Thursday, August 21, 1997
Mark Thomas -
[email protected]
On average, approximately 100% of the human population never heard of me.
Roughly 100% of all humans never heard of anyone I know, and virtually all humans would be confused if I walked up and smiled and gave them a hug or started talking about myself, presuming familiarity, presuming anything.
In fact, it is a miracle of chance that there ever is a circumstance in which my path crosses that of anybody anywhere.
This ratio is almost certain to remain constant as long as I, and the remaining 100%, shall live.
The remaining 0% of humans (that is just an average) could certainly find a suitable replacement to my company in the event that I metamorphose into something despicable or get gloried away into some saint's spaceship.
And sometimes, like about once an hour, I just need to remind myself of this. Because it will always be true.
Once in a while I have this notion of becoming unbelievably obese. The fattest summbitch in town.
Sometimes I wanna be so fat that when I walk into a diner people will see me and drop their forks and yank on the shirtsleeve of their sibling and together they will gasp in horror, then look away discretely, hurriedly, hoping I did not see their reaction, but knowing of course that I did see them and that I have made note of their indolence and tucked it away into the seething corridors of my gigantic tummy.
Other times, as happened last week while sitting in the lobby of this building reading a book, I have a need to walk into the convenience store and strike up conversation with the cashier about my enjoyable but totally imagined career in hair care. And the secrets people tell.
And other times, as happened this morning at work, I want to wear sunglasses all the time, smoke cigarettes, drink cheap beer and pitch the cans around my desk, pick up the phone and call my home answering machine and engage in a phony but vitriolic shouting match about some extremely personal matter. And I want to come home and play that answering machine tape over and over.
Yes.
But I'm not in a habit of reinventing myself. Never took the job driving a cab in northern Virginia, for instance. Never got too far in my "decision" to become an air traffic controller. Have not yet given up using software to write stories and letters. Have not stopped being terrified of people.
"Yes" is a beautiful word. Look at it long enough and the Y starts to look like a crack in the screen. Then the whole word looks backwards or out of order. And the e starts to deteriorate, and the s starts to wobble. And all the letters bleed. And the e looks taller than the s. And the Y looks like it is pulling away. And the period looks like a miracle.
But I think a period that ends a sentence is a miracle.
Oh.
It is Thursday here. It is Thursday everywhere.
On Sunday, I shaved my face for the first time in about 2 weeks. I often accumulate gristle and facial junk over much longer stretches of time, but for some reason this batch of growth felt particularly heavy. Like sod. A phony beard of grass.
Maggy says I should never shave. I made for her this picture the other night, in which it looks like I just swallowed half a can of beer:
I don't really look like that, though. Not usually. Well, maybe in a dark room, at an ungodly hour of the night, with someone lying asleep beside me, with a sunroof up on the ceiling and a dark night up through it.
But no, not ordinarily.
Time to think about going to sleep. Time to lie down. Time to deteriorate. Time to lie in bed and wake up every 20 minutes swearing I heard someone breaking in to this place. Time to dream about getting the death penalty. Time to wake up and open my eyes and make sure it was just a dream. Time to drink some water. Time to look at this picture on my desk. Time to look to the left. To the right. Upstairs. Downtown. Time to piss. Time to eat some bread. Time to poke at a plastic wrapper of soy sauce. Time to eat some candy. Time to inexplicably flash back to a comment made by a 5th grade classmate. Time to burn. Time to die. Time to wish there were presents to unwrap. Time to fall in love with a 15th century Queen. To rip her clothes off, to throw them to the ground. To become a carpenter. To study bookbinding. To run my tongue across my teeth. To read the news off my beeper every morning. To savor the sidewalk beneath my feet. To want to kiss it, and lie in in sleep with it. To threaten a dramatic suicide into the Gulf of Siam. To wait for you to explode. To float all around you. Explain everything. Make fabulous wishes. Find a television in the cranny.
