A Bumper For Being Bored

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

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

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

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

Playing

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

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

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

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

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

Now, pretend...

"Now, pretend that I have super powers."

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

"Now, pretend they got hurt."

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

Now, pretend, pretend, pretend, pretend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saving this space

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

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

"That is not my job," said everyone

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

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

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

BFK, because see above

WD40, to make things move when they don't

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

A convertible screwdriver that flips between flat head and Phillips

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

Extension cords

Looped mop heads and a bucket for each floor.

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

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

A Little Bit Louder

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

And everything blasts out from your hip.

"Hey, why is your belt talking?"

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

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

A Note On Winter Prep

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Orange is just for parking

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

Red spaces are for crying.

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

Black spaces are like orange spaces but for VIPs.

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

Enjoy the winter!

Something Scary: The Poughkeepsie Tapes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This Story is Gross

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

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

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

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

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

I had not flushed.

Like a fucking kid.

Like a fucking drunk.

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

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

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

Returning Brief

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

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

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

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

Watch out....its some haikus

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

Frost left the forest

The crack of frozen amber

Melts into a void

 

Beyond the back shed

Frayed plastic tarp wilts

Under ice sun hurt

 

Heat pours out flowing

Wound in the dirt cut sliced

Current grabs panic

Tamagotchi

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

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

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

Women and Ghosts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On The Road

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A hobo travels and works. A migrant worker. 

A tramp travels and does not work. Wanderlust

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

New Years Cabin 2021

Every quarter mile or so, up would come a trailer flanked by a sagging above ground pool and varying shacks and piles of toys. A power wheels jeep about to bound over a hill of mud. Dollar store bulldozers and monster trucks on their sides in rivulets cut by driveway runoff. This is back-of-beyond Ohio, just a few miles from I77. The part of the state lonely and hilly, emblematic of the bore the state lives up to. I only judge those houses flying Stars and Bars confederate flags since irs traitorous and defeated.  A purely incendiary symbol in a union state like Ohio. Fuck me so fuck you. Small towns like Duncan Falls or Cumberland boil up this settler feeling in me. Well, I could work at this little convenience store and eat at the Rusty Rooster. During the summers I would go every night to Zanesville or even Canton for a movie. A League basketball game. I would have a po box at the two room post office and would read and scribble by the Muskingum River. I can dig it. But the Stars and Bars? Paint that on the side of your truck and roll it right into the river. You are not a Duke boy.

This is all tucked in and around and the Jesse Owens State Park and the irony is indeed lost. The whole place has spindly trees and sense shrubs reclaimed from coal mining just 40 years ago. They made this place better. As recent as the 90s it was a bigger shit hole. 

When I live in Central New York they called this Hollow Country. Every road was soemthing Hollow...Possum Hollow. Quail Hollow. White Hollow, etc. And each was this butt puckering Mr Toad Wild ride down a hill and then back up it twice just to swoop into a zip zag curve lousy with hidden drives. Rusted mailboxes on beat pipe piles that indicated some lonely cabin 100 yards behind the honeysuckle and sycamore.

Save...those were paved. These in Blue Rock OH were not. 

Or not completely. They were a weapons grade half ass patch of pavement and gravel that disintegrated into gravel the further you got from the junction with the actual state roads.  Thanos snapped his fingers and all he got was Bethlehem Road in God, people live here, Ohio.

These are the places you come to for love. Or never leave. Or, like us, to recreate. 

The wife rented a posh cabin in the woods for New Years. Just one night but deep down a self made gully to a honey blonde wood cabin with a hunter green metal roof. A tall A frame with sleek stainless steel appliances. A hot tub and Private pond and hiking trails all out of an Ikea Christmas spread. Everyone loves it and the kids nest for beds. Should we sleep in the loft? Or in the basement bunk beds.

It is the only light for a three mile radius. And it is bright so you are very clear through the floor to ceiling glass window. I find myself constantly side eyeing the glass to see someone walk by. An errant local hired to be a cleaner or person trying to quickly ATV across the private property. Or someone stanf menacingly tapping on the glass. They should be in a mask because that is appropriate. Ghostface. Michael Meyers. Jason. The Strangers. But, why hide your face in rugged isolation? This guy would be brazen and flitting. 

It is difficult to enjoy one self perpetually looking to the dark edges of your AirBnB. I am already anxious and juggle a sense of self doubt with a desire to control. But the family had a good time.

Guys, I got HBO Max

The household has HBO Max for a month so my mission is to watch and assload of content in these 30 days. 

Kicked off with Action Park by watching it with the wife.

"Oh, there is like a whole reddit on this," she said.

"I first heard of it on a YouTube channel called Defunct Land that talks about the history of amusement parks and children's television," I replied.

I know...I'm super cool. Her blank stare tells me.

In brief, this movie is quite funny if anything with just how unhinged the park was. Imagine all those one up stories from teenage years except they are backed up but newspaper clippings. The producers drop these cartoons animations to visualize the narratives and the "Man in a Ball" one nails it. A real bottom of your balls sharp inhale of WTF feeling. And, I like water parks so an extra curl of the toes when you see the folks nearly tumbled over the sides. 

It starts to sort of veer into a Gen X Forrest Gump for NJ kids when folks wax philosophical of how much fun it was. This was being a part of NJ, man! If you didn't have friction burns from the Alpine Slide then don't call yourself a true NJ kid! Which is too bad considering people died including a harrowing one on one with the mother of the parks first fatality. She even says after 39 years I still feel that pain and it does, man. Pour right through the screen.

Worth a view save. Its that same Tiger King feeling without the guilt that you were suped into some false dichotomy. Look, I love me some "That bitch Carole Baskins" memes but she is not a villain. Watch it again! But only after Action Park. And wear a helmet 

Little Moments of Bravery

Little deep moments of bravery will, one day, get me killed. 

Its happened before. Anytime someone said, "Its not that deep!" or "Whats the worst the can happen?!" and then they get swallowed whole by some tiger, that was little deep moments getting someone killed. Evolutions itty bitty rolls of the dice.

Holy shit! It worked! 

Thats very different than...

HOLY SHIT!

Here are little moments of bravery and their internal risk assessments and fantasy day dreams. Stay frosty.

Lonely at 3am and scrolling endlessly on my phone. Doom scrolling. Anxiety farming. Then a picture of a coworker with their family for the holiday and damn they are stunning. Like not just horny on main but holy smokes a She's All That moment. And with all sincerity I want to say  "You look really nice" but we are separated by physical miles and digital barriers. MY family will see it. Other coworkers will see it. Say it when you next see her, right. Be brave and kind and sincere then! It will surely not be creepy.

Hot takes on Twitter. Turkey is great, actually! Rogue One is the best Star Wars movie! Eat a dick, Ted Cruz! Someone please @ me. I'm screaming into a void.

Fuck it, I WILL eat some more pie! I will buy the gem pack on Arena! I will have another drink. These will likely kill me in real life.

Hustling about laptops at work. This one is too big. I need all the cords before I take the new one. This is such a hassle to come in

Can someone say thank you?! Please? Before any goodwill becomes antipathy and a brewing glee to see your comeuppance?

Enjoy Your Own Thanksgiving

 Folks, I am excited for the cancelled holidays. We have such short memories but every year its the same recycled takes. 

"Who wants to travel for Thanksgiving?"

"I do not want to see my racist uncle. I don't want to have to explain why I am not yet married. Why I don't have kids. While I still rent. Etc, etc" 

"I do not have the time to clean and host 15 something people in my place!"

"I DO NOT want to talk politics with my family. Someone will turn on the news and then, shit, well there is my racist uncle"

 Lovely glossy magazines and well photographed listicles will tempt us every year with new dishes to try when we are supremely sit in the same plates each and every year. We will bemoan early sales that take away from the "spirit" of the holiday and justify why its OK those folks at WalMart are there at 5pm. "Hey, they give them dinner there! They got TWO Thanksgivings"

There will be stern twitter warning from folks more woke than us saying to consider not everyone has a loving family and to be sensitive of those people who cannot (or should not) see their families. "My family told me to never come back when I said I was trans. So, fuck them. I never did" 

However, in the inverted year of 2020 now everyone believes it is not just their right but THEIR DUTY to see everyone they can. Those cousins three times removed who live in Billing, MT? Oh, we NEED to be able to lick their damn eyeballs. It is my right!

No better way to entice someone then tell them they can't have it. Every parent knows this. Every school teacher. I once knew a teacher who would cover up a bookshelf in a blanket at the beginning of the year. And the kids would freak the fuck out. 

"Ms, Iorio! Ms. Iorio, WHAT IS UNDER THE BLANKET!?"

"You will have to wait and see!"

And those kids poked and scooted closer to it until it was revealed it was just books! Ready for one we mastered the earlier texts.

But when leadership doesn't back these appeals to common decency and the social contract with consequences then we get the eye ball licking. Folks sneering as they pour over a Norman Rockwell spread tinted by pandemic undertones. Let us the Instagram filter of Biohazard. Smile, everyone!

Blame capitalism. Blame the perversion of American conservatism from a sort of rugged individualism to a perpetual state of sorrow. Blame China. Blame the Karens and Chads. This is nuanced for sure and our hyper polarized world does not allow for that. So, pick your poison and hopefully stay home.

I will and relish a Thanksgiving spent with my nuclear family and no people I need to pretend to enjoy.

The True Self

I'm a neurotic sort. In my lifetime its become quite popular  to self diagnose as "My OCD!" or "all the anxiety" and I was not immune to this trend. Albeit, I dont feel I played it for anything of significant gain. Just how I have always been. 

My mother always had us three hours early to the airport. Just in case. This was before the security theater of post 9/11 when you could walk to the gates. Eat miniature hash browns at the cafe by the American Airlines terminal at SJU with all the time. That treat felt so decadent and foreign to my palate. Why only at the airport? I was only an adult when I realized it was to please tourists used to fast food style hash browns. Which are still quite delicious so I understand.

I once took a business trip to Atlanta. Didn't see much but I traveled with a colleague who also wanted to get to the airport early and I felt so relieved. Here is someone who understood me and to whom it could be myself even in the awkward personal/professional event horizon of a business trip.

Still on airports never did my stomach sink so low when my girlfriend said "I forgot my ID" while we were three people away from the check in at JFK. This after a 6 hour bus ride from upstate and a brief lunch with her aunt in Manhattan and then a subway ride to the train. This WAS post 9/11 and here was the entire trip about to be rendered asunder. I was my true self and freaked out. Snapped at her and kicked off one of those gritted teeth arguments in public where concerned strangers  get a "No, everything is ok. We swear! Oh, lovely shirt you got there by the way..."

She dug through her backpack fumbling for a driver's license she never planned on using while I raced through the dread of telling everyone we weren't coming. And finding a place while we planned on returning upstate.

She found it. Deep and buried below triple folder clothes and a box of dog treats. "What are those for?" I asked. 

"For your dog back home. To introduce myself" she said with deep gun metal blue dagger eyes.  We made the trip and about four months later broke up. We had dated for nine months but it felt like nine years when all was finalized. We both found people more tolerant of our true selves.

S in the ABC

 

Boy does this song have it all. Starts with the brassy hit like a high school marching band is about to come down field and play Stars and Stripes Forever. Then that funky snap like a cello bounding over Mt. Everest before segueing into the main song. There it has all this bumping and dueling staccato with the organize frenzy that partially peaks at "SMACK BY BITCH UP!" before then wilding out again. The only break is the female one note solo that then goes right back into madness.

I enjoyed this song a bit too much for someone who the hardest thing they ever took was quinine and black coffee while abroad in Nicaragua. Other The Prodigy songs I admire are Diesel Power and Climbatize and Spitfire. I am quite the "on paper" hard character you see. Or at least 20 something me did while wearing this out on the old Discman. 

 These are songs to do heroin to. I think the song is ABOUT heroin. Have you seen the video? It has a twist that is still a bit surprising albeit more in a "I need to check my preconceived notions" then blow my mind style. 

Meandering Check In

At some point life slows down to where the excitement of getting new tires matches the same deep welled glee of a birthday present. This is where I find myself, at a point when writing stories becomes alluringly navel gazing. Let me write about how no one understands me. About stumbling on an exe's or co worker's social media and having something new to fantasize to. This is where the "manic pixie girl" trope emerged. You have seen those movies.

Garden State. 500 Days of Summer. Elizabethtown

I often found value in work but that has become an iterative cycle of hurry up and wait. Race to the finish and then stop a your very tip toes so you bend at the waist and wobble over the line while you wait. For a final word. Chase the ghost of approval from a standstill. This works both professionally and personally. Where are you and where is it? Whatever the it is.

Have not put digital pen to this blog in a while. I remember in the heyday of blogging (the haughty aughts) and apologizing for those long delays. I don't know enough about streaming but do content creators do that?

"Hey, everyone, its your boi XGonnaGiveittoya here. Sorry for the delay. I was just feeling blue and also busy for two months straight"

Ill see what I can do. Get out the writing prompts and scribble. Just hope to avoid someone swinging from the air with blue hair. 

Rainy Day

 Its crum-dug-diggly-fugly weather today.

80 billion gallons fell over our 12 county area in 8 hours said the weekend weather man. The man who is not as handsome as the prime time man. Still somewhat stilted and fishing for a catch phrase that will take him to big weather cities. Miami. New York. Anywhere but here. 

Clapboard weather that pitter patters on the un-used exhaust vent in my apartment. Soaked drenched phone book weather. The amount of water that turns these relics into suburban super weapons to be tossed over highway pedestrian bridges. A tiny bit of free mayhem just needing a nudge. 

Tomorrow the already dense spindles of tomatoes will surge from their August peak into an Indian summer of green ticking against a clock and root bound to stop them from rending more fruit. The plants my neighbor left on her porch will soon need to be brought in. I anthropomorphize the plants and here is her scheflerra commenting on he difference in mineral from rain water to tap."This really tastes better, Janet. The rain water I mean. On my rhizomes"

Here are torrents that pour through the broken glass of old warehouses. Places you can ge for a deal. Call Lou Sala for a deal on this place where vines cover the area code. Moss grows over the drenched upholstery from the abandoned break room sofas.

Clammy basement weather. Trapped in a bar called the Barking Spider where they only have hot fries to eat and the TV got soaked through a hole in the siding.