Introduction

Death in the Afternoon

2008-06-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

Preface: I have taken my ambien and and am very lady-like sipping on a small bourbon and coke. I will tell you about the beautiful day.

House mess. People in house, mess. Little doggy in house, mess (much gas from owner's obsession for weight gain). Decide to clean as many messes as can be, obviously excluding people mess. Lo and behold, a dog begins to die. She has been wrapped around the legs of an old camper trailer too many times to get to water or shade and witnesses suspect she has wrapped herself like this in order to avoid massive heat and to be able to get to said bucket of water. Sadly, dog suffers extreme heat stroke. We free the beast and throw caution to the City Animal Patrol and, according to the law, kidnap this dying property from our neighbors to whisk her away to safe-haven otherwise called VET. She checks in as 103 F (high fever); registers up to 106 (boiling brain) and finally caps out at 107.6 (brain damage). Meanwhile, Dr. Kevorkian style ends would be much appreciated except for twirpy laws that fuck up animal protection. Must have owner, she says, to put dog out of brain dead, heat stroke suffering misery. Finally, owner comes home and calls VET. Tech crunches numbers, crunches numbers, crunches numbers, feigns empathy towards "owner" and clangs out a $1000 bill, to which the "owner" asks about her current vaccinations. Yes, true, absolutely, uncouth and unprecedented until tonight: dying dog must receive vaccine QUICKLY before death can ensue.

Dog is rendered useless but "owner" will take home...UNTIL something strange this way comes. Suddenly, dog is allowed to die and suits are filed against negligent owners and the quid pro quo of you give to get somehow settles this right to die. And so she dies. And that's the end of my story.

Good night
and for gods sake, let those poor bed bugs bite
souls, souls, souls

Pre Break Up Letter

2008-06-23T23:28:00.000-07:00

Our house has been a really unhappy place lately and for that, I am sorry. I've always thought that our absolutely worst flaw as a couple was that we never talked about anything. I think this whole week proves that.
However, with one flaw noted, I'd like it to be known to you, at least, that we also made some really great stuff together. If we do have to walk away, I'm happy in my heart that it won't be something I will perpetually try to forget. And I wouldn't rip up pictures or throw anything away you gave me.
Since we will probably never talk out loud to each other, I wanted to be able to have an opportunity to make the conversation happen. I believe we have been wandering around each other for a while and I think we both realized things were starting to turn strange. But really, how do you just bring that up, especially when we're two people who don't really "talk" talk to one another. And anyway, when did that all start happening to us? We have always had our stressers, like me adjusting to your school schedule each semester or our very different ideas on cleanliness. Stuff like that. But when did it happen that we started being less and less a couple and finally ended up in a house full of silence? We don't even look at each other anymore.
I think that I need some space and alone time. It's difficult to get that here when there is a giant pink elephant always standing around in ever room. I want time to figure out what I want. Somehow I've become that person who doesn't know her ass from her elbow and it pains me to be her. I am truly lost right now. I have no job, no money, no you, no home (only house), no family support, nowhere to go or be. I think that's incredibly unfair for you to have to live with everyday. I always felt that if things should ever come to this, I should be the one to leave. I know if I go away for a while and come back, I'll be in a better spot myself but I don't think that will really make anything better between us. I'm getting the impression from you that you don't think there is much to work out. I think you can't love me the way you want to but you're afraid to tell me that. I thought about asking you to go to couple's counseling to start fixing our life. But what is there to fix if you don't love me the way you should in order to fix anything? Maybe the broken party really is how much and what kind of love there exists between us. And maybe that really can't be fixed. I'm not sure about my love for you anymore either. I was honest the other night when I said how much I love our home and our family. I hate to give that all up and I;ll honestly tell you now that I am willing to try and fix this cancer in our relationship if you are willing also. But I do have to be a little noncommittal, too and tell you that at this point, I could go either way.
I hate to dwindle away like we have been. I need to run away for a while but not like this; not without talking to you first. I think we need a clear idea of where to go from here because our week long relationship limbo is driving both of us to a depression. Hell, you're sleeping in the basement right now and I've spent all week on a couch. (Ironically, I did have to kill a spider in our bedroom tonight). So lets do that before the weekend is up. Lets just try to figure out the next step in the game so that we can both live a little happier.
I'm thinking of going to AZ on Sunday and coming home aft theFourth. And I want to tell you my fantasy about what will happen to me when I'm down there. I've already made the dress I want to wear when I drive down. I want to work at an Osco Drug Store for a few weeks, obviously for money but also for fun. Then, while I'm running and (hopefully) cycling and being a clerk, epiphanies will abound in my head and heart. Suddenly, I'll know what it all means and I';ll make my final drive back to SLC. And then, only time will be able to tell us.

Can you talk to me this weekend before I go?

Good Questions

2008-06-20T01:36:00.000-07:00

I loathe the "About Me" profiles on my we(blog) so I thought I'd find interesting questions I wouldn't mind answering instead.

TAKE NOTE, READERS: This is the second post I've, well, posted in one night. I am and at 'em, George McFaddem and not because there's daylight in the swamp but because there's swamp in my daylight.

1. The color you should wear more
Black suits me but I always fall for red and white.

2. The person you should have loathed more before you knew any better
Coworker Evan who I admit I flirted with but didn't realize he took so seriously.

3. The person you should have been with but never were
Is there only one? Aren't we all a collection of someone's best idea that never was?

4. The one thing you have to do before you die, which could be tomorrow
Visit the Statue of Liberty

5. The one thing you wished you could have said to someone when you pussied out and didn't
Fuck you, you pederast

6. Favorite parent and why
Uncle Jim because he never gives up, accepts falling down but does not accept staying down and because he jokes he will ride away into a blazing sunset in the west like the end of a Sergio Leone movie

7. Favorite couture brand anything - shoes, clothing, jewelry
Manolo Blahnik black patent leather mary jane campagnolo

8. Favorite celebrity gossip site
www.thesuperifical.com and www.celebslam.com

9. Which war would you have like to have been in
WWII. No war delivers the boasts of patriotism or democracy but this one might have fooled us a little. Suspension of disbelief

10. What was your college dream and when can you do it
To ride away in a VolksWagen Eurovan to see sites I think all Americans should see: Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, Four Corners, etc. and then find new places to add to my "should see" list. To spend time in each place for at least a year to learn more about where I am and to experience as many ecological environments available in our country at least once before I die. And then, come home in 25 years, settle down to my after college desk job and plaster my cubicle with all of the places I might just leave this shitty job for again!

Inventory

2008-06-20T00:29:00.000-07:00

I have begun to take an inventory of all of my life acquisitions lately. I am the half of a failing domestic partner relationship and so thought it would be best to figure out what is mine and what I need to start saving for. I look around and I see that I don't have much to worry about. I have stuff, I am good at collecting it and good at storing it. In fact, my family thinks I have too much stuff but then I think they give up too much. After all, I still have my toys from childhood and can they really say they have their scrapbooks their mothers made them or their baby blankets or favorite bear or doll? So no, I do not regret my stuff. I love it.

I am in the middle of a possible break up with my domestic partner. I believe he has no idea he is being broken up with and I have been waiting until this moment for him to figure this out, as if he has ever been the one to make a grown up decision. (Yes, that is anger and bitterness speaking through me vicariously). Many things have been bad and it is true what they say and what they have always said: love is not enough. There just has to be more. He doesn't understand why I can't sleep at night after I take a medically improved time-release ambien. And his feelings are hurt when he wakes up after a restful night's sleep to find me curled up in the lazy boy chair. He can barely say hello to me when he walks in the door at night. And he is upset with me if I don't kiss him goodbye after he told me that isn't sure if he loves me like a friend or a lover. I was just lying on my couch, the one my parents bought before they split up in 1997. His sister gave us a slip cover that fits it perfectly, which he finds great joy in, as if slip covers were never meant to fit anything right. The couch is adorned with red and white pin striped pillows that match the giant red and red and white striped curtain panels. I imagine how all of this will look in my new place. And then I realize that I'm the one sleeping on the couch.

For My Friends Alice, Peter and Mr. Rabbit

2008-06-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

This is just for some creative fun! I had a creative writing class in college with lots of really fun exercises so I decided to make up my own. The instructions are: pick the first line out of three of your favorite stories. Write a short story using each line to see if you can connect the different writing styles and subject matter into one congruent story.

My picks are:

1. Alice in Wonderland or Through The Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
"Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"
2. The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up or Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
"All children, except one, grow up."
3. Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present, Charlotte Zolotow and Maurice Sendak
"Mr. Rabbit" said the little girl, "I want help."

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures of conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?" The ensuing boredom prompted Alice to stand up and start skipping along the bank, leaving her sister half dozing with her fairly pointless book. If it hadn't been a sale weekend at Barneys and Saks Fifth Avenue, Alice's governess would never have let her go on her own but luckily for Alice, the lure of discounted couture helped out her little freedom cause. As she skipped, she realized that her plastic shoes were hurting her. She hoped that someone would remember to bring her the Italian leather shoes she had asked for for Christmas but had never received. She decided to peel them off of her sore feet and continued to skip. The further she skipped, the more she realized that her socks were hurting her because they were made from cheap cotton, the kind of cheap cotton one could find at Wal*Mart. She never understood why her mother continued to send out the servants to shop for cheap socks when perfectly acceptable silk trouser socks were available at least by mail order if not by a trip into the city. It infuriated her and so Alice took of the Wal*Mart cotton socks and continued to skip down the bank. After a a little longer, she realized that her white apron was completely vesitgial because she was neither allowed in the kitchen nor would she have cooked if she was. She thought briefly of Susan B. Anthony as she tossed the apron into the bushes, obviously not bothering to think of Al Gore as she littered the environment. Alice continued skipping and skipping and skipping but felt restricted by her blue smock. It was an American made sun dress, probably made in Detroit, so scratchy and stiff even after many washings with Tide and Bounty extra soft fabric softener. She absolutely loathed the dress and felt that her still burgeoning breasts were left unaccounted for as the pleats covered any sign of femininity and blue completely washed out her pale complexion. No thoughts of starving, naked mal-nutritioned children crossed her mind as she ripped the blue sun dress off of her, spilling buttons and ripping the zipper seam it took a three year old Indonesian child four hours to sew in. She unabashedly continued skipping down the bank in her underwear but still felt restricted. After all, her mother had no more bothered with the nice silk trouser socks than she did with her underwear even though Alice had always adamently denied that she was too young for La Perla. She just never understood her mother and so she pulled off the underwear and continued skipping down the bank, utterly naked because for Alice, nudity was much better than wearing knock off brands.

Although Alice could reasonably be perceived as a stark raving lunatic by anyone not in on her inner most thoughts about clothing, Alice was just a selfish couture obsessed tween who happened to be stark raving naked. She was the youngest of five and thus believed many things of herself that were later figured out to be untrue, one of which was that all children, except one, grow up. She labored under the grand delusion that her life would always be this horrible when in fact, Alice would grow up, deny herself the college education that could have saved her from prostitution, and eventually beg her remaining three siblings (at the age of 43) for a small inheritance to sustain her "lifestyle," otherwise known as heroin addiction. When Alice eventually dies at the age of 56, she remembers that day on the bank with the boring book that contains no pictures of conversations and of her unwavering snobbery of very particular clothing.

But, this is jumping too far ahead. A detour is needed at this juncture. While Alice lamented her clothing situation as she frolicked naked along the bank, a curious thing happened to her while she wasn't noticing. A rabbit in a vest popped out of a hole and casually propped his arm against the next closes trunk of a maple tree. Long before Alice had even experimented with hallucinogenics, she trotted past the rabbit and wondered if she was, in fact, hallucinating. She felt rather silly standing prepubescently in front of a male character, regardless if he was a rabbit or not. As all girls do at that age, she became acutely aware of her sexuality and wasn't sure if she should pose lasciviously or tuck herself in to cover up her unmentionables. Its easy to guess at this point, given her future history, that Alice decides to pose like a playboy bunny (no play intended) rather than cover up. The rabbit continued to lean against the maple as this mysteriously odd and naked teenage girl posed in front of him in a way that he realized was only her conception of sexual poses rather than in a way that mimicked anything she might have actually seen. She didn't ever fully realize the ridiculousness of herself at that time but did gradually understand that she wasn't striking any fancies for a male. "Mr. Rabbit" said the little girl, "I want help" to which he replied, "obviously."