...bologna. Still, at the time of the incessant telephone game, something provoked me to answer the phone matching Nanny’s hostility that only a child can mime since a child doesn’t really know what the problem is to begin with. Candace! I yelled. That’s my sister’s name. Quit it! The line was silent for only a second before a grown man’s voice repeated the name to me in the form of a question. Candace? No this is Jason. This would mark the beginning of a long career of talking to strangers. This is Deputy So & So. I was confused and a bit scared thinking my sister’s obsessive use of the phone had alerted the police department. I put my Nanny on the phone and listened to her say bologna a lot. It turns out that earlier that day when my Dad came to pick up my sister and I from school he forgot to sign us out, drawing attention to our disappearance as if it were a kidnapping. Even though my mother knew exactly where we were for the authorities to contact us she still let them do their good job of shaking up a family vacation and holding the incident over my Dad’s head in the middle of a long and tiresome divorce. My parents were weird and I don’t have very many memories of them being together, which is why I think I’m drawn to love and always needing someone in my life to dream with and think big about the future with. I like the idea that the memories I’m making right now I’ll be able to share with my own grandchildren and read them the letters I wrote to grandma when we were young and foolish and always traveling on opposite sides of the sea. I didn’t have the pleasure of spying on my parents in romantic situations so I look forward to the day I can gross out my kids by making out with Mom on the couch after dinner in front of their friends. I read a great quote in Manhattan yesterday plastered on some kind of advertisement. It asked, “Why are children so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be the education.”
Growing up is hard and often sad when we think about what we endured as kids, especially when we put it into perspective as paranoid adults looking to undermine everything and judge every action based on whether or not it’s safe or just plain acceptable or not. There are too many rules and rights and wrongs now it’s disgusting. Do you think this is what we as humans were meant to be doing here on earth? Maybe. Maybe we are here to make plastic since no other being seems to be producing it and when the earth has plenty it’ll find a way to kill us off by turning our own minds against us. Maybe we’re here to kick and scream and blow shit up. Maybe we’re here to squash bugs. Maybe we’re not supposed to tip our waiters. Unfortunately no one left a manual that any two groups can agree on so we’re pretty much screwed and everyone gets to be God.
I went to see March of the Penguins last night. Wow! What a film. What a story! From now on I am forever referring to this film as my all time favourite, spelling Favorite with the U as only learned scholars do. See it. Believe it for yourself. Discover what true love REALLY is all about. Endurance. Togetherness. Hardships. The works. And how cute are the little penguins!? I want one NOW. Is that legal in San Diego? I’d settle for Morgan Freeman to follow me around and narrate my life.
I’m going to stop wishing I were a kid again and just be a kid again. When you’re a kid, ignorance is bliss. Nothing hurts for too long. No one asks too much of you except for things like wash your hands, wipe your feet, close the door, clean your room, etc. Life is sweet. There aren’t too many kids I can think of that are asked to be role models, except for Kevin Arnold and maybe that Malcolm in the Middle kid. Other than that we as children are free to make the mistakes we accidentally get ourselves into and blame youth to get us out of it. Bushwalla and I still use this excuse whenever we’re caught shoplifting or doing something considered unlawful, “But I’m just a kid.” Try it! Just throw your arms up when you say it and act surprised and afraid. The sympathy and confusion for your look, age, and bad deed will more often than not be your get out of jail free card. Who says I’m a bad role model? I just gave you some primo advice on how to avoid trouble AND apply the nectar of the Fruited Newtons of youth.
I’ve lived in this Jersey City hotel room for a week now and I’ve yet to bounce on the beds. It’s almost time to transfer my belongings to the airport so I better get cracking and give the maids something to complain about. As an adult newbie I’ve lost that loving feeling for hotel rooms. I don’t even see them anymore. They all look and smell the same to me. Some have room service all night and others stop at twelve as if the cooking staff is related to Cinderella. The only thing I care about these days is how fast the Internet is and whether or not it’s free. I suck. In high school whenever I stayed at a hotel I made sure I wadded up wet wads of toilet paper and threw them out the window onto roofs of cars. These days I barely take the time to turn anything upside down. I’m a pathetic rocker. I have no edge. I wish I could live within the poetic and somewhat imaginary realm of my songs since the reality painted inside is usually a lot more aesthetically pleasing than life in a hotel room in Jersey, the armpit of America. No offense to Bon Jovi and Springsteen fans, but this place is the pits. Pun intended.
…and I’m out.
[jason mraz]
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