5 Paragraphs from ONZAGA

It was a cold and rotten house, at times repulsive and others charming. More rarely, it was both. At various points over a year, it was home to one, or two, or no dogs; several roaches; one, two, or three people and two boyfriends among them for frequent temporary stays; one week there were maggots; and mold, regularly, on and in the puddles kept by dishes screaming for someone to wash them.

The wooden floors were abused. Chemically by dog waste (human waste, once) and bleach mistaken for Pine-Sol. Physically by dog teeth (human teeth, twice) and clay slabs, unhinged doors, heavy metal furniture and the like. The deposit would be withheld upon the lease’s end.

I moved the first of my things there on the first of March. I moved the last of my things there on the last of March. Owing largely to the destruction of my ’99 Honda Passport on the second of March, on the second load of boxes, I was without bedding, among other possessions, for some time. That’s how I first learned the house was so cold. And the dust hiding in each little invisible crevice of the place was lifted up that month, stirring for the first time in years and circling around the room and spiraling into my lungs. And that’s how it was rotten.

I was sick more in my year there than in any other year of my life. Now, two weeks away from leaving, it has me sick again, with the worst sickness it’s given me—the skin inside my mouth peels and boils, and the slimy substance rushing out of every of my apertures is half lined with blood, while puss-plump blisters dot my lips. It’s painful to eat yogurt. I don’t know what this sickness is called, but the doctor suggested taking Allegra, which I think means she doesn’t know what it’s called either.

He decided to enter my life during the stage most imperfect for accommodating such entrances, and from such people.  It's not so much the natural order as it is a habit we can't kick; the tendency people like me have to hate people like him.  And though it led me first astray in this case, I'd still trust this habit in future cases, because it's never wrong. He was fucked up. Weed, coke, and booze, probably; that was his trio. I think he fell in love with me that night.

The Santa Close One

As a de facto atheist, I find some general shame in using the word "spirit."  But I believe in the spirit of Christmas.  Friends doing favors they wouldn't usually, strangers exchanging good-hearted and genuine well wishes for each other, the thrill of stumbling on that perfect gift for your brother, and the stress of your extended family griping about your refusal of their invitation to spend the holiday with them but neglecting to realize your mom's side of the family embraces the idea of you bringing your boyfriend along, and maybe that's why, maybe you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself, and I hope conversations at Christmas dinner are neither interesting nor sophisticated, owing greatly to my absence.¹

But I'm not here to get personal.  Let's talk Santa.  Even though Santa stands for everything I hate about Christmas (and mind you, my hatred of the commercialization of Xmas is neither vapid nor pompous—I think it's reasonable to say that pepper spraying your consumer competition is taking Xmas greed a bit too far), the guy was always good to me.  He got me an N64 that time I really needed one, and that Bat Cave action figure set was a blast for years, even though it was my brother's.  Santa was not, however, good to my new friend Harry. Not at all.

Harry is eight-ish years old and the son of the kitchen manager at the restaurant where I'm a delivery driver.  I met him for the first time yesterday after getting to work late and missing out on some hot cocoa the general manager had prepared for everyone.  A managerial meeting was underway outside, so Harry and I were the only two in the restaurant.

"You got a favorite Christmas song?" I asked him as "Feliz Navidad" played on the Pandora Christmas station.

"No," he said, and continued to write his sentences.

"What about a favorite regular song?" I asked.

Again, "No."

He then stopped doing his homework and took from his pocket a sheet of paper that had been folded into a square some way that the corners were tucked back in, so it wouldn't unfold.  He then tried to spin it on the tiled bar.  It was a top.  It didn't spin.

"Can you make this work?" he asked me.  I didn't know anything about paper tops really.  I said he should probably be doing his homework, or his mother would be angry.  He was too upset to do his homework, he explained, because one of the managers had spilled hot cocoa all over his first attempt and he'd have to start it all over on a new sheet.  I told him I knew how to make a fortune teller, and maybe that would be just as fun.

He didn't know what a fortune teller was.  And then I got that irrational paranoid feeling you get, you know the one where you just started this new job and you don't know anybody there, and you're about to teach one of your co-worker's kids about paper fortune tellers, but you're acutely aware of the possibility that the family is a fundamentally and vehemently Baptist one that holds paper fortune tellers as instruments of Satanic worship?  But you also don't want to say something like, "This is just for fun, and fortune telling isn't real," because what if the family is new-agey or if Great Aunt Lyla made her fortune telling fortunes or something?  So when writing the possible fortunes down I tried to stay ultra light on the "predicting" aspect and instead wrote "Have a nice day," "You rock," "Study hard," and "Santa's watching."

Boy, did I fuck up on that last one.

"Pick a number," I said.  The choices showing were 1, 2, 3, and 4.

"19," he said.

"No, one of the ones here."

"10."  Come on, do kids not know numbers at age 8?

"1, 2, 3, or 4."

"Um, 4."  And I do the fortune telling motion thing.

Now his choices are 5, 6, 9, and 10.

"4 again," he said.

"It doesn't work that way, stupid kid!" I said.  I didn't really say that, but wouldn't that have been so mean?  And funny later?  He picked 10, and then he picked 12.  And behind door 12 was "Santa's watching."

He seemed confused.  Consequently, I became confused.  "What's wrong?" I asked him.  He had something to say, but was obviously nervous to say it, like he was about to hurt my feelings with whatever it was.  He hopped off the stool and came around to the side of the bar that I was on, motioning for me to come down to his level so he could whisper to me.

"My mom said," he started.  "Well, last year, Santa didn't bring me presents or eat the cookies I left for him."

"Oh," I said.  Shit.

"Well, and last year when I was in kindergarten I woke up Christmas morning and my mom said she bought all my Christmas presents and that I had to eat all the cookies."  My confusion grew... it seemed as though the kid still believed in Santa Claus but for some reason he understood that last year of all years, Santa took a break.  And it couldn't have been a financial issue, because the kid still got presents.  And what I got next was no answer, but instead the catalyst for quite a few more questions.  "She said it was because Santa died."

I'm sorry.  Excuse me?

"Oh!" Not gonna lie, I felt a little trapped.  "Yeah, I heard about that, isn't that awful?"  Isn't it awful to tell a kid that Santa died rather than never existed?  Myself, I took it pretty hard when I found out about Santa.  Cried and whatnot.  But I cannot imagine how distraught I would've been if I heard he died.  He was like my third grandpa.

"If you heard about it, why did you write that Santa's watching?"

Well, I thought.  What do I say now?  Something vague like his spirit is still around and I'm sure presents will continue to be given even if mothers and fathers have to take on the burden?  Or something as simple as "I forgot?"  There should be one single story that every person is instructed to go by whenever he or she is told the truth about Santa.  When parents go around telling their kids Santa died and shit, that's asking for a bit of trauma down the road.  Just a little.

I think I've proven myself fairly capable of avoiding discomfort.  I'd say that's one of my most prized and most utilized skills.  Call me an escapist.  I don't care.  Kids are the easiest people to distract, and I was not about to talk death of Santa with this one.

So I went with, "Hey, is that a lizard?!"

---

¹  Because it is most likely true that Dennis would not be welcome at my Dad's side's festivities, and because I am truly somewhat on the estranged end of things, but also because I do not actually harbor any resentment towards the Armatos, and because I am Facebook friends with a sizable majority of them, I'd like to establish that I am, in the referred paragraph, exaggerating for effect. Thank you.

America's Funny Man

You know how when you meet celebrities you take particular care to not wig out on them, but you concentrate so hard on not spilling your irrational and unfounded love for them all over their finely pressed sweater vests that you end up not saying anything at all?  And then you've lost the chance to say something so witty, so hysterical that the celebrity in question befriends you after taking you out for coffee, and pretty soon you're a celebrity yourself—nope, that ship has sailed.

Dennis, Chastity, and I went to a reading and book signing for David Sedaris's Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, and I was determined—no, destined to make that guy laugh so hard he'd offer for he and Hugh to take Dennis and me out for dinner.  He'd then carefully work with my on my writing, helping me to find a great agent and publisher, you know someone who "gets" my stuff.  He'd praise me, and I'd be in awe of him, and they'd let us go stay with them at their home in England.  Oh, how wonderful it was going to be.  But I froze up.

Dennis spoke to him before I did. "Hi, thank you for asking a question," Mr. Sedaris said, as Dennis had asked something about a movie that had been rumored to be in the making, something about the Sedaris family.  "Oh, no problem," he said.

"It was a very good one.  What's your name?"

As he asked this question, he began drawing a picture of a knife on the title page of Dennis's book.

"Well, Dennis, this is a picture of the knife you used to stab the guy who took my computer."

He'd told the story earlier, something about when he was in Hawaii a couple weeks ago the house he stayed in was broken into, and his computer bag was stolen.  Something about there being drugs in the computer bag?  At any rate, there were stories on the computer he'd not backed up because, these are his words, "I didn't know you had to drag the files onto the little stick, I thought you just put the stick in and it backed it up for you."  Oh, older generations.  During the talk, Dennis had leaned over and whispered to me, "What a lucky thief!"

As Dennis said to Mr. Sedaris what he'd told me of the thief's luck, I thought about making fun of Mr. Sedaris's technological illiteracy for my One Joke That Would Change My Life, but then there was the possibility of offending him.

"And how long have you two been together?" Mr. Sedaris asked.  It'll be two years at the end of February, so I said, "two years."

"No, no, it's not two years until the end of February," Dennis said.  Yes, he was right, but you can't get corrected in front of a celebrity when you're trying to get them to give their fame to you!   People with celebrity potential do not get corrected!

"Yes," I said, and shut up for a while.  Mr. Sedaris finished the knife he was drawing for Dennis and moved onto my book.

"Who's this for?" he asked.  I was confused by the question, because someone who worked at the book shop had gone down the line and asked each person specifically if they wanted a name in their copy or just a signature.  Since Mr. Sedaris had very openly expressed his annoyance with people who nitpick about inscriptions in autographs, I said that I'd just like a signature.

"It's for me, I guess," I said.  And I didn't mean it to come out this way, but if my voice weren't so deep, my intonation would have pegged me as a high school girl with a purse puppy.

"And your name is...?"  Shit.  He hated me.  He loved Dennis and he hated me.  He was gonna sweep my boyfriend away from me and convince him of what a terribly rude person I am, or at least write about me in such a light in one of his future stories.  The picture he began to draw in my book was a face.

I told him my name.

"And you're in school?"

Yes, Loyola, English, digital media, that whole speech.

The face in the drawing was now connected by some sort of hose to what looked like wheels?

"Oh."  And that's all he had to say.

No, no, not wheels.  Balls.  Testicles.  He definitely just added pubic hair to the sketch.

"This," he said, "is a picture of you after you've been in a terrible accident, and all you have left is your head, so to help you regrow the rest of your body they graft that to your boyfriend's balls."

I looked at the picture and said, "Well those can't be his, he's got three."

Best things D-F

D is for Danny DeVito at Dorignac's.

At dawn, I do declare that I did arise to drive to Dorignac's and drop Danny DeVito a line. He was drinking limoncello. All right, fuck this alliteration thing I said I was gonna do. Michael and Martin caused a ruckus, and this old man yelled at us and said he was gonna get security. So we were all, "Fuck you, old timer, you don't fucking own this place." Turns out he was Dorignac. Eh... so we're all banned from Dorignac's forever.

---2 Years Separate the Writing of "D" and the writing of "E"---


E is for Eurythmics.

The Eurythmics are the best because you can't help but love the shit out of "Sweet Dreams" even though you're super creeped out by Annie Lennox because when you were a young child her ambiguous gender had a subconscious psychological impact on you, causing you to question your sexual identity long before you knew the definitions of "sexual" or "identity."

Fable III

I had something written up about the Fibonacci sequence, and I was trying really hard to make it interesting, but I don't know anything about math really. Then I was gonna write about Fawlty Towers but realized I don't even like that show that much.  But I do generally like John Cleese.  And what's Cleese's  most iconic role other than Basil Fawlty?  That's right, Jasper the butler from Fable III for Xbox 360! Which is coincidentally the only video game I've played beginning to end in close to ten years.  I'm a recovering game-aholic who's abstained since admitting to that, and I'm just now working responsible gaming back into my shattered life.  Fable III was huge spiritual stepping stone, and I took that step.  Congratulate me.

The Versus the World Tally

About a year ago—perhaps because I'm an insecure, excuse-abusing, self-pitying scum beast, or perhaps because some part of me still believes that to be false and is desperate to prove it so to the rest of me—I began a blog project.  Not just any blog project.  This the vainest, whiniest, most negative subject matter I've ever had the (post hoc) shame of discussing.  A year ago I began a tally of shitty things that happen to me.

I didn't keep up with it, because I just don't really do "keeping up" with things, but I'm here to bring it back.  Hopefully in a more positive, productive light this time.  Below is the full text of all documented points thus far in the competition.  I'll carry on where I left off.

0-0
The world and I have been playing this game for 19 years, 9 months, 8 days, and 4 hours, and 29 minutes at the time of this writing. Only now have I begun to keep score.

I revoke all points I've scored on the grounds that they have not been properly documented. Of course, I also will assume the authority to revoke all points scored by the opposition on those same grounds.

Here we go. All tied up at zero. First to 1,000 wins.

Begin.

1-0
One points awarded to the world for the slowness of drying machines.  I need my work shirt to not be wet anymore so I can go make the money.

2-0
Apparently, I'm the only one at my job who doesn't know how to open a bottle of wine.

I've recently begun a serving job.  We've got an extensive wine collection.  Four of my tables ordered bottles of wine today, and I had to open them, as a server does.  So I'm griping about all this after work and everyone I tell the story to knows exactly how it's done.  In this just a selection of common knowledge that I missed out on while growing up?

One of the ladies at one of my tables ended up taking the bottle from me and opening it herself.  Oy.

2-1
After learning that I missed out on some wine opening knowledge, I bought two bottles.  A chardonnay and a pinot grigiot.  And with some helpful instruction from the bartender at work and from my roommates, I adequately and even gracefully opened those two bottles and drank them.  A point goes to me.


 2-2
Landed a job interview at a mighty nice movie theatre.  Heading over there right now with my one year of movie theatre experience, a some Stalone confidence, and a little bit of scruff.

5-4
At last count, the score was 2-2.

I'm a waiter.  Last night I lucked out with a full section!  2-3.

A full section of Europeans.  Those folks don't tip. 3-3.

Oh, and they only spoke French.  "Je voudrais du thé glacé."  And I'm like, "Euh... glacé...  I remember this from French II.  Ice cream?"  And they're like, "Oui, oui."  "I'm sorry, we don't have ice cream.  Nous n'avons pas de glace." "Non, non, pas 'glace.' J'ai dit 'thé glacé.' Iced tea."  God dammit, say it in English the first time if you know how.  Similar exchanges took place between me and each of the 36 francophones I served.  4-3.

After that annoying night of work, it was lovely to get completely hammered with my dear friends 4-4.

But that led to waking up five minutes after I was supposed to be in philosophy class.  5-4.

7-4
As stated earlier, I was late to my philosophy class.  I usually skip that class.  I went today because I thought it was a review day.  It wasn't, I just had to sit through my fart of a teacher go on about William James and Soren Kierkegaard.

Please allow me a brief aside.  Philosophy is the most useless discipline of the entire common curriculum.  I understand that studying people's thoughts on life and justice and morality and god might be interesting, but I do not see what purpose this serves.  I can read as much Marx or Plato as I want, but my ideas on those things are probably not going to change. And I think it's boring, too.

So the world gets a point because I thought I needed to go to class, but I didn't need to, and I ended up going anyway.  6-4.

But the world gets another point.  After I got out of philosophy at 10:45, I waited around school for my 3:30 class.  I found out at 3 that it was cancelled. 7-4.

7-5

It's been a year. We'll count that year as a time-out, because there's absolutely no way I can count all the points that the world and I each scored. So here' almost a year later, I declare the score to be 7-5.
This week I got my shit STRAIGHT. If I've ever said a word to you, you know that I cannot stand school. I honestly feel like I wouldn't care if I never owned property, worked in a coffee shop, and wrote blogs and poetry for the rest of my life. I'd have no credit, no spouse, no children, no money, and no responsibility.

That was how I used to think. Now I kind of see that I kind of like having responsibility. And how am I ever going to get the house I want if I don't own property? Even if I find it, the owners could stop renting it whenever they please. And I really do not want to work in customer service or any non-skilled profession because I hate manual labor, and I hate people. There, I said it.

I'm gonna teach English, y'all. At my high school. And write in the mean time. And English teachers need degrees. So I'm gonna get mine and quit griping about "Oh, but I work full time and go to school full time, and the other people in my classes are just doing well because their daddies pay for their food, booze, and Coach purses, and I'm .... I'm ... "

I can summarize my attitude for the past three years in five words: I don't give a shit. But now, I don't give a shit if I don't give a shit. I'm gonna give a shit. I'm gonna give plenty of shits.

7-6
I get a point for dressing as a cowboy and playing with some 0–3 year-olds at their Halloween party. And then for getting trashed at noon. And then for going to work at 4, trashed, and still performing well. And then for not going to the Seahorse Saloon, but staying in and watching Night of the Living Dead.

8-6
The world gets a point for my belligerent drunkenness last night on All Hallows' Eve. I had trouble finding my way back home, and according to Dennis, I was nearly hit by several cars as I biked down Esplanade, no fault of theirs. I had a great night, though, so I'll keep my head up high.

Bachelor's Degree

Paper trophy—that
cuts that cuts that
cuts that cuts

that brands my XP
dry-skulled forehead
for what for what
for what for

that untuned urgent
grand piano
plucked a forte
'plauding crowds are
worth some lint
a bunny dusted mopped

that floor—all wood—
and dry skin cells a blank-
et trampoline.

Horned yarn swords believe
the sound.

Sonnet of Disenchantment

This crown chakra’s pounding on
the doors, an unlit fire. The mind
matter match is struck, the strip
a brilliant liar—who wants to find

us as taped up boxes, “Fragile,”
stamped upon the package. Shipped
to destinations where, arrived,
batteries lacking. Ill-equipped

for proper, polite usage,
to the sewage with the rest. Tossed
into the fecal matter. The cost
of the pieces unassessed. Lost.

(But don’t fret, bro, we’re all foolish sheep.
Too dumb and tired—to fallow dreams.)

Hey, October

So much for screenwriting, haven't done that since finishing That's Agape. I'm back to poetry after two long years. Feels good, but I wish I had the same passion for something like biology. Or law. Then I'd make money at some point in my life.

From Evernote:

That's agape

I reached the end of my first and definitely not my last feature length screenplay earlier this week. That's Agape is the title as of now. Universal said they'd buy it for $20,000 if they can change the title to Me Make Movie, but I would hate to lose my artistic integrity so early on.

I really enjoyed this eight month process. I think I've found a hobby i'm in love with that I'm also decent at. I therefore establish this journal in the name of my future endeavors in the field.

Best Things A-Z part TWO

I did this in January-February of '08. I liked it. Here it is again, with different choices and a lousy attempt to make every entry alliterative.

A is for Anne-Louise.
Anne-Louise is the name of my white '99 Honda Passport. She's about to fall apart a bit, but I adore her. Admittedly, she's got a little vehicle arthritis, only allowing me to open from the passenger side. Although, that doesn't anger me. And the A/C doesn't work, but I can access air through the sunroof. And she ain't too atrocious at arriving at the destination I ask for. So A is for Anne-Louise.

B is for Bad, "Beat It," and "Billie Jean."
Ok, the letter B basically belongs to Michael Jackson. I can't decide if I want to bestow it upon Bad for "best Michael Jackson album" because it features "Bad," "Man in the Mirror," and "Smooth Criminal," or if I want to bring it to a tie between "Beat It" and "Billie Jean" for best Michael Jackson songs. No lie, Bad is the best MJ album, and the best MJ songs are "Smooth Criminal," "Beat It," and "Billie Jean." Believe it or not, I'm drawing a blank. Why bother? B is for Bad, "Beat It," and "Billie Jean."

C is for The Catcher in the Rye.
The Catcher in the Rye is the best book I've ever read for school. No competition. It caused me to completely change my perception of the cosmos. Can't begin to describe how carefully I chewed on that novel. Caufield can convey his thoughts like no character I've read before. And Salinger's crazy cool, too. So C is for The Catcher in the Rye.

---why-------------did------
canal soot------leech onto---
a mix CD scratched by fear’s
-unclipped fingernails if---
---a faulty bloodpumper-----
------sweat the sweet--------
-------eye water to----------
--------compensate-----------
---------for the-------------
----------hands--------------
-----------hak---------------
------------e----------------
------------?---

We'll call this an experiment in imagism. You can thank William Carlos Williams for writing "The Red Wheelbarrow," Ryan Gallagher for having his sophomore English class read it, and an adorable little asshole for throwing the mix CD I made him into a canal. Cheers.

Conversations with Ben Childress bring a smile to me face.

Matt
i dropped my phone in the toilet, and that's a little bothersome.

12:39amBen
that lovely lg chocolate thing?

12:39amMatt
the very same.

12:39amBen
i was wondering why you hadn't responded to any of my texts confessing my love to you

12:40amMatt
hmm. no, i got those before it broke.

12:40amBen
is that right

12:40amMatt
yeah. sorry.

Falling Easy

To be read in one breath.

I can fall in love so easy like a
baby falls asleep so easy quick and

I can't feel my head it's spinning round a
round a carousel around like spinning
wheels and weaving wishes in to thread so

easy falling like a beat just pulsing
jazzing dancing feet I'm falling down but
speeding up and slowly passing out of

consciousness whene'er I smell the music
stepping techno over near me kind of

losing equilibrium but not from
any alcohol just spinning in my

head and kissing faces for a second's
time but not a second time just once and
only for a second but I hope for
seconds every second moment I am

pulsing falling spinning jazzing speeding
techno stepping easy weaving quick and
dancing losing passing kissing loving

learning I can fall in love so easy
fall in love so deep and easy.

Waiting

Boy, you say, “For
ever is a long time.”
Longer than one
thousand longing
stares at you.

But
I can
stare. I can smile
small, you won’t
smell the melting
eyes just north of this
plaqued, pearled fort.

I can wait; on
drunk nights I
do
bitters.

Disappointment is a Shattered Tooth

St. Apollonia is the patron saint of dentistry and toothaches. She was given this position mostly because before her execution, each of her teeth was individually ripped out or shattered. We have 32 teeth. By the 3rd, this process would likely become a little monotonous.

"But it never stops hurting."

(Paraphrased from John Green's An Abundance of Katherines)