What you probably never wanted but are getting anyway

Hi!

It's June...

I thought I would do something a little different. For a little while I am going to post the unedited, unfinished, unsung and unloved small short story (in excerpt form...Goddamn! I have some compassion) that I have tucked away mercifully. One could say this is meglomanical (and one would be right) or one could say that this is theraputic for my lifelong writers block (probably incorrect but a stupid, boring supposed-to-be answer anyway). I hope you enjoy!

This is a story of a recollection of life, a pseudo-memoir (how lucky for you readers). A man realizes how incredibly boring it is to be so damn introspective all the time and checks himself into a psychiatric clinic in hopes that he may be able to expunge the repetitive thoughts from his head. A noble gesture turns from a surreal fantasy of a cushy break from "reality" into an excruciating exercise in rewinding every single thought he has had from birth. This story is told in "sort of" chapters. These chapters now being real or imagined therapy interactions with uninterested doctors, nitpicking grad students hoping to woo said uninterested doctors with their firm grasp on the fralities and nuances of the clinically troubled mind, minimum wage nurses, delivery men, TV stars, ex-girlfriends, polar bears, world leaders, contract killers and other assorted characters.

For an appetizer from the tenatively titled "An Assortment of Assholes" please continue reading
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...from the minute I walked up here I cannot help feeling duped. I thought it was going to be one of those beautifully landscaped brick masterpieces that you would see in Crazy People or Rain Man. Highbrow effite East Coast prep school architecture comforts me immensely. There should be an enormous lawn that looks like a country club fairway with dollops of Walden Ponds all over the place. I could sit on a fucking park bench and feed ducks and chickens and cows and grizzly bears and unicorns depending on what sort of kickass pill I was on. Remember Crazy People...that movie was fucking great. Everyone was happy and wore pajamas and had jobs. This place is more like a depressing elementary school built in the middle of a cornfield...

BBSRG- This place was an elementary school built in the middle of a cornfield.

...yeah, thanks, I just said that. I didn't need it to be true. I needed comfort and relaxation. I needed. Oh, I don't know what the fuck I needed...

BBSRG- O.K. so you have put here your reason for entry into our program was, um, The New...

...yeah, The New York Times. I used to read it religiously. It made me feel pious. It made me feel educated and worldly. It was a lot easier convincing girls about your "intellect" than sporting Rimbaud or some contemporary bullshit from Jonathan Safron Foer or Tom Robbins. They can see the giant newspaper better than some tiny insignificant book. Besides I grew up in a town where culture is woodcarved boats and literature is old ladies reading microfiche to remember when Coke cost a nickel and their wedding was on the front page. The girls all drink Miller Lite, read Cosmo and wear too much fucking makeup. But even cowgirls and hookers know The New York Times is what you read if you are a thoughtful, sensitive scholar. Anyway as I was saying, I would buy The Times everyday at this university store where this gorgeous, probably too young girl worked. She the perkiest tits I had ever seen. We had at least a yearlong fake romance. You know the kind of lala romance you have with the same people you ride on the bus with for years but never talk to. The girls in the dentist office you craft amazing and fantastic lives with each other while you daydream the mundane day away. I do that shit all the time, everywhere. But back to the story, it would take me two hours to read the newspaper because I would sit where she (or any other girl for that matter) could see me and I would constantly check out who was checking me out. But mostly I would act like I was intensely pouring over world events, culture or whatever pretentious shit that New Yorkers pride themselves on but really know nothing about because they are all cannibalistic douchebags who couldn't bear to concern themselves with anything off their fucking little island (Brooklyn and the Bronx could fucking crack off into the sea for all the Manhattanites care). I would pretend that she would hang out with her girls and talk about the intellectual that came in everyday and ordered a soy Mocha with his New York Times. Then in order to have things to say the next day she would pour over her own copy and dream about doing the crossword with me on Sunday morning in our breakfast nook. The sun would be shining off her multi-colored hair and dapple down her silk robe onto her impossibly creamy breasts and perfect nipples as she would giggle at my outrageously funny rebukes of right-wing editorials and mainstream media hidden biases. But I guess I really never talked to her all the much...

BBSRG- so I should put down afraid to talk to women here?

...no, please god no. That really doesn't have anything to do with it. Just after 9/11 they started putting obitituaries of the people who died in the attacks. They would have a whole section dedicated to this with pictures and little vignettes of the wonderful/cool/religious shit that they had accomplished in their lives. I had to read that everyday. I became obsessed with the living dead. I could conjure up their entire lives from just those short descriptions. The ones that made me the happiest were the successful black people. Dave Eggers has a line in his brilliant and fame-bloated first novel about how he smiles every time he sees a black man holding a child. I couldn't fucking agree more. I don't really know if it is white guilt or what. But I just love to black folks succeed (even at the expense of seeing me constantly plummet downward). One thing I always hated about The Times 9/11 obits, though. They always hyped up the fucking firemen and cops more than anything...

BBSRG- and that makes you upset?

...no, no just the fact that a Jackboot Pig is any more important than, say, a New Jersey gravedigger or a Sudanese janitor on the fifty-seventh floor of the South Tower pissed me off a little. But, shit, I respect them when they are not arresting me or waterhosing blacks or wearing mustaches...

BBSRG- o.k. so we will put down that you got depressed at obitituaries?

...well, yeah but not really like depressed. They didn't make me sad because they were dead. I didn't even fucking know them. Dead people don't depress me because they don't exist in my world. Do you know that I am thirty-two years old and I have never seen a dead body. I am sure millions and millions of people every day see a dead body but somehow in my life it has been decided that they will keep death hidden from me. Someone has made the judgement call that maybe Foster, you don't need to be troubled with death. We will sweep it away from you before you come walking around the corner. Have to go to a funeral? We will make sure we creamate the body so as to not inconvience you. I mean, ten year old Rwandan children saw bodies rotting in the ditches all hacked up by machetes and in Moscow a cold snap will popcicle the homeless right on the street and Iraqis are picking body parts out their hair from liberating bombs and "civil" car detonations every fucking day. But, no, it not about these deaths. It is about their lives. I read the obitituary and I know that they have done more than I have. Shit, they still are doing more than me and I am still alive, sort of.

BBSRG- We will put Generalized Fears on here then. Umm, swearing is o.k. by me but the doctors sort of frown on it.

...sorry...

BBSRG- O.K. (she says o.k. all the time) Honey, next it says here you have put Scoundrel White Corporate Cocksuckers followed by My Ex-Girlfriend from Nine Years Ago, do I have that correct?

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Disclaimer #1 the ellipses are of course my main character speaking but deceptively I used a code for the other characters in my story. I know you are probably sick of codebreaking so I will give you a Key in order to follow along with supreme ease and comfort to your soul.

LEGEND

... = me
BBSRG = Big Black Sweet Receptionist Girl
EGWRMFL = Ex-Girlfriend Who Ruined My Fucking Life
BP = Bored Psychotherapist
M+D = Mom and Dad (sort of a combined Frankensteinian character)
VL or HCM = Vladimir Lenin or Ho Chi Mihn (i haven't decided which yet, may not matter)
JK = Jack Kerouac (to be blamed for much)
SSHIT = Smarmy Superhip Indie Rock Type
MFDV = Mutha Fucking Dean Venture of Venture Bros. fame

and many many others but I think you all get the picture.

Disclaimer #2 I tried to edit this as much as possible because typos are annoying. However, it is still a blog and I am not a great transcriber and I am not getting paid. So there...

Auf Wiedersehen