Lewis Ashman
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Lewis Ashman

3227 Mirimar Street

Dayton, OH 45409

[email protected]

I am not grown up. I have a bachelors degree in philosophy from Purdue University which was given to me in sympathy for my 12 years of casual haphazard effort. A bachelors. I was hoping for a sympathy Phd. but apparently they don't give those. Otherwise, like the song says "I popped a lot of pills, dear God, I smoked a lot of grass" and then there was acid acid acid which don't let them lie to you is a hell of lot of fun, and I also drank with serious diligence far more far longer than any man alive should be able to testify to. I've seen God many times but she's never deigned to recognize me. In case you're wondering, she also thinks Republicans and Christian Fundamentalists are full of shit. I used to hate those people but lately I've achieved the peaceful sweet serenity that only the partially brain dead can know. Well. Can know well. Can very well know. Anyway. For many years I was a lay speaker for the United Methodists but they traded me to the American Baptists for cash and two farm team prospects. In protest I now just sit in my pew and fume. Rosalie Kurtz Peterson attends church with me every Sunday but only in spirit. Every Sunday after church I describe the sermon to her via email. You take your faith where you can get it. Ever since high school I have maintained a close friendship with Stephanie Vevers and believe me there are easier things. Otherwise many of our classmates who shared my values are dead. I've made some effort on Facebook to acquire new friends among you without being too frightening and in some cases I have not been entirely a failure. Judged by any reasonable standards my life as a whole has been a complete failure . . . but I've never been one for reasonable standards. I have published two books of poetry which are available at Vons Bookstore (look in the poetry section stupid) and they make excellent gifts, and by the way don't forget that buying in bulk is always a good deal. I have a wife, barely, named Diane Marie who calls me her cross to bear. Some kind of affectionate religious thing. She is passionate about mission work in El Salvador which I think is both stupid and weird. Often she spends weeks at a time teaching English to little brown people. Totally strange. They think she's a saint and maybe she is: as the cross she bears how would I know? I have two excellent sons, fine breeding stock, strong and handsome. I'm probably not their father but I haven't tested them. Ben is 25 and has a fellowship from NASA and works at Purdue on satellite navigation, hoping to get a Phd. someday but I know how that goes . . . 12 long years and all I got was a bachelors. Samuel is 24 and a brilliant musician of a rather lazy sort, a fine scholar in English Literature whose primary interest is Virginia Woolf (alas! he's the wrong gender to go anywhere in that field) and a computer programmer/technical writer. Fine boys who have done something with their lives. Those fuckers, I hate them. I have been diagnosed by a certified psychiatrist as suffering from terminal profound despair, which isn't even a real illness, but he gives me drugs for it.  The last five or six years I have developed a serious interest in the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. I read him daily, sometimes for hours. I don't understand it at all, and less the more I read it. I've made extensive notes but I don't understand those either. My life is a complete mess. But I have fun every single day and that's good enough for me. Amen.