i love jesus but I drink a little

What’s that movie where the bad guys (maybe the good guys…I’m really reaching for a vague memory here folks…pretty sure it’s the bad guys though) come into the room where the person they’re looking for is, but suddenly he’s not there. He was JUST there, but he’s not there anymore. They’re looking everywhere for him in this small, empty room and then we, the audience, by virtue of a low angle camera shot, see the hunted is wedging himself up against the ceiling by holding his hands and feet against the walls. Then, if I’m not mistaken, a single drop of sweat starts to dangle from his nose. And then it falls. Does this sound familiar?

Because that’s what this baby seems to be doing in my wife. Just wedging itself against the ceiling and sweating bullets. No interest in coming out. She’s past due. The bags are packed. All the car seats are in the cars. Everything is ready. Nothing is happening though. Christ. There’s grandparents up in the house and everything. It’s like a strange Christmas where nothing’s going on and the time when you open presents could come at any time and involves a big garbage can for blood and a gift that won’t ever let you sleep again.

There’s not much else to think about and though there’s nothing going on (how can there be?), I don’t really feel comfortable suggesting to everyone that I just may take off and go for a bike ride or hit the gym or see what Nick is up to…Doesn’t seem right.

I mean, to borrow an urban turn of phrase from the mid nineties, this waiting shit’s straight up wack, yo! I just watched Benji Madden’s workout regimen on Perez Hilton’s website (this sentence is true. Here are the sad components of this nightmare of daytime media: Benji Madden himself as he walks us through his gross insecurities with a smug, Bush-ian smirk [“I’m not genetically gifted, so I bleach the hair, hit the gym, get some sun. Being twins with this guy {indicates Joel}, all I hear is how hot he is and how I’m the chubby twin…” and on and on like this. Good lord.] Perez and the things he has to endure in order to perpetuate millionaire bitchpire, the general public who give a fuck about this kind of gloomy crap, the poor fuckers in Benji’s gym who have to be part of this dumb video and of course, me. This is true housewife status shit, folks. I just learned who Gladys from the Ellen show is. For fucks sake. What’s next? Some knitting? Vacuum infomercials? The VIEW?

Whimper.

I need a shot of whiskey and a blowjob while I drive (too fast) over to the cockfight or something to get my dangerous side back in the game. Well, I guess I’m meeting with my accountant tomorrow to deal with my tax issues. Is that badass at all? No? Yeah…not really. Sigh. I used to be dangerous folks. In 99 I only took three showers the whole year. TRUE!

Also, what else? Um….I dunno. I don’t want to get into my various shenanigans too much, but let’s suffice it to say that I’ve stood drenched in swamp water up to my chest, in front of a ten story bonfire in the middle of the woods with nothing in my pockets, forty five minutes from the closest town, on a Monday night, in france with a war photographer from the Korean war and Desert Storm 1, a junkie with a trick knee who was going through withdrawls, a bunch of French people who couldn’t stand me, and an old man- the only person I knew within about sixty miles, mind you, who had no teeth and couldn’t stop telling me that it was all no problem, he and his friends used to jump dirt bikes while high on ecstasy all the time back in LA.

This did not calm me down at all, by the way. Did I mention I was totally freaking out? Oh, because I was.

This is an excerpt from the story of the far and away craziest night of my life. Looking back, I wasn’t really a badass or anything, I was just kind of losing my mind and trying not to cry. But hey, I was lost in the woods with fifty thousand French hippies who were all driving their cars into lakes and setting things on fire and it was snowing and I was covered in swamp water and the junkie was just collapsing in screams every time his bad knee gave out and those stories the old man was telling me about the great times jumping bikes in LA all high were really just contributing to my unease.

The war photographer ran off with the girl covered in blood to fish her boyfriend out of the muddy bog, and everyone I knew (besides the old man, of course) was an hourlong drive away in a hotel run completely by robots (true!).

Oh, and with the exception of the old man, no one would talk to me because I’d thrown my socks into the woods after my incident with the swampwater. And I was sick. Cough and cold sick. Not like meningitis, so, well that’s a silver lining.

I guess the point is, I’d rather be here than back in those woods. Even if people over here are watching Ellen. It’s just the waiting. Who sang that song? Tom Petty? The waiting is the hardest part? I’m pretty sure it was him.

God he’s handsome.