Notes Scribbled On Pieces of Paper

I would like to introduce a new and likely short-lived series entitled "Notes Scribbled On Pieces of Paper," which will appear whenever I find these pieces of paper, so usually when I clean out pockets on laundry day and when I move the couch cushions to look for the lost tv remote.

Note #22988

I'm sitting on the back of the bus, and the two Asian girls sitting to my left are laughing at me.

I know I look funny--I haven't trimmed my beard in nearly a month, and I haven't shaved in two weeks which means my neck beard and chest hair have converged; I can't even begin to think of when I cut my hair last, and I realize that it's stuck in an awkward mop-top phase in which it's longer in the back which makes it a sort of mop-top mullet style that will never become a fad; I know I'm wearing the dirty tan 'Bulls' hat that is made by some brand I've never heard of an looks like it was a free give-away at a home game against the Sacramento Kings back in '97, probably one in which the Worm had his hair painted like a smiley face; I know I'm wearing a dingy bluish-purple polo shirt with oddly shaped golf-club faces patterned all over it like it used to be my grandfather's shirt and that's why it's slightly too large around the middle and the short arm sleeves sag off my arms like I'm in a nightshirt, and I know that having the top two buttons undone makes my black forest of hair running from my chest up my neck all the more noticeable; and I know that wearing these royal blue nylon shorts and dark brown Panama Jack thong-sandals make my appearance all the more disparate,

But that's no excuse to make fun.

I think they're Japanese--they look Japanese to me--and I know that they're talking about me in their sing-song voices and laughter. I think they're Japanese, and I know they're talking about me, but I have no idea what they're saying, what language it is they are speaking. It could be Japanese. It could be Greek for all I know. They're sing-song voices rise like music, ching-chong like wind chimes, and crescendo into a staccato laughter. Their voices sound like chimes in the wind, or in this case the cool breeze of the transit bus's air-conditioning that adds a pleasant hum to their song like bees.

Yet, despite all the summer niceties, their laughter and mockery sting. I know, and I see, and I can laugh too for these reasons. And I place this moment back in the recesses with all of the other pains, so when I look down to my left, upon the girl closest, upon her bare, fair white, unshaven leg, I can think 'Boy that's hairy, but damn if it still ain't sexy as hell.'