funnybone heartbreak

My father just made the following assertion:
“People are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling… It’s a pastry analogy.”
He’s the cutest little misanthropist in the whole wide world.

I drove (but mostly dozed) the 8 hours home with Zoe and Jeremy, who both had legitimate excuses to be here. Zoe had a doctor’s appointment and Jeremy apparently needed a haircut. I’m still not entirely sure of what I’m doing here, but my mother told me that I can take as much toilet paper as I want back with me (it seems she knows a guy who can always get her more…)

I’ve just been paling around with my fellow Panhandlers. It’s been a pretty sober spring break spent in Pensacola. I don’t count the drunken kayak expedition I undertook yesterday because this activity has become something of a divine ritual for me. And besides, the bayou beasts are best faced with a little booze in the belly. The alligators are pretty scrawny, but the pelicans are ferocious. I get the impression that someone has trained them to go for the eyes.

I didn’t run into our neighbor Mr. Stump-hand Man, the crazy old squatter who raises pigs next to the land my parents own. It’s just as well though because I always feel awkward waving at him. I fear that I will offend him somehow with my two perfectly intact hands. I usually attempt to greet him with the same-sided hand as his five-fingered one, my greatest dread being that he will vigorously flail his stump-hand at me in response.

And speaking of missing digits, this guy took the next logical step and went digital. After losing his finger in a motorcycle accident, Mr. Jalava, a Finnish computer programmer, fashioned himself a replacement with a USB drive attached. Fancy that!

One more day buckled up in the Bible Belt and we’ll find out if I’ve really learned to charm myself out of a paper bag.
I’ve got more love for you (and you and you) than I care to shake a stick at. Besides I’ve got no time for phalluses/fallacies.