Two hours that shook the world...

I've gotten several [ed. note: two] requests to update the blog, both of which were electronically deferred with complaints about how busy I've been with writing, tutoring, and a recently acquired (and bound to be lost once they realize the vastness of my incompetance) editing job on some children's books and scripts.

In reality, it's because I've been wasting my time doing things like digging through the facebook for the names of old classmates from my public school days and writing messages like these, exceprted below. Enjoy.

-----
Matt - we played soccer together. And shared a room at Middle States.

I'm just writing to say I'm sorry for the time I put my socks up on
the fan and they smelled up the room at soccer camp. Jesus, I'm
sorry.

You see, I'm part of this like 11 step program - kind of like AA only
it's for PCP addiction, not booze. I would kill for a fucking drink,
but that's beside the point. Anyway, I'm supposed to apologize to
everyone I've done harm to as a result of my addiction or otherwise.

It doesn't seem to be doing much good now, but maybe when I get to
step 3 (48 hours in the pit... I'm not even sure what that is, but I
guess Lawrence will fill me in when we get there...) it will make more
sense. Right now not much of anything is making sense. God has
chosen a path for me, though, I know that, so that's helping me along.

Anyway, I hope grad school is treating you well. Maybe next time I'm
in the area I can crash on your couch?

Take care,
Alexis

--------

Lucas,

I hope you rode the dot com wave. I did. I'm writing this from my
fucking airplane.

And when I say "I," I actually mean my assistant, Lenny. He's ten
years older than me, but will do pretty much anything I ask him to
because I pay him off the interest of my interest. How's that sound?

This might seem like one of those typical spiteful emails you get from
the guy who was kind of quiet and awkward all through middle school
then suddenly struck it rich... but you know what? It is, so fuck it.

When you have the Prince of Monaco (it's a microstate) blowin' up your
cellie to catch drinks at the Four Seaons, Paris, you have to allot
fifteen minutes of spite a day just to stay balanced.

Love to hear what you're up to.

Best,
ACJ

Dictated but not read - LR.

--------------
Mark,

We were in AT [ed. note: the "Academically Talented" program] together.

Now I'm a manager at fucking wendys. I thought that was supposed to
put us on some sort of career path... lead to some kind of success.
Not spending my days making sure Paulo doesn't pour the french fry
grease in with the fucking mayo.

------

In hindight, I probably shouldn't have used so many capital letters.

You say tomato...

…I say esophagogastroduodenoscopy.

Which is the procedure I’m scheduled to receive a little over a month from now to see if I am, in fact, allergic to wheat, or if my self-diagnosis is simply a continuation of a lifelong cycle of school absences and sick days. All of which are part of a pathetic desire to just have someone bring me soup and rub my head as I watch “Wings” reruns on the couch, then share my joy when I fart under the blanket and disperse the fumes into the living room with my ankle undulations.

The Rumination of the Night, therefore, is as follows: Did James Joyce (or Dostoevsky, Bergman, etc.) worry about things like wheat intolerance, or am I just, as one of my dear (and recently engaged – but that’s a whole other entry) friends likes to put it, “a little bitch?”

Let’s take a step into Imagination Land to see if we can’t work this out…

Alexis: So, Fyodor, I’m kind of worried about this bloated feeling I get every time I eat pasta. I’m thinking it might be this thing called Celiac’s Disease.

Dostoevsky: Really? That’s nearly comparable to the fear I felt when I stood blindfolded in front of a fucking firing squad in fucking Siberia, praying that I would die a quick death from the bullets tearing apart my vital organs rather than suffer the slow delirium of hypothermia.

Alexis: Oh.

Dostoevsky: But then I went on to write Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, so, you know, no biggie.

Alexis: I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but I’ve got this blog…

So on a toughness scale of 1-10, 10 being Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle in The French Connection, I’d say I fall somewhere between Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle and Powder.

The thing is, I don’t feel all that bad about it. I don’t think we humans can ever truly grasp the ephemeralness of our mortality until we find ourselves in front of a firing squad or realize our roommate sprinkled the cupcakes with arsenic again (shhhhh…). And even when we do catch the occasional glimpse, that memory and its urgency are bound to fade until the next Maxwell’s Demon comes along to temporarily reverse our inevitable progression toward emotional stasis.

We can fight it, of course. Some people use drugs, others use art. Some even use love, or at least those moments of love when it's most like a movie.

Personally, I prefer the old car-battery-hooked-up-to-the-nipples trick, but that’s just me.