& then incredibly sometimes it’s just rat-a-tat-tat-tat BOOM & somebody gets exactly what they want. But it was just a few days ago that I bought $twenty worth of groceries on credit so that currently isn’t my story, & honestly, I know very few people who can tell that story in first person narative. So that story probably isn’t this story, but maybe it is.

J.S.Bach once said: “I have had to work hard; anyone who works just as hard will get just as far.” & Schopenhauer once said of Bach (well, not really of Bach per se, but on the nature of fame & famous people): “The more a man belongs to posterity, in other words to humanity in general, the more of an alien is he to his contemporaries; since his work is not meant for them as such… People are more likely to appreciate the man who serves the circumstances of his own brief hour, or the temper of the moment - belonging to it, & living & dying in it.”

Soiled floor of sparsely furnitured living room - mid winter 2005

It’s a cut-throat game of cribbage & he’s killing her. But the game isn’t just about the game & they both know that. Appearances for appearances’ sake, right? & what’s more, he likes cribbage, always has. His abusive grandfather taught him the game so he figured that if he could own the game he could own his grandfather’s fists. Chess sails in the same boat with cribbage there, so they could’ve been playing chess as well; she knows how. She was taught by an abusive ex-boyfriend. Chess, cribbage, canasta: it didn’t matter what they were playing, & they both knew that. “She’s gonna fish” - this is what he’s thinking the whole time. “She’s gonna politely cough to let me know it’s coming & start asking the questions I’m not going to answer honestly. She’s gonna ask about him.”

“Fifteen two, fifteen four; that’s all there is, there ain’t no more.”

“cghfmph, ccga… So…”

…

& then rat-a-BOOOOM, things have changed. & there is nothing wrong with change, but we all, livin’ like we’re living & dying and all in it, in the moment, we change too effing fast. & we become aliens to our contemporaries. But we still work in circles, we’re beasts of nature (don’t ever forget that), & we all still run into each other but we’re all beasts (& don’t ever, ever forget that one) & we’re so competitive & distrusting & kicking & fighting & fucking & living & dying in it all, that one small variable, flipped over on its other side, can make the difference between sitting on a soiled carpet coughing politely & never speaking.

D.C.

But she did it. She fought hard like eff & got what she wanted. That’s amazing. The polite cough, he stepped aside. He got vicious & decided he was the victim. It’s a defensive trait, but it’s sad. & I hate to say it, but I’ve done it before. Some people just hate working hard. Bach lived 65 years, didn’t hit the billboard charts until after his death; Mozart only lived 35 years & was kissing Empresses as a young boy. Yeah, some people hope fingers-crossed for a mozart-like break. Screw that. What Schopie said is only true if everyone’s only living for the brief hour. I’m a little tired of living for the brief hour.

I wish I was a little taller

& so I try to stand really straight.

Impressive posture, no?