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Just one of the infinite mysteries I find myself pondering when trying desperately to think of some pap with which to feed you suckling masses. Generally, this is pretty easy - let's face it, your standards aren't particularly haute, exactly - but sometimes the font of brilliant social commentary, the plashing drops of witty criticism pouring in triumph from the ornate marble lion's-head of sheer technical skill and refined craft, become clogged with the hairballs of a temporary lapse in creativity, blocked by the soap scum of having nothing to write about, eaten away by the rust and corrosion of no good ideas. What does one do? How does one tinker with the pipes of stunning literature without inadvertently popping a u-bend and flooding the kitchen of consciousness? Does one call in a plumber to re-solder the sink of inspiration? Is there a plunger of deep thought that will dislodge the clogs of ineptitude? A bottle of the Drain-o of flagrant literary theft to scour away the sludge of approaching deadlines and increasingly snotty editors who don't seem to understand that when one is paid next to nothing [the conjoined twin of nothing, in fact, that's how indecently close it's standing to nothing], well, shoving the I.V. tube into another can of treacle and plugging it into the collapsed vein of my dehydrated readers, that's only slightly higher on my to-do list than scraping shampoo residue off the back wall of the shower. Of idealism. The shower of idealism. Realistically, there are several viable solutions to this prickly little problem: 1. Pull out the high-school poetry journal. So. Might as well get this farce over with, so I can get back to my lucrative side-job of penning overdeveloped metaphors for use by copywriters and film school students. Onward & Upward. 1. i cower in the fetid darkness [Okay, you got me. All my high-school poetry journals perished in an emotional purge somewhere around my sophomore year of college, when I underwent a profound philosophical shift from Defiant Deviousness and Black Lipstick to Intense Boredom Seasoned with Obscure French Phrases. Oddly enough, virtually the only personal effect to survive the Great Purge was a pair of maroon Doc Martens, which seem to accessorize any philosophical state deeper than "Capris make my butt look fly." This particular poetic effort, which I fondly call Eulogy for a Lost Angel - My Kurt is Dead, is a little re-creation, meant to invoke an era, and to promote some nostalgic wallowing. Go ahead. Wallow. Enough wallowing. Backward & Homeward.] 2. You know, that guy in N'Sync who looks like k.d lang on the subway posters kind of skeeves me out. [Oh, forget it. Offward & Celia Ward.] 3.Since opening my home and my life to the miraculous creatures known as cats, I've learned a lot about the feline view of life. Whether napping in the sun, shedding on the couch, or playfully chewing the leaves off of my eighty-dollar-a-pot orchids yet stubbornly refusing to get even a little poisoned, my cats have taught me to look at the world through rheumy, fur-rimmed eyes. Through those two treatment-resistant intestinal parasite-ridden, co-dependant scamps, I have discovered the true essence of felininity: Cats are not the aloof, mysterious guardians of the astral plane that sixteen-year-old vegans and British mystery writers seem to think they are. Cats are assholes. Think about it: if your roommate acted like your cat, you'd kill him in his sleep. The constant ass-licking alone would justify it. Apparently it's cute that your cat's daily routine consists entirely of sitting on the couch and whining for dinner the minute you get in the door; yet this behavior is somehow inappropriate when the perpetrator is a twenty-seven-year-old named Josh who has a degree in International Relations, finds occasional work making flyers for bands at NYU, and is really into his new Razor scooter, this painter named Anya (who only dances for the money, dude, just to pay for her art), and Tibet. On the positive side, I have to admit my cats have never wiped my hard drive, cooked lentil soup in my teapot, or taken the batteries out of every clock in the house to use in their Discman. This is hardly enough to justify having the freeloaders in my house, however. They're completely useless as pest control, as their refined palates reject the proletarian savor of bugs [they'll play with them, of course, and leave maimed insects and spare legs and wings scattered around the house, but they won't eat the damn things], and the only affection the little whores seem to provide is to absolutely everyone who walks through the door and isn't me. Fortunately, the smelly buggers do seem to have unclogged the ol' drainpipes of etc. etc., providing you, my oxygen-deprived readers, with yet another fifty to seventy-five seconds of side-splitting literary enjoyment, getting me off the hook with my harpy of an editor, and proving that the little walking pipecleaners are good for at least one thing in my life. And now, back to the adolescent poetry.
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