* * *
Then I realized that all I wanted to do was eat some bacon and take a bath (preferably in that order). So now the tub is filling and the oven is heating up and it’s totally obvious that the tub will be ready wa-a-ay before the bacon, which is a total drag because right now it seems like the need for bacon is way more urgent than the need for a bath.
* * *
If anybody ever dies from eating too many Cheetos, tonight will be the night. My News of the Weird obituary will say, “An Athens, Ohio, man died of a heart attack after eating every last Cheeto he had in his apartment. Allegedly his last words were, “‘I was in the mood for something cheesy.’”
* * *
It’s not too late to take a bath is it? The water filling up is loud as hell. The landlady upstairs will be stomping on the floor in a couple minutes.
(Note to self: never rent a place where the landlady lives upstairs. You may think it’s a great place, the rent may be cheap, but you’ll never be able to listen to your stereo ever again. She’ll stomp on the floor first, so you’ll assume she dropped something, but then she’ll come down, all pissed, saying she just called the cops again, so you’ll get one of those headphone extensions, but it’ll always make those little crackly noises when you start dancing. Basically, if you want to really jam out to your music, you have to do it in the little six-foot half-circle in front of your stereo, so most of the music you hear is in your head. Or just make sure that your iPod is always charged; it seems like mine never is.)
* * *
I’ve got all these things in my head that need to bust out. It’s like my head is this tea kettle and the steam has just been building up inside.
I’m a little teapot, about to explode, there’s where my brains’ll be, and there, my toes.
* * *
But then it’s like, the spout just becomes unstuck and the steam can start getting out and I can start to think again. It’s like, something in my head just snapped, and I don’t mean in an I’m-about-to-go-postal way, but in an I’m-incapable-of-rational-thought way and, up until five minutes ago, I don’t know how I was even able to function.
* * *
I forgot what I was going to say, but I’m pretty sure it was brilliant. It’s like I’ve got all these brilliant thoughts swirling around in my head, but they’re like these slippery fish, and I don’t have a net, and I’m trying to catch them like a grizzly catches salmon, only I don’t have the claws or the sharp teeth, so I can’t catch any of them and they just keep swirling, swirling, swirling.
* * *
How cool are these stain rings on the side of your tub from setting down your cup of coffee every day? Does that mean your coffee cup leaks or you dribble when you drink? You should clean those someday.
* * *
Your tub’s full. While you’re waiting for the oven, it’s a good time to shut the lights out in the rest of the apartment and light some candles in here, huh? Yeah.
Apparently lighting candles makes you think in second-person.
And sing.
Except the song you’ve got in your head is Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life,” which sucks because the song’s ruined because whatever cruise ship company it is still plays that song in their commercials. And they totally misrepresent the song, that’s what sucks; all they sing in the commercial is “lust for life, lust for life, lust for life,” like it was written for families who want to run on beaches and go jet skiing and rock climbing and putt-putt golfing but, in the song, he’s singing about liquor and drugs and stripping and a bunch of other stuff that nobody would want their adolescent daughter doing, whether she’s on vacation or not. Stupid cruise ship ass munchers.
* * *
Is it toxic when you burn all the dust and crap sitting in the top of the candle?
* * *
Note to self: The oven probably heats up faster when you actually turn it on.
* * *
That salty residue at the bottom of a bag of chips—I’m thinking specifically of Tostitos Bite-Sized Corn Chips—somebody should totally market that. Just put it in a bag and sell it—call it Salty Residue—I’d totally buy that. Just design some kind of packaging that allows for convenient pouring into one’s mouth so you wouldn’t have to snorf it all off the front of your shirt like I’ve been doing for the last couple minutes.
And they’d probably have to sell it at head shops, but that’s okay.
* * *
Without the water running, it’s so quiet that this cockroach crawling up the shower curtain sounds like an elephant. Maybe not an elephant, but definitely something way louder than a cockroach. And then I about had a heart attack when I thought I kicked a snake, but it was the extension cord, so everything’s cool because extension cords don’t usually bite.
* * *
The landlady’s playing her music again. Or still. Maybe it’s never stopped and I just don’t notice it anymore. “Ah Moe ah me toe phone ah Moe ah meat oh phone ah Moe ah me toe phone ah Moe ah meat oh phone ah Moe.”
I thought I understood it for a second, but I guess not.
* * *
Why do I have an extension cord in the bathroom? It’s not like I’m using it for anything. It’s just sitting on the floor giving me a heart attack.
* * *
I totally forgot what I wanted to remember and all I can think about is all the stuff that Viking Boy was saying at work the other day. How the goals everyone sets for themselves—to be rich, or famous, or to save the world—are all arbitrary and stupid when you realize that you’re living on this tiny mole in the armpit of God, waiting for all the pure energy of the whole entire universe to get simultaneously in synch and make this beautiful white implosion and then explosion and then the big bang and everything starts all over again. It doesn’t matter what you do, or how you do it, or who you do it to, because you’re just this tiny part of this infinite kaleidoscope that is the universe.
* * *
Replenishes Colored/Permed/Dry/Damaged Hair
Massage into wet hair, lather and rinse thoroughly. For complete revitalization, use Herbal Essences Replenishing Conditioner with Hawafena to enhance the natural health and feel of your hair. Finish with Herbal Essences Styling Products.
* * *
Maybe you have ADD. You’ve passed—or failed, depending upon how you look at it—all those ADD or ADHD or OPP tests online that say, “If you score where you just scored, you definitely have ADD or AHAD or whatever. You need prescription drugs, man, that’s the only thing that’ll save you.” (Survey courtesy of your caring friends at Glaxo Smith Kline, Merck and Pfizer.)
Ooh, the oven just beeped. Time to put in the bacon.
* * *
Where were you? Oh, yeah. You don’t know.
* * *
You’re either too stoned or not stoned enough to concentrate; you’re going to base your actions on the not-stoned-enough theory.
* * *
Yeah.
* * *
Okay, I just figured out how karma works: say the universe consisted of just the people in this apartment house. The way it is now, if a new guy forgets a box of fabric softener sheets in the laundry room, somebody else will take them, and then the new guy with the fabric softener sheets will assume that’s the way the universe works, so he’ll keep somebody else’s roll of