Like Fight Club, But Much More Pathetic

I walked into the makeshift ring in Serge's back yard for the second time that afternoon. Deep focus, static shot.  My face was still a little swollen from the last match.  Not a dramatic cut on my cheek that could be covered up by a Nelly-esque band-aid, but rather a general redness and puffness.  Brandon faced me, he had just fought his brother, and almost kicked him through a green house.  I shook his hand, the tip of his thumb was missing from a knife fight last year.  Have you ever seen the video for Micheal Jackson's "Bad?"  The one where those two dudes tie their hands together, and then have a knife fight with the opposite arms.  In the end Micheal Jackson shows up and saves these wayward youths with the power of dance.  Why did he never show up at times like this in my life?

I got my first punch deflected. Stallone in Rocky. The second landed on his left cheek. Stallone in Rocky II.  I might actually be able to pull this off.  I dodged Brandon's first and second punch, but the third landed in my ribs. Carl Weathers in Rocky IV. I lowered my guard for an instant.  Brandon saw his opportunity, and went for it.  Before I could raise my arms, Brandon's foot knocked my temple. The plot of Rocky V.

My knees buckled.  Oh shit, I'm going down. I started to fall, collapsing onto myself.  I stumbled forward, then backwards, then onto my back.  What would Edward Norton do?  Oh yeah, yell for a stunt man.  I laid on my back for a second and looked up at the sky for a moment.  Static shot, cue indie music, preferably Elliot Smith 'cause have you even seen The Royal Tenenbuams? Brandon stood over me, with a lit cigarette in his mouth.  Switch from deep to shallow focus.  He took one drag, then handed it to me.  Maybe it was my brain bleeding, but I'd like to think he said, "I regret that we meet in this way.  You and I are of a kind.  In a different reality, I could have called you 'friend.'"

Critical (re:Boring) Post

The shift the second and third chapters shows a devastating shift in tone to coincide with the shift in the lives of Toph and Dave.  From frantically and joyously rounding the corners and swerving around an ocean highway, to a different sort of frantic search for somewhere to live, Eggers accomplishes a lot with the shift between chapters.  The carefree, and perhaps self endangering voice of chapter two is cut short with the realization that the world can be and still is a cruel place.

Where this comes from is a relocation of self-obsession.  Eggers illustrates this self-obsession with the line, "Look at us, goddammit, the two of us slingshotted from the back side of the moon, greedily cartwheeling toward everything we are owed." (47). First Eggers establishes Toph and his importance in the world, calling all to look upon him, goddammit, and then he shows his sense of entitlement.  This is the mindset of Chapter two, I am the center of the world, and I deserve it damnit all to hell.

This is in stark contrast to the second sentence of chapter two where he writes, "All these people impeding us, triffling with us, not knowing or caring who we are, what has happened."  Suddenly the Eggers are no longer in the center of the world, but rather the margins.  Although most certainly acording to Eggers, they are still owed, but they are no longer being given what they deserve.  People don't care about their situation, and these realization creates a resentment in Dave.  His status internally has been shifted from deserving center of attention to marginalized undesirable.  However, this does not change the sense of entitlement within Eggers himself, but simply shifts it to a more resentful rather than optimistic.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Hotpocket

Acknowledgements:

Like you, dear reader, I am a student at Ohio University, and as such my spring break consisted of very little time to read due to what the Romans call aqua vita, yet a lot of reading which teachers inexplicably expected me to get done.  So the last two days have consisted of me reading a some four hundred pages of Jack Kerouac's On the Road and AHWOSG.  So because of this, my two friends who choose to remain anonymous will be called Sal Paradise and Marylou, and I might sound a little like Dean Moriarty.  I not only acknowledge this, but embrace it because Dean Moriarty is a pretty cool guy in my opinion.  I also realize that if you haven't read On the Road (but why haven't you?) that the previous section will be very confusing and nonsensical.  

The Author also acknowledges a small hunched over homeless man with a glass eye he once talked to in the Mall of America as the savior Christ reborn.  Because he was a very convincing man, with diagrams and this huge well thought out speech about how the government used to control his thoughts before he got a lobotomy (that'll show them), and him and George W. Bush road the same bus to school growing up, and... (Imagine like 6 more pages of this).

I 

I am the new.  I am a survivor.  I am really, really, stoned right now.  Sheeeeit.  I haven't been this stoned in a minute.  Like not since that one time with Devon, Aldo, and-What the hell is that beeping...Oh the microwave... OH SNAP! I have a Hotpocket, fuck yeah.

I begin the long thought out journey to the microwave, I walk out of the blanket fort my girlfriend made of our bed (it's a futon really, but we sleep there so it's a bed).  We have a tapestry hanging from the lofted (actual) bed above, when the light comes in from the window the whole little cavern is stained with an oddly warm blue light.  It makes the morning a lot more relaxing.

Outside Marylou is talking to Sal.  Her hair drapes over her shoulders down to her ass which is cupped in her dayglow highlighter jeans.  For a moment I am over-whelmed with the urge to bang her.  She turns to me, and looks at me, questioningly with her beautiful blue eyes.

"Come on are we going to play Smash or what, pussy?"
"Yeah, for sure dude.  Just lemme this this Hotpocket."
"But I wanna play Smash David!  Come on!  Just eat it on the way out."

I am fumbling with the Hotpocket.  This tab bends over here, and snaps into the back.  Okay, okay, I got this now.  And if I pull this tab right here then...oh it tears the crisping sleave to make it easier to eat.  Huh! To be honest I never thought I'd be eating a Hotpocket "on the go," but I now understand the genius of the on-the-go packaging.  Like damn, the people at- um

"Who the hell makes these?"
"What? huh? who makes what?"
"Hot pockets. Who makes 'em?"
"I dunno David, you're on the computer right now, "doing homework" why don't you look it up? hur dur dur." Marylou mimed slapping a keyboard or a drunken seal trying to play piano, I'm not quite sure which.

I will look it up!  Okay, H-o-t-p-o-c-k-e-t, wait...Hot Pocket is two words?  Ooops... I'll go back and change that later. Wait why was I googling Hot Pockets?  Oh yeah, just click on wikiapedia, da da da microwavable turnovers blah-dee blah blah oh here we go...since 2002 they have been produced by Nestle...Nestle?  Really?  The chocolate guys?  Well I guess they make coffee too, but Hot Pockets?  What else does Nestle make...Holy fuck Nestle has giant article---and a huge criticism and controversy section!  What has Nestle done so wrong huh?  What is the chocolate made of orphans or something?  Okay Marketing of Formula: one of the most prominent controversies involving Nestlé concerns the promotion of the use of infant formula to mothers across the world, including developing countries...Okay blah blah blah critics say this leads to the unnecessary suffering and deaths of babies, largely among the poor...Shit.  What else is here?  Ethopian debt?  In 2002, Nestlé demanded that the nation of Ethiopia repay $6 million of debt to the company. What the fuck Nestle?!  Ethopia really?!  Horsemeat Scandal?! Suddenly I've lost all desire to eat this Hot Pocket.  I think it just neigh'ed at me.