Caustically Optimistic

high fidelity

Picture it: Fort Knox High School, 1996, I’m in the auditorium sitting in the section for underclassmen with my friend Erin, despite being seniors.  We’re watching the school talent show and the talent was admittedly lacking and the frosh are unsparing in their critiques.  Our friend Amanda ascends the stage to sing an anthem to Jesus.  Erin and I lean forward and tell the frosh that one word against Amanda it would go badly for them, very badly.  Amanda is our good, decent friend who, while very different from us, is someone we guard closely and resent anyone trying to hurt her.  Fourteen years can change a great deal, but fidelity is fidelity. 

Chaos Bean and I went to the movies with Amanda tonight for Recession Tuesdays.  Amanda had her niece and younger cousin with her.  The movie may or may not have been appropriate for her niece but the niece spent her time playing on a phone and eating Skittles.  She didn’t notice, watch or care about the movie. 

On the way out of the movie some unsuspecting Austrian (or Bavarian) man decided to challenge Amanda on her choice to bring the niece to the movie saying, “Did you stop to think before bringing a small child to this movie?”  One might have warned him to stop and think before getting smart with Amanda around ‘us’ but mainly around Chaos Bean.  Amanda told him it was none of his business and he protested that saying that it was (somehow) his business. 

 Chaos Bean, is the consummate German, she is honest, direct, has a keen sense of justice, and amazingly efficient.  She was, as it were, loaded for bear and she unloaded all over this old man who thought he’d put his two cents in where they weren’t solicited.  Starting with, “Did you stop to think to mind your own business,” and then as he walked away mumbling and then shouting, “Idiots!” she called him, “lame,” and followed up with the strongest language, “it must be hard to walk with balls that big, douche bag.”  He mumbled again and she said, “Did you stop to think before you [insert German wartime atrocity]?”

You know how, after an argument, you think of what you should have said?  In our family we filibuster vigilantly.  We don’t have those moments you have where you think of what you might have said, what you should have said.  We say it.  We bring it. My apple fell under the Ashkenazi tree and hers fell under the aristocratic Prussian one.  I’ll hurt your feelings, get under your skin and make you cry.  Chaos Bean will shake the very foundations of the Earth.   

Bean doesn’t take garbage off anyone but she certainly isn’t going to take garbage off a Barbarian and certainly not a faux-German Austrian.  He was mistaken to get smart with someone around Chaos Bean and he’s lucky he walked away having directed his ire at Amanda.  This man walked up to us hoping to bully someone and shame them and instead had his proverbial pants put on.    

 Chaos Bean likes to say, “The hipsters are commenting about how that was ironic,” and the fact that was I wearing the black and gold of the German National Football Union (soccer team, for the uninitiated). 

What is impressive, most impressive, is that Darth Bean didn’t use stronger language.  She didn’t once use her beloved “F Bomb,” or in our eyesight fly the state bird of New Jersey.  She did, in so many words, tell him: where he could go, walked him to his bus stop, and pay his fare.  This guy is going to send post cards once he gets there.  I cannot underestimate the saltiness of her language – she doesn’t curse like a sailor; sailors curse like a Chaos Bean.  Amanda must have rubbed off on her pretty well because she let him have it – and have it hard – without using language that was untoward even if her closing was pretty awful. 

However, we are a bit concerned that someone has taken our Chaos Bean.  We’d like her back.  

The movie was unremarkable and at this point I have no idea what we watched. 

user name: spritopias

I’ve forgotten my password to get into my manufacturer’s training website.  It’s very secure and I’d like to congratulate the jerk that locked it down like it is Fort Knox or Buckingham Palace.  The absurdity of this situation is that I don’t know the answer to my security question to get be back into the system.  My choices are: my favorite sports star, my favorite childhood television show, my favorite television show, my favorite cartoon character, the best man/maid of honor at my wedding or my pet’s name.  Let’s discuss how genius those questions are. 

I don’t watch television, I don’t have a favorite sports star because I don’t care enough to have one, I haven’t been married and I didn’t have a dog when I was hired.  I could make one up but will I remember that later?  Also, and this is more important, if I were a normal human being you’d know that it was the Golden Girls, Battlestar Galactica, Alex Rodriquez, Fry, Alex Vance, and Molly Ringworm.  It’s on my Facebook, we’d have talked about it around the water cooler, something…but probably not going to know my mother’s maiden name. 

 I mean, if you’ve been following along you know that I’d have put Beelzebub, Hapsburg, or something similar - but it’s unlikely that you’d guess what I put or care. 

 You’re also not going to break into the manufacturer’s training site and do my tests for me – not that I’d stop you or care.  I’m starting to think that I put Jay Z as my favorite sports star because he can make a Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can.  If you want to do my tests for me, I’d appreciate it because I have to know a bunch of things you won’t ask me when you come in to buy a car. 

 My favorite one, from another site completely, is, “Who did your best friend lose their virginity to?”  It really should be, “To whom did your best friend lose their virginity?”  Or, “What dirty whore gave it up to that scumbag you call a homie?”  Also, my best friend is a little more discrete and less indelicate about things like that.  So I remember how to get my password back I ended up answering, “Your Mom.” 

 I can’t decide what’s more offensive to me: the question or the bad grammar in which said question is posed. 

 My point is this: there are so many sites you have to have complicated passwords to and I honestly doubt anyone is so incredibly bored that they’re hacking into my life (my debit card excluded) and taking my tests for me.  I don’t know who people think I am or what their website is but I’d bet people don’t care enough to hack into my lameness. 

The tragedy is that beyond their incredible security hoops I can save my passwords and had a passive aggressive coworker not set my computer to not remember passwords or security protocols I wouldn’t have to bother with it, because really – how secure are you if you let me save the password in the first place? 

For the record, my mother’s made name is Mephistopheles – but the key is remembering that correct spelling.  

Relentless

Yesterday, after a brief audience with Colonel Sanders, Emperor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky I gained a dispensation to leave before the end of the Derby Festival and upon receiving it fled to Colorado. I've been in Denver and the surrounding environs and will get about forty-eight solid hours in. I always enjoy traveling in Colorado in general and Denver specifically. Approaching Denver is like approaching the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz. It rises out of no where and presents it's impressive skyline to the traveler and seems to welcome them in from the austere loneliness of the surrounding farms and ranches.

So far, this trip has been a brilliant success. My boss insisted that I take some time off and relax but I think I should introduce him to Emily or let I'm spend the day with her. I enjoy visiting Emily because you'll have a full day, everyday. I think she has Carpe Diem tattooed on the back of her eyelids.

Today we went to the Furry Scurry which benefits the Dumb Friends Society which I was surprised to find out had to do with animals. I spent the entire ride over wondering why - if the friends were dumb - you'd want to or would be able to help a friend who was stupid. We walked around a park for an hour with a herd of corgis and helped raise (I think) over a million dollars for homeless pets the Denver area.

Emily's corgi needs companionship during the day and there was a co-jack (Corgi, Jack Russell mixed) in need of adoption. We headed put to the shelter and Emily and Ginny made their introductions with the yet to be named Co-Jack.

Ginny is a very spirited and relentless corgi. She is a furry creamsicle of energy. She's also an only canine and one can never really know how they'll react to someone being introduced into their pack. Ginny was initially cool to the puppy and perhaps a wee bit annoyed at his Russell-tactic-ness (if that wasn't an all out assault on our language, what is?). The-puppy-who-must-not-be-named is currently being tolerated by Ginny and she'd like me to note that its the puppy who should not be petted, played with, held, talked to, noticed, fed, watered or walked. She's currently occupying her old bed so that her little brother cannot use it (live with it, Ginny, he's staying).

After the trip to the shelter we went through the foothills because it is too cold for us to willingly wander into the mountains. We went to Morrison, Idledale, and Evergreen. If there is am ugly part of Colorado I've not been there. We were able to walk Ginny and Puppy-who-hasn't-yet-been-named around and it didn't wear them out at all. Corgis are relentless, even Co-Jacks. We were able to see sights, buy candy, and do the "trip to Colorado isn't complete without a" wine tasting. Normally, I like all the winds and tumble down the mountain but this time I noticed some of the subtle differences and what I don't like in a wine. Emily noted that she was noticing the different notes in they wine herself - I lack her vocabulary (and refinement).

The fun after returning Emily's home wasn't the Ginny & Ginny show, where the delightful and jovial corgi runs circles around the world and makes watching a goofy movie with a bottle of wine an event all its own. Instead, we had a sociology lesson from the dejected and jealous corgi as she responded with all the aplomb of an eighth grade girl who's just announced that she hates her parents and the whole world is against her. She looked ten times more hurt than when I leave my Molly in the morning to go to work. She was cool with the puppy when they were hanging out but was horrified when she realized he was staying. It was cute, funny and very sad. If you're reading this Molly, I'll never do that to you.

Tomorrow I return to the Commonwealth, my only instructions being from the Colonel that I shouldn't have anyone else's chicken on my breath. Most of the time when you leave a place after a vacation you'll note that it was a nice place but you wouldn't want to live there. Colorado isn't that place. I hope to grow up, get a real job, and move to Colorado.

Rambling on the iPad

I'm typing to you from my iPad. At first I thought I was ambivalent about the thing because I didn't need it. Who needs anything? You don't need computers and I certainly didn't need this wee computer but there is no point in working if you don't get a cool toy once in a while, right?

This now allows me to do what my moleskin notebook hasn't allowed me to do: instantly tell you the stupid things that have wandered into my brain. For instance, Governor Bashear said the budget negotiations could prove "cataclysmic," as if the budget situation could provoke the Lord in Heaven to open up the earth and swallow Paducah or hurl a meteor at Berea.

I'm also imposing the Beastie Boys on my coworkers. I'm a little annoyed at the foul language myself but I have to support my people. I sometimes feel like Bob Cratchet at work because I sit at a tiny desk and while one of my immediate supervisors babbles inane and cruel remarks or offers a commentary on our work habits. The best times of course are the ones like right now where he makes a big show of scolding us for being lazy when his boss wanders in catching him watching videos on YouTube.

I have a new appreciation for the show, "The Office," that I lacked entirely before. There is always a heaping portion of the truth in any comedy and while I'm unfortunately Angela in accounting or Andy Benard in his less malicious moments my immediate supervisor is not unlike Dwight when left in charge. He lacks Dwight's charm though but that's fine as we have neither a Jim nor a Pam. We have Mimi from the Drew Carey Show. In these tough times its rough to be out of work.

What I'd like to eventually do is figure out how to mark a montage of the moments from "The Office," that remind me of my own place of work. It's truly appalling what goes on there and if you were exposed to the videos we take of each other and post on Facebook you'd be mortified. I should probably juxtapose the videos we've made with the ones from The Office. People in the car business aren't the villains you think they are - they're not intellectually capable of the trickery with which we are associated.

I complete this on a very tiny plane on my way to visit another professionally displaced English teacher. Those of you who love the language - or are vaguely familiar with it - would also be horrified by the people I work with and how they speak. I look forward to being around other literate adults and by God if I am going go work with children why do they have to be my boss and why can't they be actual twelve-year-olds instead of emotionally handicapped nincompoops?

Being on an airplane is also a great deal like being a child in school again - although United let me have a full soda which i absolutely regret as the person I am sitting next to is asleep or possibly dead. He also looks like Pedro and I'm terribly tempted to say, "I didn't vote for you." I refrain because he's asleep, not drooling on my shoulder, and I'd retort, "at least I don't resemble the bloated corpse of Jack McFarland."

I could also comb through the catalog they put in the seat behind you full of things that seem like a good idea thousands of feet in the air but that we'd pass on when we found it at Target. Right now I'd take the R2D2 that follows you around the house and the oak or mahogany pet kennel that looks like furniture. I'd totally go for the meerkats statue for the garden and the King Tut sarcophagus for inside the house - it doubles as a cabinet!

I can pass on the wasp traps, our neighborhood needs a little more catch and release on those. I'm also a little afraid of all the products to abuse your pets. My dog, Molly, and my koala (who prefers to have his name redacted from the internet for his own safety) are pretty much the only animals that I consider. Dogs are pretty easy going - it's the humans who could use a nap.

I thinks so far my favorite part of this iPad and this flight has been the questions. "Is that an iPad?" No, ma'am it's an brushed aluminum sandwich. "Do you love it?" It's inanimate. How can I not love it! It doesn't talk back or pee on the carpet or even use all the toilet paper.

It's like reading a book and being asked what you're doing. What are the possible answers? Also, doesn't it appear to you that I am pleasantly engaged in something and perhaps you should keep your hand out my cage?

There are a great deal of productive things I can accomplish with this computer but I'm pretty sure I'll stick to causing trouble.

gremlins

We have a gremlin that lives in our kitchen.  He drinks all the iced tea except a drizzle in the bottom of the pitcher.  He eats all the pretzels except for a few crumbs and salt.  He eats all the pickles and leaves the jar in the fridge with just pieces of garlic rolling around in the brine.  He also snipes the good leftovers and doggy bags. 

Apparently, he has infiltrated Chaos Bean’s work place and is apparently a girl.  I’ve not been in a woman’s restroom in a while – one can never forget the Damen/Herren imbroglio of 1987 – and I was unaware that ‘emergency’ feminine hygiene products are stashed there. Apparently the gremlin menstruates often and heavily or is lining her nest with sanitary napkins because the disappearance of tampons is a serious problem. 

Chaos Bean made this announcement during dinner with friends and a former coworker, many of the women that were there commiserated that this wasn’t an uncommon problem and any woman who has had this tale of misfortune pointed it out that it has happened to their emergency stash in the workplace. 

I can’t imagine the fury this must inspire.  I lose my religion when someone takes pens and chocolates out of my desk (you have to bring your own) so I am pretty sure people would die if they took my tampons, if I indeed had them. 

I imagine that this is a lot worse than the toilet paper roll running out and needing someone to run and get you a roll.  I’ve been to that aisle in Target.  I know that I’m out of depth and there are so many choices that mathematically I’m destined to fail.  Left to my own devices I will get the wrong toilet paper, either confusing the brand or the texture – I’ve been to college and I’ve learned that you really can use any toilet paper.  However, I know the retribution that comes with presenting someone with the wrong paper.  I’d hate to do that with a tampon. 

We fear what we do not understand.  I understand toilet paper.  I don’t understand how or why my friend Elizabeth considers it gluttony to use more than three pieces at one time – for me it’s a delicate balance between not getting my hands dirty and not clogging up the toilet.  I have no idea what to do about the tampons and I’m pretty sure that I’d not only get the wrong kind, but I’d get the wrong kind in the most drastic and catastrophic way.  The kids would call it, “epically bad.”  I also cannot imagine being sequestered in the bathroom waiting for rescue from someone wholly ignorant of your plight.  This must be how the gremlins entertain themselves. 

This is analogous to the time I tried to make an analogy at work by saying, “it’s like when you’re reading French literature and someone compliments a lady on how well she has made her toilet…” to realize that I am the only person in the United States who reads Dumas because he likes it, and misses Gretchen.  Certainly this is absurd where I work since most of them cannot read or write. 

When someone steals from us we say, “they probably needed it more than I did.”  This is not true in the bathroom.  I can’t imagine the converse indignity of the poor young lady, trapped by the gremlins, trying to describe what they needed EXACTLY and well enough so that they might be saved from their plight.  I really have no idea how bad that would be; I only know the terror of being outside scribbling down all the adjectives and modifiers that would bring you the exact product you needed to secure your release because the wrong product has it’s own awful consequences. 

I am now compelled to stock up on toilet paper.  

Bland is Optional

Bland is Optional If you make airline reservations you can pick which type of meal you’d like, Kosher, Vegetarian, Hindu, or bland? Personally, I’m concerned that the food I ordered would be Sephardic and not my preference for Ashkenazi; it’s very difficult for a Lutheran to keep Kosher while flying from Louisville to Denver. I’m pretty sure that there is a food out there that everyone can agree upon and eat without offending their religious predilections because I’m pretty sure they don’t have a kosher galley on the plane anyway. I wasn’t aware that they had a name for the food served to the rest of the world had a name since the food I’ve eaten has always been bland. What in God’s name does your food taste like? 

It’s amazing what we’ll put up with on airplanes. In any other circumstances I’d have ripped the headphones off the person in the next seat who’s cuddling with/drooling on me and yelled, “If I wanted to hear the “n” word over and over again and graphic embellishments of sex acts that never happened I’d go back to teaching sixth grade!” I cannot imagine a circumstance where a complete stranger would use me as a pillow and drool on me and I hope there isn’t another one. 

I do enjoy the fact that people cannot use their mobile phones on the plane. During my lay-over I was at a charging station refueling my iPhone so I could play, “We Rule,” (I almost lost an onion crop) and a woman was on her yellular phone chortling on alternately to her son and husband about an accident the son had been involved in driving home from college where no one was deemed at fault and all were okay. Normally, I’d have moved away from her conversation but I decided that since I was tethered to the same small table she was that politeness dictated she move or pipe down. I did my best impression of my Aunt Stella, leveling the evil eye at her while adding in my own signature “this is going on the Internet” eavesdropping. 

The woman behind me is ignoring her kids as it is but I am sure I’d have eaten one of those children in retribution for hearing her prattling on into her yellular phone and the wee bag of peanuts we’re given before the bland kosher vegetarian tour de force coming from the galley. This I believe is one of the greatest insults or gags of our time. In a world where we’re so minutely sensitive to the feelings of others are presented with a tiny bag of peanuts while riding on airplanes, which could kill one in three American children. I find it hard to believe that the same airlines that make sure I have my kosher vegetarian Hindu breakfast wrap overlooked this. I also believe that, at thirty-two years old, I should not only care about greater problems in the world but also be allowed to have an entire can of Diet Coke. Apparently, that’s just asking too much and had I not gotten two traffic tickets this week I’d have referred this to my attorney. 

I’d have made my own big deal about this but I didn’t bring Chaos Bean with me – and to own the truth, she raises a ruckus better than anyone I know so I prefer to let her settle accounts – and I am flying to Texas and the last thing I need to do is to put on my Max hat and start the Wild Rumpus or incite a riot. My attorney is good, very good, but I don’t think he’s “started a imbroglio/brouhaha on an international flight,” good. 

Besides, I promised I would behave while in and en route to the only place on Earth and surrounding planets where guns more popular than the Beatles and Jesus Christ. I bet when she flies they take one look at Chaos Bean and think, “give her an entire Diet Coke, it’s not worth it.” I knew I should have brought her. I am sun-burnt, have an uncanny command of the English language with a distinct northern accent; they’d confuse me for a foreigner in a heartbeat and as soon as we cross over Louisiana I will be – at best I’d have been shoved in an overhead bin until we landed. 

Indeed, I tell you the truth, until Joe Biden gives us high-speed rail service across the Republic we’re at the mercy of the airlines. I would love nothing more than to take an adventure across America with Madame de Suburban Island drinking entire cans of Diet Coke and taking in the sights of our beautiful country. It would be like a black and white movie, as all adventures with the Madame de Suburban Island are; there might even be a murder for us to solve. Instead, if I am lucky, I get to peek out a tiny window at the tops of clouds at a world built for ants. I’d almost take that over our health care reforms but in my imagination I see myself dying of cancer and Madame leaning across the table in the café car telling me, “You’re an ass. You should have gone with Obamacare” 

I’m sure no politician but Joe Biden could save us because I’m sure that the flight attendants are so star-struck by anyone important or remotely powerful that they might encounter in first or business class that they’d give them an entire Diet Coke and perhaps a snack that wouldn’t rage through a fourth grade classroom like bubonic plague. I’m pretty sure that my friends who don’t agree with me on politics would agree on the point that an entire Diet Coke is a change we could all believe in. I’m in that tax bracket that sees a third of their income disappear and if I work really hard I can see more of it go away as well so even if you don’t get a whole Diet Coke I think I should my class should be as full as my tax bracket. If I’m in that forty-seven percent of Americans paying taxes I should get fifty-three percent of a can of Diet Coke. Don’t call that cockamamie; call it a start. My ideas are no less ridiculous than George W. Bush’s designs on invading the planet Mars. 

They’ve seen what we’ve done to our own planet, George, they’re not going to welcome us a liberators. 

Stay home. Instead, I remain here – faithfully yours – in mind-your-own-business class, cuddled up with someone who drools facing the ire of the guy with the lazy eye from the layover whispering to the woman with the yellular phone about what a jerk I am. I should just take a nap to dream of film noir cross-country trips with full glasses of Diet Coke.

[1] Valerie, see Madame Librarian for more information on the distinction between the Sephardim and Ashkenazi.  

the trouble with concubines

I’ve had a hard time going to church because of all the politics and the ignorant things said by people of all persuasions.  No, Jesus would not vote for Dennis Kucinich (he despises magical dwarves).  I haven’t gone to the adult Sunday school class at all because it is usually the worst there but today was a different story in it’s entirety because when one calls it, “adult Bible school,” one is usually referring to the age group not the content.  

Apparently, the men at my church are really into the concept of concubines.  I counted and pastor fielded more questions about the patriarch’s concubines than any of Bill Clinton’s press secretaries ever had.  I watched in my best impassive teacher face as things spiraled further and further out of control and noted that if I ever have the serious misfortune of teaching at a Lutheran school again I will not take any garbage off any of these substandard Fort Wayne Seminary Pastors about my teaching and certainly not my crowd control.

I could write my own Screwtape Letters because there is an adorable disaster weekly at church.  I can’t believe I let people’s politics cloud my perception of the fumbles and foibles of the Lutherans.  I’m sure every group is as bad as the Lutherans but because we’re right (and you’re wrong – very, very wrong) it’s funnier when there is a gaffe.

The poor, sad man just got more and more uncomfortable and wouldn’t change the subject.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taught about Thomas Jefferson and not brought up Sally Hemmings.  It’s not that I’m afraid of history or telling the full story but is there a point of bringing that up in the context of what I’d teach your twelve-year-old?  No, there really isn’t (but I don’t drop the fact that Thomas Jefferson was a fraud and coward who never had an original thought).  You have to know your audience, have a concise message or goal in your lesson and hang onto it like a dog with a bone. 

The Bible is full of imperfect people whose inadequacies, limitations, and weaknesses elucidate God’s will in our lives and most importantly the idea that no matter how much we suck at life there is hope for us.  There are people in the Good Book who seemed to get things wrong at every opportunity and through it all God still loved them and brought them home when they went astray. 

Apparently, so is the Lutheran Church.  I know I need to learn to look past people’s faults even if they’d never look past mine.  Today we had a woefully inept and insufficient exposition of the Parable of the Prodigal Son and what he meant to say was that the story is about us as the older son, that we get wrapped up in how wonderful we are and how everyone else is so terrible and that we need to be compassionate like the father and the Father.  It is such a dynamic, multifarious story that I am always disappointed when it’s discussed so poorly – but the point is that we need to stop worrying about everyone else and worry about ourselves.  The Gospel of Bono implores us to carry each other, and that’s not so we can drop kick a brother easier (although, that is the best way to do it). 

Come for the message, stay for the laughs.  That’s what I’ll do.  

by oneself

One of the questions posted to me when I had more opportunities to write and more stories to tell was if my stories were true – because they are too absurd to be true and these things cannot honestly be happening.  The other one questions if I am indeed as rude and uncouth as I present myself.  My stories are true and I am downplaying my unpleasantness.

I was at the local corporate pharmacy picking up something for my boss – something to fend off the malaise due jour so that I could remain on the floor while my counterpart was regaining his health.  While I was waiting for the clerk to bring what I needed from the stockroom I wandered the store and found myself in the aisle with the condoms.  I stopped to respond to a text message and an old lady lit into me for being a fornicator, etc, because I was buying birth control and was obviously having sex outside of marriage.  She was just working up a lather in her mouth when the clerk came, handed me the package, and asked if I needed anything else.  I did. 

I picked up a package of condoms, handed them to her and asked, “Do these come in a smaller size?  These are too big.”  She looked at me, obviously trying to suppress nervous laughter and I went on, “no one wants to make love to a loose plastic bag, is there something smaller?”  I can neither confirm nor deny that I made illustrating gestures to make my point clear. 

One cannot fornicate by oneself.  

turn signals

When you get cancer you are quickly placed into one of two groups.  Some people are the good ones that bad things happen to, but if you’re like me you’ll be one of those people who had it coming to them.  I won’t pretend that I’m a good person: I’ve had a rigorous Lutheran upbringing I think it’s foolhardy to think that such things exist outside of Divine Providence.  We spend all this time justifying our existence and our behavior, “I may pick my nose while I drive, but at least I use turn signals.” 

Dear reader, this is the magic of being me: I don’t care what the other humans think and it frees me up considerably to do what I feel like doing and to be who I am want to be.  My life is very comfortable this way. 

There are truths in life that are unavoidable.  You can only count on yourself: family, friends, colleagues will all desert you.  Ronald McDonald is always there for you.  No matter the time of day or night, unless you live in some rural form of Hell, you can find him or he will find you.  This is how we know he is the minion of Satan because who else would be so vigilant?  I defy you to answer this question better, and you cannot.  While I realize these sentiments aren’t as priceless or as beautiful as an original Alex Vance photoshop I can assure you that they just as genuine.  

I say this to you, all of this, because I am joyfully anticipating the premier of Tim Burton’s imagining of Alice in Wonderland, which coincides with the celebration of my not falling off the planet and evading angry mobs for another year outside the womb.  I have re-read the book so that I can complain throughout the movie how it isn’t like the book – not a bad thing since the book has no plot.  It really was the precursor to Napoleon Dynamite only you don’t vote for queens (despite what Ru Paul and George Lucas tell you) so there is no Pedro.

My quest between then and now is to find where they’ve absconded with Valerie so that I can write more, since without Valerie – who is reading this?    That, and to teach again so I have stories to tell or at least a heart that isn't dark, and bitter. 

I have a lot of questions and I want to extend my vocabulary further.  I want to know if it's actually appropriate to not put periods behind abbreviations like the one for mister and why we've stopped using apostrophes.  I want to read French literature and study German.  I want to warn people that Derek is a person and not a float for Mardi Gras.  I want to climb Machu Picchu (and rename it Machu Pikachu).  There is much to be done and less time to do it.  We have to find Valerie, we have to find the stories.  

shooting blanks

Valerie, you asked why I am not returning your calls.  I am not feeling well and cannot take a phone call. 

I’m having one of those weeks where I feel like Kevin from Home Alone – not the icky “I fathered Michael Jackson’s baby” feeling but the, “I think everyone is out to get me – even if I know that’s false, right???”  I hate feeling paranoid, I feel it lumps me in with the Wal Martians at those Tea Parties about the taxes in brackets they’re not a part of. 

I came to this realization at lunch.  On Saturdays our firm buys everyone lunch – we have it ordered in and we all eat the same thing.  It’s always garbage.  It’s also ordered by the office bully – and I’ll never understand how or why under performing people are always tolerated but those of who produce have to have lazy, fat-lards nipping at our heals.  I also don’t understand why, when we have pizza for lunch, we have to have several over-sized “gourmet” pizzas piled with low-grade meats and questionable vegetables but having a plain, cheese pizza is unthinkable.  I’m not asking for my own pizza or something special, I’m asking for something basic.

But there is a lot about human activity that I don’t understand.  I don’t understand how women can car around those enormous bags full of the detritus of the fall of humanity from Eden but somehow exclude their wallet and keys from the mix.  I would never stick my hand into someone’s bag – that’s rude, but I find women confusing in general but this whole shtick of carrying around a duffle bag with apparently nothing in it is mystifying.  My same lady-friends who send e-mails about how men are stupid will comment on this about, “not getting it,” but I always know where my iPhone, keys, and wallet are. 

I understand that when I was teenager people found it tacky that we wore out-sized clothing but apparently they’ve only run clothing for men once because ‘kids today’ seem to be all wearing jeans that don’t fit them but in a way that makes you wonder if they’ll ever be able to have children – and secretly hope they cannot.  It must be parenting because if your son were able to get himself out those nut-huggers, he’d be shooting blanks.  I had friends whose parents had to keep their sisters out of their clothing but I never dreamed I’d see the day when we’d be asking our sons, “Are you wearing your sisters pants?”  I will no longer be taking complaints about how much money my parents had to spend so I’d look like a hobo in high school. 

I am tired of looking out into the world and not understanding it, and I don’t understand why I want to understand it. Why would I want to understand Humans, Wal Martians, and the other inhabitants of the planet? 

Well, whatever, I out performed the office bully two to one last month and carried a quarter of all production on a staff of ten and I think I deserve my own damned plain cheese pizza. 

Yes, other readers, I do have these conversations with Valerie – well, before becoming consumed with worry about the contents of my belly button.