Eric in the Army

If I were going to be in the Army, I’d appreciate an assignment like go watch this hill or stay still and don’t get noticed.  If I had a job to go clear out an enemy building or win a war, I wouldn’t probably get much done.  For the fear, you know?  The fear?  No?

Knowing me, the most likely job I’d have would be to either talk on the radio all day about coordinates and minutes and clicks and things or have to break people’s noses.  “You!  Go break this guy’s nose like we made you do before!”  My nickname would either be Jean Claude Van Radio or Ricky the Nose.  At some point I’d be asked to break a guy’s nose and then break the guy’s nose again.  It wouldn’t work unless there was about six months in between.  Nobody would understand.  I might be sent away.

I’d take pleasure in having my picture taken.  I’d wear my uniform and pose with a gun in front of flags.  I’d smoke cigarettes and drink whiskey from a heavy glass and think about all the latitude and longitude that could have been different.  All the cartilage.  All the muck.  All the grassland. 

Space Dream

My dream last night was a winner.  I had built a space ship out of I don’t know what and set it up in the backyard of my old house.  It looked a lot like a NASA shuttle but was not so sturdy or well designed.  Maybe it was just the matte paint on what looked like cardboard.  There was a big assembly of my family and friends there to watch me blast off and they were all standing much too close.  I didn’t say anything.  I was more concerned about the durability.  For instance, when my dad jumped in the strange sack-like compartment meant to hold a passenger and which trailed like a handkerchief at the end of a stick slung off a hobo’s back, I thought the thing might break off.  The ship lurched and moaned but it held up. 

 

While I was preparing to leave, I was mighty worried about the fire situation too.  My paper mache-like craft seemed indeed strong but could it make it into space with the force needed to get through the atmosphere?  And not burn up by the fire it created or the heat it encountered?  I didn’t know.  That’s what worried me most.  I supposedly had built this thing there in my backyard but I didn’t remember building it at all.  The worst was when I finally got into the hanging hobo sack thing and couldn’t figure out how to close it.  No zipper or ziplock or buttons or rubber seal.  No nothing.  I fiddled with the uneven seams for a little and then just gave up on it.  They hung there flapping in the wind.  It didn’t stop me from wanting to take off though.  Either I didn’t think I’d make it into space or I wanted to save face in front of everybody and pretend I designed it that way. 

 

I guess this dream means I’m really determined?

Food Thoughts

Oh hello.  It’s me.  That carrot you just ate.  I’m digesting in your stomach.  I’m now you.  Parasitic little you taking what you can from what was once not you and making it you.  I don’t mind.  I’m a vegetable.  I’m orange.  You’re a vegetable.  You have things wrong with your stomach. I saw earlier. I guess I do too.  Now I’m in an intestine.  Is this anatomy description possible?  I do have eyes even though I’m a carrot.  Cause I’m also a human.  How tricky I am.

Bear Thoughts

Far away, many thousands of miles, there is the planet Mars.  It has bears on it much like the bears on Earth but these bears are as small and as numerous as Mackenzie’s sneezes.  Which is to say, they are very small and very numerous.  Mackenzie thinks that every time she sneezes a new bear pops into existence out there on Mars but I know that there are as many bears on mars as there ever was and ever will be.  They are immortal and should not be approached from behind.  Otherwise they will swarm like a plague and knaw your face through to your brains because that’s how the bears roll on Mars.  They ask questions later if you know what I mean.

Cleaning Things Thoughts

I enjoy cleaning when I can see a real result.  Viz. 

1.  I cleaned my hardwood floor and little carpet that sits in the middle of the floor yesterday and filled up my trashcan with rocks, dirt and dust bunnies. 

2.  Picking at my fingernails where, if I have not scratched under there recenty, little collections of crud come away, is a great pick me up.

3.  Flossing is much more satisfying if you get bits of food that taste like lemon juice out from between your teeth.  Swishing afterward and spitting out reddish, speckled water trumps spitting out bit-less, clear water any day, too.

Perhaps No Postcards

There’s a website called www.PerhapsPostcards.com where I make art, shrink it onto stationary of all kinds and then try to sell it.  I’m satisfied with it generally, despite its lack of sales or tangible results.  Yesterday, I had an idea about naming another website www.PerhapsNoPostcards.com where there would be no selling of anything but instead, general attempts at humiliation and put-downs about nobody ever buying anything from Perhaps Postcards.  I would enjoy pitting the two against each other (it would satisfy my need for balance) and then riding the tide of battle, sprung from my own conceit, out into the murky waters of the unknown. 

I would give control of the new website over to the evil genius side of my personality whose petty insults and unhappy terrorism would both oppress and disturb.  The bright and cheerful simpleton now running Perhaps Postcards would be hard pressed to respond, patiently enduring then finally erupting in a terrible and uncontrolled onslaught where nothing is sacred, postcard or otherwise, and where none could wish to escape unmarred.  There would be war between the two sides, yes war, and the small part of me that retained any notion of decency would sit uncomfortably, alone and lonely, in a cave of doubt and regret contemplating, waiting. 

Barbs of wrath would sing like shrapnel.  Shards of misery would fly unmercifully.  Destruction becomes self. 

Exhausted and encumbered from the toil of attack, my consciousness would look upon the strife, seeking no repose, and fight.  Unbidden, some small important part of myself would undoubtedly slip and a small spontaneous giggle would titter forth from some depth, some vein of disorder buried within, that would build to frenzy.  My body would involuntarily take up this mania and from my lips would spring a howl of laughter so saturated with wretchedness and rife with hatred that the last breath of life and promise I held within would be stolen away with it.  My empty and wrecked body would crumple down, near-silently, to the floor and lay solid, never again to feel the blows that killed it.

Mailman Ire

I just got the Netflix but we can’t get the mailman to deliver us the right adapter to fit my computer into my television.  We’re stuck watching the computer on a box on a chair from the couch.  The first time, he delivered the wrong adapter.  A week later, he delivered two wrong adapters.  The third time hasn’t happened yet but I’m hoping he doesn’t deliver me a toaster or some other wackiness.  I’ve been thinking about rewarding him with a movie to give him some positive reinforcement kind of thing, if he gets it right, but punishment might take precedence.