Day 63′ s challenge encourages you to try and break a Guinness World Record. If I was eight or nine and it was summer time there’d be no question as to what I’d do. I’d pogo stick my little ass off. I held the Highridge Street record for pogo-sticking, very likely for time and mileage. I could pogo stick (uphill, mind you) all the way to the Fischer’s and back three times. For all those unfamiliar with the neighborhood layout, it was a good .25 miles to their house. So there and back three times, we’re talking a smooth mile and a half. Via pogo stick it was at least 45 minutes. Maybe longer. At 8 or 9 years old I had time to kill. Nowadays… not so much.
So, on my way to work this morning I was doing two things. Contemplating my Guinness Book entry and listening to a book I’d downloaded. Pretty common, for me.
I like to listen to books in the car when I am by myself. I don’t get enough time to read so I enjoy it. But because I tend to listen in ten minutes increments I listen to my fair share of “light reading.” I am about 3/4 of the way through Life, Keith Richards’ memoir, but it is 700 hours long, or so it seems, so I thought I’d break it up a bit with something amusing. A friend mentioned reading Tucker Max’s I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell recently and I remembered that it was kinda funny, the excerpts I had read, anyway. I downloaded it knowing absolutely what I was in for. If you’re not familiar – Tucker Max is a jackass, Duke University law student. He started a website where he told stories of his late night carousing, stories of booze fueled hook ups with idiotic college girls and what not. There are some admittedly hilarious parts of the book…and a whole lot of reasons for anyone with even a minor feminist inkling to find it appalling. His website took off and he has since made a career out of behaving like a douche-bag college student well in to his thirties.
That was a lot of back story… all to tell you that this morning I finished his book. And in five hours of listening to this fuckwad talk about women in a degrading manner it was his mispronunciation of the word absinthe in the final thirty minutes that made me bonkers. He pronounces it with the emphasis on the last syllable. I thought at first I could let it go. And then he just kept saying it. And saying it. And it made me crazy. And I started thinking, maybe Tucker Max is NOT the World’s Biggest Asshole. Maybe I am. Because in five hours of listening to him spew forth his garbage, this was what made me crazy. Mispronunciation of an alcoholic beverage.
So, I was giggling to myself that maybe I’d post that I am the World’s Biggest Asshole. Because evidently misogyny is fine by me so long as you can pronounce your drink of choice properly.
And then I started thinking. I might actually be the World’s Biggest Asshole. MQD is home today with his back all out of whack. (I know, isn’t it me that is supposed to be the bad back have-r in this relationship?) And as I walked by him this morning, flat on his back with an ice pack on the floor, I made a joke. And kind of acted like a jerk. You’d think I’d not do that. Considering.
After a few minutes doing that kind of question and answer with yourself that you can do if you’ve been through any therapy at all (“And why do you think you do that?” “How does it make you feel when you behave that way?” “What is your desired response?” ) I had a mini epiphany. I think I am an asshole when he doesn’t feel well because it scares me. We joke about “The Diabetes” but in all sincerity…. I love that guy, crazy love. And when he doesn’t feel well I can’t help but look in to the future. And it scares me. There’s a sea of “what ifs'” for all of us. But his are more overwhelming to me. So, yeah… I act like an asshole because I love him and I worry about him. That wasn’t a very fun epiphany.
So, once I realized I was the biggest asshole of all time I spent the rest of the day cheering myself up, admiring my shiny ring and my painted fingernails. All this “self discovery” takes its toll. Sometimes you need a little shallow.
Excitement on the side 