Brad Simkulet's Blog, page 98

the typical sunday: curbside

the typical sunday: curbside:

thetypicalsunday:

“Why did you do that?” a confused, disgusted middle aged man watched as I snapped a photo of a pigeon carcass on my way to the train.

“I don’t know” I shrugged and went down to the platform awaiting the evening commute hustle and bustle of a downtown train station on a Tuesday.

“You know…

Perfect.

"A man with a ponytail is a special kind of man. He is different from a man with a tattoo because..."

“A man with a ponytail is a special kind of man. He is different from a man with a tattoo because tattoos, while awful, are not (sadly) completely anachronistic. Some perfectly respectable people have tattoos (Johnny Depp … um, gimme a minute) whereas absolutely no respectable man has a ponytail. A man with a ponytail lives within a specific bubble, one constructed from arrogance, a lack of awareness about the modern day, an absence of interest in the opinions of others to the point of near sociopathy and fantasies based on what machismo meant in the 70s.”

-

~~Hadley Freeman in The Guardian

Add cut-offs and that’s me to a “T” or is it?

father's day

i don’t care about father’s day. i am sure that’s not a surprise to those who know me at all. there are plenty of reasons, and i’ve found myself examining them today every time i look at my three kids. i look at them, and i know they are the best thing i have done and the best thing i am doing and the best thing i will ever do, and i love them more than anything else in life (it’s impossible for me to say or write those words without cringing because they are not enough). they’re the reason i hang around this existence. so i made them breakfast in bed today. that’s how i engaged with the day. and now …

… here are the reasons i don’t care about father’s day:

• i hate my father.

• i have a scar on my lip that i get to see every day as a reminder of my father’s “love,” not to mention the chronic pain in my ribs that are a combination of his love and a car accident.

• my father sold my dead mother’s golf clubs, which my mother bequeathed to my daughter, because he “needed” money, and he’s done nothing to make amends.

• my father rescinded his admission of the abuse he delivered over my years living with him and reiterated that i deserved what i got because i was a bad kid — and he did it in front of my children and my wife.

• it’s a bullshit “holiday” designed to make us spend money on shit.

• i am a stay-at-home dad and nothing about this day has any connection to what it is i do day in and day out (perhaps i should be celebrated on mother’s day and Erika should be celebrated on father’s).

• laius sounds like a fun dad.

off to make dinner. roast beef, mashed potatoes and some veg. a dinner my mom would love. so raise a glass tonight and say, “here’s to nanny, sadly dying.” we’ll be doing it with you out here in the ether.

a happy place

“asdf - jkl;”

Artistic Free Fall: Aphrodite lost a crown but women gained the ring

Artistic Free Fall: Aphrodite lost a crown but women gained the ring:

Now I dig the Greek Gods, but even without the tie to the pantheon, you should all check out artisticfreefall’s work. It’s good. Damn good.

artisticfreefall:

In Ancient Greece the Gods ruled the skies
and to the many passersby this was but fine,
and they lived from day to day and did obey
the words of Gods and did not dismay
or smite them as they duly flew by.

On one day in late fall Aphrodite
the Goddess of both love and time,
did stop and…

Good for a laugh. betterbooktitles:Summer Reading on Better...

To Kill a Mockingbird


The Bell Jar


Confederacy of Dunces


Great Gatsby


The Old Man and the Sea


Huck Finn


Of Mice and Men


A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Good for a laugh. 

betterbooktitles:

Summer Reading on Better Book Titles!

little one, part ii

The second day I was sitting in your best friend’s room (more like your best girlfriend’s, but maybe I flatter myself), my back against her bed, while she and the two idiots gossiped. I read my book and brooded on your lateness, wondering if your Aunt was hassling you again for trying to have a life or if your boss kept you late because somebody else had died or if you were finally getting that massage I bought you for your birthday or if you were out buying me a present for mine.

I was reading the book you gave me. The one you’d read that had spoken to you, the one you thought I was “in.” I hadn’t found myself yet, but I thought that I’d found the me you think I am, and I wanted to cry, but how could I cry in a room full of these girls? The mocking would be too much for me. So I kept reading and hoped I was wrong, and that you think more of me than you probably do.

K—- was starting to worry about you too.

—Where is she?

The idiots didn’t answer, and the silence told me the question was mine to answer. I kept reading.

—Hello. Why isn’t she here yet?

—I dunno, I said, lowering my book in my best impersonation of politeness. —Probably something to do with J—-.

Heavily made up eyes rolled. I had to look back at my book. The condescension, the whole tale of their disapproval in one expression pissed me off all over again. Two and a half years of watching people treat you like shit, and I still get angry when people judge (I suppose that’s an action I reserve for myself.)

—She’ll be here.

That seemed to be enough for them because they were off gossiping about something else. I opened to where I’d left off and tried reading again, but couldn’t get my mind off the ways I judge you. The way I judge your choice to let your Aunt take J—- during the day, but what the hell else are you going to do? The way I judge you for J—- ’s Dad, but that is just my wounded pride talking. The way I judge your terrible cooking, and your practicality and your embracing of responsibility. The way I judge you for giving up your dreams. I judge all these things in quiet ways that you probably feel, yet I bet you never know how proud I am of you for making hard decisions that I am pretty sure I couldn’t make.

Giggly squeels made me look up, and there was  a mirror sitting on K—-’s bed with a small mound of powder in the middle. One of the idiots flipped her nail against the bag to knock the rest of the powder loose, while the other idiot pulled out her Mom’s credit card and started forming lines.

—Where did you get it?

—F—- left it out.

—So she took it.

—Oh my god! Does he know you have it?

—Not yet.

K—- reached past my head to her nightstand, opened the drawer, which contained a surprising array of sex toys, and pulled out a shiny metal straw. I dropped my book, got on my knees and really looked at what they were doing.

—Why is it black? I ask.

—We should use it all up. If we don’t, F—-’ll just take it all back and sell it.

—Good idea.

—But why is it black? I ask again.

—F—- said it’s because it’s so pure.

K—- leaned in and snorted up a long, thin black line, then expertly wiped the dust from her nostril and rubbed it against her gums. Three lines disappeared. Three of eight. And the straw was passed to me.

—What is this stuff? I ask, taking the straw nervously.

—It’s good! was the giggled response.

I stood up, leaned over and snorted a line too. My first time.

I don’t even know why I am doing it; I know you’ll just shake your head. The powder rips apart my sinuses and the taste buds on the back of my tongue choke on the bitterness. I cough and start squishing my nose against my face with the back of my hand, rubbing to tear my nose right off my face. The straw’s right back in front of me like the body of Christ, clamped between the other idiot’s gaudy nails. I didn’t even know I’d given up the straw in the first place. I wave it off and choke out:

—Bathroom?

K—- points at her closed bedroom door, and off I go down the hall, the initial blast of discomfort giving way to a reeling unsteadiness. I wonder why gravity isn’t working anymore.

Three doors later I am in the bathroom. The pressure on my anus is overwhelming. I have to shit. It’s coming now. But the toilet, the bathroom, every fixture, all the space is miniature, or I’m a giant. I can’t even reach the toilet to sit. I think I can aim, though. I hover my bare ass over where I think the toilet is, and I hope.

And that’s when I hear your muffled voice in the hall and their more  muffled voices and giggles and then all the sound is faint after the thunderousness of a slamming door and then the muffled sounds come back and then there’s silence. And I am still caught in midair with titanic pressure on my bowels, but nothing is coming and I can’t move for fear of shitting myself or covering the bathroom in shit.

A year later, the pressure relieved, my skydump a success, at least I think it is, I slide back into K—-’s room. The corner of the book you gave me is peeking out from under K—-’s bed. The bed is crisply made, as though three giddy stoned girls hadn’t just been sitting on it. The drug mirror hangs back on the wall, with the faintest of smears the only sign of its use. I stand still but I am at K—-’s window, parting the curtains just in time to see you climb in the back seat of K—-’s car.

The curtain drops. My eyelids snap shut. I can’t imagine I’ll see you tomorrow.

It was us those two days.

little one, part i

It was us those two days.

The first day I leaned against the aluminum mesh of the fence and watched the black uniformed baseballers finish their game against a team I never actually saw. I watched the black pitcher throw, the black catcher catch, the black short stop scoop up a ball and throw it to the black first baseman, a couple of black outfielders field routine fly balls. I watched it all dazed, letting my eyes lose focus, and I thought of you. Then the fence shook with your weight and you were with me. Little you.

Your skin was paler than I remembered, but you aren’t always out in the sun like you were the way I remember you. You’d come from a day working your job, locked in a windowless basement, preparing bodies for funerals, your mass of hair bunched up in that tight bun that always makes you look so regal.

Still leaning on the fence, I feel you punch my arm.

—You still okay with this?

I pop off the fence and smile, sweeping my head in the direction of your place. I’m okay with this everyday. It’s the one thing that I can do for you. And I love J—-. You smile back, that disarming wry smile, knowing that I am thinking your question is a waste of breath, but you don’t care that I’m thinking it because you know it is too. But it’s a matter of form, just like the permanent bruise on my arm where you hit me in greeting. The only way you touch me.

We cross the street and go up to your small townhouse. Your Aunt is there with J—- on her shoulder, waiting for us. She’s probably been watching me watch the baseball game and wanting me to come and take J—- early. Your Aunt pisses me off. She doesn’t like me, she treats you like shit, and the way she infantilizes your daughter drives me mad. Just based on that last fact I should come and sit your daughter as soon as possible, but torturing your Aunt is more fun. She’s a bully. I hate bullies.

—You’re late, D—-.

—Only five minutes. Sorry about that.

—I have to be at work you know?

—I know. Sorry. How was J—-?

—She was an angel, she says with the sickening infantile change in her voice, a tone forced through too much drink and too much cigarette damage.

 I just want her to fuck off. I kick off my shoes and carry J—- straight into the living room, leaving the two of you to work it out. Or her to berate you and you to let it slide off your back. I don’t know how you do it, but you do. I wish I had your self control.

I hit the off button on the TV as I plop J—- down, and she’s instantly pissed (something else that happens everyday):

—I ah Gabba Gabba.

—No. No Gabba Gabba. Blocks. It’s time for blocks.

—Bocks?

—Yeah, blocks.

—Okay.

I crawl across the grey carpet, the kind you’d find in a record store, the sort that is easy to clean, the kind cheap landlords love, and I pull over her tub of blocks. They’ve not been touched since I was here the day before. J—- is still standing, so she pats me on the back. That little hand pat-pat-patting is the best part of my day. If she was older, say the way you are, she’d punch me on the arm and increase my bruise, but she’s wee, and she pats her affection. I pop the lid and pour the blocks out as you appear beside us, scooping up J—- for a hug and cuddle. You carry her to the couch and pop out your breast as nonchalantly as you would pull a carton of milk from the fridge. J—- latches on and you watch me watch you.

You’ll go for your run as soon as you’re through, and I’ll go back to my parents house, unless you will want me to help you study, but you won’t.

So I’ll see you tomorrow.

nevver:Might as wellJump

nevver:

Might as well

Jump

Scoutie blowing the blues while the Swedes play the Ukraine.

Scoutie blowing the blues while the Swedes play the Ukraine.