This first section is mostly meant for my comrade, Arthur A. Wells, or also anyone in Albia:
I finally beat that horsefucking router. It took until about a half hour ago--after an initial 12:07 AM victory, I was defeated again, but came back at the brink of exhaustion.
Tomorrow I'll be out of town with me mums in the day, and then with the fambly till 8:30 or 9 or so, but if you (Dave) or you (anyone else) are interested in the traditional walking around Albia after that, LET'S DO IT.
This next section is meant for anyoneMy sisters gave my father a laptop for Christmas and I, after hearing that he'd finally advanced past godforsaken porn-surf-libido-crushing dial-up, picked up a wireless router. I then did battle with that beast for a combined total of
at least five hours
at least two glasses of water
at least 20 handfuls of Rice Crispies (dinner having been skipped)
Also, this vulgarity frequency chart, while unscientifically compiled, is accurate enough:
Word or Phrase----------------------------
Times Said, Whispered, Growled, etcFuck------------------------------------------55
Motherfucker----------------------------------18
God DAMN it-----------------------------------32
GOD damn it------------------------------------5
This is a dick in my ass-----------------------2
Shit-------------------------------------------7
Tree Fuckin Hippie-----------------------------0 (regrettably)
All this on the back porch of my parents' house, with the door closed, and my mother sleeping not fifteen feet away. Let's hope she sleeps soundly.
So now I'm sitting on the couch in the living room, typing this up, at 3:06 in the damned morning, the concept of which would blow the top of my head off four years ago, when I was hunched over the desktop upstairs, trying to gut PKers on the mud with a 28.8 dial-up modem that kicked out every 40 minutes.
Just being here is reminding me of that version of myself, Tim From the Past, and that time, and everyone. Earlier Dave came by and, lacking anywhere to go and anything to do, we walked out past the old apartment, out around the Romingers' cat farm, through the high school parking lot. Dave told me there's nothing left to do in this town but walk around like an old man, and he's right. To me this town has become a shell of the past, somewhere I visit and get out of before too much can happen, because almost no one's left (Amish doesn't count because he's working nights, and I feel too goofy knocking on Josh's door at 10 pm by myself).
But tonight, about 30 minutes ago, when I was finally pissing all over that router's defeated carcass and getting ready to go to bed, I started looking around the shadows on my father's back porch and the popcorn-salt-orange light coming from the high school parking lot and the back of Meagan's house outside the window and everything came back to me for a second, the feeling of being young, of this place being vibrant, of not worrying about my parents' health, of having the entire future ahead and not knowing that every month gone is a month's worth of lost opportunities.
Does anyone else feel like that? Like we've been accelerating like mad and have now rocketed past some singularity after which everything is slowing down and dead and just stagnating, floating, unchanging? Too many things have gone from potential to fulfillment to interesting to great to commonplace to either gone or fading. My parents are getting older, my father's got some bizarro illness, Heather, Heidi, Ryan, Billy, Bunny, and other people who were important parts of my time in Des Moines are now people I haven't talked to in months. I've been free of a job long enough that I'm almost
bored of it, which is ridiculous, but almost, somewhat, true--I'm having dreams lately about my old job, about getting hired again, where my old boss calls and asks me back and for some reason it's almost orgasmic going back to the capitol complex, pinning the badge back on, fucking around online for 8 hours and then getting paid for it.
Not that I'd take it back for even double the pay. But for some reason I have these dreams. But then, last night I also dreamt about working for a newspaper and receiving tips from a clairvoyant and then, after waking up and padding around Sarah's brother's house in my red-and-gray skull boxers, about joining a sex cult that, disappointingly but relievingly, didn't actually ever involve sex.
I'm going to bed. Right here, on my parents' couch.
