Feral Living is pleased to note that Michael O’Connor Clarke is posting again. I Love Me was one of the first blogs I read regularly, and one of the first kind enough to link to Feral Living, which may have been a mistake, because it encouraged me to keep on doing this, and you see what that resulted in.

Look, I’m married to the greatest woman in the world and I just wanted to say, first of all, that the following post has nothing whatsoever to do with Alpha in any way, shape or form. And I’m being serious. It’s just a scene that’s been playing in my head all day that I want to get out and thought maybe writing it down would work.

Anyway. Scene I: at a therapist’s office. During the entire scene, by the way, Alpha is 200 miles away getting a shiatsu massage from a master masseur which leaves her feeling relaxed, vitalized and 15 years younger, not that there’s anything wrong with the age she is.

Therapist: “You say your husband is reluctant to take on everyday responsibilities?”
Woman (not Alpha, who is 200 miles away): “Um, yes.”
Therapist: “And this situation bothers you?”
Woman: “Well, of course, but I’ve tried everything, what can I do to get him to change?”
Therapist: [whispered] “Feed him the flesh of a bishop.”
Woman: “Excuse me?”
Therapist: “I said, you must concentrate on changing the way you react to circumstances, that’s ultimately the only way one can control one’s own circumstances.”
Woman: “But it sounded like something with bishop.”
Therapist: “No, no.”

Scene II, dinner

Husband: “You sure this is chicken? Tastes like pork.”
[cue laughtrack]
Wife: “About the garbage…”
Husband: “No problem, honey, I’ll get to it right after dinner.”
[more laughtrack]

This is the album cover I mentioned. I designed it recently for a local Irish band – a bunch of kids from the local music school. Click on the small image for a larger picture. I’m not mentioning the band’s name here for the usual reasons, but they’re quite good, for classically-trained Austrian kids playing Irish music.

When I was young, I was part of a diverse group of local children who were all less than intensively parented. “Underparented” would not be strictly true, because in my case, at least, my mother did devote all her time to mothering us; and besides, who is to say how much parenting is best? But all of us had absentee fathers to a greater or lesser degree, because fathers sometimes pass away, or leave, or drink, or have jobs that keep them away from home.

So we all hung out with my uncle, the Peasant, as he called himself. He lived alone in an old house across the pasture and ate dinner with us most evenings. He was a window washer and a bachelor until he was 55, when he married a rich widow. Although most of us were grown by then, we still resented losing him.

The original idea for this website springs from the eccentric, feral upbringing we received at his hands. Summers he would take us camping in the mountains, where we would play with fire, and knives, whatever we wanted. He gave us free reign. I suppose our mothers were relieved to be rid of us for a while, and didn’t ask questions. So Feral Living is a tribute to him, in a way.

Although the Peasant had a manual job, he was self-educated and better-read than most people. He was a history buff, especially WWII. He had a meek, self-deprecating demeanor that allowed him to have long conversations with people more stupid than himself, in which he would play a little dumb himself and watch as they grew more and more pompous.

He sometimes even secretly tape-recorded such conversations. He also took a lot of pictures. I have one of the best-documented childhoods I know of.

He was a practical joker as well, and a maker of prank telephone calls. He was an entertaining babysitter – he let us do whatever we wanted. We could tear the house down if we felt like it. He had a banana fight with one of my cousins in a hotel room once, destroying it. I imagine this may have been partly a strategic decision, to keep his babysitting duties to a minimum, but part of the reason was just because he was vibrating with impulsive bullshitting monkey energy.

Even though some of us did have fathers, he was a central male figure in all of our lives, and he formed our characters as much as anyone else. We were fortunate enough to learn that being eccentric is a lot of fun, and that it is liveable; that people are pompous and that we are no exception to that. That it is fun to play with fire, but that things will burn down if you let them.

Many of us, those most strongly affected by him, still retain common character traits. Eccentricity and outsiderness. The habit of naming everything, and nicknaming anything or anyone that already has a name. He named me Miguel.

He also was generous. Although he had no money of his own, he somehow lent me the money for my first two trips to Europe. He lent everyone money, not insisting that they pay him back.

The biggest thing was just that he was always there for a bunch of lonesome kids.

I write about him in the past tense here, but he’s still alive. He’s in his late seventies now, still sharp and as odd as ever. I hope to be able to take the family over to see him this summer. Gamma was a baby last time she saw him. I want her to have memories of him.

That was the title of the concert Alpha and I attended last night. Music from the last half of the 14th century, played on replicas of original instruments – old recorders, whistles, a hurdy-gurdy, a gothic harp, jews harp, tweety bird whistle, several interesting ancestors of the violin, including a keyed fiddle, a fiddle, which sort of resembled a violin only flatter, and several things i am forgetting. also a woman singer, who sang low, and a male countertenor who sang falsetto.

Did you know that they already did cover versions in the late 1300’s? At least, that’s what these musicians claimed. Troubadours were on their way out at the end of that century – there was no end to the information they supplied us with between the songs. It was interesting. The music was varied and fun, with a strong middle eastern influence. How they knew how to play the songs I don’t know. I find that amazing, that 600 years later they can figure that out, from a few old manuscripts, paintings and engravings, when I can’t even play the LPs I bought in college.

During the intermission, my cellphone went “chirp bzzt bzzt” and I spent the next half hour listening to a desperate graphic design guy tell me the font on my album cover design wouldn’t work and what should he do. I thought everything had been straightened out. I was so sick of the whole thing I gave him carte-blanche to pick out a new font just to get it finished.

So I missed most of the second half.

Miguel: [Turns off alarm clock. Unwedges arm from beneath Gamma. Pets Moritz the cat, who is on sleeping on Miguel's stomach. Senses large wet spot on mattress down by feet.] “Gah.”
Alpha: “Zzzzz.”
Gamma: “I’m hungry, what’s for breakfast?”
Moritz: [innocently] “Prrrrrrr.”
Miguel: “No.”
Alpha: “What?”
Miguel: [Sniffs to make sure] “Eh, the cat peed the bed.”
Alpha: “Gah.”
Gamma: “When’s breakfast? I want Wheetabix.”
Moritz: [Still innocently, although with a new ironic undertone] “Prrrr, heh.”
Alpha: “Rub his nose in it.”
Miguel: “K.” [Rubs cat's nose in it.]
Alpha: “Geeze, but don’t kill him!”
Miguel: “What, okay, so I rub his nose in it just a little, or what?”
Moritz: [Unhappily, with pathetic, vulnerable undertone] “Fff! Fff!”
Alpha: “I’d better apologize to Beta for not believing her when she said the cat peed in her bed day before yesterday.” [goes to apologize]
Moritz: [Out side of mouth] “You are so going to regret this, human.”
Miguel: “Don’t get too cocky.”
Moritz: “Oh, you gonna take me to the vet again? Have me fixed? Have me castrated? Again?”
Miguel: “Eh, it was her idea.”
Moritz: “Remember, I’m in the house alone all day long, man. You have no idea.”
Miguel: “Have I told you about the free Rottweilers?”
Moritz: “??!?”
Miguel: “Well, they’re not exactly Rottweilers, strictly speaking – those wouldn’t be free, would they? I guess some kind of wolfhound jumped the fence, you know, so there’s this mongrel litter they’re giving away down the street…”
Moritz: [Under breath] “Rottweiler? Wolfhound? You’re lying.”
Alpha: [Returning from apologizing to Beta] “Gah, this whole place stinks.”
Moritz: [Pathetically] “Weh, weh.”
Alpha: “You didn’t hurt him, did you?”

Caring for your lava lamp:
Lava lamps are easy to knock over. So be careful not to knock over your lava lamp. Also, when carrying the lava lamp, be sure to hold all parts securely: the base, the lamp-module, and the fancy little chrome cap that sits on top. The outside of the lamp may be wiped now and then with a clean cloth to remove fingerprints and other smudges, especially if it has been used as a murder weapon.

This reminds me. I broke a reading lamp a couple days ago while making the bed, yet I still must make beds. And now I have to read by lava lamplight.