I’m now a personal assistant. I don’t know if I ever said that here but yeah, I don’t do social media anymore, which is great. Instead, I get to run errands I wouldn’t normally run for myself because I hate them so much/run errands I only dream of running for myself.
For example…
Yesterday, I got to go pick up some goods at Paul Smith.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Paul Smith store,
but HOLY MOTHER OF ALL THINGS WOOD
& WHITE & AESTHETICALLY PLEASING!
That place is just like, heaven.
It’s just magic in there. I want to live there.
Now see those book shelves in that second photo?
Alright, so I was checking out these pajamas
when I spot a book I’ve been dying to have:
THIS IS LIKE A PHOTOGRAPHER’S PREMONITION OF MY LIFE.
THIS WAS MY BIOGRAPHY BEFORE I WAS EVEN BORN TO HAVE ONE.
THIS IS EVERYTHING I STAND FOR IN A FUCKING BOOK DUDE!
Anyway, so I pick it up & look for a price, expecting a zillion dollars.
I couldn’t find a price tag though, only a small $35.00 on the inside sleeve.
I ran my little hands across the cover, gently grazing the plastic sheath like a lover’s cheek. I flipped through the pages, using all my strength not to just fingerblast the hell out of those nineteen-seventies pool scenes. I wanted to just kiss it, all over. I wanted to make love to that book right there. I wanted to worship it, and whisper sweet nothings in its ears. “You are the tightest pussy of a book,” I’d tell it. “I want to live in you. I’ll never be able to live without you. You’re so beautiful.” But I decided, for thirty-five dollars, I should just buy it & go be creepy in the privacy of my own home.
Being as this store is in the trajectory of 2014 in terms of shit I can afford, I don’t know what in hell possessed me to trick myself into thinking it was actually thirty-five dollars. I guess it was wishful thinking & also the fact that I didn’t think people would maliciously hide the price tags in the spine of page fifteen.
But that’s exactly where the real price tag was.
Please take a moment of silence
to picture & bless the look on my face
when it rang up as NINE HUNDRED & FIFTY FUCKING DOLLARS.
My mouth dropped open & I let out a silly, “Aheh…”
followed by a giggle that would have been cute on me five years ago.
And the too-fashionable-not-to-be-gay salesman says,
“Well, it is vintage & first edition!”
Apparently, vintage + first edition = more than my rent.
I held A Wonderful Time in my hot little hands for a moment longer, thinking of the ecstasy I had felt just mere minutes earlier in that back corner of the store. That hot minute I spent alone thinking about how I was going to fuck the shit out of this book with my eyes for all of eternity, how it would always be there on my coffee table just waiting to be molested with my mind, every day. For a moment, I really wondered if I could get away with it. Like if maybe I ran my debit like a credit card & then ran home & told my dad my cat was dying or something.
But then I realized that that was really stupid.
There may come a day when I actually need to lie about my cat dying
so I can get nine hundred & fifty dollars to fucking live or eat or not be arrested.
Also, I shouldn’t even be thinking about lying about my cat dying! I love my cat! What is wrong with me?! What has happened to me?!
This pool porn was turning me into a monster!
I sheepishly let out another, “Aheh…”
with an awkward smile & put the book back,
feeling totally defeated & deflated.
I gingerly stroked its cover one last time,
promising I would see it in two years
& to please, PLEASE JUST WAIT FOR ME!
I WILL COME BACK I FUCKING PROMISE!
I LOVE YOU! I FUCKING LOVE YOU!
I turned my back on it at 2:30pm
on January Twenty-Third Two Thousand & Twelve,
knowing I may never see it again
but certain the love in my heart would go on forever,
much like Celine Dion or a good designer bag.
The rest of my day felt pretty miserable,
a feeling that is still sort of lingering today,
which is kind of fucking weird since it’s A FUCKING BOOK.
I feel like a man who fell in love with an escort he couldn’t afford. He had caressed her perfect tit & was then turned away, only to dream of that single tit for the rest of his life. He would aimlessly wander Tumblr evermore & pray that perhaps one day he’d get really fucking lucky with a high-res find on a Large sized Google Image Search.
That book is my 70′s Harrison Ford in a speedo & the Parker Hotel rolled into one. It is my muse. I will have it. Mark my words, I will have that fucking book.
That $950 one too,
considering I just found out
that to buy that book new,
oh it’s just about a cool four grand. 
[Currently Listening 2 "Wait" by the Beatles]
