Merrick is feeling a little bit high for the first time in a long time. He knows this isnât probably how it works but it really does feel like the THC starts inside his trachea, his throat, his sinuses, etc., feelable and localized like that; and that it suffuses whatever soft tissue and cartilage is there, whatever the smoke has touched; and in addition to feeling warm and sort of relaxing it also makes him feel a tad nauseated. Â
But if he focuses on the nausea, really centers himself around it, then he can feel that itâs not actually nausea but some other feeling in nauseaâs clothing. What feeling, exactly, is to be figured out by offering the feeling various activities and seeing how it responds. Do you want music? Sometimes a puppy-like joy response. Do you want porn? Perhaps a subtle, solemn nod. Do you want a La Croix? Yes. Do you want to go for a walk? Not today. Do you want to try and write something? One never knows, now does one. Until one asks.
Merrick is at home with his two huge dogs, Derek. They lay curled up, inter-nestled, on an air mattress on the floor. This is Merrickâs office. Bigaâs dad has recently stayed over for a few days and used the office for his bedroom while he was here. The man plans to be back on Thursday with more to do, and so out the mattress stays. Derek, meanwhile, has decided the poor bed is theirs to nap on. This worries Merrick. Both dogs together barely fit atop the thing. Granted, they curl up surprisingly small considering how monstrously, doorway-fillingly big they are when theyâre up and about, but even tightly curled the mattress barely holds them off the floor. Merrick worries specifically about the material integrity of the air mattress. It is somehow still holding its air for now. Derek are asleep and noiseless. He expects that whenever they finally dismount, the mattress will not bounce back up to its original shape, but stay mushy-looking and sad to the touch. Like even if he re-inflates it. With that noisy little fucking thing that inflates it.
Cicadas suddenly sing to life out his office window. Itâs as though someone has switched on a cicada machine. Merrick makes no expression at this but simply blinks through the sudden buzz of melancholy. Is it that time of year already? He gazes out the little band of window visible beneath the mostly lowered blinds, through the gazillion tiny squares of mesh, out at the yellowy late-day sunlight warming the lawn across the street. For the first time this year, the yellow light of summer strikes Merrick as not beautiful. When he looks at it he feels the concept of DAY itself shrinking, receding, losing interest.Â
He looks away, indoors, at the desk. White, smooth, essentially featureless except for the odd dog hair or dried condensation ring. He regards the wall behind his desk, beneath the window, white but shadowed by the sill and by his desk. He regards his laptop. He considers writing something. His melancholy gradually recedes, but leaves a gray, filmy damp on his mood.
Biga is at work. Her dad has visited recently and helped to set up the downstairs apartment so that the baby has a place to live when itâs born. Biga and Merrickâs babyâs situation is peculiar but not unheard of. She is pregnant with what is now a fully developed adult man. Given her tiny stature, this looks about as ridiculous as you might think. But she wears it well, Merrick thinks. Pregnancy suits her. He has said so repeatedly. Biga beams whenever he tells her or their friends or their family this. He beams too. Such words are pure magic.
And Biga canât wait to meet their son. Merrick, therefore, feels obliged to be the nervous one. What if their son is an asshole? What if heâs already smart, like an adult, but has stubborn opinions about things? What if he still terrorizes their sleep like all babies do? Merrick dreads sleep-deprivation. He knows it is going to hurt him in a way that he has never been hurt before. The feeling of being slightly high now reaches his eye sockets, his eyeballs, his vision. It all starts to feel dry and achy. Almost sleepy. A feeling like needing to yawn gathers inside what he decides must be his tonsils. He sort of yawns without opening his mouth or even making a face, except his eyelids squinch a bit. It rolls like thunder inside his head. Then itâs gone. He blinks and long blurs of whatever heâs looking at smear downward across his vision. Nothing hallucinatory. Just a gentle fit of bleariness.
Biga is scheduled to get a C-section next month. She went and scheduled the procedure years ago, after they first found out they were pregnant. The obstetrician had all but mandated the operation. She had barely begun to list the possible complications of a vaginal delivery before Biga had interrupted and asserted her consent to the C-section. Merrick had not been there for this appointment but had been relieved to hear it all the same. Also what was this about having an adult baby, heâd had to ask.
After dinner last night, while Bigaâs dad was still here, the men had taken turns resting their open hands across Bigaâs giant belly and feeling at what Biga told them was probably the babyâs back and butt, or possibly his legs. Merrick had felt a surge of comfort and love as he felt their baby shift beneath the bellyfat. Bigaâs dad, a giant himself, had stooped semi-awkwardly and kissed his daughterâs naked belly with his scratchy bearded face.
Merrickâs laptop makes a noise. He blinks at it. His vision is suddenly sharp, alert, taut. His next client is ready for their appointment. He groans through his nose. He doesnât click âOKâ to allow the client into the video chatroom. He stays very quiet and stares at the computer screen. He waits for the laptop noise to stop. When it finally goes quiet he grimaces so intently that his high disappears altogether. When next he checks the feeling, all he finds is its empty clothing, wopsed up and sweaty-smelling and nauseating to the touch.
My family slowly exploded. Something blew up, Iâm not sure what, and we were scattered all over the place. A few of us stuck close to home--cousins on my dadâs side especially--in Omaha or thereabouts. Some of us went North--my momâs side. My brother and his wife, they went to California. My parents, South Carolina. Â
And here I am in St. Louis. My partner and I are happy in our slightly too-small apartment. Itâs awesome. But we are alone in here.
Nobody else.
We exploded. And we didnât just fly apart. We lost the ability to communicate. We got straight-up Babeled. What I mean is of course that most of my family supports Trump now, or at least supports hating the political Left, while my brother and I and our wives donât. Â
Iâm sorry before I even say it, but I think we all sort of slightly hate each other, now.
I can hear at least two uncles vehemently disagreeing with me, especially about the hating-each-other-now thing, but only to enforce peace, and possibly also to patronize me, and of course out of that knee-jerk Midwestern aversion to unwholesomeness. But shit. We do actually kind of if not hate then find exhausting each other now, despite the memories we unanimously cherish of our pre-exploded life together. Those were good times. These are not.
Iâm not entirely sure what there is to be done about it. Tomorrow thereâs a vote to decide whether Brett Kavanaughâs having allegedly attempted to rape Christine Blasey Ford should pertain to his fitness as a potential Supreme Court justice. Itâs a weird, hideous moment. Either way it lands, boom goes the family.
And there is no bomb to disarm. Anyway, whatâs one more explosion? I ... itâs late, I need to sleep.
(Taste is obviously subjective here.  How much fun this game is for you depends on how playful and/or developed your Jelly Belly palate is. Also, please brush your teeth after playing, and remember to enjoy your sweets in moderation.)Â
Blindly withdraw from a body of mixed Jelly Belly gourmet jelly beans a total of six beans.
Sort the beans into âgoodâ pairs. "Goodâ pairings should be: a) thoughtful, b) delicious, and c) non-duplicate. How you decide to meet these criteria is up to you. Arrange finished pairs two by two in a single row.
If you are able to create three good pairs on your first try, you win! Merry pairing!
If there are any beans that cannot be paired, however, leave them unpaired and draw three more.
You may now either pair these new beans with the unpaired beans, or rearrange existing couples to fit them in elsewhere.
If you are able to get down to one unpaired bean, then you may either choose to add it to an existing pair and create a thoughtful, delicious trio, or else draw one more bean.
If you are able to create five good pairs after obtaining this last bean, you win! Merry pairing!
If at this point you cannot pair any more beans, however, stop and reconsider what the fuck you are doing with your free time.
[Addendum: More advanced or gluttonous characters can just keep drawing more beans until all pairs match. Playing this way, the goal is still to end as quickly as possible, but not to compromise on taste; the only way to lose, then, is by giving up. My record is six good pairs and one good trio. Though I should note, Iâve only ever played this game once. Iâve just invented it. Do people still blog?]
Interest is interesting. We canât escape it, we canât outrun it, and we canât thwart it. We just are interested. What if something doesnât hold our interest? Then our interest doesnât go anywhere. We do.
While we may behave differently from moment to moment, there is this kernel of us, a hard little nuclear bean of a self, a me-self, that is always acting almost exactly the same way, all the time, in every context.
There seem to be axioms. To put it in terms of ice cream: i) You can interest me-self in another flavor of ice cream, but not in disliking ice cream. ii) You can sneak it rotten ice cream, so that it wretches the night away and never again enjoys the taste of ice cream, but you cannot interest it in having that experience. iii) Finally, you cannot interest it in being less interested than it tends to be, overall. Interests may vary, but interest itself lacks mutability.
Thus I think the me-self is kind of neat. Each of ours is merely an arbitrary combo of interests, an internal compass that points us in a single unchanging constellation of random interesting directions.
Othersâ me-selvesâ personalities may nearly mirror ours, their intelligences may just about match, and they may even share roughly our same sexual orientations and everything--there are thousands if not millions of these âeach of usâ-es--and yet we all feel kind of alone within ourselves, stuck; which is probably where the ânearly,â the âjust about,â the âroughly,â etc., from the first half of this sentence comes in...
... [mind wanders a bit] ...
These (these what?) are just as much a part of me as I am, for all I can tell, since they, like me, never go away (from me?), but at the same time ...
At the very, very core of even that inner-most me-self...
Is yet another me-self. The part of me that cannot help but be interested, period. Not in any particular thing or direction. Just interested. Me is nothing if not interested. If you were to subtract interestedness from the equation, Iâd go vegetal.
This is truly the truest me-self. The me-selfâs me-self. Itâs where meaning at its purest and least specific comes from, for me, I think, almost...
Which leaves then only one last and final aspect of 'selfâ about me: myself, itself. Just the self. Neither the self that calls itself âselfâ, nor the self that that self addresses. Simply, the self. A flavorless, desiccated bean of me-ness that merely sits there and is me.
This is the last me-self, at last, and is made up of structural shit that otherwise has nothing to do with me. Goop and fiber and water and shit. A brain, I guess. The scaffolding that supports my existence but is not my existence.
And okay, I guess thereâs an argument to be made for there being, somewhere, some kind abstract logicky analog of myself, too, randomly and divinely written into soulless matter, whose complexity surpasses some special threshold and therefore âcomprisesâ me. This level of me-self is little more than a pattern of behaviors, a list of rules, an array of networks, a feedback loop, a network of feedback loops, etc.
And but then thatâs it. If I have to consider any aspect of my self less concrete than this, something like schizophrenia starts to kick in. And so hey, letâs back up a few layers, and letâs resume never thinking about this. Cool?
I didnât practice enough as a kid, so today Iâm a grown man who canât write poetry.  A teacher once taught me that poetry is supposed to say something ancient and familiar in a brand new and unfamiliar way, right? Well I canât write in a single unfamiliar way to save my life. Whenever I try, I feel stupid. I feel like Iâm fiddling around with an instrument I never learned how to play. Like, Iâm sorry if you thought I was about to pull off some sweet solo or something! Iâm not.
Future Merrick appears to be napping on Merrickâs couch when Merrick gets home.
 âYou can nap?â
 âApparently,â yawns the old ghost.
 âHey,â Merrick realizes, âyou came back!â
 âOh.  I was gone?â Future Merrick grabs his glasses, puts them on.
 âFor years!  I donâtâeven know how many.  Iâd have to go check.â
 âWeird.  Do you know where I was?â
 âNo.â
 âJesus,â Future Merrick sighs, noticing the state of his glasses. He takes off his glasses, peers at them through the light, and starts to wipe them clean.
 âWhere were you?â
 âOh, I have no idea.  I was napping.â  He fits his glasses back on and finally gives the thirty-year old standing across the room from him a proper look-over.  He spots the shiny new ring.  âHey, did you get married already?â
 âYou said something to me like âIt wasnât like this,â and then floated away out the window.  That was the last time I saw you.â
 Future Merrick nods, âI remember that, now you mention it.â
 Future Merrick sits up and lowers his wobbly old legs to the floor.  His left knee gives him grief.
 âWhat did you mean by ânot like thisâ?â Merrick still stands by the door.
 âI ... canât answer that.â
 âOh, Jesus, weâre back to that.â
 âHey, itâs not like Iâm lying.  I canât answer that.  I donât remember the answer.  âNot like this?â  Was I quoting The Matrix?  I do do that. Maybe I had something on my mind that day, and I said something dramatic, and I left all in a grump.â
 ââAll in a grump?â You left me alone in the present. For years I wondered I was living my life wrong.  You left me thinking I was living in, like, a rejected timeline or something. I thought my whole existence was, like, I donât know, but youâre telling me, years later, that that is not what you meant?â
 âIf it was, I donât remember.â  Future Merrick gives Merrick an unselfconscious look.  âLife after death is not less confusing.â
 Merrick suddenly wishes he could go home. He is home. But he wishes for something else, for some reason.
 âWhat is it like, being here?â he asks the ghost.
 âOh, Jesus, weâre back to that.â
 For a moment, itâs almost like Future Merrickâs not going to answer.  He never answers questions like these.  Future Merrick stands up and stretches and yawns, cracks his back, yawns again.
 âActually, okay. I can answer that.â  He looks glumly about the dusty, cluttered, lived-in apartment, and then back at Merrick.  âItâs like Iâm on some sort of weaponized trip.  Iâm re-hallucinating my own life. Myself has become its own inescapable little corner of reality.  At all times.  The trip wonât let up. Itâs all I can do not to wail for help. Does that startle you? I donât know how else to put it, otherwise, so sorry. I hope you just get what I mean.â The old ghost points at Merrick. âIâm the same thing you are.â
 âI donât get it.  Are you saying youâre, like, stuck? Purgatory style?â
 âMaybe. Not to be a bummer.â Future Merrick rubs up under his glasses. âI wouldnât say Iâm depressed, but everything feels a bit bleak, and is mildly,â he strains for the right word for a moment, then seems to settle for, âdepressing.â
 âFuck. What can we do?â
 Future Merrick chuckles sneezishly.  A little jet of snot actually spits out onto his upper lip.  He wipes it off, then wipes his hand off. Â
Merrick has the instinct to grab him a tissue, but what would be the use.
 âIs there anything I can do?â Merrick asks again.
 âProbably not,â Future Merrick grins oddly, âYou just keep doing you, and weâll be fine.â
 âIâll be fine, sure.  But you just told me youâre in purgatory.  And I am you.  So technically, arenât neither of us fine?â
 âIâm not sure.  Iâd say letâs go ahead and read some Borges on the matter. Iâm not sure it would help. But we should try.â
 âHas it always been like this?â
 Future Merrick confesses by way of silence.
 âOld ghost, I am you. You must trust me.  Why didnât you tell me this last time?â  Merrick plunks tiredly down onto the sofa. âYou just reappear, you donât know where youâve been at all, and now all of a sudden youâre telling me youâre depressed. I donât get why this is happening.â
 Future Merrick considers this.  âIâm sorry.  Iâm not sure why this time I feel likeââ he begins, but then.  His gaze fidgets to the young manâs wedding ring.
 Merrick looks down, too, then back at Future Merrick.
 âThe drug,â Future Merrick says strangely, âYou took the drug.â
 âWhat drug?â Merrick asks.
 âThe drug.â
 Thereâs some meaningful eye contact.
 âThat was a hallucination,â Merrick explains.  âI was panicking, and I hallucinated, and I came back from it and everything was okay.  I know for a fact it wasnât real.â
 âWe know for a fact,â corrects Future Merrick.
 Merrick opens his mouth to--
 Future Merrick floats over to the digital piano against the wall. The thing is new as of last week. It has mostly sat quiet.
 âWait, is this new?â he asks dreamily.
 âThereâs no way what youâre going through is as awful as how that drug was for me.  That was a bad experience.  I dreamed I was in hell. It was like Iâd been tricked into taking something very bad for me.  I really thought I was stuck in a loop where I was just always dying, already dead.  I thought Iâd died and gone to hell.â
 Future Merrick plays a lovely, soundless tune over the not-on keys.
 âBut for you, I mean, this is hardly hell, right? I like this apartment.  You were napping when I found you.  Itâs a nice summer day outside.  Iâm sitting here on a couch, Iâm patiently hearing you out and, like, Iâm empathizing with you, and like, I am you.  How am I a component of your purgatory?  Isnât purgatory supposed to suck? How can this be eternal damnation if thereâs still music and video games and--and Biga?â  The A/C suddenly, refreshingly comes on.  âI mean, the goddamn A/C is going!â
 Future Merrick just looks at him.  âCome and turn this on, wouldnât you?â
 Merrick canât resist when Future Merrick asks him to do things.  Itâs strange.  Heâs never known if magic were involved.  Up goes Merrick and on goes the piano, and then Merrick goes back to the couch.
 Future Merrick plays a special chord.
 Merrick sees it now. Â
The ghost then lilts through a tune Merrickâs never heard before, but recognizes.  Merrick kicks off his shoes and stretches his legs out on the couch. He counts seconds staring at his feet as he breathes. He takes a few very long slow breaths.
 âSo why come back?â Merrick wonders aloud.  âWhy now?â
 âI donât know.  Sorry.  But whatever I can do to help, you just let me know.â
 âWell, you remember this, right? Where weâre at right now? Back when you were me.â
 âHm,â says Future Merrick. He plays the chord again.
 Merrick winces. âDo you remember anything bad happening next?â
 Future Merrick fumbles the tune for a second, replays the last few notes slowly over and over, then gets it going again.  âI sort of remember ⊠everything.â
 âWhat?â Merrick stops focusing on his breathing to look at Future Merrick curiously.
 âI donât know.  Maybe nothing.  I might be making it up.â
 âJesus,â Merrick whimpers.  âJust kill me.â
 âWait,â Future Merrick says to him suddenly.  He stops playing for a second to look right at him.
 âWhat?â Merrick asks.
 âSomething bad does happen next.â
 âIâm listening.â
 "Listen,â hesitates the ghost, âItâs on its wayâŠâ
Merrick takes a single sharp breath. Â
Future Merrick shifts his weight. Â He furrows his crinkly brow. Â âListen,â he says, and squeezes out a dry trumpety old fart. Â Which he thinks is the funniest thing ever.
On a little balcony outside the managersâ office, Duane and Merrick are interrupted by a spider as it crawls along the railing Merrick is leaning on. Â Duane moves to kill it, but Merrick stops him. Â
âI got this,â Merrick says determinedly.
Merrick draws the last sip of lemon water from his employee cup and pops the lid off. Â He puts the lid and straw in one pocket of his apron and from another pulls out a dessert menu. Â He sets the mouth of the cup carefully onto the spiderâs path and rests its lip just in front of where the critter has stopped on the railing. Â Both Duane and Merrick wait a long moment to see if perhaps the spider will crawl in on its own. Â It does not. Â So Merrick enlists the dessert menu, gently nudging the spider once from behind toward the cup. Â The spider freaks out. Â And instead of going into the cup, it flees sideways, disappearing around the underside of the railing. Â Merrick flinches at the sudden disappearance and fumbles a haphazard attempt to capture the bug some other way. Â His cup clocks the railing. Â His dessert menu scrapes haplessly. Â The spider is long gone, having dropped away from the railing on an emergency thread.
 âWhereâd it go?â asks Duane. Merrick gives him a beleaguered look. Duane pretends not to notice. âOh well,â he chuckles.  âI commend you for trying.  Iâd have just killed it.â
 âProbably would have been a good idea.  What if a guest sees it now?  What if it crawls up onto someoneâs table?â
 âNah,â Duane says, his mind already venturing elsewhere.  âSpiders ainât like that.â
 He and Merrick bend over the railing and peer down at the bugâs descent.  Its long legs dangle carefully on its way down.  It drops in little starts and stops.
 âHey can I ask you a question?â Duane asks.
 âI love questions,â Merrick answers out of habit, but then tenses up when he realizes Duane is struggling to choose his next words.  Merrick for just a split second is distracted by how differently they are dressed.  Finally, the question.
 âWhy is it that you want to manage so badly?â
 Merrick groans reflexively. Itâs a question heâs asked himself so many times he almost forgets heâs standing in front of his boss as he hears it. Then he blinks, and he looks right at Duane.
 âI want to help.â
 âBut what does you managing help?â
 Merrickâs cheeks go pink.
 âWhat does me managing help?â Merrick repeats acidly.  Duaneâs eyes widen as he realizes he's said the wrong thing.
 âOh no, dude,â Duane soothes.  âThatâs not what I meant!  I didnât mean what does you managing help!â  He fusses with his watchband as he stammers out an apology.  âIâm sorry, man.â
 Merrick feels at his own wrist.  He canât wear a watch while heâs on the clock.  Biga gave him one for Christmas, and it matches his wedding ring, but he canât wear it.
 âWhat did you mean?â Merrick finally asks.
 âI just meant, like,â Duane gathers his next few thoughts into a big pile, squares them up, then sets to work carefully re-attempting to share them.  âI just meant that, like, I manage, and Iâm a âmanager,â but I donât feel like I âhelp.â  I feel like I try to help, but I donât feel like I help like how you seem to mean you want to.  I feel like I help individuals sometimes, sure.  I help insofar as I am, like, a helpful sort of guy.  But itâs not as if before I came here the other managers badly needed my help.  I only help insofar as itâs my job to help and because I find it easy to be helpful.  Iâm not the kind of help you, like, need.  And like with you, if I say itâs not necessarily like we need you, itâs not because Iâm some proud callous asshole whoâs made this sweeping judgment about your utility, itâs me relating and saying, like, maybe youâre just not seeing this like how you see it once you become a manager.  You know?â
 âNo,â Merrick answers thinly.  He shakes his head a moment, closes his eyes.  Then he comes back.
 âActually yes,â Merrick answers.  âSorry, I do know. You feel helpless.  Even though you help so much, you feel like you donât really help.  So why would I want that for myself?  Right?  Like youâre asking, why canât I just see how pointless it is to want to âhelp?ââ  Merrick mimics Duaneâs air quotes.  âYouâre trying to protect me.â
âI guess? Â I might be. Â I donât know.â
âWell, fuck you, man.  I respect you, I like you, we get each other.  But when I say, âI want to help,â you must know I mean it.  I appreciate you checking my moors, to see if maybe Iâm deluded.  I see how thatâs kind of your way of worrying about me. But I also see it as you projecting, big-time, your own feelings of helplessness in this stressful ... monotonous ... banalâsorryâI mean, like, donât you feel like you need help?  Donât you really, though?  Canât you admit that?  You are helpful and kind, and you undersell yourself if you think the other managers donât need you for that, but everything youâve just told me tells me ⊠when no oneâs around, and itâs just you, donât you whimper quietly to yourself that you wish you had help?â
Duane doesnât answer, but he does look at Merrick in a strange way.
âYouâve fallen for the wrong worldview, Duane. I do, too, sometimes. Â I forget everybody hereâs wrong, sometimes. Â The monkey in me is fooled, I guess, by the other monkeys all thinking the same thing together. Â But I just have to close my eyes and shake my stupid monkey head and forcibly remember the real truth.â Â Merrick does this as he speaks, in slow-motion like heâs showing Duane how to do it. Â Then he opens his eyes again and looks right at him.
 âYou bring something the other managers canât.  And each of them does, too, their own thing.  But none of you sees yourselves like this, or if you do then youâre only half-looking.  If you do, you only barely acknowledge the pretty part of the picture, and instead obsess over the ugly part.  You spend the vast majority of your time contemplating the unique ways in which each of you will never fit the role of manager, yourselves included.  You meditate on reasons not to admire the others and yourself. You talk friendly to each otherâs faces, but privately resent each other.  And yourself. Â
âDuane, you suck, is a thing I admit I sometimes say."
âMe too, if weâre being honest.  None of you will ever become the best.  No one ever does that.  The best managers donât exist.  And what few who come close do didnât become the way they are, they just are themselves.  Sure they had to learn some stuff along the way, fuck up here and there, but the hardest things come somehow naturally to them.  And when they fuck up, they fuck up better than you or me or anyone else.  And you know what? Fuck âem!  If we had that person on our team, great, thatâd be great.  But we donât.  We are an embittered team of misunderstood failures.  And we need to start acting like one!   Or I mean, you guys do, sorry.â
Duane clearly doesnât mind.
âAs weird as it sounds,â Merrick continues, âYouâve got to quit telling yourselves you can all get better. The trick to actually doing better is to be honest with yourselves and admit that you will never get better.  Though I wonât say thereâs no such thing as the perfect manager, I will say you will never be it.  Far easier to become, if youâd just learn to be comfortable with yourselves, is the perfect team of managers.  The perfect stable of talent and weakness, with everyone doing what theyâre best at, and no one doing what theyâre worst at.  The perfect combination of imperfect managers.â
 Merrick and Duane have at some point relocated to Duaneâs car.  Merrick talks in the front seat while Duane takes random turns through a neighborhood, listening.  When Merrick finishes his last thought, he takes to staring off into space.  Duane gets him going again.
 âBut so what is the perfect combination, then?  Have you actually read about this or are you just, like, free-styling here?â
 âIâm doing both,â Merrick nods. âIâm sort of tinkering, here, I admit, but nothing Iâm saying isnât supported by good science.  Forgive me for not citing my sources, but if it helps I can name some reputable ones:  BBC, NPR, Yale, an old textââ
 âI donât need your bibliography. Just tell me what you think our management team needs to be perfect, or whatever.  Is this where youâre saying you come in?  Do you complete us?â
 âCome on,â Merrick says. âI donât know.  I know I could at least bring this new way of looking at things. Or I could share my framework, or something, I guess?  I donât know!â
âDonât doubt yourself now, Merrick!â Duane chides, somewhat distractedly as he makes a left turn through a stop sign. Â Merrick canât tell if Duane totally believes in him, but assumes the best and continues.
 âOK, let me see if I can put this the right way.  So I see it as youâve got this managerial ideal you each aspire to, like I said. And itâs made you resentful of each other, because you see each other as falling short.  And each of you does fall short.  But none of you talks about it, because itâd be just the worst thing ever to drag this out into the open now, so late in the game.  But thatâs exactly what Iâm saying you gotta do.  You all gotta stop seeing yourselves as a random group of incomplete managers.  You need to know when to pass each other the ball.  Which I mean, means you need to know when to be humble.  You need to know when Brittany could do something better than you, and then let her handle it, and she needs to be cool with letting you do this.  Your team needs to let you not do things you canât handle.  And you need to let your teammates not do things you can handle especially well.  There has to be that tolerance, that mercy, that respect, all at once, all the time.  Basic teamwork buzzwords, I know, but they do matter.â
 âThey do,â Duane agrees.
 And now for just a second Merrick remembers he is alone at his computer, typing this all up into Microsoft Word.  Duane is at work, managing another Meatball Monday.  Neither has spoken to the other much lately.  Merrick misses Duane, or at least this version of him heâs talking to now.
 âDo you mind if I hit this?â Merrick asks, pulling his own private pipe inexplicably out of Duaneâs glove compartment.
 âOnly if you promise to share,â Duane says.  Merrick acquiesces.
 Through a lungful of smoke, he grunts, âDo.  You. Get.  What Iâm saying?â
 Duane gives him the hold on a sec finger and takes his own deep hit.  Then he holds it a sec, makes a sickly faceânothing to worry about, itâs the face he always makesâand finally exhales a tremendous plume of yellowy smoke.
 âYou mean Voltron.â
 âEh?â
 âVoltron.  You mean we are the Thundercats but we havenât we realized we can turn into Voltron.â
 âOh!  Yeah, I guess thatâs what I mean.â
 âBut youâre saying weâre missing a Thundercat?  Our Voltron doesnât have a head?  And youâre that Thundercat?â
 âIâm not saying Iâm the head, or even that Iâm a Thundercat.  Iâm saying Iâve seen Thundercats, though, and studied the show inside and out, and can maybe help you guys discover how to, like, form Voltron. This ⊠metaphorâs a little too perfect.â
 âIâm thinking youâre a Thundercat, dude.  Youâre the long-lost Thundercat who, in our darkest hour, we refuse to admit we need. But who will save us.â
 âIf you say so, Duane.â
 âI SAY SO.  And Iâm your boss.â
âAye, captain. Â Well hey, thanks for the endorsement. Â Now if only your opinion meant shit to the other managers. Â To that goddamn sociopath.â
 âHe is seeing a licensed cognitive behavioral therapist.â
 âAnd he doesnât give a shit about me.â
 âHe does, too.  In his way.â
 âWell, whatever.  Heâs flawed, which is fine.  Heâs just part of an uncoordinated group of mecha-lions. But whatâs not fine,â Merrick sighs heavily, really, painfully, âIs this.â
 âWhat?  Wait, whatâs âthis?ââ
 âThis, I mean,â says Merrick, pointing at the car, the road, the pipe in his own hands.  âIâm alone in my apartment, Bigaâs in bed, itâs almost midnight, and none of what you think is happening right now is happening.â
 âOh come on,â Duane scoffs. âYou really think that matters?â
 âIt feels like it does.â
 âI tell you what.  Next time I see The Sociopath, Iâll tell him what you told me.â
 âNO.  DONâT.â
 âNaw, naw, I will.  He and I are cool.  Iâll tell him the Voltron thing.  Iâll tell him youâre a Thundercat, and that we need you to complete our Voltron.â
 âIâm not a Thundercat.â
 âYou know you are. You think youâre not one, which is what makes you the coolest one of all.â
 âThatâs such a ham-fisted trope.â
 âItâs the ham-fisted truth, my brother.  Listen to me. I donât care that this isnât real. I donât care!  I like the way this is just fine, just like I like you.  You can sit in your little smoke-cloud of misery and self-pity and, like, imagining that me not literally being with you means youâre painfully and incurably alone, but know this.  You are not incurably alone.  I still exist.  We will reunite some day.  I am your friend and it is my solemn duty to do that.  I know we havenât spoken in awhile.  I know Iâm gone, to you, vanished past the far bank of some river you think is a promotion, and that we havenât talked in way too long, but I will talk to you again someday.  I am your friend.  I do say nice things about you to The Sociopath.  Youâre right, I canât actually tell him any of the things youâve told me today, but know that if I could, I would.  I do it in spirit.  Sort of. IâI, like âŠâ
 And Merrick loses the train of thought.  Duaneâs face kind of ceases to mean, his mannerisms become false, and for a moment Merrick resumes feeling like heâs talking to himself.
 He closes his eyes. He shakes his stupid monkey head.
Just ask a comedian!  Sometimes, you bomb.  That doesnât mean you didnât know your audience.  It means that you didnât know one audience; or more charitably, that one audience didnât know you.  Next week youâll play a gig in Boston and tear the house down.  The week after that youâll kill it again in Dallas.  What awaits you in Omaha?  Who knows!  Maybe youâll bomb!  Especially when youâre just starting out, and canât be choosy with your venues.  Youâll probably bomb.
And now I admit, âknow your audienceâ is shit advice from the mouths of most who give it. Â But it can be good advice. Â Here, let me show you.
Disgruntled worker trying in countless different ways to make your plight heard, donât beat your head against a wall trying to sway an audience who simply doesnât like you.  Sure, in a democracy this is healthy, communicative behavior!  But in the workplace where you probably work, only a single ideology reigns, in which case reaching across the aisle is an exercise in futility.  A noble exercise!  But a futile one.  If the ruling ideology is against you, then hear you this:  fuck off.  Go elsewhere.  Go someplace where the people in charge feel the same way about the people in charge as you do.  That urge you have to influence positive change is not immune to burnout, so donât let it suffer too long or too intensely.  Know your audience.  And then go work for them, instead.
But wait, what cowardice is this?  Just back down from malignance like that?  But what of our poor comrades who stay on after we go, and continue to suffer under the ruling ideology; who if anything work in an even worse place now that their number is one voice quieter?
They should fuck off, too!
Itâs not cowardice to walk away from a fight you know you cannot win.  Anyone whoâs played a jRPG knows this.  Itâs a beleaguered morsel of wisdom gleaned from painful life experiences, difficult video games, and modern research into the nature of group-think.  Bothering people who arenât like you even when you know youâre right is, technically, just being a bother.  You can win the fight to make the good things happen (i.e., make the audience laugh), but you canât do that just anywhere and everywhere.  Someone, somewhere, will hate you.  So donât go working at their business and then telling them they need to change.  Nobody changes.  Thatâs not how problems get solved.  Circumstances are changed so that the people in them may better suit them.  Whatever that means in any given scenario, thatâs how problems get solved.
But what cynicism! Â What hopelessness!
No, dude, listen. Â I also like hope. Â But hope without truth is all fat and no meat. Â
People are different from each other, and they tend to be different from each other in groups.  Even in an utopian society where peace reigns, the tolerant will tend to segregate themselves from the intolerant.  Intolerance, in those who are born with it, is a facet of something subconscious, genetic, and pervasive across contexts.  It can be challenged and overcome on a case by case basis, but never cured altogether.  Our species will for all intents and purposes always be approximately 1/2 intolerant.
So cheer up! Â This bleak but very probably true outlook is useful. Â It means you are free to go. Â You live in a time when like-minded people are able to cluster relatively easily. Â We are stuck in a never-ending cycle, where sometimes good prevails, and sometimes evil. Â Communicating is important but on a grand scale, not on the kind of scale where you walk into your bossâs office and tell them off for not stocking the first-aid cabinet with the good kind of band-aids. Â All you can ever hope to do, especially if you really want to make a difference, is side with good. Â And applied to your career, that means: Â go work for the good guys. Â The bad guys will always be the bad guys. Â Fuck them!
Go find your audience. Â Youâll know them when you see them.
(Note: Â They might be super, duper hard to find. Â You cool with that? Â Sorry in advance.)
Are you 100% sure passive aggression is objectively real?
Wikipedia says PA âis the indirect expression of hostility.â Â I like that just fine, and so do you. Â But now letâs break it down, just in case weâre missing something.
First off, "indirect expressionâ can be taken to mean anything except direct expression.  Wikipedia gives us examples of indirect hostility such as, âprocrastination, stubbornness, [and] sullen behavior.â  Note the trends here of noncompliance, delay, and non-verbal confrontation.  Googling âpassive aggressionâ also gives us this cute visual summary.
There are also decades of commentary on PA, dating back to World War II and Col. Menningerâs research into what he perceived as âimmaturityâ among certain noncompliant cadets. Â
Clinical opinion on the matter seems to have fluctuated over the past 70-odd years.  Early attempts to explain PA saw it as âstem[ming] from a childhood stimulus,â qua Freud and his nurturist framework.  Then came the behaviorist movement of the 1950s, during which the definition of PA narrowed significantly and became coupled with âpassive-dependencyâ (today, Dependent Personality Disorder).  Later, in the age of the popular psychologist and the ensuing bevy of ânew ageâ diagnoses, came Millon, who insisted that PA was its own personality disorder--to which Iâd provide a link, but here Wikipedia just circles back to the PA article.  Eventually, passive aggression (or Millonâs ânegavitismâ) was relegated to the appendix of the DSM-IV, and by the DSM-V it was gone completely.
Where did it go? Â Why, to that place that all scientifically unfounded theories in psychology go when they die! Â Common parlance.
And now, in answer to that, hereâs my take on what PA really is.
Passive aggression is entirely subjective, and rests chiefly on hostile or apathetic misinterpretations of passive (read: Â conflict-averse, cooperation-oriented) attempts at communicating grievances, especially with someone who is themselves hostile or apathetic. Â How often do you see belligerent assholes engage in passive aggression with sweet kindly folk? Â Zero often, yes? Â And now how often do you see the inverse?
If youâll humor me for a second, letâs consider one of the chief causes of Dependent Personality Disorder, which would seem to be a pathologically high score in trait Agreeableness.  (I say âseem toâ because the DSM still for whatever reason refuses to incorporate findings from explicitly pertinent FFM research.)  Agreeableness is a lovely, angelic trait, roundly appreciated in every human culture known to science.  But at too high a level, and constellated with high Neuroticism and certain socially needy facets of Extraversion, Agreeableness can begin to interfere with a personâs quality of life.  Think of the pushover, the sycophant, or the apologist.  Think of too much of a good thing.  Think of nice guys finishing last.
Now, to be clear, Iâm not equating PA to DPD. Â Healthy, non-disorderly people engage in PA everyday! Â Instead, Iâm simply trying to highlight that PA is a defining behavior of a disorder whose defining trait is Agreeableness. Â Which is where we proceed at last to my main point.
I would argue that PA is actually, simply, the Agreeable personâs trademark approach to conflict, and that the label of âpassive aggressionâ is one only ever administered by their antagonists. Â PA is not in and of itself maladaptive. Â In fact, itâs almost indistinguishable from the very kinds of peaceful resistance we tend historically to laud. Â Rosa Parks, for instance, in refusing to get up from her seat could have easily been mislabeled as a passive aggressor. Â (And indeed, she was given a $10 fine for violation of city ordinance.)
The kind are greedily and coldly misunderstood by the unkind. Â Just as easily, like Dr. King and Ms. Parks, are they underestimated. Â Empathy and altruism, cooperation and trust, these things look to the Disagreeable like holier-than-thou-ness and naivety, like pure foolishness, because Disagreeable people struggle for veracity when attempting to project their own self-interest onto the un-self-interested motives of others. Â
To the reader, whichever way you fall, I say open your eyes and ears. Â Appreciate the angsty little post-its for what they are: Â invitations to peaceful debate. Â Passive aggression is not pussyfooting. Â It is none other than the gracefulâs attempt at letting the graceless know when they have stepped out of line.
Step One:  Admit that you misjudge people. Oh, you donât?  Okay, then tell me what the Big Five personality traits are off the top of your head.  Thereâs only the five, and yes, Introversion/Extraversion is one of them.  But can you name the other four?  If you canât, if you havenât learned about the Big Five, then youâre operating without a legit model, and youâre winging it when it comes to âjudgingâ people.
Step Two:  Learn the Big Five model of personality.  Itâs powerful simple.  No, it wonât grant you magic powers, it wonât turn you into a high-functioning sociopath, and it definitely wonât net you that promotion youâve been passed over for again and again.  But it will give you merciful perspective, tidy up some of the guesswork youâve been doing, and over the course of months open your eyes to the full, heartbreaking scale of just how inaccurate the gossip around you tends to be.  In other words, itâll seriously up your gossip game.  (Sorry about that promotion, by the way.)
Step Three:  Ask people personal questions. Youâre trying to quit judging books by their covers, which means youâre going to need to start reading them instead.  Donât fret!  Reading people is way quicker and easier than reading books.  It taps into much older, more reliable equipment in our social monkey brains.  Simply hand the person a banana, start rubbing their back, and then ask them why they left their last job, or what it was that was bothering them the other day, or what their favorite _____ ever is.  Really, once you get used to noticing the Big Five, youâll discover that not only do personalities suck at hiding, they actually prefer being out in the open eating bananas and getting back rubs.
Step Four:  Take note of their defining trait(s).  Even though our personality traits are measured against population averages, no one scores averagely across the board on all five traits.  You just donât see it.  Instead, what most everyone has is at least one Big Five trait that they score noticeably high or low on.  (Though gosh, if you ever do meet someone who hasnât got a single interesting trait, and I admit it is technically feasible, then please tell me, because I have been hoping for years to interview a perfectly average person!)  Anyway, knowing the defining trait of an individual gives you a solid base on which to build the rest of your "judgmentâ theory.  It gives you an anchorpoint.  It starts your theory off small but reliable.
Step Five:  Please, accept mystery.  Despite your best intentions, you wonât be able to figure out any one personâs entire personality.  Those average trait scores, and we all have them, tend to throw us for loops.  Sometimes we act one way, sometimes we act the other, so which is it?  Which is "us?â  Our social monkey brains were built to tolerate these mysteries with relative ease, but only by taking advantage of our brainsâ phenomenal capacity for ignorance.  So having not to ignore these indiscernible traits, and puzzle over them instead, is hard work.  Like, think about someone you know who you donât know for sure if theyâre introverted or extroverted.  Got someone in mind?  Now, ask yourself, how often do you think about that you donât know for sure whether this person is introverted or extraverted?  And there you have my point.  Seldom to never, right?  Instead, you probably define them by some other much more meaningful trait--that theyâre an asshole, or a genius, or a tool--and just straight-up donât even worry about how eager they are to stay in or go out on weekends.
Step Six: Â Peer review. Â As wrong as laymen plebes tend to be, itâs still worthwhile to compare notes with others from time to time. Â Yes, this is technically an endorsement of gossip, but itâs also ancient behavior that serves a vital social purpose. Â Plus, thereâs nothing saying you canât compare notes with the people youâre judging, themselves. Â You just have to be careful, is all. Â In particular, most folks donât like to identify as Close-minded; for that one, you either have to word things in a tricky way, like try to come in sneaky-like, or else simply observe carefully and be ready to know it when you see it. Â With the occasional tricky exception, you can ultimately stand only to improve your theory of a personâs personality by testing the strength of yours against theirs and othersâ. Â This kind of shit is the backbone of science. Â And thatâs really all my advice boils down to. Â If you wind up practicing only one of these nine steps, let it be this one.
Step Seven:  Note the effects of stress on personality!  Woo, doggy.  Hereâs where the vast number of misjudgments come from.  Stress has a way of magnifying low trait scores, and temporarily depressing average scores, and generally really bringing out the worst in all of us.  Assholes become hazards, introverts disappear into themselves, and neurotic types get downright ugly (stress ainât their thing).  And when this happens, our instinct is to say, âThis person is exhibiting a meaningful behavior, such as lying to protect themselves from shame, or starving themselves of social contact, or playing the RESPECT MY AUTHORITY card to keep control of a panicky situation, and this decisive behavior pings hard on my social monkey personality theory clue collection radar.â  Ah-HA!, our inner monkeys think, such extreme behaviors can only be indicative of Low Agreeableness, Introversion, and Close-mindedness respectively! And in the absence of stress, weâd be right.  But stress is a meaningful confound!  Youâll see.  Whenever you go around âcomparing notesâ (see Step 6) with plebes, and find a mismatch, the reason will almost always be stress.  One of you or the other (probably the other) will have likely caught that person on a bad day, and let them make a terrible impression on you.  Just ask, if someoneâs theory differs from yours in a negative or cynical way:  was their subject by any chance having kind of a bad day?  Even if you hate someoneâs guts and/or totally donât understand them, itâs still easy to tell if they are having a good or bad day.  (Aside: I say âeasy to tell,â but then depression can hide just as easily, so, like, actually the assessment stays kind of a nice meaty challenge throughout.  Maybe that can be a whole ânother How To, is telling/predicting whether someone is secretly depressed.  Itâs easier than you think!  And harder, much harder.  Next time...)
Step Eight:  Take pity on those who misbehave out of stress.  Because though we all misbehave differently, we all misbehave. Whatever stupid thing really grinds your gears, is to someone else just as bad as whatever stupid thing it is you do that youâre not proud of.  That should be pretty self-explanatory.  Iâll leave this step short to account for the previous rambler.
Step Nine: Â Judge the rest accordingly. Â This one Iâll keep even shorter.
And tempted though I am to keep adding steps and adding steps, truth be told theyâd only start to drift past the goal of Non-Misjudgment.  What weâve got for now is a decent first pass!  Hope it serves us somewhat well.  Thanks for reading.
The incredible young cook and local celebrity, Chef Ali, has a secret.
Aliâs parents, close friends, and relatives back in Japan think she perished in a horrific school shooting perpetrated by her brother--who is actually dead, having not survived the incident. Â The truth is she deliberately switched uniforms with one of the girls who was murdered (beyond all recognition) and then fled to America to start a new life. Â The real dead girlâs family doesnât know what happened to their little angel, and though the search for her went cold years ago, those once closest to her cling forever to the hope that she might still be out there, hiding somewhere, getting by, perhaps using a secret identity, recovering from the trauma, preparing herself psychologically to come back home someday and have to explain herself. Â Although she was only a preschooler at the time, Ali knew few would guess the truth. Â She made a clean, easy break and never looked back.
Each year since her arrival, she has flown into Atlanta, picked a random flight to get onto, and then sneaked aboard using forgery (she is a superlative talent), sleight of hand, and where these have occasionally failed her, charm. Â Everytime she touches down, she sets in motion the usual rigamarole of contacting the local foreign exchange student program, pleading her (completely fictional) case, arranging for the soonest possible host family (invariably a loving, highly conscientious family who has recently sent home their own previous foreign exchange student) and then letting herself be whisked away to her newest temporary âhome,â oftentimes that same day. Â
Once situated, Ali invariably endears herself to the new host family, becoming no less than their favorite student. Â She has never failed at this, possibly because sheâs a genius, or possibly because she always seems to find herself adopted by the same kinds of people: Â considerate, open-minded, friendly, etc. Â Whatever the case, she wins. Â Wherever there is the occasional asshole in the family, she gets by on pacifism and diplomacy.
Though it is difficult with Morrie. Â Uncommonly difficult.
Anyway. Â She has a special place in her heart for the Atlanta International Airport. Â Good old Hartsfield-Jackson. Â She sometimes has dreams where sheâs there, and theyâre never the stressful kind. Â She walks up to the screens with all the flights listed on them. Â She closes her eyes. Â She closes her eyes in the dream and imagines.
Every manager sucks dude. Every manager. Â FUCKING. Â Sucks.
No dude, listen. Â Iâve had some good ones.
No man. Â Cause listen. Â You cannot tell me even the good ones didnât suck SOMEtimes. Â At least SOME of the fucking time. Â Just every once in awhile, just like WHOOPS, they sucked.
No dude! Â For real! Â I had this one manager whoâ
No, no, man. Â No. Â Youâre missing it. Â Youâre not hearing me. Â Whatever youâre about to tell me, whoever it was, they sucked too. Â They sucked SOMEhow. Â Like they ALWAYS do, at least a little bit.
Well then, like, WHY man? Like what is it that you donât like about your managers?
What donât I LIKE? Â Itâs not that I donât LIKE them. Â You donât have to put it like that, itâs not like I donât LIKE them, itâs just that I recognize that they all kind of suck.
Dude. Â Thatâs just it, what if they DONâT?
They DO. Â And you know why?
NO man, likeâyou donât even know this guy I worked for, he fuckingâ
Jerked you off every day and told you âGood Jobâ afterwards? Â Whatever, I get it, butâ
The fuck?
âstill the point is, at the end of the day, he probably wasnât also someone you were super eager to like hang OUT with.
Actually dude, this dude and I, we sometimes likeâ
Jerked each other off and then fucking high-fived afterwards? I GET IT but then the next day you went back to your jobs and he kinda SUCKED and now, wait hear me out, cause now hereâs my pointâ
Dude for real though, do you like LIKE to imagine me getting jerked off?
Yes.  My point being though.  My point being.  That you then go both, you go both of you, you, FUCK, you go off and you do your damn jobs or whatever and then both of you at least SOME of the TIME ⊠suck!  Right?  LIke you know what I mean?
I suck?
No, or god, I mean YES, but like so, LISTEN, so okay, so most of the time youâre fucking fine, sure, you do your job great and you do a good job, but then SOME OF THE TIME? Â Like, SOME of the time? Youâre tired or whatever, or youâre angry, or youâre just feeling fucked over, and so you do something on purpose that SUCKS because FUCK it, right? Â Because in that moment, itâs likeâ
Well, yeah, but dude okay, that happens to everybody.
Exactly! Â In that moment, you suck. Â I suck. Â We all suck!
⊠Well, okay.  But wait.  Soâ
And so do the mangers!  Thatâs all Iâm saying!  We gotta get out of our heads that we donât ALL kind of suck some of the time!  I mean, some of the worst managers Iâve ever had were the ones who supposedly NEVER sucked, right?  Because what that meant, all that really meant was, they just didnât  TALK about it or let anyone TELL them about it, how they sucked, like nobody ever confronted them about the exact way in which they sucked.  Because they would neverâve had to admit to it anyway!  Like they were so fucking peachy that no one EVER confronted them about their mistakes or else when they did it was so weird and like out of place that they like, that like all the manger had to do was be all entitled to be like, just like:  no one else seems to think that way!  It just becomes their whole fucking shtick, is how they DONâT suck, and but yet they still did!  At least a little bit of the time!  Like, if it lets them get off the hook SOME of the time, ALL of the time, you know, you can have a real serious PROBLEM there, you know? You get what I mean?  They can still SUPER suck, as long as theyâre consistent?  Itâs just fucking, fucking, like theyâ
Dude youâre rambling.
Like they, dude HEY, did you get that? Â Let me just fuckingâ
Nah, dude, listenâ
Let me just, let me just, what was I even saying?
Dude, listen.
FUCK. Â What was I about to say?
Listen. Â So I got a question for you.
You totally just knocked that thought right out of my fucking head.
Man, let me just ask you this.
WHAT.
Why you gotta be like that?
Just WHAT.
No, like, why you gotta BE like that? Â Why you gotta be like, the only guy who, like, tells the one good boss when theyâre fucking up? Â Whatâs the good in that?
Dude I donât! Â Youâre missing my whole point!
You just SAID how you were, likeâ!
No, that was just, I mean, itâs not like we should just randomly tell these people they suck for no good fucking REASON, but itâs when these supposedly great bosses, like SUPPOSEDLY great now, can get to where they like, fucking okay, only SOMETIMES make mistakes, right, but then they never perfectly own up to it, and so say itâs in like this really systemic, like FUCKED UP way, becauseâ
Whoa, waitâ
So that every time they fuck up itâs in the same small little who gives a fuck way, but itâs this needly little way, and itâs like enough to do a lot of damage if itâs done at the wrong time at the wrong place every single time, RIGHT?
But dude like REALLY? You really think theyâre doing this shit where they like by just occasionally fucking up theyâre the reason the whole thing is going bad? Â Like how does that even make sense?
It ... doesnât, to be perfectly honest with youâ
I KNOW right? Â But thatâs what I MEAN dude, thatâs howâ
I wasnât agreeing with you.
What?
You werenât making any sense.
What, just now?
You were saying something before, and you were saying like does that make sense, and I was like no it doesnât, because it didnât make sense, what you were saying.
But thatâs notâwhat was I even saying?
I canât SAY.
Fuck. Â DUDE. Â I hate when you pull this shit man.
Sorry man. Â Youâre just too fucking high for me.
You are too motherfucker! I was just fuckingâ
We are just two high ass motherfuckers.
Haha, okay, thatâs true. Â Okay.
Itâs like whatever man.
Whatever. Â Right.
But so you get why I say every manager sucks, right? Â Itâs because we all suck. Right? Â We all suck. Â Thatâs all Iâm saying.
I do wish we could say âevery manager sucksâ at work and not, like, get in trouble for it.
RIGHT? Â God thatâd be so great. Â But you could NEVER say that.
Youâd be fired so fast.
Youâd be 86 the next day.
Yeah man. Â Fuck that shit man.
Fuck that shit.
Yeah. Â Hey. Â So. Â Hey, yeah man, I think Iâm done for the night.
Yeah?
Yeah, I think Iâm, I think Iâm feeling it. Â Pretty good.
You feeling the call of the beast?
Iâm feeling the call of the beast man. Iâm feeling the roar.
Yeah, feel the roar. Â You go do you man. Â You get out of here.
I believe I will, sir, thank you.
Aw donât mention it, bro! Â And bro, listen, for real? Â Iâm glad when we have these talks, you know?
Me too manâ
Like even if it gets, like, you know, to where weâre like both like ACK, you know, still, itâs likeâ
I know man. Â Me too. Â Itâs been great.
Cool dude.
Oh hey, you working tomorrow?
No, Iâm off tomorrow dude.
Oh. Â Work Wednesday?
I work Wednesday lunch.
Well, I open dinner man, so Iâll see you there.
For like a second?
Yeah. Â But stillâ
Iâll see you there buddy.
Yeah good night man. Â Letâs hang again soon.
Bye. Â
âŠ
Oh, hey. Â HEY. Â YOU FORGOT YOUR BOTTLE.
WHAT?
YOU FORGOT. Â YOUR BOTTLE.
OH SHIT. Â
...
Sorry man. Â Hey thanks.
You got to have your bottle.
This goddamn thing. Â Iâm totally gonna lose this someday.
You just about did man. Thatâs a nice bottle.
Yeah, ha. Â Thanks again bro. Â You have a good night.
Dear artist, come and sit beside me, that I may speak quietly.
There are two types of remembrance, my child: Â those that occur on purpose, which we would tend to characterize as vague, fragmentary, and meditative; and those that occur all of a sudden, spontaneously, by accident, and which we longingly describe as vivid, exquisite, and all-too-brief.
Listen closely, now. Â I have made one point for you, that I may now make another far more urgent one--one that having occurred to me out of the blue, quite vividly and exquisitely, I am delighted to impart.
Art made on purpose is vague, fragmentary, and meditative. Â It can be good, but like anything done for a deadline or a paycheck or to satisfy a formless craving to make art, it feels artisanal rather than inspired. Â Art made all of a sudden, spontaneously, and by âaccident,â by comparison, is noticeably more intense. Â It captures the one magical thing only art can. Â
(All attempts to replicate it fail in some way.  And just as it canât be replicated, neither can it be resuscitated.  Failure to reach a canvas before a great idea fades can mean irrevocable loss.  Those lucky artists who do manage to capture it tend, years later, not to feel proud so much as embarrassed by their current inferiority to their own past self.  They worry that theyâll never capture the muse again.)
And there, just like that, Iâve made my point. Â You can go now, child. Â Donât reflect too much on what Iâve said, or youâll wear away its luster. Â Think on it just long enough to remember it, and then let it go. Â With any luck, I will return to you someday, like a bolt from the blue, vivid and exquisite, good as new--or as new as you care to recall me. Â With any luck. Â Go now. Â Itâs okay.
1 - A person who buys goods or services from a shop or business.
2 - (with adjective) A person of a specified kind with whom one has to deal.
The customer comes first. Â Great and terrible companies alike respect this axiom. Â The restaurant where Duane now manages Merrick is one such company. Â The customer always comes first.
Once upon a time, Duane and Merrick used to get high together after work and play video games on the couch in Merrickâs apartment. Â Merrick knows Duaneâs glass pipeâs name. Â Duane knows Merrickâs, too.
It hadnât been all that glorious or anything, their friendship, as it had occurred inevitably and unintentionally, the juxtaposition of two ego-damaged stoners each seeking respite in the otherâs non-judgment, but now in hindsight it glowed.
Merrick and Duane donât play video games together anymore. Â They donât even go out for drinks. Â Merrick is Duaneâs employee. Â The last time they drank together was at the company barbecue, and then only technically. Â Both remember the other being there only vaguely.
Merrick doesnât tell his coworkers Duane smokes pot. Â He likes Duane too much. Â The rumors might hurt him. Â But he doesnât like Duane enough to be happy working for him. Â To be underneath Duane at this awful restaurant. Â Every day he feels repulsed by work, by Duane, by his having to drive in the direction he has to drive to go to work.
Duane hates the restaurant, too, but for different reasons.
Merrick doesnât care about Duaneâs reasons. Â Duaneâs reasons are small and impersonal compared to Merrickâs, and probably just the blindered results of too much work and too little video games. Â Duane works harder than Merrick has ever known Duane to be comfortable working. Â It is likely getting to him.
Merrick feels mistreated and unheard at the restaurant. Â He is aware that others also feel similarly. Â It isnât just Duaneâs being there that repulses him (and indeed the others donât seem to mind Duane at all; he is roundly well-liked, at least as far as managers go). Â No, the repulsion comes from something more specifically awful, but less specific in general. Â Merrick and the others just feel completely miserable on an increasingly regular basis while going to work. Â Some even feel miserable while theyâre there, and in fact itâs like they take turns.
Tonight was Merrickâs turn. Â After finishing his side work and clocking out, he leaves quickly and hideously. Â As he crosses a windy street to his car, his hair gets blown all out of whack, and totally uncharacteristically of Merrick, he does not try to fix it. Â The product in his hair holds the tousle, keeps its furiously windswept even after the wind dies down, and although it bounces and shifts a little with each step as he clomps down the sidewalk, changes somewhat, Merrick lets it. Â
He ducks into a nice long alley between the bank and the post office. Â Here it is quiet and lonely. Â Partway through the alley, his rage falters, shudders, and then shrivels suddenly and dramatically. Â It becomes grief. Â Merrick is momentarily awash in self-pity. Â You may avert your gaze.
Meanwhile consider this.  Servers are customers, too.  Servers are customers of the restaurants that employ them.  Quick, easy money is the good for sale, and all one has to do in exchange for this excellent product is learn a menu, memorize some table numbers, and figure out who not to piss off (and then not piss them off).  Whether restaurants like it or not, they must compete with each other for servers just as they would for diners.  If the service community finds out a certain restaurant is a terrible place to work, and be assured this is the first thing any of them talks about when they meet in the wild, then that restaurant suffers just as badly as if its food and hospitality were lacking.  Subsequently, turnover among the service staff takes its own toll, and hospitality does indeed decline.  The loss of a crucial customer base leads to the loss of another.Â
Like it or not, the happiness of those yawning, leaning, grumbling mercenaries pretending nice out on your dining room floor for cash are also dire to your companyâs survival. Â The emotional oaf trudging back to his car is not just some malignant idiot, though he can be that at times. Â Worse, he is reasonable, and so all the more dangerous.
Those tears look stupid because Merrick himself knows they look stupid. Â He knows itâs stupid for a server to break down on his way back to his car. Â There is no earthly reason, given the events of the night, that this particular shift should have been the one to make him quake. Â But shit, there it is. Â He blows his nose a nostril at a time, farmer style, loud, right out onto on the unlit pavement on either side of him as he walks. Â The wind blows, too. Â His next uptake of sniffed-in breath is clear and sweet and dark. Â He reaches his car in something like a state of beleaguered acceptance. Â Itâs fake, and mildly hopeless, but peaceful. Â He fixes his hair in the mirror. Â Then he starts 'er up and drives off and on the road home itâs just him and the music and the sweet, sad knowledge of the names of both his own glass pipe and Duaneâs, and everything just sort of fizzles and sloshes until he can get home and plant blind kisses on Bigaâs sleeping grunting cheek and he can smoke a fresh bowl and he can play some nice video games all by himself into the wee-most.
I have a problem. Â When something urgently needs to be communicated, I change. Â I don't always realize that I've changed. Â Even later do I realize why. Â But I come around. Â And then it's always for the same reason--that something needed saying--even if to whom or how or why is ever-changing.
I confess, there are  issues of my own making that then factor into and compound the problem once things have already slipped for me.  Mental energy normally required to engage with day to day tedium I instead expend on utterly distracted, day-consuming, circuit-frying ruminations.  When my poor brain *must* take breaks, the evenings are dull. Â
Long story short, I go lazy and fall off the grid. Â Around what few random folk with whom I keep in touch I act like everything is fine. Â Because when I have friends or family around I feel better, and so I act better. Â At work, too, I skew positive. Â But this then enables further unseen, unmet misbehavior, and by the time anyone notices somethingâs wrong itâs because the symptoms of neglect have already gotten out of hand.
And I have company over because I know it helps. Â I see a therapist because I know it helps. Â I engage at work because I know it helps. Â Still, there is no helping me until I realize, myself, that there's something I need to say. Â To somebody. Â Somehow.
And then that's that! Â Problem solved. Â Everything after that is the fun part. Â No, I'm not joking, I'm really not. Â I mean I guess I sort of am, but also, fuck. Â What comes next is music or art or fiction! Â The fitful duelists in my head ally, alloy, and finally allow me to proceed as a unified whole. Â It always feels like coming home. Â Itâs like remembering who I am. Â It feels awesome. Â It's a little embarrassing to watch, maybe, but it's good for me.
To be quite clear, though, the truth as to "who I am" changes. Â Depending on any number of things, I am alternately proud and humble. Â Alternately obsessive and pragmatic. Â Alternately cheerless and cheerful. Â Granted, most of me stays consistent, pervasive, and even reliable, but a few facets of me predictably and inevitably fluctuate. Â I can know that they will change but not stop them from changing. Â It is maddening, and may well be a symptom of madness.
A late diagnosis of ADHD is just another part of the puzzle, as is a family history of neurosis and addiction, as is daily use of at least three psychoactive substances (methylphenidate, caffeine, and another one). Â My fiancee plays two roles, one unconscious and one conscious. Â Work, too, likes to stay involved. Â Family stuff flares up every now and again, but then usually quite intensely. Â And have I mentioned how lonely I am? Â How lonely are we both, my fiancee and I? Â Very, it turns out. Â At least insofar as lonely people can measure their own loneliness.
When I get these moments of jubilant self-understanding, when there's something that needs saying and I simply say it, it's like finding and placing a puzzle piece. Â It might not actually *be* that, but it's *like* that. Â I'm at least my very me-est in the effort.
Once upon a restaurant, a server slept with the general manager. Â We didnât find out right away. Â Today, itâs weird to remember.
The plot unfolded in what I guess is probably classic fashion. Â First, the GM told a few people he was leaving the company. That same day, the server in question told a few people that she was being promoted to management at the GMâs insistence.
Next, the GM told still more people that he was only leaving temporarily, and that the rumor he was leaving for good was false. Â The server in question answered this with a rumor that she had turned down the promotion, citing that she had found a terrific new opportunity elsewhere.
A few weeks later, rumor got out that the server had been lying about being offered a promotion. Â Apparently, the GM had sat her down and scolded her. Â Whether or not this is true remains, of course, unverified.
After that, things quieted down. Â The server put in her two weeks, and did leave for greener-looking pastures. Â We all wished her the best for some reason. Â Her last day was a Thursday.
The GM moved away for awhile, I forget why, and then came back just like he said he would. Â But he was noticeably different. Â He'd somehow lost his grip. Â He barely spoke to anybody anymore, except in short, frantically professional little bursts, and always while he needed to be doing something else. Â I think he left the company that same year.
Truth be told, that they had slept together was itself a rumor. Â But it just had that feel that some rumors have. Â The good rumors almost make this little clicking sound when you first hear them.
Recently, someone pulled me aside and said, âI have a juicy one for ya,â and then proceeded to tell me a rumor I later learned was false. Â But get this. Â I learned that it was false by way of rumor. Â
I still donât know what to believe. Â Iâm waiting for a third and final rumor.
I once started a rumor I knew was false, on purpose. Â I wanted a person I worked with not to work with me anymore, and so I started a rumor that this person was leaving in hopes that it would get around to them and demoralize them and eventually lead to their leaving. Â I carefully selected three recipients for my false rumor. Â A known gossip. Â An eager beaver. Â And a prolific liar. Â I gave them each my rumor one at a time, quickly and succinctly. Â I shared it like I would any rumor I thought was true, and then left it at that. Â Each time I did this, I felt the lie slither out of me into the wild unnoticed. Â Each time, I made no attempts to follow it. Â If this lie of mine died prematurely it would be for its own good. Â
And it did die prematurely. Â All three times. Â I feel strange even mentioning it.