Wednesday, December 12, 2007

I WATCH MATLOCK WHEN I EAT LUNCH

I am having trouble often not feeling dumb before I speak. Most people find things more poetic if you switch up the way they are punctuated. This thought is similar to the advice my teacher Amy Hempel once suggested: "The more literal you are, the more metaphorical people think you are being." One day my jealousy might implode me if there is anything left to implode by then. I'd like my fingerprints to show up somewhere that I'm sure I've never been. At the scene of some brutal mercy killing, or an ecological disaster. I would not mind spending a long time in a single room as long as I could be alone. I would wear the orange incarceration jumpsuit long after I'd been released. I have a plan to witness trouble in an abstract sense.

'Let's see how long this night lasts with no tongue in your rectum'
is something I'd like to say to someone sometime without sarcasm. The things I say out loud in real life often suggest that I am not who I most likely am. I have trouble with demonstration. I have trouble picking what I want to eat. When I do pick what I eat I find it is often not what I really wanted. I am probably not getting tickled enough these days. If I were a police officer I would go around in mom and pop stores picking things up things I want and putting them inside my shirt and looking to see if the owner would object. Instant oatmeal is underrated. If I ever get a tattoo, it will be of a word that does not exist. If I ever get a tattoo, please find me in the street.

For Christmas my sister and I are going in together to buy my dad a hummingbird feeder. Last year I got him a shit ton of lottery tickets and he didn't win any money with them. I put random stocks on my stock ticker on my Google homepage just to see the way their numbers move. Once I received an envelope in the mail addressed to me with absolutely nothing in it. I held it up against the light and it glowed a little, except the stamp.

34 comments:

BLAKE BUTLER said...

If you'd please be quiet there'd be something.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

I am bored as fuck out of my mind.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

Each time I place a comment my inbox ticks up once.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

I can hear people in other rooms.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

I edited this post 5-8 times in 5-8 minutes with little changes to lines and rearrangements as if it means anything at all.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

As if anything I ever say makes any sense or is important.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

I am not being self-defeatist in the comment I just made above, it's just an acceptance of several ideas.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

Sometimes I lie about what I eat.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

I wonder if I could keep going long enough to give myself a full erection.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

Everybody likes a good dick joke except for people who do not.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

Something about me stings.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

Actually I lied the ticker does not go up each time but I can click over to my email browser and it tells me how many emails I'm getting in response to the same subject, which are all blog comments.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

I was reading POVEL by Geraldine Kim yesterday while waiting 45 minutes for this restaurant to make me two sandwiches to go and there was some line about how the majority of the emails she receives are from herself which is also true of me and reading that line made me laugh out loud.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

The title 'I WATCH MATLOCK WHEN I EAT LUNCH' came from the first thing I heard someone around me say while I was trying to think of a title for this post.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

I should probably get a job or something.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

There's some stuff I could list on ebay.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

I just got an email rejecting a piece I'd already withdrawn from the magazine.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

Then I got another email almost immediately after apologizing for the confusion and then rejecting the piece I'd sent to replace the withdrawn submission.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

I am kind of having a good time now.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

I should be a professional blogger.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

Oh, I kind of am. Two poker blogs pay money.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

I am eating the most soft and delicious raisins.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

Un combattimento con palle di nerve! is the phrase of the day on this small calendar that teaches Italian.

h dav said...

You don't want what i'm eating. The neighbor offered me pasta and sauce and I'm nice sometimes so I said yesplease. The sauce looks like marinara but tastes like salsa. I told him I was going into my half of the house to use the microwave then locked the door behind me. Say "eating" since it's still sitting here on the coffee table. I gave it 15 seconds in the microwave for the noise.

Anonymous said...

you could sell your semen on ebay for a high price. quality antiquities for the future

BLAKE BUTLER said...

[squeeze]hanne[/squeeze]

Gene said...

matlock

jereme said...

I liked this post and comment/post quite a bit.

Matlock is underrated. So is Hawaii Five-O. I used to skip the last 2 periods of grade school to go home and watch Matlock at 1pm, then Hawaii Five-O at 2pm and then cartoons starting at 3pm.

I think the first cartoon was Chip n Dale's adventures followed by Darkwing Duck.

At least you get rejections. Half the time I just don't get a response back. Indifference will kill us all.

Apathy is a motherfucker.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

thank you people.

i feel good.

i have never seen hawaii five-o but i hear it is quite nice.

how dare they replace bob barker.

Ani Smith said...

Hi. I found you through Sam Pink. If I were where you are, I'd cover your raisins in chocolate and you'd feel like you were at the movies.

[I like your writing.]

Scott Garson said...

"If I were to receive an anonymous pair of underwear in the mail, it would really spoil my life."

--Andre Breton

BLAKE BUTLER said...

wink

sam pink said...

hi blake. somebody found you through me. i made you motherfucker. you owe me. look at you, it used to be about the writing but know...you make me sick. i am sick right now. i am about to get sick all over my shirt and then someone will be like 'excuse me, i think you threw up on your shirt, maybe because of blake butler' and i'll say 'no that's just a design on my shirt.'

BLAKE BUTLER said...

you ticklish?