"I haven't seen the movie in a while, but I thought that his role in the film was to provide a revealing contrast to the admirable humility of the rest of the troop. To be honest I was tripping on acid when I saw it, so who knows!"
"What are you, one of those people who go out of their way to insert little tales about their experiences with mind-expanding drugs during a normal conversation just to seem cooler than everybody else?"
"Well what are you, one of those people who tries to call everybody out on things that they only notice because they know they've done exactly the same thing before?"
"Dude, I was kidding. What are you, one of those people whose unrestrained ego only allows them to detect sarcasm when it isn't at their expense?"
"What are you, one of those people who try to get out of looking like a dick by saying they were joking even though they totally were not?"
"What are you, one of those people who try to change the subject so they don't have to admit that they were caught exhibiting an undesirable personality trait that they themselves know they need to stop doing, and even though nobody was actually accusing them of the said undesirable trait they get defensive when somebody makes a joke about it, which they also know makes them appear completely out of touch with how people perceive them?"
"Well what are you, one of those people who use pop psychology as a mode of clandestine social combat in order to make yourself appear enlightened and confident while making your randomly selected victim look like a pathetic quivering slave to their own ego?"
"What are you, somebody who tries to confuse everyone by accusing somebody of resorting unnecessarily to polemics and describe their mode of attack using words with a universally negative connotation like "pop psychology"?
"What are you, that guy who thinks that just because somebody is standing up for themselves that they are on the defensive and that just being defensive by itself proves that they feel guilty about something; and furthermore you assume that whatever it is they feel guilty about must be exactly what you think they should feel guilty about?"
"Wh- What are you, gay?"
Yes I am.
Will you go out with me?
Sorry, I really don't find you attractive.
Oh. Ok well, bye...
Monday, January 31, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
The Plowmen
When reading this story, please consider these popular traits of people with Asperger's Syndrome. Sources include WebMD and a few sites dedicated to awareness of Asperger's Syndrome.
-Obsessions / focused on one subject
-Sensitivity to noise / touch / feel of clothing
-Craves routine
-Communication problems or motor skills problems
-Not able to pick up on social cues and may lack inborn social skills, such as being able to read others' body language, start or maintain a conversation, and take turns talking.
-Internal thoughts are verbalized
-Obsessed with certain parts of a whole but not others
-Inability to understand or relate to others
When I was a freshman in college, I worked part-time for the Department of Public Works in a small town. On paper, it was my job to assist the crew with the maintenance of township-owned property. In reality, I was a place holder in the DPW budget, ie if they didn't hire part-time help every season, they would lose the funding for future use. I was reminded of this whenever someone was about to have me do their work for them. It was supposed to make me feel expendable and replaceable, but all it did was elucidate the real situation: if they fired me, it would draw attention to the DPW payroll, which would be to nobody's benefit (except maybe tax payers). I still did their work for them, mostly because I felt bad for them. At least that's what I tell myself while I'm doing the task, but any other time I know I'm just avoiding dissonance and confrontation. Right now it is late January and there is nothing for me to do except ride shotgun on the snow plow and make noise if any children or dogs cross the street in front of us. John the driver and I participate in long bouts of seemingly competitive silence, which gives me time to devote to my hobby: composing seductive dialog. My recent binge of John Cusack movies has lead me to believe that young women crave playfully neurotic intellectual banter and find occasional instances of awkward silence to be cute or dangerous or something. My "Abnormal Psychology" course should be a goldmine, but alas two weeks into the semester and I don't have any pasty dark haired dames pouting in my dorm room wearing my spare boxers as they thumb through the last few chapters of Siddhartha or whatever liberal arts majors read. I even keep an over-sized kashmir sweater and a box of Cheez-its sitting in my dorm, just to be prepared. My insides caress themselves as I imagine that kiss that didn't happen this morning... the one where I run off to work and she rummages through her messy backpack for her textbooks so she can study in the residual warmth of my bed before going to class, and maybe we'll meet later on... I'm holding onto this thought because I can feel the silence getting to John the Driver. He pulls at the front of his shirt, which has settled sickeningly into the crevices of his fat rolls. Sure enough, he breaks it with, "Fuckin' deer are taking over the whole fucking area." I look outside and I am pulled in all directions by the folds of nature exaggerated by layers of snow, pine trees resembling crashing waves because the snow storm was preceded by freezing rain that humbled any tree daring to hold onto its foliage. Oblivious to all of this beauty, John notices three deer and has to go off on a tangent. My coworkers joke about his obsession, about how when he invites them over his house to watch the game or whatever he shows them charts and articles describing how the overpopulation of deer is slowly affecting the local ecosystem... not to mention the room full of his mounted conquests. He launches right into a put on earnest tone with me; I guess he's assuming that I am young and idealistic and don't approve of slaughtering deer for no reason so he wants me to know that he really is helping the environment and I should learn the value of such activities. I'm ignoring him and thinking of my Abnormal Psychology course and what it would be like to discuss it with imaginary girl who for several reasons I have decided to stop trying to come up with a name for. Yesterday we learned about Asperger's Syndrome, which I couldn't help but be reminded of John the Driver. My mind checks in on the conversation. Yep, still talking about white-tailed deer and the before and after photos he has of foliage ruined by their voracious appetite.
Just when I thought it couldn't get any more annoying, the radio coughs out some static that sounds like the wind outside with a few James Brown-esque staccato notes. John's ability to decipher what comes out of that thing is a talent I hope to never acquire. He tells me Dave is nearby and his truck is stalled, so we are going to pick him up and return to the shop since we're approaching blizzard conditions. Dave and John seem to make a game out of excluding me from every conversation they have, but as soon as I've officially tuned them out, they ask me a question and when I don't respond immediately John does his best to patronize me with his "Fucking kid smokin' too much pot" or "You're just in your own fuckin' little world, aren't you?", sometimes followed by "I'm just fuckin' with you, kid. You got a girlfriend yet? Somebody's gotta get this kid some strange pussy!" I'm well past that phase where I would think "How dare he refer to women using such derogatory nomenclature", but I can't help but wonder what type of haggard train wreck John the Driver would find for me. It feels festive in the truck for a moment as Dave swings open the door and peers in like "Woah, imagine seeing you here!". I tried to slide my way to the window seat so as to not be stuck between them, but Dave illustrates the difference between a shudder and a wince as he does both in reaction. He scoots as far from me and close to the door as possible. Given the tapered edge of the bucket seat (an abnormal feature for a pick-up truck), his upper half is leaning towards me so I have to smell his breath which reeked unambiguously of USA Gold 100's and stale cream from convenience store coffee. John recaps what he and I were discussing about the white-tailed deer. Then he starts rattling off familiar details about the specific ways he kills them and the advantages of using a bow vs a gun. After one sentence that would wind a pearl diver (let alone John, who always keeps an extra pack of smokes on him in case he gets stuck in traffic or something), he does one of my pet peeves and asks if he's boring us. Only two types of people answer that question honestly: my dad, and people like Dave, who says, "Yeah you're rambling a little. I don't go hunting much, but you know I'm all about bass fishing. A little bass fishing and Metallica, don't get any better than that." John says, "Well it's hard to hunt with music playing, but can't go wrong with Eric Clapton at night. Keeps the fuckin' bears away..." So it begins... Dave continues his side of the story, "Yeah, I meant that I play 'tallica when the boat's moving and it don't matter as much. Of course if I'm shore fishin' that's a different story..." His voice becomes deeper and more gravely as the details become more technical. I just keep watching the scenery as I indulge in thoughts of imaginary girl. Would she play in the snow? She probably didn't during her teen angst years, but since she's over that phase I lend her a few layers and we trudge away from campus through the strip mall parking lot whose innocence is restored by the accumulation of frozen precipitation. During such a storm, the snow is undeterred even by all the leaked surfactants and motor oils and their lower freezing points. Beyond the parking lot is a wooded pathway that leads to a shelter of coniferous trees that the wind can't penetrate and your eyes can follow the individual snow flakes on their journey to the ground. I would pull a small bag of Bugles from my coat pocket and we would talk about how silly and harmless everything looks when covered in snow. We'd probably talk about how snow seems like a prank played by God and about God's other pranks while we unabashedly rub the Bugle salt off our lips so we can make out. In these conditions we could probably fool around and nobody would be see, but I am careful to avoid those thoughts when shoehorned between two likely homophobes.
We are barely moving, mostly because of the blizzard but also because John the Driver is heavily invested in talking at Dave. If you try to consider their individual contributions as forming a conversation, it would seem like a constant non sequitur, basically the exact opposite of the synergy that a conversation is supposed to exhibit. John talks about how the 1994-95 Eric Clapton tour was the last time he could afford to go, and Dave responds with, "Some headbangers stopped listening when they cut their hair short and changed their sound a little for Load in 1995, but I still supported them... though I do prefer their earlier stuff." John responded to that with, "Sometimes other fuckin' legendary guitarists will make... show up onstage without sayin' shit. I'm not really into any other blues guitarists so I don't know who it is until I hear the people say fuckin' 'Hey that's Buddy Guy on the white fuckin' Stratocaster'." Dave continues, "People want to say Metallica is just a brutal heavy metal band, but in 1999 they put out a live album with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, which shows their... it's got some slower stuff... it's good for... it's good chill music. He definitely wants to say that he and his girlfriend Linda listen to that album when they have sex. I take a moment to think about how horrible that image is. Dave has a bulbous propane tank belly and a goatee like a tornado carrying too much debris, and he always smells of Cheetos. His girlfriend drops him off sometimes, she is obese and her chin is flat and wider than the top of her head, which is shingled with brittle straight hair dyed red with a perpetual inch of mouse brown roots at the part near the middle, and it probably doesn't move at all when they are fucking. Without much transition I give in to my snowy meadow fantasy. After a few seconds spent thinking of where I would warm my hands on imaginary girl, something occurs to me. I can learn a lot by comparing myself with my coworkers at this job. The eagerness and inappropriateness of this transition reminds me that going to college isn't the only way I should try to differentiate myself from these people. From that point forward I listened attentively to what John and Dave were talking about.
-Obsessions / focused on one subject
-Sensitivity to noise / touch / feel of clothing
-Craves routine
-Communication problems or motor skills problems
-Not able to pick up on social cues and may lack inborn social skills, such as being able to read others' body language, start or maintain a conversation, and take turns talking.
-Internal thoughts are verbalized
-Obsessed with certain parts of a whole but not others
-Inability to understand or relate to others
When I was a freshman in college, I worked part-time for the Department of Public Works in a small town. On paper, it was my job to assist the crew with the maintenance of township-owned property. In reality, I was a place holder in the DPW budget, ie if they didn't hire part-time help every season, they would lose the funding for future use. I was reminded of this whenever someone was about to have me do their work for them. It was supposed to make me feel expendable and replaceable, but all it did was elucidate the real situation: if they fired me, it would draw attention to the DPW payroll, which would be to nobody's benefit (except maybe tax payers). I still did their work for them, mostly because I felt bad for them. At least that's what I tell myself while I'm doing the task, but any other time I know I'm just avoiding dissonance and confrontation. Right now it is late January and there is nothing for me to do except ride shotgun on the snow plow and make noise if any children or dogs cross the street in front of us. John the driver and I participate in long bouts of seemingly competitive silence, which gives me time to devote to my hobby: composing seductive dialog. My recent binge of John Cusack movies has lead me to believe that young women crave playfully neurotic intellectual banter and find occasional instances of awkward silence to be cute or dangerous or something. My "Abnormal Psychology" course should be a goldmine, but alas two weeks into the semester and I don't have any pasty dark haired dames pouting in my dorm room wearing my spare boxers as they thumb through the last few chapters of Siddhartha or whatever liberal arts majors read. I even keep an over-sized kashmir sweater and a box of Cheez-its sitting in my dorm, just to be prepared. My insides caress themselves as I imagine that kiss that didn't happen this morning... the one where I run off to work and she rummages through her messy backpack for her textbooks so she can study in the residual warmth of my bed before going to class, and maybe we'll meet later on... I'm holding onto this thought because I can feel the silence getting to John the Driver. He pulls at the front of his shirt, which has settled sickeningly into the crevices of his fat rolls. Sure enough, he breaks it with, "Fuckin' deer are taking over the whole fucking area." I look outside and I am pulled in all directions by the folds of nature exaggerated by layers of snow, pine trees resembling crashing waves because the snow storm was preceded by freezing rain that humbled any tree daring to hold onto its foliage. Oblivious to all of this beauty, John notices three deer and has to go off on a tangent. My coworkers joke about his obsession, about how when he invites them over his house to watch the game or whatever he shows them charts and articles describing how the overpopulation of deer is slowly affecting the local ecosystem... not to mention the room full of his mounted conquests. He launches right into a put on earnest tone with me; I guess he's assuming that I am young and idealistic and don't approve of slaughtering deer for no reason so he wants me to know that he really is helping the environment and I should learn the value of such activities. I'm ignoring him and thinking of my Abnormal Psychology course and what it would be like to discuss it with imaginary girl who for several reasons I have decided to stop trying to come up with a name for. Yesterday we learned about Asperger's Syndrome, which I couldn't help but be reminded of John the Driver. My mind checks in on the conversation. Yep, still talking about white-tailed deer and the before and after photos he has of foliage ruined by their voracious appetite.
Just when I thought it couldn't get any more annoying, the radio coughs out some static that sounds like the wind outside with a few James Brown-esque staccato notes. John's ability to decipher what comes out of that thing is a talent I hope to never acquire. He tells me Dave is nearby and his truck is stalled, so we are going to pick him up and return to the shop since we're approaching blizzard conditions. Dave and John seem to make a game out of excluding me from every conversation they have, but as soon as I've officially tuned them out, they ask me a question and when I don't respond immediately John does his best to patronize me with his "Fucking kid smokin' too much pot" or "You're just in your own fuckin' little world, aren't you?", sometimes followed by "I'm just fuckin' with you, kid. You got a girlfriend yet? Somebody's gotta get this kid some strange pussy!" I'm well past that phase where I would think "How dare he refer to women using such derogatory nomenclature", but I can't help but wonder what type of haggard train wreck John the Driver would find for me. It feels festive in the truck for a moment as Dave swings open the door and peers in like "Woah, imagine seeing you here!". I tried to slide my way to the window seat so as to not be stuck between them, but Dave illustrates the difference between a shudder and a wince as he does both in reaction. He scoots as far from me and close to the door as possible. Given the tapered edge of the bucket seat (an abnormal feature for a pick-up truck), his upper half is leaning towards me so I have to smell his breath which reeked unambiguously of USA Gold 100's and stale cream from convenience store coffee. John recaps what he and I were discussing about the white-tailed deer. Then he starts rattling off familiar details about the specific ways he kills them and the advantages of using a bow vs a gun. After one sentence that would wind a pearl diver (let alone John, who always keeps an extra pack of smokes on him in case he gets stuck in traffic or something), he does one of my pet peeves and asks if he's boring us. Only two types of people answer that question honestly: my dad, and people like Dave, who says, "Yeah you're rambling a little. I don't go hunting much, but you know I'm all about bass fishing. A little bass fishing and Metallica, don't get any better than that." John says, "Well it's hard to hunt with music playing, but can't go wrong with Eric Clapton at night. Keeps the fuckin' bears away..." So it begins... Dave continues his side of the story, "Yeah, I meant that I play 'tallica when the boat's moving and it don't matter as much. Of course if I'm shore fishin' that's a different story..." His voice becomes deeper and more gravely as the details become more technical. I just keep watching the scenery as I indulge in thoughts of imaginary girl. Would she play in the snow? She probably didn't during her teen angst years, but since she's over that phase I lend her a few layers and we trudge away from campus through the strip mall parking lot whose innocence is restored by the accumulation of frozen precipitation. During such a storm, the snow is undeterred even by all the leaked surfactants and motor oils and their lower freezing points. Beyond the parking lot is a wooded pathway that leads to a shelter of coniferous trees that the wind can't penetrate and your eyes can follow the individual snow flakes on their journey to the ground. I would pull a small bag of Bugles from my coat pocket and we would talk about how silly and harmless everything looks when covered in snow. We'd probably talk about how snow seems like a prank played by God and about God's other pranks while we unabashedly rub the Bugle salt off our lips so we can make out. In these conditions we could probably fool around and nobody would be see, but I am careful to avoid those thoughts when shoehorned between two likely homophobes.
We are barely moving, mostly because of the blizzard but also because John the Driver is heavily invested in talking at Dave. If you try to consider their individual contributions as forming a conversation, it would seem like a constant non sequitur, basically the exact opposite of the synergy that a conversation is supposed to exhibit. John talks about how the 1994-95 Eric Clapton tour was the last time he could afford to go, and Dave responds with, "Some headbangers stopped listening when they cut their hair short and changed their sound a little for Load in 1995, but I still supported them... though I do prefer their earlier stuff." John responded to that with, "Sometimes other fuckin' legendary guitarists will make... show up onstage without sayin' shit. I'm not really into any other blues guitarists so I don't know who it is until I hear the people say fuckin' 'Hey that's Buddy Guy on the white fuckin' Stratocaster'." Dave continues, "People want to say Metallica is just a brutal heavy metal band, but in 1999 they put out a live album with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, which shows their... it's got some slower stuff... it's good for... it's good chill music. He definitely wants to say that he and his girlfriend Linda listen to that album when they have sex. I take a moment to think about how horrible that image is. Dave has a bulbous propane tank belly and a goatee like a tornado carrying too much debris, and he always smells of Cheetos. His girlfriend drops him off sometimes, she is obese and her chin is flat and wider than the top of her head, which is shingled with brittle straight hair dyed red with a perpetual inch of mouse brown roots at the part near the middle, and it probably doesn't move at all when they are fucking. Without much transition I give in to my snowy meadow fantasy. After a few seconds spent thinking of where I would warm my hands on imaginary girl, something occurs to me. I can learn a lot by comparing myself with my coworkers at this job. The eagerness and inappropriateness of this transition reminds me that going to college isn't the only way I should try to differentiate myself from these people. From that point forward I listened attentively to what John and Dave were talking about.
Tricky Weeks
Veronica and Dale are two vaguely liberal gainfully employed people at the end of their twenties just getting to know one another, digging past the typical plumage and pretense of their first few date-like events. Their outings have constituted a few meals, some romantic comedy-style grocery shopping, and two incidences of wandering the local art bistro neighborhood. Mostly they can be found in Veronica's apartment fornicating, reheating leftovers and talking about how similar their childhoods were in a very general way as they share a grope and watch Bravo and TLC reality shows online late at night. They have at this point, however, just about humped the bias out each other. Bias tends to fall out in one solid piece, ushering in starkly contrasting lucidity. Now is the time where couples feel compelled to start admitting their past indiscretions. In most relationships, there will be a long car ride or late night buzzed conversation where you give an honest description of failed romances and maybe a window into phases you've for the most part grown out of and you both adjust your expectations accordingly. For some reason they are both independently postponing this phase, or trying to forgo it altogether (1). Incomplete stories are allowed to float; reoccurring names are spoken with hesitance, and when there would normally be a confession or an elaborately festooned follow-up question, they blow right past it. Perhaps they just want to avoid unnecessary conflict and pretense, since they have been through this before and they know these confessions are often given with a defensive tone, and follow-up questions seem to be a demand for the graphic details. No matter how neutral you try to sound, a very unsexy insecurity shines through and projects telltale shapes onto the walls.
Several months go by as they continue consciously omitting shameful secrets from stories, explaining their reasoning to themselves in convoluted lines of logic until it basically turns into a religion (2) as they crab walk towards commitment and practical considerations. They try to synthesize a coherent picture of their future together out of what happens between them in the present. The result is an enjoyable stagnation as they distract themselves from conversation with more movies, shopping, and sex. They seem to be working together to build something, but the only result is an admirably efficient use of Netflicks, knowledge of the undistinguished local restaurant scene, and a highly developed group of muscles from favoring certain positions. It was beginning to seem that these things were the entire purpose of the relationship.
"Life is sweet right now, that's all there is to say." Dale was out with two close friends as he rises one of those big 32 oz glasses of Belgian-style ale to his face with his slightly unfavored hand since his other one was slick with buffalo wing goop and bits of napkin. Dale and his friends Brett and Merkins are the type of people who develop designated drinking hands. Veronica is secretly dubious of Dale's friends because to her they seem likely to encourage his old bad habits. Not that she knows anything about those old habits, but old habits seem like they would be bad, especially when they took place around Brett and Merkins. Brett is one of those friends you keep around by virtue of their attendance record and maybe a few key meaningful conversations, whereas being friends with Merkins was almost like Stockholm Syndrome. He offends the easily offended, and annoys everybody else with his constantly evolving antics. His most recent obnoxious habit is his iPhone. It wasn't enough for Merkins to be fond of his iPhone; he needed everybody else to be fond of it, too. Every night they went out, he would have some sort of iPhone power trip. If they were in a new neighborhood at a strange bar, Merkins would look up the nearest beer and wings joint, preferably a chain often attached to malls, and present a clear plan on how to get there that nobody could argue with. On top of this, he was sure to announce every update he received and there was hardly a sports, entertainment, or news-related app that was absent from his phone. Tonight, they are content at Buffalo Wild Wings talking about how great relations are with the opposite sex.
"Dale and I just have this amazing unspoken respect that we share. This might be the first truly mature relationship I've had." Veronica sips her warm sake and self consciously cuts her sip short. "Not 'had' in the sense that it's over or has hit its peak or anything, but, you know... I'm in it! Know what I mean?" They couldn't be further from knowing what she means, but weeknights aren't for confrontation. Veronica sometimes mixes up her friends names. They support all the easily supportable things she does, and every now and then try to express a dessicated version of doubt that requires no follow-up because they don't want to seem like they are only capable of providing indistinct encouragement. Dale secretly resents Veronica's friends for knowing all that they most likely know about her past. Whenever they are all out together, there are moments when her friends share a smirk over an unexplained in-joke. He assumes that it may be that he is behaving in a way that is appropriate or ironic in the context of all her ex-lovers. Veronica's friends don't get along with Dale's friends, since Merkins banged one of them and even though they don't hang out with that girl anymore they have still categorized Dale's friends as not acceptable. Hence why they are in separate bars less than two miles apart.
Dale is talking to Brett about how Teavana is always a safe yet seemingly creative place to buy Christmas gifts for girls, while Merkins acts as a news ticker for sports that he knows Dale and Brett don't follow, amusing himself by trying to be ahead of the dozens of TVs on the walls. Then without changing his tone says, "Dude! I just got an update from Wikileaks!" Brett is in the middle of a sentence, but Dale gives Merkins a slice of attention. "Holy shit! It is about Veronica!" Now Dale & Brett are both waiting for the punchline. Merkins keeps reading his device, then he shows it to Dale and sure enough, it is a transcription of three voicemails that Veronica left about 4 years ago. Five minutes later the back-story emerges in the form of leaked text messages and Facebook chats. It seems that Veronica cheated on a guy she had been dating exclusively for two years, lied to him long after this fact was painfully obvious, and then bragged about it without shame to her friends before having a truly pathetic breakdown when she noticed a pattern. She blatantly sabotaged in the crudest ways every secure relationship from college until as recently as two years ago, according to subsequently leaked data. It was almost always with this guy named Josh who reportedly wasn't even that great in bed but was at least physically reliable and always acted emotionally unstable, seemingly for the purpose of justifying the fact that he continuously works at the same bar despite having "all these crazy ideas". From a combination of leaked private live journal entries and emails found in the "unsent drafts" folders of her ex-boyfriends, they all allowed it to happen because they were either too trusting and naive to figure it out, or they knew and just felt bad for her. Either way, both parties reportedly let the relationship fade once infidelity was clearly on the table. Once the updates stopped pouring in, Dale remembered that he has to deal with this knowledge soon, since he has plans to stay at Veronica's place tonight.
Dale knows he ought to confront her in an organized manner, or in a completely spontaneous manner... both of those are impossible to do tonight, so he is driving around the neighborhood thinking. During this time, Veronica is at home waiting, going through her usual cycle of websites. Mail. Facebook. Clips from The Soup. The New York Times cover stories. She is about to call Dale as she browses Wikileaks' most recent cables. A few war diaries from soldiers. The musings of Dutch ambassadors about non-integrated Muslim immigrant population. President Calderon not very optimistic... Screen shots of Dale's old myspace page?! She looks at her phone, then starts browsing all related cables, covering dates between 2003 and early 2007. It appears that he was trolling the internet for hook-ups! There are dozens of screen shots of his profile, each one completely different. He would change his favorite movies, bands, interested, and even his pictures to make himself seem compatible with whatever girl he was trying to sleep with. There were also leaks of the messages he would send these girls and the profiles of his targets... he was a creep! Dale knocks on her front door, and for a second she thought to pretend to be asleep. She didn't want to deal with this knowledge, especially so suddenly! Unable to come up with an alternative, she lets him in. Their arms and legs are crossed as though trying to deflect not only each others stares but that of the rest of the world. They both charge in and collide with "I have a..." and "Can we please..." and " You first..." and "Go ahead..."... eventually Veronica goes first by pulling Dale over to her computer to show him the cables about him. He doesn't deny the content, and his reaction isn't the shameful pile of stuttered excuses she expected but instead one of unexpected relief, which causes Veronica to almost overflow with righteous rage until he shows her the cables about her past. She still accelerates towards explaining that her past isn't as despicable as his, but all she gets out is a very forceful "Well..." before she reconsiders. Dale is trying very hard to speak; it looks like he is about to vomit but she cuts him off and says, "We should go get a drink and talk." Of course all the bars are closed, but they'll drive through three counties trying to find an open one, spending 45 minutes sitting in each convenience store parking lot along the way, telling the most pitiful tales of debauchery and self delusion. They can barely drag themselves out of the car when they return from their big circle at 5:30 AM, but they know they'll have the best sex they've ever had once they close the front door. As they fall asleep intertwined with one another, they don't notice the clammy regions developing where their bare skin is making contact, for their minds are far away planning a bountiful future together.
(1) One possible reason could be they don't want to supply each other ammunition for future arguments and judgments. Plus it isn't really the most pleasant conversation. Not to mention that going through an itemized list of all prior experimental ventures could deflate the sense that what they have is unique and make the relationship seem mechanical, more like a bodily function.
(2) The convolutedness of the logic and more so the mantra-like mental repetition indicate that they are actually just afraid of either scaring the one another away or learning something that would make it impossible to continue the relationship.
Several months go by as they continue consciously omitting shameful secrets from stories, explaining their reasoning to themselves in convoluted lines of logic until it basically turns into a religion (2) as they crab walk towards commitment and practical considerations. They try to synthesize a coherent picture of their future together out of what happens between them in the present. The result is an enjoyable stagnation as they distract themselves from conversation with more movies, shopping, and sex. They seem to be working together to build something, but the only result is an admirably efficient use of Netflicks, knowledge of the undistinguished local restaurant scene, and a highly developed group of muscles from favoring certain positions. It was beginning to seem that these things were the entire purpose of the relationship.
"Life is sweet right now, that's all there is to say." Dale was out with two close friends as he rises one of those big 32 oz glasses of Belgian-style ale to his face with his slightly unfavored hand since his other one was slick with buffalo wing goop and bits of napkin. Dale and his friends Brett and Merkins are the type of people who develop designated drinking hands. Veronica is secretly dubious of Dale's friends because to her they seem likely to encourage his old bad habits. Not that she knows anything about those old habits, but old habits seem like they would be bad, especially when they took place around Brett and Merkins. Brett is one of those friends you keep around by virtue of their attendance record and maybe a few key meaningful conversations, whereas being friends with Merkins was almost like Stockholm Syndrome. He offends the easily offended, and annoys everybody else with his constantly evolving antics. His most recent obnoxious habit is his iPhone. It wasn't enough for Merkins to be fond of his iPhone; he needed everybody else to be fond of it, too. Every night they went out, he would have some sort of iPhone power trip. If they were in a new neighborhood at a strange bar, Merkins would look up the nearest beer and wings joint, preferably a chain often attached to malls, and present a clear plan on how to get there that nobody could argue with. On top of this, he was sure to announce every update he received and there was hardly a sports, entertainment, or news-related app that was absent from his phone. Tonight, they are content at Buffalo Wild Wings talking about how great relations are with the opposite sex.
"Dale and I just have this amazing unspoken respect that we share. This might be the first truly mature relationship I've had." Veronica sips her warm sake and self consciously cuts her sip short. "Not 'had' in the sense that it's over or has hit its peak or anything, but, you know... I'm in it! Know what I mean?" They couldn't be further from knowing what she means, but weeknights aren't for confrontation. Veronica sometimes mixes up her friends names. They support all the easily supportable things she does, and every now and then try to express a dessicated version of doubt that requires no follow-up because they don't want to seem like they are only capable of providing indistinct encouragement. Dale secretly resents Veronica's friends for knowing all that they most likely know about her past. Whenever they are all out together, there are moments when her friends share a smirk over an unexplained in-joke. He assumes that it may be that he is behaving in a way that is appropriate or ironic in the context of all her ex-lovers. Veronica's friends don't get along with Dale's friends, since Merkins banged one of them and even though they don't hang out with that girl anymore they have still categorized Dale's friends as not acceptable. Hence why they are in separate bars less than two miles apart.
Dale is talking to Brett about how Teavana is always a safe yet seemingly creative place to buy Christmas gifts for girls, while Merkins acts as a news ticker for sports that he knows Dale and Brett don't follow, amusing himself by trying to be ahead of the dozens of TVs on the walls. Then without changing his tone says, "Dude! I just got an update from Wikileaks!" Brett is in the middle of a sentence, but Dale gives Merkins a slice of attention. "Holy shit! It is about Veronica!" Now Dale & Brett are both waiting for the punchline. Merkins keeps reading his device, then he shows it to Dale and sure enough, it is a transcription of three voicemails that Veronica left about 4 years ago. Five minutes later the back-story emerges in the form of leaked text messages and Facebook chats. It seems that Veronica cheated on a guy she had been dating exclusively for two years, lied to him long after this fact was painfully obvious, and then bragged about it without shame to her friends before having a truly pathetic breakdown when she noticed a pattern. She blatantly sabotaged in the crudest ways every secure relationship from college until as recently as two years ago, according to subsequently leaked data. It was almost always with this guy named Josh who reportedly wasn't even that great in bed but was at least physically reliable and always acted emotionally unstable, seemingly for the purpose of justifying the fact that he continuously works at the same bar despite having "all these crazy ideas". From a combination of leaked private live journal entries and emails found in the "unsent drafts" folders of her ex-boyfriends, they all allowed it to happen because they were either too trusting and naive to figure it out, or they knew and just felt bad for her. Either way, both parties reportedly let the relationship fade once infidelity was clearly on the table. Once the updates stopped pouring in, Dale remembered that he has to deal with this knowledge soon, since he has plans to stay at Veronica's place tonight.
Dale knows he ought to confront her in an organized manner, or in a completely spontaneous manner... both of those are impossible to do tonight, so he is driving around the neighborhood thinking. During this time, Veronica is at home waiting, going through her usual cycle of websites. Mail. Facebook. Clips from The Soup. The New York Times cover stories. She is about to call Dale as she browses Wikileaks' most recent cables. A few war diaries from soldiers. The musings of Dutch ambassadors about non-integrated Muslim immigrant population. President Calderon not very optimistic... Screen shots of Dale's old myspace page?! She looks at her phone, then starts browsing all related cables, covering dates between 2003 and early 2007. It appears that he was trolling the internet for hook-ups! There are dozens of screen shots of his profile, each one completely different. He would change his favorite movies, bands, interested, and even his pictures to make himself seem compatible with whatever girl he was trying to sleep with. There were also leaks of the messages he would send these girls and the profiles of his targets... he was a creep! Dale knocks on her front door, and for a second she thought to pretend to be asleep. She didn't want to deal with this knowledge, especially so suddenly! Unable to come up with an alternative, she lets him in. Their arms and legs are crossed as though trying to deflect not only each others stares but that of the rest of the world. They both charge in and collide with "I have a..." and "Can we please..." and " You first..." and "Go ahead..."... eventually Veronica goes first by pulling Dale over to her computer to show him the cables about him. He doesn't deny the content, and his reaction isn't the shameful pile of stuttered excuses she expected but instead one of unexpected relief, which causes Veronica to almost overflow with righteous rage until he shows her the cables about her past. She still accelerates towards explaining that her past isn't as despicable as his, but all she gets out is a very forceful "Well..." before she reconsiders. Dale is trying very hard to speak; it looks like he is about to vomit but she cuts him off and says, "We should go get a drink and talk." Of course all the bars are closed, but they'll drive through three counties trying to find an open one, spending 45 minutes sitting in each convenience store parking lot along the way, telling the most pitiful tales of debauchery and self delusion. They can barely drag themselves out of the car when they return from their big circle at 5:30 AM, but they know they'll have the best sex they've ever had once they close the front door. As they fall asleep intertwined with one another, they don't notice the clammy regions developing where their bare skin is making contact, for their minds are far away planning a bountiful future together.
(1) One possible reason could be they don't want to supply each other ammunition for future arguments and judgments. Plus it isn't really the most pleasant conversation. Not to mention that going through an itemized list of all prior experimental ventures could deflate the sense that what they have is unique and make the relationship seem mechanical, more like a bodily function.
(2) The convolutedness of the logic and more so the mantra-like mental repetition indicate that they are actually just afraid of either scaring the one another away or learning something that would make it impossible to continue the relationship.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Unexpected Congregation of Bullies from 1992 in Your Living Room
The following scene takes place in Brad's living room in his downtown apartment at 2:30 AM, as he walks out of the bathroom.
Brad: "Wait... what? Who are you guys? How did you get in here?"
"Hey, Braddie-Paddie! We're high-school bullies from 1992, and we came in through your TV. You left the CW on."
Brad: "Oh. Well what do you want?"
"Dude, we totally heard you jerking off in there."
Brad: "Well I'm sorry you had to listen to that. Must've been nasty."
"Well we're sorry you gotta date Rosie Palm and her 5 friends cause you can't get a real girl! We recorded it and we're gonna pass the tape around to all the chicks!"
Brad: "Wait, hold on... you stood out there listening to me jerk off? The whole time? That's a little weird. I mean, I took a dump afterwards, did you listen to and record that, too?"
"What? No, don't try to turn this around, you're the weirdo who yanks his canker!"
Brad: "Are you saying that you don't?"
"Umm, No!"
Brad: "Well if you don't that's cool I guess... what do you have against it?"
"Uhhh, nothing really..."
Brad: "This is backfiring on you, isn't it? Just so you know it is understood and widely accepted nowadays that everybody masturbates sometimes and it's not a big deal. It also doesn't mean you are dateless. Many guys get laid and take care of themselves on the side, whether it is to help control their endurance or because they just have to supplement themselves because their partner isn't as active as they are. Either way, it's discussed pretty openly and with little to no judgement, unlike the way it was in movies from 1992."
"Really? I guess that's cool..."
Brad: "What do you mean you 'guess it's cool'? Of course it's cool! It's another victory for freedom and tolerance."
"I mean, that's great for mankind on paper... but don't you miss making fun of people for pulling their pork? Even if it's a little umm... uh, hypocritical?"
Brad: "If we're going to have this conversation, please stop using different colourful terms for it, it isn't that funny anymore."
"See that's what I mean... back in the less 'enlightened' time we could jerk off and also make fun of people for doing it and everyone would laugh."
Brad: "Ah come on, it was inevitable that the jokes would get old."
"See, when you say a joke 'Got old', there is really a lot more going on. What you're saying is that society has become too jaded, or as you say 'tolerant' to laugh at a straightforward wack-off joke, and that is scary."
Brad: "Why is that scary?"
"Dude! Don't you see how the concept of infinite tolerance could be manipulated into propaganda to promote communal anarchy?"
Brad: "So? What's wrong with people being completely trusting of and reliant upon each other without the need for supervision?"
"Umm, the fact that not everybody is honest? It is pure scholarly wistful thinking that could never be practiced, bro."
Brad: "Well we won't find out if it could work until we enlighten people like you guys who would rather make fun of people jerking off than try to improve civilization."
"See, I think you need sticks in the mud like us to protect you from yourself. Any anarchist society would fall into mob rule, and the only people with power will be the largest and strongest or the most organized. Where does that leave malnourished Bukowski-reading pork-pullers like yourself?"
Brad: "I would adapt."
"Adapt?"
Brad: "Yes, adapt. Any shift towards anarchy would be gradual, giving me all the time I need."
"Dude, society is a pile of dead and brittle leaves and acts of revolution are matches; and you can't just burn the individual leaves you choose to and expect to know the outcome."
Brad: "Oh what was that? You totally had that planned!"
"I don't know what you're talking about?"
Brad: "You engineered this whole conversation just to get onto this topic and use that line about the leaves and matches. Fuck! Can't I masturbate just once without this bullshit?"
Brad: "Wait... what? Who are you guys? How did you get in here?"
"Hey, Braddie-Paddie! We're high-school bullies from 1992, and we came in through your TV. You left the CW on."
Brad: "Oh. Well what do you want?"
"Dude, we totally heard you jerking off in there."
Brad: "Well I'm sorry you had to listen to that. Must've been nasty."
"Well we're sorry you gotta date Rosie Palm and her 5 friends cause you can't get a real girl! We recorded it and we're gonna pass the tape around to all the chicks!"
Brad: "Wait, hold on... you stood out there listening to me jerk off? The whole time? That's a little weird. I mean, I took a dump afterwards, did you listen to and record that, too?"
"What? No, don't try to turn this around, you're the weirdo who yanks his canker!"
Brad: "Are you saying that you don't?"
"Umm, No!"
Brad: "Well if you don't that's cool I guess... what do you have against it?"
"Uhhh, nothing really..."
Brad: "This is backfiring on you, isn't it? Just so you know it is understood and widely accepted nowadays that everybody masturbates sometimes and it's not a big deal. It also doesn't mean you are dateless. Many guys get laid and take care of themselves on the side, whether it is to help control their endurance or because they just have to supplement themselves because their partner isn't as active as they are. Either way, it's discussed pretty openly and with little to no judgement, unlike the way it was in movies from 1992."
"Really? I guess that's cool..."
Brad: "What do you mean you 'guess it's cool'? Of course it's cool! It's another victory for freedom and tolerance."
"I mean, that's great for mankind on paper... but don't you miss making fun of people for pulling their pork? Even if it's a little umm... uh, hypocritical?"
Brad: "If we're going to have this conversation, please stop using different colourful terms for it, it isn't that funny anymore."
"See that's what I mean... back in the less 'enlightened' time we could jerk off and also make fun of people for doing it and everyone would laugh."
Brad: "Ah come on, it was inevitable that the jokes would get old."
"See, when you say a joke 'Got old', there is really a lot more going on. What you're saying is that society has become too jaded, or as you say 'tolerant' to laugh at a straightforward wack-off joke, and that is scary."
Brad: "Why is that scary?"
"Dude! Don't you see how the concept of infinite tolerance could be manipulated into propaganda to promote communal anarchy?"
Brad: "So? What's wrong with people being completely trusting of and reliant upon each other without the need for supervision?"
"Umm, the fact that not everybody is honest? It is pure scholarly wistful thinking that could never be practiced, bro."
Brad: "Well we won't find out if it could work until we enlighten people like you guys who would rather make fun of people jerking off than try to improve civilization."
"See, I think you need sticks in the mud like us to protect you from yourself. Any anarchist society would fall into mob rule, and the only people with power will be the largest and strongest or the most organized. Where does that leave malnourished Bukowski-reading pork-pullers like yourself?"
Brad: "I would adapt."
"Adapt?"
Brad: "Yes, adapt. Any shift towards anarchy would be gradual, giving me all the time I need."
"Dude, society is a pile of dead and brittle leaves and acts of revolution are matches; and you can't just burn the individual leaves you choose to and expect to know the outcome."
Brad: "Oh what was that? You totally had that planned!"
"I don't know what you're talking about?"
Brad: "You engineered this whole conversation just to get onto this topic and use that line about the leaves and matches. Fuck! Can't I masturbate just once without this bullshit?"
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Four Waffles? Two of Them
Fred!
Four waffles?
Take what you can eat
Your stomach will be replete
With flour, egg, sugar, vanilla extract
I'm reading the ingredients hoping you'll react
By leaving the room, hunger barely intact
Consider half of your plate
Return and donate
Two of them
Dick!
Four waffles?
Take what you can eat
Your stomach will be replete
With flour, egg, sugar, vanilla extract
I'm reading the ingredients hoping you'll react
By leaving the room, hunger barely intact
Consider half of your plate
Return and donate
Two of them
Dick!
The Sign Says She's Knocked Up
Hey!
The sign says
"No copulation"
What are you, blind or something?
Yep, I'm blind from excessive masturbation
That's what you get for ignoring your mother's advice
Actually my mother was always in favor of my habit
No drug problem or risk of getting a girl knocked up
You being blind works to her advantage
Nah dude, blind chicks are easy
I have a girlfriend
She's knocked up
Shit!
The sign says
"No copulation"
What are you, blind or something?
Yep, I'm blind from excessive masturbation
That's what you get for ignoring your mother's advice
Actually my mother was always in favor of my habit
No drug problem or risk of getting a girl knocked up
You being blind works to her advantage
Nah dude, blind chicks are easy
I have a girlfriend
She's knocked up
Shit!
Weary of A Few Drinks
I'm
Weary of
Spontaneity
Fuck serendipity, too
I need to know what I'm looking forward to
How else do I know when to start enjoying myself
Perhaps my ex-girlfriends were right to end the boring relationship
But they never knew where they were going anyway
And I knew exactly where they were going
From the moment I met them
Expensive dinner
A few drinks
Bed
Weary of
Spontaneity
Fuck serendipity, too
I need to know what I'm looking forward to
How else do I know when to start enjoying myself
Perhaps my ex-girlfriends were right to end the boring relationship
But they never knew where they were going anyway
And I knew exactly where they were going
From the moment I met them
Expensive dinner
A few drinks
Bed
Commandments, 2 iPads
Ten
Commandments
Could you imagine
Charlton Heston descending
Mt. Sinai holding
Two iPads
Smash
Commandments
Could you imagine
Charlton Heston descending
Mt. Sinai holding
Two iPads
Smash
Deadly Silence, Or Do You Just
Thunder
Deadly Silence
Who do you blame when lightning strikes
Do you retract our magnet privileges?
Mandate rubber safety attire
Or do you just
Thank God
Deadly Silence
Who do you blame when lightning strikes
Do you retract our magnet privileges?
Mandate rubber safety attire
Or do you just
Thank God
Monday, January 10, 2011
The Return of Captain Call-Out
So I spoke to an advisor at the University last week. I walked in, sat down
and said that I'm unhappy with my current career and I'd like to be an English
professor. I asked for suggestions, and here is what he said in response:
"Before you arrived, we took the liberty to pull up some records. We cross-referenced your email address and our IT department compiled some click-stream data from the University's website. It is all easily acquired information these days, took us about 10 minutes. In the past 18 months you have searched programs and even initiated cursory communication with advisers in fields ranging from psychology and social work to creative writing to culinary arts, at each instance citing how unhappy you are with your current career path and that you want to make a change. Well Mr. Murdock, I am here to tell you that you are not alone in this feeling. In fact, you fit a certain profile of remotely intelligent people with comfortable jobs that require no specific talent or training. See... jobs like these are meant for people like you. Indecisive, weak-willed, maybe good enough to do something better with yourself but will never work to your potential. Sure you may take a little initiative to seek alternatives, but like a stone rolling up a hill, your lack of focus drains all of your momentum before you reach the top, so you give up and try to roll back down that hill and use that momentum to ascend a different hill, but you always end up right back where you started. Specifically, you decide to start researching colleges, but you look at the requirements and decide that an academic environment is too constricting, so you'll just write more and get published, but you slowly realize that you don't have the chops and the background to really differentiate your natural talent from everybody else, so you start looking at schools again, almost oblivious to the cycle you're in but every now and then you snap out of it and realize how doomed your ambitions are, like a retard who is just smart enough to know he's retarded but not smart enough to do anything about it. Somewhere in the middle of all this you complacently read your favorite authors for vague inspiration or look for local workshops for a low-commitment way to hone your skills or you read at local open mics as you socialize and drink afterward, often surrounded by more focused, driven and successful individuals who make you feel like a loser. While you're out with them you get depressed, insecure, withdrawn and defensive and you drink too much and stumble home and you wake up late so you have to stay at work late to make up for it and accomplish next to nothing that day, ad infinitum. These are all symptoms of a disorder I like to call Luke Skywalker Syndrome. You need to feel like you are the chosen one, like you are fulfilling your destiny at whatever you decide to do, just by deciding to do it. However, Luke Skywalker never needed to fill out endless paperwork, build up his resume from the bottom levitating cinder blocks at Rebel construction sites, or spend 12 years of his life studying ethics and quantum physics. I know it sounds harmless and silly because it is Starwars, but rest assured, it is the poisoned wound from which you will be perpetually recovering until you die. Also, you missed the registration deadline for classes because you were too busy dicking around with some improve troupe. See you in 6 months."
"Before you arrived, we took the liberty to pull up some records. We cross-referenced your email address and our IT department compiled some click-stream data from the University's website. It is all easily acquired information these days, took us about 10 minutes. In the past 18 months you have searched programs and even initiated cursory communication with advisers in fields ranging from psychology and social work to creative writing to culinary arts, at each instance citing how unhappy you are with your current career path and that you want to make a change. Well Mr. Murdock, I am here to tell you that you are not alone in this feeling. In fact, you fit a certain profile of remotely intelligent people with comfortable jobs that require no specific talent or training. See... jobs like these are meant for people like you. Indecisive, weak-willed, maybe good enough to do something better with yourself but will never work to your potential. Sure you may take a little initiative to seek alternatives, but like a stone rolling up a hill, your lack of focus drains all of your momentum before you reach the top, so you give up and try to roll back down that hill and use that momentum to ascend a different hill, but you always end up right back where you started. Specifically, you decide to start researching colleges, but you look at the requirements and decide that an academic environment is too constricting, so you'll just write more and get published, but you slowly realize that you don't have the chops and the background to really differentiate your natural talent from everybody else, so you start looking at schools again, almost oblivious to the cycle you're in but every now and then you snap out of it and realize how doomed your ambitions are, like a retard who is just smart enough to know he's retarded but not smart enough to do anything about it. Somewhere in the middle of all this you complacently read your favorite authors for vague inspiration or look for local workshops for a low-commitment way to hone your skills or you read at local open mics as you socialize and drink afterward, often surrounded by more focused, driven and successful individuals who make you feel like a loser. While you're out with them you get depressed, insecure, withdrawn and defensive and you drink too much and stumble home and you wake up late so you have to stay at work late to make up for it and accomplish next to nothing that day, ad infinitum. These are all symptoms of a disorder I like to call Luke Skywalker Syndrome. You need to feel like you are the chosen one, like you are fulfilling your destiny at whatever you decide to do, just by deciding to do it. However, Luke Skywalker never needed to fill out endless paperwork, build up his resume from the bottom levitating cinder blocks at Rebel construction sites, or spend 12 years of his life studying ethics and quantum physics. I know it sounds harmless and silly because it is Starwars, but rest assured, it is the poisoned wound from which you will be perpetually recovering until you die. Also, you missed the registration deadline for classes because you were too busy dicking around with some improve troupe. See you in 6 months."
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Why am I Here, And So am I
More math poetry: divisible by two, not by three
OK
Why am I here?
Enduring boring philistines
When I speak my mind some look at me strange
As they tap their fingernails to Bruce Hornsby & the Range
While solvent scent and untuned guitars are my normal cafe fare
They admire $3000 portraits of candles hung on freshly painted walls
How likely am I to find likeminded kinfolk or new friends here
Though why restrict myself by what I think folks like me do
I could find a kindred spirit today
Because I am at this cafe
And so am I
I'll stay
OK
Why am I here?
Enduring boring philistines
When I speak my mind some look at me strange
As they tap their fingernails to Bruce Hornsby & the Range
While solvent scent and untuned guitars are my normal cafe fare
They admire $3000 portraits of candles hung on freshly painted walls
How likely am I to find likeminded kinfolk or new friends here
Though why restrict myself by what I think folks like me do
I could find a kindred spirit today
Because I am at this cafe
And so am I
I'll stay
Saturday, January 8, 2011
She Worked Hard, Anne Has Scored
Math poem: Odd prime numbers up to 23 syllables and back.
Anne
She worked hard
Strong reputation
And considerable debt
She grew weary of seeing lousy art work
Prominently displayed in cafes, bistros, and bars
With printed bios and price tags an oil exec could appreciate
So she sold out and became a local commodity to be reckoned with
At her peak popularity, she releases some pieces to select venues with menus
Hideous frail free standing mixed media with high center of gravity
Inevitably knocked over by baristas and bartenders
Shops paid for them at her arbitrarily set price
Anne's marketable soul that shatters like ice
Aside from being debt free
In the game of life
Anne has scored
One
Anne
She worked hard
Strong reputation
And considerable debt
She grew weary of seeing lousy art work
Prominently displayed in cafes, bistros, and bars
With printed bios and price tags an oil exec could appreciate
So she sold out and became a local commodity to be reckoned with
At her peak popularity, she releases some pieces to select venues with menus
Hideous frail free standing mixed media with high center of gravity
Inevitably knocked over by baristas and bartenders
Shops paid for them at her arbitrarily set price
Anne's marketable soul that shatters like ice
Aside from being debt free
In the game of life
Anne has scored
One
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