I’m not a man who likes to perpetuate myths about himself but I can’t exactly help it if fate herself has decreed that I must be an International Man of Mystery. So I like to share my occasional indignities with the world so you’ll see that in many ways I am just like you, though I might have slightly better hair.
When I awoke this morning, unsuspectingly and with my dog standing over me, I felt apprehensive and bewildered. This is because only moments earlier Darren Aronofsky, director of Black Swans and The Fountain, had been eager to sign me up as a lead role in his next motion picture and I had been pretending to demur. Negotiations had been difficult and tense, of course, because the role was an enticing one, and also because the discussion had taken place on an ice floe while contending with sentient bears armed with vintage Thompson machine guns. So naturally I was bewildered to find myself in the thin reality of daily life once more, with a dog standing over me menacingly. Under those circumstance, who wouldn’t be?
My dog Chloe has a way of forcing herself upon situations and, seeing that I was finally awake, stopped trampling me and became sweet so that I might want to feed her. This is her process and I’ll not challenge it here. I also should mention that she looks a lot like a black bear, only sinister.
Feeding her was tricky because I wasn’t yet caffeinated and was still feeling disappointed about the movie deal being a figment of my own disordered imagination. By the way: dogs can have forceful personalities - it’s not all sweetness and light with my dog. It’s not as if she doesn’t know that her jaws can exert 320 pounds of pressure per square inch. She’s never bitten me or anyone else but she usually has this look about her that suggests she’d probably find it amusing. Dogs are much better at being dogs than humans are at being humans - so you should always defer to their self-knowledge, especially when they are in a communicative mood.
So down the road to Starbucks I went. It was -9 degrees Celsius outside, and slippery, and I was understandably tired after spending half a night contending with angry bears. In fact, I wouldn’t have bought the blueberry scone if I hadn’t been so off balance. I munched it cagily, distracted. Chloe watched me with avid eyes. Our history together has shown that she will happily eat an unattended scone without the slightest provocation. And up the hill we trudged up again. I felt wistful, and she felt resentful about my not sharing the scone.
Now, just as I was getting to my house, I realized that the tall americano and the blueberry scone had achieved some sort of disagreement in my stomach. I’m not a petty person so I don’t follow these squabbles closely but by the time I got through the door, I had the deranged idea that I should get myself into the bathroom and put two fingers down my throat and get the awful stuff out of my stomach before digestion kicked in. There are some things a man knows he shouldn’t digest and I had no desire to make the broiling conflict in my stomach become, in some permanent manner, part of my own physical being. You see, in all things I seek harmony.
I put two fingers down my throat and then, God knows why, I let my attention waver. Blueberry scone and coffee hurled forth - struck my hand, backed up and furtively sought another exit. Then it began to jet out of my nose.
Vomit and blasphemies broke loose from me and the bathroom shook as various offended deities flew off in a rage. Chloe appeared at my side and seemed curious about the edibility of the stuff that had sprayed everywhere except the toilet bowl.
I am a man, so I can probably clean up that mess tomorrow. The moral of the story? Well, hand on my heart, I haven’t worked that out yet. Look, I never said this was going to be a good story.
