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In honor of the fact that mid spring means end of semesters: Sometimes There's Reds On thin bracchium, Village trees bud ochre- a scholar's nightmare.
Actually, i am not listening to the Clientele. I would be, but my amp for my turntable is on the outs. The Germans call it "kaput". The Germans also call 'sick', "Krank". I imagine at some point my amp gasped, "Ich bin furchtbar krank". It meant it. Anyway, I write this blog under the hospices of two working xanax and a glass of white wine- white wine that was found in the back of the fridge. It tastes like ginger ale. it tastes better than the old black beans smell, as I discovered them even further back in the "icebox". Beans uneaten just turn into farts anyway. Human digestion has little to do with it. Also of note is that I just binged on a package of plain rice cakes that I found on a pantry shelf. If the tag reads correctly, they were 'Best if used by ___ 2001.' Really, though, who am I to turn up my perfect little nose to available food. In other news, my cat's in heat. She's fixed and in heat. A paradox. Some pet doctor in a rush left some tissue in the lovely miss Dora that triggers hormone changes and sends her in a week long frenzy of howling and what I call the "Boot Scoot". I'm not a cat pervert, but my way of testing for her estrus is to stick my foot under her backside and if she backs up on it i know I'm up for a few days of screeching and writhing. My cat turns Lohan. This was all just a little something something to keep me in the blogosphere.
Good evening.
I'm a frequent visitor of the local grocery market. The venue is somewhere right in the middle of a bodega and a supermarket. It's been a nice place to buy my wares for the past couple of years, even with all its inconveniences. For instance, the aisles are wide enough for only one shopping cart. The staff are grumpy, indifferent, or ignorant of one's presence. The store is often crowded, like an American Idol tour. One cannot get out of the way. As much as I dread the trip, the store is not even a tenth of a mile from my house. very convenient geographically. Suddenly though, the market began a renovation. First, certain product was no longer available. I am partial to fat free cheese. They no longer carry it. Sugar free tomato sauce? Nope. Burrito seasoning. Forget it. Gallons of milk. Nope. The first few visits after the changes, I got angry, but nor indignant. After a while, though, of walking out with only half of my shopping list fulfilled, I vowed to never return. But I did, and continue to return. At this point, the crowds with whom I've competed for space in the store in the past have become comrades in suffering. We silently commiserate as we stroll aimlessly trying to find toothbrushes, macaroni and cheese, and tampons. I don't buy tampons. They do. I am pleased that we have become kinder to one another in these adverse conditions. I wonder if it will last when, as promised, we receive the fruits of our inconvenience- the fancy shmancy market where paying much too much for our food is a pleasure, because it's pretty, the store. What I am realizing is that in the mean time I am going to be better served by going outside of my relationship with my store and heading across town to a more predictable shopping climate. Is this betrayal? Will shame be involved? Is it dirty? I do know where the wine sections are in every supermarket in the region. This is key. Adaptation is thought to be imperative in overcoming adverse situations.
Hello, everyone- OR - the few who decided to waste a few moments reading my words. Spring is less than a week away. ------ Every once in a while I am struck with some personal revelation. For instance, at age 24 I remember being struck with the disappointing lightening of the realization that I'll never be a rock star. Shortly thereafter, it was the idea that I'll never be a great painter. Not all of my revelatory moments are so upsetting, fortunately. I have had the great fortune of growing up in extreme exposure to the Simpsons. My mom, as I recall, had tried to ban the animation from our home in the early 90's. She feared that I would take cues from Bart. This is the same woman that threw away my complete first issue collection of Garbage Pail Kids- probably worth God knows how much, now- having done so under the impression that they were "of the Devil". She's not even a Christian! Anyway, despite my mother's concerns, I am aware that the net effect of living in a Simpsons saturated world has been that I have developed an amazing sense of humor (from my point of view, at least). Sure, negative side effects include a never ending supply of in-jokes, references, and Simpson related tics- verbal and manneristic. I have long concluded that I owe part of who I am to this cartoon. That's fine. I was on my way to school the other morning, taking the same route, the only sensible route, that I take every damn morning when I decided to make a phone call to drive away monotony. Some months ago, the drive past the bay and convergence of estuaries became routine, no longer holding the picturesque qualities they once had. I suppose it's not unlike becoming accustomed to dating the outrageously beautiful woman. On this morning, I decided to return a call a call to a friend who is having some trouble making his way toward Wyoming. Apparently the trouble is that his truck keeps breaking down. I was going to call him to check on his progress. After some ring cycles, I was met by his voicemail message. A short one. "This is Jake, please leave a message." I begin to go into my standard "Jake" voicemail. Try to be funny, but informative. Not too long, but long enough to be just a touch of annoying. I must have left him hundreds of voicemail messages in our ten year friendship. On this morning I really didn't have much to say, so I went right on into a ramble. Maybe ten or twenty seconds in, it occurred to me that my voice was gone. I was no longer speaking. I had dissociated. I was sitting in the passenger seat. I was eavesdropping on myself, but I wasn't hearing my voice. Indeed, I was hearing the voice of Bill Murray. I cannot remember anything specific about the content of the one-sided conversation. I do remember being struck by a familiar cadence of speech, tone of voice, and a somewhat flat affect. Again, I was hearing the voice of Bill Murray. How in the Hell did this happen? As mentioned above, the Simpsons influence in my life is somewhat obvious. What I experienced during that phone call was more subtle. It seems I have underestimated the impact of the years of watching Stripes, Ghostbusters, Scrooged, Groundhog's Day, Rushmore, Lost In Translation, and so on. Is Bill Murray ultimately viral? Has he entered my brain over the years, taking up some of the "other 90%", with the outcome making me run mildly verbally amok? Sometimes there are horrors and surprises in self-reflection.
Early this morning, from my mega-comfort bed, and above the low hum of the white noise machine to which I sleep, I heard a rustle in the kitchen. Since all the burglars in town know that I have nothing of value, I assumed the commotion to be the extended midnight monkey-hour of my cats. But what were they doing? I dismissed the fantasy that they were making me breakfast- it didn't sound like they were making scrambled eggs, and I never heard the toaster pop up. Plus, I never got the breakfast. It's not unusual that my cats make some disturbance in the midst of my attempts to sleep. Normally they chase each other, zig-zag, squirrel style throughout the apartment. But this was loud. At 4:30 I was sufficiently annoyed that I stepped into the 50 degree morning air of my bedroom and out to the hall to scold and perhaps cat-spank my pets. Of course, they made themselves scarce. I could find no evidence of their activities. I shuffled, goosebumped, back to bed. --------- Later... I wake up again at 8:00. Hop in the shower, which was set to scalding. Following my shower, and always next in my routine, is the part where I hunt down my bottle of Lexapro, pop the top off, select the day's victim, toss it into my mouth, swallow, and then cross my fingers against "sexual side effects". Oh, but this morning things would be different. Slippered and robed, I make my way to the kitchen counter- my in-home pharmacy. It became clear that either the burglars mentioned above learned of my "stash" and absconded with all of it, OR i had discovered the night-time outcome of the project begun by my cats. Nothing was left in the bin. My Xanax? Gone. Advil? Gone. Gas-x? Gone. Vitamins? Gone. LEXAPRO? GONE. I began my pharmaceutical Easter egg hunt in earnest. I can say this: My cats have a knack for scatter. I found my Xanax under the sideboard table. My vitamins were located in back of the refrigerator, and so on. My morning's objective, the Lexapro, was more difficult to locate. This lovely little bottle, after a thorough search of the kitchen and surrounding areas, was located (unharmed) under my couch, all the way to the back. While there were no ads for 5-HTP or St. John's Wort left for me to discover, it's clear my cats have an opinion about the treatment of SA. My cats, I think, are homeopaths. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.
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