| Nothing was delivered Bob Dylan |
John F. Kennedy: "When we got into office, the thing that surprised me the most was that things were as bad as we'd been saying they were."
I met her at a bus station one night
On the way to God knows where.
She thought she'd just met Santa Claus.
It was right after SHE SAID that
Someone else had called her a little tramp
And left her there as alone as I was, or thereabouts.
She wasn't going anywhere, it seemed,
And God knows I wasn't much.
She was overly inclined to drink and
She was equally disinclined to pay,
So she needed a lot of friends.
Together we made an undertow
Through that bar that night, though for her
it might as well have been through the nearest river.
We were, I guess, a disreputable pair,
Call it what you will,
She didn't like the whiskey and she didn't like me
And didn't want to pay (at first) for anything at all
When the darkness of night rolled around
In that cheap motel room!
Lord, she was a drunk.
But she liked to play with my belly
And bounce it against her own,
And like she used to hum relentlessly
In that boppy old Beatles song,
You know that can't be bad!
Elaine Gill: "If you have any doubts that we live in a society controlled by men, try reading down the index of contributors to a volume of quotations, looking for women's names."
| Good ole Larry's been busy with his guitar, but also paused to tell us this touching story about joblessness and metropolitan fury in a post called Cookies. |
Note: Those of you who have slummed in my help blog, "Most Frequent Blogger Questions, but not recently, ought to pay it a visit and see the decorations. No, not Christmas spangles, just a touch of table color!
| Meanwhile, there's this 13 perverted Xmas thoughts: |
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| 1. start with people who don't fully spell out Christmas. Kick 'em. Kick 'em till they squeak! 2. grab those people who act like elves--stamp 'em out! 3. anyone singing seasonal songs has got to go. Out the car window at 30 mph. 4. anyone playing seasonal songs on the radio should forfeit their right to breathe until next Xmas. 5. if your nose is turning red, stop drinking. That's all, just stop it! 6. if you're asked to impersonate a reindeer, hit the requester with an ashtray. 7. if I run over Santa and his sled by accident, I plan to stop and back up to see who it was! 8. all elves who can run fast enough will be allowed to live. 9. if anyone asks you to help decorate a Christmas tree, you don't have to pee on it. Just smear butter on it. 10. you should attempt to have carnal knowledge of all "angels" who are ascertained to be 18 or over. 11. Meanwhile, try not to bugger any cute little elf boys! 12. Gee, for that matter, don't bugger any of the reindeer! 13. In fact, don't bugger anybody who's holding fragile Christmas decorations or moving around--you might miss and make a mess! |
I've been napping again; piddle on the rest of you guys! I didn't accomplish a thing. I don't even remember what I was going to accomplish. If I wasn't so worthless, I'd go buy cookies. Or something.
I sat at the computer last night falling asleep repeatedly over a long period of time. I do that more often lately, whether it be day or night. Only the deepest interest keeps me fully awake. I wonder what's going on? I'm doing it again this afternoon and tonight. Old age. Goddamn!
Woke up this morning and Yahoo News reported that the commies dropped the bomb and the Islamic terrorists caught it. Embarrassed about saving the world, a worldwide conference of known non-commie assholes (WCKNCA) was called for next week to decide what to do with it. It is expected that everybody in America within hailing distance of any metropolitan area can bend over and kiss their ass goodbye (as was always promised). Better do it now. Don't want to be taken by surprise.
Mommy, what's that?"
"Nothing, dear, pay no attention."
KAVOOMP!
I've been leaf-blowing and raking leaves and I'm exhausted. I'd hate to estimate the time because it seemed so long to me and the clock would probably disagree! So I'm resting here, regardless of reality. I know reality; it beat me up last week.
I'd like to take a nap, but I slept late, so I'd have very little excuse if I did. I can't even wish for someone to talk to for distraction; I have a slight sore throat at present and occasionally can barely get my voice to start. Very weird. I used to know people at work (correction, just Diane T.) who'd come to work with the most awful sounding raspy voice and say she was okay, it was just her voice. I never had anything like that and thought she was just being brave so she didn't have to miss work. Now I see what she meant.
Twice lately, I've had the fragments of a poem occur to me after I'd turned out the light and covered up in bed. Then I just laid there, too tired or too warm to get up and make some quick notes. I have notebooks and paper all over the place, but I guess it's not convenient enough. Professional Scuba divers have special notebooks that will write under water, so I guess I need some special thing that will float over to me like Samantha's bewitched items when I'm in need of being creative in bed! Anyway, as usual, I DID NOT wake up the next morning with a memory of what things were wishing to be born the night before. My brain was blank--just start over, I guess--if anything would start!
| Petula Clark?! |
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| On Pandora Internet radio just now, Petula Clark was singing the Beatles' song, "I Want To Hold Your Hand", which (if not funny) is kind of poetic payback, I would think. It was the Beatles and other dopers of the time that pushed Petula's more middle-of-the-road music aside back then. I liked her songs well enough at the time, but I was part of the crowd, I turned aside from her and listened to the new rave stuff! I think it was probably not until sometime in the eighties that I saw her costar with Peter O'Toole in a 1969 remake of "Goodbye Mr. Chips" and I fell in love with her. From then on, I always paused if I heard of or saw her anywhere and tried to think good thoughts toward her to make up for the shifty attention I've given her earlier in life. I was old enough that it was probably no longer just sex. And she was old enough by then that I'm sure she didn't worry about it at all. I hope Peter O'Toole was polite to her. It would really fuck up my high opinion of his drunken ass if I found out otherwise! So, watch it, Peter! Guess it doesn't matter much, does it? |
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| What Inspires Me?
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| Glancing at my results so far in the two polls I have up in MFBQ (my Help blog), it would seem that I have an approximate 25% negative vote in both of them. Neither one has been up very long (I mean to leave them going for a year total), so I'm just noting the trend so far. Larger numbers of visitors may or may not change the poll numbers. It kinda bums me out so far, but one must be tolerant of all feedback; one shouldn't take one's poll and go home! So I'll hang on. (It's not like it's very difficult!) |
E. B. White: "People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust."
 | What, no comments today? That's worse than no posts!!! Oh, well, there were two emails I could flirt with, but only slightly. Are there no strangers to be "had"? Ho hum and on we go. |
| If I just keep pouring out these short meaningless posts, I'll arrive at 1500 wild and wooly ones in no time. It's 1475 already! |
| "Dance on fire as it intends" |
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I bought a Doors CD with about 30 thousand songs on it the other day and have been rehashing all my memories and thoughts associated with that time. The late sixties don't seem so far away, but as the liner notes point out, the Doors have now enjoyed 40 years of popularity with generation after generation. Meanwhile I aged into this stage of crud and crabby derisiveness. |
WHEN THE MUSIC'S OVER
Yeah, cmon
When the musics over
When the musics over, yeah, when the musics over
Turn out the lights, turn out the lights
Turn out the lights, yeah
When the musics over x3
Turn out the lights x3
For the music is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
Music is your only friend
Until the end x3
Cancel my subscription to the resurrection
Send my credentials to the house of detention
I got some friends inside
The face in the mirror wont stop
The girl in the window wont drop
A feast of friends, alive! she cried
Waitin for me, outside!
Before I sink, into the big sleep
I want to hear, I want to hear
The scream of the butterfly
Come back, baby, back into my arm
Were gettin tired of hangin around
Waitin around with our heads to the ground
I hear a very gentle sound, very near yet very far
Very soft, yeah, very clear, come today, come today
What have they done to the earth?
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn
And tied her with fences and dragged her down
I hear a very gentle sound
With your ear down to the ground
We want the world and we want it... x2
Now, now? , now!
Persian night, babe, see the light, babe
Save us!, jesus!, save us!
So when the musics over
When the musics over, yeah
When the musics over
Turn out the lights x3
Well the music is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
Music is your only friend
Until the end x3
THE END
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand
In a...desperate land
Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah
There's danger on the edge of town
Ride the King's highway, baby
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, baby
Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake, baby
The snake is long, seven miles
Ride the snake...he's old, and his skin is cold
The west is the best
The west is the best
Get here, and we'll do the rest
The blue bus is callin' us
The blue bus is callin' us
Driver, where you taken' us
The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall
He went into the room where his sister lived, and...then he
Paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall, and
And he came to a door...and he looked inside
Father, yes son, I want to kill you
Mother...I want to...fuck you
C'mon baby, take a chance with us
C'mon baby, take a chance with us
C'mon baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus
Doin' a blue rock
On a blue bus
Doin' a blue rock
C'mon, yeah
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
It hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end
| Hi, it's me! A pretty hard thing to do after all these decades! "Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection; More about The Doors later. |
| There is something about a blog that just slogs on and on. Or maybe I've read all the wrong ones. Most of them start at some point and hardly ever seem to successfully transmute, change, alter identity, graduate, or start wearing a suit and tie instead of tee shirts and shorts. Not even the other way around! There have been a few, but they were the few "famous" ones I've come in contact with, not the Joe Blow blogs that I was reading when they were still "nobodies"! Of course, I'm one of those Joe Blow blogs. I would never expect to rise above all this, to stop cussing and be main stream, to manage a sensible post almost every day of my existence. Too many days I feel crappy and give myself permission to be so as fully or as passionately so as I wish! |
| My damn stupid header has been messed up from the beginning in many more ways than this one. This one is actually the least bad, so I may settle for it, mistrusting Blogger's penchant for "changing the room" without explanation. I think I will just choose to love it until further notice. Blogger can eat a big one, I don't care. I won't be bothered by it any more!!! I don't think... |
| I'd rather beat my head against a brick wall than listen to such shit, but President Bush still thinks Iran is the same thing he said they wuz even though they're not! Iran is Just As Goddamn Evil, it appears, even though the news is that they quit their nuclear program years ago?! How do you figure that? Presidential logic? Oh, sure, they're assholes, and they're malevolent toward our interests, but almost every foreign country is. We don't really like the British, the French, or the Israelis--we just SAY we do in public. |
"Stinkin' shit,"
I proclaimed to the world,
Though I had no more notion then than now
Just what I was being so bitterly brilliant about.
Oh, fuck, it gets so tiresome holding on,
Keeping my proper Face on, not taking any misstep
Or falling on my ass or my melting face.
What good would it do,
What vantage could it bring
To tear out the wires or my guts again
Within the span of an infomercial,
No longer than the line is.
Spare me.
Why does it go on and on,
But then again why not?
Who have you ever met who was ept?
| Oh, to hell with it. This snot just goes on and on. Some of it, anyway. Myself, I'm dragging. Suckered in. Puttered out. Another day goes by. What's your excuse? |
I'd like to feel you up, he said, and if not you, then someone else would do. What's your pretty sister doing? Or, for that matter, the homely one? I'm not in love and can't pretend to be. You got a sister who just likes to wiggle, or a mommy who used to be a bouncy busty beauty before everything went South, or even a pair of rubber gloves--I could teach you how to do it, it ain't hard, or rather, it IS hard and I got to do somethin' about it, can't you tell!!! I'm lonesome, lass, and I can't do a thing about it...well, there's that, but I avoid it because I might get addicted to it, you know, he said laughing, emphasizing the addicted until it sounded like ad-dick-ted, so why in the world did she continue to stand there with him, it was a big world, a big piece of beach and lots of people and if she waited long enough one of them cops in shorts would come along or maybe two of them, probably one to chat with while the other one did the arrest. Old crumb bum, she didn't know why he hung around like this, he often did, she never felt so naked as when he came out and stumbled over and glued his eyes to her crotch or made her nipples do little dances under her swimming top instead of just sitting there like they were meant to do, almost like they were trying to get excited, but how'd that be, she'd been a beauty back in high school and wasn't that far from it yet, so why's SHE getting stuck with this derelict who probably wanted to fuck almost anything female he saw. If she was like him, she'd want to fuck almost any man she saw, and that would be pathetic. So why tolerate Him? |
I found a curious thing, though I may be among the last to discover it. I just took a recently-created blog, played with it, then subjected it to the Revert to Classic button. Oddly enough, the system "reverted" it even though it had never been a classic template. I didn't test everthing about it, but I thought it was very curious. Maybe someday I'll think of some use for this marvellous piece of information. Till then, la di dah, on we dance... |
| I Don't Wanna Pickle... |
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I'm just tired of hearing bloggers whine about not wanting to give up their precious old Classic template and be forced to Upgrade to New Blogger. Now that it's been many months, it's like some kid insisting on staying on his tricycle when we all know it's time to ride the bicycle! Shit, get off the pot, willya!? So what if this is America and nobody wants to be forced to do anything. I was reviewing some of my posts in my help blog, "Most Frequent Blogger Questions", when I realized that one of the posts contained instructions Only for the New Blogger. I thought for a moment that I'd add instructions for how to do that in Classic when I realized that I no longer knew how to do it in Classic! It was like trying to remember how to hand-roll a cigarette or something, it was buried in the back of my cast-iron brain! Maybe it could be retrieved, but what the fuck for?! I'm not gonna smoke it! |
Bloggers? They write gooshy posts about Christmas and further foul up the season, don't they? There's already enough carrying on and tra-la-la-ing going on if you ask me. I've never understood why you can't just shoot the silly sonsofbitches. It would be a lot quieter. |
What is it with this "rcs" in my signature instead of my name at the bottom of these posts? Am I a supreme egotist? Well, yes. The substitution for "Ron Southern" has been going on since I was a teenager when I began signing poems and letters with those initials. At the time, I would scrawl an "x" under the initials and later it turned into a curly rat-tail connected to the "s". In the Internet world, the "x" turned into a period ("."), don't ask me why. Email and blogs may have curtailed all the cursive writing in the world as well as my esoteric "signature", but there remains this keyboard signature. So the current "rcs" dates back to when I was 17 or so, and that means about 40 years of scrawling or representing that signature. |
Well, I got a handful of comments--just round up the usual suspects, Louis! Nobody wanted to argue, so that much was good. I hate it when I have to kill a friend. Or have such done to me, for that matter.
Bah, it's late, and my brain can't be trusted to continue long. It already seems like a very long walk from here (my study) to the house. Off I go. Uh, I been off for a long time, come to think of it!
No damn new comments today, either! But Loren sneaked one in last night, so I guess that counts somewhere--whether yesterday or today, it counts!
La di dah, twiddling my thumbs again now...
| Big Weep |
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I usually have a comment or two every day. EVERY day. Not so today! Bold Jesus, what has gone wrong? Will the planet tilt next and the big yellow-cheese ball plummet out of the sky? I'm worried. I don't care if some of you are dead (I couldn't control it in any case), I just wonder what I'm going to occupy my day with if this keeps up! |
I just finished putting together a 3 year old's Radio Flyer "little red wagon". Whew!!! You'd think it would be easy, but you wouldn't have talked to me, if that's what you thought! I can make anything difficult. The wagon isn't my present to him, I was just the workman. The tricycle, also Radio Flyer, hidden in the garage at present, is the present I'm getting him. For a kid his age, he's about to be rich! Lord knows what other treasure he'll rack up this Christmas! So will his older sister, but she's has more prior experience that he's had, and besides she can read, so nothing much can be said about that here. Of course, she'd probably get a whipping if she was found browsing in horrid sites like mine. I might even be the one to whip her! Hope none of her treasure has to be put together. If so, her Daddy will have to do that--I've done my one good deed for the season! The rest of you can just Beware and Bugger Off! Mad dog here, nobody approach!
Two years have elapsed in Aruba (as well as here) and it appears that Natalee Holloway's still missing and still dead. |
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I have new neighbors. When I met one of them, he seemed alright, but now that his dogs have moved in, I hope he dies in hell. The damned fucking dogs are just little dachshunds, but they never stop barking at anyone in my yard, whether it's me or children, whether it's minutes or hours. I am starting to have fond thoughts of beating the two of them to death with my walking stick, and that's no joke. Jesus, what a bad trip having neighbors is! |
Hill & Valley makes some fabulous, great big oatmeal raisin cookies, big enough for the greediest of cookie monsters! That's the ticket—ummm. |
I realize I failed to give the exact names, but I generally eat 'em, I don't make personal friends with 'em! If you try them and they suck, send the unused portion to me and I'll dispose of them in a sanitary manner. |
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What am I afraid of?
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Here's a poem that means a lot to me, so that makes it "good". Yet it's also bad. I can't explain. Click Beautiful Diana for a fairly long but conversational read. |
Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both
parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old Howard
Humanity i love you because
when you're hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you're flush your pride keeps
you from the pawn shop and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house
Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it's there and sitting down
on it
and because you are
always making poems in the lap
of death Humanity
i hate you
by E.E. Cummings
Why can't I get no fucking votes? I don't mean the meaningless Poll located in the sidebar here, but the two Polls in my other blog, "Most Frequent Blogger Questions". Both polls there are serious, both attempting to determine what percentage of people are getting any help from the site. If there ever were to be a significant number, perhaps I would mend my ways and improve the site! But so far, the votes have dragged in slowly like children forced to walk to school. If you all happened to line up single-file and God gave me a gun with a single unstoppable bullet, I'd be in heaven! Skunks to you all!!! And troubling mice as well! May rats nibble your Bibles and crap on your velvet portraits of Elvis.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! He's only adjusting his pants!
General idea stolen from Frustrated Writer. It's sloppy, but it's useful!
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Thirteen Famous People I Would Like to Taser
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("The Shit Has Hit The Fan")
No, it hasn't! I am actually here to play, as always. It's blogging, and blogging has become a part of how I live. I can try to consider ads and such, but so far it has not taken. I was poor before I found blogging, I guess I can be poor some more. Wasn't that a novel? "Poor No More"! Song and book titles stick in my mind like bread crumbs with jelly. Read it as a teenager--something about Africa, but I can't remember what!
Oh, but should I have more ambition here, you ask? Or maybe it's I who ask. Yes, but it was always so, and I am still this poor Thing you see (or read), no better! Who knows? I have always been in need of a (nonexistent) older brother to straighten me out in these and other matters. Maybe he'd have gotten me laid more or drunk on my can more often. Or gotten me to vote Republican--naw, that would have been pushing his influence. But I have to guess at all that. All I ever had was some rambunctious cousins who were too close to my own age or too far away geographically to suit the bill as "big brother" substitute. I had a couple of "young" uncles, but that ain't the same, either! So on and on we go... That's ANOTHER song lyric. A kiss on the lips to whoever guesses what song or where it's from! (Ha--a poor prize, but mine own!)
So what was this post about--brothers, blogs or money? Even my memory is poor!
The book below even looks like the cheap paperback edition that I read as a kid!
When I was younger I was always getting a great hardon for some girl who didn't want me to, who didn't even want to know about it! Now that I am older, the hardons are few and not so hard, but the girls (the women, too) have all the same objections, and more. Is it always morality and repugnance, or are they sometimes just subverting our instinctual reality for a lark? I don't think they would tell... Maybe lady Bloggers would? But they aren't close enough, are they? My hardons for them are really literary, not literal--call it purely ephemeral! So sad.
Well, goddamn, I've been fooled and fucked. My old favorite pocket knife (Buck #501) wasn't lost this past year and more! It was hiding under a big recliner that nobody ever completely moved when vacuuming. It's hard to say if I was glad to see it or not since I'd already replaced it a few weeks ago with another locking-blade knife, a Winchester something-or-other. Sorta nice to have it, but if one remembers to carry one's knife in one's pocket, what the hell use is there for a spare? What WILL I do with two, and WHICH one will I carry? I love the old one, but am still shamefully enamoured of the shiny new one! Maybe some friendly thief will come and relieve me of the burden of this ownership and then I'll have to fall back on the old one? Wait a minute, that doesn't sound right! Maybe I'll become a collector like our friend Frustrated. No, I can't do that, I'm already collecting cheap hats. Bought another $2 hat yesterday--it's even a different style than the others, though similar enough. You wouldn't mistake it for a goddamn cowboy hat, anyway.
I've been out and about lately, buying this and buying that. After having the carotid ultrasound test (easy, over in no time, very expensive!), I went for a drive in my car (which I'd just spent 300-plus dollars on) to the nearby Good Will Store. There it took forever to go through the pants because the manufacturers and the store personnel seem to conspire to place the size tag where it can't be found when clamped into one of Good Will's magic fuck-you hangers! Just to add a kick in the seat to a kick in the teeth, some pants sizes could not be found when removed completely from the hangers and turned inside out! I even tried to look for places where a tag had been cut off, but didn't find it. One wonders how they ever sold the pants when they were new. I felt like an enemy agent from whom they were hiding important information! Quite successfully in some cases. Finally found 3 pair of pants and two shirts that were the right size, made a quick tour around the store in case they were selling gold for lead, and then got out of there!
Since the office equipment store was nearby, I cruised by there and checked out various things, but mainly their selection of office desks. The cheaper they were, the less I liked them, and the more outrageously they were priced, the MORE I liked them! The really nice ones were $1700 (oak) and $1500 (cherry). I thought the price of the one for $500 was extravagant for me, though it was humbled by the high price and gorgeousity of the top of the line models! I had office desks when I worked at the University, but they were always used ones whether they were wood or steel. NEW would be nice. But my tastes exceed my grasp. It would take every cent I own to get either of the expensive ones. That's not what would be considered wise.
So I went on a small spending spree to get the poison out of my system. I don't remember it all. I bought a new ball point ($2). I bought some multivitamins (ugh, I must be old). Some clip-on sunglasses ($18). Two low-price CD's ($14 total)--Elvis and Ray Charles. Can't do without the dead guys. Went on a junk-run in the grocery section: sugar-free soft drinks and cookies, along with wheat bread, raisin bread, various items I can't think of now and can't ever do without. Oh, Cheetoes--that's one! Etc.
Came home and wrote some checks to some sonsofbitches I owe money to. Some of them are doctors or clinics who didn't "find anything". They charge for examining you, not for curing you! It's a pretty good system (for them).
Among the emails here lately have been a few from my friend George, who decided to crawl out of the muck (I don't really know what it was) after five years and let it be known he was alive and doing fairly well. I wish people wouldn't do that, but then I love him, and that's a fact I can't knock down with all my chagrin about his absence. Hope he stays a while.
Not to mention that sometimes I just bore me shitless!
This is, however, NOT a poll!
Do you ever think that the inanimate world is out to fuck you over?
Just a thought.
Oops! I got to adjust something, I don't know what, but I'll hurry! Too many scrolls per post (in some posts)!
Okay, okay, I saved it. Hopefully no more multiple scrollydividers!
Profoundly grateful to all of those who held their breath for five seconds...
I was using <hr color=crimson>—I guess that stands for "horizontal rule"—at the end of every post so that I (or you) could tell at a glance where each post ended or began when one was browsing. Now I've shoved this row of scrollydivider S-looking things—whatever they are—into a more appropriate "end of post" position in the code. It was more difficult to locate. Naturally, I think I'm a genius (as I always do) when anything goes right or when I figure anything out with the furfingfluffing damn code! Ha! Beat you down, you goddamn wretched sonofabitch template!!!
No doubt lots of smart people in the blog world shrug about my victory, but I don't mind. For me, it's rocket science! Not to mention, just having the patience to find the right place! Getting old is no fun, boys and girls. I trip on every pebble and rejoice at every feeble trip across the finish line!
And NOW, once again, comes the famous Scrollydivider!!!
I spoke too soon when I mentioned "the next procedure some mad scientist wants to perform". At any rate, it took no time before just that occurred. What I thought would be some fairly uneventful chat (since that's all I've been having lately, sonsabitches), but this medical practitioner thought it'd be a great idea to have me take a carotid Doppler test! What am I, a weather system now? Apparently, Doppler in this sense is a synonym for ultrasound. Oh. Sounds like nuthin'. Except when they start finding blood clots and clumps of cholesterol and half-digested carrots and thin-shaved ham sludge showing up in there. Then they'll have some other torture machine to attach me to. I just know it. Probably something worse than the slow speed on one of those cowboy-bar bull rides. It won't kill me, maybe--but something will, and knowing too much makes me feel like it's hurrying along. I'll be paying for this procedure in increments for four months. Whoopee, we're all gonna die!
I used to write health (or medical) updates to a set of friends via email, but I haven't kept that up for some time. People drift apart, for one thing. For another, I don't seem so dramatic a subject to me any more. Without getting well, my diseases are made commonplace and unworthy of remark. I take my medication and until the next procedure some mad scientist wants to perform, it is difficult to focus myself on the current state of health sufficiently to have words for it all. I've worn out many of the words, and am sick of myself, so how could my friends not be sick of me? Therefore, I've tapered off, and seldom have much to say. I use the cane more and sometimes wonder if that doesn't make me more dependent--it's a vicious circle, maybe. Even if it does, it insures against me falling to the floor again, an experience one cannot relish! I really only fell (completely) once, but once is all it takes to make me stop trying to "bull" my way through all this feebleness in my head or neuropathy in my feet that contributes to my present state of inattention. Am I "dizzy" or not? I don't know--the word has a tendency to sound comical and therefore I shun it when I can. But the semantics don't really matter much, do they? The only bad thing about the cane these days is that once in a while you have to prop it somewhere for a moment, and when I do that, it is apt to slide askew and fall to the floor! Damnation! I cobbled together some bits of leather I already had lying around and made a sort of "holster" for the cane to hang on the back of my belt, out of the way when I need to employ both hands at once. That works pretty well unless I forget it's there and start taking full steps with it, causing the cane to swing and almost trip me. Nothing's perfect. This method sure isn't.
A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.
Stand a little less between me and the sun.
Dogs and philosophers do the greatest good and get the fewest rewards.
I am called a dog because I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse, and I set my teeth in rascals.
The sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them.
What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.
Remarks By Jackie Kennedy
Can anyone understand how it is to have lived in the White House and then, suddenly, to be living alone as the President's widow?
He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights. it had to be some silly little Communist.
I don't think there are any men who are faithful to their wives.
I don't understand it. Jack will spend any amount of money to buy votes but he balks at investing a thousand dollars in a beautiful painting.
I want minimum information given with maximum politeness.
If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much.
Sex is a bad thing because it rumples the clothes.
The one thing I do not want to be called is First Lady. It sounds like a saddle horse.
Don't worry, I'm not offended.
I'm just living in an empty bucket
and hearing echoes, dreadful echoes,
feeling the vibration but not the good
of metallic pings,
Gulping water just to get
All these throat-clutching pills
Down each morning.
I write sometimes just to hear
What I think sounds good
To my lazy tortured ear,
Though at the time it doesn't sound well,
And maybe I just want to see how long
It takes a penny to fail (oh how it falls!)
Or how far the teeter-totter pail will fall
(oh what a pall!)
Into that insensate bottom of the well
Where I live.
Bernard Berenson:
"Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago."
|
I have occupied myself with small details, arranging things in my primary rooms (bedroom, study), all without moving any heavy furniture, of course, over and over again. If you read TRS, you know some of this. But I keep working at it. Today I decided the small awkward desk in my bedroom needed a "post" or leg to support the fold-out extension. It may be nicely balanced for light use, but once or twice I'd leaned on the wrong part of it and the desk started to tip over in that direction. Bad move with the new tuner/CD player perched on it. But that led me out to the garage, in front of which I saw many branches I'd meant to pick up and burn and so I ended up on that side trip for an hour or two because I found more debris to pick up as I went. Shit. What fun.
Anyway, I wonder now if I'll ever repair or replace this stereo out here in the study? It was worth a lot of money, or cost a lot, in the old days but my tastes are not so demanding or esoteric any more. The amount I'd spend for someone to even check all these components might cost as much as some cheap-ass player that would probably suit me OK. I'd try to interest my cousin, the retired electrician, in testing the power amp and pre-amp, but he never seems to get interested in my sorry ass lately. I can't blame him. He makes noises like he's gotten better since his heart surgery some months ago, but I find him evasive and impossible to engage in conversation about anything for long. I doubt he's "changed", but I guess he's made his adjustments to it. He had another heart surgery decades ago when he was young; this one was probably even less tolerable since he knew what was to come. Possibly he's just old and crotchety, like others I know. Anyway, I'm not his problem.
I wanted to buy one of those armrest pillows (cushions) one uses to sit up and read in bed, but Wal*Mart didn't have them when I was looking the last couple of times. It's taking a long time, so I guess I'll have to shop elsewhere, even if I only phone other Wal*Marts! I've never really found anything that they didn't have when I went there, so this is a new experience. Other stores, yes, but I seldom shop at other stores.
I got the wild hair to buy a large or just full-size desk and I see that all the new ones are steel, or artificial steel, or plastic or something. I wouldn't mind a used one, but there again, that requires driving and shopping, two things I abhor and despise. la di dah.
I bought some cute animal fluffies (my name) for my niece and nephew. I hid them away because I'm not sure if they are Christmas presents yet or not. If I can't think of anything else good, they're Xmas presents. Bought myself an $11 paper shredder--not that I have so many important papers to shred, just that I hate tearing them up by hand or having to remember to take them to the burning barrel. Lazy is my middle name. Other than "Lucky", of course.
Now http://20stickyposts.blogspot.com/ has exceeded it's original goal of 20 important sticky posts by 120. Most Frequent Blogger Questions now has 140 helpful posts or FAQ's, and that's weird. It was never meant to grow to such a tome. It was just that I had accumulated about 20 useful Notepad files and thought that I could just print them out, then point Blogger Newbies in that direction, and go off and dream my dreams. It didn't work. Maybe it should have; there were many guides and Park Rangers and Goody-Goodies to tend the tender Newbies along the way without me. I've become just one of the crowd. That's how I see it. There are some of the "experts" who know more than I know, and it's plain to see. There are also some experts who don't even write with any frequency on the subject of Blogger codes and such, yet some of them know more than the rest of us, I think. They are busy with other clever work, I think, and only drop in at Blogger from time to time. Sometimes I think all of them know more than I do. Nonetheless, I can help. And that's not such a bad thing.
Life Is All The Same
I'll give those poems of yours a look, I said,
When I can shake these goblins off my ankles
Or goose my neck up far enough to take a gander!
Sometimes I get too damn caught up
In Blogger and its lost-child supplicants
And my own self-serving interest
In writing up those esoteric aspects
That I finally come to understand
In some eloquent post that only
Other bloggers will ever
Get the gist of or
Be so silly as to love—
So much for Ego, I admit;
It always takes it all.
The Poet in me doesn't understand
How I can fritter away so much time
With this, but it's true.
And understand myself just as well
When I waste or spend
(Call it what your will)
hours and weeks and years even
On a single poem that never really ends
And may never be read,
But that's the art I draw upon myself
Whether any witness knows my labor here or not.
Fell Swoops!
Well, after following Panther's directions to replace my "Posted by" signature with a graphic of my initials, I couldn't quite get the graphic low enough. I wanted it to appear to be on the line with the other text, not floating above it. Now Semavil Lady has ridden to the rescue on her favorite Anatolian Shepherd Dog (hi yo, Silver!) and saved me. At any rate, she knew the rest of the steps to dance me through! Basically, I needed to use a transparent graphic. Now the "rcs." sits pretty much down on the same plane with the printed text. It's not that it looks so great that it will impress others, but it's what I wanted and thus it impresses me!
Therefore, I extend my own "Thank you, Masked Man's" to Panther (I'm sure Peter and some other experts had the info, too, but I bumped into Panther's first!), and to Semavi Lady (the smartest cookie in the box, I've told her!), and the Lone Ranger, too, (if he's still there) all in one fell swoop!
Remember "fell swoops", boys and girls? There were a lot of them when I was a teenager. It was one of my favorite cliches! But I digress. (What the hell else do I ever do here?)
Samuel Johnson: "Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good."
a man who had fallen among thieves
lay by the roadside on his back
dressed in fifteenthrate ideas
wearing a round jeer for a hat
fate per a somewhat more than less
emancipated evening
had in return for consciousness
endowed him with a changeless grin
whereon a dozen staunch and Meal
citizens did graze at pause
then fired by hypercivic zeal
sought newer pastures or because
swaddled with a frozen brook
of pinkest vomit out of eyes
which noticed nobody he looked
as if he did not care to rise
one hand did nothing on the vest
its wideflung friend clenched weakly dirt
while the mute trouserfly confessed
a button solemnly inert.
Brushing from whom the stiffened puke
i put him all into my arms
and staggered banged with terror through
a million billion trillion stars
by E.E. Cummings
I saw a little lame boy with red hair and too many newspapers under his small arm, jammed against his sweaty shirt, while he was selling the papers on the street corner. He sold to cars that paused at his intersection, making sales quickly or else not at all. He seemed disinterested, maybe dreamy, but stayed on his feet. He was on the job, but not with much effort, and seemed out of place.
One doesn't think much of things like that happening any more. I was a passenger in the car, so I got a good look. He resembled the actor who played Forrest Gump as a little boy. But he didn't seem so cute. He looked tired. Sun-burned a little. Traffic whizzed on past him while the drivers looked anywhere except at him. It wasn't really a safe intersection for him, but it never seems safe for the flower sales-people who sometimes occupy the same locale, so I guess it's safe enough that the cops don't stop them. Or is it just that the cops don't want to fuck with them?
Dogger Gatsby: Many people and events in my life are so lost to my memory, it's as if I had not really lived part of my own life. What about you?
I followed some good instructions from another how-to site and carried them out pretty accurately so that now I have a tiny signature (my initials) in place of my "posted by" name. It's a graphic, or image, or whatever. For some reason now, the 3 little pigs (I mean, letters) refuse to rest in the same plane as the text, as if the text signature were still there invisibly occupying space. So the initials can't fully come to rest! I wonder why that is? I wonder even more if it is changeable? There's one or two bright bulbs out there who read me on occasion and who might know about this, if I'm lucky enough to get read this week! I'd like to fix it, but if I can't, I'll find something else to twitter and worry about. As soon as I'm through being tired about this, I intend to go back and erase/add some pixels and fix up the "s" in the initials. I think I doctored that "s" one time too many and need to reverse what I did! Until then, some of you probably won't even notice it. And some of you will probably think, "That's not how you spell Elmer Fudd, is it?!" And you may be right.
This is the kind of thank-you note I sometimes get over on my help blog, "Most Frequent Blogger Questions". It's a typical note, not usually long, but pleasant! I love to get my thank-you's, even though they are from strangers. It must appeal to the Good Samaritan (or the Lone Ranger?) in me without me having to subscribe to any damn religion. It's just something that gets done, that's all. Sort of like the concept of good karma or that sticky movie, "Pay It Forward". Someday the karma may pay off--if not for me, then for someone else. It's worth the investment, because it's always a small thing on my side and often a very big deal to the other party! Information is a treasure in many senses. If you have it, it's good to give it. If you need it, it's a blessing to get it in a free and open exchange. Enough said. My hippie shoes are showing.
Here's that message: "Thanks for your article "how to implement permalinks" I spent four hours tearing my hair out trying to copy info etc and failing time after time - how simple it was when I did the copy shortcut thingy! Thanks you are a Gentleman!"
One of the neighbors was greeting the new neighbor, who'd just introduced himself.
"I just now noticed that those plants are gone on your side of the fence," Oldham said.
"You mean those Pampas Grass things? Yeah, I tore them out of there first thing yesterday--hate those things worse than monkey grass!" said Newman.
I never liked the idea much myself," Oldham said. "They grow up to be enormous. Then they're hosts for fire ants, wasps, mice, rats, any kinda pests, you name it!"
Newman nodded and said, "Lizards, too. They scattered in every direction when I started digging and pulling each one up!" he laughed.
"That's a new one on me," Oldham grinned. "But they eat some insects, so I guess they can't be categorized as pests!"
"Guess not," Newman laughed. "Better get back to work now."
Yeah, better."
It's so seldom that Blogger makes any clear and evident announcement of their new small improvements or features that I wondered if some of the rest of you, like me, missed this new feature in the comments that says (in my case):
Email follow-up comments to ratsass@gmail.com
or whatever.
Very nice, though. Now I don't have to check back with blogs where I left snotty comments! Any responses or further arguments will be emailed to me! There have been second-party services that would help you keep track of your comments, but this one is simple, in-house--you barely have to think to be able to do it! I don't know if it will always work well, but it has so far!
Good dog, Blogger, good boy!
Whatever. I've been too put off to do very much of consequence, so I guess I could talk about the things I already did and forgot to mention until now. I got some of my medications in the mail that I was nearly out of, and that saved me from who knows what? Probably not anything very serious, since I've run out a couple of times this year and nothing seemed to go haywire. Still, I try to keep up.
I went to Wal*Mart and bought me a dirt-cheap shiny new Winchester pocket knife with a single locking blade. I like locking blades and don't understand how I ever worked with the other kind without cutting myself. I did, but it seems a miracle to me now. I don't think I have as much strength and dexterity as I used to have. That's probably the real trouble. Anyway, the knife has a bone (probably fake) handle. Somewhere on the tiny box it said "Stag", so I guess that's what is or what it's supposed to be. At that price, I just presume fake. I've lost other pocket knives, some of them precious, so this one being cheap is a sort of defense against my own clumsiness and forgetfulness. If I lose it, I won't care much. I can just go buy another one. Meanwhile, though, it is pretty and shiny! But it is a weapon; one gets the impulse to go stab a rabbit or something! Maybe a "Bad Guy", as my 3-year-old nephew would say. One has to resist those juvenile (and worse!) instincts when it comes to weapons. Men are such boys, and boys are such wild animals, really. I see it in my nephew all the time. He likes Sponge Bob and Barney the Dinosaur and other sweet things, but he also turns everything he sees or touches into a gun or a sword or a "light saber"--he loves the latter! Of his aggressive super-heroes, I guess Buzz Lightyear might be the kindest. But I plan to hide on Halloween when John is supposed to dress as Buzz--I don't want to get "to infinity and beyond"ed to death! A 3 year old can pack a wallop if he runs into you just right, you know?
I also went shopping at Goodwill on one of their sale days. All the shirts have a colored plastic tag and certain colors were only 50 cents each. Not all of them being a large and not all of them having the right color tag, I had to give up on quite a few shirts that I fell in love with. But I finally got out of there with various shirts that appealed to me--mainly some flower shirts with Big, Bigger, and Biggest flowers on them. Very pretty. I also bought a long-sleeve pink shirt for the regular price of $3.99 because I couldn't resist it after having initially mistaken its orange tag as being pink. When I found it wasn't one of the sale shirts, I started to put it back, but couldn't. I've been stalking stores for a decent pink shirt for a long time, whether it should be a shirt with a prominent pink mixed into other colors or what--it was all okay with me. So I finally found one. As soon as I can locate a sock or two to enhance my manly crotch, I can wear it. Would a Manly Man be afraid to wear a pink shirt? I should say Not!
I bought some birdseed (sunflower seeds), but it appears to already be the wrong time of year. They've eaten some slowly, but I barely ever see them. If they're gone, that's okay. There's always a few birds who come around during the fall and winter, regardless of weather. I'll feed their lazy asses!
I hate to blog about practical things, so I’ll evade this one as much and as long as possible. I saw some smoke or steam coming from under the hood while parked at a notorious, hatefully long traffic light this afternoon.
“No, not here!” I moaned, along with many forms of "goddamn", and then I waited and wailed and waited for the light, then waited as if for Xmas for the cars in front of me to fucking get in gear and move! I was close to home and thought I could get there! That was my preference. No wreckers, please!
When I got near my brother-in-law’s house, there was no more smoke, so figured I could make it the couple of more blocks to get home. I did. I raised the hood and observed, but saw nothing. Then I thought, “Duh, better turn the engine on!”
It still seemed okay, so I started to put the car in the garage. But, Steam again! Ratshit. There is something leaking down there where I can’t see it. I can see a drip-drip-drip under there, but not what’s leaking. It’s clearly water, and the radiator showed low after I let it cool to check it. I only ever go on short trips, so I hope I didn’t burn anything. Meanwhile, whom do I know who isn’t too fat or old or both to get down low and see what it is? Even if I have to eventually deal with a real mechanic, I’d like to get some idea what’s going on beforehand.
I’ll kill time. Maybe I don’t need to go on any fucking short trips for a while. Oh, my, our addiction to our cars in America—in combination with alcohol, it does more damage than drugs.
It’s all better (or less bad) than a toothache or a car wreck, I guess, but Jesus, I’ll hate this shit, I know I will.
[Or, the second head is better than the first.]
Those few of you who only read me in subscription or in blog readers are probably not aware that I've been changing the header. OFF with the old head and ON with the new head! The earth that looked like a marble has been replaced by a colorfully crazy painting achieved by me painting over some one's photo of a junkyard with sprinkles and sprays and splotches and quirky lines of color. Another masterpiece from the hands of the Perpetual Agitator! Not that you'd care.
it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;
if this should be, i say if this should be--
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands
Hunter S. Thompson:
"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours."
Yipes! I check my weight at least every other day because it's convenient. The scale is out in my study here where there are usually no witnesses! Today I noted that I'd crept too far past 160; I was 164 point something and that's too damn much. I have lately been able to keep it within 2 lbs. either way of 160 and I'd like to keep it that way. I'm still a little fat or chubby after I regained about 15 or 20 lbs., but my vanity has decided THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER! I went crazy and ate 3 bowls of generic Rice Crispies late last night (with Equal, no sugar). Mmm, so good! But I guess that was a heap of wet rice.
I gave myself the excuse of not having eaten any breakfast that morning, but I usually don't eat breakfast anyway. And usually don't eat 3 bowls! My Evil (or at least Indifferent) self was at work on me and now I have to starve. The Good Me takes the rap, pays the price, balloons up. Foosh, you can't fit your pants! Damn. Shit. Piss! I can't let that happen.
I'd still anemic, I can't expect to exercise very much. I've been lifting those weights (using the giant flexible bands with handles for resistance), but I'm not sure if I've done it enough. I guess not. I'd been hoping I'd get so energized by that stuff that I'd get a little stronger in general and maybe walk some. Maybe go to the park, watch birds, and get mugged. Bad things have happened the last year to my favorite bird-watching park--they've had beatings and car thefts. But life is like that, isn't it?
One of the other parks where I've birded has had news reports of fairies and fags hanging around, but I'm not a juvenile, pretty boy, Twinkie, or pissed-off redneck terrified of being touched, so maybe I'd be safe. Of course, my anemia means I can't be a mean Texan and claim, "Well, I'll just beat the hell out of them!" I guess I could beat them with my cane, but what if I fell down while doing it? Beat their ankles?
Let's see--there's a drainage ditch that runs through the middle of it; maybe I'll just stick close to it so that I can fall down and roll into it if attacked! Ugh. It'd be a long way to roll and hard to ever get out again, but maybe that would prevent the bad guys from following me down the concrete sides! You think?
I wonder if I ever told my sister about that park getting dangerous before she died last March. I'd meant to. After all, it was her SUV that i was in when I went to that Little park because I went there after dropping her off at her dialysis clinic. It was on the beaten track, so it didn't use up any extra gas to go there. But she was particular about her car--wouldn't let anyone but her husband, son, and me drive it and still could find reasons to criticise our driving. She would have had a Shit Fit if it'd been stolen! I wonder how many other things I'll think of and have to wonder if I told her?
It's sad to have to think this way. I know others have to think and dread and plan for much worse, of course. Young men and women at war, some with children at home. Children in poverty with one parent or none who already have friends and kin who've been killed just for being there. Life's not always a joy, is it, PeeWee Herman?
But the birds are still there and do not care or reckon with it. They do not worry. For good or bad, they just go on. In short, they don't give a shit. Life isn't frightening, except in the absolute moment--then it's over. It's a natural thing, isn't it? Would that we could do the same as the bluebird, the wren, the woodpecker, and the hummingbird!
My beautiful (huh?) text and background colors (like this one for "Other people's poems") won't work when you use Preformatted Text. Damn it. Try again some other day.
Buffalo Bill's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginably You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
You know, sometimes we get comments that are not welcome. Gaby de Wilde may be someone who just prowls the Internet searching for places to leave negative heaps of turds on other people's comments and then drops the same pre-packaged remarks in all locations. I don't know. I take it that he/she/it doesn't like Al Gore, and that's okay, but I'm not publishing your dumb fucking diatribes--my blog is for MY diatribes, you nitwit! Even if you were my friend, I wouldn't take so much crap from you or publish such a long comment. So, Gaby, eat my shit and grin or die!
F. Scott Fitzgerald:
"In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day."
Unless you'd rather just send me dirty emails this Halloween (I'd answer back in kind!), there's always this other remote-control RAT to be had! See if you can run it up somebody's pants!
If you don't like it, send it to me--I'm too cheap to buy my own.
And A Lot Of Other Craziness
Sometimes there is more fucking news than I can digest. Maybe just more than I want to. The endless details, and especially the endless commentators dissecting it, just make me want to puke sometimes. Whatever happened to the Age of Journalism? Now almost all journalists have an ax to grind--Fox Network isn't subtle at all, but neither are the rest of them in danger of being anyone's hero. There are no lanterns or TV lights bright enough to find that "honest man" that Diogenes talked of finding. I can't even think of many women or men who want to search for one! There's too many pretty boys and pretty girls, with all their teeth fixed, and all their attitudes adjusted to the network or publisher they work for. Journalism doesn't seem to exist in the old sense, so you never know if the news is true or false, real or fake, genuine or slanted. You have to trudge through mud among all the lying bastards and just choose one when the sludge gets too deep to go on.
All the heroes too seem spoiled or soiled. Senator Craig's experience in the men's room is as entertaining as some unknown version of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues", but it doesn't sound truthful, and you can't dance to it. Bush may look like some muppet garbage can denizen on TV, but he's a murdering bastard, and no one will say so! Why don't they impeach the bastard, whether it sticks or not?
Ask Clinton if it didn't cost him brain cells and attention span to be impeached even when not convicted! Wouldn't it be worth a few million to do that to Bush?! But it seems that in this day and age of ultra-communications where we see everything constantly and repeatedly, we are all still unwilling to declare when The Emperor Has No Clothes!
Anyway, Bush has himself covered with a little war that's making Blackwater and Halliburton (and many others) millions while the rest of us can't find our ass or our brains. The official Democrats are as suckass as the worst Republicans you ever met, or they'd DO something. All of them cater to the same fat cats, rich corporations, and powerful lobbies/special interests.
There is no "we the people". If all the "regular people" that are talked about were to band together and believe in one thing and put all their money behind it, there would still be more money among the fat cats and the dirty rats and all the soulless wretches of American culture. It makes me want to spit.
In passing, still, I notice Al Gore (another imperfect man) will share the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on bringing attention to Global Warming, which is not a bad thing. I hope he doesn't decide to suddenly run for President again, as his position is now a good one for publicizing his cause. If he gets into the muck with the other sold-out political candidates, his cause will be the loser and he'll just be another "pragmatic" whore lusting after the Presidency and a glorious Legacy afterwards! Jesus, Bush and his legacy--how nice it'd be to think I'd never hear of it again after he's gone, but his whorehounds will continue to work overtime to polish his image, even if it's never any better than this work of thinly gilded graven gold it is now. I guess the blood will all wash off; it has washed off of others in this world.
...Don't follow leaders
Watch the parkin' meters
Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don't steal, don't lift
Twenty years of schoolin'
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don't wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles
partial lyrics, Bob Dylan
Copyright © 1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music
Georges Clemenceau: "There is no passion like that of a functionary for his function."
Joseph Addison: "An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person."
My friend Janice at Semavi Anatolians mentioned virtual food to me in a convoluted fun email, that it was calorie-free. I can't explain the exact context because we talk such beautiful long nonsense (via emails), but I thought "How very true" about her statement.
I went a year or more with my taste buds in some equivalent of being deaf or blind. I couldn't taste much, or it didn't taste good, which was just as bad. The textures of familiar foods were repellent when their taste was something like cardboard or grass or dirt. Never could identify those tastes; maybe they were just bad tastes (like something the dog had just dug up and scarfed down!) and the tastes didn't really resemble anything I'd ever had experience with. You could lose a billion pounds if that kept up. I guess you'd end up a very Free Soul--or do they call that a wraith?
Now most (but not all) food tastes good again, enough to have to worry about not eating too much of it. I came back up from a loose size 34 to a snug 36 (pants), but remember I started out as size 42. So, I guess I'm doing okay. Have been lingering around 160 lbs. , two or three lbs. one side or the other. I am still miserable after a fashion; everything I do requires a good deal of concentration and attention: even just making a sandwich and a drink for lunch and sitting down before I'm too tired. It's tiresome when your brain is counting every step in the process--if something slips up or can't be found, I take God's name in vain 3 or 4 times before I can stop myself. Not that I care, but others might.
Actually I thought that was interesting when I wrote it to Janice. I told her maybe I'd copy it for the blog "in case my brain runs out of fodder". That's always happening.
I wasn't lying; here's the proof that it happened again! I hope Janice doesn't feel cheap and tawdry just because she's been recycled. You think?
Sometimes little things just turn into monsters. I decided to buy a replacement for the radio/alarm clock I've had for 20-plus years because the radio reception was getting funky. I don't really use the alarm part of it (it sounds like a submarine honk!) since I don't have to wake up and go to work. The few times I need to make sure I'm up, I can use the small battery-powered alarm that only sounds like a moderate bird twitter. Meanwhile I'm looking at those devices in Wal*Mart and trying to keep it simple-didn't want to shop all over town. Oddly enough two devices looked all right, but then I realized both the inexpensive models had Rotary knobs for tuning the radio. What kinda old-fashioned crap is that, I wondered? So then I went looking at the inexpensive cd/radio players, some of which were not much more expensive. So I listened to one and it was good enough, so I brought it home!
God, it takes so long for me these days to unpack these compartmentalized parcels, open all the boxes and plastic bags and bread ties around the wires! It's like cooking a cake or something. Worse, because then I at least would have had a cake to eat instead of that damn worthless stereo that wouldn't work! The next day I put it all back in the box, though it didn't all fit--maybe I was giving them some of my own stuff, I don't know! All that carton material they use these days for cushioning work very well to protect the devices, I guess, though I can repack them like that. So I taped it together with masking tape and took it back with a top that wouldn't close.
Once I returned it to the store, I guess I should have said that I didn't like the color rather than that it didn't work because they did their best to determine that it really didn't work! God, what an effort they put into it. If I'd just said I didn't like it, things might have gone faster, but I guess they had to determine if they could restock the item or not. I got weary standing there leaning on my cane, so I went and sat down and dreamed about bears who shit in the woods while those slowpokes fumbled with the package.
Finally I got my refund and still needed to replace the stereo. I considered buying the same one, but couldn't stand the idea of assembling and possibly taking the same one apart again. So, like a fool, I bought the more expensive one that I had also looked at the day before. It was a known brand, cost more, had buttons easier to read, a larger remote control for Mr. Fumble-fingers (me), and a sleeker, more stylish appearance. I was satisfied once I finally got it assembled. Even with all that other experience I'd just had, I still hated taking it out of the box and plugging everything in. I used to be so good at that, used to put together 6, 10, or 12 component stereo totalling two or three thousands dollars, but I'm an elderly sop now. I get dizzy too easily if I have to bend over such crap too long. So I was happy with the quality of the beast, but I was worn out, too!
After a long rest listening to the music, I had to spend a few more hours arranging the rest of room, trying to find space for the junk I'd just removed from my small desk area. I didn't move any furniture, but it still amounted to much juggling, trying out things in first one drawer or cubbyhole and then another. Everything's been moved at least once so far, and maybe I'm not through. But I'll live, at least.
Poofing among the pumperdils,
Was that the best kind of sex I could get!
I had to vie with the manic butterflies
and cross swords with stinging bumblebees
Just to get a little dip
into your long slim pail of pollen!
Wal*Mart had my favorite $3 hats on sale for $2. Maybe some day I'll spend $4 on a hat...
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DEAR SIDEBAR JUNKIES: Have I been eccentric enough lately? Lord knows I try. I'd hate to be accused of being too kind. |
