THE CHALLENGE OF SEGUE

The horror of the blank white sheet of paper. Appease the beast. Write whatever comes into your mind, kemo sabe....

I was looking at my home page a few minutes ago and I saw a story about a hot air balloon in British Columbia that caught fire whilst on the ground and then, breaking loose from its tether, floated up into the air and burst into flames before shooting off like a sputtering balloon and exploding into an RV park. Two people were unable to jump from the craft and subsequently died from burns. Eeeesh. Good God, I thought that hot air balloon rides were supposed to be nice and relaxing, a meandering float above picturesque villages, a ride that renders towns below quaint postcards. You don't expect to be involved in Hindenburg '07 when you clamber aboard a balloon. Thoughts and prayers.

And now, without an appropriate segue (but how can I segue from that?), I am fiending for NFL football. I drafted a team for one of my Fanatsy leagues yesterday. We drafted at a bowling alley right down the road from work headquarters. Many people enjoyed alcoholic beverages; I, nearing my ninth month of sobriety, enjoyed a few Nordics, Labatt's non-alcoholic brew. (If I may be so bold, if you are ever going to drink a non-alkie beer, this is the one to drink. Stay faaaaaaaaaar away from O'Doul's. Stuff tastes like tonic water mixed with wheat germ...not a good taste.)

Anyway, for all two of you NFL geeks out there who read my drivel, what follows is the result of my sober draft. Team Monkey is as follows: At quarterback, I have Donovan McNabb with Matt Hasselbeck as his backup. At running backs I have Joseph Addai and Rudi Johnson with Cedric Benson and Marion Barber III as their backups. I drafted a shitload of wideouts, for some reason. In this league, we start three every week, but I still, for some unknown reason, drafted four backups. Anyway, here are my starters: "Terrible" Terrell Owens, Larry Fitzgerald and Darrell Jackson. I'll be shifting the receivers each week, according to the matchups, but here are my backups: Braylon Edwards, Greg Jennings, Matt Jones and the still-speedy and earnest octogenerian Isaac Bruce. At tight end, I selected Chris Cooley from the Redskins. My defense is the Carolina Panthers and my place kicker is Josh Brown from Seattle.

I like my chances. It's basically a work league--all eight of us in the league work at Consumers Energy. There were some foolish selections, such as Drew Brees going 14th overall and Frank Gore being selected before Joseph Addai. But...that shit happens, right? Right?!

I stayed true to the two-stud running back strategy and I am very happy to have gotten--for all intents and purposes--three starting running backs who are not subject to the platoon system on their respective teams.

Okay...wipe the Fanatsy Football Geek Juice (F.F.G.J.) off of the screen.

OATMEAL

I wonder about my brain-power, sometimes. I wonder if, perhaps, too many hops and too many barleys conspired to drain my Einstein of elasticity.

Case in point: I had this picture of Lou up in Adobe Photoshop. There was a glare coming from the Saturday morning-light zapping in from the window, obscuring the image on the monitor. I, for about five minutes, did what I was doing with the picture, all the while craning my neck to counteract the glare. It was a pain in the ass, not to mention an increasing pain in the neck. I just can't see it! I was thinking to myself. Eventually, I angled the monitor two inches to the right.

No glare. If I stay true to this kind of cutting-edge thinking, I just might yet gain tenure at Harvard.

A MONKEY'S UNCLE

So, yeah. I drew the picture that you see, here, when I was in the back seat of my Ford Focus. My brother-in-law Matt was driving (he drove 23 hours and 1300 miles...he is now, officially, Stud), and my sis Meliss was in the passenger seat. I read and smoked and, one time (not at band camp) I jammed my stinky flip-flops in the area between the passenger door and the passenger seat, thus guaranteeing that my dear sister would be privy to the full effect of my odorifious zapatos. I have written about this already, but I figured I would lend some background information to this picture.

Anyway, I have long loved to doodle and, often, I draw a gratuitously grotesque characiture of myself, including but not limited to: a wide expanse of forehead, pinched facial features, a glowering brow and a miniature bowler hat, a type of hat that I have never in my life worn. I don't know why I draw that picture incessantly, but I do. It had become an almost thoughtless exercise in line-drawing.

But the fact remains that I often draw myself as an ape, or, at least, a human being with an apish apeture.

Do you know how excruciating middle and high schools were? Do know what it's like to score in the top 99th percentile in rope-climbing...and be ashamed of your achievement because it just felt way too easy? To have bananas spill from your locker during class breaks? Have you ever had the girl upon whom you'd focussed your attention pierce your tender freshman heart with one well-timed "Ooga-ooga?" Have you ever cried yourself to sleep in the highest branches of the schoolyard oak tree? Yeah.

Me either. But I did get called (mockingly, of course) "Grape Ape" in eighth grade. And I did have my childhood friend burp out the word "Aaaaaaaaapppppe." And I did have a fondness for anything banana. (Except for hammocks; never hammocks.)

What is it, exactly, that reminds people of primates when I'm around? Maybe nothing, but, if pressed, I would submit that my brow is somewhat low-slung and my mouth is babyish, thus lending itself a cute Curious George-type swell. I am the Missing Link! See me beat my chest! Listen to me weep.

So. Anyway, back to the picture: I drew it without knowing what the finished product would look like. Apparently, it looks like me. Apparently, the "West Side Simian"...is me. Two--two!--people on Flickr have said so!

My life, as I have known it, is over. Over, I say! It's nothing but downhill from here. One day, in the not-so-distant future, you may read an odd story of a man in Brazil...a man who met his unfortunate and premature demise after scaling--remarkably quickly--the Christ the Redeemer statue and flinging himself off of the Saviour's nose, wildly flapping his poorly-constructed Wings o' Banana, screaming to the whipping wind: "Ooga-ooga?! Take this, Susan!"

Or...not.

INVASION

The cicadas are here! The cicadas are here! Everybody! Run for your lives!

SNAP. BACK TO REALITY

With the road trip to visit my sister of the North (Alexis in Minnesota) in the rear view mirror, it's time to hunker down and get back into the Work swing of things. God. That sucks. Those four days just flew by. I had a good time, though, and it was great seeing my sisters and doing my "Little Brother" thang, such as surreptitiously jamming my offensive flip flops in the space next to the passenger seat and the passenger door, inches from my unsuspecting sister's head. If you want to, you can read about it here. Hey, I gotta do what I gotta do. Someone once told me not to hide my light under a bushel basket. I took that to heart; I still do.

My "light" is pukish-green and it manisfests itself in the form of lovingly shared bodily odors. It's odor-rific, is what it is! Yeah, seventh grade humor is still fresh in my mind. Hey. It could be worse. I could find smashing watermelons to be the height of comedy.

Here is another funny thing to do: Whilst belted securely in the car, and with the camera cord secured tightly around your wrist, lean out the window [the automobile should be traveling at least 65 miles per hour, but 80 is better] and open your mouth and take a picture of your face. I'll guarantee one thing: If you have been on the road for eleven and a half hours, tired and slappy, the digital capture will leave you hitching in the chest and gasping for breath, you'll be laughing so hard. Then again, when you look at said picture a couple of days later, with your mind loaded down with thoughts of work and murky maturity, it won't seem quite as funny and, in fact, the picture will make you think to yourself, "Well, hell, this is what I'd look like if I had the misfortune to become a waterlogged corpse! I'll be damned!"

It's hideous. It disgusts me, but it's funny.

Anyway. That's it. I had a great time seeing my sisters and my brothers-in-law. Also, I learned that if one wants to get a kick-ass burrito whilst in Duluth, Minnesota, one can't do any better than a burrito from Burrito Union. Damn fine grub. They come in one-fisted and two-fisted sizes. I went with the two-fisted pork burrito. I think it was called The Capitalist. There is a definite Marxist theme to the restaurant, don't ask me why.

I said don't ask.

TARNISHED RECORDS

"Hammerin' Hank" doesn't top the list, anymore.

Barry Bonds passed him tonight; by hitting his 756th career home run, Bonds is now the "Long-Ball" king. Things just don't seem right about that.

Hank Aaron epitomized class while in the major leagues. He was grace under pressure. While he was banging away at the baseballs, ever-inching towards the record that Babe Ruth had held for nearly fifty years, racial slurs were hurled his way and threats were made on his life--and more--because he was a black man in the 1970s, looking to break the great Bambino's hallowed record.

Barry Bonds cheated. He 'roided-up. (Allegedly.) That is not to say that hitting seven hundred and fifty fucking six home runs is an easy task, because it is assuredly not. That is not to say that Barry Bonds did not work his ass off in the weight room and better himself through nutritional sciences, but it is to say that the record has a wholly hollow feel to it.

I actually felt no excitement seeing the record-breaking shot. And I'll bet that a lot of other people felt the same way as I. And I've been a baseball fan my entire life. When I was younger, I would stare at books on baseball history and read up on people like Honus Wagner and Pie Traynor and Cy Young and Christy Mathewson and Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth--and I'd memorize their statistics and I'd get all gooey-eyed.

That ship has sailed.

AND NOW, OUR FEARLESS LEADER...EDITED*

So, I was listening to talk-radio today at work and they were talking about the I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis in which there are four or five confirmed deaths and many tens more (most likely) confined to their watery deaths in the Mississippi River. It is assuredly a tragic situation all the way around.

The host of the show (Stephanie Miller, a manic woman but an acquired taste, in my estimation) cut away from the talking to go to a live Presidential press conference, one in which Bushie would probably read from his teleprompter the speech that someone else had written for his simianac self, one in which he would most likely call on God to show the victims' families mercy and strength in this tough time.

He must have been going off-the-cuff; I think he made his own speech, this time.

Half a minute after expressing his sympathies for the people who had been killed or come up missing in the collapse--half a minute!--the Curious One was off and running, laying ostensible blame at the feet of the Democaratic Congress for not getting Transportation bills signed and passed and so on. Hold on a second, Your Highness.

Aren't you the same jackass that has vetoed scores of bills and, basically, opposed Congress at pretty much every turn? Aren't you the (corrupt) moron who has invoked "Executive Privilege" with about five people who have been called to testify--by Congress, no less--in the firings of the eight U.S. attorneys?

Corruption and dishonor and disingenuousness drip from this Administration.

Would someone please begin the process of impeachment of both him and Cheney? In fact, throw out the whole lot. They're all covering each other's asses and in bed with Big Business. They care not a whit for the average American.

The $12,000 a second Iraq War price tag could be put to better use. How? Oh, I don't know. There are many ways, but here's one: I may be going out a limb, here, but how about putting the money that is being used to destroy any good grace we might have had in the Middle East and putting money that is birthing more Islamic hate and fanaticism to use here in...America? We could use it to--oh, I don't know--repair the crumbling infrastructure.

Many many bridges in the United States are either "structurally deficient" or now obsolete due to increased traffic and larger heavier vehicles.

I just couldn't believe what I was hearing when our "Leader" bounced, in the same breath, from mourning the tragedy of the bridge collapse right to pimping himself and his policies and denigrating the Democrats. It disgusted me. No one can be that moronically callous.

Can they?

*Edit. Here is a link to the press conference: Hypocrite speaks. Um. "Fiscally-responsible" spending?! Are you fucking kidding me?! Take a look in the mirror, jerk-off.

ANYONE FOR TENNIS?

I was driving with my friend Mark to go play some tennis today at around 1:00, and we were surprised to see a bunch of Middle Eastern men and women driving in their cars and SUVs, Middle Eastern music blaring and horns honking, people hanging out of the vehicles, waving banners and large flags of a country of what I assumed to be Iraq.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe their country just won the World Cup?"

"Soccer," he said. "What a gay sport."

"Well, the United States couldn't care less about it, sure," I said, "but the rest of the world really gets into it."

"Well the rest of the world is gay, then," he said.

We got to the park and played a few sets of tennis under the sweltering sun. I got my ass kicked, per usual, as I tried to go for the incredible shots and double-faulted more than I got my first serve in and, while we were playing, the Middle Easterners continued to pour into the parking lot, Arabian rap blaring and horns honking. It seemed, obviously, to be a celebration. But then, on the other hand, there was a definite police presence.

We started to wonder just exactly what had gone on. Was it an innocuous sports celebration? As my friend had mentioned, Beckham had just started playing for Los Angeles. Wouldn't he be over wherever they were playing the World Cup instead of kicking and heading in the United States? Had there been a terrorist attack? Had Bushie been popped? Were people celebrating the withdrawl of American troops in the Middle East? Was the "War on Terror" no more? (Right. We'll be fighting that "War on Terror" for the next 200 years.)

So I was definitely intrigued. I got home and turned on the news. There were no breaking stories. I went online and I found this. It had been soccer, after all. And it had been Iraq. And, instead of mayhem and terror, it had been a good story, a feel-good story. I say good on them. I say that Iraq needs more stories like this. I say that Iraq needs "beacons of hope." It is fantastic that the soccer team has done well after getting out from under Saddam's sons' sadistic thumbs.

It is unfortunate, though, that the Bush Adminstration will probably point to this feel-good story and somehow warp it into a pro-U.S.A. troops build-up. That they will look at this and say, "See? Give us more time. The "Surge" will work."

Politics aside, though, I'm quite happy for the Iraqi soccer team. And I'm glad that Iraqi-Americans have something over which to show their nationalistic pride. More sports, less war.

DO YOU THINK THEY'D MIND?

If I inserted myself into their joyous symmetry? I'd behave myself, I swear. I already have the black Speedo...and I'm working on the flotation device.

ALWAYS KEEP YOUR HEAD ON A SWIVEL...

You never know who might be watching.

I have an admission to make. I have watched pornography before. Sometimesp--gasp!--I watch it on my computer. I came to a realization about a week, week-and-a-half ago that my neighbors' window looks directly down upon my computer room. And their oft-used side door is, oh, about ten feet from the window. This is not good. I like to walk around semi-clothed (or nekkid) sometimes. It is more comfortable and it is in the privacy of my own home, and whatnot. The thing is? I have been getting some really weird looks from the People Who Live Next Door. Originally, when I moved in, it was an 89-year-old woman who lived there. And, yes, she still lives there. But now, unfortunately, her daughter or a full-care nurse (?) lives there. And the old woman's son (?) visits often.

A cold draft emenates from The House Next Door, now. Though I have tried to be amiable--in fact, smiled and waved--my genial parries have been met with a iciness that would make Frosty the Snowman blush. Once, when I was driving to work, the daughter/nurse (?) was sitting on the porch sucking down a cigarette. I waved as I passed. And she basically blanched. Her hand rose in a tentative wave and I shrugged it off and continued on to work. [I'm laughing as I type this, by the way.] It was almost as if my friendliness had offended her, in some way. What in the world..? Heaven's to Betsy! Leapin' lizards!

Maybe she (or he, or both) caught a glimpse through the thinly-curtained windows and saw something that she (or he, or both) should not have seen. If that be the case, I humbly offer my apologies--and then rip said apologies right back. I am far from sorry. In fact, truth be told, I'm a little pissed. If I want to introduce the Monkey Bishop to Miss Michigan--in the languid comfort of my own home--I'll be damned if I have to do whilst my head spins as if on a swivel! It kinda breaks the concentration, truth be told.

Shit. That's it. My auto-erotic digital voyeurism is forever ruined, besmirched, tainted, by The People Who Live Next Door. I think Wes Craven made a movie about that once. Who knows.

By the way, if God didn't want the hmm-haw to be hmm-hawwed by the hmm-hawwer...he'd have put hands on elbows.

WE'RE GOIN' TO THE ZOO, ZOO, ZOO

How about you, you, you? That lyric sticks with me from my second-grade (or so) music recital. We did it every year at the Catholic school. I'm quite sure that we sucked. In fact, now that I think about it, I wonder why they had us do the recitals at all. Anyway, that is neither here nor there. I went to the Detroit Zoo today for the first time in about ten or fifteen years. I went with Ginny and her two nephews, a four- and five-year-old. They're great kids. Right away, they called me "Adam" and reached for my hand. I felt like a dork at first, holding the kids' hands, but, by the end of the three or four hours at the zoo, they had each ridden me piggy-back countless times.

We had a good time at the zoo. Among some of the things that I pondered:

I love seeing the animals that I don't see but for on TV or in the movies, but I view them with a twinge of pain and a twinge of guilt. They're (obviously) not in their natural habitat and, though the zoo does all it can to make their prison a comfortable one, it remains just that: a prison.

There was a huge--and I mean HUUUUUUUUGE--silverback gorilla in the great ape environment. At first I hadn't noticed him because he had sort of blended in to the "boulder" upon which he was leaning. This dude was huge. And when I say "huge" I mean fat as a motherscratcher. It made me kind of sad. He was all docile and leaning against the boulder and, had he been wearing pants, they would have been the kind that Jarod from Subway squeezed into before gorging on submarine sandwiches and walking everywhere he went. Dude was fat and huge and lethargic and I was glad that I had gotten the chance to see him. See the Kellerman, there?

We also had the good luck to see a tiger. In my opinion, the tiger is the true king of the jungle. The way he moved was a joy to watch: sleek, rippling muscles...he just seemed to glide wherever he went. While we were watching, he took a dip in his pool, stayed in there for a spell and then--whoosh!--expelled himself from the water, the moisture like a transient sheath behind him. Nothin' but power.

We saw a bear. I think it was a brown bear; it wasn't as big as a grizzly. He wasn't doing much but circling his boulder...around and around and around and around again, his huge spade-like claws clipping against the rock.

Camels and peacocks were there, too. And lizards and anteaters. Anteaters, by the way, are some of the funkiest creatures I have ever had the pleasure to look upon. Their head? It's nothing but a nose. Shh. Don't tell anyone.

One pretty cool thing the zoo offered was something called the "Australian Outback." 'Twas an open area, where the zoo-goers stuck to the path and the kangeroos stuck to their fields. There was no interaction betwixt the two factions, fo' shizzle, but the guides did tell us not to feed the 'roos nor make loud noises as one of the female kangeroos had a fresh joey, ostensibly snuggled up in her pouch. Pretty cool, nonetheless. I got some snappers, but my zoom ain't all that great on my camera so they didn't really turn out too well.

And now...I'm worn out. It was a lot of walking. Made more difficult by always keeping an eye on the yo'wins. But, it was fun. To all of you scoring at home, my favourite animal was the tiger. And that, my dear friends, is why he glosses the top of this page.

Peace.

I'M OUTRAGED...CAN YOU TELL?

So...Michael Vick, the NFL's version of the Human Highlight Film, has been indicted by the Feds for his part in a dogfighting ring. He and three other associates are due to appear in federal court next week in Virginia to face felony charges of 1) competetive dogfighting, 2) procuring and training pit bulls for fighting, and, 3) operating the enterprise across state lines.

"Bad Newz Kennels" is located on a property owned by Vick in Surry County, Virginia.

I don't know where to start. Okay. Here:

I have always enjoyed watching Michael Vick play football. His natural talent is amazing and he seemingly pulls moves out of his ass on the gridiron, making defenders look either incompetent or old or just plain stupid. Jockstraps are littered all across the fields of the NFL. Though he is, as a throwing quarterback, merely average, his legs more than make up for his mediocrity.

That being said, these allegations sicken me. Dogfighting, in general, sickens me, but this shit is just fucked up beyond all recognition. Listening to sports radio and reading the newspaper and the Internet has revealed that, allegedly, Mike Vick and his cohorts are particularly nasty to the dogs. Dogfighting is brutal, inhumane and a degeneration of humanity, but the way that they allegedly "disposed" of the animals that couldn't or wouldn't fight the way that their owners wanted them to fight? It literally disgusts me. Electrocution, drowning, hanging, shots in the head? Are you fucking kidding me?! Here's the worst way, though: Apparently, allegedly, one or more dogs was dispatched by its handler by slamming it repeatedly against the concrete until it was dead. I'm just fucking flabbergasted. How the hell can people be so damned...monstrous?

It's sadistic; they're sadists. They get off on their feeling of power, their feeling of machismo.

That's the only explanation of which I can conceive. Let us keep in mind, lest we forget, that many of these dogs were virtual puppies, killed after they were either too torn up to continue or killed before they even started their unasked-for "career" because they hadn't shown the "killer instinct" in the whelping pen. Puppies.

Puppies.

How? How can a person have such little regard for life? Life of any kind?

There was one guy on the radio that called in to a popular national talk show that asked the host why he was busting on Vick? Was it because he was a black athlete with a shipload of money? Um. The caller also opined that it wasn't like Vick had killed people, that they were just talking about dogfighting. Just. Okay, jackass. Nothing wrong with that. There's absolutely nothing wrong with raising a thinking being--in this case a highly intelligent and loyal and yes, fierce, breed of dog--from birth, to fight to the death against another of its species for monetary gain. Nothing at all. Unbelievable how cold and damned demonic some people can be. So fucking uncaring.

I keep coming back to the mental image of a young dog, perhaps badly injured, being picked up bodily and flung against the pavement, bones breaking, blood pooling, eyes going hazy, respirations becoming shallower...flung repeatedly against the pavement by an outraged "owner" until it was, mercifully, dead. Because it lost. Or wouldn't fight. Or lost him some money. Didn't hold up its end of the bargin to which it had never agreed. Macho men, huh? "My dog is fierce, yo." Fuck you. Motherfuckerz. I really hope that, if the allegations stand to be true [and, seriously, if the Feds create an 18-page report, there's got to be fire with all that smoke, right?] they get their just rewards. Throw the book at them. Show no leniancy.

If these allegations are true: Mr. Vick? Mr. Human Highlight Film? It was good watching you play. Have fun in the clink. Later, cock.

EXISTENTIAL; BOREDOM; B.B. KING

B.B. King sums it up: The thrill is gone.

I'm sick and tired of drifting, goddamnit. I have drifted along in life for the last 14 fucking years. What the hell is the meaning of life? Where in tarnation is my passion for life? I like to say that I have a passion for writing and for creativity, but oftentimes I find myself peering blankly at the monitor of the computer and thinking to myself, Yeah, nothing's coming. If I'm such a fucking "writer," I would think that I would have stories bubbling up constantly. I'm like a goddamned blank slate. No. Scratch that. I'm like a slate that had writing on it but was erased: There's remnants of something up there...but I can't read it.

Also, why is it that I am a veritable mute, sometimes? How the hell does one pick up the art of conversation? I'm fucking boring, sometimes, and I'm goddamned sick of it.

In the past--now over seven months ago--I would have dealt with the fucking boredom with swift justice: Hammered the Beast o' Boredom with a beer or twelve. That's...not an option any longer. Is there a store out there that sells Passion?

Motherfucking malaise. Motherfucking morass. More ass? I wish. ;-)

On an unrelated note, I have a question for you Cyberites, many of whom are women: What's a good thing to do for a date? I had a date planned for Saturday--Tiger game--but it's sold out, and now I'm at a complete loss of something to suggest instead. We've met for coffee, gone bowling and had dinner. You would think that it would be relatively easy to come up with something to do. Dinner and a movie? Maybe. Anyone have any suggestions out there?

Signed,

Abner Arbuckle

THE GRASS IS GREEN DEPARTMENT

From that department, there is other news: Paris is hot, Paris is burning, Paris makes my kneecaps itch. I know, I know.... I know that she sure as hell seems to be a megalomaniacal, sheltered bee-yotch who...fuck it. She's hot.

And I'm sure that if she offered me her business idea like she's offering in the snapshot? I'm sure that it would be an idea that I could get behind.

:-O

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR CHILDHOOD, LOU

My dog has an aversion to eating, sometimes. I was in the living room playing Tiger Woods Golf Oh-Seven and there was quietness coming from the other room. Thinking that he might have been at the back door, needing to go Outside, I got up and, perhaps a little too quickly, walked into the kitchen where Lou was dining quietly in the dark. My hand bumped against the stove as I passed through the doorway and Louie jumped as if goosed and backed away from his food bowl as though it were molten lava. His eyes were wide like a spooked horsie. I felt that I had to walk--ever-so-slowly--to his side and pet him and tell him that all was well, that he was well within his right to eat his kibble. That, in fact, I welcomed it. I wonder if a Freudian doggy psychologist would, after conferring with my canine, tell me that his look of :-O stems from when he was a puppy and I, always late for work and trying to expediate the process of eat and go-Outside-and-poop, would sometimes forcibly guide him to his little puppy bowl of food and growl, "Eatcher foo', Lou! I gotta get goin', damn it!"

If that be the case, Lou, I offer my most sincere and humble apologies.

THRIFT STORE: TO GENERALIZE

I embraced my femininity today. I went shopping for shirts. I may have done it with a man's expediency, though. I was driving home from work and I passed the thrift store on Lincoln. I have always meant to stop in and see what they might have to offer. Today, I stopped.

I walked in the door. I did not need a dress. I did not need a pearl necklace. Nor did I need a swimming suit top. So I kept on walking, missing the sign above the doorway to the back room that read "Watch Your Step!" I had not been watching my step and so I missed a step--misstepped--and nearly stumbled against the doorjamb. To save face, I walked back through the doorway and made a point of looking up. And there, in bubbly green pastel letters, I saw the sign. I made a show of shaking my head--who the hell puts a sign to watch one's step above an average human being's sightline? and, if the person had been walking with his or her head held high, majestically, would they not have stumbled over the four-inch drop, anyway?--and I walked back into the Men's-slash-Toys section. I did not need a caterpillar on wheels, nor did I need Lincoln Logs. I wanted a shirt or three.

So I ambled to the button-up shirt rack and thumbed through the prospects. I was joined in the room by a woman in her early-50s. She thumbed through a tie rack. I don't know if she found what she was looking for. Frankly, I didn't care. I was on a mission. There were some god-awful manifestations of clothing but, then again, there were a few decent shirts, too. I grabbed three plaid button-up short-sleeved shirts and a gray polo-type shirt, and held them against my chest to approximate the likelihood of their fitting me. They all seemed like winners, so I stuffed them under an arm and grabbed a pair of shoes off the rack before heading to the check-out. Cost of four shirts and a pair of box-like shoes? Twenty-five dollars and some change. Total time in the store? About ten minutes. Correct fits? All. And? Yes, priceless.

Shopping is easy! And now I know where to go if I ever need a polyester shirt with a screaming floral pattern.

ZASH

i unzip my ribs and offer my heart

streaming and steaming

a plump tomato in my palm

the sky behind is black and gray and

gray and gray and yellow

zashes her black with purple cumulus

the coyotes croon and the

ache of of the ice cube river flows

through the plush green evers

my heart streams and steams

gossamer wisps

wisps cling, sheen my forearm

tongue-tied, tied, my tongue

stammer and sploosh
"addles and gender crowns, i'm here all week"

i grin, then, all gnashy incisors and

cuspids

cupid-ing in an enamel bow

"take it," i say and

i squeeze my heart into

her waiting hand

let us begin

GOOD SIGNS...GREAT NIGHT

So, last night I went on a date with a young lady in whom I am quite interested and we met at a bowling alley mid-way between our two towns. She's petite and cute and athletic and college-educated and a teacher and a Buddhist and we bowled six or seven games and played four or five games of darts. I bowled my best game ever (202) and I started off one of the games of darts with three straight bullseyes (I usually suck at bullseyes; she must have inspired me) and we watched the Tigers beat the American League-leading Red Sox in the 13th inning on Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez's two-out double (scoring Gary Sheffield who swiped at home plate with his right foot as an exclamation point) and we talked about life in general and spirituality in particular. I drank Diet Coke at the bar near the dart board and she drank water with a lemon. Nearby, people were playing poker and getting louder and drunker and curse-ier by the moment...but it didn't cause me any grief, at all. I was having a great time.

We left the bowling alley and I kissed her good night (and she returned the delicacy) and I told her to call me when she got home safely. I got home and, five minutes later, the phone rang. She said that she would have gotten home earlier but she just had to stop and get a doughnut on the way home. So, basically, we had arrived at our respective homes at the exact same time, give or take a sliver of a metronome. And what exactly had delayed us? Tim Horton's. She had stopped to get a doughnut and I had stopped to get a large cafe mocha. Who knows? We might have even been in the respective drive-throughs at the same time.

I take this as a very good sign. =o)

RICE

Ned Beatty stepped off the bus and started down 8th Street, striding purposefully. In his head, he heard the strains of the second movement of Beethoven's Ninth. The shur of the oboes, the bass of the massive drums. Violinic mesmerization. The music swelled into a horse-gallop and so he did, too. Down the sidewalk he went, and Others made way, seperating as the Red Sea did for Moses.

Snatches of conversations flitted through his consciousness and insults were hurled but failed to adhere. Truth be told, Ned Beatty couldn't care less what the Others thought of him. His was a blessed pursuit, his was a mission appointed by the Big Man With the Beard in the Sky Reclining on Puffy White Cumulus and so he deigned not to reply to the Others' hurtful comments, he deigned instead to be free of the stink and filth and morassic pull of humanity.

Beethoven crashed through Ned Beatty's head. And Ned Beatty galloped. His feet, he felt, were barely touching terra firma, if at all. Up ahead, he saw--felt--his destination: a right angle off the sidewalk into the alleyway behind Hung's Chinese Takeout. He galloped on the swells of the violins and the flutes and signalled a left turn with his arm, knocking the homburg off the head of a shrunken octogenarian. The elder Other asked why Ned didn't watch where the sam-hill he was goin', and Ned replied with a subdued glash of rotting teeth, said that he didn't have to watch where he was going, that he was special, that he was Mosesed-chosen. Immediately after opening his mouth, Ned felt sullied, besmirched. To acknowledge one of the Others might have been a mistake. It left him feeling less-than and it really, truth be told, cut the wixom out of his mojo. Frowning, he turned left. Into the alleyway behind Hung's Chinese takeout. And then he smiled. His teeth cut with tepid yellow the darkness of the slash between the buildings.

Beethoven's stacatto. Beethoven's rush of Feel. His heart swelled and his feet pittered. Without regard to the slime on the pavement, Ned Beatty dropped onto his back and busted out a mack breakdance move, a move that would have made his dear old mother proud. Spinning to a stop, his legs curled above his head, Ned saw one of the smaller-eyed Others peering quizzically at him through the open screen door of the establishment.

"Rice," said Ned, and nodded sagely. The door slammed shut and, from behind the closed portal, he heard the excited gibbers of a foreign language. He pursed his lips and let his eyes droop shut. After much consideration, he dubbed the language Vietnamese-y. Maybe South African.

"Rice is nice," he muttered and stood, absently wiping some wilted bok choy from his ass. The galloping was gone; his mood had shifted as quickly as a waterbug's movements. In his head, Beethoven had mellowed, as well. The melodic rises and falls painted velvet in his mind. He waltzed slowly down the slash between the buildings. To his left was a one-eyed cat with a ragged ear. To his right was a pile of black straining garbage bags, stuffed with the slow decay of meals forgotten. Yes! Yes.

He fumbled in his cargo pants and brought out his snap-and-giggle. This was it. He jacked the shoot mode into Kids & Pets--for shutter speed, don'tcha know--and he captured five or ten pictures of the piles of stoic garbage. A nearby stoop beckoned to him so he moonwalked over and sat. He flipped the switch on his snap-and-giggle so that he could admire his handiwork. Picture after picture after picture after picture of garbage. Beautiful garbage. He noted the shine of the intrepid sunlight on the folds and creases of the ink-black plastic and he smiled softly. He wanted to reach through the viewfinder and caress the beauty.

The Other from behind the screen door appeared at his side and Ned smiled beatifically up at him. The Other from behind the screen door had another Other with him; this Other was larger than the first and he held in his right hand--knuckles white--a meat-cutting implement. He thwacked the non-business side of the utensil against his left palm. The first--with nary a twitch of mirth--looked down at smiling Ned and blasted a non-negotiable index finger toward the opening of the sunlit street where cars and large buses slid by. Ned stood, still smiling. He powered off his snap-and-giggle, deposited it in his cargo pants. "Nice doing business with you, Ghengis," he offered and walked towards the light, not looking back, not caring a whit.

From the street, he heard the click-clock click-clock of a woman's high-heeled shoes. He smiled. His face split with a grin. He couldn't wait to show Samantha his...work.

Ode to joy, indeed.

WHAT A SURPRISE...

That is sarcasm. This was to be expected. Rules just don't apply with this administration. The article mentions that the two years' probation and the $250,000 fine will be upheld. Excuse me if I believe that that means absolutely nothing. I've been on probation before. It ain't shit. As to the large fine: I'm sure that Scoot will be able to find it somewhere. He's got friends in high places, you know.

This presidency reeks. It's unjust, manipulative, cruel, disingenuous, phony as a three-dollar bill. Other than that, we Americans should be proud.

So treason, which used be dealt with with beheadings or decades-long prison terms, is now, apparently, not that big of a deal. Whatever.

SATURDAY MORNING DREAM RECAP

I just woke up, so this may be a tad muddled.

I had a dream that my house was overrun with all types of pests. Towards the end of the dream, I had been under the impression that the house had been cleared of the interlopers. Suddenly, I found myself in the basement, near my late grandfather's woodworking machines. The room was dark but there was enough light that I could see the shadowy legs of the bandsaw; I saw the polygonal angles of the vise swimming in the air above me.

I looked to my left and saw a smallish black shape inching across a brown paper bag. I looked closer and discovered it to be a slug of some sorts. It's antennae were comically-enlarged and I thought that I could see the black pool of its left eye as it slithered across the bag. "Shit," I thought to myself, "I thought I got all the mothers."

For some reason, I was sitting on the ground and I was unable to move as freely as I would have liked. As I watched, more slugs materialized. They patterned diagonally across the (now many) paper bags. I wanted to reach through the legs of the bandsaw to touch the slugs. I wanted to see if they were, indeed, slimey. I don't know why that was of such importance to me, but it was. I tried to reach through the gray metal legs of the bandsaw but I was not able to, seeing as how my ass was firmly glued to the cement floor, smacked down by paralysis.

As I watched, the slugs reached the floor and one turned into a large brown mouse. I didn't see any feet on the mouse; it seemed that it locomoted in the same way as the slugs: slimey slides. The mouse looked at me and it may have twitched its whiskers in my direction. I tried to reach for the mouse, but could not.

Then I awoke to the sound of my Superman alarm clock.

Odd dream. I think I might have been "inspired" by a picture that I took of a coffee bean. I remember looking at the picture, yesterday, and thinking to myself that it looked a lot like a beetle without legs. Or eyes, for that matter.

ADVANTAGES OF MA'S COOKING

I went to my parents' house tonight for dinner. My Mom cooked Chinese chicken stir-fry, a dish at which she excels. The chicken is tender, the vegetables are always perfectly cooked and mixed with sesame oil and she also has a kick-ass chili-garlic hot sauce that some of her Chinese friends gave her.

It always nice to visit the beloved parents and also get a kick-ass free meal in the deal. I'm not much of a cook, so I'll take it when I can get it.

There is another advantage to going over to the 'rents house to stuff my face: they just got a new neighbor. She's a girl named S___, born in Indiana, who works for GM (I think) and who just got a puppy. The puppy is named Nina, and she's an 11-week-old American Bulldog.

I think S___ is single. I hope S___ is single. Though--in all honesty--I wouldn't be able to believe that she is single. She's cute as hell, very personable, has a really nice little body...what was I talking about again? Oh yeah. I was hoping that Miss S___ is as unattached as an island and is looking for love...or at least companionship.

The last couple times I have gone over to my parents', S___ has appeared magically at the privacy fence seperating the yards, with little Nina in her arms. I welcome the sight. She is always wearing athletic gear, which leads me to believe that she is into keeping fit. That's a good thing. I, too, like to keep fit! It's a match made in Heaven!

And we both have dogs! What are the odds?!

So, anyway, I was just about to head home after eating the blessed stir-fry and getting my ass kicked by my Mom in Trivial Pursuit (I'm a friggin' bad-ass, I know), when I--or rather Lou--noticed that Miss S___ and Nina were in their backyard, on the deck. Lou was whining, so I figured that they were outside and I opened the back door and Lou tore across the patio to the old brick fireplace which he scaled in a single bound and stood up against the privacy fence, his tail wagging madly.

I tucked my camera in my pocket (must always keep posterity in one's thoughts) and jammed my brown Detroit hat on my freshly-shaved head and sauntered outside, my face split with a grin. We shot the shit for a little bit and then S___ asked me if I thought Lou might want to play a little bit with Nina. Sure, I said, and reached up to the fence to take the proffered puppy.

Right away, of course, Lou was frantically jumping at me, on me, through me, trying to get at Nina and commence Play-Time. I was staggering around with the puppy in my hands, trying to find a swatch of grass that wasn't brindled by Lou. It was difficult. Lou is an energetic dog when it comes to playing with other canines, so every step I took was matched ten-fold by El Luis. Finally I'd had enough of the manic circling and I kind of hip-checked Lou out of the way and put the puppy on the ground.

They call Boxers Boxers for a reason. Swat! Bat! Bonk! Lou was having his way with the baby dog. He wasn't hurting her, of course, but he was waaaaaaaay too quick and strong and motivated for her to keep up. I broke out the camera--set on high-speed shutter--and tried to get a few snaps of the hijinks. S___ and I were laughing and I was trying to get some pictures and keep the perros seperated a bit and, seeing how I am not an octopus, I was having some troubles. Nina ran behind me, using me as a shield, and I spun around, trying to get an overhead shot, when she raced through my legs and Lou tried to follow.

Lou--seventy pounds of motivated brindle-muscle--knocked my left leg slightly askew and, as I tried to compensate, knocked my right leg out from under me. I scrabbled at a bush with my left hand and strove to keep my camera safe with my right, all the while trying to regain my balance. It didn't work. I went down, with an impotent snatch of green bush in my hand. I landed on Lou and briefly thought that I might be able to use my dog as a tool to regain my balance, thus saving myself the embarrassment of falling on my kiester in front of a girl whom I would like to impress. Yeah. Didn't happen. Lou shifted and so my weight shifted and I ended up meeting terra firma, firsthand. Or, actually, ass-hand. Ass-first. Whatever.

Ass-over-applecart. Down goes Frai-sha! Down goes Frai-sha! Um. Down goes Adam! Miss S___ laughed. I can't say that I blamed her. Seeing people fall is funny, sometimes. Anyway, I got up, brushed of my ass, and ribbed her for laughing at me. "I could have been seriously hurt," I admonished, laughing. We chatted for a few more minutes and then she went inside.

I think I'm going to be sampling my Mom's cooking a little more, now. =o)

ITSY-BITSY SPIDER...

Next to my water spout. Up on the counter, in his web he pouts. Next to the ant trap that seems to work just fine. Welcome all the critters, it's more your place than mine.

Um. Sorry for the grating noise that you just heard/read that could, in other circles, be glossed "poetry."

This is a post about a stationary arachnid. I have not yet named him, but, seeing as how I have been blessed with his presence for about a week, now, I think it is only Christian that I christen him. So. What to name him, what to name him? Gonzalez? Kinda like Speedy Gonzalez...but not? Oddly enough (and there is never any oddity on this blog, is there?), I think it fits. Strictly Bizarro-speaking, of course. Allow me to give you the background story.

About a week ago, I was having an ant problem. First, I damn-near consumed two of their curled dead bodies. That, in a word, sucked. The two voyagers had taken up residence in my coffee and then bit it, kicked the proverbial bucket, once in my mug and another time in my travel coffee sippy cuppy. I determined to quash the rebellion sooner rather than later, so I ventured to the local cookie-cutter pharmacy and I purchased a four-pack of Raid ant-traps. The box read: "POISON THEM AND WATCH THEM CRAWL BACK TO THEIR NEST TO DIE!" Amaze your friends! Be the cool kid on the block! Yeah.

Well, to jump forward in time, the traps seem to be working. Oddly enough, another thing that seemed to have worked is that I took a washcloth and hot water to my Mr. Coffee and I scraped and dabbed away the sweet-smelling sugar residue that was on the underside of the magical coffee dispenser. No more ants! Who'da thunk it?!

And, now, to slam back to the fabled Day of the Ant-Trap Purchase, I read the instructions and placed the four traps at strategic locations: two on the countertop that houses the Nectar Machine, one in a cupboard and the last one on top of the toaster-oven. While I was placing the trap on the toaster-oven, I felt a sticky tug on my right index finger and that whisper-velcro sound that can only be the tearing of a spider's complex web. (I know, I know. Time to push away from the computer and clean my house. Wha?) Instictively, I jerked my hand back from the toaster-oven/cupboard junction and rubbed the back of my hand on the wall next to the sink. It had been, indeed, the web of a spider, and said spider was now lollygagging on his web, swaying in the breeze of my sharp exhalation of breath, his hammock stretched from the yellow-tiled wall to the ceramic countertop.

I stepped back and surveyed the sitch-ee-aye-shun. The spider hung, still. Is he dead? I wondered. I poked a tentative finger at the base of his web and--lickety-split--he scrabbled higher up. Okay. Decision-time. Do I kill him? I thought about that for about two seconds. "Kill him? Why?" I asked myself. "What the hell is he doing to me?" Another option--perhaps more popular--would be to lift him and his web, yea like the Hand of God, and take his eight-legged ass outside, let him take his chances in the wild jungles of Royal Oak, Michigan. In an altruistic burst of passion for all of God's creatures, I decided to let him stay where he was, a decision that, honestly, left me imagining myself as Saint Francis of Assisi.

Oh! Look at how kind Adam is! He doesn't even kill a nasty old spider! Oh! What a saint!

Anyway. Gonzalez, it is. I have never--never--seen a more inanimate arachnid. Every time I glance over at him, whether it be when I am brewin' up some ant-free java or washing the two-day-old dishes, my boy Gonzalez is just hanging out, statuesque (not Mansfieldian, unfortunately), apparently at peace with himself and his lot in life. If food comes his way, cool. If not, cool.

The Zen of Gonzalez.

It must be nice to be a spider.

A GOOD WALK SPOILED

A good walk spoiled. So said Mark Twain of golf. You know, I tend to agree. I am completely inept at the game, it appears. I played 18 holes today with a couple of buddies--they were downing the brews and I was sipping my Sprite--and I ended up shooting a 121. Palendromically, that's a good score. Unfortunately, golf is not a sport that awards points for quirky linguistic patterns. "Madam I'm Adam" won't win me any tournaments, unfortunately.

We rented those electrical golf carts for the round and, though the cart had a "roof," I still ended up burning the shit out of the top of my head. Though it was entirely by design--I wanted color on my head--I think I'm going to have to avoid the razor on top of my head for a few days. Hey, taking showers will be painful enough! So...for the next few days, I may have to do my best to channel Pig Pen from the "Peanuts." I shall walk about town, my cartoon smell-waves preceding both me and my reputation.

One thing of note--beyond my horrendous score--took place during the round. My friend was driving the golf cart, a few beers in, and he shot across the green, trying to yank the pin out of the hole, before careening down the bumpy path towards the 18th tee, his buddy's cart his target. Wham! He hit it hard. Which is entirely understandable, considering he hadn't even attempted to brake.

A man on a nearby green decided to get all tough in front of his boy: "Hey, buddy," he said. "What the hell are you doing? That's my cart."

My friend turned around and looked at him. "Your cart? I thought it was Doug's cart."

The man advanced to about 25 yards from us. Even the birds had stopped chirping. The tension was greasy. "No, it's mine. This is my club. Those carts cost about $6000. Do it again," he warned, his chest puffing out like that of a blowfish. "Do it in front of me."

Tough Guy Alert!

My friend looked bemused. "Nothing happened to it. I didn't know that it was your course. It's fine," he said.

The man on the green wasn't placated. "Do it again and I'll have you kicked off this course."

"We're on the 18th hole," my friend mumbled.

The man stood and stared. "What's that?"

"Nothing. The cart's fine. Don't worry about it."

There had been a bit more bravado and bluster and then the man on the green had gathered up his mute son and they had gotten into their little cart and sputtered off, sparing a Look of Death towards my two friends and me. I distinctly felt a warm slide of poop puddle in my SockAndal. I was that terrified. What would have happened if the big tough guy had made good on his threat of --perhaps--a physical confrontation? One potbellied man in his late-40s against three men in their 30s? It would have been a disaster! We would have run home with our tails between our legs, I tell ya!

Once the dude had motored off, it seemed as though my friends found more of their tongues. They berated him and said things like they would have loved to see him try...things like that. Typical fightin' words.

Here's where I stood (and stand) on the situation: Golf is supposed to be a genteel game. It has been a rich-man's game and, though that is bad in its own right, there are certain things that are expected of a golfer. Things like repairing divots and ball-marks and raking the traps after one shoots from the sand. Also included in that list should be basics like not pissing on the fairway and not ramming, pell-mell, into the back of another golf cart.

My friend didn't seem to understand that. "Fucking gentlemen's game," he sneered. "I paid my forty bucks for this shitty golf course. Why does it matter what I do? People should mind their own business. This wasn't his cart, anyway. What the hell was he talking about? And who gives a shit if I take a leak in public? You don't like it, don't look!"

"Well," I said, "that one guy who told you that there was a bathroom right over there was playing with his woman. Maybe he didn't want her seeing that."

"Elitists," he reiterated.

He is my friend, sure. But sometimes he gets a thought in his head and it's like trying to pull Excalibur out of the motherfucking rock to get him to see another side of the situation. I was slightly--not too much, but slightly--embarrassed by his actions. I was always brought up to have respect for the sport. That's not too crazy, is it?

That being said, the guy who was acting like a tough mofo? Please. Save the words. Unless you're willing to back them up, don't advance on a situation like you're Rocky-fricking-Balboa.

AH, ETYMOLOGY!

Who determines that a table should be a table?

Who was the first person to call a mug a mug? And why? How does mug mean something from which one can drink muddy java, yet also mean to waylay and assault with an intent to rob? Additionally, why does mug mean, informally, the human face or a grimace? Why is this thing upon which these little black "letters" march known to many as a monitor? At what point in time did someone say, "Let's not call this glass-thing a glass-thing. Let's, instead, call it a monitor." Don't you think that they would have originally gotten confused? For instance, don't you think that, in the early days of Monitordom, Sam in Accounting would ask, his brow furrowed, "Elliot, do you mean monitor as a verb or monitor as a noun?" And don't you think that Elliot (what the hell is the origin of that name, by the way) would snap back, somewhat heatedly, "Sam, you dumb poll-scratcher, haven't you ever heard of context?" And don't you think that Sam, through no fault of his own, of course, would answer, "Context? Is that the negative text? Or is that just a new automobile from that island near Asia?"

Salient questions, all. It makes you think, I think. It makes you think of just how much we, as human beans, take for granted.

We think, therefore it is.

For the most part (and I say this with a wink) I think that babies are bunched-up looking beets, all megalomaniacal and needy. They can't walk, they can't catch a Frisbee--hell, they can't even tie their shoes. To make matters worse, they don't even know what a fucking shoe is. For all they know, a shoe could be a tall building or something that you "climb into" and tell the "driver" to "take me to Fifth and Hench." But, yeah, guess I have a grudging respect for the "me"nions in that they soak up this shit like a Brawny paper towel soaking up a spill from a mug of java. Huh? How is that possible? What the hell did I just say? Did I just oh!pine! that little red beets absorb defecation as if they were multi-layered sheets of super-thin would absorbing a disaster from a grimace of an island of Indonesia seperated from Borneo by the Java Sea, an appendage of the Pacific? Passed, the Excedrin. It's morphine-drip thyme.

Can ewe imagine trying to learn this shit anew? Who knew? Exactly. Who knew is not anew, though they are the same amount of syllables and sound alike and are seperated by a mere four "letters." Who the hell determined that this--"k"--is a letter, surrounded by marx of quotation? Was it the Phoenicians? Were they the bastards? Was it the ancient Greeks, after they pulled out of a little boy long enough to get down to brass tax? Tax? Or tacks? Argh!

Who the hell says that a circle is a circle? And why the hell is a square a square? I can--almost--understand why a triangle is a triangle (it has three angles) but how, by the dosey-doe of a couple of "letters," can we go from Geometry to Metaphysics? Angles are angels and cherubs sound like spareribs. But! Have you ever heard pork ribs with most of the meat trimmed off talk? Not me. I haven't. Nor have I heard them sing, like cherubs might. While I'm discussing this, how--eggsactly--does Peugot sound?

Puck this. I'm off to drink a sprite. Mischeivously.

My man-tits are disappearing. My gut is not feeling so, uh, in bloom. I have been making it a point to do something active every day, be it basketball, tennis, disc golf, walking el perro Luis, hitting the weights, or self-loving myself into a sweaty coma-like state. (That last part was a joke: I never pass out.) ;-)

I am also trying to eat better. Fuck the hamburgers from Wendy's or McDonald's or Burger Chef. I read somewhere, once, that there are around 200 cows in one Big Mac. Not the whole cow, you understand--that would be one huge motherfucking Big Mac!--but, rather, parts of around 200 bovines in una hamburguesa poquita. Um. Talk about over-processed! So, yeah, I've been trying to eat healthier. But...ice cream with chocolate syrup after a big-ass salad? There seems to be a conflict of interest, there. But...maybe not.

If you'll look to your right--my left--you'll notice that there is a snapshot of a salad. The salad is inundated with the yellowish-gray and bright white goodness of three hard-boiled eggs. Also included in the masterpiece are: a tomato, some slices of onion, some shreds of carrot, and an avocado. I topped the shebang with Gorgonzola salad dressing and a shitload of black pepper. All I can say is, "Mm-mm, good."

I'd like to say that I was spurred into action by the declining health of some of those close to me, but, unfortunately, I think it has more to do with me being as narcissistic as a mirror. But, whatever. If I get healthier, then motivations be damned!

[Here is an interesting--to me, at least--side note: I looked up "narcissistic" in my handy dictionary because I hate it when I mispell (LOLz! English major humor!) when I write. Hold on. That's not the interesting part. No, RATHER (that's for you, Meliss) the interesting part was what I found in the dictionary. There was no listing for "narcissistic," but there was a listing for the root of the word, "Narcissus." Here is where it gets interesting. He was a character in Greek mythology, of course, but what I found interesting was that when he "fell in love with his image in the pool of water," he didn't fall in and die, but RATHER (another bomb, Meliss) he was transformed into a flower. I guess I was way off-base. I'd always thought that he'd fallen in to the pond and drown. You learn something new everyday (one last shot, sis). Amazing.]

FOR THE LOVE OF COFFEE!

How's this for disgusting? In my ever-love for all things coffee, I have just--three minutes ago--reached a new "low." While I was enjoying a fresh cup of java, I noticed that there was something in my mouth that wasn't quite right. I got up from my chair and strode purposefully to the bathroom, whereupon I released the liquid of my mouth into the yellow waters of the toilet bowl. The contents of the bowl and the contents of my mouth combined to make a nice, pleasing, golden-brown hue. And, in a display of curdled death that would have made Hank Mancini proud, I saw this: A dead ant.

Dead ant, dead ant, deadantdeadantdeadantdeadant...deaddeaddeaddead ANT.

I poured the rest of the coffee out and got myself a new cup. I will not be cowed! (However, in the future, if I see ripples in a cup of joe that really shouldn't be there, I'll do my best Sherlock Holmes, put on a tweed cap and a monocle, and do some investigating.) :-\

GREETINGS, FROM BLOGGING PURGATORY

I have been granted special privileges to blog, in case you were wondering where the hell I have been. Well, I'll tell you--if They'll let me. (They have a habit of censoring what I write, so I'm never really sure how much of what I write gets to the Outside.)

I am--and, for about 7 days, have been--in Blogging Purgatory. The walls here are industrial green--kind of a light yellowish-sea foam color--and there are no windows of which I am aware. The clock is fuzzy, for the lack of a better word. Every time I try to focus on it to see what time it is, to get a better grasp of the finality of my perdicament, the numbers shift. It could be three in the morning, it could be three in the afternoon...hell, it could be fifteen trillion o'clock in the Ne'er World, for all I know. That is the way They want it. They want to keep me confused and under Their thumb.

It is what it is. But I yearn to be free of these Chains.

Their allowing me to press keyboard squares is actually pretty uncharacteristic, truth be told. They usually just make me watch the battered black-and-white Zenith in the living room--no writing is allowed. The TV plays scratchy versions of "The 700 Club" over and over and over again, all insincere white grins and polyester suits; They play it on a continuous loop.

Here, in Blogger's Purgatory, there are no stars. Out here, we is stoned, immaculate. See? That's all that I can do. I am bound by Chains of Uncreativity. All I am able to do is type nonsense, or rip off dead rock stars from the '60s, maaaaaannnn.

I have included a picture that I surreptitiously shot of one of the guards. He stands/sits at the top of the stairs and looks down upon me, emotionlessly, but his gaze scalds me, nonetheless. Every time that I think I might be devising a way to break the Chains of Banality, his gaze cuts through my skin, through my skull, and into my brain, whereupon it excises, laser-like, any and every germ of creative thought.

I stare, now, at these puke-green walls and I wish for days of yore. Days in which I could come up with a legitimate (or even not so legitimate) topic to post. A topic like "What I Did on My Summer Vacation" or "Why I named Lou, Lou" or "The Weather Here in Michigan Sure is Crazy, Huh?". But...no. I am in Blogger's Purgatory, otherwise known as Writers' Block 101.

Break out the plot-wheel. It's time to roll up the proverbial shirtsleeves and get to crackin'. Starting righ--Shit! I hear Them coming! Go on! Leave me! I will find you! And, if I don't, tell Peggy Sue tha

THE PEOPLE YOU MEET....

So. I was sitting in my work van, in an apartment building parking lot, enjoying the shade and reading a newspaper. My quota for the day more than filled, I determined to kick back--as they say--and put my feet up and wait for the end of the day. (Exciting, I know.) As I was reading about more deaths in Iraq, I heard a car pull up, sputtering, next to me. The driver killed the engine. I heard a door open and shut.

You ever get that feeling in which you know that someone is about to engage you conversation? Kind of like a pregnant pause, like a should-I-shouldn't-I-type of internal decision? Bingo. I sighed and turned the page to the Op-Ed section. I was staring blankly at a cartoon of Toyota executives throwing around Ford catchphrases when the person came to the side of my van.

"Do you live here?" a voice asked at my shoulder. It was a man's voice, roughened with cigarettes, and it seemed somewhat-confrontational.

I folded the newspaper and set it in my lap and I turned to the window. A 30s-ish guy in a black T-shirt and reflective sunglasses, stood there, his shoulders kind of bunched in an aggressive manner. "Huh?" I asked.

"I said do you live here," he said. He backed away momentarily and studied the side of the van which read, in big green and blue letters (accompanied with a green-blue swoosh) CONSUMERS ENERGY. He walked back to the window. "I haven't seen you around here, before."

"Um, no," I said, mirroring his animosity. "I don't live here." I forced a slanted smile. "Just, you know, sitting in the shade and reading the paper. Why? Should I not be sitting here?"

He seemed puzzled. "I mean, the van looks like one that is around here all the time. I think they live here. Why don't you just go to a park to sit in the shade and read a newspaper?"

Crickets chirped.

I sighed. I said, "If it's really that big of a problem, no big deal, I can push on."

He held his hands up. "Oh! No, don't worry about it. I guess I just thought that you might have lived here. A lot of kids hang out in the parking lot." He gestured over at his car, a late-model Buick Skylark, replete with quarter-panel rust and a Harley-Davidson sticker on the bumper. "I just don't want people messin' with my car."

I blinked.

"Go ahead and sit there," he said. "Take a break. Enjoy the paper."

Thank you, sir, I was thinking. 'Tis very gracious of you, sir, to allow me to relax for a minute or five in your parking lot, in the corner, under a tree, away from any and all cars--except for yours, which you chose to park two spaces away from my van. I am humbled by your magnanimity. You are a peach, a king, to grant me this special privilege of reading a newspaper in your apartment building parking lot.

"Just watch out for my hooptey," he said, gesturing towards the Skylark. He pasted a grin to his mug and ambled away.

"Oh," I said. "Don't worry about that, man."

BEISBOL...

I am going to the Tigers game on Sunday. They'll be playing the New York Metropolitans, otherwise known as the New York Mets. Em-Ee-Tee-Es! Mets! Mets! Mets! Or...something along those lines. I haven't checked the box-scores lately--haven't done that, actually, since I was 14 and was playing Strat-O-Matic, the baseball geek's Holy Grail--but, as far as I know, the Mets are doing pretty well, like, second or first in the National League. The Tigers are doing all right--3 1/2 back of Cleveland--and I believe that they'll have a rookie pitching: Andrew Miller. Hopefully, he pitches well and the Tigers win. Otherwise, I may have to go ballistic on their asses. I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THIS TICKET AND YOU HAVE THE UNMITIGATED GALL TO LOSE?!

Naw. I'll play it cool. I'll simply mutter, in the general direction of the field, "I don't know you anymore. You're dead to me. Do you hear me?" At this point, I'll turn directly to the field and raise my arms, stretch 'em to the heavens: "DO. YOU. HEAR. ME?!"

On a related note, Pat Benetar was right: Love is a battlefield. But here are words written with the utmost sagacity: Hindsight is 20/20. Do you ever wish you could pull a Superman and spin the globe around, all opposite-like? Yeah, me either. Was just wondering, is all.

On a--slightly-more--related note, by the time you read this, I will have gone six months without drinking "real" beer [I had three O'Doul's--shoot me; my sponsor wanted to.]. Six months is equal to around 180 days, give or take a 24-hour-er. That factors to 432o hours and 259,200 minutes of stone-cold sobriety. This is heavily taxing--believe you, me. Thus, as celebration, any and all cases of Wild Irish Rose can be--and should be--forwarded to Louie in Royal Oak, care of Adam. Thanks, and keep reaching for those stars; eventually you may be lucky enough to vaporize.

INSIDE THE MIND OF AN A-BOMB

The Sugary One, a woman who is just as comfortable hollering along to Tupac as she is changing a tire or battering an asshole-ish Little League coach, has tagged me to answer some questions. I feel it is my civic duty, here in CyberLand, to do just that. So.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago? In June, ten years ago, I would have been 24. I was working as a manager at a pizza place (Hungry Howie's, not to be confused with Hungry Hippos) and I was finishing up my college edumuhcation; my commencement ceremony happened to be on the same damned day that the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup, so I missed out on all the debauchery in downtown Royal Oak, said debauchery including alcohol being consumed in copious quantities and young women "popping" their tops. Friggin' higher education....

2. What was I doing 1 year ago? One year ago--if my math is correct--I would have been 33, and I was doing pretty much--save for one very salient variable--what I'm doing now: I was working at Consumers Energy, the gas company, and wondering how in the hell I ended up working at a place, with a college degree, that I could have been working at straight outta high school. A year ago, I was probably wondering just how the hell I had been born without an Ambition gene. The one major difference? Last year I was ingesting large amounts of the Devil's Piss, also known as beer, spirits, booze, liquor, wine--anything with alcohol in it. Today, June 1st, I am six days shy of six months sobriety, a fact of which I am pretty proud.

3. Five snacks I enjoy: I love Chocolate Moosetracks ice cream; I love it more with Magic Shell and Reddi Whip. I am a huge fan of roasted garlic hummous on toasted pita bread. Peanut butter toast kicks ass. Would you consider hard-boiled eggs a snack? I do, provided they are laden with black pepper and a squack of salt. Microwave popcorn with parmasean cheese is also a favorite of mine.

4. Five songs to which I know all the lyrics: I am sad to say that I really don't know--by heart--the lyrics to any songs. I reckon I could belt out "Frosty the Snowman" if I had to and "You're a Grand Old Flag." Other than that, I'm stumped. I am, however, quite skilled at kinda sorta maybe sounding like I might know the song's lyrics...but only if it's playing and only if I can hear it. So I guess that doesn't count.

5. Five things I would do if I were a millionaire: Well, a million dollars doesn't go as far as it used to. Just ask Doctor Evil. But if I had a million dollars, I wouldn't have to eat Kraft macaroni and cheese anymore. Wait a minute. What am I talking about? I'd still eat it; I'd just eat more of it. (I can't believe that I am quoting Barenaked Ladies. Somebody shoot me, please, before I start rambling about my old apartment.) But, to answer the question, I would pay off my fucking credit card bills--and give the banks a big middle finger when I did--and I'd buy a Rolls Royce and travel...to Youngston, Ohio. Just for the hell of it. Because I could. Two more things.... I would help my family with some of their bills and buy myself some new clothes. (The loincloths I wear...they're so 1950s.)

6. Five Bad Habits: I smoke, I don't get enough exercise, I watch too much porn, I don't follow through on my dreams and I tend to be pessimistic.

7. Five things I like doing: Smoking, lounging about, introducing the Monkey Bishop to Miss Michigan, procrastinating and wallowing in self-pity. =o)

8. Five things I would never wear again: I would never wear a jockstrap ever again--they chafe--I would never wear a condom twice, I would never roll my jean legs up and in like I used to do in eighth grade, back in 1987, I wouldn't be caught dead with a combover (does that count? yeah, people can wear a hairstyle--it says so in the MLA Handbook), and, if I were a woman, I would not wear a navel-baring half-shirt twice if I didn't have the navel to bare, once. Huh?

9. Five favorite toys: Do sex toys count? Because I don't have any. (Unless you count a studded cock ring. Ba-da-bing! Just joking. No, I'm not. Yes, I am?) Um, favorite toys.... I really enjoy my Playstation 2. Basketballs are pleasureable to me. I use my digital camera like a toy. That's three.... Rollerblades? Sure, Rollerblades. And a hockey stick. I've come to a conclusion: I don't play nearly enough. Playing keeps you young, don'tcha know.

I've come to another conclusion: I'm somewhat boring. Time to pull a Madonna and start sashaying about in a bullet bra. There's nothing boring about that! What about you, Sylvia, Missy, and Drea? What makes you kidz tick?

...AND HE'S ONLY 22, GOD DAMMIT

Dude. This is just unfair. Lebron James. Unfair. People should not be allowed to be empowered with Playstation abilities when the rest of the players have to slog about in the taffy of human mortality. There ought to be a law.

Double-overtime between the Pistons and the Cavs. Lebron played 51 minutes and scored 48 points and had his usual collection of rebounds and assists. To finish the game, he scored 29 out of Cleveland's 30 final points. Um. Yeah. Every time he threw up an off-balance jump shot, I was thinking to myself, Okay, this one isn't going in. He can't keep hitting these shots, can he? He could. He did.

I am truly amazed that this guy has been able to live up the hype that has surrounded him since he was a player at the small Catholic high school in Ohio. No one can live up to that kind of hype, can they? He can. He does.

Every time the Pistons threw something at him, he matched it. Every punch had a counterpunch. I hate the result but, I have to say, this is the best game I have ever seen and, assuredly, the best single player's performance I have ever seen, Michael Jordan's 63-point game notwithstanding.

Another thing that amazes me is that Lebron James has, for all intents and purposes, put his team on his shoulders and is poised to take them to the Promised Land. I know, I know: Cliche-City. But I write it because it is, metaphorically, true. Who else could lead this collection of schlubs to the heights to which they have climbed? The only other player--and this is blasphemous, so cover your eyes if you're easily offended--is M.J., Michael Jordan.

Simply amazing performance. My hat is, reluctantly, off to "King" James. The bastard.