Weather is calm and so am I. It’s funny the things that scramble through my mind. I saw a man with a really huge ass today. It reminded me of a woman in college who had a beautiful face. Every single time I saw her i had the same mental track. “There’s her face. There are her boobs. OH MY GOD THERE’S HER ASS.” Her butt was unbelievably out of proportion to the rest of her. Huge. I think the main reason I remember this is because a friend from college and I were talking once, years after graduation. He asked if i remembered this woman. I said yes. He then related that his mental tracks was virtually identical to mine whenever he saw this woman: “Nice face. Look at those boobs. OH MY FUCKING GOD THAT ASS!” We laughed, knowing of course that we were perfect human specimens and priviliged to ridicule others who were not. Actually it was more like what I was saying the other day about laughter being a symptom of unease or discomfort, not of happiness or confidence.
Was remembering the Bicentennial Quarter fixation my mother and I shared. We horded those quarters, thinking they would one day be worth far more than 25 cents. Alas, we must have had acess to some kind of collectors journal or something because the joke was that the most they were ever worth to a collector was 28 cents, just 3 cents more than face value. Still, we kept the bag of quarters in a desk drawer, holding out for that day when they were revealed to be solid gold.
The dream died one day when I was a senior in college. Mother called to say the house in Tampa had been robbed, and that nothing much of value was missing except for that fucking bag of Bicentennial Quarters. We both laughed, though our laughter was more a release of tension at how much worse this burglary could have been. There was some jewelry around, and this indivudal clearly saw because the items were not where they had been when my mother left the house. But this individual did not take the small amount of jewelry. He stayed on the low road, as many a successful small time hood has the discipline to do.
Mother added a curious detail: The burglar took a huge dump in the downstairs bathroom, and did not flush the toilet. She later mentioned that this was said to be typical behavior of a home burglar. Only after describing the enormity of the turd did she have the temerity to suggest that the burglar must have been male. God, I laughed after she said that.
I thought of that anecdote years later when I saw a Robin Williams movie where he played a guy who develops photos at the local department store, and he creepily gets into the lives of the families who send their photos to him, since he sees every single picture. There is one memorable scene where he breaks into one of these family’s houses and sits on their toilet for what seems like an eternity. It is seered into my brain.
Something of mine was stolen in that robbery but now I cannot remember what it was. I had nothing of any real value so maybe he stole one of my electronic games? I don’t remember, and I don’t think a police report was ever filed.
I got a Bicentennial Quarter in change yesterday and appreciated the fact that it had been in currency for 40 years. That’s far longer than virtually any paper currency could be expected to stay in active circulation. Of course there is no way to know if this quarter was actively in use for all these 40 years but from the abuse it seems to have endured it sure looks like it’s been seeing constant combat. I scanned it at 2400 DPI, revealing dozens of nicks and indentations.
I was thinking it would be cool if there was a currency exchange where money increased in value every time it was spent. This quarter, having been used thousands of times, would be worth hundreds by now if it increased in value by 25 cents every time it was used. With no tracking mechanism it’s just a silly daydream, but I start to imagine a scenario where a dollar is worth more coming from one person versus another, not on account of the person’s individual prestige but because of the pedigree of the currency s/he happened to be given. There could be no way of knowing the history of a bill or coin beforehand. Maybe there’s a Bitcoin game to be developed around this, where coins increase in value every time they are traded, with extra points given for reeipt of coins that have come from especially prestigious or famous individuals.
Or something. Blahblahblah. I can do this all day, you know, just write write write. I find it harder to do that at home any more. I miss the Rose Main Reading Room so very very much.
