chapter 7: a field of flowers in my mind

I wake up. I need to clean my house. I need to wash my dishes. I need to text the red-haired girl. I need to pay my bills. I need to do push-ups. I need to do sit-ups. I need to stretch. I need to do yoga. I need to take fish oil. I need to go for a jog. I need stretch. I need to fix the toilet handle. I need to read a book. I need to write in a journal. I need to schedule an appointment with the eye doctor. I need to go to the dentist. I need to do the laundry. I need to make a to-do list. I need to take my car to the mechanic (what is that pinging noise?). I need to practice breathing. I need to meditate. I need to start budgeting. I need to think less. I need to relax.

I feed the cats and then I sit down to watch TV. The problem with watching TV is that there are so many options, and unless I pick the perfect show to watch I spend the whole time wondering if there is something better that I should be watching instead. Did I pick the right thing? There is too much of everything. There needs to be less. Every menu should only have five items (one salad, two sandwiches, a pasta, and french fries). Every band should have five songs. Every theater should show two movies. Jeans should only be in two colors (blue and black). Baseball should not have 182 games (my suggestion would be 25). There shouldn’t be thousands of tv channels (maybe just ten). Why do we need eight breweries (give us two)? Why do we need ten sushi restaurants (we only need one)? Why do we need six brands of white t-shirts (one brand would be fine)? Why do we need four documentaries about the methods of planting rice in rural China (I don’t think we need any)? I think we all probably spend more time flipping through menus and reading lists than we actually do consuming the things on those menus and lists.

I turn to a channel where they build miniature houses out of bacon. The judges grade the houses on their hypothetical livability and how well the houses can withstand the elements. When the contestants are done baking the houses they have to leave them outside for a whole night. This one lady’s house falls down in the rain. Another man’s bacon house gets eaten by a bird. The third contestant wins. Not only does his bacon house last the whole night outside, but they say the flow of his living room is the most efficient. There is also a great “space” upstairs where you could use a room for either a nursery or an office depending on what stage of life you are in.

The show ends, and another episode of Bakin’ Bacon Homes plays. I start to read an article on my phone about the ten worst deaths in human history. The fourth worst death is the scariest to me. I guess this guy in New York City was walking home one night and he walked over a broken manhole cover. He fell down 25 feet into sewer water and broke both of his legs. The article said the water was boiling due to it running adjacent to a water heating line. The man started to slowly boil alive like a lobster, screaming out for help. People ran to the scene and heard his cries, but no one could figure out how to save him. Even after rescuers got to the scene it took four hours to get him out of the drain, and he had long been boiled to death. Boiled to death in water filled with the piss and shit of New York City. A city with lots of piss and shit. That seems like the worst way to go. I’m going to remember never to walk over manhole covers again.

As I am reading another article about the ten best deaths in human history, I receive a text from an unsaved number. The text says: “I heard what you said about me last night. Meet me at Friendly Beast Brewery. 9 pm.” I wonder if it will be dark at 9 pm tonight. You can’t fight in the daytime. If we both show up to the fight and it is still daylight do we wait for it to get dark? Do I just sit in my car until the sun sets? I wonder what I said to this guy last night. I don’t remember a whole lot about last night. I drank a lot. I immediately start to feel nervous. It is very rare that I do not remember anything from the night before, but I have no recollection of even going to the brewery at all.

I remember ordering pizza. A pepperoni and bacon pizza. I was very drunk by the time the pizza came. It was only 8 pm. After that I think I watched a movie about a gang of motorcycle riders in the southwest. They were feuding with another biker gang over control of a field of flowers. I have no idea why. After that I have nothing. Just a blank gap until I woke up. I begin to sweat. I feel a hot sensation in my chest. I thought the most stressful thing about today would be texting the red-haired girl, but now a new nightmare has begun. The only thing I can think to do is drink some beer. I don’t want to get too drunk in case I actually decide to show up. The last thing I want to do is get into a fight, but I have to know what happened last night. If I don’t figure out what happened this feeling will never go away. This white-hot panic. The spicy tingling in my armpits. The swelling in my stomach. The pulse of my heartbeat in my temples. I text back: “okay. See you there.” Then I start drinking beer. I find my DVD copy of Taxi Driver and hit play. I’ve seen this movie a bunch of times, but something about it calms me down, and it seems like the right movie to watch on a day like this. I’m sure there’s something better to watch, but I don’t have time to worry about that.