Audio/Visual Non Sequiturs

Feline Shout Out Corner Number 2

Because I don’t want to bother you with my idiocy when I don’t have anything revelatory to say, I’m just going to put this here and you can come across it when today’s miserable outcome seems less like a wound recently created. I’m sorry. It sucks. He was a good guy, with his crinkle tube and catnip banana and eyeliner. You did him a good turn, Molls, and kept him going and comfortable and, when it turned, you made the right call.

So, um, yes, here’s some Lorrie Moore:

Early Christmas morning, she woke Sofie and dressed her warmly in her snowsuit. There was a light snow on the ground and a wind blew powdery gusts around the yard. “We’re going to say good-bye to Bert,” said Aileen.

“Oh, Bert!” said Sofie, and she began to cry.

“No, it’ll be happy!” said Aileen, feeling the pink-posied tin in her jacket pocket. “He wants to go out. Do you remember how he used to want to go out? How he would mee-ow at the door and then we would let him go out?”

“Mee-ow, mee-ow,” said Sofie.

“Right,” said Aileen. “So that’s what we’re going to do now.”

“Will he be with Santa Claus?”

“Yes! He’ll be with Santa Claus!”

They stepped outside, down off the porch steps. Aileen pried open the tin. Inside, there was a small plastic bag and she tore that open. Inside was Bert: a pebbly ash like the sand and ground shells of a beach. Summer in December! What was Christmas if not a giant mixed metaphor? What was it about if not the mystery of interspecies love — God’s for man! Love had sought a chasm to leap across and landed itself right here: the Holy Ghost among the barn animals, the teacher’s pet sent to be adored then die. Aileen and Sofie each seized a fistful of Bert and ran around the yard, letting wind take the ash and scatter it. Chickadees flew from the trees. Frightened squirrels headed for the yard next door. In freeing Bert, perhaps they would become him a little: banish the interlopers, police the borders, then go back inside and play with decorations, claw at the gift wrap, eat the big headless bird.

“Merry Christmas to Bert!” Sofie shouted. The tin was now empty.

“Yes, Merry Christmas to Bert” said Aileen. She shoved the tin back into her pocket. Then she and Sofie raced back into the house, to get warm.

Jack was in the kitchen, standing by the stove, still in his pajamas. He was pouring orange juice and heating buns.

“Daddy, Merry Christmas to Bert!” Sofie popped open the snaps of her snowsuit.

“Yes,” said Jack, turning. “Merry Christmas to Bert!” He handed Sofie some juice, then Aileen. But before she drank hers, Aileen waited for him to say something else. He cleared his throat and stepped forward. He raised his glass. His large quizzical smile said, This is a very weird family. But instead, he exclaimed, “Merry Christmas to everyone in the whole wide world!” and let it go at that.

Feline Shout Out Corner

Get better, Rayber.

He's the fur-covered one on the left.

Something I Learned At The Doctor’s Office The Other Day

The symptoms of an oral Anthrax infection are quite similar to thrush, in that both involve white masses forming in the oral cavity. I don’t have either, it’s just that the receptionist had posters up of both The Symptoms of Bio-Terrorism and Oral Fungal Infections.

The sad part is, I’m not even kidding on this one.

This Is Funny To Me Because?

One of the top searches that might lead a person to this very blog is “how to seem sad”. It’s true. WordPress told me so.

In Which I Become Another Disturbing Statistic

I’d thought it odd that I hadn’t received any email today at work. Odd, but nice, for a Thursday when I was feeling lazy and otherwise engaged in the creation of a Tumblr for Fake Kanye West.

Of course I was laid off at the end of the day, so there you have it.

Questions in a World of Multiple Colors?

Sorry, that was a Julee Cruise reference gone slightly awry. My horoscope today said that I was “seething” with various angers. It was unfortunately correct. I am seething and depressed.  Just why am I seething and depressed? I don’t know, really, in a succinct way that wouldn’t make me sound like a tempermental child.

Why do I sometimes ask questions like Carrie Bradshaw? Do I expect the answers to come as easily? Perhaps.

In the words of Pepe Le Pew, le sigh. I woke up this morning and the thought of another season in New York seemed a bit too much. I fed the cat, put on some coffee, then made the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror. I looked old. I can see the age creeping in on the edges, and it was a little tiresome. I looked both puffy and deflated somehow.

I felt panicked for a minute, because really, what can be done? (Goddamn these Carrie Bradshaw questions!) Nothing at all.  So I took a shower and moisturized a little more than normal.

PS. I know what a rambling mess this is. I’m posting it anyway.

What a Feeling! Except Not Really.

You know that feeling where you just want to go home? Well, I just felt that way, except I am home.

Imaginary Pathos

Just now I saw an elderly woman walking a large, orange and happy dog. The woman looked happy as well, although not orange, and the dog was wearing a t-shirt. A big, orange happy dog in a t-shirt on a sunny day in October. The whole thing made me want to cry, a little, because I am bonkers.

My Idiot Thinking

So I spent the last few days in Las Vegas. It was ostensibly for work, but a big chunk of time was spent by the pool or at various slot machines wasting my friend Matthew’s money. The city is hot and weird, certainly, and having spent my entire life in the Northeast, I found it vaguely offensive in its grinding efficiency. Perhaps because I didn’t really see much of where people actually live, but the sight of a squat, overtanned Mexican man scraping wads of gum off a paved walkway between The Excalibur and Mandalay Bay summed up the city pretty well for me. Perhaps it was the pack of corpulent tourists, studiously pretending that he wasn’t there, or perhaps it was just me, resentful as ever, in a strange town on someone else’s dime. I don’t know.

Admittedly, I’ve wandered from what I was thinking of writing here. I had a nice time. The sun was nice, and the frozen drinks, and the giant ridiculous wave pool. But I felt out of place, and I began to fear that even just a few days of relaxation would equate to some hardship at home. I convinced myself alternately that my cat would be dead upon my return, or that I’d get fired, or evicted from my apartment, or some combination of the three. Like karma but pointlessly vengeful, something nice must be balanced with something much, much more horrid. In the car home from the airport, I thought about how I’d cope with all these things; broke and homeless, carrying around my dead cat, all because I’d spent some time in the sun.

Of course nothing was wrong when I got home. My cat is here with me, and based upon my work email, I shouldn’t have anything to worry about there. My apartment has not been seized so I dutifully mailed my rent check two days late. I am thirty years old and increasingly aware of the fact that I will be nervous and insane for the rest of my life.