{"id":679,"date":"2012-03-26T14:29:49","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T12:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=679"},"modified":"2012-11-09T09:33:32","modified_gmt":"2012-11-09T08:33:32","slug":"stream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=679","title":{"rendered":"Stream"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"squirrel<\/a>\u201cBefore cats go into heat there is a period of destructive behavior present,\u201d I say. Then add, \u201cMy couch was in shambles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUh\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you know Steve Martin plays the banjo? He won a Grammy last year.\u201d I sip my beer. \u201cI want to win a Grammy.\u201d<\/p>\n

My interlocutor is staring at me over the top of her beer. \u201cWhat?\u201d she asks. And she is well within her rights to do so. For I have lost the ability to converse. And I blame Donald Barthelme.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always been susceptible to literature\u2019s saucy influence. Watership Down<\/em> forever ended rabbit as a dining option. My Bukowski phase was awkward for everyone.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s Barthelme and the staccato, stream of consciousness vignettes that make up his stories. I haven\u2019t made sense in four days. The issue was pointed out earlier today, when Collin asked if my beer was good and I replied: \u201cEmma and I are buying a website and we\u2019re going to do our sex blog there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collin, having had five years to get used to my weird conversation habits, rolled with the punches. \u201cI am awaiting my fermentation vessels this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

We sat in quiet until I spoke up again. \u201cRandomness countered.\u201d<\/p>\n

We drank.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But now I\u2019m at a restaurant with a friend of a friend new to Prague and she\u2019s not handling my Barthelme Speak as well as Collin did. Exacerbating the pain of the situation is the fact that she is so boring that I am surely being tortured for crimes against nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow long have you been in Prague?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fascinating thing about Pygmies is their aptitude with blow darts,\u201d I say. \u201cWould you eat a squirrel?\u201d<\/p>\n

Nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy friend\u2019s dog eats his own poop.\u201d<\/p>\n

She goes to the bathroom without a word. While she\u2019s there, surely crying in a stall and cursing our mutual friend, I try to gain conversational composure by shouting out every random phrase and question in my head. \u201cTacos on fire in Atlanta. French fries. I eat salt shakers. Why don\u2019t French people shave?\u201d<\/p>\n

She returns. \u201cI have to go now, my neck hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAh. I once threw a rock at a python.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll pay.\u201d She does.<\/p>\n

We step outside.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoodbye,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cFalse advertising is having red and white checkered tablecloths and not serving pizza.\u201d<\/p>\n

She turns and walks away, \u201cBye,\u201d she calls over her sore neck.<\/p>\n

\u201cWait!\u201d<\/p>\n

She stops and turns. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNever forget \u2013 long live the Guatemalan cheese man.\u201d<\/p>\n

She disappears. Quickly.<\/p>\n

Next up in my Kindle: Juliette by the Marquis de Sade. This could be troublesome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cBefore cats go into heat there is a period of destructive behavior present,\u201d I say. Then add, \u201cMy couch was in shambles.\u201d \u201cUh\u2026\u201d \u201cDid you know Steve Martin plays the banjo? He won a Grammy last year.\u201d I sip my beer. \u201cI want to win a Grammy.\u201d My interlocutor is staring at me over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s1EvEu-stream","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1126,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions\/1126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}