ieatgrass123

[ieatgrass123]

noisy pipes at the end of the world

"Damn. I never thought I’d see this". Mark looked down into his coffee, watching the clumps of powdered creamer bubble to the top.

"I don't think anyone did.” His buddy couldn’t even look at the television. He was too fixated on a wallet sized photo of a girl with a toothless grin. “I just hope they know what they're doing here." Stiff scientists in starched lab coats stood in 1080p with black suits taking post on either end. Every eye in the shitty diner was glued to the screen. Some tearing up at flashing images and graphs delivering their unfavored odds.

"C'mon, let's get away from this. I'm starting to feel sick and this sludge isn't helping." He put down a five to cover the bill and head towards the door. The pair got into a work truck and silently began towards their first stop of the day. 59 Vividleaf Lane, clogged sink.

"I had my bets on alien invasion". Roy stared out the window while Mark drove, trying to hide the fact that his legs have been numb since the emergency broadcast blew out their radio. 

“What, like the little green guys?”

“Yeah, I mean- something like that… I guess.” They drove in silence for the rest of the trip. Nothing but distant sirens and the rattling of a rearview mirror rosary.

✰ ✰ ✰

Pulling up to the neighborhood, Roy knew that they should’ve clocked out the second the news broke. Smashed TV’s littering the street and families corralling crying kids into minivans. The trash and chaos disguised the otherwise nice neighborhood as an uninhabitable zone.

“Goddamn—like Times Square New Year’s day.” Mark said with a chuckle. Roy didn’t laugh, he couldn’t tell if he was supposed to. To him, it was more terrifying than amusing.

“Heeeere, we go! 59.” The drawn out and enthusiastic way Mark said it made Roy feel sick to his stomach. 

“No car in the driveway and the door is wide open. What do you think?” Roy knew there was no way they cared about a clogged sink after the morning they all had. 

“I think let’s go knock and find out.” Mark unbuckled his seat belt before Roy could convince him this was a bad idea. He walked up to the house and knocked on the already open door.

“Hellooooo? Newman’s plumbing. We’re looking for uhhh… Msss.” He clicked his tongue, flipping through paperwork and looking for a name, “…Sabrina?” No answer. He turned back shaking his head and shut the truck door with gusto. “Now why would they make us get up at the crack of dawn just to leave before we get here? Some people.”

“I don’t think—y’know yeah, I guess.” There was no point in fighting with Mark. No point in fighting for anything. He reclined his seat back, put down the sun visor, and pulled up the address for the next stop. 235 Turning Point Court, noisy pipes.

✰ ✰ ✰

Roy stared at the photograph while Mark fidgeted with the radio, trying to find a station that was playing anything other than the news.

97.7. A large asteroid has– BZZZ.

98.6. Nearly the size of Orlando, headed towards the Pacific coast– BZZZ.

101.4. Half off at Outdoor World! Stock up before it’s– BZZZ.

103.9. Approximately 97 days until– He slapped the off button hard enough to recoil and shake off his hand. There was no use. Mark didn’t usually like the music they played anyways. He always had something to say about kids today or censorship. Whatever buzzwords could explain why they weren’t playing the greatest hits of the Reagan era.

“Sooo. How has uhh... everything been with you?” Roy was taken aback by Mark’s sudden interest. Years of working together and he has never been graced with so much as a what’s up?

“I’m… okay.” It felt like it should be a lie, but it wasn’t. Maybe the shock hadn’t set in, maybe that would take 97 days,

“You’ve been staring at that picture an awful lot.” Roy felt his throat contract and his stomach drop. Then a ringing in his ears that made him understand why Mark hated the silence. “Maisy was a real sweet girl. I don’t know if I ever gave you my condolences.”

“She was.” His eyes still locked on her big, holey, grin. It was her eighth birthday in that photo. They went to the zoo to pet the goats. That was the last normal birthday they had before she got sick.

“And Deborah? How she doin’?”

“Don’t know. We haven’t talked much since the funeral. Y’know how it goes.” Roy desperately hoped that Mark wouldn’t have any more questions. Maybe Mark was more intuitive than he thought, or he just really wanted to listen to music. Either way, he went back to scanning the stations.

94.6 The asteroid is projected to make contact in the area surrounding Seattle, Washington on August 21st, 2020. Due to its size, the outlook is… grim. NASA and aerospace organizations across the world are fighting for a solution. America, I speak to you as a journalist second, and a brother first. Things seem hopeless now…..

“Are people really buying this horseshit? I mean, the media—The election—This can’t actually be happening, right?” Mark’s voice wavered on the final word, pleading for Roy to validate his denial. Roy just sighed and put the photograph back into his wallet.

 “Crazier things have happened.” 

They drove the rest of the way in silence. 

✰ ✰ ✰

Before getting even halfway up the driveway, Mark and Roy were met outside by the shotgun slinging couple that had scheduled their appointment days before. Clyde, with his nicotine stained Gators hat made a move towards the truck. Bonnie stood close behind, guarding the front door. 

“Private property, get back or I’ll shoot!” He cocked the shotgun just to show how serious he was.

“Wooah, woah buddy—Newman’s plumbing. You called about noisy pipes?” Mark responded, showing his palms and praying they got the address right.

“I didn’t call you and we got nothing here. Better get movin’ along. Quick.”

“I called.” Bonnie stepped forward, tripping in her platform flip flops over two sunken lawn chairs. “Didn’t think you’d be showin’ up. I don’t give a damn about the pipes anymore, you’re not gettin’ into our home.” Her husband gawked, noticeably offended by her slight towards his innate repair skills.

“Understood. We’ll be takin’ off.” Roy climbed back into the car and took a deep breath, thankful their lives weren’t cut 97 days shorter. 

They began off to the last stop of the day. It had only been an hour since they left the diner. An hour of head pounding, stomach dropping, wasted time. Roy thought about Maisy and Deborah, how his countdown to the end of the world started the day she got diagnosed. Mark thought about the radio, how nothing good has been on since the broadcast that morning. He pulled over to find the address to the final house. 5930 Thornberry Road. Roy couldn’t bear to watch his shaky hands struggle to type the address into the directions. What was the point? In three months there would be no sink to fix; there would be no sinks at all. 

“You can’t be serious, Mark, let’s just go home.” 

“30 years I ain’t ever skipped an appointment.” His hands failed him along with his voice. His round face grew red and hot. 

“What does it matter? We’re terminal, who gives a fuck about work anymore?” Roy couldn’t hide the anger in his voice, but he didn’t mean it. He felt his wallet through the pocket of his musty work pants, hoping he could feel the photograph and see it clearer in his mind. The slideshow of his family memories came to a pause when he noticed Mark sniffle and cover his eyes.

“Please, man. Just one more. Then you can go home. Just—please.” Roy had never seen Mark cry before. The last time he saw a man cry was three years ago, in the bathroom mirror of a gas station a mile out from the graveyard. Roy looked into the mirror of Mark’s eyes and saw himself on the day that his countdown began. He didn’t need an asteroid the size of Orlando or stuffy scientists to tell him it was over, but now he had them.

“I mean—I didn’t have anything else goin’ on today, anyways.” Roy flicked on the radio and scanned for songs while Mark slowly uncovered his eyes. The pair drove off to the next home in silence. Nothing but distant sirens and the rosary, now rolling around the floor of the backseat.

[wrote this for a fiction writing class a few semesters ago, inspired in part by covid i suppose. i was really proud of it at the time and thought id expand it into a longer story, but now i think it's better left as is. maybe one day ill change my mind though]

[ieatgrass123]

book review: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

Are you on the bus? Or not. This question rattled in my mind for most of Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. At first, I totally was. An eclectic group of high achievers that choose to take the low-road. A rainbow bus with enough acid to kill a horse. They aren’t just making art, they are art. A living, breathing, work of art. I’ve always resonated with the psychedelic era, displayed through a love of my parents' old records, post-war history, and a peace-sign littered childhood bedroom. America in the 60s and 70s was such a vibrant and culturally significant setting because they were defined by the actions of youth, particularly in defiance of government and societal power.

 The Pranksters certainly seem to fit the bill and look the part. Well– if there’s one takeaway from this book, it’s that looks can be deceiving. Pablo Picasso once said, “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth”. The art of the Merry Pranksters, as written by Tom Wolfe, helped me realize that maybe this isn’t a trip worth taking. 

I knew a bit about Ken Kesey before reading, but way less than I thought. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a recent favorite of mine for its connections to the then-emerging psychopharmacology industry and MKULTRA, in which Kesey was a guinea pig. A few pages in I began to drastically readjust my perception of him and his group. Kesey ran the Pranksters with an iron fist, carefully regulating how fast and far his companions could run free. Babbs, for seemingly no reason, abandoned Hagen, Cassady, and other (way cooler) members of the group. 

They spent so long quarreling over the hierarchy within their group that they lost the initial mission and respect of the psychedelic scene. Upon visiting Timothy Leary, a man so reputable in this world that his name is mentioned on the ‘LSD’ Wikipedia page 5 times, he wanted nothing to do with them. 

The welcome party for The Beatles– who didn’t show– was similarly cringe provoking and exemplary of their sky-high egos. I couldn’t help but think, do you really think you’re on their level? 

What distinguishes these icons, Leary and The Beatles, from Kesey and The Pranksters, was that they didn’t turn things upside down just because they were right side up. They didn’t need a shock factor fluorescent bus, ironic American flag tracksuits, or coolness-based caste system to be noticed. With the Pranksters, the look came first and the message was diluted in about 100 gallons of kool-aid. The Pranksters validated and amplified every foul word that the mainstream had for hippie culture—no wonder they blew it.

There were some really interesting moments in the book. The Acid Test as described by Clair Brush, the Hells Angels welcome party, and the filming of their movie were among my favorite sections to read. There were also some parts that were really… interesting. The public shaming of Who Cares Girl and Kesey’s not-so-flattering descriptions of Mexico were pretty hard reads. The second half of the book overall turned me from skeptical of Kesey and the Pranksters to irritated that they didn’t get caught sooner. 

The characters were unlikeable and their story unsympathetic, but I’d still recommend this book to everyone I know. Tom Wolfe could’ve written 300 pages about paint drying and made it compelling. He captured the cult-like mentality of the Pranksters and the prose was psychedelically cool from start to finish. While I enjoyed Wolfe’s voice and upfront cynicism, after 200 pages or so the exhaustion set in. There came a point where I was rereading pages to figure out what the hell just happened more than actually reading forward. I’m sure this fatigue was not intentional by Wolfe, but it served to illustrate how the Prankster ideology collapsed on itself. If I can’t read 400 pages about them without growing fed up with the cooler-than-thou prose, how did they live it? 

The final chapter sucked me back in when it became clear to everyone that this experiment was over and it was time to go home. The last page, as Babbs and Kesey sang their hopeless song back and forth, “"... Ten million times or more! ..." "WE BLEW IT!" "... it was perfect, so what do you do? ..." "WE BLEW IT!" ". . . perfect! . . ." "WE BLEW IT!”, was a near perfect moment to end this story on.

Reading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was an experience that transcended the pages for me. I watched a lot of interviews of Wolfe and the Pranksters as well as the documentary film A Magic Trip. A great fact I learned was that Doris Delay of the Merry Pranksters actually approached Wolfe when he first met the group and told him he had the weirdest outfit of anyone there in his signature 3-piece white suit and homburg hat. Wolfe was as much of a presence in the novel as Kesey, and what I appreciated most was that it was a character writing about characters– a bunch of odd ducks gawking at each other. 

Regardless of the smoke and mirror show that was The Merry Pranksters, there will always be something so alluring about this era in counterculture and the personalities who defined it. Maybe I would have hopped on the bus for a few stops if they extended an invite, but hindsight is 20/20. From where I stand today, I may not drink the Kool-Aid, but I’d probably pick around the snack bowls.

rating:⭐⭐⭐☆☆

[i borrowed this book from my teacher and wrote this review to give him.]

[ieatgrass123]

Junior High Haircut from Hell

There are two times in a girl's life where suffering, torment, and woe are at their most concentrated. The first: middle-school. The building, the people, the smells—all unfamiliar and hostile. Elementary school bliss swapped with sudden expectations. Too old for the playground, too young for everything else. Nevermind the fact that the three years spent in middle school are easily our physical rock bottom. Puberty brings acne, hormones, blood, boils, locusts, and the rude awakening that some of those unfamiliar smells are definitely coming from you. In a perfect world, the ages 11 to 13 would be experienced in private, a period of solitude and reflection like St. Anthony in the deserts of Egypt. 

The second time is not age restricted, which only adds to the brutality. Any moment, with a couple snips, a bad haircut can send you right back to junior high. I don’t mean a trim that’s half an inch too short or a slightly uneven but easy fix. I’m talking about a reinvention gone haywire–think Claire in Fleabag. The type of chop that everyone notices and can’t not comment on. Haircut-grief-deniers say you’re overreacting, but it goes so much deeper. A truly bad haircut doesn’t last one day, it can take months to grow out and years to get over. I can personally testify to that. In peak seventh grade angst, I cut my long blonde hair into a devastatingly choppy pixie cut, and I’m still learning from it today. 

The year was 2016. I’ll never know quite what possessed me to do it, but please trust that it seemed like a good idea at the time. I loaded my iPhone 3 with stock photos of Ginnifer Goodwin, squeezed into the world’s tightest, blackest skinny jeans, and walked into Hair Cuttery with a vision. The second the cape came off I had some misgivings, but it wasn’t until school the next day that I knew I had done something wretched. Walking through those doors was like jumping into a piranha tank, and the drugstore gel crunched into my hair reeked of dead tuna. Some stared. Others complimented the cut, however disingenuous. I must’ve been compared to Ellen Degeneres or Hillary Clinton at least 80 times that day. A teacher, no joke, pulled me aside when she saw my haircut and asked if I needed to “talk anything out with guidance.” With every first reaction, the water, and my face, grew more red.

My life was hair gel, hats, and googling “how to grow hair five inches overnight” for the rest of my pre-teen experience. It wasn’t until sophomore year that my hair reached the length where you’d never know I once had a taper fade. The only problem was that everyone did know. Every reunion began “Wow, it’s gotten so long!,” their smile and tone insinuating a compliment. My scarlet letter, B for bowlcut, hung around my neck for years to come. Hair grows back, but memories can’t be altered. I carried this shame across the graduation stage, long hair flowing under my cap, and vowed to bury it where it belongs: the dark and dismal hallways of an American public school. 

Nearly 10 years later, I’m still coming to terms with this fraught era. It’s hard not to compare every fleeting imperfection to the grueling trial of a pre-teen pixie, but I wouldn’t undo it. I’ll never have to wonder if I can pull off the look or how electric clippers sound beside my ear. Old photos are perfectly passé in a way usually reserved for pictures of your parents in the 80s or early 2000s red carpet looks—endearingly distasteful. Nothing compares to seeing someone's reaction to the haircut today, a bubbling of hard-earned pride and mystique. I relish in others’ claims of haircut horror, an opportunity to commiserate and show them that it could’ve been worse.

[this is old. i wrote it for class last year and wanted to post it somewhere]