fathead

i've been cleaning my apartment today.

i came across a bunny rabbit pez dispenser that my mother put in my stocking ten years ago. i still haven't opened the package and it is getting pretty beat up. i think i will probably keep it and my children will wonder why their father kept a beat up pez dispenser package. i don't think it matters. i know why.

hi mom.

-----------

i've moved a lot in the past six or seven years. i've moved through three states,four cell phone numbers, and six apartments. not to mention the annual journey back to new york for three months during the summer which i'm not really counting (but i am).

when i'm moving things always get left behind. "i'll buy new a new one", i think or "i never wear that shirt or pants again" or maybe, "that book sucked i don't want to re-read it". one of the things that always get left behind are towels. there is always one or two not so clean, almost dirty towels hanging in the shower and in the rush to move i always think "i have plenty of towels".

six or seven years ago when i started moving literally/figuratively/metaphorically/symbolically (god, i am so literaryesque) i'd always leave the dirty (get it) towels behind. (see towels you wash with them and clean) sometimes i'd even leave three towels behind (trinity), ok i made that last bit up.

back to the narrative. i started with twenty or so towels, most a lovely hue or shade perfectly matching my complexion or my current decor that were thick and plush and in a word, comfy. i did, however own one truly terrible towel. it has illegible blue writing on it in BOLD and blue. it was faded when i first saw it in my Pile of Towels or after i'd down a particularly large batch of laundry my Stack of Towels. i, as a rule, never used the towel. it was coarse as towels go and poorly made and after six (or seven) years you'd think it would have worn itself down to a tiny ill-used washcloth but as i said, i never use it. it's coarse, remember.

and since i never use it, it was never in the shower hanging out with the other not so dirty not so clean towels so i never had a chance to leave it behind. so you've guessed correctly and now it is the only towel i currently own (or can find). i'd throw it out except i'd have to dry myself with paper towels after showering.

i'm going towel shopping tomorrow.

i've been re-reading this page today because i have no urge to write anything new.

i've come to the conclusion that this is probably, no not probably, this is the best BLOG EVER TO GRACE THE DIGITAL WASTELAND THAT BLOGGING IS.

i feel a lot better about myself now.

it gets pretty bleak in here sometimes.

-------

when i was drunk at my brother's wedding i was talking to some family friends and during the middle of the conversation we were talking about my parents and i made a vapid movie reference to illustrate a point.

can i possibly be any more inane?

-------

the reason people that kill themselves tidy up isn't because they want to make everything neat. it's because they want to sterlize all that they are leaving behind. save a note or a letter they hope to remove any evidence that might be gleaned by the people that are forced to go through the deceased's possessions.

that's not a very happy thought.

TO: Skynetworks Net. (my isp)
FROM: ME (me)

Dear Skynetworks:

I have been experiencing bad ping times 1000ms + again. At least two times a month for the past nine months I have contacted your office with issues concerning my poor connection. I am getting tired of this and I am sure you guys are getting tired of this as well. If these problems are going to continue just let me know so that I may switch ISP's.

Thanks,

Me

------------------

Two hours after i sent this email my connection got shut off. If it hadn't been shut off there would have been a post about annika. a "go annika go" post. and then the next day a "boo annika boo" post. nonetheless, she still rocks.

go annika go.

i have the attention span of a bug. i have the attention span of a bug with a short attention span. i have the attention span of a bug with a short attention span and

i like pie. yum.

durex makes flavored condoms now. i saw a package of orange, banana, and strawberry ones. while not as mainstream as say, trojan condoms they are probably on par with lifestyle condoms in terms of popularity.

i was going to buy a triple pack until i realized that if i bought a pack i'd have to fight the almost irrepressible urge to taste one.

i've slept twelve of the past eighteen hours, albeit in two seperate six hour blocks. i seem to be obsessing about my sleeping patterns of late. this will end.

....but i feel great. wide awake, my mind lucid, my vision sharp, my reflexes quick. i haven't felt this great (sleep wise) in a week. the icing on the cake is that i have absolutely nothing planned to do today. phantastich.

i feel so good, i think i'll take a nap.

.: no one knew why, or was quite sure how, but at some point in the time of prehistory, huge bubbles welled up from the center of the earth and in these bubbles tiny bits of carbon hardened, formed, and lay waiting. diamonds.

the mines were moist and black with thick veins of ore running like obsidian blood in the lighter soil of the earth. we tunneled and burrowed like so many dark ants tending to the machines that did most of the work. these were dark tunnels filled with bursts of light and pervading noise, always the noise, the harsh curses in afrikans, the grunts, and above all the sounds of the earth being rent apart by the enormous detonations that sporadically punctuated the darkness.

a raw diamond is not the shiny things of dreams that adorn the fingers and necks of women. sometimes, more than a hint is available, but mostly it is a dark thing, still hiding it’s secrets deep within. a dark promise tempting:.

-----

Jue.

i finally had a chance to sleep eight unmolested, dream filled, relaxing hours today. the reality is after two hours i woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. that's just fantastic.

-----

if one more middle aged mid-western housewife wearing capris and smelling of aqua net even so much as glances at me in the next 24 hours i'm burning this place down.

the last four days have been broken into periods of sleep lasting no more than five hours followed by periods of marginal awareness lasting twenty or more hours.

(it took me twenty minutes of staring at the screen to write the above post.)

i strongly dislike homeless midwestern alcoholics that ask me for money.

per capita this town must have one of the highest ratios of homeless and/or alcoholic men in the nation.

i love illinois.

.: You hear the tires squeal, the high pitched wailing moan of tortured rubber. Then you hear the crash, violent and kinetic and spent. If you are close enough you hear the tiny shards of broken glass sprinkle on the ground. Then the silence. It always gets quiet. An unnatural lull. There has been enough of this right now. Enough of this reality, enough of this action, enough of this violence. And this completeness holds for a few brief moments. And everybody knows, everybody has heard. And then some dumb bitch blurts out "oh my God what happened"?

The sound gets sporadic. Somebody is tapping the mute button just tapping away; sound, no sound, sound, no sound, sound. "I gotta go home now," I hear myself say and I head for the door. I'm rushing moving quickly but trying not to move quickly I'm trying to be calm, because you see. I know. It's happened, it's passed and no matter how fast I run or drive or fly or fucking teleport myself there it will have still have happened sometime then, back then. And I keep moving quickly in a slow way. And the mute button keeps getting tapped on and off on and off and the Sun is sitting high in the sky. Baleful, glowering, burning me with it's heat because it's the Fourth of July, you see. It's the middle of summer. The earth is about as far away from the Sun as it will ever get.

During the summer the Earth moves about two million additional miles away from the Sun. You think it's supposed to be a perfect circle a perfect orbit, but it isn't, it really never is. The Earth has just passed the apogee and it begins its unyielding orbit towards the nadir again. You think things can never really get any worse, but they do. :.

i tried to quit my job last night. when the owner asked me why i gave him some fake excuse about schedules and conflicts and fakeness. i couldn't bring myself just to tell him the truth, which is that working there makes me want to cut my stomach open and slice my large intenstine in half and swallow it whole while drinking a carbonated beverage.

i talked to him again today and he said that they are willing to accomodate my schedule. now i need to think of a brand new excuse and re-submit my two weeks notice.

i remember that i hated student type jobs so much at penn state that i actually never worked while i was at school there. i did try to work though, at my mother's behest i get one job.

"why don't you get a job for a couple of hours per week or something", she said.

"no way", i thought.

"yes", is actually what i said.

i could have given her some "studying" excuse or something or other but she never believed my transparent lies. i was never and still am not such a great liar. i almost always grin stupidly when somebody asks me, "are you lying?" then i smile and say, "ok, you got me".

so anyhow, i applied for a job at kinko's, since kinko's was the first store i passed with a "hiring" sign on my way to class the next day after my mom had planted the job seed in my fertile little mind. so i get hired and was told to show up for training on a thursday. i show up, they tell me i'm going to be making minimum wage and that instead of just giving me the money for doing nothing they start to teach me how to difficult tasks like; collating, photocopying, binding, and warning me of the dangers of making fake id's. i was one hour into this job and i am already looking for a sharp pencil to stab myself in the hand and ask where the nurse's office is so i can go home. i manage to make it through the four hours of training (because i am hardcore like that) and i am told that i should show up for work on monday at 6 pm.

so monday rolls around and it's fall and monday nights during the fall means... monday night football. that year the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys were both 4-0. monday nights game was going to decide who would hold the top spot in the NFC East and it was on monday night football and i hated the cowboys and people were talking playoff implications and i had to work so i couldn't see the game.

so should i go to my new job that makes me want to rip my toenails out one by one, dip them in salsa and eat them, while earning as much money as i would earn if i just walked the streets of state college, pa and picked up random coins off the ground or.....

watch the greatest game of the burgeoning 1993 football season and watch my beloved eagles destroy the hated cowboys on monday night football?

this is a hand wringing, sweat inducing, cigarette smoking, pacing up and down, ulcer causing dilemna. what to do.....


the great number 12.

to make a long story short. i saw the game. the eagles lost. and kinko's still owes me a check for $17.40.

chas: did you write a suicide note?

eli: yes right after i regained consciousness.

i have nothing to say today so i stole somebody elses words. i am good like that. i got a phone call around 10 this morning and like an asshole i picked up without checking the callerid. evidently i am scheduled to work tonight but i didn't realize it because i've been away. had i not picked up the phone i could have claimed ignorance and not gone to work, unlike the law, ignorance is an acceptable excuse to miss work. at least to me it is.

i hate my job(s).

my younger brother got married on saturday. it was fucking great.

i can't explain how proud of him i am. it was one of the best days of my life, watching my brother and his wife walk away from the altar as a married couple. i really can't say anything else without breaking into some saccharine cliche so i won't. i'll just leave it at that.

my younger brother got married on saturday. it was fucking great.

on the flight there and on the flight back...well anytime i take a plane before i board i look around at the other passengers and think to myself, "so these are the people that are going to die with me." sometimes if i have nothing to read i'll determine silently which ones will be "screamers" and which ones will be be calm and stoic as our plane hurtles out of the sky and smashes into the ground.

so far i haven't died with any of them.

i, also, almost never fail to remember this picture and flight.



metal fatigue weakened the plane and the top ripped off sucking, i believe, a stewardess and one passenger who wasn't wearing his seat belt out of the plane. i, as a rule, almost never remove my seatbelt on a flight. i've also been known to quietly assess the area immediately surrounding my seat looking for hand holds and toe holds in case the inevitable happens and the roof of the plane rips off at 35,000 feet.

as a side note, i am 99% sure nicole bilderback wants to sleep with me (or maybe i want to sleep with her...), sadly for her i don't sleep with anyone involved in the acting profession after the crushing emotional blow i suffered when i was eight years old performing in a local high school production of south pacific and falling in love with the sixteen year old female lead.

holy shit it's 7am wednesday morning!! i've got to meet the shuttle to the airport in an hour....shit, how did i sleep so long? i layed down to take a nap at 5pm...and i slept...thirteen hours...fuck..i'm screwed, i still have to go to the bank, pack, take a shower, get ready, and be at the terminal to meet the shuttle by 8am...

i jump out of bed and look at my clock...it says 7:05pm...thank god i woke up on my own. i check the alarm..yup the alarm is set to 7am, i remember setting it the night before just in case something like this happened...good thing i woke up, since the time on my clock is off by twelve hours.

i scramble to get ready, open the door to my porch and shove my hand outside to check the temperature..ok, i'll put on shorts. the sky is still half dark and it looks like it will be overcast today.

shower, shave, pack..the phone rings, it's a telemarketer at 7:30am in the morning, what the fuck, bastards, i hang up on him mid-sentence...calling before 8am in the morning.. absurd.

i fly out the door, i still have to go to the bank...it's 5 minutes away...then another 10 minutes to the terminal to meet the shuttle...it's...oh crap, 7:45am...this is going to be close.

i cross two streets at a fast walk towards town and the bank, i'm checking my watch every two seconds, maybe i won't take the shuttle, i'll take the train...i search my brain for the train schedule..no the train won't cut it, i'll get to the airport too late...shit...i've got to catch this shuttle...man..there are a lot of people on the street this early...oh yeah finals....people must be up early...i pass la bamba's a mexican fast food place...it's open...damn...i didn' t know they opened up this early...man..there is definitely a lot of people on the street this morning...and it seems to be getting darker...i make it to the bank, fill out a deposit form and deposit my rent money...i hear music from the bar next to the bank...that's odd..two people come out of the bar...that's even more odd....what the hell is going on here...it's not even 8am in the morning..since when are bars open this early...two people pass me on the sidewalk...

"hey what time is it?", i ask them.

"it's almost 8", they reply.

"thanks...oh hey...yeah...what day is it?", i ask.

they look at me kind of strangely and say, "it's uhh tuesday"

ewpsie.

i got my eyebrows waxed yesterday.

i felt like a fag.

i was worried i was going to get gonnorrhea or syphlis on my face after reading an article in the times about a lady who got gonnorrhea or syphlis on her face from a dirty wax applicator.

so far, so good. no gonnorrhea or syphlis on my face.

i still feel like a fag.

but i look, oh, so, beautiful.

"peace out of my mental cloud"

"don't make me snap three times in a Z formation"

so yeah, anyhow, i was looking for a white button down shirt to wear the other night. i checked the real closet.. none there, a big pile of laundry on top of my dresser, nope not there, i checked the fake closet, ix nay hirtshay, i checked the stack of clothes near my laundry basket...nope not there either. this was getting pretty suspicious because i own at least five white button down shirts that are exactly the same make and model as well as two or three more for good measure. if i layed all of my white button down shirts next to each other, arms touching they would probably span my entire apartment, so not being able to find one was kind of weird and also well...kind of normal.

i finally found three of them hiding at the foot of my bed where they had cleverly hid themselves in a pile of laundry. i grabbed the least wrinkled one, smelled it....smelled....ok...febreezed it anyway, just in case, threw it on and then put on a light sweater. i was about to run out the door when i noticed a dry cleaning tag attached to the bottom of the shirt with a safety pin. the tag wasn't soft or worn and it still looked looked and felt pretty crisp when i ripped the tag off my shirt.

my best guess is i had it dry cleaned and starched (heavy please) then somehow the shirt and two of its compatriots managed to sneak across my apartment and throw themselves in a pile of clean, maybe not so clean, laundry at the foot of my bed.

ps. i'm so happy i spend money on dry cleaning so i can throw my clothes on my floor in a pile of dirty laundry... that's just brilliant.

i'm glad that's settled.

the asdfawerqwer posts are by far the best posts on this page.

red and yellow and pink and green purple and orange and blue.

i can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow.

and you can too.

...or something.

fhqwhgads