incompetent

My practilife is going ok. An ongoing issue is transportation. I walk in the day (busses cost money without saving much time) but at night don’t know how to calculate the odds of danger. One friend sent me a taser which allows you to electrocute people if they get too close. Another said a crossbody bag keeps you safe from muggers so I bought one. I’ve never needed a purse before since I had no keys, phone or wallet. Now I mumble keys phone wallet… keys phone wallet….to myself one hundred times a day. You keep these three on you at all times.

I tried to select a crossbody bag that says Professional Crisp. The one that arrived looks more like Back to Preschool. This is a problem because people keep asking if I’m autistic. Pretty sure this is code for retarded. So Not Retarded is the main message I want my clothes to send.

I know it is bad to use the word retarded. And cool- almost trendy at the moment- to be autistic. Just one more reason I don’t want to be seen that way. Not to mention that it *won’t* be cool anymore once the wheel of the gods turn a bit further. I’m trying to prepare for the future by building a competent Can Do persona. You should too.

But back to the purse- not only does its shape seem dimwitted, its color is too noticeable. I thought it was light colored when I bought it. My goal for now is to blend in. There are too many holes in my skill set to completely avoid a retarded feeling. But I can avoid becoming a Famous Retarded Person. I don’t want people pointing me out as they drive by in their cars.

Maybe I shouldn’t care though because the other weak spot in my practivitization is that I don’t know anyone where I live. I have learned though that long distance friendships are very real. Not only did facebook friends send me enough money to make it through the initial crisis, they also patiently explained how everything in the practiworld works & even called 911 for me when I couldn’t figure out how to do it.

I couldn’t breath & thought I was going to lose consciousness. But when the cops and ambulance arrived a few minutes later then I could breath and felt so bad for wasting their time even though they were really kind. They asked me if I wanted to get into the ambulance just in case. But being laid out horizontally & placed in the back of a mini van is actually one of my worst nightmares. I associate it with being retarded.

So anyway, I am not sure how to meat people where I live. Friends have suggested open mics. But can me and musicians be friends? I feel like we’re oil & water. It’s a bro culture. You aren’t supposed to care about things smelling bad and being covered in goo. Worse than a bro culture, though, cause it specifically revolves around young, lazy men with no moral compass. Still, I’m trying to be open minded. I might have bad ideas about musicians that it’s time to release.. I’ll try to meet some just in case we get along. Maybe I’d like doing drugs. My facebook friends are always high.

Or maybe astrology readings would be better. Then I’d be dealing mostly with women. And you really get to know people when you read for them. I like the feeling of becoming no one & focusing on someone else’s problems. People’s lives are so much messier than anyone lets on. Realizing this has made me more socially comfortable.

And if you’re wondering how I’m currently able to survive, it’s mostly through my new identity as Arabian Merchant. Selling on ebay. It’s a decent fit for me because shopping is my one true vice. And I’m finding most things in my bulging vault of possessions have gone up in value since I bought them. I’m able to make a profit while clearing space for future shopping. I’m like a fat person who finally got a tapeworm. Now mama eats what she wants.

Around the time I wrote this song, I had read that there are nine types of people which fall into three basic categories: heroes, villains, and fools. I figured I didn’t have the strong character of a hero, and I definitely lacked the balls to be a villain, so I must be a fool.

The fools were divided into three unappealing categories: incompetents, weaklings, and braggarts.

I didn’t think I was a braggart, so I had to decide if I was a weakling or an incompetent. I chose incompetent. In retrospect, I wonder why I didn’t choose weakling. Probably because I still saw myself as an Arnold Schwarzennagarish sort of figure.

In college, I had gone through a phase where my dream was to be a professional body builder. I subscribed to body building magazines, read everything Scwarzennegar had written, and spent all my free time PUMPING IRON and eating high protein snacks. I would even write Arnold letters asking for tips (he never wrote back). In my mind, I looked like a slightly smaller version of those hulking humanoids in the muscle magazines.

My self-image was altered a bit when- after a whole summer devoted to eating and lifting weights- a professor used me as an example to the class of a body type that would never be able to gain muscle mass. If the world couldn’t see my muscles by now, I wasn’t sure they ever would. I decided I needed a new career path and settled on professional pool player.

But the image of myself as a slightly smaller version of Arnold lingered for years like a twisted version of anorexia. Which is why I couldn’t be a weakling fool and had to be an incompetent one.

Download MP3: Incompetent Fool