Don't Let Your Ice Melt
I am on a compound in the Saunderstown, RI area, within a herculean stones throw of the Jamestown Bridge, amongst friends, a surprising lack of bugs, cases of wine, and some beer and liquor under clear skies on a hot day in July. Today will be a hot one. Other days of this week maybe somewhat less so. That was the weather report. I nuked yesterday's coffee for Bernadette and myself this morning, listened to a bit of Prayer for Owen Meany the audiobook, played a round of drawsomething, and now am contemplating my first Dark and Stormy, a drink made with your choice of proportions of rum, lime juice and ginger beer. I am not daunted by the fact of 10 a.m.
We have this engineer flown in, at his expense, from the Bay Area each year to assist in the preparation and consumption of the large slabs of meat and gallons of alcohol and for example yesterday to co-pilot for me on a supply run into the neighboring areas for more liquor, propane, and if he had his way, propane accessories.
This isn't right I said 15 seconds after leaving the driveway in front of our second house. We claimed two houses this year. I had not even left the compound. No, the engineer said, you are going exactly opposite of our desired direction. I have a phone with a talking mapping program turned on, an iPad connected via bluetooth to a gps receiver marking our way on a pre-downloaded map, the engineer has his phone also with mapping program, and we have the experience of having been here one year previous. I turn around not actually chuckling but with the slightest hint of a spirit of mirth.
In the town of Wickford we park cautiously in a spot which we are fully aware is not that close to our liquor store destination and head off, soon taking a ninety degree turn in the wrong direction and after several blocks are staring stupidly at our individual smartphones. I can honestly say I am staring stupidly, not really seeing anything, or in truth even making the slightest effort at comprehension. The Engineer? I don't know, I've known him for over 30 years and I realize this is unfair but I tend to cling to this higher expectation regarding his skills of comprehension on all subjects. On this day however I was starting to think, could he be as big a dumbass as I am? But true to my expectations he does get us righted after a bit and we head off on foot, correcting our earlier mistake but soon pause, and I say, we should probably walk back to the car and drive to this liquor store. So we do that, only parking in some adjunct lot that faces the back of the store and causes me to suffer a brief panic regarding the operating hours of this unfamiliar liquor store.
But I get some more rum and beer and again we are off, this time in the opposite direction past our compound, the engineer on the phone after our first fail and me starting to realize this could be hell, I mean you know, being this long gone from the compound and the point of it by my reckoning, a place to relax with an always full cool beverage at hand.
After his first call I realized The Engineer's earlier seeming enthusiasm for this supply trip was not even in part based on an eagerness to be an assisting co-pilot, but rather what he saw as an adventure pretty surely to have some early failures so that he would have his chance to get on the phone and in all seriousness and with believable sincerity say to some local--uh yes, can you tell me, do you sell propane and uh, propane accessories. If you are thinking, I guess you had to be there, no, not really. Don't get off the boat and don't let your ice melt between drinks.
...more recent posts
Birds in a Field
At Least Two Cracks
The local Virginia mechanic and I have this unspoken agreement that if I don't mention the crack in my windshield or the fact that I'm three months tardy on inspection, he won't pull out a measuring device to determine if my crack is legal or has spread into illegal territory, nor will he charge me the late penalty on the inspection tag. Those two things, the crack, and me being late are three years old although I guess me being late is harder to restrict to any one time frame. But for three years running now we wink and nod and I give him 16 dollars and head back to the so called farm where I spend some time each year.
Speaking of restrictions it is my goal here to minimize the use of the word pustule. Nobody wants to read the word pustule for breakfast. Once you get the word pustule in your head it is harder to get out than that Tony Orlando and Dawn song. And so far I only have the one bona fide pustule and the only reason it ("it" being the word "pustule") comes to mind is because it (again, the pustule) is between the middle and ring finger of my left hand and I can hardly move around the asdf range not to mention the qwerty vicinity without some friction occurring around said pustule. It is poison ivy season. Every year about this time I come to Virginia and strip down to the legal limit and then in a variety of fashions roll around practically nekkid in poison ivy. This year I took to masticating jungles of poison ivy or oak (if I could tell them apart from each other or their benign cousins, which you do frequently see them interspersed with, I wouldn't be writing this pustule-heavy essay) with a weedeater, line trimmer, gas powered trimming and weed destruction machine, and bits of plant matter and poisonous oils were fairly floating like dust motes caught in sunlight in an artily shot Western starring some actor who may or may not have written into his contract that dirt is allowed to be shown under his fingernails if it advances authenticity.
I have it on the inside of both wrists. I have one or two near-pustules behind my left ear. A hint of rash on my forehead, I'm not sure what that is on my chin, and last night after discovering that both legs from knee cap to ankle are pretty well covered I also found a new patch on my right bicep. I bathe in both Technu and some Burts Bees soap I am trying out this year. Technu is basically paint thinner and the soap I don't really know what it is but I just lather up with it and then don't rinse it off.
I have a half dozen chigger bites. If I had to choose my favorite two it would be those in the crease that is the backside of my right knee. I haven't found any ticks on me yet, which is unusual considering the territory I've been traipsing through but probably the few that have considered me have reconsidered after getting a good look at my skin. This is one fucked up son of a gun the one tick says to the other. Yeah man the other tick responds, let's get out of here, I'd rather suck blood from the anus of a possum.
I think I crossed the line with that last line. That was just gross. Gratuitous grossness. I should have stuck with pustules.
At the mechanic's this morning I am reading a three day old Washington Post about Mitt Romney's gay bashing days which I only mention to cull readership, or what I mean is, to cull from the masses and direct here to my pustule ramblings those select few who may put together in a search string, for whatever sick reason, the words, "Mitt Romney" and "anus of a possum." Those are the kind of readers I want. I know, be careful what you wish for.
I've been working since Wednesday painting this caretaker's cottage out here at Mt. Pleasant Farm so that makes tomorrow, Tuesday, the Lord's day of rest for me but it's raining today so I'll make this the Lord's day except I have to get up there and vacuum the stink bugs from out of the bighouse. There is no rest for the weary, there is no day more dreary, there is nothing more humbling, than stumbling, on a crack, in a sidewalk.
The local Virginia mechanic and I have this unspoken agreement that if I don't mention the crack in my windshield or the fact that I'm three months tardy on inspection, he won't pull out a measuring device to determine if my crack is legal or has spread into illegal territory, nor will he charge me the late penalty on the inspection tag. Those two things, the crack, and me being late are three years old although I guess me being late is harder to restrict to any one time frame. But for three years running now we wink and nod and I give him 16 dollars and head back to the so called farm where I spend some time each year.
Speaking of restrictions it is my goal here to minimize the use of the word pustule. Nobody wants to read the word pustule for breakfast. Once you get the word pustule in your head it is harder to get out than that Tony Orlando and Dawn song. And so far I only have the one bona fide pustule and the only reason it ("it" being the word "pustule") comes to mind is because it (again, the pustule) is between the middle and ring finger of my left hand and I can hardly move around the asdf range not to mention the qwerty vicinity without some friction occurring around said pustule. It is poison ivy season. Every year about this time I come to Virginia and strip down to the legal limit and then in a variety of fashions roll around practically nekkid in poison ivy. This year I took to masticating jungles of poison ivy or oak (if I could tell them apart from each other or their benign cousins, which you do frequently see them interspersed with, I wouldn't be writing this pustule-heavy essay) with a weedeater, line trimmer, gas powered trimming and weed destruction machine, and bits of plant matter and poisonous oils were fairly floating like dust motes caught in sunlight in an artily shot Western starring some actor who may or may not have written into his contract that dirt is allowed to be shown under his fingernails if it advances authenticity.
I have it on the inside of both wrists. I have one or two near-pustules behind my left ear. A hint of rash on my forehead, I'm not sure what that is on my chin, and last night after discovering that both legs from knee cap to ankle are pretty well covered I also found a new patch on my right bicep. I bathe in both Technu and some Burts Bees soap I am trying out this year. Technu is basically paint thinner and the soap I don't really know what it is but I just lather up with it and then don't rinse it off.
I have a half dozen chigger bites. If I had to choose my favorite two it would be those in the crease that is the backside of my right knee. I haven't found any ticks on me yet, which is unusual considering the territory I've been traipsing through but probably the few that have considered me have reconsidered after getting a good look at my skin. This is one fucked up son of a gun the one tick says to the other. Yeah man the other tick responds, let's get out of here, I'd rather suck blood from the anus of a possum.
I think I crossed the line with that last line. That was just gross. Gratuitous grossness. I should have stuck with pustules.
At the mechanic's this morning I am reading a three day old Washington Post about Mitt Romney's gay bashing days which I only mention to cull readership, or what I mean is, to cull from the masses and direct here to my pustule ramblings those select few who may put together in a search string, for whatever sick reason, the words, "Mitt Romney" and "anus of a possum." Those are the kind of readers I want. I know, be careful what you wish for.
I've been working since Wednesday painting this caretaker's cottage out here at Mt. Pleasant Farm so that makes tomorrow, Tuesday, the Lord's day of rest for me but it's raining today so I'll make this the Lord's day except I have to get up there and vacuum the stink bugs from out of the bighouse. There is no rest for the weary, there is no day more dreary, there is nothing more humbling, than stumbling, on a crack, in a sidewalk.
Jackhammer
I'm not one of those anti-immigrant types who says you gotta speak the language to live here but I do believe your language skills should exceed my hearing skills if that word you are saying after Pepsi is diet and you know damn well I am not ordering diet Pepsi. That was strike two because I'm arriving at the plate already with a strike for being at this fast food nightmare on PepsiCo Street in the first place. Do I want KFC or Taco Bell or Pizza Hut or all three? You get out of the fast food game for awhile and, bloody hell, it's like starting over. I got this Taco Supreme Box and I don't want to ruin it for you but it comes in a box. Also one of the taco shells is made of nacho cheese Doritos. I forgot to tell you I'm in Penn Station for this waiting on the 171 to Culpeper, early because I was escaping the sound of jackhammers chipping through the asphalt and concrete five floors below, me in bed reading Flann O'Brien. There isn't a third strike, always just the two, but if there ever did come the third one I would go down looking.
I'm not one of those anti-immigrant types who says you gotta speak the language to live here but I do believe your language skills should exceed my hearing skills if that word you are saying after Pepsi is diet and you know damn well I am not ordering diet Pepsi. That was strike two because I'm arriving at the plate already with a strike for being at this fast food nightmare on PepsiCo Street in the first place. Do I want KFC or Taco Bell or Pizza Hut or all three? You get out of the fast food game for awhile and, bloody hell, it's like starting over. I got this Taco Supreme Box and I don't want to ruin it for you but it comes in a box. Also one of the taco shells is made of nacho cheese Doritos. I forgot to tell you I'm in Penn Station for this waiting on the 171 to Culpeper, early because I was escaping the sound of jackhammers chipping through the asphalt and concrete five floors below, me in bed reading Flann O'Brien. There isn't a third strike, always just the two, but if there ever did come the third one I would go down looking.
There Will Be A Test
Yeah I'm going through my calendar shifting things around out the wazzoo here because Hector Bilby canceled at the last minute. Oh we were a few of us supposed to meet up at an art gallery and I'm assuming a drink after, otherwise what would be the point? Am I right? I mean right out the gate this morning Bernadette is shifting her calendar around due to a cancellation, which is regrettable because I was looking forward to whatever that was. I'm not even sure she was aware of the Bilby engagement and certainly not the cancellation. I judge this by the lack of her head exploding. Don't use ink and carry a big eraser is what I tell people. Forget about planning.
I had seen art last night, and had pizza, beer and wine, but are you going to tell Bilby that? Uh yeah, Bilby, I have ingested beau coup art lately. Would love to see you but am afraid of getting art toxicity so...like what? I mean seriously. What are you going to do? Christ. Now with all these cancellations, these reaffirmations of nothingness, Bernadette is spiraling out of control, trying to get me to go out and view vegetables and cat toys and I'll just be blunt here, I'm not feeling that at all. I am three quarters the way through a novel that I was ready to quit at the halfway point but am sticking with just because I honestly don't know why I'm sticking with it. It was one of the Pulitzer for fiction nominees this year, a year with no winners, and so far I'm pretty much in agreement with the committee. Anyhow, the cat will come out ahead in all this.
Ok, here's the thing, you don't realize how ludicrous, how borderline mean-spirited, hell, insane even, is the comment--I hear you have termites, until you say it to the wrong person, and by wrong I only mean a person in the room who is not the woman Bernadette suggested I go talk to last night and give unto her my substantial wisdom concerning termites, which is, call someone then quit worrying about it. For the greater body of people including all of humanity, here is my more general advice regarding termites. If you can't tell Asian people apart (even if Bernadette did say Japanese, about a woman who is part Japanese) or are just easily confused in those crowded spaces from which you are seeking the most rapid extrication, wait for a person with termite problems to reach out to you, not the other way around. Otherwise you will spend the rest of the night hoping those two Asian people at the party don't learn that you mistook one for the other and decide they have had enough of your petit bourgeois racist bullshit, effectively banning you from art openings the world over, which remember, can include after parties with pizza and beer.
Following is a short list of the Asians you should studiously learn to differentiate.
Asian people - the people from or of the continent of Asia
North Asians, includes people west of the Urals and the Ural river, north of East and Central Asia. Includes:
Russians
Yakuts
Tungusic peoples
Uralic peoples east of the Urals
the Ainu people
East Asians, including:
Chinese people
Japanese people
Taiwanese people
Koreans
Mongols
Southeast Asians, including:
Thai people
Vietnamese people
Filipino people
Bamar
Cambodian people
Bruneian people
Lao people
Malaysian people
Singaporean people
Indonesian people
South Asians, includes:
Indian people
Pakistani people
Bengali people
Sinhalese People
Nepalese people
Bhutanese people
Dhivehi people
Central Asians including
Uzbeks
Karakalpaks
Tajik people
Hazara people
Kyrgyz people
Uyghur people
Kazakhs
Pashtun people
Turkmen people
Western Asians, including:
Arab people
Turkish people
Kurdish people
Iranian peoples
Israeli people
Yeah I'm going through my calendar shifting things around out the wazzoo here because Hector Bilby canceled at the last minute. Oh we were a few of us supposed to meet up at an art gallery and I'm assuming a drink after, otherwise what would be the point? Am I right? I mean right out the gate this morning Bernadette is shifting her calendar around due to a cancellation, which is regrettable because I was looking forward to whatever that was. I'm not even sure she was aware of the Bilby engagement and certainly not the cancellation. I judge this by the lack of her head exploding. Don't use ink and carry a big eraser is what I tell people. Forget about planning.
I had seen art last night, and had pizza, beer and wine, but are you going to tell Bilby that? Uh yeah, Bilby, I have ingested beau coup art lately. Would love to see you but am afraid of getting art toxicity so...like what? I mean seriously. What are you going to do? Christ. Now with all these cancellations, these reaffirmations of nothingness, Bernadette is spiraling out of control, trying to get me to go out and view vegetables and cat toys and I'll just be blunt here, I'm not feeling that at all. I am three quarters the way through a novel that I was ready to quit at the halfway point but am sticking with just because I honestly don't know why I'm sticking with it. It was one of the Pulitzer for fiction nominees this year, a year with no winners, and so far I'm pretty much in agreement with the committee. Anyhow, the cat will come out ahead in all this.
Ok, here's the thing, you don't realize how ludicrous, how borderline mean-spirited, hell, insane even, is the comment--I hear you have termites, until you say it to the wrong person, and by wrong I only mean a person in the room who is not the woman Bernadette suggested I go talk to last night and give unto her my substantial wisdom concerning termites, which is, call someone then quit worrying about it. For the greater body of people including all of humanity, here is my more general advice regarding termites. If you can't tell Asian people apart (even if Bernadette did say Japanese, about a woman who is part Japanese) or are just easily confused in those crowded spaces from which you are seeking the most rapid extrication, wait for a person with termite problems to reach out to you, not the other way around. Otherwise you will spend the rest of the night hoping those two Asian people at the party don't learn that you mistook one for the other and decide they have had enough of your petit bourgeois racist bullshit, effectively banning you from art openings the world over, which remember, can include after parties with pizza and beer.
Following is a short list of the Asians you should studiously learn to differentiate.
Asian people - the people from or of the continent of Asia
North Asians, includes people west of the Urals and the Ural river, north of East and Central Asia. Includes:
Russians
Yakuts
Tungusic peoples
Uralic peoples east of the Urals
the Ainu people
East Asians, including:
Chinese people
Japanese people
Taiwanese people
Koreans
Mongols
Southeast Asians, including:
Thai people
Vietnamese people
Filipino people
Bamar
Cambodian people
Bruneian people
Lao people
Malaysian people
Singaporean people
Indonesian people
South Asians, includes:
Indian people
Pakistani people
Bengali people
Sinhalese People
Nepalese people
Bhutanese people
Dhivehi people
Central Asians including
Uzbeks
Karakalpaks
Tajik people
Hazara people
Kyrgyz people
Uyghur people
Kazakhs
Pashtun people
Turkmen people
Western Asians, including:
Arab people
Turkish people
Kurdish people
Iranian peoples
Israeli people
I Think Torture Speaks For Itself
Torture is a moral issue on my right and a pig on a leash to my left. I left the house early and after crossing Houston found a path to follow with good sunlight and also shade. I would run into a friend much later, a black, tidy, smooth speaking ex-Marine who would tell me of his most recent woes involving hospital and a lack of a proper lunch. I wore a light rain jacket and in the left pocket were a few bills set aside for just this purpose, the contributing towards a lunch for someone I could through his demeanor and bearing see as a friend even though it would be a fiscally unbalanced friendship filled with periods of resentment and the seeming unfairness of it all. But the bills in my pocket weren't there, literally disappeared like a goddammned insertion of a metaphor, so I had to bring out the wallet which is only ever full in just these situations, so that I have to rifle through twenties and such to get to ones while the person towering over this personal cash drawer is adding detail to his woe in hopes of having one of my Jacksons, or come on man, you really gonna miss that Hamilton? My yes is always unspoken, allowing instead how possibly wrong it may be for a man so obviously flush in paper to be so cheap. The spoiler has already occurred and I'll give you a hint it has to do with a pig on a leash in NYC. And one other thing, as if this should have to be explained to you each and every time--nothing happens. Seeing the pig is all that happens. This isn't one of those guaranteed gold stories you might hear at a dinner table where one transvestite regales the table inhabited by other transvestites and friends of transvestites with his story about the parrot of his masseuse. So what if you value that type of story and were happy for the one bit of genuine laugh it gave you surrounded by a lot of other minutes where you were painfully aware of the negative aspects of being a non smoker who can't use the I have to go out for a smoke excuse. So this would be a good time to head to the market, nothing to see here folks. Think to all the times you have watched that barely tolerable sitcom and waited for the last bit after the last commercial break and all that happened, all that came on was the credits. Doesn't that piss you off? Don't say I didn't warn you. I was going to on these next lines, one, describe what it would look like for a Border Collie dog or possibly a Holstein heifer to have messy, awkward, could even be barbaric sex with a pig, two, the resulting if unlikely progeny, three, a brief running over the drama laden upbringing of inter-specie offspring, and just when the most sentimental of you were wiping away that one tear, I would four, make you cry many tears of happiness as the freaky looking low lying dog/cow/rhinoceros-looking calf-pup-lets are adopted each and every one by middle-aged childless lesbian couples across the city of New York only days or minutes before certain annihilation and perhaps transformation into items found in a to-go container purchased on or around Grand St. But that description will have to wait. My siting of this pig is many years later and the horror perhaps only my own. And there is only one of the pigs left in the city, and I am on this day, yesterday, seeing it while killing time under the leaves before heading off to pull down my pants one final time for the urologist. The other pigs have moved north with their owners or been pawned off to friends in Hudson or Woodstock or in the case of the litters' runt, Vinylhaven, Maine. I can see from a reading over that I am branding myself a pig hater and while this is strictly not true, I will say I lack the necessary vehement conviction to alter outside opinion. Inside where I imagine things I nod sympathetically to each and every lovely thing spoken about pet hybrid pigs. Later I found those three single dollar bills in my left coat pocket just where they have been for the last month or so but could not find earlier to assist the ex-Marine. I rubbed the folded green paper between my fingers inside my pocket before extracting the now completely unfrozen peanut butter medical marijuana brownie. I was sitting on a bench by the lake in Central Park. A gregarious group of Dutch kids had finally finished all their photo taking and moved on. Two gay men, uncomfortable with their silence, moved silently on. A Chinese couple moving with inscrutable precision leaned over the short hog wire fence separating the path from the lake and in less than a minute expertly ripped from the ground enough lush dandelion green to fill a grocery sack. After they moved on I unwrapped the peanut butter brownie and ate it, licking the adhered residue from the cellophane just in case I should somewhere on the road home run into a pot sniffing beagle attached to a six foot six jackbooted policeman.
Torture is a moral issue on my right and a pig on a leash to my left. I left the house early and after crossing Houston found a path to follow with good sunlight and also shade. I would run into a friend much later, a black, tidy, smooth speaking ex-Marine who would tell me of his most recent woes involving hospital and a lack of a proper lunch. I wore a light rain jacket and in the left pocket were a few bills set aside for just this purpose, the contributing towards a lunch for someone I could through his demeanor and bearing see as a friend even though it would be a fiscally unbalanced friendship filled with periods of resentment and the seeming unfairness of it all. But the bills in my pocket weren't there, literally disappeared like a goddammned insertion of a metaphor, so I had to bring out the wallet which is only ever full in just these situations, so that I have to rifle through twenties and such to get to ones while the person towering over this personal cash drawer is adding detail to his woe in hopes of having one of my Jacksons, or come on man, you really gonna miss that Hamilton? My yes is always unspoken, allowing instead how possibly wrong it may be for a man so obviously flush in paper to be so cheap. The spoiler has already occurred and I'll give you a hint it has to do with a pig on a leash in NYC. And one other thing, as if this should have to be explained to you each and every time--nothing happens. Seeing the pig is all that happens. This isn't one of those guaranteed gold stories you might hear at a dinner table where one transvestite regales the table inhabited by other transvestites and friends of transvestites with his story about the parrot of his masseuse. So what if you value that type of story and were happy for the one bit of genuine laugh it gave you surrounded by a lot of other minutes where you were painfully aware of the negative aspects of being a non smoker who can't use the I have to go out for a smoke excuse. So this would be a good time to head to the market, nothing to see here folks. Think to all the times you have watched that barely tolerable sitcom and waited for the last bit after the last commercial break and all that happened, all that came on was the credits. Doesn't that piss you off? Don't say I didn't warn you. I was going to on these next lines, one, describe what it would look like for a Border Collie dog or possibly a Holstein heifer to have messy, awkward, could even be barbaric sex with a pig, two, the resulting if unlikely progeny, three, a brief running over the drama laden upbringing of inter-specie offspring, and just when the most sentimental of you were wiping away that one tear, I would four, make you cry many tears of happiness as the freaky looking low lying dog/cow/rhinoceros-looking calf-pup-lets are adopted each and every one by middle-aged childless lesbian couples across the city of New York only days or minutes before certain annihilation and perhaps transformation into items found in a to-go container purchased on or around Grand St. But that description will have to wait. My siting of this pig is many years later and the horror perhaps only my own. And there is only one of the pigs left in the city, and I am on this day, yesterday, seeing it while killing time under the leaves before heading off to pull down my pants one final time for the urologist. The other pigs have moved north with their owners or been pawned off to friends in Hudson or Woodstock or in the case of the litters' runt, Vinylhaven, Maine. I can see from a reading over that I am branding myself a pig hater and while this is strictly not true, I will say I lack the necessary vehement conviction to alter outside opinion. Inside where I imagine things I nod sympathetically to each and every lovely thing spoken about pet hybrid pigs. Later I found those three single dollar bills in my left coat pocket just where they have been for the last month or so but could not find earlier to assist the ex-Marine. I rubbed the folded green paper between my fingers inside my pocket before extracting the now completely unfrozen peanut butter medical marijuana brownie. I was sitting on a bench by the lake in Central Park. A gregarious group of Dutch kids had finally finished all their photo taking and moved on. Two gay men, uncomfortable with their silence, moved silently on. A Chinese couple moving with inscrutable precision leaned over the short hog wire fence separating the path from the lake and in less than a minute expertly ripped from the ground enough lush dandelion green to fill a grocery sack. After they moved on I unwrapped the peanut butter brownie and ate it, licking the adhered residue from the cellophane just in case I should somewhere on the road home run into a pot sniffing beagle attached to a six foot six jackbooted policeman.
Any Day Now
I'm trying to remember how many movies there are that feature people trying to drive other people insane. What the techniques may be so I can judge more accurately if Bernadette sitting next to me in bed reading The Handmaid's Tale and pretending with a high degree of believability that she cannot hear another less desirable Canadian's wailing is one of her insidious techniques for driving me crazy. That she is "in on it" is something every legitimate crazy person must consider. I think she may be in on it. Granted, the music is not very loud and I am far more sensitive and attuned to it at this point but she should be able to hear something. I glance over at her every so often, expecting a smile and a nod of gentle unspoken declaration that she hears it too, "no baby, you're not crazy," but everybody, I mean everybody knows I just might be. As a for example I offer--that if this music of Celine Dion was as in your face as I suggest then how could there not be, by now, the sound of sirens as cops respond to the domestic abuse call against a sibling, spouse, roommate, child, or next door neighbor who, really, had to be killed, or punished loudly at least? But there are no sirens therefore I may be crazy. The schizophrenic who thinks they are being radio controlled by the CIA is almost a cliche but I have known and socialized with such an individual in my past and I can tell you that except for those occasional references to the CIA and the scribble-filled notebooks of some fairly insane shit this individual was as functional as anybody you know. So maybe this Celine thing is my CIA radio control. Or it could be like whatshername on the Partridge Family when she gets braces on her teeth and starts picking up radio signals in her mouth. You know, something ordinary and plausible. In any case, it can't go on much longer. At least that's what I remember thinking two weeks ago. I wonder if I should get fitted for a foil helmet?
I'm trying to remember how many movies there are that feature people trying to drive other people insane. What the techniques may be so I can judge more accurately if Bernadette sitting next to me in bed reading The Handmaid's Tale and pretending with a high degree of believability that she cannot hear another less desirable Canadian's wailing is one of her insidious techniques for driving me crazy. That she is "in on it" is something every legitimate crazy person must consider. I think she may be in on it. Granted, the music is not very loud and I am far more sensitive and attuned to it at this point but she should be able to hear something. I glance over at her every so often, expecting a smile and a nod of gentle unspoken declaration that she hears it too, "no baby, you're not crazy," but everybody, I mean everybody knows I just might be. As a for example I offer--that if this music of Celine Dion was as in your face as I suggest then how could there not be, by now, the sound of sirens as cops respond to the domestic abuse call against a sibling, spouse, roommate, child, or next door neighbor who, really, had to be killed, or punished loudly at least? But there are no sirens therefore I may be crazy. The schizophrenic who thinks they are being radio controlled by the CIA is almost a cliche but I have known and socialized with such an individual in my past and I can tell you that except for those occasional references to the CIA and the scribble-filled notebooks of some fairly insane shit this individual was as functional as anybody you know. So maybe this Celine thing is my CIA radio control. Or it could be like whatshername on the Partridge Family when she gets braces on her teeth and starts picking up radio signals in her mouth. You know, something ordinary and plausible. In any case, it can't go on much longer. At least that's what I remember thinking two weeks ago. I wonder if I should get fitted for a foil helmet?
Satan Loves Celine
It has started again. This time at 6:46 a.m. Someone is being tortured. I can hear the screams. I can hear the wailing. Someone is being tortured for...what is it now...fourteen days...seventeen?
Maybe it was always there that background noise of human misery. Over or would it be under the hum of truck engines, honking horns, Spanish workers calling out instructions, a jackhammer, helicopters, galvanized pipe dropping one block away, the clanging muted by distance.
It is I who am being tortured, by the instrument of Celine Dion. Those are my screams you can't hear, muted by one man's desperate attempt at holding it together, his feigned efforts towards civility a futile joke.
Oh thank you God in all seriousness for turning up the volume on those grinding gears, that turning cement mixing drum, those screeching brakes, the cries of children either happy or sad, the flapping wings of the mourning dove's exit, I cry out my thanks for these gifts from Heaven.
But then always the waves of silence. Over which comes Satan's Delivery. The war waged eternally. It is a question of tastes. I don't wish to judge.
It has started again. This time at 6:46 a.m. Someone is being tortured. I can hear the screams. I can hear the wailing. Someone is being tortured for...what is it now...fourteen days...seventeen?
Maybe it was always there that background noise of human misery. Over or would it be under the hum of truck engines, honking horns, Spanish workers calling out instructions, a jackhammer, helicopters, galvanized pipe dropping one block away, the clanging muted by distance.
It is I who am being tortured, by the instrument of Celine Dion. Those are my screams you can't hear, muted by one man's desperate attempt at holding it together, his feigned efforts towards civility a futile joke.
Oh thank you God in all seriousness for turning up the volume on those grinding gears, that turning cement mixing drum, those screeching brakes, the cries of children either happy or sad, the flapping wings of the mourning dove's exit, I cry out my thanks for these gifts from Heaven.
But then always the waves of silence. Over which comes Satan's Delivery. The war waged eternally. It is a question of tastes. I don't wish to judge.
Where To Sit
I don't go to the movie theater that much. I have heard people debate the supremacy of big screen over home screen. Some believe no matter how big the screen is at home it cannot match the movie theater experience. Others argue that the high definition digitally projected images on our home screens, no matter how small, are superior to that image projected up above us in that faintly musty, stale-buttery-popcorn-redolent movie house, and therefore watching a movie at home, surrounded by no one, or by only those people you choose, is to any sane person the preferable option. To me these considerations of image quality or size of screen or atmosphere or getting out of the house versus staying at home or whatever it is people are usually talking about when this subject comes up, is beside the point. To me it comes down to should most people even be let out of their houses and if the answer to that is yes then I counter with but why the hell would I want to spend 13 dollars plus in some cases transportation cost to sit in a smallish enclosed space with those people whom you have let out of their houses, and experience what for me is essentially a high risk low return crap shoot where the reward is a mild, perhaps occasionally sublime enjoyment, and the risk is torture. Instead, why don't I save that money, donate it to a good cause or spend it on crack, doesn't really matter, also not the point, and subject myself to some greener form of self-flagellation? You know, a torturous experience that promises a tiny if sometime real chance at enjoyment, but achieves that with less carbon. Even if carbon abuse is also not my main objection here. I'm just searching for an apt comparison of things. Perhaps holing up in the corner of a dank basement with arms duct-taped behind me, earphones playing the latest in CIA noise torture, and over there across the room a barely visible, dog eared, mouse piss stained girly mag. When there is a break in the screaming screeching noise torture there might could be heard, just faintly, a Bach piano concerto. Oh, Bernadette and I saw The Artist the other day. I did very much enjoy the movie. It was worth it for me. But that couple trying to find a seat during the previews, in a not very crowded theater, debating idiotically between three rows in front of us or two behind, and the capper (they settled on two behind us), after finally being shushed by someone closer to them, up and back they had gone, all the while chattering, up and back, she having one feeling about things and he sharing with all of us his opinions on angles and parallax views and head height, hair obstructions, seriously God, help THEM, anyway the capper was, after all this and then a ten beat or so of thank you Jesus they have finally shut up, she peeps--you aren't going to sit by me?
I don't go to the movie theater that much. I have heard people debate the supremacy of big screen over home screen. Some believe no matter how big the screen is at home it cannot match the movie theater experience. Others argue that the high definition digitally projected images on our home screens, no matter how small, are superior to that image projected up above us in that faintly musty, stale-buttery-popcorn-redolent movie house, and therefore watching a movie at home, surrounded by no one, or by only those people you choose, is to any sane person the preferable option. To me these considerations of image quality or size of screen or atmosphere or getting out of the house versus staying at home or whatever it is people are usually talking about when this subject comes up, is beside the point. To me it comes down to should most people even be let out of their houses and if the answer to that is yes then I counter with but why the hell would I want to spend 13 dollars plus in some cases transportation cost to sit in a smallish enclosed space with those people whom you have let out of their houses, and experience what for me is essentially a high risk low return crap shoot where the reward is a mild, perhaps occasionally sublime enjoyment, and the risk is torture. Instead, why don't I save that money, donate it to a good cause or spend it on crack, doesn't really matter, also not the point, and subject myself to some greener form of self-flagellation? You know, a torturous experience that promises a tiny if sometime real chance at enjoyment, but achieves that with less carbon. Even if carbon abuse is also not my main objection here. I'm just searching for an apt comparison of things. Perhaps holing up in the corner of a dank basement with arms duct-taped behind me, earphones playing the latest in CIA noise torture, and over there across the room a barely visible, dog eared, mouse piss stained girly mag. When there is a break in the screaming screeching noise torture there might could be heard, just faintly, a Bach piano concerto. Oh, Bernadette and I saw The Artist the other day. I did very much enjoy the movie. It was worth it for me. But that couple trying to find a seat during the previews, in a not very crowded theater, debating idiotically between three rows in front of us or two behind, and the capper (they settled on two behind us), after finally being shushed by someone closer to them, up and back they had gone, all the while chattering, up and back, she having one feeling about things and he sharing with all of us his opinions on angles and parallax views and head height, hair obstructions, seriously God, help THEM, anyway the capper was, after all this and then a ten beat or so of thank you Jesus they have finally shut up, she peeps--you aren't going to sit by me?
What May Exist Question Mark
High winds may exist. It was a warning. But an avuncular one, so he took it lightly and was swept up into the top boughs of a pine tree, where in between gusts he was quite comfortable and happy about the view and enjoyed a general sense of smugness, like that one gets from being above it all. But then he would look out over the wildly waving uncut hay fields to the north, which gave him notice of incoming gale force and he would increase his grip. His fingernails were dug so deep into the pine bark that sap poured from it and soon coated his palms which turned black and sticky and coated with bits of wood and moss. It was good the stickiness during the windy moments for it aided his ability to hold on but once during a calm moment he forgot about it and while picking at a piece of bark bit blown into his eye he succeeded only in spreading sap along the lid and soon found that eye glued shut. So with only one eye the view was not as good. Plus, it was his bad eye with which he now viewed the world. His good eye had grown up going to church and listening to his mother and eating vegetables and such, and the bad eye had not. Still, he had some vision, if slightly jaundiced, and, there was nothing wrong with his legs, yet, so he climbed down from the tree, slicing rude cuts into his face and body from the broken pointed shards of limb he encountered on his descent. He had a limp now, caused he guessed from some poke in his get-a-long. And one puckering crusty eye and one formerly bad eye now elevated to good. This new good eye accepted light but gave none back. And like this he set out.
High winds may exist. It was a warning. But an avuncular one, so he took it lightly and was swept up into the top boughs of a pine tree, where in between gusts he was quite comfortable and happy about the view and enjoyed a general sense of smugness, like that one gets from being above it all. But then he would look out over the wildly waving uncut hay fields to the north, which gave him notice of incoming gale force and he would increase his grip. His fingernails were dug so deep into the pine bark that sap poured from it and soon coated his palms which turned black and sticky and coated with bits of wood and moss. It was good the stickiness during the windy moments for it aided his ability to hold on but once during a calm moment he forgot about it and while picking at a piece of bark bit blown into his eye he succeeded only in spreading sap along the lid and soon found that eye glued shut. So with only one eye the view was not as good. Plus, it was his bad eye with which he now viewed the world. His good eye had grown up going to church and listening to his mother and eating vegetables and such, and the bad eye had not. Still, he had some vision, if slightly jaundiced, and, there was nothing wrong with his legs, yet, so he climbed down from the tree, slicing rude cuts into his face and body from the broken pointed shards of limb he encountered on his descent. He had a limp now, caused he guessed from some poke in his get-a-long. And one puckering crusty eye and one formerly bad eye now elevated to good. This new good eye accepted light but gave none back. And like this he set out.