Okay, I’ve just done the math. And I’ve written, to my great shock, 22,500 words for various professional endeavors in the past two and a half weeks, which includes toiling through Thanksgiving weekend. That doesn’t include the fiction or the blog posts here or half a radio script that I’ve been toiling at. Now I have a modest clue as to why I’m a bit exhausted. So if you’ll pardon me, folks, I’m taking the rest of the day off. And by “day off,” that means resuscitating the second computer and running a few modest errands, which even includes a quick research run.

As with any human brain, my own has glaring deficiencies. Whole cavities of knowledge that I hope to fill. Proper restitution of the immediate territories reveals still more estival pores occupied by pop music lyrics, needlessly pedantic refs to events from twenty years ago, and other lithe, trunk-clad, mnemonic divers hoping their swan dives mesh with the wintry waters. Which is to say that these four lobes cannot be duly mapped or mopped, tapped or topped, and I remain at the mercy of a fallible and fluctuating organ. In the end, none of us really know anything. And I quite like that. But there’s no harm in trying.

You don’t want to be my friend because I am possessed of two diametrically opposing qualities: a deeply visceral empathy and a concern for the logical, sometimes both at the same time, sometimes both canceling out. You don’t want to be my friend because, if you are a true friend, you have my incredible loyalty and this, I realize, can be overwhelming. You don’t want to be my friend because I am true to who I am and, while I try to be nice, I am not always nice. You don’t want to be my friend because I am committed to honesty, even when it hurts. And this mostly hurts me. You don’t want to be my friend because while I am good at elucidating at length and intelligence upon certain subjects, I am often not good at explaining my own feelings, assuming that I am not reluctant to do so — ergo, the title of this blog — because one has the obligation of showing up or being kind or responding to the munificence of other people. You don’t want to be my friend because I am very happy not knowing. You don’t want to be my friend because it takes me too long to reveal what others can tell you about themselves so easily. You don’t want to be my friend because I am often stopped in my tracks by a moment of cruelty or injustice and cannot let certain things slide and must rally against it, even though I hope that I will use my powers for good. You don’t want to be my friend because I don’t want anyone to hurt you and will remember those who do. You don’t want to be my friend because I am sometimes an introvert who masquerades as an extrovert, and am perhaps something of a social fraud because of this. You don’t want to be my friend because while I am confident about who I am, I am not sure if the scars have completely healed. You don’t want to be my friend because my face is terribly expressive. You don’t want to be my friend because I very frequently don’t want to ask for anything. You don’t want to be my friend because I want to bear burdens silently.

You don’t.

Want to be.

My friend.

Last night, I had a horrible nightmare in which I learned that my own mother had been responsible for My Lai. I woke up shaking, sweating, my huge heart thumping loud within my chest. I also had a wonderful dream in which several kind jazz musicians allowed me to sing with them on stage after it was demonstrated that I couldn’t play any of their instruments.

You see, there are also good things that come from all these emotional realities. And the shame in typing a phrase like “you don’t want to be my friend” makes me wonder if I am again being too hard on myself, if I am again feeling guilt for not being perfect, if I am momentarily advocating Donne’s dangerous maxim, if I am otherwise grappling with the burdens of being human.

But I do want to be your friend. And I’ll understand if you don’t want me to be your friend. But it goes without saying that we’re all in this together and life is too short not to try.

Rachel Kramer Bussel has tagged me for a meme. And who am I to deny her? So here goes:

1. I believe I may have written about this before, but in the second grade, I was apparently considered “special” and “gifted” after being asked to go to my elementary school on a very hot Saturday morning and participating in some tests that involved spatial dimensions, memory, and verbal skills. The man who tested me, upon seeing my results, began speaking to me in an extremely quiet and nurturing tone. I saw him speak to other adults, who likewise pointed to me. Frankly, now and then, I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. I will be the first to confess that I try to do my best, but that it often isn’t good enough to satisfy me. But this did permit me to enter into a GATE program, where I was bussed once a week to another school and encouraged to think and create. But since I was given nothing specific in the way of ideas or guidelines, since I didn’t have nearly as many books as some of the other richer, middle-class students had, I ended up getting an incredible crush on an older girl named Kristin, spending my time combating a horrible diffidence that crippled me for many years. But I did end up experiencing my first kiss — I don’t count the other pecks I received in preschool and kindergarten, which were more predicated upon “girls are icky” games in the schoolyard — after I gave her a box of After Eight mints that one of the men my mother had dated — a New Yorker, who tried to offer paternal advice to me over the phone — convinced my mother to spring for. The box of mints was six bucks. No small purchase back in those days.

2. As further evidence of my incongruous smarts, I ended up on a Knowledge Bowl team in seventh grade, where I was roundly ridiculed for my ratty clothes and how apparently stupid I was. It wasn’t my idea to be on the Knowledge Bowl. My English teacher, who was miffed when I once defended Stephen King’s virtues by stuttering my points in front of the class, had the idea of putting me on the team. I obliged him and I didn’t know why. We participated in the initial round by staring at a primitive computer terminal — a TRS-80, as I recall — that was linked to several other schools over what now seems the flimsiest of networks, but was then cutting edge. There were a few cases where I knew some obscure answer, although I felt tremendously dumb because my geography and science horrible. But I was very good at language, and remembering painters and musicians. And I saved the team from a defeat by offering a few eleventh-hour answers: both through this computer-based contest and during a later one, conducted live in front of parents and other kids. The other kids on the team — again, much richer and better dressed than me — still viewed me as a dork and a dumbass. For all I knew, they might have been right. But I did find a few other misfits who I got along with. In addition to introducing me to The Prisoner, a television series I still hold in high regard, they also taught me how to use a ten-sided die and encouraged me to do something called “DMing.” There, I invented a remarkably complex universe and tried to account for every conceivable choice that the other players would make, creating a document of what-ifs that was somewhere around thirty handwritten pages. (I also had a tendency to create fictitious countries, complete with economies and demographics. I submitted one such country, using a yeast concoction to generate three-dimensional mountains and carefully painting over it, to my history teacher.)

3. Other failed contests along these lines — my efforts debilitated by my unshakable shyness — included getting to the district spelling bee and, with three kids remaining, misspelling “leopard” by stuttering the O (“l…e…ooooooo…p…a..r…d”) because I was so nervous (I whispered “Whew!” into the mike after spelling a word correctly, where the whoosh from my lips would reverberate across the PA system); being invited to perform at a school district choir before puberty and hiding from everybody, until a kind dark-haired girl took an interest in me and told me what a great singer I was and that the choir needed me and somehow coaxed me onto stage; and, in ninth grade, getting very far in a school district speech contest, only to become very nervous because I had a crush on a redhaired girl named Stacey. But she was a Bush supporter in ’88 who hated my guts and was very resolute in letting me know it. (There was also a malicious, dark-haired Republican-in-training named Louis, who did everything in his powers to make my life miserable, including mocking my stutter, ridiculing my Marshall’s-purchased sweaters, and, in particular, not even permitting me to be a third-string class clown.)

4. Politically, I was a late bloomer. It was 1988, when a very tall senior named Chris, son of a very political man and a kind-hearted laidback guy who ran an underground newspaper (and asked me to write for it, which I did) and who showed me the ropes on how to light a theatrical play, asked me if I was liberal and made me understand what being a liberal entailed, that I realized I was an opinionated young progressive lout. I didn’t understand then why everybody was going after Tip O’Neill. And as soon as my liberalism was out, several hippie chicks in my drama class wanted to corrupt me. But I was too shy then to let them do this. I was, as I believe I have imputed in the previous paragraphs, a fool.

5. 1988 was also the year in which something I wrote was actually performed. It wasn’t much — a play called Inspired Lunacy: Or I Think This is a Big Mistake — very much modeled on Douglas Adams, the Three Stooges, and the Marx Brothers. Two other guys helped write this: a short guy named Chris and a guy named Eric who everybody hated. I deliberately took the third credit, because I didn’t know what I was doing. I shamelessly lifted gags that I had seen pulled off in other mediums. But what I learned with this play was that the humor I came up — which, with the exceptions of a few kind teachers and students, I thought pretty crappy — generated laughter, but that the stuff I stole didn’t. This encouraged me to go into crazier areas, such as a literal adaptation of Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” a few years later, which set the murderous events over a suburban teenage party. I wrote and starred in that fifteen-minute theatrical piece, but it was the first time I had seen my material directed by somebody else. The director was extremely ambitious, using crazed gel lighting. In my bedroom, I practiced my murderous fall for hours so that it would be fairly convincing, angering the family (“How dare you make that noise!”) with my many thumps. The idea of my theatrical adaptation was to present something comical and end it with something startling and sad. I think this was my way of communicating the unpleasant domestic situation to my classmates.

6. Only a few years after the Poe hijinks, I spent far too many hours examining Buster Keaton’s moves on grainy VHS tapes and second-hand DVDs, trying to fall like him. When girlfriends asked where my bruises came from, I never offered an answer. I was not as shy as I had been as a kid, but I was still ashamed of who I was.

7. One of my favorite bars in my twenties was a neighborhood dive called Kelly’s Bar and No Grill (later turned into Pittsburgh’s Pub under new ownership). I’d spend hours there listening to conversations because I learned fairly quickly that the place was where former convicts would go in and get set up. It was sometimes a rough place. (I once witnessed a knife fight there, which, in my youthful folly and idealism, I actually attempted to stop. Thankfully, I was not stabbed.) But I learned more about people just by sitting there during happy hour and listening. I often went alone. But then friends discovered the place and we played darts. By then the riff-raff had dissembled. And it became a pleasant, but fairly run-of-the-mill dive.

8. My skin thickened considerably when I worked for a particular mean attorney. His personal remarks and observations were often extremely vicious, but I began to see how utterly absurd they were and they melted off my Teflon shell. So I have to thank him tremendously for toughening me up. He also inspired the Businessman character in my 2004 play, Wrestling an Alligator.

Anyway, time to pass the meme on. Here are the rules:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

And here are the people I pass this onto (only eight? So unfair!):

Jeff Bryant

Sarah Weinman

Mark Sarvas

Tayari Jones

Jason Boog

Levi Asher

SJ of I, Asshole

Shauna of What’s New Pussycat

I am half-awake and in need of resurrection. Head crushing, by no means crucified, from scant sleep, I head to one of my Sunday breakfast haunts, seeing flocks of families acknowledging an altogether different notion of rebirth. Mine is more prosaic and can be executed the other 364 days of the year. One of the problems with being without religion is that there are no cues. There is no atheist church, but one finds community in other ways.

There are many nonoverlapping sights that catch my attention: The new waitress who presumably fits the bill of “two years’ experience” that was registered on the help wanted sign, now gone. I don’t know if she fudged her years, but I suspect she has. She is pleasant enough, but she is inexpert at replenishing coffee. I still tip her well. Her jeans slip down her waist, forming a sharp hyperbolic ellipse that reveals the beginnings of a paunch and the top portion of an oval tattoo close to vulva. Hyperbolic curve revealing hidden hyperbolic curve clipped by the denim demarcating line. With its wholesome-debauched dichotomy, it reminds me of the Beriln Wall. But this exhibitionism is commonplace in my neighborhood and it doesn’t faze me.

I can certainly empathize with the confused and bushy-haired young man who is being vetted by his girlfriend’s parents. He didn’t get the memo that it was Easter either. His blue bandanna holds back unruly shocks of brown hair which disappear behind his blue sweatshirt. The other three people at his table are dressed like the families, which is to say suited, and they have signaled this disparity by shifting their posteriors to the left of the booth, all bunched in solidarity against this man’s sartorial indiscretion. Shirtsleeves or dressing down simply aren’t options here and I wonder if someone is going to arrest me for wearing yesterday’s denim shirt or failing to shave or not remembering the miracle of the nailed man on the cross. I’m certainly not cross towards any of these believers.

The table that draws my attention, and I am curious and observant because I failed to bring a book, is a father with two children. The father is moribund, suffusing strawberry jam in a sad and solitary way. His son and daughter are happy, frequently leaving the table to run circles around an aquarium just across the tiles. Papa does not share their zeal, but he has spiffed up his son, who is also besuited and well-groomed. Papa is dressed in a crisp blue blazer and a burgundy shirt and a smart tie blending in like Cézanne. He is in his mid-forties, the remains of his hair closely cropped. The balding is now at an end for him. I wonder if I will look like him in a decade or so when my hair eventually goes. I am wondering if he has the kids because his ex-wife forgot to pick them up. I am wondering if he was burned by someone or whether he is just hungry or disguising his sadness by appearing here with his brood. Perhaps the diner permits him to escape or saves him the labor of cooking eggs, potatos and bacon in that proud male manner that I have employed for women who wake up with me on a Sunday morning. Perhaps he needs a woman to swing his skillet. His children do not notice his loneliness. The waitress may not have two years’ experience, but she is expert enough to pick up on social cues and leaves the man to find a quiet paternal bonding with his children.

The divorce can’t be recent. (Or is he a widower?) The children are too happy. And I really hope this man will display some kind of joy. Maybe he might smile, as I did, over the waitress’s oval tattoo. Or perhaps he considers himself too old for this puerile preening or he doesn’t want anyone to see his giddy dregs.

But it turns out that I am very wrong. For as the man walks in the distance to settle up, I see the slight upward curve of a smile. And I see him engage in minor flirtation with the waitress, channeling some young part that I had thought dead. I wonder if he has read my mind. As the pleasant din of early Marley delights the diners, the man begins dancing a twinkly two-step, one that he hasn’t employed since his days in the dance clubs. And I see now why the kids love him.

Twenty minutes after this man has disappeared, I pay my check. I be-bop as well, with decidedly more swings of the arms, in deference to this man’s giddy human spirit, wondering if anyone is watching me and hoping that my clumsy but pleasantly executed moves will inspire them to dance a demented jig for a day that is, as far as I’m concerned, too restrictive of the beatific human spirit.

I shot out of bed this morning at 3:30 AM and I haven’t been to bed since. This is saying something because I am a deep sleeper. I was woken this morning by a rat who scurried under my futon. The rat was about six inches in length — likely a Norway menace — and its slimy curlicue tail swirled about a foot away from my head. I have heard the rats (there are many of them) scurrying through some of my papers. I have heard them in the walls and it is just as scary as Lovecraft’s story. Where did they come from? They stormed my apartment in one parasitical burst.

I am now in a coffeehouse. The exterminators are coming this afternoon. I have no desire to return to my apartment, although I have been brave and did some work while keeping my legs under my ass. I have tried to do more work, but it has been to no avail. The exterminators tell me that it will take repeat visits to rid the apartment of this infestation, but that the vermin should be exterminated in about two to three weeks. They offer a 90 day warranty, which I find interesting, given that the service involves destroying rather than preserving something.

I did not expect this to happen to me. I am certainly not a heroin addict nor do I welcome squalor. I may be messy, but I am not a total slob. Certainly the apartment has been in worse shape than it is in right now and the rats did not come. I suspect that the rats were attracted by the recent bathroom leak. Sewage is their natural habitat. And there was a hole in my bathroom ceiling for several days. Put it together.

I know there is a hole behind one of my bookshelves, for that is where this morning’s rat came from. Thankfully, it did not give two shits about me, but I let out a considerable squeal and vowed to kill the bastard. Unfortunately, I was unarmed and, even if I had possessed a weapon, I had no wish to catch the bubonic plague. I know there is another hole somewhere in my closet and I have kept that door shut. I hear the rats scratching from behind the heater. Christ, how many of them are there?

I will be staying in a hotel tonight. I have cracked many rat jokes, but there is still something unshakably menacing about the vermin. These damn things copulate several times a year and produce a litter of twenty or more. There are more rats than humans on this planet.* I am operating off of two hours of sleep and am keeping myself awake with Americanos.

I look upon the exterminators as my private mercenaries, my comrades in arms. I know that we will defeat the bastards.

But if it’s quiet around here for a while, you now know why.

* — I have since learned that this is false. Blame my understandable anxieties here.

[UPDATE: The exterminator has arrived, sealed off openings, and laid down traps. Apparently, the mice were coming through openings in the garage, which have now been sealed. The remaining ten to twenty mice will die in the next seven days. There’s a funny story here for a future post. I talked with the guy for a while. But it will have to wait. Needless to say, I now have a deranged respect for exterminators.]

I turn 32 today, and I hate it. Not because I am concerned with aging or because I am ashamed of who I am. I’m proud of my achivements and I’m doing just fine. No, I hate this whole birthday thing because it causes my faith in other people to dwindle into near misanthropy — if only for a day. Like anything, it passes. In many ways, how one person acts around you on your birthday (treating you coldly or failing to even say hello when they know very well it’s your birthday and this damn knowledge has made the office rounds without your sanction) is a measure of how they view you as a human being. But I also realize that this is an inaccurate measure, that people are subject to personal whims, that they have lives and they’re doing the best they can, and that it is unfair for me to judge them based on one day. Further, who am I to expect anything from anyone? And who the hell am I to judge?

The problem extends to just how important a birthday is and how it ties into one’s ego. To celebrate one’s self or, to use a verb suggested to me this morning, “pamper” one’s self strikes me as a horrid act of solipsism. To assume that others should reschedule their lives around you is even more selfish. And I suppose I’m committing the ultimate act of selfishness by laying down these neuroses in writing. But I must be honest here.

Here is the cruel irony: I am embarassed by any attentions showered on me, but I do pine for it in some casual, picayune, and non-materialistic manner. The last time I attempted any kind of celebration with friends (a few years ago), I tried simply to meet for drinks in a pub. There was no need for anybody to bring gifts. Just a casual conversation. Perhaps a few “Happy birthday, Eds” thrown in for good measure. I figured this was a halfway house between lavish blowout and informal confab. A way for me to become comfortable with the idea of the birthday, which seemed to delight everyone else.

Nobody showed up. I felt about as insignificant as the fly crawling up my glass of Guinness.

So I have removed myself from the equation. But I’m not sure if this is the right approach either.

Because we are dealing with an issue where one’s status is raised or lowered in relation to how a birthday is celebrated, I dread the birthday’s assault on my steady internal barometer. A birthday enters the equation and it threatens to blow a strong gale against the steady sail I use to guide my course. The birthday is entirely different from the curve balls life throws you, which are generally not personally directed at you and don’t involve you and can be responded to with action and discipline.

Since my own attitude doesn’t subscribe to the whole “Hey, here’s a cake! It’s your day!” approach that seems to be the norm, I try to wiggle my way out by avoiding most of humanity. It’s probably a shitty thing to do, particularly when my friends are only being kind and are just doing their best to make me happy. And I certainly don’t welcome this passive approach on my part, which is somewhat cowardly and only continues to exacerbate the problem. I really want to conquer the birthday in the same way that I triumphed over my hesitations about Xmas by doing volunteer work instead of participating in that holiday’s abject consumerism. But I don’t know how to do it. Because the damn thing’s all about me.

I feel that when I reveal even modest impulses (“Can we go out for drinks? Can we go out for dinner?”) that I’m like that wretched kid in that old Twilight Zone episode who has powers over all of the adults around him and forces them to submit to his every desire. Shouldn’t social occasions happen because people simply want to meet each other?

I certainly don’t want to burden my friends with any feelings which suggest that I’m ungrateful. I don’t want to be some miserable beacon that they have to celebrate or reassure, even in a small way. I don’t like the fact that for twenty-four hours, I become this minor bundle of nerves because I’m so self-conscious.

Why do I still blush in my fucking thirties when people wish me happy birthday? I can handle damn near everything else. I’ve had stalkers and death threats. There is no end to the amount of vitriol I have received over the years. But I’ve always been able to laugh that all off and dwell upon the positive.

The birthday, alas, is cut of an altogether different cloth. And I wish I knew exactly why. I cried on my thirtieth birthday when my then girlfriend baked me a cake. When my now girlfriend sang me happy birthday to me on the phone this morning, I was embarassed to tell her know how much this meant. When emails poured in this morning from a few friends, I couldn’t even type in the word “Thanks.”

I don’t know what to do about any of this. But at least I know there’s tomorrow. I know that tomorrow I’ll be myself again, divested of the importance and the attention (or lack thereof).

The good news first, since, acerbic tendencies aside, I’m an optimist: Ami Greko is a goddess. I’ll say no more. It arrived today. Thank you thank you thank you, Ms. Greko. I will start reading it tomorrow and report back here when I’m finished.

The bad news: I had intended to offer more content and podcasts this week, but there have been, how shall we say it exactly, existential complications. My landlord, who is thankfully a hundredfold more responsive than either Michael Brown or George Bush, and I are still contending with the leak from hell, which has now sullied quite a few of my books with water damage. All of them, thankfully, are easily replacable, although I’ve had to place my collection of tomes published in the 19th century into the main room.

Apparently, just after I left for work this morning, the leak broke big, assuming Biblical proportions. The water in the bucket overflowed and my landlord discovered upon entry a capacious puddle extending down the hallway. Knowing of my bibliomania, he was kind enough to shift some of the bookpiles onto shelves. We’re going into the ceiling tomorrow. The source of the leak remains unknown. I suspect the bathroom will resemble Gene Hackman’s apartment at the end of The Conversation. But no matter. We will prevail against the dreaded water.

Such is the life of being an urban dweller and a renter.

What this means is that tomorrow’s LBC podcast may be delayed until the weekend. Then again, I may get it finished. We shall see.

Origin point, pulled from Gwenda.

1. Have you ever been searched by the cops?

Yes. And I can only imagine how often I’d be searched if I wasn’t Caucasian or relatively clean-cut looking.

2. Do you close your eyes on roller coasters?

Why would anyone want to do this? Diffidence and amusement park rides are hardly the peanut butter and jelly of human experience. If by “closing your eyes,” you refer to blinking, well, I do quite a lot of that. But this is entirely unrelated to the roller coaster and has more to do with removing irritants from the cornea. However, you’ve given me an idea! The next time I ride a roller coaster, I will see how long I can ride it without blinking.

3. When’s the last time you’ve been sledding?

I recall a few makeshift sledding moments in my teens in the Sierra Nevada. But keep in mind that I’m inveterately Californian. As such, snow is largely an exotic meterological phenomenon to me. Which is not to suggest I’m anti-sledding or anti-snow. In fact, I have long harbored a desire to take up bobsledding.

4. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone?

Someone else, although I have no problem with the latter Circadian predicament. To paraphrase Woody Allen, I suppose that sleeping alone means sleeping with someone you love.

5. Do you believe in ghosts?

I don’t believe in the supernatural, which extends not only to ghosts but manufactured deities that a lot of angry people seem to find comfort with. In fact, I once accompanied a friend to a dark park in San Bernardino. My friend insisted that this park was haunted. When he said this, the creepy feelings I had about the park’s gloomy atmosphere immediately lifted and I spent the next twenty minutes convincing my friend that the park was not, in fact, haunted. And he was able to feel less fearful about the park.

This is not to suggest that I don’t enjoy the concept of ghosts. In fact, I greatly enjoy reading tales about mythological entities — what some folks call “speculative fiction” or “horror.”

6. Do you consider yourself creative?

Talk with my accountant, who I understand practices in a “creative” capacity.

7. Do you think O.J. killed his wife?

Maybe. But I don’t feel I can prognosticate upon this question unless I’ve examined all of the evidence. I was troubled by the “O.J. did it” impulse that so many Americans latched onto in the mid-90’s. By virtue of reading tabloid stories or watching excerpts on television, many took it upon themselves to venture opinions that seemed uninformed to my ears. I was disinclined to care, but I did offer a few “uh huhs” and utterly dumbass asides for those who needed to talk about it. O.J. Simpson was a bad guy, but he wasn’t exactly Adolf Eichmann, was he?

8. Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie?

While both of these women are quite beautiful, I don’t believe I could sleep with either of them until I’ve had a chance to talk with them and see if we’re conversationally compatible. But I’m in a happy relationship right now. And if you’re going to tempt me, why not up the stakes a bit or go a little nuts with the question? Why not ask: Would you sleep with Jennifer Aniston, Angelina Jolie and your girlfriend? Or your girlfriend and a clone of your girlfriend? Come on,appeal to the polymorphously perverse! I have a lot of that going on.

9. Do you stay friends with your ex’s?

Every effort has been made to stay friendly with them. Alas, the women who I have dated in the past few years prefer to adopt a “scorched earth” policy when the relationship is over. I suspect this has much to do with bad timing shortly after the final relationship meeting — likely my fault. At that point, being an emotional sort, I’m generally upset and the prospect of exchanging possessions we’ve left at each other’s apartments feels cold and transactional. Oddly enough, the ex-girlfriends seem to be perfectly okay with this, which causes me to become even more laconic and desiring to get very much the hell out of there. The ex-girlfriends then interpret this to be an insensitive gesture on my part (and perhaps it is) and, when I am friendly weeks later, after I have allowed my emotions to sort themselves out, I am persona non grata. Although there has been some improvement on the “let’s be friends” front with the last few.

10. Do you know how to play poker?

If you’re asking me if I can bluff, then yes.

11. Have you ever been awake for 48 hours straight?

I have, in fact, been awake for 72 hours straight. Four times. All this without drugs. I am devoting myself to science, so that the appropriate biologist might better understand strange people.

12. What’s your favorite commercial?

I’m particularly fond of the Daisy commercial, which finally revealed to the world just how ridiculous presidential politics could be. Only a man like Lyndon Johnson would try to win votes by scaring the bejesus out of voters with nuclear war. You have to respect that kind of brazen melodramatic approach to winning. Of course, since the commercial aired in 1964, it’s been downhill ever since.

13. What are you allergic to?

Cats and excessive pollen.

14. If you’re driving in the middle of the night, and no one is around do you run red lights?

Well, this all depends on whether I’m feeling particularly nihilistic.

15. Do you have a secret that no one knows but you?

Yes. I happen to know what Col. Sanders’ 11 herbs and spices are. Granted, some people probably know this already. But since Col. Sanders is dead and the KFC people have likely belittled the old man’s great recipe, I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m sitting on an exclusive.

16. Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees?

By way of Boston having a team symbolizing a laundering nightmare for those with crisp white briefs and New York opting for a general and rather unoriginal patriotic noun, I choose the Sox.

17. Have you ever been Ice Skating?

I have. It was catastrophic. One should never take up ice skating after a pub crawl.

18. How often do you remember your dreams?

I remember half of my dreams and try to write them down when I can.

19. When was the last time you laughed so hard you cried?

Yesterday, when thinking about that time I thought about the time that was really funny.

20. Can you name 5 songs by The Beatles?

Yes. Right now, what comes to my head is “I’m Only Sleeping,” “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number),” “Day Tripper,” “Oh Darling,” and “Yer Blues.”

21. What’s the one thing on your mind now?

There’s this strange skull that seems to have this funny idea that it needs to be there to protect my brain from the elements. I suppose that I could wear a hat and have two things on my mind.

22. Do you know who Ghetto-ass barbie is?

Yes, but she wasn’t nearly as interesting as Eight Months Pregnant Barbie (although I thought Mattel went a little too far with that stomach you could pop open), Menopausal Barbie, Don’t Fuck With Me I’ve Just Had My Period Barbie, or It’s Time to Shop for Shoes Barbie.

23. Do you always wear your seat belt?

Sometimes.

24. What cell service do you use?

Mononuclear. Have you heard of it? These guys have a pretty affordable mitosis add-on too, although it’s no substitute for text messages.

25. Do you like Sushi?

Yes.

26. Have you ever narrowly avoided a fatal accident?

Yes.

27. What do you wear to bed?

Nothing.

28. Been caught stealing?

I’m not much of a thief. The one time I did steal something, it was a Weird Al Yankovic tape from K-Mart. I was in eighth grade. And I only did this because of peer pressure from my so-called pals at the time. Ironically enough, all of our parents learned that we had stealed and I was declared the bad influence. When in fact the notion of stealing had never been my idea and I had been egged on. Being a rather shy, nervous and misunderstood kid, I had hoped that my indiscretion would curry favor with these small-time urchins. Instead, I was declared a menace in the ratty apartment complex we lived in. And these kids were instructed to avoid me.

29. What shoe size do you have?

That’s a very personal question! Only my lovers will know the answer!

30. Do you truly hate anyone?

While I’m generally a person who can find something good within everyone, even my nemeses, I have tried long and hard to find one good thing about President George W. Bush. But I cannot find a single positive thing to say about him.

31. Classic Rock or Rap?

Both, mothafuckah!

32. If you could sleep with one famous person, who would it be?

Why settle for one? If one is to commit such an indecency, I think it behooves the intrepid Lothario to sleep with as many famous people as possible in one evening. And, besides, I prefer to sleep with infamous people.

33. Favorite Song?

I think right now I’ll opt for “Billy Don’t Be a Hero,” a truly wretched song that allows one to name fifty songs in response that are infinitely better. Unfortunately, this also means avoiding this troubling question.

34. Have you ever sang in front of the mirror?

I’m not particularly fond of staring at myself in front of a mirror. What this means is that my mirror activities are confined to shaving and brushing my teeth. I am precluded from singing when I am holding a razor to my face, seeing as how any physical shift might cause an unexpected swipe and blood to spurt out in Peckinpah-like proportions. The latter activity, of course, makes singing quite difficult, but not impossible. And sometimes it’s quite enjoyable to watch the frothy toothpaste hit the mirror as I attempt to stumble my way through a Bob Dylan tune.

35. What food do you find disgusting?

Many people don’t realize this, but the Lima bean was actually discovered by Mendel. Mendel introduced this wholly inhospitable vegetable to the populace in an effort to steer people off small elliptical vegetables. After all, Mendel was a priest. And not having much of an income, he needed all the pea plants he could get to conduct his genetic experiments. What nobody anticipated, however, was that the Lima bean would actually catch on and be forced down the gullets of reluctant children. The Lima bean is not only disgusting, but it has given vegetables a bad rap. It has caused more childhood nightmares than any vegetable rightly should. If I might be allowed to adopt a controversial position, I wholly endorse its total annihilation from the planet Earth.

36. Do you sing in the shower?

I do sing in the shower, but my problem is that, because I don’t have a shower stall to enclose me. So I’m not certain if I’m actually “in the shower.” After all, when you’re dealing with a shower curtain which permits you to shower in a bathtub, there’s always the possibility that the shower curtain might slide back or fall off. Meaning that you won’t actually be “in the shower,” but “half-immersed in an improvised shower.” To add insult to injury, the water will then spill onto the tile and create a colossal mess that you might have to mop up later. However, despite the manic anarchy here, one can still sing.

37. Did you ever play, “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours”?

I’m the proud owner of the original version of this board game, which was put out by Milton Bradley in 1954. Offered as an alternative to Parcheesi and Monopoly, I’ll Show You Mine, If You Show Me Yours was an early effort by a few sensitive types to create a noncompetitive game. While this game proved a failure during the Eisenhower administration, fortunately the people behind this game were able to sell a new version of this called “The Ungame” in the 1970s, as Sensitive Males (led in part by Alan Alda and Phil Donahue) rose to national prominence.

38. Have you ever made fun of your friends behind their back?

I find that it’s better to crack jokes about friends when standing behind them, rather in front of them. This generally affords them the opportunity to take things in. They can always turn around to face me if they take particular umbrage.

39. Have you ever stood up for someone you hardly knew?

All the time. Those pesky older people, for example, feel the need to take my subway seat without even bothering to introduce themselves.

40. Have you ever been punched in the face?

Yes. But the guy meant to hit the obnoxious man sitting in the bar stool behind me.

At the risk of postulating neuroses writ large, I have slept seven and a half of the past seventy-two hours. As I snoozed during five of these hours, Windows Update decided to restart my machine (without giving me an opportunity to save my work) and didn’t bother to ask me about my feelings on the matter♠, which meant that I lost a good deal of the work I had done on this week’s LBC podcast. The Heti interview will have to wait until next week. I suspect that a good pal hated the band we saw the other night♣ and, if so, I feel guilty♥ that he blew some bucks on a band I had been dying to see live since 2003.

Much of these thoughts and feelings have, of course, been shaped through a rather incredible confluence of exhaustion, overwork, and, most of all, a failure to account for my own limitations. Of course, if I had to do it all again, I’d sacrifice sleep and fall on my face again. That’s what it says to do in the government-issued manual♦.

Aside from all this, things are positive, happening and toe-tapping. And I shall scribe again for public consumption on Tuesday — hopefully, with clean hands and composure. Do have yourselves a fantastic weekend!

♠ — Maybe I’m alone in this, but I feel that, aside from informing you just how they intend to cripple your system resources, operating systems should ask you how you feel from time to time. It would certainly advance the relationship chasm between humans and computers.

♣ — The Quasi show at Cafe du Nord wasn’t bad, but was seriously impaired by the terrible sound afforded to Sam Coomes’ keys, which did a gross injustice to Coomes’ propensity to slam on the ivory like a mad musician. The minute Coomes (now sporting a beard) took up the axe, things improved greatly — in large part because he was dishelved, looked somewhat bemused and had a rather joyfully spastic stage presence. Also, Janet Weiss is a solid drummer. But if you’re a Sleater-Kinney fan, you already know this.

♥ — Guilty because said pal attended a previous show with me that he didn’t care for. I’m not adverse to going to shows that he suggests, but I’ve apparently been the vocal party in this “Do you wanna go see a show?” business and feel horribly solipsistic as a result.

♦ — You got the same thing in your 1040 booklets as I did, didn’t you?

Life (and other things) has been treating us quite well, which is to say that we’re too occupied with this glorious thing called living and probably too exhausted or preoccupied to blog in any thorough capacity. On Sunday, we were quite shocked to sleep until 1 PM, which we hadn’t done in some time. All this sleep, mind you, sans any (and here’s the key adjective) sustained debauchery. Then again, we suppose there are only so many nights that one can operate on three hours of sleep. Nevertheless, it felt good and we were confused by the strange sensation of being awake.

We had started work on the next podcast before realizing that we were going to be extremely anal about a few things (not the way you’re thinking) and that, as such, we could not release it as quickly as we had hoped. The audio files would require a considerable amount of tweaking (to satisfy our compulsions, mind you!) and, accordingly, many gigabytes of space that we didn’t have. (Damn you, broadcast quality!) So we had to install yet another drive. The people at Central Computers are beginning to recognize us almost as frequently as the folks who work in the pro audio section at Guitar Center.

We’re using this stupid first person plural voice. Again. Dammit.

We have two more author interviews this week and then we are released from our duties for a week and a half. We will also be fighting, as ridiculous as it sounds, the littering charge. We’re in desperate need of some kind of vacation, which is thankfully coming. We’re thinking that about all we can manage before our trip down south for Coachella is a podcast or two and possibly a few literary roundups. In any event, if we’re laconic around here or we just plain suck in the next week, you now have the underlying variables.

We have failed to live up to any superhuman status. We therefore declare Dan Wickett the reigning grand master of tireless literary coverage. We know when our asses are kicked.

it rained today the same way it did yesterday and the same way it did before that motherfucking rain what the hell is going on? what did i do to deserve this? can the sun come out and remind us we’re human? it rained 26 days in march, 26 days as if this town was some surrogate seattle and i’ve been trying to remain positive but it’s been 26 days and i hate umbrellas and the spokes that hit you in the forehead they are like those wretched cadillac boats that hover between two lanes when you drive so i’m left getting drenched hoping that the rain won’t come down but still the rain comes and i’ve had just about enough and i suppose that this, conjoined with the lack of sleep, is why i’ve been so bitchy surprised i’m not sick

all rain and no sun makes ed a mad boy
all rain and no sun makes ed a mad boy

better to be a mad boy (at 31, natch!) than a madman but i think one of those cluetrain people have cornered the market on indignant online identities i don’t know, that was so long ago in web 1.0

so anyway i am now ably fixated on this rain and three weather sources that i have checked tell me that it will rain through the whole of the week and that we won’t see the sun unless we’re lucky on monday i must have done something bad to deserve this this is a republican scheme, yes, with the global warming i must have done something bad but is this the correct way to punish me for my existential faults (many)? it would be nice not to have to go to bed alone and hear the rain patter mercilessly against the windows perhaps this is why i have insomnia why i’m a bit sad right now

what happens when you’re cooped up inside is that you don’t sleep and you force yourself to do something productive like making podcasts and burning yourself out and composing bullshit blog entries like this i wonder if there are any foolproof studies which conclude that rain is a telltale indicator of one’s mental health and well-being i’m more neurotic than usual

it continues to rain outside and often muni buses do not come thus quelling my natural enthusiasm for public transportation a grand shame i like being excited about subways

people are normally quite jocose in this town, but lately they have been miserable even the bartender the other night who i tipped generously told me, “here’s your fucking change” either he knows me or i did something bad to him or he’s miserable like the rest of us

i think i don’t like the rain because san francisco is such a beautiful town why i’ve lived here so long but when the rain comes it sticks to the streets and traps you between buildings it turns everything into horrible grime and nobody wants to go outside and pick up the litter because they will come back soaking you can walk outside for five minutes and your socks will feel damp and even my extremely buzzed down hair will feel like damp silky strands as if i’m not balding at all!

we californians complain about the rain because we’re spoiled by sunshine all the time snow is exotic when it is very cold like in other places in the states we are even more miserable but this rain is recurrent forcing us to remain recumbent nice for couples but pretty lousy after 26 (26!) rainy days single

i was doing perfectly alright being alone quite happy and occupied until this rain came and killed my instincts to go out and observe people and meet friends and otherwise inhabit this great city of ours

and yet there is still a roof over my head there’s plenty of media to consume and think about there’s plenty of work to be done but the rain causes me to rethink much of this and i don’t like snapping like a turtle at people and perhaps it’s not the rain at all but a general state of exhaustion that i’ve been in denial about for the past four weeks

i am a fool thank you rain for limning this

While I can pretty much ignore most of your ignoble cousins, it is you who, for whatever reason, seem to think I might be receptive to your pitches. Understand that I was tested many years ago. I didn’t believe the results back then and I certainly don’t believe them now, even though certain adults bragged about what I apparently scored and it allowed me to get into some dubious program called “GATE.”

I imagined a drawbridge or a moat, but there were, I assure you, no gates to speak of. And in fact the program was quite slipshod in encouraging my supposed “gifted and talented” abilities, bussing me to a school on the other side of town and having adults, all of them speaking in soft and sensitive timbres reminiscent of Alan Alda and Phil Donahue (my only real reference point, seeing as how the television was an unfortunately prominent fixture growing up), letting me “do whatever I wanted.” So I was able to wile away the time quite egregiously, knowing very little of the art, the books, the science and the PET computer that was “accessible” to me, but never tossed my way. In short, I learned nothing and had no idea how to go about “doing whatever I wanted.” I was nine years old for crying out loud. Of course, had the soft-spoken teachers thought to demand something of me, I might have picked up a thing or two.

But I do remember a very cute girl (an older woman in fifth grade) named Kirstin, who was tall and blonde and a bit prematurely developed, if you know what I mean, and who I was relentlessly attracted to and who I longed to kiss at the age of nine and who I tried to impress with stunts on the ratty BMX bike I had and who I cried about on the phone to one of the men my mother was dating. Because I didn’t understand these profound feelings that crippled my solar plexus. Because I was confused that I could feel so much over one of those girls, who were declared “disgusting” and “icky” and other verboeten adjectives in the elementary school vernacular of that time. Fortunately, this guy was nice enough to encourage my mother to buy a box of After Eight mints, no small task given that we weren’t exactly living in style, which I then wrapped up with a bit of leftover Christmas ribbon in an inept way and which I then presented to her on the school bus, knees knocking together, nervousness and shyness spilling over the edge, and my face redder than a family dinner at the Red Lobster.

To my great shock, Kirstin received the mints with equanimity and proceeded to give me a hug and then further proceeded to smack me one on the cheek, leaving me utterly speechless and baffled and delighted. Kirstin and I gabbed to no end for the rest of that year. And that very day, during recess, we wandered off to the other edge of the school lawn and, neither of us knowing the protocol, proceeded to kiss each other deeply, outside the view of the supervising faculty members. She introduced to me this fabulous thing called the French kiss, which single-handedly sealed my heretofore unabated love for women, and older women in particular. And of course I cannot ever hate any woman named Kirstin. (Perhaps this might be one slight though subconscious reason why I voted Kirstin Allio’s Garner a 10? Or why I have had an inexplicable interest in Kirsten Dunst, who is much too young for me and not, from what I can tell, all that smart?)

Anyway, as you can see, none of this has anything to do with IQ tests. Nor is the consequential behavior that I have presented to you any indication of my intelligence. Nor are tests really the way in which one’s strengths and weaknesses come to occur. For I know very well that I’m not a genius and actually quite a fool, particularly with regard to the women I have dated and fallen in love with.

I have no idea if you obtained my address because I apparently maintain a literary blog or a “smart blog.” Or because perhaps in giving my email address to someone. Or maybe it’s the few Mensa members I’ve talked with having a laugh on me. I have long maintained that I am a few points short of this “genius” label and certainly a few beers short of an emotional genius’s six pack.

The good folks at Red Hen Press have just put out the latest issue (#2 — 2005) of The Los Angeles Review, where a review of Kevin Starr’s Coast of Dreams can be found, penned by yours truly. Here’s the opening paragraph:

Kevin Starr is a one-man juggernaut, as if he decided early in life to take on Hubert Howe Bancroft’s “history factory” approach single-handedly. In his chronicles of the politicos, burgeoning movements, ethnic struggles and artistic trends of the Golden State, he’s taken special care to unearth both the obvious and the obscure figures that make up California’s unique cultural identity. We revel in Starr’s obsessive grasp of the past, only imagining how ebullient the man might be on a caffeine bender.

You’ll also find my thoughts on Starr’s out-of-print novel Land’s End and some speculation on Starr’s move to Random House. I can’t possibly fathom the idea of an Ed Champion completist out there in the crowd, so I should also note that there are contributions by my esteemed colleagues Mark Sarvas and Laila Lalami, as well as a remarkable array of fiction and poetry. All for fourteen bucks. Cheaper than a night out for drinks and you won’t lose any brain cells or wake up the next morning with an unfortunate surprise lying next to you. Do check it out.

Tied up through most of the day, but if you insist on a daily dose, you can catch me over here. Apparently, the good folks over at Bloggasm thought I might have worthwhile things to say. You make the call.

Another meme from Mental Multivitamin: The first sentence of the first post of each month in 2005.

RESULTS:

Ladies and gentlemen, our research is done. We are, of course, beyond grateful that someone out there has seen fit to provide indelible evidence demonstrating just how malleable Mr. Lipsyte is in a supine position. Harold Pinter is cashing in his chips? Pope John Paul II, long reported to be suffering from ill health, began early training for the Roman Catholic Triathlon this morning. Back from Coachella. While we’re on the move, Lauren Baratz-Logsted was kind enough to offer us an essay about her experiences with reading reactions. The gang at Long Sunday talks with RotR fave China Mieville. Finally, one of our esteemed colleagues had the balls to point out the obvious. A prescient article from Scientific American (2001). I was very skeptical. Hot on the heels of Michiko slamming Banville into the ground (with an unusual silence from certain quarters), Notes on Non-Camp points to this profile, which claims Michiko to be “the most feared book critic in the world.” Congrats to Mark, Pinky (so “out there,” apparently), and Lee Goldberg for mentions in this extremely strange L.A. Times article.

The latest one is from OGIC:

Four jobs you’ve had in your life: Paralegal, Disc Editor, Register Operator, Target Snack Bar Lackey.

Four movies you could watch over and over: Kieslowski’s Dekalog, Mike Leigh’s Naked, Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man, Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon.

Four places you’ve lived: San Francisco, Santa Clara, Sacramento, San Jose (in short, Northern California all the way!).

Four TV shows you love to watch: I can’t answer this because there are in fact only three television shows I watch: Lost, Battlestar Galactica and (oh what the hell, everyone needs a guilty pleasure!) Smallville.

Four places you’ve been on vacation: Vacation? What’s that? Berlin, Oregon County, Vegas, Zamora, California (don’t ask).

Four websites you visit daily: Well too many, but here are four that don’t get the attention they deserve: Quiddity, Foghorn, Grumpy Old Bookman, and the BART RSS feed (which is more amusing than you might think).

Four of your favorite foods: The burrito (particularly chicken verde with a spinach tortilla), chicken vindaloo (served with naan and rice), all manner of temaki, and I cannot resist fresh prawns mixed with either string beans or veggies.

Four places you’d rather be: Poring through the tomes at the Library of Congress, on the beaches of Cabo San Lucas with a margarita and a novel, the Great Pyramids of Giza, attempting to climb Mt. Everest.

We went out once. We didn’t click.

And yet you persist in leaving me five voicemails a day (no, contrary to the pathological excuses you’ve been inventing to justify your looneytunes zeal, my voicemail is functioning quite well; unfortunately, just too fucking well) and cluttering my inbox with all manner of deranged JPEG attachments of coffeehouses we “might be able to meet in.”

In case it isn’t salient by now, I wish you well, but I have no interest in meeting you, much less exchanging a single word with you, ever again.

Most ordinary humans take the hint and move on with their lives. Despite polite and carefully worded language from me thanking you but suggesting that we weren’t exactly the Bob and Betty Wills of our day, you insist in your indefatigable efforts. What part of “Do not call me again” did you not parse? I mean, I think that’s a pretty lucid message, don’t you think?

One would think that at the age of 35, such basic laws of human interaction would be familiar to you by now. And yet you persist.

Since you seem equally intent upon tracking my every online move and responding with some commentary about “what a genius I am” (newsflash: I’m not), I’m hoping that in posting this message, some reasonable element within your being will finally wake up and stop calling me. Failing that, there’s a movie you might want to see that illustrates precisely what has gone wrong (since this has been a common theme in your nutbar voicemail solilioquys). That movie is Play Misty for Me. To be absolutely certain you understand what’s going on here, I’m the Clint Eastwood character. Got it?

Very truly yours,

Edward Champion

…in limn of existential meanderings and peripatetic journeys to urban locales (extra-SF), all concerning the inevitable turkey-stuffing grandcentralstat point, as presented on an X-Y axis shakily scrawled upon a napkin (not unlike certain economic theories), placebo effect and drool req. for gorging and collapse and otherwise mature adults transfixed by cartoons (thank you dvd manufacturers for this nostalgia) that form a narcotic which is simultaneously return to childhood and recontextualization of original viewing. Some things to figure out:

1. Is Bugs Bunny the first animated transvestite and why do I find him mildly attractive?
2. Why are animations so enjoyable to watch shortly before gorging on a large meal?
3. Why does my itinerary resemble some third-rate lounge singer’s? And why am I not opening for some glockenspiel player in a dive bar?
4. They’ve jumped the gun again on Xmas. Again. Why do these atrocious carolers with their trumpets and drums sound as if they are playing nationalist anthems from Communist Yugoslavia? Who knew that “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” played at a middling and painfully slow timbre, conjured up a certain martial ode to Tito (not to be confused with this Tito, who I would not expect to consort with the Soviet Red Army)?

…the like.

Anyway, happy Turkey Day and all to Reluctant readers. Will return sometime next week.

During a particularly harsh bout of insomnia that involved carrying on a colloquy with my skull, I buzzed down my hair to the shortest length that it has ever been. Now it was pretty short to begin with, but this time, I used a #1, dammit. I shaved the pesky fuzz down mercilessly. Not Max Barry length, but pretty damn short. My hair is tantamount to a Chia Pet in the early stages of growth. The early reports are in:

OPINION: “You look more like a dude.”
ANALYSIS: Was I not masculine enough before? Or do some women require a je ne sais quoi Mr. Clean makeover in order to remain convinced that said dude does indeed possess a Y chromosome and maintain an unabated ardor for mammaries?

OPINION: “Did you get a haircut?”
ANALYSIS: No, I didn’t actually. I woke up and my hair grew magically shorter. Glad you noticed.

OPINION: “Wow, you’re going bald.”
ANALYSIS: Thank you. I wasn’t aware of this.

I am very close to doing without hair altogether.

The news is so fundamentally awful and depressing that we’ve now resorted to heavy drinking hanging with friends and disconnecting for a tad so that the profound rage, hopelessness and sorrow we feel doesn’t spread like a cancer into the depths of our soul — the way these incompetents in power want it to. We’ll be back on Tuesday.

[UPDATE: We walked thirty miles in 24 hours. If that doesn’t give you a sense of the crazed lengths we’ve gone to in order to remain calm, nothing will. Of course, wiser folks looking at our neuroses from the outside have been kind enough to put things into perspective. We speak for us (and them) in suggesting that you at least spend about twelve hours away from your television set (pointing out that recusal doesn’t necessarily translate into abdicating one’s responsibilities to stay informed!), doing something modest and without thought that reminds you of the world’s profound wonders. When in doubt, feed the ducks or flirt with someone.]