i got pickles!...

we've all had the experience, when the little things supersede everything else. When the most minute detail in a day overcomes the incessant pounding of the clock of existence...

i've heard tale of the mid-life crisis—i laugh, since rarely has my life been devoid of crisis, and that those who claim to be in the throws of a mid-life crisis are in a state of disbelief that their fairy tale lives could be at risk, that death could actually come and wipe it all away and leave nothing but regret and ash. Listen up, fairy tales are for fairies. I think most of you probably already know this—I'm no different...

i'm not complaining, i never do, and what do I have to complain about? i have loving parents who have stayed together in an era where that is increasingly becoming rare and a family that looks out for one another. i have my health—generally, close friends and a wonderful woman that thinks i'm the bees knees, whatever that means (you see bees don't have knees). But hours become days, days to weeks and weeks to months and it begins to pile up. The stress of unemployment and how long I can live off of the state and the stress of trying to reinvent yourself in the face of the recession you saw coming years ago—the one that ultimately got you laid off twice (once then and once now). The stress of trying to reinvigorate a writing career that had laid dormant too long, and the stress of not knowing whether or not I can pull it all off...

i went food shopping yesterday and bought a couple of pickles out of a barrel at the Natural—you might remember the Natural from the scene in Spider Man when Peter Parker is learning how to use his new found web-slinging powers—great produce there. i returned home and cut them into quarters for future consumption, put them in my refrigerator and went about my day of writing the derelict story, playing a twilight round at Forest Park and finishing with Pizza and Mario Cart with the kid down the street. i awoke in my normal morning malaise, my body hurting from the fourth round of golf in a week, the obligatory bike rides and running that keeps me in pseudo-shape since the warm weather has come. My mind focused on the list of tasks tattooed on my brain. After a cup of coffee and my survey of the Time Trial in the Tour De France (one of the advantages of joblessness) i opened the refrigerator to discover what had slipped my mind—'I got pickles!'...

there has been a sea change over the last generation to make kids believe that they are special, that, individually, they are unique and they should celebrate this belief. i say, pah! You are not special, you are not unique! And its about time someone in the know let you in on that deep dark tale of woe...

Welp, I GOT PICKLES! And I am special—fuck the rest of ya'!...

shit, i have to do laundry today. Maybe i'm not so special...