Personal liberties can be such small things, and yet even the smallest, silliest ones, are like so much in life: you don’t know or fully appreciate what you’ve got until something or someone takes them away.
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Archive for the ‘Autobiography’ Category
UPDATE: The After School Special
November 23rd, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
This post is an addendum to another, located here: The After School Special
A call to my brother yesterday left me with the urge to append an addendum to the heartwarming, lip-smacking tale of my childhood’s clandestine pet food consumption.
For one thing, I’d forgotten Gaines-Burgers.
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The After School Special
November 19th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
When I was growing up there weren’t a lot of snacks in the house and what there were we weren’t to eat. We didn’t have much money and my father didn’t hold with snacks. You ate at mealtimes and that was that.
Unfortunately, when you’re growing, there are times of nearly constant hunger. You’re satiated for so little of the time and then the gnawing comes back, a sympathetic vibration of your metabolism stretching your bones and tissue to fill your DNA’s incontrovertible requisition form.
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The Thing In The Overshoe
November 17th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
One cold, January day in the early 80’s, with eyes on an expedition into the iced-over irrigation ditch behind our house, I decide a pair of black, rubber overshoes would be my best choice of foot gear. I’ve not worn such a thing in forever, a combination of woolen stockings, waterproofed boots, and diligently avoiding standing water having replaced the cumbersome, black and, truth be told, hated rubber overshoes of my youth.
Sometimes, however, they’re just the thing.
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Hippie Chick
November 13th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
It is a pleasant summer day, the sun radiating down to heat our pleasant and bustling tourist destination of a town. I am on my knees behind the counter, busy taking inventory of a shipment of pseudo-prayer flags; squares of cloth emblazoned with brightly colored, new age motifs, strung together with black, cotton string, and selling for $41.50 apiece, retail.
The store is only moderately busy; tourists and regulars milling about the crystals, books, and tarot cards like lazy bees in a somnolent flower garden.
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A Secret Way Of Saying …
November 5th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
“… well, girls usually like my eyes.”
“Your eyes?”
“Yeah: my eyes. The women I’ve gone out or flirted with typically comment on my eyes. Your mom regularly did, so have many others.”
“Uhhh, dad?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s a kind of … a girl’s secret … a way of saying …”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Well, when there’s nothing … when you’re not … it’s what girls say to a guy when there’s nothing else to say anything nice about.”
“Oh.”
Overheard on Halloween
November 4th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
A young boy, unsteady in cowboy boots, walking down a steep drive:
“My legs are slippery!”
Highs and Lows – a momentary slip into the personal
October 28th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
My life is such a jumble these days – so insane.
Learning the ropes of single parenthood
Personal rediscovery
Legal skirmishes with a loved-one turned enemy
Financial insecurity
Career frustrations
The seemingly endless scrutiny of custody-related authorities (this last one will have you second-guessing your choice of footwear, folks)
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A Penny For Your Thoughts
October 22nd, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
It is difficult to say what the exact cause of random stupidity in young men is but a good, general suspect is boredom. More windows have been broken out of boredom than hate, revenge, or any other reason.
In the early 90’s, I was employed at a mall record store and was frequently confronted by the twin specters of my own boredom and stupidity.
Most of the time our store was active with browsing adults, shoplifting teenagers, whining children, and sarcastic employees but certain times – say around 10:30 am on a Wednesday during the off-season – contrasted sharply with this otherwise boisterous environment.
It was on such a morning that I reached a personal zenith in boredom related stupidity.
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Of Solpugids and Security Guards
October 18th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
cae posing as a Security Guard – 1989-1991
In the late 80’s and early 90’s, I worked as a security guard at the Loveland, Colorado Hewlett Packard plant.
A sprawling complex of assembly and R&D, the plant was plagued by random waves of climatically inappropriate creatures inadvertently shipped to it in crates and pallets from places all over North America and the world; it wasn’t uncommon to find a gecko on the wall -in winter.
One year we were infested with the strangest, scariest looking arachnid I’ve ever seen.
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Chess, anyone?
October 13th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
Pride in Slavery
September 23rd, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
I’ve been unpacking my stuff over these past few months (yes – I have that much stuff, plus an often hectic schedule) and this, in conjunction with now living in an environment that is almost entirely up to me, has gotten me thinking, once again, about … stuff.
I’ve spent the last 15 years or so living in a state of barely contained chaos. My roommate of said period is extremely unorganized and has a tendency towards the deadly combination of procrastination and knee-jerk consumerism, meaning our house was perpetually cluttered and filthy.
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Laugh Is But A Dream
September 18th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
For years my favorite dreams were the vivid ones; hyper-real visions, usually nightmares, that I could remember with such clarity when I awoke (if they didn’t awaken me themselves) that it would often take me a little while to distinguish them from reality.
People look at me strangely when I exclaim “It was great!” after relating how a dream of this type will cause me to sit bolt upright in bed, bathed in sweat, heart palpitating.
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Interesting Conversations
September 4th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
Squat
August 29th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
I could see them from my second-story office window: a young man and woman, scruffy, bohemian. She in dirty yellow dreads that dangled from her head like dead vines, he in a cotton cap and sunglasses, slack-jawed.
She was buxom and in a stained, brown miniskirt that was lifted up in the rear by her fanny pack, revealing … I couldn’t tell from my height and distance but I squinted at the sight, trying to determine what it was I was seeing.
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What Does It Mean To Be 40?
August 23rd, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
What does it meant to be 40?
I’m still in a bit of a fog about it – where did my 30’s go?
Oh, yeah. That’s right: I spent them preparing to be unprepared to be 40.
So: what does it meant to be 40?
Newly divorced, a broken tooth in my head that’s beginning to sing, and no money to fix it.
Last night I locked myself out of my apartment and had to crawl in through the window, all because I needed toothpicks to check the readiness of the cake in the oven.
Happy Birthday, y’silly, old bastard.
Materialism
November 6th, 2006 by Corey A. Edwards
this blog began as a section on my site called “Infinite Diarrhea” which I took down very shortly after starting it because … people were reading it. This, in turn, was causing problems in my already failing marriage …
Last week: a new book from Edward Gorey (Amphigorey Again) and a new CD from Frank Zappa (Trance Fusion). Thank god for the productivity of dead men.
— — —
18 months or more now, out of the blue, a distant friend sent me an absolutely fabulous Japanese vinyl I coveted, with almost no hope of locating for purchase.
“Temporary-permanent loan” he said.
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Cancer, Gluttony, & Old Friends in a Suitcase
October 26th, 2006 by Corey A. Edwards
this blog began as a section on my site called “Infinite Diarrhea” which I took down very shortly after starting it because … people were reading it. This, in turn, was causing problems in my already failing marriage …
A couple of days ago, we visited my father and stepmother, the latter whom is recovering from a 6 week session of radiation and chemotherapy for tonsil cancer, which had spread to her lymph node – a cure that left her swollen, excessively burnt about the face and chest, and damn-near dead. She is still hooked up to a feeding tube and looks like a shadow of her former self but the sparkle is back in her eyes and she no longer smells like a corpse.
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School Daze
October 24th, 2006 by Corey A. Edwards
this blog began as a section on my site called “Infinite Diarrhea” which I took down very shortly after starting it because … people were reading it. This, in turn, was causing problems in my already failing marriage …
School is finally getting interesting (read: challenging) and I am finding myself actually sitting up and paying attention.
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Homesick
October 8th, 2006 by Corey A. Edwards
this blog began as a section on my site called “Infinite Diarrhea” which I took down very shortly after starting it because … people were reading it. This, in turn, was causing problems in my already failing marriage …
I’m homesick.
I know: "how on earth can you be homesick when you’re sitting at home?" But, dammit, I’m homesick.
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