Not Only Cupcake Dreams
I was always fairly certain that the particular brand of mild emotional dysfunction from which I only moderately suffer was at least partly being played out in disturbing dreams. That I have for many years been unable to access my dreams I took as proof that the images being played out on the big screen of my sleep were simply not something I wanted to consider while awake. Lately, in NYC, I have been remembering dreams and I am at least comforted by the knowledge that I was right about the nature of them. They are not back dropped by daisies and sunshine.
Coming out of a small darkly lit back room of a small unfinished, unfurnished slum dwelling I see approaching from a shadowy entrance 30 feet away a very large gray rat that upon closer inspection is actually a diseased and partially hairless cat. When it crosses a ray of projected moon or street light the cat shows itself to be rubbed raw along its spine and while the short scene of this dream mostly consists only of the gray tones between black and white the raw spots are definitely red. Enter from the same ill-defined exit/entrance three pit bulls who then proceed to act as if I am not there while surveying the room for the object of their obvious interest. That object has slinked back to the room from which I began. Two of the dogs move directly back to that room while the third dog is acting a bit absurd and rambunctious. This third dog has something in its mouth, a piece of fabric maybe or a flap of something. The dog shakes its head violently and from its mouth or breaking free from the flap comes the euphonious sound of a small pebble, or in the dream I am thinking tooth, hitting the wood floor with a note all the more startling for being, start to finish, the only sound in the dream.
It is very clear to me that I am unclear about what I want to do, run, or go for help, but as they both require that I exit the scene, that is what I do. I did not however in any of the subsequent disturbing dreams of last night find my way back to the gray room, or the cat. Honestly though, despite the subject matter of many of this week's dreams I am quite grateful for the subconscious feedback. Even though I say I assumed I was dreaming, even without the recall, occasionally I have considered that maybe the projector was broken. But no, seems to be working fine.
...more recent posts
Cupcake Dreams And Business Modeling
Parked near Houston on Norfolk, NYC, sitting in the passenger seat of the Jeep, counting off now just the last eight minutes until it is clear that the street sweeper isn't coming today and then the all of us sitting here on this Tuesday and Friday side of the street, who have moved our cars from some neighboring Monday and Thursday side of the street, will exit our vehicles and go on with our lives. Five minutes now. I don't have any clear plans for my life though and am considering just staying in the Jeep and taking life as it comes to me here. For two days anyhow, until I have to move again to secure free parking. I'm picking up a little bit of a wireless signal here and so I could wile away the day conducting important business via the Internet if I had any business. I could start a business: Jeep Sitting Enterprises. It would be unclear what the company actually does but would attract venture capitalists for unknown reasons and go on to become yet another success story happening to someone other than you. Or I could retrofit the back seats by cutting out a hole all the way to the street, attach a construction garbage bag liner and top it off with a toilet seat so that I could sell bathroom privileges to tourists, homeless people, and methadone enthusiasts. If I sit here long enough I could come up with more ideas, maybe even better ones.
There is an enclosed market near here, on Essex, and in addition to quality looking meats and vegetables and cheeses there is a religious curio purveyor and at this place front and center or slightly off center to the right is a religious collection box about 12 inches by 16 inches by 2 feet tall, made of plexiglass or chicken wire, you are not allowed to take pictures of it so I have no supplement to my memory, but whatever it is made of you can see through it and thereby witness inside of it a small statue of Jesus on crutches, complete with all the bloody man made punctures that later go on to become stigmata. I was alerted to this curiosity by a Jewish friend, Jerome, who carries on knowledgeably about all manner of subjects but is perhaps least expert about religious matters, be they Jewish or Catholic or otherwise. I will sometimes out of boredom or pique engage in argumentative discussions with Jerome but even at my most adamant I know I am wrong and just killing time until I am forced to concede, my stupidity lacking even humorous value. But this is all to say, smart as he may be, Jerome is frankly on the verge of being dumbfounded by what is the meaning of Jesus on crutches. I could Google it I guess but I have chosen to move from my street office into a fifth floor enclosure and free wireless signals are more hit and miss here. And just in case you are thinking, oh, Lower East Side New York, artsy fartsy hedonistic reprobates all of them, that this is probably some sort of art piece, some sort of making fun of God for arts sake kind of thing--no, I don't think it is.
I saw Bernadette a minute ago and she was going out there, into that NYC underbelly, and I ask her if she would bring me back a cupcake but when she responded querulously as to my seriousness I demurred, uh no, but now that's all I can think about, cupcakes, cupcakes, bring me cupcakes.
Parked near Houston on Norfolk, NYC, sitting in the passenger seat of the Jeep, counting off now just the last eight minutes until it is clear that the street sweeper isn't coming today and then the all of us sitting here on this Tuesday and Friday side of the street, who have moved our cars from some neighboring Monday and Thursday side of the street, will exit our vehicles and go on with our lives. Five minutes now. I don't have any clear plans for my life though and am considering just staying in the Jeep and taking life as it comes to me here. For two days anyhow, until I have to move again to secure free parking. I'm picking up a little bit of a wireless signal here and so I could wile away the day conducting important business via the Internet if I had any business. I could start a business: Jeep Sitting Enterprises. It would be unclear what the company actually does but would attract venture capitalists for unknown reasons and go on to become yet another success story happening to someone other than you. Or I could retrofit the back seats by cutting out a hole all the way to the street, attach a construction garbage bag liner and top it off with a toilet seat so that I could sell bathroom privileges to tourists, homeless people, and methadone enthusiasts. If I sit here long enough I could come up with more ideas, maybe even better ones.
There is an enclosed market near here, on Essex, and in addition to quality looking meats and vegetables and cheeses there is a religious curio purveyor and at this place front and center or slightly off center to the right is a religious collection box about 12 inches by 16 inches by 2 feet tall, made of plexiglass or chicken wire, you are not allowed to take pictures of it so I have no supplement to my memory, but whatever it is made of you can see through it and thereby witness inside of it a small statue of Jesus on crutches, complete with all the bloody man made punctures that later go on to become stigmata. I was alerted to this curiosity by a Jewish friend, Jerome, who carries on knowledgeably about all manner of subjects but is perhaps least expert about religious matters, be they Jewish or Catholic or otherwise. I will sometimes out of boredom or pique engage in argumentative discussions with Jerome but even at my most adamant I know I am wrong and just killing time until I am forced to concede, my stupidity lacking even humorous value. But this is all to say, smart as he may be, Jerome is frankly on the verge of being dumbfounded by what is the meaning of Jesus on crutches. I could Google it I guess but I have chosen to move from my street office into a fifth floor enclosure and free wireless signals are more hit and miss here. And just in case you are thinking, oh, Lower East Side New York, artsy fartsy hedonistic reprobates all of them, that this is probably some sort of art piece, some sort of making fun of God for arts sake kind of thing--no, I don't think it is.
I saw Bernadette a minute ago and she was going out there, into that NYC underbelly, and I ask her if she would bring me back a cupcake but when she responded querulously as to my seriousness I demurred, uh no, but now that's all I can think about, cupcakes, cupcakes, bring me cupcakes.
Holland Tunnel Negotiations
I left the Shenandoah valley as the sun rose behind me or to my right. The sky was swirled with color. It was a picture. I looked at it while driving, north, thought of ways to describe it and decided to hell with it.
I tried to remember what the toll would be but guessed wrong again. It was $1.15. The toll attendant looked into my eyes and smiled. I was unprepared for that and drove away towards the Holland Tunnel. You have to pay there too, on the coming in side, 6 dollars, I was prepared for it. I had chosen the far right booth and after paying had to merge left to secure my right lane while cars also wanting to occupy the right lane were from the left of me merging right. You have to become a little serious now, doing this, unless you're drunk which I wasn't, but frankly I think I may recommend drunkeness for this Holland Tunnel negotiating. I'll say it again you have to become serious and this may not be to your liking. You may on occasion have people with you whom behave ridiculously to cover up the fact that seriousness is a problem for them. These people will aggravate you and challenge your ability for ignoring them when you are the one in charge of merging. Lucky for me I had no such people to ignore.
Now the Holland Tunnel attendant who took my six dollars also looked me in the eyes, in a professional, not necessarily unfriendly way, but clearly I was being sized up for my potential as a holiday ruining terrorist. I felt strangely proud for passing this test but only momentarily because I had the merging test right after.
Yellow sun rays come in a Lower East Side fifth floor window around three in the afternoon and you can bathe in this bath drawn by God regardless of your belief system. Faith in something is helpful but with or without it your sins go out with the bathwater. You had no idea this might happen, it is a seasonal thing and you haven't been in season until now.
Later that evening I was just a little but not very drunk. A passenger in my own Jeep as Bernadette just took a lane off the Long Island Expressway. She did not signal as the signs above remind you to. It is the law. That they would put up signs to this effect hint you as to the seriousness of this growing problem. But there is a learning curve and Bernadette has been driving that Long Island Expressway all her life and will get around to signaling in her own time. To the honking vehicle behind, whose occupants feared the beginning of their last moment on earth, Bernadette apologized, and to me finished her story, which I can't remember because I was thinking of this one.
I left the Shenandoah valley as the sun rose behind me or to my right. The sky was swirled with color. It was a picture. I looked at it while driving, north, thought of ways to describe it and decided to hell with it.
I tried to remember what the toll would be but guessed wrong again. It was $1.15. The toll attendant looked into my eyes and smiled. I was unprepared for that and drove away towards the Holland Tunnel. You have to pay there too, on the coming in side, 6 dollars, I was prepared for it. I had chosen the far right booth and after paying had to merge left to secure my right lane while cars also wanting to occupy the right lane were from the left of me merging right. You have to become a little serious now, doing this, unless you're drunk which I wasn't, but frankly I think I may recommend drunkeness for this Holland Tunnel negotiating. I'll say it again you have to become serious and this may not be to your liking. You may on occasion have people with you whom behave ridiculously to cover up the fact that seriousness is a problem for them. These people will aggravate you and challenge your ability for ignoring them when you are the one in charge of merging. Lucky for me I had no such people to ignore.
Now the Holland Tunnel attendant who took my six dollars also looked me in the eyes, in a professional, not necessarily unfriendly way, but clearly I was being sized up for my potential as a holiday ruining terrorist. I felt strangely proud for passing this test but only momentarily because I had the merging test right after.
Yellow sun rays come in a Lower East Side fifth floor window around three in the afternoon and you can bathe in this bath drawn by God regardless of your belief system. Faith in something is helpful but with or without it your sins go out with the bathwater. You had no idea this might happen, it is a seasonal thing and you haven't been in season until now.
Later that evening I was just a little but not very drunk. A passenger in my own Jeep as Bernadette just took a lane off the Long Island Expressway. She did not signal as the signs above remind you to. It is the law. That they would put up signs to this effect hint you as to the seriousness of this growing problem. But there is a learning curve and Bernadette has been driving that Long Island Expressway all her life and will get around to signaling in her own time. To the honking vehicle behind, whose occupants feared the beginning of their last moment on earth, Bernadette apologized, and to me finished her story, which I can't remember because I was thinking of this one.
The Occasional Mutant Bounty Hunter
One curious aspect of the 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes is that Northern Africa obviously contains a geography that is to the untrained eye very similar to the parts of the United States where we have done much of our nuclear testing. I did not think the scenery was exactly right for New Mexico or Nevada but did not until the closing credits realize that the movie was actually shot somewhere in a Morocco pretending to be the southwestern United States. The craggy, sometimes undulating hills did remind me of less spectacular parts of southern Utah, a place I have recently visited and after watching this movie's mutant freaks eat human flesh am transported back to in a way that puts me in touch with the uneasiness I felt when Bernadette suggested that next time perhaps we could rent a four-wheel drive vehicle and venture out deep into the desert. I could not at the time properly get in touch with my base feelings which were that venturing deep out into a desert in a piece of rented machinery that with a statistical certainty spends at least part of its time being broke down, was not only ill-advised but almost, I don't know (I think that's a dumb idea), incautious. Now though, thanks to this movie, I realize that I wasn't just being a hum drum fuddy-duddy for having these feelings but rather perhaps, prescient, and that protecting yourself and those in your party from being fondled, drooled on, executed and ultimately left to slowly rot and be picked apart like some delicacy, some rarebit for slobbering mutants, is an action possibly bordering on heroism.
Sure you can argue what's the point of living safely a life that ends anyway with you as worm-bait and I have to admit that I am currently not able to step to the dais and argue with any vehemence the benefits of life pursued safely, but I daresay that avoiding mutants in the desert is a course I think few would disagree with, excluding perhaps the occasional mutant bounty hunter.
One curious aspect of the 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes is that Northern Africa obviously contains a geography that is to the untrained eye very similar to the parts of the United States where we have done much of our nuclear testing. I did not think the scenery was exactly right for New Mexico or Nevada but did not until the closing credits realize that the movie was actually shot somewhere in a Morocco pretending to be the southwestern United States. The craggy, sometimes undulating hills did remind me of less spectacular parts of southern Utah, a place I have recently visited and after watching this movie's mutant freaks eat human flesh am transported back to in a way that puts me in touch with the uneasiness I felt when Bernadette suggested that next time perhaps we could rent a four-wheel drive vehicle and venture out deep into the desert. I could not at the time properly get in touch with my base feelings which were that venturing deep out into a desert in a piece of rented machinery that with a statistical certainty spends at least part of its time being broke down, was not only ill-advised but almost, I don't know (I think that's a dumb idea), incautious. Now though, thanks to this movie, I realize that I wasn't just being a hum drum fuddy-duddy for having these feelings but rather perhaps, prescient, and that protecting yourself and those in your party from being fondled, drooled on, executed and ultimately left to slowly rot and be picked apart like some delicacy, some rarebit for slobbering mutants, is an action possibly bordering on heroism.
Sure you can argue what's the point of living safely a life that ends anyway with you as worm-bait and I have to admit that I am currently not able to step to the dais and argue with any vehemence the benefits of life pursued safely, but I daresay that avoiding mutants in the desert is a course I think few would disagree with, excluding perhaps the occasional mutant bounty hunter.
What I Do
I had dinner last night with the area's most famous alleged armed robber. I brought the steaks and he cooked them over his little portable grill outside his hippie-fied earth berm dwelling while his hard working lawyer called thrice to gather facts and earn the 5 figures he will charge to free this most unlikely criminal of his most unlikely charge. Mr. BC awhile back gave me a bottle of Vodka hand delivered from Russia and this I also brought because the robbery happened in a liquor store and our friend of mistaken identity is understandably hesitant to enter such establishments until the case is resolved. The Vodka, brand Beluga, went down like reflected sunshine distilled from the idealized mountain spring. Or ice water that has never been pissed in, ever. That's what I'm going to say the next time I'm in a restaurant and asked if I want tap or bottled water. I would like the water that has certifiably never been pissed in I will say. I will notice that people ask me out to nicer restaurants with a diminishing frequency. What does that really fine Vodka taste like, ask me that. It tastes like liquid nothing, chilled. Perfect. How does it compare to a finer commercial vodka like Grey Goose? Try this. Eat seven spears of asparagus and wash it down with three black coffees. When you have to pee next, do it in a cup and then fill an eyedropper with the piss and measure three drops into a frosty cold shot of Beluga. Tell your guests it is Grey Goose.
I'm taking the rest of the day off just to celebrate surviving the unloading of a piece of furniture from a truck in which the driver was just a driver if he could get away with it (and until I slipped him a twenty he was going to get away with just being a driver). I knew I was in trouble when the guy said--there isn't any ramp. They had this chest of drawers in a cardboard box plus then surrounded by wood slats just like you see in the movies when cargo is unloaded onto the dock from a giant freighter. He said its not that heavy (but it was pretty heavy) and we would just slide it down to the ground from a distance that was bottom third of the crate at head level. I panicked briefly over the logistics and splinters of this not to mention pulverized toes and back gone out for good. Panic I think is always warranted but in this case just like many panic stricken moments not realized to their fullest portent(ial), a waste of time. Time is money but lately I don't spend much, charge much, or do much. At the restaurant when asked what type of water I want later someone will ask what I do. I'll say not fuckin much, what about you?
I had dinner last night with the area's most famous alleged armed robber. I brought the steaks and he cooked them over his little portable grill outside his hippie-fied earth berm dwelling while his hard working lawyer called thrice to gather facts and earn the 5 figures he will charge to free this most unlikely criminal of his most unlikely charge. Mr. BC awhile back gave me a bottle of Vodka hand delivered from Russia and this I also brought because the robbery happened in a liquor store and our friend of mistaken identity is understandably hesitant to enter such establishments until the case is resolved. The Vodka, brand Beluga, went down like reflected sunshine distilled from the idealized mountain spring. Or ice water that has never been pissed in, ever. That's what I'm going to say the next time I'm in a restaurant and asked if I want tap or bottled water. I would like the water that has certifiably never been pissed in I will say. I will notice that people ask me out to nicer restaurants with a diminishing frequency. What does that really fine Vodka taste like, ask me that. It tastes like liquid nothing, chilled. Perfect. How does it compare to a finer commercial vodka like Grey Goose? Try this. Eat seven spears of asparagus and wash it down with three black coffees. When you have to pee next, do it in a cup and then fill an eyedropper with the piss and measure three drops into a frosty cold shot of Beluga. Tell your guests it is Grey Goose.
I'm taking the rest of the day off just to celebrate surviving the unloading of a piece of furniture from a truck in which the driver was just a driver if he could get away with it (and until I slipped him a twenty he was going to get away with just being a driver). I knew I was in trouble when the guy said--there isn't any ramp. They had this chest of drawers in a cardboard box plus then surrounded by wood slats just like you see in the movies when cargo is unloaded onto the dock from a giant freighter. He said its not that heavy (but it was pretty heavy) and we would just slide it down to the ground from a distance that was bottom third of the crate at head level. I panicked briefly over the logistics and splinters of this not to mention pulverized toes and back gone out for good. Panic I think is always warranted but in this case just like many panic stricken moments not realized to their fullest portent(ial), a waste of time. Time is money but lately I don't spend much, charge much, or do much. At the restaurant when asked what type of water I want later someone will ask what I do. I'll say not fuckin much, what about you?
Hastening Of Nighttime
What I love (and by love I mean hate) is when you (and by you I mean I) start acting all prescient about common reality like the weather. For example like last week, in early December, it was crazy warm, or perfect really, daytime temps in the 60s and 70s, and I remarked, yeah boy, better enjoy these outdoors because next week it will probably be cold enough to pee an icicle. Well, it is now next week and cold enough to get your tongue stuck on a flagpole. Stupid dumb.
You know, the highs are not so bad but the 5 day shows lows every night in the upper teens and twenties and that to me is less than desirable. Added to this is this--sunrise at 7:19 and sunset at 4:46 (EST). I mean is that technically even a full day? I would say no by the reasoning that less than half the 24 hour period is lighted. We tend to associate day with light and therefore it would make better sense to me if we just called these less than half-lit days what they really are--nights. We could still use the word "day" to refer to, for example, number of days in a year and other general time classifications that make day the more natural word to use, and that less than 12 hour part of the night would still be daytime but the 24 hour parcel of time itself must I think, for these winter months, be called night.
I mean why can't we work on this a little? We have already tried to rearrange time with the farce of Daylight Savings Time, which quite obviously saves not one minute of time but rather just shifts the numbers on the clock so that we have nighttime arriving sooner, according to our man made time pieces. If it were me I would call it Hastening of Nighttime. Perhaps there is too much of the foreboding in that but isn't "Daylight Savings Time" a bit too cheerful and optimistic considering what it really means? DST is to me, even as it happens in Autumn, the "really really" end of summer and much of the fun that summer includes.
You know, when you're a kid the end of summer is the end of August because that or the beginning of September is when you start school again and nothing harshes the mellow of and puts an end to summer like school. But as you get older and become a so-called adult there is nothing quite so handy as the school year to delineate for you the seasons and your subsequent moods and so you roam the deserts of depression, unsure of yourself, woefully inadequate to the tasks at hand, until one day you wake up, realize that the day is actually a night, that your mood if ill is as much for any reason that way because you had things fundamentally mixed up.
You're straight now though. You can roll with it. All night long, until spring, when days again become days.
What I love (and by love I mean hate) is when you (and by you I mean I) start acting all prescient about common reality like the weather. For example like last week, in early December, it was crazy warm, or perfect really, daytime temps in the 60s and 70s, and I remarked, yeah boy, better enjoy these outdoors because next week it will probably be cold enough to pee an icicle. Well, it is now next week and cold enough to get your tongue stuck on a flagpole. Stupid dumb.
You know, the highs are not so bad but the 5 day shows lows every night in the upper teens and twenties and that to me is less than desirable. Added to this is this--sunrise at 7:19 and sunset at 4:46 (EST). I mean is that technically even a full day? I would say no by the reasoning that less than half the 24 hour period is lighted. We tend to associate day with light and therefore it would make better sense to me if we just called these less than half-lit days what they really are--nights. We could still use the word "day" to refer to, for example, number of days in a year and other general time classifications that make day the more natural word to use, and that less than 12 hour part of the night would still be daytime but the 24 hour parcel of time itself must I think, for these winter months, be called night.
I mean why can't we work on this a little? We have already tried to rearrange time with the farce of Daylight Savings Time, which quite obviously saves not one minute of time but rather just shifts the numbers on the clock so that we have nighttime arriving sooner, according to our man made time pieces. If it were me I would call it Hastening of Nighttime. Perhaps there is too much of the foreboding in that but isn't "Daylight Savings Time" a bit too cheerful and optimistic considering what it really means? DST is to me, even as it happens in Autumn, the "really really" end of summer and much of the fun that summer includes.
You know, when you're a kid the end of summer is the end of August because that or the beginning of September is when you start school again and nothing harshes the mellow of and puts an end to summer like school. But as you get older and become a so-called adult there is nothing quite so handy as the school year to delineate for you the seasons and your subsequent moods and so you roam the deserts of depression, unsure of yourself, woefully inadequate to the tasks at hand, until one day you wake up, realize that the day is actually a night, that your mood if ill is as much for any reason that way because you had things fundamentally mixed up.
You're straight now though. You can roll with it. All night long, until spring, when days again become days.
I Don't Want To Discuss Anything
It's not that hard to help a stranger when that is your intention but that was not my intention this afternoon, so the idea of helping someone became a thing almost loathsome to my considering of it. My intention was to carry Bernadette across some god awful distance away from this bucolic overkill into the hell of a newly designed sprung out of nowhere steroidal enhanced strip shopping center, in America, between Gainsville and Manassas, VA. A place of so many stores spread out over so many acres with fake cobblestone on grids leading to more stores hidden away lining quaint main streets of a wild west town except without saloons and dry goods stores but instead the ubiquitous gourmet coffee houses and bread stores, that's right I said bread stores. All the vehicles angled into spaces look more or less the same and new and shiny. When you leave a space someone else is always waiting to enter it and I can't help myself from thinking of making a living selling parking spaces to manic shoppers driving SUVs that cost more than every house I ever bought. What, you are questioning my math? I'm a bottom fisher real estate mogul, screw you. My parking spaces cost ten dollars.
I wasn't there yet, I was still close to home getting my mail at the PO next to the cafe caddy-cornered to the 5star of the stars and heads of state which is located near me, but still, believe what I tell you, in the middle of nowhere, that is if you are the type to judge a place as somewhere by its propensity for having anything resembling activity and life form.
Timing may or may not be everything and I may possess some beneficial aspect of it but not so much that I'll ever notice. Honestly I don't think I have it much. And not at all on this day unless helping this guy get from one place to another is my assigned mission in life, which frankly what the hell do I know, it may be, and as long as I'm asking questions why am I so put out by this absolutely miniscule act of kindness to this man whom I suspect will remain, despite my frequent run ins with, a total stranger to me. We will trade names and short personal histories on occasion and it will mean little or nothing to each of us, except to him a type of leverage...oh there I go pretending to know something about another when I have barely scratched the surface of myself. Forget it.
I don't believe I was the only human coming out of the PO at the time but I knew he would collar me, people just do, wherever I exist, asking me questions that are none of their business like which way you going? I mean really, think about it, the nerve of that guy asking me which way I'm going. I could see Bernadette sitting there in the vehicle innocently waiting on me, probably bored but not yet to the extent that it was causing her ulcers, and I had no way to signal, have not even gotten to the stage in the relationship with her where she would know that signals might ever be necessary. If I rub my leg or pull my ear and nod my head that means to dislocate your shoulder and writhe in pain or otherwise according to your judgment pretend to be in need of immediate medical care and so, no sir, I can't take you around the corner or up the road to old man Mitchell's, I have to get Bernadette to the doctor, and furthermore, get this, I don't want to discuss anything, no, not a bit of small talk, not about the condition of my vehicle or the reason for you needing a ride in the first place or the fact that your own vehicle had the starter stolen from it. When was that anyway? 1959? You're not fooling me mister, I know the only running vehicle you have is that riding lawn mower, on which you travel considerable distances, even on the highway and that you are so much considered a local character that even the rather aggressive highway patrolmen (I of course mean patrolpersons) in the area leave you alone.
Poor Bernadette, look at her writhing in pain and this guy caring not a bit about it. Callous bastard. Where is this man's compassion? Oh, no, it's always about him and where he needs to go.
There's another guy around who uses his thumb and the road to Culpeper as his own personal transportation system and I fell for it once, I believe it was the first week I arrived in this area, something like three years ago. But he stank and his reportage of personal drama was of no interest to me. There, my selfish motives revealed. I still see him occasionally but I just drive on by, experiencing that pang that has no real definition, but feels less than clean.
Heading down the road though, finally, having dropped the guy off and trying to pull away politely while he goes on and on--I can only see his lips moving now that he is outside the vehicle--about how nice is the 10 year old Jeep I am driving. This is crazy it comes to me, going off forty miles to eat Vietnamese. It seeps in and out of my consciousness as we drive through this sparsely populated part of Virginia and it really bangs up against my head when we hit the first significant population and just like the riding lawn-mower guy who bums rides there are alternate days when such a thing doesn't bug me. But this is one of the days it does. People. So many of us with questionable aims. Out and about because we can't face the inside. Wasting gas and clogging intersections.
And I wanted to do this. You have to shop occasionally. There are needed supplies. We were going for some after eating Vietnamese. I like the Vietnamese place because it feels like something I own, and it comforts me that the man is always there. I go away and come back months later, three years running, and the man is always there to greet me with at least the appearance of sincere appreciation for my patronage. Do you think that would be easy? Do you think you could do that, and not appear like a faker? Yes I want chopsticks, damn right I do sir, it is here I got over my fear of them.
There is this thing that is coming to me about all this. This ridiculous but thank God only periodic angst regarding the routines of life. Because this should all be fun. Being with Bernadette I like and she likes being with me, but there are shoppers everywhere now in America, in throngs as aggressive as fish with teeth, a phrasing I use only because my spell check for the fish you know I mean won't show up. I was never in advertising but I majored in it as a college dropout and that would be my slogan to sell these programs that can't spell what I mean--Software As Stupid As You. Another one I like is Buy My Shit, Make Me Rich. You can have that one, its a gift.
It's not that hard to help a stranger when that is your intention but that was not my intention this afternoon, so the idea of helping someone became a thing almost loathsome to my considering of it. My intention was to carry Bernadette across some god awful distance away from this bucolic overkill into the hell of a newly designed sprung out of nowhere steroidal enhanced strip shopping center, in America, between Gainsville and Manassas, VA. A place of so many stores spread out over so many acres with fake cobblestone on grids leading to more stores hidden away lining quaint main streets of a wild west town except without saloons and dry goods stores but instead the ubiquitous gourmet coffee houses and bread stores, that's right I said bread stores. All the vehicles angled into spaces look more or less the same and new and shiny. When you leave a space someone else is always waiting to enter it and I can't help myself from thinking of making a living selling parking spaces to manic shoppers driving SUVs that cost more than every house I ever bought. What, you are questioning my math? I'm a bottom fisher real estate mogul, screw you. My parking spaces cost ten dollars.
I wasn't there yet, I was still close to home getting my mail at the PO next to the cafe caddy-cornered to the 5star of the stars and heads of state which is located near me, but still, believe what I tell you, in the middle of nowhere, that is if you are the type to judge a place as somewhere by its propensity for having anything resembling activity and life form.
Timing may or may not be everything and I may possess some beneficial aspect of it but not so much that I'll ever notice. Honestly I don't think I have it much. And not at all on this day unless helping this guy get from one place to another is my assigned mission in life, which frankly what the hell do I know, it may be, and as long as I'm asking questions why am I so put out by this absolutely miniscule act of kindness to this man whom I suspect will remain, despite my frequent run ins with, a total stranger to me. We will trade names and short personal histories on occasion and it will mean little or nothing to each of us, except to him a type of leverage...oh there I go pretending to know something about another when I have barely scratched the surface of myself. Forget it.
I don't believe I was the only human coming out of the PO at the time but I knew he would collar me, people just do, wherever I exist, asking me questions that are none of their business like which way you going? I mean really, think about it, the nerve of that guy asking me which way I'm going. I could see Bernadette sitting there in the vehicle innocently waiting on me, probably bored but not yet to the extent that it was causing her ulcers, and I had no way to signal, have not even gotten to the stage in the relationship with her where she would know that signals might ever be necessary. If I rub my leg or pull my ear and nod my head that means to dislocate your shoulder and writhe in pain or otherwise according to your judgment pretend to be in need of immediate medical care and so, no sir, I can't take you around the corner or up the road to old man Mitchell's, I have to get Bernadette to the doctor, and furthermore, get this, I don't want to discuss anything, no, not a bit of small talk, not about the condition of my vehicle or the reason for you needing a ride in the first place or the fact that your own vehicle had the starter stolen from it. When was that anyway? 1959? You're not fooling me mister, I know the only running vehicle you have is that riding lawn mower, on which you travel considerable distances, even on the highway and that you are so much considered a local character that even the rather aggressive highway patrolmen (I of course mean patrolpersons) in the area leave you alone.
Poor Bernadette, look at her writhing in pain and this guy caring not a bit about it. Callous bastard. Where is this man's compassion? Oh, no, it's always about him and where he needs to go.
There's another guy around who uses his thumb and the road to Culpeper as his own personal transportation system and I fell for it once, I believe it was the first week I arrived in this area, something like three years ago. But he stank and his reportage of personal drama was of no interest to me. There, my selfish motives revealed. I still see him occasionally but I just drive on by, experiencing that pang that has no real definition, but feels less than clean.
Heading down the road though, finally, having dropped the guy off and trying to pull away politely while he goes on and on--I can only see his lips moving now that he is outside the vehicle--about how nice is the 10 year old Jeep I am driving. This is crazy it comes to me, going off forty miles to eat Vietnamese. It seeps in and out of my consciousness as we drive through this sparsely populated part of Virginia and it really bangs up against my head when we hit the first significant population and just like the riding lawn-mower guy who bums rides there are alternate days when such a thing doesn't bug me. But this is one of the days it does. People. So many of us with questionable aims. Out and about because we can't face the inside. Wasting gas and clogging intersections.
And I wanted to do this. You have to shop occasionally. There are needed supplies. We were going for some after eating Vietnamese. I like the Vietnamese place because it feels like something I own, and it comforts me that the man is always there. I go away and come back months later, three years running, and the man is always there to greet me with at least the appearance of sincere appreciation for my patronage. Do you think that would be easy? Do you think you could do that, and not appear like a faker? Yes I want chopsticks, damn right I do sir, it is here I got over my fear of them.
There is this thing that is coming to me about all this. This ridiculous but thank God only periodic angst regarding the routines of life. Because this should all be fun. Being with Bernadette I like and she likes being with me, but there are shoppers everywhere now in America, in throngs as aggressive as fish with teeth, a phrasing I use only because my spell check for the fish you know I mean won't show up. I was never in advertising but I majored in it as a college dropout and that would be my slogan to sell these programs that can't spell what I mean--Software As Stupid As You. Another one I like is Buy My Shit, Make Me Rich. You can have that one, its a gift.
Some People Must Go To Hell
I left the farm and came to Northern VA to facilitate with paint the separating of two feuding Jr. BC's.
Mrs. BC said of course eat anything you can find but when people say that they don't really mean it. I am eating every damn thing. I am not at all responsible for what people really mean. They, the whole BC clan, were barely out the driveway on their way to holiday fun before I devoured the two pieces of pumpkin pie. And ohmydeargod, there's whipped cream in a can. It can get away from you but cleans up nicely.
Mr. BC, a giant of business and active participant in the raising of three adolescent boys, can't seem to understand why I won't do the little things he asks of me, like photo-documenting a damn gazebo, and delivering a damn electronic device to a man who will never use it (and the man said as much when I finally did deliver it.) Anyway, I frankly forgot about the device, being as I was in full seasonal descent into a depressive state of hibernation and temporary loathing of humanity in its entirety. As for the gazebo, well, my neat little camera ceased to work the minute I drove over it with the Jeep. He's probably wondering right now, reading this, well, are you at least feeding my fish?
You are dear limited readership possibly picturing this giant of business type, with his palatial homes, one, gated in the burbs, one in the country and one at the beach, finding his much deserved relaxation with his hobby, exotic fish, which he cares for in a tank that covers a whole wall. But actually what you will find is a fish bowl in his bathroom with one goldfish in it. Mind you, the bowl is a bit oversized and the goldfish is getting bigger over time so as to imply an actual living fish instead of one of those neat little toy fish in a fishbowl which simulate fishiness pretty well without exuding all that other organic matter, and for my money....
I only bring all this up about the fish so that I can say, yes, I'm feeding it. However no would be my answer to your question--is he doing well, is he happy, does he move around his cloudy bowl with happy reckless abandon? Do you think he misses me?
On a more cheerful note let me say this--I haven't killed the cats, yet.
In fact the cats are apparently warming up to me and for the first time in three years I have actually been permitted to pet one of them, FiFi I think. And while Pounce does not seem overwhelmed by his love for me, at least he doesn't cower in abject fear every time I enter the room. So that's some good news I think you will agree.
While we're on the subject of FiFi though I should like to ask is it normal for a big tuft of hair to be sticking out like something you are tempted to remove but in my case won't because I'm afraid of an arterial spurting over carpet and walls or the other thing I imagined possible was the deflating and whizzing about the room of a cat shaped air balloon?
Actually, don't worry about any of these things. Today is your day for feasting and relaxation with family and I know you never get a break from work because I can to my right see the middle one of your three gigantic flat panel moniters and it is keeping a running total of only one of your email inboxes and it shows this morning a total of 159 for the last two days or so. You may be the only person I know who gets more personal/business email in a day than spam, although I'm sure in many cases the difference between those two categories is nominal. You should tell some of those people to go to hell.
I left the farm and came to Northern VA to facilitate with paint the separating of two feuding Jr. BC's.
Mrs. BC said of course eat anything you can find but when people say that they don't really mean it. I am eating every damn thing. I am not at all responsible for what people really mean. They, the whole BC clan, were barely out the driveway on their way to holiday fun before I devoured the two pieces of pumpkin pie. And ohmydeargod, there's whipped cream in a can. It can get away from you but cleans up nicely.
Mr. BC, a giant of business and active participant in the raising of three adolescent boys, can't seem to understand why I won't do the little things he asks of me, like photo-documenting a damn gazebo, and delivering a damn electronic device to a man who will never use it (and the man said as much when I finally did deliver it.) Anyway, I frankly forgot about the device, being as I was in full seasonal descent into a depressive state of hibernation and temporary loathing of humanity in its entirety. As for the gazebo, well, my neat little camera ceased to work the minute I drove over it with the Jeep. He's probably wondering right now, reading this, well, are you at least feeding my fish?
You are dear limited readership possibly picturing this giant of business type, with his palatial homes, one, gated in the burbs, one in the country and one at the beach, finding his much deserved relaxation with his hobby, exotic fish, which he cares for in a tank that covers a whole wall. But actually what you will find is a fish bowl in his bathroom with one goldfish in it. Mind you, the bowl is a bit oversized and the goldfish is getting bigger over time so as to imply an actual living fish instead of one of those neat little toy fish in a fishbowl which simulate fishiness pretty well without exuding all that other organic matter, and for my money....
I only bring all this up about the fish so that I can say, yes, I'm feeding it. However no would be my answer to your question--is he doing well, is he happy, does he move around his cloudy bowl with happy reckless abandon? Do you think he misses me?
On a more cheerful note let me say this--I haven't killed the cats, yet.
In fact the cats are apparently warming up to me and for the first time in three years I have actually been permitted to pet one of them, FiFi I think. And while Pounce does not seem overwhelmed by his love for me, at least he doesn't cower in abject fear every time I enter the room. So that's some good news I think you will agree.
While we're on the subject of FiFi though I should like to ask is it normal for a big tuft of hair to be sticking out like something you are tempted to remove but in my case won't because I'm afraid of an arterial spurting over carpet and walls or the other thing I imagined possible was the deflating and whizzing about the room of a cat shaped air balloon?
Actually, don't worry about any of these things. Today is your day for feasting and relaxation with family and I know you never get a break from work because I can to my right see the middle one of your three gigantic flat panel moniters and it is keeping a running total of only one of your email inboxes and it shows this morning a total of 159 for the last two days or so. You may be the only person I know who gets more personal/business email in a day than spam, although I'm sure in many cases the difference between those two categories is nominal. You should tell some of those people to go to hell.
What Jules Verns Said
If what Jules Verne said is true, that--"Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real," then I would like to proclaim that I can hardly imagine a statement with more horrifying implication.
For example I imagined this morning being tried as a mass murderer in a court of law run by giant pissed off mice. That is, the courtroom gallery was full of giant pissed off mice whereas the ruling body of the courtroom, the judge and the prosecution team and my own defense team, were rather placid in their demeanors. This placidity combined with the English barrister wigs they wore atop their heads added an element of reality to the rather un-real and absurd scene of a courtroom run by mice.
In the gallery I could see the ones that got away, damning me with their presence as sure as any ace mouse prosecutor ever could. They all sat together: that one missing its tail, and that one its arm, and that one most of its hindquarter. And oh my god, look at the bent and mangled snout on that one. As if these exhibits were not enough, the eight foot tall carved wooden doors at the back of the room burst open and the most damning exhibit of all came to our attention. A mouse lying on a spring trap retrofitted with wheels, its midsection harshly folded by the spring bar, an oxygen mask over its whiskered face and the tank strapped hinder. An IV fluid bottle hung from an attached vertical rod front and center. The mouse propelled itself with two sticks used like oars. To their bottoms were attached rubber pads for gripping.
There's really only one way to escape this Jules Verne-ian nightmare of imagined potential and that is to just stop the imagining. I mean come on, if you can't imagine anything better than that.../if you can't say something nice.../think orchids, not onions.
But you know, I can't help imagining what I would be like up there, on the stand, in the seat, given the chance to. Would I be the belligerent dictator-type, cussing my captors and declaring myself superior in all ways, that my killing was justified? Would I scream that MY god had given me dominion over all you little insignificant, disease carrying, rodent bitches? Or would I blame it on my superior officers? I was just doing as ordered I would say as melee broke out in the courtroom, traps smeared with peanut butter flying like V-2s across great distance and some landing near me, their clicking explosions sending dabs of peanut butter in arcs across my vision, and others, the direct hits, clamping shut on my girly-long hair, my ear lobes, my eye lids, and finally, to the ecstatic cheering of all, the trap that clamps shut on my nose. When I look over at the mouse judge he is solemnly shaking his head. I've heard enough, he says, duct tape shut the mouth of that fulminator, and let's see what thunder now comes forth?
If what Jules Verne said is true, that--"Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real," then I would like to proclaim that I can hardly imagine a statement with more horrifying implication.
For example I imagined this morning being tried as a mass murderer in a court of law run by giant pissed off mice. That is, the courtroom gallery was full of giant pissed off mice whereas the ruling body of the courtroom, the judge and the prosecution team and my own defense team, were rather placid in their demeanors. This placidity combined with the English barrister wigs they wore atop their heads added an element of reality to the rather un-real and absurd scene of a courtroom run by mice.
In the gallery I could see the ones that got away, damning me with their presence as sure as any ace mouse prosecutor ever could. They all sat together: that one missing its tail, and that one its arm, and that one most of its hindquarter. And oh my god, look at the bent and mangled snout on that one. As if these exhibits were not enough, the eight foot tall carved wooden doors at the back of the room burst open and the most damning exhibit of all came to our attention. A mouse lying on a spring trap retrofitted with wheels, its midsection harshly folded by the spring bar, an oxygen mask over its whiskered face and the tank strapped hinder. An IV fluid bottle hung from an attached vertical rod front and center. The mouse propelled itself with two sticks used like oars. To their bottoms were attached rubber pads for gripping.
There's really only one way to escape this Jules Verne-ian nightmare of imagined potential and that is to just stop the imagining. I mean come on, if you can't imagine anything better than that.../if you can't say something nice.../think orchids, not onions.
But you know, I can't help imagining what I would be like up there, on the stand, in the seat, given the chance to. Would I be the belligerent dictator-type, cussing my captors and declaring myself superior in all ways, that my killing was justified? Would I scream that MY god had given me dominion over all you little insignificant, disease carrying, rodent bitches? Or would I blame it on my superior officers? I was just doing as ordered I would say as melee broke out in the courtroom, traps smeared with peanut butter flying like V-2s across great distance and some landing near me, their clicking explosions sending dabs of peanut butter in arcs across my vision, and others, the direct hits, clamping shut on my girly-long hair, my ear lobes, my eye lids, and finally, to the ecstatic cheering of all, the trap that clamps shut on my nose. When I look over at the mouse judge he is solemnly shaking his head. I've heard enough, he says, duct tape shut the mouth of that fulminator, and let's see what thunder now comes forth?
Where I Live
Five months ago I returned here to Mt. Pleasant from New Orleans and during that time an ambitious project was occurring which required that workers from the city stay in the cottage of yours truly, the caretaker. The project included some moving of dirt around and some plantings, the building of a stone wall or two and a gazebo with attached fireplace and adjacent bocce court.
I lived in the bighouse during that time and although it is not without its charm the bighouse is no place for a caretaker. So I have moved back into the cottage this weekend, after some cleaning and airing out and the moving of my bed to the room across the hall, which now gives me clear view of the long gravel driveway so that I can shoot the air out of your tires if you approach without invitation, and there is better light in the room across the hall, so that I don't suffer from the ills of sunlight deprivation and descend into a spiral of madness and crotchety behaviour, even as giving in to such would seemingly befit my station as caretaker.
And further, being now a couple of hundred yards downhill from the bighouse is a thing not causing me grief for this reason: the bighouse is haunted--there is in the night the constant clanking of heavy chains and ghouls dressed in moldy-smelling, tattered Civil War uniforms of both Confederate and Union stripe, roam the halls at night, gurgling insults at each other in a past dialect sounding part foreign and part recognizable. Fanged glistening black snakes the size of anacondas slither down the bannisters as morning light comes bringing what one would hope is a world less frightening. When dawn relinquishes her hold on night and accepts fully that coming orb too bright to see the snakes squeeze themselves most unreasonably under that sliver of space beneath the basement door and disappear, but still haunting as effectively in my memory as in fact, if the sensibilities of fact are even worth considering after five months of living in a haunted house, high on a hill in Virginia.
Five months ago I returned here to Mt. Pleasant from New Orleans and during that time an ambitious project was occurring which required that workers from the city stay in the cottage of yours truly, the caretaker. The project included some moving of dirt around and some plantings, the building of a stone wall or two and a gazebo with attached fireplace and adjacent bocce court.
I lived in the bighouse during that time and although it is not without its charm the bighouse is no place for a caretaker. So I have moved back into the cottage this weekend, after some cleaning and airing out and the moving of my bed to the room across the hall, which now gives me clear view of the long gravel driveway so that I can shoot the air out of your tires if you approach without invitation, and there is better light in the room across the hall, so that I don't suffer from the ills of sunlight deprivation and descend into a spiral of madness and crotchety behaviour, even as giving in to such would seemingly befit my station as caretaker.
And further, being now a couple of hundred yards downhill from the bighouse is a thing not causing me grief for this reason: the bighouse is haunted--there is in the night the constant clanking of heavy chains and ghouls dressed in moldy-smelling, tattered Civil War uniforms of both Confederate and Union stripe, roam the halls at night, gurgling insults at each other in a past dialect sounding part foreign and part recognizable. Fanged glistening black snakes the size of anacondas slither down the bannisters as morning light comes bringing what one would hope is a world less frightening. When dawn relinquishes her hold on night and accepts fully that coming orb too bright to see the snakes squeeze themselves most unreasonably under that sliver of space beneath the basement door and disappear, but still haunting as effectively in my memory as in fact, if the sensibilities of fact are even worth considering after five months of living in a haunted house, high on a hill in Virginia.