A fellow who, while he was likable enough, was a world-class sofa spud. And through a steady diet of time-devouring video games and TV westerns, his stationary ass had dented the poor old thing beyond hope or repair. Thus, it was kicked to the proverbial curb. One afternoon, my friend and I were nearly to the car when a couple of power walking neighbors happened by. “You know, you can call for pickup on bulk trash,” they told her. “Yeah, Thursdays before 5:00 p...

It is a fate that one day befalls us all. Water in the bowl, rising like a tide in tandem with the alarm and dread in our hearts and the black realization: it's going to overflow. In the crazed scramble that replays itself in sluggish motion now in my mind, I first went for this lucite-handled excuse for a tool: The Cutesy Blue Plunger. You may affirm that it matches my shower curtain, but nary has it cleared a clog. In a panic, I leapt for Bucket and Bailer. They remained my true friends throughout the ordeal, keeping pisswater from lapping at the soles of my feet. Over and over I went into the breach (seriously, like 110 times) with this trusty, borrowed black steed until my palm was bruised. Yet still, there was battle to be fought. In mounting desperation, I fled to the nearby fortress of Wal-Mart, where I amassed a new arsenal. The Master Plunger sucked up a gallon of water within its accordioned innards, and made impressive burbling sounds which inspired a fleeting optimism. ...

It's not often one gets the opportunity to see a beating taking place outside a chain grocery store. B ut a few weeks past, before the near death experience that is driving in Plano, Texas, a compadre and I witnessed just that. As we were walking up to buy some shells and cheese or red delicious apples or the like, violence was ensuing. Down on the concrete parking lot, 3 or 4 grown white men chased, apprehended, and then held down a black teenage boy. We stood and watched for a moment, stunned. "They're gonna get themselves sued," I said. Some bystanders told us he'd been shoplifting, and we learned MUCH later, had pushed down a female employee or customer while trying to escape from the store, hence the chase. Quickly a division sprang up between my friend and I. She ran to assist the kid, and got right in the middle of it, telling the red-shirted store manager what for. I stood back, not wanting to get involved with a kid who, I thought, was making a stupid mis...

That's what my class of 8 year old Junior Thugs suggested I do with the little lying carwreckin' beotch. It's really tempting to pass off her name and address with a request that their older brothers hit that crib if they need something to steal. But I shan't. I'm just gonna pretend My Name Is Earl, have faith in karmic debt, and try not to feel just bitter and a-fucked about the whole mess. Like I said, it could have been lots worse. And I gotta keep my naturally half-empty brain turned towards the full part of this glass.

Someday, perhaps even before I die, or in 2036, auto-pilot for cars will be invented. Maybe then, I'll stop hitting people. It's not 2036 yet, though, and I'm still crunchin' metal. Over the course of my twenty years behind the wheel, I have sprinkled the byways of the greater Dallas area with glittering debris from collisions ranging from tiny to major, somewhere around a dozen times. Once, I fell asleep in the bank line and my foot slipped off the brake. I put a tiny, quarter inch crescent moon hole in a Lexus bumper. The guy reported it. Once, I slid down a wet hill in the rain into the back of a Ford F150. I had a Honda Civic. It was totaled. After that one, I was driving my rental car (which I nicknamed "La Cucaracha" because it was cockroach brown) down the freeway. Someone REAR ENDED THE RENTAL. At least that time it wasn't my fault. This time, however, according to the Necessary Evil Insurance Company, it was. See, I happened to be pulling out of a...

Lately, carrion vulture shadows from 17 years ago have been circling. Namely, when I was a dumbass college kid, I racked up some debt on some credit cards that I knew nothing about having and which were passed out like candy to young fools like me. Now, though, I understand, and I religiously pay everything on time and in full. Since then, I've bought a house, several cars, and have some brand new and better cards in my wallet now. I know my credit score, and it beats most people's. None of this is still on my credit report, which, to me, means nobody cares anymore except a few jackals looking for long-dead meat to sustain them. Thus, I'm not particularly motivated to take care of this, and even if I did, the original people I owed have long since written off my pittances on their 1991 federal taxes. My logic is, if I pay, I'm just giving money to people who aren't the people I wronged. Therefore, why do it? For awhile after I moved, I was in an information hidey ho...

or, not in Dutch, Five Odd Habits. Julie tagged me to list five odd habits I have. This is my FIRST TAG EVER. I am so proud. So here I go: 1. I usually cut my fingernails and toenails outside on my patio, because I think nail clippings are gross. 2. At restaurants, when I drink iced tea, I put Equal into my unsweetened tea, then fold the packets lengthwise, inserting them (and their ripped off tops) one into another into another like those nesting Russian dolls until they are all neatly in one long foldy piece. Then I roll the combined packets into a spiral shape and usually put it aside until I can put it into a used dish that will then be taken away. If I get a straw, I twist and twist the wrapper into a tight little twisty rope, which I then continue twisting until it twists around itself tighter and tighter. Sometimes, I tie it into knots repeatedly until I cannot tie anymore. If I don't like how the table is arranged, or if the spiral bound drink/dessert menu annoys me, I...

1. Joss Whedon 2. Marilyn Manson 3. J.D. Salinger Hack who most assuredly did not hit the big time: me.

She didn't mean New Wave MTV vests fashioned from violently vulcanized inner tubes. She meant "dancing with myself." A few weeks back, she mailordered some new "dancing shoes,"strumming shaky signals of ones and zeroes across a sticky web. She didn't like going to the "dancing shoe store," for she had abominable snowwoman feet. For days, she feared the discovery of the all too pretty "dancing shoes," for they would have caused alarm and disarray in polite company. There were three "pairs," a gluttonous number, one glass, one rubber, one plastic. Still, in her head she visualized all the ways, the steps, the positions, the pirouettes. Finally, the day arrived. Propped against the doorframe lay the box: intact. Inside she took the things, unable to wait any longer. Box torn asunder, ripped passionately apart, she put the "shoes" to their proper use. It had been too long since she danced this way. And it was good. Wuh uh ...

Firstly, if you like robot/love related webcomics, go here: http://dieselsweeties.com/ A caveat tho: Prepare to burn up a whole bunch of life-hours. There are hundreds of strips, and WAY cool shirts too. Oh yeah, the 12 minutes! The guy who makes diesel sweeties is rstevens . He has a livejournal . On November 4, he put a link to this 12 minute brain fuddling song?, called Intro-Introspection. If you want it, find it here . It's 12 minutes of song intros, mashed up together. It might make you insane. I'm on the 2nd listen and I can't decide if I want to hear it again or throw up. It's unnatural. It's kissing Pitt, Affleck, Ford, Damon, Clooney, Kravitz, Mortensen, McGregor, Ledger, Banderas, Bloom, and Wilson, and then walking away. I could go on, but that would just delay you a little more from indulging your morbid curiosity, like I did. If it gets too intense, just plug your ears and after 12 minutes, it will go away.

Isn't the finest art scrawled on a found index card in a frustrated moment of clothing failure?

The other day in math class, my cadre of padawans and I had a problem in which we had to figure out how many minutes old we were. They, being 8 or 9 years old, fell somewhere between 4 and 4.7 million minutes and change. I, however, have racked up 18,396,000 or so. 6,132,000 have been spent asleep (give or take). I've spent 12,264,000 or more listening to music. In the past decade and a half, I've probably spent 2 million or so online. I've probably spent at least 873,000 in a directly foul or negative mood, sometimes related to whatever happened online. A year is 525,600 minutes. In another 18 million minutes, give or take, this mounting pile of papery slices of time is going to go up in one big bonfire. Chris Martin tells me "everything's not lost" though. ------------------------------------------ "Can't stop the spirits when they need you / This life is more than just a read-through" -- Flea, Kiedis and Co.

is that while you're laboring over Crunchy Sweet Mixed Nuts, you tend to want to taste test them. A LOT. Non-Food Ingredients for Christmas baking: Rockin' CD (and player, as you can see) One? glass egg nog (only 420 calories each!) Hardcore self-discipline A large-print sign taped in a highly visible place that reads: IF YOU EAT ALL THE GIFTS, YOU'LL HAVE TO SHOP AGAIN. If you're feeling classy, a chilled glass of pinot grigio. If it's further from payday, maybe a shot or 3 of the pumpkin schnapps left over from Halloween last year. Hope all y'all's gifting is going merrily!