though some would say that confronting rumors only gives their originators the satisfaction they so ardently crave, i feel nevertheless compelled to clear up a particularly persistent one which i am told has been circulating over the course of this past week.
i did not spend the better part of last saturday morning sleeping on a sidewalk in downtown detroit, in thirty-degree weather, wearing neither shoes nor anything more substantial than a tee shirt and polyester levi's 517s, within ten city blocks of a parking lot which has seen no fewer than three of my friends cars stolen within the last six months.
oh, wait- i fucking DID. haha, my bad!
fortunately, sufficient time has elapsed to permit the memory of trying every exterior doorknob of an apartment complex off woodward/subsequently crying myself to sleep on the front staircase to have faded to what seems to have been little more than a bad dream. likewise, the old adage about 'time healing all wounds' rings truer than ever when i take stock of the mccullen i am today, and then harken back to the mccullen of last saturday: a mccullen curled into the fetal position clutching a dead cell phone, listening in vain for the creak of a heavy oaken door which would have indicated that someone was emerging from the building; all the while keeping one heavy-lidded eye on the drug-addled transients who wobbled irregularly from side to side as they passed, their glazed stares either registering me as merely another of their ranks or simply missing me altogether.
while i harbor no ill will, i should admit that kevin's offer to buy me breakfast the following morning came as small consolation after learning that the doorbell i'd rung over fifty times (screaming and banging my fist against the brick walls of the building [at one point i think i actually buzzed the rhythm of the melody of belle and sebastian's "get me away from here, i'm dying" in an unconsciously ironic effort to rouse the slumbering drunks upstairs by using the familiar tune to convince them that i was i need of immediate door-answering]) had not been broken, but had merely been ignored by kevin and the house's other tenants, who i am told attributed the ignominious buzz to just another "indigent" trying to "get warm." i don't imagine the prospect of spending any future nights in detroit will seem any more appealing than they did that chilly, pneumoniac morning-after, although i may have to make an exception for the midwest product/postal service show tomorrow night.
in an effort to recover some of my lost inner tranquility and to reestablish the balance of domestic harmony which has been so grossly upset by:
a: my roommates being out of town all the time
b: the grim realization that five of seven communal light fixtures are without working bulbs
c: the sad desolate silence that comes from two weeks spent without digital cable or internet access
i devoted myself last night to an evening of traditional cookery. by one a.m. i had a steaming loaf of bread, a green pepper omelette and three dozen chocolate chip cookies to show for my efforts. i think i may just join my roommates and take my act on the road...that is, if i can be wholeheartedly assured that the owners of the houses in which i stay along the way don't mind issuing the requisite extra front door key which will be, in bold lettering, at the very top of my rider. right alongside 'two forties of steel reserve,' of course. after all, i am a simple man.