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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA



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Howdy, friendly reading person!
I'm on a bit of a hiatus right now, but only to work on other projects -- one incredibly exciting example being the newly-released kids' science book series Things That Make You Go Yuck!
If you're a science and/or silliness fan, give it a gander! See you soon!

I Could Tell You… But Then I’d Have to Kill Myself

If you can’t keep it in your pants, keep it in your blog.

Hey, all. Apologies for any troubles you might have had getting to the site earlier — it seems that the robot secretly running the Blogger family of sites went haywire, violating its prime directive and embarking on a killing spree around the corporate offices. (Well, okay, perhaps that’s exaggerating. It’s an internet company, after all — they probably run it out of the CEO’s basement in the house he shares with his parents. It probably shut down for a few hours because grandma is visiting, and needed to use the washing machine. I just prefer the ‘killing spree‘ explanation. It’s more dramatic, somehow. I’m sure the Blogger kids would agree.

Anyway, I’m back, and verbose as ever, so you can rest easy. Really, put the noose down. That’s right. We won’t be needing that today.

But what to talk about? I don’t really have a topic ready, I’m afraid, having spent all day watching college football on TV, and then working on my golf game.

(By the way, if you swing a golf club the way I do — which is more or less totally incorrectly — then I’d like to make a suggestion to make your practice sessions more enjoyable. Find a driving range with overhead lights, and go at night. Besides the obvious advantages — the air is cooler, most people are out having fun at night, so there are less witnesses to your continuing incompetence — you also can’t see the ball quite as well under the artificial lights. So those haunting memories of your mishits and banana hooks burned into your memory will be softer, and fuzzier.

Plus, you can then go right out afterwards and drown those memories in beer and booze and loaded nachos. Sure, you can do the same thing on a Sunday at two in the afternoon, but you’ll feel all dirty afterward, and you won’t have much company. Try the same thing at nine at night, and you’re just one of the gang. Now that’s my kind of golfing!)

So let’s see… topic, topic. Well, one thing I certainly can’t write about is the still-growing TiVo fund. You long-time readers will know that I was saving up my dollar bills to buy a TiVo. But my wife saved me the trouble, and bought me one for my birthday. But I still have the cash — nearly two hundred dollars’ worth of singles, just sitting on the desk.

But I can’t talk about those, like I said. Because the first thing I would tell you about them is that my wife looked at them today, and frowned, and said, ‘We’ve really got to use those ones somehow.’ And I can’t tell you that, because then I’d just have to tell you how hard I had to work to not say, ‘Well, then, strap on a G-string and let’s get stuffin’. Standin’ around talkin’ about it ain’t gonna get ’em creased down the middle, you know.

(Really, I think I blew a blood vessel trying to keep that in. But I did.)

So, of course I can’t tell you that, because then my wife might see it, and smack me for something I actually managed not to blurt out without thinking. And I say enough stupid shit as it is, without getting caught not saying crap. So I can’t talk about the money. Clearly.

Let’s see — what else can’t I tell you?

I suppose I can’t really say much about the article I’m going to try and write for a local free daily paper. For one thing, since the paper is ‘free’, the article is going to be ‘gratis‘. (That’s Latin for ‘don’t cost nothin’.‘ I didn’t have to use Latin. But I’m always trying to bring more of an air of credibility around this place, you know.) Anyway, I can’t tell you about it. For one thing, I haven’t started. For another, it’s unsolicited, so there’s a good chance it’ll never come to pass. (But how many other morons in the greater Boston area are taking the time and trouble to write shit they’re not gonna get paid for? Maybe my chances aren’t so bad.) Also, for those of you who read along to laugh with me rather than at me, it’ll be something that’s posted elsewhere, but not here. So you’re gonna miss it — won’t that be tragic?

(Okay, maybe not tragic, and almost certainly not tragic. ‘Mildly annoying’, maybe? ‘Nuisance-causing’? ‘Completely irrelevant’? Yeah, it’s in that neighborhood somewhere.)

Anyway, it’s going to be about the asteroid that was recently discovered zooming — no, actually, I prefer ‘hurtling‘, come to think of it — toward the planet. Apparently, there a one-in-less-than-a-million chance that we’ll have a playdate with the little beastie in eleven years or so. So, I’m going to write about how we’re all screwed, and what we should get accomplished before we all dance the Meteor Mash. (Hey, this is good shit. I can use this. I should write this down somewhere… oh. Never mind.) But I don’t want to tell you about it, in case I never get around to it, or it gets rejected, or whatever. I think I’d like my first tentative foray into asking other people to publish my work to be a private matter. You know, in case I get hives or wig out or sometihng. There’s a good chance it’s not going to be pretty, so I don’t want anybody looking over my shoulder.

Hmmm… well, shit. What can I talk about, then?

It’s probably best that I don’t mention the dream I had last night, where some kindly old doctor lady noticed a spot on my face and immediately proclaimed it ‘cancer‘. It might be a mildly entertaining way to eat up some space, but I just think it would take too long to tell you that I don’t actually have a spot on my face like the one in my dream, but that I do have a similar spot on my neck. Because then I’d have to go on and on about how my wife said I should have it checked out, in case it’s ‘cancer‘.

Of course, based on how the spot looks (about a centimeter in diameter, red and not raised at all) and how long it’s been there (several weeks now), she also told me that if I was going to get a hickey from someone, the least I could do is vary the spot, so she can more easily tell, and kick my ass. Yeah, she’s cool like that.

And then, I’d have to say that it’s not a hickey. (But thanks for asking.) And I’d tell you that I don’t really think it’s cancer, either, because it doesn’t itch or grow or bubble or bump up or anything. It just sits there, looking red and — nothing. But then I’d have to admit that maybe I do think it’s cancer, or why else would I have such a dream? Or maybe it is cancer, and the old lady in my dream is some apparition sent to warn me.

(Though why this particular apparition would bear such a striking resemblence to Angela Lansbury is beyond me. Sure, I can understand if it had to assume a form I could wrap my mortal mind around — but Angela Lansbury? She’s not a doctor, nor does she play one on TV. She plays an annoying old know-it-all windbag. Which is like a lot of docs I’ve known, come to think of it — maybe there is a connection, after all. Spooky.)

So, anyway, it’s just not worth telling. It’d take way too long to explain, and then there’s the very real danger that my wife would read it, and think that I’m calling her an old woman, since the lady in the dream said the same thing she did. Oh, and there’s still the off-chance that this thing on my neck is some malignant hellspawn and I’ll have to get it taken care of. Not something I’d want to burden you with. But maybe I should have it checked out. We’ll see.

Well, dammit, folks. I’m really sorry, but I guess there’s nothing that I can tell you about today. I’ve never been unable to come up with a post, but I guess this is your (un)lucky day. I hate to leave you with nothing, but that’s way better than writing some rambly post about nothing, or telling you things that I really shouldn’t. That wouldn’t be fair to you. (And just might get my ass kicked.)

So, you’ll just have to do without your two thousand words or so today. I’m really sorry. But think about what you’ll have time to read now! That’s, like, seven newspaper articles. (Or several dozen personal ads.) You can read ahead in the TV guide for three or four days — every channel, every time slot! And the cereal boxes — oh, the cereal boxes! You can get through the back of every box in your house, and still have words left over for the Pop-Tarts or Quaker Oats.

So, really, I guess I’m doing you a favor.

(Less and less of a favor with every word, now, but still a big favor.)

So go out there and read something. Put this time to good use. Because I’m not doing this again — next time, I’ll get bite the bullet and tell you all the stuff I don’t think you need to know. And you don’t want that, now, do you?

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One Response to “I Could Tell You… But Then I’d Have to Kill Myself”

  1. Lara says:

    Hey! I suggested that you think about writing a few blogs ago! Good luck! What I really wanted to tell you though was that I used to work for one of those FREE local papers here in Arizona. The way they make their money is through advertising dollars…we ALWAYS paid our writers. So unless the people you’re writing for are a REALLY small operation, you might get a few duckets for your words…just an FYI in case they tried to give you the old welll…we ARE a FREE publication you know speech. Believe me, if they werent making SOMEthing they wouldnt be publishing!

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