This is not a diary. Or maybe it is. I don’t know.
July 1, 2019:
Apples fascinate me. They are like the underappreciated heroes of an 11am snack, that cumbersome time when one is not hungry, but one is hungry enough to eat, yet eating Flamin' Hot Nacho Cheese Doritos is not the optimal thing to do and so, in this one specific circumstance, it is a crisp apple that will whip out its tasteless cape and say, “Here, human being, o’ fellow living thing, I am here.”
Well, today, whilst eating my crispy apple at 11am, after soaking in too much pure oxygen, I made my mind to conduct an esteemed research project on the inquiry of apples because I think that there is something fascinating about one who takes an everyday object and then thirsts to learn more about that everyday object. For such a research inquiry, apples seemed like the best option for me considering that there are thousands of different types of apples on this giant rock yet I’ve only blessed my tongue with the taste of about 10 of them. And besides, I think that telling another inhabitant of the earth that I’ve eaten over a hundred different types of apples will add that flair of retro-city strangeness to my life that I relish for in this moment.
July 2, 2019:
Today, I rummaged through the fridge and lo, underneath frozen Costco pizza and toasted peanut butter pretzels, there was the last McIntosh apple of my food supply. After cradling the apple in my paws and then biting into its crunchy flesh, instead of sweetness, the tartness of this rascal apple slapped me like the guilt one feels when skipping Sunday school. The flesh of the apple was so unbearingly tart that I hoped the skin would provide me with the sweetness I craved, but after peeling the skin and eating it, much to my surprise and dismay, I found that the skin of the apple was underwhelmingly flavorless.
Aside from day 1 of the apple experiment, there is nothing much to report. I’d say today was just another boring Macintosh apple day. I suppose that the only remotely interesting thing happened at noon, when I saw outside that my neighbors were loitering on their front porch, smoking classic cigarettes and listening to generic upbeat pop music, the Katy Perry and Taylor Swift stuff that I love myself. I decided to humor them by venturing outside and taking a box of colored chalk and writing in my thickest boldest street-gang bubble letters “Hello fellow inhabitants of the earth!” I then filled a frisbee with water from my garden fountain and did a series of backflips and handstands and I ended the acrobatic masterpiece by flinging the water-filled frisbee in their direction. They laughed and went inside thinking to themselves, strange being that is.
July 3, 2019:
I bought a good ol’ basket of one Granny Smith apple from the farmer’s market this morning. The vendor looked at me when I asked for one apple and said, “Well, you know, if you’re going to bake an apple pie, you should probably buy more than one apple.” But I whipped out my lashes and blinked loudly and I said to him, “Excuse yourself sir, but I am a researcher conducting an experiment on the subject of apples as my independent variable and I do not need your ‘supposed expertise’ to interrupt my experimental pro-cesses.” And the vendor backed off, kind of offset by my tone (I guess) but back to the APPLE. Haha, that was kinda funny. Okay, the Granny Smith apple, the grandmother of all of lord’s apples, is quite a syrupy lucious apple. I liked it much better compared to the dry crunchiness of the Macintosh apple. I think that all these years I’ve been off put by the neon greenish color of the apple, exerting itself to me as the alpha, awfully bold, but apples should not be judged by their color.
Today I also ventured to the edge of land, to the Jersey shore ocean. If God exists, the scene of ocean laughter is one of the things I thank him for.
July 4, 2019:
Today I ventured far into my mother’s wardrobe to retrieve the Red Delicious apple I threw in it early this morning. The Taiwanese-Japanese girl who lives next door is quite beautiful with her tart straight textured black hair, hard jawline and lilac. I don’t know her name. But when I saw her as I woke and said hi to the sun, knees rising to achieve that cardio exercise, I threw the Red Delicious (that I had stationed strategically on my nightstand last night to remind me of my experiment) into my mother’s wardrobe (which so happened to be in my room) out of awe for the lady. But then, at 11am, I ventured to the fridge and lo, the apple was not to be found and it wasn’t until after I had sat down for meditation that I remembered that the apple was in the closet and had to be fished out.
But anyway, on the subject of the experiment, the Red Delicious apple was sweet but had a mild flavor to it, like someone sliced an over-ripe melon and gifted me its syrupty and crisp goodness but extracted half of the flavors. I would much prefer good ol’ Granny Smith over the Red Delicious but I don’t mind it much.
July 5, 2019: I saw the fireworks last night. They frightened me much. The red ones reminded me of exploding apples. I liked the green ones though. I’ve been liking a lot of green things lately. I had a gala apple today. It was alright. I saw the Taiwanese girl at the local high school football field, on the mile track route, where the fireworks were happening. I caught her name in the gentle whispers of the wind. I worry about God. Today is just one of those days when I worry about God.
July 7, 2019:
Ah, I don’t want to go to hell, if it exists, but my people tell me that if I don’t prostrate before the God of the east, of the west, of the north, and of the south, then I shall go to hell. I tell the people that I don’t know if I believe in God but that I am still a good person. I don’t know why I feel the need to say both of those things together. Perhaps it's because they tell me that God guides whom he wills and leads astray whom he wills and that I am clearly led astray and this makes me an evil person.
I forgot to eat an apple yesterday. So today I had a Fuji and a Honeycrisp apple. The apples made me drunk, they tasted so much like the fine wine I could never afford.
July 8, 2019:
Today I wanted to do something crazy. Like brake my caps lock key so that caps lock can’t be turned off. SO I BROKE MY CAPS LOCK KEY.
July 9, 2019:
I am crazy. This apples thing is eccentirc, but stupid. Perhaps this is a memoir of a man going insane.
July 10, 2019:
The Taiwanese-Japanese girl, woman, was at the United Nations medical conference today. She said that she remembered me from the fireworks. I felt something warm, bubbling like sodapop fizz and pride. She has a beautiful smile, but I don’t dare to profess myself to her because she makes me feel quite cringe, at times, and also I fear God more or rather, I fear the worldly consequences more. Adultery is a sin, I know this. I thought about God today too. An old man who broke his elbow in Tuesday evening golf in Kenilworth said that God and religion is just a thing contrived by humans themselves. And I asked him, then, to explain the theory of the universe to me. He told me that I was the doctor, the “scientific one,” the one smart enough to use science as an explanation, what did he know about the roots of the universe.
I tried meditation again today. I sat on a Pokemon pikachu cushion and I tried to feel my body, let my heart drum to whatever I felt at the moment, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand it. So I went for the fridge and I chomped down a Ginger Gold apple and I loved it because of how mild it was, how gentle it was to my tongue. I respect the Ginger Gold for that because people are not gentle with me. People are never gentle, but I’m not gentle to people either so I shouldn’t be saying much.
I slept on the floor after work. The floor was hard but silent. It calmed my inner wars. Appreciate the floor kids.
July 11, 2019:
I slapped the air out of my lungs today. At the hospital, I catapulted and back flipped and hand standed down the ward, pretending that I was batman. The families and the patients looked shocked and astonished. The nurses paused from shelving the birth certificate files and turned slowly to look at the google-eyed doctor, catapulting from the empty waiting room chairs, Hollywood sound effects echoing from his mouth to simulate the whooshing that comes with wind, blonde hair whipping like crispy fries. The janitor, Rabecca, slung her wet, dirtied mop like a Jedi lightsaber at the end of the ward and said to me, “Doctor, sir, is there a reason for you to be startling the patients as such?”
And I said to her that everything was fine, that I felt great after my feat, that I’ve come to love that look of astonishment on people’s faces because I bet they wish they could be as cool as me, as odd as me.
Today, I had a Braeburn apple. I found this apple to be wicked because it contained hints of spice, pear, nutmeg, and cinnamon -- what a combo of flavors! The look of the apple itself was also quite pleasing. It had that retro 1990s vibe to it, the yellow dissolving into the red, the green like cucumbers and watermelons, the inside white like Florida Retirement home clouds.
July 13, 2019:
I am going to troll the world. My dear fellow inhabitants of the earth will always hate me. God will always hate me. So I’ve come to the esteemed and well-respected conclusion that the best course of action is to troll and cancel them all.
Jersey man ate an apple. Jersey man ate an apple while standing on top of a school bus flooding with little Catholic school kids. Jersey man who terrorized Catholic school kids while eating an apple turns out to be a doctor. Jersey man ate a pink Pacific Rose apple with sweet and refreshing apple nectar dripping down in between his fingers like Godzilla's saliva after seeing a giant platter of fried shrimp.
July 14, 2019:
Doubt persists even with atheism. I still wonder if God caused the big bang.
July 15, 2019:
Jersey man is obsessed with how it feels to drown. Jersey man sat at the bottom of a swimming pool. Jersey man tries to experience all aspects of life by sitting at the bottom of a swimming people.
July 16, 2019:
The Taiwanese-Japanese girl and I had an Empire apple today. We sat on the slate-basalt steps of the music theory library, the earthy tangy smell of black milk coffee fuming from the Starbucks across the street, hugging our noses in a way such that we could barely taste the mild flavor of the Empire apple we cradled in our paws. I’ve always thought that she had black clown squid eyes. But observing them from a small distance, I’ve come to notice that she has eyes like soil. The earth silences around her, it is difficult to listen to the hymns of the earth with her body there. I wish I could tell you what the street looked like as we sat on those littered slate-basalt steps to the music theory library.
Now this is just prosperous. I sound like a cringe Romeo in love! Love is stupid. But she is a friend.
July 17, 2019:
Oh lord, God, let Jersey man live in peace.
July 25, 2019:
Jersey man tried meditation again today because Jersey man is trying to be gentle and calm with the earth and people but Jersey man can’t be gentle. Jersey man disappeared for 9 days because Jersey man was confused. Jersey man signed up for a subscription at 24 hour Fitness. Maybe the sound of bare feet slapping a Commerical 2150 TR1200-DT treadmill will calm me. I think I feel the need to do stupid things because I have three fat rolls when I sit down. If I run three miles a day and lose 20 pounds, then God and the world will embrace me with open paws and see that I’m not an unrighteous pig who overeats.
I’ve been having Macintosh apples for a while. I pretend that they taste different each day by rubbing raw butter or cheese sweat or masala or whatever else I can loot from the pantry on them. Some days, I like them, and other days I throw them out for the gods of the backyard garden to eat and bless. But today, I had a Mutsu apple. I liked the Mutsu apple because I’ve kept it in the crack of the window sill to my drawing room for 3 months and it still hasn’t decomposed. It's quite an inspiring story. Its ugly and yet it has this aggressive will to live. The Mutsu apple smelled like fresh laundry, it was sweet and tangy with flesh that bled at the bite and when I threw it in the microwave for experimental purposes, it maintained its shape very well. 10/10 for the Mutsu apple.
July 26, 2019:
2k19. I’m bored of this year.
July 27, 2019:
Dat gurrrl is gud. I like dat girl. But luv is stooooopid. Like apples. I hate apples. Jersey man hates apples. Oh god, Jersey man is cringe.
July 28, 2019:
I have failed dear audience. My faith in God has shattered a thousand times over. The earth and the floor ran. I sit each day with an apple and I cannot bring my being to thank the earth for it and ponder about all the labor put forth to bring the apple to the brink of my tender lips. I try to pay attention to the most prosperous, strangest, things only to find that apples are hard, that apples don’t matter in the massive scope of the universe. I am writing this at the bottom of a swimming pool, in the back corner of my kitchen pantry, in my mother’s dated wardrobe.
July 29, 2019:
I am very much tarnished.
Experimental Conclusion(s):
I hate apples. Courtesy of the music theory library and One Direction. I don’t know what that means. Being eccentric is a vibe and I need a vibe.