kingtycoon | The Miner's Lungs

<a href="http://mordicai.livejournal.com/">A friend of mine</a> was talking about how being busy is a fake idea. Something that everyone is at all times. Now me - I define busy in terms of negations - not what I accomplished, but what I was prevented from accomplishing. So sure I'm on the bus each day and more or less idle - or anyhow in a state of some kind of rest - not what you'd call harried -not what you'd call overwhelmed - but I can't, for example, write down these words and try and make you understand the way it is that I am and live while I'm doing it- so this is removed and what I say is: "I've been busy."

Which is essentially so.

Here's what's up. First of all - I'm not totally idle on the bus- I've been writing a book and I have to tell you - I think it's going to be ace. I'm pretty thrilled with all of it and then some - a good book. That's my pattern really - one mediocre, one good, one slightly less good, one great - an arc of continuous improvement. I do that on the bus. Typing it up after the fact has proven a little more difficult than I'd like - but you know what? One weekend of uninterrupted cigarettes coffee and chair time and I'll have it knocked out. I'm expecting that sometime in September.

Moving - I'm moving come the first of the month. If you've got a truck now is the time to be my friend. If you've got a truck and have been shy of talking to me because I'm formidable? Now is your hour. Just Saying. Not a far move - just to the Coventry. My idea? I'm done with living in the distant boring suburbs. From now on - I will sit at the table with the cool kids (nevermind if they're actually uncool and probably some kind of vegetarian - they're not geezerly and aged and that's what I seek to avoid - From Now On).

School - school resumes and then I'll be back in my saddle. Man I'm meant for that - kind of. I sure do like it.

Jobs - I've got a job which is the job you have while you look for a real job - it's exactly what you'd expect - I like it fine. Not a career you understand. Not that I'd mind if it was - it just isn't. So always looking for more, better, newer. There.

Kiddo - She's been up to mischief wiht her mother most of the last month - well, not mischief, just - it's been them and less of me and that's been hurtful - but what can be done? Money being tight, moving being pending, time being less than it aught to be. So that - but all getting better and a lot faster. I said: "Have I been being a bad dad?" She said: "What? NO! You're the best dad!" I was relieved.

In the meantime this thing happened. Work was done slightly early, it was friday and the bossman didn't want to linger any more than he had to -so pack it up at 4:45. Now the bus doesn't come till just after 5:00 or so, so I have some nothing to do (this is the thing about busy). Anyhow I wandered over to the nice-ish bus shelter in Painesville - because I thought - sit, write. And that was my idea but there comes a person. 'Person'.

Man, maybe I'm heartless? I do not know, but there is a point where you have diminished so much that you are terrible, terrible and unacceptable and GO AWAY.

Comes rambling down the street the shirtless old man, he's got some kind of basketball shorts on, barely, and is cradling a styrofoam carry out bin, clearly found in the trash. He's got those eyes, piercing and weird - blue (like all the worst people) and they stare in two directions at once. This guy - you see him a few blocks away and your thought is: Here comes the heavy badness. So he comes right up and intrudes into the conversations that are going on around him. A few people at the stop are talking.

Note - at the bus stop most people talk about disability - SSI you understand, how they came by it, how much they got in back payments, what judges awarded what, who's their attorney. And always, always - what's wrong with them. I've met legless guys - made that way by the scourge of Brimley, I've met guys who's inner ear made it so they couldn't stand for more than a minute, people's who's brains have been cut up and examined, hearts outside their bodies, lungs transplanted, seizures unaddressed - these people are the busriders, them and me. I start to wonder if there's something wrong with me

But this guy. He's the sort that will put you at ease with yourself - thinking - AT LEAST I'M NOT THAT RUINED. So he comes up and is intruding. People are immediately hostile. He smells terrible, he's probably drunk, he's obviously eating garbage and he's thrusting his left hand, covered in spit and barbecue sauce in everyone's face - "Talk to me!" He commands. They ignore him, turn their backs on him - furious. He sits down next to me - hand thrust in my face, crazy all over him. "Hey, listen to me, Listen." He commands me. I look at him briefly.

"Did you shit all over yourself?" This I say. Because his legs are covered in a black/brown scum of stinking filth, flaking off. "You did, you shit yourself you fucking animal." He's unperturbed and unaware of any difference in treatment and or experience - he's accustomed to this. "What is wrong with you!" This is my final word. I storm off all mad as hell.

Painesville.