CHAPTER 28: Low-Carb Hullaballoo

This Atkin's diet madness is consuming most of the women in my office. And some of the men. I considered it at one point, but then realized that my strong points don't lie in well-sculpted abs or big strong arms, but rather lie in my incredible personality and inner brilliance. Unfortunately, this brilliance goes unnoticed to most of those around me. It's either unnoticed or just misinterpreted. Whatever. I hate almost everyone I see anyway. I'm not really sure why. When I was younger, I was capable of finding good in almost everything or anyone. I guess I used up all my happiness during college. I found some low-carb chocolate bars in the office kitchen, and felt I should throw them out. So I did. I wish I had some kind of tasteless, odorless carb solution that I could inject into people's salads and chicken breasts when they weren't looking. That'd be funny. I've become obsessed with the idea of sabotage lately. I'm trying to do a little here and there. Mostly just mind-fucking people. Trying to manipulate them indirectly. Especially when it comes to their relationships or self-images. Like the episode during lunch yesterday for instance. I went to this little sandwich shop downtown yesterday, that has all sorts of delicious soups and sandwiches and salads and cookies and everything else. I love this place. It's expensive and infested with yuppies, and driving there is a huge pain in the ass because you have dodge like fifty of those enormous Lexus SUVs and finding a parking space is really difficult and I just want to smash and run over and destroy but I restrain myself because they have these awesome, awesome BBQ pork sandwiches. It's southern-style pulled pork, dripping with grease and BBQ sauce. So fucking good. Yesterday I made it there successfully, eager to snatch up the spoils of my hard journey. I ask the guy making the sandwiches for a BBQ pork one, and just as he's about to wrap it, I tell him to just give it to me now, because I just can't wait. So I'm standing in line, devouring this magnificent sandwich, barely even savoring it because it's so ridiculously good I just want to keep eating and eating it. There are a few people ahead of me in line, typical yuppies getting their stupid salads and tuna-wraps and such, and I'm halfway done with my sandwich already and considering ordering another one. And these two women in line ahead of me are babbling loudly about their jobs and husbands and this and that, and one comments on the other's choice of lunch and the other responds with "Ugh, yeah I'm on Atkin's. I'm just starting the notice the difference, and it feels really great. You know who should totally try it? Susan, and Amy, oh, and Elizabeth! They'd be great on it!" and her friend asks her why she's on a diet, as she looks great already, and she says "Ha! Yeah, YOU can say that, you look amazing. I'm so fat and summer's coming and I really need to lose some pounds and blah blah blah," and she drones on, loud enough for everyone in line to hear here. At this point, I decide to insert myself into the conversation, as she's making it my and everyone else's business. "Yeah," I interrupt, mouth full of decadent, rich, fatty pork, "You're pretty fucking fat. I mean..." I take another bite, even though my mouth is already full. There's pork grease and barbeque sauce all over my mouth and my hands, "Look ah yoshelf" (chomp chomp) "You hushband musht be really disgushted wif your bahhhdy." And if this was true, then her husband is a total asshole. Her body was fine, in fact, I'd go as far to say as this woman was gorgeous as she was. "Shtay on that diet, shweetheaaart. HAHAHA!" Then I start choking on my mouthfull of pork, cough a little, swallow, take another bite, go "MMMMMM!" and then start laughing again. The woman's pretty much in tears, her friend glaring at me. Neither of them knows what to say, so they just leave their food on the counter and leave the store, the woman is crying now and muttering "asshole....fucking asshole" as her friend pats her back, trying to reassure her. Then they're gone, and everyone's looking at me as I finish my delicious sandwich, then I ask the guy behind the counter for a bunch of napkins as I pay him. No one said a thing to me, they just gave me really dirty looks. But I'm pretty sure I caught one of the Mexican guys working in the kitchen trying to hold back some laughter. And now I'm not sure if I should go back there anytime soon. I'm afraid they might sabotage my pork. Dammit.

It's been so long since I've last written. Does anyone even care? Do I? Last night I felt like I had a beautiful moment. I listened to this CD my mom got me for Christmas years ago but never opened. "Relaxing Sounds" of the beach, the forest, etc. I laid down, emotionally exhausted from the past few weeks of dating, lying, hating women, hating myself. I cried for a good half hour. It was the purest thing I've felt in a long time. Nothing's made me happy lately. The horrible weather hasn't helped, either. Work has been frustrating. Dating has been frustrating, albeit comical. No one gets me. No one. I may be a complete monster but I'm still human, dammit. So what if I made my last date list her ten favorite DVDs during dinner and scoffed at most of her selections and told her certain movies didn't qualify because they haven't been released on DVD yet? So what if she ended our date at my house early because I rented "Robocop," one of my favorite films of all time, and laughed obnoxiously during all of the most violent scenes and kept asking her to cuddle? If you can't cuddle when Boddicker shoots that asshole cokehead's kneecaps out and tells his prostitutes "Bitches leave," then you aint down with Misanthropic B, MUTHAFUCKA!! AHAHAHA!

I'm so sorry.

Now....onto the dating adventures. This is where the shit gets intense. I've been creepin the online dating scene...lavalife, friendster, myspace, makeoutclub, match.com, all that garbage. I'm not sure if I really expect to find someone on here, or if I just want to fuck with people and make them miserable. I definately want to bother people, that's a given. But finding someone special would be a nice little bonus. I'm a real sexual force to be reckoned with online. I took all these glamour shots of me and listed the descriptors "sensitive asshole, self-centered, never satisfied, etc" into my profiles. My username is "Intense_Bro" for several of the sites. Strangely enough I've gotten some inquiries and even had two dates with women I've met online! Both have been total floosies, of course, but that's exactly how I wanted it. And I'm not really even interested in sex. Conquest, yes, but the actual intercourse is intimidating to me. I'll get around to that later. First I want to get my feet wet as I haven't been on a "date" with anyone in years. My first date was a good start. I shant mention her name, but I met her on Lavalife and took her out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants (an Italian place). Her profile was interesting, if not a little desperate. She turned out to be an incredible bore. And spastic as hell. Really twitchy and unattractive. She reminded me of Sofia Coppola in her ugliness... she'd be smiling nervously one second and that smile would quickly turn into a frown as she'd look away and make a pathetic giggling noise. Someone must've really hurt her badly in the past. That sucks, but I'd rather not deal with it. So I did the only thing I could. I politely excused myself from the table halfway through the meal, and hung out in the bathroom for about 45 minutes. When I came back to my table, the check was paid and the table was being cleared. She was gone. Took a cab home I guess. I went home and played X-Box for a couple of hours. Good date.

I cried a lot last night, while I was trying to write some poetry or something meaningful and I don't even remember getting anything on paper except for some doodles of me naked inside a spaceship. But I woke up this morning, face-down on my desk, with the following written on a piece of paper affixed to my cheek with drool. You see, in my new quest for a sidekick/lover, I've found myself developing all sorts of crushes on people around me (mostly women). I've even been on a few dates, as I've been scouring the dating scene (both on and offline). Still, I somehow became infatuated with this girl in the office who's been there for a few months but for some reason I've never paid much attention to her. The obsession was quick and painful and I got the message and am trying not to bother her now (which is pretty easy as our departments don't have to interact too much) so hopefully I can now move on to more proper dating experiences.


...and i tried seeing her through a camera, hair falling apart like ribbons. tried to let her know i was really here, not a monster inside a well-dressed shell. aren't i though? i wanted to be loved for who i was and not who i am and certainly not what i am on my way to being. i could try to love her, i know this, but could i ever touch her, pleasure her like a ripe persimmon would under a tree under a sun, away from all those dark days. 'i like you but you're not really there' i think she was trying to say, and i understood it and i knew we could never be together. she couldn't know me anyway. she can't even see me, no matter much i see her. hoping she'd look back just once, say 'i'll love you better than her' but i think what she wants to say is 'your life is a tv show and i dont get you at all and i dont think you care about anything, not anything at all.' i tried letting it go, no more camera. mental snapshots only, and maybe some drawings or a cluster of numbers that would remind me of her somehow. she is very calculating, and she can see completely into me and know that there's nothing to be salvaged. a good little boy turned into an indifferent young man turned into an often malicious near-grown man. camera becomes binoculars, and it hurts to look at her from so far away.

Being Al Roker

I awoke with a sweaty brow at about 4am this morning, frightened and unsure of my surroundings at first. Within seconds I came back to reality and began to breathe deeply, realizing that I had been dreaming, and that I am in fact not Al Roker. I had yet another nightmare. The large amounts of melatonin I've been taking every evening might have something to do with it. I've been having difficulty sleeping lately, and taking melatonin seems to help me engage in slumber. The recommended dosage is about 2mg, but I've been taking anywhere up to 10mg, depending on how restless I am. Lately I've become very anxious...probably because the veil of security that comes with having a steady girlfriend has been lifted. Sometimes I lie in bed and start crying, or laughing, or talking to myself softly, or humming, or masturbating. In every scenario, I just can't get to sleep. My mind's flooded with imagery and emotions. Images of desired lovers, friends, coworkers, cell phones, video games, movies, Iraqi civilians, Haitians, Chinamen, etc, fill my head. I'm trying to get a grip on myself and not take any hard drugs, though I am sometimes tempted to. But I don't really consider myself much of a drug user. So melatonin seemed like a natural alternative. And so far, it's helping me sleep on those restless nights. The problem is that one of the supposed side effects is increased lucidity while dreaming. This has proven to be true, but another side effect is that taking more than the recommended dosage can result in nightmares. This has also proven to be true, but I'm almost fascinated by my nightmares, so sometimes I'll swallow five pills and whisper to myself "bring it on." I did that last night, almost eager to see what my brain could conjure in my sleep, and the result was not at all disappointing. I dreamt that I was Al Roker (the old Al Roker...fatter, and seemingly more jolly because of this) on the Today Show, and I was interviewing the crowd of fat cattle that amasses outside the NBC studios every morning for the show. This one group was a typical gaggle of Alabama fatties, holding some stupid homemade banner that had their names on it and the name of some county they live in in Alabama. I asked them what their names were and they all started giggling and screaming and saying hi to like twenty different people back home before I cut them off and pulled the mic away from them. "Ha ha! That's great! Thanks for comin out, gang!" I said with a smile. Then I started doing the national weather, but the screams of all these women and children cut through anything I was trying to say. "A little icey in New England this morning, as this cold front's moving in here, and..." but no matter what I said and how loud I tried to say it, it was completely drowned out by the inane babble and screams coming from these morons behind me, as if being on the goddamn Today Show was the greatest thrill of their worthless lives, which I'm sure it was. "And in the west....in the west...in the west...we see...in the west WOULD YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP? JESUS CHRIST...DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? DO YOU? I'M AL ROKER! THE FUCKING WEATHERMAN! I'M TRYING TO TELL PEOPLE WHAT THE GODDAMN WEATHER IS GOING TO BE LIKE TODAY...YOU UGLY, HORRIBLE FUCKS! DO YOU REALIZE HOW FUCKING HARD IT IS WITH ALL OF YOU CONSTANTLY SCREAMING? THIS AIN'T NO GODDAMN PEP RALLY!" The anger felt very real. I couldn't tell that I was dreaming. I was Al Roker. I felt such intense levels of frustration that this had to be real. I felt myself staring at the crowd, glaring at them with red eyes, a foamy venom dripping from my mouth. I breathed heavily, angrily. I wanted to devour the crowd...to go at them like a dervish of raw, evil energy. Children started crying. "YOU! Shut the FUCK up! NBC doesn't pay me, unless I do the goddamn weather and say my goddamn line, so I'm gonna do it!" I turned to the camera, screaming at the top of my lungs.."YEARGH!! AARGH! That's what's going on in the country.....here's what's....here's what's....here's what's going on in your neck of the woods! AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!" I could no longer form complete sentences. Katie Couric showed up and tried to talk some sense into me, and I was trying to tell her how bland she is and to ease up on the fucking mascara, but all I could get out were guttural growls. I was just about ready to pounce on her and devour her, but then I woke up, sweaty, angry, and extremely hungry. I managed to get back to sleep and have a somewhat calming dream of being completely isolated in a little floating apartment in outer space before my alarm clock went off. As I sat on my couch eating my cereal and watching the Today Show, I was almost positive I saw a glint of madness and supreme frustration in Al's eyes as he tried to do the weather with the hordes of monster tourists screaming behind him. I started chuckling and then quickly became somber, because I actually empathized with the poor man. "I know Al, I know." I said aloud. I don't think I want to have any more nightmares for a while.

I saw an ad for American Idol on television Monday night and just started crying, not knowing why. I guess they were tears for humanity. Thank god the midget wedding show came on and my tears of tragedy were replaced by tears of hilarity. And it's not so much that I was laughing at them. Just that...I was laughing at the situation. And well, there were a couple of them that scared the shit out of me. So I guess I was laughing at them. Whatever. Everything's been alright since the breakup. In fact, things seem really good right now. Mostly because I've discovered the writings of John Titor, alleged time traveller, and everything else in my life seems inconsequential. Predictions for the future include an American civil war, beginning late 2004/early 2005, and an all out worldwide nuclear assault in 2015. In a way, I'm kind of relieved. Knowing that everything's going to fall apart within the next few years really takes the heat off. Especially in terms of maintaining a successful career and relationship. I didn't want to get married anyway. So I think I'm going to stop putting money into my 401K immediately, and start planning on getting that new car I want. I'm really going to start living for the now. I already was, but now I will even more. But I'm conflicted...I do want to see civilization as we know it destroyed, but at the same time, there are a lot of movies and video games coming out in the future that I don't want to miss. And having to resort to survivalist instincts might leave me a little fucked, being that I'm completely out of shape and was never a boy scout. Though there's always the possibility that I'll get thrown into jail for some reason when the country goes into martial law. And that's probably worse than having to survive and potentially shoot yuppies from rooftops amidst all the chaos. Maybe I should look into buying a firearm. Personally, they scare me, but it is my right as an American to own a shitload of weaponry. But anyway, I still have about half a year to go before I have to worry about civil war and the collapse of our government, so I'll enjoy my time in this wonderful republic right now, and I won't stop, no, I won't stop consuming! There are DVDs, consumer electronics, music, magazines, clothing, alcohol, and fast food purchases to be made! Plus I'm now "available" for the first time in...I can't remember how long we were dating, but it seemed like a really long time. So I've got to get back in the game and get some tail. But first I need to devise a strategy...

Ugh...so it went like this. I've been neglecting this relationship for the past six months and have been fully aware of it the whole time. I knew she loved me, I wanted to love her, but these days I feel so incapable of loving any living thing (except for Shakie Wilcox, of course), that I just can't reciprocate those feelings. So when she told me she loved me, I'd close my eyes and hold her and say "I love you," only I'd be thinking about a BMW or a 40" plasma television. We hadn't been having much intercourse lately. It seemed like she often wanted to, but no matter how unbelievably horny I'd be, somehow I'd weasel out of it, and when she'd go home, the first thing I'd do would be hop on the computer to look at some of my favorite amateur pornography sites. Last week, things got very difficult and it was evident that the relationship was finally on its last rope. I'm not even sure why she held on as long as she did. Instead of constructively dealing with the enormous problems between us, we went to the bar with some friends and got really drunk. We came home in the mood for love, only I fucked it up when we were having sex and I kept sloppily touching her face, saying stuff like "Oh yeah baby, tell me I'm brilliant. Tell me I'm hilarious. Yeah." She pushed me off of her, angry because we couldn't even make love without me being a complete monster. "What the hell is wrong with you, B? What happened to you?" she asked me. I told her how much it would turn me on for her to compliment me and tell me how funny and witty I am, but she wasn't having any of it. She jumped off the bed, put her clothes on, and went home in tears, leaving me nauseous and flacid in front of a computer screen for the next hour and a half.

The next night, I tried to make it up to her and take her out to a really nice restaraunt, who's name I shall not mention here. It's a real classy joint and I thought it might earn me some 'I'm sorry' points. I begged her on the phone to let me take her out and told her how sorry I was for my actions the preceding night. I picked her up and gave her a bouquet of flowers, which she loved. Things went really smoothly for the next hour and a half. Then, in the middle of our entree, my stomach hurt really bad and I had to excuse myself. I was in a daze in the bathroom...I'm not really sure what I did in there, if anything. All I remember was some guy who was dressed really well, in an Italian suit, using the stall and then promptly leaving without washing his hands. I washed mine thoroughly before floating back to our table and sitting down. God, she looked beautiful. I sat there, looking at her, wondering how a waste of life such as myself could land such a beautiful, loving woman. But there was fear in her eyes. Worry. Doubt. Someone else. That had to be it. How could she not be interested in other people? I must have left her so unfulfilled in every way. We started talking about something. I'm not sure what. I think she was talking about her job. She kept going on about it while I spaced out, staring at her but not hearing her words, ocassionally muttering "mm hmm." and "oh, ok" to whatever she was saying. I started looking around the restaurant, taking it all in. Fucking yuppies. 'When I get out of here, I'm going to key one of those goddamn Acura SUVs in the parking lot that made it so hard for me to find a parking spot,' I thought. I kept scanning the restaurant, while she blathered on. Then my eyes landed on the guy from the bathroom, the guy with the nice Italian suit. Suddenly I felt a massive rush and got really panicky. I loudly pushed my chair back and stood up, frantically pointing to the man and yelling "That guy didn't wash his hands after taking a shit!" I heard a bunch of gasps, and the guy damn near spit his wine out all over his date. I looked down at my girlfriend, and time seemed to slow down. She looked apalled, then she just looked like she was about to cry. She stood up, told me I was a worthless asshole and she's not giving me another chance, ever again. Then she stormed out of the restaurant, in tears. Obviously, I was asked to leave the restaurant, but I insisted on taking my half-eaten roast duck with me. I made sure to key a couple of luxury SUVs in the parking lot, all while stuffing bits of greasy duck into my mouth, and wiping the grease off onto peoples' windshields.

So now it's over. For real. I don't feel sad, I don't feel angry, I don't even hate myself any more than I usually do, even knowing that this is completely my fault, in every way. And yet, I feel so incomplete and empty. What have I done?

My girlfriend left me. My world is falling apart. At this point, only skeletor's cocksure ways can comfort me. USA! USA! More to follow...

Dear Diary:

Last weekend I went to a party thrown by this guy I don't really like that much. I knew him from school and somehow got invited, going on the basis that there would probably be a lot of drugs and fly honeys there. Plus I really wanted to cut loose after a week of constantly lying to myself and to others. After the first few hours of being there (which I don't remember), I realized I was out of my mind...drunk, stoned, whatever. I'm not even sure if I like drugs. I was feeling pretty good though, sauntering up to people happily, telling them what I thought of them based on their appearance. It's a wonder I didn't get punched in the face. At one point I found myself in the bathroom, barely standing up, wobbling, trying to urinate in the toilet and failing terribly. I leaned my head back and at that moment, a song by the Wu-Tang Clan started playing on the speakers in the living room. The song opened with the following monologue:

"Yeah. Ay yo what's goin on man yo man...anything is anything man...just...just get that cream aight man for real."

I started laughing maniacally, leaning back and nearly falling over. I closed my eyes for a moment, pissing blindly, and for a second, the lyrics almost seemed poetic. I felt as if I had attained some magical understanding within the song, that no one else was meant to find. Certainly not a white piece of yuppie garbage such as myself. The thing is, I misunderstood the words and thought that he was saying "everything is everything." For some reason, this seemed so profound to me, and I opened my eyes and whispered, "everything IS everything!" In my drunken/high state of mind, this made perfect sense to me and even seemed to calm me, like everything was going to be alright after all. Everything in life is everything, and it's all relative and all so insignificant. I can't really put what I felt into words. I stumbled out of the bathroom, urine all over my pants, with this creepy, all-knowing grin on my face. I went to the kitchen, told some girl that she looked like a hispanic pumpkin, got another beer, and then slowly made my way over to the stereo, eager to start the track over so I can hear the Wu-Tang's words of infinite wisdom once more. I stared at the stereo receiver, nodding my head to the beat, trying to figure out what model receiver it was. Sony something. I couldn't make any sense of it. Forget it. I looked at the 100-disc changer below the receiver, trying to figure out which button to press. I started jabbing at the buttons, accidentaly skipping to the next disc, which was Dave Matthews Band or some bullshit. Such an inappropriate change of songs. "Yo what the fuck man? We was listenin to that!" said this black guy sitting on a couch, his arm around a sexy, barely dressed woman. "I'm sorry...I'm sorry Tyrese...I just...I just am trying...I'm trying...chill, chill man it's cool...go back to your prostitute man." Thank god he couldn't hear a drunken word I was saying, as the music drowned out all of my blather. I quickly figured out how to go back to the last disc and the right track, and he seemed satisfied and quickly lost interest in me. I stood there, in my moment of spiritual clarity, eager to hear these brilliant words again. Wait a minute, he said "anything," not "everything." What the fuck does that mean? "Anything is anything?" My buzz of enlightenment quickly turned into a cloud of confusion and disappointment. 'Maybe I can find someone with pills,' I thought. I tried for a while, but failed. So I sat on the couch, trying to make sense of these lyrics which I thought meant so much. I began to take them apart.

'I guess by "anything is anything," he's talking about the urban mentality where money is so difficult to get that you have to be willing to do anything within your power to attain it, even hustle or sell drugs or steal. He's hinting at a major issue, where kids in the ghetto have no viable choices to earn money, where the choice to either make a ton of money selling drugs or make next to nothing working a shitty job at McDonald's is an easy choice to make. To survive in the hood you have to be absolutely ruthless and do what it takes to get that cream. It's a tragedy really, and there's no simple solution...Maybe I should've actually listened to the rest of the lyrics in the song instead of just making its opening words a misunderstood novelty.'

I thought about it for hours, before waking up a couple of hours later to the sight of a floor littered with sleeping bodies and beer bottles, finding myself snuggled up next to the black guy that I called Tyrese, who was passed out next to his whory-looking lady friend. I sighed, and snuggled closer to his leather Fubu jacket, falling back asleep to dream of sugar plums and sports cars.

2003 was a dangerous, sad, hilarious year for me. I look forward to seeing what 2004 brings. I'm hoping either a) the downfall of humanity, or b) even better mobile phone technology. Speaking of which, I had the most surreal experience last week, before Christmas, on the train. I was on my way to work, fiddling with my new Palm Tungsten C PDA that I bought myself as an early Christmas present, and this guy who was sitting across the aisle and one seat ahead of me was talking loudly on his cell phone. Typical southwestern Connecticut/NYC asshole, in his suit, with his briefcase and newspaper spread all over the seat, taking up the two seats next to him. And he's talking about some business dinner he had the other night, and the so and so account and money and equities and bonds and such and such and he's so fucking loud that even I, who has contempt for almost all living things (except for my kitty), think he's an asshole. Everyone else on the train was pretending to ignore him. I glared at him for a few minutes, then looked back down at my PDA and started giggling at the hilarious japanese porno clip I had loaded onto it that morning. Suddenly, I heard a loud crashing sound followed by his awful screams, and I looked up to see the man clutching the side of his face, screaming and sobbing. His cell phone was now on the floor, broken from being thrown to the ground. I started laughing and clapping my hands as I watched him continue to scream and thrash about, with everyone else in the train car gasping, not knowing what to do. Apparently the asshole's cell phone battery shorted out or blew up or something, burning his ear and part of his cheek. Needless to say, we were stopped at the next train station for a while, and the man was escorted off of the train with some paramedics that had been alerted. The rest of the day was pretty uninteresting. I got to work about half an hour late, but no one seemed to notice. The weirdest part, and I'm not entirely sure if this happened or not, was that there was a news crew waiting at my train station that night, hoping to catch some of the morning commuters who had witnessed the exploding cell phone incident. I walked over there and told the news crew that I was right next to the guy when it happened. "Stop listening to this boob," I said, pointing to the weird-looking guy that they were videotaping, "I was sitting right next to the guy. I saw the whole thing. Na'mean?" The cameraman looked puzzled. He looked over at the female news anchor, who nodded to him, and then he turned and started videotaping me. The ugly boob walked away, disappointed. "Sir, can you please tell us your name and give us your account of what happened this morning on the 8:15 Metro-North train?" Suddenly, I felt compelled to become someone else. Maybe it was the hoodlum off in the distance and his hot Johnny Blaze jacket that inspired me...I don't know. But I felt the need to not be myself for this interview. "Yeah, I can tell you what happened," I said to her, "It went down like this. Uh, oh and my name's Jamal Walker Jones. So, I was sittin there, watchin my japanese boobie videos on my palm pilot, and this muthafucka is talking all loudly on his phone. You know what I'm sayin?" I saw the newscaster flinch when I said a bad word, but for some reason she didn't interrupt me. "And he's talkin mad loud about shit no one cares about, but like, he tries to make it everyone else's business, na'mean? He's all talkin about dollars and shit and really just being par-ti-cu-lar-ly [I say it slowly, as if it's difficult for me to say] shitty about the whole thang. Know what I'm sayin? And all of the sudden, I hear this loud noise, and look over and see this guy all buggin out and screamin like a little bitch, son. I mean, this muthafucka is screamin like he got his dick bit off or some shit like that. So, like, his cell phone like blew up in his face, and that's why he was screamin! HAHAHA! Them shits was sooooo funny, you know what I'm sayin? And he's screamin and cryin, and clutchin his horribly dis-fig-ured face and everyone's starin at him, and I'm all laughin and watching my japanese bukkake videos on my palm pilot. Them shits was a RIOT, son. So, that's ba-si-ca-lly what happened, and it is definately one of my top-ten movie moments of 2003, you know what I'm sayin? HA!" The news anchor woman stood there, her mouth agape, staring at me in disbelief. I thought she was going to tell me to fuck off for wasting her time, but something about my performance must have impressed her, and she said, "Um..well, uh, thank you...Jamal..." and then looked at her cameraman and nodded, and they both walked away. A small crowd of people had gathered around me, and suddenly I didn't know what to do or say, and the only thing that came out was "Uh....yo that new Peter Pan movie looks fucking GAY, son!" and I just stood there and waited for my train to arrive. Strangely, I couldn't find myself on the news that night, and none of my friends could either. I'm not even sure what network the news team was from, or if they even existed at all.

I wrote this down on a Sbarro Pizza napkin at the local shopping mall the other day, during the holiday shopping frenzy. I made 100 photocopies in the copyshop, then proceeded to leave the copies in strategic places all over the mall: bathrooms, underneath dvd players at Tweeter, the toy store, shoved inside women's panties in Filene's, underneath SUV's windshield wipers in the parking lot, etc. I can't remember why I wrote it...all I remember is frantically writing it while stuffing pepperoni pizza into my face and trying not to cry:

People everywhere, dead skin cells everywhere in my food on my face on my glasses, sick little fat kid coughing on consumer electronics...smelly loud black woman speaking ebonics. HAHAHA! ...Insects leaving droppings on the shopping mall floor, tastes like cigarette butts and 25% off sales events. Buy one, get one half off. Buy another one in case the first one breaks. Made in Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Philippines, India, Pakistan, Hell, fucking Horrible Hell build me a better portable mp3 player and perfect clothes. I feel sick all the time and I bet you do as well. Everything feels like it'll stop at any given moment, but life must go on, the economy must go on. 10% off of a new Panasonic progressive scan DVD player must go on. I can't imagine life without it. Without electricity, gasoline, and your ugly, spoiled, rotten children spreading their disease all over my goods. Sell me a new body a new conscience a new, clean, unformatted being. Don't you see what's happening? Can't you taste these animals? Don't you feel sick from the lack of oxygen in this sexy consumer death camp? The Sharper Image has everything I need and nothing I don't. Oh God, I miss my life, my childhood, my legos and my lemonade. Are you out there? Any of you? If anyone out there knows how to fix this, fax me or text message my mobile phone. HELP!

As usual it's been ups and downs for me, my mind, and my body. The weekend was terrible....I don't even remember it, but I'm sure it was awful. But yesterday I felt something I don't think I've felt since I was maybe eighteen years old. I had to go return some DVDs to the local Blockbuster, and as I was standing in line to rent more videos ("X-Men 2" and "Pirates of the Carribean"), I noticed a girl working the register that I had never seen before. She looked a few years younger than I..I wasn't sure if she was in school or not. It's too early for winter break. Maybe she goes to a local community college? Maybe she studies fine arts and likes jazz and is a vegetarian for all the right reasons? I didn't find out. I just prayed that I would end up at her register. And I did. She was so stunning, so beautiful and pure, that I'm pretty sure I was blushing when she was ringing up my movies. "This movie's so much fun!" she said, smiling, cradling the box for "Pirates of the Carribean" in her soft, perfect hands. I melted inside. Oh, sweet girl. I would take such good care of you. Sweet dove, like I've never ever seen before. Why are you here? It smells awful and the televisions playing "Finding Nemo" on them emit this awful constant drone. You're too good for this. I'd take you away...we'd run away together. Spend the winter in a cabin in Vermont or New Hampshire, on a lake, with lots of firewood and a little market down the street so I could cook you fresh pasta and make you wonderful salads every night. I'd touch your face and kiss your lips and hold you and protect you and write you poetry and make nude sketches of your perfect body, lit only by the fireplace. I'd never yell at you and we'd never fight and I wouldn't have to drink or do drugs to be happy anymore. I'd stop being so angry at everything and everyone. I'd find absolute peace in you and I'd become the man I've always dreamed of being. Please let me take you away. I'm pretty sure we were talking...having a conversation at the register. Maybe about the movie? I was saying the right things...I got some giggles out of her. She was amazing. But shit. I already had a girlfriend. But I'm pretty sure I don't love her. God, that smile. Then suddenly it wasn't a smile...not a sincere one anyway. It was forced, impatient. "Um...That's eleven dollars and twenty three cents." Reality came back to me, as did the smell and the horrible electric buzzing noise. "Uh? Oh. Sorry. Um...You'd hate me if you knew me. I am the worst kind of human being," I told her. Then I left, and my world returned to shit.

I'm going to have another bad day. I went nuts tomorrow. Bad episodes await. I'm going to be watching television...something on FOX or NBC...something reality-based. Real people. Real emotions. I want to see someone get their heart ripped out. I want to see someone get emotionally destroyed. Think of what it'll do for the ratings! People crave this kind of entertainment now. It's almost the only thing that sells anymore. I don't want a happy ending. I want to see Joe Millionaire part four but with a really brutal ending, where the stupid cowboy construction worker cries after he's fucked ten different women, knowing his life is an utter joke, a spectacle. There's no more room for ethics. Only dollar signs and media buys. Anyway, I was watching television tomorrow and a commercial for the new "Cat in the Hat" movie came on. I suddenly became very nauseaus and angry and started cursing the television, even though no one was with me to hear it. "Oh, that's rich!" I'll say. "That's really fucking rich! Dr. Seuss must be rolling in his grave right now! The characters don't even fucking rhyme!! And who's that stupid little fat kid? And why the fuck does the cat in the hat sound like 'Linda Richman' from SNL's "Coffee talk?" Oh! Oh! Mike Myers! PLEASE make another Austin Powers movie! PLEASE!? The world needs another Austin Powers 4! Because the last one was so clever, and it wasn't contrived at all! I mean, honestly, that 'goldmember' character was, really, really funny! Because of his accent! Oh!" I will be on my knees now, hands together as if i'm begging the television for salvation. The commercial has been over for a full minute, but suddenly I start to think about Colin Quinn and how much I despise him. "Colin Quinn! Oh man, you are SO on-point! You know so much about the situation in Iraq, it's amazing! And you're really, really funny. Especially your delivery! Like when you were doing the Weekly News on Saturday Night Live! Well done! FUCK YOU!" Tears are streaming down my face. There's an ad for some kind of bullshit celebrity show, like 'entertainment tonight' or something, on. Some famous rapper is greeting his fans, signing autographs, shaking hands, flashing smiles, all while his cell phone is firmly planted between his shoulder and right ear. He loves his fans that much. "Oh! I'm sure your phonecall is so important that you can't finish it later...I mean whatever conversation you're having right now must be absolutely riveting! Fucking asshole! And take off your sunglasses! It's fucking nighttime!" I'm practically screaming at my television, and crying and smashing my fist into the carpet repeatedly. Suddenly I realize that the rapper has the new model of cell phone that I want, the Nokia 7650, and it calms me. I close my eyes and breath heavily. All I want right now is some Taco Bell, I think to myself. And tomorrow I went to Taco Bell, and got a grilled stuffed burrito and ate it hungrily, opening my mouth wider than necessary every time I took a bite, just like in the commercials. It's going to be ok, even though I went crazy tomorrow.

Last night I saw an ad for the ten o' clock FOX news that warned of some new disease that causes you to laugh too much. "Do you have a bad case of the giggles? It may be more serious than you think!" they said. I was intrigued. What kind of sickness could make you laugh more? How do I acquire this sickness? I ended up not watching the news, as I was too busy looking at internet pornography. However, I did watch it on Sunday night, and it was quite a treat. At first I was going to change the channel because I thought they were going to go on and on about the latest tragedies and fuckups in Iraq, since there had been such a bloodbath there over the weekend. But I was pleasantly suprised to see that they only gave the Iraq business minimal coverage, and instead focused on new consumer satellite radio units for five minutes. I was captivated. They went over how it works, which one to get, and why I should get it. Of course I ordered one online yesterday morning. Thank god FOX news is able to sift through the bullshit and get to what's really important, especially in this holiday season. If I wanted to watch soldiers die, I'd play one of my many game consoles. Nazis are usually my favorite to kill. But I have seen a recent rising trend in increased videogame violence towards civilian characters, and it is very appealing to me.

Tonight I'm celebrating by buying an X-Box, the most violent game I can find, snorting a bar of vicadin, and going hog-wild.

This week got off to a terrible start. Yesterday I took the car into work instead of the train, because I had a doctor's appointment during lunch. Halfway through the morning drive to the office, I was making a right turn at an intersection, when one of those new BMW 5 series passed me on my left. I was staring at it, mouth agape, as if it were a beautiful woman walking down the street in revealing clothing. Such a sexual vehicle. As it's continuing straight through the intersection, I'm trying to see whether it's the 530i or the 545i (because I just had to know...we're talking about a serious horsepower difference here), and I fail to realize that an old Porsche that was ahead of me was slowing down to make another right turn. I hit the Porsche in the rear...pretty hard, and had to pull over. I fucked up my front bumper and part of my hood and I messed up the back of this guy's Porsche pretty bad. I was really nervous when I got out of my car to approach him (what's the difference between a Porsche and a porcupine? On a porcupine, the pricks are on the outside), as I thought he'd be some some middle aged yuppie asshole, flipping his lid. I guess he could be hurt too. I was partly right...he was pretty pissed off at me, but like me, he suffered no injuries. He turned out to be an alright guy. I apologized so many times and told him not to worry and that it was completely my fault, and suddenly his angry disposition changed and he said, "You know what? Fuck it. I want a new car anyway. This'll give me an excuse to get one. How do you feel about an Acura NSX?" I didn't know what to tell him. I smiled, and was about to say "Yeah, you should totally get one. That's so much cooler than driving an old Porsche! You should get one! Shit, I want an Acura NSX. I bet they're fast as hell. You should get one! How much do those go for? Think I could afford one? Have you seen the new BMW 5 series?" But instead, time seemed to stop for a moment. All I could feel was the woosh of Luxury sedans and SUVs flying by us. I heard engines and birds and horns and radios. I thought about buying a new fossil wristwatch after I got out of work. Then I tried to answer the man, but it's as if I simply stopped caring about the situation at that exact moment. After a long pause, all I was able to say to him was, "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" and then I started laughing. The rest of the day was a flurry of policemen, calls to insurance agents, getting my genitals examined by the doctor, and calls to my garage to get my car fixed. Surely the rest of the week can't be any worse.

I felt completely...overwhelmed by my entertainment options last night. I had so many things to do after I got home from the office. First, I planned on playing with my vintage Korg Poly-61 synthesizer that I just bought off of ebay, but then I changed my mind and wanted to play my guitar since I just recently bought a new BOSS Digital Delay DD-5 effects processor. I'm in the market for a new combo amp, but my old peavy will do for now. I couldn't decide between keyboard or guitar, so I ended up watching something atrocious on Fox while figuring out what to do. I had options. I could have played my gameboy, my gamecube, or my playstation 2 (I have unopened, unplayed games for gameboy and gamecube). I could've used my new video editing software to edit that video of the beach that I shot two months ago on my DV camcorder (it's too bulky...I want to buy a new one...maybe one of those tiny new Sony Micro-MV cameras). I could've played with my kitten. I could've cooked a nice meal with all my new cookware that I bought on sale from amazon. I could've done some early Christmas shopping (mostly for me, maybe something for my girlfriend). I could've read some of my new interior design and music magazines, while listening to the new CDs I bought at Borders the other day. I could've watched some of those DVDs that I recently bought but still haven't watchd. I had so much to do. I had too much to do. I felt a little sick (the same kind of sickness I feel after browsing the web for too long at work...a weird, distant, slight nausea from staring and clicking and staring for so long), but above all, I felt bored. And lazy. In the end, I wasted another night looking at cars and pornography online.

Everything's good. It's so good, that I don't really feel like I'm at ease. Normally I'm worried about things. Constantly thinking, plotting, fantasizing. When I'm stuck in traffic on the way to/from the office, I try to think about my social manipulation techniques...how to better get what I want out of people. I don' t think that it necessarily makes me a bad person...hell, isn't that what being an American is about? Working hard (or benefitting from someone else's hard work) and getting ahead? It's all a big game. No, it's all a big, cruel joke. When I watch television and see Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar talking about how "the democrats are addicted to spending...they need to go to an addiction place," my heart swells up with something and I just want to get high and stuff my face with nachos and watch Total Recall and clap my hands in delight during the scene where arnold uses the civilian on the escalator as a human shield. So really, I'm completely fine with the world I live in. Because I have a lot of awesome stuff. And soon I'll have more. But to do that I need to turn things around and make up for recent mental vacations. I'm going to work really hard in the office to make up for my weirdo antics. I got into some trouble a few weeks ago where I had an assignment to find appropriate stock imagery for this client presentation we had coming up. I completey spaced out and wasted four hours by collecting nothing but photos of orangutans/chimps/baboons/etc and really old, wrinkly chinese women. I would have been in a lot of trouble (I've heard that the company is looking to let a few people go) but somehow I talked my way out of it. I told my manager that my meds got all screwed up and it has resulted in difficulty in concentration and a loss of general understanding. He gave me a personal day. I spent it at home, on the computer all day, subscribing to more internet amateur pornography websites: "bookworm bitches," "black bros, white hoes," and "bangboat." It really cleared my head. The booger joke at work was the only subsequent boobery since then, and I don't think anyone caught on that I was doing it on purpose. So the work situation is improving. I'm definately trying a lot harder. My kitty, the Judge, aka Johnny Panzer, aka Shakie Wilcox, aka Mussolini, is doing very well. He's so full of spunk. Holding him really makes me not hate everything. And I've started having intercourse again.