I woke up in a strange place

By Marc Heiden, since 1997.
See also: a novel about a monkey.


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December 19, 2002

I live in ridiculous times. In their wake, I try to enjoy the fact that my personal disasters are usually odd, sometimes memorably so, and rarely mundane. As they happen, though, and in the long days thereafter, I become sulky as fuck. My current disaster is that I slipped on the back stairs behind my apartment while taking out the garbage and clocked myself upside the head, leaving a bloody gash upon said head. It hurt. The head has been repaired in more or less satisfactory condition, but now I have to wear a hat whenever I am in public because there is a large bandage, and a patch of hair is gone for the stitches' sake. The hat is fine when I am outdoors, because it's much the same hat that I would be wearing anyway, but indoors, it is strange. There is no time to explain to strangers that I got clocked upside the head, so they think that I am simply some twit in a hat, and I am so much more than that. At work, of course, it's fine, because they all wear yarmulkas, and if anyone had bothered to ask, which they didn't, thanks to the precedent set by my patented imperious glare, I would have informed them that I am a humanist, and it is very important for humanists around the holiday season to wear longshoreman's caps, as some kind of solidarity populist thing, so don't fuck with my beliefs. By and large, though, I don't much want to talk about it, because I am sulky as fuck.

I think the audience of this webpage is divided evenly between those who like me and those who want me dead. I am fine! I tell you that, I am fine. Half can relax, half can clench their fists.

My stepfather, a retired literature professor, made fun of me for reading Timon of Athens. That was prior to the clocking of my head. I don't know why people have to cause trouble.

(news) Also calling for Lott to step aside yesterday was religious broadcaster Jerry Falwell. While taping the TV show "America's Black Forum," Falwell said Lott's Dec. 5 statements "were indefensible. . . . By staying on, he's compromising the president's agenda."

Likely to go unnoticed in all of the hubbub surrounding Trent Lott is this tremendously important issue: What is Jerry Falwell doing hosting a show called "America's Black Forum"? Should Jerry Falwell be acting as a spokesman for black people in America? Does having an 'in' with Jesus mean you get to up and declare yourself black? These are questions.

Posted on December 19, 2002 10:27 PM |




I woke up in a strange place is the work of Marc Heiden, born in 1978, author of two books (Chicago, Hiroshima) and some plays, and an occasional photographer.

Often discussed:

Antarctica, Beelzetron, Books, Chicago, College, Communism, Food, Internet, Japan, Manute Bol, Monkeys and Apes, North Korea, Oregon Trail, Outer Space, Panda Porn, Politics, RabbiTech, Shakespeare, Sports, Texas.

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Written by Marc Heiden, 1997-2011.