Twice: How it is, You Know?

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End

The normal school year has come to an end. Summer school begins next week, and my hours become a little disjointed but I can manage that. I finished my first year at Fontbonne, and kept a very busy schedule, so I know I can handle it. Some things are just worth working towards, you know? It is best to think logically. Think of what you want. Think your way around obstacles. No problem is too difficult. No situation is hopeless. It just takes patience, intelligence, and perseverence. And this is how I keep going every single day.

is this still here?

is this still here? i sometimes lose track of things. i’ve been busy. i want to write more. school keeps me very busy. this summer, though, my classes and work will both be a lot less maintenance. maybe i can write more?

i have so much to write about. fears. aspirations. hopes and dreams. trista and penny and joe. the holy trinity? the only trinity?

well this IS still here, and so am i. i’m not going to disappear, even if i am flying under the radar.

HORSERADISH

by Lemony Snicket

There is an old story which may or may not interest you but nevertheless will be the bulk of this introduction, the way a horrid breakfast can be the bulk of your morning or a long car chase can be the bulk of your week. The story concerns a woman who lived in a small grass hut with her husband, in a remote village surrounded by an enormous field of horseradish, which is a very bitter root. Like many people, the woman and her husband did not care for horseradish, so every morning the woman would fish for lake snails, while her husband would gather raisins in the fields, and each night they would have a horrid meal of raisin-stuffed snails. After several years of this, the woman began to wonder something.

“Husband,” she wondered out loud one evening, “life must be more than sitting at home doing the same thing over and over, don’t you think?”

“Beats me,” said her husband, with his mouth full of snail. “But the other day you mother was telling me about a wise man who lives on top of a mountain someplace. He’d probably know.”

“That’s interesting,” the woman said, and excused herself from the table to the next-door hut where her mother was sitting on a grass sofa, gazing out a grass window at the field of horseradish and cutting her toenails. “What’s this I hear about a wise man?” the woman asked her mother, wondering if life was more than watching one’s relatives do unpleasant things.

“Miss Matmos told me about him,” the woman’s mother said, struggling with a particularly difficult toenail.

“Miss Matmos?” the woman repeated. “You mean my old third-grade teacher?”

“She lives on the other side of the horseradish field, near the fishing pole storage facility,” the woman’s mother said, “and she was saying something about a wise old man who lives on the top of a mountain.”

The woman hurried through the field of horseradish to the fishing pole storage facility, where every day she hung her fishing pole next to all the other fishing poles for safekeeping. Sure enough, Miss Matmos was sitting nearby, writing insults in the margins of her students’ papers. The woman watched her old third-grade teacher scrawl “You’re an idiot!” in bright red ink, and wondered if life was more than the grim tasks one must perform at school and at work. “Miss Matmos,” she asked, “I was wondering if you knew anything about a wise man who lives on top of a mountain.”

“Well,” said Miss Matmos, “the mountain is very far away, and the climb is very difficult and quite dull. If you’re going to go, I’d suggest you take a book with you.”

Miss Matmos handed the woman a book and sent her on her way, which was far, difficult, and dull as the third-grade teacher had described it. As the woman walked the hundreds of miles to the mountain, she read the book to tatters, and although it was a wonderful story called A High Wind in Jamaica, she could not help wondering if life was more than being entertained by literature. As she made her way through the thorny bushes that grew at the base of the mountain, she grew exhausted and thought sadly of her husband, and she wondered if life was more than traveling from one place to another, suffering from poor emotional health and pondering the people one loves. As she climbed the mountain’s monotonous peaks, she stared down at some people at the bottom of the mountain, who appeared to be doing something suspicious, and stared up at the dull gray flowers that grew in the mountain’s cracks, and she wondered about people who lead a life of mystery, and about the mysteries of life. As she approached the top of the mountain, where she could see the condominium owned by the wise man, it grew very dark, and the woman wondered about the overall feeling of doom that one cannot escape no matter what one does. She grew closer and closer, and kept wondering about all the things she had been wondering about for all these many months, as well as miscellaneous things that I have neglected to mention in specific. Finally, the woman was so high up that her grass hut was merely a faraway green speck, and the horseradish field a tiny, bitter square, but without even a glance at where she had come from, she knocked on the door of the condominium, and within moments she was facing the man she had come all this way to see.

“Oh great wise man,” she said, “I have been wondering so many things. Is life more than sitting at home doing the same thing over and over? Wise man, is life more than watching one’s relatives do unpleasant things, or more than the grim tasks one must perform at school and work? Is life more than being entertained by literature, wise man, or more than traveling from one place to another, suffering from poor emotional health and pondering the people one loves? And what about those who lead a life of mystery? And the mysteries of life? And, wise man, what about the overall feeling of doom that one cannot ever escape no matter what one does, and miscellaneous things that I have neglected to mention in specific?”

But the man was already shaking his head. “You’ve got it all wrong,” he said. “I’m not a wise man – I’m a wide man.”

He took a step closer to her, and sure enough the woman could see that he was substantially overweight, particularly around the hips. “Then you don’t know the answers to my questions?” she asked.

“No,” the man said, “And furthermore, this is private property.”

With a slam of the door and a rude “Harrumph,” the man was gone, and the woman began her long, difficult, and dull journey all the way back to her home. When she finally approached the grass huts, quite tired and extremely hungry, she saw her mother sitting on the front grass stoop, cleaning her ears with a long, slender pole the woman recognized at once.

“That’s my fishing pole!” said the woman. “I need it for work!”

“Where in the world have you been?” the woman’s mother asked. “You walked away in the middle of our conversation! I didn’t hear from you for months, so I assumed you didn’t want your fishing pole anymore.”

“I’ve been on a long, disappointing journey,” the woman replied. “Aren’t you even going to welcome your daughter home?”

“I have a new daughter,” the mother bragged, and then called into her hut. “Come on out sweetie!”

To the woman’s surprise, Miss Matmos stepped out of the hut, dressed in a long, white bridal gown. Following alongside was the woman’s husband, who was wearing a tuxedo.

“You just got up in the middle of dinner and left for many months,” explained the husband, “so now I’m getting myself a new wife, who asks fewer questions than you do.”

“I’d invite you to the wedding feast,” said the woman’s mother, “but I don’t want to. Now please excuse us – the wedding procession is about to begin.”

The woman heard a fanfare of kazoos, and saw that many of her neighbors had gathered to usher the bridal couple to the far corner of the horseradish field, where a rabbi was waiting to marry them. The woman’s mother led the way, followed by the husband and Miss Matmos, and before long the woman was all alone, still quite tired and extremely hungry. Knowing that she would not get a bite of the catered food at the wedding feast, she tugged a horseradish root out of the ground and gnawed at it glumly. As the bitter taste invaded the woman’s mouth – the same mouth that had asked all those questions to which she still did not know the answers – the new bride turned around and called out one last thing to her.

“By the way,” said Miss Matmos, “I was going over my old grade books, and it turns out you flunked third grade.”

The moral of this story, if you are interested, is that there are bitter truths you cannot avoid in this world, whether you are wondering about home, family, school, work, entertainment, literature, travel, emotional health, affairs of the heart, a life of mystery, the mystery of life, an overall feeling of doom that one cannot ever escape no matter what one does, and miscellaneous things that I have neglected to mention in specific. For your convenience, some of these bitter truths have been placed into this* somewhat handy book, and arranged into thirteen chapters so that any time you are wondering about something, you can open the book and read a bitter truth or two, rather than go to the trouble of trying to find a wise man, particularly in your neighborhood where so few of them live.

*the book is Horseradish by Lemony Snicket

Linger

Oh, wow. Whew. Yeah, just give me a moment to breath. Ooh, that hurts. No, I’m ok. It was an accident, I know, I know. It’s ok. I know you didn’t mean to. Whew. Just give me a minute. Let me sit for a second. Yeah, it’s pretty much the worst pain in the world. No, no, it’s not your fault. I can’t explain how it feels. It’s because you’re a woman. You’ve never been hit in the balls.

Yeah, I can honestly say it is the most horrible, lingering pain you could ever experience. Don’t feel bad it happens. Just promise me you’ll never do it on purpose, love, to anyone. No excuses. Not even your worst enemy deserves a direct hit to the groin. You just don’t do it. It’s one of those unspoken agreements. It’s one of the 4 most important rules for living: Don’t disrespect your host, don’t let your new girlfriend meet your old girlfriend, never sleep where it’s unsafe, and don’t hit a man in the balls. Rules to live by.

Well, now I feel stupid. Come to think of it, I’ve broken all four of the rules – in one night, I’m ashamed to say. Yeah, at a party. Only at a party could you break all four. When I was living in Kirksville. It was a cold Saturday night in January. Shane Mullen was having a party at his house.  A tall, white, two story place with a covered back patio. What did he call it? The Bodega! That’s it! What a stupid name. Well, only Shane could get away with that. The man lived and breathed partying.

So I get to the party a little early. I know you hate how I do that, love, but there I was, in the living room. Only a few others were there and the party was just warming up. Shane put on some music, a few people were dancing. I figured it was going to be a great night. So this guy, Ben, is staring at me. He’s on the couch, bored. He hated being early to parties and thought I could save him.

“Hey, Pini!” he yelled, “Entertain me!”

And I hate to disappoint, so I acted. With not a moment to spare, I proceeded to do the one thing I could think of in that moment that would cause laughter, tears, and provide every sort of entertainment. I whirled around and punched Shane Mullen in the balls.

Ben laughed. Shane cried and fell to the floor. I was mortified with what I had done. What was I thinking? No, I wasn’t. You’re right. I just acted. It’s a dangerous thing – leaping before you look. But Ben had caught me off guard. Entertain me, he had said. And so I left all logic behind and acted. I punched the party’s host in the balls.

“Shane, oh God, I am sorry” I told him. I immediately felt stupid. I hadn’t even been drinking yet! “Look, man, that was really uncalled for. I can’t tell you how much I’m sorry. If it makes you feel any better I’ll let you take a shot at me. Any time you want. I deserve it. You can hit me as hard as you can. As hard as you want. And if I don’t yell ‘Ow! My Balls! I deserved it! ‘ when you do it, you can do it again. Over and over, or wait until later. It’s because I deserve it.”

I decided it was time to get a drink. By that time the party was getting wilder. People were showing up left and right. Friends, strangers, exgirlfriends who I avoided, and new girlfriends to flirt with. I saw Jenny had come in. We had just started seeing one another. I went and got her a drink. We danced to some radical pop hits from the eighties. I prank called her phone.

“Who is it?” she asked as I handed her my phone.

“It’s for you!” I said. I had called her voice mail.

“Hello? Hello?” she was leaving herself a message! “No one is there.” She gave me the phone back. “Look, I’m going to get going but I had a great time tonight.”

“Me too.” I said.

She hugged me, “See you tomorrow?”

“Of course,” I replied.

She went to grab her purse. I returned to the phone: “Hey, Jenny, you haven’t received this yet, but I wanted to let you know how much I like you. I think you are the most wonderful girl in the world and I never want to be away from you. I hope you listen to this on your way home and think of me. Sorry for tricking you into talking to your own voice mail.”

On Jenny’s way out the door, she met eyes with Aimee, my ex. There was an awkward moment that seemed to last forever as they passed one another. I watched Jenny go as Aimee approached.

“Who do you think you are?” Aimee yelled at me. “You know she’ll never love you the way I do. She’s a slut. And she doesn’t care about you. You are stupid if you don’t realize that. She will never love you the way I do.”

I replied, “But you broke up with me.” She stormed off.

By this point I was too drunk to stand. It had definitely been an interesting night. I had already broken three of the four important rules. There was no way for me to get back home, though. So I settled for Shane Mullen’s couch as the party all but died.

Maybe I was brave. Maybe I was too trusting. Maybe I was too drunk to think. I fell asleep on Shane’s couch. I had punched a man in the balls and now I was helpless on his couch. Shane could have at any moment driven a diesel powered fist, into my helpless crotch. I could have been drilled into the cushion, then floor, and cold, cold dirt, butt first as my body folded at the crotch against the powerful, vengeful fist of a host done wrong. But nothing happened that evening.

I woke the next morning alive and crotch-punch free. Perhaps I had found a safe place to sleep. As I got up from the couch, I felt something poking me in the back. I reached into the cushion. A kitchen knife. I had slept on a kitchen knife. I must have been too drunk to notice. How it got there is beyond me. It must have been some party. On top of a kitchen knife is  never a safe place to sleep.

So I broke all four rules in one night. I suppose I was a little reckless that night. I let down my guard. Those were carefree years, though, love. You know I’m a bit more mature today. Right? Right?

Shane payed me back, eventually. Two years and four months later. On the eve on my college graduation. We were at the banquet, dancing and drinking like that night at the Bodega. Ben was there. Aimee was there. Jenny was there. The crowd lured me into the circle and begged me to show off my dance moves. They cried “Entertain us, Joe!” So what could I do? I jumped into the middle and danced away, care-free. Shane slid across the dance floor, fist blazing. A direct hit to the nut sack. I said you should never, ever do such a thing, but I think Shane was justified. I fell to my knees and screamed “Ow! My balls! I deserved it!” And I did. I really, really did.

Angels and Devils on my shoulder

Angels and demons are inhuman. Therefore they have no free will. Therefore the image of the angel and devil on either shoulder of a person, whispering “Do it!” or “Don’t do it!” in that person’s ear is incorrect.

Angels and demons would be unable to give opinions or sway decisions without free will. They could only speak truths. If you were tempted (and the temptation is your own) to rob a bank you would hear the same thing from both beings: “You’ll be rich.”

Then it is up to you, for you have free will, to decide what that means coming from each. Yes, the angel speaks truth but what is right or good or even easy about being rich. Yes, the demon speaks truth but what is at stake?

Our consciences know no evil or good. This is why i do not believe in bad or good people. There are truths which have no negative equal. It is how one behaves, knowing truths, that we falter or succeed.