Handcuffs

"Ha. There you have it."

Having ended one sentence talking about God's sweet angels, here he was talking filth.

“I like it like this.” he panted.

“Where do you like it?” she asked sleepily, rolling over on her stomach and putting her hands behind her for the handcuffs.

He parted her thin pale legs, thinking about this last week's bout of constipation and shuddering.

Later she said, “Do you mean you've had to pay for this in the past?”

"Maybe we could change things around," he whispered as he began to slap her behind.

His face got red as he put the handcuffs on.

---

Pop Quiz: on whom did he put the cuffs?

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Don't Fix It If It Ain't Broken

This Monitor Is Just Old And Sick

The other day I mentioned my monitor was dead. So it was. So far I've obtained one for free that's ten years old or more. It looks all right, but it does not match very well with my computer. I know about changing the resolution, but nothing I've tried so far will adjust the size so that it's right. In this Blogger editing screen, for instance, I can't fit the editing screen onto the screen unless I change the Internet font size to something very small. So I have to zig-zag back and forth, left to right, to work on this page. It's not impossible, just troublesome. I think it looks normal out there, just not at this end. Let me know if you see any oddities or anomalies.

I'm a proponent of the rule of thumb, "Don't fix it if it ain't broken," but sadly I also follow the rule that if it is broken and I can get by just fixing it with a rubber band or a piece of gum three times a day, I'll do that, too. I'm just a sick sad bastard, I guess.

---

Backhoe Operators—Dime A Dozen

Bosses Are Poor Excuses For Human Beings

More than ten years ago, we had a relatively new assistant director of Physical Plant named Phil Bobcat who was turning out to be something of a jerk. Dick Cheney reminds me of him! Mr. Calm and Cool Cobra. Bobcat was very cool and calm, or had been so far—when he started putting together an emergency plumbing repair late one Friday afternoon for the next day.

I had just lately gotten a lecture from another boss with more tenure than Bobcat about getting OT (overtime) approved in writing before hauling off and making my own schedule for the work. That boss didn't care if the job just had to be done. When I mentioned this to Bobcat, he seemed to think that I was fucking with him or anyway that no one should thwart his will if they knew what was good for them. His response?

Bobcat's Appraisal Of His Minions

"Hell, it don't matter, backhoe operators are a dime a dozen. I'll get somebody else out here."

I didn't ask what he meant, though I assumed that was Bureaucratese that meant he knew where to steal money from some other part of the budget for his project while the other boss was about to pee his pants trying to find ways to cut down on expenditures. Contract operators were going to cost multiples of what they paid me, and I was on salary! I love the way big shots show their power; they piss away money in front of you.

Where did they get that fucking asshole, Bobcat, I always wondered, and where did he get his people skills? I've met plenty like him, both before and in the years since. And as with this miserable fart, any time there were multiple bosses involved, one of them frequently didn't know what the other ones knew or else refused to know it!

Jeeter Jetson

People like Jeeter Jetson, who didn't believe in incentives or Employee of the Month awards or any sort of encouragement at all among Grounds and Custodial staff because "that sort" of people would resent it when somebody else won it. It wouldn't impress anyone among that class of people , he said. According to Jeeter, even if it were prize money (which it would never be), they'd just resent it for not being more! Great guy, that Jetson, but the other bosses were very little better.

McScrooge's Largesse

McScrooge, the Physical Plant director, did have a quarterly contest for a short while with a pizza lunch prize awarded to departments with the best safety records. However, after the second time he let the contest be presumed to be still in effect, but reneged on paying off, saying he didn't have the money. His daughter had gotten married, he said. Affected his budget; can just barely pay for golf at the club now! You sleazy shit, I thought, what difference does that make? What about your word as a man? I hate people who can't keep their word, especially in this case, where it let so many people at once know how little he thought of them. If they were to be treated as crap, they'd do about that level of work for him. Then McScrooge and Jetson and Good Ole Bobcat could continue to think that everybody was worth a dime a dozen.

I thought then that the French revolution had occurred in response to just such snotty attitudes among the ruling class and all the fidgety middle management monarchs. Now these incidents are about ten years old and no semblance of revolution has occurred here yet—not at that University, not in the Texas legislature, not in Washington D.C. Feudal lords set the price of everything and everyone still and I'm now worth somewhat less than a dime a dozen according to any governmental agency you could name. It makes me wonder why CAN'T the world blow up and the whole of civilization get it's head chopped off and we can all just be done with the stupidity of it!

---

"Who do you hate?" said Tweedledee.

"Who do I don't?" said Tweedledum.

---

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim." — George Santayana

---

Liver Spots

Signs Of Ageing, Signs Of Living

Getting gray hair or no hair, crow's feet under the eyes or those fine-line chicken scratches everywhere are one kind of thing, but liver spots, I think, may be worse. I remember when they weren't there at all—speaking frankly, that was preferable. Depending on how the light hits them, they are at the least unattractive. Dim light will sometimes do the trick, but total darkness works even better. People talk ridiculous and braggish crap sometimes about how they "earned every one of those wrinkles" in their faces, but I never heard any of them bragging about how happy they are to have their damn liver spots! I mean, let's face it, it looks like you've got something!

Unless you spend too much time in front of the mirror, you don't much see or dwell on your gray or thinning hair or on your new facial wrinkles. You can look away and forget them, pretend they're not there. But liver spots are not only there "for all to see", but are right at hand (so to speak) for you yourself to see. Unless you don't look at your handiwork and at the hands you're doing it with, you see your own liver spots a substantial amount of the time. The worst drawback of all to handling everything for yourself and not hiring it done, you see your own uglifying hands. Unless you spend all day wearing chemical protection gloves (like I used to do) or scratching your ass, which a multitude among us cannot refrain from doing.

In those cases it's advisable to keep your hands some distance from your face and to wash your hands immediately upon removal of the gloves or cessation of the scratching—just as a precaution.

Take this as sage advice. I don't think you'd die from exposure to your own posterior, but when it comes to chemicals, who knows what might fall off or shrivel up or if you might develop a bright red scrotal sore or rectal rash due to overexposure to chemicals. Remember all the good advice your mother gave you. "Don't get any on you, you don't know where it's been!" and "Don't touch that, you might go blind!"

Have I gotten far enough off the track yet to be certifiable? I think I have. Better stop.

---

"Liver spots are extremely common after 40 years old. They occur most often on the backs of the hands, on the forearms, shoulder, face, and forehead. These are the areas of highest sun exposure. They are harmless and painless, but they may affect the cosmetic appearance. Occasionally, liver spots may mask the diagnosis of skin cancers." [From AllRefer.com]

---

The Pork Pie Hat—Jazz Connection

---

WILD TALE

I dropped him off on the highway
in the hills on the edge of town;
when he said goodbye at the blacktop,
I paused and looked around.

There's not much wildness out there now,
I assured myself in thought.
There's only him and trees and
wind that prowls the night.

"I'll be back in when I'm ready,
I'll be all right on the ground.
It's mainly concrete cities
that make us fear the darkness of each sound!"

I left his car in the driveway
and locked the car doors tight;
I was back in the cautious city
where you had to do things right.

Later that week I saw him
and we smoked and shared some beer.
"It's weird to be back in the city—"
he said. Then he told his tale of fear.

"The empty feeling in the heart
comes full as light departs;
the evening may be lovely,
but the night is cold and dark.

The camp light that enclosed me
grew smaller through the night.
Though I built the fire up higher,
the dark consumed the light!

Then I heard those stealthy movements,
soft scufflings in the dark,
and, peering out, could plainly see
two eyes stare back at me!

What eyes they were, I did not know,
nor can I tell you yet;
their mystery was enough for me,
that's what I can't forget.

The first thought that unnerves you
is that the creature's wild—
a "wolf" of some opinion
inimical to man!

And then the worst thought rises
and strikes your heart like iron:
the creature is not wild at all,
but caged and canny man!

That's when the fear beset me,
and began to pack to leave—
but the night was dark around me,
I did not dare depart!

I stayed the night, uneasy,
and strained to keep awake;
when I woke alive next morning,
I gave my head a shake.

I took the city with me,
I guess that's plain to see;
the concrete clung to my bootstraps
and the asphalt pulled at my knees."


rcs.

5th draft: 10/25/04
©1976 Ronald C. Southern

---

Dead Monitor In The Middle Of The Road

---

TRS IS CLOSED
DUE TO BUSTED MONITOR

Will be down a day or two or more...
Don't play with any Delilahs while I'm gone.

---

National Take A Squid Camping Day

In recognition of National Take A Squid Camping Day, this blog will be closed today. While I will not be taking a squid to the woods, neither do I intend to be insulting to those who do. Too bad, though, it would have been a fine opportunity to make fun of a bunch of idiot Squid Lovers' miniscule intelligence! Oops, 'scuse me, gotta run, here come some of those commie-pervo Squid Lovers now!

---

I Love Little Debbie

Jesus, How Many Are There, Though?

I'm not exactly sure how long they've been making Little Debbie snacks. I'm pretty sure I can recall discovering them around 20 to 25 years ago, but not earlier than that. There were none, for instance, when I was a 10 to 12 year old snack junkie. I remember the first few times I spotted them as an adult and thought, "These things can't be any good, they're too cheap!" I was wrong about that, of course and as necessity drove me to them at the convenience stores, I found out they were pretty tasty. They were so cheap, though, that my joke with myself became that they were so cheap, somebody must have figured out how to make crappy ingredients taste great! Like turning straw into gold! Or King Midas. Or the splendid goose that shat the golden egg.

I don't recall there being much variety in the beginning, but maybe that's because I was always seeing them at convenience stores and no one store ever carried the whole list. I suspect that there used to be fewer than there are now. I've never really tried to guess at the current number of snacks available, but one could never really know. Even today, I can't locate even half of them at one time, not even at a roomy modern grocery store.

"Half of what?!" you demand to know.

I forgot to mention I looked it up on the Internet and counted them. There's 94! NINETY-FOUR! I believe that if I ever saw 94 Little Debbie snack choices in one place, I'd be like the Russian character played by Robin Williams in "Moscow On The Hudson". Newly arrived in America, the first time he sees the vast choice of coffee brands on the supermarket shelves, he had a panic attack and passed out! It was too much for his proletarian brain! Mine, too.

Oh, Debbie, I Just Want To Lick Your Creme-filled Everything!

I've never tried all the ones listed below, for I've never even seen some of them! Some of the ones I've enjoyed recently include:

Marshmallow Pies (Banana)
Jelly Creme Pies
Nutty Bars® Wafer Bars
Zebra Cakes
Devil Cremes® Cakes
Honey Buns
Banana Twins® Cakes
Oatmeal Creme Pies

I haven't taken a very big bite out of the list, have I? I know I've had and enjoyed others, I just can't remember the names. If you're not afraid of passing out, take a look at the long list for yourself.

---

LITTLE DEBBIE SNACKS

Breakfast Pastries

1. Banana Nut Loaves
2. Blueberry Loaves
3. Coffee Cakes (Apple Streusel)
4. Donut Sticks
5. Honey Buns
6. Iced Cake Donut
7. Iced Honey Buns
8. Mini Donuts
9. Pecan Spinwheels® Sweet Rolls

Cakes and Brownies

10. Angel Food Cakes (Raspberry)
11. Banana Twins® Cakes
12. Boston Creme Rolls
13. Chocolate Cakes
14. Chocolate Chip Snack Cakes
15. Cosmic Brownies
16. Creme-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes
17. Creme-Filled Lemon Cupcakes
18. Creme-Filled Orange Cupcakes
19. Creme-Filled Strawberry Cupcakes
20. Devil Cremes® Cakes
21. Devil Squares® Cakes
22. Double Chocolate Swiss Cake Rolls
23. Fancy Cakes®
24. Frosted Fudge Cakes
25. Fudge Brownies
26. Golden Cremes
27. Pound Cakes
28. Reduced Fat Fudge Brownies
29. Snack Cakes (Chocolate)
30. Strawberry Shortcake Rolls
31. Swiss Cake Rolls
32. Zebra Cakes

Cookies

33. Apple Flips™ Cookies
34. Coco Piña
35. Chocolate Chip Cookies
36. Chocolate Chip Creme Pies
37. Fudge Rounds
38. German Chocolate Cookie Rings
39. Ginger Cookies
40. Maple Creme Pies
41. Marshmallow Supremes
42. Oatmeal Creme Pies
43. Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
44. P.B. & J. Oatmeal Pies
45. Peanut Clusters
46. Raisin Creme Pies
47. Reduced Fat Oatmeal Creme Pies
48. Star Crunch® Cosmic Snacks

Crackers

49. Cheese on Cheese
50. Cheese on Wheat
51. Peanut Butter Cheese
52. Peanut Butter Toasty

Seasonal

53. Be My Valentine Cakes (Chocolate)
54. Be My Valentine Cakes (Vanilla)
55. Be My Valentine Crispy Bars
56. Be My Valentine Iced Brownies
57. Cherry Cordials (Christmas)
58. Cherry Cordials (Valentine)
59. Christmas Ginger Cookies
60. Christmas Tree Brownies
61. Christmas Tree Cakes® Snack Cakes (Chocolate)
62. Christmas Tree Cakes® Snack Cakes (Vanilla)
63. Cookie Wreaths® Cookies
64. Easter Basket Cakes® (Chocolate)
65. Easter Basket Cakes® (Vanilla)
66. Easter Brownies
67. Easter Crispy Bars
68. Easter Puffs® Cookies
69. Fall Brownies
70. Fall Crispy Bars NEW!
71. Fall Party Cakes (Chocolate)
72. Fall Party Cakes (Vanilla)
73. Holiday Cake Rolls (Cherry Creme)
74. Holiday Crispy Bars
75. Holiday Snack Cakes (Chocolate)
76. Holiday Snack Cakes (Vanilla)
77. Pumpkin Delights® Filled Cookies
78. Spirit of America Crispy Bars
79. Stars & Stripes Frosted Brownies
80. Stars & Stripes Marshmallow Puffs
81. Stars & Stripes Snack Cakes

Bars

82. Caramel Cookie Bars
83. Cosmic Crispy Bars
84. Fig Bars
85. Marshmallow Crispy Bars
86. Nutty Bars® Wafer Bars
87. Peanut Butter Crunch Bars
88. Peanut Butter Wafers

Other

89. Fruit Pie - Apple
90. Fruit Pie - Cherry
91. Jelly Creme Pies
92. Marshmallow Pies (Banana)
93. Marshmallow Pies (Chocolate)
94. Pecan Pie

---

A SHORT HISTORY OF LITTLE DEBBIE

---

I incidentally learned that there have been some Little Debbie models of the Barbie Doll, but they didn't look much like Debbie to me. In fact the Debbie-Barbie has those regulation big--! Well, you know. I'm not going to think about it much, though; that way, perversion lies!

Send In The Clowns

Who Were They Expecting, Bob Hope?

I don't watch Jon Stewart very regularly, but I did see him on Crossfire last week and I have to give him credit—he's the only person on the planet to actually get on one of those obnoxious TV "news" talk shows and call them out for all their sins, foremost of them being, I think, pretending to be journalists of some kind.

It was funny how Tucker Carlson turned EVEN MORE into what he was being accused of! It seemed he wanted to criticize Stewart for BEING funny and for NOT BEING funny. I believe he wanted to shoot the treacherous bastard! Tucker does not suffer criticism gladly, does he? Begala sat there like a slug and seemed stunned that he wasn't the liberal comedian's closest friend and ally, that he too was The Enemy!

I saw Stewart's little talk about it at the start of his own show this week and he seemed appropriately gleeful about the whole thing. Maybe that'll be the end of the stupid idea of bringing comics on the air as "relevant" guests for political talk shows. They did indeed forget to bring the lawyers in and make Stewart sign the "I will be the Funny Funky Monkey" pledge. Lord, it was all worth it to me, though, to hear them all yelling "butt-boy" and "dick". Only the words "cretin assholes" were missing, though the real thing was not.

---

Quote of the day: "Goodbye for now—I'm Wolf Blitzer and you'll be seeing more of me later today. In fact you'll be seeing more of me than you do of the news. That's because tapes of me are cheap and real news is expensive!"

---

The quote above may have been misheard as "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who was playing loudly in the background on a small portable radio suffering from total harmonic distortion while he spoke.

---

Despise Thy Neighbor II

Nice Guys Go Away, Come Again Some Other Day

My neighbor Helpful Fella came over in a neighborly way the other day. Without invitation, I mean. I was working in the yard, but he'd really chosen the wrong moment. I'd gotten a new burning barrel to replace the old rusty one and needed to put some drain and air holes in the bottom. Judging by the couple of times I've done it before, I had not expected to hate the job so much, but it was hard as hell. I had the big ball peen hammer (I did not say big balls peein', what sense would that make?!). Anyway, I had the Big ball peen hammer and the Big chisel and thought I was ready for action. But either they're suddenly making the 55-gal. drums tougher these days (highly unlikely—most non-electronic things are of lesser quality as time goes by) or I've grown weaker in the less than two years since the other one was new. In short, it was hard to do and made me doubt myself. Was this deterioration more sign of old age or was I just having a bad day? It was a bad day of some kind. It's one thing to note that a thing is harder to do than it used to be, quite another to wonder if you're actually unable to do it any more. I've always been able to smirk about not being as good at something as Joe or Beau or Mr. Doughboy—being fastest gun in the west was not one of MY goals—but not being as good as I used to be is a bummer.

Taking A Beating While Others Delight In Talking

My wrists and fists were taking a beating and I imagine my face was already red when Mr. Helpful approached. He said something—it seemed to be "What are you doing?", but could it really have been that? What was that, some kind of farmer talk? A vein in my forehead was throbbing and I was too fast approaching the point of panting while he talked on and on.

"I'm already too angry at this job to have a conversation about it!" I told him, hoping he'd catch on.

He nodded and I thought, "Oh, that was easy, he got it."

But in fact he didn't get it. He continued to stand and watch silently while I banged on the metal drum. My metabolic system began to approach meltdown and apoplexy at the same time. Helpful Fella was giving me the creeps again, but this time, whether rightly or wrongly, I lost my restraint. I hollered at him to "Go! I don't want to be watched!" He said, "Oh!", and he went.

Meanwhile, my pulse rate was way too high. I thought for a minute that it was the physical exertion that caused it and that I'd have to stop working and see if I was having a seizure. After 3 or 4 more minutes of just blindly continuing to work—a little more slowly, though—my pulse slowed and I realized it was just that I'd gotten so outrageously mad about being crowded. I've noticed in the past couple of years that when I get mad, my whole metabolism just gets fucked up. The exertion had a little to do with it, of course.

Step Aside When I'm Blowing Up!

I hate getting into confrontations of any sort, but when I finally decide that the only way to be let alone is to holler at somebody, I pretty much lose control. It's the only way I know how to do it. I'd been expecting him to start being "helpful" as always from the moment he walked over and it had lit my fuse. Whether or not I should have a fuse like that is another matter. Of course, he actually never got the opportunity to offer his help. I guess I just didn't like the way that he eased into my field of vision and made himself a part of my day.

You know, I'm a firm believer in eye contact. I believe that it generally means something. When I WON'T make much eye contact with you, it generally means I'm giving you as polite a dismissal as I can. I'm giving you a chance to get out before things get bad, grow sour, turn nasty, go south. It's my busy signal, you might say. My Not At Home sign. I wonder if it means anything like that to other people? I would have thought it was so.

But I guess some people are used to working and yammering at the same time and don't waste their time on reading body language or wondering if anyone likes them to yammer. Why don't they get distracted when I'm so clearly failing to encourage them? Why don't they shut up and go away? I guess when you think that all the world is your good Christian friend, you don't spend much time being either introspective or observant.

HEADLINE: Wild Bear Bites Man's Head Off

I am a jackass, okay, and I'm rude as a bear when provoked, but I do try to read the body language and the faces of people I don't know well. I don't assume I'm welcome until I see some sign of being welcome. It makes perfect sense to me how friendly people get in each other's friendly faces and stand too near and stay too long and don't get tired and won't go away, but why should anyone comport themselves thusly with me? I'm not a notoriously friendly person and have no comprehension of it when it's aimed at me! I like for a short-term relationship to stay superficial for a long while. Most shallow relationships stay shallow, and that does not make me sad. Why do kooks I don't know want to be anything more than friendly with me! Why do they want to be Friends? Don't they know a bear when they see one?

Is The Bear Catholic?

So many people don't read Bear sign these days, I find. Not the feces, not the tracks and claw marks, not the savaged trunks and tree limbs. Not knowing how to recognize one, they cannot avoid one. Well, that's stupid, but at least I can understand it. What I don't understand is how Happy Fella is making friendly noises at me out in the yard the very next day as if nothing bad had ever been said. Being weak, I removed one earplug and nodded, "Yup, yup, that's right," in response. Shit, why can't I shut up? I will live to regret it. But I put the earplug back in my ear canal as soon as was feasible. The neighborhood lawn equipment (including my own mowers and blowers) makes an intolerable amount of noise—just like the neighborhood prattle. Sometimes, a good pair of ear plugs are man's best friend.

---

Comic, Copulatory, And Romantic

---

Read this story,
FELICE ORWELL,
comic, copulatory, and romantic, located in
DOGGER GATSBY'S BLUES,
a short story blog for all
the Lost And Found and Belittled of this world.

---

Unless A Rock

Unless a rock or an acorn falls out of the sky this morning and hits me in the head and I spend the rest of the day running around squawking, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling," and otherwise trying to publicize the apocalyptic event, there will be no post today!

---

Another Damned Poem

The Rose

Christ arise a rose
And let our voice depart
And let the standing moment still our hearts,
Our hearts so void and full of doubt
That Christ alone could lift us, gift us,
Draw us back from the flame to the fire.

His love, not ashen,
But hot with the hot heart's heat,
Indefinable and definite and defiant to distress;
As hard men's hearts are always and only dying,
So his love is impractical and alive,
Overwhelming yet free from harsh or feigned intent.

Intent!
Repent!
What slings these are!
And yet
Too much regret, so little done,
Confirms the aching hour of our term.

Come alive! Spring alive!
Christ stings my heart alive!
The loss that beckons surely
Lessens slowly
As hope regains our heart,
As light disdains the dark.

Christ our rose arise
And let your word impart
And let the shaken petals heal our hearts,
Our hearts so void and full of doubt
That only Christ could lift us, gift us,
Draw us back from the flame to the fire.

rcs.

8th draft: 10/15/04
©1980 Ronald C. Southern

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Guest Poet Stevie Smith — "I Do Not Speak"

I Do Not Speak
    by Stevie Smith

I do not ask for mercy for understanding for peace
And in these heavy days I do not ask for release
I do not ask that suffering shall cease.

I do not pray to God to let me die
To give an ear attentive to my cry
To pause in his marching and not hurry by.

I do not ask for anything I do not speak
I do not question and I do not seek
I used to in the day when I was weak.

Now I am strong and lapped in sorrow
As in a coat of magic mail and borrow
From Time today and care not for tomorrow.

---

Mr. Blotto

"What are you doing?" Sallye asked.

"Just sitting here taking drugs and watching those black and white bowls of flesh on TV bouncing around like Jane Russell's tits," Johnathan said.

"Those are Jane Russell's tits," she told him with a laugh as she walked on through the living room toward the kitchen.

"Oh. My mistake. No wonder it's in black and white."

"Not really," she laughed. "That's not a color TV."

"Hoo, that's right!" he grinned. "Call me Mr. Blotto."

---

Mary's Child

There must have been
Some days when she forgot,
When the child was only a child—
Not that epiphanal flash sprung forth
Like an arrow from the bow of God,
But only a plodding child
With an affinity for dirt.

She must have stood
Some days in the doorway
Concerned with his mortal hurts,
Watching with a mother's eye
As his naked feet went pounding,
Sounding with a child's quick beat,
Through hard and narrow earthbound streets.

There must have been
Those days when she forgot,
But soon she would remember
And know it every day
That each passing day he became
More and more like an arrow
Returning to the heart of God.

rcs.


4th draft: 08/12/01
©1980 Ronald C. Southern

---

Justine's Sofa

They sat on the sofa, one at each end, yet sometimes moving slightly toward the middle. Justine's feet were sometimes tucked beneath her, sometimes not. He studied her, tried to keep listening to what she was saying, but it was hard to do. The lights were dim, the hour was late. They were alone. They'd only met one another that day, introduced by a mutual friend who wanted them to get together, and their talk seemed both tense and curiously relaxed.

Just as Tanner started thinking it was more relaxed than otherwise, though, she'd surge toward him, leaping at him in the subdued light to emphasize some vivid verbal point she was making, and raising her voice as she did it. This made him very nervous. Her face, looming so suddenly large in front of him, perplexed him. It seemed like a face that wanted to be kissed, but not enough so. He was certain that she needed to be kissed, but she was too crazy, too intense. So, for that matter, was he. Of course, he might be assuming too much that she was something like him, but he didn't know any other way to figure her out. It was all he had to work with, since he didn't know her.

He couldn't help thinking of her as a potential lay. She was overweight, but so was he. She was, at the least, a handsome woman. Their mutual friend has told him that she was in a period of crisis in her life, and no matter how he respected and feared that sort of thing, he couldn't help thinking of comforting her, and comforting himself thereby. Their mutual friend Hampton had left them alone together with the kindest of intentions, but presumably meaning for them to do their best to sleep with one another. It was all too weird. It didn't seem likely to happen.

"She's a good fuck," his friend had told him. He wondered what Hampton had told her about him!

He wondered what he was supposed to do with that information? Hampton had said she was good, but hadn't mentioned if she was easy. They'd been talking and talking all night, and now it was so late and he was so baffled that he couldn't even imagine getting an erection, much less sustaining one and impressing this talkative woman with it.

God, could she talk! Had she ever stopped talking long enough when she leapt forward at him, Tanner might have kissed her and it might have amounted to something, he had no way of knowing. But she talked, on and on and on, as if to prevent his pressing forward to meet her deep red lips, and he yielded, almost gladly, to her evasion, thinking that perhaps she knew what she was doing. He was relieved, it was a connection he wouldn't have to make. Yet he wanted her, too. It was only that he wanted her to be easy-or at least clear—something that seldom happened for him.

They weren't doing very well together so far. Maybe she wanted to be more aggressively seduced, but couldn't stop being so aggressive herself. Could it be that she just talked aggressively? Tanner had no idea. He seldom knew what to do about his own or anyone else's aggression, that's what it came to. He began to realize that he'd begun to forget how to go about a seduction. It had been too long. This time around, they would be doing it mainly because she was there, or because he was there, and not because either of them knew the other. He knew he wanted a woman, but he didn't particularly want Justine.

It takes a lot of nerve to venture a kiss when you know you don't know what a woman is like or what she likes or if she's thinking about elegant wines instead of you or if she might make your skin crawl. It seemed to be as difficult with one that's 36 as it ever was with the teenage girlfriends of his youth. If he'd been in love, instead of in mere marginal lust, perhaps he'd have risked whatever it was he thought he had to risk. As it was, he took no risk, gave no offense, got no kiss. A kiss like that might have been nothing, after all. Or it might have saved his life. You never know.

NOTES:

Thinking Of Her As A Sex Object

"I didn't feel bad about thinking of her as a sex object. I felt bad because I couldn't be sure whether she was one or not!"

They Talked Past Midnight

They were trying to get to know one another. But were they really talking to get to know one another or just to get to the point where it would be too late to touch, caress, or fuck?

Bizarre Relationship

"This shit is turning into another bizarre relationship instead of an assignation," he thought bitterly. That might have been wonderful, except that it wasn't. The more he looked at her, the more he wanted her, but the more she talked, the less he wanted her. The more he knew her, the less he wanted to know about her, yet she still had a strong attraction and he still had a slight yearning to have sex with her.

Topics Of Her Night's Conversation:

-Mexicans, how she hated them because they were so prevalent in San Antonio, how they screwed her out of getting all the good jobs because they had all the connections.

-Justine begins talking about Dr. Ruth's show. Justine's repulsion about the very mention of anal intercourse.

-She was a make-up expert, she said, putting her make-up on in front of him. They were sitting on the sofa again.

-Expert driver (pushy)

-Drinking (aggressive)

-Cigarettes: "Don't let me do that again!" she told him after smoking another one of his. She was ostensibly trying to quit.

-Mother/father deceased. Referred to herself as a homeless waif.

-Stomach stapled shut twice. First time without any long-term success; second time without much success at all.

-Won the legal case against an insurance company for a wreck she was in and had gotten a large settlement that she quickly blew on high rent and a high life style. Didn't try to make it last. Now the money was nearly gone and she was still unemployed.

LATER

A long while later Justine phoned him long distance and asked if she could come live with him, that all her options had run out.

"It was so depressing to tell her No," Tanner said later. "On the phone she sounded so fragile. But we couldn't have succeeded any more together than we had alone. Though she was in some measure a very self-confident woman, I knew I didn't need anyone that needy. Of course I may have been wrong."

---

Read an ancient poem about love and infatuation called
A YOUNG MAN'S CONVICTIONS
in
JUDY GARLAND BLUES,
my slowly-crumbling poetry blog for new & used poems

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GUNFIGHT AT THE IT-AIN'T-OKAY CORRAL

Night Maneuvers With The Dragon

Lenny Feldman had a friend, Chuck Moon, whose "ole lady", Junie, called him one evening, still pretty early, and lets him know her old man's not home yet and there's some guy over there bothering her a little. They talked and she finally says, "Well, it's okay for now," but she'll call him back later if it comes to anything. Feldman starts checking the arsenal, trotting out rifles, handguns, and ammunition.

The thing is, Alton and I were both aghast. I was a dyed in the wool hippie and not exactly in my milieu. Alton, though he'd been a lieutenant in Viet Nam, had done every devious thing he could at the time to avoid going (the FBI caught him and gave him little choice). In country, he'd done every cowardly thing he could to avoid conflict and to get back home alive and let his freak flag fly. He was not the warrior type despite his war experience.

Feldman, though, was a West Texas cowboy who somehow coexisted with the hippie world and the academic world at the University Of Texas all at the same time. He was talking now about how we're gonna go over there and kick some ass if we have to, he's not gonna let his ole pal down. And, besides, she's a nice chick. What?!

Wait a minute, what does "nice chick" mean? What's "nice" got to do with it? Is she gonna cook supper fer us cowboys out of gratitude if we kill the guy who's annoying her? Gee, that'll be nice. I hoped we'd make a clean getaway.

Lenny took a few minutes to acquaint us with the guns—Alton is unfamiliar with the shotgun he's been handed. I'm unfamiliar with any gun. Alton understands his instructions pretty quickly, but I don't. In exasperation Lenny tells me to just make sure I hold it where it can be seen-if there's any shooting to be done, he'll do it, anyway.

Alton and I now feel like the Harmless Guy in "The Godfather", who brought flowers to Don Corleone's hospital room, but gets trapped into stuffing his hand in his coat and pretending it's a gun when the assassins show up. Like the guy in the movie, we're nervous and sweating bullets, wondering how appropriate the image may turn out to be. Alton and I don't know this girl Junie or her boyfriend Chuck Moon or the crazy guy who's bugging Junie. We only know Feldman, and he seems calm, albeit completely crazy. He was that evening one of those Texas guys who "don't care if the sun don't shine!" But he was enamored of saving this fair damsel with personal courage that night. Why it had to be his personal courage was something I figured out much later when I realized that the missing boyfriend was probably a dope dealer who couldn't afford to have the police come to his house.

Calls come in and calls go out to Junie. Things get more tense, things relax. Then tense all over again. We're smoking an awful lot of cigarettes. After a long wait and the sun's gone down and we're getting into Lenny's truck with an armful of guns and a gutful of butterflies, Junie calls one last time and says it's all right, the guy left, and that her boyfriend came home, too. All is well, la di dah. Thanks for contemplating murder for me.

"Thank Christ!" I thought, getting rid of the gun quickly.

Feldman thanks us for standing by him. Alton and I look at him like he's crazy, though we can't help but grin like idiots. Not having to fight the dragon will do that to you.

rcs.

Current draft: 10/11/04
©1989 Ronald C. Southern

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Sunday Monday

I didn't do much for Monday, for that would have entailed working on Sunday and you all know how religious I am. Well, yes, I guess you do. Anyway, no further blarney, blather, or bullshit today.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men." — Max Beerbohm

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Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae

I Am Not As I Was Under The Reign Of The Good Cynara
     BY ERNEST DOWSON (1867-1900)

Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
When I awoke and found the dawn was grey:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

---

I have seen it conjectured that Margaret Mitchell based her famous title on the phrase "gone with the wind" in the poem above, but when I searched previously, I never could figure out if anybody knew that for a fact. I could not find where Ms. Mitchell remarked about it, at any rate. Maybe some of you are better informed and can let me know.

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New Blog Added I generally add a new blog to the "Intelligent Blogs" list without fanfare. I am doing it differently this time with "Hugo's Hideout" just to do something differently. I am perverted that way. You might not like it, but I do. I haven't been reading it long enough to say anything succinct and dead-on about it, so it's just this: I like it. Those of you familiar with my demented habits might recall some blogs that stayed on my list only a short time. I can't help it if I'm not loyal. We are not exactly in some foxhole together, after all. We can be inconstant and there will be no great loss. That's how I see it. With those bits of past backstabbing and future disaffections now hinted at--
Welcome, Hugo!

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Putting Together A Baby Bed—Part Two

Okay, This Is The End!

Well, here I am, only about 24 hours later and I finished it, rolled it out of my study, down the sidewalk, and onward to its destination. But this much remains true:

I Wish I’d Had A Damn Diagram!

Somewhere toward the frustrating end, I drew the only conclusion left to me about why it looked funny and why the side rails wouldn’t release and go up or down—the two metal pieces (with that release mechanism) that connect the headboard and footboard of the baby bed were backwards. One at a time, I removed them, flipped them over, and reaffixed the A end to the B end and the B end to the A end. One pair of tiny bolts at each of the four ends.

Skillful Fingers Would’ve Helped, Too

Sounds so easy, does it not? Not. After getting them loose and reversing those, all eight of the bolts declined to be quickly reattached. Each time I got them lined up, touched the bolt head with the screwdriver tip, the bolt would unalign itself with the threads in the bedposts. My fat stupid fingers would quiver, tremble, and lose their grip on the bolt. The bolt would twist, slide, slip out of my grasp, then tumble to the floor!

Aaagh!

My nerves were getting frazzled and every frazzle led to a further state of spazzlement. I dropped them like this 3 to 6 times each; rare was the bolt that I caught on its way to the floor. For that matter, only half of them could be located on the floor without extensive searching. I found getting on my hands and knees with a flashlight generally worked well, though I’m not sure that’s how this procedure is ideally supposed to work. Why are my fingers so worthless!

Anyway, this pretty much solved it. I got the side rails on and they work nicely now that the other stuff isn’t backwards. I put some shiny new wheels on the legs and then I rolled. This job is over and if I ever have to do it again, I shall indeed be bitter.

Cute Baby

Even if baby John is very happy with the setup, all he can do to express his approbation at present is drool, spit up, drink, and dirty himself. Well, he has started to "talk" sometimes, but we are still uncertain what language it is. Sometimes I find he sounds like a bird or a mouse, but that’s okay with me. He's cute enough to get away with it.

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NO BABIES HAVE BEEN HARMED IN THE ASSEMBLY OF THIS BABY BED.

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Putting Together A Baby Bed

I don’t claim that putting together a baby bed is a difficult thing to do, I just say that I can make it complicated. I’ve been volunteered by my mother to put together a used one for my sister's grandchild John Clifton. The longer I look at this garage sale item, the more missing pieces of hardware I find. Anyone familiar with me knows I’m no repair whiz or assembly king, and I am here this day to confirm your notion.

I Wish I Had A Damn Diagram!

I just needed minor fasteners and such, but apparently staring at the disconnected rails, head and end pieces, rods, metal frame pieces, springs, and various screws and bolts, it all looked like a jumble to my mind and I couldn’t even count. I bought only three 10/32 x ½ bolts when I needed fifteen. Screws were almost the opposite—I only needed 6, but had to buy a package of 24 to match the size.

About the bolts, I feel like you do about it—how could anybody miscount by so much?! I don’t know, I’m just good at it, I guess. I can’t look at something that’s been taken apart and visualize how it goes together. I get flustered. I’ve never seen one assembled or at least never paid one any attention. Photos of them on the Internet tend to show "dressed" and decorated ones, not the bare bones. So, no clues from that source. How can a nervous person like me be expected to count the fasteners, braces, and such for a device that seems completely mysterious? When I see disassembled items, at first it makes me think of some painting by M.C. Escher or like one of those Rube Goldberg constructions that have too many parts.

Until I actually had the headboard, footboard, and the two metal sides of this baby bed connected, I could barely imagine where the metal springs would go. I ventured a guess, but once it was together and upright, I saw that the springs couldn’t go there, because something else went There! More staring was required and a good deal more cursing-time. It was about this time that I realized I’d miscounted the bolts. So I don’t have enough bolts to put it together and see if I really have determined the correct placement of the springs. A passing friend helped me hold the awkward springs in position for a few seconds to see that it should go where I think it goes! So I’ll get the additional hardware, then I’ll see what fits where. Or if anything fits anywhere.

Things Will Go Further Wrong

You may be thinking, “Oh, good grief, how wrong could this crybaby be!” Very. Depend on it, I have experience. On the good side (ha), I could possibly get another post out of this, whoopdeedo, since what remains to be done is not marginal. I still need to

1. attach the springs
2. install the side rails
3. install the four rods that act as side rail guides
4. replace four wheels—no match found for the missing one
5. and whatever the hell else I’ve forgotten or mismanaged

Things will go further wrong, that much is certain. Stay tuned. I‘ll try to wrap all this up pretty fast. Personally I find this to be like having a sword hanging over my head. Other people want it done, baby John needs it, and I’m standing in their way! Holding up progress! Sometimes it’s just my role in life to be an impediment. At least John won’t hold it against me; he’s mellow. He was happy today just to find his toes—he hadn't noticed them so much before, apparently.

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Dishwasher Aggravation Blues

He always thought it would just take a minute to fill the dishwasher, but then it would seem like it was taking forever. He piled, and piled, and piled the dishes in there, lining them up like rows of soldiers shoulder to shoulder, stacks of fork-and-knife armaments, tank-like pots and pans upside-down, handles aimed at random. He was thinking that at any moment this setup for the war of the dishes would be through, but it just went on and on.

"For Christ's sake," he thought, "how many goddamn dishes can this idiot thing hold?"

Maybe it would have been faster to just wash them the old-fashioned way. His mind began to blur, he had other things to do, and he needed to get on with this! For that matter, he'd rather sit and watch paint peel than to be doing this. Actually, that wasn't true; he had no patience for anything that was dull and that included a great many things that he did every day. All the domestic activities in his apartment seemed to take forever. Worse than that, he hated getting his hands dirty, and it was impossible to handle the greasy dishes and keep clean. It made no sense to him, having to clean up because you just cleaned up! As he shoved the last dish in the washer, threw soap powder in the dispenser, and nearly kicked the door shut, he found himself muttering as if the dishwasher was cognizant, as if it was something he could curse or frighten. He patted his pockets, then realized he was looking for a cigarette. He'd been trying to quit for a week. There were no cigarettes in the apartment.

"Jesus Christ, go on, then," he said irritably, "just tear and tear and tear and..."

Suddenly he stopped, starting to listen to himself, wondering what he meant. Tear at what? It didn't make any sense. He could see how it might make sense, but not which one of those senses it made. What was tearing? And was it tearing at the dishes or at him? He had no idea. He was too miserable to think about it; his feet and back hurt, he felt dizzy and disoriented, and he still wanted the cigarette. He gave up.

He went to the bedroom, turned on the computer, and worked a while. He tried working on one of his short stories, but that wouldn't work. Then a poem, but that wouldn't gel. He saved the computer file and quit, then cleared his mind of it. He tried writing an email to a friend, but that wouldn't take, either. He ended up just saying, "Hey, what's new?" and hoping his friend would know that something was wrong-he was so seldom brief! Everything he thought to say had already been said to everyone recently. He was out of new material. Nothing worked, especially not his world-weary charm. Maybe that was what was tearing at him—just everything and nothing. Everything that wouldn't work or work out. And then, of course, there was the matter of that cigarette he wouldn't let himself have.

---

Family Prayer Circle In A Hospital Room

I don't believe in prayer. I'm not against it, I just don't believe in it. You can pray, of course, that's obvious. I just don't believe it helps much. I guess when sick people know about your prayers for them, it cheers them up and that may help. I do recognize the power of Faith in healing, at least within the person who's ill. I don't believe that God is paying that much attention to you, but the person you're praying for might be. If it cheers them to be prayed for, their positive feelings will improve and so might their chances to heal, I guess. But I can't go very far in praising the Lord for people who don't die of cancer, diabetes, etc., when we only blame the doctor for those who die of those same things. But everything I've mentioned here is psychology. Prayer helps if it's directed toward someone who knows about it, that's my theory and it extends no further.

I wish I did believe more, I suppose, but that requires the deaf dumb and blind faith I don't possess. I have problems just like the next fellow and would like a bit of magic at work for me and mine. But I don't know how the trick can be said to work when I've seen (we've all seen) so many instances where prayer didn't work. Either that or somebody prayed for the wrong thing. Even among children, some who are prayed for get well—others stay sick or die. Among adults, it is obvious that good people perish while perverts get well and prosper. If God's ways are that mysterious, then publicly praying your guts out for a good outcome is just so much hubris, not humility at all—another act of pleasant self-delusion, as if to say that through intense desire, "We can make God care as we do!" You can try that, this is America. And I can decline to do it—again, this is America.

Neither of us can necessarily avoid catching hell for it, though.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities." — Aldous Huxley

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Exterminating The Girl In The Closet

He beat on the steel door of the dorm room with his heavy key ring, doing it loudly as he always did because the students were so often asleep, pretending to be asleep, or otherwise hiding from the world.

"Exterminator!" Johnathan automatically hollered. A young man with no shirt answered the door.

"Alright if I spray your room?" Johnathan added.

The young man looked confused, but nodded. Johnathan thought little of it; so many of them looked confused that he no longer wondered why. If a college student looked besotted, it could be anything—sex, drugs, alcohol, all-night studying, poker games, computer games, trying to sleep straight through the next two days worth of mealtimes until their parents' next check could reach them. They very often forgot about the extermination schedule and looked at him at if he was an alien from a space ship when he arrived.

"This'll just take a couple of minutes," Johnathan told the young man, brushing past him at the first hint of an affirmative nod.

"Oh. Okay," mumbled the young man. Johnathan was already halfway around the first room, spraying as he went.

The second room wasn't occupied, so Johnathan decided to take advantage of this rare opportunity to spray the crevices all around the metal clothes closet. He pushed the sliding door to the right and aimed his spray wand at the narrow crevice between the metal walls and the false bottom of the closet, spraying from left to right. As he got to the far right side of the closet he became aware of an object. It was difficult to see since there was little light in the room and he hadn't bothered to get his flashlight out of his pocket. He had a vague impression of it being just another one of the store mannequins the boys sometimes stole from God-knows-where and kept in their rooms. One located in an ROTC closet had once nearly given him a heart attack. So at this one, he just shrugged and stopped spraying; he never sprayed poison on objects that he couldn't identify or see well, so he slid the closet door shut.

"Wait, what was that?" his brain questioned him.

It had just dawned on him that while he was going through his ritual in the usual way—that is, rapidly and like an automaton—the mannequin had moved! Freaky, freaky!

He opened the door again and took a better look. Sure enough, it was a naked girl, shrunk back against the farthest dimly lit corner of the closet, apparently trying to make herself small or possibly disappear altogether. She was shapely, but pneumatic, and had a paleness that seemed to have a slight light of its own there in the dim metallic closet. Her face, breasts, and crotch were pressed firmly into the corner of the closet, but she couldn't disappear. Her white legs and the ample curve of her bottom were becoming more visible as his eyes adjusted to the light. As soon as he realized how uncomfortable the young girl must be, Johnathan sighed and slid the door shut again without a word. He'd only stared at her so long because it had been so peculiar. WHY had the boy let him come in and see the college girl like this? He hastily finished spraying and at the door turned toward the young man.

"Don't be such a fool next time. You don't have to let maintenance workers in your dorm room, you know. But you do have to speak up and answer, Yes or No!"

The boy looked off to the side in miserable but inexpressive confusion. He nodded again. Johnathan wasn't sure whether the boy knew which way was up, much less what Johnathan was telling him. Maybe the fool was already trying to think of how to explain this to his girlfriend.

Maybe he was thinking he'd be lucky if he ever got to sleep with her! Then again, maybe he'd end up rolling her right into bed. She was already naked, after all, and she did need consoling. There's no telling what might excite some people.

---

I Need A Vacation

I need a vacation from all this reality back here, the stuff I don't mention. For whatever reason, good or bad. I don't want to see Florida or the Grand Canyon or Las Vegas—I just want to not see and hear all the same old stuff. I don't want anything particularly exciting or pretty or jolly, I just want a different environment, a breath of air, a change from this entirely. I don't even care if I'm gone overnight, it can be short... Perhaps a ride on a very slow boat going nowhere special...

Maybe I could go live with Beaver Cleaver. I could dig that. His mom was hot, though I didn't used to realize that. Back then I thought she was too thin—my puberty sort of fixated on the Marilyn Monroe buxom model, not the Jackie Kennedy types. Besides, I wasn't into Older Women or Moms back then. Later I learned to like them and even had a few who were the requisite 10 to 20 years older. However, now I'm so old that an older woman by that definition is quite an antiquarian. Possible Rest Home material. Could be a sexpot, but not likely. Could still be interested in a tender bit of a bump and a hug, but who knows...

If I could pass through a Time Warp as I am, I guess I couldn't live with Beaver, for the opposite reason. I'd get in trouble all the time for being the old guy trying to jump on lovely June and see what kind of panties she's wearing. Not to mention, they'd wonder where the hell I came from. They'd make me go hang around with Gus The Fireman and I'd be bored shitless. I guess my fantasy is pretty far out of kilter now and my brain is over-steering to compensate.

I don't think I've found the right vacation from reality just yet, do you?

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The Cleavers Talk

June: Wally, where are you going?
Wally: I'm going over to slug Eddie.
June: That's no way to talk, this is Sunday.
Wally: You're right, I'll wait 'til tomorrow and slug him in the cafeteria.

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Stuffy Party

"What is a tampon, anyway," she said, waving a new one around in front of her new friends. "Just a stick of cloth with a red stain when it's fresh and a brown stain when it's not?"

"Don't be disgusting," they told her. "You've drunk too much already!"

"You've got some pretty funny definitions of what's disgusting," she told them. "They sell this stuff on television in front of children and hemorrhoid ointment while you're eating your supper, but you don't want to hear about it while you're drinking? Don't wanna hear 'bout children starving or the permanent poor in the land of plenty or anything like that, either!"

"All we said was we didn't want to talk about bloody tampons."

"That's what you think you're saying," she muttered.

The whiskey was making her drunk, no doubt about it, though she thought she hadn't even had that much yet. She decided that she ought to drink a whole lot more and just not worry about it. If she could get drunk enough, maybe she'd just go get that kitty litter box in the bathroom and come back and throw feces at all these stupid self-satisfied people that she barely knew.

"God, I'm skooshed!" she sighed and then looked very confused. "Scrooshed? Swooshed? Shit, there's a word, but I can't think of it!"

"Hey, Goddammit, I thought there was a Cat Stevens CD over here somewhere!" some guy in a business suit was yelling to nobody in particular. Nobody answered him.

"I need some kind of real good reason if I'm going to stay at this stupid party any longer," she muttered to herself. She stumbled slightly as she went out the kitchen door into the back yard, sat down heavily on the patio lounger, and closed her eyes.

"This one would do."

The next time anyone looked at her, she was sprawled out asleep, one shoe clutched in both hands and pressed against her belly. They'd been hoping that she'd already gone home.

"Hell, I can't even see up her skirt!" the guy in the business suit sulked.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there." — Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland"

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Not Full Of Yuff Enough

As you can see in the sidebar, I finished with "King Rat" and have begun a new book. However, I don't seem to be able to read as much of The Octopus as I would wish. The book's quite good, but I really am taking a long time with it. Problem #1 is that it's a big book. Problem #2 is that I mostly read it when I'm in the bathroom next to the study where this computer is located. Some might conclude that I'm just not full of yuff enough to keep me on the can enough and therefore I can't keep my reading pace high. Those people, of course, don't know me. How could I possibly not be full of it? I'm quite full of yuff, thank you, not to mention feces specious and real and all sorts of moronic crap and glutinous Spam and ridiculous verbal baloney, processed or not. Listen, I have trailer-loads of yuff entrails and entanglements in my unconscious! All as icky as could be desired; no one would want to keep it inside.

The explanation about my reading progress is simple; there is another bathroom on my estate. That bathroom has its own book. I suppose this may have been more than you wanted to know. Some people are squeamish, but it's not my job to protect them. There are eight billion rude, crude, and lewd bathroom stories in the naked city; this has been one of the milder and more educational ones.

Okay, I hope you learned something. There will be a written test, uh, later.

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Recommend A Blog To Me

If anyone would like to suggest a blog for me to add to my "Intelligent Blogs" list, have at it. If what you recommend is good, but so weird that it doesn't fit the category, I'll make a new list. Probably no one will suggest anything, though; I don't seem to have good luck with contests, surveys, and questions.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."
— Shaw, George Bernard

Or did John Kerry just say it to George Bush?

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The Hat That Won’t Go Away

Unbeknownst to me, there was already a photo of me and the infamous, the elusive, the heard-too-much-of-already Pork Pie Hat! Or, err, I’d forgotten that picture had been taken. This is the dark blue hat, the other 2 are lighter, sort of beige, colors.

To those of you who’d been looking at that one other photo and had been blurring your vision and practicing Christian charity to make yourself think I might be handsome, I am sorry to put your feet back on the road to reality with this slightly blurry side view. But, God, is that a great haircut or what? That's what happens with do-it-yourself hair maintenance.

   
[Photo courtesy of Cuz.]

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