Better Living Through Absurdity...After the Hiatus of the Ridiculous

Like pancakes when you wanted a steak...I happen when you least expect it. Or something.

So, you know how people get drunk and they call friends or former lovers - or friends that they wish were former lovers, or those numbers that are in their phone with names that sound vaguely like former friends, lovers, former friends of lovers or that person they met that one time at that one party that they think was kind of cute and they kind of seemed into them but they can't really peg who they are or why they are even in their phone or if in fact they are a real person and not a figment of bathroom stall fantasies -anyway, they call at really inappropriate times like 3am, and they say really inappropriate things that you always kind of knew they thought but never wanted to hear voiced out loud? And they ask you questions that they answer themselves or that don't even have answers or that you wouldn't ever want to answer because you know it's a horrible trap. And they ask you why, you know, you and they, you know, never, you know, you know, right? And then they manage to simultaneously give you a backhanded compliment and a thinly veiled insult at the same time, and at some point they also call your taste in other people into question, while lamenting the fact that all of the people they've hooked up with are crazy, inadequate, poor, crazy, slaggish, inadequate, crazy, and to quote, "fuckin' whack." And throughout this debacle of a confession, their voice slowly begins to turn mushy, like a marshmallow melting over an open flame, a gooey, saccharine mess of ick that you just want to escape from but it's clinging to you like it's going to embed itself in your pores and worm its way into your marrow and slowly take over your soul, and this is when the "I love you's" start...or, if they're being honest, the, "I really just want to fuck SOMEBODY because I'm drunk and feeling inadequate and crazy and poor and crazy and you were the fifth person I called but the first two don't count because I'm not gay and anyway, I thought of you first but it's not my fault your last name starts with a B, and really isn't the point that you're awake and I'm awake and I'm too drunk to do anything but lie here and drool on my phone in the hopes that you'll get out of bed and come over to my apartment that I share with four other people who probably like you more than they like me, and you'll take me in your arms and tell me I'm the best ever and you'll ignore the smell of stale macaroni, wilted bouquets and wet paper, and we'll go on the tilt-a-whirl and eat cotton candy and...hey who's this sexy lady telling me I need to hang up and dial an operator? Why would I want to call anyone else when I could listen to her dulcet tones informing me that I've totally made an ass of myself, been rejected and I'm too imbecilic to figure it out, but in such a soothing and pleasant way, that the sting of having my 3am attempt for sub-par pseudo sex declined for the fifth time, is erased, leaving a contented blur of operator-lady-induced-euphoria in its wake.

Those people.

I don't do that.

I get jacked up on cold medicine and go without sleep for 24 hours and lose my voice and THEN I call friends at the perfectly respectable time of 10:30am and I tell them how I know I'm sick, namely because it's 23 degrees and snowing and I think it feels like a balmy spring day, and the fact that I looked at my cat and said, "It's okay, Mommy's just a bit 'wooOOOoooo'" while twirling my finger around, and the fact that I walk around the house asking myself questions and I answer all of them with, "'Ave a banana." And that I just wanted to share this part of myself with them, the sick, vulnerable, creaking and borderline homicidal part of me that sounds like aliens came down and ripped out my voice and my dignity and left behind something that sounds like a rusted tin can, a burning orphanage, a piece of corrugated cardboard soaked in turpentine, a bag of hot nickels and a bottle of bottom shelf rum that even the poxiest of dockside whores would say tastes like swill, along with the remnants of a really bad acid trip, Andy Warhol and Diane Sawyer's love child and rejects from a do-it-yourself taxidermy project...because I LOVE them, and I wanted them to know. And I also hope that they remembered to pick up laundry detergent at the store. And then, in a sad, weary tone, I close with the frank and honest admittance that I'm not fit for human conversation. Or consumption. Possibly contortion. And as I say goodbye, with a bit of wonder in my voice I inform them that my fever has broken.

This way -I can totally look them in the eye the next time we meet. Which will be probably a year or more from now, maybe never, since I'm not so jacked up that I didn't remember to call people who are at least a 5 hour plane flight away from me!

(sorry Adam)