RUDIMENTS, pt. 307
Making Cars
I used to sit around thinking
about how, and what, if I had
to re-tell my life to someone,
I would say. That always
stumped me. I'd had lots of
good times in my life, but
none of it was really the sort
of stuff you can easily relate
to others. There was never
anything onto which to hang
a hat, so to speak. Not that
you'd speak, but instead hang.
I don't know, that's just the
way words work. And that
was one of the things that was
problematic for me too - words.
One time when I was still with
Barnes & Noble, one of those
late 40's age women who used
to come to my Poetry course
there, was trying to hit on me.
She said (first time I'd heard
the phrase) that she really didn't
want anything except a 'f-buddie'
as she put it. I think it's also been
called 'friends with benefits.'
But, whatever, it seemed the
most dumb and annoying thing
in the world for me to get involved
with. Besides - and she told me
this too - she was a screamer. Oh,
joy. Me and those sound-proofed
rooms, how I love 'em. I told her
I had nothing, absolutely nothing
but 'the word' that I lived for, so
she should get the hint. Saying
that I felt like a real asshole -
'the word' being such a dumb and
haughty way to put it. Anyway
there was some other guy around
too, always bugging her, actually,
for exactly what she was seeking,
but she said she hated him and
found him annoying.
-
What I'm saying is - think how
much others get to be so annoying
when things break down. It was Jean
Paul Sartre who said 'Hell is other
people.' I'd second him on that if I
knew what he meant, but it always
remained unclear. Other people
are also, sometimes, quite Heavenly.
Quite so and I wouldn't trade them
them for the world - but that whole
'adventures in the skin trade' can
surely ruin normal life. Like getting
a Christmas present and unwrapping
it to find out it's just a pile of poop
someone be-ribboned just for you.
-
I've always managed to have lots
of time on my hands, when I needed
it. Time is funny though, because
really, whether you need it or not it's
always there, around, on your hands,
whatever. It's what you do with it
that counts. I figured, at the end of
a life that's how you're judged -
by what you did with time. In the
seminary, as if haunted by time, they
tried to fill every minute up with all
that sports junk, and prayer, and duties
and details and they even made a three
times a day big deal out of dining.
Just so they could fill up some time.
I think Catholics are deathly afraid
of time. It means a void to them, the
Devil, something to be avoided and
kept away from one's self. Same way
with all that sports and gym club junk
that people do. What's that all about,
besides the idea of someone making
money off your supposed desire for
sweat. Everyone ages; any individual
is going to run down droop, sag,
weaken. That's what time goes by,
its marker. All that gym and workout
twaddle is a delusion. Vanity too.
-
I certainly never understood any of it
at all, and when I was a kid, thankfully,
it wasn't too much around, or if any
of it was it was really primitive. I
remember one time when I was
about 9 my mother sent away for
this stupid Jack LaLanne thing -
some guy she watched on TV,
with his exercise stuff and carrot
juice and all that. He was a regular
goofy guy in gym tights, a real
pest to see - this was before any
of that well-defined muscular stuff.
He was rugged, but today I think
he'd just be laughed at. Seven bucks,
it cost, for her to get delivered some
supposedly super-workout thing he'd
devised. Ordered through the show,
etc. My poor mother, she was as
gullible as anything, and she fell
for what was basically a huge, heavy
rubber-strip with loops on the end.
The instructions said that one end
was to get looped around the door
or doorknob or something - I
forget - and my mother was to
hold the other loop and use the
resistant pressure of the rubber
band's resistance to exercise
against. I guess it was like having
to be walking, as they do now, with
weights or something in each hand.
Seemed always like a huge bother
to me. The anxiety and grief that
regular living always caused me,
I figured, was burden enough to
have to lug around. No one should
certainly be needing any Jack
LaLanne add-ons.
-
Sometimes this all sounds like
True confessions to me, but I
just go on telling it. It's the way
I like, and there's no longer much
else to do. I pretty much hate
everything. All this time now,
but there's nothing left I wish to
do - cooking? It seems these
days that it's perfectly acceptable
for old guys to take up the art of
skillfull cooking. Problem is I
hate food, so that's a dead end.
'Cooking is other people,' so to
speak. Painting the house is half
okay, except I hate lugging ladders
and paint cans, and clean-up and
all that crud just to make something
look new again that isn't. I like
the old. Like those exercise people,
why fake it? Why walk anywhere,
when I can drive everywhere?
They destroy the world, putting
all these nasty, congested roads
everywhere, and paving and drilling
and cutting so that they have roads
everywhere, and then they start telling
you how to leave your car at home,
when they situated you nine miles
out from anything useful, on ring
roads and access roads to ramps
and bridges. Now they tell you to
stop driving? What gives?
The whole premise of life has
been doing it their way, buying
all this stuff, taking these outlandish
places to live and filling them with
crap, and now they get you where
they wanted you, and say STOP!
-
I sort of get it, so I sort of write
about it. Whatever I want and
whichever way I choose. The way
they've got this society rigged up
now is no different than that
1958 Jack LaLanne rubber band
gimmick. Tie this here, stand here,
pull this tight, really hard, against
the resistance of the force, and it
will, sooner or later, snap you
back, pull you in, splat! right
back up, face-first, into the
door you've been using for
support.
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