misanthropy

my disdain of stupid people, intelligence is a constant, the population is growing

Lachrymal Musings, Intersecting Spheres, Defying Entropy (and a Rear-End Thermometer Too!)

1 Comment

I thoroughly enjoy historical places- especially ones that have been tastefully restored.  Usually one of two things happen to historical places and either option breaks my heart.  Either they are completely razed to the ground or are left to rot with maybe a haphazard or architecturally and/or aesthetically poor attempt at restoration.  The Harding Hotel pictured above by and large is a tasteful restoration of a building that had been left to rot for over 25 years.  The lower floors have the original restored woodworking (very lovely and I should have taken pics the last time I was there…) and are used as reception halls and conference rooms, while the upper floors have been converted into senior citizen apartments.

Ironically the hotel hadn’t even been finished before President Harding died, so it was never really used for its intended purpose, which was to be a high-faluting hotel for dignitaries and others to frequent when President Harding came back to town.   What ended up happening is that the hotel builders built that day’s equivalent to a Hilton in the middle of nowhere.  Once President Harding died, nobody was looking too much to Marion, OH as a high-faluting tourist destination.  Granted, today the Popcorn Festival brings some local crowds, but these aren’t the kind of people who go for four or five star digs.  These are rednecks in Dale Earnhardt wife-beater t-shirts, whose behemoth women sport too-small tank tops and tacky tramp stamps, whose kids don’t wear shoes until they have to go to school, and for whom silverware at meal times is a formality.  If one lives far enough away (or drinks too much beer to drive home) the Super 8 has cable, an indoor pool, and it’s really close to both the Steak-n-Shake and the exit ramp to US23.

Perhaps I shouldn’t diss redneck culture the way I do, but there is a small part of me that bemoans the lack of civility and grace in society that seemed far more evident in the past.  If one looks at photography from the 1950’s and earlier one does not see tramp stamps, tank tops, large women wearing no bras, wife-beater t-shirts or just general slovenliness.  All those drugs in the 1960’s must have warped people’s brains.  Granted, they gave us Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, but I could have done without the whole hippie no-bathing-let-it-all-hang-out trend which really hasn’t completely gone away.  Some things resist entropy until the very end, or perhaps slovenliness and unkempt appearances are the butt-end of entropy, and therefore it remains the same because it has achieved its chaotic goal.  I would have liked to think that an age of enlightenment would have involved clean clothes and soap, but my priorities are never the same as the rest of the world’s.

The 80’s weren’t bad from a general clothing perspective, (especially buff dudes in Spandex) but if I  had to pick a fashion decade it would have to be the 1940’s.  Fashion designers were probably still queer, but they weren’t designing everything so it only fits and looks good on emaciated 12 year old boys.  I think by 1965 or so somebody forgot that women are supposed to have boobs, and some women with ample chests like to wear clothing that said boobs don’t fall out of.  At least it is still possible, with a little work, to find bathing suits that do not expose midriff or have such huge leg holes that the whole world gets to see most of your butt cheeks as well as most of your surgical scars and/or stretch marks.  I need a bathing suit to do a couple of important things- restrain the puppies so that they don’t fly up out of the top of the bathing suit when I go off the diving board, and cover everything from my boobs to as far south as mid-thigh.  That’s what I need to both prevent “wardrobe malfunctions,” and to keep from revealing things better left unseen, such as surgical scars and stretch marks.  I don’t want to share the pool with projectile vomiters.

 

Above  is an example of  acceptable swim attire for me.  It’s the only exception I ever make to the “shirts must have sleeves” rule.

Below is an example of swimwear that will never be acceptable to me, even if I were as anorexic-thin as Calista Flockhart (which I am definitely not.)

Nobody on God’s green earth would ever want to see me in one of these things.  Speaking of swimwear, I simply had to notice that Target was right on it with the swimwear display.  On January 5th.  This is Ohio, people.  Unless you are lucky enough to belong to an indoor pool, or to vacation in the Bahamas, I don’t see the point in buying swimwear now that won’t get worn until at least Memorial Day.  I find it rather impossible to think about buying bathing attire when there’s three feet of snow outside and it’s 10 degrees.

Fashion has taken some rather abysmal turns in recent years, especially with the lack of coverage.  I would be a lot happier if it suddenly became trendy for guys to refrain from displaying hairy butt cleavage and boxer short waist bands.  It would thrill me if teenage girls would refrain from dressing like scantily clad prostitutes, and that it would again become trendy for dresses and women’s shirts to have sleeves.  I could do the Stevie Nicks 1985 or thereabouts look just fine, including the platform shoes. I also wish it were more socially acceptable for women to wear hats, for instance.  I enjoy wearing hats.  Perhaps I should have been born in England, where it is perfectly acceptable for white women to wear outlandish hats.

I’m trying really hard to stay out of my inevitable winter funk, but it’s not easy.  I don’t mind the cold- and it hasn’t been terribly cold so far as Central Ohio winters go- but I do mind the dark.  Dark when I wake up.  Dark when I go to work.  Dark when I go home.  Acck.  I only see daylight on the weekends, if I can stay awake long enough.   Maybe that’s why the world looks like such a hopeless and pathetic place by the end of February.  Snowbooger grey.

In Victorian times there were all sorts of maudlin displays surrounding death and mourning.  Particularly intriguing was the lachrymatory or tear bottle.  The idea was that when a loved one died you saved your tears in the bottle and on the one year anniversary of the death you sprinkled the tears on the grave.  I can’t help but think that the Victorians got this idea from a Biblical reference:

“Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?” Psalm 56:8 (KJV)

I’m not much of a crier.  The only problem I have with my tearful outbursts is that they come out at the most inopportune and bizarre times.  I can’t do the tears on demand thing, and tears elude me at the point of pain.  I almost always go to funerals as a stoic, silent observer, detached from the surroundings, no matter how close I was to the deceased or how grieved I am over the death, but my tears come later, sometimes 20 years later, unbidden, like a sudden storm on a summer day. 

Sometimes I want to cry and I can’t, no matter how much better it would make me feel, especially when the weight of sorrow and longing and regret is almost more than I can carry.  I almost wish I could be a woman who wears her emotions on her sleeve- it’s probably healthier- but I usually have to deal with my heart in private and in the dark.  It’s more dignified that way.

The Year of the Apocalypse? Wasn’t That 1984,or 1986, or 1999, or 2001?

Leave a comment

I have to say that I am somewhat amused by the plethora of 2012 doomsday predictions that are scattered all over the Internet, TV and pretty much everywhere else.  The whole bit about the Mayan calendar ending, as if people who were into human sacrifice (by yanking out the victim’s still-beating heart) were some kind of infallible authorities on scientific and/or eschatological issues, seems more than a bit nebulous to me.  I understand that the Mayans had a lot going for them in matters of astrology and astronomy, but even the modern understanding of either of these studies is incomplete and likely not as accurate as we would like to believe. 

Of course, this year we are offered the sublime public imperative to get Obama the freak out of the White House before he does even more damage. 

I am no fan of Mitt Romney either, but for comparison’s sake I would rather see Sheena elected president if only because she would do a lot less damage than Obama.

I can see it now: Sheena for President: At least I’m housebroken,and the only ass I lick is my own!  But I don’t think dogs are eligible to run.  Pity.  But they don’t go rambling on about global warming myths, and they don’t make pacts with terrorists either.

As recently as 1975 the scientific community was seriously concerned about another impending ice age- and that was back when the air was dirty and sex was clean.  If pollution was going to cause global warming, then why wasn’t Ohio a tropical paradise back in the 1970’s?   Today’s wisdom is to go from a couple decades’ (if that) worth of weather reports as sufficient evidence to claim “global warming” and blame “apocalyptic climate change” on the use of internal combustion, frequent bathing, and the Western world’s use of toilet paper to wipe our behinds.  OK.  If the use of internal combustion, frequent showers, scrupulous wiping and the inevitable pollution those luxuries supposedly generate is causing global warming, then I would like to know how the same creature comforts that supposedly are making the earth a stygian hell were paving the way for us to die on a frozen planet less than forty years ago.  It seems a bit fishy to me.

What do the tree huggers have to gain?  A world of people who smell like ass and can’t drive?  I can show you a whole room full of them down at the BMV waiting to take their driver’s tests, and it’s not a pleasant experience. 

Just because something is synthetic doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad.  Plastic, spandex (*on hot, buff dudes, I must clarify), computer chips, acrylic nails and McDonald’s cheeseburgers all come to mind as man-made items that are pretty damn handy.  On the other hand “all-natural” doesn’t necessarily mean “good.”  Arsenic is an all natural poison.  Ebola virus is an all natural disease-causing agent too.  So let’s all go snacking on arsenic-and-Ebola and see how those all natural goodies treat us?

I have to look at the end of the world with a pretty pragmatic eye.  No human being is more than a minute electrical charge away from the Dirt Nap.  Death is inevitable, whether it’s all at once with the rest of the world, or all by myself  at some random time when that little electrical switch in my heart decides to stop working. 

Like the Serenity Prayer says: Accept the things you can’t change.

Life is a lot easier that way.

Duct Tape, Bad Body Work and More Unsolicited Parenting Advice

3 Comments

Oh, how I love examples of creative body work.  It seems the Kroger parking lot has yet again yielded me rich comedic fodder.  I wonder if the duct tape is simply holding the front fascia on or if the unfortunate owner of this POS is asking duct tape to do more than it was ever intended to do.  I don’t think the celebrated silver strapping would be terribly effective as a weatherstrip, so whoever is sitting in the driver’s seat better be prepared for a wet butt on rainy days. 

I have driven things worse than this, but not by much, and that was a very long time ago.  When the air was dirty, sex was clean, and Steve Perry looked awesome in Spandex.

Last night I was treated to an impromptu road trip to Cincinnati to pick up Steve-o.  I was also reminded why I don’t buy used cars with the exception (and I wouldn’t do it now because leasing is not a good option for me any more) of my own lease returns.  He bought that tasty Audi he was eyeballing forever back in September, and it appeared to be well-maintained.  He did his research and inspections and for all intents and purposes it seemed to be a good solid ride.   For what mysterious reason I have absolutely no clue, he decided to have the ECM flashed to change the presets- the things that motorheads will do in the name of performance- only to have the clutch plate fall apart on it as they were pulling back into the shop.  It was an interesting failure- the pressure plate springs were bent, the disc itself was warped and missing pieces of lining, and the rear main seal was leaking to top it all off.  Then again anyone who replaces a clutch without doing a rear main and input shaft seal is a bloody fool.

Pity be on those technicians, as putting a clutch in an all wheel drive car (worse than a 4X4 truck by all accounts) with a longitudinal engine (longitudinal: the crankshaft runs from the front of the car to the back, rather than transverse which is side to side- most front wheel drive cars have transverse engines) is no easy task.  I really pity them if Steve-o doesn’t get his car back tomorrow after paying the extra freight to get his clutch goodies overnight. 

I figure after 20 years I might not get stuck being his deus ex machina every time he gets in a spot, but at least I’m not paying for this repair work. I got off easy just having to get him and Spencer and cart them back as far as Columbus.

As the return roadtrip progressed and I treated the boys to dinner at Taco Bell (I am still paying for that 5 layer beefy burrito, but where else can three people eat for $17?) the conversation somehow turned to creepy things. 

Dad and Spencer had the misfortune of meeting up with the male biological contributor of Steve-o’s DNA at a car show last summer.  He thinks Spencer is Steve-o.  That’s fine with me.  It’s also fine with me that I didn’t have to witness his transformation into Jabba the Hut.  Jerry has his faults, but he would never be mistaken for livestock or for a beached whale.  Apparently my illustrious ex has gotten a tad bit portly in the past 16 years.  However, the way Spencer described him, it sounds as if he’s munched and pieced and gorged himself into the “morbidly obese” category.  Sad thing, that, especially because I can remember a time when he was not only thin, but obsessed with remaining so.  I wonder what the hell happened – for a minute- but in the grand scheme of things, since I don’t have to pay for his chow, replace the furniture, smell him, or clean up after him, I could pretty much care less.

Any dude with a swinging johnson (one that works anyway… but I really don’t want to go into my musings on the sad and deprived world of ED) can be the male contributor of a child’s DNA.  That doesn’t take brains.  I am sure that if one were to investigate the number of convicted felons, chronic government moochers, correctional institute inmates, and so on that it could be proven that some of these low lifes have sired many offspring.  There are plenty of “baby daddies” out there who have done absolutely nothing to contribute to the physical, emotional or spiritual maintenance and growth of their offspring.  For these types of scrounge puppies I have nothing but contempt. 

Granted, it can also be said that it is in a woman’s best interest to scope out and screen any potential breeding partners so that only the gainfully employed and nominally vertical and breathing get through, but it doesn’t always work out that way.  Sometimes decent women for whatever reason end up procreating with the scum of the earth.  It happens, especially for those naive enough to “listen to the heart” instead of being like my oldest sister and examining the dude’s bank statement and earning potential before getting emotionally involved.  Then again some of us can pick and choose while others of us don’t have that kind of luxury.  Hindsight being what it is I should have simply gone to the “lives alone with cats (and dogs)” step, but life is to be lived and learned.  The difference between ignorance and stupidity is in learning from one’s mistakes.

I have confidence that Steve-o will be more than just a sperm donor.  He better be.  Or I will kick his ass.

 

Tacky Christmas Begins at Home, Leave Me Alone, Dammit, and Holiday Angst

Leave a comment

I said I was going to put it up and I did.  What a delightully tacky pink tree, complete with all the Hello Kitty ornaments and so forth that I could scrounge. I know Jerry hates it but (unlike his normal whiny self) he’s not really making a point to protest, even though it is in the picture window where God and everyone can see it lit up from the road.   I have been so unfailingly, maddeningly busy that it’s been an effort to keep up just on survival things like eating, bathing and personal landscaping.  I am surprised I did this much decorating.  It’s sad because I enjoy Christmas for the most part, and this year I am not dead broke like I normally am this time of year.  The trade off is that I don’t have time to do anything extra, so whoever doesn’t enjoy their check and bag of little goodies can go blow.

I think the most frustrating part of the holidays is dealing with crowds.  I detest shopping and traipsing about amongst the unwashed hordes anyway, but from about Halloween to January 15th or so, it’s like perennial Welfare Day at the grocery in every store you have to go in.  

Then the stores compound the problem by having limited time specials.  The Kroger Marketplace ran an interesting special where you got points to buy non-grocery merchandise based on your spending, which was cool, except that the entire Central Ohio area had exactly three days to redeem their points.  Those three days (Dec. 1,2,3) would normally have been “avoid the grocery at all costs” for someone like me already, because the 1st being a Friday AND Welfare Day means the place is going to be a farking zoo.   But my greed got the best of me- since they owed me $90 worth of non-grocery merchandise and I wasn’t going to pass that up- and I ended up getting folded, spindled and mutilated all the way through the Kroger store to get a vacuum cleaner.  Granted, it was a free vacuum cleaner, and the way I burn through them because of the dogs, I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity despite my claustrophobia and borderline agoraphobia.   I just don’t understand why on God’s green earth that a store would run a limited time promotion on days when they are already going to be insanely busy to begin with.  Why not do something like that at the end of February when nobody wants to go anywhere or do anything and the stores are pretty much desolate?

If it were up to me Christmas would be in August.  Nothing else happens in August other than it’s bloody hot, but there’s a lot more daylight available for all that traipsing about in the stores.  I don’t like wandering through miles of parking lots at night trying to seek out my car.  It’s dark and there is usually at least one form of precipitation going on too which makes the whole process all the more miserable. 

I am delighted that relatives generally don’t come to stay with us.  Jerry alone is like cleaning up after a horde of hogs.   Being invaded by house guests at this point in my life would drive me positively apeshit.  I don’t mind going to other people’s houses for holiday functions, etc. because I can leave when I’ve had enough.  It’s harder to throw people out when you’ve had enough of them, and truth be told most people wear on my patience very quickly.   The good thing is, not too many people want to stay in a house with three large dogs, especially when two of the dogs only like a very select few people.  Sheena pretty much likes anyone with a pulse who will pay attention to her, including kids.  Clara’s approved list is pretty short.  Lilo’s is even shorter.  All the dogs love Steve-o and Hannah, and Bob and Debbie, but beyond that, there aren’t many people who can come in the house unsupervised.  I like it that way. 

It sounds pathetic to most, but I would genuinely enjoy a few silent sanity days to myself.  If I could do the ivory tower get away for awhile I would- three or four days of silence and contemplation would be a dream, but it’s probably not happening anytime soon.  I’ve not even had a chance to start on the Stephen King novel I’ve had for a month now. 

Jerry has taken it on himself to get into the zombie movie genre.  I’ve always enjoyed the classic ’80’s slashers but the only zombie movie I really got into was Shaun of the Dead.    Go figure, as it’s British humor.  I get to see enough real life zombies every time I have to fight my way through the grocery store at the beginning of the month.

Go zombies.  I saw this one in the grocery store parking lot on an old Crown Vic: 

Gross, Macabre and Just Plain Creepy

1 Comment

For a turd, Mr. Hankey is almost cute, but the concept of making turds into cartoon characters is sort of gross.  Leave it to the creators of South Park to take gross things and make them almost cute.  Then again, things scatological almost always engender at least a morbid curiosity, if not downright explosive laughter.  Farts, for instance are universally funny, especially if they come from a dog (When Clara farts she has to spin around and look for the source of the noise- a sort of the “smeller’s the feller” type give away- which makes a dog fart even more hilarious) or when they sound or smell explosive. 

Clara is beautiful, but her SBD’s (and the audible ones too) are truly deadly.  I don’t know if there is something particularly volatile in dog food (though with our girls at least, it could be that nasty old mutton) but dog farts are second only to old man diaper farts in the acridity of the noxious gas emitted.

Perhaps it is proof either that I am being honest with myself or that I’m just plain sophomoric and puerile at times, but most of the time for me gross=funny.  I’m old enough to remember the beginning of the gross toys- Slime and the Garbage Pail Kids.

Slime was always good for making fart noises with.  Mom, of course couldn’t stand it.  The GPK cards caused a wellspring of parental disgust, and could carry dire consequences should teachers catch you with them.  I thought it hilarious when one could actually buy school folders with the card designs on them.  Some teachers could care less and decided there were more worthy battles to fight, but others were so wigged out by anything GPK that you had to cover them up or get rid of them. 

Personally I think they should have been more worried with the teen pregnancy and drug abuse that were epidemic when I was in middle school and high school than to obsess with fart sounds or crude trading cards, but to each his or her own.  Sometimes you can only bear to fight the battles that you might have a chance of winning. 

Today there are a plethora of gross toys and macabre games out there.  I was mildly shocked when Steve-o decided I should watch him and his buddies play Call of Duty on that behemoth TV he bought under the pretense of “I need a bigger computer monitor.”  I know full well he’s not blind, and you would have to be legally blind to require a 42″ flat screen as a computer monitor (my fossil ass does just fine with a 15″ laptop, so he’s not shitting anyone) but at least he paid for the flat screen so I really can’t comment.  Anyway, Call of Duty is probably the most realistic video game I’ve ever seen.  It puts some of the 80’s slasher flicks to shame as far as the special effects. 

I think Steve-o’s favorite part of the game is that he can pretend to be a a Luftwaffe fighter pilot.  I know he knows the actual history, but I still can’t help but to rub it in.  The Germans lost.  Face it.  Superior technology doesn’t matter much when you lack the raw material, the logistics and the strategy to put the technology to good use.  Hitler is not a role model. 

I’ve said it many times.  I am not a physically demonstrative person.  There are people for whom it is perfectly natural to touch, hug, get right up in people’s faces, eat off each other’s plates, etc. and they think nothing of it.  Then there are those, like me, who put a premium on maintaining personal space.  I like to enjoy my own private entree with my own private silverware all to myself, as well as I prefer to enjoy my own private beverage in my own private glass, bottle or mug, without sharing bodily fluids or wayward bacteria with others.

I don’t hug on strangers.  To me “stranger” is defined as a non-blood relative who I am not married to and who is not a very close friend.  I am not even terribly cool with hugging on blood relatives except when hugging is required in a social setting.  I don’t enjoy it, but I will hug when politeness dictates that I should.

There are people like my mother who hug anyone, anywhere, for pretty much any reason, which to me is just plain creepy. It’s as bad as letting other people drink off your cup.  I can’t even let my own kid do that.  Or the dogs for that matter.

I do think that over all the world has more huggers than non-huggers if this article’s feedback- “Are You a Hugger- is any indication.  I still think random hugging is creepy, even though my take on hugging may be a minority stance.

Just do the world a favor and know what you’re protesting before you decide to “occupy” anything more lofty than a portajohn.

Truly Tasteless Holiday Decor, Stupid Parenting, and Gratuitous Self Pity

Leave a comment

I have a pink Christmas tree, complete with pink lights.  Mom got it for me last year.  Believe me, I am putting it up.  Watch me go.

Like most people, I have a deep ambivalence toward the holiday season.  I enjoy the decorations – especially tacky ones– but I sincerely abhor crowds, especially when all I’m trying to do is get basic grocery staples or scripts and I have to fight off the unwashed hordes.

I don’t like feeling as if I have to do all kinds of shopping either. My relatives already have way too much crap they don’t need.  I do too.  Please forgo the kitschy crud and either give me a gift card (Target, Kroger’s or Speedway, especially) or even cash.  That way I can get something I need rather than another hideous green sweater, or hinky nasty dinky earrings that I will never wear.  I hate shopping unless I can do it online. Whoever isn’t happy with a gift card and/or what I can manage to get ordered online, sorry about your luck.

The cooking business is actually something I enjoy as long as I have the time to do it.  My grandmothers ensured that I was proficient with the culinary arts (at least the old-time redneck version thereof) so there will be no shortage of such holiday favorites as pumpkin, apple and chocolate cream pies, scalloped potatoes, turkey-and- dressing, homemade gravy, homemade noodles, baked mac and cheese, cheeseballs, etc.  I like to serve the old-time comfort food.   If other people want to bring funky stuff like spinach casserole (not bad, really) or hummus (got to love the extra garlic version) that’s cool- I am not a food snob and will try just about anything once, but make sure the staples are covered.  I would hate to see Dad disappointed because there were no scalloped potatoes or reduced sugar chocolate cream pie, or have the nieces and nephews wonder why I didn’t bring the baked mac-n-cheese.  Lasagna is lovely (I made both red and white lasagna Sunday night that is divine if I say so myself) but it’s not a substitute for turkey with homemade dressing and gravy. 

Although I have rather diverse and eclectic tastes in food, there are some items commonly served around the holidays that I can do without.  I find fruit cake to be just plain vile.  I can’t eat it.  Fruit cake might as well be head cheese or pigs’ feet, which are two items that I have also tried and find positively gut-wrenchingly disgusting.  I’m also not a real big fan of green bean casserole.  I like the stuff that goes in it, but there’s just something about the combination of green beans, mushroom soup and deep fried onions that doesn’t thrill me.  I can eat it, but it isn’t something I find imperative to serve.  Sweet  potatoes (some people call them yams) are another item that I can do without.  Since I am diabetic I can beg off the candied yams (gross, gross, gross) without too much trouble. 

Yesterday’s news proved yet again that there is no shortage of the second most common element in the universe: stupidity.  Suffice to say that anyone stupid enough to leave one’s offspring in one’s (running) car whilst running into a convenience store to get smokes really shouldn’t be left alone with children.  I am glad the mother got her little boy back safely, but I’ll bet that’s the last time she will leave him alone with Baby Daddy for a long time.   I was certainly no shining example of superlative parenting, but I never left my kid alone in a running car regardless of whether or not he was strapped into a car seat- no matter how bad I needed smokes.

Ironically, Steve-o, in preparing for his upcoming role as Baby Daddy, seems to be a tad bit on the OCD side of things. He’s reminding me a bit of Mom and her Clorox obsession.  When Steve-o was a newborn (and a large, robust one at that) Mom tried to Clorox everything that came remotely close to him.  I swear she bathed him five times a day and changed his (freshly Clorox’d) clothes on the hour, every hour.  His dire concern with everything being Just Right and Super Clean for his little girl is not only reminiscent of Mom and her fussiness with the POMC, but it’s also richly hilarious- considering that he ran from Mom screaming bloody murder when she chased him down in her feeble attempts to cut through all the little-boy crusty filth with wet wipes and/or Kleenex.   He is in for a rude awakening.  Tee-hee.

I am wondering just how long it will take him to realize that his little girl is not made of porcelain, that baby puke and poop both stain and reek, and there is no known medical explanation as to why a two year old can extract an infinite length of thick green snot streamer from his/her nose.  

I wouldn’t want to spoil the fun, but I can’t wait until my grandchild showers him in a spray of snot, spit and half-eaten Cheerios.  Children are many things, but filthy is universal. You just haven’t lived until you have been showered, caked and drenched with the offal emanating from your offspring.

I must really be becoming my mother now that I am taking delight in the same phrase she liked to use: “Wait until you have kids.”  I have to remember to send Steve-o a copy of the news article above as a cautionary tale.  Never leave the kid in the car (especially with the car running) when you run to the shop-and-rob to get smokes.

Parenting taught me a few interesting lessons, above and beyond the average toddler’s infinite capacity to generate toxic waste of divers kinds.  I learned you can drown out a screaming kid pretty well by cranking up Led Zeppelin and/or Ozzy.   I also learned that until the kid’s about sixteen or so, while it’s rude, it’s often necessary to wheel the grocery cart down the middle of the aisle, and to inspect the contents often- unless you want to explain to the cashier why you don’t want  the 15 boxes of Pop-Tarts, the economy pack of extra-heavy duty disposable douche, the “For Her Pleasure” multi-colored condom assortment, and the six tubes of Prep-H that magically appeared in your cart.

I guess I really shouldn’t feel too sorry for myself.  It could be a whole lot worse.

For All the Saints, Fanning the Flames, and a Limited Time Offer

Leave a comment

I know that here lately I have been rather drawn to the macabre.  It seems that around Halloween (when the seemingly endless Central Ohio winter effectively begins) and also toward the end of February (when the even more depressing season of Snowbooger Grey sets in) I get obsessed with the issue of mortality- mine, and that of others. 

It doesn’t help that Saturday I had to attend the wake (and yes, it was an actual Irish Catholic wake, complete with noise, a plethora of friends, relatives and assorted others, enough food for an army and then some, and plenty of whiskey and beer) of a dear older lady who I was both surprised and delighted to call a friend.  Then Sunday (which had almost completely slipped my mind) was All Saints’, which is one of the hardest days of the year for me to go to church.  I need to do that- especially on the difficult days- but it’s very hard for me to make a conscious effort when I know I will be streaming tears uncontrollably the whole time.  I don’t handle public displays of emotion well at all.  The whole idea behind All Saints’ is to remember those who have gone before us, which has been especially difficult for me since Grandma died. 

Sadly, I don’t spend enough time with people I care about.  I would have liked to have talked with her one more time, but I missed the opportunity.  I am reminded yet again how temporary life is, and how the people I want to see and talk with a little while longer might not be there the next time I think of them.

It might seem strange, for someone like me who isn’t terribly social and isn’t really into superficialities, that I am so neglectful of the very few close relationships I have.  It’s actually rather pathetic that I avoid human contact to such an extreme.  I have enough excuses- overwork and babysitting Jerry are probably the two biggest drains on my time and energy- but excuses are exactly that.  I don’t make the time.  Even though I do cherish people I deem to be friends, being around people wears me out.  I know it sounds superficial and selfish, but I really have to be intentional regarding who I socialize with, and with how much time I spend being in the company of others.  Otherwise I get stretched too thin and get emotionally and physically exhausted. 

Over the years I’ve discovered I need solitude not only to get my head straight and to make some sense of my fractured and often puzzling emotional life, but I also have a genuine physical need to take that ivory tower time.  Leave me alone and let me regenerate.  Often.  The bad thing is that I don’t get nearly enough opportunity for such regeneration, so I take it where I can get it.   Otherwise I will get physically ill, and end up being forced to stop and get away.

As much as I found it necessary to go to our friend’s wake, I paid for it in terms of just plain coming home depleted.  I don’t know if my exhaustion had to do with trying to keep Jerry out of too much trouble (he almost killed an entire 30 pack of Natties) or just from needing to get away from people for awhile.  Perhaps a combination of both?

Maybe I really am one of those people who would be better off out in the middle of nowhere with sparse company other than books, music and dogs.  It’s been way too long since I was able to be left alone long enough to read a novel (and I do have what promises to be a good novel on the way- 11-22-63 by Stephen King.)  It doesn’t take me long to read a novel – even Stephen King’s novels, which tend to be lengthy- but it seems I am constantly being interrupted with Jerry being unable to get his own pills, being unable to shut up late at night, and constantly whining about his shirts or this or that or the other thing. 

Maybe it’s not fair of me to expect Jerry to take care of himself like a normal adult.  Sadly I have been party to his Helplessman routine for many years, so how can I expect him to take his own pills, iron his own shirts, and keep himself from drowning in the toilet when he’s shitfaced?

I know I am no paragon of virtue by a long shot, but I admit I get tired of the babysitting.  It’s hard to put my foot down because Jerry is incredibly emotionally fragile.  He gets on my nerves, yes, but he’s a lot worse when he gets either shitfaced and/or in temper tantrum mode.  Sadly, he has learned (just like a toddler) that the tirades are a form of blackmail.  “Appease me or I’ll go off again” is the mentality.  While I know that it’s a fruitless endeavor to keep on feeding alligators, way too much of the time I simply cave in and let him have what he wants so he will shut up.  Especially if I’m tired and/or he’s drunk.  The irony here is that in the end I’m just rewarding him for whining.  Unlike a toddler, when Jerry starts in with the whining and tirades, I can’t take him to the ladies’ room and warm his behind.

I know all too well that life is a limited time offer.  I shouldn’t be so harsh with Jerry, even though I lose my patience with the helpless act and with the gambling and drinking.  I know I should cherish whatever time we have even though he does try my patience and dealing with his behavior can be quite draining.

I’ll have time to sleep when I’m dead.  Hopefully somewhere along the way I’ll find time for the Stephen King novel.

Matters of the Heart, Nostalgia, Jealousy, and Wishful Thinking

Leave a comment

I seldom allow myself to get caught up in sappy romanticism, but I continue to watch the unfolding Neal Schon/Michaela Salahi affair in sort of the same attitude as Central Ohio drivers who can’t help but to slow down (or stop entirely) to gawk at the daily freeway carnage.  I don’t want to watch- and it makes me feel a bit dirty and voyeuristic doing so- but in a twisted sort of way I can’t help myself.

The fact that Neal Schon is one of my most favorite musicians doesn’t help here.  If he were just an aging, mousy little-big-man – who didn’t pretty much write the soundtrack behind most of my life, I wouldn’t care.  I normally don’t give a rat’s ass who celebrities are, let alone who celebrities are screwing.  I try not to remember that most other people actually get some from time to time.  But the story behind this dalliance strikes a chord.

It’s easy to step back and brand Michaela as a “groupie slut” but I identify with her storyline more than I would like to admit.  I know what it is to be a largely ignored, unloved wife.  I can’t claim to either be attractive or to have as attractive or interesting (or wealthy) past lovers as Neal Schon, but I do admit that if I were given the right offer, hell, if I were shown the least bit of affection, I could see myself doing the same thing.  Especially if the offer involved being backstage with Journey and getting warmed up in Neal Schon’s bed every night.

I don’t see the opportunity arising for me, as I have all the sex appeal of a mutant troll.   I gave up on all the fairy tale BS back when I was 13. My best friend swore I would die an old maid, and my sister informed me that I might as well resign myself to trolling for dates at the blind school if I ever wanted a man.   If I looked like Michaela, I would have more to choose from besides men with either deep appearance, hygiene and/or deep psychological abnormalities. I wouldn’t put up with any shit from a man either. I might actually stand a chance of believing in all that knight in shining armor business, but in order to go fishing you have to have bait, and I’ve already gotten as good as my pathetic bait will ever attract. Jerry does bathe, and he does have hair and teeth. Hygiene (at least personal hygiene) isn’t his major malfunction.  Bonus.  Now if he weren’t raised by wolves (and if he hadn’t done all those drugs back in the 70’s and 80’s) he might have turned out OK, but I can’t ask for mental or emotional stability and regular bathing.  That would be out of my league. Last night’s drunken tirade was regarding how he thought the new shampoo I got him resembled horse jizz and that he wasn’t going to shampoo his hair with jizz.   It was mildly funny, but now I have to go back to CVS and get him the two-in-one Pantene he’s used to instead of the “Hair Thickening Formula for Men By L’Oreal,” that apparently is a bit too jizzy for his majesty’s liking. Such is my fate.  Some women get Neal Schon playing a special lead solo for their birthday, while I get the horse jizz tirade.

If I did have appropriate bait, or even more humanoid proportions, I might still want to pick one taller than me.(easy enough when you’re only 5’4″,and even Jerry is 5’10”)  I think Michaela must be at least 6’6″, so for her, finding a taller man might not be terribly easy to do.  It is kind of funny that Neal is only about 5’7″- and her height makes his shortness painfully obvious.

However, I could get past a guy being extremely short if he’s 1. the finest living guitarist in the world, and 2. able to buy me lingerie on Rodeo Drive.  I might even tell a few people what I think about their opinions.

I could overlook a LOT if a guy were a non-smoker, non-drinker who could actually pick his own whitey tighties up off the floor, but I know I am asking way too much here.

Admittedly I did feel a twinge of jealousy- not so much over Neal and Michaela – Neal Schon is way, way, way out of my pathetic league, but because no man will ever look at me in that way.  Granted, their relationship may be a tempest in a teapot, but it’s a hell of a ride while it lasts.  Might as well be happy and let them enjoy it.  Anyone who is fortunate to find love, if even for a moment, should be allowed to make the most of it.   Those of us who live in the world of, “Is he passed out on the john again?” can only envy you from afar. 

I can’t say that I could condemn either one of them.  If anything it proves that they’re only human, and nobody really knows the story under the surface.  Of course this affair may turn out to be shallow, temporary and sleazy, but whose business is that?  Perhaps some of my own jealousy is knowing that Other People have fantasies come true, when I come home only to wonder if Jerry will get drunk and stupid enough to wet the bathroom floor again.

Jerry is consistent though.  I know sort of what to expect, so he scores one for predictability.

Victorian Death and Post-Mortem Photography, and Reworking the Wiring

3 Comments

I don’t know why, but I find post-mortem photography intriguing.  I know such a curiosity can be considered somewhat macabre- taking pictures of dead people is rather morbid and viewing them is even more so, but there is so much written in those pictures that is unsaid. 

Babies and children seem to be so over-represented in post-mortem pics, but the sad fact is that young children and infants routinely died of diseases that we either vaccinate against or that can be treated with antibiotics.  I’ve seen so many pics of bewildered looking mothers holding their dead babies for that final portrait.  It’s haunting even when one considers the high infant mortality rate of the time.  I’m sure the fact that it was a major accomplishment to get a child to live until his or her fifth birthday in those times did not make it any easier when infants died.

Today it is not as common to take pictures of dead people.  I took pics at Grandma’s funeral pretty much at Mom’s insistence (I will not post them) and more or less to remind myself why I do not want either the bad pink nightie treatment or an open casket funeral. Cremate my happy ass and put up a picture taken when I was still alive.  If anyone shows up, let them speculate on how nasty I looked at the hour of death or whether or not I looked better dead than alive.  Grandma, in spite of the funeral director’s art, did not “look good.”  Very few people do look good when they are laid out in a coffin getting ready to be sent off for the Big Sleep.  She died of either pancreatic cancer, liver failure, or congestive heart failure, or more likely, a combination of the effects of all three (she was 93, after all) and it was all the mortician could do to tone down the sick bright yellow glow of her skin.  They did a better job with Grandma than the funeral home who dolled up poor Aunt Ellen (I will never forget the Day-Glo orange lipstick,) but the restorative arts can only do so much.

I had to wonder about post-mortems where the dead dude (or chick) is standing.  The Victorians had a way around that too:

Sort of like a guitar stand for the dead.  This explains Keith Richards.  Screw the guitar, how about a stand to keep the guitarist vertical? Especially since he must be about 90 years old, and has probably been dead since 1980.

Now I know I am overworked and sleep deprived, but I like it like that.  I know better in a way, but today is the first day in a very long time that I actually came to work and wasn’t completely buried in more stuff than I can possibly get done.  Tomorrow will be different.  I should have asked to go home this PM since I really don’t have much to do, but the minute I do that, a.) I set a bad precedent for others, and b.) some sort of crisis will materialize that will turn into a full-blown cluster f— tomorrow.  Murphy’s Law is alive and well.

In all seriousness, I really do need to get a bit more balanced.  I have a really bad tendency to get focused on one thing and then I don’t really bother with anything else.  I’ve done that with overwork before and it wasn’t very good for my health.  Lately I’ve been living on Monsters and Subway and heavy metal which couldn’t be terribly good for a young kid, let alone a distressed old fossil such as me.  On the bright side, I am enjoying Metallica and Billy Squier and Queensryche and Led Zeppelin, so it can’t be all bad.

I’d like to get that EVO phone that Steve-o has been raving about that not only is Android-based, but has a camera in the front so you can have phone conversations and actually see who you’re talking to.  For the life of me I don’t know why anyone in their right mind would want to look at me on a phone screen, but to each his own.  I do want to be able to see my grandchild, which I think is the reason behind this logic.

The creepiest post-mortems are those where either the eyes are still open or the photographer paints them on later.  It’s pretty clear she’s dead, so what’s up with the open eyes and blank stare?

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, but this year I really haven’t had time to do anything fun.  I haven’t really had time to do anything fun all summer either, and now that winter is pretty much here I have to wonder where the time has gone.  I did get some time in the cougar pool and a couple of good road trips, so I should be satisfied with that.  However, I don’t see myself getting all hyped up for Christmas and all that as much as I would like to enjoy the season this year. 

I need to slow down, take a moment to simply be, and to repair the wiring, but I don’t see it happening any time soon.

Too bad I had to take down the cougar pool.

The Lost Art of Redneck Cookery, Historical Excursions, and Inevitability

2 Comments

It is fortunate that my grandmothers taught me how to cook. Since it is legend in my family that my Mom’s atrocious culinary offerings caused Suzie the Dachshund’s premature death, I’m glad my grandmothers were around.  In all fairness, Suzie wasn’t a particularly picky eater, even for a dog.  She was known to eat underwear, socks, rocks, her own poo, Barbie heads and assorted limbs, and pretty much anything else that would fit in her gaping maw.  So Mom’s cooking- I can still see the mashed potatoes with the big black burnt flakes and the accompanying “gravy” that was the texture, flavor, and consistency of partially hardened concrete- might have been a contributing factor or even the final tipping point, considering Suzie’s complete lack of discernment in her eating habits.   

I won’t say that I am the best cook there is by a long shot, but I can hold my own with most old-time redneck cuisine.  I can roll my own noodles, (no I do not “roll my own” anything else, except maybe pie crust) fry chicken, grill steaks, bake breads, pies, cakes and cookies, make soups and casseroles and roasts, etc.  Unfortunately these are skills that most young people see as being quaint and obsolete.  I could not be any more weird to the kids if I went out and shot deer, tanned the hides and made my own shoes .  My son and his friends consider microwaved ramen noodles, pizza delivery, and Taco Bell to be the apex of fine dining. 

The relevance of learning cooking skills  just doesn’t register with the POMC.  He worked at Taco Bell for two years and figured that was enough cooking for him.   He thought I was completely nuts to be boiling a chicken and rolling out noodle dough when you can get chicken-n-noodles all ready to be microwaved in less than five minutes, courtesy of Marie Callender. 

In my humble opinion- while some microwave meals aren’t half bad and I am not above eating them on occasion- when you do have the time and motivation to do the authentic slow food thing it tastes better.  My old time redneck cuisine isn’t all loaded down with salt and preservatives and heaven only knows what else either. 

Admittedly, most women of my generation (and most likely those younger than I) are about as clueless about home cooking as I am about football or other assorted man-sports.  My grandmothers’ generation was probably the last generation to consider cooking an essential skill. 

So here I am with my archaic skill sets- yes I can cook and bake, and do needlework for what it’s worth.  I enjoy down-home slow cooking when I have the time.  So there.  But it does disturb me that it’s a dying art.  It’s getting harder and harder to find things like shortening, cornstarch and various spices. Even worse, it’s getting harder and harder for me to find the time.

I am looking forward to Dad’s Birthday Cruise on Saturday.  It’s sort of disquieting for me to go since I’ve not had a classic air-cooled VW for years, but his buddies in the car club are cool and it’s always a good time.  I wouldn’t miss it barring extreme illness or Act of God, since it is also Dad’s birthday party, and an opportunity for me to get him an embarrassing gag gift.

We always go to one or two historical sites in Marion County.  This year we are going to the tiny village of LaRue to see a collection of Jim Thorpe memorabilia and then to check out another guy’s extensive collection of license plates.  Dad is always good at picking out interesting places to go.  I was sort of disappointed that we weren’t doing anything architecturally related this time, (I so enjoyed touring the Harding Home and Etowah a couple of years ago,) but it’s good to mix it up.  I might be surprised at what I get to see.

In a way it is almost painful to go home and revisit the past.  So much that I see in the history of those places points to a future that should have been better and brighter than today.  Unfortunately I was born into a place and time that was just on the cusp of catastrophic decline, and in a sickening sort of paradox, as I grew up, I watched it all fall and disintegrate and decay.

I know the reasons behind the fall, but hindsight is 20/20.  When one is confronted with the lingering shadow of what could have been, that which has become a spoiled, dusty, failed memory, and today’s more sordid reality, it can be disheartening. Sometimes when I drive past the decaying monoliths of a long-dead industry I see my own heart, my own spirit- something that belonged to the past and sort of exists, at least in form, but isn’t really there anymore.

I look at the idle, rusting frameworks and I see my own metaphor drawn out, speaking the unsaid, wrought in cold, dead steel.

Everywhere and nowhere, all points converge here.

I can find divers examples of proof for the devolution of humanity, believe that.  Just go to WalMart.

I don’t know what is more frightening- WalMart in the summer, or the stunning vision (or was that a sight) of fat, bald dudes in Speedos that we were treated to at Put-In-Bay.

The Birthday Cruise always ends at the Marion Cemetery, which I have not even come close to fully perusing despite emptying out my memory card and spending a Sunday afternoon last March taking pictures of almost everything that caught my interest. A 2GB card is not enough, especially if you want high res pics.

I’ve always thought this to be the saddest monument in the Marion Cemetery, poor six year old Wallie.  For being almost 150 years old, his monument has held up remarkably well.  Perhaps a grieving mother put this up years after Wallie’s unfortunate and premature passing, but it is consistent with the often maudlin Victorian traditions of memorializing the dead.  In those days death wasn’t just an Old Person Thing confined to hospitals and nursing homes, shrouded in wiring and tubes and technology and sanitized by distance and closed doors.  In 1864, when Wallie succumbed, death was a Living Room Thing, something that visited old and young alike, that was intimate and piercing and all consuming. 

Perhaps in society’s sanitization of death we have also depersonalized it and in the process have stripped ourselves of some of  our humanity.  We live with the false assumption that we have forever. 

Granted, medical science has come a long way in postponing death.  I would have likely been worm food thirty-odd years ago if not for antibiotics (yes people did die from rheumatic fever) and was almost worm food for sure twenty years ago- even with an eleventh hour c-section.   Delaying the inevitable is exactly that, though.  We all have to die, but we aren’t very good at facing it.

Dylan Thomas exhorted us to, “Rage, rage at the dying of the light.”  I think there is a sort of futility in that gesture.  On one hand there is the tragic death of one who seems to forfeit so much potential- someone young, someone with a great deal of talent, but then there is also the tragic life of one who is suffering and weary of life who longs for the sleep and peace of death and can’t find it.  God can make sense of such paradox, but I can’t.

There have been times in my life when I have wondered why I have been left to suck up valuable oxygen while those who I feel to be more worthy of life die.  That’s a question that I can only leave to faith- and to trust in the wisdom of God.  I figure no matter how long I am here, it’s only for a limited time.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls…