Choire Sicha

Friday, July 11

When I used to play pinball, when I was a young California playboy, there was this one really good flashy ramps and bells and whistles game about construction workers. On the machine was drawn this busty blonde forewoman, and you'd imagine that was the toon body of the voice that growled out the days of the week. "Monday," she in the machine would yell blackly, then all through the week, then, finally, on the pinball machine's payday, she'd shout "FRI-DAY!" with such exuberance that everyone in the bar would laugh. That's all I can hear in my head this morning.

Friday! Friday! I don't know quite why I'm so excited. I'm a little giddy with returning health, and with a very satisfying thrilling email from Himself, The Guy, who is chronically longly far overseas, and with Fridayhood itself. For all of you on your trains and in your Mall Terrain Vehicles and waxing your boards and your legs, here's to your Fridays of meeting fun girls in bars and having quiet wine with old friends and maybe even splitting town with a new lover. (And I say lover in that French way, so it's hot, not the dull American way, just so we're clear.) Here's to your Friday, and your freedom! ⊕

block

Thursday, July 10

In search of potassium, I ate so many beets on Tuesday and Wednesday that my pee looked like pink champagne.

The vast majority of people don't receive anywhere near enough potassium. A banana gives you 450 milligrams. The recommended daily minimum intake is 3500 milligrams. There has never been a day in which I have consumed eight bananas, or eight glasses of orange juice. I would hurl. And this Clif bar contains 35% of the recommended intake of manganese and 15% of the copper, but only 7% of the recommended intake of potassium. I am worried about all of us. So many people with their cells unable to fire back and forth. Little fetal neurological messages hurl themselves on rusty coathangers in the inert electrical spaces of our necessary physical thought.

In short I feel terribly stupid today -- stupid on the inside, where it counts -- and I am going to go eat three kiwi fruit. Nothing makes sense. I can smell my own cells dying. Then when I'm awake and all potassium-injected, I'm going to call the FDA and ask them "What the fuck is up? What gives with you fuckers and your fucking potassium? Fuck." ⊕

block

Wednesday, July 9

Speaking as a retired professional dater, I believe I have decided on the most important first date question. That query is: "What is your favorite Woody Allen movie?"

There is a sort of important Freudian symbology under development by our top dating scientists to interpret these answers. Some preliminary result groups:

Interiors, Love and Death, and September: a quietly dreamy sort of soul, your date has pretensions to be something he is not. Beware the poet trapped in the secretary's body.

Annie Hall and Manhattan: Have a follow up question about your date's length of time in therapy. If time equals fewer than four years, you are warned: she wants you to save her from the looming spectre of her distant yet invasive father.

Everyone Says I Love You: misguided fool, romantic ass, hopeless spaz. If not completely brain-damaged, your date will provide you with much affection, when he can keep the focus on you and not on the waiter.

Hannah and Her Sisters, Another Woman, and Husbands and Wives: undoubtedly divorced and scarred, or from a large family of fractious siblings, your date thrives on chaos -- not necessarily in a bad way. Prepare for an emotional thrillride. If you are uptight or terribly goyishe, be warned.

Bullets Over Broadway, Deconstructing Harry, and Mighty Aphrodite: Your date is a fraud, if a sympathetic, even noble one. Your job is to investigate exactly how loudly the black creature deep inside her screams "Phoney! Fake!"

Of course, the answer may be "I don't like Woody Allen" in which case you must decide if you are actually dating a person or a replicant. ⊕

block

Tuesday, July 8

Altered sign at dry cleaners, 10th and 3rd.

⊕

Monday, July 7

Tired of being a good boy this morning. Never having coffee. Going to bed early. Only drinking water. Plotting out the novel before I write the chapters. Not smoking during dinner. Using deodorant. Never having car accidents. Trying painfully to be better and better with words. Smiling during yoga. Holding the door open for you. Not linking to pages with advertising pop-ups. Adjudicating art fairly. Sparing the neighbors from music too loud. Keeping my cell phone on vibrate at all public events. Listening. Trying hard to be clear and fair. Looking both ways. Avoiding trouble. Not grimacing. Never throwing things. Living with and overcoming fear everyday, the night into the morning, and back again. Already tired of the fat-free $1.99 soup I'm microwaving, already tired of calling my doctor after the soup for some Zyban. Wanna hang with girls and shoot my gun, wanna drink and drive and have some fun.* ⊕

block

Sunday, July 6

Is this what happens at 31? I am fully possessed by the drive to be awake during daylight hours and to sleep when the sun is set. This Sunday morning I leisurely slept in until 8 a.m. The huge sun is so high in the sky already that I feel cheated. And the beach is empty, the whole town is silent.

I am suddenly a morning person and there are so few of us in the world. I tiptoe. ⊕