Breakfast with Jared and Winston. As good, or better than that time after church when you tell everybody that you’re “fine”.
Tomorrow, I’ve got a date at lunchtime with my friend LeNelle. We’re headed to the tattoo place to get Kurt Vonnegut’s asshole on my arm.
I’ve always liked Vonnegut’s stuff. He’s the writer I’d aspire to be if I could stand being curmudgeonly all the time and smoking Pall Mall cigarettes (“a classy way to commit suicide”).
Two forces are at play here. First, of course, is my admiration of Vonnegut’s work. Second is my lack of real friends. I think having this identifier visible on my body would create a bond between me and anyone who recognized it. I thought mean thoughts about a larger lady in a Moroccan restaurant in Portland, OR until she shifted around on her pillow and exposed a small “So it goes.” on her leg. If she’d realized she’d forgotten her purse, I’d have paid for her dinner.
Tomorrow, a picture on my arm, but until then you’ll have to have the guts to type “Kurt Vonnegut’s asshole” into Google Image Search… or grab Breakfast of Champions from a shelf.
My neighbors kept bugging me, so I finally put my trust in Jésus. It happened like this:
I looked out the window into the distorted, 100 degree heat and saw him in my neighbor’s yard, cutting hedges. He looked competent enough, and certainly appeared to be working diligently. He turned and faced my house, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his glove. His name tag said: “Jésus.” I went outside.
I shook his hand and said: “I trust you, Jésus.”
Jésus cocked his head a bit sideways and said: “Sorry, no English.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. ”I trust you.”
Time heals all wounds. Lunch-time, doubly so.
