Today I tangled with the biggest damn cobweb ever. I didn't see it coming; you never do. This web was the thickness of a hangman's rope, but still somehow invisible to me. I managed to walk right into it as I took my morning stroll through the neighborhood. I'm guessing that what hit me was an abandoned spider's web originally tethered between a signpost on the curb and a holly bush that I passed between. One thing is certain: my encounter with the web made for a powerful slap to the head. Forget about the soft delicate silk you normally think of spun out of a spider's rump. This stuff was as dense as ironwood and barbed on the outer surface. It caught on the stubble of my beard and yanked my head to the side, creating an instant, painful whiplash.I fell to the ground and cracked my head on the sidewalk. A large section of the web fell with me and quietly settled down onto my body. I could feel the full weight of it. I had to work my hands under one strand that was constricting my neck and making it difficult to breathe. I wrestled with this cobweb for what seemed like minutes. I don't mean to over-dramatize this story. Really, I don't. It's just that in the end my injuries were pretty substantial: a nasty bump on the head; clothes torn to shreds; head-to-toe micro-slices to my skin; a dislocated shoulder; neck pain. With great difficulty, I got up off the ground and dusted myself off. Just then, a young woman turned the corner, running. I considered warning her about the killer cobweb ahead. But she was plugged-in to her iPod. I could hear her music, which meant that the volume was turned up too high for her to hear me. Her arms were pumping. Her stride was smooth and rhythmic. What caught my eye next nearly stopped my heart. Hanging from her ears were two white wires that danced crazily in the air like live electrical cables downed by an ice storm. They were heading straight for me!With the last bit of energy I could muster, I stepped aside and let this woman pass. She whisked on by, the high voltage iPod wires missing me by inches. I started walking again, toward home. Didn't look back. I have to assume she made it through.
AB: Hey, did you just hyperlink on me? That’s very rude.
Me: Sorry. Look, I know you only exist inside my head, Angry Blogger, but I’ve always admired you as a character, and I could really use your advice.
AB: Is there something in this for me?
Me: Just my heartfelt thanks.
AB: You couldn’t even spring for a prepaid Starbucks card? Cheap bastard!
Me: Let me get right to the point. The thing is, how can I say this, I’m a bit tired of blogging.
AB: Good. Beat it. Hit the road, Jack. One less wannabe in the tread of my tires.
Me: No, you got it wrong. I’m not quitting. I’m just worn out, you know? I’ve been writing here for almost three years. Lately, I’ve been kind of busy at work. And in the evenings, I’m more likely to have a couple glasses of good wine and watch TV than start a blog post.
AB: I’m sorry, were you still talking? Didn’t you notice my eyes glazing over? That’s the international symbol for ‘I’m bored and want to go check my email.’
Me: Over the years, I’ve tried to pace myself. I don’t need to publish every day. It’s the quality of the story that matters to me. I write fiction, mostly. I’m at the mercy of my muse.
AB: Your muse isn’t fit to wipe the nose of my beagle.
Me: Okay, now that’s what I’m getting at. I really dig your conceit, Angry Blogger. How do you manage it? What fuels your unrelenting self-confidence and pique?
AB: Wifi, baby. The ability to write anywhere at any time. Blogging outside a seedy café while looking up the skirt of an attractive Midwestern babe caught unaware by a strong updraft off the Ohio river in March.
Me: Wow!
AB: Pretty good, huh?
Me: Yeah. I wish I could come up with a bon mot like that.
AB: See, this is part of your problem, Monsieur Proust. Using words like ‘bon mot’ in your writing instead of ‘an attractive Midwestern babe.’
Me: I suppose so. Say, you wouldn’t consider guest blogging for me would you? Just until I get back on my creative feet again.
AB: Get real, constipated boy.
Me: Well what do you suggest I do to jumpstart my desire to write?
AB: You really want to know?
Me: Of course I do.
AB: This is basic stuff. I can’t believe I have to explain it to you. Ready?
Me: Yeah.
AB: Close your eyes.
Me: Okay.
AB: Jump up and down in a circle five times.
Me: Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh.
AB: Now, quickly, reach behind your back, grab your balls and yell ‘gotcha!’
Me: Ouch! That just hurt. What the hell was the point?
AB: You wrenched your back grabbing your balls from behind on the advice of a fictitious character you call the Angry Blogger. Sit down and write, bucko. Enough excuses.
Some early drafts of the chorus from ‘Don’t cha’ by the Pussycat Dolls
Don’t cha wish your girlfriend cleaned house like me Don’t cha wish your girlfriend ironed shirts like me Don’t cha, don’t cha Don’t cha wish your girlfriend baked pies like me Don’t cha wish your girlfriend ran errands like me Don’t cha, don’t cha
Don’t cha wish your girlfriend knew math like me
Don’t cha wish your girlfriend read Sartre like me
Don’t cha, don’t cha
Don’t cha wish your girlfriend spoke Yiddish like me
Don’t cha wish your girlfriend wrote code like me
Don’t cha, don’t cha
Don’t cha wish your girlfriend kicked ass like me
Don’t cha wish your girlfriend pressed 303
Don’t cha, don’t cha
Don’t cha wish your girlfriend fought in bars like me
Don’t cha wish your girlfriend rode a Harley like me
Don’t cha, don’t cha
Don’t cha wish your girlfriend cross-dressed like me
Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was a boy like me
Don’t cha, don’t cha
Don’t cha wish your girlfriend had a beard like me
How about it, kids? Are you enjoying this globally warm day at the coastal strand where the diminishing beach meets the rising sea on this, our perfectly average by American standards five days of annual family vacation? What do you say we anoint our skin with melanoma preventing, mosquito repelling, SPF/DEET lotion, and toss around a colorful plastic discus manufactured in the Far East for maximum cost savings at Wal-Mart until such time as our growing thirst necessitates quenching by a reverse osmosis purified water product sold under the aegis of universally respected Coca-Cola corporation? After that we can go up on the boardwalk and purchase a mildly offensive t-shirt featuring a character from the popular Simpsons television program. Sorry, junior, there are no public restrooms here. You’ll just have to pee in the ocean.
Regarding an encounter with a discarded old couch in my neighborhood
Well, it’s about time. How many laps around the block did it take for you to decide if I was worth a photograph? Three? Four? Am I so plain? So ordinary? Or is it that I am just not interesting enough to be included in your pantheon of discarded furniture? Maybe you think there is no story here worthy of your blog. Oh, yes, I know about the others. The deer couch. The sunset couch. Even your own couch and love seat, carried out to the curb for you and your friends to sit on and take a few snapshots – everyone had a good laugh as I recall – before the trash man came and crushed them up in the mechanical jaws of the refuse truck. Don’t bother trying to understand the metaphysics at work here my friend. It is beyond even your comprehension. I am speaking to you only because you seem to appreciate the other worldliness of a discarded piece of furniture on the side of the road. You seem to know that there is something going on there. A story that should be told before it is forever lost. Did you know that there is an afterlife for discarded furniture? Of course there is. Think about it. In the afterlife there is nowhere for people to sit down. When a new couch or chair shows up it is welcomed, revered even. We don’t have to wait in any lines or go through any gates, we just float right in and are quickly set down alongside a coffee table or a bookshelf. It doesn’t matter if we match the existing furniture. There is no preconceived décor in the afterlife. Basically, there’s a little feng shui going on, but that’s pretty much it. In the afterlife, even a simple blue three cushion overstuffed microfiber couch like me can end up supporting and comforting the haunches of a king for all eternity. So, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’m going on to a better place than this curb. Ahh, I think I hear the squealing brakes of the trash truck now. Thanks for coming by and seeing me off. Oh, and by the way, that jump drive you’ve been looking for is under the cushion of the leather chair in your living room. It fell out of your pocket along with sixty-seven cents in change.
"Am I on the air?Hey, I love the new format. It’s awesome, man.You’re the only station I listen to now. Sure, that other classic rock station in town plays great songs, too. In fact, pretty much the same songs you play. And their DJs are hip, you know, like yours. And you both do cool contests and surprise concert announcements and, you know, interviews with artists that are passing through – and traffic and weather and all that other stuff. But you guys put it all together in a different order or something. You know what I’m saying? It’s like the same but different, and that’s what sets you apart. Keep up the good work. You guys are the best classic rock station that I am personally aware of. Rock on!"
When I first noticed that the seconds of my life had gone missing I wasn’t worried. They had dashed on ahead. I figured they'd be back, but I was wrong. I haven’t seen them since.
Heck, I can barely make out my minutes as they swarm around me like fruit flies with five minutes to mate before they die.
Don't even talk to me about the hours and days. They're so damn full of themselves and caught up in the quotidian details.
The weeks and months? They've never been anything other than middle managers, at best.
It's just me and the years now, with me driving this creaky old Cadillac. I don't remember how I got here, or even when. The fuzzy dice are not mine; I'm telling you that.
I remember a different time when I rode on a Schwinn bike – the kind with a banana seat and high backrest.
The years were skinny as wheat stalks back then. They sat on the handlebars and kept us from moving too fast or in too straight a line.
The weeks and months only mattered during the school year. I didn't miss them when they weren't around.
Except for birthdays and holidays, all the days looked pretty much the same. Just like with the Doublemint twins.
The only hour that counted was sunset when we had to go back in the house for the night.
Back then the minutes were all about food. Should we eat now? Should we have a little snack?
The seconds took care that the baseball cards went flap-flap-flap in the tire spokes.
But that was then. Now, here I am, crammed in next to my years, which have grown fat over the...well, the many orbits of the earth around the sun. They keep looking over at me, my years.
The air freshener in the shape of the Christmas tree isn't mine either.
My years keep giving me this look. I know what it means. The Caddy burns fuel like there’s no tomorrow. “Pull my finger,” I tell the years, and just like that we are all laughing again.
Laughing and driving and generally enjoying the ride.
