Haddock without his vocabulary is almost like having no teeth. Many not born in the caveman days like me (1975) may not have even heard of Tintin, Haddock, or his blistering barnacles, but those still alive or on life support please say yay. I say this, as I was eluding to it in my last post, I have to walk on eggshells with words. The very people of the world throwing bombs at each other for imaginary fathers and territories are shocked by the mention of remnants in the chemical contraption, an evolutionary digestive tube I think we ought to be rather proud of. And they are disturbed by my popular and tersely elaborated rendition of the human reproductive organs and their functions, which at my age, being in sparse use, I can only bring into conversations.
It's a pity that we are prudes, ashamed of the wrong things, and I, as an alien from outer space (I like to think), can see the irony in what the species finds embarrassing. The text for this post, has been floating in my head like flatulence, a gentlemanly word I'm told I can use, except that it doesn't change the fact that at near fifty, things get shifty with garam masala. I'm often given the false impression of an elevated state of matter by my rectum, when the fact of the matter after sphincter labor is a soiled mind, bed, and often nation.
I worry about getting buried in heavier things while, in the process of releasing the troubles of my intestines, like it must have happened in Morocco. A new fear unlocks itself, and I can't find my head. This is really a relief in India, where contradictions are the norm. The headless man in his bathroom, dreaming stuff up, isn't at all anything new; this is really just, how do I say this, become a trifle mainstay in India. Of course, I'm just in the minority of the decrepit wrecks who come out of that room only to go in again and repeat; most of the other examples are the only one time in a day, confident, usually well groomed, intelligent, and erect shadows of characters that run the nation.
I have to prepare a resume that reads:
I can write and sketch for food.
I don't know if anything else will be sustainable or truthful to what the world can support or what my cellular system as a whole can execute under the cover of that name I've used before; that person doesn't live here anymore; he's moved on without a forwarding address. Everything I allege I could do in the past, there's a million hands raised, who can shout louder and have crayons decorating their curated parallel universe of make-believe curriculum vitae, and now with AI, how do I compete?
I'm an inveterate stickler, too old to be cute, too bold to be mute, while everyone else is younger, prettier, and can bend over backwards, with compatible lubrication satisfying the latest requirements for sucking up to the politics of the day. They don't get up many times to make sure the state of matter is indeed gas and not liquid or solid. Am I past my usefulness on this planet of apes?
