For Those Of Ya'll Who Wear Fanny Packs
Self-Proclaimed Wussy Punk-Pop Piano Player Ben Folds wrote:
He shouted out his last word and he stumbled through the yard. And she shattered her last china plate and spun off in the car. When he lunged onto the hood, she stopped to tell him she'd been wrong. He was thrown head over heels into the traffic coming on. But then, all is fair in love.
I think we're all a little bit gay.
I'm not trying to be incendiary. I'm talking about the theory that gaydom is not a yes-or-no kind of thing; it's a sliding scale of homosexitude, and we all lie somewhere on the scale. Actual gay people are near the top, people who engage in same-gender hijinks when they're drunk or high or dared are near the middle, and Colin Powell is near the bottom.
I think the same is true for insanity. I think we're all a little bit crazy. People who eat their own feces are at the top of the scale and Colin Powell is near the bottom, but a lot of us hover in the middle, in an area labeled: "Hopeless Romantic."
When my college girlfriend broke-up with me right after I moved to New York, I had insane visions of hitchhiking across state lines to prove my love. Surely my unexpected arrival on her doorstep with no form of transportation will win her back! I listened to classical piano 24/7 (she was a pianist) and wrote her exhaustive, ridiculous personal essays and short stories over e-mail "inspired" by Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, and Chopin. See how my love for you has led me to boldly reinterpret these masters of artistic achievement?! I also laid on my bed a lot. But I'm not sleeping, my love!
Not healthy. In fact, I would go so far as to call it unhealthy. But man-oh-man it hurts, and you have to do something, right? And asking someone to be rational when they've just been emotionally body-checked is like asking a cow to be on your bowling team: it makes no sense.
Anyway, as I come to the end of the chapter in my memoirs that will inevitably be titled, "Bratty and Bonky," I am surrounded by this mid-range insanity from people I care about (who are dealing with their own Bonky's -- if it is not too presumptuous to use that term universally), and yet I feel none of it myself. I'm not sure why, but I know the time has come for it to end. The message is being broadcast by the Goodyear Blimp into homes across the country, and I'm strangely okay with it. Either I have nothing left to prove or no energy with which to prove it.
The truth is though, I like being nominally insane. I like that sting of ridiculous regret coupled with overwhelming exhiliration. I want to feel it again...sooner or later...with someone else. But that's for later.
For now, I'll cheer on my friends, remind them they're being insane, then grin like a fool when they do the most irrational thing possible because they just can't help themselves.
Afterall, there's no better feeling in the world.
It's cool and blustery today, like dropping an ice cube down your shirt.
Self-Proclaimed Wussy Punk-Pop Piano Player Ben Folds wrote:
He shouted out his last word and he stumbled through the yard. And she shattered her last china plate and spun off in the car. When he lunged onto the hood, she stopped to tell him she'd been wrong. He was thrown head over heels into the traffic coming on. But then, all is fair in love.
I think we're all a little bit gay.
I'm not trying to be incendiary. I'm talking about the theory that gaydom is not a yes-or-no kind of thing; it's a sliding scale of homosexitude, and we all lie somewhere on the scale. Actual gay people are near the top, people who engage in same-gender hijinks when they're drunk or high or dared are near the middle, and Colin Powell is near the bottom.
I think the same is true for insanity. I think we're all a little bit crazy. People who eat their own feces are at the top of the scale and Colin Powell is near the bottom, but a lot of us hover in the middle, in an area labeled: "Hopeless Romantic."
When my college girlfriend broke-up with me right after I moved to New York, I had insane visions of hitchhiking across state lines to prove my love. Surely my unexpected arrival on her doorstep with no form of transportation will win her back! I listened to classical piano 24/7 (she was a pianist) and wrote her exhaustive, ridiculous personal essays and short stories over e-mail "inspired" by Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, and Chopin. See how my love for you has led me to boldly reinterpret these masters of artistic achievement?! I also laid on my bed a lot. But I'm not sleeping, my love!
Not healthy. In fact, I would go so far as to call it unhealthy. But man-oh-man it hurts, and you have to do something, right? And asking someone to be rational when they've just been emotionally body-checked is like asking a cow to be on your bowling team: it makes no sense.
Anyway, as I come to the end of the chapter in my memoirs that will inevitably be titled, "Bratty and Bonky," I am surrounded by this mid-range insanity from people I care about (who are dealing with their own Bonky's -- if it is not too presumptuous to use that term universally), and yet I feel none of it myself. I'm not sure why, but I know the time has come for it to end. The message is being broadcast by the Goodyear Blimp into homes across the country, and I'm strangely okay with it. Either I have nothing left to prove or no energy with which to prove it.
The truth is though, I like being nominally insane. I like that sting of ridiculous regret coupled with overwhelming exhiliration. I want to feel it again...sooner or later...with someone else. But that's for later.
For now, I'll cheer on my friends, remind them they're being insane, then grin like a fool when they do the most irrational thing possible because they just can't help themselves.
Afterall, there's no better feeling in the world.
It's cool and blustery today, like dropping an ice cube down your shirt.