MIRE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 1

      I’m writing now. That’s a new thing for me. I’m not good with new things. I’m not good with much, to tell you the truth. To tell you the truth, I kicked a child into the river yesterday. Two days ago I waited around my apartment for the cable guy to show up. Never happened. Never got asked to the prom either. Yeah, I’m a guy. So what? I consider myself a feminist. You know who else I consider a feminist? Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Some say she actually was one. I disagree. But I consider her. I’m actually very considerate. I hold doors open for people who aren’t even there. Maybe someone else is coming. I don’t know. I’m not omniscient. I’m not omnipotent either, but I did once leg press my best friend in high school. I asked him to jump on the machine, he said no, so I blackmailed him. My mother once blackmailed my father into taking us to the zoo. Why it was such a chore is beyond me. My dad liked the reptile house. I didn’t. He made me look anyway. He said it would make me a man, put hair on my chest. Today I’m as smooth as the day I was born. You know what else happened on the day I was born? The Challenger blew up. It wasn’t my fault. I had just gotten here. I was the third child, the house was small, so the crib went in the laundry room. So did the dog when we went out. He pooped in there every time, and I had to clean it up. How does a six-month old clean up after a dog? I don’t know, and I was there. I wasn’t there for the English Protectorate, and I’ve since developed an unhealthy fixation. What do you want from me? Fairfax turns me on. I lived just off Fairfax Avenue for two years. I ate at Canter’s five nights a week. The pastrami does something to me that I can’t put into words. I did once put a small bag of oyster crackers into words. Actually it was just one word: obstreperous. It means noisy, rowdy. You might call a Western omelet obstreperous. I don’t know why. I also don’t know why someone would wear a tuxedo to a bowling alley. When I go bowling, I wear corduroy pants and a t-shirt that says, “Morrissey is a twat.” But of course the t-shirt doesn’t say that. A t-shirt can’t talk. I made that mistake in school and the teacher corrected me. “It reads,” she said. I said, “What do you know? You teach math.” I don’t like math. Too many numbers. When I can, I stick to Roman numerals. When I was eight, I got stuck to a tree covered in sap. My parents never thought to look for me, so I spent the night there. I made friends with the tree and gave it a name. I named it Mattress.