202 posts tagged “life”
While at the downtown library, I am approached by a woman in Standard Crazy Person attire, smiling beatifically.
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Crazy Woman: [Approximately translated from The Crazy from memory] People measure behavior! We have happiness, sadness, and freedom! [Nods as if to say, "Yep!"]
Me: Lovely. [Gives strained, frightened smile and scurries away]
While being waved into a parking spot at the temple, shortly after talking about the Special Olympics.
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Me: Oh, look, they even have a "special" guy directing traffic.
Jill: No, Kevin, that's just a Boy Scout.
Jill, Nanda and I went to the Holi Festival, or the Festival of Colors, at the Krishna Temple today. I don't practice or believe in any religion, but she insisted that the Festival is a good time and that the temple is beautiful; both claims turned out to be true.
If you don't know what this fesival is all about, it's this: a bunch of hippies and teenagers gather together and throw colored powder on each other. I may possibly be simplifying things. I'm sure it's a celebration of life or Krishna or both, but mainly it's an excuse for people to throw green dust into strangers' faces without getting punched. At one point, a fellow walked by and said, "Here's some color for your beard," whereupon he massaged blue into my chin. Nobody was harmed.
Here's what I looked like upon our arrival:
A couple hours later, the hippies started going nutso:
The peace and harmony reigned until we got in the car to drive home, at which point everybody turned into a rude cunt. This angered me:
All in all, it was a good day, and I'm glad I went even if I'm still blowing dust out of my nose.
So, today Jill got a mystery envelope in the mail, and told me to close my eyes. Later, as I opened them, I saw that she was sliding an authentic Special Olympics medal over my head. She had bought it on eBay, and it appears to be a generic medal that you get for participation.
Now, the fact that she bought me my own Special Olympics medallion is of course incredibly cool (if insulting), especially with this whole hullabaloo about President Obama making a Special Olympics joke on The Tonight Show, but I can't help thinking about the back story.
This medal once belonged to an actual Special Olympian. The ribbon is faded, and the medal itself is scratched and cloudy, like an old coin. Is there a 45-year old guy with Down Syndrome somewhere who is now deprived of his medal? Am I wearing the medal of a dead retard? Did some special guy just decide that his glory days being behind him, he'd rather not possess this mocking reminder of his winning youth?
Who knows?
The point is that I now have the foundation element of the best Halloween costume ever.
Here's a photo of me looking a bit like a Special Olympian with my medal. In truth, I was only smiling this widely because Jill was having trouble with the camera.
While listening to a mysterious voice singing somewhere outside.
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Me: Is something mystical happening outside?
Jill: I don't know.
Me (going to the door to listen): I think somebody's having a religious experience out there.
Jill: Could be.
Me: As long as they don't get any on me!
Jill: I hear it's sticky.
Me: "Don't get your God-jizz all over me!"
While discussing a painful cat-scratch on Jill's arm.
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Nanda: You know, mom, they say lemon juice helps it feel better.
Me: Right, Nanda. Your mom's dumb enough to fall for that.
Jill: Hey! Watch it, mister.
Me: What? That was sarcasm!
Jill: Oh, yeah? It sounded like DEATH-casm!
While discussing Jill's son and his friend, and how weird they are.
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Me: They're not particularly weird, they're just 13.
Jill: Really? You think all 13-year olds are like that?
Me: For instance, when we were 13, we thought that everything we were saying was clever and hilarious, but it was probably just as bizarre and irritating as Nanda and his friends. I was a spaz at 13.
Jill: Well, that's you. I was boosting cars and smoking in the bathroom and running around...
Me: Yeah, not everybody's 13th year is a Motley Crue song.
After watching one of those creepy new Chester Cheetah commercials.
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Jill: They're encouraging everybody to be assholes. Two assholes don't make a right.
While discussing the grocery list.
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Me: We have buns, right?
Jill: Yes.
Me: Are they little buns? Do you want some nice big ones?
Jill: They're not big buns. If you want big buns, get those.
Me: Whatever, do you want big buns?
Jill: I don't care, but I know you like them.
Me: Yes, I do like big buns. (pause) I cannot lie.
Jill: Okay, that's it, I'm never talking to you again.
Me: (laughing)
Jill: When people ask me, "How come you never talk to Kevin anymore?", this is why.
Me: (still laughing) All the while we were talking, my mind was working overtime: "How can I work a Sir Mix-A-Lot joke in here?"
Jill has been sick all week, and as those of you in couples know, if there is a sick person in the relationship, it's impossible for both of you to get a good night's sleep. Jill's stuffiness has been causing her to snore rather loudly and consistently, and I have a near-psychopathic reaction to snoring that the world has not seen since Jesse James allegedly shot a man "just for snoring" (please refer to your Time-Life Legends of the Old West book series for details). As a result, I've been trying to sleep on the sofa for the past three nights, and as a result of that, I haven't been sleeping much at all.
Nanda gets up at between 6 and 7 am, which of course disturbs what fitful sleep I've managed to achieve, and I usually at that point will just get up and go back to bed, since when weighing the irritating properties of Jill snoring versus a 13-year old getting ready for school, snoring wins, just barely.
This morning was the same routine, except I really had to urinate when I got off the sofa. So, I'm standing there at the toilet, and I think, "Wow, I am seriously woozy this morning." The next thing I know, I'm waking up on the floor of the bathroom with Jill calling through the door, "Are you okay?"
Somehow, I avoided getting urine on myself or anything else. I must have instinctively clamped down on that urethra. Take that, Bear Grylls! I may not be able to find food in the desert, but I can collapse in the bathroom without pissing on myself, which I think is a more useful real-life skill anyway.
So, in answer to the question, "Will Kevin pass out if he doesn't get proper sleep for three straight days?" the answer is a resounding "Yes!"
