Crash Dummy

Tragically, none of these officers responded to the scene.

You guys, I saw a wreck yesterday afternoon. It was so cool! And yet, I didn’t actually see it after all. It was so lame! I had nipped over to a fancy new salad bar and was bringing my tasteful box of greens and goodies back to my desk for lunch. As I was standing on the sidewalk, waiting to jaywalk safely across the street, I was thinking (if you want to call it that) about something or the other, string theory, or porn, or how very delicious my salad was going to be, when BLAMMO, a truck pulled into the path of a bus and was rewarded by getting its front fender well and truly crunched.

It was pretty apparent no one was hurt and the truck was one of those fancy Escalades, so all of us standing on the sidelines were able to be thrilled without being concerned; everyone seemed to agree a Cadillac pickup just deserves whatever traffic mishap it encounters. The whole thing was directly in front of me, right where I would have been looking if I had actually been looking at anything instead of standing there with my eyes glazed and unfocused and I only snapped to when the ka-blam noise jarred me awake.

That’s what I always look at as the main drawback to any time travel I might stumble upon. I know that were I to go back in time to witness Lindbergh landing in Paris, or that sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square on VE day, or the Kennedy assassination, or whatever, at the crucial moment, instead of paying attention, I would be looking around thinking “I wonder where I can get some tacos?”

Mmmm, tacos.

Cracker Talk

Growing up in the South, I was exposed to the wonderfully lurid dialect of a world that I’m afraid has disappeared without much more trace than my inability to say the word “oyster” (as dear Diane von Austinberg points out, I inevitably pronounce it OISH-chuh.)

My grandmother was able to announce “that boy is just not right” and have her inflection specify anything from mental disability to criminal tendencies (plenty of that in my family. Or “Fambly,” as we would say) to homosexuality (that would be me.) When my other granny would glare at you and growl “I am fixin’ to straighten you out boyuh,” it was time to run. I was a grown man before I realized the words “ball” and “boil” were not homonyms. And it has only been R Man’s patient tutelage that has taught me to move the accent from the first syllable in “insurance” to the second one. Who knew?

But I have now lived in California so long that my accent has been scrubbed clean. At least, it seems like it to me, so I’m always surprised when people I meet claim to be able to hear it in my voice. I assure them that this is nothing since I originally sounded like a road show version of Tennessee Williams’ greatest hits. Still, sometimes I hear “dollar” roll out of my mouth in the form of “dollah.” And I have been met with blank stares when I use the simile “Running around like a monkey with its ass on fire” to describe how busy I am. At least I pronounce it as “fire” and not “fahr” so that has to count as progress, right?

The Stinking Rose

Oh, mein little poodles, I am so glad we communicate through the internet; even that may not protect you. I whipped up a batch of hummus tonight - tasty, tasty, tasty, but I'm afraid I might have gone a wee bit long on the garlics. I ate a tangerine and brushed my teeth twice, I am a very small step from using Clorox as a mouthwash, and yet the paint on the wall in front of me as I type this is cracking and peeling. When I exhale, people on the far side of Oakland probably faint. If I expire tonight in my sleep, I'm sure it will be from Extreme Stinkiness. All I ask is that I be buried at sea and not in some hazardous waste dump.

If only my Breath of Death had been with me this afternoon. I had to speak to a group of students from a very down market vocational school about starting one's own business. Ugh. Even by the most charitable standards these kids were unimpressive; that's why I could have used my super wall o' garlic, maybe I wouldn't have had to smell them. As they were leaving, one of them assured the teacher he'd see him on Monday "If I'm not sentenced tomorrow." Hold on to that dream, sweetie, that's what I say.

Elevatoracism

Amazingly, all my inshights come from eavesdropping. After lunch, I was waiting for the elevator back to work, hanging on the cusp between being irritated the elevators were running so slowly and not really being in a hurry to get back to my desk, when I was surrounded by a gaggle (three actually. Is that a gaggle?) of the computer nerds who work on the floor below us. As are so very many computer nerds, these looked to be Indian or Pakistani.

One of them was talking about his girlfriend. I inferred from what I overheard that she was pretty and sexually active. Inference was necessary since he talked about her in this junior high kind of giggly way that relied on innuendo and ellipses when what he really needed was the phrase “blow job.” Never the less, his fellow nerds seemed very impressed.

This continued even when the elevator finally showed up and we all got on. He wrapped up by abruptly assuring them that wedding plans were not a consideration since she was “just a Mexican.” I was so astonished I almost broke the sacred social rule of Never Look at Someone in the Elevator. Partly it was because I was immediately embarrassed , as if I committed a faux pas just be being there. It was also because the guy was so dumpy, I was amazed to think any chick would allow him to sniff her panties, let alone a hot one bang her. And he’s going to dump her? What a schmoe.

Also, there was the weird sensation of hearing racist comments so causally unloaded. Did the fact the he was a minority make it OK? I can imagine how three dumpy white guys sharing that in a crowded elevator would be received.

So, hot chica, if you’re reading this, run girl, run. He’s a jerk, you can do better, his stubby little dick is never going to get bigger and his mother hates you. You can thank me later.

This Just In:

Who knew marmots could incite such passion? Comments in the previous post revealed sordid vaudeville acts, bizarre publications and the fact that MJ was preparing to give birth to a Canadian marmot (which she’s looking to unload, if you’re interested.) My, my, the things a simple blog brings to light.

But you guys, wait, there’s a better way to discover the dirty little secrets of possible psychotics. The Magic Nine ball answers all. Sure, the skeptics can jeer, but just this evening, I asked it “Did that muscley Thai rent boy/masseur give me the clap?”

and it answered “Bet everything on it.” OHMYGOSH, isn’t that eerie? It’s obviously in touch with the Higher Plane; insights like that don’t just roll off a marmot’s back you know.

Baroque News

I was jamming with the Baroque Choral music station on Pandora radio earlier cause that's the kind of wild dog I am, when I ran across this description:

“Georg Philipp Telemann was born in Magdeburg, the son of a Lutheran deacon who died in 1685, leaving the mother to raise their three children alone. The youth showed remarkable talent in music, but was temporarily discouraged in his chosen pursuit by Puritan Lutherans, who told Telemann's mother that he would turn out no better than ‘a clown, a tightrope walker or a marmot-trainer.’”

It seems like they’re saying that as a bad thing. A tightrope walker? Who wouldn’t want their fatherless kid to turn out as an aerialist? That’s so cool. You know if he was around now he'd have a dynamite little number featuring a soundtrack by Erasure and be the hit of Cirque du Whatever. And don’t get me started about them hating on marmot trainers. When I consider the danger untrained marmots present to our community, why I just have to say “Forget you, Puritan Lutherans.”

We Fail an Energy Audit

The energy audit came delivered by not one, but two cute, cute guys. Having your life veer into the set-up for a porn video is just part of living in San Francisco. They were here for two hours, shooting laser tape measures and climbing into the attic and furnace room and other places into which I have never set foot in twelve years of living here. The big finale was a large vinyl tent thing athwart the front door with a huge fan in it to suck all the air out of the house so they could measure where the air leaks are. The verdict: we have lots of leaks. Leaks in the furnace return, leaks in the walls, leaks in the vents. Ryan, the earnest, cuter one did compliment us on our fireplace damper. Oh boy. There is no insulation and the furnace is working four times as hard as it needs to, but we have a dynamite damper.

I'm glad Ryan was so cute, his boyish charm gave me something to think about at the very end of the review when we got to chat about the asbestos in the ductwork. Ay. So our options are to hold our breath the entire time we're in the house or replace all the ducts, in addition to a new furnace and lots and lots of insulation. When I lined this audit up, I already knew we were going to be in for a chunk of change, I just hadn't thought the words "environmental hazard" were gong to play a part. At least the guys were cute.