Me Bones Gwaan Crumble

A month ago, I was in Chicago, burning the candle at both ends, having a really good time visiting my friends, all 8 of them. I drove from my parents' house in the suburbs to Chicago on 9 of the 12 free nights I had, all night. I then spent 2 full days doing wedding stuff for my sister's wedding. I gave a speech. I provided the obligatory video montage with photos of the bride and groom growing up through the years. It was actually pretty fun, the reception part in particular, and I got to see my entire extended family, which was mostly a good thing.

Physically and mentally drained, I decided to rest for a day and a half before my flight back to LA. I was supremely busy for 12 out of the 15 days I was in Chicago, and there was a relentless heat wave the whole time I was in town. 3 straight days of 100 degree temperatures to make me regret leaving my parents' a/c teepee. The average temperature for my 15 day stay was 93.8 degrees. Eyebrows? Melted. Neck and shoulders? Sweaty and Stiff!




The result of my trip, besides having a blast, was that I exhausted myself and lost 6 pounds from running around in the heat. When I got back to LA, I felt weak and tired and achy and stressed out. I had to gain some weight back. No big deal. Just take it easy for a week or two and get myself built up a little. Easy enough, right?

Enter stupidity.

I started taking digestive enzymes in order to gain weight faster, hoping that with the help of these magical pills, I could eat more food at once and absorb more precious nutrients so my old bones would bulk up and I'd finally turn into the robust lumberjack I was born to be. Instead, the digestive enzymes fucked my stomach and digestive system up. I was shitting at a Babe Ruthian level. I felt nauseous and dizzy when I walked. I stopped taking the digestive enzymes with my meals after 3 days but I didn't feel right for a week.




The truth hit me hard. I have the physical dynamics of a toddler dying of old age. I'm extremely sensitive to any pill that has a remote possibility for side effects. Memo to future wife: Poisoning me is a piece of cake. Did I forget you at the gas station again? Put a Tylenol in my yogurt and enjoy the funeral, baby.




I'd be a terrible Viking. I'd die on the boat within 3 days, never knowing the joys of looting a church and kicking a nun in the chest, which is the whole point of joining the Vikings.

I'd be the worst soldier ever. If I was sent to fight in Afghanistan, I'd take excessive naps, get sand rash, and complain about how the rations hurt my stomach.

I'd be great at dying young in the 1800's, though. That's right in my wheelhouse. I'd start feeling weird and send for a doctor. The doctor would diagnose me with milk leg fever and proclaim that nothing could be done. Then he'd chloroform my wife and steal all our butter and kerosene.




All yucks aside, I'll probably live until I die. I find comfort in that, yet I'm uncomfortable all the time.

Murder Fancy

I hate my neighbors. They're cartoons of rich garbage people, bubbling in the California sun. Their lifestyle is about money, and they consider only themselves. Their point of view, from the driver's seat of a black Lexus, is that other people exist to serve them, and friends are those who can help financially.

You've met these kind of people. They don't care about anybody else, yet they insist they're good people. They park their expensive cars carelessly, far from the curb, and leave no room for others. They let their dogs shit everywhere and don't pick it up. And if you have the nerve to call them out on it, they play the role of the ignorant victim. They are the epitome of malignant obliviousness, and they are the #1 cause of cancer in America. I truly hate my neighbors.




Yet I've always hated all my neighbors. Every single one of them I've found to be actively or passively ruining my day simply by existing. Even if I lived by myself in the woods, I'd find some creature to be angry at. I'd hate the goddamn owls, flapping their majestic wings all night long. "LEAVE THOSE MICE ALONE YOU CRUEL-EYED SWOOPING FUCKS!!!" I'd yell in the rain, overalls soaked, shaking a fistful of cornbread.




But my neighbors actually suck. I'm not imagining it. They went on vacation once and left their dog in the yard to whimper and take shits. Somebody must've come by to feed and water him, because he's still alive, but they needed to enjoy their time in Hawaii, so fuck the dog and fuck you, too.




I assume the worst in people, and this worldview is confirmed more times than not. Maybe I'm looking for it, but when piggish behavior is on display right in front of me, day after day, I have a hard time manufacturing sympathy for my fellow man.

That's why I like the nighttime. Most of the assholes are asleep or in bars schmoozing with other assholes. The world seems contained. And when I say 'the world', I mean other people. It's just more peaceful without shitty people shittin' around. That's the appeal of zombie movies and zombie comics. I already feel like part of a gang of people struggling to survive against a wave of hungry murderous morons. I identify with the fictional survivors of a fictional zombie apocalypse.




Here's where things get murky and I feel the need to self censor so I don't come off like a homicidal psycho, but since I prefaced it and am aware that most of my writing is ridiculous, here goes, mildly self censored....

In a zombie scenario, I have the green light to kill the fuckheads that are stinking up the place. And it brings me a little bit of satisfaction to play out these scenes in my head. That's what's unsettling. To feel comfortable with the thought of murdering as a solution. But you'd be a goddamn liar or a really great person if you've never had a revenge fantasy. Thinking about it too much will stress you out, but a healthy murder scenario daydream involving your boss is a perfectly acceptable way to spend an afternoon. Preferably on a swing-set. Murder fantasies get a bad reputation because real murderers fuck it all up. Also, murder is bad, especially for those who get murdered. Murder.

How did I get so far down the kill hole in this post? Fuck. I don't feel any better by writing this, and maybe that's the lesson, if there is any lesson at all in this rambling critique of my neighbors and people in general. You can't get rid of hatred by expressing it. And harboring hate isn't good for you, either. I think the lesson to be learned is that hate is bad and love is good. Spread the word.




I've gotta stop writing. I need to go sharpen my gun and think about how cool it would be to live in jail.

Top Mummy: Pickled Pharaoh Kingdom

Short Story Time!

A guy named Keith stole a mummy from a museum. It was an Egyptian mummy. Kept in a climate controlled glass case.

Keith got hold of it somehow (long story, magick involved), wrapped it up in a stained comforter, loaded it into his Camry, and lugged the shriveled souvenir into his shitty apartment. Keith flung the mummy onto his bed, and propped its dessicated head upon a pillow, making the mummy look like it was halfway through a fun little nap, or a fnap. Keith thought the mummy looked adorable, and he wasn't wrong. He snuggled up to it, closed his bloodshot eyes, gave out a sigh, and felt contentment for the first time in years.




Keith slept beside the mummy that night, but he didn't sleep well. Dilemma. Keith needs his rest. He needs to be awake and alert at his job. Keith is unemployed and exists deep inside a roaring shadow-funk dreamworld of his own creation.




Keith downed 3 cups of coffee and stared at the mummy sleeping in his bed. His mind raced for solutions. Then he raced to the bathroom to take a shit. On the toilet, king-sized BM. Afterwards, during the wipe, he received the answer to his mummy riddle.

He leaped up on the bed, and hovered over the mummy like Prince does to every girl he's ever humped. Prince is a creep.





The mummy looked so peaceful and wrinkled and yellow. Keith grabbed a condom from his nightstand, unsheathed a nearby katana, cut the mummy's head off, crammed the head into the condom, and whipped the head around his bedroom like a medieval mace because he finally lost his fucking mind.




After a few minutes of whip-whip chuckle time, he took the latex-shrouded head outside, and flung it over a hedge, onto his neighbor's property. Then he went back inside and lay next to the headless mummy. He slept like a baby.

As Keith slumbered, a 9 year old boy went outside to play soccer in his backyard and discovered a mummy's head stuffed inside a condom. With tears in his eyes, he ran back inside, poured himself a glass of milk, drank it down, and climbed into the attic. He fell asleep in an old armoire.

He didn't speak again until his 13th birthday, and he refuses to wear a condom to this day.