Been trying to think up compelling reasons to convince you—
Been trying to think up compelling reasons to convince you—“browbeat” and “force” were my other options, and you’d better believe they’re waiting in the wings, honey—to purchase AuntieMemes™ from my online store.
You know. Sketchy Photoshop composites, consisting of fractured, fabricated quotes squeezed with heroic efforts from the flat, crinkled tube of my brain like half-dried Colgate, falsely attributed to the semi-famous, combined with possibly still-under-copyright images taken at will from the internet with only cursory attention to fair use, everything crammed together like rain-drenched, stinking, whiny passengers on a vintage Toronto streetcar, and all of it printed on extravagantly expensive art paper.
Oh yeah, suitable for framing.
Sorry, what’s that?
No, I still haven’t come up with any reasons, I just thought I’d put it out there. Don’t be so pushy, in case you’re lying there at 1:30 AM staring at the holes in the particle board and wondering why we broke up. Alrighty?
OK a couple reasons—
—that sounds American, doesn’t it? “Couple reasons“, without the “of”. It’s soooo grating. I think I use that locution because underlying my deep annoyance with most things American is a deep, deep annoyance, so saying it that way is the equivalent of scraping a spot on your skin with your nail because you think it might yield something: evidence of terminal melanoma, the extent to which you can endure pain, a shard of something smokable at least.
Or perhaps it’s the equivalent of sticking your tongue into the hollow of your molar that’s been aching whenever the storm’s about to hit.
The storm’s about to hit.
Received a third letter from my buddy in prison—
— Or is it “jail”? I never quite get the qualitative or quantitative difference between the two. I think “jail” is in Etobicoke, or you could leave out the “in”; and “prison” is in Kingston, that historic town on the St Lawrence half-way to Montréal and site of 19th-century garrisons for Loyalists fighting Americans, so you can see there is already more gravitas AND more sympa.
So my buddy is in jail, in that case. Holding his third letter, unopened, I think how difficult it must be to carve out the time to write, what with all the competing leisure and self-directed learning activities; how painstakingly one would have to procure the various smuggled-in components of an HB pencil and reassemble; how vexing to mash together some semblance of fine stationery from discount toilet roll and rabbit-skin glue, press it out, dry it in the little taunting beam of sunlight streaming through the bars of your cell.
And me, Mr. Privilege, with all the time in the world (Schedule: Awaken to acolyte bearing freshly-pulled latte; Today’s Agenda: Sniff daisies, retire)—me, I can’t pull it together to make even a one-syllable retort.
This is my defining pastime: I create the difficult so I can then avoid the difficult—drama then procrastination. Maybe this is what I really should be marketing: “Procrastinama!” “Dramastination!”
I’d call myself such a loser, but then, how to account for the fact that it’s him in jail, not me?
And there’s huge, or “yuge”, if you voted Republican, gaps in my emotional intelligence. For example—and I squirm with embarrassment to put this into actual words, but—I’ve always had trouble striking that delicate balance between, on the one hand, hysterical and aggrieved outrage at unspeakable treachery, and on the other, co-dependent self-destructive forgiveness.
I dunno, what do you think, maybe something in my childhood? Or just not enough practice?
I think I may have my compelling reason.
Buy my wares and I’ll rise from the dead and forgive you your sins, it’s as likely a promise as you’ll find.
But oh, so sincere.
Visit my Facebook store. (opens in a new window)