Tuesday, December 30, 2003

strategy When I was just a little kid I had these two neighborhood friends, Jimmy and Laura West.  Jimmy West was kind of wild.  I remember he shot a frog with a bow and arrow.  Another time his dad got him a toy car and the first thing Jimmy West did was take it out of the box and smash it against a pine tree.  Laura West was kind of tom boy.  When we would play tag she would conduct these strategy meetings for chasing the people on the other team.  One time I head Laura West call my name from inside our bathroom. I went inside our bathroom and Laura West was sitting on the toilet and peeing. "It's okay," she said, showing me that she was kind of covered up with her forearms.  Then she told me our strategy for tagging the other team. "When I say, 'go,' run around the living room and get them," she said. "Okay," I said. 8:56:01 PM    comment []

knock that off in there I started going out and drinking in highschool when I was sixteen years old.  At this time, my little sister Jeannie was eight. One saturday morning after drinking, I was lying in bed with a hangover.  While I was lying there with one of my first hangovers I heard my little sister Jeannie go into her room and close her door.  Then I heard her start making these funny noises.  She was kind of moaning like an animal. "KNOCK THAT OFF IN THERE!" I shouted. Turns out, my little sister Jeannie had just broken her arm. 8:30:36 PM    comment []

e.s.p. One time I was over at my mom and dad's place when my girl was just a toddler.  I was out on the back pool patio with my girl.  I was shooting baskets while my little girl ran around and played. Inside, my mom, my aunt and my grandma were sitting and chatting in the living room.  The French doors of the living room were open to the patio. "What's Mariel doing?" I heard one of them ask. I turned around to see.  Just when I turned, I saw my little girl fall over the pool deck and into the water.  I ran over to the pool as fast as I could.  As I jumped in to get her, I saw her little blue eyes looking up at me from beneath the surface. 8:23:24 PM    comment []

what's the in her mouth? When I was twenty-three I got married.  Nine months after that, my wife got pregnant.  Nine months after that my wife and I had a baby girl named Mariel. I remember it was so exhausting when we first had our baby.  It seemed like we were always extremely tired and sleepy because we always had to take care of our baby around the clock. One time, when she was a  couple months old, Mariel was lying in the living room, not quite crawling. "What's that she's got in her mouth?"  my wife asked. I rushed over and pulled something out of our baby's mouth. It was a dead cockroach. 8:16:05 PM    comment []

chiggers One time my older sister, Laura  went to summer camp and got chiggers.  I had never heard of chiggers before, but I was told they were like little bugs that burrowed into your skin.  I looked at Laura's arms and legs.  They were covered with little red bumps. One way to get rid of chiggers was to dab nail polish on them to poison them.  A little while after Laura got back from camp, I peeked in my parents bedroom through a crack in the door.  I saw my sister Laura naked sitting on my parents' bed, dabbing nail polish on her chiggers.   8:11:04 PM    comment []

two tics One day I was riding my bike home from school when I felt an itch on the left side of my head, just in front of my ear.  I went to scratch it, but it was more than just an itch.  It was a bump.  I rubbed at the bump but it wouldn't come off.  It was kind of strange. When I got home I went to the bathroom and looked at the bump in the mirror.  I had to look very close.  It was a tic.  At least that's what I thought it was.  I picked at it with my finger nail until it ripped out of my head.  I looked at the tic in my hand.  It was like a little bloody lady bug. Then I felt something on the other side of my head.  I looked in the mirror very closely again.  It was another tic. 8:05:35 PM    comment []

the soft ball and the shot put Once day when I was a kid, I happened to be walking along with both a soft ball and a twelve pound shot put.  I think I may have been on my way to Mark Bradley's house who lived on the next block over.  To get there I had I had to cut through Shonda Hammill's yard who lived directly behind me. Anyway, as I was cutting through Shonda Hammill's yard I was also tossing the shot put and the softball up in the air and catching them.  I kind of marveled at how much heavier the shot put was than the soft ball. Then suddenly, I tossed the shot put and soft ball too high.  They went up out of my field of view.  I cringed, bracing for the impact of either a soft ball or a shot put (or both.) Bam!  I got hit. It really hurt.  I thought it was the shot put.  I opened my eyes.  It was just the soft ball. I rubbed my head and then picked up that shot put and the soft ball. But I didn't throw them up in the air anymore. 7:59:05 PM    comment []

harvesting the potato I spend lots and lots of hours with my boss, Bob Bandit, driving around selling tree jobs.  During all this quality time with him I have had the opportunity to witness his many of his repulsive personal habits up close. Just the other day, when we were stopped at a red light, Bob leaned forward, looked into my rearview mirror and squeezed out a giant black head from his cheek.  He pointed his finger at me, showing off this oblong-shaped, gelatinous nuggett. "The harvesting of the poh-tay-toe," Bob said in a regal sounding voice.  Then Bob put the giant blackhead back on his cheek, right next to where he had harvested it from.  "Now I 'm going to leave it there the rest of the day for people to enjoy." 6:34:09 PM    comment []

neck update My neck injury from doing push-ups during curb your enthusiasm is no laughing matter.  I'm absolutely miserable.  Slight tilting of my head or neck causes me horrible pain. Things seemed to worsen afer I  tried to sleep last night.  I woke up with my face in a pool of drool on my comforter.  The pain was so bad when I woke that I couldn't even lift my head off my bed.  I had to very gradually turn my head, using my hands in lieu of neck muscles to find a position that was less excruciating.   Before long I realized that I had to go to the bathroom.  Through herculean efforts and constant zaps of pain I was able to raise my body off my mattress, and this was only possible at one particular angle of my head. In the bathroom I found that I couldn't even look down at the toilet to aim.  I had to kind of peek down and remember where it was before I started to whiz.  As far as I can tell I was pretty accurate. Then I went out on my couch and turned on the tv.  I had  to bend at the knees keeping myself otherwise perfectly straight to get the remote.  I switched on Larry King Live.  He was doing an interview with Ed Mac Mahon. Then I lowered myself onto my couch like I was some sort of brittle antique that would crumble with the slightest errant move or presssure.  After fifteen minutes of miserable shifting and probing of positions, I found a way to lie that was somewhat tolerable.  Unfortunately, that position didn't have my face pointing toward the tv.  Larry Kind kept introing these "all time funniest skits" of Johnny Carson and I really wanted to look, but all I could do was listen and imagine. Then a commerical came on.  It was about an upcoming special with Christopher Reeve.  They said he was going to talk for the first time without his respirator.  I strained to look over at the parapalegic Mr. Reeves.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw his immoblized and atrophified figure in his wheel chair. What kind of fucking joke is this? I thought.   8:18:31 AM    comment []

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