What’s an Mp3 Again?
We had finished lunch at Arby’s.
Then took me to his place, which was his parents’.
A lovely home decorated in northeastern Americana
heavy on the light houses.
His bedroom looked like the bedroom of a twenty-year-old
who lived with his parents
and attended a university a fifteen-minute drive away.
Ten minutes longer than his commute to high school.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of November 10, 2019
My wife and I would make terrible diplomats. We would very quickly negotiate with terrorists. Just watch how fast we cut deals with our toddler son.
Hope Idiotic | Part 22
This was Lou’s cue. All he had to say was, ‘We’d love to’ and the waitress would say she’d be right back. She’d tell the owner/celebrity chef to get ready with the champagne. The manager would put his finger on the appropriate light switches. Lou would tell Michelle how much he loved her and how he wanted to start their life together right away. He’d get on his knee. The lights would change. All of the other patrons would become silent the moment they realized what was happening. He’d reach into the side pocket of his blazer and pull out the ring box. Michelle would start crying.
Hope Idiotic | Part 21
At that moment, Lou had $8,500 to his name. Give or take the few bucks from his unemployment checks that would be left after trying to pay his credit card bills. Looking at the statement, it felt good having all of that money staring back at him. He didn’t want to ever spend it. But it was already as good as gone.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of November 3, 2019
Those Purdue students protesting that CVS in West Lafayette, Indiana really need something better to do with their weeknights. One cashier’s idiocy for not knowing Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory is not a cause worth fighting for. Hit the books. Or get drunk at Harry’s Chocolate Shop. Or better yet, drown yourself in the Wabash River.
Hope Idiotic | Part 20
Lou stared at her. That five hundred was the most money he’d made doing what he loved in a long, long time. Winning — just performing — was the best he’d felt in just as long. Michelle wasn’t letting him enjoy it. Was she really jealous of his win? And while he could have given her the full five hundred bucks to help pay for the trip, it wouldn’t have made much difference — not with what the whole thing cost anyway. Besides, he’d thought about treating himself to a new blazer and a pair of jeans since he hadn’t bought himself any new clothes in two years. He also thought he’d take Michelle out for a really nice evening, like the one where he would propose to her. This is bullshit, he thought as they engaged in a stare-down. He should have said something, but instead, he shrugged his shoulders in defeat and mumbled, “Fine.” Then he left to wander the ship’s decks drinking a glass of scotch until he had calmed down and figured Michelle had fallen asleep.
Hope Idiotic | Part 19
The day after Lou moved to Chicago, Michelle pointed to a Tiffany’s magazine ad. It was for a princess-cut diamond ring.
“This is the ring I want,” she told him. “This would be perfect.”
He held onto that magazine ad. And when he brought it to Goldman Jewelers, the longtime Bergman family jeweler in Skokie, Lou told the man, “If you can design this, it would be perfect.”
The jeweler, who was only a few years older than Lou, took a look at it. His name was Art Goldman. He was the fourth generation working in the business of making girls squeal with delight when they received their blood diamonds. Getting the Goldman Jewelers business card was a rite of passage. Pop gave it to him. It was yellowed and dog-eared.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of October 27, 2019
When someone knows they’re wrong but can’t admit it or is unwilling to take the steps necessary to right that wrong due to pride or self-preservation, they panic. Then they lash out. And they become more and more wrong through their actions and words. That’s what’s happening with the Republican Party and most marriages right now.
Hope Idiotic | Part 18
What Chuck’s repo man would do then is go to the house and wait in the street for Chuck to return. The first time Chuck saw the tow truck as he turned onto the street, he hit the brakes, slammed it into reverse and hightailed it to Lexi’s. He returned at 5 a.m. and, thankfully, the truck was gone. He knew this would be the new norm, so he devised a plan. He would disconnect the garage-door sensors that caused the door to lift back up when an object was in the way. He would press the garage-door remote in his car as he neared the house. Once the door was lifted, he would press the remote again to close the door. Then he’d gun it and whip the car past the repo-man’s tow truck, up the driveway and into the garage with no time to spare and no margin for error. As long as he ignored the phone calls, the doorbell and the knocking on the windows and the front door, he’d be good to go. A closed garage door meant he was safe.
The Minutes of Our Last Meeting Dresses Up as Literate Ape for Halloween
There was blood everywhere because, even though I am a vampire, I am a klutz.
Hope Idiotic | Part 17
Lou realized that his joke wasn’t a joke at all. Not in a shrink’s office. “No, no. I’m sorry. I was being funny. Really, I’ve never thought about it. I mean, not any more than anyone else has ever thought about it. Just like, when you hear about someone doing it, you wonder about what the last thing to go through their mind was. And not the bullet, like if the person shot himself or anything. No. I’m not suicidal.”
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of October 20, 2019
I am convinced that my greatest failure is that I have far too many interests.
Hope Idiotic | Part 16
Later that week, Lou started therapy. He’d gone to a psychologist before when he was in sixth grade. He was misbehaving in school, collecting an average of one detention a day from one teacher or another. He even managed to get a detention while in detention. His parents were convinced his behavioral problems stemmed from some sort of internal conflict. They had mistaken internal conflict as being a twelve-year-old class clown.
Hope Idiotic | Part 15
Chuck was going to write. He was going to edit the magazine. He was going to be productive. But he miscalculated the balance of booze and pills and his ability to work, so he instead ended up getting plowed, destroyed the motel room and slept on the beach with his head inside the empty beer case to protect his glasses.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of October 13, 2019
The Eagles are a grossly overrated band. Separate from that, Hotel California might be the most terrible song ever recorded. Worse, yes, than Rebecca Black’s Friday.
Hope Idiotic | Part 14
CHUCK CLAIMED HE WAS ATTENDING AA MEETINGS ON A REGULAR BASIS. So each morning, Melvin stuck his nose right into Chuck’s open mouth and told him to breathe. These closed-door sessions were disguised as short, daily program meetings so as not to drum up any suspicion that something covert was going on. Not that anyone could have guessed that Chuck was allowing his superior to huff his morning breath.
Losing a Best Friend 10 Years Later — Remembering Mike Zigler
On Friday, October 16, 2009, one of my best friends, Mike Zigler, died.
It was a stupid death. One that was completely avoidable if Zigler hadn’t been the man he was, and maybe, if I hadn’t left Las Vegas two years before to continue my life in Chicago. When people ask me how he died I joke and say, “With his hands at two and ten” — the textbook instruction on where a driver should place their hands on the steering wheel. Zigler died in his car, in the garage of my Las Vegas house, which he was renting from me.
Hope Idiotic | Part 13
She spent the majority of her day sitting at that wall unit writing summary judgments and answering the flurry of emails that poured in. Many of them were only one or two sentences — conversations that could have been easily had over the phone in less time and with less interruption to her train of thought. There’s nothing more distracting for a working writer than to have an email notification going off in the corner of the computer screen every other minute. When she needed a moment to think, she would lean back in her chair and look at the shelf just above her computer at the two framed photographs of her and Lou.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of October 7, 2019
It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it that matters. I’ve said this before, and yet, some people still don’t get it. Maybe it’s the way I’m saying it.
Hope Idiotic | Part 12
What kind of a boyfriend was he? What kind of a man lets his girlfriend of two years — a close friend for eight years before that — foot the bill for her big thirtieth birthday trip?
How do you want to be defined? By one action? By some opinion that could evolve? By a mistake, regrettable only with hindsight? Or by the sum of your parts? Okay, do that for other people. Start the trend.