Proverbs 21, Verse 23
"Keep your mouth closed and you'll stay out of trouble."
---
CHIPPED WISDOM:
Once, I wrote an email to a professor that almost got me thrown out of college.
Once, I wrote story that got me fired from a job.
Once, I wrote editorials in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News that got me death threats.
Once, I wrote an anonymous blog and I got tired of it, so I started another one that wasn't.
And I realized I couldn't.
"Majesty," Mozart says in the film Amadeus, "I am a vulgar man, but I assure my music is not."
I'm kind of the opposite, I guess. My writing is base, it is unrefined and obscene, it pulls no punches and accepts no mercy, particularly on its subject. Is it honest? I don't know, maybe it's as honest as it can be without destroying me, but it loves to tell stories. Stories that are shameful, embarrassing, disgusting. My writing uses metaphors that would make a Des Moines housewife frown-- it's okay, she's not my target audience anyway.
Or, maybe she is. If I could make my mother frown with my incendiary rhetoric, I knew I was on the right path. If she just laughed, I wasn't going far enough.
While my writing is vulgar, I'm not entirely convinced that I am, which I guess is a step in the right direction. Maybe 3 years of therapy is starting to work. I know I am not perfect, I know I am not always kind or smart or just. I know sometimes I don't do work the way it should be done. I know sometimes I don't do home the way it should be done.
I know.
Overall, though, when I take in as much of the human experience as I can, I suppose I'm just okay. Like you. I like you. Will you stay here with me for a while? It's still me, even though I took away my name and my picture.
You know.
One of the reasons I want to leave my job is because I'm so tired of looking over my shoulder. I guess I don't want to feel like that on this blog either. I don't want to have to be afraid, of someone saying something, identifying me, linking me to some inane story with the word "fuck" in it and therefore deeming me unfit to walk amongst the rest of humanity. I'm so tired of being afraid all the time, and in the digital age, there is a lot to be afraid of.
Then, of course, the question becomes, "Why don't you just shut the fuck up?"
Right. I could do that. I have done that. But I don't want to. There's something in me that wants to come out. I was going to say "has" to come out, but that's a little theatrical. It doesn't have to, I won't sizzle and turn to dust if it doesn't. I don't want you to think that. I don't need to write and the world doesn't need me to either.
I just want to. Pretty badly, I think, as things go.
I have a big mouth, and I've always hated it, since I've had it, that is. I didn't always have a big mouth. As a boy, I would hide behind my mother, probably for longer than customary. I wouldn't say anything to anybody, even though, apparently, I was speaking in sentences by nine-and-a-half months. I didn't start opening my mouth until I got comfortable.
Behind a computer screen.
After I'd been in a job for over a year.
After I'd known someone for a very long time.
I get bold. Brave. Sloppy. Silly. Acrid. Asshole.
I get a little asshole.
Suddenly, this meek little gimp has opinions. Suddenly, he swears. Suddenly, his brow knits and his bile surfaces and his arms cross in front of his chest and he sours. Finding your voice is empowering, but it's not always nice.
I like being nice-- moreover, I like being thought of as being nice. I like to be spoken well of and thought highly of and to be respected. Maybe that's why I try my damndest to change jobs every year or two, because that's when I'm at my best: when I'm new. When my mouth is closed. When I'm bewildered and apologetic and eager to please. When I'm quiet.
I'm a good boy, when I'm new.
When I wrote that letter to that professor in college, I was half-way through my Junior year. I mean, I practically owned the place-- you know. The Head of the Theatre Department shouted at me in his office with the light off and the door closed,
"DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?! SHE DOESN'T KNOW YOU! I KNOW YOU! I KNOW HOW YOU ARE!"
And I thought that was interesting, because I didn't know what he was talking about. I guess, looking back, he was talking about how I am when I'm not new anymore. I guess he was talking about how, when I get angry or sad or indignant, I prefer to bodyslam my demons and my enemies with words, and I like to douse them in propane and light them on fire, just to be sure the audience is paying attention.
And it's cost me. And I guess it will continue to do so, because I never learn. I don't want to grow up and write like a big boy. I'm still stuck in this juvenile cycle of dick jokes and shit-talking ribaldry. I'm Peter Pan, typing with a captain's hook.
Anyway, staying out of trouble's no fun, is it?
Once, I wrote an email to a professor that almost got me thrown out of college.
Once, I wrote story that got me fired from a job.
Once, I wrote editorials in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News that got me death threats.
Once, I wrote an anonymous blog and I got tired of it, so I started another one that wasn't.
And I realized I couldn't.
"Majesty," Mozart says in the film Amadeus, "I am a vulgar man, but I assure my music is not."
I'm kind of the opposite, I guess. My writing is base, it is unrefined and obscene, it pulls no punches and accepts no mercy, particularly on its subject. Is it honest? I don't know, maybe it's as honest as it can be without destroying me, but it loves to tell stories. Stories that are shameful, embarrassing, disgusting. My writing uses metaphors that would make a Des Moines housewife frown-- it's okay, she's not my target audience anyway.
Or, maybe she is. If I could make my mother frown with my incendiary rhetoric, I knew I was on the right path. If she just laughed, I wasn't going far enough.
While my writing is vulgar, I'm not entirely convinced that I am, which I guess is a step in the right direction. Maybe 3 years of therapy is starting to work. I know I am not perfect, I know I am not always kind or smart or just. I know sometimes I don't do work the way it should be done. I know sometimes I don't do home the way it should be done.
I know.
Overall, though, when I take in as much of the human experience as I can, I suppose I'm just okay. Like you. I like you. Will you stay here with me for a while? It's still me, even though I took away my name and my picture.
You know.
One of the reasons I want to leave my job is because I'm so tired of looking over my shoulder. I guess I don't want to feel like that on this blog either. I don't want to have to be afraid, of someone saying something, identifying me, linking me to some inane story with the word "fuck" in it and therefore deeming me unfit to walk amongst the rest of humanity. I'm so tired of being afraid all the time, and in the digital age, there is a lot to be afraid of.
Then, of course, the question becomes, "Why don't you just shut the fuck up?"
Right. I could do that. I have done that. But I don't want to. There's something in me that wants to come out. I was going to say "has" to come out, but that's a little theatrical. It doesn't have to, I won't sizzle and turn to dust if it doesn't. I don't want you to think that. I don't need to write and the world doesn't need me to either.
I just want to. Pretty badly, I think, as things go.
I have a big mouth, and I've always hated it, since I've had it, that is. I didn't always have a big mouth. As a boy, I would hide behind my mother, probably for longer than customary. I wouldn't say anything to anybody, even though, apparently, I was speaking in sentences by nine-and-a-half months. I didn't start opening my mouth until I got comfortable.
Behind a computer screen.
After I'd been in a job for over a year.
After I'd known someone for a very long time.
I get bold. Brave. Sloppy. Silly. Acrid. Asshole.
I get a little asshole.
Suddenly, this meek little gimp has opinions. Suddenly, he swears. Suddenly, his brow knits and his bile surfaces and his arms cross in front of his chest and he sours. Finding your voice is empowering, but it's not always nice.
I like being nice-- moreover, I like being thought of as being nice. I like to be spoken well of and thought highly of and to be respected. Maybe that's why I try my damndest to change jobs every year or two, because that's when I'm at my best: when I'm new. When my mouth is closed. When I'm bewildered and apologetic and eager to please. When I'm quiet.
I'm a good boy, when I'm new.
When I wrote that letter to that professor in college, I was half-way through my Junior year. I mean, I practically owned the place-- you know. The Head of the Theatre Department shouted at me in his office with the light off and the door closed,
"DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?! SHE DOESN'T KNOW YOU! I KNOW YOU! I KNOW HOW YOU ARE!"
And I thought that was interesting, because I didn't know what he was talking about. I guess, looking back, he was talking about how I am when I'm not new anymore. I guess he was talking about how, when I get angry or sad or indignant, I prefer to bodyslam my demons and my enemies with words, and I like to douse them in propane and light them on fire, just to be sure the audience is paying attention.
And it's cost me. And I guess it will continue to do so, because I never learn. I don't want to grow up and write like a big boy. I'm still stuck in this juvenile cycle of dick jokes and shit-talking ribaldry. I'm Peter Pan, typing with a captain's hook.
Anyway, staying out of trouble's no fun, is it?
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