Patch of Life

 I once dated this girl who was furiously into journaling. With a dedicated set of pens and drawings in the margin to mimic medieval texts. Dragons hand painted into the margins and embellished flourishes on the starting letter in a paragraph. Stuff like that. And I glanced as it once, something I promised I never would but she had left it open on the nightstand of the hotel and I reached for the light, and saw her describe the place, the island, as a place "she had never seen be so green." This was meant to be a compliment on the tropical fecundity. 

That stuck with me even after all this time. The best way to describe something so alive it was just green. I have never seen a space that met that criteria until staring into the roadway berm of a trailhead in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. There, beyond the six inches or so of mowed grass, were spiraling goldenrods and exploding New England asters. Thick mats with tall stalks and lance leaves that tumble over one another.  I am sure this was just disturbed backfill two weeks ago. Hit by an errant mower or the digging for a new pathway.  Each bloom stood out from a wall of green in varying dips of emerald and then lime. What made the scene was all the movement. The honeybees overloaded on dust and then the bumble bees spurred at the leg with their pollen. Threatening hunter wasps bounding each curling stem. And dusty gall flies slicing open the stems to get to the stalks inside and lay their eggs. Everywhere these is movement and color but it is too fast and too small to be taken singularly. Instead its a mass, hypnotic and humming.  There is noise in this scene as the quaking aspen stand behind all this catches the wind and shutters that paper trembling sounds. Its the end of August and this stand is the deep and final sign of all summer against the creeping fall. Finally, there is the weather which is at the inflection point right before a strong thunderstorm. The wind cools from behind so the center of your chest is last to lose the sun's warmth and everything seems to hurry. Race to get inside, to scrape a final bit of pollen, to reach the trail shelter and shelter. The patch moves in circles while also in straight lines as  things shoot to get secure and put an end to the moment. 

DMs

Separated by anxiety, time, and space

to grow and give a chance. She declared

Easier to just like your comments. Texts

DMs never wanted. Just hit the heart

Conversation punted three light-years

Into a future found only in the mind

Of one of us

Hot and Cold

 My current work has me often in positions where people look to me for a solution. And not just for things in my scope but for everything. Their taxes. Someone not flushing in the staff bathroom. The rumor on who will get fired. So, it is the kind of look people throw at a bursting beacon on the horizon in the epic fantasy movie.

Behold, there is the light and fury of Gondor! What shall it bring to this Helm's Deep!?

The worse is temperature. It is too hot or cold in my room. Our school is tired pile of bricks going on 90 years with most everything being original save not in the charming way, like a Butterfly Gold Pyrex bowl, but in the annoying way. Like leaded gasoline.

Too hot and there is a dwindling shimmer on the single pane glass above the radiators. I have one teacher with big statement olive wood eyes who will say "I'm so hot! Please help!" and I think it is a trap. "Yeah you are!" I joke and want to drop the cymbal clap bit. Ba Dum Dsh! This works much better over the work chat. Where maybe she will hit me back with a brief heart/like icon and just make my day. Or a LOL face which is fine but anything better than a simple thumbs up which feels so clinical. In person it is awkward and plodding as I bite my lip and try to hide behind the gewgaws on my desk. And she nervously strokes down the end of her ponytail asking "Is there like a thermostat? Can the custodian look?" Does playing with her hair mean she is nervous? Frustrated? Confused? By me perhaps? So smitten is she!? Or is it because she is close to heat stroke death? Likely the latter.

The custodian could look and just affirm that everything is fine. It is not that bad. In that teacher's room there is nothing for him to draw his ire to so its just fine. Across the hall it is the bad insulation I had installed three years ago. Of course, that is it. Always ready with not just an answer but THE answer. Something else. Just deal or do as I say. 

Too cold and its weak yet threating rimes of ice forming along the vintage window frames. In some spots the walls are so porous that the draft moves paper around behind you making for terrifying backgrounds on Zoom calls "Excuse me. I'm sorry but I have to ask. What is making that drawing on your bulletin board move?"

"Does this get hot?" And people will send me pictures of their radiator registers via text. 

I would hope so, if not dress in layers. If the register is pristine and still painted in the tepid mud puddle brown then likely not. They cut the steam to it. If it is beat and covered in the rainbow of melted crayons then yes, it should get cooking. 

If you are too cold maybe I will sneak a space heater in your room. Depends on if I trust you enough to use it, turn it off at the end of day. Too hot and here is a fan or i guess turn on your AC and defy everything. One day the boiler will be at max power and every AC and fan will be on and the whole space, the whole red brick lump of entropy, will collapse into a singularity of the right temperature. 

Time Travel

Around the age of 33, Ernesto discovered that by closing his eyes and thinking very hard of a specific moment in the past he could travel back in time.

This happened one day when sitting on the bus during a moment where he recalled a particularly cringe moment in front of a client. Saying "you too" to a waiter when told "Enjoy your lunch." Frazzled and confused he excused himself to the restroom before the horrible exchange and confirming the data and time on his watch and phone, slinked back and defused it with a simple 'Yes, thanks."

The time travel however required Ernesto to come back to "long way." So he would he would need to follow the natural flow of time and return to his present at the same speed as he already did once before. There was no snap back to the present, or, at least to where he began.

Because of this, this power was used for overwhelmingly petty things. Uncanny sports betting mostly. Bouncing through other Sundays just running a clean sweep on NFL scores and spreads. Then he followed each season and then also expanded to high school sports. Once he began on the NHL and trying to convert Canadian dollars he spent the idle time "resetting" just catching up on everything and scribbling in the spiral notebook that skipped along with him. 

Stopping assassinations or trying to influence elections were out of the question. Not just because of Ernesto's lack of prowess (he get a good 12K steps a day between the office and the commute but he not a trained counter sniper) but also because of the time. Go back 40 or 50 years into the past and effectively sentence himself to death leaving a jilted present, or in such a case, for him, future.

The betting made Ernesto major money but cost him a relationship when his girlfriend, suspicious of why he would disappear for two days and return on Tuesdays often wearing same clothes from Saturday, decided he was cheating on her and simply left. On seeing the flurry of angry texts from her and the final word of "I'm blocking your number" he thought about explaining this to her. or showing her, but it would need her patience to wait for his return. And that was gone.

Ernesto did tell someone. He left his job after six months of this power. He was loaded from all the betting, each game giving him the confidence to drop bigger and bigger amounts on the results. This was key and he never wanted to demonstrate his "luck" to someone multiple times. Once was luck. Twice a fluke and three times something un allowed.

But on a trip out to Seattle he ran into a friend from college, Zack who asked him "But I heard you quit your job? How can you afford to travel so often?"

And Ernesto told him and offered to prove it to Zack. "Give me your address. I will go back to tomorrow. Ill think about landing at the airport and then just get a ride to your place. Then you will know"

"But if its in the past and this is now. How would I know. I would just be surprised."

"Tell me something you planned on doing today. That you know. All the details. What did a a cashier wear? Stubbed your toe? The subject line of an email."

Zack backed away and said he wouldn't have time but that he believed him. "Sure. But I just don't have the time for that. Good luck."

Ernesto then wondered if he could have handled that better. Maybe flash back to that scene and try again. bring something from the past. Predict with accuracy every game score Something with a bit more teeth to it.

That was the only person Ernesto ever told. His body let him know that the cumulative effects of the extra days added up to extra birthdays so by age 35 he effectively was getting closer to 40. He swore the falling hair and adult acne were not genetics but side effects of this. So, he kept his winnings in savings and stopped using the ability until one evening it fluttered away from him so all he could do was daydream about the past.

Parent teacher conference

At one point the teacher said that my son had very little writing stamina and was concerned he would not meet expectations as a writer. The conference there then lost all oxygen. I wish that is one apple that would have hit closer to the roots. I scribbled endlessly in margins and penned Star Wars fan fiction in notebooks with roller blade graphics on the cover. I would write out daydreams of a crush fighting it out with a lesser one. I didn't need double spaced essays. I won contests. Minor ones but enough that people said "You are a good writer." Likely not good but I can carry my own and now I find a challenge to test and exercise my kid on something that felt just as breathing 

Slowly Dying

The chestnut tree out front, chronicled in blog posts from 2018 and the eponymous Chestnut War, continues to die. Now at an accelerated rate. A large branch maybe five feet long from break to leaf tip fell off one sunny September afternoon. No storms that day so I guessed just a sudden snap of wind. or just the sudden chaos we invoke hypothetically. That branch got "hit by a bus."

The tree has a complete and lovely overall superstructure. At the end of the intersection of Addington and West 120th, one can see it from seven house lengths away and it looks like a lovely tree with a tight bobbing outline against the houses. Its a tree you would see features on a logo. Closer up, however, you can see the patchy empty boughs where entire leaves have withered away. These are big hurting bald spots on the tree where the park curls up form the branches and lichen takes over where wood hasn't frayed. Up close it has this melting snow cone look where flakes of snow have melted and refrozen together, albeit briefly, to come up with a jagged canopy.

Summer 2021 and the tree was loaded with the wispy pipe cleaner flowers. All through August there was that perfume fairy piss smell but that boon turned into few nuts. Likely the neighbors have plundered most of them (My wife swears they are the ones who broke the big branch) but just enough to fill a cereal bowl. A big cereal bowl, mind you. A real two scoops of real raisins and flakes kind of bowl, but a cereal bowl nonetheless. Each year they have dwindled in amount and also in value. From  a precious crop to just a novelty. They taste sloppy chalky when roasted, but with enough sugar I can try to make homemade orgeat. That is a nutty syrup usually made with almonds but could be an artisanal blend made with actual chestnuts. Or even peanuts for this circus feeling kind of drink. The handful of nuts should be enough for that. And, if any other ersatz ones do fall, I can add it to the seeping pile in the vial. 

I imagine that the next five to seven summers will see more branches slough off. Maybe ones big enough to block the driveway or other wise actively inconvenience the house. Bit by bit it will clockwork out into a stumpy snag with snarled branches and just one section with leaves. There will be less actual chestnut husks by this point, but I will never be so brave to head out there barefoot. It would just make for an even more elaborate story. The one branch dropping the one last chestnut grenade. Even a glancing blow will send someone hobbling. 

Long Weekends

This post is a bit dark. It's a digital pity party shouted into the void. I don't have any meaningful connections and no one reads these. The metrics on the admin dashboard will say a single person did. The page views with their one cyclops eyes but I bet that is just ingrained into the software to make one feel better.

That all said that if somone does read this then that is the content warning. It's all quite pathetic beyond here.

I hate long weekends. I rather be working,  having some degree of validation made in the office. Sometimes I think of any professional exchange as this big game of tennis. And I'm slamming back each ball asap only to wait for a return. And often that return never happens or is weeks late, this time table only exacerbated by the long weekend. 

I need an answer back from a vendor and they left early for the holiday weekend. Everyone else unplugs and I'm left trying to sneak in work or just diving right into it during a rare moment of the kids being at peace.

I hate long weekends beacuse its more time for my kids to prowl around and look for conflict. My son is a deep well of rage and he will meltdown for hours in his room screaming while the rest of the family tries to pretend this isn't happening. A house full of toys and games and the option always is to fight or rage. At work I could let the teachers handle it for just eight hours and then get a nice email saying how they mostly held it together.

What makes me feel better is checking stuff off the list. Long weekends nudge this. Really should clean the garage. Get your hair cut. Organize that shelf. This on top of the usual weekend get stuff done like the Sunday blues piles of laundry. So I flit between these tasks and just find more and more until I say fuck it and just lay down on the couch. I rather work so there is so grater fulfillment or mission

I develop unhealthy infatuations at work that align any sense of my self to said crushes responses. My current job is my longest running and also one with most coworkers so these are numerous albeit they ebb save for two long running  colleagues. So , I rather work so I have some excuse to message them and then segue to sharing a meme or reminding them how awesome they are and/or how shitty this place is, am I right?! So desperate for dopamine that just getting a like on the all office Slack sends me briefly away from the shady sunken place. I'll find reasons to message them over the weekend to feel soemthing and then hate myself due to interrupting what I assume are fabulous lives.

I'm only as good as how not good others are and this will all be exposed one day so I work to build some insurance.

He really did suck but he did close the support tickers quickly, I guess.

False Fall

Early September and everyone is switching to early spooky season. But, it is still hot, pushing on 82 degrees and still as soupy and buzzy as any other day in August or July before it. 

There are still mountains of tomatoes dropping from plants and becoming burdens to anyone not prepared. And those prepared (People with canners or raw tomato enthusiasts) likely grew their own tomatoes so instead they are left in office break rooms (Free! TAKE ONE!) or handed out like ticking white elephant style gifts. Quick, eat this before it spoils. 

This is when smart people will say "Pumpkin spice doesn't really taste like pumpkin you know?"

Indeed just like the butter at movie theaters is not butter and the fluff inside Oreos is fluff instead of cream. Or crème to keep it extra confectionary. 

Even smarter people will say "Pumpkin spice is a mix of mace, all spice, cloves, cinnamon etc that is used for all kinds of baking. Women started adding to their coffee because it reminded them of these things so when you hate pumpkin spice you actually hate women."

For sure, it began a something small. Is there a coffee shop where they first made pumpkin spice? I used to live in a place where they fought about being the originator of the term "ice cream sundae."  And, home is where the pina colada supposedly began albeit no one wants to claim it. No one who wants to be anyone or anything at least. So this has to exist. Wherever pumpkin town USA exists, some local coffee shop dropped that 25-30 years ago and then the genie could never be let back in the bottle. 

 

This early and its false fall. Its hoodie weather and everyone looks great in hoodies. 

Your rival? They looks extra zippy in that red hoodie

Your friends? They look great and maybe you can match dueling hoodies

Your crush? Act normal, not dumb, but they look banging in that heather grey hoodie. 

You! Yes, even you. This is my hooded sweatshirt from college ten years ago and yes I still fit in it and yes I look bomb in it.

As a young man I bought a solid white hoodie with royal blue trim and wore it all day on a flight from the tropics to the snow mounds of northern New York state. Did not spill a damn drop on it. Which would be first and last time that happens. As an old man I still quickly flip that hood up and when it catches over my scalp in one go I feel infinitely powerful. 

Apple picking weather. Apple picking is a racket. The farmer realized how profitable it would be to have people pay THEM money to pick apples because its fun or for family photos. You get to the orchard and they only have two sizes. 

Inconveniently small. This box is the size of a child's lunch box

Inconveniently large. This bag is the literal Bag of Holding from a Dungeons and Dragons quest. There could be a dragon in here!

The practical bags have already been stuffed full of apples and laid out in the orchard's gift shop. That is no fun. 

So you get the HUGE bag because 1) Fuck it 2) While I don't think I can eat 100 apples I sure as hell can eat more than the 5 the tiny bag can hold and 3) We will make apple pies. And butter and jams, etc, etc.

Then you need to haul the hug bag loaded with apples all over the orchard strategically trying to leave space for the varieties all the way at the end of the rows. Don't get too crazy with Jonagolds. There are Fujis in the WAY BACK and those are my favorite. Bright white blistering sweet apples. 

True fall comes later and after Halloween. In the doldrums between it and Thanksgiving. Here the charms are gone and it is getting to cold for any of the hay bale rides and cider sniffs. There it is blustery and scratchy as leaves pour over the pavement.

Paraguay Dream

 In a dream, a botched trip took me all the way to Paraguay. 

"Are we taking this helicopter all the way there?" I said to the ethereal narrator guiding the dream. The chopper was one of those wire work Rat Patrol looking things with the sea foam pontoons for water landings instead of the metal runners.

"No, that would take too long! But we will fly to the Plaza de la Victoria and leave you there. After your talk you can find a way back up north."

In this dream I am to meet in a small un airconditioned conference room at the base of a tall monument. The monument is four stylized metal brush strokes zig zagging up towards the sky and maybe 200 feet above the base, each tip comes together to hold a golden globe. At the bottom of one of the arms is a unassuming handle less door with a wooden table set outside. On it is a placard denoting the meeting

"Tenth Annual Pan American Conference on River Travel"

This placard is neatly framed and printed in looping font under pictures of paddleboats and reed canoes.

But the door doesn't open and I wait until the one thing that happens is a wingless giant transport plane comes slowly falling off the horizon until right before landing it fires off a skirt of hover bags so that it plunks softly onto a tarmac. I don't feel the earth shake and I wait under the shadow of the golden globe and the quiet of the sleepy plaza.

I then find myself on a loaded school bus texting my family from the wifi of a gas station. "I hope to be back north by end of the week. At least the Mexican border." Once the message is confirmed I go and get two five gallon jugs of water from the gas station and three buckets of fried chicken served with a dozen ears of corn.

The ride on the bus is musical. I have never been to Paraguay but my dream makes it look like the interior of home save with taller mountains and denser canopy. The roads are paved yet narrow and cluttered with lot of dirt bikes and horses and llamas. 

The bus pulls over again for food and we get to a road side restaurant built over a hill that look at a dried up lake. The once large lake now dotted with deep yet isolated pools of water among red clay. At the restaurant the owners hawk sea bass and arapina to us letting us select cuts they shuck off with a machete. The last image of the dream is looking into the mega fish's mouth and the undulating back and forth of the ribbed mouth and insides in hues of pink and watermelon bruise red. 

Henshin

"What are you thinking about?"

Henshin which is the Japanese word for transform/transformation and is then associated with media where somone transforms into a hero. When the Power Rangers yell "Its Morphin Time!" that's henshin. When Linda Carter spun around fast and changed into Wonder Woman that is henshin. Different from suiting up like Iron Man with a suit of armor. Here it all magically happens in a flash of light and sequence. 

Henshin of the cute co worker manifesting a long spear by moving her hands apart and then twirling it to end in a pose where she cracks her shoulder muscles and is ready to fuck somone up. If I were actually writing this or drawing this then she would have the appropriate armor but this is my fever dream so she wears gymnast outfit. 

Henshin of me being 40 pounds lighter and looking good in the bioluminiscent black ceramic armor of Tron. 

There is often music to all this. Halsey's Nightmare or the aforementioned Tron sound track. If not it would be disconcerting. Somone yells "I have the power!" and then the light and sparks and spell that gives them the Gauntlets of Fury is all quiet. Total cognitive dissonance. 

My day dreams steal right from the comics beacuse I want it all to be clear. Your protagonists and antagonists. The story controlled by the penciler and layout. Instead of any nuance. 

Mother In Law Suite

 Investigators could tell the room was haunted, if not out right cursed, because of the sheer amount of things in it that seemed to have a purpose but produced no discernible effect. Light switches that when flipped did nothing. Outlets painted over that after carefully sloughing off the paint, which ended up in rainbow sherbet clumps on the floor, drew no power. A side panel door to a sheer brick wall with maybe a half an inch of clearance. A composition notebook would barely fit in it. There were built in speakers to the blonde maple wood but when you chased the wire to what should have been the access panel, the wire just dove into a solid cube of cement. The drawers were cut at triangular angles so pulling one out also meant possibly topping all of everything onto one's foot. 

The main color was a had too much ice cream after dinner mint green with too much blue but still enough green. Then deep mahogany trims almost black for stark contrast. But under all that paint were dozens of layers in wilding hues. The walls seemed almost an inch thick with just paint, making the whole thing smaller and encroaching. 

The rest of the house? That seemed fine and quite dull. But, in the backroom, everything seemed amiss and annoying. In the middle of it there was a warm spot that seared from an invisible source while the rest of the room remain stuffy but tolerable.

One investigator tried to bring in some fresh air and opened a window to find that the wire window screens were just finely painted lines on translucent paper. He removed it and poked his head out the window to see the small backyard and then a broken floodlight glued right by the window. Broken in that each head drooped on exposed wires to the side. He told another person to flip all the mysterious light switches and nothing sparked from the flood light. 

They all stood in a circle while investigating, their backs to each other, as to make sure nothing slide out from behind a pulled door or curling floor board. But they just found more inconveniences, the angriest one being the tacks arranged like a punji board on the threshold of the sole closet. 

The owners, chatting with the group after the walkthrough in the room, asked what to do. The investigators suggested to board up the room and not bother. Whatever haunted it seemed content to form whatever needling grievances from that single space. "Make it a room to go in every one in a while and spook a visitor. A real mother in law suite, if you get what I mean!" The assistant then mimicked banging on a pair of cymbals. Ba dum dsh.

"Is this common?" The owners of the home demanded.

"No, not too common. Poor maintenance is one thing. Landlors who paint over things and decide to cut costs but a space like that, which seems to find something new and irritating upon each entry is not. A real mystery spot. Ever seen things run up walls in it?"

Jungle Room

At some point around year four of teaching Mariela became known as the "plant person" and her room became an ersatz greenhouse. The place where kids would store the overgrown bean plants trying to burst from their Solo cup bases and where anything left behind would end up. Year four was the year because it is where parents stopped sending kitschy mugs or jelly bean samplers and instead send a bag of potting soil and the sad five dollar starts from the floral section at Marc's. 

Mariela did earn this, albeit she didn't do this purposefully. Her first year she began simple with just a leggy Norfolk Island Pine in the far left corner and then a single Boston fern hanging planter. That she kept on her desk until year two when through a mix of union back and forth and some awkward flirting she got the custodian to anchor an eyelet into the ceiling. She then hung it from a netted rope holder.

Each year she would add more items, especially after her three year apprenticeship ended and she internally said "why not" and committed to the long term. At this point she dropped various cacti on the swollen wooden window frames.  The kids all loved the old man cactus which stood six inches from above a cornflower blue clay pot and had wonky modified needles that looked like a Rip Van Winkle beard. That is what she called it, Rip.

But in year four it exploded. Snake plants recovered from someone who retired, a pair dropped akimbo behind her desk. All the window wells lined with philodendrons and crotons and aloes. On warm muggy days, especially soupy days in early August or late May, the edges of the windows would briefly bead with moisture from all the back and forth transpiration of the plants. She had a defunct classroom phone that would only blared out mumbled public announcements lined with the clinging air plants that needed just a brief hint of mist every few weeks. 

"It really is a jungle in here!" That is what everyone said when they walked into Room 213B (At one point there had been a larger 213 that had a bright side with all the windows and then a dark side with wider floor, a short squat T shape, that was then, in the early 90s split into two with a wall. Mariela got the sunny side and the other side, which people guessed was the end of an old dance class space, became a pull out room for kids. Which needed to be illuminated by spindly halogen lamps) and Mariela had a canned response of "Yeah and Im Tarzan!" that got some laughs. The parent group insisted that the police do a walkthrough of the school to test for the horrifying yet always looming possibility of a shooting. Someone's  husband was a so and so lieutenant on the force so he found the time albeit the administration did argue to do this when there were no children in the building. Walking into 213 the officer, who internally acknowledged the performativeness of the entire event but it was overtime so why not, noticed the bramble vibes and hungry green of the space and asked Mariela "What would you do if you heard someone was coming in shooting?"

Mariela went through the canned responses of trying to bar the door and get the children as far away as possible. Her mother had actually bought her a rope ladder that could be draped over a window and used to escape. It would still leave about four feet of clearance at the end but her mother said better broken ankles then dying.

But she then added that she would just shove all the plants by the door and hopefully the tangle wire would slow down the perpetrator who would give the same frustrated guffaw of someone trying to weed out a garden. 

"I would clutch this barrel cactus in my hand and slaw it into their face, as a last resort, I guess." Mariela showed the officer the plump little malicious thing with half inch spines the color of pus. The office laughed maybe to be kind or maybe at the thought of Mariela, who was about 5' 2" and had 3rd graders who likely weighed as much as her, going Amazon in her own personal jungle to defend the homestead. 

When summer came, she arranged all the plants into a circle of magic on the floor. On top of a plastic shower liner and asked the cleaners if they would water them and just work around the space when doing the floors. Every plant but the air plants and the emerging trellised ivy plants on the tack board above the white boards in that square. And the pile grew over the summer because people would forget their own plants in their rooms and the cleaners knew just the spot. 

Rating Movies

As a tween I had a summer kick off ritual where I would write down all the summer blockbusters I wanted to see and then, as I saw them, noted how many stars I would rate them.

This was purely an internal document just for me that I kept pinned to my cork board.

Going to the movies as a tween was somewhat of a pain since I had no car and any friends with cars lived scattered across the metro area. And we had to check the times in a newspaper or call the theater. And even then no one seemed to have a newspaper subscription. I had to walk down the street to my titi's  house and get her copies of The San Juan Star. Then coordinate rhe rides to and from. See if we can catch everyone in front of the theater. Everyone had cell phones (lovely Nokia candy bar phones with interchangeable silicon skins) but this was when you had to time your calls. Don't call me until after 9pm and such.

This was the mid/late 90s and I specifically recall writing down things like Men in Black and Wild Wild West and Face/Off. No one ever noticed except my mom's long term boyfriend who would always ask what I would rate movies as, even into high school and early adulthood.

Witch's Weather

 On a muggy, soupy early July day the bright sky betrayed all predispositions and burst a brick rattling thunder boom. After it simmered away back beyond the horizon the day continued to shine and wisp as there wasn't a storm somewhere. 

This is the kind of weather my aunt called "witch's weather." When it rains while it is sunny that means a witch got married. Everything happening in the beautifully inverse. This storm would strike dry earth and flowers and baby cap mushrooms would pop up from the strike. Instead of primal obsidian glass, a tiny glade. 

I poke my head out the balcony to see if I spot the storm somewhere. This takes some effort as I need to dislodge the dusty box fan from the window frame. Nothing poetic about that especially the petrified starling poop on the window sill. I bat that with the tip of pen into the lost alley between the buildings. Once settled, I look for the deepening gradient of white to drowned blue to dusty grey in the clouds but nothing. Instead the only clouds are towering cotton blobs over the shivering trees. Over the apartment building is nothing but blue. The sky then follows up with a low grumble over the invisible horizon before it all just stops and shifts back to the muggy hurt of summer. 

It would be nice to rain. Wash away the starling shit and also drain the garbage from the alleyway. It would leave nothing but the pioneer plants settling there. Including the spindly ailanthus tree that reminds me of tree pollen and the time a coworker texted me a picture of her thigh after an allergy test. "This is why I am out. I am allergic to everything! Dust mites, tree, grass. Its crazy." I felt awkward and flattered. Witch's weather. 

2666...en español!

I bought two books back in the spring after reading they were great horror reads. These were 2666 and House of Leaves. What I didn't know is these books are MASSIVE with 2666 pushing 1110 pages and House of Leaves being, well, beyond the wall bonkers in terms of its actual layout. I also read 2666 in the original Spanish, the first book I read in Spanish since high school. So that said....

Esto es tremendo libro. Y eso lo digo no tanto por éxito (aunque si me gusto pero no me GUSTO si entiendes) sino su tamaño. Esto son casi cinco libros en uno, unidos por un cuento común, si, pero en verdad eso no siente come el punto. Esto es un mundo creado por el autor en que hay lugares y personalidades común pero es un libro de como to, como lector, te sientes. Come los caracteres van de dia en dia. Esto es un libro con tanto detalle que se puede comparar a Garcia Marquez sinceramente.

Pero horror? Pues si, el cuarto libro (Sobres las muertas. Todos los capítulos se llaman asi. Sobre el filósofo, sobre Archimboldi, etc. Son como los episodios de el programa Friends excepto yo lie todas las páginas de 2666 y hasta ahora no he visto Friends. ¡¿Ni la reunión recente en HBO Max, ok?!) es 400 paginas dedicadas a las mueres de casi 200 mujeres en Mexico. Esto es lo que une todos los cuentos. Los personajes se encuentra alrededor o viajando hacia Santa Teresa y investigando los asesinatos. Aquí se narra todo en detalle muy clínico y aplastante. Te digo, lector de este blog, que en mi oficina todas mis compañeras de trabajo le encantan el género de “true crime.” Y todas, querido lector, son jebas y eso entonces quizás yo también le doy un escucho al podcast. Pero esto no parece “true crime” sino comparado a leer todos los nombres inscritos en la plaza del pueblo de todos los veteranos muertos. Aquí no se da miedo sino una melancolía horrible porque en Santa Teresa mueren cienes de mujeres, muy violentamente, y se parece que hay nadie le importa. Yo nota que todas la mujeres trabjan en las mismas fabricas pero si sigio la vida cotidiana. Aquí hay metáfora por la recente pandemia de COVID 19 aunque este libro salió 2004. Hay otra parte (La parte del periodista) en que alguien trata de investigar para decirle que eso no importa.

En este libro también hay una parte que es, de toda manera, un “rom com” entre un grupo de amigos de lectores académicos. También hay Nazis! Y alguien cuelga un libro de geometria de una linea de colgar su laundry. Pero no 2666 que quizás es una cifra. ¡O la fecha 2666 en cuando todo so acaba! También solucionamos el misterio aunque cuando ya lo lees eso no es lo que importa.

Uno limbro impresante en su escala y esfuerzo que dice mucho y te hacer sentir pequenos momentos de éxito y tristeza. Pero es libro para super lectores y yo si que muchas veces me encontré algo como un tarea. Pero quizá ese es el punto? Porque cuando yo lei la ciento y pico descripción de como Maria de Viaje etc etc se encontró muerta por esto y esto y yo no sentí nada menos apuro, quizás eso dice algo de mi como lector.

En verdad quiza se lo leo en ingles se me parece mejor? O no? Hace tanto tiempo que leo en mi lenguaje nativo que si en verdad se necesita practica. 

Semi Empty Lots

Out in the suburbs there are seemingly random chain hotels and motels hugging the sides of the highway where woods used to be just a decade ago. I understand the practically of these (people need somewhere to stay while zipping on I90) but they bunch up in clusters. 

Red Roof Inn

Days Inn

Super 8

And a variety of flavors of Holiday Inn.

All within eye lines of each other.

Do these many people choose to stay overnight in Westlake? Pepper Pike? St. Clairsville? Blue Falls? 

People must be clamoring to stay downtown but just can't find a space, I guess?

Or these places are meant to be safety valves for sudden and hidden disasters. Affluence hides crimes behind hunter Green doors and brass knockers. Likewise for awkward exchanges. 

Your wife finds someone else's hair tie on your night stand.

The hot water heater blows.

The rent check bounced.

That is what the place over on Wood and 90, exit 60, is for. 

Or these are places just for the awkwardness. Meeting a lover? Hiding from private detectives? 

Or, my favorite, these places provide relief from fleeing families of the paranormal. This whole place is just loaded with people like the family in Poltergeist. 

I drive by these places each day and imagine all the stories of the few cars in the lot. One that stuck out was a beat conversion van with bubbled out rear windows and Massachusetts plates. Has a sticker that hints to raising Bernese Mountain dogs. Maybe the person in 209 has a pack of dogs in there? Eating strips of precooked bacon and watching Showtime.

summer panic

I recently interviewed for a job and got a few rounds in before they said, "No thanks" Which was fine because, even if offered it, no way I could take it. Would be a pay cut what with upending my whole schedule and childcare. 

This then made me realize I'm stuck in my current gig for what will effectively be forever. Coupled with the start of the summer time busy season and this whole long weekend has just been one of gnawing dread. 

I'll flutter with housework doing four giant loads of laundry and then folding it in a late night marathon session. Or pickup the endless sticks the basswood tree spits out in the back yard. No dirty dish sits for too long. All this so I can work at work and be content that "at least the house work is done!"

Or I'll go in early to the office or an a weekend to knock out some of the endless building stuff it takes to transition. Peel stickers off the floor and scour away the chiaroscuro halo from the floor with Goo Gone. Move boxes from one office to another. Vacuum the spot the custodian ignored. All so when the work week begins I be prepared for the middle management curveball. We need this budget re done. Fuck around in all these spreadsheets. Fix my phone, my computer, my anything.

Or I'll day dream hard. Imaginary conversations with everyone from high school teachers to my kid's dentist about how this is how it will be. I'll narrate being a long haul trucker (when I'm really just driving to fix to someone's phone) and debate the best truck stop boiled peanuts in rhe northern Florida panhandle. Daydream adventures with everyday people. These sometimes slip into blunter fantasies. If you've read the blog then, trademark, the hottest thing on earth is women with swords and I spin up scenarios for people right out of the pulp pages. This is often people from work who I hype into scintillating heroes capable of hacking a main frame while being shot at, looking great in the whole process by the way, even though we all know each other as flawed.

I'll read or play video games. Go for silly little walks but the only thing that effectively blunts that summer panic are the above.  I may not make it another ten years.

Rain Musing

May 28th made itself a summer day that felt more like a late March afternoon. Just this soaking sheets of biting drops that fell along every axis. A co worker told me about the benefits of keeping a pair of rubber boots in your office. For days like these where the office requires me to stand idle outside in all weather. And in our cookie crumb cracked parking lots the boots are fun to step with in the deep collected pools of rain water. Where a sewer drain moves slowly and the water gathers all above the grate. The rain makes the pool deeper and dip the boots below the growing surface.

The day also had a persistent wind that constantly hummed but sometimes gather all its strength into a rigorous and humbling blast. I am screaming at people two feet away getting blasted and soaked to the cellular level. This is the kind of wet that ruins tools left out in the elements. Not the every day wear of sweat or idle dew. The moisture in the thick weeds my hoe cuts through? No problem. The ten minutes of rain? Disastrous.

And it's cold in a nagging way like a low grade fever. It's OK you think when really it is wrong and totally out of place. A sign of a washed out weekend to come. Ever rising sweels that deny the ferry boats and part time sailors hopefully for a new summer on the water.

Taping My Shows

 As a teen, every Sunday, my mother would order me to tape the broadcast of Sex and the City on the Spanish HBO channel. This was during the show's original run and I was fortunate enough to have the cable box in my room. She had a VCR but not that cable box so every Sunday I would tape these episodes with Carrie and Big and the gang dubbed over by a mish mosh of Mexican voice actors. 

Mami felt her life was like "Sex and the City." I am just like Carrie!

But, I don't recall her ever watching the tapes. Sitting down in front of the TV in her room in the bright blonde wooden hobby cabinet and commiserating with the girl gang. The only person who ever did watch it was the Chilean neighbor, a macho car salesman guy who adored Samantha. "She is a woman who is like a man and that is funny," he would say as he grabbed the fresh tape each Monday afternoon. I think he watched it for the brief nudity which always felt to me like drinking Coke Zeros for the sake of sugar. That is working very hard for a fantasy. 

Mami had a girl gang. 

Las Cuatro A's or The Four A's

Angela (that's Mami), Amanda, Adel and. honestly I forget the fourth one. She may not have existed. Maybe it was a floating person who swapped in depending on when they are available. "Hey its Thursday and Albertina can't come so its going to be Alicia. She can get us into Egipto!" Egipto being a club right on the business side of the Condado lagoon modeled after pop ancient Egypt right out of Stargate. It was better than Shanahan's, a faux Irish bar closer to our home and much more popular with younger people, including folks form my highschool who would run into Mami. 

This is the time where Mami invented the Madras drink. A Cosmopolitan with a dollop of frozen orange juice concentrate swizzled into the glass. Sex and City meets the Floribama Shore type drink. I say invented because she introduced me to it when she asked me to make her one. It could have been something she overheard or some bartender at Egipto told her but here is the recipe

1 ounce vodka (Mami's favorite brand, actually Puerto Rico's favorite brand is Finlandia)

1 ounce Cointreau (needs to be Cointreau. I had no clue there were other brands of triple sec until an adult and then holy smokes is Cointreau expensive)

2 ounce cranberry juice cocktail

0.5 of lime juice

dollop of frozen orange juice concentrate. Dip a butter nice into the cardboard can and just prick the surface. Maybe size of a red bean.

Mix the first four with ice in a shaker and pour into a glass. Then swirl in the orange juice concentrate

Validation

 At some point my main motivation for the day to day became a pointed and petty need to be validated. This has to be the start of some mid life crisis. The time where I start writing blog posts about how the pretty young new hire wants to date me, the overweight pushing 40 guy with anxiety and a high blood sugar level. I mean, why wouldn't she, amiright. Or my hobbies become obnoxious, supported by an ability to know spend disposable income on the periphery of them. 

I once worked with someone, we will call him Steve, that, at this age, got really into dieting and working out. But not for muscle mass or tone. Just slimness. I could pick up Steve. A pair of 5th grade girls could pick up Steve. So, Steve, looked like a solitary carnation tossed into a novelty coffee cup. Just tall and skinny and there. But, Steve, he never shut up about his diet. "I lost 20 lbs this summer. I don't know if you noticed. Just by cutting out sweets and breads. Lots of veggies and fiber."

"Hey, did I show you my fitness tracker app on my phone. I just use it for calorie counting"

I once was asking Steve about some receipt he missed and he was stretching on the floor the whole time. "Yeah I will get that to you," while he comes up from a cobra pose.

That is how that manifested for Steve. For me, its the little like or heart emojis in the work chat Slack. "You are always saving me," said someone in a Zoom chat and I just about melted.

Professionally, I don't need the "attaboy"s. But personally, oh yeah, please because if not then I know y'all hate me and we will for sure have to fight. 

Influencer

Yo know, I am somewhat of an influencer myself.

My job is one of those mile wide inch deep type things. I juggle disparate responsibilities usually only reserved for start up businesses or some wacky sitcoms where somone is trying to do two jobs at once to save money for a sweet first car.

"Hey, I clean the toilets and balance the books! I can have it all!"

One responsibilities is writing many things to be ignored.

Email on how to submit your time off requests? Oh yeah that will get deleted.

A little quick card to keep on your desk with rhe number to the tech line? Yeah, that will become a coaster.

Explaining how to handle the visit from the landlord or that by end of the year I'm moving the copier to the third floor? Yeah, I'm going to get a "no one told us."

But I've realized that my voice had a certain fondness for words. Almost like verbal tics (the "ummms" and "likes") save its key words that others then slip into communication back. Or even, in a true win, their own language.

For example, wonky.

Which is use to succinctly express that something is fucked up. 

Another is zaniness. Which I use to denote just general inefficiency and levels of eye rolling pain. "Oh, I'm here on anti zaniness duty" meaning I'm here to be the adult.

Another is yoink. To denote stealing something. I know somone is stealing disinfectant wipes from the supply room but yoink sounds so whimsical. Its me turning the Patagonian Toothfish onto Chilean Sea Bass. Except with office petty theft. Note that if you say "yoink" while yoinking something then it is OK! But somone has to hear you (hence affirming you are ok with stealing so maybe don't do it, ok).

One I am trying to do is ZOMG. Which one pronounces zohmygod with a strong listing style z.

ZOMG there is cake in the break room!

Things like that.

Non Fiction Writing Prompt-Favorite Superhero Part 2

 Like I said in Part 1, if you had to put a gun to my head and say who is my favorite superhero then it is Daredevil. 

I appreciate the "down to the earth"* of the DD series. Beyond the goofy (A blind guy has powers and can "see" with sound and he was trained by a blind ninja master and his main enemy is both an ancient order of ninjas AND a guy who is very good at throwing things) it feels like it could be real. Someone swashbuckling on rooftops, dodging bullets and stringing up criminals. DD just wants to protect a neighborhood and, for the most part, sticks to that. The comic is very kinetic and acrobatic something envious for an aging professional fat kid like me. 

DD also caries a billy club cane that sometimes writers will give that "snikt" sound effect to as he lets it loose. The same metallic bite a collapsible baton makes as it unfurls from the handle. This is a powerful bit of onomatopoeia. An amazing sound like skateboard wheels on pavement or the swish of a perfect basketball shot that is often dominated by Wolverine but you can actually hold the baton and make that sound. And then jump off your aunt's roof into the pool below without pretending giant steak knives are coming out your knuckles. 

Did I mention I began reading Daredevil* regularly just as some damn luminaries were working on it? The earlier books, save for the Frank Miller and Romita Jr., stuff were pretty damn silly. DD's has a a ding dong rogues gallery that includes Purple Man and Stilt Man and Gladiator and Bullseye, who I know is the big bad but goodness its a guy who is good at throwing things! The Netflix series did much to revitalize these characters, save Stilt Man, who I guess is still at large. 

Brian Michael Bendis and then Ed Brubaker gave it this super power noir style with even a bit of swashbuckling and then lots of pulp especially with pencils by Alex Maleev and David Aja and Michael Lark. 

This whole multi year run felt gritty and painful without being pornographic nor derogatory. The panels were all about what you didn't see and then how the plot unfolded until it broke DD's mind. Which is never good because when DD's mind break he goes absolutely berserk. DD runs are so well defined by the 3-4 pages of him just dive bombing onto people's cars and reaching in to grab some thug or crooked cop by the scruff of their collar. 

DD is a guy who gets beat a ton but somehow gets right back up so why can't you root for someone like this?

Also around this time I read the new Blue Beetle albeit only briefly but glad that is being made into a movie. By a Puerto Rican guy, to boot.

And the Brubaker/Aja Iron Fist reboot which is also an amazing 12-15 runs of comics albeit I think Danny Rand should be retconned to be actually Asian and not some white kid whose whole family (and his predecessor before him) just stumbled into a mystical kung-fu city. 

I also read bits of pieces of the Kirkman Invicible book but this was in little waves, primarily made of Free Comic Book issues, but still felt great and fresh yet satisfyingly familiar. The Amazon series is fantastic albeit I will admit I'm less hyped as each episode goes along. 

And the latest, as we get closer to 2021, is the Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel which is a great Buffy like mix of teen drama and super heroics and mad comic fandom plus clashing cultures. I am excited this character is getting her eventual time in the sun.

As an adult, someone with even less time for books and deep dives,*** I appreciate Captain America (also had a brief an wonderful Brubaker run including the "death" of the character) for the representation of what our country can/should be. 

Honestly, ill dig on any superhero. Power Rangers are superheroes and so are characters like John Wick. Closest thing to a common mythos we have**** and since the geeks have won (This is pop culture now. Call someone with an opinion on Iron Man a nerd and you just exposed yourself as a hack) a great vector for daydreaming. 

*Relatively. I think there is a canon issue where DD runs a pickup trucking into Thanos or Ultron or some other big galactic level baddie. Also, the usual bs of comics like resurrection and being able to afford to live in Manhattan. 

**At this time I also regularly ready Green Lantern books because I wanted to like the hero but Hal Jordan is a boring space cop and I don't care much for galactic stuff so why was I reading this? Note at this time they were also printing Green Lantern: Rebirth which is a great starting point and also an amazing book. Too bad Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Scriver became problematic particular Van Scriver who IS Comicsgate and budding digital Nazi.  This also kept going during the Sinestro Corps War so yeah some big dumb issues. Shame because it is a cool idea and other lanterns (John Stewart and Kyle Rayner) really deserve bigger pieces of the pie.  

***When I couldn't afford too many comics and the tiny Town of Ulysses, New York library had run out of graphic novels for me to scour, I would "read" comics by diving into the Wikipedia wormhole of synopsis and then piece together panels from other blogs and google searches. This is the comics reading equivalent of making your own little latter by pouring ten sugars and 15 creams into your espresso shot.  Every May, the Ithaca, NY comic shop would do a big back issue sale where most things were a dollar and here is where I loaded up on piece meal fixes. 

****I want to say superheroes are American mythical figures but its hard because folks like Hercules and Prometheus don't have billion dollar IPs behind them. 

Non Writing Prompt-Favorite Super Hero-Part 1

 In the last week, this here blog has seen a SURGE in readers. Going from one to a mind melting three! I don't know who these other people are* but they inspired me to write. And, write. Not just bust out the little navel gazing asides but dig up a prompt (This time a creative non fiction one because who knew those existed and I can't write fiction to save my life) to slay that word count. And, if this brief reverie could not shimmer even stronger, the prompt is

"What is your favorite super hero and why?"

So, the short version, if you put a gun to my head would be Daredevil/Matt Murdock. There. But, this is supposed to be longer and some what of a memoir. While its dismissive to inexorably link superheroes and comics, they are connected and comics is a big part of why I began blogging. Bored while at a snoozy job in the mid 2000s I found the Daves Long Box Blog and I wanted to be Dave and blog and have folks hang on every post. That lead me to find other funny and active bloggers like Chris Sims and Sean Baby (The only person Ive ever written a fan letter to) and well that made another dream. All that said if  you are reading this you have a high tolerance for pain** so read on for the long version which i've broken up into several parts.

Also, this post has got images so make sure to hover over them for extra content!

My earliest "strong"*** super hero memory is the animated 90's Spiderman which, first, kicked ass and, second, was hard to find until Disney Plus launched. The show was serialized, which felt so weird for a kids show, so if you missed one episode you missed a ton. But, don't worry there was also tons of exposition. This show had this amazing synthy-rocky theme song that was just some guy screaming "SPIDERMAN! SPIDERMAN! RADIOACTIVE SPIDERMAN!" into a Moog machine and blocky computer animated backgrounds over detailed character drawings. No one ever mentioned that Harry Osborn had this weird shaved head look that ended in a widow's peak but also featured blood read horizontal highlights. I swear its an animation error that they just said whatever too. It was the 90s and people had three sweaters on at once sometimes!

 This also began my love for all the Spiderman things albeit I have never regularly read a Spiderman book. 

Next strong memory may piss some folks off but its Sailor Moon. This whole post, for how old these properties are****, will date me right in the late 90s and early 00s and that is when Toonami premiered and..."Holy shit do you see these cartoons from Japan. They are so hardcore!"

A really good friend of mine loved Sailor Moon so I watched it because I wanted something else to chat with him about and it also kicked off the Toonami block so yeah lets watch it while waiting for Dragon Ball or Gundam. And, while it was the latter seasons of Sailor Moon***** that got a bit more "fan servicey" yes I was not immune to the girls fighting monsters in mini skirts. What I love about Sailor Moon, especially if I've gotten older, is how both ridicously goofy it is and yet also heart breaking epic it can be. One adventure they are fighting a monster made out of a living vacuum cleaner and the next Sailor Moon is slamming her fist on the ground willing existence itself to help her defeat Pharaoh 90. To then close, my aforementioned friend later came out as gay and told me how much Sailor Moon helped him with that. This was something lost on me at a younger age (Were you watching the same show, my man? Because i remember telling you that while I new it was more popular to say Sailor Mars was hotter I loved Serena all the way. Im basic! SORRY!") but seeing just how many others say the same (Something I didn't realize until the advent of Twitter and talking to people outside my tiny high school and college) makes me appreciate the show that much more. 

By this time it was around 2005-2006 and I lived in a town with a comic shop I could walk to so I started to regulars dabble in books. I am bit sheepish to admit it but the first books I bought regularly were the Ultimate series Marvel books. Something made even quirkier because by that time some of them were already a few years old.

The Ultimate Marvel series was a seperate Marvel continutiy that much more closely followed the then nascent Marvel movies. So, Peter Parker got his powers from a genetically engineered Spider, Nick Fury looked exactly like Sam Jackson and Wolverine didn't wear yellow. The idea made sense with the movies making so much bank but the Ultimate universe felt very down and took itself way too serious. It also gave us this awful exchange

Ultimate universe did give us Miles Morales which then lead to the best movie ever so there is that. And while there never was a solo Ultimate Daredevil, at the time some real solid writers were working on that book...

Stay Tuned For Part 2!

*I don't know any of the readers. I don't pay for the fancy Blogger tools that let you view by IP. And these were hot back in 2006-2007 when I first began blogging. I am about 15 years behind on the times

**And typos.

***And by strong I mean having an attachment or commitment to reading this book frequently. Or watching this show. I was a kid when the original Death of Superman hit and while it was quite the zeitgeist moment, I didn't really like Superman books or the character so largely avoided it. Albeit, went a whole day with my sister and her boyfriend, Antonio, driving to shops to find a copy, going as far south as the second biggest city on the island, Ponce, which was maybe an hour from home. I had nothing better to do and he for sure wanted that book. Likewise those old Fleischer Superman shorts are awesome but, again, not my jam. Finally, to admit some further 90s kid crimes, I never watched the XMen animated series (I don't dig Xmen much albeit I respect their influence on comics and culture. They are like the Beatles of comics) or the Batman Animated Series. Oddly enough I did watch the Superman Animated Series but that was because the creators way objectified Supergirl (She has a crop top and mini skirt! I think her legs are longer than her torso!) and I was but a tween child.

****Barring the blood sugar or cholesterol killing me, it is very likely that in my lifetime I could see 100 year celebration of Batman, Superman, Wonderwoman, Spiderman, etc. 

*****And before anyone tries to reverse gatekeep me. Yes, I mostly watched the bad DIC dub of Sailor Moon and yes it is really hard for me to call them by their Japanese names even though I know that is the proper terminology. And, no, I have never seen Stars because that got dubbed by the time I became an old man. Or Crystal which really did not seem aesthetically pleasing to me. That said, I do like some of those newer slower FPS anime like the Pacific Rim: The Black series that just came out. 

O in the ABC

Let me repeat some things, even though I know that is not ideal. But, you know I imagine everything as a video game. As a battle between people transforming henshin style into heroes and legends. Ill see someone walking down the street and its a cloud of sparking colors behind them. Or a staccato flip book image series of them taking each step until its a long repeating image like a glitching computer monitor. This lends me to these high beats per minute songs and electronic stuff often relegated to sub levels of cool. As if anyone can define me what is cool or what the hell adult alternative is any more. And Jay Z's "On to the Next One" is one of those songs, made to any of these kinetic and imaginative moments.

On to the next one...meaning sandwiches.

On to the next one...meaning problems. Because as soon as I put our one fire at work I get another one. 

On to the next one...meaning little errands ticked off the back of the envelope.  Milk, tortillas, grapes, yup got them all.

This is also the song playing as I walked into the pawn shop next to the cycling gym. A lot of these ABC Songs are the Soul Cycle style jams. Funny that I haven't ridden a bike since sophomore year of college and have the body of someone already past the point of no return. And I keep my head low and eyes down because this song and the gym will make me think of all the people at work that I know use this gym.

I hoped I wouldn't run into them. Or be caught in eye line. But there is this song and I can imagine them tossing their arms off the handles to tie back hair into an errant high ponytail. Three colored sneakers with the little air cushions inside of them and snake skin printed purple yoga pants. Please don't dismiss this as pure attraction. Its not "horny on main" all the time. Its that awkwardness of meeting people who are essentially strangers outside the usual confines. Imagine seeing a moose in a Mediterranean chaparral by the sea. Like that. The weird difference between them trying to get better and stay healthy and me trying to sell a gold ring and hoping there is enough to then get a bagel on the way home. Like that.  They need to start playing "Why Can't We Be Friends" because I want to make it out of here un embarrassed. 

A Bumper For Being Bored

 Sometimes a coworker will accessorize a spring dress with a leather or jean jacket and it fires about a dozen tongue twisting mental images. I want to say "You look nice" but I would say that each day in the spring until it gets creepy. So I then imagine it as one of the lost reveries that punctuate my meetings. The forced phony kindness of listening to a client's story. The gnawing dullness of circular discussions that go back two predecessors into the past.

And Jacket Lady will then materialize with boots and some elbow length forearm guards and a sword. And her hair tied up in these tight braids running the back of her head. Her then she slide down the zig zag railings on the heels of her shoes and leaps onto the back of a futuristic motorcycle. One of those angular items like the cycle from Akira where everything is nestled into the central chassis. And I then imagine that Akira style slide dragging the sword behind her with her off hands so there is smoke, spark, and heats. And she circle the lot looking badass and waylaying rows of entrenched spiked cyborgs that have dug in between cars. 

There is that guy (what's his face from state compliance?) and his pearly white Subaru Outback next to the minivan driven by the single guy in finance. Subaru guy crouches behind his wheel well when the cyborg brandishes a laser but then comes this blur. Red from the dress, black from the leather jacket, blue from the bike and finally that white hot sunbeam of the sword. Then parts scattered on the lot.

This is the stuff I think about when bored. Jacket Lady cartwheeling off the bike and then slashing and dodging away the bits and blows of this crab squid kaiju. A monster that just burst from underneath the playground across the street and began catapulting the ailanthus trees growing from in between each house lot. And after the slicing there are sticky pools of slime on the pavement and Jacket Lady standing in the middle, panting but never flustered, with the leather epaulets on her jacket unflapped and always looking poised. Always looking nice. 

Playing

 I wish there was a single picture, meme, or GIF to describe how my kids play with one another. With other kids, they are total people pleasers but when together its a mix of manic spiraling aggressiveness bookended by spinning giggle attacks or hot hot tears.

I called them over on time, when i was on the stoop and asked "Are you guys having fun? Is this fun for you?"

And they said, "Yes, but not so much. Lets go back inside."

First, there is only a semblance of a game. There are pieces. Madcap Lego creations and cool shape sticks and piles of rocks. Stuffed animals especially the myriad Beanie Boo stuffies.  They are the original Beanie Babies made a bit larger and with dilated cat high on cat nip eyes. 

And the kids will clutch these in the crook of their arm or tucked into their shirts while they prowl around each other uttering the same cadence.

Now, pretend...

"Now, pretend that I have super powers."

"Now, pretend that in this story I am married but my wife isn't here."

"Now, pretend they got hurt."

"Now, pretend the wheel on his car fell off."

Now, pretend, pretend, pretend, pretend.

Its playing by going two steps forward and one step back.

Kid 1: "Ok. Now, pretend that I have a laser on my ship. Ok...ZAAAAPPPPP!"

Kid 2: "Ok, now pretend that they didn't get shot they jumped in a hole. JUMP!"

Kid 1: "No! Pretend that the hole was closed up by a monster and..."

Kid 2: "Now, pretend that they dug using their claws."

When I was young my dad would tease me by saying McDonalds, in the fast food joint, as McDougals and it got under my skin for some dumb reason. Like when you go to someone's house and they hang the toiler paper wrong or having dinner at a friend's house and the shock when they say grace before a meal. Maybe, my heathen family should?

In any case, I like to channel my dad and just iterate to the kids "Pretend, pretend, pretend, pretend" which drives them insane but serves them right since playing is more a stylized kid kabuki. 

There is also a dance to this. A sort of prowling West Side Story bit where they circle each other and also bounce from end to end. The couches at opposing ends of the living room. The ends of the driveway. A certain pile of sticks in the yard. With all their gear, particularly the sticks, which are often dragged because they got armloads of Ash Dragon and Asia and Santa Gangster Snowman stuffed animals, its a baby war dance.

The ritual ends when one decides to just say fuck it and declare themselves out. Note, this can often be me because its inane and non-sensical. "Can you guys just play. Instead of saying "Now, pretend" maybe just try He jumps, you jump. She flies, you dig underground!"

My kids need no ball. They just need their chant and a wide enough sidewalk to keep them at bay. 

Saving this space

 Above the gym door, twenty feet elevated from the padded mat wall pads, there are these faint star bursts of permanent stains. Its a fancy holo stamp of water stains and grime etched into the brick. Around one of them are dirty, gummy peppered globs of some red sticky shit. Someone, years ago in the 90s, took a fistful of gummi bears and just catapulted them against the walls. And they have been there, for nearly 30 years, digging into the wall and pulling away from their edges. 

Thirty years ago there were arguments over who could clean them. 

"That is not my job," said everyone

"My union contract says I can't get on a ladder," said the cleaner.

"My union contract says I don't clean," said the custodian.

So, thirty years later, volunteers scrub away at the splotches. Using long reach scrubby pads called Doodle Bugs and buckets of warm water swimming with Bar Keeper's Friend. BKF is the cleaning truth. These are the products one will use to save this space. Whether we turn it into a new school or wonky wide hallway apartment buildings the survival kit includes

BFK, because see above

WD40, to make things move when they don't

Duct Tape, to make things stop when they don't

A convertible screwdriver that flips between flat head and Phillips

A wrecking bar for all the abandoned furniture that needs smashing before one can drag it to the dumpster. 

Extension cords

Looped mop heads and a bucket for each floor.

A broom on each floor and a broom tucked into each corner office. One should never be less than 25 feet from a broom. 

With all these we will strip the veneer off railings and banisters. Cover up friable asbestos and go check on it later. Mend steam leaks and dripping pipes until we get those guys arguing over union contracts.

A Little Bit Louder

 In a circular bit of logic, I was asked to find a headset when what it really was a portable amplifier someone wears on their hip. And you look like a jungle cruise tour guide (all one needs is the pith helmet and khaki shorts) going around the office chatting with clients. Crouching down in front of a circle of kids on the green carpet and enunciating out your vowel sounds. 

And everything blasts out from your hip.

"Hey, why is your belt talking?"

"Did your butt just say 'I will follow up on that?'"

I advised this person to possibly talk a bit louder. if not, I will need to look at some concert style AV. "What works for Robert Plant would work for us!" said the boss. Indeed, it does.

A Note On Winter Prep

I am sending this memo to remind everyone of few winter reminders. How we (and the landlord) operate the office park is unique. This isn't expecting any of you to change behavior necessarily more just an FYI.

First, snow is only shoveled when it is above 2 inches and then in 2 inch increments. So, Jimmy, the main super, he'll shovel at 2, then 4, then 6, etc. Never at three or five. That is just a no go.

Second, we don't use road salt. The owner's son was killed in a Morton Salt mining accident under Lake Erie two years ago and we changed. Actually, the owner uses very little salt. That kind of deep hurting. The owners blonde pressure is phenomenally goof beacuse of this. 

So, no salt. Instead we use sand for traction and a beet melting brine made from discarded pickling production. Hey, it works. But it makes the soles of your shoes pink. Still, be careful.

Third, some rooms are very hot and some are very cold. Not much in-between. Dress in layers. Someone once asked (I assume joked) if they could wear their swimsuit. And I answered, "If you are ok with that, sure. Would others be? I am not sure. I cant answer that. While on the clock at least." Then I made that "ba dum dsh" sound with my mouth. Like drums and cymbals at the comedy show.

Fourth, and finally, the copiers and computer monitors and lights all generate a certain amount of latent heat. And since we are now running two shifts we leave some of these idle and on to help keep just above freezing. Still don't make unnecessary copies. It is 0.00028 of a cent per page!

Oh, one last one! We deployed plastic stakes to identify what each parking space is for. 

Orange is just for parking

Yellow is for eating lunch while idling. Once done go to an orange space

Red spaces are for crying.

Purple spaces are for discrete meet ups. No, not that! Like selling an old Pyrex serving dish on FB marketplace and not trying to get murdered in the process. Just to go a purple space

Black spaces are like orange spaces but for VIPs.

Spaces with no markers are still being deducted by the parking committee.

Enjoy the winter!

Something Scary: The Poughkeepsie Tapes

 I heard about this movie on Twitter, in one of those like baiting posts from a seemingly random Internet big shot

"Tell me the last scary movie you saw. Answer with a gif"

And i recognized most of the scenes save for an odd one of this funny masked man rising up from behind a bounc woman. In that same chain someone responded "OMG Poughkeepsie Tapes" and I did some digging.

Sounded like an odd almost underground film. The kind of stuff you only heard about from friend of friends. How could this exist in the era of digitally addled cynicism?

The premise is interesting. A found footage mockumentary where a serial killer tapes everything (and I mean....everything) he does for 100s of murders over a decade long span. People said it was brutal. And its on Amazon Prime? Lets fucking go!

And its a dud. I try not to be too harsh because look at me. Look at this blog. How dare I challenge anyone who takes the time to create something? Be that brave and organized. I make posts about how I am in my feelings read by one, maybe two, if I am lucky, people on the Internet.

But this movie is a dud. For however unnerving the material (he kills a couple, beheads the husband and stuff it inside the wife!) it also is boring. Oh, yup, they are going to get killed. Got it. Imagine watching all the re-enactments on Unsolved Mysteries except without the tension or Robert Stack and you get this. At one point someone describes a brutal murder "He was gutted. Cut from his anus to his throat. Then his intestines were yanked out and wrapped around his neck. Then his genitals were removed and stuffed in a drawer."

WOW! THat would be something to see. In our movie. Which is supposedly so gory and over the top. But...nope! More lame Netflix style documentary interviews and torture porn. 

Not sure but there just seems to be no menace. Maybe because we "know" its a documentary? Its like watching a gory news clip in history class.  "Get on with it" is how I felt most of the time. Privelege check...maybe I would feel different if I were a woman or if lived alone or any other compounding factor that would emphasize the brutality of all this. There are rape/torture scenes that I feel are derivative of actual unnerving scenes (Some key Clockwork Orange scenes) so be warned but they are still dumb. The whole thing feels like a big bit on a Sega CD game. A movie version of Night Trap. 

Movie also has that "found footage" wonkiness. Who is filming all this? How can a guy run at full tilt while holding a camera and also stabbing/gutting someone? You ever have to upload all your photos from your SD card to your cloud drive? Has you ever had to muck around with VHS tapes, folks? What a pain.  This all takes place in the early 90s so its for sure a big old camcorder. And this guy some how fooled the police, had peak cardio/strength, time and resources to do all this? At one point the movie even says who odd it is he can choke out a person with one hand while holding a camera in front of them to get the shot. Isn't that something? Yeah...it is so tell us about it! 

Dud. Don't take me for being some gore fan but if it can't be good then make it juicy. 

One legitimately creepy scene around the one hour mark but it's 30 seconds in a plodding story.

This Story is Gross

I can't get the image of the college fitness center out of my head. The tall floor to ceiling wrap around class held by an arched steel awning. Then the grated metal floor that you had to walk over to enter. It was a hazard in the winter when all that held you on was the grit from the salt outside. The fading dawn orange lockers and then all the heather grey of both the upholstery and the people there. 

Why this lingers I am not 100% sure except I wrote an awful short story set there focused on a petty infatuation I had on a girl from two semesters ago. And in peer review someone said that "I can't NOT see the fitness center here and is that what you want?" That stuck with me, even 20 years later. Tiny cutting phrases and incidents. Ever see those memes where something awkward or dumb you did years ago still hovers in your head and eats away at your sleep? Moments like those. 

My first day at a new job when someone, one of the subordinates that you need to both serve and direct, told me "You are supposed to sit there" pointing to an empty office. 

These moments are also artful dodges when the universe aligned to SAVE you from embarrassment. Here is a nasty one. I apologize but once I spent the day at my girlfriend's place because my apartment was being repaired. She wasn't there. She was at her job waitressing but she had two roommates with whom I was civil but still terrified of interacting. I hid in her room, reading and binging DVDs, nursing a baby fever and knawing stomach ache. No clue what happened but the ache became a throbbing roil and I had to race to the bathroom to drop every toxic thing I had. One of those horrible situations where you shit and vomit in short succession and beg to die from the floor. 

Once done, I felt better and must have stumbled back to her room. This elapsed time felt infinite. The clock ticked backward and the sun slid at a pace so slow it could not be defined except with advanced trigonometry. I rehydrated myself from the multiple Nalgenes we kept idle around the room and then went again to the bathroom to discover it all still there.

I had not flushed.

Like a fucking kid.

Like a fucking drunk.

The physical discomfort left replaced by an inky swamp boil spiral of death. Had her roomamtes noticed? Maybe they didn't? That's why it is still there. or maybe they did and died of absolute horror so that when my girlfriend comes back there are the bodies of Maria and Carolyn on the floor?

This time I flushed and also reached under the sink to pry the scant cleaning chemicals stored there and quickly cleaned the scene. Scrubbing bubbled under the rim and into the bowl itself with fingernails digging into every surface. Fuck fuck fuck. 

And...I got away with it. A story no one knows until this blog. Thank you, universe for that cosmic coincidence. 

Returning Brief

 Its been almost a full year but we are finally politically clear to return to the office. I say politically because there is always that inherent risk. Nothing is guaranteed. These are risks minimized and further minimized until difficult to statistically measure. Until quantifying them becomes less about an amount and more about an explanation.

Not that I am afraid. I would lick all the men's room door handles to be back at work right now. In saying that I recognize my privilege but this is also my tiny blog so let me be so brazen. Honest enough to say I care about everyone's safety but mine is mine and lets go. 

Don't get me wrong. The return will be insane. Filled with second guessing and "Im just saying" statements. Trust in God, if you believe in one. Or trust in your peers and your gear. But, anyway hold on.

However, I am excited for a few things. Getting steps in. I don't think I have broken 10K steps a day since the fall and find myself awkwardly running in place during video game load screens. My main work crush (I have a few) has a new hair color which I have only seen in passing on Zoom calls. Rather be frank and awkward about it from six feet away. Look forward to no more juggling of schedules and needing to find tiny windows when my kids are busy to knock something out. Just that hum drum rat race pace absent for the last near year. 

Watch out....its some haikus

Its more bad poetry, everyone! I read my son a book with a brief haiku chapter and it inspired me to dabble at this elegant artform.  

Frost left the forest

The crack of frozen amber

Melts into a void

 

Beyond the back shed

Frayed plastic tarp wilts

Under ice sun hurt

 

Heat pours out flowing

Wound in the dirt cut sliced

Current grabs panic

Tamagotchi

 Its a tragedy when my daughter's Tamagotchi died. It does not prompt you to restart. No "Game Over" or "Continue" button. Instead there is a pastel LCD headstone with a cartoony ghost blurb hovering over it. It lingers on this indefinitely. A digital memento mori to scar you further. Let me take this "F" grade and just magnet it right onto the fridge, OK?

To clear this you need to manually reset the device to factory settings. Get a sharp skinny needle and depress a pin head button in the back. Doing this to your toys always feels both perverse and deftly maneuvered. First finding the appropriate sized tool by rooting through a junk drawer (I once supervised someone who called these "hell drawers" and if I am ever president I will advocate to change our language to include this) or idle toolbox. Or something sharp from a bathroom cabinet coffee mug jammed with razor handles, makeup handles, and eye lash curlers. "Make sure to save this," you tell yourself and put that along the little Philips head screwdriver and AAA batteries. 

You do the thing and get a brilliant beep and  start all over again. An elite move.

Women and Ghosts

 I'm that sucker the read EVERY book assigned for a class. To the point that it became a running gag throughout the first twenty something years of my life. 

My mother even said "Why bother reading all of the book? Everyone just reads the Cliffs Notes. Or watches the movies?!" And this, was and is still, quite true but I felt honor bound to always read these books. 

Only exceptions were The Count of Monte Cristo in the 10th grade. I took my mother's advice and read the Cliffs Note and then promptly bombed the test. A test the teacher delayed because everyone complained about needing more time to read it. Serves me right. I sat behind my long running crush Irma Arzola and spent too much time day dreaming. Whenever we had gym as our special (10th grade was the last year with pre-assigned specials. 11th and 12th were for AP classes) she wore her gym outfit all day and it was all short shorts and a t-shirt a bit too tight as to see the outline of her bra. 

The other exception was in college, junior year, when I took a classes called Revolutions, Rebellions and Revolts. Beyond the metal sounding name it was taught by a mustachioed Polish-American named Zenon Wasyliw that headed the history department.  Less real politik than history we just learned about the details behind Che Guevara, Mao, the overthrow of the Shah. And we learned about SOuth Africa and had to read Mandela's autobiography which was huge. Two telephone books huge. Guy had plenty to say even though he was in jail for so long! And I made it until maybe 3/4ths of it before I gave up. We had maybe a week of discussion about this. In May. For a twice a week Tuesday-Thursday class. Fuck it. Until Zenon called on me because "We know you read the book!" Luckily, I bull shitted my way through the answer, which, no one could call me out on because...only I read the book!

That all said...I can't remember much of these books. Blame age. Blame the authors. Blame video games, work, kids, tiki drinks, or my allergies, but instead it series of flashes. I read them and spent money on them, but few stick.

Those that did are predominatly short story collections. CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders. This is how you lose her by Junot Diaz. How to Breather Underwater by Julie Orringer. 

And Women and Ghosts by Alison Lurie which I thought was out of print but I'm basing that on how big a pain it was to get 15 years ago. But there it was on bookshop.org with other listing for late 80s early 90s brat pack literati. Jay McInerney and Bret Easton Ellis before they became dicks. That is my jam! 

These stories pop for their flow and lovely details without going overboard. All these stories center around people who are quite well off but are never un sympathetic even when receiving comeuppance. These are ghost stories after all. 

Like any anthology, the stories do vary in quality. "Counting Sheep" feels like one of the magical reasons type short stories I tried in the past. What sounds quite profound (he never wants to leave so he becomes a sheep!) is just goofy. This isn't a myth and its quite literal.

"The Highboy" is the story I remember and how it didn't become a goofy tv movie must be because Laurie had scruples. She only recently passed away in December 2020 so why not cash in for your kids or grandkids. Raul Julia in Street Fighter style! In it a malevolent piece of furniture looms literally in the living room and it makes you feel and think on how we anthromprmize things. Feel scorned and owned by what surrounds us.

"Ilse's House" and "Fat People" are also bangers. I know if I were a woman I would likely appreciate these better but if you want to read to learn about others then this is good one, my brothers.  Reading this gave me an early lesson that how I thought writing a female character worked was inherently wrong. Plenty of bad writing stopped right there. 

On The Road

Without planning it, the first two books I read in 2021 had to do with hobos.

You know, train hopping bindle and stick hobos. I guess somewhat appropriately both these books were reads of coincidence. 

Hobo by Eddie Joe Cotton and then Rock Candy Mountain Vol1 by Kyle Starks and Chris Schweizer.

Hobo is supposed to be creative non fiction albeit by the end some of the escapades seem too far fetched. Eddie Joe Cotton writes down all the scraps of paper and notesbooks he kept while traveling for a three week stretch in the 90s. The escapades do have a "one upper" feel to them especially once he reaches Las Vegas. These are books with very little women in them and in Hobo they are pure one dimensional piece of scenery. Shame as Eddie then does a great job describing all the filthy scabby people and situations he encounters. The railroad police (bulls) feel menacing and the term for a hobo camp stew "mulligan" is quite satisfying. Aside from Vegas no locale seems special and maybe that is the point. This books also has its one lexicon and an about 12 page glossary of tramp terms. A book without anything to say really but still an interesting if shallow look at this sub culture.

Rock Candy Mountain has a literal hallway prison fight. Like Daredevil. Thats's awesome!

Light and breezy with a cartoon pull style this is a fun comic series. 

Our hero is untouchable but a clever stipulation explains why (He made a deal with the devil, who is in the story, so that no ONE man can beat him) so it doesn't feel forced or dulling. It also has the FBI, a hobo mafia, and a bit of bare knuckle pop folklore. Has a boxer named Hundred Cat beacuse fighting him is like fighting a hundred cats This! That is awesome! This is a kinetic comic with lots of panels with little verbiage followed by then dense exposition. Perfect analogy for rumbling across the rails. 

After reading all this I do not want to abandon all material possessions and slither away. I do, however, now consider myself part of the elite that knows the difference between a hobo, tramp, and bum. Ill share it because if you are reading this then you must be extra wonderful!

A hobo travels and works. A migrant worker. 

A tramp travels and does not work. Wanderlust

A bum does not travel and does not work. Doldrums.