Category: Postaday

Posted on

I, A Go-With-The-Flow Kinda Guy, Don’t Have Enough Passion to be Jealous

Postaday for May 8th: Green-Eyed Lady. We all get jealous from time to time — what wakes the green-eyed monster for you?

I can’t think of how I suffer from jealousy. But everybody suffers from jealousy, so I’m going to characterize that as a character flaw in myself. I wish I suffered from jealousy! I want to suffer from jealousy. I am so envious of you people who suffer from jealousy.

And trust me, I know what jealousy can do. Oh, to have that drive. But I don’t, so there must be something wrong with me. For example, this happened recently. I have this good friend, let’s call him Oliver. Oliver is the captain of our pub trivia team, Venetian Blondes. Oliver decided to make this guy Charles the co-captain of our team, even though I‘m, like, the best when it comes to 1997 Mariners trivia. But am I jealous? Nope.

Anyway, this girl, let’s call her Desiree, starts hanging out with Oliver. Whatever. I don’t even know about it until Rodney the bartender tells me, and he only tells me because he wants Desiree for himself. So I’m all like, fine, let’s kill two birds. I tell Oliver that Charles is putting the moves on Desiree. I figure, he’ll kick Charles off the team, and I’ll be co-captain, and then we can totally kick ass in the pub trivia finals. We’re going up against the Master Turkey Basters, those jerks!

Oliver goes ballistic. He’s all like, “we need to take Charles out.” And I’m all like, “you know it!” I get the paperwork to have Charles removed from the team. I give it to Rodney. Rodney calls Charles. They get into a fight. Charles totally kicks Rodney’s ass. I can’t have that, so while they’re brawling, I bust a glass on Chuck’s head. He goes down. I call an ambulance, ride with both guys to the hospital. While we’re on our way, I accidentally pinch the line on Rodney’s oxygen mask. Accidentally, I swear.

We get to the hospital, and guess who’s there. Only Oliver and Desiree! I guess kicking Charles off the team wasn’t enough. He had to take it out on Desiree too, sheesh! She’s in a coma, Rodney’s in a coma. Chuck is in a coma, and then this girl Emily shows up, and she’s all like, he lied! Desiree never slept with Charles! And Oliver goes nuts, attacks me, and when the cops come running, he throws himself out a window. Now Oliver’s in coma. Great.

Everyone is in a coma except for me. It’s not fair. All I wanted was to help my team win, and these idiots get crazy jealous and put themselves in comas and now I’m all alone. Not cool. And now I’m thinking, if only I’d been jealous, too, maybe I would have done something crazy and get to be in coma like all my friends. I just want to be a normal everyday jealous person.

But I can’t! And it’s breaking my heart. How do you people do it? How are you able to be so human? Why can’t I be deep and emotional like you people?

Posted on

To Err is Human, to Forgive is… um…

Postaday for May 7th: Forgive and Forget? Share a story where it was very difficult for you to forgive the perpetrator for wronging you, but you did it — you forgave them.

I can’t remember having ever forgiven someone because, you know that proverb: forgive and forget. Wait, not proverb. Psalm. No, not psalm, maybe… idiom? Cliche. Saying? Folkway. I don’t know what it’s called! But I always do it: forgive and forget.

Remember that movie, Momento? (it would be a delicious irony if you didn’t). I’m like that guy when it comes to forgiveness. I’ve even taken to tattooing the names of people I’ve forgiven on my thigh (this is a total lie but so is the forgetting thing).

I can’t tell you the numbers of times I’ve found myself sitting in a filthy motel room, needle in one hand and a broken Bic pen in the other, cell phone cradled in one shoulder as I talk to some strange person about forgiveness. These memories are in black and white. There’s a post it note stuck to one knee, with a name on it, or names, or sometimes a doodle of a duck. I think I must have had some serious issues with ducks in my life because I’m always finding post it notes around my house and I can’t help but think, when the heck did I draw this?

On my right leg I’ve got my wife’s name three or four times, which make sense: people in love hurt each other all the time. Forgive and forget, it’s how a marriage lasts. Also on that leg: my dad, my mom, by brother, and my wife’s sister and her husband. That last one has something to do with a train in Switzerland. Or maybe Sweden. I don’t really remember.

On my left leg I’ve got Robert Downey Jr, the 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers, Twizzlers, and the ending of Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl.

Notoriously absent: Oklahoma City, a bouncer at the Taj night club in Vegas, Verizon, 1986, and every single freakin’ person who changes lanes more than once in less than a quarter mile on Highway 5.

In general I’m a pretty easy-going person. I don’t have to forgive very often because I don’t take offense too often. At least I don’t think I do. It’s hard to remember. For example, I don’t remember names very well at all. Maybe the reason I can never remember names is because those people always offend me? Maybe, instead of being embarrassed every time I see someone and realize I can’t recall their name, instead I should be angry?

“Hey good to see you again!”
“Hi…”
“Jason, right?”
“Yes… uh…”
“It’s Dave.”
“Ah, right, Dave. You bastard.”

Memory’s a funny thing. So’s forgiveness. And it occurs to me that a saying I’ve heard, “first you must forgive yourself” does not bode well for me. Or maybe that’s an idiom. Or a Psalm. Darn it, I can’t remember!

Posted on

The Bukkhead Comes with a Side of Maui Onion Potato Chips

Postaday for May 6th: You, the Sandwich. If a restaurant were to name something after you, what would it be? Describe it. (Bonus points if you give us a recipe!)

I have no idea why a cheese, mustard, and pickle sandwich tastes so good. But it does. Not all of the time, but sometimes. And I’m talking cheap-ass cheese, cheap-ass mustard, none of your Grey Poupon here, monsieur. French’s Yellow Mustard. But good bread, quality bread, thick slices, white bread.

If I had my druthers I’d be the type of person who gets hungry around 11:45, shuffles out the door with his Chromebook under his arm, and waddles to a nearby cafe and orders a Bukkhead (on white). So there’s me eating my sandwich and tippy-tapping the day’s blog entry.

They’d name it after me because I’d eat it every day. Some days it would have onions on it. Some days the pickles would be sweet. Occasionally, instead of American cheese, it would be a hand-sliced slab of sharp cheddar, and the mustard would be brown, and the bread would be fortified white. It would still be a Bukkhead.

Other days it might be a more wheaty-bread than white, a more mayonnaisey-mustard than yellow, a more lettucy-cheese than American, a more turkey-like pickle than dill. Still a Bukkhead, though.

Maybe the blog would be influenced by the sandwich ingredients. No, I have a better idea: the sandwich would be influenced by the blog. No one would know how or why. I’d lock my front door, shuffle to the cafe, stand there in front of the ordering counter and peer at the menu as if I hadn’t memorized it years ago, a thousand blog entries ago, as if I wasn’t going to order what I always order. “Gimme a Bukkhead,” I’d say and:

As I’m typing up a screed lambasting the new proto-nerds for their hypocritical denigration of so-called neckbeards, Carl, the chef, is grabbing sauerkraut and corned beef. As I’m pecking away at a short story about a secret door behind Mrs. Tanner’s refrigerator, Carl’s looking for the pimento-loaf and the thousand island dressing. As I’m formatting a review on a novel I’ve just read about a Henry VIII’s Thomas Cromwell, Carl’s adding a few dashes of paprika to give the egg-salad some zip.

He rings a bell. Order up. The kid grabs it, brings it to my booth. Sets it down. For a few moments gazes at the rapid-fire staccato of my two index fingers whizzing around the flat keyboard. Until I start to slow down. He blushes like he caught a glance of his dad coming out of the shower. I give him a look as he walks away, which he doesn’t see, but Carl does. It’s a look that seems to say “I don’t know how I do it either, kid.”

I pick up my Bukkhead and take a bite. Chew slowly. First it’s the tang of the mustard, and then the vinegar bite of the pickles comes through. The coldness of the pickle against the softness of the bread. Chew, chew, swallow, the tang and bite fade to the fullness of the cheese. Inhale,exhale, another bite, set the sandwich down, go back to the keyboard. Correct some typos.

Posted on

Gunshots Heard at 4:30 PM

Postaday for May 5: Idyllic. What does your ideal community look like? How is it organized, and how is community life structured? What values does the community share?

Yesterday at about 4:30 PM I heard gunshots. It took about 30 seconds for that to filter through me head. We watch so much violent TV, play violent video games, read violent books, visit violent web sites, drink violent coffee, shop at violent discount markets, eat violent bananas, sleep in violent beds with violent pillows and dream about so many violent cows wearing tutus and playing violent flutes that we sometimes don’t recognize real violence when it happens. But eventually I dialed 911.

I was connected with the state troopers, and I could barely understand what the fella on the phone was saying. I told him I heard what sounded like gunshots, and he asked me if I was in Seattle. When I said, yes, he said he would put me through to Seattle PD. The phone rang and rang and rang. The guy was still listening though.

Then I heard sirens, lots and lots of sirens, and I told the guy this. He took my name and number. Half an hour later the Seattle PD called me, asked me what my emergency was. I told him about the shots, and they said, yeah— multiple reports. He thanked me and said to keep my eyes open!

More sirens, and helicopters. At one point I could see the helicopters through one of my skylights. It was right above our house! I set the alarm. I found a website with a police scanner, and listened to that for a while. Heard nothing about what was going on, but did here a lot of other chatter. The police in Seattle are not idle.

Later in the evening, I went to the Seattle Police Blotter website, and read:

Officers are investigating after gunfire erupted in the Haller Lake neighborhood Monday afternoon.

Several residents called into 911 after hearing gunshots at about 4:30 PM in the 13500 block of Roosevelt Way North. So far, officers have found no victims or damage as a result of the shooting.

Officers have collected shell casings at the scene and are speaking with witnesses now. According to witnesses the suspect shot several times out of his car window and then fled the scene. Police are searching the area for the suspect vehicle.

I’m guessing it happened at the 7-11, the one I go to for Cokes and frozen burritos.

My house sits well off the road, at the end of a long driveway. I have easy access to highway 5, and shopping is convenient, with options less than a mile away. There’s that 7-11, which has a gas station next to it. There are parks and churches around here, bus stops, schools, and not a heck of a lot of traffic.

I like all of that. But here’s my favorite part, which I’ll quote from the report above:

Several residents called into 911

People are people, and things are going to happen, no matter where you go in the world. This is my ideal community— a place where folks let each other be, but keep their eyes and ears open, just in case.

Posted on

A Football Makes a Lousy Briefcase

Postaday for May 4th: Coming To a Bookshelf Near You. Write a summary of the book you’ve always wanted to write for the back cover of its dust jacket.

In a novel of slapstick mayhem and unrelenting self-contradiction, a robotic assassin makes chaos out of hubris and peanut butter out of chaos. The crunchy kind.

Chris Hutchins is just a lousy GS-11. He occupies that lonely every-man’s land on the edge of the spy world, close enough to look in, but bolted firmly on the wrong side of the bullet-proof plexiglass.

Lancaster is the ultimate assassin, spy, evil genius, oxford comma connoisseur, and cowboy aficionado, all wrapped up into one metal-alloy skeleton. His mission: he could tell you, but then he’d have to kill you. Come to think of it, he doesn’t have to tell you anything, since he’s going to kill you anyway.

When a series of increasingly ridiculous assassinations force the spy community to put their differences aside and take action, the metaphors start to fly like broken china in a shop run by bulls. Or something. Surfing the edge of the sea foam on the waves of Lancaster’s dastardly plan, Chris has only one hope—that the author will stay drunk enough, long enough, to focus on the plot and stop toying with the fourth wall so much.

Drawing from the very tropes that prop up almost 90% of all spy fiction, and unabashedly stealing from the originality of the other ten percent, this is, if not a hilarious novel, at least a hilarious attempt at one.

Posted on

The Only Flip-Flops I Got Are On My Feet

Postaday for May 3rd. Flip Flop Think of a topic or issue about which you’ve switched your opinion. Why the change?

Over the course of my life I’ve changed my life a lot. I suppose everyone has. “All I know is that I know nothing.” Maybe that’s where wisdom comes from: being wrong a lot. Not that I think I’m right, now. Well, I mean, of course I think I’m right, now. No one thinks “what I think is wrong and I’m not going to bother thinking what’s write.” Then again, I’m pretty sure this opening paragraph is pretty bad… ah, but that’s laziness when I say I’m not going to bother to fix it.

I’ll admit, I’m having trouble thinking of a topic that I’ve switched my opinion on, at least that’s interesting to write about. Interesting to me, I mean. Maybe this one: When I was a kid they showed us some films in grade school to convince us to never drink or do drugs. And they worked! I was a teetotaler until I was 29. In my 20s I convinced myself that the problem wasn’t the alcohol itself, but the culture, the way youth seemed to almost worship inebriation. Young wannabe priest communing with Bacchus. Then one day I realized I was fetishizing NOT drinking, so I decided, meh, bottom’s up. Got drunk, for the first time, with three scantily clad young ladies. Body shots were involved. True story. Now I’m a regular alcohol aficionado.

But I draw the line there. (Also, I don’t drink with scantily clad females anymore). No drugs. Weed is legal in this state, but my wife works for the federal government, so for her it’s still off limits. I have no problem with also abstaining. For her sake. (Not sure what I can tell you about the future though, when she retires.)

Can’t think of anything interesting, though, in the ol’ flip-flop department. And you know what? It’s stalling me, keeping me from writing about something else. I just spent five minutes browsing Reddit, looking for inspiration. So here: on the topic of having changed my mind about something, I have changed my mind from “I can write about that” to “I cannot write about that.’

When in doubt, go meta.

Posted on

I Can’t Even Think of what I’ve Been Doing Lately

Please note: this entry uses graphic language and disturbing imagery.

Postaday for May 2nd. Beyond the Pale. When was the last time you did something completely new and out of your element? How was it? Will you do it again?

fiction by Jason Edwards

I can’t even think of what I’ve been doing lately. Going to work, coming home, fixing the broken step out front, spending my weekends with the AM radio and the ball game , drinking beer, sleeping, eating Mexican food, reading novels, mowing the lawn, browsing the internet, stalking ex-girlfriends, stealing money from my wife’s purse, pouring gasoline in her flowerbeds, watching old TV on latenight cable, walking off my diabetes, listening to old recordss, setting a few plants on fire, lying about doing the weeding, lying about mowing the lawn, lying about not touching my wife’s purse, letting her blame some of the kids at church, encouraging her to tell the pastor by saying I didn’t think she should, since she never does what I suggest, singing hymn 193 with an Irish accent to see if anyone would notice, gently working my way up the pews week by week until we’re sitting in the row across the aisle from Hal and Lisa, timing my glance to the right so that I can look at Lisa’s legs when she stands, memorizing the large mark just above her knee that looks like Madagascar, looking up Madagascar on the internet, code-naming my porn folder Madagascar, waiting for my wife to go to sleep and then sneaking down to the liquor cabinet to take a few belts of a cheap vodka, masturbating furiously, walking outside in my robe, taking a leak on the side of my wife’s car, trying to figure out how to blame the neighbors if I managed to burn all of her gardenias, wondering if there’s any point in blaming the neighbors, mentally calculating how many anti-histamines I’d have to sneak into her nightly glass of wine to get her to sleep deeply enough that I could get into her car and drive it to the church and break a few windows and take a dump on the hood and fuck it the front seat too and then call the police and tell them it was the same kids who stole out of her purse and then walk home in the dark and stop in at a bar and get into a fight and really go to town on some faggot and maybe break a knuckle or two and get aids and get kicked off my insurance and waste away in the hospital and ask my wife to pull the plug and then when she agrees too quickly justify in my heart hiring some thug to murder her and then have a miraculous recovery  and bury my poor wife and wallow in the casseroles and sympathy pussy since it wasn’t really aids and give some of the bitches in this stupid fucking neighborhood the aids cause I lied and it was and hope they pass it on to their husbands and their kids and their dogs and their fucking goldfish.

Ordinary shit. Gosh, the last time I did something completely new… I bought a hat, a trilby. Makes me look like an asshole but I wear it anyway.

Posted on

and his heart was going like mad

Postaday for May 1st. Your Life, the Book: From a famous writer or celebrity, to a WordPress.com blogger or someone close to you — who would you like to be your biographer?

James Joyce, mostly because I don’t like him. He’s overrated. He had a good thing going with Dubliners, and then screwed it all up with Ulysses. But he made Bloom the idiot seem epic. Bloom the ordinary, Bloom the pervert.

My life has been a nightmare, just like Circe chapter, except that was Night Town, not nightmare. Doesn’t matter. I never read that damn book. I tried, when I was a grad student in English. I ended up writing a paper about how often the damn book’s been republished. Night town, night mare, and me a pig, slave to his appetites. Another lie. I’m no slave, and the people who offer me up on tarnished platters the pills of my illnesses do so without even knowing who I am.

Nor does Joyce know who I am, the perfect objective biographer,  to tell my story and it’s no story at all.

Or maybe Camus: “He fornicated and read the papers.” Or Ford Madox Ford, not because he said “Higher than the beasts, lower than the angels, stuck in our idiot Eden.” But because “Ford Madox Ford” in large red letters on the cover of my biography would look really excellent.

No, it has to be Joyce. Here’s how he would write my trip to the 7-11 to get Cokes and frozen burritos:

“A few light coughs from the highway made him turn to the window. He winced: the sun had broken a few clouds. He gazed numbly the cherry blossoms leaves, wilted and scattering, that blanketed the long driveway below him. His stomach whispered him to walk the driveway to the road. Yes, the sunlight would fool him and he’d want for a jacket. Light reflecting off the sparkling asphalt, reflecting off the green painted road sign, the white of the letters, reflecting off the sharp metal perched in the telephone pole nests coasting again the white and blue sky. His stomach indifferent to the light and his shivering arms, wallet in his back pocket fat against this waddle, towards the convenience store, for sugar and grease.”

Okay, no he wouldn’t, not at all. That’s the fun of writing, not knowing what’s going to come out until it’s written. Maybe James Joyce can take overlong to write my biography too, and the fun will be in not knowing what will happen to me until he runs out of ink.

Posted on

The Week in Music

Postaday for January 31st: Playlist of the Week. Tell us how your week went by putting together a playlist of  five songs that represent it.

I get up in the morning and get on the internet, check the weather forecast and yesterday’s news. Use the bathroom, wake my wife up, have some coffee, send my wife out the door, and get on conference calls. Write a bunch of back-dated blog posts, gobble something for lunch, more con calls, greet the wife when she comes home. TV, dinner, TV, bed-time. Every day, all week long. Unless John Cage has been composing concertos for creaky office chair and Keurig machine, there is no playlist to describe such a week.

So let’s make a playlist for the way I’d like to the week to go:

  • Meximelt (live version) by Southern Culture on the Skids
  • Make Total Destroy by Periphery, covered by Zombie Frogs
  • Triad by Tool
  • Smash by Avishai Cohen
  • Lionheart by Emancipator.

Monday starts off with a surf-guitar offering. A rolling riff and tight drumwork get the week going with a lot of energy, setting up high productivity and not a little creativity to keep that mile-long to-do list under control.

Tuesday rolls right into a drum-and-piano instrumental cover of a heavy metal screamer. Virtuosity not only substitutes for rage and anger, but overcomes it, rendering even the most mind-numbing conference call worth the time and endurable .

Wednesday picks up where Tuesday left off, taking that virtuosity and rage and weaving it into a complex, multi-layered and nuanced negotiation of the otherwise disparate forces that threaten to thwart getting the job done. Guitar and drum cooperate, fight, cooperate.

Thursday seeks to simplify the complexities that had built up over the previous days, eschewing noise for a return to a rhythm-driven reminder that the job’s just a job. A bouncing piano floats on a tide of driving bass played on multiple bass-instruments, with a sharp drum set to stitch it all together.

Friday eases way back, takes the remaining energy and closes out the week with a quiet piano above drums that roll without rocking, drive without hurtling. Quiet interludes in vox and synthesized acoustic guitar foreshadow a peaceful weekend, while lingering strings  suggest the promise of the restful sleep to come, reward for a week’s work well done and necessary rejuvenations for the week ahead.

Saturday and Sunday are just a lot of Weird Al Yankovic.

Posted on

I Didn’t Even Want the Five Things I Did Take

Postaday for January 30th: Burnt. Remember this prompt, when your home was on fire and you got to save five items? That means you left a lot of stuff behind. What are the things you wish you could have taken, but had to leave behind?

Oh for fuck’s sake.

You want to know the truth? None of that stuff I recovered was all that necessary. Most of my computer stuff is saved in the cloud. Those books I grabbed aren’t all that good anyway. My engraved watch is nice, but I hardly ever wear it anymore, and the marathon it commemorates wasn’t that fast. The bottle of rum is so easily replaceable as to make me laugh, and I totally made up the part about my wife’s potato salad. It’s my mom’s recipe, and she’ll make it any time I want.

And as for that wedding album— I just needed a punch line. We have all the pictures on the computer, and like I said, that stuff’s all backed up in the cloud.

Don’t get me wrong, it was real fun running back into that fire. Nevermind the fact that if I hadn’t woken up when I did, I’d have died in it. Or that my wife seemed to be perfectly okay— she, apparently, made it out with plenty of time to spare, while I was left to snore away in the heat and smoke on our living room couch.

I’m being sarcastic, by the way. It wasn’t fun at all.

Nor was it fun dealing with the insurance people. Act of God, my ass. We finally got a check, for my half of what everything was worth. My wife keeps saying its my fault, that I didn’t demonstrate enough regret at all the things I left behind, all the things I didn’t save.

Well, sue me for not having an emotional attachment to crap. It’s all replaceable. Okay, maybe I like the way my ‘500 Mile Award’ Nike shirt felt after years of wash and wearing. I can buy a new one, but it’ll be new-shirt stiff, you know what I mean. But how am I supposed to use THAT to get a better settlement out of the insurance company?

What, I’m supposed to feel bad about the TV and the bed and the refrigerator full of fat-free Greek yogurt? Sorry, but not sorry.

The day before I that damned fire, I’d gone for a nice long run. Never synched my GPS watch, though. Now I’ll never know what my average speed on that run was. So, there. That’s the one thing I regret. Not.