So: going to the Oscars. Going alone. It’s awesome that I’m going but it fucking sucks that I’m going alone. At first, I was pissed that, you know, if I could have had a date, I would have been able to pull some incredibly high caliber of ass. But then I would have had to keep the party going, get us into Vanity Fair, or Madonna’s house, or whateverthefuck. Now I can just come home. But still– this crazy spectacle, tons of famous people… I mean, I’m glad I get to see it, but it will suck to have no one to lean over next to and whisper to. Maybe I’ll sit next to Hailee Steinfeld’s mom or something. Some woman from Kansas who doesn’t know anybody there either.
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Archive | 2012
Diary 2/27/11: Going to the Oscars
10 MayNational Novel Writing Month
9 MayIt was National Novel Writing Month in November. I sat down and tried to write a novel for about three minutes. Here’s what I came up with:
BOOM! A huge explosion. This is the first thing that happens in my National Novel Writing Month novel. A gigantic explosion. Massive wall of radioactive fire eating up the whole sky; trees instantly incinerated. Seagulls knocked out of air currents and turned to ash. Rocks melted to glass. Buildings crushed, like toys, in a toy crushing machine. Crushed like toys during National Toy Crushing Month. Cars, also like toys. Why is it always “like toys,” as though we crush our toys any more than we crush our normal-size possessions. Toys are valuable. Specifically to children, who are the people who own toys– nothing is more valuable than toys. But anyway, these things are crushed like toys. Like toys being crushed by a toy nuclear blast, except– this is not a toy.
Oceans evaporated. The whole world now feels like a small unventilated bathroom after a long shower. Sharks withering on the beach– once majestic, the king of the sea. But who’s the king now? No one. No one, you stupid fucking shark. Continue reading
Diary: The Inner Life of the Exterminator Spraying Down My Storage Unit
7 MayHad to move my shit out of the storage unit this morning because there’s an exterminator spraying it down.
To be an exterminator, you must know about the creatures you exterminate. You must study wasps, termites, carpenter ants, rats, etc.
You have to be an expert. Because when you go to spread termite poison you have to know that the termite colony will have placed an egg chamber at a certain spot relative to a wall, a gestation chamber here, a feeding chamber there. You have to know almost like E. O. Wilson knew the elegantly elaborate social gradations in termite society; the baroque architecture bored out of 2 x 4’s by these blind and delicate engineers. How can you not see some poetry in it? How, when you learn about ant societies; how like our own they are, but also how exotically alien– how can your soul not be somewhat captivated by these marvels of creation? Continue reading
The Difference
5 MayBetween men’s and women’s sex fantasies is this:
If the cheerful 19 year old girl who delivers mail to my office came up to me one afternoon when no one else was around, and said “hey– you want to duck in the supply closet and fuck?” It would be the best day of my life.
If you were sweeping out your stern patrician father’s horse barn in 1895, and a mysterious stranger came in out of a rainstorm, possibly masked, and despite your chaste protestations he brutally ravaged you as the steely eyes of the stallions looked on, it would be the worst day of your life.
How to Quit Drinking and Smoking
5 MayAnyway. I did not drink to excess last night. And you know… I feel OK. I feel better than usual. I also only smoked two cigarettes yesterday. These are longtime goals of mine– do not drink to excess every god damn motherfucking night, and, as a corollary, do not, having drunk to excess, stand out on the porch and take a couple drags off a fresh cigarette and then put it out, then go back in the house and take a shot, look at shit on wikipedia, then, fifteen minutes later, go back out and relight and take another couple drags off the cigarette until the thing is gone, and you have then smoked four cigarettes that day. And drunk six tall brandies. And you wake up with a fog in your sinuses, you know… some hissing behind your forehead, sour phlegm in your mouth, and a cough that feels like it can’t quite reach the very bottom of your lungs where a couple oysterlike lumps of mucous are sitting in a soup of ashes and tar.
So today is not one of those days. And I feel somewhat better. The thing is, merely feeling a notch or two physically better does not even begin to address the larger problems in your life. The day to day, just– suck. The removal of this small negative does not quite get you to zero. And that’s all life is, a struggle to get to zero.
The End of the World
4 MayI keep thinking about nuclear disaster. Or some other apocalyptic thing. Tsunami, mega-earthquake, plague– something. As long as you made it through, as long as you were not burned by radiation or given giant infectious pustules– as long as you made it through, and weren’t somehow trapped caring for the millions of others who did have radiation burns and giant pustules– the end of the world world be fucking great.
And this is why there are so many movies about it, books about it– it’s not out of fear. It’s out of wish fulfillment. Just like Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins and etc . etc. etc.–aren’t orphans in their stories because of fear of losing your parents, but because kids wish their parents were dead. That the bumbling, irritating schlumps constantly pestering you with questions that are like cigarette burns on the back of your neck– they wish these people had never existed for them, and that their real mommy were a princess who owned a huge magical castle that you could live in, and would have plenty of space to keep the two of you apart.
But anyway, if the world ended, it would be great. Or at least, if civilization ended. Loot the grocery store for a bunch of food and go up to the mountains and camp. Shoot a deer once in a while. Nice quiet nights by the fire. Find a young woman of breeding age who needs you for protection and couldn’t leave you or she would die. Take over some abandoned cabin and raise a modest amount of livestock and just rawdog her for the rest of your life. Continue reading
Salad
3 MayI was eating salads every day at the height of my male anorexia. I thought that salads were this kind of calorie-free bulk. On the back of the monster lawn-and-leaf-bag-sized baby greens package it says that one serving has fifteen calories and there are only five servings per bag. With things like that they inflate the serving size so it looks like you get more vitamin A and shit; not like chips where a vending machine bag of Doritos has enough servings to last a family for a year.
So I was eating big salads, but I stopped losing weight. And this is because I was putting two tablespoons of dressing on there— a reasonable amount— but two tablespoons of dressing has as many calories as a Hershey bar. And I was putting two cubic inches of chopped cheddar cheese on there— and two cubic inches of chopped cheddar cheese has as many calories as a Krispy Kreme doughnut. It was like a goddamn horror movie for me when I finally read the calorie counts on the various condiments and trimmings in my fridge. A tiny amount of food would always turn out to have this hellaciously huge amount of calories—like, if you burned a chunk of cheese it should heat your house for the whole winter. It should change the fucking climate.
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New Book
delicioustacos 