Le Soft Parade

I went to the DMV today to get my Rhode Island license plates and registration. The main branch is in Pawtucket, just north of Providence. I’d been there before to get my license and didn’t like it. So today I decided I’d drive to the DMV in Middletown, which is on an island about 35 minutes away. I got to the office went inside and began filling out forms. Print your name, sign your name, sign your name, print your name. I also pulled a number and waited. I drew A108 and we were on A82. It would be awhile. I sat reading a Sports Illustrated while I waited. An hour later I had my new plates. I crossed the street to the Midas to get my state safety inspection. I failed due to my windows being tinted. So I have to get that peeled off this weekend and get rechecked.

The drive back from Middletown is as long as the drive there. I drove past all the signs gilded in gold, past stone walls and meadows. I drove back over the Braga Bridge and the USS Massachusetts.

But this time, as I drove, my mind was at work. Not about anything in particular. Just doing more thinking about “stuff” than driving. I drove on I-195 through dilapidated Fall River and on back toward Providence. I got to the Massachusetts/Rhode Island border in Seekonk and traffic stopped. Still. So there I sat and my general thinking grew to be more focused. I looked out the window of my truck. I was in the left lane and staring into the long green median. The grass was flickering in the slight breeze. I could see little bugs crawling in the gravel at the side of the road. I was born in Anaheim, California on February 20, 1978 and there I sat high in my truck looking down on little bugs and individual blades of grass along the highway in Seekonk, Massachusetts on May 15, 2009. The colors of the moment were green and a grayish-black. And I wondered, “Why?”

Why am I on this Earth? A religious person would tell me I was here as part of some larger plan. Playing a part in some grand scheme of some grand being. A scientist would perhaps tell me I was here because gasses and matter and other scientific things combined for billions of years resulting in me and my 6 billion-plus co-inhabitants of the world. An Atheist might tell me I was nothing very special at all. And thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions and probably billions of people would all give me their own opinions, which is appropriate. After all, I suppose I might be the ten billionth person to ask, “Why?” If so, I want to know if I get a prize.

I guess what I am getting at is that I know what I am supposed to do, or at least, what I am expected to do. Work a job, build a life, have some good times and die. But that just doesn’t seem right to me. Why is there so much stuff out there that I want to experience, with so little time allowed for me to do it? Why do Paris and London and Barcelona and Rome and Tokyo and Boise freaking Idaho and the Himalayas and the Cascades and all the other mountain ranges and lakes and forests and beaches and deserts exist? Why are there so many books and movies and paintings and pieces of music created that I will never get to? Why are all these wonderful things there that I can never use? And why do I know about them all? I sound like an adolescent in ever conceivable way when I say: It’s just not FAIR!

The plot thickens.

I’m also caught in this tug-of-war between different aspects of myself. I would be lying if I told you I did not like nice cars and great big TVs and the ability to sit on a big comfy couch and play videogames. I love the material, touchable, tangible world. But the other side of me wants nothing to do with all that, wants only to travel and read and experience all of these wonderful things, and to maybe do a little writing about them. To hike to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, stopping for breaks with a good book. To be a fly on the wall in a Bangkok whorehouse listening to Cab Calloway. To water ski on Lake Geneva and to sleep a night in the Ritz Carlton in Paris. I want this fusion of material and, I dunno, ethereal. And I can’t have it. And I hate that. And I ask myself, “WHY!?” Why is it all there if I can’t have it?

“Oh…just work hard and get rich.” If you think this or some version of this, you do not understand what I am saying. Even if I was foolish enough to think hard work led to wealth, by doing that, I would fundamentally change who I am. I want what I want and I want it while remaining who I am…and I can’t have it. And I ask “WHY!?” Why do I have my mindset and my desires and my dreams if I have to change who I am to get them, thus insuring that when I am finally in a position to get what I want, I likely will not want it anymore. Or even more demoralizing, by that time I will probably want something else I cannot have. And then after all of my work and saving, surrounded by experiences and comfy couches, I will ask the air around me one simple little question: Why?

I merged over two lanes and got off at exit 6. I took a right on Broadway and then crossed the Henderson bridge back into Providence. I drove down Angell past teenage girls in short green plaid schoolgirl skirts, and then I went right onto Hope. And that was ironic.

After Oprah offered a coupon for free chicken, resulting in demand so great that many KFCs either ran out of chicken or simply refused to honor the coupon:

“I’m a big girl,” Shannon Edwards told CNN affiliate WBAL-TV in Baltimore, Maryland, on Thursday after she was turned away from a KFC. “I like to eat. So I’m kind of disappointed I have to go to McDonald’s now.”

When the hordes of angry KFC refugees hit the McDonalds, the shit really hit the fan.

Chris Brown beats her, then releases pics so alien fetishists worldwide can beat something else.

Real? Fake? You make the call! Click here to head to the LSP Boards for the pics and your other one stop mocking needs.

Well the trip of the brother is over and done with.  As you may (or may not) have guessed, the post below this one hits on the first of, actually, not very many awkward moments.  I attribute the general success of the trip to my being a social chameleon, able to adapt to pretty much any situation on the fly.  Jess’ brother is a sports nut, so I spent the better part of two days talking sports, almost exclusively.  It was kinda nice, actually.  While Jess likes sports, she’s fairly new to the whole thing, so you can’t really delve too deeply into things. With her brother, I was able to bitch about the DH, lament the good old days of early ’90s UNLV basketball, and so on.

The only other really awkward moment came when he asked what kinds of movies I like. I replied that I like all, but mostly horror, which resulted in him asking my favorites. “Halloween and Suspiria.” Which always gets a, “What’s Suspiria?” and this time was no different. I told him it was a flick by an Italian guy named Dario Argento, and then I kinda forgot myself for a minute and enthusiastically went into some detail on how much of a lunatic Argento is and how he kills his real life girlfriend off in a ton of his flicks, killed his real life daughter off once, and then had the other daughter raped and beaten often. As I was saying this the realization hits that, this conversation sounds really odd coming from the guy who’s engaged to yer sister. The looks on the faces of both he and Jess’ mother confirmed this. But I pivoted quickly by throwing in a funny story that made everyone laugh and then quickly changed the subject. Nice!

He turned out to be a nice enough guy. An East Coaster, pretty much through and through. Our first real bond was forged while I blew up the air mattress he was to sleep on. It was big and took me about a half hour. I got a little light headed at the end, but we joked throughout, mostly at the expense of gays and former ESPN personality and current Dodgers broadcaster Charlie Steiner.

The times at Jess’ house were awkward. Jess’ father and brother are not big fans of each other. So I spent a lot of that time admiring the coffee table with a dedication I rarely have when it comes to coffee tables. But then Jess’ father broke out a bottle of really good Bushmill’s Irish whiskey, so I ignored everyone else while sipping that stuff. We also ate Indian food and drank beer. I like Chicken Tikka Masala. That might be the biggest thing we got out of this trip.

There was a lot of other stuff, that honestly, in print would come off as boring, even with my brilliant writing skills. Just know that there was tension, awkwardness, but in the end, I ended up thinking the guy was a pretty good guy. And we’ve got an open invitation to St. Louis, and really…that’s all you need.

Person A: Hey…our network name here is Kung Fu and Rape, huh?
Person B: …..yeah….
Person A: Hahaha. That should be interesting.

*****

Person C: (searching for networks) There’s a network in this building named Kung Fu and Rape?
Person A: Yeeeah…that’d be ours. We like it.
Person C: Kung Fu and Rape?
Person A: We wanted it to stand out.

*****

Person C: Can I get that network key from you?
Person A: Yeah. It’s long though. You ready?
Person C: Yeah.
Person A: (reads 25 character security code)
Person C: Jesus…you came up with that?
Person A: Nah, the router just randomly comes up with it for you.
Person C: Why so long?
Person A: When you’ve got Kung Fu and Rape, you really need the best security.

I was a real little prick when I was a kid, but my prickishness never excelled so much as when it came to my sister’s boyfriends.  She was five years older than me, still is by my last count.  So her first boyfriends started hanging around when I was around 8.  There was Brian, who I relentlessly rode about his acne.  Mark, who I referred to simply as “The Pollock.”  He once slammed me face first into the bottom of a swimming pool, breaking off one of my front teeth.  I guess he got revenge.  There was Kurt who I actually punched in the face and then to wrap up this little tour, there is her husband.  I like him, a lot actually, but his name is the same as a certain diminutive black sitcom character in the ’80s, and so I always referred to him as that.

I enjoyed my time being the younger brother, being an asshole, and generally doing anything I could to hurt the self-esteem of my sister’s suitors.  It was a fun job, and a job that sometimes I miss.  But I never got to be the older brother.  That’s the one that is supposed to protect, right?  Make sure nothing happens to little sister, make sure little sister never ends up with Tukiluka (or a hot mother fucker just like him).  No, I never got to experience that, at least with my own sister.

Today I will meet Jess’ older brother for the first time.  He’s actually staying with us while he’s in town to visit their mother on her birthday.  So from never even shaking hands to sleeping under the same roof in one fell swoop.  Interesting!  He is her older brother, so I keep accidentally emphasizing that “older” part in my head.  The truth is, thanks to my borderline craddle robbing ways, the guy is only two years older than me.  But in reality, he’s in a completely different world.  He’s got a wife, kids, a career, a house with the obligatory house payments, and family vacation to Disney World later this year.  I have none of that, and frankly, am pretty happy about it.  We’re two years apart, but thanks to my…I dunno…stunted maturity, he seems eons older than me.

I’m not worried about whether he will like me or not. I’m pretty good that way, and people I want to like me usually end up doing just that.  No, what I am worried about is, what if I don’t like him?

The experiment starts in four hours…

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…but not here yet.