What a breed of sick bastards we are.
Continuing to find pleasure in love does naught but coax our inner masochist slowly out of the box it was born suppressed within,

In first period Chemistry, my teacher's daily dose of wisdom went something along the lines of

"Learn not to fear death, and you also shall learn not to fear life."



..What a load of crock.

Death is like Life's final guest at the end of a long celebration, someone or something that's pre-welcomed into our lives whether we choose for it to be so or not.
I've already accepted that, and I'm still terrified of living.

I haven't lived long enough to find something worth truly living for.
I wonder if most people don't, but pretend that they do.
Adults have a habit of doing that.

The distant voice that hollered at my family and I as we stepped out of the car last evening belonged to a man who had made the abandoned area in front of a former CVS building, once reserved for shopping carts, his home.

My parents' ears aren't quite what they used to be (if at any point in their lives they were any better than they are now), so what they heard at first was a sound that greatly resembled a dog's barking. They turned to look at one another, at him, then back to each other and my dad mouthed, "Maybe he has a dog behind the wall."

The man, however, had no dog. In fact, the sound that he was making wasn't some incomprehensible nonsense, but actually the word "fuck": the 'eff' being nearly silent and the 'uh' being most discernable.

It didn't make sense to them that the "barking" stopped when they turned to look at him, and resumed only when they proceeded to walk forward.
Perhaps they thought it was a smart dog. One that could see through walls.

After multiple cups of coffee at one of the thousands of Starbucks locations in Southern California, our goodbyes with the typical Fermin/Tongson Friday group were said at the door and the Mateums headed back to the car, the one furthest from all the others and in the middle of the nearly deserted parking lot.

My parents' pace quickened as they realized that the barking had resumed as soon as they were noticed crossing beneath the light of the lot lampost, and that along with the now more coherently human snarls and yapping, the man behind the wall (that had been pissing in a nearby potted plant as the three families were parting ways) had begun to toss in a few mumbled

"..fucking fuckers.. pissing cunts, fucking pricks.. fuck you, fuck YOU" between each "bark."



As soon as we were within the safety of our locked doors and our risen windows, we remained in silence listening to him continue to deliriously rage on, though it was unknown whether his jabber was meant for us or for his own ears to hear.

"He's crazy," my mom proclaimed.

By the main door in my living room, a collection of Catholic statues reppin' Jesus, Mary, and some other members of the same country club that my parents have accumulated over the past several years, join me on the rare occasion that I turn on the tube.. their gaze heats the back of my head as I sit in the king's chair directly in front of them, and we all watch That 70's Show.

I'm not much of a believer, but the living room is certainly the last place I ever choose to sin in.

A few nights ago, there was a spider on my wall.

Being the coward I am when it comes to bugs and other crawling creatures, I stood petrified in my room, staring fixedly at the motionless black thing on the bit of wall behind my bedroom door for about fifteen minutes. Or twenty.

Heights of feet by the thousands, enclosed spaces with leg room by the inches, even stomaching down foods a starving mongrel would refuse.. I can handle these sorts of things.
But not bugs. Not crawling creatures with more than four legs, much less twice the amount, and even further less, things with black bulbous bodies and legs that run faster than the eye can see without straining. Like people with claustrophobia who hyperventilate in closed spaces, I panic in the presence of bugs, nevermind that they be thousands of times smaller than I.

A fear that often accompanies a phobia as embarrassing as mine would be the fear of killing said creatures.

The one thing that animals and bugs don't possess that very well could save their lives from the killing hands of unflinching humans is a voice, one similar to and as loud as a human voice. If all sentient creatures, not just people, had loud voices, had a clear, universal language, then they too would be just as capable as us to scream. To reason. To plead.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not a radical animal rights activist or anything.. Chickens can be rather tasty.

but, when I'm hovering over a creature smaller than I am by the thousands with a tissue ready in hand, I wonder if this thing knows that it's about to meet its impending doom, and I wonder if this thing has a voice and I just don't have the ears to hear it cry.
My hand always retracts.



I didn't kill the spider. Way to go, me.
Though, maybe it was bad of me to have chased it to my parents room.



Fuck, I'm so weird.

I really should stop using the word "and" so much.

The Left Paddle has years of routine as a Pong player. The ball is on its way back to your side of the court. It's bouncing wildly and it seems to be heading to a point above your paddle. What do you do?


a. Move your paddle up
b. Don't move your paddle
c. Move your paddle down


..Christ, I'm feeling so uninspired.

Through observation, I've learned that before we allow our mouths to retaliate, or our battered egos to stiffen our hearts,

we ought to keep in mind that the hardest people to love are often the ones that need it the most.