The kitty I'm sitting would not agree, I'm sure, but she saved me from my usual overlong stay with my fams, making the trip a 24 hour adventure. Had to get back to give her the antibiotics. Moms will just have to understand about that.
Thank you, little sweet, cute, fuzzy gray and white tiger-stripey Christmas elf, for saving me from my sister's discussions of her relationship with God and her irritable bowels. Thank you for limiting my exposure to my mother's anxiety attacks, tears and criticisms. (She means well, she means well.) Thank you for freeing me from the inane, hackle-raising political arguments between my Christian conservative brother-in-law and my radical, not terribly politically sophisticated left-wing sister (with the irritable bowels).
Thank you most of all for saving me from having to drive home and back on the worst traffic days. I owe you one kid. Except you peed in my lap last night when you couldn't go out during the thunderstorm. So we might be even.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Blahg Humbug!
Is it just me, or do family Christmas get-togethers feel an awful lot like hell on earth? My office-mate's flight home just got cancelled. I've never heard anyone whoop with such pure joy. He seemed even happier than my nieces and nephew ripping open their Christmas presents.
I wonder if one could make money with a business supplying holiday advocates for single women...and men, too. Let me be clear--these are not fake dates. These are life coaches who will advocate for the singleton over the next 3 to 5 days.
These folks could accompany the single person home for the holidays, bringing along cocoa and good cheer for the long flight/train ride/drive home. They could advocate for the singleton with the critical family, providing much needed family therapy in the process. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the advocate would insist that the singleton must not sleep in a "freezing back bedroom of death" with a spinster sister who likes to discuss her problems with bodily functions, but in a hotel room where peace and quiet and single beds reign, if not for the greater calm and mood improvement this would provide, then simply for human dignity. Human dignity! Depending on client wishes, the advocate could then drive said client to a pastry shop or perhaps to the nicest bar in town--even if that's the Boot Scootin' Lounge--to eat/drink the day into oblivion every evening and deflect passes from overzealous pastry chefs and/or drunken wannabe cowboys.
I suppose married people would be very jealous if this were to happen.
Who wants to go into business with me? Calling all advocates (P.S., advocate wannabes, this means you don't have to go home for the holidays either because you're working w/ a nice, single potential cutie...woops. This is not, repeat NOT, a date!)
Yeah, I'm starting to think Hollywood has already made a feel-good movie about this.
Ah well. Peace out ya'll. Happy holidays. Wish me luck.
I wonder if one could make money with a business supplying holiday advocates for single women...and men, too. Let me be clear--these are not fake dates. These are life coaches who will advocate for the singleton over the next 3 to 5 days.
These folks could accompany the single person home for the holidays, bringing along cocoa and good cheer for the long flight/train ride/drive home. They could advocate for the singleton with the critical family, providing much needed family therapy in the process. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the advocate would insist that the singleton must not sleep in a "freezing back bedroom of death" with a spinster sister who likes to discuss her problems with bodily functions, but in a hotel room where peace and quiet and single beds reign, if not for the greater calm and mood improvement this would provide, then simply for human dignity. Human dignity! Depending on client wishes, the advocate could then drive said client to a pastry shop or perhaps to the nicest bar in town--even if that's the Boot Scootin' Lounge--to eat/drink the day into oblivion every evening and deflect passes from overzealous pastry chefs and/or drunken wannabe cowboys.
I suppose married people would be very jealous if this were to happen.
Who wants to go into business with me? Calling all advocates (P.S., advocate wannabes, this means you don't have to go home for the holidays either because you're working w/ a nice, single potential cutie...woops. This is not, repeat NOT, a date!)
Yeah, I'm starting to think Hollywood has already made a feel-good movie about this.
Ah well. Peace out ya'll. Happy holidays. Wish me luck.
Friday, December 01, 2006
When Fascists Rock
Okay, that's not really fair at all, but...
My office-mate sent me this really quite extraordinary Klaus Nomi video just as I was finishing the last post. I can't help but think there's some synchronicity.
Please watch at least until he goes into his falsetto once.
My office-mate sent me this really quite extraordinary Klaus Nomi video just as I was finishing the last post. I can't help but think there's some synchronicity.
Please watch at least until he goes into his falsetto once.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Today, I'm more into reading than writing. Uh-huh.
So I'll start by posting some interesting things I've read lately and then commence blathering.
A Fascist Philosopher Helps Us Understand Contemporary Politics was a link off of an article from Slate asking, on the surface, whether it really was fair game and, moreover, our responsibility to note the similarities between the Bush administration and the Third Reich. The argument was mainly focused on the propaganda state question, the ability to seemlessly shift public sympathies away from core democratic values, etc. Have a look, let me know what you think.
The Fascist Philosopher article is another one of those "why do conservatives work this way?" deconstructions that I like so much. The argument seems to have an element of truth if you're willing to examine our current administration as a wanna-be fascist dictatorship, and who isn't?
"In The Concept of the Political, [Fascist philosopher Carl] Schmitt wrote that every realm of human endeavor is structured by an irreducible duality. Morality is concerned with good and evil, aesthetics with the beautiful and ugly, and economics with the profitable and unprofitable. In politics, the core distinction is between friend and enemy. That is what makes politics different from everything else. Jesus's call to love your enemy is perfectly appropriate for religion, but it is incompatible with the life-or-death stakes politics always involves. Moral philosophers are preoccupied with justice, but politics has nothing to do with making the world fairer. Economic exchange requires only competition; it does not demand annihilation. Not so politics."
If you're a Republican or just a good ol' fashioned call-it-like-it-is fascist (I'll leave run-of-the-mill conservatives well out of this) and if this is the basic philosophy you've adopted, what is your rational end? I keep asking that question and not finding a satisfying answer, which makes me think I must be asking the wrong question. Rational end. Silly liberal.
But historically and philosophically there is at least a rationale. One just has to step outside one's liberal democratic box. Yes, many of our current (soon to be former!) leaders aren't idealists on this level so much as opportunists out for their own equivalents of 24-carat gold shower curtains, but in this system there's plenty of room for their contributions, too. When they go too far and get caught, they're readily disposable and make convenient whipping dogs to deflect attention from actual news. The frightening things is that some in our leadership clearly do, God help us, actually appear to follow this stuff.
But this is the part that interests me--Fascist beliefs have never gone out of circulation in the populace.
Here's the anecdotal evidence you'll accuse me of winding up out of all proportion. I can take it. I'm related to and grew up with a community full of these people, so I feel fairly comfortable making the generalization.
Several years ago, there was an amusing/frightening exchange between my right-wing Christian brother-in-law (BIL) who will now stand in for the far- to way-far-right, and the-clever-boy-I-was-dating (CBIWD) a few years ago who will stand in for Democrats.
My brother-in-law favored a government directed by competing Powerful Capitalists. CEOs of large corporations (this was pre-ENRON, I should note, but things haven't changed much for BIL), Rockefellers, Fords and their ilk. He felt power should be based on marketplace standing. He also insisted that this not only fit fine in the democratic model, but was the only way to make it work. The powerful were powerful because of their inherent intelligence and deservedness. They had the best instincts about how to lead us. Business model and all. Competition keeps everyone on their toes, keep them working for society and thus makes society work.
Did I mention that the BIL tends to equate Capitalism, Democracy, and The Will of God? Minor confusion between the material, the social and the spiritual in my POV, but what do I know? I'm well on my way to the First Circle of Hell.
The CBIWD had a nice gift for metaphor, so he melded my BIL's argument into a metaphorical bus in which competing power-holders took control of the wheel. My BIL liked that. Yes. The most powerful person should most certainly drive and direct the bus. They'll get us where we want to go.
Now you might want to go to your home on State Street, but you have no real say. Hopefully, the power-holder also wants to go in your direction. However, the power-holder has some business to take care of on Church Street, so away he goes. Oh, he'll probably circle around to everyone's stop eventually. But his stop is terribly important so we need to stick with his decision. Oh, wait. Competition has just kicked in and now there's a new driver. Hang on folks. We're turning around and heading for K Street. Got some serious bidness to attend to boys--you know what I mean. You want to stop somewhere on the way? Well, maybe, if you can convince me it's worth my while. Hope you've got some big bills, BIL. No? How's that bus workin' for ya now?
Here, I'm afraid, both metaphor and argument ended because my mother said, "Ach, turkey's on the table. Stop fighting and come shove some cranberry sauce and stuffing in your horrible, screaming gobs. Maybe that'll shut you up." (I paraphrase.)
So how do I equate this to fascism?
First off, a bit of back-argument. Pure capitalism thought of as political structure is inherently wrong-headed as it results in too many independent, self-interested drivers. In an equation where individual power is the end, the little people will eventually jump out of their seats and strangle driver after driver, and finally, each other, in increasingly anarchic attempts to get where they want to go. The end state of pure competition is usually some sort of fight to the death.
Politics, leadership of country, the ability to make it all work together despite competition--to bend competition to the greater good--requires the politician. Shudder now and forever hold your peace. I do believe we're married to this people. It's our lot as social beings.
But here we see the roots of a typical right-wing business-oriented belief system. In this view, successful businessmen have a grasp of the world that the rest of us simply don't--they are better. They're there because they deserve to be; they earned it, and more frighteningly, the assumption is that they earned it honestly, following their righteous paths to the American Dream. The People should stand down and trust them to lead. They absolutely should have influence in government, and much more than the average person. A bit of social Darwinism and some serious idealism at work. Mm. Mmmm. Not nearly there yet, but, by God, it begins to taste a bit like fascism.
From that base, it won't take much to turn BIL-man against the Democratic values he claims to hold dear.
For BIL, the Capitalist-Politician is inherently superior and whatever he needs to do to advance his ideological agenda is valid. Add a frightening war without borders and an appeal to blind patriotism, then a dash of xenophobia and the recipe's not only mixed--that bird's cooked.
This last election was tough for BIL. I don't know how he voted in the end. Had it simply been the issues of torture and government eavesdropping, he wouldn't have had a problem casting his vote. He is driven by reverence for what he thinks he knows and fear of the Other, not by his critical mind. It was the corruption, finally, that got him. It all just went a bit too far.
I think that's the rather fortunate Achilles heel of power and persuasion politics. No matter how much spin doctors scrub the information that goes out, they can't scrub away a whole series of scandals and missteps. There's simply too much evidence piled up. And when too much power gets concentrated in too few greedy, brutal hands, scandals are bound to erupt.
The People speak, misspeak and live to speak again.
The frightening thing is that my BIL is still out there, watching and waiting for the next knight with a facade of shining armor. He isn't worried by brutality or inequity; it's mainly child molestation and the free golf trips that get him down. With time, he is certain he and his kind--the Right Kind--will win out.
His only fear is The People.
A Fascist Philosopher Helps Us Understand Contemporary Politics was a link off of an article from Slate asking, on the surface, whether it really was fair game and, moreover, our responsibility to note the similarities between the Bush administration and the Third Reich. The argument was mainly focused on the propaganda state question, the ability to seemlessly shift public sympathies away from core democratic values, etc. Have a look, let me know what you think.
The Fascist Philosopher article is another one of those "why do conservatives work this way?" deconstructions that I like so much. The argument seems to have an element of truth if you're willing to examine our current administration as a wanna-be fascist dictatorship, and who isn't?
"In The Concept of the Political, [Fascist philosopher Carl] Schmitt wrote that every realm of human endeavor is structured by an irreducible duality. Morality is concerned with good and evil, aesthetics with the beautiful and ugly, and economics with the profitable and unprofitable. In politics, the core distinction is between friend and enemy. That is what makes politics different from everything else. Jesus's call to love your enemy is perfectly appropriate for religion, but it is incompatible with the life-or-death stakes politics always involves. Moral philosophers are preoccupied with justice, but politics has nothing to do with making the world fairer. Economic exchange requires only competition; it does not demand annihilation. Not so politics."
If you're a Republican or just a good ol' fashioned call-it-like-it-is fascist (I'll leave run-of-the-mill conservatives well out of this) and if this is the basic philosophy you've adopted, what is your rational end? I keep asking that question and not finding a satisfying answer, which makes me think I must be asking the wrong question. Rational end. Silly liberal.
But historically and philosophically there is at least a rationale. One just has to step outside one's liberal democratic box. Yes, many of our current (soon to be former!) leaders aren't idealists on this level so much as opportunists out for their own equivalents of 24-carat gold shower curtains, but in this system there's plenty of room for their contributions, too. When they go too far and get caught, they're readily disposable and make convenient whipping dogs to deflect attention from actual news. The frightening things is that some in our leadership clearly do, God help us, actually appear to follow this stuff.
But this is the part that interests me--Fascist beliefs have never gone out of circulation in the populace.
Here's the anecdotal evidence you'll accuse me of winding up out of all proportion. I can take it. I'm related to and grew up with a community full of these people, so I feel fairly comfortable making the generalization.
Several years ago, there was an amusing/frightening exchange between my right-wing Christian brother-in-law (BIL) who will now stand in for the far- to way-far-right, and the-clever-boy-I-was-dating (CBIWD) a few years ago who will stand in for Democrats.
My brother-in-law favored a government directed by competing Powerful Capitalists. CEOs of large corporations (this was pre-ENRON, I should note, but things haven't changed much for BIL), Rockefellers, Fords and their ilk. He felt power should be based on marketplace standing. He also insisted that this not only fit fine in the democratic model, but was the only way to make it work. The powerful were powerful because of their inherent intelligence and deservedness. They had the best instincts about how to lead us. Business model and all. Competition keeps everyone on their toes, keep them working for society and thus makes society work.
Did I mention that the BIL tends to equate Capitalism, Democracy, and The Will of God? Minor confusion between the material, the social and the spiritual in my POV, but what do I know? I'm well on my way to the First Circle of Hell.
The CBIWD had a nice gift for metaphor, so he melded my BIL's argument into a metaphorical bus in which competing power-holders took control of the wheel. My BIL liked that. Yes. The most powerful person should most certainly drive and direct the bus. They'll get us where we want to go.
Now you might want to go to your home on State Street, but you have no real say. Hopefully, the power-holder also wants to go in your direction. However, the power-holder has some business to take care of on Church Street, so away he goes. Oh, he'll probably circle around to everyone's stop eventually. But his stop is terribly important so we need to stick with his decision. Oh, wait. Competition has just kicked in and now there's a new driver. Hang on folks. We're turning around and heading for K Street. Got some serious bidness to attend to boys--you know what I mean. You want to stop somewhere on the way? Well, maybe, if you can convince me it's worth my while. Hope you've got some big bills, BIL. No? How's that bus workin' for ya now?
Here, I'm afraid, both metaphor and argument ended because my mother said, "Ach, turkey's on the table. Stop fighting and come shove some cranberry sauce and stuffing in your horrible, screaming gobs. Maybe that'll shut you up." (I paraphrase.)
So how do I equate this to fascism?
First off, a bit of back-argument. Pure capitalism thought of as political structure is inherently wrong-headed as it results in too many independent, self-interested drivers. In an equation where individual power is the end, the little people will eventually jump out of their seats and strangle driver after driver, and finally, each other, in increasingly anarchic attempts to get where they want to go. The end state of pure competition is usually some sort of fight to the death.
Politics, leadership of country, the ability to make it all work together despite competition--to bend competition to the greater good--requires the politician. Shudder now and forever hold your peace. I do believe we're married to this people. It's our lot as social beings.
But here we see the roots of a typical right-wing business-oriented belief system. In this view, successful businessmen have a grasp of the world that the rest of us simply don't--they are better. They're there because they deserve to be; they earned it, and more frighteningly, the assumption is that they earned it honestly, following their righteous paths to the American Dream. The People should stand down and trust them to lead. They absolutely should have influence in government, and much more than the average person. A bit of social Darwinism and some serious idealism at work. Mm. Mmmm. Not nearly there yet, but, by God, it begins to taste a bit like fascism.
From that base, it won't take much to turn BIL-man against the Democratic values he claims to hold dear.
- Logic is not his strong point. Belief is.
- He is already driven to worship power and status
- He distrusts the populace (except those who agree with him)
- He distrusts politicians who cater to those portions of the populace he finds disagreeable
- He trusts, nay believes in, politicians who believe as he does and favor the powerful
- He believes it is critical to keep his politicians in power as the country will surely go keeling into disaster and moral decrepitude if he does not
For BIL, the Capitalist-Politician is inherently superior and whatever he needs to do to advance his ideological agenda is valid. Add a frightening war without borders and an appeal to blind patriotism, then a dash of xenophobia and the recipe's not only mixed--that bird's cooked.
This last election was tough for BIL. I don't know how he voted in the end. Had it simply been the issues of torture and government eavesdropping, he wouldn't have had a problem casting his vote. He is driven by reverence for what he thinks he knows and fear of the Other, not by his critical mind. It was the corruption, finally, that got him. It all just went a bit too far.
I think that's the rather fortunate Achilles heel of power and persuasion politics. No matter how much spin doctors scrub the information that goes out, they can't scrub away a whole series of scandals and missteps. There's simply too much evidence piled up. And when too much power gets concentrated in too few greedy, brutal hands, scandals are bound to erupt.
The People speak, misspeak and live to speak again.
The frightening thing is that my BIL is still out there, watching and waiting for the next knight with a facade of shining armor. He isn't worried by brutality or inequity; it's mainly child molestation and the free golf trips that get him down. With time, he is certain he and his kind--the Right Kind--will win out.
His only fear is The People.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Halloweenie
So I flew in from Toronto on October 30, unpacked my bags, did some laundry, picked up a ton of candy for Halloween the next day, and went to friends' house to polish off the two aforementioned bottles of Canadian wine.
I arrived home late and considered putting the candy in a bowl but couldn't bring myself to do it as the thought of it disappearing down a big Toad Roommate gob made me want to cry. I left the bag o'candy stashed in my closet.
I arrived at work somewhat late the next morning only to find a huge to do list waiting for me. I realized by about 5:00 that I was going to miss out on Halloween. Around 6:00, I gave in and decided it would be better to call and leave a message on the machine at home telling Toad where the candy was than to be stuck with an entire bag of bubble gum eyeballs. Yes, he'd eat a bunch, but the trick or treaters (tricks or treater?) would arrive fast and furious.
Meanwhile....
Toad Roommate turns onto the street that leads to the house looking forward to an evening of relaxing on my couch watching something stupid on my television and laughing loudly at things that are not funny. He is horrified to see more children than he has ever seen in our neighborhood. They are all in costume. Where did they all come from, scamming for free candy? Oh, ho. That doesn't seem right to him. Then, he makes an even more frightening realization. He will be the bad guy who has no candy! They will chastise him and play tricks. What can he do?
Being the clever Toad he is, he turns around and goes to a fast food establishment to get dinner and sit out the evening waiting for the terrifying children to leave.
9:55
I arrive home and find the place dark, make a fairly accurate guess at what has happened and catch the last carload of parents and kids who are about to leave.
"Wait! I have a ton of candy and worked so late I didn't get to give it out. Do you guys want one last trick or treat?"
Parents say yes and wait for me to trade bookbag for candybag. I fill up a last few ghoulish pillowcases and decorated HEB bags with as much candy as I can w/out being absurd and, of course, have a bunch left over.
I realize I really need to get the candy back into my room if I don't want untoward things to happen to it, but it's been a long day and I'm very tired. I sit on the couch and find a Halloween episode of Boston Legal. I laugh at the sight of William Shatner in a dress.
10:30
Toad Roommate arrives. He tells me what transpired and where he's been. Then he eyes the bags on the couch.
"Oh, candy." He stuffs his sticky toad fingers into the bags and draws out a great handful of candy. He asks me to fill him in on all the details of the Boston Legal that he has missed. I tell him I really just turned it on a few minutes ago and I'm not sure. He laughs loudly as William Shatner in a dress decides that James Spader in a dress might actually be sort of attractive. I can't really blame him there. He munches sweet tarts.
Absurdist Dream Sets In
I smile cruelly. Have some more sweet tarts, my sweet, I say. He munches and munches and blows up bigger and bigger before my eyes.
"Wh-what's happening to me? Oh, oh, I'm floating!" And sure enough, Toad Roommate is blowing up like a balloon and floating toward the ceiling, bob, bob, bobbing against the awful popcorn texture that I'm going to leave there forever and ever.
I open the sliding glass door and begin to shove him through.
"Oh no, no!" he says. "I'll float away!"
"Yes, my pretty, that's the idea" I say, shoving harder and harder, but he seems to be stuck. "Wait right here, silly Toad."
"Well, uh, okay, but you got more candy?"
"In good time. In good time."
I find my trusty crowbar and house-fixing tools and begin to work at the doorjam. He can take the whole squeaky thing with him by God, and I'll find a way to buy French doors. Unfortunately, I'm clumsy and unskilled and bits of plasterboard break away from the walls. I'll have to fix that later, dammit. Oh dear God! Dry rot! Please not dry rot! The cheap house siding crumbles away in my hands as I work, but I continue anyway. I will at least have this one pestilence gone! But he begins to shrink now, shrink back down to normal. He didn't eat enough to hold the spell.
"Eat more sweet tarts!" I order, fearing I'll never be rid of him
"But I don't want any. I want chocolate."
"Eat chocolate then!" I cackle.
This is much too easy. He puffs up again. Damn it all! Why didn't I shove him through first? Always doing things in the wrong order. I kick and kick at the doorjam, but it won't come loose from its moorings.
"Uh, you got any more of that chocolate?"
I kick one last time at something that looks like it could be moorings, stubbing and possibly breaking my toe. The doorframe does not move, but a large piece of siding falls off of the wall outside and crumbles on the porch.
"No!" I say, my voice infected by madness. "No, by God! It's all for me! I paid for it, it's all for me!"
I leave him where he is and step out onto the front porch, where I proceed to chew up an entire bag of bubble gum eyeballs. I begin to blow a bubble that is 2 feet, 3 feet, 6 feet wide! And it isn't done growing yet. Ten feet, 12 feet, 15 feet wide! But it won't rise up. The bubble is full of angry, bitter air and sinks down, roiling over the half-dead lawn and the garden that needs weeding and mulching.
There is no other choice. I begin to eat the chocolate. Oh, the cursed chocolate. Seratonin floods my brain and I am lifted by a lovely chemical calm. I barely notice as my body blows up to double it's proportions, triple, four times. Okay, probably triple would make me round and balloon-like, but let's just say four times.
The pounding in my toe subsides as I float up toward the calm, glowing moon. It's so soft and pleasing. So quiet and peaceful.
"Hey, you gonna eat the rest of that candy?" a loud voice belches from below. The words break my reverie as they are called out again and again, but they fade out of range, and then it is just me and the stars and an increasingly thin supply of oxygen. I look down on the earth and see all the cookie cutter rooftops, each filled with its own little monsters this night and I feel at peace, as all witches must, riding aloft on the delicious curses of All Hallows Eve.
The End
Okay, The End needs a little work, but maybe I should get back to those children's stories I'm always yammering about trying to write. Hm.
All events prior to the Absurdist Dream section are true. Names have been changed to protect the guilty, I suppose.
I arrived home late and considered putting the candy in a bowl but couldn't bring myself to do it as the thought of it disappearing down a big Toad Roommate gob made me want to cry. I left the bag o'candy stashed in my closet.
I arrived at work somewhat late the next morning only to find a huge to do list waiting for me. I realized by about 5:00 that I was going to miss out on Halloween. Around 6:00, I gave in and decided it would be better to call and leave a message on the machine at home telling Toad where the candy was than to be stuck with an entire bag of bubble gum eyeballs. Yes, he'd eat a bunch, but the trick or treaters (tricks or treater?) would arrive fast and furious.
Meanwhile....
Toad Roommate turns onto the street that leads to the house looking forward to an evening of relaxing on my couch watching something stupid on my television and laughing loudly at things that are not funny. He is horrified to see more children than he has ever seen in our neighborhood. They are all in costume. Where did they all come from, scamming for free candy? Oh, ho. That doesn't seem right to him. Then, he makes an even more frightening realization. He will be the bad guy who has no candy! They will chastise him and play tricks. What can he do?
Being the clever Toad he is, he turns around and goes to a fast food establishment to get dinner and sit out the evening waiting for the terrifying children to leave.
9:55
I arrive home and find the place dark, make a fairly accurate guess at what has happened and catch the last carload of parents and kids who are about to leave.
"Wait! I have a ton of candy and worked so late I didn't get to give it out. Do you guys want one last trick or treat?"
Parents say yes and wait for me to trade bookbag for candybag. I fill up a last few ghoulish pillowcases and decorated HEB bags with as much candy as I can w/out being absurd and, of course, have a bunch left over.
I realize I really need to get the candy back into my room if I don't want untoward things to happen to it, but it's been a long day and I'm very tired. I sit on the couch and find a Halloween episode of Boston Legal. I laugh at the sight of William Shatner in a dress.
10:30
Toad Roommate arrives. He tells me what transpired and where he's been. Then he eyes the bags on the couch.
"Oh, candy." He stuffs his sticky toad fingers into the bags and draws out a great handful of candy. He asks me to fill him in on all the details of the Boston Legal that he has missed. I tell him I really just turned it on a few minutes ago and I'm not sure. He laughs loudly as William Shatner in a dress decides that James Spader in a dress might actually be sort of attractive. I can't really blame him there. He munches sweet tarts.
Absurdist Dream Sets In
I smile cruelly. Have some more sweet tarts, my sweet, I say. He munches and munches and blows up bigger and bigger before my eyes.
"Wh-what's happening to me? Oh, oh, I'm floating!" And sure enough, Toad Roommate is blowing up like a balloon and floating toward the ceiling, bob, bob, bobbing against the awful popcorn texture that I'm going to leave there forever and ever.
I open the sliding glass door and begin to shove him through.
"Oh no, no!" he says. "I'll float away!"
"Yes, my pretty, that's the idea" I say, shoving harder and harder, but he seems to be stuck. "Wait right here, silly Toad."
"Well, uh, okay, but you got more candy?"
"In good time. In good time."
I find my trusty crowbar and house-fixing tools and begin to work at the doorjam. He can take the whole squeaky thing with him by God, and I'll find a way to buy French doors. Unfortunately, I'm clumsy and unskilled and bits of plasterboard break away from the walls. I'll have to fix that later, dammit. Oh dear God! Dry rot! Please not dry rot! The cheap house siding crumbles away in my hands as I work, but I continue anyway. I will at least have this one pestilence gone! But he begins to shrink now, shrink back down to normal. He didn't eat enough to hold the spell.
"Eat more sweet tarts!" I order, fearing I'll never be rid of him
"But I don't want any. I want chocolate."
"Eat chocolate then!" I cackle.
This is much too easy. He puffs up again. Damn it all! Why didn't I shove him through first? Always doing things in the wrong order. I kick and kick at the doorjam, but it won't come loose from its moorings.
"Uh, you got any more of that chocolate?"
I kick one last time at something that looks like it could be moorings, stubbing and possibly breaking my toe. The doorframe does not move, but a large piece of siding falls off of the wall outside and crumbles on the porch.
"No!" I say, my voice infected by madness. "No, by God! It's all for me! I paid for it, it's all for me!"
I leave him where he is and step out onto the front porch, where I proceed to chew up an entire bag of bubble gum eyeballs. I begin to blow a bubble that is 2 feet, 3 feet, 6 feet wide! And it isn't done growing yet. Ten feet, 12 feet, 15 feet wide! But it won't rise up. The bubble is full of angry, bitter air and sinks down, roiling over the half-dead lawn and the garden that needs weeding and mulching.
There is no other choice. I begin to eat the chocolate. Oh, the cursed chocolate. Seratonin floods my brain and I am lifted by a lovely chemical calm. I barely notice as my body blows up to double it's proportions, triple, four times. Okay, probably triple would make me round and balloon-like, but let's just say four times.
The pounding in my toe subsides as I float up toward the calm, glowing moon. It's so soft and pleasing. So quiet and peaceful.
"Hey, you gonna eat the rest of that candy?" a loud voice belches from below. The words break my reverie as they are called out again and again, but they fade out of range, and then it is just me and the stars and an increasingly thin supply of oxygen. I look down on the earth and see all the cookie cutter rooftops, each filled with its own little monsters this night and I feel at peace, as all witches must, riding aloft on the delicious curses of All Hallows Eve.
The End
Okay, The End needs a little work, but maybe I should get back to those children's stories I'm always yammering about trying to write. Hm.
All events prior to the Absurdist Dream section are true. Names have been changed to protect the guilty, I suppose.
The house, the house, the house is on hold! And then there was Toronto.
Thanks to all who commented on my house woes. It's these little acts of support that give me strength.
I managed not to put a nail through the plumbing by the way. And I finally found just the right series of twists on the toilet connection, so it no longer leaks! Of course, I managed to unbalance the whole toilet in the process of all the fixing, so now each time someone sits on it, it sorts of rocks around and makes futile efforts to refill its full tank. Kind of fun, really. I plan to keep it that way until the seal goes and I have to call a plumber, which seems downright inevitable now. The walls, meanwhile, are a not-quite-right muted gold-ish yellow, and a not-quite-right muted goldish-yellow they will stay. No towel bar yet. I've spent all my money and can't afford the towel bar.
Is it that much better than peeling country blue wallpaper? No, my friends. No it is not.
So in other news, I just returned from Toronto where I remembered what it was to be human. Yes, I did. Chinatown, Italian town, Indian town, gaining back all the weight I lost through consumption of cheap, delicous ethnic foods, gay man town (Gay marriage is legal in Ontario, and yes, this was the rainbow street signs section of town, dominated by men), art museums, independent galleries, shopping trips to Chinese tea shops, St Lawrence Market, and Canadian mall chain stores to buy blue jeans that dyed my legs blue. Canadians, I know you're against artificial ingredients and whatnot, and I admire that. I really do. But dye setter? Is there a problem with dye setter?
I wandered into one small gallery that was showing--ay, me--a film about Texas, George Bush, the Branch Davidians, and bats flying out of caves in San Antonio. It was a Turner Prize (don't ask me) winner filmed by British artist Jeremy Deller. Yeah, I didn't know who he was either, and this website is much less informative than the gallery owner who gave me a brief and amusing/interesting history of his work. Always informative to see one's cultural/political surrounds through an outsider's lens. Come to think of it, that's how I usually feel I'm seeing them these days. So much information out there, such a fickle lens to deliver it, such strained comprehension. Mr. Deller's work was finer and more compassionate to all its participants than our media's has been for some time.
Then there was the evening of literary readings since I happened into town in the middle of the International Festival of Authors. I didn't care for most of the works of fiction that were read that evening, though I was intrigued by The Remainder and picked it up to read on the way back in the plane. Pretty interesting most of the way through, but, alas, flat at the end. I did, however, get to see a slide show by Ralph Steadman whose scattered brilliance and dry British humor cut through my mild hangover and woke me up for the long walk home. I wish I'd gotten him to sign my book instead of the Remainder guy, but Steadman was apparently somewhat belligerent about the whole process. He'd presigned a few copies which sold off even before he left, post-reading, to drink (one assumes). Of course, this made me respect him even more.
So all in all, a successful trip. I also picked up a few bottles of wine in the Canadian wine country as I drove back to Rochester, NY (conference, free plane ticket to Rochester and back, rented PT Roadster--God help me--to drive to Canada). You laugh, but there's good soil and a microclimate around Lake Ontario. The reds are still immature for most of the vineyards, but they're getting there and some of the whites have begun to garner a good reputation internationally.
Don't I sound knowledgable? Not to worry--I had to check that info through w/ a friend before I wrote it down for public consumption. The lady at the vineyard could have been BS-ing me left, right, and sideways, and I would've only caught half the misinformation. But she was good and true, as one hopes people will be. Most of the people I met in Canada were just that. Friendly, liberal, helpful. If only the winters were a tiny bit less wintery...
So enough of my good fortune. I've been back since Monday. It's Sunday and my second weekend day in the office. Most of the wine is gone, I've got slightly less than 2 more months w/ my stinky roommate and I've decided to post again instead of working. Best to spend a few moments savoring the good parts of one's life before one eases back into the crushing depression, I always feel.
I managed not to put a nail through the plumbing by the way. And I finally found just the right series of twists on the toilet connection, so it no longer leaks! Of course, I managed to unbalance the whole toilet in the process of all the fixing, so now each time someone sits on it, it sorts of rocks around and makes futile efforts to refill its full tank. Kind of fun, really. I plan to keep it that way until the seal goes and I have to call a plumber, which seems downright inevitable now. The walls, meanwhile, are a not-quite-right muted gold-ish yellow, and a not-quite-right muted goldish-yellow they will stay. No towel bar yet. I've spent all my money and can't afford the towel bar.
Is it that much better than peeling country blue wallpaper? No, my friends. No it is not.
So in other news, I just returned from Toronto where I remembered what it was to be human. Yes, I did. Chinatown, Italian town, Indian town, gaining back all the weight I lost through consumption of cheap, delicous ethnic foods, gay man town (Gay marriage is legal in Ontario, and yes, this was the rainbow street signs section of town, dominated by men), art museums, independent galleries, shopping trips to Chinese tea shops, St Lawrence Market, and Canadian mall chain stores to buy blue jeans that dyed my legs blue. Canadians, I know you're against artificial ingredients and whatnot, and I admire that. I really do. But dye setter? Is there a problem with dye setter?
I wandered into one small gallery that was showing--ay, me--a film about Texas, George Bush, the Branch Davidians, and bats flying out of caves in San Antonio. It was a Turner Prize (don't ask me) winner filmed by British artist Jeremy Deller. Yeah, I didn't know who he was either, and this website is much less informative than the gallery owner who gave me a brief and amusing/interesting history of his work. Always informative to see one's cultural/political surrounds through an outsider's lens. Come to think of it, that's how I usually feel I'm seeing them these days. So much information out there, such a fickle lens to deliver it, such strained comprehension. Mr. Deller's work was finer and more compassionate to all its participants than our media's has been for some time.
Then there was the evening of literary readings since I happened into town in the middle of the International Festival of Authors. I didn't care for most of the works of fiction that were read that evening, though I was intrigued by The Remainder and picked it up to read on the way back in the plane. Pretty interesting most of the way through, but, alas, flat at the end. I did, however, get to see a slide show by Ralph Steadman whose scattered brilliance and dry British humor cut through my mild hangover and woke me up for the long walk home. I wish I'd gotten him to sign my book instead of the Remainder guy, but Steadman was apparently somewhat belligerent about the whole process. He'd presigned a few copies which sold off even before he left, post-reading, to drink (one assumes). Of course, this made me respect him even more.
So all in all, a successful trip. I also picked up a few bottles of wine in the Canadian wine country as I drove back to Rochester, NY (conference, free plane ticket to Rochester and back, rented PT Roadster--God help me--to drive to Canada). You laugh, but there's good soil and a microclimate around Lake Ontario. The reds are still immature for most of the vineyards, but they're getting there and some of the whites have begun to garner a good reputation internationally.
Don't I sound knowledgable? Not to worry--I had to check that info through w/ a friend before I wrote it down for public consumption. The lady at the vineyard could have been BS-ing me left, right, and sideways, and I would've only caught half the misinformation. But she was good and true, as one hopes people will be. Most of the people I met in Canada were just that. Friendly, liberal, helpful. If only the winters were a tiny bit less wintery...
So enough of my good fortune. I've been back since Monday. It's Sunday and my second weekend day in the office. Most of the wine is gone, I've got slightly less than 2 more months w/ my stinky roommate and I've decided to post again instead of working. Best to spend a few moments savoring the good parts of one's life before one eases back into the crushing depression, I always feel.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
House-pocalypse now
Don't do it! Do not buy that house. Turn back now! You'll never have a life again, you'll never date, never know your unborn children, never blog again, you fool, listen to me!
This all brought on by removing the peeling wallpaper in my ugly, tiny master bathroom, which led to re-spackling most of the wall when just the tiniest bit of the outer surface of the outer sheetrock paper peeled off, which led to sanding and lots of inhaling of dust, which led to looking at the rotten floorboards, which led to pulling off the rotten floorboards just to replace them, which wasn't an appealing proposition, but if you're going to do the job, do it right! Which led to kneeling awkwardly in the 7 inch space between the bathtub and toilet and trying to detach the floorboards from the ugly sheet vinyl they were caulked to only to find that the sheet vinyl was pulling right up off of the floor to reveal a big ol' wet spot and some frightening musty smell underneath, which lead to tearing up the sheet vinyl, getting out the paint stripper again and removing all the goo from the floor so I could stain the concrete to match (most of) the rest of my house.
Seven hours, 4 crying fits, one near nervous breakdown and several cancer cells later, I noticed that the water leak that wrecked the floor was coming from the toilet, not shower over-run as I'd thought. I immediately suspected the worst--the wax seal. That means lifting up the entire toilet and releasing noxious sewer fumes into the house, i.e., having to pay a plumber to do it because it's way to heavy and disgusting. Lucky for me, it was coming from tank connection. After replacing the only 2 washers in the area of the leak with help from a friend after the first washer replacement did nothing--nothing!--we hit on something near zen when the tube began to drip slightly less. Oh, it never stopped. No, no. But "slightly less" began to look an awful lot like heaven.
In the meantime, some kittens with fleas came for a visit and left behind several of their little friends. There's a whole 'nother tale of kitten/house-sitting, de-fleaing and flea-bombing my friend's house there. I just don't have to energy to tell it right now.
My roommate whined that "Wah, fleas bit my ankles as I was sitting on my ass on your couch watching your TV and eating my 1,947,969th bag of potato chips, chewing with my mouth open as I always do so you could hear my crunching all the way in the other room. Hey, and I took some of that pate you made and put it on my spaghetti and microwaved it. That was good." I wish I was exaggerating about any of this. I really do. I am not. Okay, he didn't actually say "Wah."
This mercifully caused him to leave for the night so I could finish de-fleaing the kittens in peace, remove them back to their freshly bombed house post-poison-ventilation, and flea bomb my own house. Some beer was drunk during the two-and-a-half-hour forced intermission while poison made it's way through every crack and crevice and offed the fleas along with several frighteningly large roaches. Yea! I think.
The next morning, following hangover recovery, I finally gave up, drained my toilet so it couldn't leak, decided to buy an entire new toilet gut system to be installed later, and stained and waxed the concrete (a 26-hour process involving more fume inhalage and cancer cell creation). Meanwhile, I thought, I'll use my roommate's bathroom.
Hm. How did an actual print of his ass-crack get on the toilet seat and why is the bottom of the seat cover all spotted, and why is the bowl itself all covered with black?
At this point, I nearly threw up both hands and cookies, but I got it together and scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed so I could pee without fear of infection from his noxious weiner spray and ass rabies. Bleheheheh.
Last night, I finally primed the walls in the bathroom. I ruined a 15 dollar paint brush doing this, but I did it, dammit! Then I got the can of orange peel wall texture spray to finish up the walls. Covers 100 square feet, much more space than I have in my McBathroom. It's quick, easy, and only scores a medium-high on the carcinogen scale, apparently only in the state of California. Who knew some things could only cause cancer in California?
Let me describe this can of vile-smelling texture to you so you'll understand the horrors to come. It's like a spray paint can with a little tube you attach to the nozzle to direct and control the density of the spray. You can get fine, medium, or coarse orange peel depending on which tube you use.
I shook the can vigorously and securely attached the tube to the nozzle per instructions. Did some test spraying trying out all 3 tubes on cardboard first to make sure I had what I wanted. Yep, I want the straw with the smallest opening for a subtle, fine spray.
Hm. That spray nozzle is starting to get a bit goopy, but I can still force the straw in there at least.
Began spraying the actual walls, wearing Hepa mask because damn, this stuff feels just as vile to the nose lining and lungs as the paint and glue stripper I used to prep the floors. But it's looking good, baby, looking good.
First rule of home repair: Never say something's looking good. This invokes some ancient curse whose origins I have yet to discover. The moth*rf*cking tube no longer wants to stay in the can, and it begins clogging badly. I have to hold the tube in the spray opening and texture is now spraying all over the room and all over me. Big ugly blots are spewing out the end of the tube, not unlike the mental image I had days earlier of my roommate's horrific weiner spraying out over his [my] horrific toilet. Unattractive blops of texture goo land pendulously on the wall. My arm gets covered with a stream of the shite. It burns. The Hepa mask does nothing, or at least not quite enough. My nostrils burn as well. I keep going. Must finish, goddam it, must finish. I have to use the other straws and now have competing textures. They clog one by one. The can gives out after about 20 to 30 square feet of wall is covered. The wall looks like shit. Shit, shit, shit. But only half to go!
Can't breathe. Not sure I wish to breathe any more.
I look around me. The toilet is textured, some of the bathtub, too. The tiny out-of-the-way part of the floor I left uncovered has been textured by the explosion of crap out of the side of the straw. I have to use mineral spirits to get the texture up, which also takes up the floor wax, which means I'll have to re-wax the floor (more vile fumes). Luckily, I was able to scrape off the worst shit-splots on the wall and they now look good enough.
"Good enough" is my new mantra. I will never criticize a slap-dash home repair job again. This is truly one of the most stretched-out--and one of the worst--experiences I have ever had. This is the second time I've said that since I've moved into this house just over a year ago.
Tonight is night 12 since I began this project. I've lost track of how many times I've been to the hardware store and of how much money I've spent. I'll be back there tonight for another can of the evil spray-shite. What other choice is there? I can't say I know who I am anymore. I can't say the person I once thought I was was ever anything more than an illusion. Perhaps I know myself better now than I ever have. Perhaps I will be stripped down, finally, to nothing.
Another round of spray-torture, one more round of priming and then finally nailing in the new floorboards and finishing up the actual paint job. Will I put a nail through the plumbing? Perhaps. Perhaps I will. Maybe on purpose. And let's not forget replacing the toilet guts, because I'm brimming with confidence now (so sorry) that that's going to take care of the leak. Then I have to find new shelves and add a towel bar. Yes. A towel bar in the bathroom next to the tub. How luxurious, if one can appreciate luxury again. If one can appreciate anything other than the sweet, sweet oblivion that only sleep, head injuries such as those caused by falling down in the bathtub while painting, and the bottle can give.
This all brought on by removing the peeling wallpaper in my ugly, tiny master bathroom, which led to re-spackling most of the wall when just the tiniest bit of the outer surface of the outer sheetrock paper peeled off, which led to sanding and lots of inhaling of dust, which led to looking at the rotten floorboards, which led to pulling off the rotten floorboards just to replace them, which wasn't an appealing proposition, but if you're going to do the job, do it right! Which led to kneeling awkwardly in the 7 inch space between the bathtub and toilet and trying to detach the floorboards from the ugly sheet vinyl they were caulked to only to find that the sheet vinyl was pulling right up off of the floor to reveal a big ol' wet spot and some frightening musty smell underneath, which lead to tearing up the sheet vinyl, getting out the paint stripper again and removing all the goo from the floor so I could stain the concrete to match (most of) the rest of my house.
Seven hours, 4 crying fits, one near nervous breakdown and several cancer cells later, I noticed that the water leak that wrecked the floor was coming from the toilet, not shower over-run as I'd thought. I immediately suspected the worst--the wax seal. That means lifting up the entire toilet and releasing noxious sewer fumes into the house, i.e., having to pay a plumber to do it because it's way to heavy and disgusting. Lucky for me, it was coming from tank connection. After replacing the only 2 washers in the area of the leak with help from a friend after the first washer replacement did nothing--nothing!--we hit on something near zen when the tube began to drip slightly less. Oh, it never stopped. No, no. But "slightly less" began to look an awful lot like heaven.
In the meantime, some kittens with fleas came for a visit and left behind several of their little friends. There's a whole 'nother tale of kitten/house-sitting, de-fleaing and flea-bombing my friend's house there. I just don't have to energy to tell it right now.
My roommate whined that "Wah, fleas bit my ankles as I was sitting on my ass on your couch watching your TV and eating my 1,947,969th bag of potato chips, chewing with my mouth open as I always do so you could hear my crunching all the way in the other room. Hey, and I took some of that pate you made and put it on my spaghetti and microwaved it. That was good." I wish I was exaggerating about any of this. I really do. I am not. Okay, he didn't actually say "Wah."
This mercifully caused him to leave for the night so I could finish de-fleaing the kittens in peace, remove them back to their freshly bombed house post-poison-ventilation, and flea bomb my own house. Some beer was drunk during the two-and-a-half-hour forced intermission while poison made it's way through every crack and crevice and offed the fleas along with several frighteningly large roaches. Yea! I think.
The next morning, following hangover recovery, I finally gave up, drained my toilet so it couldn't leak, decided to buy an entire new toilet gut system to be installed later, and stained and waxed the concrete (a 26-hour process involving more fume inhalage and cancer cell creation). Meanwhile, I thought, I'll use my roommate's bathroom.
Hm. How did an actual print of his ass-crack get on the toilet seat and why is the bottom of the seat cover all spotted, and why is the bowl itself all covered with black?
At this point, I nearly threw up both hands and cookies, but I got it together and scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed so I could pee without fear of infection from his noxious weiner spray and ass rabies. Bleheheheh.
Last night, I finally primed the walls in the bathroom. I ruined a 15 dollar paint brush doing this, but I did it, dammit! Then I got the can of orange peel wall texture spray to finish up the walls. Covers 100 square feet, much more space than I have in my McBathroom. It's quick, easy, and only scores a medium-high on the carcinogen scale, apparently only in the state of California. Who knew some things could only cause cancer in California?
Let me describe this can of vile-smelling texture to you so you'll understand the horrors to come. It's like a spray paint can with a little tube you attach to the nozzle to direct and control the density of the spray. You can get fine, medium, or coarse orange peel depending on which tube you use.
I shook the can vigorously and securely attached the tube to the nozzle per instructions. Did some test spraying trying out all 3 tubes on cardboard first to make sure I had what I wanted. Yep, I want the straw with the smallest opening for a subtle, fine spray.
Hm. That spray nozzle is starting to get a bit goopy, but I can still force the straw in there at least.
Began spraying the actual walls, wearing Hepa mask because damn, this stuff feels just as vile to the nose lining and lungs as the paint and glue stripper I used to prep the floors. But it's looking good, baby, looking good.
First rule of home repair: Never say something's looking good. This invokes some ancient curse whose origins I have yet to discover. The moth*rf*cking tube no longer wants to stay in the can, and it begins clogging badly. I have to hold the tube in the spray opening and texture is now spraying all over the room and all over me. Big ugly blots are spewing out the end of the tube, not unlike the mental image I had days earlier of my roommate's horrific weiner spraying out over his [my] horrific toilet. Unattractive blops of texture goo land pendulously on the wall. My arm gets covered with a stream of the shite. It burns. The Hepa mask does nothing, or at least not quite enough. My nostrils burn as well. I keep going. Must finish, goddam it, must finish. I have to use the other straws and now have competing textures. They clog one by one. The can gives out after about 20 to 30 square feet of wall is covered. The wall looks like shit. Shit, shit, shit. But only half to go!
Can't breathe. Not sure I wish to breathe any more.
I look around me. The toilet is textured, some of the bathtub, too. The tiny out-of-the-way part of the floor I left uncovered has been textured by the explosion of crap out of the side of the straw. I have to use mineral spirits to get the texture up, which also takes up the floor wax, which means I'll have to re-wax the floor (more vile fumes). Luckily, I was able to scrape off the worst shit-splots on the wall and they now look good enough.
"Good enough" is my new mantra. I will never criticize a slap-dash home repair job again. This is truly one of the most stretched-out--and one of the worst--experiences I have ever had. This is the second time I've said that since I've moved into this house just over a year ago.
Tonight is night 12 since I began this project. I've lost track of how many times I've been to the hardware store and of how much money I've spent. I'll be back there tonight for another can of the evil spray-shite. What other choice is there? I can't say I know who I am anymore. I can't say the person I once thought I was was ever anything more than an illusion. Perhaps I know myself better now than I ever have. Perhaps I will be stripped down, finally, to nothing.
Another round of spray-torture, one more round of priming and then finally nailing in the new floorboards and finishing up the actual paint job. Will I put a nail through the plumbing? Perhaps. Perhaps I will. Maybe on purpose. And let's not forget replacing the toilet guts, because I'm brimming with confidence now (so sorry) that that's going to take care of the leak. Then I have to find new shelves and add a towel bar. Yes. A towel bar in the bathroom next to the tub. How luxurious, if one can appreciate luxury again. If one can appreciate anything other than the sweet, sweet oblivion that only sleep, head injuries such as those caused by falling down in the bathtub while painting, and the bottle can give.
Friday, July 28, 2006
shovel cuckoo
I've been getting these bizarre spams lately full of chunks of historical text, bits of poetry, incomplete recipes and other inadvertently interesting text-splices assembled into the purest of post-modern hash. The title of this post is the title of the one I just got.
I love this title more than any rational person should, probably because it so accurately captures the substance of my days.
When I first started getting these a month or so ago, I forwarded one to my friend Bryan (who is perhaps even now reading this blog for the first time in horror and dismay). He pointed me to an interesting
piece on NPR about these little spam-tests. Stay with it to the end if you check it out. It's a lovely musing on the ephemera of (post)modern life.
The said Testator gives to each of the said churches ten lbs.
First 100 scudi, then 70, then 50,then 20 and then 200 florins at 48 soldi the florin. This text appears to be in a handwriting differentfrom that in the note, l. Either you say Hesperia alone, and it will mean Italy, or you addultima, and it will mean Spain. Parsley 10 parts mint 1 part thyme 1 part Vinegar
I love this title more than any rational person should, probably because it so accurately captures the substance of my days.
When I first started getting these a month or so ago, I forwarded one to my friend Bryan (who is perhaps even now reading this blog for the first time in horror and dismay). He pointed me to an interesting
piece on NPR about these little spam-tests. Stay with it to the end if you check it out. It's a lovely musing on the ephemera of (post)modern life.
The said Testator gives to each of the said churches ten lbs.
First 100 scudi, then 70, then 50,then 20 and then 200 florins at 48 soldi the florin. This text appears to be in a handwriting differentfrom that in the note, l. Either you say Hesperia alone, and it will mean Italy, or you addultima, and it will mean Spain. Parsley 10 parts mint 1 part thyme 1 part Vinegar
Monday, July 17, 2006
sitting on houses
House sitting just got a little weird.
I've been doing quite a bit of it this summer, largely to escape the ol' ball and chain. That would be my own house with it's huge mortgage and cracked slab and greasy-fingered roommate. Oh no, that's not an extended euphemism. The mortgage is killing me. The slab has a big crack I found when I took up the cigarette-stinky carpet to stain the concrete. My roommate eats a lot of potato chips and KFC.
This is the third house I'm sitting since June. They've all been agreeable and easy to get along with so far. And doing this reminds me of freedom. I am alone and lightened—all except for the suitcase I have to lug around, reminding me I'm still miserably chained to the material world. That and I've forgotten my toothbrush again.
So house number three is notably different from houses one and two, both of which had cats, several peoples-worth of space, and cable with HBO. House number three is actually a small two-bedroom apartment. It does have air conditioning, thank all that is good in this world, and it's normally occupied by a single guy who's a musician, co-worker and friend. I have to say I'm impressed with both the living plants that inhabit it's less shady spaces and with the cleanliness. Maybe he did that special for me, but I doubt it. I think he might just be civilized. Sorry to tarnish your rep, Andy.
What makes it different other than size is its geography. If you live in Austin, you might know East 12th street. That's the strip where the hookers and dealers and crack addicts hang out and shift their wares. I'm on East 17th right now.
The neighbors here are great. Racially mixed community, nice families, great older houses mixed in with crazy student rent housing and people who have stretched the boundaries of city living to keep chickens and fine, fine roosters. Basically your whole assortment of plain good folks struggling to keep up their properties and stay in them since the values and hence the taxes have shot up higher than Texas governor hair.
Last Friday was my first evening here. I was sitting on the porch drinking a beer or two as is my weekend wont and I met a few of the neighbors. Let me rephrase that. I saw and/or met more neighbors in one night here than I have in a year in the suburban investment I refuse to call "home." Quotation marks here indicating a word that must be held up by aerial supports. Twinned twin balloons, squeaky with helium, stretched thin by the struggle to elevate a small, but awkwardly shaped and heavy arrangement of letters.
A particularly friendly older fellow showed up and tipped his hat and joined me for a beer. Mr. Jesse. I've forgotten his last name already because that's the kind of brain I have. He invited me to his church home. I winced. Don't really live here. Just here for bit.
"Oh, I see. Well that's all right. It's right around the corner if you're interested," and that's the end of that.
We enjoyed the still evening air for a bit and then he dropped his head and began examining the label on his beer. He asked what we were drinking.
"Negra Modelo. Not bad stuff if you like dark beer."
A refrigerated truck pulled up and the driver stepped out asking if we wanted any steaks. Steak on wheels. Heaven! Andy had left me highly praised ribs from the barbecue place down the street, so I thanked the gentleman but refused. Jesse bit and had the man pull down the street to the auto shop where he worked so he could pay him there.
He disappeared around the corner and I put his beer in the fridge to keep it cold. When he returned, we chatted for a bit and sipped for a bit. He tipped his hat again and told me he was at my service and to let him know if I needed anything while I was here. I shook his hand, bid him a good night and went in for the evening.
I was home. I was among people again, real people who were capable of generosity and conversation. I called friends to let them know I had found my place. I should've moved here. I'd messed up badly by not moving here.
"Yes dear, but you're still a single woman and it's not the best of neighborhoods."
Nay-sayer. Classist! This is the original neighborhood. This is the neighborhood neighborhoods wish they could be if they weren't so cluttered up with things, and electronic entertainments and social climbers. This is a home.
Yes, 12th is problematic. Wal-Mart is problematic. And thanks for the reminder about my singleness.
So Saturday afternoon arrived with my in-town holiday in full swing. I slept in and spent the morning reading a novel. I sat in a house silent except for the padding of my feet to and from the coffee pot. Luxury.
Some Jehovah's Witnesses stopped by around 10:30. I half-opened the door in my pajamas and they turned their eyes up toward the heavens and smiled. Did I know if any of my neighbors were Spanish-speaking as this day was their outreach day for their non-English speaking brothers and sisters. No. Sorry, just the house-sitter. Back to my novel untainted by a sermon and in the knowledge I had agitated the Witnesses with my slovenly sleep shorts and cellulite and unbound boobs. Who knew the power of these things?
Then a shower finally, and thoughts of lunch.
As I was shuffling around the rib-laden fridge, my "neighbor" returned and knocked on the door. Distinguishing quotation marks here indicating cuts, twinned twins of cuts, one to punch out each of the tires on the surprisingly diesel-fueled, smoke spewing modern carriage of my romantic notions and let them fizzle flatulently into disappointment. My new-found favorite neighbor was a rather more roving form of neighbor than I had at first thought, not so housebound, rather like me and yet not..
"I'm so sorry to bother you with this, but I have this prescription for my seizures. I gotta refill it and I'm just in a really bad way 'cause I didn't cash my paycheck last night. I'm not sure what to do. I just hate that I'm even here bringing this to you. Would you at least ask me in out of the heat?"
"No, I think, um no, let's just talk on the porch." [Why do I have such mulch for brains?]
Then the frenetic display of props.
He waved around the pill bottle he'd had cupped in his hands. It was possibly older than he was. I should have asked him to hand it over so I could read the label which was still mostly intact, but I was afraid my lack of pharmaceutical expertise would make things worse. Only if it was something really obvious. "Aha! And how do you propose that this bottle of antibiotics from 1984—My God! You were supposed to refill it!—is meant to prevent a seizure? Please take your virulent bacteria and go sir, and good day to you." As if he wouldn't have wiggled to some other story from there, and as if I would have been clear-headed enough to call his bluff. I was just trying to keep my clinical niceness at bay.
"Well, do you need someone to bring you somewhere? [Um, what did I just say? I'm not getting in a car with a stranger.] Let's see if the apartment manager is home. [That's what I'm doing. Right. Thank you brain. He's with APD. Please run this guy off so I don't have to. Damn. Not home.] Wow, see the thing is I really don't know you, man. If I knew you...but I don't. [He reeks of liquor. No needle marks. That's good. Good, good.]"
Next he flipped open his wallet to show me the black and white photocopied driver's license that would prove that he was who he said he was and therefore...what? I tempered my look of existential weariness with just the tiniest dollop of pity due both to aforementioned clinical niceness and a healthy modicum of anxiety.
"I think you're going to have to call one of the other neighbors who knows you. That's what you better do." [Please go away and don't make a scene.]
"They all treat me real bad. Real bad." [Maybe if it looks like I'll make a scene...]
"Oh, I'm really sorry, man. But you're going to have to talk to one of them. If I knew you better, but I don't." [Repeat, repeat, repeat.]
Both of our performances were suffering by then. I was less and less convincing as the nice, concerned neighbor. He was increasingly losing his grasp on the momentarily desperate church-going gentleman role. The actors' motivations were intact, but there was something artificial, the chemistry not quite right. The whole drama was coming apart at the seams.
"Where's that Justin? His car ain't out here. He ain't home is he?"
"He was just here. Just went to run some errands I bet. I'm sure he'll be back soon." [What's he thinking? Is he thinking single woman home alone, I could knock her aside and grab that nice guitar I saw through the door just now?]
"Well, we're still friends, I hope. I sure hope I haven't offended you because I didn't mean to do that." [Extends hand. Maybe I'll try again next week...?]
"Of course, of course. Sure sorry I can't help. Best of luck to you." [Oh thank God. And please don't come back.]
Performances momentarily re-invigorated. The drama moves successfully to its conclusion.
Door shuts. Man dons hat and exits stage right toward street. Woman paces frantically, watching through keyhole. Waits, alert. Moves to back door, checks keyhole, unbolts and opens. Looks around. Closes and locks door. Returns to front door, checks keyhole and opens. Looks around, walks out a few paces, cranes neck toward street, but does not move further, walks back into house, locks door, and paces for some time.
All in all, perhaps a bit of an overreaction. Happens all the time says my friend who knows people who've moved out here. People wander over from East 12th.
"You didn't give him anything did you?"
"What? No way. Of course not. No. I knew what was going on. I wouldn't have given him anything." [Except maybe if he hadn't gone away so easily and I'd gotten just a tiny bit more agitated and I'd really wanted him to go, just go, especially since he only wanted about 5 bucks.]
"My friend got really good at it. He'd just open the door and say "no" and close it again. Seemed rude, but you know which folks are the scammers."
"Yeah. If he comes back I'll be meaner."
Meaner. Right. Andy, you owe me many, many more ribs.
Post-sitting-note: Andy knows Jesse. And yep, the neighbors are pretty mean to him. The open the door and say "no" and then close it in his face despite what is otherwise a lovely personality. He never pushes too much. Just moves on. Switch around a few socio-economic and educational details, have me drink just a tiny bit more, and that could be me. That could be many of the Friday bar flies I know. There but for the grace of economically exclusionary middle American suburbs go we.
I've been doing quite a bit of it this summer, largely to escape the ol' ball and chain. That would be my own house with it's huge mortgage and cracked slab and greasy-fingered roommate. Oh no, that's not an extended euphemism. The mortgage is killing me. The slab has a big crack I found when I took up the cigarette-stinky carpet to stain the concrete. My roommate eats a lot of potato chips and KFC.
This is the third house I'm sitting since June. They've all been agreeable and easy to get along with so far. And doing this reminds me of freedom. I am alone and lightened—all except for the suitcase I have to lug around, reminding me I'm still miserably chained to the material world. That and I've forgotten my toothbrush again.
So house number three is notably different from houses one and two, both of which had cats, several peoples-worth of space, and cable with HBO. House number three is actually a small two-bedroom apartment. It does have air conditioning, thank all that is good in this world, and it's normally occupied by a single guy who's a musician, co-worker and friend. I have to say I'm impressed with both the living plants that inhabit it's less shady spaces and with the cleanliness. Maybe he did that special for me, but I doubt it. I think he might just be civilized. Sorry to tarnish your rep, Andy.
What makes it different other than size is its geography. If you live in Austin, you might know East 12th street. That's the strip where the hookers and dealers and crack addicts hang out and shift their wares. I'm on East 17th right now.
The neighbors here are great. Racially mixed community, nice families, great older houses mixed in with crazy student rent housing and people who have stretched the boundaries of city living to keep chickens and fine, fine roosters. Basically your whole assortment of plain good folks struggling to keep up their properties and stay in them since the values and hence the taxes have shot up higher than Texas governor hair.
Last Friday was my first evening here. I was sitting on the porch drinking a beer or two as is my weekend wont and I met a few of the neighbors. Let me rephrase that. I saw and/or met more neighbors in one night here than I have in a year in the suburban investment I refuse to call "home." Quotation marks here indicating a word that must be held up by aerial supports. Twinned twin balloons, squeaky with helium, stretched thin by the struggle to elevate a small, but awkwardly shaped and heavy arrangement of letters.
A particularly friendly older fellow showed up and tipped his hat and joined me for a beer. Mr. Jesse. I've forgotten his last name already because that's the kind of brain I have. He invited me to his church home. I winced. Don't really live here. Just here for bit.
"Oh, I see. Well that's all right. It's right around the corner if you're interested," and that's the end of that.
We enjoyed the still evening air for a bit and then he dropped his head and began examining the label on his beer. He asked what we were drinking.
"Negra Modelo. Not bad stuff if you like dark beer."
A refrigerated truck pulled up and the driver stepped out asking if we wanted any steaks. Steak on wheels. Heaven! Andy had left me highly praised ribs from the barbecue place down the street, so I thanked the gentleman but refused. Jesse bit and had the man pull down the street to the auto shop where he worked so he could pay him there.
He disappeared around the corner and I put his beer in the fridge to keep it cold. When he returned, we chatted for a bit and sipped for a bit. He tipped his hat again and told me he was at my service and to let him know if I needed anything while I was here. I shook his hand, bid him a good night and went in for the evening.
I was home. I was among people again, real people who were capable of generosity and conversation. I called friends to let them know I had found my place. I should've moved here. I'd messed up badly by not moving here.
"Yes dear, but you're still a single woman and it's not the best of neighborhoods."
Nay-sayer. Classist! This is the original neighborhood. This is the neighborhood neighborhoods wish they could be if they weren't so cluttered up with things, and electronic entertainments and social climbers. This is a home.
Yes, 12th is problematic. Wal-Mart is problematic. And thanks for the reminder about my singleness.
So Saturday afternoon arrived with my in-town holiday in full swing. I slept in and spent the morning reading a novel. I sat in a house silent except for the padding of my feet to and from the coffee pot. Luxury.
Some Jehovah's Witnesses stopped by around 10:30. I half-opened the door in my pajamas and they turned their eyes up toward the heavens and smiled. Did I know if any of my neighbors were Spanish-speaking as this day was their outreach day for their non-English speaking brothers and sisters. No. Sorry, just the house-sitter. Back to my novel untainted by a sermon and in the knowledge I had agitated the Witnesses with my slovenly sleep shorts and cellulite and unbound boobs. Who knew the power of these things?
Then a shower finally, and thoughts of lunch.
As I was shuffling around the rib-laden fridge, my "neighbor" returned and knocked on the door. Distinguishing quotation marks here indicating cuts, twinned twins of cuts, one to punch out each of the tires on the surprisingly diesel-fueled, smoke spewing modern carriage of my romantic notions and let them fizzle flatulently into disappointment. My new-found favorite neighbor was a rather more roving form of neighbor than I had at first thought, not so housebound, rather like me and yet not..
"I'm so sorry to bother you with this, but I have this prescription for my seizures. I gotta refill it and I'm just in a really bad way 'cause I didn't cash my paycheck last night. I'm not sure what to do. I just hate that I'm even here bringing this to you. Would you at least ask me in out of the heat?"
"No, I think, um no, let's just talk on the porch." [Why do I have such mulch for brains?]
Then the frenetic display of props.
He waved around the pill bottle he'd had cupped in his hands. It was possibly older than he was. I should have asked him to hand it over so I could read the label which was still mostly intact, but I was afraid my lack of pharmaceutical expertise would make things worse. Only if it was something really obvious. "Aha! And how do you propose that this bottle of antibiotics from 1984—My God! You were supposed to refill it!—is meant to prevent a seizure? Please take your virulent bacteria and go sir, and good day to you." As if he wouldn't have wiggled to some other story from there, and as if I would have been clear-headed enough to call his bluff. I was just trying to keep my clinical niceness at bay.
"Well, do you need someone to bring you somewhere? [Um, what did I just say? I'm not getting in a car with a stranger.] Let's see if the apartment manager is home. [That's what I'm doing. Right. Thank you brain. He's with APD. Please run this guy off so I don't have to. Damn. Not home.] Wow, see the thing is I really don't know you, man. If I knew you...but I don't. [He reeks of liquor. No needle marks. That's good. Good, good.]"
Next he flipped open his wallet to show me the black and white photocopied driver's license that would prove that he was who he said he was and therefore...what? I tempered my look of existential weariness with just the tiniest dollop of pity due both to aforementioned clinical niceness and a healthy modicum of anxiety.
"I think you're going to have to call one of the other neighbors who knows you. That's what you better do." [Please go away and don't make a scene.]
"They all treat me real bad. Real bad." [Maybe if it looks like I'll make a scene...]
"Oh, I'm really sorry, man. But you're going to have to talk to one of them. If I knew you better, but I don't." [Repeat, repeat, repeat.]
Both of our performances were suffering by then. I was less and less convincing as the nice, concerned neighbor. He was increasingly losing his grasp on the momentarily desperate church-going gentleman role. The actors' motivations were intact, but there was something artificial, the chemistry not quite right. The whole drama was coming apart at the seams.
"Where's that Justin? His car ain't out here. He ain't home is he?"
"He was just here. Just went to run some errands I bet. I'm sure he'll be back soon." [What's he thinking? Is he thinking single woman home alone, I could knock her aside and grab that nice guitar I saw through the door just now?]
"Well, we're still friends, I hope. I sure hope I haven't offended you because I didn't mean to do that." [Extends hand. Maybe I'll try again next week...?]
"Of course, of course. Sure sorry I can't help. Best of luck to you." [Oh thank God. And please don't come back.]
Performances momentarily re-invigorated. The drama moves successfully to its conclusion.
Door shuts. Man dons hat and exits stage right toward street. Woman paces frantically, watching through keyhole. Waits, alert. Moves to back door, checks keyhole, unbolts and opens. Looks around. Closes and locks door. Returns to front door, checks keyhole and opens. Looks around, walks out a few paces, cranes neck toward street, but does not move further, walks back into house, locks door, and paces for some time.
All in all, perhaps a bit of an overreaction. Happens all the time says my friend who knows people who've moved out here. People wander over from East 12th.
"You didn't give him anything did you?"
"What? No way. Of course not. No. I knew what was going on. I wouldn't have given him anything." [Except maybe if he hadn't gone away so easily and I'd gotten just a tiny bit more agitated and I'd really wanted him to go, just go, especially since he only wanted about 5 bucks.]
"My friend got really good at it. He'd just open the door and say "no" and close it again. Seemed rude, but you know which folks are the scammers."
"Yeah. If he comes back I'll be meaner."
Meaner. Right. Andy, you owe me many, many more ribs.
Post-sitting-note: Andy knows Jesse. And yep, the neighbors are pretty mean to him. The open the door and say "no" and then close it in his face despite what is otherwise a lovely personality. He never pushes too much. Just moves on. Switch around a few socio-economic and educational details, have me drink just a tiny bit more, and that could be me. That could be many of the Friday bar flies I know. There but for the grace of economically exclusionary middle American suburbs go we.
Monday, July 10, 2006
roving green nipple
I've been swimming at Barton Springs this summer because:
Anyway, the city can't drain the pool to clean it like they used to because of the endangered salamanders downstream. Add to that all the run-off from the chemically fertilized St. Augustine. The end result--bingo! Happy algae. Really happy.
Every time I swim there, I have to paddle the bobbing algae blobules out of my way, and yes, the pool just isn't as pristine as it was, but it's still pretty damn nice and colder than a witch's teat, since we're about to be on the topic.
I freeze myself, catch a few laps, drive home and get in my jammies for a too-short night's sleep. Inevitably, as I get ready for bed, I discover I've captured a blobule between my bathing suit and my boobs. It lies there squished sadly like a giant green third nipple. (I am happy to say I have two to start with and they're neither terribly giant nor green, so the newcomer is always obvious.)
I fear, someday, that I will be tempted to create a green nipple shooter health smoothie. Not today, though. Not today.
- The weather outside is frightful
- the pool is so delightful
- my roommate has a penchant for watching Fox News at a really loud volume because he enjoys feeling rage
- I don't enjoy feeling rage
Anyway, the city can't drain the pool to clean it like they used to because of the endangered salamanders downstream. Add to that all the run-off from the chemically fertilized St. Augustine. The end result--bingo! Happy algae. Really happy.
Every time I swim there, I have to paddle the bobbing algae blobules out of my way, and yes, the pool just isn't as pristine as it was, but it's still pretty damn nice and colder than a witch's teat, since we're about to be on the topic.
I freeze myself, catch a few laps, drive home and get in my jammies for a too-short night's sleep. Inevitably, as I get ready for bed, I discover I've captured a blobule between my bathing suit and my boobs. It lies there squished sadly like a giant green third nipple. (I am happy to say I have two to start with and they're neither terribly giant nor green, so the newcomer is always obvious.)
I fear, someday, that I will be tempted to create a green nipple shooter health smoothie. Not today, though. Not today.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
a mild case of bird flu panic
Okay, normally a bird flu outbreak and quarantine in Romania would cause me some worry but nothing on the level of alarm. I'm not quite to alarm yet. Worry, yes.
I have a couple of friends traveling in Romania right now. They're supposed to be in Eger, Hungary today for a day trip. Sorry I couldn't find a decent map. At least that's somewhat hell and gone from the quarantine in Bucharest.
So if anyone has met B and E from Austin, TX (by the way, they'd want me to tell you that they do NOT like George Bush), tell them to let us know they aren't under quarantine.
Sheesh.
I have a couple of friends traveling in Romania right now. They're supposed to be in Eger, Hungary today for a day trip. Sorry I couldn't find a decent map. At least that's somewhat hell and gone from the quarantine in Bucharest.
So if anyone has met B and E from Austin, TX (by the way, they'd want me to tell you that they do NOT like George Bush), tell them to let us know they aren't under quarantine.
Sheesh.
Monday, March 06, 2006
All we need is blog
I'd like to think John and George aren't turning over in their graves after that reference, but I suspect they are. Sorry guys. It beats another self-defeating "I know everyone's blogging and I shouldn't be adding to the noise, but here I go anyway" post (which is honestly what I was about to do). Or perhaps it doesn't.
At any rate, it gives me a jumping off point, which is exactly what I need. For those of you who happen by this little splurt of the lexicon, I am a writer of some sort. I am not a published writer (can't handle rejection letters), not a terribly prolific writer, but a person who writes nonetheless. But I haven't been writing much of late, so this is an attempt to change gears. I don't want to keep hitting the burnout I inevitably hit when I limit myself to fiction. I don't want to make another attempt at tragic poetry, better described as a tragic attempt at poetry. I want to go somewhere inbetween, comment on the current, add a little non-fiction to the mix.
Thematically, I'm not sure what's going to emerge here. I'm a person who has to dive in before I can see the shape a thing will take. So for those of you who bear with me, realize there may be some searching here before a clear path emerges. Will it be would-be insightful political opinion? Will it be high-handed pseudo-spiritual demagoguery? Will the Right quake and fall to its knees under the blugdeon of my words.
Well, no.
I only hope "the bludgeon of my words" isn't a description that comes back to haunt me.
At any rate, it gives me a jumping off point, which is exactly what I need. For those of you who happen by this little splurt of the lexicon, I am a writer of some sort. I am not a published writer (can't handle rejection letters), not a terribly prolific writer, but a person who writes nonetheless. But I haven't been writing much of late, so this is an attempt to change gears. I don't want to keep hitting the burnout I inevitably hit when I limit myself to fiction. I don't want to make another attempt at tragic poetry, better described as a tragic attempt at poetry. I want to go somewhere inbetween, comment on the current, add a little non-fiction to the mix.
Thematically, I'm not sure what's going to emerge here. I'm a person who has to dive in before I can see the shape a thing will take. So for those of you who bear with me, realize there may be some searching here before a clear path emerges. Will it be would-be insightful political opinion? Will it be high-handed pseudo-spiritual demagoguery? Will the Right quake and fall to its knees under the blugdeon of my words.
Well, no.
I only hope "the bludgeon of my words" isn't a description that comes back to haunt me.
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