Novelist | ALL THE TIDE TAKES - out now | YANKEE WHITE - coming soon
Joined January 2009
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it's pretty funny that Buddha is a big fat guy. he's like oh just detach yourself from worldly temptations, you don't need that, that's not real, and then secretly he's huffing down pizza rolls behind the seven eleven
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jesus is very nice and cut, but not bulky, he's got a swimmer's frame, that guy, he's been working on his 100m butterfly. that's why it works so much better, because he gives you bread, and you're like well this guy gets it, he's skipped a meal or two
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jesus kinda looks like he might work at old navy, but like, in the back. he's not one of those guys folding shirts at hollister, or spritzing cologne at abercrombie, but he's solidly in the club, he probably rows crew with those guys, they take ski trips together
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have you ever purchased, or seen someone else purchase, a grocery store cage ball?
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literally never once ever
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i'm a liar
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an interesting question, is the liar actually a liar if they admit they're a liar or is that a lie
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when i was in fourth grade sam connor got pink eye. that's such a weird thing, every kid gets pink eye, i don't know why that happens, but he comes to class, and he's weeping pus out of his disgusting infected eyeball, and of course now it's instantly game over, the second sam connors stepped foot in mrs flanders classroom, that's it, all 28 other kids now have pink eye too.
we fell like pol pot's accountants, just all in a row, crumpled, ragdolled, everybody's got the pink eye, susan's eyelids are glued together, mike's gushing goopy maggot sauce, and i knew that i was next.
i went to bed that night and i stared at the ceiling, and i wondered, am i going to be able to open my eyes tomorrow? am i going to have to live behind a greasy film of retinal filth? what if it never goes away? what if i just have a seeping infection festering in my face hole forever? how would i get a job? do they let you be a nascar fireman if you have chronic pink eye?
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there are some things about my life that i concealed from my father, partially to be selfish and spare myself judgment, let's face it, but also partially to spare his feelings. he didn't need to know about all the stupid bullshit i did.
the interesting thing is, now he's dead, so in theory, i won. right? that's mission accomplished. no reason to worry about that ever again.
but you still do, or i still do, worry about it, even though there is nobody alive who would care about that shit, and i wouldn't care even if they did.
that's a puzzle. i think it must mean that part of our parents' job is to serve as the proxy of God's judgment on earth. and if that's true, then striving to be an open and accepting parent, may at some level be a betrayal of telos.
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boomers were so obsessed with traffic. that's such a weird personality trait. you put any two boomers in a room together, in about five minutes they'll be talking about what road did you take to get here? gotta avoid that traffic. bunch of wackos on the road, am I right, hahaha, yeah, wackos out there, learn to drive!
what is this? is it that hard to share a road with other people? this is like the central problem of your life, after the one about you all hate your spouse?
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there's like a hundred boomer movies about traffic. easy rider. planes, trains & automobiles. rat race. taxi driver. falling down.
we didn't make one two hour movie about traffic. we made dozens, hundreds, we showered them with awards, these are the best movies, traffic movies, they love it, give us more of that shit.
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nobody likes traffic of course, but this problrm does not occupy a central position in the imagination of the rest of the world. gen z are like, we can't ever afford any house ever. millenials are too busy playing with Pokémon cards or whatever the fuck. gen x, nobody knows what they think about or if they're even here, nobody's ever seen one.
it's just boomers, and now they're old, and they're sitting poolside on old man cruises, with globs of sunscreen on their noses, miles of expansive empty ocean in every direction, and they're complaining, did you see the traffic at the buffet line? i know! lunatics over there! hey lady, learn to stand in line!
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these are very mysterious objects. i have three kids, i've probably been to 50 birthday parties, playdates at kids' houses, thousands of trips to the playground. i've never once, ever, seen one of these balls in the hands or in the home of a child. i've never bought one myself. i have never seen anyone buying one either.
endcap space is premium, guys. this is not a cheap display. campbell's soup would pay big bucks for that floor space.
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the cage is always completely full. it's never half full. i've never passed a ball cage and been like whew, they're selling out this week.
the only time i ever see anyone interact with the ball cage at all, is to tell a kid no.
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i'm not even sure what these balls are called. what's the name of them? they're not bouncy balls, those are little. they're not beach balls, those are big. what the fuck are these? what is that? why is this in every single grocery store in america, and literally no one has ever purchased one?
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Jun 17
how about a voyage on dangerous seas with a merry band of misfits
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Jun 17
the second to last time i visited my father in the hospital, this was about three months ago now, he was in the bed and i was sitting there with him.
he was so old, this guy. and his eyes were so blue. he was looking out at me, and he only partially knew me, and maybe i only partially knew him too.
but he wasn't afraid at all. he said "i don't think i have much time left", you know, like he was talking about the weather. and i said oh, it'll be alright, your heart is good, and the nurses will take care of you, whatever.
but he was right, and i think i knew he was right, that he only had a couple of days left to live, and he wasn't ever gonna leave that hospital and go back home.
the room was kind of sparse, not terribly cheerful, and i asked him if he'd like me to bring him anything from home. he only asked for a picture of his wife, my mother, that was all he wanted.
so the day before he died, that's what i brought to him, an old picture from 30 years ago, and we talked about that for a while, a picture of a dead woman, and a man and a couple of kids, one of those kids standing there in the room, and that man over here dying, and none of us recognizably the people in the frame. he told me he's looking forward to seeing her again.
i gave him a haircut, and shaved his beard. he looked good. twelve hours later he was dead.
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Jun 17
so now i look at my son, for some reason just my oldest son, i don't think this about the others, but i look at him, and i think about the day that's coming, when i'm in the hospital bed with a tube shoved up me, and i'm looking back at this moment, and this kid, and he'll be some middle aged guy, and we'll be looking past each other out there on the last stretch of the road, and he'll go home, and i won't.
and then there will be another day, after that one, like there were days before i got here, and who knows what the hell happened there, it's all just dark past that horizon, and that boy, the one right here with me, he'll wake up, and he'll be an orphan, and the world will only continue through his eyes, and not through my eyes anymore.
you don't want these things to happen, but they do, and that's okay. it's a good thing for fathers to have sons, and sons to become fathers, and the world to turn over, and new times to begin. it's just that time is a gift and we're spending it.
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Jun 17
i quit smoking a couple weeks ago. no particular reason, just finished a pack and never went and bought another one.
i've done that before, a couple times, quit for years at a time, then came back to it, then quit again. it's never been a particularly challenging thing to do.
the thing that's hard to do is decide, that's what i struggle with, it's like, well, i actually can quit anytime, i know that for a fact, but like, why do it now? why not just do it some other time?
and there's no real answer for that. it just kinda happens one day.
a lot of life is like that for me, things just kinda come my way, or they don't - it's pretty rare that i check in with myself and go "okay, let's make a deliberate decision to break a different direction here".
that's not at all how most people talk about major decisions or struggles, addictions, finances, relationships. most people think they have to actively drive these areas.
i think there's just one thing you really do have to put in the time and think about and actively choose, and that's your relationship with faith, because that fundamentally shapes the entire structure of reality. everything else, meh, it's peas or carrots.
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