A Short Visit

LOBO -Predator Press

Holding the doorknob, I glance at Gina.

"It's a spider," I says.

"What?" asks Gina.

Cracking the door, I wince in the sunlight. Down on the welcome mat, there's a lizard.

"I'm in disguise as a lizard," it explains.

I stare.

"We've met before," it continues. "I'm the ghost of an armadillo you ran over in 2002."

I keep staring.

"But I was actually a textile worker killed during the Industrial Revolution," it points out. "Reincarnated as an armadillo. Understand?"

"You're the spider ghost of a textile worker reincarnated as an armadillo, and in disguise as a lizard," I repeat.

From behind, Gina sighs. "Does this happen every time you eat a McDonald's Filet-O-Fish?

Confused, my eyebrows furrow as I turn back to her slightly.

"Does what happen?"

Virtually Unrepentant

LOBO -Predator Press

Poring over my psychiatrist bills, I happened spot a new diagnosis. Now trust me, I have a lot of diagnoses. The fact that I spotted this one at all is probably due to my OCD.

But this one is a learning disability.

"Disease Synonyms:

•Basic learning problem in writing
•Developmental academic disorder
•Developmental disorder in expressive writing
•Developmental disorder, expressive writing
•Developmental expressive writing disorder
•Difficulty solving problems
•Difficulty writing
•Disturbance of cognitive learning
•Impaired ability to learn new material
•Information conversion problem
•Learning difficulties
•Slow learner"

I apparently have a "Disorder of Written Expression?"

Okay, let's forget that I graduated college. With Honors. Academic Dean's List. And that I make my bones doing business correspondence on a densely-crowded travel schedule. And that I run a webpage. Shit. I mean I know I don't write as frequently anymore, but that is tied more to travel fatigue, lack of inspiration, and general depression over a divorce. Did this hack quack mistake my shitty handwriting and charming sarcasm for a legit learning disorder? Or am I really sick, like a late onset kind of thing? I have been drug and alcohol free since February, and am even [mostly] vegetarian so I can accumulate enough Karma to be the biggest, bestest douchebag ever.

Why now?

I would have bought a reading disorder, seriously. If you put three simple, clear and unrelated traffic signs close together, I can't make any sense out of any of them. And I haven't finished a novel for pleasure in over five years. I can read a news story on the internet, but I confess the only "pleasure" reading I do anymore are electronic schematics. At work, given the choice between associated titles and SKU numbers, I have been going with the numbers for years. My den is an over-budget and uncompleted collection of projects: computers and cables and unassembled IKEA furniture, waiting to prop up and network the incomplete dreams I work so hard for.

It is a sacred place I hope is never finished.

It is a beautiful disaster.