Essay: You Are Just An Asshole and/or Internet Genius
It is annoying when I send someone an email with relative urgency and then they don’t get back to me for hours but the whole time I am waiting I am casually watching them ‘social network’ on various platforms meaning that I am effectively being ignored.
In those situations I feel that they are 80% likely to know that they have received aforementioned email from me (if smartphone is being used). Usually these emails do not require a complicated response (a date/time/yes/no). So the fact that they read it, and then return to actively and publicly ‘social networking’ to me means that they are essentially saying that I am of low priority.
A couple of times I have had to restrain myself from going ahead and calling them out on it (via social media platform they’re using while ignoring my email). But I never actually did, would probably come off as an asshole or something. Also feel like if they wanted to, they could just give me a lame excuse which would be impossible to refute unless I did a stalkerish amount of investigating. Then even if I were to prove my point, I would still be the asshole who has nothing better to do than devote large chunks of time to social network-sleuthing, which no one thinks is something to ‘take seriously’.
I would probably lose my friends and that would probably be okay. At least at this particular moment, mostly because I have been thinking about my friends and our relationship dynamic a lot recently. I’m beginning to think I don’t actually like my friends.
The Cut-Off Ponytail from the Run-Down Everything
This is an article I wrote for the fall issue of JUMP magazine in Philadelphia documenting an experience I had this past may in Ecuador.
I’m probably half delirious.
Fifteen hours of airport the previous day, twelve hours late to our destination – Quito, Ecuador. Fuzzy-headed with the altitudinal change. Five hours of sleep, maybe. Bussed to the edges of town, poverty stricken, we are told. Looks that way.
A small, hot room with some people inside. A man setting up some PA equipment. Dark complexion, middle-aged maybe.
He walks up to us, speaks in Spanish. Our broken skills put it together: he makes instruments. He’s going to go get some right now. He lives next door or something.
He comes back with a black case, pulls out some homemade pan flutes, starts to play. They sound good, as far as I can tell. I don’t know much about pan flutes. We thank him and start getting our things together to begin our workshop.
To clarify our geographical location: the fourth stop of the South American ESLfolk tour. Myself and three others, funded to go to various cities along the Andes and introduce a self-written curriculum/textbook about teaching English through traditional American folk music. This is the first stop where we are being ushered around by the embassy staff.
Next day, wake up in a gated community, pile into a twelve-passenger van. Drive to the place deemed ‘impoverished’ by the US government, get out. Watch the whole city fly by in between.
It’s possible the rapture happened yesterday
Walking past a bus of Carmen sandiegos I realize I have misplaced my wallet and in it are some things that I should not be attached to
I wait to be unnaturally pushed I am bussed from one pusher to another. I identify with a screaming child. I identify with a dancing child. I do not identify with the flashing lights of a child’s toy. The child may/may not agree.
Three airports one day thirteen hours and only two where I feel nervous. Three hours in queue awaiting documents and/or stamps.
Gated embassy digs like menifee
Like a tahoe lodge
Like purgatory
Like ______.
I am the bearer of too many wings/I am the bearer of too much flesh
Subcutaneous fat clouds
feel vascular
I am a heart beat or hemoglobic donut
I am unnaturally pushed
self important with thoughts like
‘probability is in my favor or something’
react with fear
as it pitches and/or rolls
‘physics still work at an angle’
later I will regain my confidence
acting/lashing out
look at that obese family
they are probably going to mcdonalds
what is their consumption rate of big macs
per capita per day/year?
today a massive polluter
tomorrow back on a bike
I laugh cause that family returns with big macs
if they try to sit next to me I will complain:
‘but they are obese, I can smell their fat/neglect’
‘they are everyone’s healthcare costs’
‘they are the tea party’
‘they are a diet of corn’
‘they are a massive waste of resources’
I will continue yelling until they drag me off and throw me on the Tarmac.
and each obese male will get 1.5 seats
each obese belly digests 2 big macs
subcutaneous fat bodies
additional unnatural pushers
turn secret sauce into additional fat cells
I will be the Tarmac walker demanding equality
or I will be the fat boy crying
cause that other kid beat me up and took my big mac
I may/may not be the silent hypocrite
I am an abandoned big mac storage facility
the correct size but big mac-free.
I am the voice over the speaker who judges you when you order those six big macs
I am sad cause I think I look like you but never touched a big mac
I am jealous that I did not get to be very responsible for my appearance
I am afraid for my life, that our combined obesity will cause us to sink into the hard hard colon beneath those subcutaneous fat clouds.
I am happier on the tarmac
I am unnaturally pushed
he thought that if he were to dash his bike on the ground his frustration would transfer from his muscles into the steel of the bike frame and shatter an invisible layer once the bicycle struck the concrete.
if/or/when a wolf
okay, so I think I’ve figured it out:
i am a man, and although I think differently,
it seems that I still am part wolf.
otherwise I have run out of ideas.
evidence being that a wolf
will bellow or snap or snarl
or show his teeth
mostly cause he doesn’t understand/is confused.
that is how I feel when I do
aforementioned wolf things
not a werewolf, those are a figment
i am a true shape-shifter
a real house-wolf
a confused boy when I snap out of
wolf-mode.
I am the person who is generally considered non-commital. Or something. Or what people thought/told others I am. And then I was not that person or I altered a mindset or I ‘fell in love’ or I felt like one entire person. And then I was dependent and happy. And then I wanted to romanticize that forever was the goal but she wouldn’t let me. But she was being silly and I was serious.
third memory
I was awoken from my dream as I fell out of my bed and smacked my eye against the metal toy truck that I had left on the floor and I started bleeding. I ran into my mother’s room with blood all over my face and she said she thought I was blind. We went to the hospital and they put more stitches in my face.
second memory
I was running after my brother and he slammed a door in my face and I smacked my head against the door and split my chin and fell over and bled all over the carpet. I had to go to the doctor and get more stitches in my face.
and while you are away I may/may not cease to exist
She said: ‘Feel like our relationship is dying a little.
He got scared and that burny feeling and called her but she denied the phone call. He knew because it only rang twice.
She said: Brushing my teeth.
‘That’s a lot to say, especially in a text
and then he said: I don’t agree, now I’m worried
and then he said: Call me when done?
‘Bc I haven’t seen you in a long time and we don’t text anymore
and then she said: I’ll call you tomorrow. I might just be drunk
‘I would like to talk now please.
and then he said: I’m working tomorrow
‘I don’t want to whisper on the phone or wake anyone up
‘This is not a fair thing to bring up and not be able to talk about
and then he said: Do you want to break up?
‘What? Why would I? Do you?
and then she said: I can’t, it’s dead quiet at my house. Forget what I said.
‘I think I have a problem with being clingy so im thinking of staying here an extra week.
‘You think that will help? Are you clingy?
‘I feel clingy right now
‘It’s just because you miss me. I feel emotionally dependent too, I don’t think it’s bad. I really don’t want to wait another week.
‘But if you need to I understand
’:) going to sleep for real this time, night
He went to work in the morning and it took a long time because no one had gone outside to clear the driveway. He also had to argue with his sister about getting the car. It was owned by their father but she drove it more so she considered it ‘hers’. He was frustrated when he was very late to work because of those two things. They texted a couple of times about how she thought she was clingy, and he thought that clingy within a relationship could be good, but he really meant slightly emotionally dependent. He assumed there was hyperbole involved, but she did not. He figured this out when she said:
‘I’m def not clingy. Just googled it
‘Well maybe it’s cause this relationship is special. Feels special. Also don’t think that staying home another week will ‘cure’ you, think you’ll just be sadder
and then he said: ‘What does googster say?
‘Too much to type
‘Well then what are you?
‘Also think its too soon to be calling it special.
and then she said: ‘Adapting to being home + bored
‘Why too soon for special?
‘Bc it’s only been 3 months haha
‘Feel like that quality is not based on length of time. Feel like you’ve been more cynical lately
‘Ok, idk
‘Sorry. Not trying to hurt your feelings, and I could be wrong, I mean it’s all based on inferences from txts.
From hours of constant wood-burning, the interior of the cabin and all of their belongings had begun to smell of smoke. He sat at the window with a four-track recorder thinking that he was to emerge from this weekend away with a masterpiece. She was reading on the bed, but the book was vulgar and she was thinking about stopping. He came over to the bed and lay next to her.
‘Break?
‘Yeah. I got some stuff done though.
She had decided that they were going to sit on the eastern corner of the deck. She only had decided this after multiple tries at different parts of the concourse. Each time she had said out loud that it was too windy to stay in those places. He didn’t say anything, but agreed. He was cold but he didn’t say anything but she could tell that he was cold and kept mentioning it. Said he should have worn socks, that her mother would freak out at him.
‘That’s another thing the babuskhi always molodoi cheloveked me for. They always would always yell at me for not wearing winter shoes ‘Young man, were are your warm shoes!’ ‘Young man, where are your socks!’
She had taken off her glasses and put them on the table. They each straddled the same side bench. He slid up close so their knees touched cause he liked that. The wind blew strongly and the glasses went off the bench and slid a few feet along the concourse. He went and picked them up and gave them back to her. He thought about how she looked in her glasses and couldn’t understand why her roommate didn’t like them but that wasn’t a big deal. They didn’t talk for about 35 seconds.
‘What are you thinking about?
‘Your face. Generally when I’m looking at you I’m thinking about your face. And how I like it.
The wind was blowing strongly and she grabbed his hand. She was wearing the stone that he had given her.
‘Are these pomegranates any good?
‘I don’t know. Let me look.
She said ‘How do you pick out pomegranates?’
‘I think you just make sure they’re red. I don’t know really. I guess you really should open them, but I don’t want to open up all your merchandise.
‘How many do you think we should get?
‘Probably like five. I like Pomegranates. I’ll probably eat about five.
‘Okay. Get some.
‘Where are these from?
She said ‘Someone’s backyard’.
