There are times I write just for the sake of writing. Not making sense of the words transmitting from my brain to the fingers. This rarely happens and often times what I write is a little blip on my writing radar. I barely come back to this idea and move onto the next fleeting writing moment in my life. I believe this is maybe a part of why George R.R. Martin is having a hard time finishing his novels, the last one in the Game of Thrones series was in 2011, and I still need to read that book let alone the other two before it. I've only read the first in the original trilogy. The story of my life and right now I'm reading a John Grisham book about the death penalty while trying to find the motivation and inspiration to write consistently and effectively. What is going on physically and mentally with me is sort of tag teaming each other to the point of draining a lot of my energy from me (some no way to avoid and others there is a way to combat this energy sucking issue of mine). As much as I would like to blog more, write more, read more, travel more, and do a lot of other things more, I'm not doing more. I either need to be comfortable with this or change my tune. Here's to more finetuning in the coming weeks.
I am a grown ass man. You can tell me what to do. Many people do. Whether I follow your or their advice is another thing. Not many of my friends call me anymore. I've never been invited to a high school reunion. I guess I was never a social butterfly. Instead, I was the pupae that took a long time to turn into a butterfly. If you're good with providing yourself mental images of a broken butterfly, I used to have wings misshapen and the coloring on my body ugly. There's no need to feel sorry for me. Like I mentioned earlier, I am a fully grown man with a suitable sized ass and dad bod without the kids to call me dad.
Every city has people dumb, average, smart, and beyond bright. I'm not sure where I sit on this continuum, but people have told me I'm less than average in some ways and brighter than most in others. I suppose inherited brain capacity is in the eye of the beholder like beauty. I consider myself neither terrible nor great looking. I like to wear hats and what I am about to tell you, whether you believe it or not, happened. Many things have happened to me, but this story should be easy to remember.
The day started like the rest of me waking up half unsettled when I took off my pajamas and stepped into my jeans. I didn't have to work that day. It was a Saturday. I was going to do some shopping. When I entered, I noticed the wall. There was no sign but the cheap alternative. There it was in block lettering to catch my attention. The sentence was painted in combination of pastel and primary colors. It wasn't Easter nor was it anywhere near the red and blue I associated with the Fourth of July. The worker who took the time to execute it perfectly probably wasn't so smart in the head.
"You can count on your savings 8 days a week."
The likeliest of scenarios was the manager told his employee as a joke to put eight days a week instead of seven. I fully blame the misuse of "your" instead of "our" on the employee. He should've known better. By default, it's the employee's teacher's fault too. She should've impressed upon her student with a little more assertion that when you interchange two words that clearly take on different meanings in a sentence, you are regarded as stupid. It wasn't my responsibility to point it out to any of one of the random workers there. I had my own life to live. There wasn't much time left for me to carve out my little slice of heaven on Earth.
After I crossed off the items on my list with my worn-down pencil, I removed every item by alphabetical order onto the conveyor belt. Whenever there is a new check out person, he looks at me funny. I can sense what he's thinking by his facial expressions. It's usually one of the three.
"What the hell is this guy doing? He really needs to hurry up. It's time for my break soon and I'll be damned if he's going to delay my break." Then he usually pats his jeans just to make sure his cigarettes are still there.
"Look at this poor sap. God, please don't let me be like this when I'm as old as him." He will give me a weak smile and try to wait patiently. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I would like to believe his abundance of patience if it weren't for his fingers tapping or worse, whistling a tune I've never heard. His face betrays him. "I know he's old but seriously, what the fuck's he doing?"
"Take your time. I got nothing but time. Only forty more years of doing this job until I can retire. Hopefully, I'll be able to promote up and die with a little more money in my pocket. I really want that Mustang I saw the other day. It was so sweet." I want to tell him life isn't so bad, but I keep my mouth shut. He might be a lunatic after all.
In fact, anyone I meet and pass by on the sidewalk could be a full-fledged lunatic. I try not to think about the possibility. There are greater chances of getting hit by a drunk driver than meeting a dangerous stranger in public. The same goes for anything exciting to happen in a grocery store. The probability is relatively low. If I remember from an earlier conversation, nothing is impossible and I'm a messy writer.
One of my college professors told me I had the worst handwriting he had ever seen. Wow! That made me feel good about myself. He was around five feet eight inches tall, if that, and was a stubby looking man because he had a gut that didn't stop giving. It wasn't anywhere near Santa Claus, but unlike Santa Claus, he wasn't handing out gifts. Instead, he handed out the letters of A, B, C, D, and F. As with most of my papers and tests, I either received A's and an occasional B. C's were mortal enemies and the letter D or F equaled severe punishment by my own hands. Not that I got D's or F's because if you have half an ounce of self-respect, you will work hard not to get either grade.
As I outgrew my brain and body in high school, it became apparent to me I was different. I'm not talking different in the common sense, but different in the weird sense. I knew certain things before they happened. I sensed emotions in people on their stone-cold faces. I even predicted a few murders before they happened. This doesn't mean I went out of my way to prevent the deaths from happening. Nobody listens to a "nobody" from any city or town. For people to listen to you with both of their ears, you need to live in a nice sized house with more than two bedrooms and, at least, a pool in the back yard with the proper credentials on your wall. If you happen to be a part of any criminal offense that goes nationwide, consider yourself unlucky. There's a lot of negatives that come out of such an experience.
For instance, when this happened to a close friend of mine because I was at a turning point in my life and thought why not, what do I have to lose. I stood by her side as support. This led to reporters and lay people hounded me before, during, and weeks after the trial was done. Every anniversary of the murder, they came back for more to try to squeeze out one last drop from an empty bottle. The door to the past was shut for 364 days of the year but when it opened on the 365th day, more paint chipped off. Those standing before it was plentiful and proud.
I walked through the door as I had done before. Usually there was no one worthwhile to stop and chat with except out of the corner of my eye, I could see another man looking at me and behind him focusing her attention on me. Again, what did I have to lose? Before I could get to them, they disappeared. I hadn't stepped through the doorway. I was still in the store with groceries in my shopping cart. What had just happened? I knew I had bought my groceries not less than ten minutes ago. Here they were unbought and unbagged. I was losing my mind.
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