It's been an interesting week, you see, in part because I've started walking everywhere. And if you want to learn anything about the people around you, try walking everywhere and see how many of them pass you by on the street. "I saw you walking this morning," has become an annoyingly familiar greeting at work, and one to which I have to perpetually keep NOT replying, "So then, why didn't you offer me a ride?" Instead, I find it a great opportunity to brood and embrace that certain otherness that makes me the kind of person who can't just sit on his laurels collecting an exorbitant salary like so many disturbed people, but must also continually express his disturbed notions in a Blah-ugh! (or a Blah-ugh!-like venue, such as an e-novel, such as SPACE CASE, which is really nothing like my Blah-ugh! except it was written by the same person, who was me, or IS me ... or Esme ... so anyway ...)
I've always been vastly disappointed by the collective non-response of my Blah-ugh! readers to my infrequent offerings (excepting the few of you who DO respond, and in whom I'll forever forgive everything, including minor theft and periodic body odor ...). Here it is, I commit not only MY thoughts to paper (or could I call it virtual papyrus) on an almost daily basis, but YOUR thoughts as well -- (Come now, you KNOW I do, and that's the POINT!) -- and in responsive gratitude, you merely cast me aside without so much as a glance because I'm no longer driving that Mercedes that Matt lent me ... (and Matt is a lovely man, by the way, except for the fact that I'm starting to suspect he's really Italian.)
The point is, you should all be ashamed of yourselves for perpetuating the myth that Americans are surly and lazy and have to drive American cars and eat at Duchess. It's disheartening, yes, but also vaguely unnerving, because somewhere in the past -- and I think it was 1975, actually -- we took a wrong turn and have never got back on the high road. And yet we all sit around bemoaning how awful things have become and how too many people text message when they drive and do all this terrible stuff, and yet when I mention that I'm on foot, people look at me like I just shit in their oatmeal.
On a parallel note, I was disturbed to hear from my son that they now install front-seat DVD players, supposedly for the passengers. Now this just takes things to a very bizarre new level, for I still can't get my head around how they allow those television screen navigation systems in cars, let alone mini movie theaters. I mean, it's absolutely comical. Do we as a culture -- as a world -- now really believe that it's not ENTIRELY DISTRACTING for a driver to have a giant blue-light screen shining in their face while they drive?!! No, I'm serious!! I'm just mystified beyond all belief. I mean, am I from another planet and just don't realize it. Please, be honest with me. I really need to know at this point. Am I the result of thoughtless inbreeding and too much Lysergic Acid in my developing years?!
Anyway, I hear my wife coming, so I'd better end this before she catches me. This is no time in America to deviate from what we're all expecting to experience in each given moment, and it's especially way past the time where a good American can raise any sort of question that might rub someone the wrong way. Unfortunately in this country it's just no longer safe to rub anything anymore!
I think it was Gary Neuman who so eloquently sang, "Here in my car I feel safest of all. I can lock all my doors. It keeps me stable for days in cars."
(Who am I kidding?! I KNOW it was him, but I'm so scared to SAY I know because I don't know what you'll all think of me for knowing! ... See! THAT'S what it's come to!!)
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