Pablo, one of the parrots i live with (my favorite, actually), needs his nails trimmed. his nails are weird. they’re, like, hollow, which wouldn’t seem weird to me if any of the other parrots shared this trait, but they don’t. i’ve trimmed the nails of at least a dozen parrots, and he’s the only one with this trait. he has thick, round nails that just don’t seem to narrow and come to a sharp point at the end. but it doesn’t seem to bother him, so i don’t worry about it. also, his nostrils are kind of strange, as they seem really shallow. it’s like i can see a little wall right inside his nose, whereas the other parrots’ nostrils are what i would expect, little caverns that extend up into their heads. but, again, it doesn’t seem to bother him, and, same as the nails, the vet has never made any mention of it, so i don’t worry about it. but he really does need his nails trimmed, as the longer ones are starting to curl around, and it can’t be comfortable for him. i always wait too long to cut his nails, because he hates it so much and gets so upset when we have to hold him motionless and cut them. we trim his beak even less, because he gets much more upset by that. it’s traumatic for him, to the point where it’s traumatic for us to have to do it, so we’ve gotten to where we just let his beak stay long and sharp. it’s frustrating, because he’s very beaky, even bitey, but it would have to be really bad to make putting him through that worth it. he has a really strong will, and he gets angry a lot when he doesn’t get his way. i have to put him in, like, ‘time out’ in his cage a lot, because he won’t stay off the floor or because he’s trying to hard to get at something he shouldn’t or because he’s biting too much or too hard. we also have to trim his wings regularly, because when he can fly he flies right to the other birds’ cages, especially Monet, who is a caique like him, though she is a different type of caique; she’s a white-bellied caique, whereas he’s a black-headed caique (though that’s a little confusing, because black-headed caiques also have white-bellies; another name for her type, yellow-thigh caique, is more useful, but more people still seem to use ‘white-bellied’ for some reason. either way, the fact that it’s not really accurate doesn’t seem to confuse most people). but he flies to the other birds, which is bad, because they don’t want him on their cages and they might hurt each other, so you have to go get him, and then he bites you. trimming his wings isn’t fun for him, because it’s a relatively quick and painless procedure compared to the others, but he still doesn’t like it, so we don’t like doing it either. but since that one causes actual danger to him and the other birds, we rarely put it off like the other two.

(the goal with this was to make our writing as boring as possible, with a length limit of one page (since if you keep going indefinitely it’s much easier to be boring).  it’s a hard task, to be boring on purpose. thinking about a topic, i thought about the animals we live with. like children, they’re often fascinating to you, but they get boring to others real quick, and i thought mundane upkeep of their physical selves would be a potentially mind-numbing thing to spend time reading about. i wanted to put some thought into the exact things i said, so that it would not be entirely transparent that it’s an attempt to be boring, because if it’s clear that i’m trying to be boring then knowing that intention might make the thing interesting. so i focused on parts of the bird that have to be trimmed, and along with each one i noted Pablo’s and my own feelings about the act, so that there was some logic. i did my best to resist urges to comment on the information that was being presented, because that would potentially be amusing or interesting. basically, it would give the reader something to relate to, prompting engagement. i also carefully avoided examples of what i was talking about, leaving things as vague as possible. i also resisted the urge to explain things fully, since i thought the lack of clarity about exactly what was being described would, again, keep it really hard to become engaged, leading to a greater possibility of boredom for readers. for examples, i resisted the impulse to describe how Pablo’s nails curl when they are not trimmed. this seemed like something that needs explanation, but i chose not to provide it. (i even took out a phrase that they curled around ‘like a circle,’ because even though it wasn’t super vivid, it still gave the reader something to picture.) i tried to make as many unexplained claims as possible, but also to make them as generic as possible, so that i was saying boring, unclear things. i do wonder if the subject matter of parrots is inherently too interesting, because, while they are not uncommon pets, are less common than dogs or cats. i chose to focus on parrots, rather than the dog or cats we also live with, because i thought that maybe discussing a more common pet might prompt more engagement (because a reader is more likely to be able to identify with the discussion and they might provide their own enthusiasm/interest, independent of me and my assistance.) the ending, which might feel like an ending (or some kind of move) because it provides a contrast with what comes before (since i say that we don’t put off trimming wings as much), is still presented in a flat, matter-of-fact way that is, hopefully, less than engaging for the reader and leaves them with nothing to think about besides relief that the paragraph is finished.)

i remember when Dennis Miller had a show on HBO. eventually, it was supplanted by Bill Maher’s show, which presented a more reliably liberal perspective than Miller’s show, which reflected his more explicitly rightward shift after 9/11. the show’s central feature was Miller’s weekly Rant, a monologue on a single topic that he would always begin by saying, “Now I don’t want to get off on a rant here…,” an ironic catchphrase that alerted the audience that he was about to begin his rant. while presented a bit more like stand-up comedy, Miller’s Rant is a pretty clear forerunner of similar ironic/sincere/comedy/commentary segments in current comedy shows that comment on current issues.

Miller’s rants were always exhilarating, extended riffs on topics like conservatism, liberalism, animal rights, customer service, etc.. though they were certainly written by a team of writers, they always retained Miller’s signature flippant, pop-culture literate, allusion-heavy voice. after making your head spin with his carefully arranged, intimidatingly cosmopolitan perspective, Miller ended every Rant by conceding “Of course, that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.” even though he always said this, it was facetious, as he seemed pretty sure of himself.

righteous indignation is always pretty cathartic, and i was very enamored of the idea of the rant. the certainty, the conviction, the glibness that those things invite. the allure of the mic drop. i liked the idea of knowing things, of letting fools know what time it is.

this is before i became, in a lot of ways, defined by suspicion of ‘knowing things’ and a deep uneasiness with all those who claim to be Knowers of Things. a rant issues from someone who is sure of him or herself, who is comfortable letting it rip, going big instead of going home. i am not this person, and, consequently, i don’t rant.

my truth is my truth, of course (and it’s awesome, of course), but a rant (as defined by our culture, following Dennis Miller’s lead) proceeds from the assumption that one’s truth is the truth, that one’s personal philosophy is not so much a ‘personal philosophy’ as much as it is ‘common sense.’ that those who don’t understand this truth are deserving of derision, if not outright scorn. i’m not comfortable with this, though. there’s really only one belief i have that i feel this confident in, and that’s the conviction that i don’t trust anyone who’s that confident in their perspective. being sure you’re right makes it okay for you to be glib, condescending, impatient, even belligerent, because it’s the fucking truth, and anyone who somehow doesn’t get it is clearly an idiot who needs to be smacked upside the head. the only rant i can imagine giving in one challenging the very idea of rants, and even then i’m not sure what i would be hoping to accomplish.

because rants aren’t intended to persuade or present an alternative perspective. they don’t speak, in a constructive way, to anyone who doesn’t already agree with what they say, because they don’t care to. they’re like a greatest hits collection for the fans, a big loud flashing applause sign for a self-selecting audience. let’s all high-five because we’re not stupid. i’m not breaking news here, and it’s not like this sort of thing has no utility. it is cathartic, and it certainly helps one more fully think through and/or refine their world view. but i just feel uncomfortable with it. it encourages one to become more sure of their own truth by shutting out the possibility of other reasonable perspectives. i’m not feeling that.

at the beginning of the semester, i asked my comp 2 students to deliver an informal ‘rant’ to the class on a subject of their own choosing. i’ve taught this curriculum before, and i like the assignment, as the class asks them to pick a single issue that they are passionate about and explore that issue and the different people engaged with it in detail throughout the course of the semester, and this low-stakes, simple assignment gives them a chance to briefly explain the issue and why they care about it as a way to get started. but i think i need to revise how i refer to the assignment, because calling it a ‘rant’ sends the entirely wrong message, and i have to spend too much of the preparation time insisting that they shouldn’t use the whole speech to argue for their position. most of them still argue, anyway, and they’d probably argue no matter what i call the task, because that’s what we do. the whole class is structured to force them to delay arguing, to wait to try to talk to an audience that disagrees with them until they learn about that audience by reading about them, their perspective, what’s important to them. the first two major projects explicitly tell them not to argue, and the third project, when they finally are allowed to make their case, asks them to use the understanding of a particular audience they’ve developed to create an argument that speaks to that audience’s specific concerns and values. many of them, however, make the same argument that they would have made on the first day of class, which is, essentially a rant. they show the reader how stupid one would have to be not to agree with them. they don’t support any claims they make, because The Truth~ don’t need no support. they style on these fools. the argument is, basically, one big rhetorical flex. they don’t betray any hint of being concerned whether the reader understands or appreciates what they’re saying, i guess because that’s not their problem; if you don’t get it then you’re the one that’s got work to do, not them. ketchup.

i’m always deflated when i read these arguments (and the previous two projects, which contain tons of arguing even though they explicitly forbid it), but i remind myself that this is not their fault. they’ve never been trained to do anything besides report facts and argue. they’ve certainly never been trained to engage with the perspectives of others in a thoughtful way. they’ve always been presented with a picture of argument as a zero-sum battle where the goal is to pummel the other side into submission, not to understand them. listening is for lames. i remind myself that this is the start for them, that my job is basically to push them in the right direction. or, at least, what i think the right direction is.

of course, that’s just my opinion, i could be wrong.

i had shingles once. it was as bad as it sounds. the right side of my torso, scaly and itchy, burned and ached. the itching was unbearable, but scratching made the pain much worse. large, angry white pimples were also spread throughout the nastiness.

at first, i did nothing about it. i figured it would just go away on its own. this had almost always worked in the past when i didn’t feel well.

but this wasn’t going away, it was just getting worse, and i was starting to worry: there was a wrestling show coming up that i had tickets for. so i finally sucked it up and asked my mom to look at it. (i have no explanation for why i didn’t look on the internet. it was right there, and i just didn’t use it.) she took one look at it and knew exactly what it was. she didn’t even hesitate to name it. i asked her how she was so sure, so quickly:

“your grandmother had shingles last year.”

ouch.

i went to the doctor, and he gave me some antivirus stuff and told me to take it easy. i asked him if it was okay if i went to the wrestling show. i told him it was in Chicago and it would be an all-day trip. he said he didn’t recommend it, since i should just rest. i asked him if i would be putting anyone else in danger of, you know, catching shingles. he said no, i’d just be making myself miserable. so i went. it was a wrestling show, and i had front row tickets.

there’s a commercially released video of the show, and you can totally see me. there i am, pale and sweaty, chanting and banging on the barricade. you can probably tell i don’t look right, but you probably wouldn’t guess it’s because, underneath my hoodie, the right side of my body is engulfed in flames. at one point, one of the wrestlers is thrown from the ring and crashes to the floor right in front of me. the guy sitting on my right pours the contents of his $4 bottle of Dasani on him, which earns the guy a thumbs up.

i watched this warrior (the wrestler, not the fan with the bottled water), writhing in pain, willing himself back into battle, desperately pushing himself to continue on in defiance of his physical suffering, and i thought to myself: we are the same. he’s beating himself half to death in a fake fight for almost no money. and i have shingles. i was also really thinking about going to get a $4 bottle of water.

did you know you can get shingles on your face? fucking gross. it can make you go blind. smh.

also, i have gout, which is another old-timey disease. i mean, i have it bad. it must be some hereditary thing, because i don’t eat meat, i don’t drink, i don’t do anything that’s supposed to bring it on, and it’s so bad that i have to take medication to keep from just straight-up having it every single day. fucking ridiculous. no way is that some poetic warrior shit.

i wonder what old-timey 18th century medical condition i can manifest next? dropsy? the grippe? scrofula? the vapors? jungle rot? dandy fever? poor man’s gout? housemaid’s knee? climatic bubo? the staggers? dum-dum fever?

this has now come up in both courses i am taking as a student this semester: i have no emotional attachment to places.

in my creative nonfiction workshop, we were asked to do an exercise where we wrote about a place. i couldn’t think of a single physical place that i had anything to say about, so i chose a virtual space (an online message board) to discuss. we were also assigned two essays about New York to read and then discuss, and, as well-written as they were, i was intensely bored by them. in attempting to explain my lack of interest to the rest of the group (since it seems odd to be so uninterested in something that’s so meaningful to most people), i referenced a couple examples:

1. my partner has commented a few times about how it’s weird that i don’t miss our hometown. she talks about specific places that have significance to her, and she’s somewhat mystified that i can’t name any places that are similarly meaningful to me, considering that i spent my whole life there up until 2012. and i really can’t. i miss the weather, but that’s it. (i’m also embarrassed about how little i miss my family, but that’s a whole other thing. i actually feel less self-conscious about that, like it’s more understandable and/or acceptable.)
2. a couple summers ago, i spent a couple months in Shanghai, and i made a couple friends. i was talking to one of them, and she was saying i should come and visit, and i said that would be great and i’d love to come see her (i meant it). she replied no, it would be a waste to come to Shanghai again, and that if i really did come back to China there’s so much stuff i can see and other places i should go. i was kind of baffled by this, which baffled her; i was like, why would i do that? if i come all the way to China, i’m coming to see my friend, not some old crap and places i don’t care about. when i was in Shanghai, i didn’t go anywhere or do anything– i just wanted to hang around with people who i liked, even if i never had the opportunity to come back. i’m quite sure i missed lots of cool stuff, but i also don’t regret it, because i don’t care.

now i’ve been asked to write about a ‘pilgrimage’ for my prose forms class, which is just…i have no clue how i might do that. there are some places i would like to go (Tokyo or Mexico City to see wrestling shows there), but the idea of a ‘pilgrimage’ doesn’t fit, because it’s not the place, it’s more the event. if i could go to another place and have a similar experience, then i would be fine with that. really, the only places i want to go are places where someone i care about lives (Los Angeles, Norman (OK), Dyer (IN), etc.), and it’s about them, not the place, because if they move away then i would lose interest in those places.

i know that this is not common, and i worry that it’s evidence of some kind of unspeakable coldness. my workshop instructor said that my attitude reflects ‘an extreme lack of sentimentality,’ which i am both intensely ashamed of and perversely proud of. it feels bad, because it does seem like a strong symptom of my alienation from others and how they experience the world (sometimes i do wonder if i would be on the autism spectrum, just because i am often so bewildered by ‘regular’ peoples’ emotions), but i also always kind of feel proud that i can stand outside these feelings, just because they seem so bizarre and unhelpful to me. the instructor was insistent that it’s an asset (at least insofar as it helps my writing, i guess), but that’s easy to say when you’re not the one who’s alienated all the time, always trapped inside your own head, on a never-ending journey to find a way out, into the larger world.

ellipses~

and what did that feel like?

well, it’s a feeling where, you know, it keeps going and going, and it gets more and more abstract, to the point where i can’t even connect it to anything real.

what gets more abstract?

the fear. it’s like, as i move through these hypotheticals, where i keep thinking ‘what if’ this, ‘what if’ that, they eventually get far enough away from the initial thing that i was worried about that, you know, even i start to lose any sense of logic.

i noticed that you laughed, kind of like an exhaling. was it a feeling of relief?

i don’t know, not relief necessarily. just this feeling that it’s gotten so far out there that it’s become like a parody of the fear. like, i’m always afraid of what the other person is thinking, and it’s always somewhere in my thoughts that i might be mistaken. that i’m just imagining things that they’re not thinking, that i’m the only one with these thoughts and i’m just projecting them onto the other person.

yes.

but it always feels way more true that the other person is having these thoughts about me, that they do find me and my presence and whatever else about me objectionable. but in a situation like that, it spirals so far out of control, and the thoughts become so tortured and convoluted that even i start to see the thoughts as kind of insane.

insane how?

the whole logic of where the thoughts are coming from and me reading their reactions gets so complex, in my head, that it feels like that’s the only place that it can possibly be real- in my head. so it just feels like a huge joke that i play on myself.

i can tell you, from my experience of that moment, that i felt relief when you sort of stopped and exhaled or laughed there. it was relief for me, because it suggested to me that you had broken through that paralyzing fear that i can see when you talk about your fear of what i or others think of you.

yeah. i guess maybe a bit of that, but much less than you were hoping for.

lol.

at this exact moment, instead of doing something productive, i’m in the middle of falling down a youtube hole, watching old Def Leppard videos. (i guess i can use the excuse that i have a cold, but this doesn’t account for the fact that i’m writing my second blog post this afternoon.) this band was hugely popular when i was little, and i wore the fuck out of my cassette copy of Hysteria. i thought lead singer Joe Elliott’s mullett was pretty dope. (my own adolescent mullet never even hinted at such great heights.) it took a while for me to actually notice that drummer Rick Allen was missing an arm, and i was amazed by his drum kit after i realized why it looked like that.

one thing i never really took enough notice of when i was young was how fucking weird they were. superficially, they’re just a high-level 80s-style butt rock band, and that was certainly how i consumed them (and later condemned them) when i was young, but if you actually, like, listen to their lyrics, it’s really strange. for example, the song “Armageddon It,” with its call-and-response chorus: “Are you gettin’ it?” “Armageddon it!” (sounds like “i’m a-gettin’ it”- get it?) is, essentially, nonsense, but i guess it sounds cool, at least. in one of the song’s verses, Elliott tells the person being addressed that “your finger won’t trigger the gun,” which is an odd way of saying they won’t pull the trigger. later, he accuses him or her of “[jangling] your jewels while you shakin’ em.” i have no idea what that means. doesn’t jangling, in this context, = shakin’? so is he saying this person is shaking their jewels while, um, shaking them? maybe it’s referring to a ‘jangling’ sound? 🤷🏻‍♀️

however, these examples at least make sense in terms of a rhyme scheme, trying to preserve meter and rhythm. the song “Let’s Get Rocked,” however, has some truly inexplicable diction choices. the title, to start with, is odd on its own, though it does allow the song to begin with Elliott growling suggestively “Do you wanna get rocked?,” which, at least, asks for consent, rather than proceeding to just go ahead and rock you, which is probably what you would expect from the era’s phallocentric rockers. however, as strange as that question is, the lyrics become more surreal as the song continues. the first verse begins with an assertion that “I’m your average, ordinary everyday kid,” a claim which is quickly undercut when, in response to his father’s demands that he 1.) mow the lawn, 2.) walk the dog, 3.) take out the trash and 4.) tidy his room, he responds that these things are “not my style,” exclaiming “Let’s get the rock out of here!,” which is gibberish (and which my first girlfriend and i used as a catch-all nonsense phrase inside joke). like all of their weird phrases (and phrasings), it almost sounds like something that makes sense, but it doesn’t. like all their weird lyrical moments, it seems like a non-American’s (they are British) misguided approximation of (some kind of) hip, rock n’ roll speak.

“Let’s Get Rocked” is also great because it has the corniest fucking video in history. it’s a super primitive computer-animated joint starring this weird bug-eyed kid who, i’m pretty sure, gets a blowjob from his girlfriend while driving, but kicks her out of the car (i guess?) because, unfortunately, she tries to put classical music on the radio, which “[isn’t] rockin’ and rollin’ and it really [blows his] groove.”

also, the kid wears these super creepy shoes that resemble Chuck Taylors, but also have a toe box with grooves that look like an articulated cartoon cat’s paw. basically, it resembles a person’s foot in a roughly equivalent way to how Def Leppard’s flights of lyrical fancy recall american english.

on the other hand, maybe i’m being too hard on Def Leppard, considering i can’t offer any explanation for what the hell Poison’s problem was. (they’re american, after all.)

i wrote constantly in high school, and one of the things i was particularly into was writing plays. just so many of them. a particular one that i wrote was a short, silly skit in which all the characters’ names were just vowels (A, E, I, etc.), and every single line was written to be shouted. (i almost never used exclamation marks, so i guess i decided to put every single one of them in this thing.) there was a family (A, E and I), a robber who burst into their house (O), and their obnoxious neighbor (U) who inadvertently saved the day when he accidentally knocked out the robber. there were quite a few lines where characters were forced to clarify their use of the word ‘I’ (distinguishing it from the child, whose name was ‘I’). the whole thing was basically an excuse to get to the end joke, where the family decides to eat the robber, because they have no food in house. the daughter notes that the robber is too big to fit in the oven, and the father replies that it’s okay, they’ll simply cut him up into smaller pieces. lol.

this was a forgotten piece of nothing, in the larger flood of material i wrote in high school, and the only reason that i even remember it is because it survived the episode where i threw out everything i ever wrote when i was like nineteen or twenty and some girl wasn’t into me. it turned up one day when i was looking through old things for something else, and i was amused by it. so amused by it, in fact, that soon after, when i was bored at work (as an assistant manager at a movie theater), i decided to write more on it. i ended up writing four more ‘acts,’ which were framed as sequels to the initial episode. each new episode repeated the exact same sequence of events as the first one, but each successive episode also was effected by and built on what came before it, so that each one descended further into absurdity. i was really amusing myself.

in particular, the character of the father (A) became, with each new chapter, more and more the center of the show, because he quickly became completely insane. he ranted and raved about how the robber was god, and how his daughter’s (unnamed) grandmother was a whore and was, at that very moment, buying her granddaughter a thousand ponies. after his realization that the robber was god, he was insistent that eating the robber would imbue all of them with magical powers and grant them their deepest, innermost desire. which, as it turned out, for him, was to be a black man, and he spends the final two acts screaming about how he’s black, when he’s totally not. the joke here was that his ideas of the black experience were really specific and really strange. also, he was mad racist, because, obviously, that’s funny.

he screams for his wife to bring him their taxes, because, in his mind, this is what black men do: taxes. when his wife informs him that he’s already completed the family’s tax returns, he bellows that he doesn’t care and to just bring him anyone’s taxes, because he’s a black man. the story eventually bends toward his warped perspective, and the final act begins with him dispatching a team of vampires, again, because he’s a black man now. finally, a new character appears: Sweet Gerald, an actual African-American man, who is having an affair with A’s wife (E), and who A forces his adolescent daughter to have sex with (offstage). it’s pretty much nonsense by the end. uncomfortably, weirdly racist nonsense. (again, in another instance of the play bending towards A’s reality, while he never agrees with A’s assertion that he loves to fuck white women, Sweet Gerald does, in fact, fuck all of the white female characters, and i believe E does suggest that he has a giant penis. omg so fucked up lolol!)

it’s hipster racism, and it’s pretty bad. the ‘intended’ joke here is that yeah, this guy’s racist, but he’s a buffoon, and the nature of his specific racist beliefs is so absurd (fighting vampires, doing taxes) that it seems to suggest that any racist belief is absurd. if i say it that way, maybe it doesn’t sound quite so bad, but there’s two important caveats here: explaining it that way obscures the very real fact that, mostly, i was just entertaining myself by writing a character who used the word ‘nigger’ and said crazy racist shit, because i knew it was provocative. (a tip-off, i suppose, to what i was up to is contained in the name ‘Sweet Gerald,’ which is a reference to Mr. Show, which played this game sometimes.) also, regardless of my intent, it’s fucking racist, whether it’s funny or not. basically, i still needed to grow out of this idea that saying racist stuff is okay if you’re joking and you think you’re making fun of the real racists. basically, i was another white person who is educated and understands why racism is bad and harmful and believes all the right things, but who also, you know, has no meaningful life experience being around, like, actual people who aren’t white. well, that’s not entirely true.

(in case you’re reading this and feeling like you want to give me credit for being willing to interrogate my past behavior and thinking maybe i’m being too hard on myself, here goes the part where i’ll show you why i don’t deserve any good will or benefit of the doubt.)

there was one African-American employee on the floor staff at the theater i was an assistant manager at, a guy named Jacob. he was a good guy, though a bit of a scoundrel in his interactions with girls. for the most part, though, that had nothing to do with me (except one time when a girl that he was cheating on came to the theater and made quite a scene), so he was one of my favorites on the floor staff. i was pretty unapologetic about picking favorites, even though it often had the effect of making the people who i really liked- Jacob included -become really lazy and kind of worthless as employees, which was ironic, since being a really good, conscientious employee was one of the main things that made me decide that someone was one of my favorites.

anyway, i would allow my favorites to spend excessive amounts of time, during dead periods (which was mostly all we had at that place), hanging out in the office with me. whenever i was writing these additions to my play, i let one of my other favorites read it, and they thought it was hysterical, and they told Jacob that he had to read it, with, it seemed, no mention of any specific content. so he asked me if he could see it, and after very little hesitation, i obliged. again, with no mention of any specific content. which is fucked up. the fact that the final two sections were full of racist ‘jokes’ and more than one utterance of the N word (with a couple other slurs tossed in, for variety) gave me pause, but i told myself it was fine- it’s just a joke, and Jacob is cool, he’ll get it.

as he read through the thing, i became really nervous. not nervous because i had handed this young African-American man a text contained really vile racist terminology and stereotypes in service of silly, masturbatory humor that might be offensive and deeply upsetting to him, but rather that he might ‘misinterpret’ these jokes and get the obviously mistaken idea that i was racist.

fortunately, as i had expected, Jacob was cool. he thought that the racist shit that his white boss (that was older than him, in his almost entirely white workplace in his overwhelmingly white town) wrote and gave to him, and then sat there watching while he read it, was super funny. i exhaled. i knew he’d get it. i knew that he’d know i’m a good guy, because i let him work in the booth all the time and get out of cleaning theaters. i knew he’d know i’m an ally. the kind of ally that writes outrageously racist shit not because he’s racist, but because he wants to make fun of the real racists. he even wrote a little note at the bottom of one of the pages (probably one that contained a particularly nasty racist joke): “Approved by Jacob,” or something to that effect, followed by the date. like, lol, he was a real-live black person who was giving me his stamp of ‘non-racist’ approval. i could feel like i was in the clear now, because i had written proof that a single black person (who i had direct power over) found my racist jokes humorous. or, at least, that he pretended to convincingly enough that it didn’t occur to me to question it.

fucking asshole.

(i mean me, not Jacob.)

(damn, it would be so great if he saw this post.)

“Art like prayer is a hand outstretched in the darkness, seeking for some touch of grace which will transform it into a hand that bestows gifts.”

apparently, Kafka said this. it’s some deep stuff that characterizes the act of creating art as an act of faith, a belief (articulated or not) that there is a purpose to what you’re creating, that there is something of consequence being accomplished that can only be accomplished by you. that it matters. that you matter. lol

personally, i vacillate between (mostly) being convinced that i write only for my own edification, just because it’s stimulating to me, and occasional flashes of recognition that i must want more. i keep a blog that is technically public, but that almost no ones knows exists. i sit in my class, listening to other people read their work, and i think about how i believe mine is better, even when theirs is good. i don’t want to put myself against them, because it’s stupid and i know it, but i feel the butthurt when they’re good and it bothers me. i don’t want to read my stuff, because it’s embarrassing and i really do think it’s bad, but i also— motherfuckinghell  —do want other people to tell me it’s good, so i’m constantly on the edge of volunteering to read whatever the hell it is i brought this time. the ideal situation is that i’m forced to by the instructor, but i try hard not to hint that i want to be chosen, and i must put on the show every time i’m asked to share.

it used to be easy, because i was unambiguous in my desire to not be noticed, but since i’ve gotten more healthy (whatever in the hell that means) as it relates to being noticed by others. unfortunately, this has created inconvenient, frustrating situations where i actually want to be noticed. it’s really confusing, because these feelings are always at war with the opposite, still strong, impulses, but the fact is that i want people to recognize me and the fact that i have talent (which necessitates actually having talent, which has always been a huge question mark, but that’s why it’s a prayer, duh), it took quite a while for me to even be willing to acknowledge that i had these feelings (of wanting recognition), so who knows how long before i will stop hating myself for having them. it’s all so stupid, and things were so much simpler when all i wanted was to scream into my pillow.

what’s worse, the longer i think about it, i have to consider the very strong likelihood that it’s what i’ve always wanted: everyone to bestow upon me the gift of telling me that i’m good, that they appreciate my dumbass hand bestowing whatever the hell on them. i just don’t want to have to ask for it. 🙈🙉🙊

so yeah, i’ve never been punk. please don’t tell everyone.

dear myself,

i don’t know why i bother talking to you- you never listen, though if i’m being honest (and, ngl, i have no idea if i ever am), i’m never sure what i want, anyway, and even if i was (which i can’t actually even imagine that) i can’t imagine you have the power to help me get it, if indeed ‘it’ is anything worthwhile, since you’re as bewildered and lost as i am, or at least you seem that way, though what do i know; i’m the one who’s actually looking at you in search of clarity and/or purpose, like i could even trust you if you were offering anything, since the more certain you seemed to be the less i would ever actually trust you, though i will admit that this is true of anyone, not just you (though i suppose it would be particularly unsettling coming from you), which makes me really wonder what the purpose would be in my asking for any kind of guidance from anyone at all, because anyone who would have the (in my mind) arrogance to respond would be automatically disqualified, in my mind, from being taken serious, which, i guess, actually allows you something resembling authority, since you never even pretend to have anything to offer and it’s not clear that you’re even paying attention to my pleas for, whatever, and, if nothing else, i can’t pretend that i don’t find this respectable, because i’m an idiot, and it’s pretty clear, at this point, that i don’t have any real interest in answers or self-discovery or happiness- i just like to put on a show for myself, and you’ve never let me down in that respect.

at the same time, fuck you for not helping me out with this, because i know you know that i need it. asshole.

my dad was racist. his parents were more racist than he was. my mom was/is a more polite, refined racist. her mother was a really sweet, kindly racist. i never knew her father, but he was likely similar to his wife and daughter. my dad’s side of the family was the more aggressive, open types of racist, which i now appreciate more, but that’s a matter of personal preference. (“how do you like your bigotry? contemporary or classic?) because my whole family was populated with a variety of different kinds of racists, most of the people i grew up around were, also racist.

to be clear, when i say they were ‘racist,’ i mean that they were, in the main, racist in regards to African-Americans. i can’t remember ever hearing any discussion about Jewish people or Latinos or anything else, just black people. my dad had some feelings about Vietnamese people (and he wasn’t super conscientious about drawing a distinction between Vietnamese and other Asian peoples), but that was clearly connected to his experience fighting in the war in Vietnam, so i always drew a distinction between that and his other racism. not that it excused it (because the affect on another human being would be the same), but it was easier to imagine how the experiences he had to endure would prompt him to dehumanize the people on the other end of his gun, just as a means of surviving and maintaining his own sanity. his antipathy for African-Americans, however, was just garden-variety racism that deserves no special qualification.

anyway, i grew up around plenty of bigots, and most of their racism resembled my dad’s. Bruce, my dad’s best friend, was an endless font of racist jokes, and he did a hell of an impression of what he and my dad thought black people sounded like. my dad’s uncle was a serious, hardcore racist who straight-up married a Nazi and was just beyond miserable to be around, because he forced his hate into every discussion, no matter the topic. all of my parents’ casual acquaintances enjoyed a spirited retelling of the commonly know failings of African-Americans.

the guy who cut my hair was racist. he was a grinning, genial old fellow who would transition seamlessly from asking me about school to recounting the story of how he went against his better judgment and rented one of his properties to a black family, and the consequences he paid for that choice and how he won’t make the mistake of trying to do business with ‘them’ again. occasionally, i saw him drop his normally folksy demeanor and showed flashes of anger, and these instances were always, in my limited experience of him, connected to African-Americans. eventually, he added a second barber chair to his shop and his son, who shared his father’s two most notable (in my estimation) traits- his good nature and his bigotry -cut hair alongside him. they ran a nice little business (despite the fact that neither one of them actually cut hair very well), with the shop and its tiny parking lot regularly filled to overflowing with racists that needed a haircut or even some that just stopped in to talk some racist shit.

i really didn’t enjoy going there, but i kept getting my hair cut by him and his son. when i got old enough to go by myself, i kept thinking i would try some other place that was less racist and would make my hair look less busted, but i always chickened out and returned to the place i was familiar with. when i needed a haircut, i would repeatedly drive past the barber shop, hoping to find a time when there was no one else there and i could sit right down, get it done, and leave. this worked sometimes, but just as often i was forced to either forgo the haircut or sit in a room with wall-to-wall racists jabbering and laughing. then i’d have to sit in the chair, on display, my failure to participate in the conversation more noticeable.

there was seemingly never any hesitation about expressing their racism, no apparent worry from any of the men that they would upset another customer or that maybe censor themselves when children were present. i always sat silently, staring at the floor or the television. i don’t think my behavior ever appeared strange to anyone, because the owner had known me since i was very young, and i had always behaved this way; there was no reason for him to think i was being quiet because i was uncomfortable with the racist content of the conversations when i was just behaving the way i always had. i mean, i didn’t say anything when they were talking about my high school’s football team, so staying silent when they were talking about black folks didn’t stand out.

so i sat there, waiting and listening. and not saying anything. i thought about how i should say something. i thought about how, if i did speak up and push back, it might be especially notable to them, because i never spoke. i thought about how it wouldn’t make a bit of difference, but how that didn’t matter. on and off-duty police came in and joined in the racist conversations enthusiastically, sharing stories about having to deal with African-Americans on the job, referencing instances that occasionally hinted at them abusing their power. i said nothing and just wanted to get my hair cut and go. i wondered if i was just as bad, or worse than them. like my dad’s racism directed towards East Asians, i can offer an explanation for my behavior (social phobia- untreated at that time -that makes me terrified of people at all times and it’s difficult to participate in any social interaction), but that’s not an excuse. i was, honestly, relieved that going bald allowed me to just shave my head at home by myself, and i didn’t need to go to the barber shop anymore.

for a long time now, i haven’t given my mom any slack when she even hints at racism. she used to rant about ‘Mexicans’ at any chance she got (though she has been chastened by the ugly, open bigotry of Donald Trump in that regard), and i never let it slide. i don’t think it’s even useful when i challenge her, because it’s more like an attack, like “remember how you use to talk all that shit about dad being an ignorant redneck bigot? what the fuck is up now, dad?” i’m not doing anything positive, i’m just shitting on her and not letting her forget that she’s not a great person.

frequently, i wonder if i’m any different now than i was when i sat in the barber shop, silently listening to a room full of bigots, saying nothing. i have a job (teaching at a university) where it’s really unlikely i’ll be around much open racism, if any at all. occasionally, i’ll have a student who says something problematic, and i always stop to address it, but that’s a situation where i have all the power. the student, regardless of what they’re actually thinking or feeling, will always fold and go with whatever i’m saying. if i was really in a similar situation now, i have no idea what i would do. i’d love to think that i’m more mature, that all the work (and drugs) i’ve done to address my social phobia would make me able to speak up and say what i believe is right. but, if i’m being honest, i’m afraid i wouldn’t, because for all the work i’ve done and all the changes i’ve made, i’m still the same person as the silent little boy in the barber shop who was too scared to say a word and also too scared to go some different place to get my hair cut: i’m a coward. and, what’s worse, my cowardice is unlikely to never lead to any kind of negative consequence. for me.