Hurt the dog's feelings, dagnabit

I'm just now home from work, and so I decided on a coffee nap (sugar and cream, wakes you wake right up when you actually fall asleep).

Little Dog knows to stay off my bed, but not to stay off when I'm on it. She's always rough-housing with Chance though, jumping up on his bed and giving him no end of "fun". She brings him dog toys. I was very surprised when she took a running leap and jumped up on me while I was just drifting off from the dock, so to speak.

So, I yelled/barked at her with loud indignation and she jumped off and scampered out of the room fast, her nails slipping on the tiles in the hall. All the way to the end of the hall to the door to the laundry room and the upstairs.



But what's interesting is she almost immediatly came back, as I was back on the bed relaxing again, and deliberately bumped my bed and then left again.

Hm! Was that rebellion? Have I been challenged???

I didn't know if she was teasing me, or being tot-like and 'showing' me or what. Then I heard her give a little pout, back at the end of the hall.

Oh, GAD! Come here, come here, little dog. I'm sorry, come here, we'll make up.

She came in sort of mopey and uncertain and I invited her again to let me pet her as I sat on my bed-on-the-floor.

You can't come up here. Off the bed. But I didn't mean anything to hurt your feelings, ok, (I patted and rubbed her belly and ears). Now get out, again. All right.

No more of this nonsense.

She started out again, almost like she was a little more grown up. But then she remembered Chance again and was awww better.



Shmutt.

Very well, thank you

As the evening wore on, Mom said, they could tell that now I am happy, and "that's what matters". After we said goodbye and I got home I called her right away, upset.

BTW, I'm unhappy with this picture here.



Their expressions. Those are the looks you get when your subjects are wondering why the shutter hasn't clicked yet. David is beginning to doubt (it's early in their visit so he's still in doubt about everything in this town), and my mother's lips are pursed because she is about to say "Will it work do you think? I am always having the same problem with that, I remember one time when..."

She doesn't look like that. She looks ten years younger when she's smiling or laughing, which she usually is.

And it was starting to rain, so this was the only picture we got.

But it stopped raining. Never mind pictures.

I don't know :-] I'm just happy/sad they were here. It's unheard of in my family, to go a full year without seeing one another, and this was it, this was all, a short evening during the town's last Friday festival.

When we parted at their downtown hotel, mom teared up and David said "You must be doing something right".

I don't often see Mom's face get wet, and it upset me all the way home and into bed and into my dreams. I think it's true, emotions are novel for the recovering alcoholic, even after a year.

What is this feeling? I don't feel sorry for myself, I don't think I ever really do, but if I witness tears that I can understand are real, then I get this feeling like something isn't ever going to be the same.

(I remember being flabbergasted to find myself tearing up at my brother's wedding. It was a step into the future. We couldn't go back. We'd forget what it was like five minutes ago. The future pounced and I practically wept.)

It's usually family stuff, though. I'm a family man for sure.

p.s. I did too get a haircut. See, there's almost none at all.

Dad with the golden helmet

It's a terrifying likeness, but there he is, MY DAD, dadgone these 15 years now, like 500 years before, and how many more?

Once we are taken, *switch*, I bet it seems just a moment before your family is with you. And everyone gets their memory back that heaven is home, not the earth. There's probably some laughter or good-natured ribbing, you went back down determined you weren't going to be a damn fool again but you were.

God's time you know.

We might as well be waiting for him, and he'll say "What are you guys doing here, I just died two minutes ago, what, did a plane hit the building and kill us all?"

And we'll say 'what took ya?' , all like we'd been standing around impatient. And that will be sometime in the next 40 years, it doesn't matter.

Or, I don't know. Maybe in heaven---I know in my heaven---you get to watch how events unfold on earth and it's very interesting and the time flys and you don't even look for your family until there's some boring decade like the 1970's or some boring century like the 11th was (*rolling eyes, grimmacing*).

Here is my mom, these 15 years later. She is visiting tomorrow, and it will be the first I've seen her in one year!



David, my brother who is three years older, may be with her. I pray, he's been sick for the last 15 months, on interferon for Mastocytosis (blood produces too many mast cells, your bones start getting pressure fractures...It's not fatal but it may be a life sentence to the sometimes horrific interferon. He seems good on the phone.)

Our town is having one of its June festivals that evening, and they have a room in a nice downtown hotel. We'll be in the center of the action. Horse carriages, clowns on unicycles, belly dancers, men on stilts, numerous street corner bands, and lots of kids about to lift off with balloons.

I'll let them believe this is how it always is, Thursday nights. (Perhaps they won't buy it if there are an abundance of costumed midgets.) And they'll pretend to buy it sort of like they pretend to buy that I live in a monastery.

I'm a little worried how they both will look. One year may finally have changed my mother's appearance (she's __ years old!!!)

This last hard year for David has produced comments to me like, "he looks great, considering". So I have to prepare myself, which I have, I guess. I hope.

That he wants to travel and see me is a terrific reassurance to me, in a number of ways. His health, his attitude, our relationship (David I could introduce you to as 'my idol').

Anonydoc says "Clean your room!" "Get your hair cut!" etc.

Okay. Okay. But my room is clean. And my hair is short.

Okay. Okay. The room could be more clean. My hair hasn't been cut in two months, I bet. (so. meh). I mean Okay. But I'm broke. Or, I feel broke, I'm near broke, it's an expense, might dampen my spirits. But it might cheer me up too. I will nap now and wake up with answers.

Life is so good. I'm starting to notice the weeks individually now too, like I finally could the 24 hours. Less rocky! Shorter tremors when my heart gets broke, etc. I think, fewer temper tantrums on this scroll, no? (I'm not scrolling down to review, no...)

When they had one computer between 'em

This was back in February, after I introduced the previously e-scetic brethren to the wonders of the internet. First it was "free" music to them; then personal ads, MYSPACE, and in one particularly tragic case, blogging.

It's a video clip I had no idea I was recording.

Click here to watch "Oxford Noobs"

These digital cameras are fancy and if you're not careful, you may be taking moving pictures instead of snapshots. I was going to have the men pose. But they never even notice me, the farkers.

It's like this:

"Anyone seen So Long Stan?"

"Nope"

"Nuh uh. Not for a week."

ME: Stan? I know where he is. He was here this morning.

"A weeks a long time. Hope he hasn't been kidnapped."

ME: Oh no, he's not kidnapped, he's...

"Who would want to kidnap So Long Stan? They'd have to pay us to bring him back. The old man is on so many meds I bet he's lost in the woods out back."

ME: I saw him this morning and he was on his way to work. He has a job now.

"We should find his sister's phone number and give her a call if he isn't back in a couple of days."
___
You get the idea. It's when I reach for my revolver and fire it into the ceiling.
_____
Trying to piece seven of these together for a movie but so far this is all I have. That's K.B. (who really is lost now, to blogging), Murf the Surf and President Boo-Zay (trying to get K.B. out of the captains chair.)

Various female topics (w/pics !)

It turns out my stalker is partly Native American. And at the risk of sounding like someone who carries around bare templates of types of people and cultures, (ok, at risk of sounding like a bigot) it may explain why I nicknamed her "make-believe" and "imaginary". For instance, there's no snapping twigs when she approaches.

She's my squaw now. Rubs my back so my shoulders come down from around my ears. I may give up on the klonopin.

Maybe this cultural difference explains her difficult relationship with psychiatry and counselors.

Now she is off prozac, which she truly hated, Dora is suddenly quite distinguished, to my eyes.

For instance, I didn't know she was a book collector. She collects middle-readers from the 1940's, just for their colorfully illustrated dust jackets. Some she will read. Also, she loves to draw and is much better at it than when we met at Eclipse's long term treatment. And she invents fonts which I think are very good. Thankfully, they are not of the popular heavy metal satanic variety. More like letters which would make for nice tall buildings and a great, futuristic skyline, non-Jetsonian though. Original.

She is usually crocheting or something. I ask if it's knitting, crocheting, whatever, and she tells me, and then I forget and ask again and she patiently tells me again, with a laugh.

She is talkative on the phone but when we're together, quiet and affectionate as we watch whatever old movie is on the public access channel. I don't picture her ever trying to get the remote. But before you cringe, anticipating my telling you about her feeding me fruit, she is in control. Read your Shaw. She knows it and I know it. We're sort of role playing, only it's not play.

She is a workaholic, it seems, and is already assistant manager of the Dollar General store where she started just two months ago. Getting off prozac has done wonders. Or, maybe that she finally got out of that net of social workers, she couldn't help but be rude to.

I'm not in love. That doesn't happen until a girl leaves me. And then, it's not love of course but hurt. I think I've been in real love twice in my 45 years, so that seems right. Anyway, I'm going back. And I accept her calls, and she can come over here and I'm proud of her.

Had a rotten childhood. So bad, you'd like to have some people arrested for things they did thirty years ago, or twenty years ago anyway.

Work Project. I've started reading our Citizen Kane's editorials, thinking that's prudent if I'm going to become his confidant and eventual heir. The one I read I agreed with 100%. He knows how not to go out on a limb, at age 80.

As for the circulation scandal, my boxx has scheduled a meeting with Doof's boss, and I have no idea when it is. I hope I'm invited. I'm the only person I know who loves business meetings. I even enjoyed meeting with accountants to discuss COBAL code, once upon a time.

You got your swivel chairs, nice window to look out, some smartly dressed women, time to catch up on your zzzz's of course...

My boxx agreed, I shouldn't be initialing anything anymore. So this weeks records are now turned in, and they prove nothing except that someone claimed something without proof. Is all.

Meanwhile, I've been double-crossed. When I started as "Returns Processor", I was told I'd have weekends off. Now it appears I will work six days every week, and still only around 20, 25 hours.

I am doing my laundry. This is our LadyKenmore.



You lift up the nifty lid, there's the staticy noise of a flourescent light struggling to light itself, and behold, a panel of incomprehensible choices, along with an old fashioned dial.



Like any bachelor, I put all my clothes in one load and wish to choose "cold/warm" or something that won't constitute whatever risk it is we're taking when we do laundry.
I've decided "Cotton Linen Color" is my best bet.

Not sure about that "Selective Dialup Cancel" button, or the "Custom Cares" button. Both suggest a menu should drop down of additional choices, but there's no video action as you can see.

The top buttons are for the real experts. Like your grandmother in 1970. "Automatic Pre-Wash", "Automatic Pre-Soak" (what happens then, the clothes just sit? Then what's automatic about it?)

"Automatic Pre-Wash or Sani-Rinse". All those words on one tab. It's very clear, except what it means.

There's one here, I don't know which, which no one should ever push under ANY conditions. I've made my choice among the bottom row and ignored the top row. Wash is done in about three minutes: there's water, it drains, it fills and empties again, it spins. Three minutes. Really. I love it. And it leaves my some ink stains so people will know I'm a newspaper man.

Thanks for visiting. If you can read any of those buttons, let me know if I should try another. Even just for kicks.

Newspaper Muckraker

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, that the circulation department resents the orthodoxy I've brought to my new job in charge of returns.

EEEEE, I am going to have fun with this. Except maybe for the thuggery. If something happens to me, it's CIRC that did it.

Right now I'm tired. Earlier I was excited to tell you all about the problem, but it's rather dry. To put it simply, there is supposed to be a wall of seperation between CIRC and Returns (me). You don't give your manifest to CIRC, but to me. If you phone in your return numbers, you don't mail the mastheads to CIRC, but to yours truly.

My predecesor was shy about these matters. Didn't in all her five years even go over and say hello to the CIRC crew, who are right next door. Her idea of "seperation" amounted to collusion. No questions asked.

And there will be no more of this business of presenting return forms for my intials unless I see the farking newspapers. Esp. the Sunday returns. True, I can't count them all, but that's a lot of nerve saying you had 118 and dropped them off at your local recycler.

I have an ally, I'm becoming fast friends with, I'll call Dork (because he's so happy go lucky and smart and wears glasses...wait, maybe I should think of a nicer name.)

Dorks tried over the last two years to correct the situation but was told finally to drop it. We don't want to insult anyone. But Dork is in CIRC, and it was a CIRC boss who dismissed his concerns.

Maybe there are no shenanigans. I don't really care. I just want to mix it up with whomever is refusing to go by established, written procedures (which serve an obvious purpose: to prevent fraud against the paper and fraud against our advertisers.)

As I write this, I still haven't approached my boss. He's got a clue, and I think would naturally anticipate that having a new person in charge might open a can of worms. The solution is pretty simple, and it will mean more work for me, which means I'll look good and this will hasten my ascent to being Citizen Kane's valet or something.

THAT, you know, is my original project. Get close to the 80 year old publisher and elbow his heirs out. And start writing the daily editorial. And not have to work.

I see an opening. Will proceed cautiously.

A good day.

Mimi wasn't dreaming

Via Tomheros.com>...




I said. But that was after my time.
She said. Look at the date.
I said. um, i don't have to look at the date, hm. 1950's.
She said. harumph [insert most obnoxious, victorious smiley possible]must go buy the papers now see ya later.

Bunny Rabbit with cat eye glasses, that's annoyingly queer if you ask me. But she didn't dream it up. She wasn't telling a big FIB, apparently...you know, to throw me off...

I said. WHATEVER!

Ephemera (Newspaper, shmutt,, other stuff)

I found this imperfect copy in the recycle box while wandering around the secondary press room. The paper was established by one Leebeus Zevely on July 3, 1866. Its name is easy to understand considering the times (I wonder if it was pro James gang).

Best google info on the paper I could find is a short paragraph here.

The headline, "Fulton Man gets himself into more serious pickle", is not being cute about a home and gardening competition. The man shot a sawed off shotgun at a tour bus.

"The chances of Schmitz getting caught at that time were remote." However, he just happened to pass by a deputy on 63, and was clocked at 77 mph. Being recognized from a car chase last April, the banjos were cued and, as the paper puts it, "the chase was on."

The story goes on with lots of detail and ends with a surprise (for me anyway).

He got away!

Also, there is no mention of drunkedness, drug running, or any explanation of why he would begrudge a tour bus being in his neck of the woods. (No one was hurt, I forgot but just now remembered to add).

Meanwhile, here is the shmutt, this week.




Indigo. Yes, she seems to be glowering at the camera, I'm not sure why. To borrow (and muck up)the famous Thurber caption, no one is ever really sure what's wrong with her. When there's something wrong, I mean. Usually she is just so so excited to be here, thank you thank you i love you, I love you and you too, and she's tearing around revisiting us all like it's been SO LONG Muh! Muh! kiss-kiss. Please put your hand in my mouff i like that.

Her prevailing name this week is still "little twerp" or "little dog". Indigo isn't sticking, but it is official.

This is my birth month! I got three cards, one from Mrs. M. Ominous, one from Moise (who didn't even know it was my birthday. It was 'just a note to keep in touch'), and then, the last to arrive, from my mom.

I went "whew!" when that showed up. And then reflected that a Happy Birthday card from your mother, who suffered this hours long travail, ought to be sarcastic and mildly contemptuous. Happy fucking birthday, do you know you were ten pounds and spent your first year crying for me to pick you up and carry you everywhere??? Where's my card, eh??

I suppose Carlin or Seinfeld have already made that 'joke'. Sorry. BTW, I don't like those two, especially Carlin. I say so only to make one of you mad. But it's true.

"Ever notice how when you open up the bread you want to grab a piece from the center? Why is that?"

Because we want the freshest piece with the most purity, smart guy.

last year it was the Runaway Bride...

Update: There is a discussion here
about whether this story will rate for Wikepedia.

Note how on the original post (the first below, by the aggrieved) how many servers crashed when he tried to set up a forum.

Meme: an idea, project, statement or even a question that is posted by one blog and responded to by other blogs.

I think this may be a pop-culture watermark.

16 year old girl steals cell phone, takes pictures of herself which are uploaded to the victim's account. Victim's friend finds the thief's myspace account, offers reward for the return of the phone and gets nothing but verbal abuse in return.

So he sets up this page and stays up 48 or 72 hours stoking up public outrage.

This is in NYC.

Half the blogosphere seems to be onto this.

Here is the mob , telling the girl to give back the phone.

And of course, they might even have the wrong person! We're just RE-learning about human nature here, via a new medium.

I suppose this will be hitting the national media. The blogger notes that he's being contacted by a lot of reporters now. And to think! He started this on June 7th, it appears.

If you are interested in cultural anthropology, here are the artifacts themselves, passed on to you as real as ever, like moon rocks only ubiquitous. Like earth rocks, only fascinating.

oddity oddity oddity (and how nice it is here)

Not much of note, today. K.B. comes in while I'm making coffee this morning, sees one plate, two bowls and about ten pieces of silverware in one of the sinks and takes them out and puts them underneath the sink. (You know, where you keep your cleaning agents, drano, etc.)

My eyes were still only half open. I've been wondering for months who among us does this, I suspected him but it's a surprise he's not furtive about it... Maybe he thinks that the proximity to the Comet and Joy lemony fresh will be friendly with the dishes. Maybe he sleep walks.

I didn't protest, really, but remarked that I've always known he is barking mad and beyond eccentric. Which is just like saying, "K.B., you're an interesting fellow." Right?

Have you ever shared a house with people not your family? I haven't, except at Daybreak (the other treatments don't count, they were in hospitals). I enjoy it, I really do.

This is a large house, there are no rules except sobriety and common sense, you can come and go as you please, disappear for days (well, that's bad form), have your girlfriend move in with you if she's not obviously lunatic.

Everyone can go off to their room and shut the door and not be disturbed (if you shut your door, that means don't even knock). Since I have the largest room and share it, I usually keep my door open, and it becomes the living room.



Brethren come in and flop on the couch, the puppy rushes in and out, some whack subjects are discussed.

Where am I going with this? I like it here.

And we didn't argue except for some pretty LOL cussing about the nature of Silverware Buildup: Who Is Responsible? (Who wants to wash one fork after they eat? let some silverware accumulate, big deal as long as it's rinsed and the sink isn't getting gross.)

Oh, and also it's cool that there is always a third or fourth party present and if there IS a real dispute, and someone is completely in the wrong, they'll tend to concede the point, while practicing some mis-direction , ie: "your mama". (Or whatever the modern equivilent is).

Anyway, we all know where the plate, the two bowls and the silverware are, and who ever needs them next will wash them so , no big deal. I'm just writing because there's a cigarette lit.

Oh, and that my sponsor Corvus says I have to leave and live on my own someday, did I tell you that?? I'm a hermit who has discovered maybe he's not a hermit.

But I'm not worried, I can stay ten years if I want, I suppose. It's up to me, anyway.

I hate my days off, but I sure look forward to them.

More color before my time

This is where I work, and it's from long ago. I recognize some of these people from Recovery, and they probably are still stoned here.

Thanks to them, I don't know what, verbal warnings are all put in writing now?

Victory! It's all over.

And in exchange for that concession, we all have to pee in a cup.

The photo is nice for the color. It looks like a cheap motel postcard from the early 60's.

(note: actually, i haven't the slightest idea what started the dispute, or when this was, or what happened. I just know what it's like now.)

(Photographer unknown.)

Perhaps a mild psychosis...?

This phone-photo I have from work today might show what I mean about 1948 color in my late Grandmother's photo album. The second picture is distorted, and probably ugly, but to me it is a holiday in some safe, accomplished, maybe polished past.

Present

1948

By the way, I don't know why I choose "1948" as the year. After being fascinated with World War Two as a kid, I remember suddenly aware of these "mystery years" in history, immediately following the war. 1946, The Best Years Of Our Lives, was black and white. 1947, I remember mostly dim, boring travelouges in color. 1948, suddenly America had this golden ---but not golden, more like firetruck red ---age.

This is like being able to share my own color blindness, except it's not color blindess but memory blindness. This mystic time before I was born, memory blindness.

Grandmother caught on to my love of history and nurtured it very deliberatly. I was also interested in the flags of the nations, The Revolutionary War, and Andrew Jackson, whom I pretended was our relation. (He was my imaginary friend until once he drew his sword on me, in a rage over something I said, I forget now. Miss him.)

Grandmother (and she did insist on being addressed as "grandmother", because she thought 'Grandma' sounded rural, and too old) bought and scotch-taped brown facsimilies of The Declaration Of Independence and Poor Richard's Almanac to her light blue kitchen walls for me. I was amazed that people so long ago knew their alphabet, except for 'f' and 's'.

Another photographic note: Andrew Jackson lived from 1767 to 1845, and I read every book I could find about him but all of his pictures were as the founding fathers'. There was no photography, of course!

Grandmother and I both knew this. They didn't have cameras in 1845, see. (And I didn't believe at the time that painters back-when actually were able to really capture a true likeness of a human being.)

Then, The Day Of Mutual Amazement. We found a book in the library stacks on Jackson which we'd missed over many visits and , well, look at this.

1845

There were a few others by the same photographer, the same sitting (they say it was only days before his death. 'Don't cry, he told his slaves, we will all meet in heaven') but this is the one we found, and I believe I stared at it for at least an hour, the first time.

It was just impossible. But it was him, all right. There was something he was thinking about, I wondered what? (There is a thought taking place when you take a picture of someone. It's in their head, there.)

Probably that the neck brace to make him sit still for the exposure was either A)evidence that this was for real or B)something they should have told him about before he agreed to sit, because he wasn't going to ever put up with this crap again.

That, for me at age nine or 10, was like stepping into a new dimension of course. It was time travel, it was magic, and it was scary.

We're getting somewhere

I've been invited to speak at St. Lukes tonight. *yawn*. I'm thinking of moving up to the Optimists Club. Or the Toastmasters! Learn to tap dance first...

In the year and eleven days of my intense therapy with Anonydoc, (email score Me:1098, Her: less) we may have matched me up with an important Concept.



Unfortunately, it's from a schizophrenic model; however, she knows I'm not psychotic, or politely says she knows, so it's just possible I picked this up somewherefamily.

The question is why I am always attacking my friends and trying to make them mad.

The concept is "warmth through friction".

Now, thankfully I'm not from a happy-sappy family, but maybe we spat each other's names more than we should. We're warm, in some ways, when we're laughing especially. But mostly we laugh (and deride) one another.

When I was a kid, I was always "cruising for a bruising". I'd get chased, knocked down, and slugged. (I mention this often, so you will note my physical bravery.) But finally someoneJerry wisely gave me a knock on the noggin and I saw the lightstars.

That was about the time we were all learning how to masterfully insult and demoralize one another, so there was a new game, I guess.

Here's what I do when I get bored-cold here and no one is writing me. First, I file a complain with CERN, which as far as I know is still in charge of the World Wide Web. They write back that everything is in order, or explainable, as in physics.

Then, I turn to my absent friends and I start to wildly exaggerate my grievance. That never works---almost never, except sometimes my anonydoc, who knows what I'm up to, promptly warns me of impending consequences. It's an email, anyway.

And then I carry on to the flanking movement, and there's a war. On my friends. Followed by my getting a silent treatment



that makes me go :(((((( with ten chins.

Next, I go troll any political board. The world at large, that is, for someone to demoralize, confuse, and possibly contribute to the Jeb in 2008 campaign.

Still and always, though, you have to wonder just what help it is, identifying the problem when it's plainly your nature. Like, I'm naturally a prick, it seems.

So one moves on to philosophy and religion or spirituality.

Will-power, even if it's in good working order,


isn't really the answer. Because you know why? Because you want to BE different, not just ACT different. You want good form and good health and good manners to be natural to you. That seems to be possible only through a higher power, not your own. Faith again, which also (at least finally) does not require will power either.

omigosh, the time. I'm on in 45 minutes and have to drive up'town.

thanks for visiting. Please leave comments, lots of comments since I need attention.