Anatomy of a Bulldog Face

I have been doing this for years. It did not have an official name until sometime in 2005 when my friend Wash coined the phrase "bulldog face."

I would often do this in pictures. You see, I do not have the sunniest of dispositions. I also simply cannot smile upon command. When I try to, I look like I have what is commonly referred to as a "feces-eating grin." Seeing as how I do not eat feces, I need a reason to smile, be it a funny joke or genital manipulation. A forced smile often results in what is now known as the bulldog face, beautifully illustrated in the image above and in this movie:

The bulldog face is quite simply a universal acknowledgment of someone, whether they be friendly or unfriendly. The bulldog face can simultaneously be used as a creepy look given to a driver who just cut you off, or as a response to your significant other when they say "I love you." It is quite the versatile facial expression, and I highly recommend you all try it out sometime.

Click here to see more photos of the craze that is sweeping the nation. [MySpace]

- B

"Versatility is one of your outstanding traits."
- ancient Chinese fortune cookie

The 500-Pound Man

It’s 8:53.

I like to get here early in the mornings. It shows initiative and dependability. Plus you get to skip out a little early at the end of the day. That’s always nice, especially on a Monday. I am well-rested and feeling buoyant; the weekend was pretty good. The schedule is pretty light, so it looks like this is going to be a prett-

OH NO....

I have just discovered that I am not the only one working this morning. I sit in my chair and turn on my computer. My optimism has turned to dread.

Maybe he will call in sick.

No, no. Don’t get your hopes up.

Maybe he will forget he works mornings this week and they will fire him.

I wish I was that lucky.

Termination seemed imminent a few months ago. But that was before “the accident,” the so-called “injury” that has rendered him useless. Not that he had much use before. To you or I, the cure for this particular type of “injury” would have an application of a band-aid from the first aid kit in the storage closet. But when you have 550 pounds of pressure decimating your legs, discoloring them to the point of rotting off, an adhesive strip simply will not suffice when trying to stop the crimson geyser spraying from your left lower appendage.

He lost two pints of blood that day.

It was a paper cut. On the leg. The doctors almost had to amputate.

Maybe he died.

If he did, I would win the pool. My entry was ten months, an ambitious, and in retrospect, overly eager wager. One of my cohorts said two years; the intern said three. The boss went with four. Nobody went past five. There’s no way a behemoth like that could live past 50. It can’t. Right?

This is the eighth month since “the injury.” Now it walks with a cane. The industrial strength steel of this particular staff is far better-suited to its owner than the previous two it used to shoulder its enormous mass. They never stood a chance. The metal clank of that cane as it strikes the ground is the sound I fear most in this world. It is the sound that has haunted my nightmares for months.

Before I can even prepare myself, it begins.

The muffled sounds of the gears and motors in the shaft carry through the doorway to the office. The chimes are audible from the floors beneath me. They are getting increasingly louder as the steel and iron box slowly moves upward.

ding.

No, that’s not our floor. It’s getting closer… Maybe it’s not him. Please God, let the elevator pass.

The hydraulics echo through the chamber. I pray for the pistons to jam and cause the elevator to get stuck.

Ding.

I think it’s right underneath us now. Just don’t stop. Keep going. Keep moving up…

DING.

False alarm. Now it’s one floor below. Just pray it doesn’t stop on the next…

DING!

This is when the dread begins. The sequence is always the same. And yet I still cringe.

The bell rings loudly and the door screeches open. I hear a thud. And then another. And then the metallic clank.

The odor hits the room before he does. He wobbles in, out of breath. Boom, boom, clank, huff, huff. Boom, boom, clank, huff, huff. It mutters something to itself that I ignore. It collapses in its chair, and the chair nearly collapses itself.

Go to your happy place.

I hold my breath as the stench fills the room. Against my will, the stink of sweaty flesh and the odors of unwashed clothes seep into my nostrils. I try not to inhale, but the act is futile. I close my eyes and envision myself as a Crucian carp and cherish my ability to hold my breath for months, swimming with schools of fish in the Asian sea, roaming free, living a listless existence. Listless, like the quarter-ton man that now sits in front of me. The man that is staring at the television screen with a blank look on his face. The man whose heavy breathing indicates that he has just taken five steps in succession and is on the brink of cardiac arrest. The man who is the brunt of my existence.

I open my eyes and inhale. I instantly lament no longer having gills, as the foulness nearly flattens me. I gag. And I gag again. He is oblivious.

And then the narcolepsy kicks in.

It begins to snore. The trek from the parking lot to its desk seems to have taken its toll on Beelzeblubber.

Quick, look! It sleeps on the job. Fire it.

But the boss is nowhere to be found. I contemplate ways to escape, but my eyes are transfixed on the monster. It fades in and out of consciousness. Any sudden movement or noise may awaken it. I stare some more. Strangely, I am intrigued. What must it dream about? A chair without arms? New stockings for its corroded legs?

My dream is that he never wakes up. Sweet Jesus, it would take twenty paramedics just to carry him out of here.

As I ponder this horrifyingly beautiful scenario, the glutton flinches.

Do not make eye contact with it. If it awakes, do not engage it in subtle pleasantries or anything that could be construed as such. This is what it wants. Go about your work. Block the malodor from your mind. Let it sleep. Let it dream…

I begin to daydream myself. Underneath the water, I am free. Free from the stench, free from the lethargy, free from the awkward comments… I am in a place where the monstrosity cannot harm me. For the first time in months, I am truly happy to be at work.

But both of our dreams are shattered by the ringing phone. I reach for it as fast as I can, but I am not fast enough. Before I can answer, it opens its eyes and looks at me.

And then it speaks:

“Ummmmmmmmmmm…. so what do you want to do for lunch today?”

I look at the clock. It’s 9:01.

Five o’clock can’t come fast enough.

- B

"The eyes believe themselves; the ears believe other people."
- ancient Chinese fortune cookie

Fragmentations

It’s quiet. You’re laying on your couch staring up at the ceiling. No text messages to remind you that you're alive; nothing on television to numb your mind... just the ceiling. You close your eyes and start to remember. You don’t want to, but for some reason, in this moment, the memories come flooding back.

You remember that last time you saw the face of true love. You take yourself back six years and remember looking into your mother’s blue eyes as she stares at your father taking his final breath. And all you can think is that this isn’t happening. Not to us. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. How did it come to this?

Flash back one year. You’re praying to a God you’ve long since forgotten. Praying for Him to send you someone to love you. Someone to ease the pain that is slowly eating away at your soul. Just somebody to help you deal with the pain of watching your family slowly disintegrate. Someone to bear your emotional burden, while you bear the emotional burden of everyone else. Flash ahead one year and your unanswered prayers have been replaced with prayers to ease the suffering of someone else.

Flash forward 48 hours. Your prayers are answered.

Flash back to your father’s funeral, listening to your best friend from childhood, in tears, talking about playing in the snow when you were kids. You watch as your friend, whom you haven’t seen in years, weeps for your father, and the youth and innocence both of you lost. And you remember how you never wept for any of it. And to this day, you still haven’t.

Flash back to that day in the snow. That great winter storm, captured forever in faded photographs and fuzzy memories. Just two carefree kids with their whole lives ahead of them. Flash forward to present day; your carefree friend is a drug addict, and you, well, you just don’t care.

And you think about the last time you did care. The last time you felt something for someone. It’s been so long you can barely remember, and when you do, you remembered why you forgot it in the first place.

Flash back to the love of your life. Your high school sweetheart. Your best friend. Someone you could talk to for hours without the conversation ever getting dull. The woman you knew better than she knew herself. The only woman you ever truly loved. You see it in her: your future. For the first time in your life, you feel like it all makes sense. And all those unanswered prayers were not falling on deaf ears.

Flash forward three years. Your future is married to someone else. A victim of shortsightedness, denial, and complete lack of reason, she cries to you for help. You, the same person she recklessly threw away. And you can’t help but think about your mother’s eyes that day and how you know that you will never find a love like the one your parents shared. Because it simply does not exist in this world anymore. Not to you.

And you? Well, you’re bored. Bored with all these people and their fake problems, and the senseless drama that they have created for themselves. And yet, you still listen. Still that emotional rock that people depend on. A favor that never seems to be returned. Patience is a virtue, but common sense is a blessing.

Flash forward a couple of years. You finally start to come out of your shell. You put yourself out there for the world to see, not really caring what anyone thinks. You are you, for better or worse. Pride and ego have long since disappeared, but a shred of optimism still remains. You begin searching for kindred spirits with whom to share thoughtful and intimate conversation. You discover that meeting people is easy... but usually not worth the time and effort. Self-centeredness has become the norm, and it has made everyone very ugly.

Years go by and this becomes the trend. People take what they need from you and move on. Disposable, taken for granted, used, abandoned; these are common themes in your daily existence. You camouflage your feelings with your charm, wit and bizarre sense of humor. People feign interest in you because you amuse them, but very few ever bother to dig deeper and see through the silly façade. And why should they? People would much rather laugh than think. Or care. Indifference is a disease that has infected everyone. And by this point, you have pretty much resigned yourself to the fact that you always give more than you get; in any type of relationship, with anyone you meet. This will be your life from now until the end, whenever that may be.

Flash forward to you sitting in front of your computer, typing a blog that no one will read and asking yourself the obvious question: Am I the only one who feels this way? And your jaded self answers: The only thing more irrelevant than that question is the answer.

Flash back to right now. You open your eyes. All those little fragmented memories of your life are gone in an instant. Gone, but not forgotten. You stare at the ceiling and it hits you. What seemed so cloudy then seems so clear now. Everything you’ve experienced had a purpose. Everything you’ve endured has a reason. All those trials, all that pain has molded you into the person you are today. In spite of it all, you know that you’ve done pretty well for yourself. And even if no one else notices, or no one else cares, you are happy with the person you’ve become.

And that’s all that matters.

- B


"Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think."
- ancient Chinese fortune cookie

Preface

"Because life is the most interesting when you're half awake."


Hello. Thank you for reading the Dark Circles Under Your Eyes blog. It will most likely be updated each Wednesday, sometime less, sometimes more. The only promise I will make regarding updates is that I make no promises. But I do promise I will write about something pertaining to the following:

• Creative Outlet: For the sake of uniformity, I will use these labels: Informative (posts like this one), Nonfiction (personal revelations), Short Stories (all original), Drivel (assorted nonsense), and Time-killing (amusing myself, and now, the world).

• Brass Knuckles Archive: A short film from the Brass Knuckles Productions archive. These are movies I had some hand in creating.
  

• Fortune Cookies: Sharing my weekly dose of wisdom because I eat too much Asian food. Check the bottom of each blog post for a new one each week.
  

• The X View: A renewal of sorts of an old hobby of mine. You will get a new movie/DVD/game review whenever I find something I feel passionately enough to write about.

Enjoy your stay and come back often.


- B


"Good sense is the master of human life."
- ancient Chinese fortune cookie