Dantrums

Today I woke up, looked at the clock: eight something. Someone in the shower. It's too early. My alarm is set for 10:38. I wake up again at nine something. I've had seven hours of sleep but want more. I lie waiting to fall back asleep but it's not happening--- alcohol forces me awake early. I rise at ten, only slightly hungover from celebrating Steph's birthday. I want coffee so I shuffle slowly into the cold kitchen and get the beans out of the freezer, grind them, start the machine. I come back into my room and stare at the bureau for a second, still half asleep, and finally remember the bureau has clothes in it, and what I want to do next is get dressed. I put on track pants, a hoodie and white socks and put lots of cream and lots of sugar in the coffee, pop a sesame bagel in the toaster, and call Mike. He's at work and wants me to call people for a get together Friday. I call other people, most at work, and leave messages. I reach Tim. "What's up buddy?" I tell him. "Cool buddy." Jason calls me back. He can come. I brag to him that I somehow got Yankees-Sox tickets for the Sunday night game, Matsuzaka starting. "You lucky son of a bitch!" "Yes," I crowed, "I don't know how I did it!" My mother and brother call later in the day and when they ask what's up I tell them, "I don't know how I did it!" After I eat the bagel I fuck around on espn.com, looking mostly at tennis results from the Monte Carlo tournament. Federer and Nadal might meet in the final. This makes me very excited. I start watching the Red Sox around one. I want to get stoned but can't because I'm supposed to have a date tonight. I would like to be fresh. Plus it makes your eyes look less than sexy. Anyways I eat leftover ribs for lunch and then some pasta with zuchini. The Red Sox come back to win on a Manny homer and an Alex Cora triple and I let out a few "whoo!"s and "yeah!"s into the apartment. The game ends: Sox 5-3. It's now 3:50. I channel surf for a bit but feel like taking a nap. I get up off the couch and go to bed. I do not have to go to work today.

I sleep until the alarm goes off at 6:38. I'm still so tired. My body feels like I did smoke and this strikes me as unfair. I get up just before seven, shuffle to the fridge and grab a coke. Steph is home. She's sitting out on the porch smoking a cigarette. I go out and say, "I haven't been outside yet today." She says, "Awesome." I say, "No it's not so cool...although the Red Sox game was really good." Kim comes home from the gym and takes a shower and shows me her new glasses, which I didn't like at first but have quickly come around to. They're actually quite cute. "Seeing is so nice!" My date might have to cancel. I just want to know either way because if he's not coming over I'll just get high and hang out in the apartment a little more. I have no problem with that. I would just like to know. He calls at 9:30 and cancels. Before I smoke and the girls leave for a show I cry melodramatically, "I'm going to cut my penis off! It's apparently of no use to me!" The girls leave. I try to watch South Park but I've watched enough tv today. The girls return. They forgot to the take the jaeger shots they'd poured for themselves. They shoot and leave again.

The pot inspires an idea: Write about this decent, unremarkable day. There might be some sort of hidden lesson, something poetic in the mundane, but as I'm writing I realize of course there is not. There is just this list, really, of movements from room to room (and there is not even much of that). This whole entry could have been written as an outline or with bullet points. It's just another day in which I added new things to to-do lists and crossed a couple off, and to the lingering suspicion that I should expect more from my myself than this, another part of myself says, Fuck it: Today really was alright. I'm not sure which part is right or whether I should even be having the debate in the first place.

1) I was watching a panel discussion with Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, and other comedians on HBO last night. Jerry was trying to explain to host Anderson Cooper how standup is different from writing sitcoms. He was talking about how much more challenging, how much scarier it is, the charge one gets from engaging with a live audience. Adorable Anderson wasn't quite getting it. Chris Rock broke in: "It's like the difference between coffee and cocaine!"

2) Peyton Manning flew in from Indy for the Red Sox home opener yesterday. I would expect this news to slightly impress normal people---- i.e., Peyton's a good guy who has appreciation for sports and even comes to support a neighbor of his nemesis. Of course you abnormal Pat lovers will somehow turn this around and find a way to dislike him even more, so let's skip to that and begin posting nasty comments. Just remember when you insult Manning you are insulting Brady, since they are obviously secret lovers. All these fake pregnancy reports (nice balloon, Bridget) and photos of Tom and Giselle are clearly a smokescreen. Tom and Peyton touch each other's boners.

3) Hitler was a vegetarian! Did anyone else know this?! I find this incredible. Apparently there was even an organic vegetable garden at Dachau. I'm going to use this fact whenever a vegetarian explains to me how moral their choice is. Sure, you don't eat animals, but how many gay jewish gypsies did you slaughter this week?

4) There is a great picture of Larry Birkhead--- who looks like an odd cross between David Bowie and Lance Bass---- coming out of a courtroom yesterday after it was announced that he is in fact the father of Anna Nicole's daughter. His hands are raised above his head, one giving the thumbs up, and he's sporting a huge grin. "I told you so!" he cried to reporters. He looks beyond happy---- like he won the Super Bowl and lottery all in one. In fact, that is exactly what he just did. It's not the face of a father who is overjoyed at bringing his daughter home. It's the face of a man who just found out he will never have to work another day in his life.

So Don Imus calls a bunch of girls "nappy headed hos" and this is deemed racist, misogynist, and Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson call for him to be fired? This is a fucking joke, right? Let's review this comment word for word shall we? "Hos" is a bit misogynistic, I suppose, but it's so commonly used at this point that it shouldn't offend any but the most virgin of ears. Every rapper uses this word all the time, including women like Missy Elliot, and you never hear anyone complaining excpet for the ocassional prig on some talk show. As for "nappy headed," this is a derisive comment about the hair of the Rutgers basketball team. The only one who should be offended is their fucking stylist...and I'm fairly certain that person does not exist. I understand nappy is often applied negatively to black hairstyles but I'm uncertain how this makes "nappy" racist. What if Imus had called their hair "kinky," another word often used by whites to describe black hair? Is that racist? One could call any white dreadlocked hippie "nappy" and it would apply just as well. Nappy is just an adjective to describe dirty, ungroomed hair. It's an unkind description, sure, but on par with a word like "scrub." I don't use "nappy" much in conversation, but, since I am probably as tactless as Don Imus, I could see myself applying it to any random person I meet. If this person happens to be black and I make this comment, I'm a racist? That seems unfair, to say the least. Really, I'd just be an asshole, which is all Imus is, too. And so we have another media made "controversy" with no substance to it whatsoever --- if the script follows the last few, there will be calls for Imus to undergo some sort of racial therapy ---- while real stories, and the real examples of racism in this country, continue to go underreported.