what the fuck am I going to do with one avocado?
Last night I felt like shit, like I’d been dragging through the day carrying my brain under my arm, spilling crap all over it. Like I’d been driving a truck for ten days straight with no sleep, like I’d been actually wrapped around the wheels of the truck. I felt like I’d worked for days and days digging a foundation for a children’s hospital with a garden spade. I felt like I’d been swung by my ankles and beaten against a wall until I went limp and all my bones were broken. I was really fucking tired. All I wanted was a glass of wine and a scalding hot soak in the tub and maybe some cartoons, then I wanted to pass out and wake up 14 hours later. I feel like that sounds like something a fancy bitch would do but really I just like how wine dulls the light in my brain and makes me feel like I can sleep. It’s like it cuts the power to the television up there in my head that someone’s always watching, keeping me awake. It’s like being slowly submerged, which is even better when you’re actually submerged.
We had no wine except this awful $5 handle of shitty white that God knows who brought to a party once. I sat there staring at it, contemplating whether the shattering headache the next day would be worth not having to leave the house again. Fuck, if I ever find out who brought that shit to my house and left it like a turd in the middle of a buffet, I’ll kill them. I swear to God.
I contemplated gin and tonic or vodka or any of the other myriad liquors on the shelf but decided that really, it had to be red. Also it probably means you’re not a drunk when you won’t drink just anything, right? Probably. So even though it was dark and cold and I just wanted to be done with the world for the day, out I went again. All the way there I was thinking about how this is possibly the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. At the Mexican grocery store, I bought the best bottle of $8 red wine I could see. I really mean “see” because my vision was starting to fuzz out. Admittedly it was because I was taking really long blinks, and sometimes just standing there with my eyes shut, but still.
I’m always nervous at registers of any kind because I know how shitty it is to be a cashier, and even though I totally get why they’re in a nastyass mood all the time, it still doesn’t make me want to deal with it. This particular cashier’s mouth was twisted into a snarl and outlined with a thick smear of brown eyeliner, so that it looked like a particularly unhappy butthole. I was so tired. Fuck, why did the lights in there have to be so bright? They were practically melting my brain. I could feel the tiny strings connecting my eyeballs to my brain fizzing out, like the filament in a light bulb that’s just about to go. When it was my turn, I politely stepped up to the card reader, ready in position. I said hi to the girl. OK, doing well so far, I thought to myself. Let’s see if we can make it through this human interaction without lying down on the floor for no reason or barfing all over the plastic bags, ok?
That’s when it happened: She said something else that I could not make out. It sounded more like the sound a machine makes when a belt or chain or whatever makes something move slips off and goes flying across the universe. It sounded like SCREEEEEEEEEAHAHAHHAHALALBBOBLLAOALDO??? It sounded like my worst fucking nightmare! If I’d heard that sound in the dark, I’d have shit myself, no problem. What in the actual hell had she just said? Was it even words? Also, was it meant for me? She was doing what angry cashier girls do, which is make as little eye contact as possible. Though eye contact is a cornerstone of KNOWING THAT SOMEONE IS SPEAKING TO YOU, she had decided that looking into the face of this sleepy fuck in front of her was above her pay grade. So what did I do? Probably the most awkward thing that anyone could do in this situation. I just fucking stood there and stared at her like a retarded basset hound. Here’s what my brain had to say about this:
SAY WORDS SAY WORDS WOOOOORDS SAY SOME WORDS YOU KNOW WORDS SO SAY THEM WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WE ARE GOING OVER THE FUCKING CLIFF HERE SAY SOME WOOOOOOOORDS
WORDS WORDS WORDS?
No words were said. I literally could not think of one word, outside of the word “word”, which I at least had the wherewithal to realize was a terrible word to say on its own, especially if you have no idea what someone has just said to you. Example:
Person: My grandma died.
You: WORD.
Person: Are you having a stroke?
You: WORD.
Person: Paper or plastic?
You: WORD.
See? “Word” is only an appropriate response about 4% of the time, and even then it’s still questionable. So I said nothing. That is what happened. One minute someone was talking to me, the next minute I was staring at them, and the next I was walking out of the store with a bottle of wine in my shopping bag.
I was a real dick to myself all the way home. Why hadn’t I said anything? Also, what the fuck had this woman said to me? What actual question could she have possible had for me that sounded like SKEEEEEEELLLLLUUUUURRRRBALBLADO?? Maybe she was talking to someone else? Maybe she had switched to Loud Spanish for some unfathomable reason? I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter, I was just tired, that’s why the whole thing had turned into a clusterfuck.
Back in the house, The Pants asked how the store had gone. He asked because he knows that anytime there is potential for Me to meet Other People, there’s potential for a complete breakdown, and he usually wants to know all about it. “Uh, it went, not good” I said. I told him the whole crazy story about the weird possible question/possible random sound, and my response. As I did this, I pulled the wine out of the bag. “I mean, I just can’t figure out what the hell she could have said” I said, shaking my head. The bag felt…weird. It was still kind of heavy. Well, what is it, asshole? I thought. Look in the bag. I froze. There it was, rolling around in the bottom of the bag.
“Is this your avocado?” had been the question.
“No” had been the answer.
It’s that simple. Now I have one very unhealthy, dented, brown little avocado in the kitchen, reminding me this morning that I didn’t know words yesterday.
big ol’ legs
There’s a little thing at the bottom of the screen in WordPress now that tells you how many words you’ve written. A while ago, for about three hours, it said “0 WORDS.” All right, I fucking get it. You don’t kick someone when they’re down. You don’t have to be such a colossal dick about it.
There’s another screen that shows you your sad little Blog Stats. One of them smugly points out that the last time you wrote something was over a year ago. Yeah? When’s the last time YOU wrote something? Kindly print it out single-sided and crumple it up and shove it up your ass. I hope it gets stuck on a nail up there and never comes out and you can never poop again and you turn into that lady I heard about once who started puking up her own poop. How about that?
Anyfuckingway, here I am. I’m writing something. I’m sitting in a coffee shop writing something. The art they’re featuring this month is portraits of cartoon heroes in full glitter. So I’m staring at a sparkly Batman. I’m mad because I wanted to sit in the window but someone’s shit was all over the only empty window table, and that someone was nowhere to be found. So I sat near the window. After about 45 minutes, a girl came up to me and started talking, and this I only figured out after realizing that someone had been standing in front of me for an awkwardly long amount of time, so I looked up and took out my headphones when I realized their mouth was moving.
Her: Can you watch my stuff while I go to the bathroom?
Me: Uh, sure. But I mean, it’s been there for an hour?
Her: I KNOW that! That’s because I was standing over there watching it!!! Can you just watch it for me please???
Me: Uh. Yeah I mean…yeah.
Her: THANK YOU (leaves in huff).
^^^This is why I don’t leave the house much. Because of this kind of person, and because of myself, and because all of the sparkly Batmans on all of the walls of the world.
But why don’t I write anymore?
Really, I’ve been concerned for a long time that I have nothing to say. That’s why I started reviewing books and movies on here, then just movies. Because I sit in front of the television for about 60% of my life just watching whatever garbage is there for me to eat with my brain. Then I feel really tired, like I put in a long day at the office and I need a break. I am pretty sure that’s not healthy. I mean, I know it’s not, people tell me that all the time! But I bet they do things that aren’t healthy, too! I don’t come into their house and tell them not to put a fork in the toaster! I probably should. But I don’t. Who’s to say what will actually happen? I’m not God.
I had a dream last night that this yoga instructor came up to me and said “Oh my God, aren’t you so happy you’ve got big legs?”
Me: Excuse me?
Yoga Instructor: Big legs. Like big ol’ fat round legs. Aren’t you glad you have big strong wide legs?
Me: Why are you saying this?
Yoga Instructor: Because you’ve got big ol’ legs.
Me: Oh. (Starts crying.)
“I am so glad we’ve got these big ol’ legs.”
I had a dream the other night:
The Pants and I were in a new city, looking for a place to live. We wanted to buy a house and a realtor was taking us on a walking tour of a dark street. The houses were smooshed together, cramped into very little space, and sickly trees behind fences broke up the sidewalk around us. Every house had some kind of damage, either the whole structure had been destroyed or smashed, the top floor deposited where the lower floors had been, or huge cracks stretched from the foundation to the roof.
Inside the houses, lights were on. Glasses of water sat on shelves and tables, half-eaten meals on plates in the kitchen. We stepped over chasms splitting the rooms. We sat in chairs that were still warm with the heat of whomever had lived there so recently. It was like everyone had been there moments ago, then disappeared suddenly, and now we were here. I opened a glass bookcase and pulled out a book I wanted to read. “Go ahead, take it” the realtor said, his face suddenly gone, a black swirl. “Take whatever you want. Here’s a bag for you to carry it.” He handed me a black bag. The Pants inspected a chair in the corner. “We can take that, too, if you want it.”
I couldn’t believe that anyone would leave these homes, these things. Some of the rooms were perfectly intact, but just as abandoned. “Can we live here?” I asked the realtor. He turned to look at me and it was like his dark face turned out all of the lights in the room.
“No,” he said. “You can’t live in these houses. We have to leave. Now.”
We ran, falling down the front steps of the torn house we’d been inside. I threw the bag full of books on the ground as we went. Behind us, the realtor said run run run! and as we ran, a terrible noise like the earth ripping apart filled our ears, a sound like a black hood covering your head, something that no amount of running in any direction would stop.
Cupcake Heartbreak 