<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve recently discovered something on my computer:\u00a0 Solitaire!\u00a0 Most of you probably don\u2019t know, but it\u2019s under \u201cAccessories,\u201d then \u201cGames.\u201d\u00a0 Be careful, though!\u00a0 It\u2019s very addictive because you can change the look of the card deck!\u00a0 There\u2019s the one with the haunted house and the\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n Okay, seriously.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what happened:\u00a0 In college, I used to play Solitaire back on Windows Version Fuck You because I had this little cheap computer that could barely manage Castle Wolfenstein.\u00a0 On the nights I wasn\u2019t writing papers, drinking, or just reading books and talking to myself while banging my head against the wall, it was nothing but Wolfenstein and Solitaire.\u00a0 Soon, as I entered my glorious 20\u2019s, Solitaire was left behind for that other great vice we learn in college:\u00a0 Sex.\u00a0 Sex with strange women who thought they were witches and struggled with their inner experimental self-lesbianization.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Of course, I went to college in a time (two hours ago) when computers weren\u2019t all that.\u00a0 In 1992 and, after my third emotional collapse in 1995 (I\u2019m currently on my 54th emotional collapse), the internet didn\u2019t have the mesmerizing powers it now possesses.\u00a0 There was the faintest whisper in 1995 but, for a college kid with his aged computer, it wasn\u2019t worth it.\u00a0 So I had to meet people the old fashioned way \u2013 by meeting them.\u00a0 And I had to hook up with girls by actually hooking up with them.\u00a0 None of this weird online flirting.\u00a0 I went to parties and I grabbed their tits or shook them really hard till they lost their senses and had sex with me.\u00a0 Or, better yet, they shook me really hard until I lost my senses.<\/p>\n Ah, real women.\u00a0 Real women and their age old cycle of human connection:\u00a0 Attraction, love, betrayal, horror, revulsion, forgiveness, guilt-enforced anal sex, unwilling drug-induced gang bangs, and tearful cum swallowing.<\/p>\n You college kids today don\u2019t know what you\u2019re missing until you are the instrument of some young woman\u2019s ultimate, life-altering, emotional and physical doom.<\/p>\n But enough about me, we\u2019re talking about solitaire.\u00a0 My introduction to it was innocent enough.\u00a0 I am convinced that, if my computer were able to play Doom, I would have been spared the solitaire demon.\u00a0 But, alas, as those witchy, proto-goth young girlfriends always said \u2013 Alack!\u00a0 Alas!\u00a0 Woe! \u2013 I was envenomed by Solitaire way back then in those formative college years.\u00a0 Maybe it was the scotch.\u00a0 Maybe it was the women.\u00a0 Maybe it was walking too close to my RA\u2019s room, constantly shrouded in a pale mist of crack cocaine.<\/p>\n After the wave of distractions, I entered into the American Workforce and was able to buy a computer which could play Doom.\u00a0 I worked 25 hours a day and got an apartment in a wealthy part of town, I played records and watched TV and went to the bar and used all of my free time writing stories.\u00a0 I wrote three novels and a movie script, all of which are, currently, under my bed with the fossilized fetus of an unknown animal from Skull Island and three boxes of cassette tapes.<\/p>\n Then, when I had one of my emotional breakdowns and crawled into a different sort of job \u2013 something that had nothing to do with writing or journalism \u2013 I distracted myself by cutting off strips of my flesh and making blood paintings on the wall.\u00a0 Or something.\u00a0 I have no idea what I did, except I\u2019m certain that I never played solitaire.<\/p>\n Years have passed and, now, I stand before you \u2013 a man in his 30\u2019s.\u00a0 Even though I continue to have sex with witchy girls who say alack and alas all the time.\u00a0 Though, distressingly, they are also in their 30\u2019s.\u00a0 And given that they are the sort of people who use those words in normal conversation, the inevitable assault of the flawed female body is magnified a hundred times and used as a launching point for just about every conversation.\u00a0 I really want to buy a house.\u00a0 Alack, I have some bizarre \u00a0pussy problem and I refuse to go to a doctor.\u00a0 Woe!<\/p>\n Exeunt Nacho.<\/p>\n At my current job, I have about 45 minutes of work a day.\u00a0 The rest of the time is spent in the venerable tradition of Looking Busy.\u00a0 Thousands of years ago, Looking Busy led to the creation of Stonehenge.\u00a0 It was their version of solitaire.<\/p>\n You farmin\u2019 that field?!<\/p>\n Yep.<\/p>\n Looks more like you\u2019re fucking around with that rock.<\/p>\n Yep.\u00a0 Farmin\u2019 the field.\u00a0 *blank, vaguely hostile stare*<\/p>\n Performance appraisal in six months.\u00a0 I\u2019m watchin\u2019 you!<\/p>\n Yep.<\/p>\n For a few years I\u2019ve busied myself with, you know, writing stuff like this and posting it online.\u00a0 My main goal has been to convince women to sleep with me thanks to the power of my words.\u00a0 This has been, contrary to what you may think, successful.\u00a0 Alas, I\u2019ve begun to lose my interest in such meandering, hollow adventures.\u00a0 These days, I\u2019m seeking something more concrete.\u00a0 Children, a house, a dog, an SUV\u2026<\/p>\n Oh, you caught me!\u00a0 The real reason I\u2019m losing interest is because I\u2019ve finally realized that women cost money.\u00a0 I had this moment of clarity during one of my brief, unrewarding relationships.\u00a0 Women are thieving money pits and, I fear, part of a larger \u2013cosmic \u2013 conspiracy designed to make me miserable.<\/p>\n Saving money has been the name of the game recently because, against the advice of intelligent people, I started a publishing company.\u00a0 I thought it would be fun and rewarding.\u00a0 Instead it shattered friendships, ripped the lining out of my soul\/mind\/shoes and promises to make about $5000 to back up the $15,000 it costs to produce a book which, by the way, is so fucking hard I caught myself bounding around the room saying alack and alas and, more than any word I\u2019ve ever spoken, woe.<\/p>\n This gets me back to solitaire. \u00a0I spent the last three weeks trying to secure a distributor.\u00a0 The negotiation followed a simple pattern:\u00a0 I talked bravely about how I would sell one million books in my sleep, with one hand tied behind my back, while siphoning gasoline from a police car and singing loudly.\u00a0 The distributor then replied with enthusiasm and said I was a shoo-in.\u00a0 Then they\u2019d vanish from the face of the earth.\u00a0 I then emailed and called them more than I did the lovely Jenny, whom I have always loved\u00a0 fractionally more than I have hated.<\/p>\n What ensued was a list of bizarre complaints from the distributor who, by the way, never asked for a copy of the book or a press kit. They judged by the cover design alone and even said reading the manuscript was \u201cunimportant.\u201d\u00a0 Like Fight Club<\/em>, all I can say is that they are A Major Distributor and give you the knowing look that strikes fear and horror into your heart.<\/p>\n The cover design for the book has, repeatedly, been so well received that the actual book itself has, indeed, become unimportant when dealing with the special brand of idiots who run the machinery of the publishing industry.\u00a0 The world of printing, marketing, distribution, representation and litigation.\u00a0 There is no book, there is simply presentation and the promise of some\u2026thing that involves any increase in financial wealth for everyone but the author, even if that wealth is measured in pennies.\u00a0 It\u2019s the ultimate feeding frenzy.\u00a0 Don\u2019t stop when the fish are gone, start sucking up whatever fell to the floor of the ocean. \u00a0Clean the fucking rocks of algae and start eating the dirt until it gets too hard to chew.\u00a0 Then shit it all out \u2013 preferably on somebody\u2019s head.\u00a0 That is publishing.<\/p>\n Back and forth we went.\u00a0 They asked for something, I compromised, or simply surrendered.\u00a0 Without a distributor, the book was dead in the water.\u00a0 Days became weeks and requests from their side became bizarre and childish.\u00a0 I played the game, mainly because I recognized the game.\u00a0 I knew that, in the final reel, with little time to review the contract objectively and follow the right path with legal counsel, they would accept the book.\u00a0 This they have done.\u00a0 While I write this, my panicked email languishes in my lawyer\u2019s in-box.\u00a0 \u201cIs the attached contract on the level?\u201d is all it asks.<\/p>\n Since this episode began, I\u2019ve had lots of free time waiting for people to respond to me.\u00a0 Here in my regular 9-5 job, waiting anxiously for events outside of the confines of the mind-numbing, unrewarding day results in a slight squiggle of realization.\u00a0 First, there is more to life.\u00a0 Second, what the fuck am I doing here?\u00a0 Disgruntled, exhausted, vaguely depressed, and coming off of yet another severe emotional breakdown, it happened.\u00a0 I clicked on Accessories.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t even aware of it.\u00a0 That old venom was still in me, lingering just beyond my perception.\u00a0 I clicked on Games.\u00a0 There it was.\u00a0 Solitaire.<\/p>\n That unchanging screen.\u00a0 The deck of cards.\u00a0 Vegas style!\u00a0 Play for money.\u00a0\u00a0 I started.\u00a0 When I looked up again, hours had passed.\u00a0 As if in a scene stolen from the Time Machine<\/em>, I looked at a setting sun outside my office window.\u00a0 Just a little faster this time.\u00a0 Man was still fighting wars. \u00a0Just another deal.\u00a0 Get out of the hole.\u00a0 Start making money.<\/p>\n Looking up again, I was surrounded by a circle of Morlocks, closing in on me, step by step.\u00a0 A million years of evolution\u2026\u00a0 Come to this!\u00a0 Cannibalism!\u00a0 GET AWAY!<\/p>\n I left work, collapsed in my bed at home, turned sideways, sucked my thumb, and watched episodes of The Greatest American Hero<\/em> until, gently, I faded away into troubled publisher sleep.\u00a0 The next morning, back to work.\u00a0 A round with the distributor, and then I opened it up right away.\u00a0 Solitaire.\u00a0 George, if this machine can do what you say it does, you must destroy it!\u00a0 Before it destroys you!\u00a0 Mother Nature herself rebelled against the violence of man!\u00a0 Then, entombed by lava.\u00a0 So cold.\u00a0 How much time was passing?\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t see.\u00a0 Thousands, tens of thousands of years.\u00a0 Above me, wars raged.\u00a0 Men died.\u00a0 Civilizations rose and fell.<\/p>\n For four days, it was nothing but Solitaire and squabbling with the distributor.\u00a0 Then, finally, I went home Friday, a shell of my former self, and there was the contract.\u00a0 I was in the clear.\u00a0 I had won.\u00a0 Worldwide distribution, the greatest battle won.<\/p>\n Monday morning.\u00a0 A new week with victory sweet in my mouth.\u00a0 The lawyers have the contract now.\u00a0 For me, there is nothing left to do but kick back and return to the pretense of work here at my office job.\u00a0 Solitaire no longer calls me.\u00a0 I look out the window, down, down, down to the distant specks of children in the playground below.\u00a0 Behind me, phones ring, printers print, faxes fax and the sluggish dayworkers mourn for their lives.\u00a0 The venom recedes.\u00a0 But I turn my head and look over my shoulder, my computer screen sitting blank, and I know.\u00a0 Solitaire is there.<\/p>\n 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