The Octopus Museum by Brenda Shaughnessy;

Author:Brenda Shaughnessy; [Shaughnessy, Brenda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House LLC
Published: 2019-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

Our Beloved Infinite Crapulence

In Indiana, in the era of hell-wealth, way past deadline, someone on the account is sweating it, making metaphor from what is already a stretch.

And because he wants to go home to his farm-fresh slowpoke foam, grown cold, we are eventually diagnosed with winter and treated to this marketing copy off a tube of cream: “Undry Your Skin” or “A Rainforest for Your Face.”

I bought it. It seemed fresh and felt organic and like it would at least wetten me, skinwise. I can’t feel my old ambition to be wracked with anguish or to grow soft with loss.

When I lose, I’m still so grateful! Does that make me a chump or a champ, eating victory mussels in the lamplight of my domestic tranquility?

Gratitude often leaves me with nothing to say, as when I saw you in the toy store, I felt like a feral cat who knows only the dumpsters and the flu-scented sandboxes of now. Now that I’m happy I suppose I have to break my own heart just to feel something.

Another person with my same name goes around impersonating others; now everyone thinks I’m the impostor.

I want to tell her, “you know, you think you know me, sipping mahogany cider in the millionaire’s billiards room, but there’s such a thing as too much umami, and there’s no way to rest forever and then go on.”

Someone once said: now that I’m happy I suppose I have to break my own heart to feel something. I should remember that. I should stop praying to my dead self.

I should pull out my earbuds, and hear the world (my first love, my favorite store) without continually moving my oiled jaw hinge.

I like a chemical mysticism performed with perfect innocence. The wet slit lit up and cut down the middle, a little spit, lip a little bit split. Love in the Candle Shop: Wicked. Peeing into a Plastic Water Bottle: Wasteful. These are scents.

As is: Luck Be a Lady, So Spend Your Whole Social Security Check on Lottery Tickets Be a Gentleman. I want to smell like ceramic wind in the canyon, a brittle lust, a red-headed remedy synonymous with flooding.

Weathervane Rusted Stuck. A Stranger’s Phalanges. The South Mouth. Fiercely Phlegm. Fun Old Lady. So Parachute!

And now we eat. The eponymous eating. Don’t want butter, don’t want salt. Dinner is thinner but it’s not my fault. We’re having fungal celebrity of beef cheeks tomorrow so get yourself hungry!

For lighter fare I prefer the Soapish Fish braised in its own frothing broth, served with an aromatic retraction of statements previously made in the shade of a giant, genetically-muddled-with fiddlehead fern, infused with expelled chipmunk breath.

I…I love this local company, especially because for every order—and this is so cool—they make a tax-deductible contribution to honor and support the world-famous Pacific Garbage Patch, in your name.

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