Tangential Logic

(and Other Paradigmatic Reformities)

 I live in meatspace. It’s the real world, where things like eating and sleeping go on. This is opposed to netspace, webspace, cyberspace, where commerce and pornography go on. Lately I've been noticing a definite feeling of claustrophobia as my space is losing its significance to that other space, which is growing exponentially. It was not long ago that the idea of sitting in front of a computer for more than half an hour a year would have seemed idiotic. Now, the idea of doing without one seems anachronistic.

One seems anachronistic telling the truth to insurance companies, loan officers, the IRS, traffic court judges, and ninety-three percent of the people that ask if you have an extra quarter. In fact, truth itself has gone out of style. We’re just bullshiting each other into buying whatever crap we’re selling. "Why don’t you just try telling me the truth for once?" I yell over the din emanating from my damned TV set. Is it just that none of us can handle it anymore? Where’s that damned remote?

Damned remote out here on the highway. I remember when people used to pick up hitchhikers just to be polite. Now I could stand out here until Heaven burns down before someone will slow their lives down long enough to let me onboard. Used to be you could hitchhike across the whole US just to find yourself. Having long hair gave you instant membership into the ‘hey man’ club. There’d always be one of the brothers or sisters driving by to pick you up.

You up there. Whadayawanna jump for? Oh hell, maybe I’ll join you. Stay up there, I’m coming up. Ya’ know, a friend of mine hung herself last week. Made me so mad I wanted to throw myself in front of a truck just so I could find her and kick her ass. I guess I was mad mostly because she promised that if she was gonna do it, she’d let me do it with her. Now she’s left me all alone here and I can’t even call her to bitch about it. You got any friends? Yeah, well maybe we’ll just stand here awhile and look down

Look down that girl’s shirt and tell me if you think those things are real. Wonder what that looks like when a girl gets to be around sixty. Kinda like Steve Austin lifting a house with his bionic arm, like it wouldn’t give him a hernia or something. I wonder if we spend too much time drinking beer and bird watching. Look, there goes another Double Breasted Bed Thrasher. How much difference is there really between a man and a woman anyway? One of those professors down at CU actually met his wife on the internet. How did he know for sure that he wasn’t really talking to a guy?

A guy came by yesterday to fix my phone line again. Says there’s gonna be some problems because they’re switching them all to glass. Back when I was a kid I used to call the operator just to ask her what time it was. Now you have to fight your way through an armada of electronic proxies just to get through to anyone. If you’d like to know how my day’s been going, please press one. Some telemarketer just offered me fifty dollars to make my long distance cost five cents a minute. I bet in a year or two long distance is going to be free, but the operator will probably cost even more than she does now

She does now ya’ know. She thinks about sex and she’s all of eleven years old. I guess it’s no wonder with all that flesh on the tube. Either one of them. I read that eighty percent of the net is nothing but porn sites. When are we going to grow tired of looking at each other? I mean if you can become jaded to violence, then what about bodies. Maybe when long distance is free we won’t have to wear clothes.

To wear clothes out fast, I usually wash them about five times before I even wear them once. Got to keep up the façade that there’s nothing new to me. If anyone gets wind that life is starting to freak me out just a little, I’ll lose all authority. The only way to keep up with the future is to maintain the position as one of the key figures making it up. The future already happened five minutes ago. Now there’s just a general feeling of nausea. It’s kind of fun really, like watching the world in a spin cycle with an unbalanced load. The thing I don’t like is that it’s starting to leave me with wrinkles.