I did laundry this weekend, two whole loads.\u00a0 It was time.\u00a0 Actually, it was well past time.\u00a0 For the last three weeks I’ve been avoiding the chore, figuring no one would catch on if I never wore the same shirt to work two days in a row.\u00a0 I could conceivably continue in this manner indefinitely if it weren’t for the smell.\u00a0 Even with a cushy office job, the pits can get a little ripe after a while.<\/p>\n
So I took care of that\u00a0task.\u00a0 Along with sleep, feeding myself, and basic personal hygiene, the bare essentials were checked off my to-do list.\u00a0 It was time to get creative.<\/p>\n
I have a couple of good ideas for stories (along with countless bad ones) but I felt this weird inertia that kept me from diving into either of them.\u00a0 I wasn’t too worried.\u00a0 It was only Saturday afternoon and my muse would either return to me or wouldn’t.<\/p>\n
I spent a couple of hours on Stickam chatting with a friend of mine in Europe.\u00a0 He’s usually a good conversationalist and it was my hope that some witty banter would provide a colonic for my writer’s block<\/p>\n
There were two factors that kept this from working out as well as I liked.\u00a0 The first was the time-zone difference.\u00a0 My friend was nine hours ahead so mid afternoon for me was past midnight for him.\u00a0 The second factor was the lump of hashish he decided to smoke.\u00a0 In a few short moments, an engaging and intelligent human being was transformed into a spaced-out dullard with sleepy-creepy Baldwin eyes.\u00a0 I was on my own.<\/p>\n
So there I was, craving an artistic\u00a0outlet but not knowing quite what to write.\u00a0 If I could draw, paint, or play an instrument, I might have created something beautiful that I could be proud of.\u00a0 Instead I had to make do with whatever was within reach, which turned out to be a roll of toilet paper, a bottle of Tapatio hot sauce, and a plastic baby head.<\/p>\n
The baby head, purchased in Japan in 2003, is actually a piggy bank with the coin slot in the location of the fontanel.\u00a0 Now before any of you jump to conclusions, let me just say that the slot is too narrow and the plastic too hard to use the head as a sex toy.\u00a0Besides, I’m not just some sicko.\u00a0 I have the soul of an\u00a0artist.\u00a0 That’s why I used the hot sauce and toilet paper to make it look like the baby had its eyes gushed out and\u00a0then was\u00a0hastily bandaged in a futile attempt to keep the blood from gushing down its face.<\/p>\n
So that was Saturday.\u00a0 Sunday was, of anything, even less productive.\u00a0 I finished reading Roald Dahl’s My Uncle Oswald<\/em>, which I enjoyed for the most part but was a little let down by the ending.\u00a0 I’ve read books with worse endings (most of Harry Crews’ work falls under this category), but Dahl’s short stories have never lacked for satisfying and twisted conclusions.<\/p>\n I eventually found my way down to the Argus, as I am prone to do.\u00a0 I waited until after the Giant’s game was over because I don’t do well around sports fans who are drunk and stupid enough to think that their home-team hard on had any bearing on the outcome of the game.\u00a0 Instead I showed up while the 49ers were playing.\u00a0 They suck this year so the crowd was not nearly so rowdy.<\/p>\n I took out my notebook and scribbled down the opening to one of the stories.\u00a0 It wasn’t much but it was something I could work with.\u00a0 Every little bit helps.<\/p>\n I was still feeling distracted so I started surfing the web on my iPhone.\u00a0 I learned that the flood of red sludge in Hungary had actually killed people, at least seven of them.\u00a0 The phrase “Hungarian Ghoulish” popped into my head and I was proud of myself coming up with that.\u00a0 I wanted to turn that into something, a poem perhaps.\u00a0 I never got that far in this endeavor, probably because I could not decide\u00a0between this opening verse:<\/p>\n Red Sludge<\/em><\/p>\n Red Death<\/em><\/p>\n I can barely hold my breath<\/em><\/p>\n and this one:<\/p>\n Red Death<\/em><\/p>\n Red Sludge<\/em><\/p>\n I can barely hold my fudge<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are some things in life best left unaccomplished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I did laundry this weekend, two whole loads.\u00a0 It was time.\u00a0 Actually, it was well past time.\u00a0 For the last three weeks I’ve been avoiding the chore, figuring no one would catch on if I never wore the same shirt to work two days in a row.\u00a0 I could conceivably continue in this manner indefinitely … Continue reading Clean Underwear and Not Much Else<\/span>