At the mall I saw a 16 year old kid wearing suspenders and a bow tie. Pardon me? What teenager wears suspenders and a bow tie? I'm guessing that on his back was a sign saying, I'm terribly uncool. I knew this boy will never date and that someone should tell him there are reasons why old men wear suspenders - they're old and need to keep their pants up! But I didn't say anything. I can't help everybody. I'm not a machine.
July 3, 2011
If there were a contest called Pulp Crap in Four Paragraphs, this would be my entry:
A Woman Out of Control
She stood poised over the inert body, gun in one hand, cigarette in the other. An itch had been scratched, a point made, a life taken, she shook like a wet dog after a bath. At the liquor cabinet she poured herself a shot and wondered how many others she would have to kill.
Colin arrived and noticed the body right away.
"My god, Pernella, you've killed another!"
"So I have, Clive."
"Colin. My name's Colin."
"Clive, honey, can I get you a drink?"
"Sure, Pernella, pour me a scotch."
"Get your own drink, Clive! Can't you see I've just killed?!"
Though Pernella's stability could be called into question, no one did.
Colin/Clive disposed of the body and came back 4 hours later. Pernella mistook him for the man she had just killed and tried to shoot him again. But she was all liquored up and missed badly high and to the left, shattering the crown molding just above the picture of the very man who had sold her the gun, a guy named Guy. Just then the phone rang. It was Charlie! He was at the front gate! Thrown into a panic, Pernella was afraid she would kill him too and then Colin/Clive would have to be gone another 4 hours and by then she would be too drunk to remember whether they had sex or not and whether the baby, should she get pregnant, was his! Still, that sounded ok, so she buzzed Charlie in, shot him on sight and retired to the liquor cabinet.
"Poor Charlie," she mused, sipping from the bottle, staring at the body.
Colin/Clive knew then that something had to be done. After all, she had just killed his twin brother!
But first they went on holiday to Spain. 14 weeks later, Pernella lit her last cigarette, killed her last man and swore off both smoking and gun play forever before showing Colin/Clive her crossed fingers, a wicked leer and a fresh bottle of scotch.
"Oh Pernella, you're such a tease!" Colin/Clive chortled.
But she was more than that. She was a woman out of control.
Many people don't realize that the inaugural fourth of July celebration was kicked off with George Washington's sizzling rendition of ZZ Top's Tush. Said the Washington Star Gazette, 'There were fireworks a plenty off the neck of that wicked Vector guitar as the Prez and his axe were one on the fourth. Talk about your pyrotechnics! Everyone rocked out with the exception of Alexander Hamilton, who quietly fretted that after GW's blistering performance, Tush might become the national anthem.'
July 5, 2011
If you were a contestant on a game show and they asked you to do something foolhardy, dangerous and negligent, would you? Would you really want that refrigerator or bedroom suite so badly? What if they said you had to wrestle Bigfoot? Would you take into account that Bigfoot lives in the woods, is feral, and is as likely to rip your arm off and beat you with it as he is to understand you're just trying to win a kitchen appliance on a game show? Is there any sort of line that's been crossed here for you? Would you still do it?
July 6, 2011
One minute Bill was free climbing Widows Peak, the next he was knocking on heaven's door.
I will be on a red eye tonight flying to another country. For the next 5 days I'll endeavor to post here when I can but it might be a tad hit or miss. Fret not my little friends, I will miss you like crazy and think about you all the time. I will buy you exotic gifts in international bazaars. I will toast you with every drink I quaff. I will count the minutes until we are reunited and it's comforting for me to know you'll be doing the same. Right? You'll be missing me and such, right? Hello? You still there? Hello?
July 9, 2011
My trip is going well for those who have asked, thank you. Unfortunately, broadband connections have been spotty or nonexistent so my posting here has been problematic. However, today I am wired to the world, unfortunately I have nothing to say. How’s that for funny, ironic, sad.
July 12, 2011
I'm on the plane, seat 15A, when a stone cold, voluptuous, blond bombshell sits down in 15B. For the entire flight, every male on the plane made a point of staring at her. I asked her what that was like. She said that being the center of attention is not as fun or nice as people might think. Turns out that men are afraid to approach her and women feel like they have to compete with her, so despite her incredible looks, she has a hard time meeting people. She never said it, but I could see another obvious issue. She was intelligent. But wrapped in that package, how many people ever get past her physical attributes? On the one hand, she has won the lottery - young, smart, beautiful and built - on the other hand, she has as many issues as anyone else to deal with, just different ones. Bottom line? No one has a free ride. I'll be home tomorrow.
Should he be allowed to do this in his neighbors pool?
If he's dead, why isn't he floating?
If he's not dead, why is he playing like he is?
July 14, 2011
There's a dead fish on the sidewalk outside the movie theater. A cod, I believe. It looks lonely and terribly out of place. I feel bad for the fish; an ignominious end. Is it a movie goers reaction to a stinker film? Did some cod criminal just off this fish and toss its body out of a speeding car that just happened to be in front of the movie theater? And why am I here, why am I involved? Look at it... I mean really, how do these things happen?
July 15, 2011
It's mid July and the weather has been in the 40s - Fahrenheit! Our malamutes are pleased, we are pleased, the pleasure boating industry is pissed right off. Same circumstances, different perspectives, and a perfect illustration of how one man's trash is another man's treasure.
July 16, 2011
This month, all the big players are at the social network dinner party - Google, Microsoft, Facebook, the newly bought My Space and Twitter. People have said to me that there's no room at the table for a new start up like ours and anyway, how could we expect to compete with the likes of those tech giants. But you know what? A good idea is a good idea. And boy do we have a good idea. So some fat cat better move over and make room because I'm hungry.
July 17, 2011
Howling at the moon he rose out of the ocean like some demon chimera,
promising to save the townspeople from the cat plague ravishing their village!
I had a whole whack of rules set up for my mail program and on an operating system reboot, they all vanished. I spent the last who knows how long trying to remember them all and managed to recreate as many as I could. The next day, I boot the computer, they're gone again. Clearly it's a message to think about how I deal with messages. Drat.
July 19, 2011
A friend has a set of worry beads. She says it helps her manage stress. When she gets nervous or anxious she fondles the beads like a clergyman with a 12 year old. I ask her if she has tried worrying without the beads. She looks at me like I suggested she report the molestation of the 12 year old. I opine that maybe the beads were prolonging her fretting because if she didn't have them in her hand, she would feel less comfortable about where her thoughts were taking her and she might abandon sooner her fears of failure. She looks at me like I'm a cop and I've just mentioned the word prison. I had her attention, but it was clear I wasn't getting through. What was foggy was why someone would continue to perpetuate a behavior so deleterious to themselves?
July 20, 2011
Nothing says the work of Satan like naming a street after him.
What if you worked for an outfit that made a super crappy product? Let's say you worked for the company that made the world's worst beer. This swill is hands down the bottom of the barrel and universally recognized as the vilest beer ever made. There would be no way to take pride in your work. That, I would think, would be more deleterious than actually consuming the product. Pride in your work is a necessary element to having a superb quality of life. Without it, you just have a job.
July 22, 2011
The worry beads are gone! My friend had her purse stolen and her beads were in it. Of course she worried about that, but more importantly, she questioned whether she should purchase another set. I suggested it was a perfect time to focus on altering her behavior of worrying rather than worry about whether to replace a worry device. She looked worried. Worrying about something, I plunged on, is basically you saying that you don't trust something. Because if you trusted it, you wouldn't worry about it. Right? That was tidy. I patted myself on the back. She asked if The Bay sold beads.
July 23, 2011
Life is a series of endless small moments, often nothing more than something that just catches your eye. Like this fence.
He was pimply, fat and hairy with dark splotches on his face and neck. She was fat, not too kempt and missing teeth. Assigned seating at a rubber chicken event has brought us together. She wipes her hands on her dress and burps loudly, then laughs like it was the best joke ever. Out of the blue he tells me how she is a sexual wild woman, off the charts in bed, and possessed of supersonic sexual stamina. I silently curse the business that has brought us together. She reaches inside the top of her dress to rearrange her boobs while licking her lips and staring at her husband. I want to move to another planet. No, first I want to throw up, then move to another planet. I suppose it's great that two such disgusting people have found each other, but what about me?
July 25, 2011
We have this beautiful field and as I walk through the tall grass I think how wonderful it is there are no ticks, poisonous snakes, man eating plants or killer spiders the size of your hand. Of course we have bears, so that sort of offsets the pastoral and bucolic, and starts me down a thought path of which killer holds more persuasion, death threat wise. I contemplate a 500 pound predator versus a poisonous snake, a man eating plant, and a deadly venomous spider the size of your hand. Man, the things I think about.
July 26, 2011
He's in the middle of a story about mutual friends when he forgets what his point is. He can't quite claw back the reason he is telling me this anecdote so he just stops and changes the subject. That will never do! I want to know what happened. How does it end? But he has moved on. There's no going back, he informs me. What?! Are you kidding me? I seriously want to strangle him. I want the end of that story to be the last words he ever says. Is that so wrong?
The UFOs were close enough to reach out and touch. Or so he thought. But they were faster than anything Henrik had ever tried to touch before.
Many years later, he would tell his grandchildren of the day he tried to touch the UFOs and how fast they were and stuff.
July 28, 2011
I am being interviewed. The reporter asks me something amazingly stupid. I reply with something bombastic. The reporter frantically scribbles down my response. I up the ante and say something careless yet stupendous. His eyes go wide and he jots that down too. I finish with a declarative statement of pomposity and sit back waiting for him to transcribe it. When he's done, I say, I'm kidding, and smile charmingly. He doesn't write that down. His face is blank. I elucidate. Remember when you asked me that dumbass question moments ago and then sat back waiting for me to answer in kind? Well, I smiled, that nonsense was my response to your ignorant query. Touché dude. I can't wait to read his article.
July 29, 2011
She tells me that green is her favorite color. She also mentions that she is fond of small dogs and pasta. Later I learn that she had been a victim of fraud, her house has asbestos, and her ex-husband is in jail for grand theft. Her skills seem pretty much nonexistent and her talents have yet to be discovered, but she was willing to work cheap and be loyal. My main objection to hiring her? The garlic necklace she was wearing and insisted on keeping because it "confuses the meanies and perplexes the thugs". Oh. Next, please.
July 31, 2011
To a mosquito, do different blood types taste differently? If they dip into an A+ and then later refill from an O, might it be like drinking a glass of chocolate milk followed by a beer?
