From 12/22/2011 in Normal entries

The below probably isn’t very good, I don’t know, I don’t read these things I just write them. I got a box of similac in the mail yesterday, notice Sunny’s name on it. She’s been getting all sorts of baby coupons and magazines in the mail. I offered the stuff to my niece, who actually has a baby, the one in Vancouver, not the one in LA who’ll be having a baby sometime in the next two weeks, and flicked her shit about whether her Aunt was secretly hiding a baby. Her answer was serious enough that I felt bad. She doesn’t know her Aunt Sunny doesn’t want me saying anything at all about her on Facebook, let alone rumors. It’s not a rumor, she really is getting baby mail, I thought the secret baby suggestion was ludicrous enough to be obvious. Heh, I don’t often get accused of being subtle. As the below should demonstrate, I might even explain it;

“And it was writ in pissant script on the belly of a walking crow.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Gimme another shot.”
“No, I heard ya, wasn’t asking what ya said, what was writ?”
“Don’t know, can’t read pissant.”
“Wish your dog would quit trying to hump everyone.”
“What about that shot?”
“Didja hear me?”
“Yeah, he doesn’t try to hump everyone.”
“Guess not, wish he’d quit trying to hump me.”
“You’re a shitty bartender.”
“How would he know? Have I ever got that fucking dogs drink wrong? Water in a bowl. Shit I’ve been making that for weeks now.”
“I wasn’t speaking on his behalf. You’re concern in the leg humping, mine is my own dryness and sobriety. We should be able to find a happy medium, a spirit exchange if you will; you exchange spirits for currency.”
“How does that keep my leg from being humped?”
“Is it being humped now?”
“No. Your dog is outside tethered to a lamp post and smiling at a little girl. He isn’t bitching about his water bowl.”
“Well there you go. The spirit exchange isn’t for the future, it just works for the immediate present, but I guarantee until the exchange reaches fruition there will be no leg humping, or none from me or my dog. You aren’t likely to get a better deal than that in this bar today. Minimum exchange expectations AND no leg humping.”
“You’re right; mostly I’ll just get cash tips. The same?”
“Um, what am I drinking?”
“Nothing, otherwise you wouldn’t be bitching.”
“Shit.”
“What”
“It was writ in pissant script on the belly of a walking crow.”
“Oh. How about a corona?”
“Ok.”

As I’ve likely said a few hundred times, this sort of thing just comes to me and it needs to be purged, the blank purge the most accessible and direct place to do so. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it sucks, in rare instances, when the moon is just right and my serotonin levels are even and the cat is in the tree, it’s genius, or sucks so badly it turns the corner into mad genius. It doesn’t matter, it needs purging just the same. If I were shooting for good or genius, I’d be as dark and brooding as a character in a Russian novel, wallowing in my own failures, trying to draw blood with the dull edge of the keyboard. I consider it a success when I like a word or the way a few words fit together. The idea of a journal is a place to not feel self-conscious about the quality of purge. I’m like bulimia as a spectator sport.

I did it to poor Levi again, though, again, I’m not all that remorseful. Two O clock in the morning and I wake up to the whining of a fat little dog punctuated by scratching on the glass and the odd bark. I stumble out of bed, almost trip on the tattered bed skirt and let the little fucktard out. I go pee myself in a special room designed for humans, a closet with five water pipes; two to the sink, one to the toilet, two to the bath/shower, and three drainage pipes. I come back, look outside and don’t see him. Not getting a flashlight and checking under the bed. I call his name twice. Still don’t see him. I close the door and figure I’ll check again in a minute. Six O Clock in the morning I hear the same noises as I did at two but muffled, from the other side of the door. Worse, I don’t stumble straight to the door. I turn on a light, check the weather on my phone. Twenty eight motherfucking degrees faren-the=fuck-heit. I open the door and apologize. He won’t look at me, jumps into my warm spot on the bed and flips covers over himself and barks under the covers. I go to my special little room again. He’s barking again. He flipped the covers off. Won’t look at me. I make the bed over the top of him. Otis isn’t exactly smiling, not with his lips, but his eyes are twinkling “I’m the favorite!”

I know. Y’all have suggestions. 1) Don’t feed or water the dogs after a certain time at night. Though I can almost tell the difference from a gotta-pee bark and a where’s-the-fucking-dogfood bark they both wake you just the same, I’m not even sure he went to pee last night, the variations between look-a-fucking-squirrel and gotta-pee and let’s-see-if-we-can-get-this-asshole-to-trip-in-the-dark are very subtle. 2) get the dogs jobs so they’ll be too tired to wake up for post-midnight shenanigans. Yeah, Levi almost got a stock boy posting at a furniture store, but the insurance company refused to bond him. It’s this damn journal; they searched on line for the implication that he might be a sofa biter. Otis is more the CPA type and almost had a gig until they realized the discrepancy of awareness, that crunching numbers has at least two meanings and the literal one comes done on Otis’s side. 3) I’d rather have the job, maybe get an apartment and let the dogs have the house. 4) Act like a real dog owner and train the fucking monsters, according to those assholes with good dogs (personally I think they’re lying or their dogs are aliens in dog suits, or a little on the foot pads) Dogs want to be trained. I think someone tells dogs the same thing about humans. I’m not sure who’s winning the battle of wills, but I do know I didn’t spend four hours outside in below zero temps last night.

Number four is as much an insight into my character as anything I ever write here. I used that lack of training skill on my children and on myself. I either had and have a plan or it’s just a way of rationalizing laziness or ignorance. The idea is many fold but among the top few layers are the idea that if you love something allow it to be it, love it for what it is not what you can make it do. Another fold is, why conform? The history of the masses is not so positive a thing as to suggest acting like they do is going to turn out well. Among one of the more profound statements in AA, an organization with a propensity for turning profound into rote, is the one to the effect of “everything we tried before didn’t work”. This is perhaps the singular most persuasive argument for doing wacky shit, any wacky shit. It is the Hail Mary of human and canine behavior “just run for the end zone as fast as you can, and if I’m not trampled I’m going to throw the ball as hard as I can in your general direction and we’ll either be heroes or find our dicks in the dirt and our balls swinging in the breeze.”

On a side note, that lamp I bought yesterday? The lady was doing the old school radio shack thing where you need everything shy of your birth certificate and blood type to make a purchase. When she asked for my email, I asked, I think I’m safe in saying I never fail, ever, to ask “Why? You’re not going to send me a bunch of shit.” Invariably the answer is some version of no with a caveat involving special promotions and wouldn’t I like that sir? No one has ever admitted to me that they sell their email list. I don’t know that the lamp people do, but I’ve gotten three emails from them in the last twenty four hours. I’m not sure how real people or real dog owners act, as I’m pretty sure I just pointed out, but it seems like, with the exception of the consumable part, the bulb, most folks take care of their lighting needs for a while in one single go. Granted I’ve bought three lamps in the last month from three different places, but prior to that it’d been several years since I’d bought a lamp. Are they expecting me to go on a lighting binge? Now that I’ve discovered their email I’ll realize how long I’ve been in the dark? Perhaps I should steal a service dog vest in the short fat size and bring Levi in. At bare minimum it should update the old “Like a bull in a china shop” to “Like a pit-bull in a Lamp store”. I don’t know that I’ve been on the receiving end of a lamp hard sell before. I expect evangelism now from them, heavy handed albeit light hearted presentation of comparisons to lighting and enlightenment, luminating and illumination.

I was thinking about something else too while peeing in the wee hours (coincidence that they are called the wee hours, a child’s term for piss? I think not) and looking at the cigar books on my magazine rack. All those warning on cigarette packs and by association Cigar boxes? They suggest and imply that your death is imminent, that it is a 100 percent positive side effect. Every other drug says something to the effect of If side effects occur (e.g. anal leakage, loss of sight, emotional upheaval, death) consult physician to discontinue and/or discontinue immediately then consult physician. I used to have civil rights arguments with this guy I played pinochle with during lunch breaks at the DHR building. One of his strongest arguments about how the black man has been treated in America was “We are the only race that had to have specific legislation to get us in on the whole all men are created equal shit. Had to march in the streets, get beat down, our leaders killed to get the half assed legislation that affirmative action is, basically saying ‘you can’t discriminate against even the darkies’” I did point out that women had to do that for the vote. He pointed out they weren’t a race. A dame we played pinochle with called him a misogynist. It was fun.

Tobacco gets that sort of treatment from the truth in labeling legislation. I’d like to see labels that say “Smoking eventually could fuck you up, if you’re dead consult your physician. Hey, at least it doesn’t lead to anal leakage.” And maybe on Cigar boxes “Warning, protocol says you have to defer to the assholes who fake coughs even if you’re outdoors in a smoking area. And there’s an off chance you could get lip cancer, though, unlike that shade of scarlet whore lipstick that bitch fake coughing is wearing, no bunnies had cigars injected into their lips to test the propensity for lip cancer. Tell her those bunnies are dead, respond to the fake cough with a fake dead bunny.”

And I’m spent.