I learned that rat psychologists had elegant solutions
to the wrong questions, or questions that didn’t matter.
I learned that sociologists waited for the decennial census.
I learned that economists said ceteris parabus, but things never
stayed the same, and economic man was a bugbear. I learned that
political scientists relied on polls that skewed the data. I learned not to trust
history. The wrong people wrote it. What did they have to do to get
the time to do research, and write? Whatever they had to. I learned that
grants and scholarships and literary prizes and writer-in-residence positions
were merit-based, and if you wrote about how the patronage was actually
handed out, you were labeled a disgruntled loser and a whiner.
A crybaby and an Alibi Ike. Rowan says he uses Firewall
as a browser because it blocks the pop-ups better.
He is three. He calls a rooster a cockerel.
I told Brenda I didn’t like collectors,
they were like roaches, wiggling their feelers,
their little feet covered with shit, and she said,
“It’s just Republican personality,” a pause, and then
she said, “disorder.” I said, “Shopping sickness.”