Thoughts on Bodies

1. I'd really like to be able to kick folks in the head. I mean, shoot, I could kick folks in the head right now if I tripped them, but I mean, I'd like to be able to get my foot up high enough to kick a person square in the head. It would, seemingly, be easier to learn how to punch someone in the head, but the truth is that I have arms so flabby that they might as well be vestigial. I'm like the Willendorf Venus, but with feet and curly hair. Or like the mighty tyrannosaurus rex, with my weak arms useful only for carrying a purse and waggling at babies. "Aaareen't yaouou sooo cuuute!?!?" I bellow as I stomp around trying to get my weak clutches on small children. 2. Surprisingly, though it's been twelve hours, no one has contacted me about running for John Ford's senate seat. I understand that he hasn't been convicted of anything yet, and so he doesn't even have to give up his seat. But still, you'd have thought I'd have some takers. I was momentarily distraught, but then I reminded myself that I did grow up in Illinois, which means that I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. So, this is just to say, Memphis, that I have the bodies necessary to win any election, for I am polling way ahead of any potential opponents among the victims of the flu epidemic and folks whose undertakers stole their jewelry after the family went to sit down and before locking the coffin. If there's one thing I know, it's how to get out the dead vote. 3. After reading my post on the recalcitrant brother, the Butcher thought that we should look for a house in some crummy neighborhood and take the recalcitrant brother in. Yes, that's right. The Butcher thought, briefly, that it would be a good idea for me to have both of my brothers living with me, working shit jobs they're too smart for, and making it impossible (it's only virtually impossible now) for me to pay off my credit cards or save up any money so that I can ever fulfill my one fucking small-ass dream of having a little house of my own with a fenced-in back yard and a magnolia tree out my bedroom window. Do I want much, America? I've not asked for a rich husband to support me through drumming while I lay around, inexplicably, in bed all day. I've not demanded a recording career that masks my lack of talent through Pro-tools while allowing me all the benefits of fame. I'm not demanding to be the prettiest, pretty princess in the whole world. I just want to be able to get some money in the bank. I just want to be a thousandaire. People say that money doesn't buy you happiness, because people are fuckers. It's better to have money in the bank, to know that, if something happens, you can take care of it, than it is to contemplate becoming The Home for Wayward Brothers. So, suffice to say, we're not taking in the recalcitrant brother. If it comes to the point where he's all out of family members of baby's mammas to take him in, he can go back home to mom and dad. 4. All this talk of shitty jobs has me thinking of the worst job I ever had. It was right after I graduated from college and had moved back home to lay on my parents couch and watch reruns of "In the Heat of the Night" while wrapped in an afghan. Unfortunately, Mom wouldn't let me spend my whole life like that--fantasizing that Bubba Skinner would come rescue me. So, I got a job at Casey's, which is a small chain of convenience stores/gas stations in, at least, Illinois and Iowa. God, I hated it. I was on my feet eight hours a day. I was alone most of the time, so I was always afraid I'd get robbed, because it'd be so easy to rob a place like that, since we never put the money in the safe and we had, maybe, one customer an hour. And I was constantly getting "put on notice" for not keeping the place clean, because, believe me American, there is no bullshit like the bullshit people put each other through when the stakes are so very low. But anyway, we were talking about bodies. And there was this one body that, to this day, makes me wonder what the hell? and laugh. There was this guy who would come in at least once a day who looked very much like a young pink gorilla, with that same big round belly and kind of slouchy way of meandering around the store. Sometimes, I didn't see him come in (because I was busy cleaning, you fuckers!) but I would always hear his bare feet slapping on the linoleum as he made his way back to the milk. He'd never wear a shirt, never had on shoes, and always had on shorts that were tight and short and, here's the weird and funny part, when he'd get up to the counter, he'd lift up on his toes and set himself on the counter, as if carrying around the family jewels was just so taxing that he needed to frequently rest them on the counter. Really, what the fuck? I still don't know what to make of that. Did he think I was going to be like, "Dear Jesus, that's the most attractive thing I've ever seen. Let me fuck you in the beer cooler right now!"? Did he think I was just going to run screaming in fear? Every day this went on, all summer, until I found the job at the newspaper. God, it was something.