Magic Jewball

I’m sorry I haven’t read your blog. Let me explain. I care about you, you know that you’re happy and not feeling pain at this very moment, but not about the minutiae of your life, like your dates or your lack of dates or your politics or musical taste (unless it’s exactly the same as mine). It’s not that I don’t care about your politics, I just don’t really care about politics. Unless they affect me directly. That’s because I’m American!

There are exceptions to this. If you were linked to on Gawker, then I may have read your blog today. That’s because someone smarter and more interesting than I am tipped me off that you said something really funny. That was great, thanks.

If you’re my college ex, then I read your blog on Annual Stalking Day, which is sometimes Semi-Annual Stalking Day if I’m feeling really depressed. (It’s good to see you’ve kept your smarmy conservative politics; that’s your wife’s problem now, though, isn’t it?) If you’re the woman in the office next to mine, then I read your blog to impress you that I read your blog. That’s more a skim, though. I went to the Evelyn Woods School of power skimming.

But that’s really it. If you’re reading this then you probably do read blogs and that’s OK. I ain’t mad atcha, whatever that expression means. Or it’s a pity read, which is OK. I’m not one of those, “don’t pity me” people. What the hell is wrong with pity? Pity usually leads to the receipt of goods and/or services which I’m all for. Did I mention I only have one leg and I was born a poor black child? I should have. My bad.

Anyway, the point is, I won’t be boring you with the petty details of my own personal life or my politics, you know, if I had any, unless they’re to illustrate a good story. Or to rant about something that you yourself would rant about, had you experienced it. I can tell already you’re like me, and since you are, you won’t care in the least about my life. I’m sure you’d be fascinated to hear, for instance, that I had popcorn for dinner last night and that it was Dale & Thomas barbecue flavor.

I really need to share the following, though. I have no idea how they keep employees in that place. For one thing, it’s oppressively hot, Winter and Summer alike. One cheerful woman there once told me, it was OK, “the store is dehumidified!” Oh, now I see. The other thing is, it always has an intensely strong smell. I’m sure that’s delightful for the person who walks in and breathes in the caramel chocolate aura but to be there all day? I mean, I walk out of there after five minutes and my hair smells like popcorn. This particular time it actually smelled like there had been a recent fire in the store. There seemed to be a crowd of 10 people behind the counter, none of whom seemed concerned in the least. On the bus ride home, the woman next to me kept sneezing. She insisted she was allergic to the ink in her Wall Street Journal (seriously!) but I was sure it was my burnt popcorn scented hair.

By the way, I hate to be all Seinfeldian, but how many times do you have to say “bless you” if a person you don’t even know has a sneezefest right next to you? Is it less if you’re reading “Rip It Up and Start Again” and you waited four days for Amazon to deliver it? How about if you have an iPod on and you can maybe get away with acting like you didn’t hear? Yeah, I said it after every sneeze. People think I’m nice but it’s only because I really have no idea how to get away with not being nice.

Oh, and if no one ever does read this, it will still entertain the voices in my head and keep them from having me murder someone. It’s a public service, really.