28Sep / 2009

The Hot Carwash of Self-Knowledge

I had an extra hour on my lunch break so I decided to go to the Hot Carwash of Self-Knowledge, which is like a normal carwash, except a person dressed like a belly dancer does a mind meld with you and says, “These are your pluses and these are your minuses. This is what makes it nice to be around you, and this is what makes it a pain in the ass. This is what is good for you, and this is what is bad for you.”

The Hot Carwash of Self-Knowledge is always right.

Except I got real lost. It was over on the other side of town and I got mixed up on which street to take. I turned too early and when I realized and turned to cut over to the right street it was too late and I nearly went onto the freeway. Then, just like that, I was in FARMLAND and passed a sign saying, “Thanks for visiting Vienna”. I had left the city limits!

I eventually found my way there, but it was an art-supply store and I had wasted two hours trying to find it — all of my lunch break. I bought a few basic book-binding supplies for this secret project and was half an hour late getting back to the office. Fortunately no one noticed.

I would fear that I’m going senile and have to start pinning my name and address to my shirt when I go places, but getting lost is not uncommon for me, albeit that was pretty epic.

It crashes down with the dead weight of a rusty bulldozer falling into blackberries, into the tough vines that pulled it back to earth when it had fought its way heavenward. A tractor freed from gravity, momentarily, rising in an anomalous moment before normalcy brought it crashing back to earth, blade askew.

Sometimes you open the dishwasher and stray metaphors come out, fogging your glasses like steam.

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20Sep / 2009

It snowed just now

I stood out on the sidewalk watching it, using a sewing machine as an umbrella. Wearing my bowler hat. An umbrella wearing a bowler hat is absurd. The cat had a worm. Possibly more than one, so I took her and her brother to the vet for a pill each. And to make an appt to have her sterilized. They shaved her belly and did an ultrasound to see if she is pregnant, because she refused to pee on the little paper stick.

There I stood, looking at that familiar ultrasound monitor image, trying to think of a good joke, none coming. How will I explain it to my wife if one looks like me, like that. And all the while, big flakes of fallout drifting to earth out the window. Apocalyptic humor.

Freshly-shaved cat belly is a soft thing.

We’ve been looking for the leopard slug, or whatever it was, unsuccessfully. It’s out there, somewhere. It’s a feeling like when the jungle drums stop, you know? That slug is out there.

I hear they come from Spain. Climate change. They come from Spain, like these butterflies a friend found on her oleander come from Greece. Like the butterflies, only way more slowly.

Except, it didn’t snow.

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16Sep / 2009

Careers in Science: Noetical Hydrology

Does the tear absorb the ocean or does the ocean absorb the tear? This question is the domain of the noetical hydrologist. Taking a walk along the creek with his younger daughter, the noetical hydrologist finds himself discussing death and grief with her. “I watched you when grandpa died,” she says. “I read in a magazine how long it takes to get over the deaths of various people – friend, parent, spouse, grandparent, and we were both right on the money. I needed about four months. Eight months for you, I think. You always used to be funny. Then you were so sad. Then, afterwards, you were funny again, just not quite as funny as before.”

The noetical hydrologist’s daughter says this to him. The sun has set and the sky is glowing above the cornfield while clouds gather for a rainy night. The noetical hydrologist wonders, is she wise beyond her years or am I just dull? Neither, he decides. She’s the way she belongs, as is he.

Does the tear absorb the ocean or does the ocean absorb the tear?

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10Sep / 2009

Thoughts upon getting the car back from its annual tune-up

jetpack1 Assistant manager: Here is your jetpack, Mr. Living. It has received the full upgrade.

Customer: Oh, upgrade? Like what?

Assistant manager: Here, listen to this.

Customer: I don’t hear anything.

Assistant manager: Exactly: Stealth Mode.

Customer: Kewl. And what’s this button? [ZZZT!!]

Assistant manager: Careful! Improved-functionality death ray.

Customer: Improved? Sure hope so. That didn’t work half the time before.

Assistant manager: I know. We had lots of complaints.

Customer: It kept breaking. And it was so hard to change the refills.

Assistant manager: That problem’s been solved. No need to change them anymore, you just bring the whole thing back to the shop and we change it for you.

Customer: Um, what? I can’t change them myself at all now? What about the spotlight bulbs. What happens when they burn out.

Assistant manager: Er, yeah, same maximum convenience! We change them for you now.

Customer: I hate that.

Assistant manager: It takes a special tool that only we have.

Customer: I’m almost afraid to ask — what about the fuel cells?

Assistant manager: Er…

Customer: [hovering silently now.] ZZZZT!

Assistant manager: Erk.

Customer: Well, that’s working better anyway.

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09Sep / 2009

All along, part of me was afraid something like this might happen

slugface My wife discovered this bad boy out on the terrace this morning. “Honey, come outside and tell me if this is a rubber slug, because it sure didn’t feel like rubber when I grabbed it,” she said.

We have been playing with rubber slugs lately.

Her theory is that this guy is a result of my experimentation with beer and slugs earlier this summer. So I may have to update my findings. Or at least include beer-induced gigantism among garden slugs among the potential effects examined in next year’s expanded study.

It’s really quite a beautiful specimen. Nearly a foot long – I say nearly a foot long, I can say that, as we are dealing with imprecise science here. Nearly a foot long, and fast. It tried to attack my camera when I was taking pictures of it this morning. I am guessing it got into the Heinekken and Red Bull.

Beautiful pattern. I am from the Pacific Northwest, and I have never seen a slug larger or more beautiful than this one. Here is a full-body shot:

slugtotal

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08Sep / 2009

Brane dump

Where can I get a pastry knife/pastry blender in Austria? And what are they called in German? I just get puzzled looks when I describe them to store clerks.
Saw a trailer for “The Men Who Stare at Goats” a while ago. It looks funny. It has Jeff Bridges as a New Agey instructor-guru type. WHY ALWAYS JEFF BRIDGES? DO HOLLYWOOD PRODUCERS READ A SCRIPT, SEE A PONYTAIL AND SAY, “CALL BRIDGES’ AGENT, WE NEED A HIPPIE?” I’m getting tired of that.
As much as I like Jeff Bridges.
Just read Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” a while back too. It took me a long time to get started because the first paragraph broke my heart with its beauty and simplicity, the way you knew both main characters IMMEDIATELY from just a few well-chosen words that weren’t even describing them, and knew that nothing good was waiting for them out there in that post-not-further-described-apocalyptic-world. However, with that great start, I could only be disappointed by the end, and I was. I was left with the feeling that the language was, ultimately, TOO poetic and self-conscious and beautiful for a novel. There were too many coincidences although an argument could convince me otherwise, namely the argument that of 100 pairs of such characters, 99 would have died well before the final chapter in this hostile environment; the only pair that would make it to the end of the book would be the lucky one. You can be careful and wise and knowledgeable and prepared, but without luck you are fucked pal at least in a vague apocalypse. But I found McCarthy’s economics grand, the most compelling part of the book. Following an event such as the vaguely described one in theh book, everything would become scarce almost immediately. Within 10 years: no bullets, no shoes, no food.
Srsly, our current system ROCKS in comparison.

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02Sep / 2009

5 More Things Not to Let the Kids Bring into the Car

Recalling my goal of landing some free-lance writing work I have decided to get in a little practice doing some more serious (or at least more commercial) writing here and learning from your comments. Pam mentioned this article in a recent tweet. Apparently some guy wrote it and Wired bought it. I found the article humorous yet incomplete. Only five things? I could think of at least five more. Then it occurred to me, in view of the above-mentioned, that I could always write my list and post it here.

So here it is: Five More Things Not to Let the Kids Bring into the Car

snspecial1 1. A Saturday Night Special

Not the band, and not the gun.

Especially not the gun. A Saturday night special is dangerous only at close range. Inaccurate at any distance greater than five feet, it is useless in a road rage situation, and eventually the kids will get the drop on you and you’ll end up driving to the mall everytime you get in the car. Or wherever it is kids like to drive to nowadays.

bape1 2. A Barbary ape

YOU DO NOT WANT A BARBARA APE IN YOUR CAR UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES! NOT EVEN ONE!

THEY ARE NOT CUTE AND THEY ARE NOT FUNNY!

BARBARY APES ARE THE ASSWIPES OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM!! DON’T LET ANY INTO YOUR CAR, NOT EVEN ONE!

amatter1 3. Antimatter

Everyone wants to get their kids interested in science, and to support this interest wherever they can. Antimatter, however, has no place in traffic.

According to the current Wikipedia article on antimatter, “… mixing matter and antimatter would lead to the annihilation of both in the same way that mixing antiparticles and particles does, thus giving rise to high-energy photons (gamma rays) or other particle–antiparticle pairs.”

Few things are more distracting when driving than high-energy photons.

wnest1 4. A nest of wasps

We all know how distracting (and dangerous!) a single wasp can be. Well, imagine having an entire nest of wasps in your car!

Barbary apes are nothing next to a nest of wasps.

If you had a nest of wasps in your car, you’d be wishing for a Barbary ape instead.

Or a Saturday night special.

Or even antimatter, depending on the amount.

wshatner1 5. William Shatner

William Shatner’s rendition of the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is epic, I just heard it on the radio. I was going to include a link here, but just do a search, I don’t know what is legal anymore and what isn’t.

Likewise, his readings of Sarah Palin’s beat poetry were also genius.

At first. But, you know. We get it, Mr. Shatner.

Can you imagine trying to drive while he’s reading Sarah Palin’s Facebook status updates or something?

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Yearly Archives: 2009