Monday

I've Always Been This Awkward - Three

Three

Mondays are such a jumble. Yeah, I’m like the rest of you, really. I work during the so-called “work week” and try to take weekends off. I try, you know? I push as hard as I can then I try to relax on weekends with the family and neighbors over barbecued meats and light beers. Ha! But relaxation sucks! The world can take relaxation and shove it. [Note: “Shove it?” Yes, it is 1979?]. We’re all going to die and I’m not going to be known as "The Guy Who Relaxed” (In fact, according to sources in California, we have less than a year to live so there's plenty to do). I was named the King of Leisure based on how I live my life not based on how I don’t live it. Don’t get confused. Keep up with me here, people. Leisure is hard work. Read, don’t judge. Jumble. This posting is a jumble. I just read it over. I know, the magic word is “edit” but I failed the magic portion of edit school [and then he just kept walking].
Here’s something I bet you didn’t know about me #1: It would be my preference to work non-stop, 24 hours a day and seven days a week. I’d work all night; sleep for like two three-hour blocks. I’d only eat cherries (when in season) and drink coffee and yerba mate. I’d be all Cabin & Manifesto and shit if I could. I was once a workaholic but the woman I was dating at the time intimated that that wasn’t going to be cool with her. Twenty years later I say, “Thanks a lot! I’ll do what I want to do.” Not really, but that’s the mood I’m in this morning. Monday. Not pissy, just obstinate, really.

I went to this parent and kid playdate thing this weekend; friend with kid having friends with kids over for cheese and juices and (apparently) nonstop conversation about our children. My kid is six; the others were all under one. Awkward. I was the dad rummaging in the liquor cabinet and taking pictures of everything. Awkward. But I can get away with socially aberrant behavior because I have the “Wacky Ty” act (Hey, folks! I’m here all week, matinee on Sunday!). People encourage it, even. It’s like my friends are my worst enemies sometimes. I know, they’re not but, drunk at noon on a playdate isn’t the epitome of grace and glamour. I did volunteer to--and succeeded at--move a wasp nest from the sliding glass door frame though. Through drink comes courage, my hearties! Wacky Ty is also Ty with the huge balls (and a squirt bottle and a little stick/schtick). Wasps? What wasps? Here’s the sick part, there are a whole lot of people who only know me as the Wacky Ty act. Sick!

At this thing, my friend Julie who has a 10-month old or something and whom I don’t see much anymore because she has a 10-month old or something says, “So, Ty. What are you doing? How are you filling your days now?” Huh? How am I filling my days? What you traded the baby for your Interwebs access? What the hell? I’m filling my days making all this boss-ass important voice-of-a-generation art for you. I pour my heart out for you and you don’t even know that it’s pouring it all over your flip-flops. Hey, there’s heart on your shoes! My answer, “How am I spending my days? Rocking in front of the telephone waiting for it to ring.” (Matinee on Sunday). Guaranteed I work as hard as anyone. Guaranteed in this world of nothing guaranteed.

But Mondays are a jumble because I have backlog. That’s the problem. If there’s one thing I dislike, it’s backlog. If I suddenly died (A girl can dream, right?) there’d be unfinished and unpublished shit scattered about on computers, in piles (neat OCD piles), and in my brain. That would bug me even though I’d be dead and wouldn’t have thoughts. Which is why Rich knows that when I die that it’s his job to score my laptop and hard drives along with whatever else looks of interest to him in the middlespace laboratory. He can figure out how and what to delegate or just dump into the casket. You think that’s bullshit? Well he and I typically send an obligatory reminder email to each other prior to flying or embarking on such risky behaviors (automobile racing, AIDS swimming, voting, etc.). It goes something like this, “Dude, I’m off to Cleveland, in an aero plane, when I die come get my shit. Laptop and hard drives are in obvious places.” Something like that. It’s our man-thing I guess.

[Note: Reminder, speaking of death, change will to reflect "natural burial" rather than the stated "common cremation" - I have my reasons. Mostly because the stench would make the memorial so funny]

Mondays are a jumble because I have so much queued up shit in my head. Projects in progress, scams to run, supermodels to bang. The usual. I’m not even into supermodels, just being obstinate again. I even list daily objectives for organization sake. It’s something I got from Anthony my ill-fated Ph.D. advisor. Anthony wasn’t ill fated, just the notion of me completing a Ph.D. was fairly ill fated. I mean I’m plenty smart and all, in fact I'm probably too smart and saw that I wasn’t the type to jump through the requisite hoops [Note: My excuse for not completing degree: “too smart” - classic]. I wish I were a Ph.D. caliber person though, it would be pretty cool to have a Ph.D. like nearly everyone else I know; Dr. This and Dr. That who can’t even tell me what to do for a sore throat. It doesn’t make them any less of the mopes they are though; it’s just a cool-ass thing to achieve in one’s life (that’s really good for moneygetting). Anyway, today’s objectives were:
1) Process this weekend’s pictures (I’m no photographer nor was taking a lot of pictures this weekend) – Check!
2) Answer emails (that’s why I get nothing done, I’m so cordial) – Check!
3) Write a little bit (although I’m no goddamn writer) – I’m writing now, but it took me a while to get my head straight about it.
Speaking of answering emails [Note: this section rambles], I wrote to someone this morning that, "I can't control the world" and followed it up with something like, "Not that I would want to." Believe me. I don't really want to be any sort of influencer or style master or prophet or anything. I’m no Barack Obama. I don't want any of that. I don't need any of that. That’s not how I get off. That doesn’t trigger the jollies for me or anything. It’s way too much responsibility for me. I mean, who cares what I think, right? I don't keep track of stuff enough to influence anyone on anything. News? Sports? Philosophy? All capricious and contrived nonsense. In fact, I don't really care what others think of me or what they think for the most part. Now, I know that kind of sounds a bit Barack Obama New York Times elitist-arrogant but just so you know there is a core group of people (and YOU are part of it) who influence me. In fact, I care a great deal what you think. Sometimes I play directly to you. [Note: Hi. How am I doing? Good? No?! Oh, okay. Thanks.]. Where was I?

I also received email from a good friend today. It's funny how in the Interwebs ages we can develop quite good friendships with people we've spent so little time with. Yet, and maybe this is restricted to the creative class, we know so much more about them than some of the mopes we see every day. And they know about us. Gary is making a movie: Inspiration. I’ll tell you more about that when I can. Not that it’s a secret; I just want to adequately pay tribute to his and his team’s hard work and dedication. I could learn something from them. I’m going to donate money to the project. You should too ($5,000 in one month). It's good to know that not all your friends are mopes.
Synopsis: Claire, a precocious yet still innocent pre-teen girl, tries to learn about her absent father by secretly painting his portrait from her imagination. When her mother discovers the painting, Claire learns an even bigger secret, and takes the first steps on the path to becoming a young woman.
Speaking of getting to know you, and the jumbles, and all the stuff written so far to get to the good stuff, I bet you didn’t know this about me #2 [Note: Editor, please smooth out this transition for me, thanks]: For all my loudmouth public and art antics, I am...as quiet as a church mouse...in the old hump-sack. Now, and let’s be clear, do not for one minute mistake quiet and timid. I’m a monster. Grrrrr! (branding, remember) I’m a student of sex. And a student of art. I always have been. Art and sex are not mutually exclusive. They are highly correlated and orthogonal and shit. I figured out at a very young age that all the hot nudes were in the art books in the public library. I was that kid. What I haven’t figured out though is how to use art to get hot women to take off their clothes so they can get into books in the public library. It is only one grand psychic step between anatomy and physiology. I am that kid. I took college level sex classes TWICE! Because I was interested in the topic, really. I wrote a term paper on female orgasm. I know about the sex. I study sex. I should have been a biologist or physician. But sex is more psychology than physiology and that is what my college degree is in: psychology. Guh! I'll always be that kid.

So yeah, when I’m doing my sexies business, I’m so focused with concentration and world-class knowledge that the audio portion of the surveillance tape would only reveal the cool, quiet, deliberate, and authoritative commands of the professional: “Turn. Here. Over. Down. Now. Blue. Yes. More. More? There. Good.” None of this, "Oh baby, yeeeeah baby" nonsense. I'm working not barbecuing. And professional may be the wrong word. A sex professional is something entirely different, I suppose. I am the academic. The chess club president. Sex Nazi! Those who cannot do, teach. Those who cannot teach, judge. Sex judge would be weird. I could get a Ph.D. in sex. Very quietly. Huh?

Why am I talking about all of this? Oh, because the Post Secret guy was on the radio this morning. Fascinating stuff. People and their secrets is what modern humanity is all about.

And that was mine. Shhhh!

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I've Always Been This Awkward