Sunday, July 1, 2007
One Paranoid Poker Shark, Coming Up
Wow. It's been so long that I'm having a hard time just starting this one off. Like when you meet an old friend again, after not hearing from him for a long time. After the initial exclamations and hugs, you back off and lapse into an awkward silence, broken by hesitant dialogues about where you've been keeping yourself all this time or whether you've heard from So-and-So recently, floundering about until eventually you find a glimmer of your old friend in this stranger and use it to break (or melt, as the case may be) the ice.And yet, it hasn't really been all that long. Less than a month. Perhaps it feels so much longer because my life has gotten very boring lately. And by "lately," I mean in the last couple of weeks. Before that, it was all stress about my brother's wedding. Which, when it finally came off, was absolutely beautiful, to everyone's vast relief.
So now Joel's married. Becca's off in Prague, where we're not really sure what, if anything, she's actually doing. She's a mite vague when it comes to communicating her plans. But who wouldn't be, given our parents? They do have the tendency to fall to pieces at the slightest hint that something, somewhere, might be going wrong. For awhile, I was living in a haze of Post-Wedding-Stress-Let-Down, but that's degenerated into general summer boredom.
A boredom enhanced by the fact that I have no social life whatsoever, and therefore nowhere to go, other than the Bookstore That Won't Kick You Out No Matter How Many Hours You've Spent Reading Comics There That You Clearly Have No Intention Of Buying Because You Have No Money. Occasionally some creepy old man will proposition me. Damn it, I can't seem to find a guy who isn't at least forty years too old for me. Why can't I ever get a young guy? Preferably about twenty, slightly nerdy and intellectual, with good taste in music. But no, the nerd-boys keep their distance from me, like frightened bunnies. But let's not concentrate on my lack of success with the opposite sex, shall we?
Also, the only comic I'm really interested in right now is Astro City, which apparently isn't mainstream enough for that bookstore to sell. So I browse about for a bit, then give up and leave, making sure to take as many pointless detours and drive down as many cul-de-sacs as possible, in order to stave off the inevitable return home for just a little bit longer. At least long enough to finish whatever album I happen to be listening to at the time. And I'll be the first to admit I don't know how to spell cul-de-sac. But that's what spell-check told me. Good ol' spell-check. Saved my ass many a time. Then again, it consistently attempts to make me misspell my own name, like the dirty back-stabber it is. Just goes to show, you can't trust anything. Not even me. Especially not me. Take my advice too often, and you'll end up a paranoid little fucker who sits in a room and shuffles a card deck all day. I'm not even kidding, those cards are actually wearing a blister on my thumb. How's that for pathetic?
One of these days, though, I'm gonna make money off your asses like you won't believe at poker. Just you watch.
Spudge at 4:47 PM