Jumanji Story

Have you ever experienced something and later had no desire to never have it again? Not a "Well I just don't like it." but a "This will cause me pain." Because just not liking something is like black licorice*. Yeah, you may not like it but its not going to cause any emotional dread. This could be a food. Like I CANNOT drink Vanilla Coke as it triggers an awful memory in college of drinking a mix of it Sprite and Cointreau** from a Lego Bionicle jar and immediately gagging. Only time my body has ever reacted like that and I drank the water in Nicaragua!

But these are also experiences. Ever seen a movie or show you wish to never watch again? I have dodged Snoopy Come Home for roughly 27 years after watching it once as a youth. Another film I dodged is Jumanji. Its not a bad film and it includes my only celebrity crush ever, Kirsten Dunst***, but once was enough. Even getting this poster made me suck in my breath, flick some nails, and curl up my toes inside my shoes.

Fuck

Ok, a bit of backstory on this.

Why I am talking about this is because I saw the new version with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Jack Black. And its pretty fun for  kind of a throw away PG-13 distraction.  Worth a watch on a rainy afternoon.

The when is December 1995 going into January 1996. I'm 11.

My dad passed away in 1994 And, I don't recal ever feeling any grief or pain. Not because he was horrible but because I was young and he was either sick or working for most of my childhood. I was inevitable and it happened.

I have a "cousin" (who is actually my second cousin. I think? Read on) named Ana**** who is my age. One month older than me. Her mom is my actual cousin (Martita) but she is much older like 20 something years older. Because of the difference in age between my aunts and Mami and because Mami had me at 35 both Mami and Martita (So my mom and her niece) were pregnant at the same time in 1984 and had us within a month of each other. Not that me an Ana were super close but we grew up as cousins are supposed to whenever we got together.

Anyway in the winter of 1995 Ana's family (Her mom and her dad, Pedro, but everyone called him Peter) decided to spend Xmas in NYC. And they invited me. I would see snow for the first time! And my mom sent me with a wad of 20s and an Orlando Magic winter coat (The only one they had at the Sears in PR but that's OK because in the go-go 90s the Magic were good) on this trip. The only thing I remember her telling me was that these people "owed your father" which I didn't put much weight into at the time but, much later, realized my dad helped pay for a lot of things in the extended family back in the day. At some point in the pass we were the "rich" folk in the family and he was sort of an ersatz godfather. The full details still escape me but things changed as his health declined but those favors were still owed.

And it was an awesome trip. A hotel right in NYC. Walking through Central Park. Times Square. Top of the WTC and Empire State building. Going out to eat every meal We went to FAO Schwartz and then took a train up for one day in Lake Placid where it SNOWED AND SNOWED. Tried eggnog for the first time and even visited a long lost "aunt" who lived in a rent controlled apartment on the Upper East Side.

So, how does this relate to Jumanji.

Ok, so when the New Year rolled around we flew from NYC to Eunice, LA.

And I try to not be too judgmental on this blog because its a lame blog no one reads and I am an overweight guy with too much anxiety but Eunice, LA can go fuck itself. It even has a horrible sounding name. I rather live in Enema, LA.

We went there to visit some long lost sideways relatives. They were Ana's god parents and used to live in PR but left for the dad of the clan (A man named Kermit. Well at least his nickname) to become a pediatrician. "He was a horrible man," Mami later said. "It is why they moved to that awful town so far away."

We stayed for a few days going into New Years Eve and Day. I don't remember anyone's names but the family had 2 young boys and a sister about a year older than me and Ana. And we played a ton of video games and goofed around. Their house was tacky with lots of faux wood and fake plants. Lounge chairs with ruffled skirts and doilies on the couch arms. My parents house was pretty mod***** and I felt as if on a joke movie set. Was Alf going to come out at some point. But the parents were odd and without my own family (ie Mami) to be my advocate I felt like an unwelcome guest. I had to sit at the kids table for dinner which was boggling to me. "What the fuck is a kids table?" I thought. Fireworks are legal in LA and we bought some but kids were not allowed to use them which was beyond lame. Fireworks are NOT legal in PR PR but every NYE we would go to my aunt's house, down the street, and fire off an amount of ordinance suitable to take down the government of say Chad with all sorts of cousin. It is the only constant family gathering memory i have and something, the only thing, I looked forward to with them. Not being able to blow away things on NYE sucked. They prayed before eating which we didn't do and I was chastised for only mouthing the grace******. At some point I could feel my chest tighten with the start of an asthma attack and I got the bottle of liquid albuterol my mom gave me. I asked for a glass of water and the Kermit fellow asked why. When I told him he was shocked "Why would your mother let you carry that and dose yourself!?" Which, now, I realize he had a point but also go fuck yourself because I needed it. I also remember they had just gotten a puppy. A lovely chocolate and white Cocker Spaniel and they asked me to take it out and put on the run. And I carried it out in my arms and as it was yipping and being excitable it fell out of my arms and somersaulted in the air landing on its back. And it didn't move. And I remember the pronounced rush of emotions of "Oh shit " to "Good. Fuck this family" that hit me before it shook itself off and romped around the yard.

This all relates to Jumanji because on evening we went to see it with the family one evening in a literal two screen theater. The older me would think ti quaint and "yeah support a local business" but at the time the young me missed the gigaplexes and it just enshrined how backwards these folks were.

I was glad to leave and I never watched Jumanji again.

So, that's why. Because of that awful experience where I felt alien and judged for decisions made by my family. About a year ago my mother told me she heard "Kermit" had passed away and she and I agreed it was a good thing. Fuck that guy.


*I actually enjoy black licorice something I share with Mami who ONLY likes black jelly beans. "Black like an old telephone. That is what I like," she would say whenever we got some Jelly Bellys.
** Now, Butter Schnapps. Those were good times.

***Swoon

****In a weird tick of language I pronounce her name "Anna" (like in Frozen) because in Spanish you emphasize the last a. This carried over into English so even a random "Ana" becomes "Anna" much to the chagrin of the "Ana" I ran into once I left the island. Thankfully, Frozen came out and now I can use that excuse. "Its just always on! Sorry....Annnnnnaaa!"

*****A bit on my parents house. It was huge but only in its verticality. We had two living rooms that no one used. One was on a lower level and it had pastel couches, two grey love seats, a coffee table with unsecured marble tile tops and a 12 foot ceiling. Then mounted to the side was a sculpture of a faux gold rod bent into a S shape. Then about 20 three foot metal rods hanging down from it. Like an indoor wind chime. Above this was the dining room which had an 8 foot glass table top. Six high back black chairs and a wall made of a solid mirror panels. Next to that was the normal living room with a wooden couch lined with white cushions. If you want a visual guide imagine the house of the yuppies in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. That's our house.

******Something my nuclear family never embraced is religion. I think my parents only indulged it because their parents did and while I was "raised" Catholic it never was a central part of our lives. That said religion to me is in Spanish. I cannot say the Lords Prayer in English. It sounds very alien like the clicking of wild beasts. I've been to masses at weddings and everything feels like a wispy dejavu.

Loose Change

This week I go to do one of my favorite things which was roll change!

A co worker came to me with a Ziploc bag stuffed with pennies. "Someone paid for popcorn with this!" Then she handed me the bag and I briefly imagined it was a medieval bounty paid for delivering a fugitive to the royal court. Except instead of gold it was 600 plus pennies in varying stats of age. Including many that were nasty rime coated green veterans of long campaigns trapped in a kid's piggy bank. Someone had shot their shot in securing that bag of popcorn. I hoped they got the Cinnamon Roll flavor which sounds awful but is lovely. Cinnabon at the movies! Which still sounds awful but its good. Buy a bag for $6 and help us out to try and see?!

First, I said, I am going to find this kid and read them the riot act. Which made me feel like quite the dad because who uses the term "riot act?"

Second, I am going to take this change and roll it. Which I LOVE! More than doing dishes and shoveling snow. Oh and washing walls.I realize that make me quite intriguing indeed. Like James Bond but in the suburbs!

But all these things are about taking something and making order from it. And don't mistake me for some Type A ultra clean freak. You should see my desk at work. And the kitchen when at 11:45pm after fighting with my kids to do their homework (How many hops on the number line!?) I just say fuck it.

However, these things scratch a particular itch. Change rolling because it takes all the disparate pieces and turns them into neat tubes of actionable currency. All these loose change is useless and annoying but seeing 12 sticks of 50 cent rolled pennies? That is pure dynamite! It even looks like dynamite with the brown paper wrapper and the burnt old west red lettering. 

A roll of quarters? That is a fusion core with the heft and power of a purchasing grenade. Ka-fucking-BOOM I paid for lunch with a roll of quarters. A roll of gold dollar coins which I have only seen once but sometimes those roll packets come with a handful of them. They are black and mythical in both their creation and power.

You pay in a roll of change and the cashier feels that heft and effort. They are likely annoyed but it is only because they are jealous that you created something of such locked up dynamism.

Trust me. It is worth the effort. 

Quick Highlights

In high school for about a year I had frosted tips. It was the go-go 90s and I swore it made me look bad ass. The fact my mom did them in our laundry room with rolls of wrap, that bleach goop, and the sharp point of a comb handle went unreported. Then I would spike them up with glops of gel. The big blue LA Looks kind because it was 1) Cheap 2) Extrem Hold. The number rating for hold went all the way to 12! 3) Had bubbles in the gel. I am sucker for bubbles in things. I had a set of glasses with a single bubble in the base and I found myself quite classy. "Thisnis only for good stuff, you see! The Makers Mark, you see."

At work a colleague found that picture online and uses it every so often as a reply all to an email. "Yeah that's good everyone but check this out!" 

"Hey!" I say. "I'll report it for harrassment"

"Oh will you?!"

Fuck, no. I wont because it's funny and I'm a secret sucker for the laughs. 

I then in college tried to grow my hair long.  But that summer experiment lead to no length. Just volume that puffed up on my head so I had this Q Tip look. 

"You need to style it so it grows that way. Like cut it and painting it to grow that way." 

Not for me and likely for the better.

Bad Omen

I took this picture of my mother watching TV on Thanksgiving. It's her favorite channel, The Weather Channel, which in recent years took up the local news mantra of panic over the mundane.

 News Channel 13 shares with you the shocking tale of how the devices meant to keep kids entertained are really spying on them! ***quick cut to some parent wearing one of those Looney Tuned attitude shirts from the 90s*** "I had no clue. They was watching my kids!" 

Now its Weather Channel save it is winter storms they give names to because ratings. Which lesd my mother to keep shouting Ezekiel  Ezekiel as that was the name of the storm.

The skeleton is someone who died because my mother killed them. Either she never stopped talking and they succumbed to dehydration or she said something so madcap they had an aneurysm. See his outstretched hand? He died screaming "What the fuck!?"

This needs to be captioned. I call it bad omen

Thankful Unknowns

I am thankful for this blog even though no one reads it except for what I believe are a series of robots in Ukraine. For someone who is quite anxious and awkward it is fun to be able to share what I like or what I think would be enjoyed in a quiet little part of the Internet. Like I said before, if i would have been born 80 years, earlier I would have kept furious journals. Sending wee boys to fetch me more ink and paper. And a new A key for my type writer because those entries I want to document in long form have worn out my use of the word AWESOME. If anything maybe it brings some random person joy. Or a laugh at my expense but its a laugh none the less.

Cruising the stats of the blog I was surprised to find that, in October 2019, I had 5 visits from "Unknown Regions"

Are these viewers from another dimension!? An alternative Earth where I am evil but on that Earth evil people don't have facial hair?

Unknown regions like a disputed zone like how China calls Taiwan Chinese Taipei? Or Kashmir? A collection of sovereign citizens?

They are porn bots most likely but maybe they are free-wheeling nomadic pornbots?

German Thanksgiving

I only know two songs in German and one is Ramstein's Duhast which is a very angry song. I think it means "you hate me". The other is the ditty I just heard on a friend's Salty Chills playlist



Now every introduction is an excuse to use this

Some stranger: "Hey. How was your Thanksgiving?"

Me: "Good good super good. Good good super good. I look super good!"

Stranger: ***visible confusion***

Actually, I think my Thanksgiving will be pointedly lame considering we are pulling a Gilmore Girls and having multiple dinners in one day. All with people we rather not be with. My perfect Thanksgiving would be one at home with my nuclear family. Or a Friendsgiving with people I actually want to hang out with. Or a Worksgiving except while that fills part of me with joy the other half is filled with anxiety.

I better keep listening to this song.

A Lot More Fun

I am perpetually stuck in my late adolescence and early adult hood. I know, hard to tell reading this blog! That makes all my daydreams and fantasies and interactions have this video game or cartoon adventure tinge. We don't go on errands but I am completing missions and when I finish them I get the "+ respect" right out of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas*

It is something like. "My wife told me to pick up the prescription on the way back from daycare. Finish it and get a plus on respect."

That makes it a lot more fun.

At work everyone is a quest giver and some quest givers I want to impress. Because they may have a cool reward like helping me stuff 30 emergency binders after the fire marshal tells us to change the emergency operations plan again. Because, I have their respect. And some quest givers I want to dodge (like dodging the trainers in a Pokemon Gym because you are already over leveled and don't want to go into that final fight with damage) because their quests are Sisyphean (I needed to say something, but now I forgot) or gain no respect or rewards. Just more quests. Its the endless raids on bandit camps in Assassin's Creed: Origins except there is no loot. Just a nice "Thanks" and "You're welcome" Of course, I get loot from my boss and can use it to build the little camp I have (my house) ala Minecraft.

I got a new laptop for someone at work and I imagine "This will give you +1 intelligence and +2 speed/communication!" That makes it a lot more fun. "Here is an umbrella. It gives +1 to armor and +3 if they are using a water based attack!"

Oh and handing these out comes with a lot more flair. The umbrella hand off is big flourish like some overdrive attack in a JRPG. It comes flying out of the corner where it is stored and zips through the air until it slaps right into someones grip. And then that person, with two hands on the grip, wields it skyward and screams and there are lights shooting out and here we go! That makes it a lot more fun.

And people transform like some henshin Sailor Moon scene. So, "Go put on your coat. It is cold out" becomes swirls of lights and arms up in an elegant dance to the tune of something adventurous. That makes it a lot more fun.


*It sucked getting respect when you really needed money or weapons. That game had some brutal missions like Just Business where you outrun an entire army of Russian mobsters and then all you get is Respect. Yeah, I better get some respect considering I just killed 50 guys while riding on the back of a motorcycle going 90 mph in a sewer! I better be made a Navy Seal!

Batata

My mother made a sweet potato casserole that was "Puerto Rican" style. In it the sweet potatoes were yellow and not orange. I never saw an orange sweet potato until college. 

And not a bright yellow that's cheery. Or an autumnal yellow because there is no autumn in Puerto Rico.

No, they were a sad yellow. Yellow after its girlfriend left it for whatever new color Crayola is putting out. Sunshine. And they were stringy. But, the dish still had marshmallow topping. A solid sheet of them forming a puffy top layer in what looked like a yellow and white lasagna. 

Other things that are Puerto Rican style... 

Pumpkin, which is green and small, and only good for seasoning pots of red beans.

Driving. No speed limit on the shoulder and left hand turn on red!

Lettuce, which is wispy and fairy like and would put you to sleep.

Chinese food. It comes with fries.

Crackers. Saltines, specifically. Which in PR come in foil vaccum sealed packs of 6. And they are crisp. You know the Rice Krispie commercials where the kids lose their mind over the noise? But then you eat them and it's mealy mush? Well these crackers SNAP. Sonic boom snap! They come in containers made for astronauts. If not in the foil packs then a giant bongo sized tin of them. They even made whole wheat (Integral) and  "lite" versions

They are a good cracker. Wallace and Gromit approved for sure.

Another Play 11/22/19

Me: ***Pantomiming at my desk like im the phantom in Phantom of the Opera whilst listening to music on my headphones. And I am gloating at how I hate the humanity below my rafters***

IT GUY, walking in: Oh, um...what are you listening to?

Me: Oh just something dumb. Whats up?

Also, me:

Stuck Somewhere

I was stuck in a basement for 45 minutes. I was waiting for a ride and I had nothing to do. There was a bar nearby but I had already spent my budget for the night. I didnt have a book, something I always carried as a youth before I got a smartphone. 

In high school I read Puerto Rican novel called  La Guaracha del Macho  Camacho which is roughly  translated to Macho Camacho's Song (But a spicy song like a calypso or salsa). Its good and it's been translated into English. It centers around a giant traffic jam and that is where I learned to always have a book. Dog eared paperbacks from drug store racks with the spines splintered. This was Puerto Rico and there was always a jam or a line. 

But, I didnt have a book. The emails from work disappointed me as I couldn't effectively answer them from my phone. I'll buy this Monday knowing I could if I could get the purchase requisition form on my phone. "Boss, can I get a loaded up tablet computer like a surface? Thej I could always be on and only be stopped by the physical stuff. Needing to pull TP out of toilet and carry supplies up to rooms. What do you think?"

But my boss rarely answers my messages. 

I'll write in my blog. Type out a post like those phone novels in Japan pounded out with a smartphone on the bullet train.

What about? So I reach for a writing prompt and get this in a cursory Google

IT IS America Recycles  Day! Oh boy...recycling is my jam. No joke. I worked two years for the National Recycling Coalition helping run the ReycleMania competition. Colleges measured what they threw out an won prizes. Most recyclables. Least waste. It was a lot of spreadsheets and sitting. It was a remote position with my boss in South Carolina and me in Ohio. They paid for a phone an I remember once at 8pm getting a call and it was from a college in Hawaii. I was excited. "Hey, how can we do better at this?"

Now, I dont know but I was just out of college and felt the world could change. "Well this is what we did at my school. We picked up cans after footballs games. Hawaii is a bottle bill state, right?"

The recycling at our home is so clean. It's the pure cocaine of recycling right from the jungle lab and not muddied by dealers and middlemen. The recycling industry is changing and China no longer wants out junk. Any contamination and they reject it. Cleveland is awful at recycling. The local news sensationalize it and how they suck. They put a tracker in a dumpster and the load goes to a regular dump in Lorain County. I don't take my recycling to the bin by work but instead give this garbage a ride and take it home to set in my suburban bin.

I cringe at the bins with cans wrapped in plastic bags and flimsy yogurt containers! A neighbor shoved a plastic chair in the bin once! You are wrecking it for us all! 

I know the younger me would shake their head at the current me who is not as aggressive a recycler. Much more keen to say "fuck it" nowadays I dont haul my bottle from the pizza joint that doesn't recycle all the way back home. I already give a box of trash a ride each week from work.

Lucky Day

I found a whole pack of cigarettes in the parking lot at work. A whole pack of Mavericks just sitting there in the slush and next to a tire tread. Someone must be having a bad day. Or will have one soon when they reach for it and scream "Fuck. Where are my smokes?!"

"I should take up smoking, for maximum value, " I tell the receptionist at my job.

"Oh, no. Don't do that. Its so nasty"

"Smoking is the best thing on Earth," says another co-worker. "That is like 8 bucks right there. Or, whatever cigarettes go for. I have not smoked in a long time. But it is the best."

"Whose smokes are these!?" screams my wife using a tone of voice I think reserved for finding say a loaded gun. Or another woman's underpants on the counter.

"Oh, I found them at work. They are like brand new. Do you want them?"

"No, I prefer my own" and she whisks away for a smoke break.

I FB message a buddy. Not a friend which is a very powerful term for me. A buddy is someone you kind of hang with but you won't really talk or open up to. Someone you meet every week at the MTG draft and then warm up to. Or you happen to run into at the rec center. Before I can follow up to my "Hey" he types back "I was leaving the Get Go and found $70 on the ground!"

"Do you want these smokes I found?"

"Sure! Wow"

But then I have to go get him for a draft so I can give him the smokes since he cannot drive. "Its my eyes. Will you help me get Lasik?"

Can that be found on the street? A random laser? A card to an eye surgeon with so many punches for a free Lasik blast. Our luck is going to run out soon and we will not find treasures but stumble into potholes or sheets of black ice.

Jack Ryan Season 2

There is no cool helicopter shot in Jack Ryan, Season 2. I mentioned it in an earlier post but there is an amazing scene where the government sends a helicopter to a private party Jack is at and it lands in the middle of the garden party. Then two guys run out and whisk Jack away to the shock and awe of the party goers. Who is this man? Why is he so awesome that the government sends a helicopter to fetch him.

This does not mean the show is not watchable. It has very good production values and enough of a verisimilitude to suck you in. Its like a very long action movie with all the tropes. Guys coming in for one last mission. Walking away once the villain gets his comeuppance. Guys going down in a fierce fight to the last man and bullet. The food here sucks. My buddy is going to die isn't he? A couple brought together because of shared conflict. Crooked elections and sexy foreign agents. Its alright if you don't have a soft spot for this stuff like I do.

***SPOILERS***

I read a ton of Tom Clancy as a teen. Even as a casual reader you can tell he began to sort of wane in latter books. I also did not turn out to be a right wing whackadoodle so there is that! Watching Jack Ryan Season 2 you wonder "Why hasn't world war 3 broken out!?" And Clancy did it in the books like Bear and the Dragon where World War 3 breaks out because the Chinese accidentally televise an abortion on TV and then invade Russia and then Russia joins fucking NATO and World War fucking 3 is a go! In Rainbow Six they punish the evil environmental terrorists by sending them naked into the jungle to "get back to nature."

"Sounds like you had quite an adventure down there," says a character to Jack at the end of the second season. Holy smokes is that an understatement. The climax is what amounts to Jack Ryan storming the Venezuelan equivalent of the White House and killing what appears to be half the Venezuelan army to save his friend. Which he then gets, but he then goes off mission again (The whole plot is moved by Jack essentially not following the rules except we don't want that to happen because its going to start World War 3!), to kill the crooked Venezuelan president! This is only after chasing rogue spies on London rooftops and exposing the crooked US Senator who set this all up.

This show has a lot to talk about, but also not much because you have seen it all before. Its a neat tapestry woven of patterns and colors you have seen. It does elevate Jack to a sort of action super star status which does not work well for the claim, which the show keeps reiterating, that he is just some desk jockey. Who rides his bike to work! Nerd! He has saved the world twice now but is still some peon analyst. He has had no fall from grace (albeit there is a third season coming so maybe) which makes for an awkward dynamic. We like him because its about him and also Krasinski is very magnetic albeit he chews the scenery.

Again, its alright.

To end on a list of WTF or WTH moments....

• How did Marcus fix the fiberglass on the boat while underwater? Did he band the hull together using his super strength?
• The best character in the show is Wendell Pierce's Greir. And the best, if only, joke in the season is when he tried to con his way into a meeting pretending to be a Canadian coffee magnate named...Timothy Horton.
• I do like how the get the mercenaries to fight for Jack's squad by just paying them. Which makes the most sense since they are mercenaries. I could have seen some appeal or moving speech but, nah, just pay us. How refreshing.
• Venezuela maybe broke but whomever is selling these US flags to burn is making a killing.
• The timeline seems a bit wonky. The whole show seems to happen in a week and all I can think of is "when did the commandos eat lunch?" I am fucking hobbit even when on mission. Looking for second breakfast.
• This season does not have any weird side stories like the wonky sex worker one in Season 1 where the drone pilot is beat by the weird dangerous swingers. Everything goes somewhere.
• Wait one thing...when the villainous Reyes is talking about the dynamics of polo. And you think it is going to be some big villain speech but it is cut off quickly to get back to the danger.
• Jack is supposed to be very smart but they don't play that up here. We are to expect it because I guess he is smart enough to get everyone else killed by defying orders. Jack must fantasize to that. "Hey, we don't have clearance for that! Wait, why are you taking off your pants!?"
• Tom Clancy is listed as an executive producer but Tom Clancy is also quite dead.
• I like the theme song and the bit where mundane things are overlapped onto exciting tactical stuff. That feels very Clancy in a none crazy way

The Numbers Don't Lie

This little blog is a pretty sleepy part of the Internet. Which is fine because I don't have anything particularly insightful today. Had I been born 50 years earlier I would have kept a diary. Sometimes I tease my kids when they say they want to be "YouTube producers" when they grow up and then I realize that in the mid aughts being a hot blogger was the thing. We are doomed to become our parents every generation. 

Even though this blog is sleepy I still do poke around on the metrics and I was surprised to see 15 page views come through this specific URL in what appears to be Ukraine and Romania...

www.chaturbate.eu

Which is exactly what you think it is. 

Look, Ukrainian and Romanian readers...I don't know what excites you on this blog but whatever it is I am sure you can find better content elsewhere. I'm flattered but I feel bad. And better content for free! Is Pornhub a thing in Europe? I am sure it is. Is it the blocks of text that go nowhere? Maybe get a book from the library and stare at that. If...chaturbate takes you hear then I suggest you ask them for your money back because they are 1)Not giving me any and 2)Really wasting your time with tales of anxiety and Mami jokes. 

In my heart of hearts I know this is just some random internet traffic (or my blog is hijacked and will help launch a denial of service attack against Russia. In which case, yay! Eat it, Putin!) but I can't help but list what these people love

1) Its the Mami jokes, right? Everyone loves these and I can't blame them. Mami is a specific level of crazy often reserved for days lost at the DMV while trying to understand the tax code.

2) Its the anxiety and nadirs of despair, yes? They make you feel better in a Fight Club kind of way, right? Well my doctor put me back on happy pills so better go to the archives!

3) Its a plot! Ack! Its someone from work trying to run a VPN through Ukraine to find out who the favorite teachers are. To then black mail me to buy them name brand post it notes and pencils! Jokes on them because i think its pretty obvious who they are and I am obligated to use proper public purchasing protocols to secure materials regardless of how cute someone is. You won't win!

4)Its my new cool color scheme right? It looks like a doctor's office from Dimension Bland where someone threw up, right? Ill change it. But then will that stop the traffic?!

It May Snow

With snow in the forecast there is a palpable energy in the air at my workplace. If you recall from reading this blog then you know I work at a school. And I loathe snow days. Where teachers are as excited as the kids and share black magic to make sure it works (Flush ice cubes down the toilet! Don't say it aloud! Wear your pajamas inside out!) my mind is a lame tiger in the zoo, pacing up and down. This makes it sound powerful but its only anxious with all the could happen and what I should be doing.

I worry about the old building and its single pan windows and well settled brick walls. Where we plan to tuck point seeps water into a room and drips over the desk of a therapist. "Did you know it leaks over my desk?"

I do and there is not much I can do until spring. And its not new.

I worry about drafts wisping in where the caulk on windows has flaked away. The landlord turns the heat off a night in a seemingly efficient yet truly counter-intuitive move. "Don't worry if we open all the doors and leave this fan on enough warm air will move around and nothing will freeze" The chill cracks the branches on the Chinese Elms outside who drop clumps of leaves in shapes of witch's brooms.

What the chill is good for is the racks of computers which run hot with lots of streaming bandwidth but then keep cool in an AC of inefficiency. It forces mice to ground and makes a lot of people happy which even in my winter curmudgeon I am not immune to "I need this snow day," many staff say and I believe them. The day after snow days my legs ache with that "I just worked out earlier" stiffness. Not because of any effort removing snow but from crouching in a crawl space to chase steam leaks from our crawl space. "Oh, this is going to suck" as I clamber over a hot pipe making sure avoid cooking everything below my waist.

Snow days make me stay at home with my kids. Have arguments with my wife over who gets to stay. Its the kitty cat game the kids inevitably play where they circle around each other until one "accidentally" hurts the other and, with a justifiable cause, begin a wrestling war of scratches and bear hugs. Its juggling grilled cheese sandwiches to drop in front of the kids and the cycle of tablets that have run out of energy while I try to knock out one more email. Or that Home Alone I just forgot something feeling when you get the text "Hey, no one is here!" And I realize I forgot to tell the cleaner not to come in.

Its day dreaming when there is peace and watch the fat flakes drop and the nebulae of salt build up on the road way and on the aching floorboards of my vestibule. Day dreaming of checking things off the list and everyone in their sweat pants at home catching up or binge watching TV. And when they end its a sudden race to get things done that needed me physically in the building. I am humbled by the winter's ability to waylay us (even when everyone says it used to be worse or shouldn't people just deal) but I find little delight in it. Its a storm. With all potential to damage and sap.

A Play

I appreciate the wired vs tired (or woke vs broke) meme on Twitter. It is usually tongue in cheek and related to the galaxy brain meme. Something like...

Tired: Milk in my cereal 

Wired: OJ in my cereal!

But they can be sincere

Broke: Bitching on Twitter 

Woke: Going to vote and do soemthing about it

They are usually much better. Here is mine, which is not very succinct 

Wired: Mustering enough courage to ask a coworker to have an after work drink at the Tiki bar. They still said no but friendship goals!

Tired: Can't anyway because you need to take your kid to counseling.

OR

Woke: Ask your wife to take the kid to counseling so you can go to the Tiki bar with coworker.

Broke: Explaining to your wife why you are going to the bar with said coworker.

Mami Survived

My mother had a favorite saying, "You should be scared, when I am scared!" Meaning that don't panic. And, its a good saying. Ill allow it. I have used that with people I worked with our supervised. "Im not worried and I don't think you should be either!"

And this was very helpful when Mami was raising me as a single lady but she is now retired from problem solving* and mostly spends time drinking wine and fussing unfolded napkins at my sisters house.

My sister and I don't get along. Not that we dislike each other but we really have nothing in common and our lives have taken us in diamterically opposed pathways. We are the kind of people who, if we were neighbors, would wave at each other and maybe talk about local supports when we take out the trash. But, never hang out. But we are related and our orbits will be brought even closer when Mami eventually passes and we have to deal with that. Not that Mami is close to passing. I think she will live forever what with the endless pills and wine.

I mention this because my sister visited along with all my grown nieces and nephews my brother in law and my mother. And, it was fine. I talk about work a bit too much here but I won't get into the nitty gritty of my family affairs. They are boring and passive aggressive, which is an awful combination. But, at the end of this my oldest nephew (18) asked for a Cleveland Indians hat. Apparently this is a thing for youths. Collecting hats. He is visiting colleges and the prize is running to the bookstore to get swag from each college. Sports to me is very partisan so wearing gear of any other team feels pour some bleach on it and then burn it filthy. But, I am also a tired fat 35 year old with an 70 year old's spirit.

We take him to a local store that sells sports gear and I tell Mami that she can wait in the car if she wants. She agrees (Very hard to get in and out of the car, you see) but then insists the car should not be left running.

"I will be car jacked!"

Mind you this store is in the far west side suburbs of our Cleveland locale. The biggest crime is someone jay walking across Center Ridge Road or hollering "motherfucker" as they stumble out of the Buffalo Wild Wings.

I tell her she will be fine and she insists she will be "assaulted" and to turn it off. The look on her eyes is pure and sincere, something my mother could never be and for a moment I am touched. And I recall the "You should only be scared if I am" and I leave her in the car still running.

"Its fine, you will stay warm"

And, she made it.

*In her convoluted mami way.

A Smooth Transition and Something Scary, Gremlins

I re-read the last post and realized how cringe inducing it was. I thought that the inspirational essay was much better but a bit of the old confirmation bias because it was likely also bad. Or good in the, tried the hardest in this class which was an 8am Personal Essay class in the basement of the theater building kind of good. I wish I could make for a better transition but here are some words about Gremlins which I just saw and should have been something scary but I was too busy trying to keep it together earlier.

Two things about this movie

1) I was TERRIFIED of it as a child. I did not see Gremlins until I was maybe 14 years old. People take about triggered and seeing the plush stuffed Gizmo in a car window (which was a thing even in the God less country of PR) made we want to yell "Mami, drive faster!"

2) This movie is NOT a Christmas movie. It is a movie set during Christmas but could work any other time. And, yes, Phoebe Cates has that whole bit about her dad and being Santa Claus but its a gag convenient to the circumstances. They even make fun of the bit in the second movie!

Number 1 all considered and factored in...I do love this movie and how not scary it is while also being so damn funny.

Its all the little things. The blown on snow. All the Pelzer goof ball inventions. How the Pelzer mom annihilates a whole squad of the little guys. Its the coos and noises of the Mogwai. Its the camp and a bit of the violence too. A woman is thrown out the window on her stair lift! A guy drives around town on a tractor! "A Kentucky Harvester, Billy! Hasn't given me a single problem in 15 years!"

Luckily,  my children also love this movie but not as much as Ghostbusters which I admittedly don't get hyped for as much. Except for the "Are you a god?" joke. That is classic.

There is no good content, only Zuul!

In My Feelings

This post is both very in my feelings* and a bit TMI. Only two gross moments (and I feel they are earned) but this is the trigger warning. This essay is a variation of a kind off good personal essay I wrote in college that I sort of rediscovered. Meaning I found the 3.5" floppy I kept a bunch of essays junior year. I brought the floppy for 75 cents at the bookstore. I cant find anything to open it but it says "Personal Essay" on it. So this is entirely from memory and also changed for the 14 years in between. So, it's an original piece, really, but still it's in my feelings and a bit tmi.


At some point in my teenage years my mother decided I was depressed. Note that my mother also for a brief spell decided I was gay and also decided that I should not apply to college but to universities. My mother was always right and frequented a line that went "if I say the sky is red then it is red"


So she took me to a psychiatrist and these were awkward sessions not just because of the inherent dynamic (A lot of. "So…") but because I didn't know why we were there. Well the doctor was there because it's his office, but me I'm not sure.


Was I unhappy? Sure, but in the way I think all teens are. I didn't like being overweight or terrified of talking to people. I wanted to kiss a girl and was sure I never would. School was fine save for math where I was always a C student.


I maybe an unreliable narrator. A savvy reader would ask for my mother's point of view. And, that's fair. But my mother does not speak English and unless you speak Spanish her view point is hidden. Maybe it was her maternal intuition. Or her own struggles being widowed and finding a way to pay for the private school I went through. These were the moments I thought of when I would see her on the steps to our front door smoking a cigarette and nursing wine. The metal antennae of the cordless phone still deployed because she was always on or expecting a call.


But the psychiatrist put me on anti depressants. Mellaril, which I had no clue what it was for except my mother said I couldn't sleep. I later read the word in The Exorcist novel and it was referenced ina X-Files episode and I felt badass. Then Paxil in varying dosages each in pastel Easter egg colors. 10 mg sunny yellows. Rosy 20 mg doses. 30 mg hospital room mint green pills.


And I took this for a year in high school. I don't recall any mental effects but maybe the bravery to join the public speaking/forensics team was related to it. This was towards the end of high school where the reality known was that this would all end. This spoke to privilege and geographic position. I would leave Puerto Rico and truly never see these folks again, unless I wanted to. Once I got married I teased my wife at how many people in her hometown still lived there. Does anyone leave Bay Village?! She was an outlier because we lived three suburbs over in Lakewood.

The only physical effect was that the Paxil made it impossible to masturbate. Wow, did that suck. That once happened when Marilyn Markman, who was also in the forensics club and 1)Really good and 2) Really good looking, read a speech where she was a Holocaust survivor and narrates her children dying of starvation. Yeah, really hard to break that mental image even with out the pills.

But this did not follow me into adulthood where I enjoyed enough success to 1) Not die 2) Get a job and 3) Keep these jobs for enough time to enjoy a bit of life. I'm still awkward and a scientific study degree of anxious and terrified to talk to people but I control them enough to get by. My life is incredibly boring yet frightfully successful when I remember the people I helped in the humanitarian aid job or my peers with more schooling, better looks, better personalities, who likely don't make as much.

However, recently I've felt myself sapped and anxiously bluesy. Its a Sunday afternoon at 6pm feeling but all the time. I think I am depressed in all the ways they tell you to watch for and speak out for before it gets too bad. Its the combination of age having just turned 35, an age my mother assumed I would never make it to. Its persistent impostor syndrome at work where I feel regardless of any success I am close to being run out of the the office. A co-worker told me the other day "I think you would be so much happier if you could just, you know, turn off your brain sometimes. Like at home." Its how my son seems to spiral at school unable to focus and contain whatever anger and depression came across genetically. Its the geometrical degrees of awkward when I work at my sons' schools and see him melting down in an office kicking at co-workers who, before all this, i was already zonky wonky around but now its angry zonky wonky. And yes that sounds like Sesame Street bit but I can't put it into words well. Or succinctly. Its spending years trying not to come across as a raging weirdo to these people and then a ticking time bomb where it can all pour out. I often joke about favorite teachers as a not so sly way to say people who I think are particularly funny, creative, helpful, and/or attractive. And all these coalesce around my mercurial son who is damaged because of likely something I did to him. And, its the damage I am doing to my daughter who plays peacefully with piles of stuffed animals humming YouTube songs out of key. "We need to remember NOT to forget her," my wife says as I pass out on the couch. 

I said I wasn't depressed before but this feeling is emotional dejavu and I reflect on something I dismissed so long ago.





*I'll buy some champagne but all ya went is Henny. Had to make the Drake reference with a title like this.

Sorry, an MTG post

Recently on Twitter I said I was going to take a break. That is because I use it as sometimes a sad cry to engage/discuss and no one reciprocates. Not that anyone needs to but sometimes I think I make a funny gag and those likes hit like knock out punches of dopamine. I am terrified people from work will find it but then I want them to decipher the in jokes but then I get scared again that they will realize it is deeply boring. Posts on the blog often increase when things are going bonkers in my life but writing, even boring one, is helpful. Tweeting offers no such catharsis even when I thread the chains.

But, then someone leaked cards* from MTG's January set of Theros: Beyond Death and as expected my girl Elspeth is coming back from the dead and I HAVE TO SQUEE!

That is her full art version so, if history holds, that is her final art albeit the "normal" version will have frames.

If you know anything about MTG then I will plant my flag and say she will be good. Most folks are poo-pooing her effect but I think she is like History of Benalia in terms of being a topper in white aggressive decks. And she can come back as long as you have cards in the graveyard. Shit, you can even chain them into each other so she is never not on the battlefield. RAARRGH! GET EM!

If you don't then, I am sorry. Why you are down so deep here I don't know but thanks for reading. I love Elspeth because she is 1) Bad ass 2)Wear appropriately designed armor** and 3) Is a Bant Knight and I like to think of myself as that. Well, maybe a squire.

I just had to squee! I am glad she is "coming" back from the dead after her run in with poor writin....errr...the Sun God Heliod who killed her because its an cheap way to build path...she showed even gods could die.

The set officially releases in January and official previews would come in late December so I will save my Twitter gushing for then.





*Per the story they found boosters for sales in a Walgreens in North Carolina. Which maybe a lie (Why would product be shipped already to big box people?) but could also be true considering leaks are lousy in MTG. It could be guerrilla marketing albeit if it is its some piss poor image quality.

**I am sincere in this but another favorite fictional crush character is Sailor Moon so I am not made of stone! 

Something Scary, Mothman Lives Part 2

I had never seen the Ohio River before. So, I had seen rivers back home which are really just big streams. Then I had seen the Cuyahoga River which was navigable with big ore boats twisting down Collision Bend but you could swim across it. But this was a RIVER that really earned its line on the map. That seemed to be most of what was in Point Pleasant. The town seemed terraced into the hillside across from Galiopolis, OH with the "downtown" main streets criss crossing in an ascending pattern. On Main Street there was the Mothman Museum and a big city park at the end with a open field a statute of Chief Cornstalk, the Native American chief who supposedly cursed the land and maybe caused Mothman.

I had not interested in returning to the tick besieged camp site so I bummed around Point Pleasant reading in that park and wasting time until I had a chance to investigate the TNT Area. This was the abandoned munitions plant where the first witnesses said they saw Mothman. The owner of the museum (Jeff Wembly who is THE guy you see on TV whenever people talk about Mothman) drew me a map.

A storm was brewing. I know that sounds hackneyed but it was happening. And this made the TNT area seems bit spookier as the domes shucked off the wind and the trees bent in moaning waves. Inside each of the old storage domes there was tons of graffiti and litter from people cruising and hanging. 40 gallon oil drums filled with the leftovers of garbage fires.

While atmospheric this was boring. At that point I felt the letdown of the trip hitting me. The storm got bigger and then my wife called me saying she had seen a severe thunderstorm for the area and wanted me to pull up stakes. She said she would book a motel for me while I drove back to the camp.

And I realize this feels very anti climatic. Didn't you see Mothman?! But it ended on a motel in Galiopolis while the rain beat down and I ate the last of my peanut butter granola bars.

Something Scary, Hereditary

This post is a bit of cheating as I saw this a while ago. But, I wanted to talk about it because it came up recently in some YouTube videos I watched. It also reminded me of a brief exchange on Twitter I had with Mexican Mormon filmphile Paxton (@paxtonhernan)* about it. Is it good? And he said, yes. And, I know, thats not a great exchange but I wanted to say Mexican Mormon filmphile because that sounds bad ass.



Hereditary is one of those films you hear when people say "scariest movie ever" and I get it. I can't answer that for myself because I really haven't watched that many movies. I really don't like living doll movies (fuck you, Chucky) but would that fuck me up? Not sure.

This movie is uncomfortable and unnerving. It is also brutal (in one particular scene) and distressing as it portrays a family coming apart. And there is something scary in that. In being made uncomfortable and breaking that suspension of disbelief. This is no longer just a movie but something else that is real and primal. Everything feels very odd and broken like the most uncomfortable first day on a job...except there are demons. Its very good but does not feel good. THis is a tricky movie to speak on without spoilers so I will break my rule for a second and discuss them below...

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

S

• Toni Collette does a great job with her role. Amazing and scary and hurtful. The scene where she discovers her daughter's dead body is not shown but instead heard and that scream cuts through even the coldest of hearts
• Speaking of that...the decapitation scene is not shown but you hear the wet crunch and then the movie pulls to the head itself! Baking in the sun on the pavement and covered in ants! Like a 30 second shot! WHAT THE HELL!?
• Some neat scary scenes...the "ghost" going into the tree house at the every end. Its goofy and yet still spooky. The "crawling on the wall" scene which is something I wish I would have seen in a theater full of people. It has no music or visual cues to point to. You earn it by letting the scene develop. 

Worth a watch albeit it needs to come with a trigger warning for sure!

A Small Play

Tired: Your son is reading and writing at way below his grade level. 😕

Wired: But he sure is cynical for his age! 😞

Me: How cynical. Like Alexander Hamilton cynical? Ambrose Bierce?

The sane voice in my head: Oh, no. Its fairly typical but at such a young age it is noticeable. Imagine your 6 year old was painting those kind of oil paintings they have in hotel lobbies.

Me: Yeah, very thick oils of cafes and generic country bridges!

TSVIMY: Exactly. They are not great but at this age it is something! Its like that except being cynical.

Me: Daddy is so proud. 

Something Scary, Poltergeist (2015)

The movie Poltergeist stands out to me. Maybe because it came out 2 years before I was born so I likely saw it poking around cable by the time I was old enough to realize I could watch it. In fact seeing it on TV is what I remember most as I saw it on TNT's MonsterVision with Joe Bob Briggs. Joe Bob, in the spirit of early TV late night hosts, would introduce horror and monster movies and, between commercials, have little bumpers referencing specific scenes or trivia. Monster Vision is where I first saw Carrie which Joe Bob bemoaned the TV cut for the opening shower scene. "You really need to see this on video, folks!" he said. This is also where I first saw Maximum Overdrive and learned who Stephen King directed it and why he did so. As someone who loved Mystery Science Theater as a child/teen this was in that same spirit. 

The Angry Video Game Nerd did a nice mini history of Monster Vision and Joe Bob Briggs is still active on the Shudder network. If interested here is the AVGN's video. BTW I love the AVGN. He is one of the original "nerd Youtubers" and is truly wholesome and a nice guy. Where so many of these guys have been marred by saying something racist (PewDiePie) or being shifty business people (The Nostalgia Critic) or being beyond the wall bullies (Hambly and whatever Unsleeved media is now) he is true. Well, him personally. His personality does regularly say "eat a bag of donkey dicks"

All this to say that I watched the remake of Poltergeist recently which came out in 2015. All while OG Poltergeist is memorable this one I barely remember existing. In fact I thought it was a knock off (Maybe Poltergeist is spelled with a Y instead of an I!) but it is true and made by Sam Raimi who made Spiderman and Evil Dead!

And...its ok. As a curiosity really. Oh the clown doll looked like this in the original one and now it looks like this in the 2015 one. You are not really looking to be scared but instead treated to these little variations. Its like going over to a co-workers house for the first time. "Oh so this is how it is, huh?" But its still the same person. 

My favorite scene in the OG Poltergeist is where the mom walks out of the kitchen and then walks back and the spooks have stacked all the furniture on top of the table. Its both very goofy and very scary because of the speed implied. I also can't imagine the poor PA who had to stack all that and have it keep! NOBODY MOVE!

They re-do this in the new one but with comic books that they stacks (CGI) into a house of cards effect and back light as you pull away in a long hallway. 

Poltergeist is also a Mami movie.* As in if you say you saw it then she will tell an anecdote. Usually about the "little girl who died because she could not poop" in reference to Heater O'Rourke (who played Carol Anne, the little girl who utters "They're here") who died at 12 due to complications from Crohn's Disease. As a child I was terrified of using the bathroom at school and my mother said I would end up like the "girl from Poltergeist."

But I am here to write this blog, mami!

*Other Mami movies include Airplane, Top Secret, The Rock, The Naked Gun Series, Doctor Zhivago, Mary Poppins, King of Kings and Ben Hur.

Something Scary, The Open House

For my birthday I got a copy of Shea Serrano's Movies and Other Things, which was my most anticipated book of 2019 (Well, my only one) and 3rd of his. At work people sometimes say my emails are funny and if they could be put into book form then they would look something like Serrano's essays. Except those are solid. Mine are about loading toner into copiers.

I have been trying to watch "scary" movies each day in October and I want to chronicle this on the blog. So here is one I watched with the wife, The Open House which is available on US Netflix.



 I was big mad after this movie ended. Its dumb, but not in a "Oh, to renew your license we need 3 pieces of proof of residency. Come back tomorrow." dumb. Its a mean dumb. Its the "The janitor didn't reload the toilet paper today because he wanted to take an extra smoke break and I just got diarrhea dumb." There is no innocence to its dumbness. This movie wasted time.

I don't want to spoil anything but I honestly would NOT recommend anyone watch this. Whenever I talk about any piece of media (book, movie, film, game) even if it is very esoteric or bad I really do want to talk about it with people. And find satisfying relationships and high adventures. And people will say "Yo, bro you like Black Mirror too!? We are going to best friends!" Or, "Oh, you like Watership Down?! Whelp, there goes my top"*

That said...this movie at time hints that is a ghost story but also a psychological thriller where we can't trust the protagonist. It is a warning against nosy neighbors and also a "small towns" type thriller. Its a slasher but also a bit of survival horror. It does all these things sloppily with fair people and sets and craft but in being everything it is nothing. It also feels slooooow like the last ten minutes of 8th period before the bell lets you out. Ultimately it is nihilistic. Everything it could have been (and what it was) really meant nothing. And I think the film makers likely felt this very clever (or brutal) but its grating and, going to use I word I don't like to say**....disrespectful to the audience.

One of my favorite series of video games is the Far Cry series. And the latest ones have that modern game syndrome of all feeling kind of samey but damn I can't quit them. And numbers 3 and 5 have these nihilistic endings which make me angry because 1)Again, nothing matters and 2) THINGS NEED TO MATTER BECAUSE THIS IS A GAME AND WE PLAYED IT BECAUSE THE POINT OF THE GAME IS CERTAIN THINGS MATTER!



Which I don't know why I made that aside except to say I loathe the "good" vs "bad" ending option in Far Cry 3. Why you would choose bad, beyond being a sadist***, is counter intuitive. You could have kept your 60 dollars, yo! Far Cry 5 at least forces it on you, which doesn't make it better save its not a test for sociopaths.

Play Far Cry 3 (And pick the good ending) but don't watch The Open House


*If anyone takes their top off because they love Watership Down then they are either very sick or you are El-ahrairah himeself
**Other words I find hard to use (not say per se like how people can't say moist or congeal) are unprofessional and intelligent. Not, I am also a hard believer that you can't describe yourself as funny nor creative. Others need to say that about you. Good looking/hot is OK to self diagnose but the power comes from others saying it.

Another Play-Ouch

One of the quirkier parts of my job is how compartmentalized little things can be. This is often around physical stuff. So moving something is a huge pain because the people who are supposed to do this in a normal place often cannot. Whether it is personality, contract, or health there is always some wonky element. So, I end up doing a lot of it. Like a week ago where I scrubbed cemented poop off stall walls in an outfit I would wear to a job interview. Stuff gets done but at some point the kindness of strangers will run out and I will be crushed under a pile of library books no one longer wants. Anyway

Me: We got these new couches. Can anyone come help me

Fav Teacher: I can!

Me: Thanks!

Also me, internally: Don't look like an idiot! Good thing you took your asthma meds today. 

***At the couch. She grabs her end and so do I. Then we lift***

My back: Hey remember that time you hurt me putting on your pants? Or the time putting the baby in her crib and your Mom had to come help you limp out of the nursery and give you one of those purse Vicodins she has at the bottom of it?

Me, internally: Be quiet, back! I am trying to not fuck this up.

My back: Well here I go. KA PWING!"

Me: ooh...blerg...ahhh...eee

FT: You ok?

Me: Oh yeah. Im good. Im good!

Also me, internally: Stupid body. Getting old is hell

________________________________________________________________

Note this little story ended happily as we delivered the couch and I only need to pivot fully from the hip to pick something up right now. Which is better than not being able to at all.

Pause for Station Identification

My series of post on the Chestnut War drew an astonishing 4 readers. Which means that either

A) Its the neighbors gathering intel on me!
B) Someone googled Chestnuts and maybe Northeast Ohio and got that
C) New porn bots manifested and began reading.

In any case the readership drops back right after that so whatever it was it was temporary and this person(s) got bored really fast.

Its the WOW Signal on this lonely little part of the internet.

Note the Chestnut War has ended for the season. The tree is bare of nuts albeit the still warm fall has it with plenty of leaves. I still have my cake mixing bowl stuffed with them just waiting for a good roast.

Brand New Pants

In my senior year of high school (In the Lords' year 2001) the administration of The Baldwin School of Puerto Rico decided that there was an epidemic of non-compliant pants. A few years earlier (maybe in 1999) the school decided to require uniforms. A blue, burgundy or white polo with khakis. Fine, whatever.

But people started wearing khaki colored jeans or khakis with cargo pants pockets. Or they were giant JNCO style khakis (because it was the 90s) or they had chains. Or they were too low on people's hips.

SO the administration decided that they would have an approved retailer for pants. Not a chain or one of the islands mega malls (Plaza De Las Americas is the largest shopping center anywhere in the Americas outside the actual contiguous US) but a tiny boutique style store in a shopping plaza about a mile from the school. I don't recall the name but I want to say it was Kidz which was bother on bran for the school and the endless novelty PR businesses that pop up trying to earn a meager bit of cachet with straight English names The Mayaguez Food Truck Court is another.

My mother was furious. We had pants. I was not part of the problem. We had gone to Baldwin for eleven years and paid each of those.

My mother was/is not dumb but she was never one to come up with simple solutions. Everything was very convoluted and required knowing someone (una "pala" in Spanish) who knew someone to get things done. This was both a combination of her fatalism and the petty graft endemic to PR.

But in a rare moment of elegance my mother took me to Kidz and told the shop keep that I was a size 50 waist. Now, I was fat in HS. Fatter than now but never that big. I had pants that fit. The shop keep answered these needed to be special ordered and would take time. So, we left and then told the school we had tried this and were just waiting for the "approved" pants to arrive. I was then allowed to wear my non code compliant pants for what turned out was the remainder of the school year. The rule was never enforced. As homeroom teacher put it, "I have no interest in staring at students' asses."

I am recalling this because I currently work at a school and sometimes I am asked to answer questions about dress code. On the staff side however which is about 9th circle of hell Dantenian awkward as I am big fat guy and the majority of the staff is female. How am I going to tell Cathy with C that her shirt is off brand? "Hey, take that shirt off Cathy with a C!" I just parlay as I have yet to find something as elegant as my mother's solution.

Something Scary, Mothman Part 1

My son recently started listening to the Something Scary podcast. It's alright. I'm not much into podcast except for very granular niche ones like Limited Resources or The Command Zone. Both are about MTG so like I said, niche.

I appreciate the vocabulary and story telling he picks up albeit reading Reddit creepy pastas seems a bit pedestrian. I realize typing that as the guy with the blog no one reads is SOMETHING but there is a reason I leave my posts here and don't fire them off to be performed. And its not because these are awful! No, it's a conscious choice. This is art!

It remind me of the time I chased an urban legend. I went camping in Jackson Lake State Park in Ohio just over the border from Point Pleasant, West Virginia where….Mothman Lives!

In the 11th grade I read this book….The Big Book of The Unexplained. There is a whole series of these big books….Conspiracies, Freaks, Wild West, etc. All have various comics artists but a single author

This is where I first learned of Mothman and I was fascinated.

A monster like nothing else. Not a lizard kaiju. Or another hairy ape. Or a slithering lake monster breaking the waves in undulating lines.

A new flying monster that beats the air at nearly 100 miles an hour. With dagger headlight red eyes and an ability to spook and shudder. There he is crawling hanging above the street lamp just barely seen. Then he swoops over the joist and lunges at you. He has that feather flutter creepiness like how people are afraid of things with a a lot of holes. He is dusty (like a moth!) but also slick like the skin of a seal.


It's the eyes which even in the black and white of the comic pierced me. I don't have the book (If it still exists then it is buried somewhere in my mom's possessions) but maybe ill get it on the secondary market. I did find another blog with a scan and it is linked here.


Eyes do it for me. Black eyes like the almond inkiness of a grey alien put all my hairs on end. My sister's room with the dozen porcelain dolls each with a glistening glass eye. Unnerving.

They can do it in reverse. Big Sailor Moon eyes? Those are nice. All the primal responses to baby animals? Oh, those get me.

Jackson Lake State Park was disappointing. I learned on pulling up that while this was in a sleepy part of Ohio it was by no means isolated. The park itself is a glorified city park with decent acreage and a lily pad choked lake. Maybe it has more grounds but where you could camp? Well you could cross the whole grounds in 5 minutes. The nearby town of Oak Hill, OH had a Subway that was half gas station AND had a drive thru. When I lived in Cleveland proper we used to go to the Walz branch of the local library and that building was donated by a former doctor who ran his practice from there. And you could never shake the "Yeah this was an office building" feel. That was Jackson Lake. This used to be a city park and maybe they wanted to stop mowing it.

Jackson Lake did have plenty of ticks. They crawled over the inner fly of my tent in brigades of 6 to 8. They never got it but I watched them roll and pull in the yellow calcium light of the single pool that lit the outdoor shower shack. I avoided both Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever but also burned myself on my camp stove. I had not brought any vegetable oil or Pam on which to grease the pan but did bring a vial of sesame oil. Because, oil is oil oil, right? I didn't even know something could light on fire that fast! A mound of oily rags on top of a malfunctioning space heater set in a pool of gasoline would ignite slower.


During the day, because there was no hiking on which to get lost, I read. I read a book on Somali pirates and John Keel's The Mothman Prophecies. As research, you see. That book is pulpy but has a paranoid travelogue vibe that is very 70s but also somewhat salient.

After a day of sitting I decide to head across the river to Point Pleasant

Mami is Close

My mother recently left Puerto Rico for good. She sold, after years of flirting with the idea, her condo, which she, in the Puerto Rican parlance, called a "walk up." I once used that in college to describe an on campus apartment I lived in.

"Its like a walk up, Professor Allen-Gil"

"What's a walk up?"

So you know, its a 3-5 story condo with no elevator. Why it has none I don't know but this is Puerto Rico, a godless country where novelty rules and forget compliance. I took an ex girlfriend there once and she was gobsmacked as we drove down the Condado tourist district in my mom's rusty Bonneville. Because there on Avenida Ashford someone was riding a horse bare back and shirtless (Phrasing, right?).

"How can that be!?"

"Its pretty normal here."

But my mom sold the walk up. Where she fixed the broken concrete frame for the window unit AC with strips of newspaper, tape, and glue.

And now she is very close to me yet separated by what seems a larger distance. "It is too cold, mijo" Note that to her, anything below 75 degrees is too cold. "Un frio peluo, mijo!" which translates to "A hairy cold." And, note, anything above 80 is too hot. "Un calor brutal, mjio. Sudando la gota gorda." A brutal heat. Sweating the big fat sweats. And she can't drive because she is afraid and so is my sister (Who also refuses to drive in the rain) where she has shacked up. For what is likely the forever future.

My sister has a McMansion. Her husband has a kegerator and a finished basement with the square footage of my house. My mother stays in a mother in law suite nestled in this basement with her own bathroom. When I visit, that is where I stay (My mother sleeps with my nieces or nephew. Note they are running from 12 to 17 so if this is begrudging or welcomed I don't know but its weird!) and in that bathroom she still have bottles of amber V05 shampoo. And hair dye and stained tweezing combs and tubes of scented moisturizer. It's Puerto Rico...except with forced air heating.

As a teen she coveted the Victoria Secret pear scent but no such store existed on the island. It may now but in the early aughts...man  not even Plaza Del Sol had that and that was in the most Americany town you could think of...Bayamon! Well, thats Guaynabo...sorry Guaynabo City....okay, but they could not find the space in GC.

So she had an ersatz coconut line bringing her the stuff. Whenver someone went to the US they had to bring back a bottle. I never toured colleges but I once visited my sister when she lived in Norther Virginia and we had a class trip to DC and she insisted on 40 dollars just for that.

"No way am I going in there, mami! NO WAY!"

"Ask you sister." Or, the real dagger, when we went on the class trip "Ask one of the girls in your class."

Ah, fuck, mami. No way. I spent it on Hoth Expnasion Packs for the Star Wars TCG.

Spin

On satellite radio there is a new station I jam to called "Soul Cycle." And,what I thought was maybe like some electric-poppy mix from the recent years and 2Ks turned out to be a channel meant to do spin classes to.

Because the bumpers all end in powerful affirmations.

"Just one more run. Lets go!"

Or, "We ride as a pack. We listen as a pack."

But, when you take spin class you aren't going anywhere. Where are you riding to?

This is on the low end of the Sirius band (Channel 4) so you know they dropped a ton of money into this. Look at this press release. Is that the same Mark Ronson from that "Nothing Breaks Like A Heart" song with Miley Cyrus?! Awwww, I love that song. When is that coming up on Soul Cycle?

Don't mind me. I am listening to Missy Eliot over hear sharing the same musical taste as hipster white ladies who look much better in yoga pants than I. Trust me.

Two of my co-workers spin. I once ran into one as she was exiting her spin class and wow, that was awkward. Because she looked unkempt and sweaty because she just worked out. And I looked unkempt and sweaty because that is my natural born state. "Are you ok?" she asked.

"Yeah this is just me all the time. Got to go!"

A Play

My internal monologue is a combination of anxious, brave, bold, and circuitous. I think this would be funny in a Tweet but then it's too long. Or as a standup bit. But it's not funny. Cringe inducing perhaps. Note at my job I have a daily bit where I direct traffic. Long story. But when I have to leave early people sub. 

Me, pulling out with my car, yelling at my son: "We gotta go! Let's go!"

Sub coworker waving at us and smiling: "Bye! Have a good one!"

Me: "You look great doing that! Thanks!"

Also me, internally: "Fuck, she is going to think you are hitting on her!"

Also also me, internally: "No you are just being nice. It's cool. Maybe if you were less anxious and weird you wouldn't think people assume that"

Also also also me, internally: "Nope. You are now going to be that sketchy pariah!"

Also also also also me, internally: "I'm going to get fired"

My son: I thought we were in a rush?

Chestnut War Epilogue

If any readers are indeed true readers (Not Russian porn bots, which is what I always assume) and you liked the Chestnut War summary then I am going to ask for a follow on twitter

@garikapc

Likely you came from there already. But, if not, then you can go there are search #chestnutwar and see all the posts from the first year of battle in 2018. And the ongoing second year of the campaign. This year I am going to try a serious stab at roasting these and the incorporating into something. Not the soup the neighbors make (Which per my wife's conversation with the old ladies I did not manage to shoo off uses chicken and green vegetables), but something baked. A dish where I can incorporate the flavor of these prickly boys and muddle it with sugar and butter.

 I am going to totally win this war. Or die trying. Or move out because its a rental. Or the tree will fade because it too seems to be succumbing to the chestnut blight. Apparently Chinese Chestnuts are resistant but not immune and I noticed more dead branches and papery shelves of fungi growing on them. Whole tertiary branches have fallen and there is an open gap in the lovely dome crown of the tree where a larger branch must have fallen before me moved in.

This may not be blight, but its something and in maybe 5 to 7 years there may not be a tree to fight over. Which is no less of a bummer because of how hackneyed it sounds. War, what is it even good for? Absolutely nothing. 

Chestnut War Part 5

"I am giving these away to the neighbors," my wife said as she pulled out the ceramic bowl in which I kept the chestnuts. My research said to keep them refrigerated so I had it tucked in the azure bowl behind the ranch and lettuce.

"WHY!?"

"You don't want them to eat. You just want to keep this dumb game going."

"I want a divorce!"

"We can't afford it"

Which was true. But, I did want to eat them. And there were thousands of recipes online tied to quintessential holiday memories, but all made with imported European chestnuts. Could these "wild" chestnuts work?

I learned that any recipe needed these to be roasted. Unless I made chestnut butter which sounded like something I would stumble on Porn Hub to be honest. Hundreds of variations to the roasting technique going in circles and countervailing Catch-22s. Soak them. Don't soak them. Score them. Don't score them. Wrap in aluminum foil. No, put straight down on the cookie sheet.

Did I mention I am awful at cooking. I can feed myself but bake/cook? That's dicey. Its a combination of my lack of fine motor skills and a willingness to just say fuck it. There is no difference between lemons and limes to me because fuck it. I once made a cake for a girlfriend but it was Sunday and the tiny town I lived in, it was one of those where the sidewalks roll up on Sundays. The only store open was the Family Dollar which did not have eggs. So I used more vegetable oil because fuck it. And it baked but it was, as she put, "like eating a pimple." Fuck it.

I decided to not soak. But I would score and I would try two batches. One in aluminum foil and one on the cookie sheet. My wife suggested I sprinkle some salt and oil on one batch and that was the cookie sheet one.

They looked amazing. Tiny blistering warm brown orbs with peeling skin. Inside the bloom was the pale nut that looked like a walnut happily swollen with water. I didn't pick up any particular smells which seemed disappointing but I hoped they tasted yummy.

They tasted like wet hot chalk. Very wet but still sloughing off in mushy meal balls like peanut butter stuck in the hot recycling bin jar.

"Maybe they need to be fire roasted! Like in the Christmas carols!" I said trying to salvage the situation. We had a fire pit in the backyard.  A lovely handmade brick one with a grill and decorative chimney. Lets get that going and cook these up Bing Crosby style.

"It could just be these nasty knockoff Chinese Chestnut nuts grown on the side of West 214th, also" my wife said.

Science would say that I should buy a bag of imported classic chestnuts from the store and try to roast those. Do a taste test. But, I had spent all fall hoarding these nasty prickly bois and if I paid for nuts then the neighbors would have won.

"I wonder what the neighbors do with them?," pondered why wife. "That one lady said she makes a chicken soup"

Then I felt betrayed. She spoke to them!?

"Yeah, her name is Kay and they make a soup"

"I want a divorce"

Chestnut War Part 4

Around this same time my cat dissapeared. Not the bad cat, Lila. But the good cat, Curie. They look exactly the same save Lila is about 15 pounds heavier and had mega mutant polydactyl lobster paws with 6-7 toes.

Curie likely got out because we had the carpets cleaned one day in early October and she whizzed out the door trying to flee from the cacophony.

But I swore it was the Asians. "They took a hostage! They were not content just to steal my prickly boys. Now they are ripping the toes off our cat" My wife rolled her eyes.

This was not the first time Curie had vanished. About 4 years earlier we had a break in. The robbers made off with not much (they left the laptop and took a book of stamps of all things) but they made a mess and left the door wide open. And Curie was gone. I assumed it was the kids who lived behind us and I swore I would go "sick house" on them. But then we found her hiding behind the drawer of a built in dresser.

Back in the present, she returned after 4 days loose on the streets of the west side suburbs. The kids never noticed and Curie returned with all her toes.

But the neighbors had upped their game. At this point I had gained enough ability to move to get to work but then I got hit with a cold that sapped my voice. I could not speak except in gurgles. Luckily I dodge most people at work and can do most of my work just typing (helped by a bit of pantomime). But my wife had the same cold and she stayed home. Which is when she sent me this...

THEY BROUGHT A LITERAL 20 FOOT POLE!

I thought we said no weapons!? Where is your honor? That is all the say in kung-fu movies...my honor. And I know that is awful but WHO HAS A LITERAL 20 FOOT FUCKING POLE IN THEIR HOUSE!?

And standing on the sidewalk which is public property! Pretty sneaky.

I told my wife to go tell this lady to fuck herself. My wife retorted that no, I should go fuck myself as I was being ridiculous about this whole thing. "What do you want with these nuts, anyway? These folks actually want/eat them. It is culturally significant to them. You are just hoarding them for the sake of hoarding"

Which...is true. This was a deep reptilian part of me that wanted them all. I was chronicling it on Twitter and it got me likes and even a few shadow/lurker nods from people I knew. It released that tiny bit of social media dopamine that feels ever so satisfying.

But my wife, throwing a bone to me, did report later that a SEPARATE neighbor came that same day and she fired the panic alarm on the car.

Yeah, run!