some random things:
thanksgiving dinner at my sister's last night (it being the last time that both of us are going to be off in the evening for a bit) pretty low-key-with some of -the usual accouterments: turkey, cranberry relish, mashed P & G, stuffing, & a lack of certain others: awkward conversation, drunken argumentativeness, low-key hostility.
pretty much we: my sister, myself & my mom's boyfriend munched dutifully while little neice & nephew capered. (little neice is still making the transistion from "sippy-cups" to regular cups & spilled her juice--by my count--67 times while hoping about & chirping merrily.)
we've never really been "sitting at the table" people; growing up, I can't really remember very many meals where we were actually Sitting At a Table--it was usually in the living room, plates on knees, nearest flat surface, or the floor--usually a combination of all three. tonight we kinda reveerted back to that after years of having Thanksgiving being the one meal that we cleared off the table for--
conversation kept coming around to What To Do With The Piano.
since last Thanksgiving we've lost my grandmother, my mother & (from the looks of things) my bro-in-law.
my grandmother had the piano, which passed onto my mother, which has passed onto my sister & myself. & the bro-in-law has the truck.
afterward, went with ladyfriend to the High Schoolers last performance of "The King & I". the last time that I'd been to a play here was when I was going to High School here myself, & I kind of cringed when I thought (think) of the plays that I'd been in & seen.
I like to consider myself fairly cultured, but I've never seen "The King & I" & the only thing I really know about it is the basic story & that Jimmy Durante's version of "Hello, Young Lovers" kicks serious ass. (I'm not being ironic, it does.)
for the most part, I enjoyed it, even though it was pretty amatuerish, one or two of the actresses had decent voices but the rest of the cast kind of shuffled thru the songs. this is an almost completely cauacasian town, reflected in the cast, & effeorts at dialect were pretty much from the "Star Trek" school of truncating grammar & placing odd, random emphasis on vowels to seem "foreign"
about half-way thru the first scene, I hallucinated (I hope) Crow, Sprocket & Mike from Mystery Science Theatre 3000 somewhere in the rows ahead of me & they were in rare form, but it didn't take me long to realize they were mocking the book itself, & that the actors & actresses themselves were doing a pretty damn good job (especially in the kabuki version of "Uncle Tom's Cabin", which I actually enjoyed more than some of the post-modern flourishes that I've seen in professional productions.)
in the settling-down period after the first intermission I was whacked on the back of the head with a program belonging to, it turned out, a woman that I'd kinda sorta known in High School & who'd gone on to teach at same. I couldn't remember her name for the life of me, except that a few people told me, a while back, that she'd had a crush on me & I didn't really know what to do about it. she said, "I've been looking over this program & trying to figure out who you're related to."
--Um, nobody, really.
"It's just that everybody here is related to somebody on stage."
exchange of pleasantries while I tried desperately to remember HER NAME (this happens to me fairly frequently)--tomorrow I'll probably go out to the bars for a bit (in this town "bar" is plural, but just barely) & I'll probably run into a few people that I knew in High School who'll be back in town for Thanksgiving, & it's generally the same thing: a few pleasantries exchanged while I cast desperately in my mind for a name. & in the back of my head the thought: "They're wondering what the fuck I'm STILL DOING HERE."
&, ultimately, that's a very good question, whether they're actually thinking it or not.
--
anyway, in my bid to make this the longest entry ever, here's another old piece, written maybe 2 years ago (well before Ms. Stewarts current legal woes) included here because I'm going to try & do some housecleaning of old pieces that I've never done anything with in an effort to come up with new stuff:
MARTHA STEWART'S MOVING
Q; Help! Help! I need to move! I need to do it
tommorrow! &, &, & I don't know where to begin!
MS: Whoa, there! Simmer down! Prop up you feet & have
yourself a soothing cup of tea! Cream? Sugar? Touch of
lemon or honey?
Q: Oh, thank you. I was a bit on edge just then--but
I'm at my wit's end. (blowing on tea) My! This smells
delicious! What is it?
MS: A little infusion I've concocted from distillation
of hibiscus blossoms, grated orange peel & pencil
shavings. Good for the arteries! Drink up! See that
Ottoman? I made that out of three-quarter inch
dowelling, old bread bags, pine resin & bailing wire!
Right before you got here! Would you like me to make
you one?
Q: Um...sure...What are those tiny little...bones?
MS: Squirrel! No sense just tossing 'em in the
backyard when you're done boiling 'em for broth.
Lovely baroque touch, I think. Now...where were we?
Q: I need to move, & I'm terribly disorganized. I've
tried shoveling my belongings into lawn & leaf bags
with a snow shovel but a lot of my things have pointy
edges & poke out. I can't help but think that there's
a better way.
MS: You poor dear! Well, you've come to the right
person! Simplification, god-damn you!
Q: I really don't see the need...
MS: Sorry, I got a little carried away there, but I
cannot stress simplification as a significant factor
in the moving process. Why for two years I lived in
the gobi desert with nothing but a rucksack full of
spices & a thong made of lizard-skin, hydrating myself
by licking the dew from the undersides of
tortoises...are you all right?
Q: I seem to have gotten...light-headed for no
particular reason...A thong, eh?
MS: First things first! Determine what you can take
with you & what you can't. Put the former items in a a
pile that we will call Pile A. The latter will go into
pile B.
Q: (writing this down) Pile A...Pile B. Check!
MS: Then you may find it helpful to walk back & forth
with your hands folded behind your back, clicking your
tongue, occasionally poking at either pile with a
broom handle.
Q: Poking...Check!
MS: This process will take a couple of days of
concentrated effort during which items will be shifted
from pile to pile. Absence of disrtaction is crucial,
so if anybody calls on the phone or shows up at the
door, keen like a banshee until they hang-up/leave.
On perhaps day four you will reach a stage of the
moving process that I call "Gut-wrenching despair".
You will feel as though you are falling down a long,
dark soggy hole whenever you look at either pile,
perhaps you have begun drinking heavily or simply have
stripped to the waist & begun scourging yourself. You
may have made a little fortress of solitude out of
cardboard boxes & a bedspread where you spend hours
shivering & doing shots of NyQuil. All this is quite
normal.
Q: Quite...normal...
MS: The thought may flitter across your fevered brain
that perhaps Dangerous Narcotics are the answer. This
is not recommended.
Q: Gosh, why not?
MS: Because after a few moments you will inevitably
come across a pile of old, unmailed letter & will
spend the next twelve hours arranging them by date,
annotating all the margins with microscopic
copperplate.
Q: This has...happened to you?
MS: Purely hypothetical. I myself have a team of
well-trained Sherpas to pack & lug my things from
place to place, but it happened to a cousin of mine.
To proceed...
Q: Couldn't I just...borrow some of your Sherpas?
MS: Not bloody likely...they are sworn by blood-oath
to serve me & only me in this spiritual realm & the
next.
Q: I see. Forgive my presumption, my queen.
MS: I am magnanimous, I have already forgiven thee.
Q (fervently kisses hem of garment)
MS: (frostily) Yes, where were we?
Q: (checking notes) Drugs bad, shivering in little
fort good.
MS: Right, then. You will become aware of the passage
of time, the approaching deadline, piles of
magazines...
Q: I DO have an awful lot of magazines...
MS: Of course you do. The only thing to do is to put
on a welders helmet & put them in a box. You must
avoid looking DIRECTLY AT THE MAGAZINES. I cannot
over-emphasize. Put them IN the box. Seal the top with
some strong tape. Write "Magazines" on the side with a
magic marker. Or a sharpie. I prefer to use a
whittled-down Louisville Slugger dipped in an ink I
make of soot, gum arabic & the blood of a cock killed
at midsummer with a stone knife, but whatever works
for you, right?
Q: Right!
MS: Stack the boxes in the corner of the room. For the
remainder of the packing process you should keep your
back at the stack of boxes. You may take them with
you, you might not, but for the time being, THEY DO
NOT EXIST. Now, consider the clothing: are they
folded, pressed--pants with pants, sweaters with
sweaters, socks matched in appropriate with the
mismatched & holey ones discarded long before, or is
it all in a knot on the floor?
Q: Um...knot on the floor...
MS (massaging temples, eyes closed) Why do I even
BOTHER. Alright then, fold the clothes...toss out the
freak socks...
Q: Wait! Couldn't I...you know...make them into
something useful, like a toaster cover or something?
MS: Screw that, you running out of TIME, man! TIME!
Maybe now would be a good time to pull out that box of
lawn & leaf bags. Maybe you's just best buy a couple
of extra boxes & pick up some Ben-Gay for your
shoveling arm, while you're at it.
thanksgiving dinner at my sister's last night (it being the last time that both of us are going to be off in the evening for a bit) pretty low-key-with some of -the usual accouterments: turkey, cranberry relish, mashed P & G, stuffing, & a lack of certain others: awkward conversation, drunken argumentativeness, low-key hostility.
pretty much we: my sister, myself & my mom's boyfriend munched dutifully while little neice & nephew capered. (little neice is still making the transistion from "sippy-cups" to regular cups & spilled her juice--by my count--67 times while hoping about & chirping merrily.)
we've never really been "sitting at the table" people; growing up, I can't really remember very many meals where we were actually Sitting At a Table--it was usually in the living room, plates on knees, nearest flat surface, or the floor--usually a combination of all three. tonight we kinda reveerted back to that after years of having Thanksgiving being the one meal that we cleared off the table for--
conversation kept coming around to What To Do With The Piano.
since last Thanksgiving we've lost my grandmother, my mother & (from the looks of things) my bro-in-law.
my grandmother had the piano, which passed onto my mother, which has passed onto my sister & myself. & the bro-in-law has the truck.
afterward, went with ladyfriend to the High Schoolers last performance of "The King & I". the last time that I'd been to a play here was when I was going to High School here myself, & I kind of cringed when I thought (think) of the plays that I'd been in & seen.
I like to consider myself fairly cultured, but I've never seen "The King & I" & the only thing I really know about it is the basic story & that Jimmy Durante's version of "Hello, Young Lovers" kicks serious ass. (I'm not being ironic, it does.)
for the most part, I enjoyed it, even though it was pretty amatuerish, one or two of the actresses had decent voices but the rest of the cast kind of shuffled thru the songs. this is an almost completely cauacasian town, reflected in the cast, & effeorts at dialect were pretty much from the "Star Trek" school of truncating grammar & placing odd, random emphasis on vowels to seem "foreign"
about half-way thru the first scene, I hallucinated (I hope) Crow, Sprocket & Mike from Mystery Science Theatre 3000 somewhere in the rows ahead of me & they were in rare form, but it didn't take me long to realize they were mocking the book itself, & that the actors & actresses themselves were doing a pretty damn good job (especially in the kabuki version of "Uncle Tom's Cabin", which I actually enjoyed more than some of the post-modern flourishes that I've seen in professional productions.)
in the settling-down period after the first intermission I was whacked on the back of the head with a program belonging to, it turned out, a woman that I'd kinda sorta known in High School & who'd gone on to teach at same. I couldn't remember her name for the life of me, except that a few people told me, a while back, that she'd had a crush on me & I didn't really know what to do about it. she said, "I've been looking over this program & trying to figure out who you're related to."
--Um, nobody, really.
"It's just that everybody here is related to somebody on stage."
exchange of pleasantries while I tried desperately to remember HER NAME (this happens to me fairly frequently)--tomorrow I'll probably go out to the bars for a bit (in this town "bar" is plural, but just barely) & I'll probably run into a few people that I knew in High School who'll be back in town for Thanksgiving, & it's generally the same thing: a few pleasantries exchanged while I cast desperately in my mind for a name. & in the back of my head the thought: "They're wondering what the fuck I'm STILL DOING HERE."
&, ultimately, that's a very good question, whether they're actually thinking it or not.
--
anyway, in my bid to make this the longest entry ever, here's another old piece, written maybe 2 years ago (well before Ms. Stewarts current legal woes) included here because I'm going to try & do some housecleaning of old pieces that I've never done anything with in an effort to come up with new stuff:
MARTHA STEWART'S MOVING
Q; Help! Help! I need to move! I need to do it
tommorrow! &, &, & I don't know where to begin!
MS: Whoa, there! Simmer down! Prop up you feet & have
yourself a soothing cup of tea! Cream? Sugar? Touch of
lemon or honey?
Q: Oh, thank you. I was a bit on edge just then--but
I'm at my wit's end. (blowing on tea) My! This smells
delicious! What is it?
MS: A little infusion I've concocted from distillation
of hibiscus blossoms, grated orange peel & pencil
shavings. Good for the arteries! Drink up! See that
Ottoman? I made that out of three-quarter inch
dowelling, old bread bags, pine resin & bailing wire!
Right before you got here! Would you like me to make
you one?
Q: Um...sure...What are those tiny little...bones?
MS: Squirrel! No sense just tossing 'em in the
backyard when you're done boiling 'em for broth.
Lovely baroque touch, I think. Now...where were we?
Q: I need to move, & I'm terribly disorganized. I've
tried shoveling my belongings into lawn & leaf bags
with a snow shovel but a lot of my things have pointy
edges & poke out. I can't help but think that there's
a better way.
MS: You poor dear! Well, you've come to the right
person! Simplification, god-damn you!
Q: I really don't see the need...
MS: Sorry, I got a little carried away there, but I
cannot stress simplification as a significant factor
in the moving process. Why for two years I lived in
the gobi desert with nothing but a rucksack full of
spices & a thong made of lizard-skin, hydrating myself
by licking the dew from the undersides of
tortoises...are you all right?
Q: I seem to have gotten...light-headed for no
particular reason...A thong, eh?
MS: First things first! Determine what you can take
with you & what you can't. Put the former items in a a
pile that we will call Pile A. The latter will go into
pile B.
Q: (writing this down) Pile A...Pile B. Check!
MS: Then you may find it helpful to walk back & forth
with your hands folded behind your back, clicking your
tongue, occasionally poking at either pile with a
broom handle.
Q: Poking...Check!
MS: This process will take a couple of days of
concentrated effort during which items will be shifted
from pile to pile. Absence of disrtaction is crucial,
so if anybody calls on the phone or shows up at the
door, keen like a banshee until they hang-up/leave.
On perhaps day four you will reach a stage of the
moving process that I call "Gut-wrenching despair".
You will feel as though you are falling down a long,
dark soggy hole whenever you look at either pile,
perhaps you have begun drinking heavily or simply have
stripped to the waist & begun scourging yourself. You
may have made a little fortress of solitude out of
cardboard boxes & a bedspread where you spend hours
shivering & doing shots of NyQuil. All this is quite
normal.
Q: Quite...normal...
MS: The thought may flitter across your fevered brain
that perhaps Dangerous Narcotics are the answer. This
is not recommended.
Q: Gosh, why not?
MS: Because after a few moments you will inevitably
come across a pile of old, unmailed letter & will
spend the next twelve hours arranging them by date,
annotating all the margins with microscopic
copperplate.
Q: This has...happened to you?
MS: Purely hypothetical. I myself have a team of
well-trained Sherpas to pack & lug my things from
place to place, but it happened to a cousin of mine.
To proceed...
Q: Couldn't I just...borrow some of your Sherpas?
MS: Not bloody likely...they are sworn by blood-oath
to serve me & only me in this spiritual realm & the
next.
Q: I see. Forgive my presumption, my queen.
MS: I am magnanimous, I have already forgiven thee.
Q (fervently kisses hem of garment)
MS: (frostily) Yes, where were we?
Q: (checking notes) Drugs bad, shivering in little
fort good.
MS: Right, then. You will become aware of the passage
of time, the approaching deadline, piles of
magazines...
Q: I DO have an awful lot of magazines...
MS: Of course you do. The only thing to do is to put
on a welders helmet & put them in a box. You must
avoid looking DIRECTLY AT THE MAGAZINES. I cannot
over-emphasize. Put them IN the box. Seal the top with
some strong tape. Write "Magazines" on the side with a
magic marker. Or a sharpie. I prefer to use a
whittled-down Louisville Slugger dipped in an ink I
make of soot, gum arabic & the blood of a cock killed
at midsummer with a stone knife, but whatever works
for you, right?
Q: Right!
MS: Stack the boxes in the corner of the room. For the
remainder of the packing process you should keep your
back at the stack of boxes. You may take them with
you, you might not, but for the time being, THEY DO
NOT EXIST. Now, consider the clothing: are they
folded, pressed--pants with pants, sweaters with
sweaters, socks matched in appropriate with the
mismatched & holey ones discarded long before, or is
it all in a knot on the floor?
Q: Um...knot on the floor...
MS (massaging temples, eyes closed) Why do I even
BOTHER. Alright then, fold the clothes...toss out the
freak socks...
Q: Wait! Couldn't I...you know...make them into
something useful, like a toaster cover or something?
MS: Screw that, you running out of TIME, man! TIME!
Maybe now would be a good time to pull out that box of
lawn & leaf bags. Maybe you's just best buy a couple
of extra boxes & pick up some Ben-Gay for your
shoveling arm, while you're at it.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
This Martha woman you speak of seems to be on the ball. Is she single? I'd love to meet her. Send her to me.
So why are you still here?
*written in black sharpie*