same shit, different shit. [ryan]

11.19.07

rapid city, South dakota.

10:25a

a man shall provide for his family– my mom

at another motel. complimentary breakfast again. it’s the usual—all the toast and muffins you can eat special–including whatever extra shit you can smuggle out without stink looks from the mexicans. getting used to hiding extra hard boiled eggs and oatmeal packets in my jacket that has no pockets—i use the clench of my underarm—bon apetit—I just tell jenn, hey, that’s how eggs smell, get over it. why would you make a jacket that only looks like it has pockets? everything costs more when you don’t have a job. all of a sudden, I’m reaching for condiments I don’t need, just in case. ooh, relish. I try not to look around too much. I try not to look like I’m trying not to look around too much.

I am the pet friendly motel gangsta, sup.

I’m wanted by every bed and breakfast across the country. It’s not robbery, I disclaim inwardly, I paid for this. there’s no sign that warns you of a limit. it doesn’t say: complimentary, but you know, up until a reasonable point fatties, like hello, naturally we mean like 3 muffins per person, for instance. nope. doesn’t say that nowhere. I mean, if you’re going to go through the effort of making a pocket face, why not make the whole pocket body? or why the pocket body, but no pocket soul? but I always forget, and try to put stuff in my non-pocket, my pocket carcass. yeah, sure, 21 salt packets for my breakfast, i think that’s about right, I think to myself, moving ever so stealthily, double fisting butters and jellys, pretending that I’m just browsing for the right one to match with any one of my 7 toasts, even though no one on earth even knows I exist at this point.

I’m bringing this back for my girlfriend, we drove a long way yesterday, she’s so tired, I say to a nearby mexican refilling the OJ. she says, cinco de mayo or some shit, i don’t speak motel breakfast service. she smiles at me as if to say, at least i have a job mother fucker, and walks away leaving me alone in the room with a trucker and msnbc blaring in the background on the complimentary 19 incher. I’m almost home free. I have almost fed my family for a whole day, almost. one down, one to go.

i hear the mission impossible theme.

duhn.duhn.duhn.

duhn duh nah.

duhn.duhn.duhn.

duhn duh nah, dee dee doo, dee dee doo.

the trucker kept pretending that he didn’t know I was there, or maybe he really didn’t know I was there, but it was one of those two things, definitely.

we drove 13 hours to get here from milwaukee yesterday.

our last moment in milwaukee with chadd and harmonee, our latest friend conquest.

a road trip is way more and less expensive than i thought, depending when you ask me.

how bout now? expensive.

I hear my dad crossing his arms.

his forehead crinkling is on loud speaker, apparently.

it seems as if not spending money is a bit of a trick.

I dart out the front door when i see the trucker get distracted by Lindsay lohan’s 84 minute jail time story which kept on getting interrupted by some stupid story about some war in the Iraq. jenn awakens to my newly hunted and gathered feast and i beat my chest and grunt. then i konk her on the head, drag her to the bed and make her eat my eggs.

thanksgiving is days away, and we are thinking of rounding off to the nearest family or friends.

question of the day:

who loves us and is also nearby?

we are thankful for near family. we are thankful for near friends. near wins over dear. proximity over compatibility. relative over relatives.

whoever’s closet vs. whoever’s closest.

whoever’s closest gets to hear what we’re thankful for as we hold hands around the table and everyone repeats the same shit from last year.

I’m thankful for not having genital herpes in my eyes.

I am thankful for grandma not shitting her pants in public, lately.

I am thankful for other people who are thankful, especially the ones that have thanked me for thanking them.

mt. rushmore, rapid city, south dakota.

we may just have to eat some stove top with the dead presidents and call it a thanksgiving. what else is in south dakota besides presidential death? jenn can have some tofu-rkey wings on george washington’s face while I whistle the battle hymn of republic, I can’t whistle. we’ll bring cheap wine and hard boiled eggs, only just a few days old, relatively fresh, with little or no lint.

thank god I don’t have real pockets– no where to put anything, nothing to lose.

a toast: to the fucking pilgrims and shit. to the pioneers, the first road trippers. to anyone who wore a bonnet and still got laid. to the demise of the chastity belt. to eating beans in a can, to beans and cans separately.

I hate that we have it so much easier than the pilgrims, the indians, the bonnets, but yet, we’re still so unhappy.

back then: shit, a rattle snake killed our first born yesterday, we need to get moving before the storm hits, how much firewood do we have left, and who fucking used my bonnet as a jock strap?

now: shit, my baby got hit by a drunk driver, we need to cancel HBO, what is the point of a fucking deductable, don’t i fucking pay you in the first place, so that if shit goes down, i won’t have to pay shit, i mean, isn’t that the fucking point, and who used my jock strap as a fucking bonnet?

same shit, different shit.

a toast: to free toast that you paid for and then stole.