Freshen This Shit Up, Mag

I love weekends. I’m not altogether certain why because I essentially do on the weekends what I do all week: participate in a sort of urban self-pitying, self-loathing version of lather, rinse, repeat. But I love weekends anyway. I am one boundlessly happy motherfucker, hey. With such a richly varied life! Damn! I gotta run around the block and spread the goddam word!

Probably not. I don’t feel like getting arrested. And besides, the weekend’s over. The Turd Locker won first place in the beauty pageant. And was not The Turd Locker’s win more important than any number of earthquakes and bombings and shootings and ass-rapings and animal-maulings that occurred all over the world this weekend?

I say, “Hooray, assholes. Now you can buy yourselves a few new cars!”

Incidentally, I’m going to write a book about assholes one of these years, and this time, I’m not going to be the main character.

So where the fuck’s this going? And who gives a double-tapered shit?

Oh yeah. There’s something about Saturdays and Sunday that frees the soul to express things otherwise inexpressible and to think things otherwise unthinkable and therefore to do things heretofore undoable. Think about it: who the fuck (except for weekend-shift types) doesn’t let their Inner Mighty Mouse out of the bag on Saturday and Sundays? Now, maybe your friends on the weekends are getting their praise on at the Megachurch or getting their health on at the triathlon or getting their community service on at a Let’s-Clean-This-Filthy-City event. My friends? They’re getting their booze-brain on and consequently getting their know-it-all on and then they’re planting their lubed-up asses in front of their keyboards and sending me elaborate emails explaining why I’m a piece of low-grade sod, why my various intellectual endeavors demonstrate the mental facility of a plague-carrying rodent, and let’s not forget, Magnuson, that the worst fucking mistake you ever made was leaving fulltime factory work in the first place because you had way more talent at factory work than you have ever had at writing and thinking. Fuck yeah!

Actually, I wish I had more friends like that. These days, I only have one or two friends like this.

Quote from an email that appeared in Sunday morning’s inbox: “I have to be honest, Mike. Your blog is an embarrassment to yourself. You don’t have anything relevant to say, especially about world events, politics, and entertainment. You hardly mention bicycling, and doesn’t that matter to you, Mike? Instead, your blog seems to be a daily excuse for you to feel sorry for yourself. Personally, I quit feeling sorry for you years ago.”

Jesus fuck, that’s some warm commentary, no? For the first time in my life, I feel self-actualized.

Now I quote from the ‘p.s.’ part of the email: “And that picture of a dog turd you posted the other day? Inexcusable. I cancelled my RSS feed for your blog right then and there.”

I read that email over a few times – fifteen or twenty times probably – and in the process realized that I have finally become a mature, sane, calm, measured, rational citizen of the earth. Fuckin-A. My shit’s together now (could this be because I’m living gluten-free? Of course!) and I feel no need to release the blisterpack of my discontent because a dear friend of mine, a person who I’ve known for almost twenty years, has criticized my blogging practices.

I responded nicely. “Thanks for the advice on the blog. I’m new at this shit and haven’t been too concerned about trying to measure up to other bloggers, most of whom are certainly better writers with lots more to say than me. And you’re right: I’m still an asshole but not quite as bad of an asshole as I used to be. In five years, I will be a bowl of human tapioca and everybody will like me a lot. Trust me. But in the meantime, I promise not to post pictures of dogshit and promise not to try convincing people to feel sorry for me. Also, I will for damn sure endeavor to post more material about cycling because I know that’s really important and that’s truly all I should think about. - mag”

The person hasn’t replied yet.

Does this mean I can just keep doing whatever the fuck I want?