So much of my free-time (the majority of it, I’d say) is spent speaking gibberish to the cat. Occasionally: it’s coherent gibberish—or gibberish that kind of makes sense. But it’s all idiotic and it’s starting to worry me.

I think I miss having someone around to talk to. It’s a shame things didn’t work out with Kristen but I couldn’t force her to stay. And I’m not going to kill myself trying to convince her that we were a good match—because, I was thinking about it last night, and I really do think we were.

One thing I really liked about being with Kristen was that I could be myself around her. She was the first girl I can say that about. My other girlfriends—I could be myself around them for a while, but there would inevitably come this point where I, for whatever reason, would assume this “boyfriend” role, that simply was not me. With Kristen, though—whether it was because I made a conscious effort to maintain my sense of self or because she and I were naturally so chummy—I never felt this pressure. I noticed it occasionally, but it took little effort on my part to go back to being who I was. And I partly believe that she kept me in check. She never let me get too unbearable.

All my girlfriends have been smart. They were all smart but in different ways. I felt, though, with Kristen like we were smart in the same way—which is why I never felt a divide between the two of us. If I had a problem I could go to her about it—I could explain my situation without having to explain myself or the way I think. With my last girlfriend, I couldn’t do that. She just didn’t get me. She was smart. But we didn’t share the same sense of humor—and I don’t know why but that seems to be such an important thing in relationships. Because: if you and your partner find the world funny or ridiculous in the same ways that indicates on some level, I think, that you’re looking at the world through the same lens.

I don’t know. I’ve been really sad lately. Especially at work because I’m mostly by myself all night and the workload has dropped off considerably since Christmas. Sometimes, Butch will come down and that helps. But I’m mostly alone with my own nagging thoughts of self-doubt and regret and wishful thinking.

I’ve been hanging out with friends more lately. That helps, too. But when they leave, I’m back to talking to the cat—thinking about things I should be doing rather than doing them.

I came to the conclusion last night that I need to make an effort to go out more and socialize. I’ve made leaps and bounds these past few years in terms of stepping out of my shell. I am now able to carry on bullshit conversations at work with co-workers I know and co-workers I don’t—so, strangers basically. But it’s still pretty hard for me. I can start a conversation but I find it difficult to keep it going. I have to force myself to talk about myself because I’ve determined that’s how people have conversations. I’ve tried in the past only asking about the other person (which is what I prefer) but those conversations crash and burn quicker than anything. So, in an effort to be normal, I’ll wrack my brain for relevant anecdotes, if someone’s talking about a particular topic, and I’ve found that this usually does the trick—effectively bridges the gap and establishes some faulty foundation for intimacy. Here’s my story—tell me yours. So that—in this way, we’re trading personal information and the conversation isn’t completely one-sided. It’s exhausting though and just as quickly as I initiate the conversation I get bored with it. Not bored—I just wish it was easier to know people. I wish it wasn’t such a game of strategy. Like: we could just plug-in on some two-way feed and exchange Facebook stats. “Oh, you like this movie. I don’t. But I see, here, that you enjoy golfing?” That kind of thing.

My friends may not be the best people in the world. They may not always look out for my best interests. But I determined a couple years ago that I need them because this whole process of exchanging information and maintaining connections is easier with people I can talk to so freely—so easily. It comes natural with them. I can just exist in the same room with them and feel understood. It’s a very peculiar feeling. Just being around them—I feel like a plant absorbing all its vital nutrients and sunshine. Hanging out with friends gives me two hours or so to re-charge and prep myself (re-learn who I am and what my place is in the world)—we don’t even have to say anything or do anything worthwhile except, like I said, exist in the same room and feed off each other’s energy—like two cars of the same make or model and I’m always the busted one extending my soul’s jumper cables.

I don’t know. Is that lame? It’s how I feel. And it’s not that I’m dependent on people. I’m actually pretty content by myself. I love doing things by myself. I genuinely value my privacy. People have accused me in the past of being a recluse. But I don’t feel like I need to be around people all the time. I just have a fixed amount of time every week that I need to see someone or be around other human beings. Just being around people, in general, makes me feel better—like throwing open the curtains after being in the dark for so long and finally getting sunlight. That’s how it feels to me when I go out—to the mall or a bookstore or anywhere particular people congregate. I feed off their energy—the things they say—the speeds they move at and live their lives. It’s weird. But when I’m with friends, I feel like I’m spoiling myself. Because I get those feelings of being re-charged so immediately—with no effort on my part.

I don’t know.

I heard a story on public radio this morning about a Czech filmmaker, called the Czech Borat. I can’t remember his name. But his latest film is apparently causing a lot of controversy. In it, he stages a series of public stunts and pranks meant to provoke the people of Czechoslovakia (which it’s done) to question their own national identity.

They described one stunt where he dressed up in lederhosen and epaulets constructed from the headlights of German-made automobiles. The whole outfit is supposed to look tacky. But it’s also supposed to be a statement on how Czechoslovakia was once occupied by Germans, before they, for whatever reason, abandoned the country. This happened all at once, apparently—they just left the country. Maybe it was when Czechoslovakia gained their independence. I don’t know. Either way: it prompted me to think about my own region-specific identity—as someone who grew up in a fairly identity-less Midwest suburb.

It’s not that the people here are personality-less. There are distinct suburban archetypes and personalities, for sure. The Soccer Mom. The Suburban Bourgeoisie. The Rich-Kid Druggies. The Poor-Kid Druggies. Churchies. And so on.

There are vast socio-economic disparities among suburbanites as well: entire Suburban enclaves. It’s not uncommon to see McMansions bordering a crowded nest of trailer homes. But most suburbanites fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum. They live in two-storey homes in one-two children families. The parents are generally low-to-middle middle class workers. But you will occasionally find working class people scattered amongst this crowd.

It’s interesting, though, that with all this diversity—what on paper seems like a complex little community—the suburban landscape itself is so non-descript and blah. Not that I couldn’t describe it to you. On every corner is a major chain fast-food restaurant or a strip mall with major chain department stores. No Mom and Pop stores, really. Just the big-name chains that have settled into an easy suburban niche—with stores dotted along the two major roads running through town. This is the way it is in Greenwood (where I’m from). And the way it is in a lot of other suburban hellholes I’ve been to—or travelled through on vacation. We all have the same stores. The same restaurants. The mid-range Applebee’s and Cheesecake Factories. Each time a new one opens, my mom gets excited—like it’s some huge cultural event. “We just got a (insert strategically Mom-baiting name—e.g. Fudpucker’s, Ruby Tuesday, etc.)!” And you know these places are intentionally pandering to suburban baby-boomers. Why else would they name their otherwise personality-less establishments after Rolling Stones’ songs (ahem…Ruby Tuesday)? They do it because they know their target demographic and they know that all baby-boomers consider the Rolling Stones’ to be the best band that ever lived. So, of course, when they open in whatever small suburban Anywhere they’ve not yet infested, the baby-boomers will come flying, like drone-moths to a simulated flame. It’s the same when they open new stores. It’s not that these places have anything great or exceptional or new to offer. It’s the same shit. But we’ve become so inundated with these corporate establishments that we almost depend on them to define ourselves. We buy not only things with our money but our identities. We are Target. Wal-Mart. Barnes and Noble. Because when we look around these are the places and things we see. They are all we have—since these major chains have run out every smaller business and effectively killed any chance we had at individuality.

I’m not suggesting that I think a place is defined by the businesses it produces. It’s just upsetting to me that we don’t have anything to point to and call our own. There is nothing uniquely Greenwood about Greenwood. We have a mall. But a lot of places have a mall. We have quite a few Starbucks. But a lot of places have quite a few Starbucks. These things—these establishments—have almost become a given for any major town or city or suburb—like key features of the human face. And supposing all these chains add up to a composite face, what do we have to distinguish ourselves from other faces—other cities? Nothing. We can point to our retail stores or our mid-range restaurants, but to me it feels like someone saying: “Well, I’ve got a nose. And that’s what separates me from others.” These aren’t distinguishing features. Yet, we delude ourselves—we tell ourselves that they are distinguishing features. That we should be proud of our major chains and our mid-range restaurants.

We just got a Jack in the Box recently—a major chain fast-food restaurant popular on the West Coast but pretty scare here. This will be the first one I’ve seen in Indiana. Not that they don’t exist here. It’s just the first one I’ve seen here.

It hasn’t opened yet. But I can guarantee, when it does, people will flock there. A lot of people will go because they’re curious—they’ve never seen a Jack in the Box—they’ve never heard of one, so they’ll go because they want to know what the restaurant has to offer. Even if they know it offers what any other burger place has to offer (namely: burgers), they’ll go just so they can tell their friends and family members afterwards: “Yep. Went to that new Jack in the Box. It was pretty good.” Or if they didn’t like it: “Boy, I don’t see what all the fuss is about with that new Jack in the Box. I tried it—took the wife and kids. I didn’t care much for it.” And either way—whatever opinion they form—they’re still playing into the hands of these major-chain corporations who are allowed to invade whichever small suburb they like and run the colors a uniform gray all in the name of capitalism and opportunity and profit—until the entire country bleeds into one solid and continuous corporate maze, where you can’t leave one major-chain site without finding another site the next block down the road.

Another thing I think people use to inappropriately define themselves are local sports teams. I heard some guy talking recently about a European soccer team. He said it was great because it was the one thing that could unite the country. The country was apparently torn over some cultural or political conflict. And while, yes, that’s true—to a degree. I don’t feel like sports teams—at least not ones in the US—really represent the people they’re supposed to. Rarely, do professional athletes play for their own hometowns. They go to whichever team offers them the most money—and it’s usually an organization from another city. Peyton Manning has become sort of an Indianapolis icon as of late. But he’s from Tennessee. We got him because we sucked so bad that we were able to secure him as our first-round draft pick and give him enough money to play for us. But he doesn’t represent Indianapolis—beyond wearing a Colts’ jersey. He didn’t grow up here. Our city didn’t produce him. So, when he and the other Cotls (most of whom, I’m sure, aren’t from Indianapolis), it doesn’t feel like a victory for the city so much as a victory for a bunch of guys who we paid to play football for an organization based in Indianapolis. And that doesn’t really mean anything to me. Still, so many people in Indianapolis and in Indiana, in general, love the Colts. I see so many people wearing their merchandise—the jerseys, the beanies, the t-shirts—and they even dress their children in Colts’ gear. Their children, if they’re young enough, have no idea who the Colts are. But by wearing the jerseys and other Colts’ apparel they’re sending the message to others that they support the Colts and that in a significant way they are defined by their support for the Colts. And that’s just ludicrous to me. Whether you like it or not—or whether you want to admit it—what you wear says a lot about who you are as a person. It’s a way of advertising to others your interests, your background, which economic class you belong to, etc. And people have willingly chosen to let themselves be identified by the Colts—and they’ve even recruited their children. I don’t get it. I understand the appeal of sports—especially of football. I still watch it occasionally. I used to watch it regularly when I was younger. But why do people continue to buy into this misconception—this manufactured notion—that they are represented by the hometown team? We’re not seeing any of the revenue brought in by the Colts’—even when they’re winning. And by continuing to patronize this team—by buying their merchandise and going to the games or watching at home—we’re sending the message that, yes, we believe this lie.

This is all sort of disorganized and all over the place right now. I’m not going to bother going back to revise any of this because I’m too tired. I just wanted to get the initial ideas out there before I forgot. I plan to write something more coherent later.

hick town

I’m not sure if I think the movie Young Adult is so brilliant because it is—or if it’s because I found it (at times) so painfully representative of my own life. Granted, I couldn’t relate entirely to any one character—but it was a bit unnerving how fully I was able to relate to certain aspects of every character.

The movie centers on a writer of Young Adult novels who left her small “hick town” some years ago after high school for the “big city” of Minneapolis--or what the people who never got out of her hometown refer to with doe-eyed bewilderment as “the Mini Apple”. She drinks heavily, has a small dog and buys designer clothes. Her small dog is named “Dolce” (like the designer). In a lot of ways, she’s like a smarter version of Paris Hilton—except that, unlike Paris, she chose to live this highly cosmopolitan life as a way of separating herself from her small-town Midwestern past—because status and popularity mean everything to her (just like it meant everything to her in high school). Although she’s ostensibly moved on with her life she still clings to things she valued in high school: popularity, success—basically any marker whereby she can see herself as “better” than others.

Early on in the movie, she gets an e-mail from a former long-term boyfriend announcing the birth of a daughter with the subject line “the greatest thing that ever happened to us” (“us” referring to he and his wife). This sends her into a panic—first, with her questioning what kind of life she might have had if she stayed in her hometown and married this guy instead of doing what she does now—making a career out of ghostwriting trashy Sweet Valley High type Young Adult books and having one night stands with successful city types which leave her unfulfilled in the morning.

Over lunch at an outside café, a Minneapolis friend tries to console her. She tells her that having kids is sad and that they are better off because they (her and her Minneapolis friend) “have lives” vs. people like her former boyfriend who get married and have kids.

Still not satisfied by this, she decides to return to her hometown and get her old flame back. And this is where the majority of the movie takes place—in the small “hick town” where she grew up. At times, it’s painful to watch—how desperate and unaware of her own desperation she is—aggressively throwing herself at a high school boyfriend who’s all but forgotten about her; who is now happily married and in another phase of his life. But that’s what makes this film so great: it never shies away from showing the painful honest nature of this woman’s very human dilemma. She needs to feel better than everyone. She’s defined her entire life by the faulty conviction that having everything is enough to make her happy—that what held true in high school still holds true today. Her identity is based entirely on finding ways to feel better than other people. But then she sees that someone from her past—someone who she once measured her own sense of importance by because he was someone she considered important—is now in a happy marriage and has a kid. Trying to win him back is her way of disproving the possibility that he could be happy with a life she considers so unappealingly simple and different from the one she’s chosen—the one she wants to believe he’d have chosen too because they once (she believes) valued the same things.

On her first night back she tells her plan to a former classmate—the victim of a hate-crime who is now crippled and in his own way clinging to a past that causes him much pain today. He tells her she’s crazy because he’s married and he’s obviously moved on with his life (this “moving on” thing, as you may have already noticed, and how each character defines it, becomes the movie’s pervasive theme), to which she says: “So what? I have baggage, too.”—illustrating her inability to see past her own selfishness and realize that although she doesn’t consider these things benchmarks of success or possibly meaningful to others compared to her own ideals of success and what she wants they are meaningful to others because they don’t necessarily value the same things she does.

Eventually she does realize this: but it takes a lot of awkward missteps and aggressive attempts at seducing her former boyfriend before it becomes clear to her just how delusional she is in thinking she can take what she wants because she wants it and everyone is going to kiss her ass because she was popular in high school. She is unable to see that these things no longer matter. High School is over. Sure: she’s still pretty. And now she’s successful. And the “simple” working class residents of her hometown are proud that she’s made something of herself—even if she is a ghostwriter of no longer popular Young Adult books. But there’s still a disconnect—a vast ocean of ideals which separates her from her own birthplace and the people who inhabit it. The life she leads is not at all relevant to their own lives—just like she can’t relate to them or understand why they would consider something so simple as settling down and having children and never leaving their small-town lives purposeful—which is why she thinks her high school boyfriend will want to take her back when she returns home. She exists entirely in her own head with no real perspective on how the rest of the world operates—it’s borderline solipsism but mostly just plain arrogance. While she considers herself someone who’s moved on and bettered herself—or, more accurately, someone who’s made herself “better” than others—she is still very much the person she was in high school.

The film’s climax comes with her getting drunk at this former boyfriend’s baby-naming ceremony (which his wife makes him invite her to against his will, feeling pity for her and sensing that she is lonely and going through some major depressive episode) and telling everyone there (including her mother and the former boyfriend’s wife) that there’s something wrong with them—this after getting the former boyfriend alone and trying to make a move on him but getting rejected (despite the obvious signs of non-interest leading up to this moment). She goes home that night to the hate-crime victim (who by the way is played with exceptional brilliance by Patton Oswalt) and finally admits that she “has a lot of problems.” Of course: he knows this—he’s been telling her all along that she’s deluded in thinking she can whisk her former flame away from his married life but he still plays into her horrible need for reassurance that she’s beautiful and above everyone else by telling her that “Guys like [him] are born to love girls like [her]” even when they treat them like shit and can’t see past what they think marks them as losers.

Towards the end of the film, the writer has a talk with another character—the hate-crime victim’s sister. The sister tells her that she fantasizes while working her 9 to 5 job about the writer’s life in the “Mini Apple”—and that she admires what she’s imagined her life to be. The sister tells her that “everyone here is fat and dumb”—a sentiment I’ve often expressed to others when describing my own hick hometown. And it’s this that finally gives the writer reassurance—she sees her hometown reduced to what she saw it as before—a little town full of “fat and dumb” people—so that now, with this easy reduction in her mind, she’s able to finally move on—to effectively cut ties with her “Prom Queen” days in high school along with her constant struggle to maintain that persona and create a new life back in the “Mini Apple”—like her old life in the Mini Apple but with no “baggage”, finally having ended the chapter from her high school that she was never able to end before.

Of course: this is all masterfully paralleled with the story-within-a-story frame of the writer writing the last novel in her once (but no longer—hint hint) popular series of books about high school life—a series that she is informed early on has been cancelled though she continues to work on finishing the last book throughout the movie, perhaps needing closure or because she’s clinging to a once successful venture that marked her as popular just like she clings to the person she was in high school (it’s kind of ham-fisted metaphor but it works surprisingly well in the film—it’s not as corny as it sounds on paper).

The reason the movie resonated so much with me, I think, is because I can see myself in the writer character. I grew up in the same sort of small “hick town”—depicted brilliantly in the film by all the major corporate chain stores populating the landscape (most representative: what the writer character calls a “Ken-Taco-Hut”--those staples of every American Anytown combining three major fast-food chains: KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut). And I’ve wrestled with a lot of the same identity issues—at once feeling alien to small town values and still wanting desperately to just be able to assimilate or fit in with the same working class people who hold those values. But I still, like the writer character, consider myself at home with people who don’t necessarily measure success by marriage or having kids but instead by artistic achievement or personal independence. And that I think is the central issue being addressed in the movie: At what point is it ok to move on? And is it ok to move on—to completely dissociate yourself from the place you grew up once you realize you don’t really fit in there—and that maybe you never fit in there?

Maturity is another issue in the film and it’s intrinsically linked to some of these other ideas. The conclusion the film arrives at is that maturity comes with understanding that people exist in different realities and hold different things to be sacred. Not everyone values popularity or fame. Not everyone buys designer clothing. They don’t want to. Because they don’t care about designer clothing. They buy what they can get at any mall chain like Macy’s because it’s what’s available to them (there’s a scene in the movie where the writer character goes to Macy’s and asks if they carry Marc Jacobs because she needs to look sexy—the clerk tells her she’s never heard of Marc Jacobs ). It’s in recognizing these differences and saying: “OK. I am this thing. And they are that thing. And it’s OK that we’re not the same thing.” that marks someone’s mature understanding of the world. You can’t be great in two different worlds because no one can exist in two different worlds and maintain a singular identity. Like Huck Finn’s struggle to define himself in the ‘ciz’lized world’ vs. the wayward life he knows inherently and which comes naturally to him (or the metaphor by which he uses to describe this struggle—the biblical child cut-in-two), the writer character must decide which life she wants to fully dedicate her energies to. Because she can’t be great at both—that is: she can’t be a successful small-town simple person and a successful big city type. It’s one or the other. And the sign that she’s finally accepted this is her decision to return to Minneapolis and say: “OK. Well, this is what my small hick hometown has to offer. And it sucks that I can’t be a mom and have a great marriage. But I don’t want that. I’d rather have my life in the city.”

What I especially liked about the film, though: is that it never attempted to make the decision or the issue itself clear-cut. Because it’s a very complicated issue. There are valid reasons for why the writer character (I’m going to stop calling her that because it’s making me physically ill—the character is played by Charlize Theron and she does an amazingly brilliant job of making the character not likable at all and at the same time totally relatable—her performance reminded me that she’s a good actor) feels the way she does. And who can’t relate on some level to being that obliviously desperate and selfish? Life is messy. And a lot of movies try to show the messiness of life and totally miss the mark. But Young Adult succeeds because the characters and the situations and the environments they find themselves in are balanced with such contrastingly honest truth. You don’t want to admit that these people from her hometown are simple. But they kind of are. And as a main character, you don’t to hate Charlize Theron. But you kind of do. And you hate her because you see so much of yourself in her. Or: maybe it’s just me. Either way: I found the film refreshing and I felt like, for the first time in a long time, a piece of art really resonated with me—in a way that was both visceral and insightful. I’m at a turning point now in my life: on the tail-end of my young adult years and bracing myself for all the things that come with being an “adult” and this movie was exactly what I needed. Because so many movies dumb it down—what I’m going to start referring to as the Van Wilder trope. It’s the same crisis—a college-age kid resisting change or adulthood because pretty soon he won’t be college-age anymore (or maybe he’s already no longer college-age) so he can’t be pulling the same crazy shenanigans. But the crisis gets solved in a single montage with the main character realizing that he’s no longer at an age where it’s acceptable for him to act like a doofus, so he must move on with his life. But they never show what happens next—how someone does (or attempts to) move on with their life. And how it affects the people they’re “moving on” from. They never show the actual ugly process of self-reinvention like Young Adult does—and, boy, do they make it ugly. But that, I think, is what makes the film so exceptional. At least to me.

I should also mention that the film was written by Diablo Cody, who wrote the screenplay for Juno. And the only reason I mention this is to commend Miss Cody for not making the characters in this film talk in obnoxious hipster fake-speak like in Juno. There are of course some clever neologisms (“Ken-Taco-Hut”), but the film is mostly devoid of the irritating hey-look-at-me-I-love-pop-culture meta-cool dialogue marked Juno. Not that Juno was a bad film. But if you saw these two films back-to-back, Young Adult and Juno, and you didn’t know they were written by the same person, you probably wouldn’t be able to guess that they were written by the same person (What do you call that type of desperate-attempt-at-impressing-people dialogue, anyway? Because Kevin Smith does it at times, too. Especially in his earlier films.)

Anyway: I’m spent. I’ve typed far too much about this movie. I was going to mention something about how the main character survives on nothing but Diet Coke and hard booze and how the Diet Coke part resembles my life now and how I wonder if this was put in deliberately to show that her drink of choice and how she chugs it every morning straight from the bottle like most people chug milk or orange juice in the morning (because those are socially acceptable “morning drinks”??) reflects her immaturity. But I’m too tired. So: FUCK IT.

automatic voice

I'm at the Polo Run Clubhouse again. I've made a habit lately of coming here at least once a day to check my e-mail and make my Internet rounds. They have free wi-fi and cookies.

Every time I'm here I have some interesting encounter with members of my apartment community. Last night a woman came in in a dust-faded long blue jacket (the kind that you imagine on a New York hobo or a crazy pigeon lady). She had her dog with her. I was the only other person at the Clubhouse. As soon as she walked into the lobby she started remarking to her dog how pretty the Christmas tree was and just generally describing everything around her. My first thought was: "She's probably blind. She has a dog with her and she's--." Then I was like: "Wait--no. That doesn't make sense. She's describing everything to the dog, so she can obviously see." She hung around the lobby for a good fifteen minutes or so, checking every drawer, cabinet and even the complimentary cookie tray for dog treats. After each place she checked, she'd go: "Nope. No dog treats. No dog treats and no cookies." It was obvious that she was talking to her dog and not just making general commentary or trying to initiate banter with me. When she came in and made the remark about the Christmas tree, I looked up at her and smiled, thinking she wanted me to say: "Oh, yes. Nice, isn't it." Or something like that. But she gave me this look like: "Umm...what are you doing? I'm having a very private conversation with my dog here. Very exclusive. So fuck off." So, I let her be. She circled around the lobby area and bathrooms at least five times or more in her manic quest to find dog treats or cookies before extending her circuit to include the gym and the main office. After each new area she added to her route, she'd come back to the cookie tray and say, panting: "Nope. No dog treats and no cookies."

The whole experience was very surreal. It reminded me of a David Lynch short film. Not one in particular. Just the general feeling of a David Lynch short film--characters acting without motivation, repeating lines and actions without meaning and crazy hobo types talking to pets that can't talk back (I guess it'd be weirder and maybe even more David Lynch-like if they did talk back but...). And, of course, I'd be the one person to witness this.

There's another kid. He usually shows up about an hour after I get here. He's a World of Warcraft type. I mean, he looks like a World of Warcraft type. But he acts like someone with Asperger's and Tourette's (both of them at the same time). He comes in with his laptop and jerks around suddenly and says to no one, in a flat grunt: "huh?" like Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver. "What the fuck you just say to me?" When he's on his computer he rocks back and forth compulsively and occasionally laughs or starts flapping his hands. I've only looked up at him once. I mean, directly looked up at him. I can sort of see him doing this peripherally. Or from behind when he gets up (which he does) to look out the window or run around the lobby. The latter, he does maybe every fifteen minutes like some sort of cleansing ritual. "Too much computer. Got flap my hands around and expel the evil!" I don't know really what to make of this kid. I've seen his type before. There was a kid on my bus in high school (he was a few grades below me) who did the rocking back and forth thing. He was similarly misanthropic and weird. Had some of the same features, too. The prematurely balding head, the thin-framed glasses that genuine nerds who care nothing about fashion wear and a rabbit-like overbite. He also had the gaunt frame and the hunched posture--though they both look kind of pudgy in the midsection--likely because they don't eat much but what they do eat is crap. Or they drink a lot of soda. Mountain Dew probably. For whatever reason: people like this LOVE Mountain Dew. They like to show snowboarders doing extreme aerobatics off frosty precipices in the commercials, but this is Mountain Dew's true demographic: computer weirdos with the exact opposite of quality social skills and spasmodic tics.

Today at the clubhouse they had some sort of Christmas-themed work party for everyone who works in the office or maintenance. I walked in and they had all the table pulled together, everyone sitting around and the gruff maintenance guys huffing and puffing about the Colts in way that sounded like they were having a heated argument but at the same time you knew they were just theatrically bantering. I don't know why so many blue collar types give a damn about their city's professional sports teams. I've never been able to figure it out. But they do. They all do. They all use pronouns like "we" and "us" when talking about these teams or decisions that the organization needs to make--which players to cut, which strategies to employ, who to play, who to bench, etc. I used to talk the same way when I was younger. But then I realized that these teams and the players who play for them do not in any way represent me or the city I live in. Most of them are bought from other cities. Yes, "bought." They don't want to come here. Because they don't live here (and therefore: how the hell could they represent this city?). But they make the move because the suits dangle hefty sums of money in their faces. "Come. YES. Come to INDIANAPOLIS!" I'm not saying I'm above watching sports now. I still enjoy watching the occasional game on television. But I don't feel any sort of allegiance or loyalty to any one team. And I don't feel like they represent who I am as an individual or who I am as a resident of Indianapolis because...they don't. When they're winning, sure, more people turn up at the games and maybe it brings in more revenue. But I'm pretty sure that all goes back to the players or the team manager or the owner--basically: everyone but the residents of the city. Either way: they had a Christmas party today. I walked in midway through the party and the Asperger's kid came in shortly after that. When they were all finished and ready to return to work they asked me and Aspy (that's probably a really offensive nickname to give someone whether or not they actually have Asperger's) if we wanted any food. Aspy went straight for the meat--all twelve kinds they had laid out on the table. I didn't see much in the way of vegetables so I pocketed a bunch of sweets which I plan to snack on throughout the coming week (because I'm poor as shit and basic sustenance is a luxury in my world). Aspy was finishing up his third plate when some guy in a Colts jersey walked through and commented on whatever it was that was on Aspy's plate. Aspy was rocking back and forth and I don't think the guy knew that Aspy was doing this not because he was headbanging to the most awesome Bon Jovi song playing in his head at the moment but because he might have a serious neurological disorder. So, the guy walking through imitates Aspy's bodyrock. "Hey! Alright! How's that pulled pork?" Aspy gives him a cold dead stare. "It's good," he says. "Yeah. I made it. Choice, right?" Aspy goes back to his computer, not acknowledging the man's smarmy bro-dog attempt at self-congratulation.

A story about a pack of culturally trendy snoots who have misappropriated the term "nerd" to describe themselves. They are all slightly attractive and socially gifted. They defend their own "nerdiness" vehemently to anyone who tries to argue otherwise--or even those who seem to suggest or imply that they may not be nerds. Then, one day, they encounter a real-life actual nerd. He wears glasses (not the trendy thick frames but the most unfashionable thin wire rim kind that change tints in different lights). He talks about computer programming, if he talks at all. And is constantly wiping snot from his nose. The way he interacts with these pretend-nerds is like a real-life black guy talking to white kids from the suburbs who try to be black because they listen to rap music and they think that's what makes someone black. He is cold and distant (he may have Asperger's) and anytime they bring up their supposedly nerdy interests, they are met with an uncomprehending and cold stare.

"So, do you watch the Big Bang Theory?"

"What's that? A television program?"

"Duh."

"No, I don't. I don't watch much television."

"Well, we're nerds, so we watch it. It's really smart. But only nerds would get it."

The idea is that they don't realize when they're talking to an actual nerd as opposed to someone who is fashionably "nerdy" because they have no idea that they are being force-fed and in turn eating up a nerd image that is completely wrong. They try to make their own group sound exclusive, so the irony comes from this fashionable group of people brushing off or dismissing the actual archetype they claim to mimic--or not mimic, but...be.

the pilot of the plane

The old man crowds the cash register, hovering over it, watching as each item is being scanned too fast for him to calculate a discrepancy between the price he’s memorized and the price coming up on the screen. The prices appear to be initially wrong because he expects them to be wrong. In his head, he is preparing half-formed defenses. “It said in the Sunday ad…” he thinks. The sentences come out in abbreviated grunts once he realizes that the price being displayed on the screen is in fact correct. The ones to watch out for, he knows, are the sale items—new products from old trusted brands, discounted because they are new. Items on sale this week but not on sale last week. Sometimes they forget to update the system. He’s got it figured out because he’s been shopping here for years. He’s a loyal patron at this store. He’s been a loyal patron since the business opened and he knows that he can take his money elsewhere but his choice to patronize this store, this company, is a conscious one. It’s something called loyalty, he knows, and it’s a concept the younger generations will never know because they’ve got their heads up their asses.

The cashier slides a plastic bottle of holiday peanuts across the scanner and a pang whirrs through the man’s brain—the same sensation he feels when he goes fishing and, after hours of little to no activity, he finally feels a tug on the other end of the line. The confusion results from simultaneously expecting this--being prepared for it--and it actually happening at a time he can’t predict. He knows that an item will ring up wrong—it happens every week. But he doesn’t know which one it will be.

“Ah,” he says. “There—right there. That bottle of peanuts is on sale. There’s a sign back there. It says--.”

Here, the cashier cuts him short, not having the energy or not caring enough to fight. “And what does the sign say, sir?”

“Well, I can go back and get it for you. It says 2 dollars. I can go back and get the sign if you don’t believe me.”

“That's OK, sir. You don’t need to do that. I believe you.”

Although the old man is caught up in his own world of imagined injustices constantly lurking everywhere and not only affecting him but everyone (if only they gave a damn to look for them), he is still able to pick up on the cashier’s snark. He knows he can get the item for whatever price he says but he wants a fight—he wants the vindication of knowing he’s right (because he might be wrong—it’s still very possible that he misread the sign) and to simply have the cashier punch in any number he can say cheapens the victory.

“Now, listen, son. I want to explain something to you.”

“It’s the principle, sir. Am I right?” The old man does not know what to say. There is something strange about hearing a line that continuously floats through your brain, day in and day out, articulated by someone else.

“Well, that’s right.” He says. “That’s exactly right. It is the principle. It doesn’t matter---.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s ten cents or ten dollars. Right, sir?”

“Now, hold on. What are you doing there? Where are you getting this?”

“Would you like to speak to my manager, sir? I don’t think you deserve to be talked to like this.”

The old man considers for a minute his next move. He doesn’t know how the cashier seems to be able to read his mind so precisely, to predict his thoughts with such clear insight but he also feels an immediate need to do exactly what the cashier is suggesting because it’s exactly what he feels should be done. He would like to talk to a manager. But he doesn’t want to give the cashier the satisfaction of being right. That would mean defeat on his part. Because only one person should be right and it should always be the customer—in this case, the old man.

“No. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t. And, frankly, young man, I don’t like how you’re talking to me. You have absolutely no respect.”

“I get it, sir. I have no respect for the customer and this is not good business. The customer keeps the company alive. It’s your money that keeps this store going.”

“That’s right.”

“I only want to be so in touch with the customer, sir, so that I am able to predict and preemptively satisfy your needs. Which is what I’m trying to do today. So, if you could just tell me the price you saw back where you found these peanuts, sir--.”

“Young man, let me tell you something.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Cut the “sir” business. OK? You are the face of this company, young man.”

“Would you like to punch this face, sir?”

“No. I wouldn’t. But I don’t appreciate your attitude. And as a representative—as someone who represents this company—you have a job, a real duty, to treat the customer with a little respect.”

“By which, of course, you want me to act deferential—less intelligent than you. But here’s the thing, sir. I know because I’ve been doing this for long enough and because I’m not as dumb as you think I am—I know exactly what you’re going to say. I’ve heard it all before. I know. It becomes so predictable. Do you not realize how stupid you seem to me? We can’t have a normal human conversation because I’m not supposed to have a normal human conversation with you. I’m not in a position to be treated like a human being. I'm just a cashier. That is my role. The guy who rings up your groceries. I would say that I’d like for you, the customer, to treat me with respect. But I know that’s an absurd demand. So, I don’t expect it.”

“Well, you know what? I’m taking my money somewhere else. I don’t have to deal with this. You can lecture me all you want—tell me your sad story—but I don’t want to hear it. I’m taking my money to your competitor. And it’s a damn shame, too.”

“Because you’ve been shopping here for so long?”

“Now, cut that out. Yes, I have been shopping here—for a very long time. But damn’t. Just because you know what I’m going to say--doesn't mean you can or should say it for me. I’m a real person with real thoughts and opinions and I’m tired of being wronged by this world and everybody in it. I have a right to speak my mind.”

“But I don’t want to listen. Because I don’t care.”

“Do you care that I’m taking my money elsewhere?”

“No, not really.”

The old man leaves his items at the register and walks out after too many years patronizing a company he feels treats him like less than a person.