Monday, May 28, 2007

"ADAM DESIRES..."

I found this meme through Jay. I substituted "desires" for " needs." I copyed and pasted 10 out of the first 15 results. Just Google your name and needs or wants in quotation marks. Hijinks and hilarity shall ensue.

1. A.D.A.M. desires to grant additional distribution rights in the Licensed Products into the K-12 education market.... And, after that? I'll open up my own special line of charter schools, ones in which Gym will occupy most of the day and mathematics shall be optional!

2. ADAM desires to publish, certain multimedia computer software products containing images owned by ADAM. Sometimes, life is like a snake eating its tail. Where does one begin and where does one end?

3. The mutual exchanging of names has always been an important precondition for such intimacy as Adam desires. Call me crazy--no, don't--but I tend to like to know the name of the women with whom I exchange amorous overtures.

4. Adam desires to know more, and asks how disobedience first came into Heaven. It was because of that temptress Eve, methinks. "Have an apple," she purred. How the heck was I going to resist that?

5. Adam desires to maintain contact with an older brother who is in a separate placement. Adam has undergone surgery to repair an ear that was malformed. :-O Amazing! I had no idea that I had an older brother! Mom? Dad? Why didn't you ever tell me?! Were you ashamed of him? Were you ashamed of me?! And why don't I remember the ear-surgery?! What is the matter with me?! To where have my synapses fled?!

6. Adam desires very strongly to avoid confinement in New York State prisons. :-O I wouldn't last a week. I'm too pretty.

7. Adam desires—again—to 'live less' in his mind. You got that right! It gets crowded in here!

8. Adam desires ice cream, but is told the shops are closed. His response: "Damn you." It's like this: I ask nicely; all the time, I ask nicely. I just want some fucking ice cream. Period. Is that so wrong? But, no. They belittle me! They sneer at me and talk down to me, like I'm some ignorant fool who doesn't know his ass from his elbow! "The stores are closed, Adam. No ice cream for you, you nimrod. Here. Have a carrot. Eat a beet. Forget about the ice cream." I think that I'm being very very controlled when I simply say, "Damn you." I could say oh-so much worse.

9. First, Adam desires nurture at the sight of fruit: "fairest fruit that hung to the eye/ Tempting, stirred in me sudden appetite." There is something quite sexual about this.

10. Adam desires vengeance on Arthur after he finds him with Hetty. Well, hell yeah! There's a reason I call her, phoenetically, "Heady." Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.

MEMORIAL DAY

Bring 'em home. Let us not forget about them.

We've been stuck in that web of anarchy for far too long.

The death toll is far too high for a war that has had far too little justification. But it's not just about death tolls. Sometimes, it can be worse to live.

We were lied to and we were misled.

Before more are killed or maimed, bring 'em home.

Yesterday.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

PORKY HAS SPOKETH

Um. I don't like to belittle someone because of their beliefs system. I think that diversity is the spice of life and that the world would be a very boring place if we all came out of the same cookie-cutter mold. But some beliefs are just so damned stupid and some beliefs fly so pigheadedly against the wind of Reason, it makes it difficult to interact with said people without bwahahahaha-ing in their blank upturned faces.

There is a new museum in Kentucky--Petersburg, to be exact. It comes with a $27-million price tag, which, I guess, for a museum isn't that outrageous. Here's the kicker, though: It's a museum of Creationism. You know, Creationism, the antithesis to Darwinism, evolution.

In this "museum," there shall be exhibits that maintain that dinosaurs were present on Noah's Ark. Um. I don't even know where to start with that. I don't know. Just read the article, if you want to. I'm feeling uninspired today, and each key stroke is an exercise in frustration.

But one thing that--okay, two things--that I got out of the article that really worry me: One, 30% of Republican presidential candidates recently said in a debate that they don't believe in evolution and, two, almost half of the U.S. population said, in a recent Gallup poll, that they believe that human beings did not evolve, but were rather created by God, in their present image, within the last 10,000 years.

I thought we were done with the Dark Ages. How do people, with emperical evidence--mounds of it--still maintain this tommyrot? Also, one quick aside before I go and soak my head: This group that founded the museum--this "Creation" Museum in Kentucky--they're led by a man with the last name of Ham. How is one supposed to take seriously a man with the last name of Ham? I'd have images of a stuttering Porky Pig bouncing through my head every time I glanced at his nametag.

Anyway.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

DOUBLE-CHECK THOSE PRIMATE LOCKS!

This is the second time in a week or two that a large ape has escaped its "dwellings." First it was a gorilla in Germany and now an orangutan in Taiwan. What is this world coming to? And you gotta love the anchorman's "joke" at the end. Hilarious! ROFLMAO!

Sunday, May 20, 2007

THE JUGGLER

The man was juggling his three balls on the street corner. I was stopped at the light, waiting for the green of Go. He had a sandwich board propped open at a 45 degree angle and his body was between me and the sign, so I couldn't read what it said. So I watched him juggle the red balls and studied him.
He was an older guy, about six feet tall, and he was wearing glasses and suspenders and kind of glumly looking at the traffic as the balls danced before his face. He didn't look like he was having a good time, that was for sure. Across the street, kitty-corner to the juggler, a middle-aged woman crossed, heeding not the fact that the minivan in the left-hand turn lane had the green turn arrow in its favor. She reached the curb with a sheepish smile and shrugged her shoulder slightly as the van turned behind her. Whoops, she seemed to be thinking. Oh well.

[I wanted to shout at her. I'd deride her not for having her head up her ass, but I'll be damned if I wouldn't let her have it with both barrels for walking her bike. It's a pet peeve of mine: People who walk their bikes. They're bikes, people; they're meant to be ridden. Why do people do that? I know, I know: It is safer, for some unknown reason, to walk the bike at the crossing, but that doesn't explain why people walk their bikes when they're on the sidewalk, say, or just on a side street. It makes me want to scream.]

I looked away from the sheepish shrugging woman and I looked back to the juggler. He had ceased his show and was standing, morosely, looking out into traffic. The light turned green and, as I pulled forward, I looked to my left to see what was written on the sign. I figured it might have been some sort of advertising--like Little Caesar's, which has teenagers holding signs that proclaim the availability of five-dollar Hot-and-Ready cardboard pizzas--but, when I finally saw what the sign read, I realized that I had been wrong, that the guy was not a juggling advertisement. I didn't get a good look at it, but the sign read something like "Can you spare a nickel?" and then some other writing.

Has it gotten that bad in this country? That old men have to slap on suspenders and newsboy hats and take to street corners and throw a ball up in the air and then throw another up in the air before catching the first, all for a "nickel?" Are people in this country--supposedly a land of riches--inconveniently morphing into hobos as we--politically--dump billions of dollars into a sandy nation, the residents of which neither wanted nor will stand for our continued "occupation?"

Gasoline is over $3.50 a gallon, unemployment is skyrocketing (at least here, in Michigan), children are "left behind" at a frenetic pace...and now we have street performers. What's next? Mimes outside the Capitol Buildings?

Friday, May 18, 2007

AND THEN THE GORILLA...

Have ye heard the one about the 400-pound gorilla? Damn if that doesn't sound like a joke. I particularly liked this line in the article: Children cowered in their parents' arms as the gorilla loped past. "As the gorilla loped past." In my book, any time you can work a "loped" into a story, you're ahead of the game. Kudos, Associated Press reporter, kudos.

I feel that I can joke about this because no one died. Had someone died at the hands of the escaped gorilla, I think I would have bitten my tongue. Probably. Maybe. Wow. Just think about it, though. You're at the zoo, eating an elephant ear, slurping on a soda, injesting a hot dog--whatever--and, all of a sudden, you look up to see a massive humanoid-like carbon life form blasting through a food court, scattering tables and chairs like kindling. Ho. Lee. Shit.

Chimpanzees are strong enough! Can you imagine the strength that a 400-pound gorilla possesses?!

And, as often happens, life imitates art: The gorilla snagged a woman "by the forearm" as he "loped past," perhaps thinking himself the king of Kongs? I'll bet dollars to lugnuts, though, that the woman was not as hot as Charlize Theron or the other, primary, Beauty, which was who, again? I forgot. Faye something? Day something? Sandra Day O'Connor?! Good Lord! I hope not! Although, if truth be told--and why stop now?--I think Sandra Day, back in the day, was probably as hot as a Fourth of July firecracker. I'd have to liked to crack her safe. Wink, wink.

Nudge, nudge.

Anyway. Here are some words to live by: Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars; don't let your head swell and watch out for 400-pound gorillas. If we all can manage that, the world will be a better place.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

ZEE-TO-AYE: WHERE FOR ART THOU, BERING STRAITS?

"Zen vee pull zee rabbeet ouvt oft zee hat, oont.... You know, Adam, you don't have to look at me that way; I'm trying the best that I can, here." Xena tossed the top hat onto the kitchen table, where it spun briefly, and walked out into the front room, her shoulders tight and hunched.

We'd been taking a hack at the "Humor Exercise" that the counselor had given us to do--homework, in a way--the idea being that making each other laugh was the first step in re-establishing the passion of which the relationship had been bereft ever since Heather had been born. Verily, it was going on nine months since we had...well...nine months since we had had a nice mutual belly laugh.

"Um," I said, as I watched my firecracker wife plop into the armchair with a hmph and cross her arms tightly across her chest and stare blankly at the Zenith, upon which Paul Newman was shoving hard-boiled eggs into his mouth at a frenetic pace. The thing was, it hadn't been funny; in fact, her impromptu "Komic Majic Session" had been pretty lame, embarrassing, really. "Sorry I didn't laugh, Xeen, I was afraid that I was gonna choke, hon." Rapid-fire, I jammed ten or fifteen jelly beans into my mouth and pretended to gag.

"Quite the show, Adam," she said icily, viewing my aborted excuse for an excuse from the reflection on the big bay window. "Pretend--just for a moment--that we still have it, okay?"

Oh boy--"it." Never let anyone tell you that "it" is an innocuous word, two letters, benign. Many a man has fallen to his couch with the reverberation of it, it, it, it, it clanging through his mind. Loaded doesn't even begin to describe that small word, when it is used in this context: Chemistry, love, passion, newness, sparkle...basically, Xena was telling me that, after three short years, the fizzle had fazzled and we were thisclose to eating silent dinners at the local Ram's Horn, me with my paperback and she with her crossword puzzles.

"'Kay," I said, "let us pretend that we still have...it." Jazzed up a bit with the horror of living a sexless life for the next indeterminate years, I chased my sentence with an ominous (and slightly belligerent) Duh-duh-duhhhhhhhh; a chaser that Xena found not the least bit humorous.

"I'm going to bed," she said suddenly, getting up, avoiding eye contact and giving me a wide berth as she headed towards the stairs. "Heather's gonna need some more diapers tomorrow--we have a few left but she shits like nobody's business--so, uh, make yourself useful, eh?"

"Go to Meijer's in the morning, check," I said, and noticed that her shoulders were shaking slightly as she reached the first step. "For Pete's sake, Xeeney, are you crying?"

"Exactly!" she cried, spinning around and fixing me with her brilliant and shiny brown eyes. "Do you not understand that we are drifting apart like the--the--the friggin' continental drift?! Because I do and I'm scared because it's not just you and me anymore, Adam; we have Heather to think about and I'm just fucking scared."

"Amazing," I said, "that you can think about continental drift at a time like this," and I saw the left corner of her rosebud mouth lift a little bit and I closed the distance to her and I enveloped her in my arms and I whispered to her that it was going to be all right.

Monday, May 14, 2007

PAGING DOCTOR DOOLITTLE....

I think the animals around my house need a doctor. Doctor Doolittle will do nicely. Maybe it's something in the water? Who knows. This dude to the right, here? The Doctor should see him posthaste.

I got home from work and let my boy Lou out. We played a bit of Fetch and Lou urinated and then we got set to go inside. I heard a chick-chuck-chick-chuck sound over my head and I looked up to see the squirrel looking down at me and chattering. "What's up, man?" I asked him.

He looked at me and chattered, seemingly frozen in place. I sat there and watched him for a good five minutes as Lou danced around my feet and leaped against the neighbor's fence. During that five minutes, the squirrel moved two feet. Maybe three. I figured, hell, why not get a couple of shots of the kid, so I went and got my camera out of my knapsack and returned, figuring the long-tailed rodent would have high-tailed it by then. Nope. He was still there, apparently clutching the wire for dear life.

I have a question: Aren't squirrels supposed to be, like, agile? Isn't a trip along a power wire kind of like a walk in the park for them? This guy might have been drunk, I guess. Taking a step or two, looking down at Lou and I looking up at him, taking another step, freezing.

I ended up taking about 10 shots of the squirrel. It was easy. I took the shots from all angles because he apparently didn't feel like moving. Maybe he was preparing for a career in modeling?

All this to say that the damned squirrel was acting really odd. And, while I was studying the frozen squirrel and taking snapshots, a bird flew into the side of my neighbor's house, rebounding with a solid thunk.
Hurry up, Doctor Doolittle, we're losing them fast.

SLOW-MOTION

I was taking a nap earlier today. Don't judge me, please. My friend says that the only people who take naps are babies and the elderly. I tend to disagree. And--got damn!--sometimes naps just hit. the. spot. But, anyway, as I was laying there, hovering between consciousness and unconsciousness, an image of a horse leaping a fence swam into my mind.

I could see the thundering of the hooves, the flexing of the muscles, the flaring of the nostrils--all beautiful, actually--and I realized that I was "watching" the horse, in my mind, in slow-motion.

The clods of dirt kicked up by the hammering hooves rose into the air, from the track or whatever, and caught glints of the Sun, turning, spinning, before they reached the apex of their flight and then tumbled back to the earth.

The thin line between sleep and waking has always been a pretty fertile area, for me. I think it must have something to do with the ultra-relaxation and thus the freedom of the mind, the freedom of postulation.

And I lay there, hovering, it struck me: Do you think that people, back in the day, before television, were cognizant of slow-motion? It seems like a stooooopid question, now, as I write this, but I truely don't know. Did film usher the concept of slow-motion into the human mind? Before it was on the silver screen and on television, how do you suppose people's minds processed that phenomenon? Perception is a funny thing.

Then again, as I read over what I just wrote, I suppose psychedelic drugs might have been able to achieve the same function. I don't know.

Fuck this; my feet stink; I'm going to bed.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

THE CONSEQUENTIAL MIME

The mime advanced into the gloom of the bedroom and stopped, two feet from the edge of the bed. He stood and stared at her, his white face paint scrubbed away from his eyes and his mouth slightly open; he was breathing heavily and Helena noticed that his teeth were small and yellow and widely spaced. They reminded her of kernals of corn and that seemed to energize her, somehow. Her mind flashed an image of him closing his mouth over hers, with a bitter probing tongue, their teeth clicking together.

Helena's chest swelled as she gathered the now-found breath to scream. The mime jabbed the bat in the general direction of her stomach. "Scream and your kid gets it first."

Helena's breath wheezed out and she snapped her mouth shut. Her main goal, now, was to keep Eliza safe, safe from this psychopath. Her eyes wide and her mouth a thin line, she nodded mutely, ironically enough, at the mime.

"Good," he said soothingly. "What's her name, again? Lisa?" He sat down in the corner armchair and crossed his legs, laying the bat over the right knee. The Donald Duck nightlight that Helena had had since she was 17 cast a mellow sheen across his countenance. They could have been discussing taxes over lattes, for how oddly peaceful he was. His eyes had lost their wide glare and now they stood at half-mast.

Helena scrabbled her legs underneath her and pushed against the far side of the bed. "N-never mind what her name is. What're you doing here? Wh-who are you?"

He plucked at a piece of lint on his striped shirt and he chuckled softly. "Helena," he said slowly, flicking the lint in the direction of the bed, "don't worry about me and who I am and why I'm here. I know about you, and that's all that matters.

"How do you know my name, you...." She trailed off as he raised the bat off his knee. His eyes had widened again and she thought it best to keep the name-calling to an absolute minimum. "How do you know my name?" she asked.

The mime relaxed back against the chair and smiled. "That's better, Helena...do you mind if I call you Hennie? It's easier on the tongue, truth be told. I find that the less syllables in the name, the happier I am. Maybe I could even call you Hen? Like Mother Hen?" He barked silent laughter and slapped at his knee. It was the goddamned funniest thing he had ever uttered, it seemed. And, then, like a switch had been flipped, he was all business again, his eyes wide and yellow against the white of the greasepaint, his left hand clutching the handle of the bat tight enough to raise his knuckles into the gloom of the room.

Tears formed at Helena's eyes and she hugged her arms tight across her breasts. "Wh-whatever you want to call me is fine," she said softly. Her options had been severly limited, she saw now; there would be no talking herself through this and, even though she was a well-formed woman, with new muscles from running and weight training, he was a big man--6'3"--and he was crazy. Absolutely nuts. It would be over before it had even begun. And one mustn't forget that little fact.

"Good Hen. What a good Hen," he said. He smiled beatifically at her. The Donald Duck nightlight softened his features, made him almost handsome, in a way, rotten teeth notwithstanding.

"Mommy?" came the call from just outside the door. The mime's eyes shot in the direction of the door and his lips pulled up off his teeth in an unconscious snarl. He looked back at Helena and, across his neck, he slashed his right forefinger, his eyebrows raised. Helena got the point: Send her away, or else.

"What is it, honey?" she managed. She talked to the door but her eyes never left the mime's; they were locked in a deathgrip. If he made one move towards the door, Helena would attack, size difference be damned. He was not going to get to her daughter and she would fight to the death over that very salient point. She reckoned it would be quick, but she would be damned if he were going to touch a fucking hair on her Eliza's head.

"Mommy, I gotta go wee," her daughter said.

"Honey, you're going to have to do it yourself, this time," she said. "Mommy is busy right now."

The mime laughed silently and rubbed his belly. He snaked his tongue through his yellow teeth and flicked at the air. Helena felt a wave of revulsion pushing against the backs of her teeth and she struggled to keep from gagging.

"But, Mommy--"

"Do it, Eliza!" she snapped, and immediately regretted it. The mime's eyes had widened at the mention of her daughter's name and he had shifted forward in the armchair, his fingertips dancing, drumming, along the side of the splintered bat.

There was silence from the other side of the door. Just do it, baby, she thought. Just be a big girl and do it yourself, this one time. If you do it yourself, and we get through this, I promise you I'll be there for you until you're seventy-two, if you need me to be.

The silence spun into awkward pregnancy and finally Eliza spoke. "Okay, Mommy. I can do it. I'm a big girl. But I don't know if I'll be that good at it."

Helena realized that she'd been holding her breath and now she let it out, staccato-like. "You'll be fine baby-girl. Mommy just has a headache."

"Okay." Little footsteps retreated from the door and, in the distance, Helena could hear the sound of the bathroom door opening and snicking shut. Keep going, hon. Keep going. She turned her attention back to the mime. He was pantomiming sleeping on a pillow, his hands folded under his cheek. The bat leaned against the edge of the chair, within easy reach. He saw that he had her full attention and he affected a great wide yawn and stood up. From her position on the bed, Helena followed his ascent.

"Okay, honey," he said, "this is all well and good--very touching--but maybe you'd like to get down to brass tacks, now?" He flexed his shoulders and picked up the baseball bat and glared down at her. Smacking the barrel of the bat into his right palm, he said, "You owe me."

She was befuddled. "I owe you? I owe you what?!"

He feinted with the bat and Helena cringed. "Watch your tone with me," he said. "I don't need some made-up rich snob talkin' down to me. I'm not gonna have it."

Made-up rich snob? "Sorry," she said meekly. "What, sir, do I owe you?"

He smiled his awful smile and, like a lizard, flicked the tip of his tongue through his lips. Quick and gone. Helena swallowed some bile. "That's better," he said. "I like the 'sir' reference. Makes me feel all big-time and stuff." He sat on the edge of the bed and touched Helena's foot. With a grimace, she pulled it back, like a turtle's head into its shell, and the smile vanished from the mime's face. "You owe me big-time," he said again, his eyes wide and unseeing.

"I don't even know you," she said, her voice raising.

"Night, Mommy," came the call from the other side of the door. "Mommy? Who're you talking to?"

"Honey, I'm just talking to myself. We old people do that, sometimes. You'll know do it, too, when you get older. Night-night."

There was a pause and Eliza giggled. "Mommy's talking to herself," she laughed. "Night."

They listened as Eliza got into her bed and flicked off the lamp.

"I don't even know you," Helena whispered. "What do you want from me?"

The mime shrugged and began absently caressing Helena's foot and calf. "'What do you want from me?'" he mimicked. His voice got rough. "How about a little fucking respect, to start? I am a mime. I am an actor. I'm not Sir Lawrence of fucking Arabia or Peter O'Toole but I am an actor. I've got my SAG card...." He trailed off and looked at the ceiling. "They should do something about that stain," he said and Helena blinked. "...And so I've been having some rough times. So what? We all have rough times. I do what I need to do to survive. What I don't need is some Madison Avenue high-box belittling me in front of my fucking fans."

"I only said one thing!" she said, pleading. "It was an off-the-cuff comment and I just said it because you were messing with me first, all the time!"

"No matter," he said, gripping the bat tighter. "No matter. Once was enough, Helena. Once was more than enough." He raised the bat over his shoulder, the barrel pointing towards her head, for a moment looking like the Japanese baseball great, Sadahura Oh.

"What fans?!" she cried. "What fans?! You were always there by yourself when I ran past! Doing that box thing!"

With pity, he looked down at her and smiled. "You didn't see the pigeons?" he asked gently.

Uncomprehension flooded her face. "Pigeo--"

"Mommy?!" came the cry from outside the bedroom door. And, with that, the mime, Thomas Allen Redruth, 42 and unemployed, brought the bat down and across her temple in a vicious backhanded swipe, drawing blood, bursting stars before her eyes. The pain was instantaneous and thunderous. She was dimly reminded of falling off her bike as a child and banging her head against the concrete. Teeth-rattling pain. This can't be happening to me, she thought. This can't be happening. I'm the good girl. I'm in the white hat. I'm supposed to win. Who else can star in the "Helena Show" but me? This is not happening.

It was happening and the second swipe of the bat caught her full on the mouth, splintering teeth and mashing her lips. The mime raised the bat high over his head. His eyes were wide and his lips were drawn up off his mouth, displaying his corn kernal teeth. All reason--if there had ever been any--had left him. "In front of my fans!" He brought the bat down with all the force that his plus-six foot frame could muster and Helena felt explosive pain...and then knew no more.

A home run, for sure.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

CHEERINESS, PERSONIFIED! =O)

There was that sound again. Except, this time, Helena could swear that it was louder. A slight tapping sound, followed by a whispering shurrrr. The first time she'd heard it, she had dismissed it; hell, she had been under a ton of stress, lately, and she'd found--from experience, unfortunately--that the brain, the mind, had ways of playing its games in its bony cell. It would find ways to entertain itself if one didn't keep it entertained. She wanted to get up and check on Eliza, but, too, there was that part of herself, the "Tough Bitch" she liked to call it, that rebelled against that notion.

Single mother, recently divorced, jumping at shadows, it chided her. How quaint.

"Shut up," she murmured into her pillow. "It's just logical to check on a strange sound at night when it's just you and your seven-year-old daughter in a new apartment. In fact, it would be stupid not to check on it."
Jumping at shadows, her mind insisted.

Helena made a deal with herself. If she heard the sound again--she looked at the clock which read 11:28--before 11:33, five minutes, she would get up, grab the chipped wooden baseball bat that lay at the side of the bed, and do some damned investigating. "Okay?" she said aloud.

The Tough Bitch was silent.

"Okay, then." Helena reached over her head and plumped her pillow, made a show of being uber-relaxed. She snuggled her head back into the fluffy pillow, snuggled again, and then she remembered to breathe. "Take it easy, girl," she whispered. "Just take it easy. Homes and houses and apartments make all kinds of noises all the time." She was just wound up, she knew that. "You're just wound up," she murmured, her eyes wide and unblinking, staring at the stained ceiling.

She concentrated on the crickets chirping outside of her window, rubbing their legs together, calling for love. With an exaggerated yawn, she stretched and rolled toward the clock: 11:30. "Oh, come on!" she said. "That had to have been at least five minutes!"

The red digital numbers mocked her with their infallibility. Click. 11:31.

Her eyes began to sag, despite her trepidation. "Go. To. Bed. You loon," she said. And her eyes slipped shut.

Tap. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-- Shurrrr.

Her blue eyes, rimmed with red, slammed open. The sound seemed to be coming from her closet. Her closet that was open just a tiny bit. "Oh, fuck," she said. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." Images of horror movies screamed through her mind. The heroine running through whipping underbrush, a crazed killer stalking slowly behind. The bad-girl sex-pot being skewered by garden shears. The isolated blonde opening a door to see a lumbering hockey goalie behind. "Fuck," she whispered.

She looked at the closet door, really examined it. Didn't it seem to be sliding open, ever-so slowly? Didn't it just seem that way? In fact, it did. It did, indeed. "Look," she said, trying somewhat-successfully to control the waver in her voice, "I have a gun, asshole. I'm not afraid to use it. Self-defense, creep."

From the next bedroom, Eliza said, "Mommy? Mommy, who're you talkin to?" Sleepy, like she'd just woken up.

"Go back to bed, baby," she said. "Everything's all right. Mommy's just playing around, hon. Go back to sleep."

"Mommy?"

Helena was focused on the closet door. There was no denying that it was opening. Slow as molasses but, yeah--fuck yeah, oh shit, yeah--it was opening. "Asshole? Can you fucking hear? I said I have a gun, here." She reached at the side of the bed, reaching for the Louisville Slugger, and her fingers grasped only air. The panic-animal threatened to suffocate her and so she made it a point to breathe and reach more thoroughly. Nothing.

Her heart skipped a beat and she gasped and, at that moment, the Thing Behind the Door decided to make its grand entrance. In the darkened room, Helena could barely make out the white oval face of the mime, the mime from the park, the mime that had creeped her out these last few weeks as she had jogged to relieve her ever-increasing stress. The mime who'd always aped her long gangly strides. Always, that is, until yesterday, when Helena had stopped running and, panting, told the mime that he was really bothering her and maybe he ought to stop before she called the cops and, don'tcha know? mimes are the lowest form of theatre. And then she had set off, looking back once to see the mime fisting air-tears from his eyes.

"Looking for this, bitch?" he snarled, his makeup smeared, his eyes wide, his mouth a blacker black in the darkness of the room. In his hand he held the baseball bat. "Lowest form, eh?" He smacked the bat into his huge right hand. It made a meaty thwack. "We'll see. We'll see, indeed."

And Helena had lost even the breath to whimper.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

RAINDROPS ARE FALLIN' ON MY HEAD

I write this with a twinge of guilt. I write this with a twinge of guilt because I write this at 12:30 on a Wednesday afternoon. Work much? Well, yeah...that's why I feel guilty. I'm working right now. I'm getting paid to depress keys on a keyboard and play God of War on my PS2 and do laundry and do dishes.
Because it's raining, you see.

What I'm doing at work--all summer--is surveying the gas services to the houses and businesses, looking for gas leaks which, if found, will be classified and put on the work schedule for four-month scheduled action or 12-month deferred action. It's mandated by the Michigan Public Services Commission that we--the gas company--do this.

I use a $15,000 laser that emits an infrared "footprint" along the services and is calibrated to respond to 10 parts per million methane gas in the air. The higher the alarm pitch frequency, the higher the concentration of methane gas in the air.

Sound fun? To a degree, it actually is. We leak surveyors are left alone, for the most part. We have to deal not with customers and customers calling in gas leaks. So, that's good. The worst part about the job is that--hell, yes!--it gets boring and--hell, yes!--we have to deal with moronic question/statements from passersby like, "Ghostbusters! Find any ghosts?" or "I wasn't speeding, honestly!" (The device looks like a radar gun hooked to a rectangular laptop.)

Like I said, each device is approxiately $15,000, out the door, so, obviously, they must stay out of the inclement weather. I'm more than happy to oblige. So I sit here, at home, waiting out the rain.

I still feel kinda guilty, though. Damned conscience!

LET'S HUMP!

Happy Hump Day!

This is what I look like in the morning, when I've just woken up. Ladies? The line starts over there.

As you were.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

YOU CAN GET YOURSELF CLEAN

It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.
It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.
You can get yourself clean
You can have a good meal
You can do whatever you feel....

"YMCA" The Village People

It's the end of an era.
I shook off some dust, this morning, and went to the local YMCA to play some basketball, something I have been doing off and on since 1992. The problem has been, though, that lately I have been doing that less and less. Blame it on assorted injuries, blame it on a burdgeoning Internet addiction, blame it on laziness...whatever makes you shine. The point is that I have been to the YMCA approximately six or seven or eight times since the beginning of this calendar year. That is not getting the most out of my membership, you know?

Taking into account the fact that I have $52.00 drafted out of my checking account every month to maintain the privilege of "getting myself clean" and "doing whatever I feel," it makes absolutely no fiscal sense to keep the membership up and running. None. Use it or lose it?
I threw it away.
Let's do the math, though, just for shits and giggles: $52.00/month times 5 months (thus far) equals $260.00. Let's break that down even further, shall we? Seeing as how I have gone, let's say, eight times this year, that would mean that I have, for all intents and purposes, spent $32.50 each time I have gone. And, seeing as how I generally only spend about an hour when I do go, that would mean that I was spending around five or six dollars for every ten minutes. Shit, I could get a sensual full-body massage for that kind of money!

Late last year, I was having financial difficulties (among other troubles) and so I went to the Y and had them cease the automatic draft for a few months. I also had to go to my bank to alert them to the situation. There was a snafu later on in which my bank had stopped payment on a $52.00 check that I had written--somehow mixing the automatic bank draft with the unsequential check--and so I had gone to the bank and, with vitriolic hmm-hah given them the what-for. Apparently that had thrown a monkey wrench into the whole YMCA money-gathering, so, when I went today, it was as if I was not a member. In fact, they had absolutely no record of me; it is as if I had never existed. I said, fine, that I had been leaning towards terminating it anyway.

So, now, I am YMCA-less. But shed not a tear for me. I'm fine with it. It was too damned expensive, anyway. But, there are some good memories that I have from my 15-plus years as a member:

Like the time I was playing basketball and I went up and got a defensive rebound and came down and, going between my legs to avoid a defender, pushed it up the court and, spinning to avoid another defender, saw a teammate streaking down the right side of the court and, at half-court, tossed up a perfect alley-oop pass to the teammate, one which he caught in mid-leap, right in stride, and laid it up and in with a delicate finger-roll.

Like meeting good people and making fast friends, some of the friendships lasting to this day.

Like toning and buffing my body, hitting the weights, filling myself with pride and a sense of accomplishment.

I've had a good run at the YMCA. The math just doesn't add up, though. It is far too fucking expensive, even if I went three or four times a week. I'm just not going to pay over $600.00 a year to work out. It just ain't gonna happen.

I'll just have to find another way to get myself clean. That's it.

Friday, May 04, 2007

THE FRIDAY (night) REPORT

There is really not too much to report, right now. Let me put my thinking cap on.
Um...

The weather is nice. It reminds me of why I love living in Michigan. Not too hot and not too cold. Also, much eye candy to peruse. Joggers, walkers, cappucino sippers, strippers, nurses, nuns, cod-cookers, cod-carriers, podiatrists, opthamologists, press operators...they're all wearing spandex and jiggling with movement. Ah! Michigan is grand...it is, in fact, Michigrand.

My sister Melissa is driving across the country to deposit a car to her friend, Karen, a hot married blonde mother of one, in the driveway of her new house in Las Vegas, Nevada. Karen is going to be a cop, which--of course--brings to my somewhat-sickened mind images of a hot blonde woman in a cop's uniform, pulling me over for blowing off a stop sign or accelerating through an orange traffic light. Why, in my mind, does the lady cop have on black leather thigh high "boots" and why, do tell, does she hold in her hand a cat o' nine tails, which she smacks softly, seductively, into the leather-gloved palm of the other? What, do tell, does she intend to do with that oh-so-scary implement?

Melissa is driving across the country in Karen's new Mazda; she is driving with another hot blonde friend of hers named Lori Jean. I told Melissa before she left to have fun, to enjoy her trip and her friends but, for the love of Saint Peter, not to pull a Thelma and Louise at the end of the trip. For the love of God, Meliss! Don't. Do. It! She'll have an interesting story or two to convey to us when she gets back. I'm absolutely sure of it. She will post it here, for all of us Internetters to enjoy.

In totally unrelated news, a neighboring suburb was the setting for a dog attack. An attack in which a doggy lunged at an eleven-year-old boy and mangled his face, a bit, resulting in 40-plus stitches across his cheek and around his eye. I bring this up why? The offending doggy, which was immediately put down, was a Boxer-Pit Bull mix, kinda like this character. Lou worries me, sometimes. He is a sweetheart--that is indisputable. So, uh, don't even try to dispute it, mmkay? But he, too, is a Pit Bull mix. They are, by nature, more aggressive than some other breeds. (Or is it just their upbringing?) He's fine around me and every other person he has ever met. The thing is, the only other people he has ever met have been full-grown adults. The woman I am seeing right now has a two-year-old, a two-year-old who enjoys fucking with the family pussy, a cat named Tiffany. Lou is not Tiffany. Lou has big teeth and strong jaws. I just...worry, sometimes. Not to be overly dramatic, but I don't think I would be able to live with myself too well if Emily went at Louie in the wrong way and he took it as an aggressive move and dealt with it justly. And swiftly. Ever-so-swiftly. I just...worry, sometimes. Then again, you know what they say: Worry is interest on a debt not yet accrued. Or, uh, sumpin' like that. To summarize: Lou and Emily have never met (hell, Emmie Sue hasn't even been to my house yet), nothing bad has happened, but...I worry. Sometimes. Any advice, Radio Land?

What the hell is the big deal about the Spiderman movie? There have been two already. They were both good, but I don't recall constructing my own bukake kit after (or during) the films. They were superhero action flicks, with a whole hell of a lot of special effects. So what? And they starred Toby Maguire. Again, so what? All right. 'Fess up, ladies. What is so damned appealing about this dude? Is it his dreamy eyes? Is it his rosebud smacker? Is he hung like a water buffalo? Does he just have it? Enquiring minds want to know. And, since we're on the subject, how in the hell does fucking Justin Timberlake pull the tail that he pulls? It's a mystery to me.

On another totally unrelated topic (yet, huh, coincidentally related to the topic of dogs): All. Fleas. Must. Die. And please don't give me that shit about all creatures are on the planet for some reason, that they are all an integral part of the Earth's fragile (rhymes with "guile") ecosystem. Fleas suck. Literally. And it would not bum me out in the least--in the least, I say!--if they all exited stage-left yesterday. Fucking pests. Not that I, uh, have any, you see, taking up residence in my house, you see, like an overbearing relative, you see, intent upon eating all my food and leaving the toilet unflushed after doo-doo-doing a "number two." No. Uh-uh. I'm just speaking, uh...generally. All. Fleas. Must. Die.

Oh, one last thing: In two days, on the seventh, I'll be celebrating my five-month anniversary of sobriety. I'll be celebrating with a couple bottles of wine. Because nothing says "Huzzah for extended abstinence!" more than rapidly swallowing generally-toxic beverages till one is "lit up" and "blasted" and manic and sickened. Bartender? Gimme a glass of Grape Nehi, please.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

TAG ME, MAMA! TAG ME!

Oh yeah, that's how I like it.

Time to play a game. Courtesy of The Sugary One, from Crazy and in Charge (which, coincidentally, is my kinda woman!), I have been tagged to play a game of "Chinese Freeze Tag." Why it is Chinese and why I have to do it while I'm freezing my nuts off, I don't know, but here are the rules: I'll write 10 psuedo-interesting things about myself or habits of mine and then I'll do my damnedest to "tag" 10 other people to do the same thing. There are no tag-backs allowed and, hopefully, this is the kind of game that will allow us bloggers to get to know each other better. So, 10 things about me:

1. I have an extremely addictive personality. I do everything to excess. Drinking, smoking, self-love, whatever...it's all done above and beyond the checks and balances of moderation. Case in point: I have just started to play God of War 2 for the PS2 and, already, I am hooked like a fucking fish. The game is incredible and I find myself still playing at one in the morning, slamming coffee like water and chain-smoking. Ah, fun times.

2. I went to college right out of high school (the 'rents were paying for it) and I attended Michigan State University for a year-and-a-half (coming home because I missed my family and friends) and Oakland University in Rochester Hills, MI, for the remainder of the time. I graduated with a degree in English and I now work at the gas company, a job I could have had straight out of high school. Huh.

3. But they can never take that degree away from me; nor can they take from me the "college experience." Right?

4. The "college experience," for me, consisted of my being painfully shy and self-conscious and get puking drunk on the weekends. Surely there must have been more to advanced learning than that? Please tell me yes.

5. I like all kinds of music, save for two genres: cheesy rhythm-n-blues love songs and opera. Country music is down there, too, but I can stomach Garth Brooks or Faith Hill a hell of a lot better than I can Puccini or Toni Braxton. (Now, physically, Toni Braxton, is a different matter all together. I could stomach her, yes. I'm not so sure about Puccini, though.)

6. I am pretty ambidextrous. I can shoot and make a three-pointer in basketball fairly well and , in softball, I am more comfortable batting left-handed, as I can see the ball better. I also play Disc Golf, and I "drive" the disc sidearm right-handed but I putt and throw approach shots backhand left-handed. It's just the way it's always been.

7. I love geography. I love looking at maps of the world or maps of the United States or other countries. I love geography and the like but I often find myself turned around, going in the wrong direcetion, when I am driving in an unfamiliar area around town. North and south and east and west took their damned time revealing themselves to me.

8. I eat pretty much anything. I do not, however, eat egg foo young. Something about it...the aftertaste, maybe? Then again, I haven't eaten it in almost 20 years. Maybe I just had a bad batch of the slop. Who knows? Maybe I'll try it anew. Maybe I'll have a conversion. I doubt it, kind of.

9. I am a fan of violent movies. However, I am not one to watch a violent movie, or play a violent video game, or read a violent book and then go out and take the violence to the streets. Huh. Novel concept, that. Maybe we don't have to act violent if we saturate our minds with violence. Maybe something like free will is involved.

10. I believe in extraterrestrial life. Don't you?

Well, that was pretty fun. Hopefully it wasn't too boring and hopefully there were some interesting moments there for you, dear Reader. And, now, per the rules of the game, I have to try to scratch out 10 other people to "tag." This could be tough. Also, I know at least a couple of the people are either out of town or preparing to be out of town, so but anyway, I tag:

Little Missy
My sister Melissa
Nighthawk Nan
FTN, and

I feel like a dork, linking at people, but, hell, I had to come up with ten, y'know? I really would have loved to tag "Crazy Jay," on the RSM comment section. I've always wondered just what the makes that guy tick.