there is no recovery here

Life can suck sometimes. The suckage of life usually occurs in two doses. Small doses such as locking one’s keys in the car or larger doses, such as realizing you are (A) Charlie Sheen’s neighbour and (B) not a prostitute who enjoys crystal meth on your ‘down time’.  These larger doses present opportunities for the only legitimate uses of the phrase “fuck my life”, but then, your life has already been fucked, so even still the statement is out of place.

While such happenstances are difficult to recover from, the graceful have prevailed. Plus, comebacks are always good after a fall.

However, there are some things it is almost impossible to recover from. Case in point, the mullet I woke up to this morning. Such is the problem with finding one’s self rooming with a Black Bear named Sherman. And by rooming, I mean parking my current residence (my 2000 Hyundai) beside the place he ambles out of to get his honey in the morning. 

Not that any other Black Bear named Sherman would be moonlighting as a professional hair-care artist at First Choice, but mine does, making me vulnerable to such over-generalizations regarding all bears.  The last time I woke up to such a mullet in my bed it was on someone else’s head—a former Hell’s Angel’s biker who refused to answer to anything but ‘Ma-am’ as this was the name given to him by the friendly (and dare I say personable) individuals at the department of secret services once he decided to abandon what he only referred to as “that way of life” before shuddering. Unfortunately, this time, the mullet was soundly affixed to my own head.

“Damn it Sherman. I don’t ask you to do shit like this!”

Admittedly, this is not the kindest response one could offer in reaction to a free hair cut. And to be fair, if I had been in the mood for a mullet, this one was nothing to sneeze at. It certainly wouldn’t have gotten me laughed off www.ratemymullet.com, but maybe I wasn’t hugged enough as a child to appreciate the gift in Sherman’s gesture—hence my ingratitude toward the bear. 

Of course, he cried. He is very sensitive. Normally he conceals this insecurity under a deep foundation and snarky demeanour, but before his morning cup of coffee he responds in a pool of tears. Knowing that, of the long list of people I have pissed off in life, I don’t want the bear who knows where I sleep to be at the top, I apologized.  

“Gosh, I’m really sorry Sherman. I love what you’ve done to my hair,” I lied. I’m not generally considered to be a good liar, but since Sherman only speaks bear, he kind of bought it.

“Really?” he asked, needing further reassurance. Geese, if I knew an inter-special relationship was going to be this exhausting, I would have just paid rent in a human apartment. 

“Mmm-hmm,” I grimaced between clenched teeth. “This new look should do wonders for my unemployment.”

“I just thought you needed a boost,” he smiled, feeling vindicated.  “I was just about to add the blue hair dye to complete the look.”

“Perhaps it’s best not to mess with a good thing,” I said, all but having convinced myself that the mullet wasn’t so bad, as I looked at my own Deliverance-like reflection in the babbling brook that whisks by my current residence of Sherwood Forest—Lot 7. “I actually really like the highlights you added.”

“Those are dew-worms,” Sherman pointed out.

“Oh, well that’s gross.”

This all could have been avoided if I had paid closer attention to the last Did You Know segment on John Tesh’s radio show. Tesh is like a male Oprah in that you know you don’t want to fuck with him because he’ll blow a gasket. I am quickly learning that they are not unlike Sherman in this way.  Unfortunately, having been taken in completely by the easy FM music he presents, I was unable to multi-task and either watch the road, or retain such ‘useful’ information.

The information I chose not to retain was “make good decisions”. There was probably something about drinking too much coffee too, but coffee is my crack, so I was obviously going to ignore that.

In retrospect, my decision of the previous night was not “good” for the following reasons. Firstly, I was feeling really good about life and felt like celebrating with a wheel of brie cheese and a bottle of wine. I thought it would be fun to make a high-class meal for me and the bear, but since I barely cook to begin with (and definitely do not cook without a stove) that was as far as my planning went.

Sherman was less than impressed. “I am lactose intolerant,” he began. I knew this. I am greedy and wanted to eat all the food myself. I was strategic in getting something Sherman couldn’t share. I know that makes me an ass, but I did buy what I thought was a lovely bottle of wine that we both could enjoy. It had a baby duck on it, which I just assumed would mean it was animal-friendly. Sherman disagreed.

“Baby Duck wine is disgusting,” he sneered, as though I had just kicked his cub. Having just upgraded from wine-in-a-box myself, I was honestly unaware of the extensive elitism associated with wine and its connoisseurs. This made it different than the brie in my mind.

“Fine then. If you are going to be like that, I’ll just drink it all myself,” I pouted like a baby. This would be bad decision number two if you are keeping track.

I don’t drink normally. I mean this in two ways. I don’t normally drink, but also, when I do, I drink as fast as I can. I also do it through a twirly straw. “That looks like it’s going to be a really good decision,” Sherman laughed in that pretentious-mocking tone smart people (and large animals) tend to appropriately adopt with me.

“Fuck you,” was the extent of my clever response.  I then proceeded to hitch-hike to the closest karaoke bar. When I was rightly asked to leave (i.e. thrown out after puking on the stage), I texted Sherman the following:

                                HELP! I am sick. THERE IS NO RECOVERY HERE. Time stamped: 22:01.

“You fucking ate it before 10p.m. light-weight!” Sherman hollered when he came to walk me home. That was the last thing I remember before I woke up to the mullet. The truth is that there might be a chance of recovery here, but not in the foreseeable future.

Things could be better

I am getting the sneaking suspicion that pursuing a relationship with an honest to goodness bear might not be the best game plan for life. Fortunately, this has rarely deterred me from pursuing anything, including wearing fire-engine red parachute pants. Besides, I am not what you might describe as a “provider” and, given that I am currently living in my Hyundai, knowing someone who knows what nuts and berries can be eaten safely is a definite plus.

Not that I have to make any life-altering decisions today, as it is Mother’s Day. The one day I need to do something I avoid all year—eating my mother’s cooking. The abhorrence of Mother’s Day is not that it forces us to do (pay respect to the one that gave us life) and say (I love you in spite of your cooking prowess) the things we should be all year long. No, it is that we also have to spend the day with whoever those mothers have decided are important in their lives. These are usually the opposite of the kind of people you would choose to fill these places in your own life. But, this is her big day, so I bid the Bear adieu and ask that he watch my cat for me.

“What about my family?” he asks.

“You’re a bear. Do you even have a family?” This appears to upset him and I really need him to watch my cat so I offer to bring him back a special treat upon my return. This seems to cheer him up. Joke’s on him though. The treat will come from my mother’s kitchen. She is not the Lara Croft of the culinary world.

But, like I was saying, it isn’t my mother I have a problem with. It isn’t even her cooking. The issue will be her twitchy live-in lover. My mother chose him because she can snap him like a twig if she ever needs to. Having watched UFC, I would love to see this and I keep getting my hopes up only to have them crushed when a visitation goes smoothly.

As I pull my own twitchy live-in lover (my Hyundai) into their driveway I remember that a few things have gone on recently that will rile the rickety old man up. The first being that we just had an election and the second being that bin Laden affair last week. The stand-by is that he is always riled up by something, but at least today we will have something entertaining to battle over.

“Happy Mothers’ Day!” I squeal, thrusting a bushel of flowers that resemble her neighbour’s garden and a bottle of Peele River’s finest red wine at her. She stares critically at the bottle and suggests we make Daiquiris instead. Neither of us are what you would call “big drinkers”, which certainly helps our cause if we are going to break open the shittiest wine in America (which was enough of an endorsement for me to purchase two bottles—one for the lonely Bear).

“You know what your fucking problem is?” my mother begins. I love this question. Like my “inquisitive” mother has the real scoop on what is fucked up in my life. I live in my car and think my closest relationship is with a fucking bear. Yes, please help me to pin-point where this particular train derailed. “You need to think more positively. Then good things will come to you!”

I glance over and see that the rickety house guest has given her a copy of The Secret for Mothers’ Day. It makes sense, so I play along. This whole day would be a lot better with a buffer though, so I ask her about my brother, Darla, who would have been here except he found himself in the slammer for the weekend as the result of some ridiculous pyramid scheme for which he took the fall.

You might think this is Darla’s loss but I see it as his big fat gain. I mean the food is definitely better in jail. Probably the company too. As long as you snag a decent roommate. “Have you heard from Darla?” I ask.

“Yes!” she blubbers. “I talked to him this morning…his one phone call.”

“That was nice of him,” I say.

“I thought so. That’s why I wrote him this best-friend e-card,” she chuckled, as she whipped out her computer and dislodged the John Goodman screen-saver. The berry doesn’t fall far from the tree apparently.

The card had lots of bright pinks and yellows. Silly bunnies hovering around a freshly hatched egg. It didn’t make much sense, but it was a lot better than the salutation:

Dear Darla,

The Sun Misses You!

Love, Mom (kisses!)

“Mother!” I hollered, as though I didn’t think it was the funniest shit I had seen all day. “You should really have started it with Dear Crazy Pants…Cute pet names just turn the mood of a shitty situation upside down.”

“I’ll send him another one,” she smiles. “That is good advice.”

Just then her twitchy roommate rustles out of the bedroom. I don’t know who the fuck he thinks he is fooling. He is barely older than I am. “Thank god those Conservatives got in,” he hollers.

“Oh, Marcus, don’t even start. Scott has just about disowned us over that.”

“Well, you must like that they caught bin Laden,” he offers.

“I don’t, for one second think they caught bin Laden,” I snap. Admittedly I love a good conspiracy theory and my family will never shut up about the ‘Moon landing’, but I really don’t think that I am in the minority on this one. “You really think the government pumped billions of dollars into finding this one guy only to take a few grainy photographs and dump him over the side of a boat?!”

Then I look over at my mother and remember that this is her special day. “Well…you never know,” I concede. "You could be right."

“That’s what I thought,” laughs Twitchle. “Let’s eat.”

Another eventless Mothers’ Day. Except for the "I voted Green" sticker I put on the back of Twitchle's sweater vest. He doesn't change that often, so it should be a week before he notices.

As I pull back into the forest that has become my temporary home and decelerate the engine of my car I peer into the distance to see my own special friend, the Bear, coming to greet me. He is carrying my sleeping cat in his arms. If nothing else, this Bear has proven loyal.

I toss him some honey-ed ham I stole from dinner. He smells it, takes a bite, and, in repulsion, spits it back out onto the ground. “No shit you moved into the forest,” he says. “I’ll make breakfast in the morning.”

Things could be better, but they could also be a lot worse…I could drive a Saturn.

the drop-out

The square-caps are flying through the air and descending upon a sea of re-used gowns. It is graduation season again and a whole new crop of fresh graduates will proceed into the world with fortitude, determination and a baseless sense of self-merit.

Gag me.

What is really interesting is what happened to the rest of us? The also-rans. The ones who found life super-ceding a piece of paper on the list of priorities. The drop-outs.

I dropped out of law school two years ago and it changed my life—for the better, I think you will come to see. People looked at me differently. They treated me like a failure. But, the truth is, that in a life full of good decisions, dropping out of law school has been the best decision ever (by far!).

My appendix exploded two weeks after I had left clerkship applications behind me to sweep up hamster poop in a conglomerate pet store. POW! I guess it wanted to be a criminal lawyer. But, the joke was on my appendix, as food is free in a hospital and you don’t even have to do the dishes!

Beyond being super fun to live in the “dorm like” atmosphere of a four-(sick)-person hospital room, when you are confined to a bed you also get to pee in front of other people. This is obviously a phenomenal bonding experience and I made life-long friends. Unfortunately, the other three people in my room died during my stay.

Also, an added bonus to your body believing it has actually died is that you don’t care about bathing. This leads to tens of cents in savings on such extravagancies as soap and dental floss. Plus, during my absence, my cat (best friend) was poisoned by my neighbour.

I am not a Debbie Downer though. Eventually I pulled through these traumas and went about the business of actually living in a post-law-school-drop-out-world. What does one do with all of that free time? Become a jazz singer? Drive a Brinks truck? Blow up a bank? The possibilities are endless, so I opted for some career counselling.

Since I am not very bright, I chose to apply to teacher’s college so that I could meet my potential career counsellors before they made it big as professional guidance counsellors.

Well, now, that is a lie. I applied to teachers’ college on a dare in the hospital. The Betty White look-a-like in the bed to my right was talking about her daily bowel-movement (I have found this to be a surprisingly fashionable topic of conversation both in and out of the hospital setting) and I asked her if I could buy her sleeping medication. “Why don’t you occupy your time with a real challenge?” she asked. “If you think you are so above listening to my poop tales, I dare you to get into teachers’ college from that very bed you are pissing in.”

She dared. I did. Then I promptly forgot…until I found myself admitted four months later. Having accomplished nothing with myself I thought I would try it out, but only so I could pursue some of my real interests—stand-up comedy and finding my one true love. Besides, after my extended absence I had been “let go” from my lucrative career providing personal care to rodents so the “options” bank had closed.

Why I thought teachers’ college would be a better foil for stand-up or love than law school had been I don’t know, but I did. However, if you met my roommate in law school you would know why I didn’t receive the Biggest Bitch in the World Award, so that probably swayed my otherwise impeccable judgement when it comes to all things legal.

Teachers’ college isn’t a great time. If you are looking for fun things to do with your time I would recommend a stay in your area hospital over it any day. Besides the environment being more engaging in a general sense, with enough drugs in a geriatric ward you will come to believe you are taking life advice from the real Betty White. I didn’t find this to be true with teachers’ college.

In part because of this, I did go out and start doing stand-up. As Betty White would have said (if she were still with us), “You didn’t survive law school just to dick around.” But don’t feel too bad for Betty. She lost our bet and never had to pay-up on the five dollars she owes me. Well played Betty—well played!

As it turns out, I’m not half bad at stand-up. I’m only half good, but if I had never tried it, I wouldn’t know that. I fell in love too. He is hairier than the man I imagined myself with when I was in law school. In fact, he might be an actual bear judging by his fondness for all things nature and the fact that he hibernates for three months of the year, but that is a lot better than I was doing before. My previous partner (also a law student) started looking into whether or not he could cash-in and get straight As if I died from the appendix incident. Fortunately he couldn’t, but I wasn’t sure, and denying him of that pleasure was probably the thing that got me through the tougher times. It always helps to have a sturdy foundation in times of stress.

So there you have it. Dropping out of law school isn’t what I would define as a good time (I think Wikipedia has my back on this one). It can really kick you in the gut from the inside out actually. You probably won’t make as much money either. However, there is a definite up-side.

You will free up a lot of time. If you are motivated enough you can definitely become a stand-up comedian (if not a unicorn or an astronaut) with that time. Plus, if you fall in love with a bear that lives in the forest, living in your car (or other mobile home) becomes a real advantage.

Also, I don’t have to wear those sweaty, smelly, graduation gowns. If you think they wash those things in between the different ceremonies you are fucking a tramp named Delusional.

UPDATE: My cat came back too! Turns out he is bulimic and puked up all the poison! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!

And so it begins.