Attention Whoring, comedy, Indignant, Lazy, My favorites, Pathetic, Selfish

Honesty: My Excuse

I’m often reassured that I’m the only one that enjoys myself. The mirror is the only audience I respect because it is the only audience that reacts appropriately to my misfortune. I see myself as powerless not because I aspire to be the victim, but because I aspire to fit in with the majority’s perception.

These oversimplifying statements of self deprecation mixed with self pleasure aimed at analyzing my neuroses are necessary cathartic lies.

After every sentence I want to stop writing because it feels like saying anything more would be giving too much away – taking away the journey that a reader has the opportunity to go on and making them see what you see as an author, as a creator of this story that you are supposed to paint a picture of because you have taken up the responsibility of leading this audience and asked to be paid attention to – to take time away from others’ lives in order to participate in your own because you believe your’s to be far superior, at least for the time being, and with that great demand comes great obligation to maintain enjoyment, but isn’t giving them, the audience, an invitation to join you as the creator the most selfless way to enjoy an art with someone? Probably not.

I ask myself stupid questions about when form and message intersect because I’m a stupid person with stupid thoughts. My answer is always that they do, but typically it is not a premeditated desire. In my case it is nearly always an accident. I’m still pleased with the result.

My work is almost always reddild with mistakes. ecause I only want to write about what I’m writing aboute. I start feeling dishonest when I’m presented art that has been edited. If that art is about me, ten it must be about me. I typed this entrie paragraph with my eyes losed.

Mrs. McIntire was my typing teacher in high school. Later she would become the vice principal for a year, but for now she only taught typing – a class where maintaining a watchful eye over child-soldiers completing mindless, useless tasks is your only duty. I was and am a good typer (or typist depending on which one is correct) and was/am able to complete my tasks at such a speed that large portions of class time would be/are dedicated to me finding other ways to occupy my time besides staring at completed assignments. This led to the game Wiz3. Whose instructions read/read: Guide Wizio the Wizard as he journeys through a magical land. Collect the potions as you go to create spells that will help you on your way. Use the keys to enter locked doors and hidden treasures. Throw the levers to get to reveal new routes and bonuses. It was a great game that I played/play well and played/play loudly. I liked/like perceiving the anger Mrs. McIntire directed towards my playing loudly as jealousy towards my playing well. That made/makes the competition more fun. She won/wins of course. She was/is the teacher. She instituted/institutes a rule wherein every time a student finished an assignment she would have to check over their entire homework before they could play games. Those two minutes of class where she would be/is hunched over my shoulder breathing in my oxygen displaying my total inability for full control were the worst two minutes of school every day.

I struggle with tense often in my writing, which I think is because I’m never sure whether I’m reliving by writing or perceiving by writing. My biggest struggle with writing is which version of myself am I. Since I can only comprehend the idea of writing through a self-manufactured lens that looks upon myself, my goal becomes to bend the funhouse mirror in a new and interesting shape. It’s selfish: the inability to focus the mirror elsewhere, but focusing it elsewhere sounds mean. Maybe that person doesn’t want to see themselves in a funhouse mirror. I’ll take the bullet. The selfish bullet.

I worry that humans won’t exist when I die, but that’s only because I define humans as me.

Lazy

Where I Realized My Bad-Ass

I thought I had a secret identity.

We were drunk because it was a party. We left because the party was over. It was cold out.

I had come to the “corner cottage” at about 3pm, and the party wasn’t starting until 9pm. I came in at 3pm when it was 60 degrees, which means I was wearing a t-shirt. When I left at 9pm it was Minnesota out again. I took a hoodie I found hanging on the hooks leading outside.

We were drunk because it was a party.

At home I took several pictures of myself in my new hoodie with my roommate’s camera posing mostly like a bad-ass. You have to pose as a bad-ass when you wear a hoodie. I continued to pose like a bad-ass for about three years – emphasis on the “posing.”

On the front of the gray hoodie were three characters (one letter, one number, one symbol) in plastic green. H. 2. $. I called myself H2$, pronounced H-Two-Money, and I thought this alias was clever and original in its lack of originality. It’s less original than I thought.

H2$ is the “cool,” “quirky,” “interesting” way to say you were in the musical “How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.” Whomever this hoodie used to belong to was a musical theater geek who played the role of “Bud Trump” (it says that on the sleeve). He was not a bad-ass.

Except when I wore it, I was a bad-ass.

I lost it recently and I thought about crying, but I didn’t because I knew I could still be a bad-ass because I’ve starred in a musical!

Depressed, Lazy, My favorites, Pathetic

Future-Past

Yesterday I got fed up with the fact that my computer sounds like two tractors doin’ the dirty. By “doin’ the dirty” I do not mean hauling mud and gravel places, I mean fucking. Why does it sound like this? Because my computer’s fan must always stay on in order to maintain a heat level that is below hell temperatures and that fan that is constantly on has something stuck in it that makes it buzz like a drill being dropped in a hornets’ nest. I decided I was going to fix this once and for all.

The reason I decided this needed to be fixed yesterday was partially that the sound has gotten exponentially more intense over the last week. Mostly though it was because of “future-past.” For those of you who haven’t spoken with me for longer than an hour and therefore aren’t familiar with the concept of “future-past,” it is the idea of living your life not in the past, present, or future but rather living your life so that in the future you may tell tales of your past. I decided to fix my computer because I figured the adventure into the wonders beneath the metal scraps that enclose my life (aka: my computer) would be both an adventure without much movement and still an adventure.

Boy was I wrong!

Putting exclamation marks after depressing statements makes it look like you are able to make light of your depressing failures. This is the “future-past.”

I’m going to stop putting quotes around future-past because in order for it to become coined as a real phrase it needs to be treated as such.

My first failure was my failure to not have to move much. Obviously I don’t own a small screwdriver. I don’t know why I thought I did, but I really, really thought I did. I scoured my apartment like Gollum looking for the ring, then made lazy similes based on cultural references that everyone will think is personal despite the fact that I don’t really like the Lord of the Rings books.

Then I walked to the pharmacy. I hate the pharmacy near me. I love where I live, and I even love my tiny 4 bedroom apartment with walls the thickness of construction tissue. I like the bars closeby and the restaurants a little further away. But the necessities (bodega, pizza, pharmacy, grocery store) that have to be within a block according to Brooklyn cultural law in my area suck. My bodega’s cat is mean, the beer selection sucks, the juice selections sucks even more, and they constantly run out of crumb donuts. The grocery store is cold and disorganized, closes too early, and has really slow cashiers. I’m pretty sure the pizza place just closed down because of the latest health inspection.

The pharmacy has the worst employees. And not nearly enough toys. My perception of pharmacies is that they need to include basic medicinal needs and lots of useless toys. Maybe this comes from lollipops at doctors’ offices.

I found the mini-screwdriver and headed home. I unscrewed the back panel of my laptop. I unscrewed the metal container around the fan. I brushed out enough lint to make a cotton candy prop in an early talkie. That wasn’t what was making the noise though. I kept unscrewing. Even my newfound virginity (that’s a joke with the word “unscrewing”) couldn’t get my fan to stop sounding like a meat grinder being attacked by a jackhammer. It was the fan itself. It needed to be dealt with.

I followed the wires that plugged the fan in. They seemed unpluggable. They were unpluggable. I unplugged them. There were five wires that I unplugged. Pink, orange, and white all went to the fan. The two black wires travels around the fan and attached to a ball of something hidden by black electrical tape and attached to a copper tube that created a diagonal across my computer. With the black wires unplugged the copper diagonal rose in heat. A lot. I quickly plugged the wires back in. The dogs chewing on metal rods with motors continued. Maybe I could clip just the three wires that connected to the fan. I pulled a knife from my set of kitchen knives that I bought drunk off the internet. I mean that both in that I was drunk and buying things on the internet and that I was drunk on internet surfing. I cut three wires in my computer.

This may be one of the stupidest things I’ve done. But, y’know: future-past!

The computer won’t turn on. It knows that the fan isn’t connected and doesn’t want to ruin itself. I can trick it. I hold the wires together as the computer turns on and then let go once windows has started up. This way the computer doesn’t have a chance to save itself. It overheats and shuts down.

I have fixed my computer and am typing on it now. There are three small pieces of duct tape inside my computer making sure it works, the tractor orgy is still loudly happening, and there are screws missing from the inside of my laptop because, c’mon I was supposed to keep track of those tiny pieces of metal. Also, I’m worried that the duct-tape holding the electronics of my computer (aka: my life) is going to melt soon, so I haven’t screwed the back of my laptop back on and instead attached it with duct-tape.

So, what has the future-past done for me?

I have a computer held together by gluey strands and a constant fear of losing my life’s work. … !

Lazy, Lonely, My favorites

I Work In an Office

I don’t know how I feel about being in an office again.

The last one I worked at was populated by four people named John, Mike, Greg, and John and I still maintain that that was the best joke I never wrote. Two and a half hours after I started working I finished working and I exited into the joy that is the first beautiful day of the year. I love that day where it first gets warm and people go out and smile as they enjoy weather and life. I went to a dark movie theater and sat alone as I watched Battle: Los Angeles while eating my leftover vegan sampler that I snuck in via a plastic bag I got from a bodega.

It was the second day in a row that I worked in an office. This time my day had extended to four hours. I hadn’t eaten lunch, but having just found out that my bank account was significantly in the red, I attempted to postpone what my stomach was growling at me to not postpone. It was raining and I had to pee. Ready to continue the being a part of the warm weather, I had worn a light shirt with no hat or umbrella, so I ducked out of the rain and into a bar. There I could use the bathroom. Two birds, one stone. The bartender grumpily told me where I could urinate. There were two people at the bar: A woman doing her taxes while she was in a suit and a man with an eyepatch. It was very silly.

Battle: Los Angeles was very silly. I just wanted a safe place to eat my constantly cooling quinoa and kale. I wanted a safe place to make up alliterations about leftovers that only quite make sense. A movie about how important military spending is was not the safe place for me to do the “elitist” things that the Right wants me to feel self conscious about.

The bathroom didn’t lock, barely even closed. Then I looked around me and was confused as to how this bathroom should be used. Despite no sink, there were three toilets. Two were urinals. There was no stall around the sit down toilet and the room was far too small to share with a shitter. As I tried to choose a urinal, I loud hammering began three feet above my head and chards of ceiling started falling into the urinal.

When I had entered the movie theater I was greeted by a man who wanted to see some other movie. I would tell you the movie, but I couldn’t understand what he said when he drunkenly yell-mumbled his intentions at me.

The hammering continued. I think there was a man in the ceiling banging on a metal pipe with a metal pipe.

It’s more interesting outside the office.

Lazy, My favorites, Pathetic

I Always Hated Having to Pee

When I was little I used to get these pains in my side every couple of months to a year. I would be thinking at the time; “Man, I really have to pee.” And my kidneys would feel like they seized up and my body would turn a paler shade of white and my mouth would start salivating large balls of drool for my body to deal with swallowing. I would pee, then find a place to lay down and within an hour or two I’d be fine. The doctors never found out what was wrong with me. They speculated that possibly I had “kidney pebbles.” “Kidney Pebbles” was the cute, tongue-in-cheek, name that they came up with for my distress.

It’s Saturday night in Brooklyn. It’s about five minutes ago. The sounds of people excited for the weekend surround and infiltrate my space because the walls separating my space from their’s only obstruct the visions of what are on the other side and not the sounds. I work most on the weekends. I closed shop today and will open shop tomorrow. I party on Tuesdays.

Every bus ride was scary for me. Every bus ride meant that I would have to hold my bladder closed for a very long time. Nobody takes bus-rides for short amounts of time. On multiple occasions I had made the entire bus pull over on the side of the highway so that I could pee in the bush on the side of the road. They always told me that what they were doing was “very unsafe.” We were in Maine. In Maine there are barely any cars on the highway. There is never enough traffic for pulling over to be “very unsafe.” We were very safe. And we didn’t have pee sloshing around on the floor of the school bus, so that’s good too.

My roommate was in the shower. I hadn’t thought of it at the time, but now I realized I had to pee. I realzed that because I had opened my window and was on the verge of opening my fly. There is a padlock, a gate and a window to get through before I can crawl out onto my fire escape. I did all the tasks, shaking wildly below the waste because now the pee wants to come out.

I had to pee so badly, but I was embarrassed. People would hate me if I admitted I had drank liquids earlier that day, right? I sat down on the bench of the mini-golf course and could hold my embarrassment any longer. I peed, left to change clothes, and did not acknowledge that the first had happened. Obviously I had saved myself from embarrassment.

With toes dangling off the edge of the fire-escape, I let fly a golden stream of my extended manhood unraveling its way all the way down three stories of a building to the ground. I felt relief in a way I hadn’t thought possible since the last time I peed. Fear of pain had led to a fear of embarrassment, had led to shame. None of those emotions are fun, so I won’t have them. I will have relief instead – this involves peeing all the time, anywhere.

My friend once pushed me against the wall when I tried to pee on the library because it was the closest building.

Lazy, My favorites, Poop

PoopKarma

It started when I found an extra $20 in the ATM. What was I going to do with this newfound wealth. Considering this amount of money was just over 1/6th of what was in my bank account that I had just drawn from, this was exciting!

But I’m white and was raised moderately wealthy and haven’t struggled that hard and have a job and buy unnecessary glasses of beer and don’t live in darfur and feel lots of guilt all the time so instead of saving it or splurging on an expensive items I said “drinks are on me!” to the table I was sitting with, then quickly amended my statement by saying “one drink is on me for each of you” to the two people who I was sitting with. $20 doesn’t buy you a lot.

But that was nice, right?

I felt the right thing to do when life gives you good stuff – give it those around you. Doesn’t karma then repay you? How does karma work? Why didn’t I listen more when we were studying Buddhism in High School? How come when I type questions into a box that is yet to be published on the internet no one answers me?

I don’t think karma works.

I got on the subway at nearly 11pm and I could see that each car of the F-train that passed by was standing room only. This is rare at this time at night and I felt like my luck had run up for the night until the train stopped and in front of me stood a nearly empty car. Not only were there seats available, but nearly every end seat (the best seats because you can rest your head) was also available.

Oh.

This was why.

Because a man who had shit all over himself was on that car. The combination of my stuffy nose and blind excitement for my karmic repayment made sure that I was sitting and the doors were closing before I realized the error of my ways. No amount of Claritin-forced nose crusties could stop that stench from penetrating the depths of my brain’s disgusting scent area. The man who had pooped himself was now singing to himself.

The train stopped at the next stop. The mass exodus of other unfortunately unaware til too late train goes began. I stayed.

I wanted my karma to be real. I wanted the seat. I had a stuffy nose just enough that I could deal with the discomfort for the comfort.

Hungry, Lazy, Lonely, My favorites

Halal-Oooh-Yeah

I wrote this while digesting Halal.

I just wanted Halal. I was done tutoring and now I wanted Halal. I don’t love Halal – I just crave it. It’s one of those foods that I never want until I want it and then there is nothing else that I can think about/desire.

My stomach feels like a man is yawning and stretching inside it despite my stomach being far too small to hold a man.

There weren’t any Halal carts in sight when I left the apartment where I was tutoring. He didn’t need my help. By “he” I mean my student. Sure, I taught him extra info and I think my weekly visits push him in a direction academically that is positive. He loves me though. He said it. He said: “I love you.” I thought :”I want Halal from a pushcart.” He said: “Can we be roommates?” I thought: “I’m gonna get both sauces.” He said: “Can we be best friends?” I thought: “What if I could mix chicken and falafel!” He said: “I’m 14… that means I’m legal… in… Cambodia.” I thought: “I should have been listening to this conversation.”

I’ve been propositioned for sex by lots of older men. Never one younger. Never a teenager. Never one who was “Joking.”

This came after he asked if I had a girlfriend. A question I always answer with hesitation and self-disgust because I’m never quite sure how to define my relationships and that inability fills me with shame. He took my hesitation as an indication that I preferred sex with men.

My heart is trying to depart my body by burning its way through my skin. This sentence is a physical not metaphorical sensation. I just ate something out of styrofoam.

I had walked six blocks with no sign of Halal. My method of taking whatever street had green lights assuming that the fact that I was in Manhattan would be enough to mean I ran into Halal was not working out. The smells of Dunkin Donuts, Subway, and other indoor eating establishments filled with digestive tract ruining food products were tempting but could not distract me from my intended meal of day old chicken, week old lettuce, prehistoric onion and rice – yellow from stagnation – covered in sauces white and red.

I think my skin wants to melt off, but I’m not going to let it.

He told me a couple of weeks ago that all the girls in his class were “too flat” for him to date. I think he meant in the crotchal region. He doesn’t know that that was what he meant yet.

Each brightly colored street was simply a mirage of mean, rice and sauce that only provided disappointment and stomach grumbling. Until one. One street had the thing I wanted. In the form of two carts offering similar options. But different. In the form of a decision. Fuck. I hate my lfie.

My hair is greasier. I don’t know how it’s that instant, but my forehead seems slimy.

I picked the one across the street because I wanted to continue crossing streets with green lights. It took 40 seconds to make my food! How exciting! Now I had to find a subway station. It didn’t matter witch one, I just wanted to sit down and eat my new meal while it was hot. 5 blocks and 10 halal carts later that seemed less plausible. My stomach is mad at me for its lack of food filling. My brain is mad at me because I refused to use it in finding the closest halal cart to the subway. And I am mad at me for caring so much about stale rice and meat.

My brain is less functional than usual – I think filled with grease.

Then I realized the problem with my plan: Rush Hour. I crammed my self into an R-train feeling self conscious about the cumbersomeness of my styrofoam box of food product as I danced around a bike and a dog that needed to travel during rush hour.

Fuck it.

I ate it. On the subway.. The red and white sauce dripping of the ends of my mustache, my esophagus filling with discomfort, thoughts of a 14 year old closeted boy wanting to discover his sexuality stuffing my head and I was _______.

This is a mad lib and you get to fill in the emotion.

Hungry, Lazy, Nostalgia

Shit Works Out For the Best

A week ago I pulled each coat out of my closet stuck my hands into the pockets and scrounged for change. I needed it to buy cheese and tortillas which I needed for quesidillas which I needed for nourishment.

The last time I had worn these coats was in the fall when I had enough money that change coming my way was a cause for dismissal instead of rejoicing – coins were a thing I deposited in my pockets as opposed to my bank. Now my bank account had such little money deposited in it that the $4.63 that I found in the depth of the folds of cloth that hung from my clothes would have to feed me.

I don’t want to be rich. But I don’t want to be dig-for-change-poor anymore. I also don’t want another job. I know that with a little more work, I could afford to live comfortably. By comfortably I mean with snacks.

Snacks to me are all I ever hope for. They are the ultimate luxury. Luxury is some that that you use not because you need to but because you want to. And the only thing I ever want when I need nothing is food. Salty, addictive, crunchy food.

But I can’t afford snacks.

I can’t afford to have a pantry full of chips and crackers to choose from when I’m bored.

Growing up, my basement was our pantry, and it was stocked like a grocery store’s dumpster. This was because my parents owned a grocery store that sold a small range of food from Kettle Chips to Fruit Leather. All food that had expiration dates despite not really expiring. All these dates were before the date that I ate the food, but I had so many snacks. I lived the most luxurious life I could possibly live, and I wish to do that again, but in order to do that I would need about an extra $100/week for snacks and (why not) beer. This would involve working about one more day a week instead of pretending I’m writing while watching Hulu.

This risk reward problem was really frustrating.

I say “was” because my parents have shut down the health food store, and are sending me boxes and boxes of food hat they never got to sell. I have my weight in snacks against the wall of my apartment.

I’m living in luxury while working 16 hrs/week.

I love me.

Attention Whoring, Lazy

Need Want

I don’t know how I feel about the latest episode of Parks and Recreation. It’s my favorite show on television-online right now, but the latest episode felt stale. The important thing to note about me saying this is that hulu is running turbotax ads, meaning I have a constant reminder that I’m not doing things I need to do. I’ve been filming a webseries all week that I am a co-writer/director/producer/actor in and it has taken up a lot of my time. It has eaten into my time to accomplish other goals – goals that involve writing stuff and making money.

These goals are less important to me than garnering fame.

Less important, but still more necessary. I’ve been to three job interviews in the last two weeks. Two were food service jobs that I killed at and received invitations to participate in their restaurant serving agreement during the interview. One job demanded I work my first day on Super Bowl Sunday so for the first time in all years of my life, I missed the super bowl. While I like sports, it is not the sport of football that I missed seeing. I like the Super Bowl because it involves hanging out with people and drinking and eating and not moving. Most importantly, no one can say “Let’s go do something!” because you are supposedly doing something just by watching TV and shushing each other when possibly good commercials come on.

I missed it out of fear that my rent would be hard to pay and I needed any opportunity to gain money.

I made a dollar that day.

$1.

They sent me on a delivery and I received a dollar tip. I was never paid for my day of work because I ended up getting a better job the next day. My better job involves a less full schedule and … I’m sure there are other pros too. I just like the less full schedule.

It’s necessary.

In this last week I’ve got nothing done out of obligation – only out of desire. Filming a webseries is what I want to do, but it cuts into what I need to do. Mostly it cuts into what I need to do because I no longer think I should do things out of necessity, but rather only out of want. I haven’t done my taxes yet. I haven’t done my laundry yet.

I started a new website that I think is good.

Attention Whoring, comedy, Lazy

Self Promotion

I’m really sore. Like I hurt a lot. In my thighs and my arms and my back and my neck. The thighs and arms are because I went rock climbing two days ago. The back and neck are because since then I’ve found it too difficult to put on clothes and therefore don’t feel quite comfortable lounging in the public space of our apartment and therefore spend all my time in my bed and therefore prop my neck and back in weird positions against the wall and my bed in order to view my computer screen.

Remember that song “My Neck, My Back?” I also want all those things licked, if the tongue is laced in icy hot. Yes, I want my pussy and asshole laced in Methyl Salicylate. Yes, for the purposes of this joke I have a pussy. Yes, for the purposes of this joke I have an asshole.

This is why I don’t work out.

Working out is the act of competing to see who can be in more pain tomorrow. I have no desire for future pain. It’s a waste of time

In an attempt to illustrate how aware I am of my hypocrisy I’m putting a colon before this next sentence: I was surprised by how everyone at the rock climbing gym was very attractive. I’m not very attractive.

Let’s list the things that I think are important to note now:

1. Some male friends of mine wanted to start working out when we were in college. I was sitting in the back of the minivan on the way to McDonalds drawing penises in the fog of the back window. “Nisse, do you want to work out with us?” To which I responded: “No, getting buff would ruin my image.”

2. In one of my writing books I have a list entitled: “Disparaging Ways to Insult My Body.” There are sections on skinniness, chest hair, eyebrows, and facial hair.

We all make sacrifices for our art, and fortunately my art demands me to look like a holocaust victim who got leprous squirrels stapled to his body. Comedy is my art, but more importantly my life is my art. I write, talk, and perform mostly about me which means that I have to create a me that I appreciate writing, talking, and performing about.

I had half a beard for 4 months. During that time I created a blog specifically dedicated to jokes that a person with half a beard would write. I abandoned the blog when I abandoned the facial hair on the right side of my face. I’ve come back to that blog because I realized that I didn’t need to have half a face of pubic looking strands of gross to act like a person with half a face of pubic looking strands of gross. This one‘s my favorite.

Nisse Greenberg

Category Archives: Lazy