April 27, 2002

Here is a good one for you. This is one of the rules that I live by. If we have sex, I will write poems for you – lots of them. Big whoop you say. What do you get out of it?

The love poem written to another person is the worst genre of poetry ever. I would rather read teenage girl suicide poems or hippie poems about mother nature than the tributary love poem. I know they suck so why did I write them? Because I was in love, asshole. Why am I sharing them? Because I, too, am an asshole. All of the secrets are being revealed in this BLOG so pay attention.

All of these poems were written for my current wife then live in girlfriend in 1994. I have written many more poems for her than the small sample represented here. Most of them were destroyed by me - the artist - because they were shockingly bad. Unfortunately, the husband in me allowed more of them than I wanted to be saved by my better half because she wants to look at them after I am dead and remember her sappy wuss husband. What is even worse than the collected poems, the poems that she is saving and the wife poems that were destroyed already were the love poems that I wrote about the fine fine ladies that would not allow me the opportunity to have sex with them. What was the matter with me? Did I lose my mind somewhere down the line and it took my balls with it? I would die if any of them ever resurrected themselves from the garbage dump. Some of them were so hideous that I actually burned them in the Cleveland Cavalier garbage can in my apartment. It left a black spot on the ceiling. Actually, maybe I would like to have “Love Poem for Thea” back for a minute. It might be funny for the viewers.

So what was I thinking with these poems? Well, I really like my wife a lot besides the love thing. She is one of the coolest people that I have ever met. She is fun to hang out with. She sets me straight. She laughs at me when she is supposed to laugh at me. She believes in me. My wife and I have problems sometimes but they never have to do with her as a person. All of our arguments focus on me hating adulthood and responsibility and her being part of that. Our disagreements do not mean that she does not kick the ass. I just hate being a grown up and, unfortunately, grown ups are married.

She brought me out of a deep depression when we started going steady and then living together in 1994. All of these poems were written after a full night sleep that she helped me get. I was certainly in love with her but I was also relieved to be sleeping again and not being completely fucking miserable all of the time. She made me stop wanting to be dead. Big ups to my wife for making me not want to be dead. That’s where these poems are coming from.

I left a lot of poems out because they were too personal or just dumb. Some things that were mentioned in the excluded poems are the Cookie Monster, “Sister Disco”, the word evoke, “Kind of Blue” and “Raging Bull”.

For Laurie

I look forward to the day
Laurie
When we are able
To share history
And each other
With furniture that has been
Made comfortable with age

Laurie
You are a single stanza in a haphazard poem
The gets more of a response out of me
Than an entire song by Bob Dylan
You are a record that spins eternal
I sing you song with the help of consciousness

I love you
Laurie
Without reservations
I give you my life and my work

(1994)

For Laurie #2

My face hurts from smiling
My head is close to bursting
From joy
I wished upon every star
Every night
Of every day of my life
And God
In wisdom so all encompassing
And infinite
Finally decided to make good
On years of unanswered
Prayers and wishes
He came through in the clutch
I questioned Him
I bothered Him
I likened Him to a stiff
He owed me one (or so I thought)
When I came close to losing
All hope
He delivered
God damn!

We are standing on the edge of a cliff
The cliff is above a large pit
The pit is dark and kind of creepy
Neither of us know what is at the bottom of the pit
Every instinct in my bones and my soul
Says jump
Even though there is no certainty
Of what will happen
People say no
I say go
I grab your hand and leap
God damn!

How does someone love
The unlovable?
Do circus freaks have any friends?
The mother of a psychopath is forced into caring
But no one gives a rat’s ass
About the mean and brutal
How is it then,
Laurie,
That you have put any stock in me?
I barely believe in myself
God damn!

I have fallen for you
I am falling with you
I am afraid of you
Because of what you can do to me
I am sinking with you
I trust you
I believe in you
I love you
God damn!

(1994)

For Laurie #3

You are the coffee
That wakes me up in the morning
You are a delicious cup
From the Arcade Coffee Company
Not the cheap shit
I drink at the office

You are the beer
That gets me going on a Friday night
You make me warm
With good feelings
Without a hangover on Saturday
The sickness in my stomach and the headache

You are a homerun
A smashed ball on the sweet spot of the bat
You are the immediate thrill
During the connection of ball and bat
And the afterglow
Of trotting around the basses

You are the poem
That types itself on the typewriter
Without me having to think
About the words that
I am going to use
To make the poem any good

(1994)

For Laurie #4

Walk with me
Laurie
Or we can run
Fast
Down the towpath
Next to the canal
We are traveling
Laurie
On a trip more intense
Than acid
We are driving now
Cross country
With no place to go
And nothing to do but drive
With each other
When we arrive at the final destination
I will say
It was a good trip

(1994)

For Laurie #5

Slap me in the face
Motherfucker
Knock me down
Kick me in the stomach
Send me bleeding
Down the street
In a neighborhood
That I have never been to before
Far way from home
Serve me food that
I have never eaten
Take away all of the book smarts
That have stuck in my head
Over the years
Spent in a bed that was not ours
In a room that was somebody else’s
Blind me
Make me deaf
Take away all understanding
Of God
Of Life
Of Music
Of Coffee
Of Cigarettes
Confuse me with a philosophy
That I have no chance of grasping

In the third grade
It was a big deal to write in pen
You had to prove yourself
That you could write in cursive
Without mistakes
The was no pencil
For doubts
And no eraser
For errors
I write that I love you
Laurie
In ink

(1994)



posted by Thea at 9:16 PM

04/24/02

I threw out a bunch of paper today. On most of it, I forgot or just did not follow the big rule: it is not a diary. Nobody wants to read the dry truth of life. People want to see artistic impressions of the truth but not the truth itself. As a young man, I fooled myself into thinking that every experience that I had possessed some intrinsic literary merit. Not hardly. Not even a little bit. Most of life is pretty boring and uneventful. Take my childhood for instance, I have delivered how many bits on the radio show about my youth but do you want to know how many of them are true. Well, I guess that the center of every one of my bits is true but they are all so coated in my ability to tell a story that the truth wouldn’t even be recognizable to me and it is my life. Does that make sense? OK. Take the interaction between me and Thea on the radio. Do you know how much of it is the way it is because we are on the radio? Try all of it. Our relationship is pretty complex and our off mic conversations are dry resembling very little of what goes out over the air. Do you think that riding out to Beachwood Mall with Thea on a Saturday is as fun as it sounds? No. It sounds fun because I make it sound fun. I know how to tell a story. And so does Thea. That is the trick.

So today I tossed a bunch of uninteresting journal type stuff into the trash can. I like to throw out bad writing, Ernie. It makes me feel good.

With the writing, I am now into 1994. I was twenty-two for almost the whole year. I had a total meltdown at the beginning of 1994 after spending the holidays completely by myself in my own apartment on Clifton Blvd. I moved into my first and only place that I have ever lived in by myself right before Thanksgiving 1993. I did not like living alone. It sickened me. I started having insomnia. It came from a sensation that I thought I was not breathing in my sleep. Thea, of course, recommended alcohol, which didn’t do anything but make me drunk and awake. Sometime during the course of the insomnia, Thea saw me cry during one of the only two times that I cried in the 1990s. I think that might be the only time she has ever witnessed me blubbering like a damned girl although I have cried four more times since then. Once in 1995. Twice in 2000. Once in 2001. Of course there have been more close calls than I care to mention. But these were the only tears. Please correct me if I am wrong.

There was also a big plus to 1994. Sex. The sky is falling. They sky is falling.

Think about that while I detail the horrible tragedy and triumphant victory that was 1994.

Something About the Lowest Common Denominator

I am the lowest common denominator. I am the standard that you are measured against. I am the scum of the earth. I am your king. You can wonder all that you want about goodness, beauty and the search for truth when all that really matters is the question: who is the worst? What is the lowest that mankind can sink without feeling any repercussions? As long as you don’t stoop right below the worst, you will be OK. There is no need to strive for any sort of higher ground when all you have to do is stay one step ahead of the person in last place – the scumbag. I am your measuring stick. I gladly accept the fact that you have to be just an inch higher than me in order to keep yourself from being spit on by young children waiting for the bus to go to school.

You can say to yourself: “I may be doing badly. In fact, I am dog shit. But look at that guy over there. Now, he is fucked."

I am fucked and I have no problem looking in the mirror while I am brushing my teeth in the morning and admitting it. This bullshit is for you, Man of Letters, attendee of amateur poetry readings at yuppie coffee houses, student of the world. I am giving you this so when you are sitting in the comforts of your living room, perhaps listening to a Todd Rundgren record, worrying about how low you have sunk and wondering where it has all gone, you can look at me and take comfort in the fact that it is not so bad. You are OK.

There are two types of people in the world. Those who are fucked and those who are fucked and realize it. We are all in the same boat but only some are blessed with enough perception to realize that the boat is going nowhere.

(1994)

Jesus Gave Me a Hard Hearted Woman

A hard hearted woman is my only friend
Jesus gave her to me as a joke
The son of man
Who loved me
And made sure that I breathed when I slept
The Son of God
Who loved me
And picked the boogers out of my nose
Gave me a woman
To test me with His divine sense of humor

Jesus is laughing
With Father Abraham and Job
(Another victim of the prankster God)
My Brother Jesus
The Good Sheppard
Lord of the Almighty Belly Laugh

A hard hearted woman took my breath away
With a sucker punch to the stomach
And a karate chop to the kidneys
We went to the amusement park
Me and the hard hearted woman
We look at the amusement park
That He created

She says my name
It touches me in the heart that Jesus once occupied
Jesus laughed

(1994)


posted by Thea at 8:57 PM

04/23/02

The following is the first thing that I was able to complete out of my own free will that went longer than a thousand words. This was a major accomplishment for me as a young writer. I don’t remember actually writing this piece but I do remember typing it up in my cubicle (on the clock) at the old office. Writing for me up until a couple of years ago was always very painful. My hand would cramp up holding the pen and I have a hard time sitting still. Now, the multiplication of words is not the problem. The problem is that I want it to be good. Again, nothing was changed from the original version of this piece. I used a scanner to turn this into an image file and then used a sophisticated computer program to turn the image into a Word document. It is all very high tech syntho sequency. I keep on stressing that nothing has been changed for nearly a decade on this shit because the obvious flaws in this work are all I see after all these years. The word choices make me cringe a little bit and the messages of most of the work makes me cringe a lot. I had a very strict religious upbringing in the sense that it was pressed on me that God was always watching although I have to say that my parent’s are very laid back about everything else except God. It is a weird mix. I have been dealing with the fact that I spent too much time in church during my adolescence and teenage years in most everything that I write in one way or another and I still have not figured it out. And I doubt that I ever will.

WITH THE PIG

ONE

I sat down, deep in the mud and filth, and addressed the Pig with respect and all of the dignity that I could muster. The Pig took my warm hearted greeting well and responded with a sincerity that no man is capable of. The Pig cared.

"Why have you come to the pig pen, my son?" the Pig responded. The glow in his eyes immediately put my soul at ease.

"I have come for wisdom."

"Wisdom. That is a tough one. I can't give it to you like I found an apple. You are off to a good start, though. Sitting in slop is a fine path to enlightenment," the Pig spoke. His words were warm water flowing from a shower nozzle on a too chilly morning. The smell from the pig pen was not as bad as I had thought it would be. I could get used to my chosen path to divinity if I had even the slightest taste for corn husks.

"What should I do, kind father, in order that I may reach the state of consciousness that you, most wise and thoughtful of all creatures, have attained?"

The Pig stared at me with his all knowing eyes. He rooted through the slop, evidently trying to find a hidden piece of food. I sat there, still. I was calm in my expectation that a divine revelation was about to be laid on my soul. I trusted the Pig more than I trusted my own mother.

The Pig offered me part of a newly discovered corn cob. I declined gracefully. I did not need to eat, I was fueled by my all consuming desire. I felt strong enough to wrestle an elephant. The Pig chewed on the cob slowly. His mouth had a fluid, beautiful motion that mesmerized me. While he chewed, he alternated his stare from the slop to my eyes.

After he finished his food, he sat in the slop - still again. I realized that his blankness was a sign that he, the Pig, was reaching that higher state of consciousness. His head began to nod as if he was falling asleep. His breathing turned deep and heavy. The sun burned brightly on the top of my head. His eyes closed. I swatted a fly that landed on my shoulder and waited.

TWO

By the time I began my undergraduate studies at the University, the Pig was no small secret. His renown had stretched from the Amish country of Western Pennsylvania to the more liberal, free thinking colleges of New England. His words were quoted in only the most cutting edge philosophical journals and he was flown to the now infamous "Pig Out" gatherings that were held at Berkeley in '67. As a child growing up during the Reagan era, I can recall the displaced friends of my parents calling out "Remember the Pig" after one too many beers at a family BBQ. Several of my father's old acid rock records contained the slogan - "Pig Tested - Pig Approved" - displayed prominently amidst the liner notes on the jacket. Pork dung casualties were profiled on 20/20. Murmurings of the Pig's whereabouts were popular topics of conversation with the heads at my high school.

My New Thought professor took me under his wing after I displayed a not-so-common interest in fringe philosophy during the course of his class. Since my parents were former Piggies, I suppose I had an inherited interest in expanding my inner self. I spent a good deal of my spare time at his pad, as Doctor Kaufman preferred to call his ramshackle apartment, discussing the finer points of mud, swill, deep breathing and the fly as a metaphor for life's trials and tribulations. We would watch bootleg videotapes, from a friend of a friend, of the Pig's seminars at University of California, Berkeley. We listened to the Pig's record, "A Pig Like Me," repeatedly - until each and every one of the Pig's words were etched permanently onto my brain. After smoking hog feces, we would sit and chant our oinking mantra. I took a wee bit of a shine to Dr. Kaufman and he saw me as a younger brother that he had to hip to the ways of the world. I appreciated his interest in me and I returned his kindness by helping him edit his memoir "Cops are Definitely Not Pigs, Brother!" All in all, my experience with Dr. Kaufman was interesting and enlightening but the man could only take me so far on my spiritual journey. I needed more than the good doctor could offer.

As my senior year of college started to wind down, I started to seriously entertain the notion of searching the Pig out. He had not been in the general public since the 1972 "Hog Wild Riots" in Philadelphia. Rumors of his whereabouts were numerous. He is living on a commune in Portland. He is dwelling in a penthouse in Manhattan with a wealthy Japanese technology developer. He is dead.

Although Dr. Kaufman had never seen the Pig personally, I trusted his theory more than most others. He said that the Pig was close by. He believed that the Pig was comfortably kept by the original owner's son and his wife (not that anyone could own the Pig - he is everything). They lived 45 minutes out of Cleveland, down Route 422, in Ohio's Amish Country. The more I thought that my journey to my own personal mecca would be a simple car ride from my home to Amish Country, the more nervously excited I became. What would I say to the Pig? What if he wasn't there? What if his words were no more meaningful to me than the funny papers? Doubts ruled my roost but an hour drive was certainly worth my time.

I took my last final on a Wednesday in early June. It was an unusually hot spring in Cleveland and I was anxious to get out of my think tank and into the open air. I took two days to prepare myself for my journey. I anticipated spending plenty of time with the Pig so I had to take many provisions. Notepads and pencils for noting the Pig's words, apples to offer in homage, as many changes of clothes that I could manage to fit in the trunk and backseat of my Nissan Sentra, were loaded bright and early on a not so long ago Saturday morning.

I set off to Amish Country with an oink in my heart and the Pig on my mind. Having driven to Warren, Ohio several times to purchase women's underwear, I was quite familiar with the broken down pick-up trucks and half-fallen farms that litter Route 422. My plan was to drive until I saw horse and buggies and then start asking questions-getting familiar with the folklore and common knowledge of the Amish folk. I had to be subtle since they are not too fond of outsiders.

I drove for a half hour without a single sign of horse shit. The day was too pleasant so I should be seeing folks out for a Saturday drive to buy snacks. It was not too long after that that I sighted a herd of buggies parked outside of a restaurant/general store type place. I parked my car with the few other automobiles in the lot and made my way into the store to begin my interrogation.

I felt that I had a fairly good grasp on the proper way to deal with these misfits. I gaily walked through the door of the store, making sure to make friendly eye contact with as many people as I could without appearing too suspicious. These people, like I have stated, are fiercely afraid of outsiders and have been known to thrash a poor fool who makes a wrong move. I knew that I had to choose my actions wisely.

Over by the counter, the Amish were crowded around the candy, debating the relative merits of certain brands of chewing gum. I eased my way to the clerk and asked for a pack of Camels.

"I've been smoking since I was twelve," I said to no one in particular.

"These'll kill you," I continued, "but so will I if you get in my way."

That attracted the attention of a few of the bearded gentlemen as several sent worried glances my way. I sought out the eyes of one of the younger Amish gentlemen and addressed him directly.

"Hey you over there ...yeah, you, the one with the suspenders ...l'm talking to you, sir."

"What do you need, stranger."

"I'm looking for the Pig. Do you know anything about him?"

"You're looking for the Pig, huh?"

"That's right, fool. I'm looking for the Pig of Infinite Wisdom."

“Well, if you're looking to buy a Pig, there's old man Smith's market down the road a spell."

"No, man. I don't want to buy a Pig. I'm looking for the Pig. The philosopher. The Hog of All Knowledge. Do you know where I could find a Pig that answers questions? Questions that I'm sure you don't even have the basic inclination to ask."

"A Pig that answers questions?"

"That's right, miscreant. The Pig that leads noble souls down the path of enlightenment."

"Sir, I am sure that I have never met a Pig who could talk, let alone answer questions. "

At this, most of the bearded fools at the counter began giggling and laughing like a bunch of damned school girls. I realized that matters of such philosophical importance were much more than these feeble minds had the chance of even coming close to grasping. But still, maybe one of them had heard of the glorious Pig, even in passing, and could offer me a clue as to his location of existence.

Their guffaws were cut short by my statement, "Well, evidently you morons are too simple to answer one question."

"Hey buddy, maybe my horse could tell you where to find your Pig. Ha Ha Ha!" belted a jokester among the group.

"I met a chicken once who read the Bible," crowed another.

I was furious.

"Okay, you don't know where the Pig is. That's fine. I doubt that anyone could comprehend what the Pig would say to you if you ever were in his glorious presence. I probably would have better luck talking to one of your horses anyhow, you dullards. Good day."

I started to make my way to the door, leaving the giggling girl scouts behind me. What could I expect from a group of people too backwoods to even use electricity. I stepped out the front door of the establishment. The sun was beaming down from heaving. I could see how such constant exposure to the elements would make a man goofy. The Amish aren't doing anyone a bit of good by standing in a field day after day. Only time will be able to tell if these people are going to be able to rid themselves of their screwball tendencies.

As I walked back to my Sentra I noticed a pack of young Amish riffraff milling about a buggy. They were passing a bottle of some nondescript hooch between them, blaring a transistor radio, laughing at farm jokes and smoking cigarettes. They were closer to my age than the fellows in the store. Maybe they, the Amish rebel youth, would be more willing to assist me in my journey.

I sauntered slowly to their buggy in the far corner of the lot. I had to choose my words wisely so as not to startle them but to earn their trust.

"Watcha drinking, friend," I questioned the smallish boy who held the bottle of booze in his hand at the moment, "moonshine?"

"What's it to you, punk?"

"I am a weary traveler who could use a swig of something to calm my ragged nerves. I am on a quest or sorts. I am looking for the wise Pig. You wouldn't happen to know where I could find this saintly hog, would you?"

"Maybe we do and maybe we don't," a tall dark fellow called out - perched high in the buggy's seat. This man, a good few years older than the rest, was apparently their leader. He looked to be the type of guy that would steal another man's horse and sell it for pocket change without even batting an eye.

"What's in it for us if we do know?" he finished.

"One crisp, clean, American dollar," I announced. Their eyes lit up like fireflies on an August night. Apparently the prospect of additional liquor money excited them because they seemed more than eager to share their entire life's story with me after I mentioned money - the Old Mazoo.

They jumped over themselves to reveal to me stories of the legendary Pig. Cousins, friends, preachers, but not one of them have ever physically seen the Pig. Each one had an anecdote about the Pig and the whiskey helped the stories grow to epic proportions. I was, however, able to gain a precise location of my leader, the Pig. The Pig was alive. The wayward farm boys swore to that. I gave them their dollar and was thanked a million times over. I jumped into my car and headed "down the road a spell" to Middlefield, Ohio.

THREE

The Pig was in his sleeplike trance for hours or was it merely minutes; I could not tell. I was losing myself in his infinite glory. I knew the Pig could read my soul as easily as I could 'The Cat in the Hat' so I repeated over and over again, deep inside me, "Oink. I want wisdom."

It was almost a month in the wonderful Pig sty before the Pig spoke again.

"You have proven yourself a worthy student. You have sat here in my home, peacefully, never questioning me past your initial inquiry. Never touching my meals. Searching your soul for the big answer. I can tell you are earnest in your desire for truth. I cannot give you wisdom, my son, like I told you when you first sat down in the mud. But you are off to a fine start."

"What should I do, oh exalted Pig?"

"Go to the house of my keepers. They will clean and feed you. They are both enlightened humans. They have reached the highest state that any human can reach which is as far as I could take them. Learn from them and wisdom is yours. Right now, your mind is open. They will be able to fill it with me. Learn from my keepers. I have done as much as I can do."

I thanked the Pig for his kindness, raised myself up from the mud and turned to the farmhouse. I left the Pig no more wise than I had come. I was confident that the Pig knew and I trusted his methods.

Four

"I first met the Pig back in 1965. I was dating Lloyd. We had met at school. He told me that his father had a talking Pig. I thought he was completely nuts. 'A talking Pig - who ever heard of such a thing.' He took me to his folks' place. This was back in Pennsylvania and, to and behold, the Pig was talking. Everyone in town thought that this was just an odd curiosity or some sort of trick. That was until he started settling people's disputes. It wasn't too long before everyone in town would talk to the Pig about their problems. The sheriff and justice would come to him with legal matters. Everybody's lives were better because of his animal logic. He was not affected by outside information. He relied solely on the wisdom of the barnyard.

"Lloyd and I ended up getting married. I felt kind of special to be close to the center of so much attention. We lived with his parents and then I lived with them by myself after Lloyd went away to the war.

"Before too long, outsiders started nosing around Lloyd's parent's place. All of these hippies were hanging around - stinking up the place. They took the Pig and Lloyd and I had to fight like hell to get him back. He was our inheritance. We've been able to get by on the estate and Lloyd's disability- war injury.

"We settled in Middlefield for the peace and quiet - that's what we're used to. Every now and again people are nosing around here talking to our Pig. Hopefully the Pig is helping people. They seem happy after they leave. The Pig's advice is usually pretty good.

"The Pig told me to 'free myself from the bonds of pleasure' and I've done it. Sometimes it would be nice to watch the television but most of the time I don't mind. I just take care of the Pig and Lloyd - keeping busy to pass the time. The Pig's advice is usually pretty good."

FIVE

The Pig's keeper was a striking contrast to his wife. She looked so pale and thin as if she could go at any minute while he was as bloated as a whale with the bright red cheeks of the frequent drinker. She was quiet, almost timid. Yet he bellowed like a strip club hustler working the streets. His wife seemed earnest in her reflections concerning spiritual conviction. He seemed as if he never spent one second of his brain's output on the greater quest.

I was certainly confused by the two's almost total differences. I needed to find out what the Pig told him. I questioned him.

"The Pig told me that you could help me on my journey towards a greater understanding. What has the Pig told you?"

"That Pig has told me plenty."

"Did he tell you how to live - what to do to give your life the necessary spirit to conquer the pitfalls that we encounter every day?"

"I'll tell you about pitfalls, man. I was in 'Nam. It was no fucking picnic, man. Have you ever been shot at? Except you don't know where the bullets are coming from. Have you ever had your pants catch fire? Eaten shit from a tin can? Fucked your buddy just because he reminded you of Marilyn Monroe with his fucking laugh? That was 'Nam, man. It was hell. There hasn't been a day that I haven't puked on the floor thinking about that shit."

"Has the Pig helped you through?"

"I get back from 'Nam, no parades, no congratulations, and find out that a bunch of peaceniks stole my fucking Pig. I'm trying to get used to home life and I got to find my Pig. Fuck them pinkos. I got my Pig, baby. Killed a few longhairs in the process. Me and my old lady settled down on this farm. I asked the Pig what I should do next and he told me ‘You have suffered enough. Indulge yourself on the fruits of the earth. There is no pleasure that is not yours. Eat a live goldfish on the first Monday of each month. Spiritual enlightenment will be yours.' So that's what I'm doing - drinking, smoking, eating, sleeping and fucking little girls and boys."

"Do you feel enlightened?"

"I was in 'Nam, man. Those fucking gooks would kill you as quick as they would fuck a chicken. I feel good now. The Pig is right, fuck suffering."

SIX

"The Pig told me that I would attain wisdom from reading the funny papers backwards. I think I am getting closer to wisdom everyday. Marmaduke is much funnier to me now."

SEVEN

"I have been putting one overripe banana in my butt every day for eight years. Thanks to the Pig. He said that while I was relieving myself of the banana I was to sing the score to 'The Sound of Music.' It gets messy sometimes but that is a small price to pay for higher consciousness."

EIGHT

"The Pig told me never to drink anything. I am thirsty but wise."

NINE

"I sat with the Pig for three years, talking to him and petting him every now and again. Eventually, the Pig sent me away and said that after I ate at every McDonalds in the world, I would gain wisdom. I never eat McMuffins. The cookies are okay."

TEN

"The Pig told me to talk only to retards, I'm sorry."

ELEVEN

There are few things that I enjoy more in life than a B.L.T. A bright red tomato, crisp iceberg lettuce, and bacon, cooked to perfection. This bacon was particularly good. I put a touch of mayonnaise on the wheat toast for another sandwich and dug in. I felt wise.

(1993)



posted by Thea at 10:33 PM

04/21/02

I have been dealing with my weight and a meaningful way to write about if for as long as I can remember. I have always been fat. I will always be fat. That is my thing.

This was another unsuccessful attempt at truth based third person narrative. Nothing was changed from the way it was written in 1993 except for the addition of the phrase “years of painful chafing” which I could not resist putting it in there.

Some of it does not make sense like I just kind of assumed that the reader would know what I was talking about. I have learned in the last decade to fill in the spaces between thoughts with words. I think that, overall, it paints a pretty good picture of me as an overeater. I used to eat that much. Man, what was I thinking? Didn’t anybody have a cork for my pie hole?


Paul was fat. Damn fat. He was not chubby or pleasingly plump. He was not overweight, chunky or hefty. He was obese. Grossly obese. Morbidly obese.
Paul could not remember a time when he was the same size as his peers. When he was twelve, he was the same weight as a normal adult and by the time he was sixteen he was shopping for clothes at the King Size Man and Harry’s Big and Tall. He hated shopping for clothes because he hated everything about his big fat body. He hated looking at his double chin on his fat face. He hated the wings of fat underneath his arms. He hated his big belly. He hated the way that his thighs rubbed together causing years of painful chaffing.
When Paul sat down on a chair, he feared it bursting out from under him. When Paul woke up in the morning, his legs were sore like a withered old man with arthritis. He lumbered down the stairs like an Igor, moaning and groaning all the way.
Paul had large womanly breasts. He stood in front of the mirror and bounced his flab watching it jiggle.
Paul was not a jock, brain, drugger, nerd or prep. Paul was fat and nothing else. That was the sum of his identity. And Paul hated it.
The more that Paul hated his weight problem and the more he dwelled on it, the more he ate. He rarely ate breakfast in the morning because of the length of time that it took him to wash his enormous body (all that flab and all those folds). But he more than made up for skipping the meal at lunch. He would eat a noontime meal consisting of the daily meat type special, usually Salisbury steak or a chuck wagon patty. He would eat a triple portion of mashed potatoes and gravy with a half dozen pieces of hard crusted white bread and butter. He washed it all down with a low fat chocolate milk and three Big O orange drinks. For his luncheon dessert – two Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies and two strawberry Scooter Crunches were inhaled.
Lunch at school was especially hard for Paul. Walking from Algebra II class to the cafeteria there would be a debate inside of the fat Paul. Was it worth it to endure all of those stares and mumbled fat jokes to get a filling meal or would he better off to just sit alone and read. Usually, Paul’s stomach won and the sound of not so distant laughter was drown out by the euphoria of white bread sopped in brown gravy.
There was no actual dinner in Paul’s daily post school feeding frenzy. He ate a snack of three or four raw hot dogs dipped in ketchup and some crackers with peanut butter and jelly as soon as he walked in the door at three o’clock after school. He ate the regular dinner with his family and then ate an entire can of Pringles and a couple of Fifth Avenue candy bars washing it all down with several cans of Dr. Pepper. All in all, his daily feasting habits stayed the same with some additional incidental snacking that would happen by luck or design.
Day in and day out, Paul ate like a horse. In the morning, a way too healthy shit reminded him of yesterday’s gorging and, at night, the heartburn would be so bad that he would vow to God that he would never eat so much again if He would just make the pain go away.
Shit and guilt. Shit and guilt. Paul’s every thought had something to do with his weight. He would think about what he was going to watch on television but quickly fantasize about what he was going to eat while watching it. He would plan on going on of the house on a Friday night – an occasion almost as rare as Hailey’s Comet – and think about what clothes he could wear that would disguise his blubber. Would he fit on the bus seat? Would he fit on the movie seat? Would his feet be sore tomorrow from carrying around the weight? Gym class. Fat. Nakedness. Fat. Cold cuts. Fat.

(1993)



posted by Thea at 11:34 AM