it is our only consolation
I DON'T WANT TO MAKE TRANSISTIONS TONIGHT, EVEN IN MY USUAL SKETCHY STYLE, SO FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELT BABY
Isn't it astounding how you can be in a good, or at least non-suicidal, mood and something can just ruin it for you? Everything kind of converged at once this afternoon: stupid phone calls, e-mail from a friend with whom I have nothing in common anymore but we still put on this sad little show of keeping in contact, a shoelace breaking. A request that I estimate a budget for a project that hasn't even begun to begin yet. (It is such a pointless exercise that I am tempted to ask for $1.9 million in “entertainment” and itemize that as “hookers, quarters for the Galaga machine, and miscellaneous snacks.”) The persistent rumor that Tuman's Alcohol Abuse Center has been sold to the people who are responsible for many glitzy faker martini bars in Chicago. (Said rumor is 100% unconfirmable on the Web as yet.) I have to say honestly that I wouldn't miss Tuman's that much in my actual day-to-day drinking, but I would miss the IDEA of Tuman's very much. (It's a similar situation with the friend, actually. I can go for weeks without thinking of him but then we have a sad awkward e-mail exchange or meet for sad awkward drinks after work and I get all sad [and awkward] about what used to be.) Nostalgia is such an insidious emotion.
I kind of feel sorry for Tyrone. Can you imagine the kind of adrenaline high the would-be carjacking victims were on, after finally getting to use their judo skills against an actual attacker? I bet they stayed up all night sending e-mails about it.
I've already decided that my (hypothetical) kid will learn some sort of martial art. No, not because it teaches discipline and is good for self-defense, although I suppose those are pretty good reasons. My reasons, like those of any good (hypothetical) parent, are purely selfish: it's considered a good-parent thing to do to get your kid involved with some sort of physical activity, but I would surely die if I were forced to watch some interminable little-kid soccer game once a week (god, soccer lasts long enough with professionals, much less with 8-year-olds) or, even worse, baseball. I don't like baseball, it makes no sense to me and there aren't enough injuries. (Groin pulls don't count.) So the solution? Karate, judo, something like that. It's an individual sport, so even if your kid is not a joiner he/she can do okay. And there is a nice air-conditioned exhibition maybe once a month at the most, so you can put in a good-parent appearance without having to suffer in the sun for three hours. (Hypothetical) problem solved. Wasn't that easy?
I find all the upcoming hoopla about the September 11 anniversary just nauseating. Mostly because it seems so self-serving on most people's parts, to “share their memories” and first-person accounts. If anything, shouldn't you feel that you barely have a RIGHT to share your first-person account? Other people lost family members. Other people didn't sleep for days as they tried to dig for survivors. Other people were grateful and excited when they found a torso. Other people ran up the stairs of a burning building. You are sitting around using your thesaurus to come up with more emotional hyperbole, perhaps even (god forbid) in the form of painfully bad rally-around-the-flag poetry. My office building even promised to have extra counselors working the employee counseling hotline on the anniversary itself. What, we are going to have posttraumatic stress disorder as we recall watching CNN on that day? I'm sorry to not be a handholding candlelighting “patriot,” but if I had lost family or friends at the WTC and someone who had not tried to share his “personal 9/11 story” with me, I think I'd have to punch him in the mouth.
Maybe I'm not as grown up as I thought, because the more I think about the e-mails I received from one Justin Michael Jenkins, who (a) accused me of SLANDER for simply expressing my non-love of his art (which is widely available for viewing on the Web, which means you have to expect people to see it and comment on it), and how (b) he mentioned several times, in a sad pompous way, that his art is worth a lot of money, as if that matters whatsoever, and how (c) he more or less insisted that I not link to him, and (d) how he insinuated that I am an empty-headed nitwit who goes “prancing” about on the Web merrily finding things to Google (that's an exact quote. I was accused of prancing. Prancing!), the angrier I become. First of all, we all know that I am a whimsical dork who goes prancing about the Web merrily finding things to Google. Second, he obviously is sadly misguided about how a public forum like the Web functions. Third, I could have said such worse things than I did. Saying I wouldn't have his artwork in my house is no criticism at all, really. For instance, I could have scooted over to Diaryland and formed a “Justin Michael Jenkins Makes Some Rather Garish Art That I Don't Care For” webring. BUT I DIDN'T.
I am of three minds (like Wallace Stevens) about this bit of angry artist-baiting that I am doing here, because in some ways I would like the whole stupid incident to go away. But really, it's just not right.
AND NOW A SONG
To the tune of “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” I only wrote two verses before I ran out of testicular inspiration. And you'll have to make up your own chorus. But here goes, sing it loud and sing it wrinkly.
Oh the scrotum is a very hairy pouchy wrinkly sac!
It is something that all men have and that women gladly lack!
Inside it are the testicles, nestled back to back!
The scrotum is a sac!
[Chorus]
Regulating temperature, the scrotal thermostat
When it's warm out they are hanging low and colder further back!
Around the time of puberty, the testicles grow fat!
The scrotum is a sac!
—mimi smartypants has a lot of complicated theories.