Triple Double
I like. basketball as. much as. the next guy but I do not .appreciate the brazen
insensitivity of some players having. the jersey number 24, as that is the. age at
which .I once died and. I shudder to remember. It is also not thoughtful when
they have the jersey number 54, as that is the age at which I will again die, I
can .only assume from the fear I .feel when I encounter it: .apartment number,
bus line, ..stray reference ..to ..the ..ancient ..sitcom .CAR 54, .WHERE ARE
YOU—what no one tells you
___________________________about dying and then subsequently surviving
your own death is. that the feeling of death is unfading and cannot simply,
post-survival, be discharged. You have to feel it all the time—hiking Runyon
Canyon or hitting Ignore on a text from D or letting the rice stand, covered,
for ten minutes—it has to be felt. I don’t think I could stop feeling it, I
started to say, .in a thousand. years, but that’s. wrong—there’s surely a shorter
number, like maybe three hundred years or four, in which it would run its
course. But the problem is I would be dead then. The problem is I am
now—
Three Mysteries
Three .mysteries I know. of are. 1) what. was the. contemporaneous. cultural
meaning of the megalithic. monument Stonehenge; 2) what happened to the
steamers and freighters and skiffs zapped away in the Bermuda Triangle; and
3) how. did it come. to pass that. I have in my. possession a. loyalty. card to a
pizza. stand on. the campus of a. school I used to work for, .promising .a free
slice after five punches, but punched through seven times—
__________________________________________I like schools. They’re all so
different. Sometimes they have scholarships for all admitted students in need,
while also basing their admissions decisions on whether the students can pay,
so. as. to .neatly. keep. out. the. scholarship-needers. ..Sometimes. they. have
arcades.. Sometimes.they. have. a tight. array .of .tricot.rib-cuff .goose-down
parkas .on the. quad. I .once .asked my. coworker why. do these. parkas. cost
upwards .of twelve. hundred. dollars, .and he. said .perhaps. the .company. is
bludgeoning the goslings to death with a solid gold mallet. It’s good, he said.
It’s good—it’s good to laugh—
