The occasion of wordshed

Coming home to find someone cooking up the ingredients to a meal you’ve been replaying making over and over all day. Leave and never come back.

Hitting my tooth on a popsicle stick

When the washer doesn’t spin at the end like it should and everything is heavy and wet

Putting on wet jeans and punching your self in the face

Spotting a prime climbing tree when you’re in a rush to get somewhere and then forget about it

Yellow cars

Green cars

Dropping coins at the cashier when u just trimmed your nails

Donating a dollar or being asked to donate

The barenaked ladies

People that complain about the word moist get your own word that you don’t like moist actually is a nice word

Short cowboy boots

Ardenes shirts that fall apart after you fell in love with them

People with allergies that don’t show any symptoms but always talk about it

People that walk their cats

$80 three piece canvass’s at home sense with quotes on them that need to be placed in a row.

Gym class and sports day

Running in sand or pretending the beach is super enjoyable

Not having a glue gun when it pops into your head that it would be super useful

The shake a paw trick that’s dumb

The fact that my finger guns move isn’t catching on

Cheap ass rope swings and that nothing is real rope anymore

Being nice and it coming off as flirting and being discouraged when girls don’t understand I’m not trying to snipe their boyfriends/partners. This is why I like talking to men much more. Right there.

Short foreheads and big gums

Other people that binge eat at night only cause I do it uncontrollably and can’t help it. Control yourself or get slapped by a big bully (me).

When people don’t take me seriously when I say I want to pop their pimples .. when it’s ready of course.

Slivers I can’t see that make me sweat

Vulgar language in public line ups

Justifying my farts?!!?

Fruit and the devil soars they give me

Someone who puts ketchup on a meal I’ve made that definitely does not require ketchup. You don’t need it. Let the ketchup go, it’ll be alright. Not the kind of woman to feed you something you need to then add something.

When your driver has too much pride to order you FRESH FRIES. This is what I want and I’ll have it I’m a paying customer at this fine McDonald’s establishment where I have to pay for mcchicken sauce if I ask for more than two.

Finger wiggle handshakes. Forgot ya name already. (Have some human decency for the love of god and look me into my eyes when we come together with a hard, heavy thrust that joins our hands together as one.)

Right and left under pressure

The panic caused by trying on a ring at The Bay and not being able to get it off. Is this what those bowls of coffee beans are for to calm me down because that’s what I use them for.

Saving the good hangers till last and not needing them

Forgetting to order extra lettuce on any burger

Being injured and bumming out hard when I can’t do the active fun stuff I never do when I’m in good condition anyway

He towered over everyone and spoke when he wanted to. Id call him a gentle giant if I thought he wasn’t conflicted by his own thoughts. Gentle giants are boring any how. I was always curious about what was going on inside was his head. I think he had Spanish ancestry because his skin was dark and in the summer time he was as brown as a coconut husk. I always thought he was the most suave man I’d ever met, comparable to a handsome actor from black and white films. A mixture of Humphrey bogart and Cary grant. More Humphrey though, because he was cold and stern at times. I loved to watch him eat, I don’t know why. Even the sound of it was satisfying. As I mentioned before, he was tall, handsome, and I always thought he dressed very well. His posture was something to admire, as though his spine never got discouraged from the constant abuse life spits at us. When he spoke, in his strong Dutch accent, he rolled his consonants, wrapping them around the vowels so intimately and I wished I could talk like that. He liked puzzles. Intricate ones of ships and landscapes. Ones with thousands of pieces. After he finished the good ones he glued them on a board and put them on the wall in the loft room. A creepy room over the garage lined with weird dolls, books in Dutch, a massive cookie tin filled with toys, a computer video game thing from the 80’s and a pile of national geographic dating back to a time I couldn’t even fathom. The lighting was good in there for puzzles. Thus, my love of puzzles began and hasn’t subsided but I can never find a good one these days.

But this excerpt isn’t about me.

This is about my Opa. His name is Robert Koreman. A military man I’m told. To what extend I’m not sure. I should ask him about it, but I’d want to do it in person. I have so many questions for him. I have a kit of pastels he (apparently) used when he was a young boy and I cherish it. I often get out a pad of paper in a flush of inspiration and go at it. I used to think I was an artist but I can’t transfer the images in my head onto paper unless I’m using written word. I’m okay with it. Every time I try out these pastels I end up getting angry because I have no idea what the hell I am doing. I don’t chose the right colours and I end up with what looks like a pile of vomit with black teeth and choppy looking eyelashes. No, i don’t enjoy painting and drawing as much as I thought I should. In my head, all my deep rooted emotions are so simply expressed through written word. I have always been so curious about where my writing abilities come from.

I have this longing hope that Opa will reveal all of his secret journals that are stashed away, dusty, almost forgotten. I imagine his writings to start off with a brisk introduction, and a slow surrender to conflicts he may have had with himself. This is why I admired him so much, he stood so tall, never caused a fuss about anything, but I knew I’d sink my teeth into what he was really thinking. Some day.

I push your whole body down further into this pond of denial but the host of your body is still around

Skirting around me and using a different voice

I suppose our moral compasses are suppressing whatever is eating at us

I hate pushing you down but this convenient pond of anger is deep and clear until I push you under far enough that the dirt swirls around as your legs kick the bottom

Dirt always settles so I run away before I have to see it settle

Before I have to see you clearly again

Just to bounce towards the comfort of forgiveness

I don’t want to push you down and

I’m wondering if maybe I could come back later and watch you down there

I imagine your confused face and I can’t hear your endearments under the water

I know I’d give in and pull you up if I did

Where the bridge between us collapsed I do not know and it was built very well I think

I blame myself and I blame you but I know you feel the same

Words won’t help and I end up arguing with myself

I never thought we would be here

I don’t know who you are and

I definitely don’t know where I am

We usually talk about these things

But your mentality swells up and relaxes at unexpected times

I know you’re under the water and

I can’t hear you if you tried reach me

I wish you’d disturb the dirt at the bottom

So much so that this pond turns brown with dirt

For enough time so I can walk away

Just to come back and see your helpless eyes looking up at me

Dirt always settles

I would have put you in a mud pit and watch you sink

If I was sure I wanted you gone

Chapter one. 

Derek, Pleased To Meet Me

Even though it may have been only minutes after she stormed out of the flat, it was as though the walls almost sighed with relief around me and I thought, “Maybe I could get away with being crazy and hasty and sporadic - get away with being reckless and absent like all these girls I’m acquainted with.”

Admitting I put myself in their path is strenuous, but I’m going to try to be as honest as I can. I just can’t beat around the bush any more, it isn’t healthy. So, off she went. Huffing and puffing louder and louder as she stomped further and further towards the exit. You know what? Good riddance! Girls are all the same. Girls always take up more space than you’ve offered. I heard her pull open the door with what I’m sure was stifled frustration but was also trying to be graceful. Her smooth exit was very obviously interrupted by the swollen door, as this apartment is damp and sensitive to the rain. It’s old and characteristic and I adore it.

I mean, yeah, I suppose I strive to take care of my apartment as if it were a living breathing thing. What’s funny is that I couldn’t care less about actual living breathing things. My efforts to separate myself from my annoyances has been pretty successful, other than of course the broad who walked into my life by accident and is hopefully taking the walking out part seriously. We’ll talk on the phone soon and I’ll be nice, cool and collected. I’ll come out looking and feeling good, for sure. 

I could hear her struggle with the doorknob as she tried to slam the door shut and I thought about how neat it is that wood expands when it gets moist. Girls are always complaining about cold, damp things and and never understand the science behind anything. They are constantly focused on their discomfort. Finally, I heard her lock the door behind her. Girls are passive aggressive and passive aggression is a weakness. I was sitting here on the couch in my own apartment, and she locks my door for the last time behind her. Girls are so dramatic. I should have asked for my key back. All this drama has me off my game. She probably feels like she got the last word in as she locked the door, the look of satisfaction turning to sheepish defeat. Here is the part where I should feel guilt as I imagine her sauntering out of the building. I just don’t and I’m too busy to dwell on the reason why. I know she’s trying to convince herself that I lost the game, and that I’ll soon feel a wave of sorrow overcome me when I realize she’s really gone. I’ll have you know I dislike making assumptions but I know her just enough to know that. Oh, the sorrow. Ha! ...I'll let her have it. She thinks she's making me think. I observe her efforts smugly. And, like I do with most of my interactions with her, I'll be the bigger person and let her think she has some influence on my thoughts and my attitude. Maybe, though, I will think. It might do some good, it helps drown her out when she's acting strange.

As these interactions happen more and more frequently, i've been slowly constructing a system. I have come to understand I have fairly convincing head nods and “uhuh”s. and I try my hardest to conjure up meaningful eye contact. Alas, girls always want the last word. Every fucking time. Her shrill voice is still ringing in my ears. I'll tell you, It’s almost like a demon seized her mind after just six months of dating. By that time I was already invested. Stuck. Too lazy to hurt feelings. If I had more to say, I think she would have left sooner. But I weighed out the pros and cons like the rational adult I am and sat back. I like having her around, she makes me laugh when she’s not bringing up deep meaningless shit. Playing games with persons unaware has always been an underlying trait of mine and I know how terrible that sounds but bear with me here. I'm trying to be more honest lately. Still, I don’t know why I put myself into these situations. Girls.

However, this morning I feel I am at a loss for words, or games, or nonchalant defence mechanisms. Ah hell, I don’t care. I guess I’m locked in my apartment? You really got me G. Jesus my apartment is now a complete disaster. I didn’t expect her to get physical. She must be very frustrated. Thankfully, she only destroyed the shit I could do without. Shit she brought into the house in the first place. Now I can just throw it all out with out feeling any guilt. I have an actual alert button to send up a maid, I've never used it. Theres a first for everything. What a day!

Girls like to give you an ultimatum at some point when you haven’t reacted to anything in a while. For some reason, I hope she comes back sobbing and blubbering and sees I haven’t even moved from my spot. She’ll think I haven’t even noticed. Yeah. She’ll be okay though, I always thought she was a somewhat well rounded girl, just lonely. But what girl isn’t whether their in a relationship or not. Can’t please ‘em.

I can’t help but picture the scenerio unfold. She’s probably pacing in front of the apartment making a fool of herself. If only it were raining, making it extra melodramatic. It sounds sad, and cruel, but I know she’d take a bit of pleasure in being a spectacle, damsel in distress. I imagine she’ll go to a bar nearby and get silly. Girls like to self destruct. 

Well, I don’t care. I can’t care right now. Tomorrow I’ll tell the door man to not let her in anymore. 'Good riddance!' I'll say. However, if she wants to come get the rest of her things, that means she will have to ring me up.. and then I’ll have to go down there to meet her and she knows I can’t do that. Damnit, maybe this was her plan. Oh, games, games.

Girls are always trying to change who you are and make you uncomfortable with a bunch of uplifting quotes they’ve come across somewhere on social media. I can never tell if they’re trying to make me uncomfortable but I feel uncomfortable.

Speaking of shit like that, you can tell a girl is crazy when she starts hanging quotes in the bathroom like “Do one thing every day that scares you.” Hangs it right across from the toilet so you read it over and over while you’re taking a shit. But they’re just words. 

I suppose I should mention that I haven’t left the apartment in twelve years. Sure, you know, I’ve been on the balcony, lots. It’s not like I shut myself in and pull the blinds or anything. You’re probably imagining piles of newspaper everywhere and a dank dusty galaxy floating gently through the house. No, it’s not like that at all. You see, I’m very stylish and I like controlled clutter. And there is no layer of fog dust anywhere. Spic and span. Theres a lot about me that I should explain and I’ll get to it. 

I can see the sky better than anyone in this city. From my balcony, the cars look like insects and I can’t even see the people. Ha! They are so irrelevant. Here are the facts; I am on the 30th floor. I’ve stepped in my elevator 6 times since I’ve moved in. I even had a helicopter deliver a huge tree onto my roof top patio so I don’t feel so alienated. Just because I prefer distance from people, places and things out there doesn't mean I don’t want to be part of it all. It does make sense.

It helps me breathe better knowing I have a tree. Sometimes, I fear the oxygen those riff raffs breathe doesn’t quite reach me up here and I am afraid of suffocating. I know it sounds silly. But with the tree, I just feel better about it. I have a real interest in psychology. This is temporary. I do want to be like everyone else, in a way. I just know I’m better. And I can do things up here better than anyone can do down there. 

Oh, but of course some over paid degenerate made an assumption and blamed it on miscommunication and brought me the wrong damn tree. Excuses are tiring and offensive to my intelligence. God Damn. I wanted a palm tree, because I’ve never traveled and they look tropical, but they brought me a Japanese maple. Having people in my home makes me feel dizzy so I didn't say anything. I don’t like to fuss like she does. Girls like to fuss over everything.