[Izulde]

I laugh every time I see Dear Valued Customer on a flier for a car dealership. While I know it's all part of a mass mailing, and they have neither the time nor the money to be more specific, I still get humor out of the fact that I, who possess no driver's license, still receive these advertisements for mediocre automobiles. But then, I live in a comparatively mediocre rent/month apartment, so why should it surprise me? I do wish somebody would send me a Lamborghini catalog, though. The Countach was my dream car as a kid in the '80s, though my friends preferred the Diablo or the Dodge Viper.

Yes, I had genuine friends once. I think the changeover happened in middle school - We moved to another part of town and instead of the middle school I was supposed to go to, it was a new one where I knew none. Factor in the metal mouth of braces that didn't work after I got them off, and face so splotchy I made a Pepperoni Lovers' pizza look empty by comparison, and you had all the hallmarks for being picked on, if not outright bullied. What made it worse was, back then I listened only to 1950s and '60s music, because I liked it and that's what my parents listened to. I'll never forget that day, third period, fourth day of school, when Mick Gustavsson, who weighed the 12 year old equivalent of a 400 pound adult, laughed scornfully at me.

"You don't know who M.C. Hammer is? Or Vanilla Ice?"

"...No."

The whole class laughed then, and though the cranky industrial arts teacher told us to knock it off and go back to sanding, it was already too late. I was marked forever, stained with the loser L that would follow me to high school, because even though I begged my parents to move again, they refused. And just as we stayed in the house, a ramshackle two story of no noteworthy architectural distinction, so I stayed ugly. Never took a girl to dance - not a middle school social, nor the 8th grade graduation dance. High school dances? Fellow white boy, please. The closest chance I had at getting to a dance with a girl was to grow my beard out and sneak out to a strip joint with a pack of singles in my hand. Which I never did even as a senior and legal. Too scared to.

Am I repeating myself again? I don't know. Recluses have only themselves to talk to (unless I want the pain of calling my mother or forcing myself into a Facebook conversation with people who could not possibly care less), and so the circles and the repetitions continue, continue, and continue, just as my pacings throughout the apartment continue, my only home respites either sitting at the computer or standing outside on the patio (I have to be on the second floor for it to be a balcony, apparently) for a smoke. And I've gotten so fast at smoking, that's only good for two minutes tops.

Sometimes I amuse myself by juggling an empty plastic Vons bag. But that never lasts very long. Even though it's slow and just one item, my dexterity-challenged fingers miss it too often, or they catch in the bag and accidentally throw it down on the perpetually dirty floor.

This is no American Beauty, where the bag is the most beautiful thing ever seen. After all, I don't have a pretty enough teen neighbor, and as for a lovely cheerleader blonde? Maybe the wrinkly, white-haired woman in 133 was during the Great Depression or something, but I don't think they had cheerleaders back in. There certainly isn't one in *my* Great Depression.

All these thoughts of pretty blondes makes me want to go watch Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23. Dreama Walker walkas ina mya dreamas, and her terrific acting in Compliance makes me anything but pliant. I could rail against the brevity of that delicious series whose plug was pulled too soon, but my mood would grow darker still, and so I shall simply trudge to the computer and try to deal with this fucking independence war.