In Remembrance of a Lost Love

Many years ago, I had an inexplicable infatuation for some bland, unimaginative, buttoned-down librarian type who liked non-kung-fu-related Chinese movies and who thought that rocking out to Aerosmith meant that she had a sassy, iconoclastic "wild" side. She told one of my friends that she felt that I was really intelligent, and that she often enjoyed talking to me because we had deep, interesting conversations, but that I was just too "immature" for her. I responded to this bit of news by telling my friend that this woman probably had cooties and that she was a stupid stinky girl anyway. Also, I may also have somewhat colloquially expressed a desire that she go engage in violent erotic congress with herself. I can't remember. I was a much angrier young man back then.

Not long after that, she married one of the most boring people I've ever met--some over-skinny, humorless, pasty-faced middle manager at the credit card company where we worked. I assume they now have 2.5 beautiful, boring children and live in a boring little house somewhere in Boringsville, AZ where they will live lives of quiet boredom until they can both retire to a boring retirement community in Boring Beach, Florida. Every morning at 5, they will have boring breakfast together, then split off for their boring days. He will go play boring geezer golf with other retired boring corporate middle-management types and reminisce about the various corporate down-sizings they experienced or barely escaped over the years. She will hang out with her boring granny friends and talk about the latest boring episode of American Pop Star, Inc. while knitting socks and ugly sweaters for the grandkids, and unattractive and boring but functional shawls for each other. Every Friday night, they will have a boring soup for dinner at 4, play a couple boring games of UNO, solve the boring newspaper crossword puzzle together, watch a boring rerun of CSI: Des Moines, then retire to bed promptly at 7.

And I will die young and good-looking in a steel cage match with a genetically-engineered velociraptor because I'm awesome and she's not.

Christmas is Dead, Long Live Darth Vader Day!

Since the passing of my mother four years ago, and the repose of my grandmother almost two years ago, the various holidays of the year have lost their luster. Until now, I had never realized how important a role matriarchal enthusiasm played in making holidays vital and festive occasions. I never would have set up a Christmas tree if it weren't for the joyful prodding of my mother every year, just after Thanksgiving. Indeed, I have never set up a Christmas tree in all the years I've lived alone, except for the one year that my mother sent me a small plastic tree with fiber-optic sparkly stars. Christmas trees are just not something most bachelors fuss with.

Now that I am comfortably set in my bachelorhood ("I'm a loner, Dotty--a rebel."), I assume that the holidays will run together like all the other days of the year, except that everyone outside of my wonderfully cozy little world will be seen periodically scurrying about with a frantic fervency that now to me just seems...tiring. I have neither need nor inclination to join in their insanity. I am finally in a position to make up my own holidays whenever I feel like it, and the ritual observance—set by me, of course—invariably consists of a 12-pack of delicious micro-brew, a frozen pizza, and a Korean horror flick of some sort. So to all of you, I would like to wish you and yours a very Happy Friday, or as I now choose to proclaim it, Darth Vader Day.

The Dream With The Feast

I had a dream last night that I was walking around and I came to an open-air eating area. I saw a large, wealthy family eating breakfast at a huge dining table just loaded with delicious food, including plates stacked with thick bacon and mounds of breakfast sausages. I went and sat alone at a different table at a distance, watching them. I noticed that one of the young women at the table was someone I knew (her name's Kayla). I hatched a brilliant plan to gain her attention. I reached into my backpack and pulled out the only food in my possession--a single slice of white bread. It was a crusty end piece, and I ate it slowly, making sure to leave the crusty side visible at all times. I never glanced in her direction, of course, but just kept taking sad bites from my crust of bread.

At this time, another friend of mine, Gary Allen, just happened to walk by and saw me munching on my sad little slice. "What are you eating?" he asked. "A ghetto breakfast bar," I answered. He grabbed it from my hands, took a couple of huge bites out of it, and handed it back to me. While I stood there staring at him, completely dumbfounded at his monumental douchiness, Kayla had appeared at my table. "Hi guys," she said.

I turned to look at her, acting surprised to see her. "Oh, hey," I said.

"My family is eating over at that table," she explained, pointing to the Promised Land of succulent breakfast awesomeness. "We have way too much food so I was wondering if you guys would like to come and eat with us."

Before I could even respond, Gary had launched off like a feast-seeking missile. I scrambled to collect my possessions and take off after him, filled with a heady sense of accomplishment at the effectiveness of my scheme. I am a pathetic genius.