August 2004 Dribblings

Category: dribblings

8.30.04
at work today:

popsicle: what did you and jimmy have for supper last night?

me: corndogs. what did you and mom have?

p: hotdogs.

m: whoa.

p: you guys want to eat dinner at our house tonight?

m: i dunno. what are you having?

p: what are you cooking for us?

m: um, corndogs?

p: how about something that doesn’t have ‘dog’ in it.

m: …so i guess i won’t be trying out that new Korean dish?

p: heh.

8.28.04
i’ve mentioned how weird conversations happen to me at gas stations, right? i don’t know why, but they just happen. i never start them. honestly.

so today i pump my gas and go inside to pay and there’s this arabic guy workign the counter and i hand him my money and say, “$19.76” and he says in his thick accent, “yoo see evryoothing.”
‘hm?’
“you see…everything.”
wtf? maybe he’s got a head injury or something.
“um. well. not everything.” i say and smile, because it’s always good to smile.
“hai!” he says loudly and smiles. “your change,” as he hands me my coins.
“thank you.”
“hai!”

why am i always alone when this happens? i mean, i wasn’t alone in the store, there was this other guy looking at me like i was a snake-haired gorgon monster. but i wasn’t about to ask him what he thought it was all about. but i was alone in that none of MY people were with me.

To My People:
stop letting me go to the gas station alone.
i need witnesses for this kind of thing.
it’s just too weird.

love,
jaimie

8.27.04
miss communication

so the other night mr. fleegan and i are leaving the movies and this guy in some kind of car was driving down the wrong way and mr. fleegan was going to go down that particular avenue and then couldn’t because there’s this yahoo driving the wrong way. so mr. fleegan reverses the car and drives a different way and i went back to balancing my checkbook. then he says,
“don’t look at me you f*ckhole.”
“i wasn’t looking at you,” i mumble, before catching on to what he has said.
“no i was-”
“and? you can’t call me that! how dare you!”
“i was talking about the f*ckhole who was driving the wrong way. he gave me a look. he was the idiot!”
“jimmy, that was like 30 seconds ago. isn’t that a bit of a delayed reaction?”
“it wasn’t 30 seconds ago!”
“dude, c’mon, your reaction was totally delayed. i mean, i balanced my check book before you said-”
“no way!”
“fine. if you want to be a f*ckhole about it.”
“hey!”
“neener!”

8.25.04
new weekly! unfortunately it’s not very creative and it’s all about the cat.
kinda like the blog.

latest reefer-al madness:
the pickle oldies
ms. gotrocks southern
british pickled beet recipes

8.24.04
while emptying my junkmail or whatever you’d like to call the mail that my ISP “traps” for me because it’s got a virus in it or whatnot, i saw one with the subject “extreme vaginas?”
question mark and everything.
i really wanted to open that e-mail.
but i really don’t want/need a virus on this machine.
still. “extreme vaginas?”? were they going to ask me? was i to respond with what i thought an EV would be? was i to judge an EV contest? were they inviting me to include my own EV in an EV contest?

whatever the case i’m honored that when sending out an “extreme vagina?” e-mail they thought of me.

****

also, i should have mentioned yesterday that cheesebum was what we called the school bus.
i rode the cheesebum every day.

8.23.04
i just finished reading threshold by caitlin r. kiernan because laura asked me to read it because see what happened was i was going to the library to hog out my books and was supposed to check out some kind of cheesebum* book for laura but it turned out that whatever jerkhole had previously hogged that book out had not returned it and it was alread a week late. so there i was. in the library. and the book LBC wanted wasn’t there. and i mean shit. what a conundrum, right? it’s not like i could call laura and say, “hey your book isn’t here. is there something else you want?”

because you’re not supposed to turn on your cell phone in the ‘brary.

AND EVERYTIME I’M IN THERE SOME STUPID BITCH’S PHONE RINGS AND SHE ANSWERS IT! AND PROCEEDS TO TALK LOUDLY EVEN THOUGH THERE ARE NO SOUNDS IN THE LIBRARY TO GIVE HER ANY REASON TO TALK THAT LOUD IN THE STACKS AND FOR REAL, DO I REALLY NEED TO KNOW THAT SHE’S GOTTA RUN TO THE STORE AFTER THIS BECAUSE THEY’RE GONNA HAVE POT FARKING ROAST FOR DINNER?!

but the killer is that SHE KEEPS GETTING ON TO HER SMALL CHILD WHO IS MERELY TALKING IN A NORMAL VOICE AND BASICALLY JUST BEING A KID. “SHH! SH!” SHE SHUSHES AT HER SMALL CHILD AND REALLY WHAT IS THIS KID GONNA LEARN FROM A MOMMA WHO CAN’T SHUT HER STUPID FACE LONG ENOUGH TO CHECK OUT WHATEVER MINDLESS TRIPE A LADY LIKE THAT IS BOUND TO BE CHECKING OUT?

YES. I AM JUDGING.
PROBLEM?

so anyway, sure i could’ve gone outside to use the phone and call laura and say, “book ain’t here. what now?” but no. i’m up for a challenge. so i figure i’ll just get LBC some kind of thinnish book to hold her off until the book she wanted is returned. so i grab at every thin book and it’s like, here’s one! oh. Animal Farm? i better not. hey what’s this? Call of the Wild. she’d kill me. but oh, remember that poor dog? ok let’s see…skimming skimming skimming…aha! wait. Cry the Beloved Country. uh huh, let me just complete the Summer Reading List by getting How Green Was My Valley and she’ll never speak to me again.

and just when i thought i’d have to actually walk all the way outside to make an asinine phone call, i spotted it. threshold. it was thin. it had a cool cover. and best of all it had a blurb about the author by Neil Gaiman so there you go. a laura book.
turns out laura liked it and asked me to read it too and so i did and here we are and man, that book was scary. even the prologue was scary. i mentioned the scariness to laura and she was all, “really? scary? the prologue scared you?”

but it was a great book and would make a great movie and right after i finished the book this morning i called LBC, “hey! that book was great!”
“i know!”
“they used Beowulf! it was like, part of the whole plot! you didn’t tell me that!”
“i know! i thought it would be a cool surprise!”
“it was! you’re right! Beowulf is an awesome surprise!”
“yay!”
“yay!”

okay so the conversation wasn’t exactly like that, but shamefully close. but i’d just like to mention that you know you have a good friend when she surprises you with Beowulf and doesn’t call you a stupid freakhead Beowulf lover. even though i’m totally a stupid freakhead Beowulf lover.

how far does my Beowulf Love go?
well, you know how some people make it their goal to continually read the Bible or read it once a year?
yeah.
i do that with Beowulf.
i know. i need help.
Beowulf Lover’s Anonymous.
hi. my name is jaimie…
and i’m addicted to Beowulf.

*cheesebum was a word invented by school children in the late 1980s. it’s a generic adjective that has nothing to do with cheese or bums.

8.22.04
if my life was a movie my character would be the quirky psychic girl. you know the one, the one that has the terrible nightmares? but she manages to keep her sense of humour? you know? and she doesn’t like to talk to people and she hates to be touched. so she reads a lot and for some reason always ends up in wacky situations? and everyone thinks she’s a total freak (like teachers and priests and bosses) but her friends are really cool and awesome and they believe her when she says, “hey you guys? i had another dream last night. we need to get all the eggs we can and take them to the Old #5 Light Tower. that’s where the monster is hiding.”

and the friends are so cool and funny that they say something like, “are you sure it’s the #5?” and i’m all, “yeah. i’m sure.” and then one of them is all, “well, let’s go eggsterminate this thing!”
chorus of groans, “jimmy!”

the only thing i know for sure, it would have an awesome soundtrack.

8.19.04
there’s a BeeGees’s song called More Than a Woman that the oldies station plays at least thrice a day. however, it sounds like they are singing “baldheaded woman” and so that’s what dad and i sing. but today i said, “y’know, this song makes me want to put on roller skates and disco dance.” to which dad responded with, “this song makes me want to punch someone in the face.”
“oh.”
“yeah.”
“looks like you’ve got some unchecked aggression there, pops.”
“yeah. makes me want to hit australian singers. right in the puss.”
“yeah, i think they make medicine for that now.”
“oh but i don’t want the medicine. i want to hit a BeeGee.”
“don’t give in to the hate, dad. don’t. give in. to the hate.”
“no! the hate is good! the hate makes me strong!”
“fight it dad! don’t be seduced by the Dark Side! fight!”
“feeling only hate now! must use my fists to hit…faggitydisco singers!”
“o tragic day! when hate wins! cast me from this sorrow place!”
“wow. i think this oil paint is getting to us.”
“baldheaded woman!”
“i’m going to crack a window.”
“baldheaded woman to me!”

8.18.04
dad and i went to the grocery store today. it was just like old times. wandering down the ailses. talking in squeaky british voices. making friends with the cashier who happened to have managed a hotel in florida when Gov’t Mule stayed there and she said they were very nice people. (at first i thought she was psychic when she asked me, “so you like Gov’t Mule?” ten seconds later i realized i was wearing the T-shirt. pay attention jaimie!) it was just like old times except i had my pile of groceries and dad had his.
my pile was $14.75.
his was $400. or something. he bought meat and beer.

i started bagging the groceries because
a. dad bought out the store
b. there wasn’t anyone else around
c. ain’t no shame in baggin’ groceries.

but then this girl person came up and insisted on finishing baggin my ‘ceries.
and she was flirty. and i was like please don’t start this shit right now. my dad is right. there. and i don’t need any more reason for him to make fun of me, okay? damn Grocery Store Lesbians.
leave me alone!
also, she was trailer goth. if you know what i mean.
totally not my type.
derp!

*****

on the way home form the store we passed the Kandle Factory.
it’s a kandle store.
anyway. they have great kandles that smell really good and they have like, 32 flavors and then some (hee laura!). so i notice on their sign they boast 18 NEW FLAVORS. so i say, “dad, that place already has every scent imaginable! what ELSE could they add?”
“i dunno, dog shit?”
“like, for practical jokes maybe?”
“lightning bug?”
“you? are a genius.”

8.17.04
i forgot about the Olympics.

then i went to mom and dad’s for supper.

feh.

dad and i managed to totally make fun of it though, much to the chagrin of the other people in the room. for the record: dad is a sick human being. man, is he funny.

*****

i saw three movies this weekend. i know. i hate movies! why am i going to the movies?!
Collateral = two stars
Alien Versus Predator = .01 star
Manchurian Candidate = 10 stars

i don’t know if i enjoyed MC so much because the other movies were so bad, or if it’s ‘cos mr. fleegan and i saw it with Faithful Atheist.

Collateral was slow. AVP had such potential, if only they had hired a writer or two instead of that roomful of monkeys with the typewriters. i could have crapped a better story than that.

*****

at the moment i’m reading three things:
a trash romance/mystery/supernatural thriller
a wonderful piece of literature
a quarterly magazine

Edge of the Moon by Rebecca York, which should be titled I Can’t Believe They Publish This Crap. I Mean Really. I’ve Read Better Fanfic. the book, she is stoopid. but i’m forcing myself to finish it because i hate hate hate not finishing a book.

Paradise Lost by John Milton, i am totally loving this one. once you get past the weird spellings (plac’t, onely, thir) and you get into the flow of the poem it is awesome. really neat. i wish i could talk LBC into reading it. so we could talk about it. but i’d have to promise her money or sexual favors or something.

Granta this issue is about film. read the The Handbag Studio. it was neat.

8.15.04
Scabies died today. the vet said she was poisoned, but there’s no poison in the back yard. so we’re all like, “are you sure she was poisoned?”

mom found three dead toads in the backyard and asked the vet if maybe Scabies got a hold of some Bad Toad. which made sense to me. but the vet said that it wasn’t toad poisoning.

so i dunno. it’s just a bummer ‘cos she was a pretty sweet dog.

8.14.04
dad called me earlier today and said they had to take Scabies to the vet because she was hallucinating and foaming at the mouth.
“Scabies has rabies?!”

but no, the vet thinks she’s been poisoned.
wha?

dad said that it was the creepiest thing he’s ever seen. he couldn’t get close to the dog cos she’d run away. she was terriefied of mom, dad, and Blue Dog. and she was ducking and jumping at nothing.
weirdness.

so she’s gotta spend the night at the vet’s.
poor Scabielynn.

8.13.04

oh dear. new Weekly.

8.11.04
i woke up 4 times from the hours of 3am – 5:30am.
i had the radio on.
each time i woke up there was a different stevie wonder song on.
glory!

8.10.04
today’s my dad’s b-day. which means mom made lasagna for dinner. anytime we have a b-day mom makes lasagna. it. is. awesome.

the old man turned 50. i call him Old Man sometimes. even though i don’t think of him as being old. i also call him papa. but in a squeaky voice. “oh papa!” i say, “how is the papa today?” and he answers back in an equally squeaky voice, “the papa is fine.” or “papa is hungry.” or whatever. i think i’ve mentioned how we’re really 10 years old?
i also call him pa and pop and pops. and because of the Pops thing, i’ve started calling him Popsicle.

i don’t think he minds, but only because he doesn’t hear very well. or he pretends not to anyway.

i got Popsicle two music DVDs. one was Allman Bros. and the other was 2002’s Bonaroo festival. he was happy to get some “toys” because moms bought him dress clothes…necktie and everything.

in all honesty he did need some dress clothes. in fact, at uncle george’s funeral dad was wearing a suit he bought for my brother (for his high school graduation (1998)) from Goodwill.

so yeah. he needed some dress clothes.

wow. how weird are we anyway?

8.07.04
no cat blog today. i promise.

today i am working at mom and pop’s place trimmin’ da hedges and cutting down/digging up yucca plants.

i hate yucca plants.

reefer log:
cheap scrapbook stuff
selfish alcoholics
the pickle
slimey pickled okra

honestly children, if your pickled okra is slimey then you’ve obviously did something wrong. boiled okra is slimey. pickled okra is not. feh.

8.06.04
oh hell. not cat blog again.

so i moved my bed a little bit. i basically just put it diagonal in the corner so that it’s not next to any walls because the walls are creeping me out. because of the roach thing. i just don’t want a roach to be crawling on the wall and then accidentally (or on purpose even) to fall on my bed or more importantly, me. so i moved the bed two feet.

well. the cat acted like i had moved the statue of liberty to canada. she looked at me with big nervous eyes “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? HOLY GOD. YOU’RE MOVING IT? YOU’RE MOVING MY BIG SOFT THING THAT I LAY DOWN ON ALL DAY LONG? THAT’S MINE!”
“well if you don’t like it, toonces, then you can move it back. oh? what’s that? you’re too small and don’t have opposable thumbs? oh that’s right. it must suck to be you.”

then, because obviously moving the bed two feet means that EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS DIFFERENT. she had to “explore” all around it and underneath it. and she acted like it wasn’t even the same bed anymore. then, then, THEN while she was sniffing a different part of the carpet (that OBVIOUSLY had never been there before) she looked up and saw the ceiling fan. the ceiling fan that has been there the entire time. the ceiling fan that has been on and spinning for a full month.

“JESUS IN GOD WHAT IS THAT?!” she said while trying to duck the blades. the blades, mind you, that are 7 feet in the air. “HOW COULD YOU BRING THAT MONSTROSITY INTO THIS HOUSE?! why are you trying to kill me? DO YOU NOT SEE THE SPINNING TEETH? fix this. i’ll be under the bathtub.”

8.05.04
more search returns:
don’t forget the pickle
hiding the pickle
sexxing

both laura and LT guessed the math nerd from tuesday’s post. in fact, LT’s e-mail was so great that i have to post this part:

remember when he had that “fit” in class and threw his books down and went outside and we all went to the window of our 10th grade english class to watch him kick a tree. maybe he had just read some heavy physics shit and was like, “no, there cannot even be a hole in space time continnum!” “einstein was wrong the whole time!” “what is donnie darko??”

i don’t remember him having a fit, but it does not surprise me that he had one, just like it doesn’t surprise me that he has a secret hideout filled with molotov cocktails and porn.
well, i mean, allegedly.
er, not at all, really.

cat blog
so last night (2am really) i wake up for what i think is no reason. “why did i wake up? did i hear a noise?” and toonces is on the floor, actually, she’s laying across my sketchbook which is on the floor and she’s looking up at the wall in horror. as i start to yell at her to get off my book, “geh! peh! feh!” i say and wave my hand in her direction (i can’t use real words as i have woken from the deepest darkest part of sleep and my tongue has been sewn to the roof of my mouth (oh yeah, i had wine last night). then i hear it.
the awkward skrittching of a roach. “fuhmb!”
the cat was staring at the roach.

i snatch the roach spray off the night stand and stand up on my bed in the Ready Position. admittedly this was a sloppy Ready Position because the room is kinda spinny and my legs are made of numb play-doh. but i manage to see the roach as it scurries across the CURTAIN ROD DIRECTLY ABOVE MY BED. “raaaaah!” goes my battlecry as i spray the Raid Death Spray all over wall, curtain, everything in front of me, etc.

the roach is stunned only momentarily. then he jump/flies to a different wall. i follow with my spray my battle cry still raaaaahing right along. by now the cat has flipped out and ran to hide under the bathtub. the roach, sufficiently poisoned, has now fallen to the floor and in a last ditch effort to win this battle he charges me. (what?!)

“BAHHHHHHH! AIEEEEE AHHHHH!” i scream and spray and then crash the bottom of the can on top of him and twist.

some of his legs come off but he’s still trying to run.

“DIE DIE DIE!” i scream and the can comes down again and again.
finally after what seemed like 20 minutes of spraying, screaming, and violent beating the roach was dead. well. mostly dead. you know how those things just won’t die? i mean, it’s all twitchy and broken but it just WON”T DIE.

so i leave it be. because i’m really tired despite the frantic spraying and chasing. and screaming. i’ll just pick it up in the morning. so i get back into the bed and i’m just about out….and…then the cat somes back in and is all interested in the mostly dead poison covered roach. fuhmb.
“toonces. get away from that. get. no. noooo. don’t touch- god. don’t. no. i hate you.”

she didn’t touch it exactly. but she had to go over to it and sniff it and poke it and then she plopped down right beside it as though she had made the killshot. she slept next to it for the rest of the night. like, in case it was going to reanimate itself she’d be on it.

MY CAT IS WORTHLESS.

8.04.04
reefer log returns:

eat a pickle
stuff for my website cute
how to pickle okra
pickle radio sounds
(and the ever popular) how to pickle walnuts
what is the illegal liquor in eurotrip

wha?

the only person i can help is the dorkus malorkus (thanks LT!) who watched eurotrip but did not listen. absinthe was the illegal liquor.

ok kids. for those of you wanting to pickle some okra i’d try emeril. spicy pickled okra. in fact, www.foodnetwork.com had a bajillion pickling recipes from pumpkin to beets to herring to shit i’ve never heard of. but they did NOT have walnuts.

so for you crazies with the pickled walnuts searches try this olde tyme recipe and there’s one here and also this one here. and although i’ve never pickled any walnuts, one thing i’ve learned from my exhaustive 4 minute search for recipes for pickling walnuts is that it takes a shitload of walnuts and over one week to properly pickle walnuts. and i don’t know about y’all, but i just don’t have the time. so what i would do is buy them. there. you’re welcome. all you pickling geeks. (and it would just figure that the british would be the ones to take a perfectly good food and pickle it.)

*****

and in a fit of having too much coffee this morning i’ve got this caught in my head:

raindrops on fleegans and whiskers on fleegans
bright copper fleegans and warm woolen fleegans
brown paper flee-ee-gans tied up with string
these are a few of my favorite things!

hey that dog bites!
look! a fleegan!
doesn’t he look mad?

and i couldn’t come up with anything for the last part.
which brings us back to doe.
fa!

8.03.04
jaimie’s dirty library secret

i can’t read!

since i’ve moved and i no longer have access to a TV i’ve been going to the library quite often. however, i don’t just check out books for myself. i usually get dad a book and sometimes laura gets a book or two. i usually end up with 5 or 6 books. meaning i totally look like a book hog to the librarians. so much so that when i return a few and check more out they always point out that i still have a book or two checked out as if to say in a whispery voice, “really Book Hog, checking out more books when you’re not even finished with the other books you’ve previously hogged out of the library? shame.”

hogging books out of the library. where do i come up with these things?

i almost hogged out this book on math and physics because i really wanted to read it. but when i opened the front cover i noticed that it still had one of those cards in the front like how we used to have to hog out books from the library? like where you sign your name? on a card? meaning that the book had not been removed from the shelf since they had stopped hogging out books that way? and also? the only name on the card? was this guy i went to high school with and he was a total geek but in that not so good kind of way that if i saw on the news that he had totally gone berserko and was stockpiling molotov cocktails and porn mags that it would totally not surprise me.
well, i’d be surprised at first and then i’d be all, “well, really it’s not so surprising.” and laura would be all, “yeah, but still i never thought he’d go that far.” and i’d be all, “yeah.” and she’d be all, “i guess it’s not so surprising after all.”
“yeah. for real.”
“good thing you didn’t check that book out that time.”
“totally.“*

so i didn’t hog the book out. in case the detectives go through his library list.
of course i wiped my prints off the cover!

heh. no really. the main reason i didn’t hog the book out yet was because the one next to it was even more promising. and not quite as nerdy sounding. it’s about zero. the history of zero. how cool is that?!

i’ll get the math/physics book next time.

*we would never have that conversation. it would be more like this:

“dude! did you hear?!”
“yeah! it’s in today’s paper.”
“holy shit! we knew that guy!”
“yeah i know! well. not really.”
“oh man yeah! er. yeah. we um, we rarely talked to him.”
“was he in our grade?”
“yeah. but he wasn’t in our classes. or was he?”
“we had classes with him.”
“really?”
“yeah.”
“i don’t remember.”
“still, it’s weird.”
“i know! molotov cocktails! what an asshole!”**

**that’s closer to what the conversation would be like. but really it would be like this:

“dude!”
“i know!”
“holy shit!”
“indeed.”
“molotov cocktails and porn!”
“a deadly combination.”
“what a jackass.”

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