The Chunky Monkey

I am so pissed. You’re not going to believe this. I’m on my way back home already. It was bad. I can’t believe how bad it was. I just need to talk to someone. I am so freaking pissed.

You remember I told you about Charles? Yeah, he’s the guy I told you about while I was doing laundry last week. He gave my profile a nudge on that on-line dating site. No, not that one. The other one. Yeah. I just had a date with him. I drove 214 miles to the other side of the state to have dinner with him and his girls. Yeah, at his house. No, that part was OK. His kids were there and everything, but everything else was a disaster.

Yeah, I’m fine. I’m driving back now. Damn! I just passed a cop car and I’m going too fast and I’m talking on the phone and… I’m putting you down while I put my seat belt on. That’s better. Hello? No, he had somebody stopped already.

So, Charles sounded so great on the phone. He’s a mechanic. Calls himself a grease-monkey. Really. He’s been a certified lead mechanic at a dealership for twelve years. He’s got health benefits and a retirement plan and everything. He’s buying his house. I didn’t even think which one of us would have to move.

Writing in Iowa

Writing — really engrossing writing — springs from a rich and cluttered life, fully lived. It is the bounty of experience that loads the canon of inspiration with sufficient shot to do memorable damage. But, can one glean adequate life experience from abiding among the ordered fields of Iowa? 

Many an old Iowa farmer may be found breathing contentedly from the rocker on his back porch as he ponders the meaning of life, the vicissitudes of our mortal coil, the might of Jove and the recalcitrant whims of His weather. On the other hand, many an old Iowa farmer has been found moldering in the rocker on his back porch as the crows make sport with his remains.

But, back to the point. A connoisseur will cleanse his pallet before undertaking to sample a new wine. He will savor it, let it rest in the bounty of his experience, form an interpretation, and commit his judgment to the enlightenment of others. One could not expect an impoverished lush to undertake such an intimate exposition. Likewise, critically acclaimed writers draw from the deep waters of their autobiographical wells. A dry well does not refresh. In Iowa, a shallow well, supplied by a groundwater aquifer, is likely to poison the family as they consume phosphates, organohalides, and fecal coliforms from the neighbor’s hog operation.

But, back to the point.