Yesterday I wrote a few things, they failed to thrive by attrition. I’m sure there is an easier way to say this, but I can’t manage it. The pieces fell into a shallow pool of vulgar humor and couldn’t bear the weight. That would make more sense if you went for a drive with me. I no longer understand the wetlands of the plains. Every piece of land is a thought away from becoming a marsh.
I would have thought my longing for home to have gotten duller by now, like a three year old bruise; it’s just become less insistent, but when it perseveres it comes with the same force as always. I’ve told myself I will not be returning to Oregon. I’m not sure I believe me. It’s difficult to see the future now, and it’s difficult to write.
I have never been able to predict the future but everyone sees it. See being figurative, sort of like dreams, sight isn’t the precise sense but within the boundaries of language it’s the one we agree on. Not the future as it exists, though that often isn’t hard to predict with just common sense and deduction, but the future the way we want it, or, in a more depressing mode, the way we think it will come despite our best efforts. I am rarely of the latter school, by rarely I mean never but hold out for the possibility that one day I might be. So the future is fuzzy. That’s a hard space to operate from.
Even something as silly as buying a lottery ticket has a glimmer of future to it, it’s a dollar worth of day dream. In Oregon lottery tickets and advertisements have on them in small print, not for investment purposes. Buzzkill. I haven’t paid much attention here, I’ve bought maybe three lottery tickets in three years.
I lived in Oregon when the measure went before the voting public as to whether or not to have a state lottery. I voted against it. Before we were married the seahag and I lived in a run down part of Lansing. I was working at the shabby offices of an alternative press and she was working at a wino grocery store. Magic Johnsons dad used to come in everyday to buy a bottle of fortified wine and a lottery ticket. Don’t think poorly of Magic, he wasn’t playing pro ball then, he was playing college ball. The reason we knew who he was is that his high school played against ours. We were very competitive but during the years Magic played we never moved past regionals. I want to say he played for Everett, but my memory slips.
My image of the lottery was wrapped up in broken men with the stink of sweet wine on them; not yachts and Lamborghinis. Of course what the fuck did I know; I was planning on being married to the seahag for life. I know that’s my own naiveté, still, I blame her a bit. The measure passed by a wide margin in Oregon. In 1990, freshly separated from the seahag, I had a ticket that was one number away from thirty million. The way things worked at the time it turned out to be worth a thousand bucks after taxs. I was never so unhappy to get a thousand bucks in my life. I did buy a blue and gold Oregon Lottery coffee mug when I went to the headquarters in Salem to pick up my money. My second poor marriage choice threw that away along with precious items before selling my house and killing my dog. It was a memento of disappointment. It held a good sixteen ounces of coffee though, so that was cool.
I would prefer that the past were fuzzy. Not that I obsess over regrets, I try not to have any and succeed often. Resentments are a little harder. I don’t really hold grudges, but I don’t extend trust twice either. Hmmm, that’s perhaps too sweeping a statement. Trust isn’t a single step; it’s a long flight of stairs. I’ll only stand at the top with you once. It’s difficult for me to admit to rigidity and in person I don’t present any, I also try to come across as less intelligent and less confident than I am. I could give you very practical and wise reasons why someone would do that, I honestly don’t know why I do, it’s just an old habit I picked up somewhere along the way when the future was a broad high sierra and I had no wives ex or otherwise. Any of those practical reasons has at their root a basic suspicion of humanity. I don’t really have that, but, perhaps, that’s because I have these habits. I’m more of a cynical optimist, or I was when the future wasn’t fuzzy.
And that’s the upshot; I have a hard time doing anything without a point of reference. Even something as implausible as winning the lottery is a point of reference, not a good one, but the relative goodness is moot when you haven’t any. It’d be simpler to make a burrito reference here but it would lead one astray (e.g. if you haven’t eaten in days and someone offers you a chicken burrito you don’t refuse it because you prefer beans. It sounds like Beggars Can’t Be Choosers, but, when it comes to castles in the air, like seeing your future, beggars have to be choosers, not making a choice leaves things … fuzzy.).
I’m writing this out so I can look at it from different angles. I surely don’t mean to cast aspersions on those that methodically plan and have a full three dimensional image of their future, or those that think they’ll skate on spontaneity alone (I believe I was doing that when I picked up habits and ex wives). Hmmm, no, I’m not going to apologize to hypotheticals; I am not suggesting anyone gaze inward and see whether or not their image of tomorrow is fuzzy; I would not myself if I could help it. I also might be completely wrong, it’s just a working theory, it could be symptomatic of some greater issue or it could be a talking point to keep this entry from failure to thrive in a stagnant puddle of vulgar humor.
For the record, I like vulgar humor. I just don’t like it when I’m aiming higher. No, wait, when I’m aiming elsewhere. I think if humor is valuable you can’t make a hierarchy, well, you can as it applies to your personal taste, I don’t think that humor is somehow a lower ambition. That doesn’t mean I’ll laugh at stupid jokes, but, you know, I think making music is a lofty ambition, doesn’t mean I like shit that hurts my ears. I’m just saying, I didn’t toss the scraps from yesterday because they tried to be funny; I tossed them because they were dishonest.
Yeah, yeah, I know. But in this case I have a point, it’s sort of a shrinks point and I find even low brow vulgar humor funnier than shrinks, but when you’re trying to go somewhere else and next thing you know you’re telling an obvious punchline, it’s deflection. If I’m paying an entrance fee and two drink minimum I expect deflection and it better be damn funny (though a comedy club is a bit like a lottery ticket, you get your monies worth either way; either with laughter or bitching.). If I’m paying two hundred bucks an hour to sit on a couch in a stuffy office, I expect insight.
Oh. That analogy caught me in an ugly truth. I’m a cheap bastard. I rarely pay for laughs or insight. I mean, shit, that’s what prosebox is for, right? Ok, it’s half an ugly truth or maybe a truth that’s just sort of plain and unadorned. Certain things I’ll pay a premium for. For instance, I drink often enough to drink cheap alcohol. Although I can keep old equipment running, I haven’t owned a computer less than six months out of date since 1989 (ok, this computer could be considered six months out of date, but it’s constantly being upgraded, and yeah, I don’t buy parts at retail, but that’s more of a game than penny pinching, I also bought a computer for my mom and a kindle fire, and so in this house there are six things that can access the internet at modern speeds. The Galaxy 6 is faster than any phone I’ve ever had, but, honestly I don’t use it for much more than texting and phoning, at least not at home). And, more to the point of the entry, if my future wasn’t so fucking fuzzy I’d buy lottery tickets which are expensive pieces of useless paper, I mean they are already written on with meaningless numbers.
One day I’ll be flat broke. That doesn’t scare me near as much as not quite being able to picture it does.
Huh. I’m spent. I did manage to avoid saying something like “… Hell if you help me find my keys we can drive out!” oops. Um, if you’ve never been a fifth grade boy in a Midwest college town you might not know the joke to that punchline. Consider yourself fortunate and count your blessings and if you have a son wash his mind out with soap before he explains it to you.
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