Hear What?
One day several weeks ago I explored head on the potentially harrowing risk of human interaction and left the property in search of ice cream. As I drove down the hill I saw a vehicle parked off road by the pond and its occupant standing by the fence a hundred yards away. The vehicle was a late model foreign-made family hauling vehicle, dark blue, and the woman an American, of healthy appearance, not showing distress of any kind, and at home in her trespassing. As caretaker it would be necessary to scold this bold trespasser but as I saw no reason to be abusive or threatening--even though to be so would be well within my job description--I stayed in my Jeep and waited patiently for the woman to finish whatever the hell it was she was doing over there along the north fence. I stared straight ahead and therefore missed the woman waving to me in a fashion which if seen would have implied friendliness, perhaps even familiarity.
If for long periods you refrain from exposing yourself to other people even friends and family can appear, upon new viewings, to seem intimidatingly unfamiliar. How dare this woman park on the grass. Is she challenging me? And what, in holy hell, is she doing over by the fence? She began to walk towards me.
As it turned out it was one of my bosses, Mrs. BC, come out to meet a contractor or deliver some new piece of furniture, but when she first arrived she had heard a ringing over in the direction of that fence and had gone over to investigate. Thinking that the ringing was someone's alarm and that she might perhaps save them and subsequently have a parade thrown in her honor--the townspeople lining the street weeping for joy, so happy to have in their midsts one so courageous--she had me follow her back over to the fence so that I could hear the alarm. I couldn't hear it. Are you sure? Yes, quite.
I'm not always so literally minded nor am I above playing along with people who hear things or for that matter people who see things but in this case I thought it best to admit only to hearing things that I could in fact hear. Mrs. BC is the mother of three and it would do no one any good if I were to coddle her in these early stages of whatever mental disorder can be implied from the onset of auditory hallucinations.
Mrs. BC though was not ready to give up so easily on a parade thrown in her honor and attended by all 150 full time residents of the town, which would break the record for the number who attended the annual Christmas parade. She was not at all impressed by the fact that I don't hear things. It could be that the sun was slanted just so that day and that she could see the fulsome crop of hair clogging my ears which thus rendered any acoustical opinions I might have to be utterly without merit.
She suggested we drive over a few blocks to a road that runs parallel to the north fence because now she believed she was smelling smoke. I could see how badly she wanted that parade so I didn't bring up the fact that most everybody has a burn pile going this time of year. I might later be telling a concerned Mr. BC--at least we can discount the olfactory hallucination. We drove as far down the road as we could before becoming trespassers, and got out to listen. She could still hear it. You can hear that now, right? No, I swear to God I cannot. When she suggested that maybe she was crazy I, out of respect, said nothing. We drove over to the next parallel block and found the burn pile which blew smoke towards the north fence and Mrs. BC was now ready to admit defeat as the image of adoring, cheering, happily weeping townspeople faded to black. Let's go back she said, and we did. A tree man came out shortly after that and she got his opinion and diagnosis regarding trees.
The thing is, now, on a pretty regular basis, I can hear that ringing, all the way up at the cottage, which is more or less in line with the spot where Mrs. BC first stood by the fence, pretending to be an interloper. I don't know what it is but it can be mildly annoying. If it is a fire alarm I wish the building would burn down already. I did eventually get ice cream that day. It wasn't very good. I still have some of it in the freezer. Butter pecan should have pecans in it but this brand didn't have a single pecan.
...more recent posts
They Called Him Fuzzy
You've seen along congested roadways those ubiquitous billboards for apartment complexes that says “If you lived here you'd be home by now? There may be soon springing up new ones that says “If you lived here you're not dead. The billboard's background would consist of a mushroom cloud and I think you know what that means. Around here some rural towns are being touted as new hots spots by reason of being cold spots, that is radioactively speaking. These towns are close enough to DC that you can justify commuting to work there (if you don't mind every day spending countless hours in your vehicle and being dependent on foreign oil and probably going to hell for it regardless of your proximity to the ground zero of a nuclear blast.) Don't let the fact that the FBI and other government agencies are setting up fairly fleshy skeleton crews inside satellite offices outside the "blast zone" set you on edge. These movements are described as precautionary and should be seen as such and should in no way lead DC area residents to cower in abject fear of the impending doom and destruction wrought by nuclear warheads from extremist nations raining down and wiping out the city and everyone you love the way we know it can because of our impressive testing in the field, especially the two in Japan. Talk to people inside a potential blast zone and you will get the full range of response. There are those that don't want to survive a nuclear blast and act as though even having one go off within a hundred miles of them is reason enough to just throw in the towel for all humanity. And there are those who fully expect it to happen and are preparing accordingly with safe rooms, bunkers, and stored away provisions. Of course another large group, and the one to which I belong, can see it happening but are in no real way preparing for it and might just be hoping for the best, that is, that it happens on the day after I get my bottled water delivery but before I drink all the full and partial bottles of hard liquor leftover from the Christmas party that I just carted away from Mr. BC's city house, for safe keeping out here at the farm. Liquor left in my charge for safe keeping is my one sincere attempt at humor for this day. Hah, I laugh into the face of nuclear annihilation ( I live outside the blast zone AND I haven't even broken the seal on the 16 year old single malt.) . Let me bring it down a notch and with great sadness report that the grey-striped carcass seen last week lying stiff along the side of Main St. may in fact be the cat known to its owner as Fuzzy, but to me these last few weeks, before the local paper's missing Fuzzy story and then the week after the possibly dead Fuzzy story, during which I contemplated cat ownership by kidnapping, was known as LaDainian, even though I never actually got to say “here LaDainian, come on kitty, kitty, kitty. LaDainian, get off that table, is too, something I never got to say. In my brief association with the cat once thought missing but now thought dead I had him up in both houses, the bighouse and the cottage, and he proved both curious and friendly and to my knowledge not a furniture-shredder. LaDainian, known to some as Fuzzy, is survived by the many of us who considered stealing him and also his actual owner, a local businesswoman. The businesswoman's ex-husband, a nationally syndicated Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, was not available for comment, nor is it known or even suspected by those of us who possess barely a scrap of knowledge regarding his life and work, whether or not he had any predilection towards cats.
You've seen along congested roadways those ubiquitous billboards for apartment complexes that says “If you lived here you'd be home by now? There may be soon springing up new ones that says “If you lived here you're not dead. The billboard's background would consist of a mushroom cloud and I think you know what that means. Around here some rural towns are being touted as new hots spots by reason of being cold spots, that is radioactively speaking. These towns are close enough to DC that you can justify commuting to work there (if you don't mind every day spending countless hours in your vehicle and being dependent on foreign oil and probably going to hell for it regardless of your proximity to the ground zero of a nuclear blast.) Don't let the fact that the FBI and other government agencies are setting up fairly fleshy skeleton crews inside satellite offices outside the "blast zone" set you on edge. These movements are described as precautionary and should be seen as such and should in no way lead DC area residents to cower in abject fear of the impending doom and destruction wrought by nuclear warheads from extremist nations raining down and wiping out the city and everyone you love the way we know it can because of our impressive testing in the field, especially the two in Japan. Talk to people inside a potential blast zone and you will get the full range of response. There are those that don't want to survive a nuclear blast and act as though even having one go off within a hundred miles of them is reason enough to just throw in the towel for all humanity. And there are those who fully expect it to happen and are preparing accordingly with safe rooms, bunkers, and stored away provisions. Of course another large group, and the one to which I belong, can see it happening but are in no real way preparing for it and might just be hoping for the best, that is, that it happens on the day after I get my bottled water delivery but before I drink all the full and partial bottles of hard liquor leftover from the Christmas party that I just carted away from Mr. BC's city house, for safe keeping out here at the farm. Liquor left in my charge for safe keeping is my one sincere attempt at humor for this day. Hah, I laugh into the face of nuclear annihilation ( I live outside the blast zone AND I haven't even broken the seal on the 16 year old single malt.) . Let me bring it down a notch and with great sadness report that the grey-striped carcass seen last week lying stiff along the side of Main St. may in fact be the cat known to its owner as Fuzzy, but to me these last few weeks, before the local paper's missing Fuzzy story and then the week after the possibly dead Fuzzy story, during which I contemplated cat ownership by kidnapping, was known as LaDainian, even though I never actually got to say “here LaDainian, come on kitty, kitty, kitty. LaDainian, get off that table, is too, something I never got to say. In my brief association with the cat once thought missing but now thought dead I had him up in both houses, the bighouse and the cottage, and he proved both curious and friendly and to my knowledge not a furniture-shredder. LaDainian, known to some as Fuzzy, is survived by the many of us who considered stealing him and also his actual owner, a local businesswoman. The businesswoman's ex-husband, a nationally syndicated Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, was not available for comment, nor is it known or even suspected by those of us who possess barely a scrap of knowledge regarding his life and work, whether or not he had any predilection towards cats.
No Help For The Homeless
Bernadette said ask no questions when on the way to Katz's we passed a downtrodden man unlocking "his" bicycle cable with a pair of bolt-cutters.
The next day, like the most recent Miss USA "caught up in the whirlwind of New York," I found myself discussing needles with a Midtown Manhattan man in a spartan cubicle ten stories up. He was very professional about it, asking me if I'd ever used the needles before and I confessed that I had never. He assured me that they were the finest sterile and disposable one time use needles and that if I would initial here and sign there we could begin with a procedure that would have me lying prone on a table while the man hammered gently, needles into my flesh. I don't know why I had to drag Miss USA into my ill-conceived analogy but there it is.
Walking back Downtown I got behind the clopping cadence of a high-booted woman and trailed her for blocks until it suddenly hit me that I was tapped into her high-heeling drumbeat and therefore a bit of a stalker, and at that moment was sure she thought the same, so I passed her and stayed in front long enough to show her a thing or two about what it feels like to be a stalker, before turning left on St. Marks to Ave A and then right, continuing Downtown.
Two nights ago killing time before meeting Alice and Cassady for dinner Bernadette showed me around the part of town above the one where we would eat and I saw diamonds and fur coats and the giant Christmas tree and the giant toy store next to the glass cube across from Bergdorf's. On the way back down to eat we passed through Grand Central Station and looked around and up, it's hard not to look up, and discussed acoustics. Bernadette showed me the four corners of a hallway/foyer that one person can whisper into and then a person 50 feet away in the opposite diagonal corner can hear the whispered words. The sound evidently travels up the corner and then up the curving vault of the ceiling and back down the other side. She said it was a goofy touristy thing to do but has enough self-confidence to pull it off whereas I could not talk into a corner, as much because I know they have really cracked down on the babbling homeless freaks of Grand Central as because I lack the self-confidence. Not to mention standing with my face towards the corner reminded me of the minor but obviously lasting shame of grade school punishments. I do believe though that I heard her say can you hear me? And when I asked her in person did you say can you hear me she said yes. So there's that, which leads to this.
Still walking, on Ave A a couple of blocks before Houston and a bearded, aged bum is bent at the waist, with his face towards the sidewalk. He is the letter L fallen forward. He's groaning out the first notes of an unknown yet to be heralded opera and also it seems that he may be near ready to vomit. Or is he choking? It's rush hour and he is missing his chance for handouts from the passersby. I have walked 25 blocks by now and passed thousands of people and this man is the single most compelling example of humanity I have yet seen. He tells so much of the story with the least effort. But I don't really want to interact with him or God forbid get close enough for him to breathe on me or touch me. I'm glad he didn't see me looking at him, or at least I think he didn't. It does feel as if he may have eyes in the top of his head, looking at me glancing at him. When I am just past him, and perhaps in line with a certain pattern of cracks in the sidewalk, I am able or think I am able to hear a whispered message which in addition to being unintelligible has the unique quality of blotting out all other sound. As if the man is talking only to me, his sour breath hot and close and curling the hairs grown too long in my ears, except I am 30 feet away from him by now. He wanted some kind of help but before I knew it I was at Houston watching a kid push his bike across the wide intersection against that particular red light which is as good as the green one.
Bernadette said ask no questions when on the way to Katz's we passed a downtrodden man unlocking "his" bicycle cable with a pair of bolt-cutters.
The next day, like the most recent Miss USA "caught up in the whirlwind of New York," I found myself discussing needles with a Midtown Manhattan man in a spartan cubicle ten stories up. He was very professional about it, asking me if I'd ever used the needles before and I confessed that I had never. He assured me that they were the finest sterile and disposable one time use needles and that if I would initial here and sign there we could begin with a procedure that would have me lying prone on a table while the man hammered gently, needles into my flesh. I don't know why I had to drag Miss USA into my ill-conceived analogy but there it is.
Walking back Downtown I got behind the clopping cadence of a high-booted woman and trailed her for blocks until it suddenly hit me that I was tapped into her high-heeling drumbeat and therefore a bit of a stalker, and at that moment was sure she thought the same, so I passed her and stayed in front long enough to show her a thing or two about what it feels like to be a stalker, before turning left on St. Marks to Ave A and then right, continuing Downtown.
Two nights ago killing time before meeting Alice and Cassady for dinner Bernadette showed me around the part of town above the one where we would eat and I saw diamonds and fur coats and the giant Christmas tree and the giant toy store next to the glass cube across from Bergdorf's. On the way back down to eat we passed through Grand Central Station and looked around and up, it's hard not to look up, and discussed acoustics. Bernadette showed me the four corners of a hallway/foyer that one person can whisper into and then a person 50 feet away in the opposite diagonal corner can hear the whispered words. The sound evidently travels up the corner and then up the curving vault of the ceiling and back down the other side. She said it was a goofy touristy thing to do but has enough self-confidence to pull it off whereas I could not talk into a corner, as much because I know they have really cracked down on the babbling homeless freaks of Grand Central as because I lack the self-confidence. Not to mention standing with my face towards the corner reminded me of the minor but obviously lasting shame of grade school punishments. I do believe though that I heard her say can you hear me? And when I asked her in person did you say can you hear me she said yes. So there's that, which leads to this.
Still walking, on Ave A a couple of blocks before Houston and a bearded, aged bum is bent at the waist, with his face towards the sidewalk. He is the letter L fallen forward. He's groaning out the first notes of an unknown yet to be heralded opera and also it seems that he may be near ready to vomit. Or is he choking? It's rush hour and he is missing his chance for handouts from the passersby. I have walked 25 blocks by now and passed thousands of people and this man is the single most compelling example of humanity I have yet seen. He tells so much of the story with the least effort. But I don't really want to interact with him or God forbid get close enough for him to breathe on me or touch me. I'm glad he didn't see me looking at him, or at least I think he didn't. It does feel as if he may have eyes in the top of his head, looking at me glancing at him. When I am just past him, and perhaps in line with a certain pattern of cracks in the sidewalk, I am able or think I am able to hear a whispered message which in addition to being unintelligible has the unique quality of blotting out all other sound. As if the man is talking only to me, his sour breath hot and close and curling the hairs grown too long in my ears, except I am 30 feet away from him by now. He wanted some kind of help but before I knew it I was at Houston watching a kid push his bike across the wide intersection against that particular red light which is as good as the green one.
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.
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.
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.