A Little Insight

or; Why Do I Do the Things I Do?

i've been shopping for my work wardrobe. more on that later.

during my shopping, i visited a new strip center just outside the city proper. now, texas does strip centers a little differently. we do acres of asphalt parking, a few spindly trees, and linear miles of storefront surrounding it all. since land is cheap (and unlike california, not prone to wild-fires when dry, mudslides when wet, or earthquakes any old time) and the rich creep (further and further into the hill-country) we grow horrible mega-developments practically overnight. this is why, if you want to live in a city with any sort of infrastructure and general urban plan, AND you want to live in texas, your option is Austin. which austinites will tell you while wearing VERY smug smiles, whether you want to hear it or not.

i'm sort of an honorary austinite, i think. i mean, i have a major hard-on for urban planning, functioning metropolises (metropoli?) make me moist as a snack cake, and i lived there for... a year and a half? anyway, blah blah blah.

so the point of this all is, the name of this new shopping center is: wait for it:

The Rim.

i'm not sure why they decided to name it the rim. i'm not sure what actual physical rim its on. the rim of the city? geological rim/balcones escarpment? not a clue. i'm not sure why there is actually a J.C. Penney's in the rim. truly, i thought they'd died out.

all i know, is what i'm sure you know by now.

my family doesn't call it The Rim.

well, we do, but we add an extra word to the end. because for gods' sakes, they practically MADE us! how can you possibly look at that name and let it be? its like putting a cake in front of a dog, leaving the room, and getting mad when you come back and rover has frosting all over his face.

so later that day, i'm showing mom everything i bought while shopping at The Rim Job. and i call it The Rim Job. and mom, being mom, asks the question; "why do all you kids call it The Rim Job? what's a rim job anyway?"

our mom is really damn cool. you can talk to our mom about almost anything without it getting "awkward." but there, in the living room, both of the other kids out of the house, and a simple question with a simple answer out in the air, i freeze up. would the answer gross her out? no. would it freak her out? no. can i bring myself to simply say "analingus?" no.

"uhhh... its something sexual." that's what i can say.

which gets a loud "duh!" from mom.

fair enough. episode over.

except that there is something fundamentally wrong with me, and how i operate.

fast forward to tonight. mother, brother, sister, and i are at the cheesecake factory having celebratory dinner in honor of sister's acceptance to one medical school. (so far... she'll get into others. i have no doubts.) its crowded, and we're sitting in the middle of the room, eating, talking, having a pleasant evening out as a family, for once. everyone is happy, no one is sniping at anyone or taking potshots. we are having, a good, time.

i swear to god, it came out of nowhere. i wasn't even thinking about it. i wasn't dwelling on it. the episode had been basically forgotten. but unbidden, it rose up in my mind, and i was unable to quell it. the path before me was suddenly clear, and i was powerless but to walk it.

"a rim job is, basically, analingus."

i don't think other tables heard. the siblings sat in silence for a moment, and then conversation resumed. mom asked, rhetorically, if it was absolutely necessary for me to wait to answer the question until we're out in a crowded restaurant, rather than in the privacy of our home. dinner resumed. at this point, my outbursts really aren't that big a deal for most of the people who are close to me.

but to answer a question that obviously doesn't need answering; yes. for some unknown reason, because i'm just prey to these strange compulsions, maybe because i simply have to do the most inappropriate thing possible, yes. i will tell you what a rim job is, but only if you take me someplace nice.