Altering Reality

food porn, er, writing

2009-01-26T13:38:00.000-08:00

This sounds like a fun job. You eat, you write about it. Yes, you have to use romantic flourishes to turn it into soft-core food porn, but that's the business you're in. Making people want it. Making people need it.

Mmmm, steaming lasagna arrives promptly at your table and suddenly you are transported to the Italian countryside, the fields bursting with wild thyme as you enter an Italian grandmother's back garden and see the tomatoes fresh and bursting on the vine, the basil fondled by the breeze, it's scent gently wafting toward you and away again, beckoning you to come closer.

A steaming bite of lasagna travels from plate to fork trailing rich strands of the finest mozarella and, could it be? Yes, a hint of parmagiana reggiano. The scent is so divine that tasting seems almost secondary. But you must; you do. Your taste buds will have it no other way.

The texture is divine. Nothing so lovely and comforting as perfectly cooked pasta, sauce and cheese, fresh herbs and perfectly cooked spinach, beautifully married, utterly delicious.

So there's my quick attempt at food porn. Five minutes. I could actually edit the thing in future and make it better. I failed to mention anything about the dairy cows and their early morning bursting teats, and I made the lasagna vegetarian so as not to have to go into details of grain-fed beef cattle and their slaughter. (It can be no other way but grain fed, in my world.) And I could be talking about actual food rather than a memory of mama's lasagna! Eh!

If anyone knows of a fab restaurant in Austin that hasn't been reviewed, particularly one that's into that whole local grain-fed thing, let me know. I have my fork and my pen at the ready.

Giving a cat liquid meds

2008-09-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

Speak soothingly while smooshing cat between stomach and surface of table. Use thumb and forefinger to force jaws open. Place end of dropper as far back as possible in cat’s throat without actually touching any surface that might make cat gag. Quickly squirt out cold, bubble-gum flavored antibiotic liquid (first dose of 2). When cat’s gag reflex kicks in and forces dropper out, squirt half of liquid down cat’s chin and onto table and knock over remaining antibiotic whose convenient dropper-cap suddenly seems less convenient. Quickly force cat’s jaws shut to hold in what remains. Stroke cat’s throat when not busy removing clinging pointy claws from arm flesh or righting bottle of antibiotic. Attempt to gently stroke back in pink drool bubbles that have begun to emerge from cat’s mouth. Inadvertently cover cat with pink drool when cat begins to struggle and hands must double as forcible restraint devices. Smear cat’s front paws through spilled liquid. Curse…in a soothing tone.

Repeat. Try to temporarily ignore pink drool streams emerging from cat’s mouth. Take calculated look at sink and roll of paper towels halfway across room. Make a lunge for it. Notice pink stains on freshly pressed (and ever so hairy) white shirt as cat leaps from table and runs to safety under bed, shaking head all the while and scattering drooly pink antibiotic across furniture, walls, floors, fireplaces and other items you foolishly failed to cover in plastic sheeting. Spend several minutes attempting to lure cat out from under bed. Notice the time and give up. Clean up quickly and race to workplace. Use full roll of scotch tape to remove most hair from shirt. Slump in chair and/or carry around notepad to mask pink stains. Return home and discover pink panther paw-prints leading from bedroom to computer. Notice paw-prints on keyboard and mouse. Wonder what cat was using the computer for. Try not to think about the fact that “hit men” came up in recent saved searches just before “tuna delivery.”

Repeat.

Foolishly believe you’ll have your revenge later when you bathe the cat.

How to traumatize small children with a piñata

2008-02-11T09:37:00.000-08:00

I went to my niece's 6th birthday party on Saturday. My brother and his wife are big fans of the party piñata, and it's a fun tradition. Little kids heaving a stick (ever-so-lightly) against bamboo shelled papier mache candy-holding goodness. Julia's party had a puppy theme this year, so they ended up w/ a Blue's Clues piñata or something vaguely resembling that.

I was talking to one of the guests' moms as my brother was stringing up ol' Blue. She was Irish, not sure how many years in this country, but fresh enough to still have a strong brogue and an outsider's viewpoint. We were talking about the more disturbing aspects of the piñata tradition. For her, small children pounding away at a star or something like that was no biggie; small children pounding away at a favorite cartoon character, screaming "Kill it, kill it!" on the other hand...okay, yeah, maybe a little twisted. Of course, she had a sense of humor about it, just also the slightest, um, discomfort.

So we'd only just begun to psychoanalyze and deconstruct the finer points of the white hegemony co-opting Mexican tradition and the history of southern aggression (i.e. I was about to say: "Well, we stole it from Mexico, so I guess you have to blame them, but, um, that sounds bad, er-uh. Did you know studies show southerners anger more quickly than northerners and have a greater aggressive streak? Maybe it's because we grow up smacking piñatas. Heh, heh. Well, in Texas we do anyway. Um, hey, so is your daughter in Julia's class at school? She's cute! Wow. I think I need to get an M&M." [Dana slinks off into the shadows] ).

Luckily, I didn't have a chance to open my mouth, so everything went just fine. The pinata was strung and ready to go, the kids were gathered and herded outside into a line, little kids first, bigger kids last. Everyone under the age of 9 or so gets to have a smack.

Ol' Blue proved a worthy adversary. Whoever built him made him well. Finally, after much swinging and cries of "Stop! Little toddler Susie's wandered up right behind you!" and all the assorted drama that go with piñata-destroying, a 7-year-old got a good enough smack in to bust the gut a bit. I few pieces of candy dropped. One or two more thwacks and Blue was good to go. My brother did that thing that piñata-handlers do and began to yank the rope to shake out the candy--a gesture usually followed by showers of sweetness, greedy scrambling and squeals of delight.

But this day, it was not to be.

Whoever made Blue's body did a great job. Whoever made his neck...eh, little bit of a slacker. After just a shake or two, Blue's head popped off his body and shot up as the body descended, finally tangling in the rope about 4 feet above the body and lolling there helplessly.

Okay, this didn't actually traumatize anyone. Mostly people were just trying not to pee themselves from laughter. My brother in-law in-law (?My sister-in-law's brother) did threaten to send my brother the therapy bills for his son. I was happy to see the Irish woman also doubled over with tears coming out of her eyes (in a good way).

And all was captured on camera. Ah, it's good to have some home movies that you can really look forward to.

How to get 19 meals out of a $4 chicken

2008-02-03T12:51:00.000-08:00

So, money is tight. Not a shocker, being a single home-owner in Austin who works for the university and has student loans to pay off. Lots of them. It's the financial kiss of death.

So I bought this lovely fat chicken from the HEB the other day, on sale, and out of some mix of boredom and culinary curiosity, decided to see how far I could take it while still having tasty, more or less healthy meals. Warning: I'm a little bit of a food snob. Not bad, less picky than some people I know, but almost incapable of eating anything that comes out of a can, and utterly in love w/ cooking from scratch.

Day 1: Roast chicken with rosemary and lemon, stuffed with potatoes spiked with the same plus capers:

Verdict: Seriously yum.

Day 3 (weekend): Some people would advise you to bung the whole lot by now. I'm saying, I've still got 1 to 2 days before things get into anything like a danger zone, so.... Chicken salad with celery and sweet onion and just a touch of smoked paprika.

Verdict: Yum.

Day 3 continued: Through the entire mostly de-meated carcass of the bird (bones, but not the skin) into a pot of water and cook it out until you have a nice broth. Get what little bitty bits of the meat that you can off the bones. Chuck the bones, let the remaining lot chill in the fridge and skim the fat off the top. Reheat, add veggies (a potato, a carrot, some onion, a few green beans, happened to have some ginger, so let's see how that works w/ the flavors already baked into the bird) and finish up the cooking.

Verdict: Not bad and sort of comforting in the way home-made chicken soup would be. Skip the ginger next time. A decent experiment, but not a good fit.

I have to say my verdicts are increasingly dropping in gusto, but I'm still in the survivable mode here. Better than my college days living off of jar-sauce pasta and black beans and rice.

Meanwhile, my moneyed friends bought a deep fryer and made carrot chips dusted with salt and just a touch of smoked paprika, which ranks right up there among the tastiest fried things I've ever eaten. We decided it's the best vegan bacon substitute there could ever be, you know, if you like that kind of thing. Smoked paprika is a gift from the gods. Deep fryers, a gift from the devil. I love the political perks of the corporeal life. Always someone trying to win you over.

why am I not writing?

2008-01-23T13:09:00.001-08:00

Subtitle "Why am I whining instead of doing something?"

So I've had these bits and pieces of stories that I think are A story waiting to come together and I can't seem to get re-started. Prior to "the bad spring/summer" when work ate every aspect of my life for several months, I had started in on something and was feeling pretty good about it. It was a shitty first draft, but a shitty first draft is the first step on the road to...successively less shitty drafts. If you're a good girl and very patient and keep drafting and eat all your vegetables, you might even end up with something readable in the end. It can happen.

Anyway, it was going to be a challenge. All I had was an image, and that always means the story is going to progress a bit more slowly until the characters start to show their personalities and motivations and situations. Something about a woman who missed her ghost. She'd only just realized it was gone, that she'd neglected it, that she couldn't seem to find it. (Okay, there are obvious psychoanalytic connections here w/ me and my muse or whatever. Nonetheless, something about it feels good and right and I swear by all that is good and holy not to write directly about my own life. Far too boring...).

I started to get the character before work came in with its gaping maw, but haven't been able to go back to the story since. Then a couple of weeks ago, I just got the sense that this story was about betrayal. Self-betrayal? Betrayal of others? Usually the two go hand in hand. So now that's simmering in the back of my head. Goes w/ the ghost image I had. There's an obvious betrayal there. (Stop squirming, you psychoanalysts in the audience. I see it. I do.)

So I think I'm ready to start writing again now. It's funny, and perhaps reasonable, that 5 to 6 months of having to work serious overtime might burn you out and turn you into a couch potato--more like a slightly burned, bitter-tasting hash brown, really--for a few months. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself on that front. Anyway, I think it's time. My loyalty to work has been, um, challenged lately, and it's time to be loyal to myself again. I've been serving a fickle master for too long. So instead I'll follow my own interests a bit more aggressively for a little while.

Much less fickle. Mmm.

Could there be Xanax?

2007-12-20T11:27:00.002-08:00

So holiday time is upon us again. Last year (a mere 5 or 6 posts ago, how sad), a peeing cat rescued me from Christmas. This year, I go forward, into the family hearth as it were.

My brother, his wife and 3 little ones are staying in Austin to do the family Christmas rather than engaging in the madness of cramming 13 people clown-car style into a house built for 5. This is a house, I should note, w/ seriously fucked up plumbing. You have to use a bucket to flush the toilet 4 out of 5 times, running the washing machine causes sewage to back up into the bathtub and the cold water taps ricochet from "off" back to "on" requiring attention, concentration, multiple twists back to the off position and serious under-the-breath cursing so as not to scare the children or have them piously imply that you have that certain je ne sais quoi that suggests a sinner racing headlong into the fiery pits of hell.

Luckily, you are staying in "The Freezing Back Bedroom of Death" again, where any extra warmth (save your sister's body sleeping next to you) is welcome. Hellfire can be appealing, little ones. Yes, sometimes it can.

Ah well, at least there will be Christmas morning. Mother's cat will vomit half chewed ribbon under the warmly lit Christmas tree. Then he'll run about the house in a panic, chased by a turd that magically grew around the end of a piece of tinsel that now flies out taut behind him, only half-excreted from his sweet fuzzly-wuzzly little bunghole.

God bless the fuzzly-wuzzly ones. I am, and ever shall be, thankful for the joy and laughter they bring.

Why am I here?

2007-08-30T15:05:00.001-07:00

Ugh. Just got through working what I hope is the next to the last 50 plus hour super-stressful week of my heinous and unbearable summer. This is supposed to be a state job. It's not supposed to blow like this. It's supposed to blow, mind you, just not like this.

I just tried to find a picture of the old site in the Way Back machine, but alas, no. Let me just say, it was not crunk. The new site still completely sucks under the hood, but we're working on it. Come on people now, apply to some damn Texas college and look at the beautiful lipstick on this wheezing pig:

https:/www.applytexas.org/adappc/gen/c_start.WBX

I always promised myself that when I started blogging about work, I would quit. Actually, that's a bald-faced lie. I had little clue I would be blogging about work or anything else when I was 6, but I'm cranky, so I'll say whatever I damn well please in defense of the quitting position.

I guess I should try to burn off the 100+ hours of comp time first, though. Hm....what sort of comp time burning activity should I take up? Cast your votes now:

Apply to law school

Apply to neuropsychology school

Apply to writing school (yeah, right)

Daily binge drinking

Re-invigorate attempt to write The Mediocre American Novel

Invest in every movie channel available on cable and watch every movie that's playing until there's actually nothing new to see (only takes about 2 days, actually)

Finally finish painting my bedroom

Rebuild the wall of my house now that the carpenter ants are dead

Consult with psychics to determine what terrible thing I did in my 36th summer in some past life and how I can make amends and get rid of this stinky karma

Plan my inspirational speaking tour

Enact my frequently promised move to Europe. Find a low-paying, low-effort job and blow off my student loans entirely

"Befriend" a very old, very rich man

"Befriend" a very old, very rich woman (why not double my chances?)

Write a few amazing and completely sham resumes and see how far I can get with them

Blog about, and then sell the movie rights for the above experience. Find the loophole that will allow me to declare bankruptcy to avoid having to pay off any potential lawsuits.

Begin and end my life in politics after a zealous one-day campaign for media attention.

Come on people, help me out! My brain is too fried to decide. Some of these are more long term than others, so you can pick more than one. I know I will.

Spring Breaking

2007-03-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

The wonderful thing about early spring is that it's the time you can get out on the weekends and really, really work on that garden until your back is ready to snap in half. That's what I've been doing for the past two weekends. Moving dirt from one end of my yard to another to keep my house's foundation from bending slowly in half and adding stone pathways over said dirt and planting tomatoes (please, dear god, let there be tomatoes) and shrubs and such.

In the process, I've verified that my crazy neighbor Brian hates me. I'm not sure why, but then again, he's crazy. I suspected it a few months ago when he decided to stop speaking to me--not returning my neighborly hellos, refusing to look me in the face, etc. Which of course made me all the more determined to figure out what was going on. I have an anti-survival instinct that way.

So the grand confrontation went like this:

Me, happily digging a hole for a pretty, pretty new pineapple guava plant over near Brian's side of the house. I hear Brian's gate squeak open right beside me. He can't avoid me. He's right there: Hi Brian--hey, just wanted to let you know I'm going to be working on the fence at some point, so if you hear some noise out here, it's me.

Brian, who has been raking leaves or killing cats or something in his back yard: Mmph.

Me, laying on sweet voice. Going to get to the bottom of this: So, how's it going?

Brian: Terri..mra..blah..rible.

Me: What?

Brian: Terrible.

Me, going into "talking to a crazy person, let's make use of our counseling training, finally" mode: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. What's wrong?

Brian, in a rather nasty tone: You name it.

Me, trying to assess my part in this: I'm sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do to help?

Brian, in an increasingly sneering nasty tone: I seriously doubt that.

Me, realizing I ain't getting to the bottom of anything except possibly a shallow hole in the woods if I keep this up: Well, sorry to hear that. (dig, dig, dig)

(Dexter the cat enters stage left and wander into Brian's garage while I continue brandishing my big protective shovel that could put a dent in someone's head if it needed to. I both fear and hope for a nice spray of cat urine.)

Brian: Mrahrara. (Goes into garage.) Scat, cat. Scat! (Shoots nasty glare out in the world's general direction, closes garage door.)

So I go on with my little life of planting things and laying down stone pathways and making a peaceful little earth-mother oasis of dirt and tranquility, and I try to ignore this. The unfortunate part of being a homeowner is, of course, that one is stuck. I must live beside and have hostile non-interaction with Mr. Crazy Pants for the next several years. And I'm really not good at that. I was highly trained in the art of making peace with crazy people as a kid. It's what I do. I either make peace or, in my failure, escalate into all-out war. And, as peace seems impossible and we're in the height of growing season, this leads to several interesting passive-aggressive possibilities.

It is with some embarrassment that I admit I started into the phylum plantae warfare dork thing by buying a plant that's supposed to ward off evil and planting it on the Brian side of the house. No, I don't believe in this stuff, but my sister's somewhat of an herbalist so I hear about things, and, well, every little symbolic middle finger gesture I can direct over there helps me feel better.

Next, I'll consider sewing some rue (pretty, but downright itchy if you're allergic. I appear not to be too terribly.) right outside the fence near his side of the house. Might cause a rash or two and some good gnashing of teeth. I've also considered a nice border of thorny, thorny roses. Not sunny enough, though. I'll have to think on that one.

Finally, I've encouraged the cat to go pee in his yard. I'm not sure this is happening, but I am sure that the cat is enjoying peeing in all the nice, newly loosened and moved, highly diggable dirt in my yard. You'd think I'd have learned from all those you-reap-what-you-sew lessons in cheesy horror movies and Buffy re-runs.

So when you see me walking down the street in the next few weeks itching my rashy arms, my legs covered in small punctures (but what a great skirt!) and you notice that a vague, yet overpowering smell of cat pee seems to be coming from my left shoe, you'll know what I've been up to. Just don't ask me if there's anything you can do to help. Mrah!

Porn-trapreneurs and other hazards of Modern Life

2007-02-26T11:53:00.000-08:00

So my co-workers have decided that I'm too nice a girl not to be dating someone...either that or they'd like me to shut up about dating weirdos. Or perhaps they'd like me to start popping out kids and quit work to become a stay-at-home-mom and get out of their hair already.

Whatever the reason, one of my co-workers who is, shall we say, a very modern thinker, thought it might be good to set me up with a friend of hers. Someone she sees regularly in a board-gaming type club she belongs to. Philosophy Ph.D., smart, cute, laid back, just bought his first house in my neighborhood. Great-sounding guy, by all accounts.

There's just one thing she needs to tell me first.

He doesn't work for a living. He makes a living off of his website. He never even has to do much with this web site. It just earns him money.

Hm. And now I suppose I'm going to see this website?

Yes. And you need to understand--there's no porn on it. He's not in the porn industry.

Okay, well, we'll risk pulling it up on my work computer.

Hm...it appears to be a portal full of well organized and categorized links. A veritable site map...

of porn sites.

No, my friends, he does not create porn; he never has to get his hands dirty. He merely organizes and links to the porn others have created. Gets something like a buck a click when people go through his site. I'd link to it here, except that that might make me what he is:

A porn-trapreneur! A veritable porn-ucopia of porn-formation.

If I can ever get over the atheist thing, I think I'm going to become a nun. A slightly drunken, lazy nun w/ bad habits (ouch, oh lowly form of humor), but a nun nonethe....sorry. This is probably why I'm single.

Sometimes a New Year's miracle takes the form of a Toad carrying boxes

2007-01-03T14:36:00.000-08:00

It has happened. It has finally happened. The Toad has found a new mud puddle to sit in and he sits there now. Of course he left a few mud-puddles behind in the process, but those are easily cleaned, easily cleaned. I'm free!

Sometimes a Christmas miracle takes the form of a cat with a bladder infection

2006-12-30T10:24:00.000-08:00

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.

Blahg Humbug!

2006-12-21T11:24:00.000-08:00

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.

When Fascists Rock

2006-12-01T08:19:00.000-08:00

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.

Today, I'm more into reading than writing. Uh-huh.

2006-11-30T10:35:00.000-08:00

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.

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.

Halloweenie

2006-11-05T13:16:00.000-08:00

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.

The house, the house, the house is on hold! And then there was Toronto.

2006-11-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

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.

House-pocalypse now

2006-09-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

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.

shovel cuckoo

2006-07-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

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

sitting on houses

2006-07-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

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.

roving green nipple

2006-07-10T17:08:00.000-07:00

I've been swimming at Barton Springs lately because:

The weather outside is frightful

the pool is so delightful

my roommate has had his butt surgically seamed to my couch

and he won't stop watching reality shows at a really loud volume (on my TV...in my living room...did I mention that being a single home-owner with a moderate income and student loans to pay off sucks?)

Anyway, they 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 yuppies fertilizing their 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.)

One day I will re-invent myself as the Barton Springs avenger and go out nightly to squish a green algae blobule onto every hyper-green-lawned suburban householder's chest as he or she sleeps. Lacks the punch of waking up with a horse head in your bed, but it might give them something interesting to talk about at the next bunko gathering.

"This is not a seminary, it is a university."

2006-05-26T07:42:00.000-07:00

That title is from an sign held up during a recent student protest in Iran. There's still hope if we agree to open dialog. Theocracies are only made stronger by exclusion and violence...

George Kennedy: Rhetoric in the most general sense may perhaps be identified with the energy inherent in communication: the emotional energy that impels the speaker to speak, the physical energy expanded in the utterance, the energy level coded in the message, and the energy experienced by the recipient in decoding the message.

Let's talk a bit about the persecution of the Religious Right here in the States. We all know they've been a bit under the weather lately, or so they perceive. Why, when they seem to have the reins of the country (or the sympathies of those politicians who hold the reins) in their grasp? Why do they perceive themselves as powerless and persecuted?

I'll put forth two explanations, the first a touch more sympathetic.

These are evangelicals and religious conversatives we're talking about here, NOT politicos. Yes, they have a political wing and political interests, but just because the guy most of them were told to vote for is in power doesn't mean they like everything he's done. They don't, and these are black-and-white people. You're on their side or you're not. Compromise, that salve of democracy, is not even a term in their vocabulary. Giving sin leeway is sinning. Let's keep that in mind.

The government they elected--the one that should have been focused on building a moral America--is still busying itself with worldly matters. The marketplace is given primacy over moral teaching or the struggle against abortion. Right after 9-ll, there was all sort of talk about the Muslim religion and how the beliefs put forth in Islam were as worthy as those put forth by Christianity. Islam was to be given the same credence as Christianity. These actions/priorities--sensible and necessary from the POV of the Left all the way to the center Right (we won't talk about how the marketplace was dealt with)--is simply not defensible in a fundamentalist world view.

Don't get me started on the historical resonance of all this persecution talk. It's come up again and again in the Bible for the same reasons it does now--not just that persecution may have happened historically. Let's talk about the sort of righteous and rebellious zeal that a perception of persecution can kick up in a group. If you identify yourself and your group as persecuted, how much more likely are you to take action to defend those beliefs? How much slower are you going to be to question your group's status quo, especially if the contrarian arguments are coming from your perceived persecutors? Do you think the leadership of the religious right hasn't taken note of these things? If you ever have the chance to attend a fundamentalist service you'll see what I mean. No one has to encourage a preacher, or indeed anyone versed in the art of persuasive public speaking, to use what works. They're going to give their audience the message that draws the strongest reaction, and you can feel it in the room--the righteous indignation, the out-group identification, the mighty roar of the "persecuted".

a mild case of bird flu panic

2006-05-24T17:46:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-05-24T15:11:00.000-07:00

From Definitions of rhetoric:

Lloyd Bitzer: ...rhetoric is a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action.

So back to my "gray reality" musings. If the Left hopes to get a grasp on the populace, they're going to have to get a grasp on their own process of meaning-making. I'm no expert, but I suspect a lot of press about the Left's struggle to find a message isn't doing much to communicate strength. I suspect even publicly engaging in the process could be damning.

Or is it?

What are we saying, really, when we say the Democrats have no message?

Having a message too early unleashes the Republican attack dogs in plenty of time to upend that message so thoroughly as to make it an embarrassment by the time of the actual elections. The Swift Boat debacle.

In fact, we do have a message but we're scared to use it because it can come off as weak in the dangerous (more dangerous than before?) new world we live in. I am not a pot-smoking flower child.

We've legislatively compromised our own values so much in order to avoid at least a few of the rhetorical beatings the Right so swiftly delivers that we can't voice our message without sounding like complete hypocrites, thus giving our foes even more ammunition. Mea culpa on that whole Iraq thing.

So is the avoidance of a message a true weakness or is it a tactic? And if it's a tactic, will it backfire? Just raising the question.

2006-05-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

Do they carry a rubber Jesus at Petsmart?

In case you were placing bets on how the world might end

2006-03-27T12:47:00.000-08:00

I've got ten bucks on this one, payable in about 50 years, I'm guessing. Now that's probably unduly alarmist, but I'm an unrepentant pessimist. (Also known as a realist in psychological circles.)

The problem with articles like this? Other than the depressing, not terribly dishy news about a melting Arctic (wouldn't that improve the region? Think of the beachfront!), it's those wishy washy scientists. They can't even seem to settle on the facts.

"Sea levels have been rising for thousands of years as an aftereffect of the warming and polar melting that followed the last ice age, which ended about 10,000 years ago. Discriminating between that residual effect and any new influence from human actions remains impossible for the moment, many experts say."

The statement is just too damned reasonable. It holds back too much on what could be a lovely, downright flammable bit of rhetoric. Instead it has to say "Wait. We can't be certain. We can't state unequivocally something that isn't unequivocally true. We have to test and re-test. Even then, we must live within a constant degree of uncertainty. Nothing is absolute fact."

If only we as political animals were as lithe. If only our leaders could use the same methodology. "Wait--we don't have all the facts. This will likely never be clear cut. We can only come to a reasonable theory and try to act reasonably in response. We must set course given what we know and be prepared to change in future should our current knowledge prove faulty. Flexibility is our only hope."

Reasonable. Flexible. This is not the world we live in. We are guided by moneyed propoganda, comfort, and a traditionalist doctrine that we hold as immutable despite all but the most immovable evidence to the contrary. It's just human nature. The sun will rise on each tomorrow and shine just as bright...and no brighter.

Logical fallacy, logical fallacy, logical fallacy.

The Right has the rhetoric, we have the facts. And we need to find a way to embrace the rhetoric without giving up our grasp of the giant gray area we call reality. That's a tall order, but the only way to hope to reach the audience. I only hope what promises to be some invigorating and alarming Gore-speak (don't believe me?) in An Inconvenient Truth is strong enough to hold up against the inaccurate, alarmist, and persistent big oil propaganda on the other side.

And I do mean "the other side."

All we need is blog

2006-03-06T15:38:00.000-08:00

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.