Return of the Super Ape

I haven’t been keeping my blog or my lemur website updated for the past month, and I wanted to apologize to all seven of you who check me regularly. In the near future, beginning today, I promise a return to form. March and the first half of April are a stepping stone for me this year. I will be moving out of my shared house in Somerville to a one bedroom in Harvard Square on the 15th, which I can afford because of the graciousness of my landlady and with the accumulated monies saved since I stopped drinking on January 1st.

This is the first time I have mentioned it on my blog, but I have not had a sip of alcohol so far this year. Except, that is, for one incident when I blindly sipped my friend’s Budweiser can that I mistook for a Diet Coke. Anyone who believes that alcohol is a good thing or a necessary social lubricant is probably right, for themselves, but its no good for me. And thats a fact. These genes that I carry around crave the juice like it was catnip. Its a waste on my body, mind, and pocketbook. Thats right. I’m copping to a pocketbook.

No I don’t really carry around a pocketbook, but I probably should. I have been shouldering my twenty pound men’s big and tall winter jacket because of the utility of its many pockets. Perhaps a man-purse would be more orthopedic, or at least Bob-o-pedic, which is cheaper but the same quality as the name brand. Maybe if this interminably long winter would shrivel up and die I could cast off my mech-suit and wear out a sleeveless tee with a man-purse swinging gaily on my arm, and ringlets in my hair.

That would never happen because a) I don’t wear sleeveless tees because of an over-abundance of sweat in my pits (yes, in this case the normally redundant term “over-abundance” DOES fit, like a glove, and if you reach up into my pits in weather warmer than 65 degrees fahrenheit you WILL want to be wearing gloves), b) my hair is thick but not curly which is probably why most of the boys I am attracted to have either lighter, thin hair, or curly q’s (thats called self-loathing) and finally c) I don’t need a man-purse to replace my winter jacket because I have many lighter spring and summer jackets which I will soon unveil and they have the requisite zippered pockets I require to maintain self-order out on the street.

Now that I have debunked the idea of a man-purse for me, let me tell you something else. This spring and summer I will be chilling hard, and its not because a new deodorant is out that completely blocks Polish-Irish-Lithuanian-American pit sweat. Its because I’m moving to Harvard Square dummy! There in Harvard yard I will relax with no shoes under a sun umbrella with the new issue of Cosmopolitan taking in the smells, sounds and sites of clean-cut Matt Damon look-a-likes from behind the disguise of tinted Blublocker Viper sunglasses. In the pinnacle moment of the college boys’ ultimate frisbee game I will leap up from my beach chair, intercept the pass, and run with the frisbee clenched in my teeth back to my one bedroom with all the boys chasing after me like bulldogs after a meat-wagon.

That will be a fantasy of mine until I actually try it and then have to live the rest of my life under the stigma that I’ve been beaten up and bloodied by Harvard students. Seriously, I am going towards this new moment in my life with purpose and positivity. Having my own castle will provide me sanctuary from the drunken lifestyles of the college crowd, the partying of the restaurant industry… Sanctuary from the world, if I choose (and I do,) and its problems. I will be able to set my own agenda and really grind out some quality content for you folks here on the internet. Not drinking alone has helped me lose over twenty pounds already, and as the weather warms I plan to take up running again, along the Charles River, and really getting to a healthy place.

My positivity anthem for this green season of growth and the new morning in my life has been Ape-Ology by the legendary dub producer Lee “Scratch” Perry. Ape-Ology is a compilation of three of his fine albums… Super Ape, Return of the Super Ape and Roast Fish, Collie Weed and Cornbread. Reggae music helps me get focused and working to improve my life and others’. THis spring you will see the blossoms, and by summer, the fruits of my labor.

“Return of the Super Ape,” is a fitting title for this first blog post of April. When I started blogging here three years ago, I named one of my posts, “Super Super Apes,” (you can find it in the archives for April 2005), and this is how it began… “Back to the question of “What is real?”, or how to believe in the human experience… I note that asserting myself is essential and that there is no such thing as passive learning…” Thats just some real wisdom that I’ve worked hard to get back.