the crustacean sensation sweeps the nation: or how I learned to stop worrying and eat the crab

These crabs think they're tough. Truth be told, they were no match. It was like Willow trying to work inside game on Olajuwon, or Shirley Temple taking a coked out sack from Lawrence Taylor. A total mismatch. A crippling, never to walk or speak again, exoskeleton smashing, claw crushingly, grotesque mismatch.

*****mind you, the bay crab lovers had a great scare, what with our drunken sailors dumping 58,000 gallons of oil from the lower right hull of a cargo ship. relief washed over all of us to know that its all good now and crab are safe to eat*****

Jordan didn't even open the god-damned menu. He just says, "I think you know why we're here..."
"Okay two roasted Crab and garlic noodles."
"Plus a tanqueray martini, dry straight up," I say fuzzily warm with glee.
"Just water for now," Jordan says.

Fast forward half an hour; there is garlic, peppery oil glistening from below my ear to my lips and up the opposite cheek. Both of us are talking mad shit to the dead crustaceans before us and the nice, quiet couple next to us drops on the eaves, peering and leering over at us.

"You're no match for my strength, bitchcrab," Jordan says haughtily cracking a leg, pushing the meat out, juices of pepper and oil sifting all over his beard, tiny morsels of crab meat lodged into his scruff.

"I'm beating this fucking crab into submission," I say repugnantly, my greasestache stained with brown, salty oil and the fury of crab-death in my eyes.

Here's the thing; you gotta commit. You have to say, FUCK IT! I don't care if that family of five is staring at the puddle of grease on my bib. I don't care if small, half ingested sea horses are crawling up my long hair and into my ears. You can't care if your dream woman walks in and sees the trail of acne that will no doubt appear in a few days. You can't give a fuck and just close your eyes and commit.

After the grease bath they bring us warm citrus towels that we promptly order a second order of, plus a coffee for me. I use one on my hands and another on my face. That meal is so fucking satisfying that you feel the need to celebrate having finished it. Its a must. So, we went to a bunch of bars and got shit-hammered. Big surprise!

bookcase collapse chaos theory

new rule; when you wake and your goosedown pillow feels like a bag of bricks you may want to slow down with the drinking. there is a nice Filipino lady at work with sagging cheeks that would say "GOODNESS!" at that image. for real though kids stay away from mixing hot buttered rum with...well, anything. its so tasty and makes you so warm, but its like taking a chisel to your temples.

so moving on with the story portion here, it was friday evening, unassumingly drab as ever. i went to a friend's house then to kezar to watch the warriors play and eventually beat the lakers in the last seconds of the fourth. i celebrated with some cold lager. afterward i went to an ugly sweater party [let me just say that we need to come up with a new alternative for the fun holiday party] and consumed two small cups of hot buttered rum. it didn't do the drunk trick so i poured myself a double of bushmills. as i sat to sip my drink my ride arrived to pick me up. yes i drank the whole damned double at once and yes i'm stupid for doing so.

the rest of the night was blurry but i remember that i drank a lot more. more pints, more shots, more silly me. anyway i somehow mustered the good sense to go home at 1:02 am. thank the lord i didn't stay out any longer. i got home and blacked out, i have no idea what happened.

when i woke up my beanie was still on my head, my collared shirt and sweatshirt were still on but i had on no pants and no underwear, just my mismatched socks down below, the junk flapping in the wind. i imagined when i woke up that i had probably been sleepwalking as i'm liable to do when i blackout, that or i got raped. just kidding. i looked around my room and everything was in disarray. all the books in my middle shelf had shifted down and lay spines up, the wooden shelf sunken and caved in . the bookcase had been shifted about fifteen inches over and everything had fallen over that was on top, including an Asian flask my mother gave me that was now shattered all over the floor.

all this was a little disturbing, waking half-clothed-semi-nude a huge mess of my room and then the pain. this is the sickest i've ever gotten from a hangover, easy. i hurled, which was strange for me. so i was despondent to the temptations of my friends urging me to get up and go. i stayed in bed like a worthless piece of shit and tried to find the soft spot in my bag of rocks pillow.

cranes, sinatra and the litany

trying to think in smaller terms.  trying to escape the idea of size.  i look at this pond, actually a marsh adjacent to a lake that is actually the Pacific.  there is a wet beauty filling this mass.  a single crane, examines the scene of a thousand ducks, stationary and long, elegant and above the quacks judging.  i wonder through a window if they're cold right now, the way my feet feel after i drank too much coffee, sweat drenched and sandy in my toes.  the lite reverberation of caffeine draining out the food below.  pure diuretics inside as such like beer and wine, coffee and straight vodka with no chaser.

the crane is staring them down. the crane is a lofty objection, a thing to be desired, but i'm just a funny little quack, duck diving, not trying to stay dry.  I want to channel my inner Sinatra now, as an exercise in levity.  Sinatra tells me;

"Got my tweed pressed, got my best vest, all i need now is the girl.

Got my stripped tie, got my hopes high.

Got the time and the place and I got the rhythm. 

Now all i need's the girl to go with'em.

If she'll just appear we'll take this big town for a whirl.

And if she'll say, 'My darling, I'm yours',

I'll throw away my striped tie and my best pressed tweed.

All  I really need is the girl."

She's blank in my mind to be filled in later.  Her hair smells like cinnamon, her eyes are blue like sapphires, her face is carved out of soap. She's imperfect in all the best ways.  Her butt's big and thick with a tiny waist, her breasts are just a tad too big for her frame.  One of her teeth is crooked, but in that Lauren Hutton sexy gap-toothed way.  when she touches my face she rubs my beard against the grain with the backside of her hands and presses her cheek next to mine irritating the delicate skin of her face.  she doesn't mind my forty pound chin or the elongated features of my face. she toys with me though and says,

"why the long face?"

she's five foot six, give or take an inch or two, always has nice breath and wears clothes that are just tight enough.  she loves all the music i listen to even though she's barely heard of most of it.  she prefers wine over beer but can maintain regardless.  her apartment is immaculate and white, but she pays her rent with her own money.  she rolls joints better than i can which isn't saying much.  

she makes me want to stay in on the weekends.  she makes hangovers tolerable.  she holds my hand when we cross the street.  she dresses my wounds when i fall.  she pops the pimples on my back.  when we french kiss she doesn't jam her tongue down my throat. she bites my lower lip.  

i hold her hair when she gets sick and i don't laugh.  when she gets mopey we hangout and listen to depressing folk music that only makes things worse.  she loves dancing with me.  we go to bed at nine sometimes. she loves my natural body odor and sometimes sticks her nose in my armpits. she steals the covers from me in the middle of the night.  she's like a goddamned radiator in bed and i sweat when she snuggles next to me in the middle of the night.  in the shower she has amazing soap that makes me feel grotesquely clean.  i can be myself around her and she doesn't play stupid games.  

this is the litany. idealistic, i know.  I'm looking for the crane in the sea of ducks flying, whirling around everywhere.   i don't know where she is.  i don't know her name.

delay, steel and magnets

when you go to the airport to the ticketing counter, you ever notice those little poles connected by straps that define the never ending zig-zag you will no doubt be stuck in for what seems like eternity. I was at the hemlock tavern, one of my favorite places in the world to drink minding my own as usual. there was some sort of commotion or tussling that began at the opposite end of the bar. my curiosity got the better of me, when a friend of a friend joked that Ben [the person I arrived with] was being accosted by the bouncer. arriving at the site of all the drama i was relieved to see Ben was merrily entreating some fine young lady with his usual humor and charms. At this i began on my way back to the other end of the bar when suddenly wrought iron weighing easily forty pounds in the form of one of those poles from the airport, came flying from the front door directly onto the back of my knee, making my half drunk smirk of insipid joy transform to something all together ugly. reasoned contentment was morphed into agony and silence.

i'm thinking to myself, "uh...why me?"

lets leave this question in the rhetorical range.

this shit always happens to me. injuries are a part of my identity. its kinda cool to come back to work every weekend with some brutal limp and people can't help but wonder. it made me think about how tired people must get though, when they get a cast or a brace and every dumbfuck and stranger comes up to you and asks, "what happened?" today alone i had about four different answers to that question. when i went to get my afternoon coffee, this young girl behind the counter asked me what happened and i told that i got into a barroom brawl. a lie, yes, but composed of elements of truth, kinda?

anyway, after they kicked the shit out of the guy who threw the fucking pole at me the bouncers came over and offered to let me drink for the rest of the night for free.

"fuck yeah," i replied, thanking my unlucky stars that i was caught in the crossfire.

as a wannabe writer i must relish these moments as the ones that defined my desire to put thoughts to the page. every writer needs these bruises, broken limbs, limps, injuries of the mind, body and soul that scar them for life. these are mine to carry, so to that drunk fuck at hemlock with 80's metal hair, alpha-maling your way back inside, throwing hitless punches to the sky, throwing forty pound poles at my leg as an innocent bystander, I say to you, thank you. thankyou for validating my parking in the writer's lot. thankyou for five pints of pilsner, two rounds of fernett and a jameson "neat" for good measure. thankyou for the heavy limp in my left foot and the inevitable hyperbole that has and will ensue.