Please consider using your MLK Day of Service to help me with my new apartment

Honor Dr. King’s legacy by breaking down all this cardboard

A re-post of something I originally wrote in 2017.

If anybody has the day off today and would be interested in volunteering I’ve got a lot of stuff around my apartment that could be done.

I just moved, and my new place could use a lot of cleaning. Maybe some painting. Hanging up a few pictures would sure make the place feel like home. The company I work for doesn’t seem to think giving their employees the day off to honor Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. is a good idea, so I can’t do it all myself. I spent my weekend getting acquainted with the nightlife in my new neighborhood and then recovering from all the acquainting by sleeping until the late afternoon.

Come on over, whatever time is good for you. Which should be whenever since you have the day off. You can sweep my floors while talking about King’s work during the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955. Do you know that during the three hundred eighty-five day boycott, things became so tense his house was bombed? Man, I can’t even imagine that. I just moved in, ya know?

To paraphrase the great Dr. King himself there is no “more convenient season” to act in helping me get all set up in my new place than now. You have the day off, you’re not really doing anything, anyways. What better than to just get a bunch of people together so we can bang this out really fast? Sure, it might get tense with a bunch of us (I mean, you) working together, some of you may butt heads, but do you prefer some kind of negative peace (my place staying dirty and not set up) in the absence of tension to a positive peace (the chill-ass vibes we’ll get when everything is in its right place and we can kick back on the couch with a brew and a slice of ‘za) that will come in the presence of justice (my pad being dope!).

I know what you’re thinking: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.” I mean, come on, dude, what do you think you can set the timetable on another man’s (me) freedom (cool crib)? Who are you to tell me that my want to have a bunch of other people unpack my stuff, clean my apartment, and move everything around for me until I’m happy isn’t the best way to get that shit done. It’s my stuff, it’s my place, I think I know what’s best.

I have a dream that one day soon my couch will be in place and my ROKU box will be plugged into my TV and connected to my wifi and my Netflix and HBO and Amazon accounts will be set up and my queues will be full of cool stuff to watch to keep me entertained, and my dishes will be in my cabinets, and my fridge will be full of food (can you pick up some groceries for me on your way over please?) and I truly will be free at last.

So, yeah, like I said — I have to work today so I’m not home. But there’s a key under the welcome mat. Let yourself in, hang out and work for as long as you want. And as Martin Luther King, Jr. himself said: “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase” because it’s full of boxes of my stuff. They should be labeled what room they belong in for when you unpack them. Thanks again you’re a peach.

Shopping at GNC makes me feel like a big dumb stupid idiot

Sometimes I do things that make me feel dumb and this is me writing about how dumb I feel when I do them.

“I’m here for the powder that gives me power!” I declare as I push through the door into the GNC. All eyes are on me as I confidently stroll to the Big Tubs O’Stuff section to make the most important decision of my whole entire month. Do I feel like chocolate power powder or vanilla? Oh, look, this new one is supposed to taste like cereal. I like cereal. It reminds me of breakfast.

Two of the eyes that have been watching me, along with the head those eyes float in, and the body that the head is attached to make their way toward me in the back corner of the store. “Can I help you with anything?” the mouth that’s under the nose that’s under those eyes says to me.

“Just here for the protein,” I reply.

“Good stuff,” the mouth says back.

“The best,” I say, correcting him for being dumb and wrong. “This guy wants to help me but he needs to help himself if he believes protein is just ‘good stuff,’ and not the best stuff,” I say, not out loud to him but to myself inside of my own head. Some people call this thinking but I call it “saying stuff to myself in my own head.” I say stuff to myself in my own head all the time. I’m doing it right now.

I grab the biggest tub of chocolate in the store and make my way to the register. When I get there, I’m greeted with a “that stuff is the best” from the dumb guy’s coworker, who is clearly the more knowledgeable of the two.

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” he asks, pausing before he shoots my enormous tub of muscle fuel with his little magic laser gun that tells me how much I will have to pay. They don’t know it but I’d pay anything for my chocolate power powder. He could shoot that tub with his laser gun and the price ring up “your rights” and I’d gladly pay the price of my rights. Who needs rights when you have muscles.

“You just did” I don’t say, even though I want to. I want to say it so bad my body shakes and sweat begins to bead on my brow. I turn beet red from the strain it takes to refrain from replying to his question about if he could ask me a question by telling him he already asked me a question.

“Shoot,” I’m able to force past my lips through my clenched jaw. My head thumps and pounds as the blood pumps through it. My eyes go dark for a moment. I see nothing. Then I see my grandfather, who died before I was even born. His face is black from working the coal mines. Wait, no, he’s tap dancing. That’s not coal dirt, he’s performing in some kind of minstrel show. What the fuck, this is nuts, Grandpa. I shake my head in disapproval. How is this the same man that raised my very own sweet mother? I remember to breathe again.

“How do you feel about vegetables?” the Smart GNC Man asks me. I shouldn’t have to answer this question. It should be obvious how I feel about vegetables, I am in a GNC. I know that vegetables are good for me but I don’t want to eat them, so I buy little pills that tell me they have the same good stuff in them as vegetables. Scientists say these don’t work as well as eating vegetables but if that is so true why is my pee so bright after I eat the vegetable replacement pills? My pee is never that bright when I eat vegetables. Something must be working if it makes my pee so bright.

“I come to GNC to create a perfect diet of milkshakes and candy bars. I don’t come here because I want to eat vegetables.” I reply.

“That’s what I thought you’d say,” the Intelligent GNC Dude tells me, revealing his power to see inside of my soul, “you should check this out.”

He holds in front of me a small green container. While a small container is sometimes bad because it is small and not big, it could also mean that the contents of the container are extra super concentrated. That means you only need a little bit. It’s a delicate balance with big and small containers and knowing when to go big and when to go small. With green, small is usually good. On this green container is the word “GREEN” in a shade of green that is slightly darker than the shade of green of the green container. I’d describe the font green as Forest Green and the container green as Kermit the Frog Green. One thing I know is that when it comes to healthy stuff, the color green is probably one of the best colors.

“How much does it cost?” I ask.

“Wrong question,” GNC Genius says, with a look on his face that tells me I am talking to somebody who truly knows the power of what he’s about to say. This is a look reserved for only the most knowledgable of men. I’m talking about guys who define themselves as independent journalists and modern-day philosophers, and podcast hosts.

“You should be asking what it is worth.”

I can’t even talk because I am so impressed. In fact, I can’t even say stuff to myself in my own head. I just stand there looking at him, empty-headed. If I had to describe what was going through my head at that time it would be like snow falling on more snow, except the snow isn’t snow it’s protein powder. Shoot, do I actually want vanilla?

“I’ll tell you the best part about this green stuff,” he continues, knowing that I’m too stunned to reply. “When you take this stuff, and you go to the bathroom…it all comes out.”

“There’s no way it all comes out.”

“It all comes out.”

“It all comes out?”

“It all comes out.”

“How does it all come out?”

“Because of the green.”

Duh. Of course it is because of the green. How could I be so blind. The green makes it all come out.

“I’ll take one of the green,” I say.

“We have a special. It’s buy one get a second one for one percent off. Do you want two?”

“Of course I do,” I say to myself inside my own head.

“Of course I do,” I say out loud to My Teacher, My Inspiration, My King.

“Of course you do.”

Listen, Cat, you need to work on your pattern recognition skills

Why are you afraid of the cat-carrier when every time you go into the cat-carrier something good happens for you?

Please don’t fight me on this. Your insistence on fighting me whenever I try to get you to go into the cat-carrier is embarrassing for both of us. You know I will eventually get you in there no matter how much you fight and claw and scratch and bite. We should both know that when it’s all said and done you’ll be better off for going in there. I would appreciate if you could save me some blood in the process.

Do you think I’ll never let you out again? Do you seriously think I’m going to trap you in there forever? I get it, you also think I’m going to forget to feed you every day. Somehow you think I’m going to forget to feed you while I am actively feeding you. I grab your food and say “Hello to you, my best friend the cat, it is time to feed you” and you look at me and scream as if to say “That can of cat food you are holding better be cat food for me!” I just told you it’s food for you! Also, I don’t eat cat food. I am not a cat. Even though I read somewhere that cats think that people are big cats, that is not what we are, we are people. I promise you this cat food is for you, the cat.

Just as I will never forget to feed you I also will not forget to release you from the carrier, exactly the same as every other time you’ve been in there. Do I also remind you that you always come out of the carrier better off than you were when you went in there? Great stuff happens for you when you go in that carrier. Every time you go into that carrier you win the cat lottery.

The first time literally saved your life. While it was technically a cat-trap and not a cat-carrier I’m going to count this anyway, as the cat-trap and cat-carrier have similar shapes and dimensions. You were living in an alley behind a dumpster, if I must remind you. You had to eat garbage. Part of me recognizes the romance of this life. Sometimes I daydream of drifting from place to place, with no responsibilities, nobody to report to, going wherever the wind takes me. While I can recognize the romance in being a free cat of the streets, you weren’t really thriving. You weren’t living an enviable life of freedom. You never saw Paris. You pretty much stuck to that dumpster alley because you knew there would be garbage for you to eat. I’ll tell you this when I daydream about being a drifter myself it doesn’t include eating trash — it does include Paris. I’ve never seen Paris. I should go to Paris. I don’t have to be a drifter to go to Paris.

Do you know you were supposed to be neutered and released back into the wild to live a feral life, but I had to nurse you back to health first? During that time you decided that you liked being inside our cozy home where it’s warm and has blankets and you get to eat food and not trash. This was your decision. You could have decided to stay wild and crazy and you would have been released into to wild when you were healthy again. But you’re a fancy little bitch and like your fancy little bitch life.

So here we are. I don’t think you understand how nice it is that somebody just scooped you up and said “Come with me I have a better life for you here” and now you have a better life. I wish somebody would knock on my door and do for me what I did for you. I guess, minus the getting neutered thing. But, hey, if I had the human equivalent of your life I might consider it. Let’s Freaky Friday right now, see how you like it. You can do everything for me plus go to work plus take care of the home and in return every once in a while I’ll sit by you and look cute. But not for too long, and if I see that you like it too much I will hightail away and hide somewhere until you’re not so thirsty anymore.

Honestly, I would do it. The more that I think about it the more I’m sure I would trade my ability to procreate if somebody trapped me, whisked me away to a huge house I had the run of, I didn’t have to work anymore, just got to sit in the sun and nap all day. Take my balls and give me that!

I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear this. None of this is your fault. Except, I guess, the part where you refuse to go into the carrier so I can take you for a spa day. Did you know that? That’s why I’m trying to get you to go in there, so you can have a spa day. I’ve never been treated to a spa day!

Cat, while I’m still frustrated that you are not voluntarily and easily getting into this carrier, I can appreciate that you have taught me some lessons about myself today. Once I get you into this carrier I’m going to treat myself to a spa day, book a trip to Paris, and call my doctor and talk about getting a vasectomy.

I asked Bob Dylan how he writes his songs and now I need to make a few things clear.

I know why the songs didn't come to me. Do you know that you're a bit of a jerk?

“You know, people ask where the songs come from, but they don’t really want to know where the songs come from. They want to know why the songs didn’t come to them.” - A Complete Unknown

Hi, Bob. It’s me, your accountant, Marty. Let’s have a quick chat.

I heard what you said about me, or at least what you said about people like me who ask you where you get your songs from. Look, man, I was just making small talk. You write songs so I ask you about how the songwriting is going. It’s just the polite way to talk to people. You ask people questions about themselves and then listen when they tell you things. You don’t just make stuff up in your head about them and then start believing it like it’s gospel. I do the books for a guy who manages a quarry. I ask him about his work, too. Do you think I’m jealous of rocks?

I’m not. I’m not jealous of rocks. I don’t wonder why rocks didn’t come to me. I don’t wonder why the songs didn’t come to me either. I know why the songs didn’t come to me. Because I’m not a songwriter, I’m an accountant, Bob.

Not everybody in the world can be a songwriter, Bob. How would we eat if all the farmers decided to stop farming and that they were going to just sit around writing songs all day? Would you feel safe flying above the clouds in an airplane if the pilot was in the cockpit strumming on a banjo thinking about metaphors? How would people know how much money they need to send the government if it weren’t for accountants like me? What would you do, just send the government a big box of money and hope they send back whatever they don’t need? The world doesn’t work that way, Bob. Somebody needs to keep accounts! That somebody is me, Marty, your accountant.

I’m a damn good accountant too. I saved you a heck of a lot of money last year, didn’t I? You didn’t even know you could write off guitar picks as a business expense. Do you think when you come in here with your hot mess of paperwork and ask about how much taxes you owe the government I go home to my wife and say “Bobby Dylan asked me how much taxes he owes but what he really wants to know is why he didn’t know how much taxes he owes himself” like some kind of an asshole? I do not.

I could talk like that about you. I happen to think doing taxes is very easy. It comes quite naturally to me like I’m sure songwriting comes quite naturally to you. I actually find numbers to be quite musical. That’s all music is anyways, math. Did you know that, Bob? That music is math? What you do and what I do are like cousins of sorts. But you think what you do is special and something other people are envious of while what I do is boring and plain. But they’re cousins, and they’re close cousins too not even cousins that would be allowed to marry each other. If music and math tried to get married the courts would say “No! Your kids would be too weird!”

So, you find the music in music and I find the music in math. I’m sure a baker finds the music in baking as well. The tinny rhythm of the sifter as it softens his flour fine as snow. The bass of the dough as it thumps on his workbench, heavy in his hands but nothing against their strength. The strength built through years of kneading and pulling and rolling and shaping and perfecting a craft that is just as important as yours. Next time you ask for bread take a moment to wonder why you must go to bread and why the bread didn’t come to you.

And since we’ve come this far, I’ll ask you this — isn’t finding the music in math or bread more musical than finding music in music itself? Isn’t finding the music in music a little…on the nose? Anyone can find the music in music. It is music. But finding music in math is magic.

You may think you are the magician, Bob, but you are not the magician. Marty the accountant is the magician. How does that feel?

Please consider keeping your Christmas lights up for the sake of my mental health

Look, I really need this, OK.

Oh, boy, today really was a Monday, wasn’t it? Tough time getting back in the regular swing of things after the holidays, that’s for sure. I just wish there was something we could do to make this transition period a little bit easier. For the life of me, I just can’t think of anything at all. Careful on that ladder, there. Do you need a hand with those lights?

Sure is a nice set-up you got here. Really pretty. Must have worked hard on it. It’s a shame you can’t leave it up a little while longer.

Hey now. What if… Oh, never mind. But maybe. Ok, hear me out for a second. I never thought of this before. Ever. Until right now in this moment. Probably because of how beautiful your house is specifically. Who makes the rules about how long Christmas lights have to stay up anyways? Arbitrary, if you ask me. You put a lot of time and effort in to make your house merry and bright for the holidays. Just because the calendar turned over now you gotta go back to work taking it all down? Sounds like a whole load of humbug to me. Why don’t you keep them up for a few more weeks?

Am I crazy or is that a pretty great idea?

I see you took a few strings down already. I can help you hang those back up. I don’t mind at all. I’ll even help you get rid of all these Santa Clauses and Reindeers and Snowmen and stuff too. You wouldn’t want people to think you were some kind of Christmas freak. I’m not asking you to leave Santa Claus forever, that would be absurd. But the lights? Lights are nice any time of year. They’re not even all that specific to Christmas.

It still gets dark early. It’s dark by the time I’m finishing up at work. My last few moments at my desk are spent staring out the window watching the light fade away from my world. The world, I mean. As soon as I’m released from the prison of my office it feels like bedtime. I’m a grown man I haven’t had bedtime in decades. I can go to be when I damn well please, which is as soon as I get home from work at 6:00 PM because it’s so dark outside. It wouldn’t be so dark if you left up these lights.

But this isn’t about me. This is about how pretty your lights are. Don’t you just love looking at them? I for sure do. Are you sure you don’t want me to give you a hand putting them back up? You seem to keep taking them down even after all these great points I’m making.

I get it, it’s your house. But isn’t putting lights on the outside for everybody to see kind of making it our house too? It’s a gesture of community and taking them down before the community is ready for them to come down is kind of abandoning your people when they need you the most. Weren’t you just making a promise to honor Christmas in your heart and try to keep it all the year? It’s January 6th, my dude, how is January 6th “all the year.”

Oh, that wasn’t you? That was Ebenezer Scrooge? Well…you’re Ebenezer Scrooge, but in the beginning of the story, not the end. If you ask me you need a good visit from a handful of ghosts?

Oh, look, these cars are keeping Christmas in their hearts. They know to keep their lights on to bring joy into the world all through the year. Doesn’t matter to me if the lights are red and blue instead of red and green. They’re even stopping to say hello.

OK, who called the cops?

'Twas the morning of Christmas

‘Twas the morning of Christmas, I sat by the tree
and thought of how great Christmas next year will be.
The stockings are hung, but next year will hang better,
and my wrapping improved on the socks and the sweaters.
While nestled in bed, I could not get to sleep,
just thinking of all the traditions I’ll keep.
With visions of caroling, lights, and sweet treats,
this Christmas is good, but next one can’t be beat.
Then, in from the bedroom arose a great clatter,
my family was waking to join in the matter.
I sprung from my seat to welcome their presence,
my joy in just thinking of all the great presents —
I’ll get for them next year, with this year behind me
I’ve already set my alerts to remind me.
Of Black Friday deals, and Amazon Prime Days
my calendar’s marked, next year I will find ways
to celebrate family, and show them I love them
with gifts and with actions — I’ll kiss them, I’ll hug them.
But I can’t do it then if now I don’t plan it
my brain needs to figure it all out, god damn it.
I’m dreaming, I’m scheming, of ways I can bring joy
to my dear friends and family, all the girls and the boys.
Next year we will dance, next year we will sing.
Next year is when Christmas will certainly bring
the comfort and joy and the promise of peace.
Next year will be perfect, next year I’ll release
all my worry and hurry and hustle and shame
this year is to fault, this year is to blame.
This year was quite stupid, this year was so dumb,
I can’t wait ‘til it’s over, for next year to come.
’I can’t wait for next Christmas!’ I shouted out loud.
I broke out of my trance, and I looked all around.
Surrounded by boxes and paper and wrapping,
my family was gone, back to bed, they were napping.
While I thought of ways to take next year and own it,
my loved ones around me they lived in the moment.
I missed it, I blinked, and I kissed it goodbye.
I looked forward to Christmas, but now I could cry.
Now Christmas is over, and I see it so clear
at least I can make it up, Christmas, next year.