The last time my brother was in town he noticed my brown teeth, and asked me to open my mouth. "Those teeth are dirtier than any teeth I saw even in China," he said. "Why don't you brush them?" I had no answer for him. I wanted to say, "There's no reason why I don't brush my teeth; I don't know what to tell you; I wake up, I go through my day, I get tired and go to bed, and suddenly I realize it's been a week since I last brushed my teeth; I guess I just don't think about it." "You should take care of your hygiene," he said. "When your body stinks--when your feet smell sour, when your hair is greasy, when your teeth are dirty, it's like your very body becomes an object of disgust, looked at like people would look at rotting trash with flies all over it, or a dead cat by the road filled with maggots. You don't want your body--you--to be a disgusting thing, some object of repulsion people want to avoid. That's your very body, after all, your very self." I have no excuse; it's not like I don't have the time; so I just make light of it and say, "Hey, lighten up; it's all right." I am constantly saying that, making light of the way I eat--when spaghetti noodles or cheese enchiladas are hanging out of my mouth as I try to reel them in with my chewing, or when instead of wiping my mouth on my napkin I wipe it on the back of my hand. "That's disgusting!" he will say. "Don't you ever want a girlfriend?" "Hey, lighten up; it's all right," I say, but he keeps getting after me anyway. The truth is I don't care anymore. I used to have a roommate for whom daily life was a struggle also, who went through all sorts of depression, social anxiety, anxiety about the future; but he was always going to this quack therapist who didn't even have a degree, and spouting out all sorts of popular therapy maxims having to do with inner children and phrases like, "Get off the pity pot." "Some people just give up," he said once. "I'll never just give up. I'll fight my depression to the end--I'll always do something, anything to get through it. Homeless people--they have just given up. I'll never give up." And he would say could he see me now that I've given up; given up on getting a girlfriend, given up on socializing, given up on venturing into the world, given up on getting a job, not to mention a career, given up on graduating college. And so I hole up in this little room and battle the demons that come to the ones who have given up, the pain that comes to fallen souls, the agonies of defeat that last and last till death . . . and so I sit and wait, wait for death, my sense of shame the only thing keeping me from ushering that death on, finally bringing its blessings home. And so I wait, like a wounded man, a man given a deathblow that takes 20 years to slowly kill him, who gives up on survival the moment he is beaten, and who goes on in the agonies of death for 20 years, the long stage of dying that lasts and lasts. Yes: I'm dying here, I have given up on living: I am waiting for death and my 60th birthday, patiently waiting for the end of time that sits at the end of the long corridor, waiting out the agonies, waiting out the pangs, waking up in this tiny fortress throwing up, then cracking open whatever beer is left over from last night. And I am a patient waiter, and I know my boon will come.