Monday, September 10, 2007

filler

doity rat 03

Ah, cripes of crap. I left my third neurosurgeon installment at work, without any fancy hackery way of retrieving the info. I don't think I even saved it. It's just floating on the surface of the screen, vulnerable to power outages and monitor lizards computer thieves.

This is the modren-day version of leaving your wallet in your other trousers, I know. So in penance I'm going to imagine what my day would be like if I were Paul Simon.

5:00 a.m. I'm up. Aghhh, why does Paul Simon have to get up so early? I try to pummel myself back to sleep, but I'm already doing calisthenics and making a quinoa-boysenberry smoothie. Man, that's got some kick. Antiooooxidants.

5:15 a.m. I skip over to my studio, which is a series of natural caves beneath the mesa, and pick up a guitar. There's a poster of Carrie Fisher in her Princess Leia metal bikini taped to the bathroom door, and when I spot it I start sniffling. Oh boy, here come the waterworks. I have a feeling that Paul Simon spends most of the day weeping over his guitar strings. So I'm inconsolable over in my studio and the sun hasn't even risen. Fuck.

8:30 a.m. In mid-sob I remember that I'm married to Edie Brickell and that cheers me up some. I wonder what she's looking like these days. Wasn't there someone in bed with me this morning when I woke up? Didn't I pour two glasses of quinoa-boysenberry smoothie? What the hell is wrong with me?

8:45 a.m. I walk back into the house. The woman there sure looks like Edie Brickell. Hey Edie! I say. Hey Edie!

Not a word. She's just flipping through an Utne Reader. Hey Edie!

Dad, says some dark-haired kid. Guess it's my son. She hasn't completed her vow of silence yet.

Right, I say. When is that over again?

When she's baked her thousandth polenta.

9:00 a.m. Not even noon and I want out of my day as Paul Simon. Then I discover the room with the rebreather suit and slowly rotating crystal that transmits alien knowledge directly into my mind. Did you know that Paul Simon is the descendant of an alien race from a dying planet circling a star in the Cassiopeia constellation?

9:30 a.m. I take the rebreather suit into the desert with me, absorbing the alien culture and rediscovering my long-lost inheritance. I make flowers grow in the desert. Then I grow a Ferrari, but it's out of gas. Disappointed, I waft back to the house, finding my way through the molecules of hot desert air.

10:00 p.m. Family meeting time. Guys, I say, have I ever said anything about being an alien? They give me blank looks. Here's how it is then. You guys suck, and if you think I'm going to stick around while we slowly turn into The Partridge Family or The Cowsills, then you're sucking on the wrong end of the hookah. I'm going to go build a robot army out of sand. The kids look frightened and Edie starts weeping great silent tears, but I think it's for the best.


And that was my day as Paul Simon, or Rx'hachk Bulagq of the Skaaalr clan.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really wanted the third neurosurgeon installment, but this was a fine distraction. I want this post to be the first episode for an animated series. Can you get right on that in your spare time?

Deb Rox said...

This explains the way he looks to a distant constellation that's dying in a corner of the sky. His days are the days of miracle and wonder.

Anonymous said...

I would definitely think that having that much artistic whatnot under a single roof would drive anyone batshit after awhile. Even Paul Simon.

Sucking the wrong end of the hookah.

Excellent imagery.

p-man said...

Killer filler, even if Edie Brickell has broken her vow.

Sheryl (papernapkin) said...

But what did he eat for lunch? Alien cannot live by quinoa-boysenberry smoothie alone.

My verification word is Zbnhyky, which translates "salami and sauerkraut on rye" in Skaaalrese