Sunday, February 22, 2004

boo-hoo-hoo Today I went with Whitney to a skate park up the road.  On the way there I pulled behind this little blue compact car at a stop light.  When the light turned green the little, blue car didn't move, so I gave her a little, double beep. But the blue car still didn't move.  Then this white pick-up from the other lane started slowly pulling in front of the little blue car. "What the fuck is going on?" I said, raising my arms into a what-the-fuck-is-going-on pose.  It looked like the little blue car was letting the white pick-up make a right hand turn in front of us from the left lane.  "This is bullshit," I said and I honked my horn again.  But this time it was two long blasts that says come on, asshole in horn language. "Maybe they're broken down" Whitney said. "Broken down?" I said, as if that was just an annoying excuse.  Then I noticed that the little blue car's hazzards were on.  As I pulled around the car I realized that the white pick-up was trying to offer some road-side assistance. Then I saw that the woman in the little blue compact car was sitting behind her wheel crying. "Aww, she's crying," Whitney said. "Well, she needs to learn how to deal with situations a little better than that," I said.  "Boo-hoo-hoo, my car broke down! Boo-hoo-hoo!" 7:56:56 PM    comment []

3:49:09 PM    comment []

the legend of suburban forest man It was quite a shock in high school when I first discovered how horrible and miserable the average minimum wage job was.  Then it was a bigger shock when I dropped out of college and discovered what a paltry and miserable existence you could eek out working a minimum wage job full time.  It seemed like such a cruel double-whammy: you had do suffer all week long doing boring, miserable stuff just so you could maintain a crappy, miserable standard of living you didn't want to begin with.  And all the while I had to listen and follow the orders of fat, dumpy managers who were obsessed with pleasing customers and had no appreciation for my genius. What I really wanted was to be free! Freedom came in the form of a vision.  I imagined myself courageously walking away from my stupid minimum wage job and leaving society altogether.  I imagined myself making a new home in an acre of woods somewhere here in St. Petersburg.  I would build myself a simple shelter and wear a loin cloth and live off the land.  I would fish from the local ponds and streams and pick oranges and kumquats from the trees.  Then I would sit on a sunny rock and write poetry and thoughts about my life of total freedom. I would venture into the world of ordinary man very rarely.  And when I did, I imagined people pointing and looking at me in awe. "Look!  There he is--suburban forest man!" people would shout.  But I would not stop or look around.  I would simply cross the busy highway and disappear back into my acre of suburban woods. As it turns out, I never courageously walked away from society to start my life as suburban forest man.  I realized there were lots of subruban forest men in my city already and nobody was in awe of them.  This is because they were bums.   10:21:33 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Mark Michaels. Last update: 3/1/2004; 8:15:58 AM.