Allentown. Where I went to college. Lots of blond, Jewish, upper-middle class kids from New Jersey. Things haven’t changed much here, save for the new science building and two-years-worth of new faces…ridiculously hot female faces. Wegmans is still just down the road, and it is still the only place I really like to eat in the entire city. I’ve bumped into a few familiar faces, and delivered the first fifty pages of my manuscript to my old advisor/mentor whatever-you-call-it. The library hasn’t changed much. Hey, fat girl, stop looking over my shoulder.
WEEKLY TOP TEN: SAD THINGS (note: funerals, deaths, and the terminally ill are too obvious, they don’t count)
10) Roadkill – Sometimes it can be depressing, like when a family of deer loves to hang out and chew the grass on your front lawn, and then one night you return home late at night only to see one off the deer with its guts spread across the road, and the rest of the family just looking around like, “what the fuck happened?” Other times, like when one scavenger is trying to eat roadkill and then it gets killed, it’s funny.
9) Sunday Night – In a way, it’s almost worst than Monday, because the anticipation of having a week of work/school ahead of you is more daunting than actually getting it started. All throughout high school and college I was pretty much inconsolable on these nights, until I started drinking to alleviate my anxiety.
8) This Musician – The picture was attached to an e-mail I got yesterday promoting his indie-folk tour that he’s about to embark on. His name, no joke, is Foghorn Leghorn…or something like that. Basically, the sad part is that every musician has given up and decided to copy the Decemberists/Death Cab formula for indie-pop-ularity (I just made that up). Just give up, Leghorn.
7) “The Weatherman” – I read this book in middle school. It was a gruesome thriller about the world of TV news, and a series of murders that coincide with freakish weather events. The weatherman gets pinched for the murders and two people are trying to prove his innocence. He dies at the end of the book I think I cried. I don’t know why, because I think it turned out he actually did commit the murders.
6) Crushes – It’s like Matt Kadane once sang: to be crushed is to be hit and left to recover, or to be left alone with nothing to understand. I’m pretty thankful I’m in a momentary lull as far as crushes are concerned, because they can really mess a man up in the head.
5) American History X – I should have expected the ending. Usually I’m snappy enough to catch onto silly cinematic twists and turns (see: M. Night Shamalamadingdong) but I lost it the first time I saw this movie. Thank God I was alone at the time. I made up for my hyper-sensitivity a few years later by successfully transforming an innocent boy/girl viewing of this film into a full-on fuckfest.
4) Erectile Dysfunction – I‘ve never encountered this. In fact, I’ve got too many erections as it is! But, could you imagine staring down the naked, supple, inviting form of a female and getting no response? Why, it’d be like…it’d be like…getting your dick cut off in your sleep. Only, you’re awake, and you still have your dick, it just doesn’t work at all.
3) Cutting Yourself – It’s funny when other people get hurt, or to joke about high school kids being all pouty and cutting anarchy symbols into their thighs “just to feel something,” but sometimes you snag your toes or smack your head or step on a piece of glass, and it’s okay to get a little teary about it. I mean, I don’t do it, and I’d probably laugh at you if I ever saw you cry, but that doesn’t mean it’s taboo. Plenty of people cry when they get hurt. We call ’em “women.”
2) Hot Chick / Douchebag Boyfriend – C’mon, you’re telling me the guy in the ‘beater with enough gel in his hair to deflect a gunshot is the height of your potential? Let me take you out and give you a poke and tell me you’re still interested in that.
1) “Famous Blue Raincoat” – Every time I hear the opening notes of this epistle on the subject of infidelity (I think. It’s pretty vague), I feel like I’m being punched in the guts. And that’s before the narrative even begins. A few minutes later, he gets to, “And what can I tell you my brother, my killer / What can I possibly say? / I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you / I’m glad you stood in my way”, and you’re struggling to just keep it together. Finally it ends, and six minutes later “Joan of Arc” starts. Then the whole gut-wrenching ordeal begins anew! What a depressing, marvelously sad eleven minutes (seventeen if you count “Sing Another Song, Boys”).
