Fifth Grade Word Finds and (Sort of) Free Art

Remember fifth grade and the substitute teachers and their mountains of copies of crossword puzzles with subject themed words to keep all the kids busy and the game all of the smart kids played where they competed to see who could finish all of the copies and win their free time first? Remember the other game the smart kids who didn't give a shit about extra time to do their homework in class because having homework to do was a great excuse to get away from having to spend time around their shitty parents played where instead of finishing crosswords they tried to find legitimate instances of curse words, the more rank the better? That just came to mind as I was thinking about myself (as usual) and I was thinking about the things in me that are different, which led to thoughts about picture finds where you look at two pictures and try to find what's different between them and that lead to thinking about word finds and that led to all of the wonderful hours in fifth and sixth grade I spent doing word find puzzles and circling "ass" instead of being taught anything by anyone because the teacher called in sick again because the kids are a bunch of bastards. They were still passing out crosswords and word finds in 7th grade and 8th grade now that I think about it. I raced through the pile a few times, but it was bullshit. It was not uncommon to have a teacher say "put your head down and take a nap if you like" as though I didn't get sent to bed without dinner often enough. Napping wasn't high on my list of favorite things to work hard for.

There really was no satisfying conclusion to finishing all of the crosswords besides the pride of knowing that I beat the pants of Annette with her stupid times table finger counting trick that I didn't learn until last year and promptly forgot. Fuck you Annette. You looked like Meg Griffin five years before Seth McFarlane dreamt her up. Suck on that coaster thick glasses. I hated her when she beat me at anything because she was a total douche about it. To this day when I beat people at anything I can't help but feel that I should have been more encouraging or at least explain to them why they might have lost and how they could have won. That might be even more annoying than simply sticking a finger in their face and saying a hearty "booyah".

Where was I. Crosswords, check. Annette was really smart, but a total bitch, check. Oh yeah, what's different about me. So here's what's different about me now from the me of five years ago in order of importance to me (sorry, this is so me themed today, but I'm not really, but I'd feel guilty if I didn't say something to acknowledge the fact that I'm being really really narcissistic [sort of]):

1: I don't think of myself as a funny person anymore. I used to think I was funny, but I'm not. I'm easy to laugh at and I think I'm fine with that.

2: I'm weird. No two ways about it. I am one of the weird ones and will probably be thought of as one of the creepy ones when I get too old to be weird and when I'm too old to be creepy I'll be one of the pleasantly eccentric ones you try to ignore, but who somehow end up miles away from their home health aide at a highway rest stop asking you for change so they can buy a colostomy bag from the potato chip vending machine.

3: I will probably never be married or will not have kids of my own. This will happen because I've realized I am impossible to start a family with. No really. I dare you to try. My heart is fucking Thunderdome. Raising kids and being with me will be like trying to keep track of the lost kids of never never land. If you were to combine Bill Cosby's sagely aspects, Peter Griffin's story telling, Homer's scheming, Seinfeld's eye for human interaction, and a middle aged Golden Retriever's eagerness to do everything, with a Bull's eagerness to do nothing except watch the world go by and bone constantly you'd roughly have an approximation of day to day life with me. Throw in "unconventional" tastes in design and home decor and art and general errata and my home probably won't even be a safe place to raise a kid from one hour to the next.

4: I will never be a kept man. I'm too damn old. Missed that boat, but it was fun to imagine what could have been had I really stepped up the training back when I first starting writing this and my biggest concern was beards and whether or not to shave my nuts.

5: I share my work openly. In the past I sat on it because I was somewhat embarrassed by it. Now, even better than simply not giving a fuck what people think of it, I honestly feel that it is worth sharing. It's become worth more time and attention than my own. How much time and attention is absolutely up for debate (whether its 1.01 person's T&A or 100 it's still greater than 1). Why more time is needed is also up for debate. Dear universe: I am at a highly impressionable point in my writing career... send me mentors or something. Jesus does not count as a mentor.

6: I've sort of come to understand that the people I grew up with, by and large, did not grow up "with" me. That's taken a lot of getting used to. How the hell to I grow myself into their circles if, apparently, I didn't do it successfully when they were right next to me. Frustrating. It's like everybody I knew went into a hall of mirrors together and somehow I ended up outside of the building in the alley with the alley cats and half eaten funnel cakes and everyone else went out the exit proper and I have no fucking clue how I ended up on the outside of everything.

7: I don't think there's a seven, but it's there for balances sake.

I've got an idea. Send me your address and I'll send you a handwritten poem on heavy stock plain white paper. Seriously. No scheme. No game. No angle. Just some art that'll only cost you the time and effort it takes to shoot me an email. You're address won't get shared (not just because I have no one to share it with but because if I gave someone my address I would want it destroyed immediately after it was no longer in use by the specific person I loaned it to). You won't suddenly have spam roll into your mailbox. I won't randomly show up your door with a handle of Vodka and tell you to drink as you run out to go to work in the morning. You won't get signed up for... well shit I could go on for another thirty lines about what won't happen.

What will happen: I'll send you a poem. That's it. A new fresh from my mental presses poem and maybe a scribble too. Bam, done. inacinch@gmail.com. and actually, by putting that there I will probably get a ton of spam, but I'm not mad about it. I just like to send people art. It's fun.

Or don't. It's not like I'm going to kill myself or anything if no one does this. I'll just keep doing what I usually do: write poetry, whack off till I fall asleep, wake up in the middle of the night in tears, write a story, knock myself unconscious with five shots of whiskey, wake up at a reasonable hour and repeat. The question is: how much of that is true. The answer is: most of it. Lulz. Anyway. Don't forget to see if you can fill out the crossword puzzle with all expletives. What is life if not a challenge to be more awesome than you were yesterday.

///Cowboy Bebop OST - "Blue" I think my opinion still holds that some of the best music is written and heard and felt in languages that you can't understand specifically because the worst thing anyway can do to some art is make it readily understandable and take away the pleasure of dawning reason and the avenue of organic access each person has to make when no person can make an inroad for the masses. The idea of masslessness comes to mind, but I'm pretty sure that's just more errata and artifice and artifacting. Sometimes I need a good paint chipper for my brain.