Last Day of School

I wanted a picture for this post. Taken years ago it was from the roof of my old school. On the last day of school I made it a thing to go on the roof and survey the two block radius. Couldn't find it, even with social media able to remember and show me everything else. Found my very first Instagram post  (An aquarium picture that said bubble bubble) but this picture must have only existed in my kind. My own custom made Mandela effect of a last day tradition.

Maybe it never happened? It wasn't documented and I am the only and quite biased narrator often this blog. 

No toe curling memories of teachers being up there and arching over the waist high parapet. I don't mind heights per se. It's edges that get me. The line between feet on the ground and ass over ankles. People will sometimes say "I just can't with this." 

Well, I can't with people peering over balcony edges or railings. Those teachers peering over the edge towards the park (The blue park in the students lingo) were all just forthcoming splats on the sidewalks. I could be the hero and swoop them into my arms but it's a 40-foot drop and I would freeze.

The roof's surface had the consistency of rising bread. Pockets of it poked slightly higher above the actual flashing between the brick and tar. Walking on it had a moon bounce vibe. A bouncy house just set to high chaotic randomness. You will fly one day and another you will roll an ankle.

There is a service ladder on the side of the building that people seem to prefer. In my memory that was never in play. Instead getting up meant climbing a ladder in a custodial closet, dodging a burning 150 watt bulb and a head first scoot over a gap to reach the crawl space under the roof hatch. There are dozens of crumpled packets of menthol cigarettes in this run. Oddball economy brands at the bottom of the shelf. Maverick, Newport, Kools

In the pic, the flag on the flag pole snaps into focus on the teal of a hundred kids playing field day are in soft relief. The Key and Terminal Towers poke up from the far horizon. There are sycamore trees as tall and old as the school building and the maneuvering SUVs and vans fighting for a place to park. 

That picture is gone. Or never existed. That tradition is over and likely people are safer for it. My hearts bends and breaks thinking about it exposed up in the air.

Typing

In order to stay warm, the landlord has set up an exchange (a neat nest of wires and a tiny network switch) to talk to a computer to talk to the furnace. The whole system has ears and it needs the sounds of a clicking keyboard. Write to stay warm. Say something and do not freeze.

I am not writing and selling stories to pay the heating bill. Instead the sound and effort makes the thermostat click and triggers the throaty sigh as the furnace comes to a head. 

I'll repeat the same phrase over and over. 

This is dumb. This is dumb. This is dumb

I want to take an axe to the computer. Yes fuck it.

I'll type out the alphabet. 

Luckily, mercifully, the whole setup lets you prime it. So type a thousand words and it will run a half day.

I'll re-write essays from middle school. Here is what I have learned about "Poseidon since that 7th grade paper. He really was all about horses. How did I miss that? Also, makes no sense"

I won't write scripts but instead the scripts to YouTube video reviews of nostalgic shows.

"Arclight is a slightly truly historic adventure series that ran two seasons between 2005 to 2007. It tells the fictionalized ghost hunting escapades of Charles Brush who really did invent the arclight"

I'll type out secrets. Regrets. Wishes

Throw into the void how I no call, no showed quit that sandwich sub shop. The teleplay beats of my fantasies. The things I've shoplifted. The times I've been cruel and never had a chance to make up for it. 

Every time I felt guilt averting eyes from the man outside the VA clinic drafting through traffic asking for a change. The time in college a professor thanked me for reading all the assigned books in the class when I missed one. Only half reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography. Swear he wrote 70 pages for every year he was imprisoned 

I'll type things that made my day or brought a change to it.

This lady wore a dress to the office today. What could that mean?

This house is all black and on the porch a man with gauged ears takes photos of Jack o lanterns and orange twinkle lights in May.

The purple glow of tomato houses across Lake Erie

I don't know where it is all logged. Or.if anyone reads them but it's there and kindling the furnace each morning and evening. During the day it is up to the cats to clatter over the keys.

Middle Management Memo

Hello Friends!

Short Version: Please answer the check questions honestly and we can all just get on with our days. This will be over soon.

Long Version: Someone left ChatGPT running for too long and now Catty Gupridner Thane shows up in both Slack and Teams and Discord.* And, no, it is not real but just real enough to merit the following protocols to make sure you are chatting with a real live co worker and not a pile of 1s and 0s on a Chechen server farm.

At random points of the day, when chatting in any of our varied communications methods you may get prompted to answer one of these:

1) Meme check! Share your most recent meme on your phone. No cheating!

2) What color is your underwear?

3) What is the word of the day? It will be written by Alexis in the lounge every morning. And if Alexis is out then Sam will. If both are out then pray you don't get this question!

4) Is a hot dog a sandwich?

5) Describe a city bus, please

6) Look out the window in room 307 and tell me what you see**

7) Are there any secrets this year?

8) Sing a song in the public domain

9) Name the best struggle food/meal

10) Type a backwards e

Knock one of those out and you can get working! Fail and you will either have to go open a ticket with helpdesk or wait 10 minutes for it to reset and try again. These will fool Catty beacuse, as a proto AI,*** it has no legs to walk, speakers to sing or eyes to see with then we will be golden.

The underwear question has been cleared with HR. It is being asked professionally so all good. 

The engineers are hard at work right now making sure we block out Catty who really can't hurt you but can send you meeting invites to clog up your schedule and send emails saying "per my last email" when the last one said the same thing.

That's it! 

-Middle Management

*Why the company allows for all three of these, I am not sure, but the free trials of one of then will end soon. Which one? Well you will have to guess! 

**If not close to 307 then get up and move to it. Failure to do so will cause your machine to explode!

***If something graduate students out of Adderall use when writing papers could be called an AI

Creeping Dread

We have no lack for tips to live longer. Get eight hours of sleep. Drink more water. Take the walk break from your desk. Less carbs, more fiber. Make boundaries. Say yes to no. Etc, etc, etc. 

Then there are those for our immediate safety. Avoid dark alleys and always lock your doors, especially the sliding glass window/doors on the ground floor.

Then the apocryphal. My mother always said to pour the rice into the boiling pot in the shape of a cross. In the name of the father, son, and the holy ghost. Dinner will be ready in 45 minutes. 

I always check the liminal spaces in my home. If I go to the restroom and that shower curtain is drawn, I will peak behind. Doesn't matter if its a desperate need to go so bad that a kidney stone is already biting back. Or, if I am visiting a home and it is an elaborate frou frou setup with cloth wallpaper print actual curtains over vinyl sheets. These are the shower curtains that also have that sash that hooks against the wall to tie back the curtains. Like in a living room.  Those will be popped to the side to make sure no one is there. 

Ill worry about women in walls. This is a deeply irrational paranoia and feels very foreign. Something like "The woman who lives in the cupboard? Yes, that is akin to the Japanese spirit the knocks whenever kids don't finish their milk." Its not based on anything in my past or present, save from any hole can come a spindly drowned cat looking woman that drips from drop ceiling panels. Or from the space behind the tub where the laundry chute ends up. I always check these spaces flipping on lights and flailing arms into them to shake out the double elbowed phantom from its hiding space. 

Note these monsters don't live in enclosed spaces (like under the floor boards or the room Harry Potter lived in at his aunt and uncle's) but in the open. The Ikea Kallax shelf with the fabric cubbies that slide in and out is a favorite. She will curl her fingers through and over the handhold and then push against the lip of the shelf to then wriggle out like a shadow coming into its final draft. 

Things My Mother Said

"At night, all cats are black." 

A version of "we are all in the same boat" or, in more wholesome versions, "all same on the inside." Usually used in an "it is what it is" sense of indifference. Also see "same difference"

"Blacker than an old telephone"

Means dirty. In reference to shared phone handles touched by thousands of hands. 

"Big bell, little town"

A loudmouth or trouble maker but who cannot back up their talk. The boy who called wolf meets Regina George.

"Everything in life has a solution except for death"

A version of "nothing is guaranteed save death and taxes" Said quite often like a mantra almost like inshallah among Muslim folks.

"That is a pretty cage for such an ugly bird"

Usually reserved for older mean driving expensive cars. An ugly or unpleasant person in possession of something lovely. Note that cannot be used to refer to a situation where say boyfriends is a 4 and girlfriend is a 10. Has to be a thing. Can also apply to houses or plum jobs.

"Peaches and cream"

Rich and arrogant. Never said in Spanish but always in English but pronouncing cream as cleem.

"From any hole comes a mouse"

An ominous phrase meaning problems can arise anywhere. Usually used before checking something again or emphasize passive aggressive concern for something already solved.

"To swallow cables"

Always used as a descriptor to an event or situation. Ie, this party is to swallow cables. Means bored and a painful defeating boredom at that. 

"It's dying of laugther"

Something not in use and stored away is "dying of laugther." Always used pointedly to emphasize how something was a waste of time, money or effort. The skateboard the kids wanted and never rode...it is dying of laughter in the garage

Please note, these all sound better in Spanish.

Action Music

Someone recently asked me "What is your walk up song?" Some context, we were at a baseball game, so it made sense in the moment. Not like someone asked me this at a bus stop or in the line at Marc's. 

I answered Sandstorm by Darude, which appropriately aged me but also nailed it as an excellent song. Many high fives from the others needling both sides of 40. Someone said a song by A$AP Rocky and I was "Who? What?" But, that got a praise chorus from the younger set. 

I struggle whenever asked "What kind of music do you like?" That question seemed an extension for it and luckily I overheard it as my colleagues worked down the line of co-workers. Had time to think and make something true to myself but not too esoteric. This all makes me sound like quite the hipster and, don't worry, its more that I like video game scores or "action music." Action music being a term I coined and never shared until now in this post.

Is your song one I can set a sword fight against? Yes? Then, that is the first step! What else do you have? Bleeps? Bloops? Score of public domain submarine sounds like in Kate Bush's Under Ice?* Descending violin notes? That is something I overheard once cutting through the music school in college (I used to walk at night listening to....guess what...on my discman and poke through buildings to sometimes escape the cold or just make for change of scenery) and then in the description of the actual audio clip I found, years later, on YouTube. 

Action music is what plays when the heroine armors up or undergoes the henshin transformation to become a super hero. Gets streaks of pink in her hair and a barbed sword flies down to land in her hand. 

*Note this song does not meet action music status. But it is moody and has a climbing ominous energy. It is a song to set a trailer to for the hero to work against/with said action music.