the butcher came today. not that he's ever butchered anything, but he likes to think that he could if he really wanted to. poor guy. what an ambition. anyway. he wanted to give me a package, and as is his habit, it was wrapped just like a piece of meat, in greasy kraft paper and tied with string. says he doesn't believe in doing things halfway and i bit my cheek because all he ever does is only done halfway through, but we've had this discussion many times before and i was not in the mood to lay it all out on him again. he says he likes the idea of being a butcher for real. he likes blood, he likes the status it would give him, because when people see him they just see some guy but if he was a butcher then people would exclaim: "oh, here comes the butcher!". right. he couldn't have picked hockey player or movie star like everybody else, no. he wants some status but not fame or anything that would bring on too much responsibility. he likes the idea of wearing a white smock only to dye it with spatters of blood. he likes thinking about how much time he'd spend in the freezer between the hung carcasses, and he especially likes to imagine people imagining him sitting there surrounded by freshly massacred hunks of animals. he thinks it gives him an edge, he thinks people would respect and fear him at once, while now he only gets some fear and a lot of pity. it's sad, i guess, but we each have this one life to live and i refuse to spend mine pitying a weird sad overgrown child. i like his company mind you. when he's not going on and on about his future and completely imaginary career and lifestyle (yes, apparently, being a butcher is more than a job, more than a career, more than a vocation - he calls it a lifestyle. but don't ask me what that lifestyles involves - i've asked once, and his eyes just glazed over, he looked over my should, way past the window and anything he could see from it and smiled an idiot's smile. he remained like that for a few minutes and i never got an answer) he's good company. well perhaps not what others would call good, but he's the kind of company i like to have - not too talkative, not too demanding, and leaves early. i don't have to feed him, and he fetches his own glass of water from the kitchen - what more could i ask for? somebody sane? please. if we lived in a village the butcher would probably be its idiot, but he's far from stupid, his delusions put aside. and who am i to call them delusions anyway? just because there's no way in hell he'll ever take any real step towards butchering, just because he rambles and then forgets to speak so lost is he in his own mind's fields and prairies, it's not really my place to say he's chosen a wrong path. for all i know all paths are equal. i am not even sure what that means. equal how? to be equal, or good, or bad, they would have to be judged at some point - christians say at the end, but christians can eat my steamed atheist turds - and i have no intention to judge or to allow myself to be judged. of course it comes back to language again because to me it's obvious that i can say he's deluded and know at the same time that i am not judging him. he could say i have delusions too and i just might agree with him. words sometimes are too clunky to decipher my thoughts. when i live, i do not use words. i see with my mind's eye as you might say and words would only overburden me. i need them too of course, but they betray and frustrate me endlessly. i second-guess every syllable until they merge and melt away right behind my eyes, and then the words are okay by me again and we dance another one. slowly.