Mark Patinkin Style

A la Mark Patinkin, I decided to post some obnoxious and glaringly obvious inane commentaries about life in general. Thoughts-at-large:

1) I have yet to come home to my apartment having left my dog there, and not be greeted by a puddle of pee. It's as if he's punishing me for leaving him alone. Or he still hasn't learned the difference between inside and outside in his new place.

2) On the bus today there were two people rocking out to cd players. One guy took his Temptations cd out of the player and replace it with...God knows what? Probably The Four Seasons. The other cd-listener was a woman of indiscriminate age with Downs' Syndrome. I have no idea what she was listening to, but she sure was getting her fucking groove on to it. She had all these booty moves, all the more hilarious because she was sitting down and therfore unable to shake her overweight, white booty. So most of the moves were really just wave movements with her arms, dripping with attitude. When I glanced at her to give her a smile (you know, like a conspiratorial sort of 'you go girl' smile) she grimaced at me, as if i was interrupting her jam sesh. Well, it's good to know that some people don't care about what others think, and also that these same people aren't willing to give up their discmen for ipods.

3) Speaking of the bus, it was so overly refrigerated that I got off four blocks before my stop because my entire body, the clothed parts included, was laden with goosebumps.

4) Maggie sent me a "Baby on Board" suction cup sign for my car. She told me no one will fuck with me if I put it up, 18-wheelers included. My fear is that someone will hit me because of the sign, because they're just that angry at my entitlement to drive 15 mph without fear of repercussion. People are like that. "Oh you've got a baby on board? Why does that give you the right to cut me off, super-psycho bitch mommy? I'll teach your baby a gesture or two!"

5) Pitt has this fabulous printing system. You wait, vulture-like for a computer to open up in the main computer lab of the main library. When you're at the head of the line, eyes darting in every direction, you spring upon the first open computer, dry-heaving. You look back at the line waiting for a computer. "Suckers," you think, before turning to your PC. The next part is where the survivalist instinct cuts out. When you print whatever it was you had to print, you need not sprint to the nearest printer to hover along with 20 other students eager to get to the class they're 15 minutes late for. No, the lovely minimum-waged student workers collect all the print-outs from a private back room where lay students are not allowed. They place your bundle, along with a lovely school bus yellow cover sheet with your student print ID (mine's tat42, in case you wondered), number of pages in the printout, and number of pages you have left for printing, on a table outside the congestion of the lab. This table is laid out with all the printouts, in alphabetical piles. No grabbing so-and-so's poli sci paper! No missing the last page of your article because some bozo grabbed their shit before yours was done! Just a lot of wasted paper from the cover sheets. But hey, there's a recycle bin for them at the stapler station.

6) Who needs TV when your computer has all the shows online? I'm just trying to make myself feel better about my cable cutting out from the last tenant's last month, and I'm too cheap to pay. But oh, the taste was so sweet. Bravo reruns are the best while slurping down a bowl of Thai soup.

7)How is it possible that from every side of the house, at all times of day, from every angle, there is never any sunlight streaming in? This must be the world's darkest apartment. 

8) I found a house identical to my own. It's directly behind me.

9) I finally see the reason why people have been wearing high-waisted jeans for decades. They aren't just for moms anymore. Basically, you can wear whatever shirt you want with them because they entirely eradicate the muffin top. Oh, and no crack sticking out when you bend over. And if you don't care to have people knowing, just wear a shirt that covers everything above the hips. I bought a pair yesterday. And they make my ass look amazing.

10) My dog is really cute. Not only that, he's a good companion and keeps me from getting too lonely. I'm sure he'll stop peeing on my bookcase soon. 

The scar

When certain big things happen in your life, you're only allowed to have big thoughts on the matter. In a hospital after an accident, for example, you have a lot of time to reflect on the meaning of life, where you stand, and how your current injury or illness will affect your outlook on life in the long run. With the physical capacities impaired and little else to do but watch the Olympics and prepare for hourly shots, hospitals give you a lot of time for thought. Some thoughts are big and deep, I'm talking those expected revelations and epiphanies, life-altering "aha" moments, that kind of thing. Basically the thoughts everyone expects you to have. But when you've exhausted all your mental capacity, your mind turns over to the small thoughts. Those petty insignificant notions that are not meant to be spoken aloud, because, in such a state, you are not allowed to think them.  If you don't have these small thoughts, however, then the weight of all the big thoughts bears down on you. So though it may be superficial, inane, and, in the grand scheme of my life right now, insignificant, I can't stop thinking about the footlong vertical scar I will have on my stomach for the rest of my life that was a result of an emergency intestinal surgery following a car accident.  

My physical impairments, such as my restrictions on driving and lifting over ten pounds, and my limitations, such as reaching, twisting, and bending, may seem permanent to me now, but are temporary and will soon be a distant memory. The scar, however, a behemoth of a messy child's crayon line, may fade, but it will not disappear. The scar's line points into the past, reminding me of the accident, but it will never be just a memory. A scar is forever. Like a diamond, but not so pretty.

Scars. They are supposed to say something about their bearers. They add character, dimensionality. They can be mysterious or they can beg to be talked about, explained. And always, scars have a story. Freak lawn-mower accident. Fell off the trampoline. Big brother and a shard of glass from the '80s coffee table. Scars can even be sexy. A tiny nick beside the eyebrow.  A raised pink line on a well-toned ab. Scars are even epic. I'm thinking Harry Potter.

My scar is none of these things. First and foremost, it is not yet a scar, but a painful jagged slice, suffocated in dermabond, running the entire length of my abdomen, cutting me, frankenstyle in symmetrical halves, save the crooked detour around my already "unique" outti belly button. 

Furthermore, my scar is not an indication of something I have done but rather something done to me, over which i had no control. It doesn't say I'm a daredevil, clumsy with a lawnmower, or a wizard (witch, as the case may be).  The most-maimed passenger in a high-speed collision with a semi-truck may be a title, but it is not a defining characteristic. There was no rhyme or reason behind this scar, or rather behind the accident which caused the damage which necessitated the surgery which caused the scar. Simple negligence and so-called highway hypnosis are not headline news, nor are they noble or proud.

I think about future intimacy, beach days, and short shirts casually rising as I lay down on a couch. It's not the kind of thing people won't notice. I hadn't realized how gruesome it was until I posted a photo of my stomach on facebook and seeing the responses. It is quite hideous. I'd become desensitized to its appearance. You kind of have to become desensitized the appearance of your own body. Imagine your stomach turning each time you looked down at your ingrown toenail. 

Now, I know the scar won't always look this...bad. It will eventually fade, along with the memories and recollections of the accident, the time in the hospital, and the recovery. It won't be quite to graphic, quite so red, and it won't be accompanied by an intersecting seatbelt mark. Intersection. I have that intersection, that 90 degress on my stomach, as a constant reminder. Just below the navel is where the Civic careened into the tractor trailer at the red light, leaving a bloody mess. I can see the accident everyday, played out there, the large white tracks of the truck horizontal, the narrow line of the Honda, vertical. The 5 and 20. Even the swerve at the last minute, an attempt to avoid the inevitable, before colliding in unholy disaster.

A footlong scar doesn't just disappear, no matter how many creams or gels you use. It is a graphic brand upon my body and I want nothing to do with it. What could this thing possibly say about me? How will it mark its unwilling recipient in the years to come? Well.

It may not say I had an affinity for woodshop in high school. And it certainly won't label me The Boy Who Lived. But it may say something else, something that becomes big rather than small, significant rather than petty. When the big thoughts fight for space and win, my scar begins to say something worth hearing. It begins to mean something, to mark something. Unlike another scar that may just speak, this one yells, it screams, it shrieks. I'm just not sure exactly what it's screaming yet.