if i am sane, i am not normal

Today, in honor of our 13-month anniversary, Pat and I drove out to the local grocery store with four things in common -- an abnormally large bucket of ice cream, a pack of Reeses Bites, a soup ladle, and a dream. We then sped off to the abandoned KMart parking lot across from Booze Mart, made sure to park where there were no pre-designated lines (we sit on the wild side, you see), and then eat the ice cream after plopping some Reeses Bites on the rapidly melting surface and spoon up scoops with the aid of the ladle.

Next week we plan to drink day-old milk and sweet rolls and snip off the tags on our mattresses.

Speaking of sitting on the wild side, a few years ago I announced to Resa that I sat on the wild side. She refused to believe this, cocking her head at me and squinting so that she looked like a chicken examining my character based upon whether or not I had a bag of chicken seed in tow or not. To defy her, I paced into her garage, snatched the chalk bucket, and after removing a single stick of chalk, I drew a definite line onto her driveway. When that had been established, I seated myself on one side of the line and then wrote "wild side" nearby. Setting down my chalk with a light chink, Resa stared at me with pity alight in her mood ring-like eyes.

Somewhere around that period of time was when it was confirmed that I was as insane as a Rubik's Cube, or perhaps even a paper plate with a floral design. Then again, it may have been when I attempted to eat a corn on the cob made of plastic and lost a tooth, or when I announced at one of Resa's birthday parties that, since it was whatever random time that it was, it was time for my daily Zen meditational ritual. It also could've been when Kevin and I found the thistle seeds back in the cobweb-infested crannies of my garage and decided to strew them all over my neighbor's lawn while pretending to be popcorn venders. For years, that man had a thick thistle patch on his lawn the size of a small child.

When I was in Japan, my host sister during the second week, Keiko, invited a couple of her friends over to play card games and eat what I guess I would consider freakish little Japanese snacks and candies. One spoke English exceptionally well and told me deliberately, after busting up laughing over a bad hand in Uno and being called "crazy" by the resident Japanese folk, "If I am sane, I am -- not normal."

Some people possess personal credos that express hopeful messages like, "Never give up," and, "Treat others as you would like to be treated." I would passionately kiss a man with liver spots covering his saggy body and a nasty case of gingivitis if I could have a T-shirt with "If I am sane, I am not normal" written on it in giant, dripping-of-pride letters.

Goodnight.