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BrilliantEditor came home from a meeting that had been cancelled. While those kinds of meetings are frustrating, they also take a lot less time. Hooray for cancellations!
While he was there, he talked to PunkinPete. Pete was busy calling Florida people to remind them to vote for John Kerry. One person he called said, "I've already been called about this nineteen times. Would you people stop calling?"
I'm not sure if this persistence will make people vote. I think it might. It's the child version of persuasion. It goes like this:
Can I have that?
No.
I want that.
No.
I really want that.
No.
My friend has it.
I said no.
But I really really need to have it.
No.
Please?
No.
You just don't understand. I'll look so stupid without it.
Sorry. No.
...three hours later...
So can I have it?
I said no three hours ago and I still say no.
But I've been really good. I've worked really hard. You even said so, didn't you?
Yes.
And I'm still working hard and I'll still work hard after I get it.
Groan.
It's good to have rewards, right? I really want it. Really really really want it.
...thirty minutes later...
Okay. You can have it. On the following conditions...
And, as you see, in some households, when the little beggar is quite persuasive (BellyRub was the poster child for this. I hate him for being so good at it and figuring it out so early. Jerk.), the naysayer sighs and says yes.
I takes more energy to be contrary. Those experts, like BellyRub, who can mewl and plead and tear up just a little bit, well, they're working it. Oooh yes. And then they grow up, and they still work it.
Oooh yes.
Some day I will learn to be succinct. I will say things like, "I plan to be brief," rather than, "Oh, yeah, I so want to talk a little bit less sometimes, because I just go on and on."
I've got the knowledge, but not the method. When I try it out, try to control my chattiness, I'm left feeling lonely inside. It's like I'm keeping most of my words inside. They form a sucking black hole and instead of my words bursting out of my mouth, I can manage a greeting and some nods. "Oh, yes! Lovely to meet you. Ah. I see. Mmhmm."
I usually abandon my plot before it has a chance to get me down. In college I used to write "SHUT UP" on the top of my notes. I decided that was a little harsh and went to "QUIET". Then I was embarrassed when my friend CuckooCrock asked, "Do you have a headache? Because I didn't say anything."
From then on out, my notes said had big Qs written all over them. I even tried writing it on my hand once.
When it works, though, there's backlash. People say, "Oh, Dotty, are you okay? You're so quiet." The tell me that I seem depressed. Sometimes they see that wild look in my eye and they back away.
In all, I suspect that this talking is one of those things that I'll learn to appreciate, learn to control, or stop caring about.
I'll let you know how it goes on Tuesday night when I hobnob with the swells at BrilliantEditor's Democratic House Party. Yo! Raise the roof on the union hall!
Bored!
I’m boring myself once again. Today I have decided to take many things that have occurred in real life and to mash them up with things that probably won’t happen ever. Like the Red Sox winning some fancy ball game.
Today’s story doesn’t yet have a title, as I haven’t yet written the story.
Here ‘tis:
Seven weeks ago, when skies were still sunny and the words “Indian Summer” fluttered on people’s lips like a promise, my brother BellyRub called me with a question. The answer to this question was important to his future at his work, my future as a member of the Parker clan, and to a terrifying variable that I am not at liberty to disclose.
“Dotty.” He said that with desperation, yet a harmonic note or two praising my smarts. “Oh, wow. There I was, down with Junior doing some work junk and laughing and all of a sudden I slipped and said, ‘whoopst’ just like Dr.Dad does. Next thing I know I’ve broken a $300,000 piece of equipment. I also damaged the fork truck that we were playing on when I slipped and said, ‘whoopst’.”
“BellyRub, you’ve said that stuff happens all the time. You told me when you were first working there and you were learning to drive the forklift that you crashed now and then. You told me that you put dings in a bunch of expensive stuff.”
I could hear him sobbing quietly on the other end of the phone. A small squirrel was comforting him. (They have arboreal mammalian creatures at his company. They found that having a possum family around really helped calm nerves during the dot com crisis. They’ve moved to squirrels though. They’re cuter.)
Suddenly I heard, “You little bastard!” and a “Sqeeeeeeee” sound. BellyRub had been bitten by the squirrel and then he had offended it with his naughty language.
After he had calmed down and had a cigarette and tied his shoes and gotten another cup of coffee, he got back on the phone (I’d been on hold this entire time.) and said, “Dotty.”
I was getting annoyed. The sounds of his squirrel had bothered my dogs. (And when my dogs are bothered then Sprocket’s monkey gets bothered. Then Spring’s invisible army of mutants gets bothered.)
So I said, “Yeah.”
“Yeah, I, kind of pierced the compressor unit that was specially ordered by NASA, the CIA, Monsanto, Exxon/Mobil, and Genghis Khan. It was going to be sent to a secret lab in EPCOT center at Disney World. Now it isn’t even fit for Euro Disney.”
“That does suck.”
“Yeah, and I had one of Erotica’s lipsticks in my shirt pocket from when we went out last week and I was drinking this nuts and berries smoothie that they had free samples of and then I was laughing and I slipped and the lipstick got all over my face and I dropped my smoothie. And I was laughing and then I pierced the compressor.”
“So what did you boss say?”
“That’s the thing. He didn’t say anything. Not right then. I totally didn’t understand. But then Genghis Khan, Jane Goodall, and Malcolm Forbes walked in along with George H. W. Bush. Right behind the boss. He saw me there with the look that combines Whoa and Oops, which translates into ‘Whoopst.”
“And then what?”
“I saw myself in a reflection in the glass and I almost died.”
“Were you hurt?”
“No way. It was hysterical.”
“So why are you calling so panicked?”
“I’ll get to it, but listen, I looked in the mirror and Isaw that I'd had Erotica’s lipstick on my hand so that when I wiped my mouth, I got her lipstick on my lips. And it wasn’t applied real well.”
“I bet you looked HOT!”
“Yes. No, wait. And remember that smoothie? I said it was nuts and berries, right? Well, it was blended, but not completely, and it had an odd color. And it was spilled all over me.”
“Gross.”
“Dotty, I looked like I had yakked all over myself and as if I were a chick leaving a fraternity house very early in the morning. Not pretty.”
“This sucks, BellyRub.”
“But there’s still more! Junior and I had been laughing before but when I crashed into that compressor we started laughing in that nervous way. You know, that nervous way?”
“Yeah, like Beavis and Butthead on crack?”
“Yeah. So Junior and I are laughing like that and I’m pawing at the windshield and we’re making monkey noises and had just gotten into a rip-roaring session of ‘cheee cheee!’ and a whole bunch of uuuh uuuuh oooo ooo.”
I snickered.
“Shut up!” BellyRub kind of laughed. “So there I am, acting like a stupid monkey, looking like a cross dressing man with a GI problem and then, remember the arboreal mammals? Well those little bastards came swinging on in once they heard my monkey calls.”
“You've got monkeys, too? I wanted to practice my calls. I wish I had been there.”
“No, Dotty, you don’t. When Genghis came in the room, the monkeys started playing that little game they play when they’re angry.”
“They started throwing shit?”
BellyRub sighed and laughed. “You got it.”
“So you’re there with barf on your suit, lipstick on your own lips, a forklift…”
“Oh yeah, it was still running. And in gear. Forgot to tell you that.”
“A forklift that is STILL trying to destroy this piece of equipment, you and Junior hanging on the fork lift and banging on the windows while making monkey sounds, real monkeys coming in to play with you, and then the big guys come in and that's when the monkeys start flinging their poo around. That’s it?”
”No! Then Jane Goodall was there and she told the monkeys to stop throwing shit, but she said it in monkey language like, ‘Oowe kehkaka guh’. And they started to stop. Mostly because they ran out of shit. But it turns out that Jane Goodall’s old and instead of saying, ‘Stop throwing your shit,’ she said, ‘Don’t lose your good drugs.’ She didn’t have her dentures in securely. She was slurring.”
“I suppose all hell broke loose after that.”
“Well, yeah! Monkeys love sniffing compressor vapor. They were alerted to the fact that there was a drug in the air and they used their arboreal mammal sense of small to plaster themselves on the two tines of the fork truck. The formed a line. One would suck down enough to make him fall off and the next guy would get a snoot full.”
“BellyRub, you are totally making this up.”
“You think I could make up this stuff?”
“No, I suppose not. But why did you call me sounding upset? It sounds like everything’s crazy. It can’t be just your fault, even though it might be mostly your fault.”
“Dotty, they want me to do this every time guests come. You know how I try to make everything into a joke, right? Well, I told the guests that it was a joke we play. (George H. W. Bush said he hadn’t seen such monkey shines since his days at Yale. He was laughing that heh heh laugh that the Really Rotten dog does.) I said that the monkeys don’t always chuck crap at people…but I lied flat out. There are never any people to chuck at. My boss obviously knows I lied. And he doesn’t care. He thinks people will call him up to place big orders just so they can see the floor show.”
“So you get to keep your job?”
“Yeah, with a huge raise and a nice big bonus.”
“I still don’t know why you sounded upset, though.”
“I don’t know if I can do it again. I can get more lipstick, but I need your help.”
“If I get a cut of your bonus, I’ll help you out.”
“Dotty, how do you make a smoothie?”
Look who can teach people to fly planes!!!
It’s Tex. He caught himself a plane, he did. Today, in fact. I hear he’s out drinking beer in an airplane.
Lucky boy.
And here’s a little present for Tex, and for you, too, if you like.
There are two addresses, just in case one doesn't work, then try the other one which might not work.
George Bush using his limited sign language skills.
And, if the first one doesn't work, again, George Bush, using his limited sign language skills...
I don't like the way he giggles. Very few people in public office giggle. I think it should be that way.
Watched the "documentary" George W. Bush: Faith in the White House today.
It's pretty creepy. They say things like, "If we assume that's true, then..." There's a lot of assuming going on and a lot of arguments built on some very shifty foundations of assumption.
That sounds like something Catholic, doesn't it? Foundations of assumption?
My vote is that you not purchase this particular item. I do believe that purchasing it will be detrimental to the greater good. I believe there will be a sucking hole of doom that you will be drawn into. BE purchased this DVD before this pronouncement was made.
I still worry, though. What if it starts to implode?
Eminem who isn't my favorite artist, as I do not generally appreciate his musical stylings, has created a video that encourages folks to vote. And maybe sorta kinda who to vote for. Eminem has demonstrated that he's a smart guy. So Eminem is a politico, too.
I went out to plant bulbs and cut down the stick-like bits of my hostas and day lilies. I wore a sweater.
I had some chocolate ice cream tonight. I wore a sweater. I got the ice cream on my sweater.
So now that sweater season is here, it must be that sweater washing season is here. But how silly is that? Where does a person put her sweaters to dry? So should I have constantly dirty sweaters? Would that really be so bad?
BE cleaned our bedroom while I was away. It was a monumental task as I make a monumental mess most of the time. It's amazing and beautiful and clean. So now I have to do the other chores. I must sort through old clothes and things and papers and such.
And I must clean my sweaters.
Damn that man of mine!
Home! Happy to be home!
It's lovely to have a schedule--no schedule. I'm so happy to be home.
I did have a dandy time in Florida. I learned lots of things about lots of stuff. I don't want to learn any more. I want to be in my own house with my own husband and my own dogs.
How fabulous is it to have water in the pipes that runs clear?! It's very fabulous. Taking a bath in clear water is an extraordinary treat! In West Palm Beach the bath water was yellowish before I even got in it. (After I got out, it was clear. I'm very yellow now.)
Lying in bed thinking of being able to fall asleep again if I want to--yes! Of course, I'm getting up to do things because I'm all excited to be home and able to do things. But hooray for being home!!!!!
I was pushing OuchyKim around in the wheelchair today. We were in a shopping complex of swanky proportions. There were designer shops and there was designer food. What wasn't there was the latest collection of designer considerate people.
It's tough to get through doors that have to be held open if two hands are pushing a chair and two other hands are in that chair. Someone's getting hit in the behind or someone's getting their fingers pinched.
Neither one is good.
People stare at us. The look at OuchyKim in the chair and think who knows what about us. But they do stare. They stare and stare. But they don't help open the damned door.
I'm cranky about that.
And they didn't have a table for us, either.
Jerks.
OuchyKim and I went to the beach today after her therapy stuff. I rolled her across the boardwalks until we reached the beach. The boardwalk used to walk a bit farther, but the hurricane changed all that. Lots of sand blew up the walkway, eliminating twenty feet in length and three in depth. Very special.
OuchyKim was looking for shells. I was walking in the surf. I was thinking of wanting to be home, wishing that BrilliantEditor could be with me. The wind was in my hair and the air was thick with salt. The waves were pulling sand from beneath my feet and, although I had my skirt lifted up my calves, its hem was getting wet.
I looked out into the ocean watching huge ships go by. I wondered how far away they were, how big they were, where they were going, how long it would take. I thought about the vast emptiness and loneliness. In all, I felt rather tragic and poetic.
Assuming that I was, indeed, tragic and poetic, I looked down at my feet expecting to find some kind of symbolic item there. A key, perhaps, or a shell broken in such a way that it would evoke answers to unanswerable questions. I might see my footprints melting away after filling with water turned gold from the sunset.
I did not see any of those things. Instead, I had a different discovery.
The discovery was my skin.
I got mildly sunburned on Sunday. It wasn’t bad, but my skin looked pink and kind of wrinkly. Days later, I am back to my normal-ish self.
OuchyKim is Korean; so she’s already tan. I am neither Korean nor tan and feel like I’ll overexpose any photo I’m in with my supreme whiteness. I want this to end! I also want to make people laugh when they see me coming back looking as bronzed as Jennifer Lopez. So I did what any logical pale woman in Florida would do.
I decided, “Hey! Why not do the fake tan stuff? Even though I know it doesn’t work, let’s try it anyway! It will be fun!”
Welcome to the world of un-fun. Upon the beach I received confirmation of my belief that fake tan doesn’t work for me. It looks like someone came along and rubbed carrots on me. This color is not bronze. It does not look beautiful. It does not look sexy.
It might look sexy to rabbits. They’d probably die from excited bliss looking at my tall carrot legs. Oh! The promise of tall carrots!
OuchyKim and I are travelling in style in our white Lincoln Town Car. In college we used to say, "Phatty Boom Batty." That's how way-out cushy this ride is. In fact, it's so way-out that we could probably take extended naps in it and be very comfy indeed.
What it is not terribly good for is driving. The Lincoln Town Car looks best in a driveway. The thing is so large that it takes up the entire lane. Drift slightly in any direction, and twenty-five cars are forced off a bridge.
And you think I'm kidding.
I'm coming home on Sunday and looking forward to it. I've told BrilliantEditor that bribing the dogs with McDonald's french fries buys a half-hour of peace. He's tried it. That's how demanding the dogs are when only one of us is home. He took them for a walk, too, and he says that's helped to direct their energy a bit.
I try to imagine BE, Spring, and Sprocket here in Florida. I imagine Spring would wilt and lie in whatever grass should could find and while staring at me and panting.
Sprocket would likely run around for a while and then trot very close to my feet until we went somewhere cool. Then she'd abandon me and lie on the floor panting, her big eyes half closed and the floor steaming up by her nose and mouth.
BE would, I betcha, look at me and say, "Dotty. I hate this. I hate the heat. I hate the humidity. I hate the strip malls. I hate the Lincoln Town Car."
I would kindly point out that we no longer have the Town Car, but I think the point about the heat would be taken seriously.
There is a reason I'm coming home.
My great white whale of a car isn't nearly enticing enough to keep me in the land of hot humidity. I'm coming home to cold with alternating dry and damp. And I'm just coming home. sigh
I talk to strangers to amuse myself. It's my hobby. In public, of course. At the hotel here and at the airport, those are good places to chit chat. Sometimes I really love the people I talk with. Other times, that person becomes a victim of my amusement.
Today's chit chat victim was a guy working construction. He'd just gotten paid some exorbitant amount of money (or so he said) for doing construction for the Army in the something Hatchie wetlands something or other.
He was talking and confessed that he was drunk, had been so for three days, was still high on cocaine, and expected to be so until it was gone. While a potentially unsavory character, he was enormously entertaining.
I brought OuchyKim out by the pool with me to meet this guy. She laughed with me, but his commentary got progressively more crass and he began to bother both of us. OuchyKim, wisely, left.
I stayed, thinking it would get to be more fun.
In fact, it did not become ore fun. He went out to pick up a stripper he'd met the night before. He was going to pay her at least one hundred dollars to have sex with him.
How cheap is sex, anyway? Is $100 enough? I wouldn't think that would be nearly enough. I've tried to put a price on it in my head. This would be a great place to get information from strangers, but it doesn't seem like a wise thing to be asking about. One hundred dollars for sex with a stranger?
[I just looked it up. It appears that in Texas metropolitan areas (that's all I could find) the going rate is between $200-250.]
My hobby is most thought provoking. Perhaps I shall find a new one.
And I don't reckon it will be prostitution.
So here I am in Florida with OuchyKim! We went to Lion Country Safari yesterday. We saw lions and water buffalo and a variety of other delights. We're working on a list of what each animal would say. In Finding Nemo the sea gulls say, "Mine!" and the crabs say, "Hey hey hey hey." We both were watching the ostrich standing next to our car. He was squinting into the sun. OuchyKim said, "What would the ostrich say?"
We looked at each other, and at the very same moment (oh my God!) said, "What." So now that ostriches say, "What." You can say it almost any way you want. It can mean lots of things. It's dandy. The turtles and tortoises say, "I see," in a professorial manner. Preferably a British professor. I shall include the list if you are very well behaved. If you are not, well, you just might lose out.
When we got to the park the woman behind the drive up and pay booth said, "Have you been here before?" We said no. She practically hooted. She didn't tell us why, even when we asked.
I suspect it was that the hurricane had ripped up lots and lots of the plantings. It blew away the butterfly enclosure. I told OuchyKim that if you have a butterfly you should set it free...then we both started laughing like crazy people and saying, "What?! What?!" We like ostriches.
This morning Allison woke me up after I was talking in my sleep. She heard me say, "Three four, frog." She told me that I sounded like a rapper. Yo. She woke me up very gently, "Fred?" I was lying there with my eyes closed.
"Did I talk in my sleep?"
"Yes."
Then we started laughing. "What did you say?"
"I said 'Fuck the fuck off.' I was dreaming that I was in a wheelchair and my family was pointing at me as if I couldn't hear them. Pointing to my hands and then holding up theirs and saying, "Hers will be as deformed as ours pretty soon. See how discolored her face is? It's all mottled." They said lots of that. So I had to tell them what to do with themselves, didn't I?
I suppose it's good to get things like that out of my system before I go out in public. I think I'm already resentful that people talk to me instead of her when she's in her wheelchair. I try to tip my head in her direction to say, "Hey, don't talk to me. I'm the motor 'round these parts not the brains." I wonder what I do when I meet someone in a wheelchair. I think I try to look at them. Maybe it's easier with OuchyKim since she's only 4' 11". I thought she was three inches taller. But she isn't. So it's kind of normal for her to be at that height. Tee hee. Short little lady.
On the plane to West Palm Beach I sat between OuchyKim and a fellow with a very strange name. I am reluctant to share his real name here, as I very rarely use real names. So I'm going to call this guy Dick. That will be semi-equivilent to his real name. And I will give him the last name of Longfellow. Which would be a rough equivilent to his real last name. So Dick Longfellow sat next to us on the plane. He was very funny. He was coming back from a wintry state to fix his house after a hurricane. His family is staying in the north for the winter while the house gets repaired.
At the baggage claim we said goodbye to Dick Longfellow and went to get our rental car. It is phat. Does anyone say that word anymore? No. Not except me.
We've got a Lincoln Town Car. I have never driven a car with so many buttons. Buttons buttons who has the buttons? Me! I has them! They're pretty. Beautiful buttons.
I think that somewhere along the line I forgot that I don't know anything. I hate that.
I'm trying to be ultra cool and send email and all that nonsense. And, obviously, I'm closer than I was before, but dude! I'm a big dope. I can't figure this stuff out. I'm ready to call BrilliantEditor to say, "Hey, baby, this is way to difficult. Can I come home so you can explaiin it all to me?"
I think I might need to decide to be less ultra cool and more ultra independent.
And call tech support and whine.
Last night I was just about to get out of the bath. Which means I was still in the bath when the phone rang.
Part of me, the part that was in the bath, wanted to just let it ring. It was eight or nine o'clock and not many people call then so I jumped out, maybe not jumped, grabbed a towel, and ran to the phone.
I think I scared the hell out of the dog.
I said, "Hello?" trying to sound as if I hadn't just flown across the floor and over the bed to the phone.
I heard, "Hey, Dot. What's the name of the salesman in Death of a Salesman?"
"Mmmmmmmmm, it's....Willy Lowman."
"Yeah. But that won't work."
"What are you doing?"
"I'm doing the crossword puzzle. The clue was fictional dreamer. I thought it might be him."
"You got me out of the bath for that, bitch?"
He cackled and said I could go back if I wanted, but since I was already thinking about getting out, I'd let the water drain out. So I decided to do the crossword puzzle with him. We had a fine time.
An alternate route to Tel Aviv? Boat.
"Oh, how much do I hate this editor, Dotty? Listen to this, 'An apt question for clues 20, 42, and 63 down?' How about, 'What?'"
I had no idea either. So, when our two genius minds got together and still couldn't figure out the crossword answers (we're both smartest on Monday) we started talking.
He told me about a friend he knows who is kind of fat and completely hairless. BellyRub calls him "Humpty Dumpty". He wants to stop, but it's so hard to quit. At any rate, BellyRub was talking about Halloween and Humpty said, "I either want to be the mailman or an orange."
BellyRub thought that was a fine idea. A shiny, round object. It'd be good. But then Humpty said, "You know, like a wedge of orange or one of those thin slices."
BellyRub said he knew.
I suggested mailman for the winning costume idea. If he were the slice of orange, he just wouldn't be living up to his potential.
With Halloween coming up, I do believe it is my duty to write about creepy things.
Thing one:
I've purchased this bag full of treasures for BellyRub. I was eating lunch with Florette a week or two ago and there they were! Disgusting jokes having to do with the GI tract. Perfect!
He has truly earned a present. He wrote to me after I wrote the entry entitled, "one toke over the line, sweet jesus." He said that he couldn't get the song out of his head. Happily, it was the version that I was thinking of. What version is that? The one from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
"Holy Jesus, what are these goddamn animals?"
Dr. Gonzo, the Samoan lawyer, was singing a song. If I could write the way he sang it, the words would look something like this:
Wun toke over the lyi-I-ine. Sewoogh digkj wrail way stashin wun toke over the lyi ii ine Swieet Swieet Mary, Swieet Swieet Mary.
Otherwise it would look like, "One toke over the line. mumble rail way station, one toke over the line. Sweet sweet Mary, Sweet sweet Mary!"
And when I think of the way he sings it, it makes me laugh. And when I think of BellyRub thinking of the way he sings it, I laugh then, too. So I called him at work. I wanted very badly to have him answer so I could sing, "Sweet sweet Mary! Sweet sweet Mary!" But when he answered I tried to sing it but I was giggling and it sounded like a prank phone call so I said, after trying two times to sing it, "Hey. It's Dotty. I called to sing, 'Sweet sweet Mary.'"
Of course, by then I could almost sing it all the way through, except for the end because I was laughing again. We are very good singers. I think he and I should go to an event where there's some kind of open microphone action. Then we'll sing together. La la la!
So he deserves some Halloween candy. The extra yummy kind.
To continue the absurdity, and to give an early Halloween treat, here's one of BellyRub's favorite quotes--
Raoul Duke: There's a machine in the sky, some sort of electric snake.
Dr. Gonzo: Shoot it!
RD: Not yet. I want to study its habits.
just as creepy
Thing two:
I got the New Yorker today. The cover looked normal enough until BE pointed out the shadow.
I suppose it's appropriate for Halloween in the old fashioned sense--the scary, evil, bad-things roaming around sense.
I don't like that kind. It's hard to sleep when scary things might climb in the windows.
I'm not sure how much longer this Halloween is going to last. I'll let you know within five weeks after November second.
BE sent me a link to a pretty cartoon. It is a large file, my darlings. If your fairy godmother is restricting your bandwidth you must be very careful not to anger her.
At any rate. Here's the thing.
It makes me warm and happy to know that animated grandmoms are on the side of leftist hippies like me.
Yea!
Every now and then I cross a line that has been, according to conventional wisdom, drawn for a reason. I often figure, “I’m really close to the line anyway, and, hey, it looks pretty tempting over there, so why not?”
Apparently I am not alone.
BrilliantEditor took these pictures today on a nearby wooded lane that is less travelled by.
Does this cross a line? Does Bush eat yellow snow? Are there consequences here?
I’ve been thinking lately about where boundaries are. I’m taking OuchyKim to Florida and I got her free tickets and I’ll be away from home for nine big days. Nine! I even rearranged my work schedule. Am I a saint yet? Of course I am. But I have the option of doing a few more favors for her and I think, “Hey. I love you, OuchyKim, but honey, I’ve got things to take care of.” I suppose that’s a line that could be crossed. I might even go across said line. Tempting to feel good about myself for being a saint.
But the consequences!
They aren’t that big.
Or how about this?
Sprocket has the very annoying tendency to lick my leg. Not just a couple of licks. Nope. She wants to lick my leg until she whittles it down to a bone. I guess she can chew on it then. Yes, it’s annoying. She’s so happy, though. Then there’s the line where the annoyance is greater than my will to keep her happy. Should I just move her or should I let her continue on since she looks so happy with those big, bulging eyes?
But the consequences!
They aren’t that big.
But of course there are things like just shoving someone in the dairy aisle at the grocery store. On this side of the line, peace, a ride home in my own car, the ability to choose my own food and buy it. On the other side of the line find my extraordinary glee (which would be tempered by horror, but for now, just stick with the program) when I see the person crash into the wall of bread and then get smothered with WonderBread. Of course, once they lift their head up out of the amber waves of grain, one of those loaves of heavy, dense German bread will fall and hit them on the head!
As Dr.Dad would say, “El Ka-Bong!”
Yeah. There’s a line that’s tempting to cross. Except there’s also the police car and riding in the back of it. Baaaaad.
I always had urges to stand up and scream in church. On this side of the line, boring, stable, bagels afterward. On that side, amusement, shock, amazement, excitement! Also the high probability of involuntary psychiatric treatment. Further, the certainty of social disaster.
So much to think about in this big, weird world.
So much that I’m going to cross a line and say, “Nope. Not thinking about lines anymore.”
She stuck in her thumb and pulled out another trip to Florida and said, “Oh what a good girl am I!”
I’m taking OuchyKim to the Upledger Institute in West Palm Beach. They’re going to do some energy work on her. Stuff like acupuncture and reflexology and laying on of hands. Cranio-sacral therapy. It sounds like it might work.
I read about cranio-sacral therapy.
Some people think it’s ab fab. Some people think it’s nonsense.
I’m not sure what I think, but I am sure that it doesn’t matter. Doctors have had a year and a half to make her all better. She isn’t. Although I’m sure there’s a logical error here that I am blithely ignoring, maybe I should remind myself of these things: I still believe that Western medicine works. But, sometimes it doesn’t. Since that is true, the fact that cranio-sacral therapy doesn’t always work doesn’t prove that it is completely without merit.
Yet in the end, it’s impossible to prove that something doesn’t exist or that something never works. Witness the Loch Ness Monster and yogic flying. Perhaps that’s my logical fallacy. Perhaps it isn’t for me to know. Perhaps it isn’t important. Perhaps OuchyKim is right:
“Who cares! We’re going to Florida, Fred!”
She calls me Fred.
I talked to her today and mentioned that I was a bit dubious about the whole thing. Maybe it’s good I asked because she explained to me why it would work. Doesn’t that increase the chances of things working? In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Charlie asks if Grandpa Joe thinks that he’ll find a golden ticket. Grandpa Joe says, “Of course you will! Because you want it more.”
Sure! It works that way!
I just don’t really want to win the lottery. Although maybe I just don’t want it enough more that my more is more than someone else’s more. Moreover, I don’t play the lottery. Maybe I should.
At any rate, I leave on Friday and fly out on Saturday. Me and OuchyKim. We’re going to get the royal treatment. The beeping carts, first on the plane, people getting out of our way. Rockin’.
I believe I told CoolCat about OuchyKim’s predicament and how she ended up in said predicament. I was thinking about lots of things and so kind of neglected the narrative stylings that are so uniquely Dotty. It ended up being a bunch of very sad facts lying jumbled on the table.
If I remember correctly he said, “That’s a terrible story.”
That day I didn’t feel like arguing with the truth. Or maybe I did. Revisionist history in my brain. Poor CoolCat. Very soon I will recall, with much emotion, the day he told me about his heroic rescue of a small pig that had swallowed the crown jewels. I do believe they marinated the pork loin as a reward.
He said it was very tender.
I think. Perhaps it doesn’t matter Perhaps OuchyKim is right:
“We’re going to Florida, Fred!”
SirDougg talked about this comic and I read it periodically, going back until I hit the time I'd stopped reading before.
I've read this one twice. I don't know why it's funny. But it is very, very funny.
So. Presidential debates are tonight.
So. Watch them, don't watch them; I don't care.
So. Get your booty moving and chitchat loudly and happily about how dandy-fine John Kerry is. Better yet, go to Ohio and do it. Or Pennsylvania. Or any swing state. Or even any Republican state.
I'm growing frightened. Yes, yes, we all know that our beloved President has the I.Q. of a rattle, but I found out something new today that makes me fear a future with him as the boss more than ever.
W is delaying his annual physical until after the election.
!
Why's that a problem? Well! It might mean that he's very sick. And if he's very sick, he might die or become incapable of ruling his kingdom. And if either of those things, or both, I suppose, happens, Darth Cheney will have taken over the land!
So there's that. What else? What if that box-shaped thing under his jacket is actually a hump? What if George Bush is growing some kind of bell-tower-friendly hump? Can he reign from the heights of Notre Dame? Or will Dick Shadey take over?
Or! It could be some kind implant. Batteries or a refrigerator. Something like that. Maybe he can carry a six-pack around with him that way. Maybe he just wanted a cold one after the debate. Maybe when he said, "Let me finish," he was talking to the hankering in his tummy for the Snickers bars that were tucked into the freezer portion of the fridge. Snickers really satisfies, you know.
Maybe W is an exhibitionist! Maybe he just wants to strip from the waist up, a la Siegfried and Roy! Then, oh yes I hope it's this, he can spin, whipping his Saville Row, French-cuffed suit at John Kerry! Revealed will be a holographically enhanced rippling chest. Embedded in his back will be a cage containing two hungry wolverines! He'll turn his back to the audience, shake his ass, and let the wolverines, angered by their confinement and George's seismic disruptions, out to chew on the moderator!
Jim Lehrer was lucky.
It was too cold in that debate room for him to be running around half naked.
Yes, indeed, after many days of minimal contact, I'm back in my small town living life to its chilly, autumnal fullest. It's actually not that cold today. I may plant some bulbs if I can figure out where I want them.
I plan to dig up my tender plants today. My flowering maple will die by my lackadaisical hand! Not by frost!
I got home last night and made my way to sleepytown at 9:30-ish.
But coming home is not exciting. Being in Florida with ChillyLily do is exciting!
We had fun. We had a gigantic meal the night before I left. We ate fondue until we could eat no more. And then we had chocolate fondue. And Miss Dotty had too much wine and came within centimeters of horrifying ChillyLily. Fortunately, ChillyLily has a great tolerance for my annoyances. I am a lucky girl to know her. I might have had to walk home, otherwise. I barely knew where home was. I can imagine myself getting into a taxi and saying, "Um, I have to go home, but she's really annoyed. It's apartment 512. There are lots of palm trees."
I wouldn't be very successful in getting home, I don't think.
Get home, however, I did. There was even a song composed for our benefit. The libretto is available here: "Changing lanes, la da da. Changing lanes, la da da." The tune is, alas, lost to history. Perhaps it is better. The joy will live in memory with no future alterations to sully its pristine nature.
I went to dinner one night with ChillyBilly. We made lists of actors and actresses we'd marry. At the same time we had Jamaican curried shrimp with pineapple-ginger soda. Being there was like being in Jamaica. They were out of two-thirds of what was on their menu, half of what ChillyBilly wanted that wasn't on the menu, and yet they decided to make us some food that was on the menu anyway. Shrimp instead of goat, but I'll take it.
I have an amazing story to tell about a terrorism heretofore unheard of. Microterrorism. Yes, maybe you've heard the word, but this entirely new. One kind of Microterrorism: driving slowly.
Yes, my dears, when there's some bastard in front of you who is driving slowly and making it impossible for you to pass him, he is engaging in Microterrorism. That's right. I have forgotten the other examples ChilLil gave me, but I hope one day to share them with you. It could be that Jamaican restaurant was committing acts of Microterrorism with their list of things that they didn't have. Could be!
ChillyLily took me to the Salvador Dali museum. It was small, but very impressive. I had been under the mistaken impression that he wasn't a very thought-filled artist. It seems that, in fact, he was. Really amazing stuff, too. He did a Disney cartoon that has been recently released, apparently. I saw most of it at the museum. It is strange. As you might expect. He also made advertisements for hosiery and liquor. Whattaguy!
ChillyLily also took me to the beach that very same day. We walked along the shore waiting for sunlight. She found pretty shells. I wasn't looking, but she would have found more anyway. She's a genius and an artist. That makes it easy for her to find pretty shells. We got in the water to splash around. I kicked something that I think was alive and I screamed like a pansy-girl and then laughed at myself while ChillyLily stayed calm and chill and said, "Just come over here where I've already walked." Yeah! That's a swell idea!
The next day we went sailing. The wind was odd, blowing randomly and intermittently. We wandered around the water. I tried sailing. I tried. ChillLil got us home. I got a tiny bit sunburned, but it was totally worth it to skip around looking at people on the little island beach talking about things and non-things.
And! As if it's not enough to do all the stuff we'd done already, we went to "Frida's" for lunch. There were references to Frida Kahlo all over the place. I suppose it's somewhat similar to Salvador Dali in that a lot of it is silly and then more stuff sinks in and oh-boy, things are weirder and smarter.
We had a tiny elfin waiter. He was absolutely adorable. He was flamboyantly gay with his capri pants and his many many rings and his cute hairstyle. I loved him. I bet he would be lots of fun to play Cranium or charades with. That's what I bet.
That's just a little of what we did. I had so much fun. So much fun. Coming home is nice, but sometimes it's sad when there's just so much fun to be had.
I've missed you guys. ChillyLily and ChillyBilly are both at work today, so I've got lots of free time!
I took a walk around the lake today. Their apartment complex has a lake. Many of them do. ChillyLilly and I were talking about apartments and she told me that if I move here, I should be careful to ask if there are any alligators in the lakes.
I only walked part way around. I'm sure that there aren't supposed to be any, but they're alligators. They aren't clever. They use their reptile brain and just do whatever they do.
A lot like small children. But I'm taking no chances.
There's a 7-11 on every corner. Or it seems like that. I went to get the decadent slurpee today. All of my favorite flavors were gone. So sad. But I got orange. That was better than Mountain Dew. Yuck. The only time I consume that color is when I eat kiwi. I think that's it. I'm sure there's another time, but I don't know when it is.
dizzy over your sexy ears
I had a fascinating experience before I left on the plane. I got really dizzy. That's kind of normal for me. Figuratively and literally it's very true.
But then my vision got really funky. Eating and drinking didn't help. Everything looked like the vertical hold was broken. I was going to get on the plane, but I realized that I couldn't read anything because everything was so blurry and scrolling up and up and up.
I got scared. It's really disconcerting to not be able to see and not know why. I don't recommend it. I was crying because I couldn't see. I called BE. Since thr number was programmed for "1 send" I could manage it. Otherwise I'd have needed help.
At any rate, I called BE and he came and got me. The doctor says, after many tests and stuff, that I probably have a viral ear infection. So much drama!
Once I was lying on my back for twenty minutes or so, things started getting better. Five more minutes, and I was A-OK.
I'm taking something for motion sickness until I am virus free. It's very strange. But I flew here just a few hours delayed. ChillyLily picked me up.
I'm so glad drugs solve every problem.
talking on the plane
On the plane I had an argument with a guy named Jim about his conservative politics and my liberal ones. Then the guy sitting next to Jim, Johnny, played a song for ChilLil and me at the baggage claim. He'd written it himself. It was harmonically complex and beautiful. The lyrics were overwrought, but honest.
Or so I thought. He had a string of bad luck that would top, um, someone with famously bad luck. Murphy, I suppose. Of Murphy's law.
Here's the scoop: He was flying back to Tampa after not being allowed to re-enter England. We asked why. He'd over stayed his visa by five years.
ChilLil asked why he didn't just renew. He said that his passport had been stolen a few years ago and that his info had been used to commit crimes all over the Pacific northwest. He said he was spending ten out of thirty days in jail due to outstanding warrants for the arrest of his name but not his person.
I'm thinking, "Wow, that' really stinks." ChilLil is thinking, "Hmm, this doesn't sound exactly true."
Next story--he has just become an environmental engineer. He's also relying on his parents for income and a place to stay. He's angry because they have a big house but won't let him stay in it. They rent him a cheap apartment in a bad part of town.
Recently his home was broken into, they beat him up, gave him two black eyes (they weren't visible anymore) and took everything he had. Except his guitar because he had that in a closet with some blankets on it.
Dotty thought, "Did he know they were coming? Why would he keep his guitar hidden? Most people keep it out on a stand..."
ChillyLily is thinking, "This guy is fascinating. He's a big liar."
When she and I got to the car we were talking about him. She made the obvious statement that he was likely lying most of the time. Things just didn't add up. I said, "You're so cool. It didn't occur to me that he'd be lying. I thought he was weird, but I never thought, 'Oh, he's lying,' when it's pretty obvious he was at least embellishing a story."
So I'm trying to reprogram myself that sometimes people aren't always honest.
That night on the way home, I was saying, "That's because he's a liar!" almost all the time to anything we talked about. "Why didn't Mt. St. Helens erupt" "Because it's a liar." We laughed a lot and she got happily annoyed with me, which is always a good thing. In its way.
ChillyLily also pointed out that I'm annoying to lots of people. She's always right.
I hate that.
