After a long day back at work, with month-end closings, and Holiday sells analysis and blah-blah-blah-blah…how about we get back to the basics? A few flashes into the rest of m’day, to carry with you:
Long walk looking at posh houses with Ma. I think they have their lawns cut with hair clippers. They also all have mullioned windows breeding like ancient rabbits. If you wanna make a lot of money, you should move here and take up window washing. It could be very lucrative. Or maybe I will. Shut up. I told you nothing. It was my idea the whole time. I have it in writing, so remember that.
…Eating warm falafel pieces with homemade tomatillo salsa, from The BFF’s oven. This is my second dinner for the night, so I guess it’s good that I did all that walking before. Chickpeas are yum, but I like their other name “Garbonzo beans” better. I think cuz it sounds like Gonzo. Which is both my favorite kind of journalism and Muppet. A coincidence? I think not.
…On a whim, we suddenly decide on the frozen yogurt bar.
She picks pistachio. (She’s wrong, but I love her anyway.) I get the vanilla and caramel mix. With marshmallows. She saves hers. I eat mine like it doesn’t matter how much shit I’ve already consumed for the day.
…We sit at The BFF’s house…me: flipping through a 1930′s intelligence book on fingerprinting as The BFF picks at her feet. She has monster calluses from Kickboxing. I have monster interest in old paper and weird research fetishes.
Me: (from behind book.) “Did you know you can’t permanently destroy your fingerprints? Even with burning and acid?”
The BFF: (frowning at her foot in closeup as she picks.) “Huh.”
Me: (still behind book.) “The ridges just grow back. Six months later. Here, look…there are totally pictures.”
…I don’t even show her the page. Why should she get to see all the good stuff just cuz I find it? Even if it is her book.
She grabs some scissors.
Me: (looking up at the flash of metal.) “Um, what the hell are you doing?”
The BFF: “It’s just for the dead stuff. It’s crazy…feel my calluses. Feel ‘em! Feel ‘em!”
…She waves her Flinstone feet in my face, which I refuse to touch on principle. They are all gnarly on the bottoms like she has a third career in firewalking. Which she might. She does a shit-ton of things on a daily basis, and I can’t possibly be responsible with keeping up on ‘em all.
…”I have nothing to blog about tomorrow,” I say, while returning to the book.
“You can always talk about me picking at my feet, while we listen to Tom Waits…”
(P.S. We are listening to Tom Waits. On vinyl.)
…”That’s just stupid,” I say, turning the page. “Why in the hell would I write about that?”
The BFF shrugs and I start reading about this one guy. It’s all about fingerprint ageing, following this one dude from twenty, through forty and into eighty. They all look exactly the same. “These fingerprints all look exactly the same,” the book says.
…And this gets me to thinking. Mostly about how to get the skin cells on fingertips to replicate all over the body…cuz then we would never change in appearance or age. Ever. I consider making this research my new career for the good of all mankind. Then I remember my first period Chemistry class in High School, and decide that if it’s up to me, mankind is basically just fucked.
…Unless you guys wanna get in on this. In which case, my fee-cut is a very reasonable 20%.
Me: (putting down the book.) “Doesn’t your Kickboxing class start in like five minutes?”
The BFF: “Twenty.”
…I sigh heavily as I lay there exhausted, from looking at pictures, and curing aging and rich people’s dirty windows.
“I need a nap,” I announce, as I heave myself from the couch. “Call me later.”
…The BFF answers without looking up, with a sound that I know means, “sure/maybe/whatever,” as I walk out the door.
Once home, I put on “Alias” again. Because I can’t help myself.
Season two. Near the end. Don’t spoil it for me or I’ll have to kill you.
…I turn abruptly, and bang my fucking knee on the the same fucking edge of the fucking coffee table that I do every goddamn day. The bruises have never healed since I first brought the fucker home, six years ago. In the end, it’ll prob’ly be the thing that cripples me.
…I take it out on a pillow. He takes it like a man. I plow into the couch, and press “play.”
As the last episode wrap-up begins, I look at my laptop in the corner there, and my brain begins to chant.
My Brain: “what-to-write, what-to-write, what-to-write…?”
I think of a finger, dressed like Sherlock Holmes, who solves crimes primarily via errant prints. Maybe it’s a children’s series. Or something like Sponge Bob which applies to grown-ups with dependency issues. This would double my viewership, easily. Then I think of The BFF picking her feet to Tom Waits poetry.
I take the lesser of two evils and just fucking commit…like a Gonzo journalist should.
…Sometimes, it’s all you have.
…That, and a whole lot of expletives.
~D
