We've made it through another week, my Puddlers. We've seen the highs and the lows of Montauk, basketball, gender roles and now we've made it to Mr. Mark Jack. In review, this may be my favorite week of Puddles of all time, due to the sheer diversity and humanistic breadth of the posts. I'll let you take a look back and be the judge. Do you have anything better to do this weekend? You don't like basketball as much as I do so of course not.
Now read up and let Mr. Mark Jack take you there.
Useable Friday
Mark Jack
Unsustainabilities
The smallest kindnesses are the most good. Great kindnesses create anxiety in all those unfortunate to be within a small radius of the great kindness. The small favor or gift is easily overlooked and thereby easily enjoyed. At traditional gift-giving times, even the smallest gift is noticed and so becomes tedious and overbearing, which in itself—the combination of mundane and profane—is interesting. It is interesting due to the fact that it is so far from the actuality of the notion of the gift itself. Eventually, one is considered a scrooge for disliking holidays and feels a martyr for the small kindnesses given throughout the year that go unnoticed.
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I sat at the bar yesterday, overhearing conversations.
A man had purchased an app; presumably it was for the phone he fingered possessively, that kept track of how many days he’d gone without smoking. Maybe it also estimated the money he had saved. I’m not sure. He was bragging about the money he hadn’t spent as if he had earned it. I wonder how much money he spent on a glorified calculator/calendar.
An involved debate took place with good cheer to my left. The topic: what vodka tasted best/what vodka bottle had the best design for ease of pouring from the standpoint of bartenders. Sorry Absolut, no one can handle your girth, your wee little neck.
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Taxes are Topics.
Apparently there is a lot of wage theft out there. There are far too many freelancers who don’t make their own hours and don’t have their own equipment, which could be written off. I don’t see any way around calling this wage theft. Also, why do service industry employees almost never get paid sick days or vacation?
Abolition of the Wage System!
There are buses out there in New York asking me intrusive and presumptive questions. Well, one question: Are you free from sin?
Precision is important and so I’m wanting to ask a bus for definitions, but...nothing.
Are you free from sin? Asks another.
Clearly not.
Yesterday—always yesterday—I waited for thirty minutes for a bus to come. Eventually I turned and walked away, having decided to take another route or go by a different means to my destination. I turned at the last moment of bus stop visibility to see two buses arrive at the stop I’d just left. I turned and ran but both buses left before I could return over the distance I’d just walked. I yelled entreaties, but to no avail. I yelled curses. The same response. There are hypocrites everywhere.
If I’m gonna be green, I’ve gotta be conscious of every move I make. In the world are signs, everywhere there are signs telling me whether or not I’m part of the elect.
Edwards is every concerned environmentalist’s favorite writer. Don’t lie.
I just need to say that I’m terribly afraid of exposure.
Mark.
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