Soon after I changed jobs for the last time at the ’Zon my new manager walked up to my desk and the first thing out of his mouth, in a quiet self-deprecating tone, was, “I’m an asshole.”

Though unsure of the context, I replied as any good Samaritan would: “That’s not true.”

It was before I knew him well, and I had no business interfering with such an important epiphany.

I have lapsed into the sloppiest style of essay. Practiced by most everyone who writes for the New York Times and of course one Ms-scratching-all-the-way-down Coulter. I have neglected that all points, no matter how reasonable or obvious, have rebuttals and they must be addressed for one to be right as well as maintain the appearance of being in the right.

While firmly against genocide I must admit to a healthy emotional enjoyment for the mainstay of it: the macheté. I’d have to look up the figures to be sure but I think I’m within reason to say that the most common method of genocide after forced starvation and Zyklon B is the macheté. It makes sense when you think about it. All three methods are extremely cost effective. Guns, bombs, and even bullets aren’t cheap. Several million in Africa in the last 20 years alone were chopped down. Hell, there was a period of just a few weeks where 100,000 men, women, and children in Rwanda were hacked to pieces.

I just spent an hour in the rain clearing a half acre of creekside of invasive species. I did it with a macheté, mostly right handed but I’m quite good with the left too. Swinging the whole time, leaving the fallen blackberry and knotweed where it landed. Rarely have I so enjoyed physical labor. Wrists aching. Boots soaking from within and without. Brow steaming in mild spring weather. Feels fantastic.

A common theme in literature and film is that it is actually difficult to kill someone with one’s hands. As opposed to one’s fingers, the American method, with a joystick and a dizzying array of death-dealing buttons. I think it might be hard to kill someone who bravely, calmly, without anger looks you in the eyes while you raise your arm to swing your blade for the first of several necessary blows to the neck. But come on! That means murder is difficult once in 10,000 strokes. Within the predatory mammal nothing incites ire, and the urge to strike, more quickly than begging and frenzied scraping for escape.

Genocide must be the easiest thing in the world. I recommend finding a still, beautiful center of self-respect to at least make yourself a few degrees harder to chop down.

I used my drop slip yesterday. When my contractually obligated silence
expires in a few months I may have some stories to tell about
Amazon.com’s vaunted service.

Hope things are great now that you’re a dad, just like me. Here’s some money even though you and your wife each make more than I did at your age. I especially hope that the boundless dread and anger I gave you for your 11^th birthday is coming in handy now that you have a child in your arms! Bet you didn’t think it would all come back to you with such facility after 10 years of peace. :) It’s like a bicycle!

I have had the same job for exactly five years. That’s not true, strictly. I have been employed at the same company for five years where I have held 6 jobs and a coven’s dozen hats. I never had the same job in my life for more than a year and a half before this and I’ve never been fired from a job.

Five years ago a clean sheet of paper couldn’t stare me down and make me embarrassed that my name had to go on a thing before I was allowed to leave the fucking room.

From: such-and-such <so-and-so@monkeys-r-us.org>
Date: Fri May 23, 2003 18:30:48 US/Pacific
To: “Guy, That” <you-know-the-one@corporate-america.com>
Subject: Re: RE:

commie!?!?!? why i turned my own grandmother in to the mccarthy re-review committee just days ago for having a suspiciously toned cadillac and not supporting our troops with baked goods.

should see you at least once next week. maybe twice. three times a lady.

i half made up my mind last night to quit. but i think i’d like to see one more christmas at the ’zon and see what it might mean to me fiscally.

i miss being amusing more often. veri doesn’t get my Fractured Take™ on the hizbollah style of child rearing. she simply refuses to keep her ordnance ship-shape.

oh, dear. just when i decided to come back i start writing email that could get me canned again. or caned. singapore is very nice this time of year when the temperature and humidity stay in perfect tandem in the mid 90s. much like unscrupulous securities agents and the republican party. ouch!

i haven’t even had coffee for two days.

I graduated from highschool when I was a junior, sort of. That is to say, I had all the requirements and then some to graduate but no one bothered to let me know or give me the info to figure it out myself till I was half through my senior year. I found out at almost the same time I had this encounter:

Her: You will sell tickets for the theater and debate group.

Me: I’m not in that group this year. I’m not going to sell tickets for it.

Her: You will or I’ll fail you in Humanities.

Me: You do and I’ll take you to the school board and get you fired.

Classroom: «gasp» [mumbling and staring at shoes commences for rest of period.]

I went and got a drop-slip for all my classes the next day. I had well over the credits I needed so I could quit school anytime I wanted. I carried that thing every day in my pocket waiting for another such episode, or just a whim, to take it out, slap it down, and say, “So long, suckers.”

I never did that. The slip was enough. And being there was better than being at home. Never told anyone at school about it either. It was my private peace.

In two days I’m scheduled to return to work after a nice long break. My stock options finally are in the black and nowhere near the houseboat money they were at before but still at nice car money, or year off from all work money.

I thought that was my new drop-slip. The way I could go back to work and take it for another year or two. Two meaning the options would probably be back up to houseboat money. Now I’m not sure at all.

I used to be a big fan of omens in those drop-slip days. This is the one I was greeted with today.

You shot the biggest, most amazing looking grizzly that’s probably walked the earth in 2,000 years. For a photo and bragging rights. You would have had a lot more to brag about if you’d let that thing mosey on so the rest of us could see it animated and not propped up on a rock in a crappy picture you took home to have masturbation material on those nights your mom is indisposed.

Retraction [07/30/2003]

I was totally wrong and I owe Mr Winnen an apology and a beer. As one of the only decent Presidents in the last 100 years said, to justify criticism of his own proclivity to hunt (roughly paraphrased): Being shot and killed is a tremendously speedier and more humane end than most animals meet in the wild — where they either die of starvation or being eaten alive, as a rule.

He was right, even for trophy hunting, if it’s not a threatened or endangered animal. However, this same President is responsible for the “Teddy Bear” specifically because he once refused to shoot one as a stunt.

The theory of evolution is not. It is fact. Gaps in the fossil record are no more relevant to its veracity than gaps in the Periodic table meaning fusion and elements don’t exist. Jesus!

And since it’s impossible to discuss something constructive with those who are unable to understand that evidence is required for making points, let’s just go back to name-calling. Refer to the title as a pop-quiz on your religion: Who am I?

And if you think name-calling is all we’ve got, refer to evidence. Homophobic: Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:26 — Baby killing: Exodus 12:12, Revelation 2:23 — Suicidal: Matthew 26:21, 27:46 — Jew: 5:17, 27:37. Ad nauseam.

You can thank George aWol Bush’s latest venture into anti-science for this rational venom.

Danielle is a gorgeous, intelligent and kind young lady from Taos. Not like you nobodies née New York. We all called her Dani. We all thought she was terrific. I never tried to lay a hand on her over-developed-self, unlike some of the boys. You know who you are. She was the smart little sister in the group. Never mind the buds gone to flower pre-legal.

I heard that Dani thought and said some quite terrible things about me. This hurt and confused me. As I said, I thought the world of her and never did her harm. I was confused for a year or so. Recently it occurred to me what was probably going on.

Long time back, I was down hanging around with Cort and Barnaby at my house I think. I can’t remember anything about what I was doing but that it was the kitchen phone I answered. We were probably playing music. I just know we weren’t up the canyon at Barnaby’s house because Calvin called from there.

We all owned knives. It was the thing. And unicycles. That was the other thing. Northern New Mexico could only be more boring for adolescents if it were more difficult for them to purchase alcohol and narcotics.

It seems Calvin and Eliam were playing with one of the toothéd representatives of the pantheon of 440. Calvin called and told me Eliam had stabbed himself in the leg while poking at a Popsicle stick on his thigh. He called me in part b/c everyone else in my family with my name was a doctor at the time.

I asked how bad it was and got a vague answer which led me to believe it was like all the other knife wounds I’d had and seen lately: not that bad. Calvin said he was going to use hydrogen peroxide to clean it. I told him that it wouldn’t do any good on a puncture wound. He said he’d try some liquor then. I volunteered that this was also not efficacious or particularly lucid. I said, “If you’re worried about it, you should go see a doctor.” This didn’t sit well with him. I said something along the lines of, “Okay. But if it still hurts or is hot or really red in another hour, he needs to go to the emergency room to get looked at.” And we hung up.

Calvin is now one of my good friends and Eliam is a great guy. At the time they were fucking stupid 14 or 15 year-olds. And at that particular time, they were both drunk off their asses. That was the other reason they called me instead of a parent and why they didn’t want to have anything to do with a doctor. And why Eliam passed out for the better part of the day, didn’t see a doctor, and ended up with blood poisoning that came pretty close to killing him.

Eliam’s sister is, you guessed it, Dani. Dani probably never heard that version of the story. She probably heard the one from her mother: Reb Judith.

Orthodox Judaism and Christianity are antiwoman in that they are patriarchal. God is He. Woman, first in sin, is made not even of mud but of a piece of the mud pie. You can’t reclaim it. It’s an antithesis. A woman becoming a Rabbi is a bit like a black man trying to become a Grand Dragon. Revealing.

When Eliam lay in the hospital that moaning old bag of cat bones did what she always did. She kvetched and wailed and blamed everyone else (she fired poor Harry once for something he didn’t do either) for her son’s brush with the great Lexicographer. She even threatened to sue me, a minor at the time, or my parents. I can only imagine what she said about me to Dani. I can only imagine that Dani might still have the notion that I nearly killed her brother.