Six in the morning I'm at Bedi's Texaco inhaling an Iced Texas-Sized Honey Bun. Then with my faced stuffed like a gerbil hoarding seed I squeezed a cigarette in between my cheeks...I had to get one more before the coffee went cold.
It's Refreshment Sunday...not Gluttony Sunday, but bet...at 11:59 and 30 seconds I was frantically chewing a mouthful of M&Ms tryin' to get 'em down before midnight.
Just sad...and wrong.
Somehow I don't think this kind of excess, or legalism, has anything to do with Lent.
Of course I'm not much better while fasting. I've limited myself to 15 cigarettes a day...and what do I do? I smoke halfs...quarters. See it's OK if I go out for a sixteenth time 'cause I only smoked a half of the last one. Sad...it's not like I normally pull on 'em til I can taste the filter. By the time Easter gets here I'll be carrying a ruler around in my pocket...by smoking 3/4 of each cigarette I can actually step out three more times...six if I only smoke a half each time.
That's pathetic man.
Then, in light of the lenten fasts, there's my normal sketchy behavior and the questions that raises. If I was only required to love my neighbor as myself for 40 days a year I could probably find some sneaky way of pulling it off, but for the rest of my life....awwww come on. Yet isn't this what I've pledged to try and do just as surely as I've agreed to lay off the sweets for lent? I mean I wouldn't think of stopping by the donut shop this afternoon....well that's not true...I'll be thinking about it...A LOT, but I wouldn't dare do it because I've said I wouldn't.
But let some old lady pay for her groceries with a check in front of me at the store. I'll spend that twenty minutes fantasizing about elaborate scenarios in which she get's a flat tire on the way home...that's just mean. Yesterday at a light...there was a fella going from car to car beggin' for money. All I could think was please don't bother me dood...and then when the light went green and I had to wait while the lady in front of me dug around for a dolla to give 'im...I got uhhmm...a little impatient.
I know not every one of these beggars is legitimate. There's a fella at Waffle House on High Street that's been beggin' for twenty years...just tryin' to get enough money for a bus ticket to Baton Rouge where his cousin lives. That's not the point though...I coulda given that fella a dollar and I certainly could have not gotten so bent about having to wait three seconds at a green light.
Probably more important than me not eating a Honey Bun this afternoon...
Yep, pay day is the first of the month for me and - I don't know - out of some misbegotten: oh, is that where we landed? Somehow my work colleagues - people I would otherwise barely acknowledge passing in the streets - got it into their heads I giving up bacon sandwiches for Lent. I should explain, I don't usually do breakfast save for coffee - plus skimmed milk if I'm feeling reckless; however, on occasion, I do get the morning hunger pangs and grab the nearest fried rashers layered between leavened bread at the passing vendors (red sauce, hold the butter). Such an occasional feast is usually demolished before my tardy co-workers turn up, but the lingering odor of fat is usually enough to raise the accusation of serial bacon snuffer. So I said: yeah, it's a treat; I can without. Anyway, I have this policy of putting money away at the beginning of every month and, perhaps, in March I overreached on the optimism-o-metre, which meant towards month-end, I was on an enforced diet and so, come the first of April; pay clears, I hit the bacon; sausage; egg triple whammy - hold nothing. A one-off. It's the fifth; I have not weakened since; yet my reputation now lies in tatters like pearls before swine.
ReplyDeleteAt first I found your comment impossible to believe Nat...nobody would believe that a mere mortal could give up bacon...and nobody would ask to have the butter held.
ReplyDeleteThen I remembered that there's a fella out there who eats ketchup on his bacon sandwiches...so anything is possible.
:)
Is there anything better than a pay check after you've been broke for a week or two?
now this is why we read "flimsy cups." 'nuff said.
ReplyDeletei swear to heaven, bartlam, if i had half the insight you had, i'd have written about 12 hefty volumes right now. "with my faced stuffed like a gerbil hoarding seed I squeezed a cigarette in between my cheeks..." now that's writing.
You flatter me..but then again you should.
ReplyDeleteFlippin' lurker.
There's more money in romance novels than monographs. I just can't decide on a good pseudonym, but once I do...that's probably were most of my energy will go.
You weak willed Jessie. 'nuff said.
ReplyDeleteI got yer jessie...
ReplyDeleteI'm a man of appetites..I've never denied that.
Now append James, and you have yourself a real Jessie. Ketchup to my bacon.
ReplyDeletePS I have no idea what that means, but it sounded good at the time.
ReplyDeleteMe too...and me too.
ReplyDeleteHey Doc when are we gonna get that hefty volume from you. Afterall, you are the one that saw it through to the end and became a professional.
I've been thinking about that for some time. A few years back I had a couple of cracks at it, which, in all honesty, proved dire. My cheeks still burn with embarrassment at whatever hubris led me to believe – one case 40,000 words into the project – that it was as straightforward as it looked. It takes a great deal of self-discipline and honest evaluation to produce something worthy and I had none of that at the time. When you get some sense of your limits, I think it helps you focus on what you can do and what you should shy away from. I'm not quite at the end of that journey, but I'm toeing the waters; the blog is all part of that process; however, I still get a lingering sense of fraudulence when attempting fiction: must be an old habit born of writing philosophy tracts where you try to tell the truth as plainly as possible. Fiction requires a different skill-set because, in a very real sense, it's lying on a grand scale and it's hard to change that into a virtue, which, I believe the best writers do and are thoroughly entertaining in the process.
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me Nat...Allen is currently filling the position of non-contributing philosopher, would have any interest in being the contributing philosopher for Flimsy Cups.
ReplyDeleteYour little bursts of fiction are fantastic...y'all go check it out.
Sure, long as I don't have to get out my armchair.
ReplyDeleteYou will not be required to leave your armchair, you can drink on the job; however, you should know up front this position does not involve any nudity.
ReplyDeleteNow that we've expressed our mutual interest the interview process can begin shortly.
I thought, therefore I was.
ReplyDeleteWe need you to be.
ReplyDeleteAs I said we already have a non-contributing philosopher.
Can you prove that you are?
I am when I was as I am when I will be.
ReplyDeleteCan we assume from this answer that you will be willing and able to help us in our efforts to have our theory of post-destination recognized as an axiom?
ReplyDeleteSure, though I'm not sure what you envision here - "envision" now there's a word that belongs to PowerPoints - but I willing to give it a go.
ReplyDeleteIt's simple...given the nature of time and space...all options are an illusion...they are non-existent.
ReplyDelete