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| apr 26 - may 2 |
| fascinated, jaw ajar, leaking |
| hi: 88 |
| lo: 58 |
Contributed by MJV
April 20, 2004
I am trying to be a writer. I want to be one of those people who, when asked what he does, flashes a contemptuous look as if the stupidest person in the world has just asked the stupidest question of all time. What do I do? What do I do? 'I write.'
I want to be one of those people who goes away to a writer's colony - or better yet - an aristocratic friend's country house - just, "to write." And I will be there knocking back pink martinis, clattering away on an electric typewriter occasionally flying into a rage because the words aren't coming out right and the elegant wastebasket will overflow with deftly crumpled pieces of paper. But mostly I am sitting bolt upright, locked in laser-like as my two fingers blaze furiously to unburden my clearly burdened soul of the thunderstorm of brilliantly phrased, and novelistically grand, words screaming to rain down upon a grateful world.
The truth is I staid home last weekend to work on this screenplay idea I have had for about six years and I spilled beer on my computer. The whole thing shorted out. The guy at the shop says it'll take four to six weeks to repair and I'll be lucky if it doesn't set me back a grand.
I hate pets. "Hate" may be too strong a word. "Can't stand," and "wouldn't miss 'em if they were all magically vaporized tomorrow," however, are good ways of summing up my feelings towards the quadripeds among us. What can I say? I don't like them. If a talking pug and I were the only ones to misread the Evite and show up at a party an hour early, we'd still have nothing to say to one another.
Some people grow up in homes where cats and dogs run free and Mr. Ruffles and Killer are the cutest things ever. Not me. My mom had the exterminator's number on speed dial.
I did visit pet-friendly homes as a kid though. Mr. Ruffles was the Schaners' four foot Rhodesian ridgeback who put 1/2 inch scars in my 12 year old chest. Killer belonged to Josh Hoar (unfortunate name for anyone in elementary school) and pissed on my Kermit the frog sleeping bag during our first (and last) sleep over. The Barrets' guinea pig (Rainbow) shat absolutely everywhere.
The closest thing I got to the Shangri-la of pet ownership came in the form of a sickly goldfish I won at a school fair. I threw a ping pong ball into the anemicšs bowl and within the hour the thing was floating on its back lifelfess, large bumps on its head. I diagnosed a hemorrhage and flushed it down the toilet with surgical precision while my mom nodded approvingly.
At the core of all my animal antipathy is my deep sense that I probably don't get along very well with humans. I get annoyed easily, I frequently think I am smarter than everyone else (which I usually am), and that the mass of humanity exists largely to get in my way not to make me laugh or turn me on or make interesting cocktail party conversation.
I feel like I have a lot more work to do relating to other people before I am in any position to embark on getting familiar with other species like dogs, or cats, or hamsters or cockatiels. Simply put, appreciating the finer points of the other passengers booked in steerage on Noah's Ark ranks very low on my life-goals priority list.
By the same token I feel very left out of the space race. Why all the ruckus about landing people on Mars? Wešve got so many problems on this planet (global warming, the Middle East, engaged couples not registering anymore all leap to mind) and now wešre going to go looking for more trouble in outer space?
At best we will discover that nine hundred million years ago a lone water molecule existed for a nano second underneath a petrified alien turd on the Red Planet. At worst green monsters with zero fashion sense will enigmatically mug the first mars-o-nauts who step out of the spacecar and another 75 billion dollars will gently float down the interstellar drain.
Really, what is the fascination? I think we could all do with a few more Jacques Cousteau specials. Watch four or five of those back to back and the thirst for galactic travel will be totally quenched... as will any interest in getting another fish.
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