Joseph Conrad, Maury Povich, Disco Duck!

Still in the land of ugly orange shag carpets, but am now actively seeking a new place to live! Hurrah for me! The landlady is curiously silent, and I do my best to stay COMPLETELY out of her way.

Finished up a first draft of a decent story this morning. That made me happy, although my wrists now ache. Writing is hell on the metatarsals. Did I spell that right, Ernest?

We have beautiful weather here in New England. The trees outside are bursting beautifully into blossom (add your alliterative phrases here!). Kinda sexual and all that, but hey, as the Discovery Channel informed me one strange night, human beings are basically here to get it on and procreate. Why Michael Jackson payed attention to THAT particular special is beyond me, but we can only hope that maybe one day he'll start making disco records or something. It might cure him, really. I wouldn't qualify the Jackson 5 as disco, would you?

What a pretentious bore I am! But, OH so charming. I have now watched the latest edition of "Pride & Prejudice" like eighty times. What a great movie. Keira Knightley et al. were awesomely good. I like the director's commentary a lot -- there's just something about the British I really like. It's not just the accents either! Although they help. I'm a definite anglophile, 'cause it's in the blood. I lived in England as a wee child, and my brother was born there. Our grandfather (long dead, never knew the dude 'cause he croaked when I was two) was from England, and in college I was lucky enough to go there for a few months. One day I'll buy a humble cottage there, or else just sell my servantly services to Angelina Jolie -- heard she's got a great place! Nah, screw that -- you sell your book, make a million dollars, and get your OWN DAMN MANSION! HA!

Glad I got that out of my system. Some strange looking dude just walked in here, gave me a Paranoid Glance, then started talking on his cellphone and darted out of here. He must be selling drugs! Yes, I would not be surprised. Here in the northeast we EXCEL at the Paranoid Glance. Northerners are weird, what can I say. I have been unemployed and depressed for months now, and am now familiar with all the strange people in this particular library. Who knew there were so many of us?

Ah, yes. Anywhoha, got a nice email from a friend of mine teaching in the mid-west. She's a nifty poet and very much beats to her own drummer. Most of my friends are like that. I know you concur, gentle reader!

Must go. Lots of nasty celebrity news regarding Charlie Sheen and Maury Povich. Ah, scandal and madness! Maury Povich has too much grease in his hair -- he should lay off the pomade. Sheen has Crazy Mad Eyes like his old man, who apparently went cuckoo on the set of Apocalypse Now, based on that awful book by Joseph Conrad. The Heart of Darkness is a really depressing book. I mean, really depressing. They call Conrad one of the great bad writers. That and Moby Dick strike me as being really hard to get at, but it's been so long since I was an English major.

May your day be as lovely as you are.

And So It Ends

Ah yes, we knew this day was coming...the saga of the landlady finally at an end...and my ass now about to give notice whether or not I even have a place to go, 'cause these are desperate times, people. And desperate times, as you know, call for desperate measures!

I've had a lot of stress and pressure in my life in the past few months, and this Hell Spawn is not the ideal thing to throw into the mix. It's kind of like satan ringing your doorbell after you joined the Jehovas Witnesses or something. Anyway, it all culminated over this past weekend, when after returning from something or other I lay on Me 'eetle Bed to try and get some sleep.

I suddenly heard a knocking at my door. I tensed up, as I always do, because knocks on the door from Hell Spawn usually mean trouble. And that's not in River City, darlings!

So I opened up the door, still in my bathrobe as I had taken a bath before my nap, and she informed me that I had left some "spaghetti sauce" around the sink and that I needed to clean up my "mess." This was strange, as I had not cooked any goddamned spaghetti, folks!

Sound of straw. Snapping. Here it, people? I heard it louder than a bell. Several bells, in fact.

I said, still in a fairly mild tone of voice, "Mrs. X, do you ever have anything NICE to say?"

THAT WAS IT! She got nasty! It took so little, too, as kindness to this woman means that she doesn't kick the dog, she poisons the goldfish instead! She immediately snapped that it was HER house.

Me: You've made that abundantly clear.

Her: You need to clean that up. I've had people who haven't scoured pots.

(Yes, I never follow her train of logic either, but since she is utterly and completely OBSESSED with cleanliness it doesn't matter.)

She starts down the stairs. I follow. We hurl insults at each other.

Now we are standing in the middle of the kitchen. I am about ten inches taller. This is primitively sweet.

Her (approximate height and size of troll, big eyes that could double for Linda Blair's in The Exorcist): Clean that up!

Me: Ask me NICELY.

Her: I did before!

More tense accusations.

Finally:

Her: You are SO nasty.

Me: You're a horrible person.

The End.

I cleaned up the stupid sink, which didn't even look dirty, and left. Then promptly called everyone I knew to complain bitterly about this Wanker.

The moral of the lesson, boys and girls, is never move in with ANYONE over the age of fifty. Unless they are the NICEST GODDAMNED PEOPLE IN THE WORLD!! I now know that there are truly horrible people on this planet. I mean, people who are crazier than anything you're gonna find on Jerry Springer.

As I am a writer, I will have my revenge, however. She will feature prominently in a book or short story entitled The Landlady, and she will end up plummeting off the Sears Tower. Literary revenge is the best way to go in times like these.

To get it all out of my system, here are the adjectives I can best think of to describe Hell Spawn:

Controlling
Moody
Unhappy
Sour
Paranoid
Obnoxious
Aggressive
Loud
OCD
Hater of women
Lover of men!
Narcissistically Wounded
Critical
Nosy as Hell
Rude
Inappropriate!
Just Plain Mean

And that's it, gentle reader. Thank you for tolerating this obsessive writer. Dare I ask you to believe I am a kind soul who shoveled this woman's driveway repeatedly?

I am no saint, but soon I will write from a new, better abode.

And God said, it was good.

And that short story/book is sounding mighty good.

May all your days be kind.

My Perkiest Post Yet

Just want to wish you all a joyous Easter weekend. For those not celebrating Easter, just have a joyous weekend.

I saw two things today that made me really happy: One, an old man holding up a sign close to the town green reading, "Save America, Impeach Bush". He was getting a fair amount of encouraging honks.

Another was seeing a cute little white and black boy on their scooters having fun together. A heartening sight in racially charged times! At least somewhat, eh?

Not much else to say. How unusual for me. I did eat my bagel with light plain cream cheese made for me by a very diligent young man in the local cemetery, possibly the most relaxing place in this entire town. Then I enjoyed myself by looking at various headstones. Some are so ancient that they are utterly falling apart. Bruegger's Bagels also brews a really nice coffee. Some of the best I've found anywhere -- even better than Dunkin Donuts (in this state, DD is a religion, not to be confused with the size of Jessica Simpson's mammary glands).

It was also nice to hear some church bells pealing out. Some trees are in bloom now, including a gorgeous cherry blossom tree. All in all a veritable picturesque scene! Monet woulda rushed to paint it!

Well, who knows, really, now. But anything is possible.

A good day to you, my friends.

Huh

Because my life is vacuous, meaningless, and just plain stifling at present, I came to the library, as we starving pseudo-artist types tend to do, to check my email. I also checked various news headlines and was not surprised to see that Gywneth Paltrow, she so fair of skin and Oscar and yet oddly nasal of voice, has given birth to Baby Moses. Of course! First we had De Apple, now we have De Moses! Which prompted me to think that the real Moses, long dead though he may be (his flowing grey hair now gone, his remains now crumbled into mere grains of sand), is pissed. I mean, real pissed.

MOSES????

OK, I got that out of my system. I guess celebrities are so in love with their own celebrity that real names, like Karen and Ben and Victoria and Tracy and even Stuart, just won't do. They have to be different. Radically WEIRDLY different. Moses? Jesus Christ in a handbag. How the child will suffer. He and the his younger sister will one day grow up to realize that their parents just plain suck, people. All the money in the world won't soothe their distress until they turn 18 and run off to court to get a real name. Apple and Moses, time for dinner! Apple, did you pick up some oranges from the supermarket again? No, just the apples? OK! Moses, stop reading that damned Bible! Stop whittling those damned walking sticks! Stop watching those f------ Charlton Heston movies!

Alright, you get the picture.

In happier news my Future Husband (I am doing the James Frey Strange Capitalization Thing) Craig Ferguson has a book out today. I am still trying to retrieve my book, which is causing me a lot of psychic distress. But, I am happy, although insanely jealous, that his book is now out in the world. I have already put a hold on it at the local library, where the librarians are cheerful, the books are plentiful, and the buffalo roam! This is what lack of food will do to you when you start picturing buffalo roaming through the library. Hey, you never know. It may come to that if we don't Save The Planet, JAMES FREY!

I just wanted to say that. I have actually been reading his Is It Fiction, Or Is It Real book A Million Little Pieces. It's pretty good, although somewhat repetitive. He's a decent writer, no doubt. I still wish I had seen that Oprah episode where she ripped him a new one on national television. What a horrible pack of Romans we are, throwing our writers to the lions. And wanting to see the horrible results. Frankly a part of me feels really sorry for the guy, although I do not condone lying. Relativistic age or not, I think that the truth should be told and preserved at all costs. Unless you're offered a major bribe! No, just kidding! Anyway, it would have been interesting TV, no doubt.

There is no more to say. Weather in New England Good, Landladies Oddly Quiet. Book Still Gone, Money All Gone, Trying To Leave This Hell State For A Better One.

Moses, can you hear me?

May your days be as lovely as you are.

The Funk In My Head (not to be confused with Junk In The Trunk)

I am trying to get over a wretched cold. I am also reeling from my landlady's final transformation into Nice Little Old Lady. She had a minor stroke, apparently, and I attribute this latest spate of madness to a basic neurological retooling of her brain. Some days I wonder why I bother to get out of bed; hell, every day!

I have nothing pertinent to say other than the usual gibbledy-gobbedy-gook (is that like "Bibbity, bobbity, boo" from Cinderella, incidentally?). I spent most of the weekend in bed trying to keep back the cold demons from leaping out of my chest like that scene in "Alien", and have not really succeeded. Now I am in the library, where the Same Damn Weird Library Guy gives me his creepy look every single time. Serial killers lurk amongst us, my friends!

Ah, the weirdness of life. I recently watched "Hide and Seek" and was disappointed in the incredibly STUPID ending. So stupid as to defy imagination. Is Robert DeNiro in every movie or what? I wonder if he reads scripts, or just Big Numbers, if you know what I mean. Anyway, the filmmakers had a prime opportunity to create a real movie. Instead, they gave us pure stupidity/crap schlock/why am I here, o God, watching this shit? You get the picture. Poor Dakota Fanning. The best part of the the film (I laughed like I haven't laughed in ages) was when Dakota brings a little friend up into her room and her Poor Unsuspecting Friend takes one of her dolls off the shelf and says, "She's pretty." Dakota takes the doll, turns her back for a minute, then whips around and shoves the now deformed doll into her friend's face. Her Little Friend screams and runs out the door. I laughed like a schoolgirl eating an ice-cream cone on a sunny day. Hey, what can I say, we're all a little twisted!

So rent it for the camp, then turn it off before you realize who "Charlie" really is (Dakota's imaginary friend). THESE BASTARDS SHOULD NOT BE MAKING FILMS, OK, FOLKS!!!
Sorry, this blog was just interrupted by the entire working cast of the Jerry Springer Show. 'Cause we know these people are actors (and is that still on the air, by the way?).

To interrupt the Funk In My Head I yahoo'ed (this is like googling, only it doesn't involve selling information to Chinese governments, say) Gabriel Byrne. I think I spelled that right. I have many crushes on Irish actors. Gerry Butler, Gabriel Byrne, Aidan Quinn. I could go on and on. Of course, Butler is Scottish but is of Irish ancestry, so we can quibble there, but the man is so hot it's a wonder he gets up in the morning like the rest of us and takes a shower. That's what really counts here, folks. Or maybe he doesn't shower; maybe he hires people to bathe him. I wouldn't be surprised, considering these Hollywood Types, although he actually strikes me as being a modest man. The Modest Man! Now there's a title for a movie. Kinda like the "Thin Man" series. I like it.

That's about it. Inane Blogs! Ain't that fun? Here are some questions I am left to ponder, as always:

Why does Vicks Vapor Rub look edible?
Why ARE Irish men so hot?
Why do cellphone users feel compelled to use them
in grocery stores the most? Does the sight of produce make
people feel like talking?
Why are the early morning hours the most wretched?
Do the makers of Prozac control the government?
Should we ALL be on Prozac? Or not?

May you have a bright and merry day.