The Sixteen Days of Christmas Break
Due to Christmas “falling on” a Wednesday—does Christmas fall, or did we never find a more suitable verb to explain the day of the week’s position on the calendar when we celebrate Mr. Waterwine’s birthday?—the company I work for elected to award us an extended two-week break, which included the weekend prior to the fortnight. Having not written a day-by-day piece in a while, and knowing I’d be seeing numerous different personal life VIPs during the duration, it occurred to me that recapping the highlights might serve as fodder for my rapturous fanbase. (Convenient adjective in a paragraph about Mr. Threenails, huh?) I could write more Jesus mock surnames or proceed to the action. Choose Your Own Adventure: 12/21 or a biographical dictionary of Mr. Virginbirth?
Saturday, 12/21
Visited my pal Drooq to take our annual Christmastime trip to a Thai restaurant we both worship. I told him how I, Adam, had seen our mutual finance guy, Adam, a man referred to me by Drooq (first name: Adam) the previous night, commencing our year in review conversation by relaying the following anecdote: I’d seen Moore at the prison for his birthday on the 19th. Sitting opposite me was a drop-dead gorgeous girl who I kept looking at because she strongly resembled a celebrity whose name wasn’t coming to mind. Moore said that she was the younger sister of the Albanian inmate chatting with her.
When I got home, it hit me: she looked exactly like Novak Djokovic’s wife, who herself resembles Jessica Alba. Moore emailed me the following morning: “Yeah, that girl is his daughter, oops. Definitely a doll. Definitely not driving yet, too...my bad.”
February saw my obsession with a sixteen-year-old Korean waitress and now December offered a fifteen-year-old Albanian prison guest. What surprises will 2025 have in store?
Entering a bakery, I hold the door for Drooq, which I proceed to do at a hippie store where I buy incense, a marketplace where he needs to “piss [his] dick off,” two record stores (looking for gifts, I swear — still bought one spoken word LP for $3.99), a discount grocery store, and finally, as I go to grab the doorknob at the Thai place, until he insists I enter first (the same way we begin every ménage à trois together). Amidst the bean thread soup, two salads, house lo mein, entrees, and deep fried banana smothered in honey and sesame, we also savor ninety minutes of potent conversation, including Drooq’s belief that people’s misbehavior behind the wheel directly correlates to them being vermin in all their other everyday tasks, a belief held by a thoughtful, kind man who I’ve long insisted was depriving himself of appreciating good people, the type of people I tend to find wherever I go. Drooq adjusted the parameters of his perspective, explaining how he’d reasoned that changing one’s mindset to see any positive is how energy works, and performing that simple task in his headspace could yield the results I insisted were awaiting him.
Later, when browsing at Yankee Candle, I overheard one of the teenage guys restocking the shelves discussing the Hawk Tuah meme coin, a fraudulent Bitcoin-like financial scheme named in honor of a woman who became a viral star for describing how she likes to spit on dongs before jamming them in her mouth or nethers.
“If you invested in a meme coin run by a chick famous for giving head,” I told the boys, “then you’re a fucking idiot who doesn’t deserve any sympathy. Sure, she and the assholes behind it should be in prison, but who thought, ‘Ya know, my stockbroker’s busy, I’ll just dump ten grand in Blowjobcoin!’”
Both kids are in hysterics, so after browsing the new scents, or “flavors” as I call them in Sue’s honor, I return for a sequel.
“You guys ever wonder who decides on these scents’ names?” I ask. “What does a ‘Home Sweet Home’ really smell like? What if it’s a broken home? I was actually looking for some of my favorites like Wet Cardboard, Burnt Fluff, and Old eBooks.”
“Books is a good smell,” the dark-haired dude with a hoop earring in each ear says.
“Smell this one,” the lighter-haired guy says. “It’s Sun & Sand, but it smells like sunscreen.”
“Yeah, it does!” I say following a big whiff. “Which isn’t a bad thing but just call it what it is.” I take a whiff of another nondescript jar and tell him, “Ooh, this one is Grandma’s Bathroom!”
Drooq finishes paying for four lemon lavenders as I say goodbye to my new buds. We walk by the greeter at the front of the store, an older lady who, when I inquired about their Buy 2 Get 2 deal by asking if I could Buy 1 Get 1, told me it was a non-starter.
“You guys got me again!” I say to her. “Bought two to get two. I mean, how could I resist my favorite scent—Urinal Cake.”
Then I open the passenger door for Drooq before driving us back to his place, home to a new Wi-Fi network named RobustVitamin aka my latest sobriquet for him. Drooq’s dream vacation is a trip to Japan in 2026, the year he turns forty, and so I suggested we watch the greatest Japanese film I know, Late Spring, a film reviewed twice in PMTJ, a book you can give someone as a belated Christkwanzukkah present. Setsuko Hara’s performance remains untouchable, the very definition of grace in thespian form, which we naturally follow by watching and quoting the infamous “Brotha Ew” meme video featuring a Muslim religious leader expressing his contempt for men who aren’t masculine. Positive energy for the good people of the world would have to wait until the following day.
Sunday, 12/22
“Sometimes when you get the band back together, the drummer shows up late!” I say upon sitting down ten minutes truant to a mid-afternoon meal with my mother and grandparents at an Italian restaurant in town, our first one together in far too long.
After we order, Fred loudly mentions how difficult a time he and my grandmother are having when trying to find her new pairs of underwear.
“Fred, be quiet,” my mother says. “Those people are gonna hear you.”
“What are they gonna do? Tell everyone Nana’s wearing filthy underwear?” I say as I check the Specials menu. “Ooh, stuffed peppers. Haven’t had those in a while.”
“Can’t find those either,” Fred says.
“Just two elusive things in this world, huh? Clean underwear and stuffed peppers.”
“Yut,” Fred says, afraid of yep (or yup, if you’re linguistically inferior).
When my mother says she’ll wait to pee at home — the restaurant’s water line had broken in the morning — it leads to conversation about how the place might begin to smell from the inability to flush the toilet.
“Drooq and I were walking in JCPenney yesterday,” I say. “It smelled like shit, and the guy walking beside us with his wife and children commented on it. I told him it was my colostomy bag.”
“How we doing over here?” our waitress asks during the meal.
“It’s been rough,” I tell her. “I dunno if we’re gonna make it to the end.”
Back at my mother’s house, Fred opens his birthday card as I inform him that, after he’d spent years joking about me searching to locate his missing hair, I’d finally found it, but it was merely piles of his back hair. My grandmother reads the card I’d given her then returns it to the envelope and begins licking the envelope to reseal it.
“Ma, what are you doing?” my mother asks her.
“I guess I forgot I wasn’t writing the card,” Nana says. “I wrote so many the other day.”
“Licking too many’ll getcha sick,” my mother says before the inevitable Seinfeld reference, the show that, if I had the option, I’d choose to never hear referenced again for the remainder of my life.
“I can’t smell ‘em,” Nana says about her nonexistent olfactories, “but I can lick ‘em!”
New and inclusive Yankee Candle ad campaign?
Monday, 12/23
On our drive to pick up a wheelchair, my mother reiterates how I should consider performing stand-up comedy, prompting me to tell her how I’ve been workshopping a joke for a friend who is a stand-up comic.
“Picture a new couple about to have sex for the third or fourth time. The guy taps his penis on the girl’s vagina before inserting it. The girl asks him why he does it. ‘I wanna make sure no bugs scamper out,’ he says. The chick jokes about how being so sarcastic and morbid makes him cute. She then stops for a few seconds lost in thought and wonders, ‘Then again, he did tell me how he volunteered at a funeral home as a teenager….’”
*
Go to Big Who What When Where How (and sometimes Why) to grab five items, and ready to check out, it seems like everyone in my hometown is buying groceries at the same time. The man in line behind me compares the amount of people on hand to numbers not seen since early in the Covid quarantine. A retired lady pushes her cart past me as she tells her friend how long they’re likely going to be waiting in line.
“Just steal everything,” I say to her. “They don’t mind. Really, they don’t. And if anyone says anything, you tell ‘em I said it was okay. They’ll back right down.”
She and those around us laugh, so I press my luck a second time by asking an austere blonde woman if she wants to pay me twenty dollars to cut the line, which yields no response as she quickly moves past us. Probably didn’t want any attention on her way out the door after she heard my spiel about tolerated theft. Smart lady.
*
Texts from the exercise bike:
Gaucho: “So, so far today, we have talked about the size of Bob Dylan’s dick and about fucking pies. I’d say that’s a pretty full afternoon.
Me: *shoves cellphone up my ass so the circle will not be unbroken, pie and pie*
Gaucho: “And just like that, I will now have nightmares.”
Me: “Jizz the season!”
Tuesday, 12/24
Find a card tucked into my screen door, which reveals itself to be a Red Robin giftcard from my septuagenarian landlord, Allen, a man who attended my recent book reading and purchased my latest tome (as did his son, another Adam). When I open our chat history to text him a thank you, I remember that he still hasn’t replaced my toilet seat and see my last text concerned an unwanted GE Appliances envelope addressed to him that I received in the mail, drew a penis on, and texted a photo of it to him by noting it was “not drawn to scale.” Red Robin’s bathrooms are in for a rude awakening at the end of my visit. <— Yikes!
“You are a fine man. Thank you very much. Merry Christmas!” I text him.
“Boy, that is such a normal response for you,” he replies. “Are you feeling alright?”
“Sorry, I was busy shoving the giftcard directly up my ass!”
“That’s more like it!”
*
Return to my friend Naomi’s after last year’s Xmas Eve nonsense to see what the sequel might have in store. As I open the screen door, her sister, Donna, says, “You lost some weight, huh? Must be all that sexercise!” “I’ve been giving more head than John the Baptist,” I reply.
I pull the chain to turn on the bathroom light and a plastic snowman perched atop the toilet invites me to “leave a Christmas surprise for Freshy!” He also says how happy he is to have a carrot for a nose so he doesn’t smell what I may have ready for him.
When I venture upstairs to say hello to Naomi’s daughter, Sarah, I mention how nice she smells. “What scent are you wearing?” I ask. “Pistachios,” she tells me. “You’re always busy rubbing nuts all over yourself, huh?”
Back downstairs, we debate if Sarah’s provided the proper pronunciation of her new beau’s name. “It can’t be Her-NAN, it’s Her-NON,” Roy, Naomi’s husband, says before I tell him, “Just call him by his suffix: Dez.” What does Sarah know anyway?
Thrilled to see Marie, Naomi’s eighty-eight-year-old mother, I ask what’s happened with her in the last year and learn she got a puppy named Nikki, not to be confused with her grandson Nick sitting at the opposite end of the table. Marie says that she dropped a beet on the floor this morning, but thankfully Nikki lapped it up. “You’ve gotta be careful,” I tell her. “She’ll get gout if you keep dropping beets.” When I inquire which artists appeared on Marie’s “Spotify Wrapped” top five, she’s predictably clueless but says how much she likes Tom Jones despite him being a womanizer.
Behind me are the decorative letters N and R on opposite sides of Naomi and Roy’s wedding photos. “Funny how they left out the four letters in the middle with guests here, huh?” I joke to Aileen, sitting to my left.
“What do you mean?” Doreen, sitting beside Aileen, asks.
“N blank blank blank blank R,” I say.
“I’m lost.”
“THE N-WORD, DOREEN!” Donna screams at her from across the table.
As we open gifts in the living room, Roy’s gift to Malcolm, Sarah’s son, turns out to be a paperback children’s book titled Becky the Throat Goat, which was purchased at an adult bookstore, a source of group laughter for a couple minutes.
“Where’s Baby’s First Bible?” I ask, and when another book-shaped gift is in hand, I inquire if it might be Baby’s First Dianetics. Never too early to increase the kid’s thetan level. Crazy that I’m the one calling him a kid when he was referred to as “pet sperm” in jest by his own mother.
Roy opens what he believes is a wrought iron nipple clamp until his mother, Shirley, says it’s actually a tree bark scraper, a tool no grown man should live without. During our meal, Marie says about her ex-husband, “I was gonna divorce him, but then he killed himself.” Later, when Naomi mentions her father’s death, Doreen immediately claims how it was “not soon enough!”
The highlight is playing a horribly titled card game called Dirty Shame. Several cheap, wrapped presents are placed on the table as one person deals cards then flips another deck. When his or her card is drawn, the person in question picks a gift until they’re gone and then, as each subsequent card is drawn, the person whose card is drawn can yell out “DIRTY SHAME!” and take a gift from someone else. We play four full rounds of the game as people consistently fail to realize their card has been called, Doreen being the worst offender, and we keep cussing at one another to pay attention. Surprise gifts include brownie mix, a toothbrush, a Jesus Rubik’s Cube, a paintbrush, bars of soap, and many other dollar bin delights. During the game, I receive a text message from my old boss, Brian, wishing me a Merry Christmas. I reply with a selfie I’d taken wearing a woman’s pink sweater (that was shipped to me in error) over an oversized green long sleeve tee shirt, having upped the ante by also donning a Santa mask.
“You wearing a dress & woman’s blazer? Anything I need to know?”
He then calls me a “cross-dressing elf,” a “confused elf,” and implores me to “get it out of [my] system before Augusta.”
Naomi and I chat about a woman I recently reconnected with and then analyze the ongoings from the day that was, a second consecutive sublimely chaotic Christmas Eve, before I tell Roy’s cousin, Ed, that I’ll see him in a year, presumably when Malcolm receives a Jon-Benet Ramsey Fleshlight.
The real dirty shame? Not threatening to shove anything up my ass! Forgive me, Santa!
Wednesday, 12/25
Moore emails: “Merry Christmas bud. Johnny Mathis, Anne Murray, and the rest of my tablet Christmas mix today while I work on drawing Lynch.”
I reply: “Played the Elvis Xmas album, now Sinatra. Gonna ride the bike, go to my mother's for 1 to see Connie & Fred for an hour, & then it's Thai/Dylan.
Carnac: Thai Dylan. What his tour manager said needed to be done to Bob in Amherst after he played that show drunk in the mid-'90s! [My therapist told a story about seeing Dylan stark naked holding a bottle of liquor on his tour bus hours before a show at Amherst College in 1994, one that featured him so inebriated that numerous attendees exited the venue by the half-hour mark. Who in their right mind leaves that show early?!
Speaking of Dylan...bought an original copy of his Xmas album this morning. Reminds me of The Outlet (Big G gifted the CD to me in 2009/probably stole it from someone, that shylock) & seemed a fitting day for it.
Speaking of Korean...the Thai place does tteokbokki, the Korean soup w/ ramen noodles, seaweed, scallions, Shanghai bok choy, & vegan ‘fish.’ Definitely happening along w/ oyster mushroom tempura. Maybe mango spring rolls as well. Fuck it.
Speaking of Korean Dylan...he beats Thai Dylan via KO in the seventh round!”
*
My mother gets me my favorite annual gift: fresh pairs of tall, white socks. When she bought some for me last summer, she said, “You must have so many old socks now. What do you do with all of them?”
“Uh, mainly just fill ‘em with cum.”
I have never seen my mother more disgusted by something I said.
*
My other prison pen pal, Jim, sends the following while I’m at the cineplex:
“How was the Dylan flick? I wonder if Zimmerman approved it, as he has been somewhat reclusive over the years. Did you ever see him live?
Considering society considers inmates to be the scum of the Earth, I am annually touched by the amount of kindness, sharing, and generosity shown by these inmates each year. Guys who have literally nothing seem to come up with food gifts and handmade items which are given away between convicts.
It is said that nature abhors a vacuum, thus when one gives away something, either material or symbolic, a space is created which is then filled by some force, Karma or whatever it may be. So, it may be true that it is better to give than to receive.
Oddly, I haven't even felt my usual disgust with the retail aspect of these holidays, or the hypocritical nature of human fakery this year. I've not even reached the Grinch point yet. Maybe I'm in for an even bigger crash on January 20!
Choosing Joy.”
*
Curiously, after it concludes, a mostly enjoyable, well-paced film with outstanding sound mixing, my mother, who ranked a Dylan concert we attended in 2016 as the worst one she’d ever seen, says she’d like to see him in concert again, a testament to Timothée Chalamet’s turn as the folk hero himself, but also proof that Dylan’s cult of personality, that of a self-indulgent, enigmatic, sporadic asshole, is literally so awesome that he can continue pushing those around him past the brink again and again simply because he is Bob Fucking Dylan. I’m thrilled that Harry and I revived a Christmas moviegoing tradition that was suspended, for reasons neither of us can recall, after 2013, especially with an attentive full house at the most comfortable theater in the area.
As soon as the movie cuts to the credits, I tell her: “Just remember next time you’re worried what someone thinks about you that Bob Dylan gave ABSOLUTELY ZERO FUCKS at Newport in 1965!”
In the car, my mother looks up Joan Baez on Google but has no concept of Google Images’ existence! How in the hell?
We then return to her house and watch the latest Anthony Jeselnik stand-up comedy special to complete a rousing double bill. “Last week, I saw a pregnant woman get hit by a bus…or, as I like to call it, a gender reveal party” is as perfect a joke as there is, one that had me cry-laughing in the front row when he did it back in April.
*
Not to shoehorn in any sadness, but Christmas means so much less without Sue, a woman who loved simply existing on the day, as if nothing could be better than being alive, feeling the joy, and making some memories on a day celebrating Jesus and his all-encompassing love. I sent a photo of her sporting a tiny Santa hat standing on the beach in Ogunquit, Maine, taken on 12/19/20, to several friends today, but there was an intangible alchemy absent without her here, and she would be gloatingly satisfied that I missed her jingling the bells on her rings and necklaces, a sincere if irritating as hell yearslong tradition, whenever I saw a house with a lit up Christmas tree inside it during nighttime drives this season, the source of her jingling inspiration. Christmas will never be the same without her. Can’t deny it, though: today was a nonetheless serene, jubilant day made better by the fact that she fucking hated Bob Dylan.
Thursday, 12/26
Receive an original copy of Radiohead’s OK Computer in the mail and send a photo to my pal Connor as a teaser for what we’ll be listening to when he visits on Saturday.
“You know that’s a photo of 91 in Hartford, right?” he replies about the cover.
Since he works at the Capitol building, I think it’s high time he convinces our governor, “King” Ned Lamont, a dirty Grateful Dead-loving hippie, to declare it our state’s official soundtrack. Get fucked, Michael Bolton!
*
Almost forgot that prior to the Dylan film, there was a trailer for an upcoming Robbie Williams biopic in which his character is played by an A.I. monkey. As the man sitting to my left laughed along with me, I announced, “I’m Kylie Minogue, one of the biggest popstars in the world…and I’m a tuh-mah-toe.” The possibilities are endless here, folks, but save your tomatoes for my upcoming jokes—they’re even worse!
*
Today’s accomplishments: Formatted all the material to date for my next book in two hours, finished two books (John Derr, the author of one of them, was the man who covered more Masters tournaments than anyone else and, previously unknown to me, lived in Maine), burned out two candles (R.I.P. peach and “winter hearth”/smelled like soot), ate two zucchinis, drank two cups of tea (ginger maple and fenugreek fennel aka Mother’s Milk/“Ma, why do your tits taste like Red Vines?!”), took two shits, and did three loads of laundry while watching one movie (the borderline worthless Emilia Pérez, a musical lacking a single memorable song or melody, proof that it’s a mixed bag of awards season nominees this year—was also cool on Anora and Conclave). Weird that the three films I mentioned concern transgender drug dealers, prostitutes, and popes, a trio that certainly hang out together more often than the Christian Science Monitor wants to cover. Also saw a video of a goat headbutting a toddler in the chest that was far more enjoyable than I should admit in public (and better than those three films!).
Friday, 12/27
Talk with Brian and he asks if I’ve met a new lady yet, prompting me to tell him about an upcoming dinner date. “I know you will anyway but treat her like she’s the most special girl ever. And you’re a catch, too, don’t forget that.” Ask if I should wear that woman’s sweater to the meal. “Don’t forget that you’re also such a fuckin’ weirdo!”
*
Pick up edibles from my dealer and tell him how I’m quitting in the new year. “It’s become such a stasis—use Twitter, jerk off, eat some popcorn, go to bed. Need to change that. I mean, don’t worry, I’m not gonna quit jerking off!”
Imagine if I quit that but continued smoking weed? Would need a lotta money for dinner dates. Because it doesn’t count as masturbating if you do it in a public restroom with hand soap before dessert!
*
Visit Little Lost Records in Stafford, my final record store trip until April, and say farewell to Randy, one of the co-owners, who is working his last day. When he steps out to grab something, he walks back in and says, “There’s a leftover BLT on the sidewalk if you’re hungry.” Might quit jerking off so I can keep going to record stores. “Uh, nobody’s making you do any of this stuff, AHF!” you’re thinking, and honestly, I just came and need a nap.
*
My grandmother calls to thank me for a few pairs of socks I left at her house. I tell her they were some of Sue’s fluffier pairs that didn’t fit comfortably in my slippers or Vans. “Well, I’m gonna wear ‘em and think of her.” Why do women consistently have to trample on other women? But really, Sue would be thrilled. Downside: All this talk of socks and I’m horny again. Prayers up, dear readers.
*
Moore refers to me as the Zen Fucking Master of Joy. Never a bad time for a new nickname, especially after I referred to him as Knees. <— Who kneads context?!
*
Rick: “Side note I turned my head to look at the tv and how is this game [the DIRECTV Holiday Bowl] not at half yet?!?! Jesus Christ.”
Me: “This is the Shoah of bowl games. Not due to its length, but b/c six million Jews will hopefully be dead by its end.
Saturday, 12/28
Have to make a quick trip to my mother’s house to open a jar of gazpacho I got her for Christmas. She had the nerve to ask me after sending a photo of Brie Larson in her new pixie cut laughing, a day after Dua Lipa got engaged, a one-two knockout punch to my imaginary sex life with the two stars I love most. So, I did what anyone else would do–added the caption “When she thinks you’re joking about not wanting to fuck her anymore” to the photo. Okay, you’re right: I’d just make Brie wear Dua’s hair. Then, before I head to her house, Mother says she’ll ask her neighbor, graciously omitting that she’ll be saving the jar for my tears. Somebody locate Ana de Armas for me posthaste!
*
“Have you seen that video with the gay guy?” Connor asks me.
“Of course! I only watch videos with gay men.”
Before we head out, I present him a mechanical pencil and sketch pad so he can add a fresh page to Cock Sucker, chronicles of a penis-shaped vampire that he’s been drawing at my house for a year. In a true surprise, he introduces a new foil named Count Orcock, a man holding his erect penis while looking out from the page. No image could better define our twenty-five years of friendship. Don’t read too much into it.
*
Connor wants to take pictures of Enfield’s decaying shopping mall, a place that’s at least fifteen years past its expiration point. While doing so, he tells me about a guy in his band who will send random YouTube videos of Rolling Stones songs with zero commentary.
“Like, Dude, I know ‘Under My Thumb’ is great. Why the fuck are you sending this to me?”
“Just a guy’s YouTube search history in real time.”
Minutes later, we run into Connor’s wife’s cousin and her two young daughters.
“Is that woman married?” I ask afterward.
“Yes, Adam. Do you think she’s just wandering the mall looking for video games with her two bastard children?!”
*
We eat at Red Robin and discuss if couples who use their phones while waiting for their food hate one another. I also say “fuck” while a child stands a foot away from me, and since it wasn’t said with any malice, I don’t care. Let’s not pretend that the young man won’t fuck someday, and when he does, he’s gonna be grateful I taught him the word to describe his hole endeavors. Upon telling the waitress that we’ll be splitting the lemon cream layer cake, I say that it’s going to be “very homoerotic.”
“You said that pretty loud,” Connor tells me.
When the tines of our forks accidentally touch a few minutes later, everyone in the place calls us “fags” (their words, not mine!) and throws bottomless fries at our table. Bottomless fries? Those things sure could use some assless chaps!
*
Eschewing more Fire Island humor, we head to Connor’s house and play a ga(y)me called cockroach poker, a deck with sixty-four cards, eight of each insect or animal (ants, bats, frogs, et. al.), which is essentially one player telling another player that a card is a specific insect/animal and the opponent either guessing if it’s a bluff or not or looking at the card and performing the same action with another person at the table. Texas Hold ‘Em follows, which I shockingly win, a game I tend to have zero patience for after a half hour, and then watch Connor play a vampire video game (Count Orcock 64) while my high school pal Josh texts, “I need an honest review of Pearl Jam. I don’t think I know more than 1 or 2 of their songs!”
“My last favorite band ever!” I reply in all sincerity.
Connor begins doing his Eddie Vedder impersonation before I become a eunuch to him and his two sons playing a Mario game.
“Are you dialed in or locked in for this, Andrew?” I ask one of them.
“Definitely dialed in.”
“Of course. No way you’d want to be locked in here.”
“I am locked in, Adam,” Connor tells me.
Within fifteen minutes, Andrew storms off, which Connor says he always does. Not all that dialed in, huh? We conclude the evening playing classic Nintendo versions of Ice Hockey, Baseball, and Super Mario Kart, a perfect blend of my video game-playing childhood career. When I get home, I text Connor a video of “Under My Thumb.”
I wake up to his reply: “You motherfucker.”
Sunday, 12/29
“Sunday morning Adam style,” Naomi texts accompanied by a photo of herself with a banana wedged deep in her mouth.
“Literally was unpeeling one as you sent that,” I reply with a potassium phallus choking me.
“Synchronized banana munching.”
“Blizzy blowbang!”
*
“Funny seeing you again,” a middle-aged man says to me at Shop Rite, twenty minutes after we ran into one another at Aldi.
“This happens every week,” I tell him.
“So, uh…” he trails off about the lack of any paper numbers in the ticket dispenser by the deli.
“Pure chaos,” I say. “They haven’t had paper in that thing for a year, but if you fight someone and win, you get to take their spot. I’d fight you right now, but the only thing I have to gain is an arrest.”
The man chuckles confusedly and mutters something until I say that I’ll surely see him at the register. When I do, he’s got a cauliflower ear and is missing his front teeth, but at least he got his thinly sliced Boar’s Head ham three minutes sooner!
*
Is “Peace Piece” by the Bill Evans Trio the most extraordinary solo piano recording in the world? Alternate options encouraged (to be shot down <— unpeaceful!). Play this song and Stanley Cowell’s “Maimoun” on the day I die. “Who was that for?” [Redacted.]
Also: I swear I wrote this in advance of learning the news shared in the next graph.
*
Jimmy Carter dead at 100. The least prejudiced, most Christ-like, near “heroic”-type human we had left. R.I.P. Absolute fucking legend. I will now go clean my basement while eating dry roasted, unsalted peanuts in his honor.
*
Knock a framed drawing off the basement wall while smoking a bowl in the nude, a time-honored tradition for a bachelor who lives alone. As expected, super glue doesn’t help with the frame but compromises one thumb and three fingers, making me contemplate (a) if I’ll be sleeping in the nude with winter gloves on; (b) how grateful I am that it’s not my right hand; (c) the power of the loofah, which scrubs off the bulk of the gunk in tandem with Irish Spring. Make a perfect sandwich—toasted pumpernickel, egg salad, Old Bay and tarragon, and minced kalamata olives—to reward myself for finally sweeping the endless fake tree needles living on the garage floor along with some year-end dusting and vacuuming. Staycation? More like a slaycation.
*
Me: “What might Anne Heche have known about the Diddy/Degeneres duo?! Haunting, braj.”
Rick: “Oh shit. I’m done by that one! Slayed beyond belief. Woke up my dog just now with the laugh that came from that. Can we make that docuseries? Pleasssssssseeeee!!!!”
I joke to Rick about playing the skin flute—clarifying that I killed two drifters and made a woodwind from their flesh—and disclose my newfound desire to play keyboards before he impulsively calls me for our discussed but unplanned “year-end catch-up call,” a freewheeling two hours where I mistake the sound of his dog’s nails on the linoleum floor for him using a typewriter. Ample time is spent discussing the world’s lack of heroes in the wake of Carter’s death, noting that any potential heroes have been absorbed by social media, solipsism, and Index Stage Capitalism. Is Kendall Jenner a hero(ine)? The Paul brothers selling Prime?
The most important discussion point is yesterday’s Pop-Tarts Bowl where last year’s strawberry-flavored mascot was reborn, a cinnamon roll was sacrificed in an oversized toaster on field after the game, and one announcer consumed nine Pop-Tarts in the first three quarters. Rick informs me how he made a “buncha fuckin’ money” betting on the game before I declare that “the Pop-Tarts Bowl is poetry. It is our new Robert Frost. Good fences make good neighbors; good Pop-Tarts make good friends.”
*
I have renounced the Jets, a team I cheered on as casually as possible for twenty-six seasons and now declare myself to be a casual Cincinnati Bengals fan for as long as Joe Burrow is their quarterback (and longer, or so I hope).
Monday, 12/30
Last night, Connor texted me a photo of “Macho Man” Randy Savage’s Be a Man on vinyl, my belated Christmas gift, an album whose title track, a Hulk Hogan diss, includes the bars “Your movie straight to video, the box office can't stand / While I got myself a feature role in Spider-Man,” a scathing rebuke he played for me while we watched the fourth game of the World Series, and said, “Shiiit! That’s hard!” before we both cry-laughed at length. May need my Ultimate Warrior wrestling buddy on hand for this spin.
*
Drink a cup of vanilla caramel tea and listen to Dexter Gordon’s One Flight Up, a jazz masterpiece with some of the most sublime-sounding tenor saxophone ever committed to tape, an album that also once yielded this expert review: "If the taste of dark chocolate was a sound.”
*
Not trying to be too radical, but did Jimmy Carter die because…he got the Covid vaccine? My favorite Carter meme is him covered in face tattoos replacing Lil Wayne on one of his Tha Carter album covers. So that’s why hospice workers nicknamed him Weezy?!
*
Endure five hours cleaning my house—at least ninety minutes were spent scrubbing the toilet and tub—while listening to the Hamilton soundtrack, an album I tend to avoid due to how significantly it lodges itself in my mind afterward. My obsession with it ran so deep in 2015-16 that upon waking up on a Saturday morning in April, I bought a pair of tickets and texted Sue that we were seeing it that night. It remains the most “humblebrag-able” event I’ve ever attended since it was performed by the original Broadway cast; I sold tickets to a November show fearing the original players would be gone, which proved true. I will never comprehend how anyone could hate that musical.
While cleaning, I also kept thinking about a photo of Sue from 2001 that Naomi texted me yesterday, a rare “new” Sue photo to remind me how beautiful and lively she was in damn near every picture.
Thesis: Cleaning the house is (begrudgingly) worth it, plus I did reward myself with fried chicken to accompany the slop, or steamed vegetables with cauliflower rice, chili oil, soy sauce, and herbs I eat most weeknights.
*
Check Slack to see if there’s anything work-related going on and…THERE IS! Catch a fulfillment issue that unravels into an urgent clusterfuck to fix, chatting on the phone with Dry Biscuit and Crusher as we spend two and a half hours resolving the mess. For some reason, I affect a sleazy porn voice as I read off the names of Indian buyers. “Oooh, yeah, Sahil, you’re gonna really love how warm and wet this venue is, yeahhhh…” makes DB insist I cut it out. He thanks me for “the assist” at the end and says, “AHF, you’re kind of online—have you seen this guy Dave Blunts?” Mission: accomplished.
Tuesday, 12/31
Skipping our planned trip to see Nicole Kidman’s sex scenes in Babygirl, my mother and I travel to Hadley for a late lunch at Pulse, my favorite all-vegan restaurant in New England. Inform the cashier that we’d like the BOGO offer honored and he believes me, asking what items he needs to discount. Sit by the fireplace and enjoy a buffalo chicken pizza with spinach, onions, and ranch, a Julius salad with blackened tofu, tomatoes, croutons, and ranch, a steak, mushroom, and cheese quesadilla, Norwegian yellow split pea soup, yuzu seltzers, and tabbouleh, potato salad, chocolate chip cookies, and a chocolate cupcake for the road. The Seventh-day Adventists running the place may not believe in hell, but with the “fresh heat” they’re pumping outta the kitchen, I’ll be telling people that there’s a poster of Baphomet above their oven.
*
“You just picked the 2023 ball drop,” my mother says as I search for a live feed on YouTube.
“Imagine the guy who swears by the 2017 ball drop and re-watches it? Those people have to exist.”
“Last year, I was so high I watched a Japanese version of the American ball drop. I couldn’t figure out what the fuck was going on.”
*
Harry pays two bucks for an app game where, while holding her phone in front of our foreheads, the other person gives clues to guess the names of various movie stars’ names displayed on the screen. Bored after five minutes, she switches to charades without warning me and pantomimes what I guess is her trying to saw a log.
She fakes biting her lip and claims she has Bitten Lip Syndrome, a reference to Fred’s emergency dentist visit for what he thought was a swollen lip, admitting he bit it and Vaseline was recommended as his panacea. Reminds of me a visit to my urologist to help combat my porn addiction.
*
Dry Biscuit calls from Key West at 12:04 and says, “Happy New Year, ya cunt!” and tells me how I said “cunt” so often during our call earlier in the day that his girlfriend not only commented on it but has been frequently saying the word ever since we disconnected. Here’s to a prosperous Twenty Cunty-Five!
*
My hands still smell like white vinegar. May spend all of next year peeing while sitting down—ONLY AT MY OWN HOUSE!—as an on the hose tribute to the newborn boys born after midnight (sure to let it all hang down) beginning Generation Beta. [That was a lot of sentence, right?] Goodnight, 2024. *meekly crawls into bed*
Wednesday, 1/1
Arise to a text message from Moore’s cousin, Jamie, asking if he can stop by earlier than noon with the Yamaha keyboard he extracted for me from his storage unit, a monstrosity he’s eager to not have to lug back to Groton. When we remove it from his trunk (and almost drop it directly on my foot), I ask what kind of Volkswagen he recently bought.
“Uhhh…,” he says and hits the button to lower the trunk door and reveal he bought himself a Tiguan. “They all have such stupid names.”
Kind of like my new Toyota Free Bleed. Toyota Free Bleed: Don’t Let Mother Nature Set Your Limits.
Set up the keyboard in front of a SpongeBob poster, technically a Mexican poster featuring Bob Esponja, taped to the wall, unintentionally positioned so his eyes are looking over the keys. Segue…
*
Play the Tony Williams Lifetime’s Emergency!, the year’s first listen, and open an Instagram message from Connor’s son, Sean, who sends me the same thing every Wednesday: A clip of a fish walking into the Krusty Krab saying, “Rev up those fryers!” This is the comfort I need while traversing the new terrain brought to us by the Gregorians.
Rev up those keyboards!
*
Silver lining from the New Orleans terrorist attack: Notre Dame football fans who have been inconvenienced and must reschedule their flights. In the battle of Touchdown Jesus and Touchdown Allah, I think we know (alla)hu won this round.
Send this to Rick and he replies, “Nope! Incorrect. See in a broker chat that lots of ND fans are consigning their tickets back to brokers they bought from because it would cost most to change flights and add another night of lodging.”
“Even better!” I reply. “Flew to NOLA, never saw a game. Calling me incorrect—this friendship is over.”
“Good. I’ve been looking for an off ramp to this relationship.” [“Gayyy!”]
*
Moore emails: “Dude, there are at least nine, maybe a dozen deer outside my window now. They keep disappearing into the brush and coming out, but I'm pretty sure I counted 9 separate adults and 3 fawns. Incredible.”
What an offensively passive-aggressive email given he knows that his cousin also brought me his taxidermy kit from the storage unit.
Moore emails back: “They showed a shot outside the Trump Vegas hotel on the news, with the street sign saying ‘Sammy Davis Jr. Drive.’ Said to Nick: ‘Well at least that sign has two i's.’”
*
Send Rick a headline reading “Gypsy Rose Blanchard Gives Birth to Baby Girl” followed by a “Welcome Back, Jimmy Carter,” which leads to our favorite comment: that we are ogg & rugging, a variant of “off & running” that I misspelled years ago when misplacing my hands on the keyboard’s home row. [Rick, after I asked for his recollection: “I believe we were talking about a legit Todd Rundgren event when it happened.”] Moral: sometimes it’s best not to reveal how personal chestnuts came to pass. My chest, your nuts. No wonder why Roy asked Naomi if I was gay. Allegedly!
Ever been to an illegitimate Todd Rundgren concert?
“Sebastian Stan will give the State of the Union,” I tell Rick. “While wearing the prosthesis from his Tommy Lee performance.” I then make a meme using Mark Wahlberg in the final scene of Boogie Nights with the caption “SOME PEOPLE ARE SAYING IT’S THE BIGGEST OF ALL-TIME, NOT ME, BUT SOME ARE.”
Man, I wish I had some mescaline. Unrelated to the last paragraph.
Thursday, 1/2
Visit Auntie Cathie’s with Sue’s cousin, Lynn, for a late breakfast. Cathie greets me before I’ve set foot inside—the restaurant is within a multi-business building and her doors open to a two-step staircase—as Taylor Swift plays on the speakers, a “sign” noted by Lynn who then tells me how her younger son started a new job in early December and had to cross the picket line on day one but joined the union reps in protest on his second day. “I just hope the strike ends by the end of March because once he turns twenty-six, he’s off my insurance.”
“Imagine if it never did? He retires in forty years. ‘What’d you do for work for the last four decades?’ ‘Just struck.’”
The chicken and waffles with butter, maple syrup, and whipped cream are excellent, especially because the thin, rectangular chicken pieces have a pseudo-General Tso’s-like smoky maple flavor. I’ll never love a local restaurant quite the same because I can feel Sue’s childlike giddiness simply by looking at the desserts on display in the case. Lynn bought me two gigantic chocolate chip cookies, which I’ll rip off in tiny pieces from inside the brown paper bag like The Ambassador did. “Mangia, Blebbz!”
*
Jim inquires if Frampton Comes Alive is still the biggest-selling live album of all-time—it’s not/Eric Clapton’s Unplugged, technically a live album, now tops the list for having moved twenty-six million units—and so I send him a list of my dozen favorite live albums, which means you now need to read about them too:
Gary Clark Jr., Live (2014)
Leonard Cohen, Live in London (2009)
John Coltrane, Impressions (1963)
Miles Davis, Agharta (1975)
Judy Garland, Judy at Carnegie Hall (1961)
Grateful Dead, May 1977 (2013)
Curtis Mayfield, Curtis/Live (1971)
Portishead, Roseland NYC Live (1998)
The Rolling Stones, Hampton Coliseum (Live in 1981) (2014)
Sade, Live (1992)
Bill Withers, Live at Carnegie Hall (1973)
Neil Young, Dreamin’ Man Live 1992 (2009)
The Band’s The Last Waltz and Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense both work better with their concert film visual accompaniment. And I skipped spending too much time thinking about more jazz albums.
*
“Hey, my mom has a question for you regarding a turntable,” Sam texts me. “You got a free minute?”
“Sure, but only after you acknowledge my SpongeBob keyboard to benefit my self-esteem. On the bike, so don’t mind my breathy talking. Just kidding—jerking off in advance of seeing Nicole Kidman get railed in Babygirl tonight.”
“I read your text to my mom before calling you,” Sam says, certain I couldn’t care less. We discuss the turntable for ten minutes.
“Send a photo of the turntable,” I say, then add, “actually don’t—I’ll want to fuck it. But send a photo of the stylus—up close, the labia and everything. Which reminds me that I can’t wait for two hours of Nicole Kidman tonight. She may be fifty-seven, but she’s not in my heart.”
“My mother has left the room.”
Send her a photo of the Hot August Night album cover featuring a confused Neil Diamond air playing something, an infamous live album cover; two minutes later, she counters serve with a photo of her holding Hot August Night II. Florida ain’t prepared for this party!
*
I’m not sure why, especially given its proximity to a word I love, but I intensely dislike the word “yuck.” However, I’ve yet to engage in wordplay with it—motheryucker, good yuck, lucky yuck, okay that’s enough of that aka Get Yucked!
Babygirl wasn’t particularly good, but it was watchable, including when Nicole Kidman lapped up milk from a saucer. Call her Nicole Kitten. When I get home, my mother, who qualified for a discounted senior citizen ticket, sends me a Bitmoji featuring her tongue out and the caption “YUCK!”
“Maybe you’ll make me like yuck,” I reply.
“I learned to like cunt.”
“Good ole likable cunt. The Kidwoman sure put hers to use tonight.”
We both cop to farting continuously throughout the film’s two-hour running time, a testament to its erotic sway. And yeah, why do I go see Nicole Kidman get naked with my mother? (I realize this doesn’t include Ms. Kidman’s ten or more other sex scenes — she is, indeed, a bad bitch, no cap.) Waited a quarter century for this Eyes Wide Shut double bill. At least I called trailers for two upcoming cinematic abortions, One of Them Days and Death of a Unicorn, “the Citizen Kane of 2025” and “the Vertigo of 2025” to the enjoyment of the older man sitting a row in front of us. When my mother asked who the comely brunette in the new John Wick trailer was, I told her the truth: “Dua Lipa’s replacement.” Ana de Armas has been located!
Friday, 1/3
My friend Tricia emails: “Ok Saddam, let's get this email thread back up & running!! … Which leads me to - Moana 2. It was…underwhelming. It truly suffered without the musical stylings of Lin-Manuel Miranda. Say what you will about Disney movies, but the original Moana had banger after banger. Speaking of LMM - I saw Hamilton for the second time. Such an amazing show. Never got to see the original cast (I know you did). Going to see the MJ musical in a few weeks. Which leads to the question - people obviously still listen to Michael Jackson's music. If he was still alive - do you think they still would? Or would he be cancelled? I feel like it's ok to listen to his music only because he died. And died before all the shit came out. I would ask if it's still ok to listen to P. Diddy but I know you'll say something along the lines of 'those bitches probably deserved it.' lol
(To be clear, I will always listen to PYT, greatest MJ song of all time, even if PYT was referring to an 8 year old boy...)”
My thoughts before drafting a reply: How can she think I’d say that about Diddy’s victims?! The world will only heal when LMM writes an anachronistic musical featuring Sean Combs as an altar boy blessed by God with the ability to sing like Pavarotti. When he performs, his mouth doesn’t move and people are flummoxed by how the man’s belting with such beauty…until it’s revealed that he sings with HIS PENIS! The song “Did He Party?” will be performed by a confessional booth named Bad Boi and feature the legendary Biggie bars “Fuck the state pen / Fuck hoes at Penn State” as The Ghost of Jerry Sandusky plays the organ (you decide what organ to which I’m referring)!
Come (oh, stop) to think of it, I guess she had good reason to accuse me of misogyny.
*
“Don’t forget to set your alarm to take your birth control so it sounds every fifteen minutes,” I text my friend Sarah in reference to her alarm dinging throughout her dinner visit at my house last month.
“okay hit me with the address one more time and then i’ll save it forever i promise.”
“34 [Redacted/“Like it matters, AHF!”] Road Hard & Put Away Wet!”
“Is there anything in particular you’re here to see?” the cashier at the Wadsworth Atheneum, America’s longest continuously operating art museum, asks us.
“I’m here for the archives!” I tell her, not sharing that I’d told Sarah our mission for the day is to determine how many wads the place is truly worth.
As we view Persian carpet cleaning videos, Sarah explains how she watches carpet cleaning videos on YouTube for relaxation purposes.
“This looks like one of those TVs you get off Facebook marketplaces that turns out to be a Popeyes menu board,” she says as we view three men pulverizing bricks into dirt with sledgehammers.
“Look at this Turkish tree covered in Ohtani jerseys,” I say.
“Turkish origami,” she replies. “What they’re famous for.”
I catch her staring at the ceiling not long thereafter.
“The smoke detectors are up to date,” Sarah jokes. “Also: the head of a woman is very in demand these days,” is offered about the numerous domes on display throughout the museum’s three floors.
“You like that tub?” I ask about an ornate bath.
“Yo! The panther’s head is where it drains.”
“Drains? I mean…you could fuck it.”
Sarah begins reading one painting description in a British accent, later affecting French, Italian, Jamaican, and Chinese, each variant my request. (The French had me howling.) We look through collections of silverware, plates, cups, and such in search for more heads as I see the Native American word Wangunk.
“That’s a Carnac. Wangunk. What a cock hungry girl requested from her dad’s brother.”
“Look at that,” Sarah says about another noggin. “It’s giving…head.”
One highlight is a painting of the Charter Oak tree that died in 1856, the print framed in wood taken from the felled tree itself.
“I gotta come back with a clearer nose,” Sarah says while attempting to sniff the frame.
“This is made from human bone,” I say about a tiny furniture sculpture.
“Human bone? In 2001?” she replies, and I know exactly what she means.
“Come on, there were no bones left in the Towers!”
“Rococo?” I say in response to Sarah reading it in another spot-on accent. “That could be your new safe word.”
“Maybe. But what about ‘E pluribus unum’? You could summon me if you said it after blowing this powder horn.”
The highlight arrives when we see a ceramic animal collection and Sarah details a video she watched about a unique burglar.
“Who robs a pet store?!” I ask.
“His name was Mr. Pancake!” she tells me as I work my way up the laugh rollercoaster until cry-laughter rains down. “Two gerbils were recovered. They asked if he had any others in his pants.”
Soon thereafter, we see a painting featuring a man named Mather.
“There aren’t any Mathers anymore. It’s a bygone name. Kind of like Whitey.”
“Have you been to Ocean Beach?” she asks as we view different paintings within the same room.
“Where’s that again?”
“Uh, by the shore…” she says then notes how she’s a fucking idiot.
A discussion of a Klimt painting with oleander leads to a conversation about prized smells until the little girl in Sarah emerges.
“That’s lapis lazuli!” she says upon opening a drawer, thrilled there’s a tactile area for her ADHD.
“Is it?”
“I dunno, man. I don’t fuckin’ work here! You ever play Minecraft?”
“Not really.”
“Then you don’t know shit about lapis lazuli!”
Sarah debates if an upside-down lamb in one painting is ticklish as I point at an angularly-faced man a few frames away and tell her, “That’s the guy your mom warned you about.”
“Dark hair, dark eyes, and looks homeless? I’d fuck him! … Where’s your raw beef, man?” she asks, but not about my tallywacker.
“What?!”
“Carpaccio.”
“Caravaggio?”
We finally arrive before Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, studying it as long as we did her favorite, a prized Van Gogh self-portrait.
“That’s ecstasy,” she says. “Look at his toes curled upward.”
“There is so much cum under his robe. Imagine how tightly clenched his butthole is!”
The proper way to treat the building’s most significant masterpiece. When we see an exquisite still life, I bust out a new bumper sticker slogan: Still Lives Matter. We view another masterwork by a conveniently named man as I say, “It’s come to a Heade. I borrowed that joke from your dad.”
Two hours into our visit, we’re both ready to view the gift shop and depart. I purchase a magnet featuring the Van Gogh self-portrait so Sarah can put it on the fridge in the new apartment she’s moving into next week. We head for the exit and the same cashier says goodbye.
“Did you see the archives?” she asks me.
“What?!” I reply in confusion. “Should we?” I say to Sarah.
“You said you wanted to see the archives,” she says as Sarah laughs.
“Ohhh!” I say. “I was completely fucking with you before. We didn’t even look for them.”
We both laugh as the security guard beheads the cashier for our amusement.
Worthiness? A plethora of wads.
Saturday, 1/4
Play my favorite King Crimson album, the jacket home to an aphorism written by Mailbox Mouth himself, Robert Fripp, one I regularly cite: “Discipline is never an end in itself, only a means to an end.”
The track “Indiscipline” also has lyrics I’ve used in multiple situations since first hearing the track in my teens: “I repeat myself when under stress / I repeat myself when under stress / I repeat myself when under stress / I repeat myself when under stress / I repeat…”
So, what, Mr. Mouth, will quitting marijuana do for me if I remain anxious?
*
“I’m gonna use the bathroom,” I tell the clerk at a local store. “Just to do cocaine. I won’t use any water.”
*
Enjoy an evening with Gaucho and his perfectly named wife Sue. He invited me over for chicken parm with spaghetti and homemade bread, a meal Sue and I enjoy with him after standing in the kitchen chatting while he cooks, leading to my criticism of him saying that we’re in his way like he can’t find an alternate pan or knife. Who does this guy think he is?! The spread is outstanding—Gaucho’s bread sustained me through a dark time in September—and the conversation is on a comparable level, the three of us planted at the dining room table for an hour-plus afterward until numb asses shift us to the living room furniture (where we talk over my Bengals defeating the Steelers). There’s no specific line or back and forth exchange to note, but the sheer conversational variety and quality generates a memorable night with two fine people who couldn’t make me feel more welcome. My favorite part is taking Sue’s side regarding Gaucho’s complaints about her watching bleeped reality television in bed: “He invites me up from the living room then says it’s too loud and the volume’s on seven,” Sue says, a perfect defense, especially since Gaucho’s seen 90 Day Fiancé before and knows what to expect. Next thing you know, he’ll bitch that Big Ed isn’t tall. You know what they say about guys with no necks? It’s tough to get them out of their shell. *pours remaining marinara sauce all over myself* “Don’t bake me alive.” *immolates self*
*
“Where the cool people live,” my friend says in response to me asking about her current setup.
“Cool as in ‘emotionally detached’?”
“Basically. The only friendly person is Long Tits. Everyone else does drugs and doesn’t work.”
“Shout out LT! Tha Dangler! Shout out drug use and the welfare state! Tha Enabler!”
“How do you just come up with this shit?”
“Being wildly mentally ill (‘ill’ in the hip-hop sense, not sick, well ‘sick’ in the way the kids say it, not ‘sick’ like Long Covid—I mean, how long is it?—'Are we there yet?’ ‘Not yet, hunny, there’s still a few hundred miles of Covid!’). WHAT.”
Sunday, 1/5
Occasionally, I think about the high school lunch table, a four-man setup with Josh, Josh, Moore, and me. Who would’ve thought by the time we hit forty that one of us would get rectal cancer, one of us would have six (soon to be seven) children in part due to his devout Catholicism, one of us would be doing his second prison stint, and one of us would be a widower? Still not sure which one of us is the closeted homosexual but, if necessary, I’ll fall on the sword (*giggity*) for the story. Sidebar: I only learned this morning that Dusty Springfield was gay. I knew, as beehive-hairdid ladies go, I preferred Angie Dickinson for a reason. Guess it’s Josh, Josh or Moore who’s the gay one. Suckers. No, sir, I don’t see a pun there at all.
*
Harry sends me a text saying, “I think you check all these boxes” regarding six types of courage (physical, social, moral, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual), which I present solely because last night Sue said she was prepared for me to tell her anything, a line echoing when Harry called me the “realest person [she’d] ever met” a couple months back. I’m not one for horn-tootery, but numerous other friends have echoed this comment since then, a quality I’ve never considered special. I don’t make any choices in hopes of implementing them when writing about my life, I write about my life because of the choices I make. And as these last sixteen days prove, if you live this way, life can be revelatory numerous times per day. Writing is not for glory; it is the way I process who I am. Don’t die and let someone else tell your story—be honest with yourself and go buy a journal…after finishing this essay, natch. ;)
*
Am in line at the grocery store behind The Ambassador’s (oblivious) ex-boyfriend—a man she dated for nine years—and his cute blonde daughter. I somehow fought the urge to say hello (we’re on good terms), mainly because I didn’t wanna put him in an awkward spot. Can’t believe I’ve matured, although I did think that since he got to bang Sue, it’d only be fair for him to ask his daughter to sleep with me. Unselfish lover that I am, I’d take nine “sessions” instead of nine years. Each session lasts two years. I will never mature.
*
Cross off my final two goals from the vacation checklist: get the white powertrain washed and finish reading Tolstoy’s What is Art? Not simultaneously. Imagine? You’ve heard of road head, now there’s road read! *Local farmer: “We don’t have enough tomatoes for your bullshit. And they’re called audiobooks, asshole!”* Pretty aggressive for a man whose living is subsidized by my tax dollars, huh? Also: Tolstoy book was a great read, not that I agreed with all of it, but now I need to read Brecht.
“You’re like car dentists,” I say to the five latino men washing my car, all of whom seem as disinterested in my nonsense as that mythical farmer. Prejudice Alert: Joke’s on them when I report the place to ICE and the farmer can’t find help! I don’t call it a white powertrain for nothin’.
*
Golden Globes notes: Viola Davis continues her reign as the best-dressed red carpeteer; Kristen Bell should go half blonde, half brunette; my mother’s “antenna” keeps flickering and appears to be a cheap mousepad affixed to her window with some used duct tape she found in a Home Depot parking lot; I’m going to Claire’s tomorrow to get my ears pierced like Colin Farrell; Harrison Ford belongs in a nursing home; Michelle Yeoh’s head in her dress resembles the top of a box of Black tissues; Cynthia Erivo may be Rudolphina the Red-Nosed Reindoe; how does anyone not judge Adrien Brody for dating the former Mrs. Harvey Weinstein?; and the Ol’ Glaze Dog looked flawless in each dress she wore (dug her monologue and scorecard showing Mario Lopez received more shout outs than God). My acceptance speech if I ever win anything: “Do you remember what it was like before you were born? Exactly. Nothing happens when you die. Thank you!”
*
Oddly, at the end of this fortnight+2, I find myself flashing back to my time with Drooq, and not because it makes it easier to bookend this piece with a callback. When talking about cleaning the house, Drooq lamented how everything decays, my cue to say, “Because we’re not supposed to be here.” Much like his choosing a new mindset, I arose each day not sad that one less vacation day remained, but happy I made the most of the decaying calendar. There’s a scene in A Complete Unknown where His Dylanness speaks about the concept of “finding yourself” and says how you don’t find yourself, you find a lost shoe. You create yourself. Any changes are for You, not Them.
I told Moore last year how I’d finally achieved the freedom in my heart to no longer give a flying fuck what anyone thinks about me, a statement he initially had a difficult time comprehending. Sure, I care what my loved ones think about me, but as it concerns anyone else, all I can do is be my humanist self: treat people with kindness and let that be enough for them to take me on the terms I’ve created, whether I’m dressed in women’s clothing, showing disregard for societal norms I find appalling, or blaspheming sacred art. Maybe I’ll go find a shoe and shove it up my ass, but when I inevitably find more decay, no matter in what capacity, I’ll do my damndest to create a way for it to flourish. Always be Dylan at Newport. The fucks you don’t give will set your heart free, and in doing so, allow you to focus on the ultimate good—the power of your imagination. Joy chosen.