Exclaiming Points

Does the exclamation point mean the same thing now that it did one hundred and fifty years ago? It seems to be the most abused punctuation mark in this, the earliest part of the twenty-first century.

The exclamation point of bygone times seemed hefty and full of weight. The exclamation point of today seems bulimic and sounds of whining.

How was the exclamation point first born? In what year? In what reference? How was it introduced and first used? Did the creator of the exclamation point die instantly afterward, struck dead by the sheer violence of its birth, flayed to bits by its sharp and severe edges?

And what angry bitch bore the use of ALL CAPS? What freak of nature, what abomination? Which two beings copulated to create such a monstrosity? Did the Caps Lock key conspire with the exclamation point?

Please, won’t everyone please just stop yelling? I’ve been rendered deaf and blind by your shit rhetoric and your shit attitude. LIGHTEN UP! RELAX!!!

Another New Year

I want to apologize to the wind and the rain and the small child that resides inside me. I seek a calm that will not come. I suffer from a restless mind and a damaged heart.

The other day, I envied the glassy, placid river. So smooth, like I could have walked right off the end of the dock across the top of it and been supported.

I have finally been released from prison and I’m already anxious to enter the next one. And I can’t tell if that sentiment pertains to work, or to love.

Is there joy in despair? Is there profit in despondency?

They say, “You should find work that you love.” But the work that I love I suffer at great costs.

The muse, my warden, my executioner, I might notice the axe in her hands, if I wasn’t so distracted by her bare breasts. To think that I could make such a beautiful creature mine. Ha!

I continue committing more crimes, knowing that my only true home is a jail cell. And the only true moments are those that don’t involve paying or watching or sitting, but rather are filled engaging in anything anywhere else.

How many ways do you have to try killing yourself before you simply transform?

I don’t have to remain a prisoner, I do have that choice. No prison guards accompany me, I willfully move myself between routines; my cell, my three meals, my time outside in the yard. I could cut myself free at any time. Why is it that I stay? To whom or what am I bound? Or beholden?

And where went ignorance? Man, I miss ignorance. And naiveties. I miss naiveties too. There used to be so much innocence. So much innocence. And then the world interfered. It got in the way.

The only common denominator through everything, through innocence and our cold, hard lives is a capacity for hurt. We can be hurt and we can cause hurt at every level of our lives, and across every generation. Hurt does not discriminate. Hurt extends to all, and across all borders.

Is hurt a capacity? Or a capability? Or is that the variable? That it could be either one? Or both?

I Got This Gift

It all comes around to me. And while placing my carefully picked grocery items on the belt, I notice that I seem to be partial to grocery items colored yellow, orange, and red. Egg Bagels. Home Pride Bread. Nacho Cheese Doritos. Single-Size Celeste Pizza. Safeway Cola. Carl Buddig Ham. Bud Light. All yellow, orange, and red like a fire marching slowly down the beltway. This makes me think, I wish I would start seeing the smoke before the fire, because I owe the IRS 1,000 dollars and I owe the state of Maryland 600 dollars and I owe GEICO 240 dollars and I owe my car 1,800 dollars (well, 250 dollars deductible anyway) and just to put life into the recently deployed air bag alone will cost 600 dollars. I am dazed by the fire but am shaken from my thoughts because I now owe the lady 28 dollars and 39 cents for placing my yellow, orange, and red into blue plastic bags. It all makes sense to me as everything marches down the beltway and comes around to this. I only wish that I’d start seeing the smoke before the fire so I can avoid the blues in my future. I give the woman I owe 28 dollars and 39 cents to, an even 34 dollars. She takes it and gives me a puzzled look and I just nod at her and think, “Just punch it in there honey and you’ll see what a four-year college education made me capable of calculating.” She reluctantly punches it in. And then she understands as she gives me one five and some change. I pick up my blues and walk away, alone. Just me and my blues. And my ability to calculate change. (Excerpted from my book, Loser Makes Good, available here.)

Seeking a Grant

Wild raspberry juice in my vodka is providing me with the most inspiring shade of red. I’m living comfortably towards my next paycheck and I’m sitting here looking to mess it all up. Somehow, I strongly desire messing it all up. Wouldn’t that be great? I’ve cleaned up my act and all I want to do is mess it all up again. Don’t you ever just get sick of your own skin? Don’t you ever just want to mess it all up and start all over again? Wipe it all away with one manic swipe of the hand and start over? I just want to contribute to the growing pile of frustration that is collecting in the corner of my living room. Can’t I just get paid for that? What price is a continued pattern of frustration worth? What if I was willing to explore a lifetime’s worth of frustration? Just for the sake of knowing? Wouldn’t that be an incredibly worthwhile document to own? I am willing to be a growing pile of frustration in the corner of my own living room for the duration of my lifetime and I can’t get anyone to fund that kind of endeavor. Couldn’t some rich guy smugly claim with pride that he was funding some nutsack (me) to sit at home and capture a continued pattern of frustration at his own expense? Isn’t there some valuable peace of mind found within such an investment? He could then say, “Yeah, I’m never frustrated by anything because I’m paying this poor bastard to burden any and all frustrations for me. I mean, there I was, about to have a frustrating experience when I realized, ‘Hey, that’s what I pay Greg for.’” (Excerpted and abridged from my next next book, The Idiot Parade.)

Have You Ever Seen The Rain?

I was driving me and my girl home from somewhere and it was really late (or really early) and she was asleep beside me and it was pouring rain. The weatherman would have described the rain as “torrential” which I always thought was a lame word choice, but then there I was driving in it and it was torrential. As I passed beneath a bridge, the most amazing thing presented itself to me. The rain was coming down so vertically that beneath the bridge was pure calm. The difference was so extreme that it demanded all of my senses. If I had been in a sedentary driving trance before that, I was suddenly very alert and aware. I pulled a U-turn just to experience it again. Pure downpour, then pure calm, and then pure downpour again. After I confirmed my senses, I pulled another U-turn and headed back again. This time though, while under the bridge, I stopped just short of the wall of rain, parked, and stepped out of my car. I walked up to it. It was the kind of straight down rain that you could stand right up against and not get wet. You could run your hand across the face of it. It occurred to me that she had to experience this too. I went back to the car and woke her up. She protested, but then she saw. There we were, standing there alone, side by side, facing this tremendous wall of rain, experiencing it, and filling our every sense with it. There was no noise except the furious rain smacking the street. No cars went by while we waited for something greater to come swooping down to claim us. It was like we were obeying something larger than ourselves. Like we were one with it. I closed my eyes, reached over for her hand, and she took it.

Eating Cheer Laundry Detergent

When does the stress end? The stress I don’t want. The stress I don’t need. My own mind tries to kill me on a daily basis. It plots to give my body ailments. It is trying to talk my body into dying, begging it to quit, to just expire. I just want to die. I don’t want to wait for the inevitable diagnoses of ulcers and heart problems and cysts and sickness. Somebody, please, just kill me now. I grow careless in my present existence. I beg a group of people to kick my ass, but they’re confused by my request. “Come on! Kick my ass! I know that’s what you want. Just kick my ass!” They’re disconcerted by my desire for a beating. They look for asses to kick and create situations that will result in ass-kicking, but they’re unaccustomed to having the ass handed to them. “Kick my ass! Please!” They are bored with my offering, too easy. They leave. And I am left alone, still begging for someone to crush me. I watch as detergent commercials beat the dirt from the fibers and I get an idea: I am looking for something to purge my blackness, so I start eating detergent. The smell attracts me to it and draws me in. I have acquired a taste for several different brands now. I like the way it feels as I choke the grains down and they scrape their way down my throat. The stress keeps piling up though. I think my fish feels it too. I caught him trying to jump out of his bowl as he was picking up on all my negative energy. I stared at him as he made an attempt to leap out of his bowl and end his life, but I knocked him back in and told him that he was in it for the duration with me. (Excerpted and abridged from my next book, Piss Artist.)