Late Morning

Earlier today I was returning from the kitchen with a piece of strawberry pie when I spied Rafe lying on the sofa, bleeding a bit at the nostril. “What did you do?” I asked, readying my fork. After a long pause and a series of pathetic sighs, he looked me in the eye. “I taunted a man on the street. He wanted my forty-three cents for a bus ticket to Saint Louis. I called him a cretin and a one-eyed fatty, so he lunged at the woman next to me and punched her in the nose. She apparently found this unfair, so she turned and punched me in the nose. Then I punched her back, and so forth. Anyway, there’s something burning in the foyer.” I set my pie on the mantle and hurried into the foyer, where I noticed the hat rack ablaze. I opened the door and threw the rack out. The fire quickly smoldered and extinguished. When I returned to the living room, Rafe was gone and my pie plate was empty. Am considering replacing the rack with a low porcelain shelf, as this is not the first time I’ve lost pie due to hat rack fire.

Science

The current financial crisis reminds me of the time at camp when I was pulled from my bed at two in the morning and forced to search for owls. The counselors issued each camper a bit of red paper meant to be wrapped around the head of one’s flashlight, for science teaches us that light shot through red paper does not scare owls. We were to observe owls, not scare them; science teaches us that observing animals teaches us about science. At any rate, I didn’t find any owls. I also didn’t find any unopened bags of Doritos lying about, which is probably what I was really looking for.

Wednesday, Again

The idiot Flavian just blew in from Haiti, filthy and light of purse. He claimed that a local woman in a bear costume tried to bludgeon him with with a jar of apricot jam. It was probably only a hurricane, but who am I to question one man’s love of truth? Everyone knows there are no fruit spreads in Haiti.

Naturally I expect our mumblety-peg warfare to resume tout de suite or whenever he's done watching the Flintstones, whichever comes first.

Wednesday

Ran into Violet in the woods today. I demanded to know what she was doing skulking around the woods like a common polecat. “I could ask the same of you,” she hissed. And I was all, “Fuck you, I’M LACTOSE INTOLERANT!!" Our eyes locked in mutual suspicion, we slowly backed away from each other and bolted our separate ways. After a bit of laborious contemplation, I realize I should have dealt her the wages of sin on the spot, but it’s too late now. She is a simple sort, and further antagonism would only perplex her. Perhaps I’ll send her a box of those licorice candies she detests.

Quickly

Have noticed one of those dreadful Roombas sweeping through the guest rooms. Did not put it there, or, in fact, introduce it to my home in the first. Don’t know how it got in. Intend to dispatch the thing as soon as I locate a suitable firearm.

Topic Drift of the Future

If I ever have a crappy personal website instead of this awesome free blogspot website, I’m going to play this trick my readers: every time they click on something in my menu bar, the website is going to go black. When the reader clicks on the “back” button, they’ll get a recipe for black-bean hummus. Then, when they write me peevish e-mails about my lack of content, I will write back “Yes, yes, I know black-bean hummus isn’t real hummus.” Christ, I’m not that stupid.

Plans, Vol. 1

People keep asking me if I’ll be blogging from the Republican National Convention, and the answer is yes, I will be blogging from the Republican National Convention, if by “blogging from the Republican National Convention” you mean “showing up at the Xcel Center with a Power Bar and a briefcase full of Jesse Helms EVPs on tape.” If I can’t sell them there, I can’t sell them anywhere. Of course, I’ll probably spend some time walking behind conventioneers, stepping on their heels so their feet come out of their loafers. When they turn around to see who deshod them, I’ll quickly hand them a kitten and run like hell in the other direction. Then they’ll be stuck outdoors with a kitten, because you can’t bring kittens inside the Xcel Center. Believe me, I’ve tried.

That Best Portion

One thing I hate is when people ask if I cook. No, I do not cook, ever, and it’s not because I can’t. It’s because I prefer to have other people do that sort of shit for me. This is also why I do not change linens, recycle, phone people on their birthdays, pour tea, or pick papers off the floor unless they are banknotes.

That best portion of a good man’s life;
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. -Wordsworth

Oh, fuck off.

What?

I was recently taking care of some solemn business when I said to myself, “Why engage in such business? It is beneath you.” God’s foot! It was like a mighty light went on in my head, shorting out the widget that transmits thoughts to my mouth mechanism via fiber optic cable. I immediately ceased all action and took to drink.

At any rate, that was weeks ago, the schnapps cupboard is bare, and my laundry is still in the washer.

Hospitality; Mice Films

I just finished gluing all of the pages of The Grapes of Wrath shut. Last night I glued some Raymond Carver, Don Delillo and The Color Purple. I’m not going to read these again and I don’t want anyone else reading them, either – they’re going straight to the guest room nightstand. I may even glue the volumes together so that Fat Old Molly has one dustable object instead of four.

I say, what do you think of Stuart Little? While I’m impressed with his carmanship, he holds but a small place in my heart. I have no patience for Mickey, Minnie, those three blind assholes, Fivel, Mighty, and Jerry. I do like the Rescuers, however. When it comes to screen mice, I look for intrepid self-starters who wear cape-free human clothing while delivering children from swamps. I also appreciate mice films that feature large, skull-encased diamonds. Yes, The Rescuers is where it’s at.

Economy

Just sold Rafe’s soiled tuxedo to a person on the internets. I also located a robot I want to buy. The robot is expensive, and I will have to sell at least 4 more tuxedos to cover the cost. What in the holy fuck is going on? Just a year ago, I could buy twenty robots for the price of two tuxedos. Now I can’t trade a saint’s finger for a bottle of sherry.

This reminds me of the time I sold a set of Diana Ross cupboard knobs to a man in Schenectady. He didn’t have any money but he owned a parsley farm. “So? Send me some parsley,” I told him, and he did. He’s dead now, but what of it? He got his knobs and I got my parsley. I don't see what all the fuss is about.

Email

I’ve just completed a ceremonial Skimming of the Email. Puhh. Do I take milk with my porridge? How often do I read Keats? Do I actually campaign for real ale, or do I sit back while others do the footwork? I used to receive such questions with glee, knowing that my answers fuel worlds. I still feel that way, of course, but typing responses has become a hassle. Someone has pried the H, A, R, Tab, and 5 keys from my keyboard. The keyboard itself cracked in April when I whaled Rafe with it. Some good-natured indoor shotgun fire recently damaged my monitor casing and cast a permanent yellow haze over the screen, and my mouse mechanism appears to be clotted with some sort of fruit-based mucosity. Last week I took the side panel off the tower and found, amongst other things, the afikomen. E pur si muove. I can still use the contraption to play Minesweeper, so my weekends remain full.

A Sorry Welcome Home

Devastation. Just returned from my seaside holiday to find my moth collection ravaged by squirrels. What’s more, I’m not even sure it was squirrels; it may have been field mice, or a wayward vole. This reminds me of the time I brought my moth collection over to Violet’s house when she was ill with the croup. “This will cheer her up,” I thought. Wrong - she took one peek and suffered a series of acute seizures. How was I to know of her winged-thing phobia? Fortunately, Violet is a family friend and not a friend of my own making. I would feel horrible about it all had I met her in school, or at the park. As it stands, our friendship is an ancestral accident, like red hair or strange earlobes, and I really can’t be bothered.

6 Down, Smurf-colored. 14 Down, Inuit's ride.

I wanted to begin this post “I was just filling in the Wednesday crossword when it occurred to me,” but it is useless. Nothing occurred to me while I was filling in the crossword. I often go days without anything occurring to me. “With which known substance will I now compose this sandwich?” “Better six feet under than one house over.” “Will man reach the headwaters of the Congo in my lifetime?” These are the sort of perplexities I consider, and nothing more.

I say, what do you think of puffins? For lo, they are sea birds.

Avant Garde Gothic Condensed Medium, or Trebuchet Narrow, or Some Such Shit

I’ve decided to adopt a new font for my private correspondence. I have also decided that, when the snow recedes, I will find a new stick. My old stick is decrepit. It’s cracked, it has lichen, the end I wrap in flaming kerosene-soaked rags is misshapen. Embarrassing. All I’m saying is, next time we forge a bloodthirsty mob, don’t judge me by my old stick. I’m as angry as the next man, and so help me god my new stick will reflect this.

Dignity, Seriousness, and Duty

Incredible. Having a terrible day. What did I do to deserve this? I remember the time I walked a mile in someone else’s shoes. That day was even worse. Have you ever opened a tin of corned beef at an inappropriate time?

I’m just trying to make sense of the senseless.

Often

Often, when I am wandering lonely along the shore, mist brushing my nose and wind whipping my hair, I grow melancholy thinking about the time I tricked a baby deer into falling down a well. I stop and sigh and let the tears roll down my cheeks. Why do these thoughts make me so sad? After all, it wasn’t really a baby deer, it was just my friend Schaffer dressed in a puffy hamburger costume. I guess the sadness comes when I think of how cute baby deer are, and how Schaffer lost all those Big Mac coupons while he was thrashing around down there. One could argue that the puffy hamburger costume saved his life, but that’s hardly an excuse for tears. No, no, no – surely this pathos lies with the baby deer. Hmm.

Monday Afternoon

What is that woman's name? I can't remember. She's excessively white and foreign, and she was in that movie about being dead and hysterical. In real life she was married to Tom Cruise for a while. But who?

Anyway, I was just thinking of her, as she often sends cruel, unsigned emails to my home. "Stop bootlegging my DVDs," she wrote recently. "Stop impersonating me at parties," she wrote. "Stop prowling my lawns; no way did you lose your pet ferret again," and "bring back the copper piping you pried from my siding."

Whatever. I've had it with trying to make a living. If you need me I'll be at the Ground Round taco bar.

Doom

I would have posted sooner, but I was gripped by a sudden fear of clocks. Also, I had a stomachache. Also, I was camping. Also, I was irritated by the mere sight of someone: she was bug-eyed with curly hair and she was buying several sacks of donuts. As Lord Halifax said, “Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, or a sack of donuts, when it is not on our side.”

As you can see, it is not so much the price of things, but the cost. Can't talk now - time for pie.

He Narrowly Escaped a Substantial Drubbing

I once wrote a profound book entitled “Similar Ducks.” It involves several similar ducks standing about, looking askance. It is illustrated. It is a thing of beauty. It is available for the low low price of $49.95.

Recently, some lathered desperado from the plains complained that my ducks had pointed beaks. “Ducks have rounded beaks,” he bawled, shrugging and smiling as if to casually deflect a savage beating. "Your pointed beaks make me think your ducks aren't ducks at all, but just random birds." I clenched my teeth. “My ducks are some sort of rare, Asiatic duck, the like of which you are not aware." He refused to believe me; I leisurely reached for my bit of lead piping and

Look, I’m already tired of this story, so how about a joke instead? What did the crawfish say to the armchair? Answer: Something something ottoman. I can’t remember how it goes. Do fuck off.

Examining Internets Hams

Don't have any news at the moment, so I thought it would be a good time to examine internets hams. These are photos culled from the internets; they are not my personal hams. I don't even eat hams.

If, upon examining these internets hams, you spot a clue, please note it in the comments field. I have been examining these hams for several minutes and I can't come up with any workable clues.


Gift Ham


Business Ham


Canned Ham


Ham of Distinction

Continental Breakfast Does Not Include Sausages of Any Kind

Would have posted sooner, but my coffee didn’t show up until ten o’clock. Was going to tell you a true story of darkest calumny on the morris dancing circuit, but never mind all that. The good news is I just kicked a fine 5”x 8” hole in the wall; the bad news is I can now see and hear the pasty chortlers and haw-haw men on the other side, so I’d better check out of this hotel toot sweet.

I Don't Want to Hear Stories About Dolphins or Teenagers with Cars

I was just remembering that my mother bought me a beach towel in 1984. I had to bring the beach towel to the municipal pool because I didn’t have a beach.

I would like to add that everyone I knew had her own beach towel (or towels) long before I had a beach towel of my own. This caused me pain. I’m not saying this so that you will counter with your own stories of deprivation and suffering. I don’t want to hear those stories. I want to hear stories about hobos with sinister agendas, or ghost horses that diagnose lymphoma – that sort of thing. I also like stories about old ladies who die and then come back to life in disgust because heaven didn't cover its sofa cushions with plastic.

What?

I have been trying for months to return to my online worldwide internets blog, but to no avail. Not blogging is like sleeping on a superb U.S.-manufactured mattress or drowning in a bowl of cooked groats – alarming, then blissful. Nothing pulling the conscience forward, no sulking over site statistics, no bathing, no communicating with savages via moderated comment. No beautiful contempt writ large, no punitive anecdotes, no shopworn exhortations for cash. It’s sad, really.

I remember the days when blogs lent meaning to life with their gunslinging and confederate gibber-jabber and pervasive cat photos.

Slightly Ruined

Wait, I have an even better idea for a movie. It’s like the movie Waitress in that it’s a lighthearted look at poverty, adultery, pie, and domestic abuse, except MY movie will feature a band of ape men on an olde tyme horse-drawn firetruck that keeps pulling up to the action and dousing the actors until they run off the set in tears. You can’t tell if the actors are crying tears or just dripping water, but why should I care? Stupid Felicity movie, you die now.

Anyway, does anyone want to buy my old go-fast boat? I’m selling it cheap due to its slightly ruined state. The next time I smuggle I’m going to be LOOKING WHERE I’M GOING instead of showing off for my smugglees by steering with my bare feet.

Aha!, etc.

Good idea for a movie:

Mary Poppins comes back from the dead to mind two very towheaded children who, despite serious and vague credentials, are not quite Nazi-style Aryan - probably because their maternal granny was a homosexual. The children live in a grand mansion infested with tiny ants. Mary Poppins suggests sprinkling cayenne pepper near the ant entry points. “This discourges the ants,” she says. Obviously, dammit, cayenne does nothing to discourage ants, so after the Tripods snatch Mary Poppins and provisions run low, the children feast on ants. Also, the children shrink to the size of ants and hunt ants with ant spears and wear ant pelts. This keeps them alive until the end of the war. Cameo by Jackie Onassis.

I had a second idea for a movie starring Taylor Dayne as Taylor D’ayne, a roadtripping single mother who will stop at nothing to crap in the haunted toilet at the Winchester Mystery House. Unfortunately, it features an animated underwater fantasy sequence involving ominous Disneyesque characters. I've been warned that animated sequences have gone the way of Steller’s Sea Cow, i.e., nobody cares about Steller’s Sea Cow, so I may have to replace it with my usual black and white stock footage of a villain slicing a steak with a comically small knife.

The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog

Here is my dilemma. All I have left to live for is 1.) this blog and 2.) my wits. Do I start posting again, or devote my time to honing my wits? No, no, no - wait, I meant nits. I have nits. So, do I start posting again, or devote my time to phoning my nits? Soon my nits will be nymphs, and then full-fledged adult lice – they grow up so fast! I don’t want any louse of mine to wonder where I was all the time, why I never bothered to call, or why I was drunk, or absent, or both, during his soccer matches and birthday beatings. I don’t want to be a shitty host. I want to be a vital part of my nit’s lives. Then again, maybe I want to blog more often. Such decisions are never easy.

New Plan

I just had a fair to middling idea. Instead of mailing my tax papers directly to the IRS, I’ll first mail them to Dairy Queen Corporate Headquarters. The Dairy Queen CFO will note the error and instruct her secretary to return my papers along with several certificates for free Dilly Bars. As I have no use for these certificates, I will forward them to the IRS along with my returned tax papers. The IRS will be flattered by my casual largesse and will dispatch a inordinately large check my way. Do you see the beauty in my scheme? The cycle of life, the perfect circle? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, and so forth? The sun also riseth, et cetera? At any rate, if this scheme doesn't pan out, I'm moving to Florida to get work on Days of Our Lives.

Purity

I just had a wonderful dream. I was walking around inside a giant metallic kiwi when I found a package of Pepcid. Then I ate the Pepcid. Suddenly, I was at the Yalta Conference and a man seated next to me had acid reflux. "Too bad - I just finished a package of Pepcid all by myself. I'm fresh out," I told him. Turns out he was Stalin.

I had a couple solid Stalin jokes prepared for this post, but I've decided to save them for marriage.

Milestone: Do You See This, O God?

I just tried to switch this ancient, weak Blogger blog to the Mega Extreme New Beta Blogger with Added Calcium for Stong Bones and Teeth. I was unsuccessful. Hmmm. So this is what it feels like to fail. What a strange... sensation. As you may know, I've never failed anything before. Don't quite know what to do with myself now. How does one live? Or as Edward Kennedy once asked, "How can people have hope when we tell them that they have no recourse if they run afoul of the New Blogger?" And more importantly, how can I come down from this ghastly sugar high? Just finished a package of gummi fish and I can't feel my feet.