Saturday, August 7, 2010

Matter Over Mind

I've only featured one other blog on my page, mostly because I would like to say that I did my thing without the help of others. An Illmatic of blogs so to speak, no guest appearances. But I'm gonna have to break the cycle one more time for my friend Sam's blog Two-12. His writing style reminds me of my own quite a bit, especially when I was his age. So without his knowledge, or permission, I will be posting his latest. Apologies for the lack of paragraphs. Enjoy.

Matter Over Mind by Sam McGuffin

The oven is on. It’s been on and still is on and has been on since yesterday morning when you made your eggs over easy because you like them better that way. The oven is on and it is making your gas bill higher and your expenses rise and it is taking money from your bank. Gradually. Every second you spend sitting in your car letting the air conditioning fume out of the vents and hit the cool beads of sweat gathering right above your upper lip causes the gasoline in your tank to decrease just slightly enough that you ponder if it is better to put the windows down even though it is summertime. But you don’t dwell on it. There is a truck next to your car and it is towering above your car. It has giant tires and wheels that sparkle in the sunshine and you get a good hard look at them because it is rush hour traffic and you might as well open your car door and get out and lick them. You question why they shine so much because it just rained yesterday and in order for them to shine the man next to you must have cleaned his car during the workday. A car honks its horn behind you and you realize the car in front of you moved approximately thirteen feet and seven inches while you were thinking about the truck’s wheels. You tap the gas slightly and roll forward the exact thirteen feet and seven inches to appease the God’s of the compact and packed freeway that isn’t exactly free. It’s free to ride on but yet you still have to pay gas to ride in your car and those gas prices have been rising lately. But it isn’t free because you are prisoned in your Ford and all you have for comfort is the air conditioning that is tickling the prickles of hair on your cheeks. By the time you sweat through your white button up and undo your tie you realize that the oven is still on. And you’re still not home. And it’s been on since yesterday morning when you made your eggs over easy because you like them better that way. And that the gas that is keeping your oven warm and toasty in the summertime is still taking money out of your bank. Gradually. The workday has made you tired and slightly depressed and you don’t want to think about work so you grapple with the knob on the car stereo and twist it with a slight and imaginary flick of the wrist. Bon Jovi yells through your speakers and you really don’t like Bon Jovi. You scream in the glass case of your car to whatever plush arm chair that Bon Jovi is currently sitting on in front of a fire that you are currently not “halfway there” and that you are still quite a long, long ways from home. And that in the past hour you have moved approximately thirteen feet and seven inches and that the temperature outside has moved further than that because it is much hotter than earlier and you know this because you have already rolled down your windows twice to properly examine the wheel’s on the truck that is stationed in limbo next to you. You press the knob in on your radio and decide that is better to sit in silence in your Ford than to listen to Bon Jovi telling you to take his hand. You saw an infomercial on meditation the other day and you remember it through the stench of exhaust as the semi-truck that is three cars ahead of you accelerates slightly to move another twenty-two feet and six inches forward. But then you think of what you just remembered and are slightly upset by the absurdity of the infomercial. Isn’t meditation supposed to be something that is free and for everyone to enjoy and that is supposed to relax you- at least that is what you thought. But some company somewhere is probably making lots of money somewhere for using it is their great new weight-loss campaign. Maybe the executive of that company is sipping on a margarita with Bon Jovi somewhere in the Caribbean right now. For a second you wish you were there too- but then you remember you don’t really like Bon Jovi and that your oven is still on and if you were in the Caribbean it would take you a long time to get home and that may cause problems at the house. You’re not positive the oven is on, but you think it is- you think you’re sure of it because you just have that feeling that you left it on like the ghost hand that turns the radio. Not exactly the same as when a commercial on the radio comes on and the volume is suddenly higher than when a song was on, because that’s just the sound on the commercial. But as if you actually turned the knob when the commercial came on and then suddenly remembered you turned the knob. That kind of feeling. So you are pretty sure the oven is on and you want to be able to get home fast not only to turn it off but more importantly to make sure if you are right and that the oven is actually on. You debate picking up your iPhone and calling your home phone and begging for your cat to pick up as the phone rings and rings and rings. The cat could possibly become so annoyed that it picks up the phone and will understand your command to turn off the oven. But even if that happens, you still wouldn’t know if the cat actually turned off the oven. It could become lazy and decide to take a nap before turning off the oven and when you get home the oven could still be on. Or the oven could be off and the cat may have turned it off and then your cat could be incredibly smart and you would think so at first too but then you would realize there was the option that maybe the oven was never on in the first place and money was not being taken out in incredibly small increments from your bank account in the form of gas.

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