A MONKEY'S UNCLE

So, yeah. I drew the picture that you see, here, when I was in the back seat of my Ford Focus. My brother-in-law Matt was driving (he drove 23 hours and 1300 miles...he is now, officially, Stud), and my sis Meliss was in the passenger seat. I read and smoked and, one time (not at band camp) I jammed my stinky flip-flops in the area between the passenger door and the passenger seat, thus guaranteeing that my dear sister would be privy to the full effect of my odorifious zapatos. I have written about this already, but I figured I would lend some background information to this picture.

Anyway, I have long loved to doodle and, often, I draw a gratuitously grotesque characiture of myself, including but not limited to: a wide expanse of forehead, pinched facial features, a glowering brow and a miniature bowler hat, a type of hat that I have never in my life worn. I don't know why I draw that picture incessantly, but I do. It had become an almost thoughtless exercise in line-drawing.

But the fact remains that I often draw myself as an ape, or, at least, a human being with an apish apeture.

Do you know how excruciating middle and high schools were? Do know what it's like to score in the top 99th percentile in rope-climbing...and be ashamed of your achievement because it just felt way too easy? To have bananas spill from your locker during class breaks? Have you ever had the girl upon whom you'd focussed your attention pierce your tender freshman heart with one well-timed "Ooga-ooga?" Have you ever cried yourself to sleep in the highest branches of the schoolyard oak tree? Yeah.

Me either. But I did get called (mockingly, of course) "Grape Ape" in eighth grade. And I did have my childhood friend burp out the word "Aaaaaaaaapppppe." And I did have a fondness for anything banana. (Except for hammocks; never hammocks.)

What is it, exactly, that reminds people of primates when I'm around? Maybe nothing, but, if pressed, I would submit that my brow is somewhat low-slung and my mouth is babyish, thus lending itself a cute Curious George-type swell. I am the Missing Link! See me beat my chest! Listen to me weep.

So. Anyway, back to the picture: I drew it without knowing what the finished product would look like. Apparently, it looks like me. Apparently, the "West Side Simian"...is me. Two--two!--people on Flickr have said so!

My life, as I have known it, is over. Over, I say! It's nothing but downhill from here. One day, in the not-so-distant future, you may read an odd story of a man in Brazil...a man who met his unfortunate and premature demise after scaling--remarkably quickly--the Christ the Redeemer statue and flinging himself off of the Saviour's nose, wildly flapping his poorly-constructed Wings o' Banana, screaming to the whipping wind: "Ooga-ooga?! Take this, Susan!"

Or...not.