I picked up a German hitchhiker who had just spent the last couple of weeks travelling around the States. He said his motivation for going there was the great American beauty, actress Gene Tierney. "I am in love with a woman who lived before my time," he said with a sigh. "And I don't know what to do about it."
Parked in the car waiting for someone to return from an errand, I watched two teens creeping along the roof of a house across the street. Straddling the apex, they made their way to the middle of the roof where they steadied themselves against the chimney. One of them pulled out a spyglass, the other raised a pair of binoculars. They were looking into the neighbor's house. I was shocked, shocked! and surely would have called the coppers who would have thrown the deviant pair of under aged cheeky little buggers into the nearest maximum security prison had my friend not returned from his errand and we drove off leaving the rooftop teenage perverts scenario to unfold on its own without my further participation.
May 3, 2012
Well there you go. Someone I trusted turned around and stabbed me in the back. A short-term gain was worth more to him than our long-term friendship. It's easy to say that he changed and grew calculating and it's all his fault that I think less of him now because breaking the trust breaks the friendship, but I'm involved in this event as well. I'm not a victim of anything. This is not just happening to me. Life is not random; we are psychically complicit in everything we do. So that means that I can live with the demise of our friendship, and obviously, so can he. But listen, nobody is saying that getting stabbed in the back doesn't hurt.
I got a letter in the mail that had my correct name but an address in Sheffield, England. I show the letter to a postal worker and she says they figured it was for me. I told her that I didn't live in Sheffield, England so it couldn't possibly be for me and she said, It has your name on it, and it ended up here, so you got it. And I thought, could it really be that simple?
May 6, 2012
Saw an ad for an estate sale. One of the items listed was a kazoo once blown by Mango on Saturday Night Live. If a kazoo with Mango saliva is in your estate sale, for real, you can be pretty much assured your life will be judged by all at the auction to have been a pathetic mess. You are what you accumulate. And that is just embarrassing.
May 7, 2012
Three guys on motorcycles came roaring up to the house. Two looked like hardcore bikers, all leather and skulls, but the third guy looked like a tennis instructor. He had on white trousers, tennis shoes with no socks and a V neck sweater. As soon as the hard core guys see our malamutes, they become a couple of softies and go to play with our dogs. The tennis instructor, in really bad and broken English tells me they are from Finland. He says they are lost and asks for directions. I draw a map for him, they climb aboard their bikes and roar off. All day long I've been trying to reconcile how a tennis instructor comes to pal around with hardcore bikers. I conclude it must be some sort of Finnish fetish thing.
May 8, 2012
I was standing in line at the bank when the woman behind me asks if she can move ahead of me because she needs to take her daughter to a doctor's appointment. I assent and she moves up to the next teller. She then starts to argue with the teller about some issue. At one point the woman yells at the bank employee that she has "all the time in the world" to get this straightened out and she isn't leaving until the bank rectifies their mistake. In the meantime, I see the next teller, take care of business and leave. I go to the store across the street and purchase something there. When done, I walk past the bank and see through the window that the woman is still arguing. I imagine her daughter dying somewhere for lack of medical attention.
I've got something hiding in plain sight; you know, where something is so obvious - if you know - and so unobvious if you don't. It's right there in front of everybody, but I've found that people tend to look, not see. This observation might be of some interest to scientists and those into ephemera. As for the rest of you, I can't say.
May 12, 2012
I was told by this prissy miss know nothing that dogs and cats were "filthy vermin" because they smelled and they're dirty and she hates them and they stink. She was supposed to swing by our house to pick up some stuff but she refused to come because of our filthy vermin dogs and all their stinky vermin stink. Sigh. Honestly, does anyone love a hater?
May 13, 2012
Wow, I always thought that dancing on someone's grave was just a phrase, a saying, but I passed a cemetery today and actually saw someone dancing on someone's grave. Admittedly, it was a slow dance and the guy was obviously reliving some beautiful memory of dancing with that now dead person, so that made it terribly poignant, which isn't at all in the spirit of the saying which implies a joy that that person is now dead, nevertheless, it was someone dancing on someone's grave.
Expressway, hair back, weavin' through the traffic
This one strong should be labeled as a hazard
Eve
May 15, 2012
Something more powerful than a rocket launch is my repugnance of smarmy, lying, scumbag politicians. I'm just sayin'...
May 16, 2012
Had somebody come out to the house to do an estimate for some work. He obviously didn't relish the prospect because after examining the job, he recommended his competitors to me. Oh come on, who recommends their competitors? I'll fix him...I consider his quotation and then award him the job. He looks crestfallen. I've never seen someone so disappointed in winning a bid. We schedule the work. He never shows up. I'm shocked, shocked! I ended up doing the job myself, saving $1400 bucks in the process and wondering why I ever needed someone else in the first place. Then I remembered, oh yeah, it was so I wouldn't have to do the work myself. Sigh.
He was left there by himself. He had one tooth, but that was enough. His triangular eyes shone with an inner fire. He knew people would be scared. It was his job.
May 19, 2012
Someone wrote and asked why I never talk about the literal event when I'm describing an experience. They said they wanted me to use specific names, particular places and to identify the products I'm using or describing because they would find that to be so much better. They went on to say that all they hear now is me talking about a concept or an idea or the principle illustrated by the experience itself and it hurts their head to have to use their brains like that. So how about I knock it off, get more literal, make things easier for them. Well, in a word, good sir or madam, no.
May 20, 2012
Many years ago, I was walking up a street and two ladies were coming the other way. As we passed, I locked eyes with one of them and in that split second connection a whole history shared between us revealed itself. I knew this person. We knew each other well. And I knew that she knew it too. But it wasn't from this lifetime. And it wasn't meant to be in this lifetime. We walked by. I thought about it for the rest of the day. Cripes, here it is years later and I'm still thinking about it.
May 21, 2012
A chained dog is a cruelty. Imagine being chained by the neck to something. All day long. All night long. What an awful life.
The world is a great big wide open extravaganza and we're here to enjoy as much or as little of that as we choose.
May 23, 2012
Out of the blue, somebody I knew ages ago (and wasn't too fond of) got in touch. The first thing he mentioned was that I owed him 25 bucks. Even though I doubted that greatly, it was pretty obvious that the only reason he re-established contact was because of the money, and if he's touching me for cash I knew he must be pretty hard up, so I gave it to him. Like magic, he disappeared again. That was tidy.
May 24, 2012
I was asked about success by a writer who wasn't having any. She said she knew she was good and had oodles of talent but she wanted to know why she wasn't rich and famous because of it. I suggested that perhaps success for her might mean something other than wealth and fame. She scoffed at that notion, called it silly, called me delusional. Alas, I had nothing more to add.
As the pod bay doors opened, it made Serena Bowlby, astronaut princess, most anxious. Why did they have to make the pod bay yellow? She hated yellow. It was freaking her out. Serena Bowlby closed her eyes and remembered why she was an astronaut princess in the first place: to make the people happy. Well screw them, thought Serena, still sweating like a pig when technician Tom launched her off the ship.
May 26, 2012
A friend who is 42 is being adopted. His step father is ill and can't properly execute his will in the way he would like unless my friend is legally his son. So he is adopting him. Crassly, I asked my friend what he stands to inherit. He said, a house and vineyard in Italy, an 80 foot racing sloop, a Lamborghini Gallardo, and a fifth share in a Gulfstream IV. Thoroughly impressed, I asked him what his mother was getting. Everything else, he said. Yowsa.
May 27, 2012
This guy had two fingers missing and a third one that was mangled pretty good. I asked him what happened. "I was drunk and bet a buddy that I could aim some fireworks by holding 'em in my hand. But they kinda blew up instead." A Darwin Award candidate? "But I was lucky," he finishes. Lucky? "Yeah, I was gonna shoot 'em out my ass." Ooh, all things are relative, eh.
May 28, 2012
I keep getting these friend requests for Facebook. Fat chance. I have as much interest in Facebook as I have in self-dentistry, vampires, and broccoli: none whatsoever.
May 29, 2012
A producer called to discuss writing a film. His ideas sounded interesting, the budget was generous and he wanted to shoot it in the Caribbean. I was seriously considering it until he mumbled that the leading role had to be played by his wife. Your wife? Is she an actress? No, she is an airline hostess with enormous breasts and she yearns to be a star. Gawd.
May 30, 2012
Another day, another letter. This one says that my lack of punctuation is driving her crazy. "It's like I have to try and get inside your head," she writes, "when all you need are some damn quotation marks! Take the last post above, I assume that's you asking if the producer's wife is an actress. Then what? Am I supposed to assume that 'No, she is an airline hostess...' is him replying, and then you make the final 'Gawd' comment? Or does he? Which is it? See how hard I have to work?! You should be ashamed of yourself." I'm flogging myself as we speak. But here's my take: I'm not trying to make your life miserable. So if that's happening, it must be you, yes?
May 31, 2012
Lane - A narrow, often bucolic, path that lacks a shoulder or median; a walk upon which can inspire the mind, soothe the soul and engage the senses.
