Well, here we are at 10,000 hits, and all my problems are over. I’ve been waiting for this moment. When everything is redeemed. When everything is glorious and I stand victorious.
I have conquered, and now reign cloaked in majesty and might. My enemies lie slain around my golden sandals.
Somehow, I thought it would be better. Maybe, 100,000 will do it.
It’s not that I am not grateful. I’m certainly grateful to all the bizarre Eastern European spam that has driven up my numbers. “You have many interesting points of valid depth. Your expression is provoking many thoughts. Your erection problems can be solved with medication from approved international pharmacy.”
I’m grateful to all the perverts and their sick and warped search engine terms that lead them to this place. Some are understandable: “toothbrush shank,” “sap gloves,” “jack hammer crotch,” “lap dancing strip club manager,” “can a penis get conjunctivitis?” At least there was some general matching reference to my published work. But the other ones are rather esoteric and puzzling; “pneumatic penis milking machine,” ” leather gloved sniffing,” and my personal favorite, “fierce vagina factory.” That must be the name of an all-girl punk band.
How did those search terms lead them to my work? Do I really want to know what that means about me, and my work?
Hey, whatever, right? Whatever crooked cyber path leads them to this blog is fine with me. I’m like a whore that way. Any search term will do.
However, the all-time champion is “Freckled Breasts.” Freckled Breasts has brought more hits to this site than ANY other search term. By far.
The freckled breast thing started when I wrote a piece about this biker chick I knew, and in it, mentioned her freckled breasts. No big deal. At least not to me.
Well, apparently freckled breasts are a really big deal to a whole bunch of other dudes. Ladies, if you happen to have freckled breasts, let me assure you, there is an entire international army of men out there who can’t seem to get enough of them. You might as well swell them out of your bras proudly. Start harnessing the power they provide. There are legions of men out there prepared to do your bidding, just for a chance to paw at your sun dots.
For awhile, there was a freckled breast frenzy. I’d get two to three hits every single day from a freckled breast search term. They couldn’t have been from the same guy, since he would’ve been hip to the fact that all my piece provided was nothing more lurid than a casual mention. I know that when surfing for your particular sickness, you remember those kinds of disappointments. You never click on those twice. No, these hits were coming from a bunch of different dudes. Internationally too.
It became so common that one night, while sitting at the computer, I announced to my girlfriend, “Hey, no freckled breasts today!” “You’re kidding,” she says.
It’s died down to just a hit now and then. However, I imagine that this little cluster bomb, loaded with freckled breast references, will Google me into the big leagues of blogging. (I just re-read that last sentence. I really am insane)
Anyway, I’m grateful for freckled breasts. And while freckled breasts may have built this blog, it took many more hits to get this far.
The unwitting stooge clicking on a photo I posted, or a Facebook friend so desperately bored that reading this week’s entry beats re-reading the cereal box for the eleventh time. I am grateful to you, dear reader. You have brought me my greatest kick, writing for somebody, anybody.
I’m grateful to have anyone read anything I’ve written, whether by accident or on purpose. I’m just grateful to be writing again, whether anyone else reads it or not. So what’s my fucking problem? Why do I feel so ambiguous?
I think it’s just Milestone Syndrome. Reaching a point you’ve been waiting for, getting over the thrill, and then wondering “What the fuck now?”
My driver’s license, my first car, losing my virginity, my first handgun, my first legal drink, not having to pay money for sex, a steady job, my own place, my first live-in, beating my first felony rap, having an attorney on speed dial …they were all a big deal. And then they weren’t. I thought they’d make my life better, but whether they did is debatable. They definitely made it different, and in a lot of ways worse.
So I didn’t have any illusions about reaching this momentous and crucial moment in the history of Mankind, when my generic WordPress blog reached an arbitrarily chosen number of clicks. If I did seize on this moment, I knew the yoke of all human suffering would be hung around my neck. I already struggle with bad posture. So that would kind of suck.
Good thing I’m inoculated. I know how to deal with things that suck. That was what the first part of my life was all about. Running and gunning through a booby-trapped obstacle course. How I managed to not die is a testament to my wisdom and moderation in all things. Level-headed, clear thinking is the key.
I guess that brings me to the thing I’m most grateful for, being alive in spite of my best efforts not to be. So yeah, having a blog do semi-okay is pretty amazing. But so is me being around to drop a piece of toast on the kitchen floor. It is an absolute miracle that either can happen. And I did it all without being burdened by things like common sense and reason.
Reason and common sense. Most people have them, and do just fine. But, take those inherent abilities and see what magic you can create by stewing them daily in judgement-impairing juice. Now you’ve created something far more interesting. This creature is very different. Operates on an entirely different system. If this…this thing can survive long enough to stop drinking, you’ve got a mutant on your hands.
The years of hangovers and emotional suffering have tempered it’s threshold pain tolerance. It isn’t scared of the stuff normal people are. Losing a job, a family, being sick, broke, in jail, close to madness, close to death. Been there done that. It’s all over-rated, but nothing to lose sleep over either. For a guy like me, every day above ground is a victory of such dizzying intensity, that everything else is just gravy.
The other day, a buddy called me. He’s like me, dig. Also off the sauce. He asks me if I’m going to be at a certain meeting. I say yeah, and he tells me to be on the lookout for this one dude just coming in. Fucker actually died his first day of work. Spent the week-end on a bender, then sobered up one day for work. He tells the boss he’s feeling dizzy and falls out into a full seizure and dies. No pulse, no breath.
There’s some ex-military dude there, and he knows CPR and starts revving up his heart with a massage and even pumps some of his air into this guy’s lungs. He keeps him alive until the paramedics get to him, and take him to the hospital. He lives. Now he thinks maybe he should look into getting sober. Who knows why now? Anyway, this friend tells me that Lazarus was going to be at the Men’s Wednesday Night Stag. Or at least he said he was going to be. Heard that before.
I go the meeting, recognize the dude from my buddy’s description and introduce myself. I welcome him back among the living and wish him luck. We sit through a fairly boring meeting. At the end of it, the dude, splits before I can go over and talk with him. Whatever. It’s not like I run around trying to save lives. I just try to make myself as available as I can. I’ve had some of my most eloquent speeches fall on deaf ears, and a casually tossed remark change somebody’s life. So, I don’t get too bent about what get’s heard or not.
The next day, I’m leaving the gym and heading out to my car. There he is. Trying to crawl out through the driver’s side from out of the passenger’s while some old woman waits smoking outside the car. I thought he was drunk, but he wasn’t. Her passenger door was broken, so that’s why he was crawling and sprawling all over the place. Man, did I know that one. The beater with the door that didn’t open. For me it was always the driver’s side. Anyway, he finally climbs out. “Hey, look who’s here!” I say.
The old lady drives off, and we stand around and talk a bit. He mentions he’s stressed about being homeless. Not a sissy stress, by any means, totally understandable. But this guy just died and came back. I don’t think I would be stressing too much about being homeless at that point.
“Dude,” I tell him, “The way I see it, you just made it into the bonus round.” Through no work or effort of his own, something saved his sorry ass. Maybe, he was just lucky, but something about him told me he wasn’t the lucky type.
“By all reasons, you should be dead, and staying that way. I don’t think you had much to do with that. Something else was in charge. Why don’t you let that something stay in charge for a while and see what happens.” I told him most people live in fear of death, and that he could cross that one off his to-do list. He could seize this moment and really go with it. He could approach life fearlessly. Dude, even death couldn’t kill you. You need to embrace your mutanthood.
Just get out there, and completely dig everything that’s happening, like the holy madman you’re meant to be.
I don’t know if any of it sunk in, but like I said, I don’t sweat that too much anymore. Anything that’s supposed to stick, will.
I’ll tell you what though, recounting the little pep talk I gave him has done wonders for me. Man, I really told it like it was. Then I hear what I call The Voice That Enlightens And Irritates Me At The Same Time, “What an inspirational message, Marius. You do realize that little lecture you delivered was really more meant for you, don’t you?”
Now, whether I listen to myself, remains to be seen. I guess anything that was supposed to stick, will.
Anyway, this randomly designated milestone comes at a fortuitous time. It coincides with a little vacation I’m going to take. After 46 or so straight weeks, I’m going to take one off. I fucking need it. Take a breath. I need to see where I want to do with this thing, this blogula creature that seems to have a life of its own. Should I kill it now, at the pinnacle of its success? Or make it endure the rest of the course, like I myself have chosen to do?
Greatness is really great.
TRUDGING THROUGH THE FIRE 