The Madras

We have switched to orange juice concentrate at my house. This is to save money and trips to the grocery store during the stay at home.

Concentrate reminds me of my mother who, while she spoke eloquently about loving the finer things, was also a sucker for anything instant. Her special onion rice? White rice with a sachet of Lipton Onion soup mix thrown in. She once substituted that for rolls at a Thanksgiving dinner and my wife said she would divorce me right then. Coffee? Always instant. Unless we ha guests then she made some in the hard geometry of her Italian stovetop espresso machine. Orange juice was concentrate except the time she bought a sack of oranges from the fruit hustler outside the gas station. Then we ha the pulpy kind made with her 70s mod whiz bang electric juicer. Bottled orange juice was a novelty to me when I moved to the mainland.

We also had plenty of orange concentrate because it was key to my mother's favorite drink.

The Madras.

She swear she invented it and then got it to become the default family get together drink. At Titi's house down the street. At Aida's house off the highway in Yauco. At every cousin's house in Mayaguez, they were drinking The Madras.

The Madras was measured in fingers. 2 fingers of vodka. A finger of triple sec which was always Cointreau (And good for Mami as that is a pricey yet easy brand) and four fingers of cranberry juice cocktail. This is effectively a Cosmpolitan and my mother thought herself a Puerto Rican Carrie Bradshaw during my highschool years so its easy to connect the dots back to the inspiration. But then she would scoop a teaspoon of orange juice concentrate into the glass and stir. That was The Madras.

And the concentrate, which doesn't freeze in the freezer but doesn't melt easily in the open air (That stuff really is beyond magic) would just blob to the bottom of her martini glass until each sip broke it up into citrus globules.

Is it a good drink? If you like Cosmpolotians then yeah. Its a more acidic yet sweeter version of it. Citrusy but not super clean tasting. Its a drink cooked up CC6 Daisy Street so take that. I invented a drink there. The Grasshopper. Which was Creme De Menthe, Sprite, and Triple Sec. It was awful and I got no one hooked on it like Mami's Madras.

The House Demon

Unflushed toilets have a villainous energy. And in my spare bathroom I'll often come to find it in such a state. 

Occam's Razor will explain this as my children forgetting to flush. They careen from that bathroom while I scream "Wash Your Hands!" from two rooms away. Or maybe it's me forgetting. I sleep in waves and forget what happens in those soporific states. My wife says I talk in my sleep. What else do I do?

But trapped inside this house with plague and rain hemming the outside I despair it's the house demon.

The house demon is female and slender. She is the tallest "Tall Girl" but made to knobbly wobbly lengths. Each joint bends in full 360 degrees including her head, which she flits back at you when you catch her with the corner of your eye. She is that feeling of being watched. The pang of guilt before you say "Fuck it" and half ass something. 

She moves unseen but leaves petty traces. The unflushed urine. The lost socks. The wedding band slipped off between couch cushions. The wine and pizza polished off.

She lives in the voids of our home. Above the drop ceiling panels of the bathroom. The empty spaces between beams and the laundry chute. That space at the top of the pantry where cans rust circles into the wood? She is there crab jammed between walls ready to snap at your hand.

She can squeeze herself into smaller shapes and wiggle worm her arm under gaps in doors. The screw to the shower drain was in the middle of the bathroom floor. It cut the sole of my feet as I walked in to shower. And I knew she turned it from within the drain. She coiled into a sinister grinning clump of muck turning with fingernails never cut. She's coiled in the oily dark of the unused cast iron skillet. 

But she will starve. Since the house is never empty. The house demon will wither and as spring buds outside. She will fade as we, bored and anxious, clean out closets and shoo away cobwebs. 

Journal from 3-26-2020

A bit of a humble brag but even during the stay at home and high anxiety times of Rona Riot I have lost 3 pounds. Since late summer when my doctor buzzed me that I was just one decimal point from being diabetic I have lost 26 pounds. And mostly kept it of.

Its all diet. No more daily tiki drinks (albeit if you read earlier posts I still treat myself to a double one bender sometimes) and no more eating after my kids scraps. Smaller portions. Swapping in the salad for fries.

Oh and the medication. The metformin. The blood sugar blocker with some possible GI distress. Funny thing is that GI distress can be both constipation and diarrhea. So I often feel as if I am going to die but I don't know whether its because I am going to explode or wither away. Keeps me on my toes.

Not a ton of working out. Before the Rona Riot I went to the gym once a week. Now I just fuss and gyrate like my son does when he struggles with a math problem. I do that "See 10" challenge where I do 10 pushes every day or whenever I see someone do it on IG. I race to my phone or computer when I hear the notification ding. Removed from the day to day of little fires everywhere I am starved for something to do.

Lots of water. The universal solvent. A cousin of mine shared on Facebook a meme where "they" said that drinking lots of water kills the Rona. It lives in your throat so drink lots and it will push it into your stomach where the acid will kill it. I almost responded "That's bullshit" but better I keep the social distancing I have maintained for 18 years.

I have spent more time on that hell site, Facebook, in past two weeks then in a whole year. I had a brief flash of bravery and friended almost all my coworkers and then random people from 8th grade who are so removed they might as well be on the moons of Mars. I made memes but so is everyone else. The meme making bandwith is super saturated and my little pokes at the thrumming strings of the Internet are flicks of water into the now ever clearing rivers.

At my skinniest I was 22 and could fit into size 32 pants. That was all youth and circumstance (I walked everywhere, then biked, and lived off Wegmans brand vegetarain alphabet soup) but I was walking my bike down Main Street in the hamlet of Trumansburg, NY  and a tall man in black came out from the brick buuilding by the liquor store.

"Excuse me, but I saw you and noticed a young fit man riding his bike and wanted to ask if you are interested in self defense lessons."
The gentlemen had a laid back rocker hippie vibe. He would own the place where all the Power Rangers hang out. But, not like the juice bar from the first seasons of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers but the pizza place from Jungle Fury. And THAT guy did know kung-fu!

Scenarios raced through my mind...

"Is this a prelude to a fight!? Is the music about to change and our healthcare appear!? I am going to get my ass kicked!"

"Is he coming onto me. No, don't be so full of yourself. But, well....lets see where this goes"

"Is he crazy? Is a Napoleon Dynamite fan and wants to compare skills?"

"Or maybe he is sincere?"

Which he claimed he was. Ran a studio on the 3rd floor above the historical society. Not advertised in the window with a charming hand painted sign like the consignment shop or the Hazelnut Kitchen restaurant. Or in the endless town crier style shop local guides. It was not on the placemat at the local pizza and sports bar and if you weren't there then you were nothing.

I politely refused and never saw him again.

On Being Homebound

Jon Krakauer is a favorite author of mine for both the topics he writes (hiking, climbing, but also some investigate journalism of late) and the narrative style he gives to his non-fiction. He possess a decent canon of work so if you, like me, are being forced to stay isolated feel free to dive in. '

I am re-reading one of my favorite, Eiger Dreams. The book compiles a series of essays of his from the 80s. Its an older book with the first edition in 1990 and then later editions/prints in the late 90s. Not impossible to find but it hinges on those esoteric feeling books that cruise the used book stores.

Within Eiger Dreams is a short essay called "On Being Tentbound" which appeared originally in Outside in 1982. No whimsy in the title (like with my blog post titles) as it is an essay on what it means to be stuck in a clammy nylon sock during blizzards. Or dust storms. Or mosquito storms. The extent of my camping is car camping out of back of my hatchback in Findlay State Forest or Allegheny National Forest but even then much of it is spent just killing time. My closest experience on being tentbound is camping in southern Ohio in a wonky state park that was an overgrown city park where I watched ticks clamber over the shell. However, even there I could simply drive away to a quick turn onto the interstate and all the murmuring comforts of the road.

Source: Pexels, Sagui Andrea

However, the essay now has new meaning under the stay at home order.

Even the shittiest apartment crammed between a bar and a fire station has to be better than a tent. And I will check my own privilege in that my family is beyond lucky to still have income and health insurance and supplies. None of this is existential dread (Yet) but the aforementioned whimsy. Or attempts at it.

"Being tentbound isn't wholly an ordeal. The first few hours can pass in a dreamy euphoria while you lie peacefully in your sleeping bag..."

We have all been forced to stay home and chill. Perfect, let me catch up on sleep. Or, no, let me sleep in since I don't need to check in any specific time. I will just lounge around.

Except I am no longer 22 and living by city hall in Trumansburg, NY on the mattress I pilfered from the deep storage of my college.

5:45am is when I wake up. Thats the hour beaten into me by anxiety and having to watch for the call to close school because of a blizzard. My daughter then wakes at 6:02pm, the dull ka-chunk of her bedroom door unlatching. Then my son at 6:15am and until 8:30pm it is a coordinate attempt at being wholesome sometimes educational knife fight to keep us all going.

"There can, however, be too much of a good thing." Krakauer then writes about how even too much sleep is a bad thing. Even if you could sleep for 16 hours what about the other 4 trapped in a tent? I would not know as sleep eludes me during these times of high anxiety.

"By all accounts it is impossible for an extended two-person expedition to come off without inflicting permanent psychic scan on the participants if the weather turns grim."

I adore my children but I will be honest that how I express my love in in providing for them. I know. I am a horrible father, but the platitudes of speeding all this extra time with your kids roll off me. I am writing this with my daughter climbing on my head, she a miniature Krakauer ascending K2. Here come the daddy issues. "Doctor....My dad wouldn't come wipe me after I screamed Im done for 30 minutes. Is that why I am broken? Fucking Corona Virus"

My wife and I are in a cadence of work and fretting worn by being together for 15 years and everything being polarized. If not set idle by routine then we are either cloyingly sending each other funny emoji strings or realizing we can't get divorced because we can't afford it.

"Countless board games can be devised with a pen, a sleeping pad, and camp flotsam and jetsam."

This some hardcore prison style shit right there.
"Yo, I made wine in my cell's toilet!"
"Well, fuck you, I re-made Clue using bits of soap wrappers."
"Damn, I don't want to mess with you."

I want to see that. Recreate Mouse Trap with some paracord and a tea strainer. This is where a D&D guide would be helpful albeit that also means being tent bound with more than one person. Maybe one of those big army emergency tents you see them fan fold up in disasters?

I wold recreate Magic cards from memory. Build incredible decks unconstrained by budget and sleeves. Or make new games. In the 9th grade my friends and I invented the CGWW dice game. CGWW meaning "Cool Guys Who Wrestle." We would draw our fighters on the front of 3" x 5" index cards and then phony stats. This guy is straight from the ninth circle of hell! This guy knows ancient Chinese secrets! This guy hits people with guitars. The back of the index card then had 20 moves each corresponding to a number on a twenty sided die roll. Hit a 1, you hit your guy with an arm bar and did one damage. Hit a 20 and you did your finishing move for a staggering 10 damage. Once you had your opponent at 0 health you could try to pin by rolling a higher number then your opponent.

No strategy but lots of rolling and sketching and arguing. Perfect for being tent bound.

The article would be interesting to update. What does the smart phone do on being tent bound? Are you far enough away from any bars or can you stream? One can always save shows to the devices hard drive but then you are forced to pick something to watch for the temporary eternity. The article even mentions this with books saying with all this time you will want to crack into Proust but what you really need, numbed by the tent and screech of wind on nylon, is "...the the only literature capable of sustaining interest is the simple-minded, shallow stuff, heavy on the action: science-fiction, pornography, thrillers."

Then I think of my desert island books and movies. Now they are quarantine books and movies. What could you watch endlessly? Read again and again as you wait for miasma to clear. One of mine would be Eiger Dreams for sure if not just for tentbound but the narrative of something bigger, over the horizon, waiting to be seen.

Writing Prompt: Technology Challenged

My old supervisor was  man with a bushy mustache and a penchant for plastic trucker hats before they were co-opted by the fashion forward. His name was Justin and he drove a white Ford F150 with rust creeping up from the underside and a bumper sticker that said "Food Not Bombs!"
He taught me some aphorisms I still use to this day when I want to sound wise.
"It is easier to get forgiveness then permission."
 I use that when I tell my co-worker if she should just promise a client the extra foaming soap for a discount. I tell that to my Warhammer figurines as we rise over the felt and plastic rest of the terrain. Let's go, Space Marines. To glory, damn be our orders!
"Past is prologue."
Once, in a parent teacher conference, I said that to my son's principal and she paused and leaned back in her chair. I had sounded wise. My ex had taken him to the psychiatrist and confirmed he has ADHD and then manic spinning when he did math problems made sense "What is 3 + 7?" He would tap on his head summoning the answers from some first grade chakra. And wobble and gimble on his hips until he blurts out "10!" before making a "blrb blrb blrd" noise with his lips. It all made sense then.
"All it takes to be an expert is to know more than the person you are talking to."
Im horrible at bullshitting but excitedly honest about the sundry of my knowledge.
Let me tell you why Dragon Shield sleeves are not necessarily the only "good" option anymore for card sleeves
Let me tell you how I do just OK with hang over the back filters in my aquarium
I update my Windows machines regularly.
So when I offer to update the computer of my current boss before she goes into a meeting my momentary glee becomes panic.
Did I overstep?
Does she think I am going to mansplain to her?
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I just love updating Window OS. I should have gone into network engineering but I hate fiddling with wires. Let me just run software wizards all day and clear caches and delete junk. Memory miser
"Oh, how do you know it needs to be updated?" She asks sincerely. So sincerely that she grabs the machine by the left corner and tilts the whole perpendicular thing to the floor. Her wireless mouse slides to the floor and the batteries tumble out onto the carpert. "Ah fuck!"
"Oh, its because the little button in the corner is red. See?"
She is crouching down to pick up the cover to the mouse fiddling around the water catch of a potted plant in the corner "Uh-huh"
"I just noticed it at our last meeting."
"Oh are you checking me out!?"
Fuck. No! I mean, yes. I mean...haha good one. Yeah, that will work.
"Oh, always! You know me!" Dying inside I want to take all this back.
She laughs and then hands me the machine. "Ok, well I trust you. Will it fix my mouse problem? Or did I just make it worse by dropping it?"
I don't know but I recall the advice. "The update will take care of a lot. That I am sure about."

Missing Work

Author's Note: May surprise you but I do write drafts of these. And a time I write is this golden 15 minutes when I put my daughter to bed and she watches YouTube. It's my time to nap or cruise social media. Save I also was 2 mai tais deep into this. And exhausted from 4 days of being FT problem solver and dad and homeschooler. But no one reads these so here it is. I'll drink less. It's bad for my diabetes.

The Rona Riot makes you see who really turns the world. I'm not a socialist but it's for sure labor. The worker bees as somone once told me at my old job when they say the 500 pairs of donated scrubs sorted and folded by nurses. Going to sound like Tyler Durden but it's the folks who cook your meals, drive the bus, clean the rooms, etc. 

It's artist. Let's watch something. Let's read. Play! Paint and make. Idle and I need to consume. Will we produce more philosophers after weeks of art? I will have seen all the Tremors movies by the end! This, I know.

Oh, and teachers. I'm biased but teachers are amazing. I know there are bad teachers but they need to have that collective level of head tipping platitude as "Support The Troops." Because there are idiot troops just like bad teachers but overall you do that at great sacrifice to your own world. 

I miss my coworkers. My teachers. The cadence of everyday. There are students who hang out their car windows at the arrival car line and scream good morning at everyone jogging into the building. I imagine them hanging out brick windows over hung laundry singing about girls named Maria. 

I miss the pink highlight tips and single braided strands of the teacher who commands the bfast arrival. The star shatter laugh of the AP as she humors some kid going on about Minecraft. Every morning I would hear the ruffle of my principals dress as she runs from her car saying "sorry! Sorry!" Kindergarten teacher lining up kids by the brick wall and sipping from her travel mug so all I see is her glitter kill eyes.

I dont miss the bullshit. The flabbergasted people who run away from the copier. Hustling for spaces like an awful game of Twister. The decisions left to rot on the vine as we check for brand. For more data.  But solving it gave me some meaning for somone without anything special.

The gladiator sandal clap of one of our executives. The ying yang synergy of these two  third grade teachers.  One shadow and one beam of light. I miss the exasperated groans of our math teacher when her kids wild out. The "people!" of my office mate as people clamber to her for help. I miss the wizard in winter green magic of the teacher who forces plants from nothing. In her jungle I try to catch mice.

The sharp metal clack of the bathroom latch snapping into the door when somone runs there during their one break. The spiderweb questions of somone running out of PTO. 

Hum of the copier

Spiderwebs in the corner

That unflished mineral urine smell

Satisfaction from peeling away petrified chocolate milk.

Cocoa puffs rolled into the dust pan.

Memes taped to the office door

Missing garbage cans clatter 

Plastic envelopes shucked of sporks

I want to help but I'm separated 

Flotsam

On a misty March morning Lake Erie appeared as I had never seen that. And, isn't that so delusional of me. To think that I can speak of all its shores albeit my exposure is to the river mouths of northern Ohio. But, here she was neither exhausted and filthy or the secluded verdant of reserves. Instead the lake was cluttered. I counted at minimum 7 floating tree trunks. One had the mottled lizard skin of a sycamore and the other the deep grooves of cottonwood. 

These were not mere logs. There were tree trees. The trees you hang tire swings from and then your grandkids swing from that same swing. The kind of tree that when it falls it sloughs off earth and sword slices through a house. These fall and somone is screaming "FUCK!" And there were seven of them. Seven "FUCKS!" floating and bobbing in the sea glass green of the water. Around them, like Jovain gas giants gobbling up moons, there were living rafts. Woven cat tails and roots of smaller trees spun by wind and wave into an entourage. And these islands clacked against one another. I had to listen with all ears and shush my kids but they knocked with a soft push.

Were these fresh falls from the winter? The high water this season cleaved of much of the lakeshore. Or were these veteran homespun Mariners? The cottonwood had the core hollowed out as the heartwood gave to the wind. That must take years. Right?

The whole scene had a video game aesthetic. A platformer level from deep evil minds with logs floating on water. It had the look of the after effects of an Athenian naval battle. The final scene in Jaws after the Orca blows. It was a mess but surely a lighter man could walk to the break wall balances on flotsam. 

A Poem On Your Hands

This is inspired partially by the current Corona panic. What with everyone washing their hands. I originally wanted to write at the scales that have formed on the top of my right hand. But that would be too visceral so then I recalled how much I hate static shocks. Especially in the winter when you are shucking off gloves and what not. During winter I become like Bill Murray's character in What About Bob? who was quite the obsessive germaphobe. Within this circular logic I came up with this bad poem.

__________________________________________________________



Electrifying snaps
"Are you ok? Woah! I heard that"
It was my fleece coat woven from lambs stolen from the gods
Full of thunder bolts it lashed back when set against the back of the chair

Blowing it with a girl because before coming for a kiss
I blew
Puckered my lips and tilted my head
A tiny swirl of air from already pursed lips
"What the fuck was that?!"
For the static
The chemistry now waning and whirling away from us
It's winter. The air is full of cold and sublimated sand
It Teslas up shocks from vapor even in the warmth of her apartment

I left. Piles of her clothes still bristling with shock
Nylon pants and fleece jackets emblazoned with the names of places
Patagonia. Columbia. North Face

Convulsing metal that gnarls even through leather gloves
This cooper lighting rods current through germs
Sloughing them off my hand in foaming jitters
Now clean I set down my fleece and it stings.
And sings to the randos around me.

Favorite MTG Art

Considering we maybe stuck for a while inside I really have no excuse not to blog. Mind you readership on the blog has halved down from a stunning 2 to now just 1. I hope the other person did not succumb to Corona virus.

I have noticed that when I write about MTG the readership skyrockets to staggering levels. 5 to 9 readers. And it makes sense considering how active the community is online. People are hungry for content on the cardboard crack.

So here is a brief set aside of some of my favorite art in MTG.

And, first, no I am not one of those people that says "Art was better back in the day. Damn it" I am one of those people that says art had much more variety back in the day likely due not to a company decision but just sheer bandwidth. Remember your first apartment? It likely had a lot of cast down and mismatched furniture from garage sales and left over from the last tenant. But then you start polishing that up and you get some Jorgens and Bilkins from IKEA. Then maybe you go to a real furniture store with "and Sons" in the name. It all just starts coalescing around an aesthetic. That is what happened as the game grew. It got better but organized. We take that for granted or inherently mundane when it is truly the mark of something sustainable.

That all said here we go...

Blistering Barrier by David Ho from Mirage

Older MTG sets featured much more abstract pieces. Some of these were very interpretive and other way too abstract. Talking about Stasis and then Night Soil. 
And I am not to afraid to admit I was 35 years old when I realized the answer to the riddle is the card itself. That all said look at this thing. It is a mixture of hilarious and brutal. A HR Giger carnival. Younger me thought this card was AMAZING. A 5/2 wall!? Let's fucking go! It is part of that initiation all players need to have that losing life is not necessarily a bad thing and a 5/2 that can't attack, however novel the fact a wall is stronger on offense than defense, is pretty damn crummy.

Goblin War Buggy by DeTerlizzi from Urza's Saga

Ask a younger me who my favorite MTG artist was and I would have said DeTerlizzi. And, in all honesty, I said that just to have someone. No one artists speaks to me albeit the 25 years of the game means there are many voices and images. But I like his work and the strong thematic through them. The curving angles in muted tones. Everything seems supremely huggable yet also somewhat loaded with potential and power. There is a very fairy tale feel to his work and I choose Goblin War Buggy because it is hilarious. The portly fellow jammed into the barrel scooter with his broken lance resonates with the lore of goblins in the game and also DeTerlizzi's work.

Elspeth, Knight Errant (Guild of Ravnica Masterpiece) by Zach Stella

Elspeth is my favorite MTG character. If you have submitted yourself to this blog you have A) Seen this picture before and B) Seen me hype her up. This is a special edition version of her original card. And yes...I'm human so the fact this is her most sexed up card needs to be said but aside from the hair draped over her face it is very tame. Have you seen other fantasy art!? You don't need to fix her armor. Well except where she was stabbed when Wizards totally did her dirty in the original Theros block but she beat death and killed gods so she got the last laugh. My favorite non-special art version of her (Note this card is about $60 which like most women is out of my league) is Sun's Champion It's the hood

Lightning Angel by rk post from Apocalypse

The Apocalypse set was a big deal. The return of multicolored spells in enemy combinations. The culmination of a nearly 10 year saga that only in recent years had coalesced into a unified story. It was the Avengers End Game of tabletop gaming of the early 2000s. And Lightning Angel was supremely bad ass in all kinds of way. Three colors. It flew. It did not need to tap. It could attack right at the bat. And that art? Cryptic and dark but still representing the overwhelming power of good. She has two damn weapons! rk post has tons of MTG art and a lot of bib old spells and creatures from back in the day. All have that dark positively possessed vibe.

Scion of Glaciers by Titus Lunter from Khans of Tarkir

KTK was the current set when I returned to the game. And this was not a powerful card in the format but I loved how the ice moved into its arms and legs. I imagine some lifeless antler headdress that animates upon the shaman's order and whips into a flurry of wintry life.

Dark Ritual by Sandra Everingham in Alpha

Note this is also my favorite card in the whole game. Back as a youth my "good" deck was what you would describe as a Extended Mono Black Aggro deck. It abused Dark Ritual to get a Hypnotic Specter on turn one. Or a Black Knight with an Unholy Strength. And for a while MTG printed this card in every set because it was very emblematic of what the color Black did.Until they realized it is way too powerful and it is now relegated to casual, Commander, and the rarefied tiers of Legacy and Vintage.

As for the art, and there are some great Dark Ritual arts, this does not just get the win because it is the first. It makes you fell something. Who is this person? What did they summon? What is swirling up from the incantation. It fits the name and effect to a quintessential level.

Corona Post 5

Not dead, porn bots. Sorry for the delay but I got slammed at work due to the Rona panic. Some quick observations 

1) We watched  A Tiger Family Trip during the first day of self isolation and no school. The most shocking thing to me is that the Tiger family can take such a long trip on reliable public transportation. IE the Mr Roger's red trolley. But then I realize he calls his grandfather  grand pere so it must be set in Canada or Europe. That explains it 

2) I have done so much laundry 

3) Wow, the MTG mystery booster product is AMAZING! Opened four packs and opened so much value! Foil Sen Triplets! Foil Blighted Agent! Elesh Norn! Wow wow wow. Buy now.

4) I haven't taken my anti anxiety/depression med in 2 days. I'm working on an essay for that but with Monday being the last day of "normal work" I am realizing my anxiety comes from not working. I am going to deep hurt miss the people and place and searching for excuses to go. I'll start taking the pills again soon. I promise.

Better to come. 

Corona Post 4

No corona post today. I made this meme for a co worker and they did not respond at all. Not even a "haha" or "lol" to just end the conversation. It was in reference to missing a butt dial from them. So dont mind me as my heart is asunder.

That said corona virus is kicking me and my squads ass at work. Not physically but everywhere else. Logistically. Politically. Interpersonally. 

I did make this meme. So that's kind of like a Corona post 

Corona Post 3

There is news that Corona Virus may have made it to Puerto Rico. And while i would be more concerned about the endemic bogey man disease of dengue I also don't live there anymore. But I made this meme which gave Mami a chuckle.

It is a very specific Hispanic cultural memory (or trauma). Getting threatened by a a leather sandal. A chancleta.

No ones dad's took of their belts in Puerto Rico. It was your mom who whipped of her sandal and smacked it against the closest hard surface. And, if there was none available (Say you were standing off at high noon with her) then she would crack it against the flat of her palm. Mami would thrown them at me. "If you ever have a child I hope it turns out just like you!" she would utter before she whipped the sandal at me.

So I assumed the same spine straightening power of the sandal could zap the lipid bi-layer of Corona Virus.

Corona Post 2

Everyone mentions the tickle in the back of your throat as a sign you are getting sick but no one ever talks about the rush of heat. It is the feeling in your face as you lay down for just one second and the warmth from the back of your head creeps forward. And it centers on the tip of your nose until the first wave ends and another begins. Again from the edge of your scalp and looping over the arches of your ears as it moves in a rose blob across your forehead.

The sickest I have ever been is a tie. Once in the 7th grade when Mami diagnosed me as having "Monga"which is closest PR approximation to the flu. Albeit how no one in PR says "monga" anymore save for viejitas sitting in muu-muus shucking pigeon peas. These ladies grow rescued poinsetta plans stolen from the city hall Christmas display in rusting cans of export soda crackers. Now people say "la influenza" or "gripe." But my mother shuttered the windows in my room and made me take a combination of several Nyquils, antibiotics (Which have no effect on a virus like the flu but also maybe the Monga is not the flu. Its a "bug") and probably some fish oil pills. And she cranked the window AC until I dizzy dropped into my water bed and awoke hours later. I thought it was Sunday evening and panicked because I had to write a paper about the Greek god Poseidon. And I FREAKED out. Running to Mami in my tight whitey underwear and babbling about my paper to her and her boyfriend Julio, the newspaper courier. "Its still Saturday," Mami said and I calmed and still knocked out that paper ( 8 pages double spaced) because that how powerful her concoction was.

The other one (the tie sealer) was when I was 21 and got a cold that became an upper respiratory infection that exacerbated my asthma. Without insurance all I could take was Nyquil and over the counter asthma inhalers. These were ugly bulbous beige monsters filled with pure adrenaline. That's not stylization. It really was adrenaline. And relief was intense but so brief. It made me a wheezing junkie on the floor of our Swiss chalet apartment. "I don't want to die." I told my then fiancee now wife who took me to an urgent care. And they prescribed albuterol and Advair but without insurance I had no option but to beg the pharmacist at the Lakewood Marc's. Who, in the kindest gesture I have ever received, clipped a coupon and got me the meds for free.

The best description of dying I've ever read is from Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. In it there is a global plague that stutters civilization and a protagonist dies on a Thai beach filled with the snot and aspiration of no breath.

All this we will survive but only if you are privileged. Blessed with days off. I'll give my people extra days. No one notices. I hold the keys to time. I can't offer  insurance. Care givers. Guys in wheel chairs who need their home health aides to scrub down their ventilator tubes? They will knife fight for sanitizer and alcohol prep pads.

Pexels, Anna Shvets

Corona Post 1

I'm doing something different this week and posting blog posts about the Corona virus panic. Some of these maybe attempts at humor. Or attempts at prose and poetry. They are all attempts at quality. Results will vary.

Here is one about abandoned spaces. My work has privileged me to being alone in industrial spaces. And maybe all our offices will look like that until the winter passes.

Hung up coats on pegs made for twenty but now holding only one. 

The ghost drops of minerals on the cinderblock of the janitors closet. In there it always smells like bleach. It's the only sign of change in the buildings static.

You fiddle in the abandoned corners where cob webs have piled on. Brave enough to crack open the top drawers of desks and see the pens clatter forward. Tubes of half used chap stick and novelty mints in embossed tins.

Someone has Bounce dryer sheets in their desk. "Why would you need those?" you will text but then realize there is no valid way to justify this beyond being a creeper. You keep going. 

There is a big pump bottle of lotion on the accountants desk. Cucumber melon scented and it transports you back to high school. The after gym class smell and hand sanitizer with blue purple beads swimming in the alcohol.

You want to sleep and curl under the clapboard cubicle desks, kicking away the pill piles of lint. "What's it matter? No one is coming. There is a sign on the door to call if a delivery shows up." Under the desk it is dark and cozy enough. The only light is the slat sunlight that comes through the gap between the cubicle panel and carpet. But you cant sleep as the guilt gnaw at you. "For you there stay safe and always have your phones with you. We still have customers that need us and we can do so much remotely."

In the warehouse you play wall ball with the dock guys. The two last ones. Slapping a tennis ball agaisnt panels and boxes of undelivered furniture. We then make bio suits from pallet wrap enveloping ourselves in giant plastic film still we glisten. The guys are careful when using their box cutters to slice me out.

The sun turns hazy in the coming 5pm twilight and we dont even have to bother locking up.

Bad Maps

In an astral confluence of life quirks, my work place got donated some glossy maps and I was tasked with distributing them. Cutting across geography, well intentioned supply chain, and my anxious tick to keep junk away from my spaces.

"These will be great. People will love them," said my boss shaking the in-kind donor's hand.

At my old job a mountain of a man thought me that when you make space in the warehouse junk will follow it. "We don't need more space. We need to be smarter with what we have." And I could see the Brownian motion of crap and ideas to any cleared area. A few boxes would plant a flag and then someone dragged a table and chairs over there and we got ourselves a new break space. A new place to count widgets.

And it happens in my current job. Get rid of maps with yellowed paper that still have the USSR on them and get National Geographic prints from 1998. Missing South Sudan. Missing East Timor. Missing Montenegro. "They do have Hong Kong as a Chinese possession so not too bad," I said after scanning.

"What a nerd," everyone must think. "Who gives a fuck?"

And they are right. Tiny, miserable countries, these must be, yes? We do not have a massive South Sudanese, East Timorese, or Montenegroian diaspora.

"Just turn them over and use this like land map with no borders."

Fair enough.

A Deep Fear While Navel Gazing

I often worry if family or co-workers will find this blog. And not declare it weird or anathema but instead brand it as boring. Glean no secrets or titillation but instead dismiss it as just another litany. Overexposed? Repetitive? I reflect on my privileged experience and know the traumas I suffered are all but minor. The poetry in storms, the flip of someone's hair, the press of their foot against mine at the booth, the grades I got, and the water rushing by is not poetry but white noise. Mami is not a universal paragon but an old lady from Mayaguez who drinks a lot of wine is unlucky to have a child who takes so much license online. My children are reflections of me and when they see this they will point to their anecdotes and say "Its your fault. The Kitty Cat Game? That is your fault." The bad movies are better covered by people with gear. Who can code HTML. And even without the scenery there is no unique take. Everything anyone can experience has been written down somewhere. And folks won't find it on this blog.

Nothing on here would get me fired. Divorced. Marooned. I can do that all by myself.

Regular programming will resume soon.

Source: Pexels, Burak K

Read The Staff Handbook

After paying $300 something dollars to my orthodontist to have them check what was wrong with my teeth (To put a better technical definition on "jacked to shit") the friendly receptionist told me that "At some point the week of March 2nd someone will call you with the analysis and treatment recommendations. Is it OK with we leave a voicemail?"

That phrase was both refreshing and ominous. They could go for the standard, the easy lay up of "We will get back to you in 2 weeks." But instead they went for a novel attempt. Some sort of circus shot hook from the 3 point line "At some point the week of March 2nd someone will call you."

This has Ringu/The Ring energy to it.
Seven days.
At some point the week of March 2nd someone will call you.
Same difference
In either case my face will be ripped apart.

Inspired by this I am trying to use some punch in my day to day. So "Check the staff handbook," which is A) Boring B) Doesn't inspire and C) Yeah no one checks it anyway, can become...

"Consult the good nook"

Which is A) Different B)Preachy? C)You know some people do need the Lord anyway so maybe this will help?

Or we can go with "Read the Tome of Employment"

Which is A) Mysterious B) On brand for my D&D RPG nonsense and C) Makes a cool image. All leather bound with brass bindings and a ribbon in the spine to mark one's place.

Or we can go with "The assigned reading is Labor Song of Work Days: Canto 10 PTO Days"

Which is A) Erudite B)Mysterious and C) People still wont' read it.

Source: Pexels, Pixabay

Found Loot

We took our kids hiking the order day and I noticed this in the shallows of one of the endless oxbows of the Rocky River. A hubcap to not a car but something significant enough to have one. A trailer? A carnival ride?

Years of video games thought me that this was most certainly some quest loot. I reached my hand into the water and claimed it! I felt no stronger but the river was just a bit cleaner. To note I tend to pick up litter wherever I go. Its a neurotic habit from work where, accountable for everything facility but limited in who does what when, I grab bits of candy wrappers and such from the floor. I often carry a plastic bag with me. "Its to suffocate bad guys!" I tell people jokingly and because it sounds much more bad ass than to pick up litter. Also, I like to think this will buy me just a few less minutes in hell when its my time and all that is left of me is this blog. Some scribbles in the margin of work memos.

As a thought experiment I try to assign it some stats.

As it shield it buffs defense. So depending on your game it could +2 to armor, +0/+2, +2 to blocking. Or maybe blocks at 10% more effective?
The jewel gives it some enchanted ability. And the red makes it a bit more offensive oriented then. Maybe it burns on block? Bleed on block? Or, it can reflect critical hits back onto enemies.
It is also small so I don't think it would take away from any dexterity bonuses. But that's why the buffs are smaller.

You know what is awesome? A lady with a sword! Or a babe with one of those collapsible batons that goes "sha-krink" at the flick of a wrist. So to this daydream I add the found shield. Well not the garbage one but its polished  fantasy variety that is beveled, jeweled, and glistening. This shucks onto people from the office who use it flip a table during a boring meeting. This is what I think about all day. Good looking people who had enough and stand over upturned board room tables and say this is all bullshit. 

Rainy Day Poem

The week began with one of those misty clammy days
 the whole sky feels like the inside of a tent during a downpour.
 Humid, amorphous feeling like the blobs of dew trapped between the tent's outer
skin and the fly you spent so much time skittering with. Several fucks screamed.

The week continued gurgling with moisture laden in the air wrecking up-dos
Frizzing curls seeping through the holes worn into formerly nice boats
Warm, safe, and dry. The landlord promised that. But in the basement like an email
Sent to all. Water torrents into every corner lifting onion jars full of dry wall anchors.

The week continued with you rolling away from me in bed
Wispy hurt light that barely brings us into focus but the turn in the mattress
Cascades blankets and sheets to your corner. Have a good day.
The air outside demands cover and hiding under waves of cloth alone.

The week continued permeated and sogged
Boggy lake monster weather, vines hanging bandoleer over shoulders
Students raced erratic drips against each other
Pay attention. Reset. Back to your paper

The week continued overflowing
Potted plants left on the porch
Balls of roots and Styrofoam filler skimming the beveled surface
The books from abandoned hobbies curl up in the water agonized
For being forgotten and twine tied for recycling.

The week ended hurt
Soaked, exhausted, spent, dripping
When the sun rose steam
cooked off the shingle roofs
blistering away everything
that happened. Reset. Back to your paper

Source: Pexels, Sabel Ahammed