Flannel is Soft and Amazingly Durable

After recent arguments in my house; I have determined that my 12 year old self was accurate at determining what I would become. Some things have changed for the better, here, but I'm talking essentials.

I am sitting, half drunk listening to the old Alice In Chains album, Dirt (which my brother and I dutifully wore out on cassette tape and had to replace it with a CD)  and explain to Jon why I believe the actual track "Dirt" was underrated back in the day...meaning very early 90s.  (Yes, I am old.)  I was 12 back in 1991.

                                               Yep, Time Warp...1992...I still yen for flannel.


He simply looks at me and asks me why I would think that because Dirt is one of the "classic" albums....ummm.....generational gap, here?  (I was talking about the track not the album...and...I'm not sure if the album IS considered "Classic" and could care less if it is.)  It was new to EVERYONE back in 1992 with the exception of those lucky people who got to see Alice in Chains starting out, perhaps.

                                        This somehow looks wrong; as in the colors.


I let the conversation drop and continue happily singing along, badly, probably, but Jon doesn't complain.  He SAYS I can sing...but I've heard my voice on the voice mail for Jon's phone and I think I sound like a crazed chipmunk; which is bizarre considering the blunt, straightforward way I put things, I think I should sound like a 3 pack a day for 20 years cigarette smoker.  Also, I've been around ACTUAL singers...and the normal volume of their conversation is soooo loud your eardrums will pop...their lungs/diaphragm are that much stronger, they don't even think about it...at least the really quality singers.

Then Jon asks me if I want to rent a movie.  (I don't remember its name now.)  I said that I didn't know because I'd never heard of it and asked him some questions about it.

And he kind of went all mental about me not having social networks to fall back on or people I regularly hang out with.  I assume he means on a weekly/bi weekly basis or whatever he equates with normalcy.  Whatever "normalcy"  others are talking about has never really applied to me and I really could care less what works for everyone else. 

I have a friend, her name is Ruth and she has a James...and, frankly, that's perfect enough for me.  I don't see her often enough, but schedules don't always permit and everyone is always busily trying to play catch up between work and home.

He asked me how I would hear of a movie since I'm immune to most or all advertising (true, I really am...I have this weird tune-out, it's a commercial and therefore doesn't apply thing that snaps into automatic gear) plus we don't have television in the conventional sense, meaning we have Netflix.  And, while the cd player in my car unmercifully died, and I do listen to the radio I am often annoyed enough to turn it off because of the rubbish Sammy Hagar/whatever annoying other bands they play and even if there is a good song, as soon as the station goes to commercial or some DJ ventures forth some boring and mundane opinion my mind wonders and I am in my own little world, quite immune to outside input.

I said I don't know, but why would me asking questions about it bother him so much.

I don't think he answered me.

He just went to the, "you have no friends, you are the epitome of the Grunge Age."

Maybe.  I'm not sure what the "epitome of the Grunge Age" was.  I thought it was more of an "anything goes" sort of mentality than an epitome.  Such as if the hippies, instead of being optimists who yearned to change the world had already realized they'd failed, but it was cool if someone still wanted to try to change the world....

I didn't try to be.

I just always was what I am.

I do what I like.

I am rarely, if ever, entirely or even largely influenced by others.  I like to think for myself and am easily  assimilated into The Borg.

I think corporations are evil and Borg-like...

                                    
                                            I think the Plastic Man has long been assimilated.

                                            (District Manager for those not in the know.)
                                        

I don't believe in any certain religion.  (Unless the religion of the Almighty Dollar is a religion...I believe in that...its pretty damn real..no dollar, well, you'll be really hungry....America could give a fuck less, so whatever must be done to feed yourself, well, better damn well do that, then.)

I don't have overt hope for the future and find hope to be a rather pointless emotion.  (As in: wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which gets filled first.)

I think, things are born into the world, live a while, maybe learn a little something, then die for no apparent reason.

I am awkward and unhappy in most, if not all, really social activities and either need to leave quickly or drink heavily...in either case, I will remain silent and in my own little world if uninterested by the company or the conversation.  It matters not if I am shit faced drunk...if I'm bored and have nothing to contribute to the conversation, I won't contribute.   I find this to be acceptable.  I'm not an argumentative drunk.  According to Jon, many of the people I've met at parties with his friends have decided, somehow, wrongly, that I just don't like THEM.  Maybe. I don't know. I didn't get to know them well enough to decide one way or the other.  I just was bored by their topic of conversation.  It seemed to consist of : 1. doing drugs back in the day 2. video games, or 3.  let's play beer pong...  I consider all those things to be boring.  Also, I don't like beer.  I also don't respond well to small talk.  It's stupid, vapid, pointless, and for those with a terminal fear of silence.

All in all, I think I am a realist...and wonder what exactly is wrong with that?  Nothing.