Life as a Hole, entry 1

Rich the Mutilator

I got mutilated by a barber named Rich, and I don't mean my hair. Afterwards, I rebranded him Rich the Mutilator, a title only fitting for a man who all but made me weep in a swivel chair.

            Rich is what I call a neurotic narrator. He has neurons in his brain that fire with such ferocity while he tells a story that it actually triggers involuntary jerks and jitters throughout his body. Some may simply see this as an affliction of enthusiasm, but it is inappropriate for certain professionals, namely barbers. Barbers who spend a lot of time with an electric razor. Barbers who administer a straight shave. Barbers who like to tell stories. You could say a haircut with Rich the Mutilator is like a chatty game of Russian Roulette, except you're the only player: it's when, not if.

            In my case, the when came in triplicate. First, while sculpting my sideburns, Rich tweaked at the climax of a story about his high school basketball team and nicked my left ear. When a drip-sized preview of what was possibly to come began to warm my earlobe, I determined that the nick was more of a gash and that it surely called for notice. It received none, however, from my overly stimulated barber whose only concern was the proper telling of his tale, glitchy as it may be. I could not employ a Q-tip in my left ear for two subsequent weeks, a problem for someone who obsesses over wax-free hearing.

        My attempt at silent and tear-free recovery from mutilation number one was curbed by a second mutilation that occurred when Rich got keyed up about a business trip to Brazil and allocated his excitement to the shaving of my extraneous neck hair. The burning sensation imparted by his spastic movements was accompanied by the firing of my own neurons which were constructing much gorier mental images of the straight razor he employed slicing open my jugular vein and spilling rich red blood all over the floor atop my discarded shards of hair.

            The third mutilation, in complete contradiction with Rich's recent Arthritis diagnosis, came in the form of a complimentary massage that felt more like an attempt to obliterate every pressure point in my neck, back, and shoulders. I arose from my swivel chair trembling, scared; a Survivor. I departed without looking in the mirror because I was ashamed of the man that would have peered back, a man who, of his own volition, had chosen an abusive barber, a man who had just paid a mutilator to mutilate him. I thought it better to reflect this masochist back at home, where his guilt-ridden stare could be contemplated in private.

            Physical evidence of mutilations one, two, and three was indeed unmistakable in my bathroom mirror. What gripped me, however, was something else. What caught my attention amongst the bloodstained earlobe, the red and tender neck, the cowering posture of my abused shoulders, was, ironically, my hair. From the ears down I looked like I had just gotten mugged, but the situation atop my head was truly stunning. I had received a fantastic haircut from Rich the Mutilator.

             See, Rich the Mutilating Barber is clumsy, but talented. His haircuts are violent, but handsome. When it came time for my next haircut, I was as torn as the little piece of skin that dangled from my ear, but I eventually made the decision to return to Rich's barber shop and to his swivel chair, where he has maimed me each and every time since. And, each and every time since, I have received a better haircut than the last. Sometimes, the desired result only demands a little mutilation.  

       

Two-finger typing and the insert button

If two-finger typing is inappropriate typist behavior, I am a very, very naughty word-processor.

Like most, I learned and was tested on the correct, 10-finger technique in elementary school. I passed all the tests with mostly grit and some cheating, graduated elementary school, then regressed to two-finger typing. I have never looked back, and don't intend to.

It's curious because, in other realms of life, I tend to complicate instead of simplify. In this case of digit usage, however, I have reduced 10 down to 2, and, indubitably, simplified a technique that best operates in its original state of complexity.

I suppose my issues with the 10-finger technique are that it requires more motor skills and also an acquired spacial knowledge of they keys. When I was a kid, I had trouble configuring my fingers in the two disparately sized holes of a pair of scissors, and ever since then I have regularly been convinced that some of my motor skills are, for lack of a better word, retarded. Similarly, my overall spacial capabilities lack a certain direction, if you will. These being true, I can see why I fluctuated from proper typing technique.

An additional and perhaps my most hindering typing handicap is my inability to move my ring and pinky fingers separately from each other. They are partners, and they do everything together. If one is erect, the other is erect. If one is relaxed, the other follows suit. If one presses a key, you can damn well bet the other presses a key. If I hit a "p" with my pinky, I get an obligatory "o" from my ring finger, and vice versa. I can't be having to backspace and delete every time I am "supposed" to be using my pinky and ring finger. What sort of a life would that be? I'll leave the partnership alone and overwork my two index fingers, for this is the way things are destined to be for me.

An important item in this discussion is whether thumbs are fingers. I use my thumb to hit the spacebar, so, if thumbs are indeed fingers, I am a three-finger typist, which is a single step closer to typing righteousness. Thumbs are opposable, so I don't know that they are considered fingers. I'll Google it.

Apparently a thumb is a digit, but not a finger. So, I am a two-finger and a three-digit typist. I'll take that as it stands.

Besides the technical irreverence that comes with being a two-finger typist, there is one additional problem: the fringe keys. The fringe keys are cold, distant locations for a two-finger typist. It's a long journey for the index finger to the p, z, q, and /, one which requires extreme caution. Not only is there a high probability for a mistype, but when the index fingers are at the fringe, the pinky and ring fingers are off the map into uncharted and treacherous territory. Someone like me with clumsy and connected distal digits runs a very real risk of striking those keys which no one ever strikes: the home key, the end key, the num lock key, the pg dn key, the ` key, the fn key. And, the most feared of all, the insert key.

The insert key is evil. It was placed on the keyboard for wicked and malicious reasons, most likely by a malevolent and disgruntled keyboard maker with malice and hatred in his heart. If you're a "proper" typist, you don't care about the insert key, because you rarely hit it, and if you do, you are being proper and looking at the screen as you type, so you can catch the disaster before it becomes irreversible. Good for you. For those of us who are imperfect, we must look at the keys as we type and only occasionally check to make sure the message is being sent from keys to screen. When insert is engaged, irrevocable damage is done to the imperfect typist's typing. When he finally notices, as if on queue, everything freezes; pinky, ring, index, everything. Only his eyeballs are now in motion, repeatedly scanning the disaster that is the sentence(s) he has been obliviously editing, unaware that insert has been obliterating his world the whole time. He wants to punish his pinky, scold it for its incaution, but it looks so innocent, so inoffensive, that he just tells it to be more careful next time. There is always, however, a certain rate of error for an untrained and fringe-occupying digit. It is par for the course in the life of a two-finger typist.    

8-Foot-Tall Multiracial Green Party Muslim Homosexual Albinos: "We Just Want Equality"

The nation's 8-foot-tall multiracial Green Party Muslim homosexual Albinos are speaking out against racial, cultural, political, religious, sexual, and all other types of discrimination they say has plagued them throughout their history.

"Just as any other minority group in America, we think we deserve total equality," said Antonio Muhammad Sage Abbad Gutierrez-McKenzie, revered by 8-foot-tall multiracial Green Party Muslim homosexual Albinos as the leader of the 8-foot tall multiracial Green Party Muslim homosexual Albino civil rights movement.

"We deserve the right to display and celebrate our race, culture, politics, religion, sexual orientation, and physical defects in complete freedom and without resistance or prejudice of any sort," said Gutierrez-McKenzie, a tall, blindingly pasty Hispanic-American wearing a rainbow colored Turban made out of hemp.

"We have a rich history in this country and have helped make America what it is today," continued the freaky looking minority. "We deserve to be allowed on height-restricted roller coasters. We deserve to be able to marry the ones we love regardless of sex or race in an environmentally friendly Mosque. We dream of the day when we can walk the streets without people cranking their necks to gawk at our nearly invisible white eyebrows."

The racial/ethnic/social/political/religious group's appeals for equality remain largely unheard, as the average American has never seen or heard of an 8-foot-tall multiracial Green Party Muslim homosexual Albino. "Those exist?" stated a New York City man. "Well, if they exist then they deserve equal rights, I guess."
     

On Wanting to Be a Writer, and Why it Might Not Work

I want to be a writer, because all writers are miserable. It would be better if my misery came as part of a territory.

But really, that's why. I want an excuse to be miserable. That's not morbid of me, because everyone is miserable in their own way. Writers can own it though, trademark misery as their own. Who wouldn't want that?

I think writers can own misery because they attempt something inherently impossible for a career. They attempt to convey the human experience in text. This can't be done, precisely because it is experience, and experience is only gathered by our senses. Reading, of course, is not a sense. A good writer may be able to trigger a reader's senses, but it remains secondhand. The goal of writing is an impossible thing, and writers bear the burden of trying it anyway, because they are desperate to be the owners misery.

Why the writer feels the need to convey their human experience (impossible) is a question whose answer far exceeds the faculties of my attempted logic. I only know that it is enjoyable, and impossible. Hence the misery.

Even right now, I am sitting here at 2:13 in the morning (reason enough for misery), and I am thinking how poorly I am currently conveying my "experience" as a "writer." And it holds no matter that I just said doing such a thing is impossible. It's a bit of paradoxical warfare, where my desire to be a writer is deeply embattled against my own writing. Hence the misery.

If all this is true, if the goal of writing is an intrinsic impossibility, it is quite obvious why, almost mathematically, the best writers are also the most miserable people. A really good writer gets very close to the impossibility of relaying human experience. Getting so close with so much effort, all the while realizing the futility of said effort, has got to be invariably miserable. Edgar Allen Poe, Virginia Woolfe, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Jack London: all incredible writers. All incredibly miserable people. I want that.

Most of the writers above also had miserable upbringings. I will have to overcome this in order to become a great, miserable writer. I have had virtually no hardship, and I blame my parents for this. Thanks a lot mom and dad, for making my childhood so cozy and nice that I have no misery-fuel to use in my writing.

Of course, all this poses quite a challenge for the aspiring writer. I, for one, could not even figure out which words to capitalize in the title of this, not to mention account for the existential unfeasibility that underlines writing philosophy.

Also, there really are not any great writers named Jeremy. Don't immediately assign insignificance to this. It is a real trepidation. I fear that if my writing ever does approach prominence, it will rebound against a barrier that blocks all those with common, uninteresting names. Just consider the list of authors above. All such writers names. Is this why some writers use pen names? Was Edgar Allen Poe's real name Joe Smith? And would not his writing have been degrees more insignificant if it was? No one cares about a guy named Joe. Edgar, though, now that's a name.

This is what I feel about writers, and why I might not be able to be one.

Ducks Nationwide Furious at Teenage Girls

Ducks in lakes, streams, and public fountains far and wide are expressing disgust at the way they are being portrayed by teenage girls across the country. 

According to members of the duck community, most human females between the ages of 12 and 21 have at some point blatantly disrespected the entire waterfowl family by mushing their lips together and flattening their mouths in a way that hideously resembles the perpetual state of a duck bill.

"It's flat out rude," said a duck floating in a pond outside Omaha. "We can't help the way our bills are shaped. Would they make fun of a penguin's waddle? A baboon's butt?"

Ducks are unsure of the origin of "duck face," but have seen enough evidence to deduce that it runs rampant in groups of teenage girls, who apparently find the need to disfigure themselves in duck-like fashion in the company of other females, in "selfie" photographs, or while flaunting an askew peace sign.

"It's embarrassing," added one duck while covering its bill with its wing. "Is that what we look like?"

Some ducks are in fact becoming so self-conscious and ashamed that they are refusing to leave the water where they can hide their mockery of a mouth part under the surface. "Blurghle glughle glugh, blugh glurghle," stated one insecure drake.

Ducks are baffled that they are being ridiculed by earth's dominant species. "They already control our water sources, chase us off their lawns, and eat us," said a duck while munching on some grass, "and now they are making fun of the way we look? What did we ever do to them?"

"They draw us in with food then they mock us with revolting facial expressions," said a mother duck, watching in disgust as a group of adolescent humans fed her ducklings bread while continuously tormenting them with duck face.

Teenage girls are responding to allegations of what's being called "duckscrimination," maintaining that they only make a face that "kinda looks like a duck's face" because it "makes us look cute," and that they "don't really care what ducks think" because "YOLO."

"How do you respond to that?" inquired an incredulous mallard before flying off into the sunset.

Unconfirmed reports indicate a group of rogue ducks are attempting to retaliate against duck face by employing something called "bitchy resting face," an imitation of the expression of the average teenage human female. However, retaliation of the sort seems inevitable to fail, as ducks are allegedly way too cute to pull off such a look.

Area Grandma Thinks Googling is Sex Act

BELLMONT, MS---A local grandmother has become convinced that "the Google" is an amorous maneuver performed during the sexual act of "Googling." 

After watching a local news segment that profiled young couples who Googled each other after the first date, 74-year-old Gail Howerchuk became confident that to be "Googled" is to have had "the Google" performed on you by a "Googler," and that the term she keeps hearing "thrown around by the youngins" refers to something having to do with "knick-knack patty-whack." 

"Boy," said the appalled matriarch, "I'm afraid I just don't know what kids these days are up to in the bedroom."

Howerchuk was visibly disturbed as she recalled various contexts in which she had heard the term used in the past, including being told to "Google funny cats," because the results are "very satisfying."

"Oh my heavens," she said.

She also learned that Justin Bieber is Googled more than 1 million times per day, and that the Google itself is used more than 1 billion times per day.

"Good gracious!" was her response. 

"When I was that age, well boys were gentlemen," recalled Howerchuk. "There wasn't no googlin' or ganglin' or what not goin on. If a young man was interested in a young lady, he treated her like it, and only took her to bed after the 5th or 6th date. And there was no funny business."

After gaining her newfound knowledge, Howerchuk reportedly became curious about "the Yahoo" and "the Twitter," stating "I'll tell you what, if those are sex moves too, I just have lost all track of what's hip." 

At press time, Howerchuk was reported to have been Googling her husband, as she was "curious what all the fuss is about."

SkyMall Magazine Receives First Ever Purchase Order

For the first time in over two decades of existence, the commonly browsed airline catalog, SkyMall Magazine, has sold something.

"We are very excited to announce our first ever purchase order," said SkyMall founder Bob Worsley at a press conference last week. "Our first issue hit commercial airline seat pockets in 1990, and now, only 23 short years later, we are reaping the rewards."

The widely recognized in-flight boredom-queller is seen by approximately 88% of all domestic air passengers in the United States, but, up until now, has sold 0% of cataloged items. 

"It's a wonder," said product manager Matt Genandt of the catalog's sheer failure, "that we haven't done a bit better, with products like the 'Solar Moler' Solar-Powered Mole Repeller and the Electronic Feng Shui Compass. These are quality items that pretty much everyone could use."         

Ed Braun, the man who recently made SkyMall history by ordering a pair of Hidden Camera Sunglasses, admitted his decision was due in part to delirium caused by a long transatlantic flight. "I didn't have anything to do, so I just kept flipping through SkyMall," said Braun. "The next thing I know I'm trying to decide between a 'RealRock' Fake Rock Cover and an Architectural Tea Light Lantern. But then I saw the sunglasses, and it must have been the mixture of claustrophobia, airline food, and a lack of oxygen that made me think I have to have these. They were 350 dollars for Christ's sake."

Other items such as the Toilet Roll iPod Docking Station, the Bigfoot Garden Yeti Statue, and the Mademoiselle Haute Couture Floor Lamp have sat collecting dust in the SkyMall warehouse for years. However, Worsley believes this purchase will "open the floodgates" for SkyMall. "And when it does," he added, "we have the 'H2ooh' Aqua Vacuum to clean it up."