Clip a loaf

A bird shat on me today. Are you one of those people who think that's good luck? I'm not.

I can remember with great clarity the occasions in my life where I bird has hit me with an ass apple. The first time, I was working as a temporary Census worker. God, it must have been 1990. I was crestfallen when it happened; I thought life was a bit of a charnal pit already - I was a fat kid with a part-time job, living at home again with my sadistic parents, on summer break from college. And then to top it all off, I had to make my rounds to the homes of strangers in Queens, covered in excreta.

The second time it happened, I was wandering in Midtown during a patch of, ahem, under-employment. I think I had just seen David Dinkins walking in the street, and, while that did thrill me, it probably offered me no succor, as he was unemployed himself at the time. What could a sighting of David Dinkins do for me?! I remember feeling overwhelmed and forming this thought: What has God wrought? Literally. I was thinking in complete sentences back then, as if I was writing my thoughts down in a little book. And then a bird hit me with its sphincter spear.

Today, I was walking from CVS with a bag full of pills when I felt what I at first thought was a blast from a bb gun. I put my hand to my head and drew it back filled with stool. But what did it mean? I know that birds are God's emissaries on Earth, so what was God trying to tell me? I'm actually in a good place in my life right now. My meds are working. I get a great deal of personal satisfaction from my job. I just purchased a li'l Netbook, and now will be tap-tap-tapping away at my unpublishable novel. I'm not seeing anyone, and so have a little extra money in my pocket.

This is a picture of me in the bathroom at work after I had washed my head off. I'm wearing some Barney's shirt, which I recently shortened the sleeves of. A little speck of the bird's toilet orphan is on my shoulder, but you'd never see it unless you looked for it.

I remember a scene from Orwell's Animal Farm in which a flock of birds "mutes" on some farmers. My English teacher at the time told us that "mute" in this context meant to "clip a loaf," as it were. I can say in all sincerity that I have had a very Orwellian day today.