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Ten Times Better Or Worse
Where you start from is important. I was in a bar for dinner last night and four of us were positioned such that we could have been friends if in fact we were not complete strangers. Three men, one woman. The woman was drinking beer and an occasional novelty drink that disparaged the nationality responsible for most of my favorite alcohol drinks.
The man on my right soon bowed out after the man on my left started making nice with the woman across from me.
The man on my left was the alpha-male and down about the bottom of stout number one I become the fly on the wall instead of a human being. He and she exchanged enthusiasms about the mundane and I thought but for the grace of self-consciousness go I.
After the man and woman came down from the initial exhilaration of "hey, look at us talking like old friends" the man went into an apparently non-exhaustive litany of have you been to this bar or that bar and the woman for the most part, hadn't.
The bartender brought my burger and with apparent sincerity said doesn't that look good, and it did look good, in fact it looked much better than it tasted.
The bartender says Ricky Williams quit football to smoke pot and I said oh give the guy a break, that's too much an over-simplification. I have never been a huge RW fan but I like him for being a quitter, laying on beaches around the world, being nice to his kids, contributing to communities and saying FU to a sport that given its own natural order would have chewed him up and spit him out.
The woman across from me I knew from listening had a kid and when she said don't you think he has a responsibility to sports-loving children not to promote pot-smoking I realized a chance to make points by saying yes but I said no, I don't think he has that responsibility.
The alpha-male was acting all dumb like he didn't know what was going on and I could only suppose he did not follow football so I queried him on this and he got a little snippy, like of course I follow football, I'm a beer drinking alpha-male. I filled him in on the specifics. He got rolling and a little steamy and red in the face and said don't you think maybe he's just looking for press coverage so he can promote his lifestyle and make more money...and I'm like, no I don't think that, and he gets a little more steamed and I say hey chill mane, and he says all Mr. America now, that he doesn't know anything about pot and I say well it ain't nothin, I can school ya if you like. This got a chuckle from the woman and a hand-waving, head-shaking, no, no, no, from the alpha-male.
So Ricky Williams has personality disorders. So he likes pot. So he has personal experience which allows him to compare the prescription anti-depression drug, Paxil, to marijuana, and proclaim that the weed is tens times better for him. Your kids will get over this.
The bartender also thought Ricky had responsiblity to the kids, not to be a pot-smoking drop-out. It's not that every once in awhile you should consider that everything you know is wrong, you should consider it every morning.
BigHouse Mouse
I have set up these gadgets two nights in a row. The way these gadgets work is you spread a little bait, I use peanut butter, on a metallic part that is connected to a metal arm that holds in check this spring mechanized noninvasive guillotine arm that actually works more like a catapult from hell, and when working properly, will snap almost in two the neck of the rodent in your kitchen. Sometimes it gets him by the tail and you have to chase the panicked clacking around the house for awhile before your work is done.
But I come up here in the morning from my mouseless, cat-occupied dwelling down the hill and the metal part is licked clean of peanut butter and the trap is unsprung.
I could bring the cat up here (even though the owners don't really want cats up in here) and set him loose hoping he still has a bit of the hunter spirit. Though it may be that the only thing he is hunting at this point in his life is time. The time when I pour his kibbles into a bowl in the morning. Or the time at night when I play kung fu warrior with him.
Alas, this is the nature of what I now consider travail, the unsprung trap, a mild (frankly non-existent) resentment towards the well-fed mouse, so let it all be considered fine and good.
F Me
I'm down by the road in front of a palatial estate power sanding fence and drinking beer in the early evening and people drive by and wave but I can't see them that well because my goggles are fogged over and paint chips are stuck to the fog so for all I know the people may be shooting me the finger.
The bus driver stopped by earlier and asked me if I was the owner, which was a nice opening because then after he left I imagined myself the owner for a few minutes and it wasn't all bad. I am replacing rotted fence rails (and sanding and painting) and he wanted to know what I was doing with the discarded boards, (rough sawn oak 1X6s), and I told him they go to the burn pile. He wanted some because he thought there was some good wood in there and who am I to argue that? I told him to stop by sometime, he can have all the burn pile fence material he wants. His talking to me on the road was backing up traffic and after realizing this he moseyed on. The one held up car crept behind him. She did not wave but may have shot me the finger.
Some people that pass by know me but I don't always know them. "I saw you out front," people will occasionally say and I stock-response them with, "oh, that was you.?"
Nobody ever extends out to me an ice cold beer on a warm summer night.
The Beatles were a very popular group and many of their songs are very short, and sincere. So this is me being short and sincere. My motivation is not to be popular. I'd just as soon you shot me the finger.
Eating Out Alot
If you hear every word spoken at a gathering it is similar to hearing nothing at all or like hearing white noise interspersed with names and places and things and punctuation.
Over breakfast I'm wondering will that woman ever shut up, enough already with the fascinating minutiae, check the glazing of her eyes across from you. When she said then what happened she meant will you please shut up and let me eat.
And then later, I'm eating out again, at some other place, and this player comes in licking his chops. This guy won't shut up either but at least he's hitting on a young woman, has a purpose. The guy had that single-minded manner which both fascinated me and horrified me at the same time. I was jealous of his confidence but glad I don't have it, glad I am not burdened by yet another dubious talent. Sensitivity being the other one I have. Okay, maybe that's not a talent.
The girl to her credit was not gushing, although probably flattered and maybe a little horrified like me. The dude was GQ off the map though, and probably affected that Miami Vice look back when that was popular. Guy just passing through thought he pick him a local flower, nothing wrong with that I guess as long as I don't have to watch the courtship. Here's my card he said, undaunted by the fact that theretofore she had not uttered one encouraging response to his blather. Right before I left I thought about stabbing the guy in his face with my butter knife, but only in that light-hearted cartoon sort of way that wouldn't require stitches.
I usually clean up a little before going to this place but today I hadn't, just kind of shook the dried paint flecks from my hair and clothes and went on with it. Another young woman, an employee, she said to me, gosh Jim, you look a little frazzled today. I kind of get a kick out of candor, regardless of the message. Thank you T, I said, you by the way look very nice.
The Curmudgeon
For the second time this week a man came up the driveway and asked could he fish the pond. I said no.
I was second coating the white picket fence around the pool and I heard the sound of car wheels on a gravel road and then a two honk blast. Yeah, let me just stop what I'm doing, it ain't important. The man drove a small truck and if every man has a theme song this man's song would have been that dueling bangos bit from Deliverance.
He stayed in his truck and I kept my distance, bare-footed and shirtless and armed only with a paint brush taped to a stick. My ribs glinted in the noonday sun. He looked me up and down once in that way that reminded me of lonely truck drivers from back when I was a kid hitchhiking. He said he was staying in the truck because he been bit by a dog once and I used that creepy manner I sometimes use and said "well we ain't got a dog but it's better to be safe."
He said he would only use a fly rod and would catch and release but I dismissed his hopeful intentions with an I don't care about all that. I told him he was the fourth person to come asking for fishing priviledges this week (a lie based solely on the fact that I like the sound of four better than two) and that I didn't see what all the attraction to that little pond was. "I fish it every once in awhile and only catch the same damn sun perch each time," I told him.
The gardener came by later to water plants that I had not only already watered but had also painted a bit. "I should have ripped those out of the ground, why you plant something before I second coat the fence?" I bitched. Sometimes I think she playing with me, pushing my buttons on account of she knows I feel somewhat friendly towards her and she bored with whatever else she got going on. I myself am not that bored. I intend to proceed along the path of respectful behaviour. But don't come over here bothering me with your can I fish the pond shit. This ain't Mayberry RFD and I ain't Andy. And if you come up that driveway and stop me from whatever I'm doing it better be cuz you bringing me some food or beer. The gardener and her boyfriend have both intimated that I should be more hospitable, get out more, invite more people in, become more in tune with Rappahannock ways. Yeah, well, in due time. Until then though, tune this.