Spanglemonkey

More With the Snarky Observations. Hey, It's Your Dime.

Eliz seems to have worked herself into an evil frenzy, so I sent her to her room. May I say, right here, how it is worth every single penny of the enormous debt we are now in just so that I can SEND MY CHILDREN TO THEIR OWN ROOMS. Let the bells ring! Let the Pope wave his benediction! Let matter and anti-matter meet at a cocktail party, flirt a bit, and have consensual relations with no disagreement as to later expectations! All is well!

Going to yoga this afternoon with Sophie. Perhaps later we'll go out to dinner. Yes. And then we'll RAWK UNTIL DAWN. DUDE!

You know, the biggest problem with Pokeymoon is that the overdubbed voice talent is remarkably sucky. I suppose they found the only Americans willing to work on cartoons over at the Gaigin school somewhere outside Tokyo? Bad. Every one of them sounds like he or she should have a weaselly little skank moustache. Even the girls.

The treadmill turns again.

I went to the hotsy totsy office furniture place and the only suitable desk was over 900 bucks. Oy. Somehow, just not right, bleh. So onward Ep and I hove, Ikeabound. Oh Ikea! Sing your praises! Cheap and suitable! $130 later, and I have a new desk! I'm thinking I can actually take over this entire corner and possibly use the "desk" thing I have now, as well as the new table, and I will have my own Evil Empire of Office Equipment. No more printers languishing on the floor hopelessly, staring balefully up my skirt! No indeed!

Still laughing at Ep's comment about the Cambodian Immersion School. It was indeed clever. Heh. She was in a deliciously spiteful and talkative mood. I like my friends snarky! I do!

Time for school pickup.

Making Hay Poorly and Hastily While the Autumn Storms Gather Precipitously in the West

I have to measure the roofline over the patio before I leave. Must. Remember.

I save things up for when Manny is going to be away. He left this morning, and yesterday he had decreed that we needed a plumber, STAT, because we had accidently flushed the spiraled-up end of a toothpaste tube, and it would inevitably become lodged under the house somewhere, and the more we flushed, the more it would become wedged. "We can't use the toilet," he declared. "But we also can't call the plumber today, because it's Memorial Day, and it would be too expensive."

So I was all ready to call the plumber today, but I thought I'd try simply flushing a few times and seeing what happened. Worst case, it would be all over the floor, right? Manny wouldn't let me try that solution yesterday, because he figured that the clog would become more and more wedged, in a more and more expensive spot under the house, the more we tried.

So since I'm so sure that I'm right, I flushed, and plunged, and blow me down if the toilet didn't suddenly clear just fine. I flushed a few more times for good measure.

I'm not sure, as usual, if I've simply caused a few thousand dollars more in damage, or actually solved the problem by ejecting the toothpaste tube out into the sewer system of Deadwood. All I know is that I"m far too lazy to actually make the phone call, and besides, if the toilet flushes all right, doesn't it seem okay? Should one "snake" if "snaking" is not urgently needed?

Whatever. I need to get some more roof estimates, but again, it is not likely to rain, at least not very hard, until October or November. I am now laaaaazy.

Hamhanded and Edged with Lead

Okay, I've probably just ruined any semblance of order the manuscript ever had, but I feel as though I need to consolidate, somehow. Stupid microsoft! Gah! Let's blame microsquish. Someone must suffer!

As Shiva is my witness!

Perhaps I'll go out and carress desks. But I should work for a bit longer. Another hour, anyway. I've broken down the material into parts one, two and three, and each of them is a jumble of different starts, repeated segments, diary segments I don't remember writing, ghost freaking out segments that contradict each other. I'm imagining presenting it to Badger as a coherent draft. It's helping to have a goal, I think. Thinking to myself, what would I do if I had to finish this thing instead of just writing someplace in the middle? And then I have to think of it as a whole. Or a hole. Whatever.

Gritting teeth. I am a cudgel of orderliness.

When Technology Represents Life

This system I've been using for Ada was invented by a Madwoman! She should be locked up! Damn it! This will take me at least a couple of working days to work out. In the last months, each time I started working anew, I started a new File called "ADA." I had the decency to call them ADA 1 or ADA 2 or whatever, but nevertheless, I was working on different parts of the book as I decided what should go first, and now I'm stuck with a book spread out over five or six files and a couple of directories, corresponding to nothing whatsoever that I have printed.

It's apropos, at least, that the directories are a computer-art representation of my state of mind and that of the last few months. I'm tempted to start yet another file and try to rise above all of them, but that way lies madness! I must actually plunge in and read all of it! I will go insane!

OH, and compounding the problem, my neat and tidy 3-ring notebook with an approximation of the manuscript thus far? It exploded during the move, and I stuffed it back in willy-nilly, and since there is no page numbering, it is Situation Normal All Fucked Up'd.

More coffee and more Brahms will help. Fuckity!

Sweet and Delicious, if Somewhat Juvenile in Scope

So glad the candy factory is doing well. Whew!

You Might Have Wondered About that Buzzing Sound and Sense of Confusion As You Clicked On This Site...

One of those days when I watch myself do things from far, far away and periodically think, Pay Attention, stop spacing out! You're driving your children around! BaaAAh! Traffic was impossible. Stopped everywhere, people skijawed on the streets, pedestrians running out into traffic ripping off their clothes. I remarked on it to the crossing guard, who said "It was really quiet up until a minute ago."

Oh, it was just me! Yep, I'm sending out a jamming signal. Better stay home and drink more coffee before venturing out again. I need to go to the hardware store again (naturally) and get blinds for the big window. I'm thinking of looking for a desk while I'm at it.

But first! To work! Prising apart What I Have in part I.

The Foods of My People On This Day.

I woke up on the hammock to the sound of a car alarm, and somehow I translated it to be some kind of hammock alarm, like I'd leaned too far one way or another, and I froze, which wasn't much of a difference, as you can imagine.

A breeze blew. I sniffed. One direction, charcoal briquets, just starting up. Another direction: barbecue chicken. Mmm, barbecue chicken! Wouldn't that be Just the Thing. I managed to get my eyes open after no small effort of will. The charcoal smell, after a while, turned to sort of a steaky fragrance. Mmm, steak.

We are in a familial state of disarray which I'm sure will turn savage any moment as we try to negotiate dinner and bath. You know what would be really great? Beer. Beer would help a lot.

Must remember to call my mother. She's turning 67 today.

Lessons To Be Learned from Patchy Dirt and Assorted Scree

Isn't it strange that it takes so long to do anything? Control over our circumstances is so difficult. I managed to hoe out about 5/12 of the boulevard area, but alas, I suddenly felt a twinge after a particularly vigorous blow to an underlying rock (damn it!) and seem to have pulled something. Fuckwah! I say.

Simultaneous, or at least contiguous to this event, I stood and stretched and realized that I was so hungry I was about to hallucinate. No, not about to... the ghost of Lawns Past appeared in front of me, shaggy and rhizomatic, bearing a message.

"GUYS WITH STRONG BACKS CAN BE HIRED FOR $10/HR OVER ON FIFTH AVENUE," said the grass.

"That's for total wusses," I said, petulently.

Word of the Day for Monday May 30, 2005

   dissemble \dih-SEM-buhl\, transitive verb:
   1. To hide under a false appearance; to hide the truth or true
   nature of.
   2. To put on the appearance of; to feign.
   intransitive verb:
   To  conceal  the  real fact, motives, intention, or sentiments
   under  some pretense; to assume a false appearance; to act the
   hypocrite.

Proper Footware is Crucial to His Choice

A short break so that I can rehydrate and see if Eliz is awake yet. Girl likes to laze about, she does. It's nice when she gets a chance, because she's in such a better mood afterwards. I'm afraid she caught the drifty-day bug from me, the necessity to be in one's own head for long, long stretches of time. Sophie, on the other hand, needs people people people.

Would it be easier to lift the sod if it were muddy? I'm going to try. I will get far more messy, but hey, we're talking about dirt, right?

This is a very difficult job, but I'm persisting. All I want to do is to get the boulevard dealt with. Not such a huge area, after all. Manny has gone to get me a Real Hoe, since I already bent the cheapass one I bought. I hope she has a strong back, is all I have to say.

Go over to Ten:Ten and write some haiku about Grace's dog.