Have you ever cried before getting out of bed in the morning? You roll over, look at your clock. You don’t know what time you were hoping for, but this is not it. It seems wrong that the rest of the day should even be.

Have you ever put on the smile of a happy person and wondered what grows in the gap? What’s in that void between the ‘you’ that the world sees and the ‘you’ that lurks within? What happens if they grow too far apart, will you fall in, will something be lost?

Have you ever known that if someone talks to you right now you will break? You don’t know what form that breaking will take, but you know, for the next 10 seconds, nothing must change. Your ears redden, muffling the others. Your throat hardens; you breath out, but can’t get it back. You tremble on the inside, your eyes are warm. You’re cold, it’s dark. The buzzing, oh god the buzzing. Then it all fades. The sound, the light, they come back. You breathe.

Have the voices ever become so vivid that you worry you’ll scream back? Where will you be when it happens?

Have you ever been caught up in some task, not paying attention to yourself, and suddenly realised you’ve been happy just this moment? The realisation destroys the feeling. For a second you can feel the lightness of the memory, but it soon turns to mud and slips through your fingers. You wonder if that lightness was what you used to have all the time.

I think the worst disability of all (wheelchair, blind, fat, etc.) would have to be a lack of arms. You would get tired of going to the doctor and saying “I can’t feel my legs” (although it would be hilarical to begin with). Riding a bike anywhere would be near-impossible. Ladies, sorting yourself out (you know, sexually) would be out, short of some sort of contraption. Guys are fine, we can rub up against a wall. Or a lamp. Anything, really. Although now I think about it (long and hard) I guess chicks can rub up against stuff too. OK scratch that, both sexes just fine in the masturbation stakes.

On the dating scene, asking someone back to your place after a lovely but slightly awkward* dinner is more or less saying “hey, you wanna see my arm stumps?” That’s gotta suck for both sides. I feel like I’d want to be in love with a girl before seeing her arm stumps (I’m not ever touching them). Clothed sex would be fine.

The phrase “I’d like that one, please” will never really work for you. I like that phrase.

Naturally, as a stumpy, you will get to the point where you just can’t take any more. But you wouldn’t be able to slit your wrists.

You don’t have any wrists.

I’ve got ten fingers. Ten! And I can’t get the cap off the bleach. So fuck knows how you’re going to get it off to down it in one. Fuck you evolution, would opposable big toes have been that hard?

* I never know which knife to use for what, and that’s with arms.

I totally wanna be a monk boss. I’d get all the new monks ready on their first day:

Me: “OK monks, repeat after me. I do solemnly swear …”

Monks: “I do solemnly swear …”

Me: “… to undertake a vow of silence …”

Monks: “… to undertake a vow of silence …”

Me: “… starting …”

Monks: ” … starting … ”

And then I’d walk out.

Years later, when they’re ready to graduate not-talking, I would gather them all again, wait for a hush to settle over the crowd, and continue “… now.”

Meh.

I know how to cope with this world. I need one less sense. I need to be deaf.

Right off the bat I’d save $60 a month on my phone bill. Thrifty.

I’d probably watch less TV and read more. #newyearnewme

What the hell else comes in my ear holes? Other people’s words? That brings me nothing but trouble.*

People would have to write down on a piece of paper, “hey, welcome back, how was your break, yeah, did you get up to much, yeah I spent Christmas day with the family, was really great, yeah”. It would force them to think, is it really worth writing all this out. Now I think about it, if talking wasn’t so easy, the world would be a better place. If we had something implanted that spat 1 drop of blood out onto our feet for every word we spoke. a) the world would be a very slippery place, b) people would begin to ration their words a little bit, communication would be literally, more thoughtful**.

I’d miss music, but my brain would learn to play this internally. Turn down the volume. Can you hear it?

I’d have a t-shirt that says “I’m deaf, but I didn’t want to talk to you anyway.” Maybe another that says “I’m deaf. Go on, let it all out.” And why not “Talk to the hand. Because I’m deaf” and when I saw someone reading it, I’d hold out my hand and do sassy-black-woman-head-wobble-mmmm-hmmmm.

I’d have little cards to hand out that say “I’m deaf” on one side and a set of phrases on the other. I would circle the appropriate phrase(s) before handing a card over.

• I’m not being rude, my ears don’t work.
• Large cappuccino one sugar, please.
• I’m not interested in your cause. Your sunny disposition sickens me.
• Stop being a jerk.

I would be in danger of getting that dopey deaf person voice, but as long as I used voice recognition software, that would be enough to keep my enunciation in check (ern thek). Google will tell me “sorry, I didn’t understand that” and not worry about hurting my feelings.

Fun fact, Helen Keller had a bachelor of arts degree. That doesn’t say much about art, does it. ***

* Actually being deaf wouldn’t make much of a difference. The voices have been bad over the last week. Maybe it’s melodramatic to call them voices; no one’s telling me to kill kittens or anything, but it’s non-stop words that I can’t get away from. Every person I walk past on the street says something angry to me. People that aren’t there have something to say to me. Any thought I think upsets someone in my head and they get mad or mock me. It’s been kinda really bad this week. Sometimes the lines get blurred between what a real person says to me and what the angry version of them in my head has said and I get mad at the real-world version.

It wears thin, having everyone be mad at you for every thought you have. The inside of my head used to be a private place, but now everyone has been let in, I have nowhere to go to be alone. But I’m trying to commit suicide less often, so I guess I’ll just ride it out and quietly hate existing. Bundle of joy, I am.

** Do you think you can use literally just to add emphasis, when you really mean figuratively? Well, you are right. The secondary meaning of literally (to add emphasis, synonymous with figuratively) has been in the Oxford dictionary since 1903. This is not a recent corruption of the language by the uneducated masses. Correcting the correctors releases my special-occasion dopamine.

*** Gets less funny the more you think about it.

In the first half of this particular rant I carried on about why women cheat (based on my limitless wisdom with regards to the mind of the opposite sex).

This is why men cheat.

Disclaimer: the detachment I feel from the human species as a whole is but a little brother to the detachment I feel for my particular gender. As such, I have only hypothos theories to offer*.

Did you know, our species can be thought of as only female? All that is required of the man is the tiniest snippet of DNA from the tiniest little swimmer. (This is why I am not a professional swimmer. I’d be like, I’m never going to top that first win against all the other sperm. Oh that feeling, turning round, giving the finger to all the other sperm, then bursting through my mum’s egg wall like a finish line ribbon.)

The male is only required to spread DNA around. To do that, it needs to be wrapped in a big strong body, with some specific equipment, but really that’s about all we’re required for. So reproducing is what we do. We’re also pre-disposed to liking pretty. So, since all women except Erica get less pretty as they age, naturally the heretofore monogamous male, as the years roll by, will notice his eye wandering to younger, prettier things. He will want to deposit his seed in these cute young things, not fully understanding why.

I was walking down the street the other day and a bus went past. On the bus was an attractive female. I checked her out big time, even turning my head as the bus went past. Why would my brain tell my neck and eyes to do that? What the fuck, brain? I don’t feel any pleasure from looking at a chick on a passing bus. We’re not making babies any time soon. She had headphones on! My point, I think, is that the drive to pro-create is strong, even for an asexual like myself**.

Where were we? Ha, I’ve just noticed that ‘where were we’ is like little matryoshka words. Smaller and smaller still***.

Oh this post is a rambling mess. Men cheat unless they have decided to never cheat. Men with a strong sex drive cheat. Men that don’t respect their significant other cheat. Men that fall in love with another woman cheat. Men that have no impulse control cheat. Men that meet a woman that indicates that she would like to have sex with them cheat.

So what’s a woman to do? Find an asexual.

* I don’t know the plural.

** I don’t think I’d mentioned that I was asexual up until now. Erica doesn’t believe me, probably because I give her a pretty solid rogering every time I see her. That doesn’t change the facts though.

*** Did you think matryoshka dolls were called babushka dolls? Wrong. While I’m at it, did you think those colourful little round sweets were called macaroons? Bup bow, you loose. Googling macaroon and seeing the images are what you thought they should be doesn’t prove a thing.

I’m going to go on the paleo diet I think. The human body hasn’t adapted to eat the processed foods that are shoved down our throats today. Ya know, flour, milk, etc.

For millions of years we were hunter/gatherers and we were doing just fine. But as a modern man I honestly can’t even remember the last time I tracked and killed an impala for dinner. I’m ashamed to say I keep my leftovers at or below 4ºC to slow the growth of pathogens, reducing disease and food wastage. What a wimp I be.

So I will live like the cavemen did. Not to lose weight, not to be healthier, but because I want to die when I’m 33.

There is a fly in my apartment (new today, not a resident). It flies around for a bit then lands on the carpet and walks around. What? Right? I yell at it: “dude, you’re a fly, not a walk, get the fuck up!” It does not respond. It taunts me with its tiny walking legs. I chased it but it ran under the couch.

You win this round, fly. You win this round.

I went to the newsagent to buy a pen and paper (Bonnie and Clyde). The chap in front of me bought $30 worth of lottery tickets. “Anything else?”, said the lackadaisical youth behind the counter*.

“Umm, I’ll get a Financial Times as well.”

Oh no he di-uhnt. $30 worth of lottery tickets and a Financial Times. Are you going to check if the experts say that lottery tickets are no longer for twits that don’t understand probability? Hey maybe lottery tickets are where the smart money is in 2015? Perhaps you want to know which lottery tickets will make the best long term investment: the ones with the pyramids, or that farm-themed series that just came out. Fucking moooo.

And don’t give me that shit about lottery tickets being an excuse to dream a little; that it’s fun to imagine what it would be like to win big. Why don’t you imagine buying the fucking ticket? Dream about that, dipshit.

In fact, give me the $30. I will buy $30 worth of water and go pour it on the grass over yonder. It is a little dry now that I look at it so probably could do with a drink; but still, I think it would get my-waste-of money point across.

I was in a little corner store this morning (no, not the newsagent; yeah I get around). One of those ones that’s really crowded like they got the number of aisles mixed up with the number of shelves**. Anyhoodles there was a doddering old man or significant year, looking a little bewildered (that he was still alive), loitering by the packets of soup and cat food and sewing kit shelf. One of the staff was coming through with a big tray of breads and said “excuse me, coming through”***. Alas, Father Time’s hearing aid was set to ‘do not disturb’ and she was forced to repeat this several times. This disgruntled her from her otherwise gruntled state and led her to mutter, in her outside voice, “oh for fucks sakes, I had to ask him three times”. Seriously, this really happened. The old man looked upset. I was upset. I wish I’d had the gall to set her straight. I played it over and over in my head on the way home:

“It’s ‘for fucks sake’. Not sakes. It’s for the sake of fuck, not the sakes of fuck. Gawd.”

But I said nothing. I let it slide. And that’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life.

* Did you think it was ‘lack-see-day-see-cal’?

** “We want four aisles.” “Four shelves down the middle. Got it.”

*** What in the devil is the plural of bread?