A few weeks ago, I got really sick.

Well, really sick might be an exaggeration, or a relative term, but I got way more sick than I was before I got sick, which means I got more sick than normal, i.e. not sick.

I got sick.

How I got sick, it seems we’ll never know. The small army of doctors I’ve encountered over the last 15 or 16 days have told me that I probably just got it from the air, that it just happened…

This idea is…TERRIFYING. Apparently, previously unbeknownst to me, there are just viruses roaming around town like filthy invisible hobo vampires and they simply latch onto unsuspecting citizens sauntering by minding their own business. One moment you’re whistling on your bike thinking about barbecue and the next moment KABLAMO! You have SARS. Sorry  to so abruptly lift the veil for you all but (TRUTH BOMB!) this is how the world works.

So anyway, like I said, I got sick. It started out innocent enough, I had this mark on my arm and I was like, “that’s weird, what a weird mark on my arm, oh well it’s probably just dry skin or something.” (Rookie Mistake: dry skin doesn’t even exist! If you have what you think is dry skin it’s probably actually SMALL POX!!)

A few days later, that “dry skin” patch hadn’t gone away, in fact it had grown into a dry skin field with acreage that had somehow hopped to my left knee.

This is when I started to get concerned. I was like,

“Hey knee, how come you got dry skin just like my arm? did you guys coordinate this?”

and my knee was all like,

“Hey boss, maybe you should put down that fucking box of Chewy Lemonheads and start worrying.”

So things continued in that fashion and I started to think that I’d had an allergic reaction to something, so I logged through all the things I’d done or eaten that week and I couldn’t think of anything that was new or different. Then I thought maybe I’d developed an allergy to candy and I got really scared. Then I decided I’d just die as I’d lived if that was the case and so I continued living my life even though I was starting to get headaches and my hands were feeling really tight and it was hard to make a fist and I kept getting dizzy all the time.

So then like two weeks ago, things were getting worse and worse and it was my roommate’s birthday and I was out at this fancy restaurant with friends eating and it felt really hot in the building we were in and I was like “Boy it’s hot in here,” and everyone else was like, “Nah, not so hot dummy.” and I thought, “Huh, that’s odd.” and the food didn’t taste good for some reason, it was like my mouth was like asleep kinda.  I just drank more wine though, because I’d gotten a bottle for the table and I drank more old fashioned to help with the wine and my body felt like it was trying to come outside of me, like it needed to escape, but I didn’t know what to do so we went bowling.

At the bowling alley I had a lot of trouble with my beer so then I ordered another but the bowling ball was really heavy and I wasn’t str8 crushing it like I usually do when I bowl, or like I do like 45% of the time anyway, and I was thinking, “what gives?”

Things were starting to get pretty bad. Like at one point my roommate got up and I wanted to talk to him but I thought he was still sitting next to me and I started just talking to his coat. I was thinking, “I should probably go home,” so when the first game finished I announced, “I’d better go home, I’m feeling really sick.”Everyone was concerned and knew it was serious because it was way before bar close and we’d only bowled one game so that seemed really out of character for me.

I went home and I had a big fever because I took my temperature with this thermometer that my roommate in Senegal left for me and the battery has been low for the last two years but it still works kinda good and it said my temp was 100.5 which wasn’t that bad but it wasn’t that great. I fell asleep but the sleep wasn’t good because it was hot in my bed and itchy and my head hurt so I took some ibuprofen and it was a little better and I slept for a long time and hoped I’d be better in the morning.

 In the morning I definitely wasn’t better. I was a lot worse.

I gave it another day because a long time ago I had Malaria and I thought maybe this was just like a relapse bout of that like the old guy in that book The Cay.  So I felt heroic like that old guy and I figured if a hurricane came I’d strap myself to a palm tree and just ride the storm. I decided to wait it out because I’m stupid and also because I don’t have insurance and I’m scared of doctors because they seem to take your wallet and then empty it and then say “see all this stuff? This is mine now.” And I don’t have that much stuff so I was going to try to avoid that.

That was a terrible idea.

By evening I realized that I was really sick and I would have to call into work which was terrible because then I would have to go to the doctor and pay and I would have to not make money at the same time. It was a depressingly venomous monetary sting but it seemed the only scenario that was logical since the only free clinic I could find that wasn’t specifically for HIV/Pregnancy issues was run out of a church in Stevens and it was only open a few hours every week. It also didn’t look like they’d be able to help me much.

Then I googled my symptoms which were: hives, headache, fever, body ache, the big thing that kept coming up was Spinal Meningitis!

Just like that Ween song!

And I heard you can die from Meningitis like super quick, especially if you don’t get treated and if you have the bad kind where you can’t touch your chin to your chest. I tried touching my chin to my chest, it was really hard. I freaked out and called the doctor’s office to try to make an appointment but I was weary about how much it would cost so I kept asking them and they were getting irritated but they told me finally that without insurance I would get 50% off but depending on what happened in the appointment it could cost anywhere from 150 dollars to 750 dollars. I said I thought that was a pretty wide range, but there was nothing I could do and I’d decided I wanted to live to at least see if that Great Gatsby movie was gonna be good or terrible like I feared so I said I’d make the appointment and they said ok there was an opening at 1 pm. That seemed hard because it was 12:39 pm at the time, but they said that’s all there was for the day and then I said ok and I put pants on and shoes and a coat and I slowly zombie walked my sick ass the two miles to the clinic. 

At the clinic they didn’t know what I had but I didn’t have Meningitis they said. I was relieved by that. One doctor decided that I could just have an undiagnosed virus which means It’s just like a virus that there’s no name for (what the hell? That’s a thing?) but she thought maybe I had this thing called Pityriasis Rosea which is kind of like having the flu plus mild chicken pox and it can last between four weeks and 6 months. I said “awesome,” but I was thinking, “kill me now god.” so then she gave me some steroids called Prednisone but only three pills (not enough to juice up for the Majors) and told me to take Benadryl and the Prednisone and drink water and good luck. My other roommate was waiting in the waiting room for me because my roommates are really nice so then we snuck out so I wouldn’t have to pay the 100 dollar “I don’t have insurance” fee. The next day I went back and got my prescription and a bunch of gatorade and I prepared to wait it out. 

I figured if it took a normal person 4-10 weeks to get rid of this thing if I just acted like a super hero and drank kombucha like crazy I could get rid of it in like 36-48 hours. Things were going pretty good but then two days later my face swelled up so much that one of my eyes shut and my fever got a lot worse and I looked like Dudley Dursley from Harry Potter and I asked my roommates if I had to go to the hospital now and they said yes so we went. I was terrified of the hospital because it was like going to the clinic times 1000 as far as that “them taking all of the stuff” thing goes and I knew that people who go to the hospital without insurance are then poor for the rest of their lives and I would have liked to not be one of those people. 

At the hospital they assured me that I was going to be one of those people. Right away they were like, “Ok we’re going to admit you.” All of the doctors seemed flummoxed by me. First a burn treatment team came down and I told them that I didn’t have burns but that didn’t matter and then they sent some dermatology people and some general doctors and surgeons in and they all looked at me and prodded me and I put on this gown that really let my testicles breath but which made me feel pretty out in the open as far as the 30 or 40 doctors and med students who were poking and prodding me were concerned. 

No one knew what I had but they were all really sure that It wasn’t Pityriasis Rosea. For a while they thought I had this thing called Stevens-Johnson Syndrome which is often fatal so that scared me, but then they decided I didn’t have that. Then they thought I maybe had Lyme Disease or a Drug Rash as a reaction to something, or an allergic reaction. Then they thought maybe I had syphilis (Just like Al Capone!) but I’m not gross so I didn’t. But that didn’t stop them for running expensive tests for that and AIDS and Strep Throat (For the possibility that I had Scarlet Fever) and all sorts of other things. They admitted me because of my face because they were scared that my throat would swell up and close and I’d die and I got really scared when they said that, not because I was scared I’d die but because I was scared I was staying over night because that meant my visit would definitely cost thousands of dollars and I’m sure it did. 

So I stayed in the hospital and they took this skin biopsy from my hand where they plunged a big sharp cylinder thing into my hand to pull this like pencil eraser sized circular cross section of skin out of me to send to a lab to test. They put me in a room in family medecine and a crack team of nurses continued to bring me cranberry juices two at a time while doctors shuffled in and out to look at me because I was a mystery for them. I think a lot of younger doctors were assigned to come and take a look and ask all of the same questions everyone else had asked right before and then look confused and leave. At one point, I signed something for them so that they could take pictures of me since no one knew what I had. They wanted to later use it for teaching purposes. I thought that if they did take pictures and this became a learning experience, and also if they couldn’t figure out what I had by like midnight, it should follow 1980′s pizzeria rules where I get my visit for free. I don’t think that’s what is going to happen. 

At one point this doctor and the doctor from the clinic both came in and the doctor from the clinic said “Well this is a different virus from what I saw a few days ago.” And she said it kind of defensively as if she was mad that I had gotten sicker and it wasn’t what she had thought and I didn’t know if I should feel bad and then the other doctor thought maybe I had the Measles or the Mumps or something and so he squeezed my balls really hard because that’s apparently how you test that and he was like “Does it hurt when I do that?” and I was like “yes, a lot” and he was like “hmm,” as if that wasn’t the answer he was looking for. 

Then a doctor asked me if I’d taken any street drugs like Cocaine or Marijuana and I remember my brother telling me that they’d asked him that once and he said “Well Marijuana is more of like a forest drug really.” and so I started laughing but they thought I was laughing at “SpongeBob SquarePants” which is what I was watching, and then one of the doctors said, “We can get a channel guide for you so you know what stations you have. You shouldn’t just have to watch cartoons.” and I was like, “Yeah…Thanks…Wouldn’t want to just watch cartoons…”

And then they left because none of them had any idea what was going on. 

In the morning my face was less swollen and nothing was resolved and they almost made me stay another day but then didn’t because they realized it was useless. I went home and slept and laid around and read books and yesterday I went back to the hospital and they still didn’t know anything. They asked me if maybe I’d had an allergic reaction to something.

So officially I have something called an undiagnosed virus and it isn’t the worst but it’s not the best and it’s just going to stick around for a while. It’s not contagious even though I just got it from the air apparently. I also have a bill in the thousands from a bunch of people who don’t know what I have and who didn’t do anything really. But it’s really nice outside and I’m slowly feeling better so I guess I shouldn’t complain. I mean I didn’t die of scarlet fever…

First off, yes you all look great.

Of course you do. Shut up, stop being stupid. Take the compliment.

What?

No, ha, who said that?

Yes, I know spring is here! Yes, your butt does look great in those pants! My pants? No, these aren’t new pants, they’re just great pants. There’s no time! We’ve got to get down to business!

All my Suitcases and Casettes! It seems as if we have fallen into a pattern. This is undoubtedly my fault. Here are the phases of the pattern as I see them:

Phase 1:  A long period of blog inactivity

followed by

Phase 2: A two hour period randomly one day where procrastination about Drunken Suitcase gets to such a fiery dire state that I force myself to write a blog post out of sheer guilt.

Phase 3: A premature period of euphoria about ‘having written‘ (completely unwarranted since this is my…blog.) Happy about my newfound success (not real) I celebrate with several large strong drinks and maybe some dancing. I play this song seven or eight times in this period:

 Phase 4: Rip Van Winkle Sleepy times ensue, wherein satisfied from drink and the doubtless beginnings of major and utter literary success I fall asleep brimming with dreams of me and Kevin Costner saving the oceans and playing waterpolo as best friends etc…

Phase 5: Several days later I awaken and realize that my previous ideas about immediate success have not yet come to fruition. Furthermore the amount of web traffic and buzz about my once-every-six-months-blogpost hasn’t been as across the board internet ubiquitous as I expected. In a fit of rage I swear off writing and blogs for good and I smash all the mirrors in my house. I play this song seven or eight times in this period:

Followed by,

Phase 1:  A long period of blog inactivity

And so it goes on and the world keeps spinning.

However, that’s all about to change now. Because it’s spring. Also, because I ate this weird super potent weed rice crispy bar a few nights ago at an Easter party and it made me super super stoned for like 28 hours.

It turns out that this weed eating experience had a cathartic effect on me. The biggest stone that I unturned in my candy-filled drug addled mental sojourn was this simple equation:

18 year old me’s tolerance for weed>27 year old me’s tolerance for weed

But, as I sat in bed eating cherry sours in the dark and trying to learn to rotary breath for my jazz career, a lot of stuff about the universe started making sense. One of those thing was that I should be writing Drunken Suitcase things everyday. Another was how my addiction to candy has gotten really out of control.

Also we should rewind a bit:

A month ago, in an effort to drink less I tried to do a ‘no drink month’ with my roommate. He did excellent. I made it two days and had to start over and then kept starting over until I’d crossed out the post-it note where I wrote the start date so many times that I couldn’t cross it out anymore!
It was the middle of the month and so I gave up and just pledged to drink less which I’ve sort of stuck to. Here, for a bit of context are a couple other post it reminders in my room:

They aren’t working.

Anyway, in the two day period at the beginning of the month where I was a teetotaler I bought some weed (do people still call it weed?) because I figured that would help. The thing I forgot is that weed makes you really thirsty for things that taste more fun than water. I also forgot that weed makes me an idiot and a big sleepy sun bear and I just roll around and laugh at things and watch Kids In The Hall. Now I’m just drinking and smoking weed and so I’m just a 27 year old teenager with no cool tattoos even. It’s ridiculous.

Anyway though, even before that strange weed thing happened, me and everyone I know had gotten really into candy. It got pretty out of control and I was eating way too much and my teeth felt like they were gonna jump ship. I’ve sort of stopped now but it wasn’t pretty.

Here are the candies I eat/ate all the time:

1. Werther’s Originals (old people have the right idea about candy)

2. Cherry Sours (the most amazing candy anyone ever invented)

3. Reisens (when I’m feeling like a rich guy)

4. Bit O Honey ( the second most amazing candy anyone has ever invented)

I didn’t used to like candy at all, so it’s unclear whether or not this candy thing has anything to do with anything else but I eat it in bed a lot (where I take most of my meals) and then I wake up and there are gummy worms stuck to my face and my computer’s dead and everyone I know is disgusted with me.

So things have been weird. If you could chart all the weird things that have been going on it would be like a big blue chart with candy and weed and drinking and this deer skull that I bought to mount at our house but then couldn’t figure out how to get up there. There was a period where I got really into cranberry juice so that’d be in there somewhere too, and also I got super into sailing when I was drunk, and some other stuff. I took a tap dancing class…That was a thing…I was listening to This American Life for a few weeks so I bought some recording equipment…

I also get day drunk which I call “pro-drunk” where I’m just drinking but I’m like firing off emails and making phone calls too and I’m sitting at my desk. That’s a nightmare because I sober up and have to send apologetic follow ups to all those emails. Sometimes I just fill my french press with one big giant whiskey drink and then I pour it into a mug so I look official. It’s all quite fun, I mean lets be real, I have a pretty great time spinning on this big ol’ marble, but my hair is getting really grey.

Anyhoo, I got drunk and bought that deer skull which was a big win for me.

But then I also bought all these sailing books because it was cold and I hate the cold and I figured I’d probably just blow off this wintry tundra and hit the open sea with the wind at my back…So I bought 367 dollars worth of sailing books on Amazon….

I bought two copies of the same book on accident. It was troublesome. I bid on some sailboats on Ebay…I didn’t win because sailboats cost more than 300 dollars and so I sobered up and I got into intermittent fasting (it’s what astronauts do!) instead and I realized that I’m bad at making choices.

The whole point is, I ate that weird rice crispy weed bar (was that the point?) and it changed me. And the next day I woke up and there were crumbs everywhere in my bed and I went into work and realized that I was still really weirdly stoned even though it had been a really long time and that seemed sad and beautiful to me. And so I just kept my head down at work and didn’t talk to anyone and then I rode my bike home and everything made sense and I saw some kids playing outside and there were puddles everywhere and I mean things are pretty ok, right?

So I pledge undying allegiance to Drunken Suitcase and I pledge to write it just like my man Cost pledged to build it in Field Of Dreams. Hopefully Me and Shoeless Joe will have a catch or at least hopefully this blog will stay alive because I like it, even if I haven’t been showing it.

Your butt does look great in those pants…Just take the compliment.

My friend Peter’s cousin works as a dancer in Chicago at some swanky place downtown where top percenters and investment bankers make decisions that feel heavy in the morning. Sometimes when she comes into town we’ll go out and I’ll ask her that stupid question all people who don’t know things about dancing naked ask, about the crazy things she’s seen being a nude queen in a den of lonely. A few years back she told me this story that I’ve been thinking about lately.

Some of Pete’s cousin’s co-workers, who moonlight as escorts, would get hired by this big wig guy and whenever they did he’d rent two rooms in a hotel downtown, one directly above the other and then get three girls to accompany him there. In the suite he’d sit on the toilet while one of the girls went down on him and the other tied his arm and got a syringe ready to shoot him up with, I’m assuming, heroine. When he came, he’d give some sort of signal to the one girl and she would inject him with that sweet baby H and then with his other hand he’d fire a gun off into the air all simultaneously at his point of climax.

And that’s not all. 

The third girl (who got paid more than the two others) would just stand in the bathroom directly above the one they were in and wait for the gunshot. When the bullet came through the ceiling it was a gamble that she may get hit….with a gunshot! And that was what the guy liked! This was his ultimate pleasure/fantasy-tinged with the threat of murder. 

When I first heard this I was drunk and so I thought this guy was despicable but amazing. Later when I was more drunk it made me really sad because the world is super weird and gross.

Luckily, then I forgot about this weird thing for a long time..But then right around my birthday a few weeks back I remembered it and got bummed out because I haven’t yet gotten rich enough to poop and take heroine while getting a blowjob and firing a gun at a room where a girl hard up for cash might get killed.

Honestly though, If I was heroin-gun-toilet-bj rich, I’d probably use that money to Carmen Sandiego the hell out of here and move to Dakar or Trinidad or Mexico City and then I’d buy street food and drink beer and make a bunch of sweet best-friends that would join my sick breakdancing group, because rich me would be breakdancing a lot. 

I also always wondered if the girl upstairs really even stood in the bathroom or if she just sprawled herself out on the bed and watched The Biggest Loser until she heard a gun shot and then just like screamed and yelled “Phew, close one,” or something cause that’s what I’d do.

It’s cold here. I’m eating dahl and crackers and slices of cheese and I’m looking at Orbitz tickets to places where you can drink from coconuts with straws while counting down the minutes until I go to my job at a bar that has an animal in it’s name. There I get people drunk with syrups and infused alcohols and soda water and cava and the people always say things “finish complex” and ask day in and day out about whether or not dishes are gluten free, vegan, vegetarian, hierloom,truffle oiled or soy-based. We have Sheep’s Milk Skyr on our menu…I’m eating day old pizza in the back room while people “ooh” and “ahh” at poached shrimp and herbed creme fraiche and I smile and nod and think about comic books and funny jokes and tick away the hours. 

The point is, Drunken Suitcase is back. 

There are friendly ghosts swooping low over Washburn,

and above the freeway on that footbridge crossing 35, arrows of yarn point down into afternoon traffic and the ghosts point up-up-up!

Oh my paper bag covering cheap champagne queen, 

at the Native American Cultural Center, I voted ” Yes We Ghost.”

I love you like steelwool stuffed into an electrical socket in a sinking tugboat that lugs a trash barge in the bay at Mogadishu.

On the ship a woman loves a pirate as I love you: big and hard, helpless drunk.

drunk like me and want.

In the international airport in Miami as I’m making off with the loot, there are Robin’s eggs inside your chest.

And even now, as you’re stone and strange and the getaway car’s flooded, I’m happily absconding on foot.

Walking home from another, with that tired exciting feeling of restart, of over again, I love you like a marble in the snow next to a bus stop on 26th near a Magnet school.

Love found by a child, eleven years old, pawed at through mitten, as he and my love are ushered onto the number 11 bus by the mother still young and good and worried enough to be both Ariel and Ursula.

There’s this thing in Saint Laurent, called the “little summer,” where the rain lets up and the sun comes out and it stays out for a month or so. Everything is lusher and yellows and greens and the roads get dusty again and women switch their umbrellas into parasols and it’s all quite nice I’ve heard.

And me and my pal Joie, we’ve been hearing the rumors: all the little ones saying, “it’s the ‘little summer’ monsieur!” And then we say “It Is!? I’m so happy! Have some popsicle!?” And we all share the popsicle I bought even though it can’t be sanitary. And then we get our bathing suits and we lay them out on our beds and we buy charcoal and we buy coolers and beer and draw maps to the beach and to the river. And then while we’re drawing, it gets dark and biblical out and then it rains in big wet warm sheets and everyone’s mad but I still kind of like it. So I go outside with the dogs and we roll around and jump in the water and mud and I come back and dirty up the apartment.

When it was Easter, Joie and I, we took a boat across the river to Albina and hired a taxi to take us to Paramaribo, because I got a little money from the government for rum and roquefort and cookies and dancing and such. And our hotel was great because the rooms were bare but it had a swimming pool and a billiards table and a bar and everything and that’s what counts. And Paramaribo is my favorite because they love old soul and Motown and it’s strange and nice and peculiar. The people are polite and the food is spicy and the beer is cold and the casinos are all run on drug money and the list could go on forever.

And when it was Easter we went to Mcdonalds because everything was shut up but Mcdonalds was open and inside it was like a hot night club at 1 PM!  And there was a young woman dressed up in an Easter Bunny costume giving out chocolate eggs and she looked really pretty because black people look really good in pink. And there was a DJ spinning hot tracks and it was all too much, so we sat under the statue of Simon Bolivar and peeled the foil off our eggs and tried to eat them quick before they melted from the sun.

And we met some good people in Paramaribo, because it’s a good place.  One of them had bought a sail boat and sailed around the world, and we were the same age and in my mind I kept thinking, “I’ve been going about this all wrong.” And so we took the afternoon and sailed down river with them and found a hub where all the other boats were. At the hub we all sat at big tables and drank Djoga’s of rice beer and I kicked around a ball with some children. When everyone else had left, we rode back out to the boat and took turns climbing up to the top of the mast and jumping off until we were all tired from the beer and jumping into the river current. I set up shop under the stars and looked up at all that moon and big speckled dark and I wondered about what I would do in a month or so, and about the plan but then I dozed off.

None of this has much to do with anything, except that here’s some free music for the ‘little summer.’ Email drunkensuitcaseblog@gmail.com or hit the Drunken Suitcase facebook with a gmail address so you can get the mix shared with you! It’s a good one. And if you do, write a note, maybe like this post, or maybe write some feedback, something you’d like to see more of. Which posts are the ones you like? We’re all in this together and we’re nimble and we like one another.

Take your shoes off now, and then run your bare feet around in the grass. Maybe turn the hose on and then make a drink and unbutton a little bit of your shirt. Maybe pull up your skirt a few inches, take off your pants. Open a window. It’s gonna get good and hot soon enough, at least for a little while, and it’s always best to be prepared.

Spring is in Full Swing! Drunken Suitcase “Little Summer” mix!

1. Bobby Womack- Fly Me to the Moon

2. Davy Graham- Goin’ Down Slow

3. Buddy Miles Express- Don’t Mess With Cupid

4. Country Gazette- Lost Indian

5. Bobby Charles- Take It Easy, Greasy

6. Canned Heat- On The Road Again

7. Bobby Whitlock- A Game Called Life

8. Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen- Tutti Frutti

9. Arlo Guthrie- Anytime

10. The Coasters- Down In Mexico

11. The Blues Busters- Soon You’ll Be Gone

12. The Monks- Oh, How to Do Now

13. The Band- Tears Of Rage

14. Miriam Makeba- Holilili

15. Lee Hazlewood- My Autumn’s Done Come

In order for this date to go well, we’re gonna to need to get a few things straight.

We’re gonna need to take things slow, and then fast and then slow and slower and later we’re gonna need to get Arby’s. And for this date to go well, you’re gonna need to like Arby’s and you’re gonna need to not just be saying that.

-It seems like you’re just saying that.

For this date to go really well, you’re gonna need to like thin-not totally grown in-mustaches. And you’re gonna need to notice mine but not draw too much attention to it, just give it glances…just lustful wanton glances…

Also, you’re going to need to like hard kissing and Starburst jelly beans…because soon enough, that mouth’s gonna be comin’ into contact with a whole lotta both.

I hope that you don’t know that much about The Simpsons but I also hope that you eagerly want to know a lot.

Because I can totally bring that to the table. 

I’m a good listener in the way that I will appear like I’m listening but actually I will be thinking about The Simpsons, but only seasons 1-10. 

You’re gonna need to bring money.

For both of us. 

I’m gonna be hungry,

For Arby’s.

Also for this date to go well, you’re gonna need to like the kind of dancing that doesn’t look like it’s good dancing but just kind of swaying and not really making an effort. But you’re going to need to really think that in fact that is the best way to dance and it’s much better than all the dancing that those guys over there are doing. And then after some drinks, you’re gonna need to like overly confident interesting dances that I make up for both of us to do…and they’re gonna be sexy. 

Do you like jokes? Cause there’s gonna be a period where a whole lot of them will be comin’ at ya.

There’s also going to be a period where I talk about Bigfoot…And it’s probably going to get intense and emotional. I can’t stress how paramount it will be to this date going well, that you stay fully invested in the Bigfoot section of our evening.

Like tickling? Get ready.

And quoting things? Do you feel that it is not, in fact, stupid and boorish but instead commanding and just silly enough to be cravenly sexy?

And to be clear, we’re both on the same page that Dan’s post punk hardcore band in high school wasn’t as good as my post punk hardcore band in highschool, right? Everyone knows it, anyone who says otherwise is a fucking liar. 

Also, even if I work from home, Springsteen is still the boss. 

Cheese is great except for Ricotta which is total horse shit.

Dogs like me more than they like everyone else, also tacos and spaghetti are the best foods of all the foods. 

Did I say that money one yet? That one’s important.

There’s this secret place where the kids from my school go to do sex stuff or whatever, cause its 2012, and apparently they call it “Chocolate City.” And there are a lot of reasons why that’s gross and funny and weird, but my immediate reaction was like, “YOU NAMED IT AFTER THE PARLIAMENT RECORD?!” And they had no idea what I was talking about, so they just kept running around and throwing pencils and rocks and junk at each other and then I spaced out and started thinking about stuff. Like maybe there were kids in the 1970′s in Saint Laurent with afros and rollerskates and cool junk like that, who named the place Chocolate City because they just had to have that funk. If so, those kids were so boss! And maybe they’re grown up now, how old would they be?  Are they still boss? That’d be fun for me if we all hung out and played dominoes with beers. But also, why the hell are my students telling me about their weird sex place? And am I supposed to tell someone? And if so, will Chocolate City be shut down forever? And if so, do I really want that kinda bad press? Also, how do I give French children detention? Because I totally don’t know how, and they know I don’t know so it’s all a hilarious inside joke for us. I got a new haircut from this barbershop and the guy used the buzzer for the WHOLE THING so I look like a total rube, and this new Dutch bicycle only has one speed and it’s way too easy so I pedal super fast all the time like a cartoon. We laugh and laugh and chaos reigns and reigns…

I’m smoking out of my window at 3:42 AM (alarm set for 6:23) and the rain outside is constant enough that it’s bled out all of the other sounds. I’m not allowed to teach English as an assistant here again, I’m limited to two terms, but that’s ok. I’m no teacher really. I only like it because I don’t know the first thing about it, and if I did it all the time it wouldn’t be funny anymore. More often than not, the thing that’s scary, like really scary-in the uneasy big way-is that maybe, maybe I don’t really like anything. Bobby Charles is playing (the Chess Collection) and I’m just going to read Harry Potter in French because I don’t like anything. I like swimming, from the memory of the feeling, from when I was younger, and I like wine and rum and cold beer and cheese and fresh bread out of the oven and fucking. And it’s nice when you’re peeling an orange and you already know it’s going to be one of the good ones and not that terrible dry kind, that’s good. And television is good, or good at being bad. And I like Jeeves stories a whole hell of a lot but I sure don’t like working.

I want mystery. I don’t like the idea of you not being around. I want new hideouts after the old ones have been shut down, and I wish we were friends. I wish my computer could talk. We could all stand to be closer, or much much farther apart and I wish there was a new sea under the sea we have now and in the new sea there were dinosaurs.

Mrs. Daniels is really very pretty. This is what I am thinking a lot of the time. I believe that this is probably what most people are thinking a lot of the time: students, other faculty, the general public.

Today I think she is even more pretty when she is upset too, or maybe I think that she is more pretty selfishly because I know that the expression is all for me. I guess most people aren’t more pretty when they are upset, but their faces look more real. So when I come into class today and Mrs. Daniels immediately brings me out into the hallway I’m still kind of excited, a bit, because of the attention, even though I know what it’s about.

Her class is the last of the day and all of a sudden Green Bay’s been beautiful outside because it’s April and Wisconsin’s legs are finally opening up. Yesterday, while she went somewhere at the start of the period, I crawled out the window and left.

Mrs. Daniels is walking very fast down the hall so that my creative writing class can’t hear what she is going to say to me. She is wearing heels and a pencil skirt because she is young and cares about how she looks and the heels are very loud in the echo of the hallway. Eighth period has already started and so everything is empty. I follow her and my steps are following the beat of the clicks and I am watching her legs but I’m pretending to just look down because I don’t want her to think I’m not taking this seriously. I’m nervous because we both know what I did was mean and I’ve never seen her mad before and although it’s exciting I feel bad that she is upset. Mrs. Daniels is seven years older than me. That’s not that much. This is her first year teaching and I don’t like it when our roles are defined and it’s clear that she is in charge and I am 17 and we are not the same.

She pivots suddenly when we are out of view from the other students and there is a hispanic girl drinking from the bubbler and Mrs. Daniels waits a moment for the student to amble away before she finally speaks.

“I’m really mad at you.”

I nod. I start to say something but my voice catches mid-sentence and then I try to smile but I don’t really know why. Then I try to make the smile look like a smile that says, “I am very sorry and I wish we could both forget about this and then in a few weeks you can leave your husband and we’ll run away.” It’s a complicated smile and I’m putting a lot of work into it so I miss the next two things she says.

“Do you know why you haven’t been called into the office yet?” She’s looking at me concerned, I think my intense complicated smile made it look like I might cry. Shit. I don’t want her to think I was gonna cry, that’s the opposite of what that smile was supposed to purvey. I try to stand up straight and then I suck my lips into my mouth to appear pensive before I respond.

“No.” I casually make a move to lean on the locker next to me but there is more distance than I expect and the lean becomes a fall and I just bang into the locker with my shoulder and then stand up really fast. I’m always trying to play the strong silent card with Mrs. Daniels’ because her husband is the douche bag  business teacher and he’s strong and silent and so I know that she likes that.

We both keep standing there though and I can tell Mrs. Daniels wants me to apologize but it’s getting awkward because neither of us have said anything. I accidentally start grinning because I’m nervous. I have this really bad habit of laughing when I’m nervous or sad, it happens constantly. We watched Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful in history class because it won an Academy Award and because it was Friday and I kept smiling when it was really depressing because I didn’t know how to react.

Finally, she gets that I’m not going to say anything so she speaks again.

“I don’t know what to do now. You deserve to be punished but I don’t want to be part of that club of teachers who have had students climb out the window on them, so I haven’t reported you. It’s too embarrassing. What you did was really inconsiderate though, I want you to know that.” She sighs and exhales loudly and I can tell that she is frustrated.

My stomach is sinking, this doesn’t sound like future boyfriend talk. I nod.

“I hope it was worth it too, because before this, you and I were like friends but now I feel like I’ve been taken advantage of, so now you’re just a student.”

I don’t say anything.

Yesterday I was looking out the window and it was beautiful outside and I was thinking about America and then I saw my friend Andrew and he was in his car right outside the classroom and he was motioning for me to come outside. Andrew isn’t going to graduate because he has more truancies than anyone I’ve ever met. People have forgotten who he is because he has so many truancies. He has over 400. I don’t understand why they are counting anymore. And so he must have known what I was thinking because we are best friends and he was motioning for me and it felt like adventure and so I opened the window impulsively and climbed out. I do a lot of thing impulsively. Everyone in the class was very confused and I told them to close the window after me and then I had this girl pass me my backpack and I felt like Indiana Jones. I ran out to the car. Me and Andrew drove to Baird’s Creek and we shared two grams of mushrooms after we parked and then we went and tried to catch crayfish in the water even though it was too cold. After the boomers kicked in Andrew tried to jump the creek from this fallen tree but the branch broke the minute he stepped on it and so he fell into the water face first. I was standing on a rock when it happened and I laughed so hard that I fell in too. Everything about the afternoon was worth it in every possible way and I don’t regret skipping at all.

I can’t say that though, so instead I nod some more and then down the hall I hear Callie Johnston’s honey voice speaking to some other girl in French and I know that they’re practicing for the AP exam. I can hear Callie Johnston’s voice very clearly because I’ve been in love with her since I was 12 and she was 13 but I can’t hear the other girl very well because I’m not in love with her at all and so it kind of sounds like Callie Johnston is just speaking french out into the hallway like a French siren with a not-so-good accent. The voice is getting louder and suddenly I want to wrap this all up quick.

“I’ll read first today if that helps Mrs. Daniels.”

“What’s your story about?” Mrs. Daniels motions for us to start moving.

“North American Ape,” we start walking back toward the classroom.

“What’s that?”

“Bigfoot Mrs. Daniels, It’s about Bigfoot.”

Tonight after work I will go to a picnic table in a garden and drink beer and watch the sunlight finish out.

The garden will open out onto the beach,

the beach out onto the ocean.

And pretty soon,

It will all open out onto the darkness

as the heat backs away.

And if it is hard,

it is hard in the way that a mango is hard at first and then later is soft.

I saw a boy and girl sharing a mango on a moped yesterday-

Neither were wearing shoes and-

They were you know,

you could tell,

because they were passing the fruit back and forth.

bite for bite,

not the boy eating half, and then the girl.

And when only the pit was left,

the girl stuck it whole in her mouth laughing

pulled it back out again and passed it to the boy.

He tossed it into the grass.

I thought about picking it up,

the pit that is,

just to see if maybe,

something had been left.

It was a silly thought though,

It was clearly gone.

Also, that’d be gross.

He was at Titus Comics up until the shift from golden to contemporary, before the nephew came in and everything changed and he was drowned out of the business slow in an altogether cowardly way.  He had changed his name for print, changed it from Jacob to Jack, from Kurtzfeld to Curtiss, with the encouragement of his first boss.  The decision would haunt him every time he signed a check until he died at 76.  But when he first wrote “Hysteria!” in the years following the war before his wife died and after the first time he’d stopped drinking-he was still happy.  You could see that in his work, in the way he walked, in how he still bought new shoes.  Hysteria! ran two full years before Moth appeared within its pages, issue #24 October 1956.   Locust appeared two issues later wrote in as the son of Spring Heeled Jack (see Hysteria! # 26).  Both characters were abandoned after three issues. Marmalade never made it to the presses, she was left at the drawing table, thought too intelligent for her own good and therefore easily mistaken for pink around the edges.  Both Moth and Locust were featured in The Immortals some years later, neither character stuck around for very long.

 He couldn’t have been called a young man, but his face still became flushed when he drank.  He still had the courage to dance.  His hair hadn’t yet grayed to the point where his head would match his shirts and even if it had it probably wouldn’t have mattered.  His secretaries held close to their hearts deep-seated feelings for him.  Other artists, many of them younger, would often ask his opinion. Their wives would ask him over for dinner.  He would not accept. In the war when he was found out to be in comic books he became a scout.  Often he would cross enemy lines to draw plans of bases or supply routes.  He suffered severe frostbite on his hands and feet.  He later stated it was the only time he regretted being an artist.  

The night he met Myra-exactly one year before they would marry- the sky was moonless.  It was his birthday.  He was 23, she was 27.  They slept together within hours of their first dance. She was his first, he was her third.  By the end of that first week she kept a nightgown in his apartment.  He bought her a toothbrush, bought more towels.  Sometimes you just know.