The Thread For: Stories That Go Nowhere....

[ER]

Years ago I was walking at the end of this residential street in Austin, a newly-built area out where the city has spread into the wilds of Travis County, not far from the river, it was around the end of the day, just when it was getting shadowy, and there was a shallow pond there, about thirty feet across (Texans called it a "tank" but I have no idea why), mossy on top, slightly yucky-smelling to be honest, but all around the bank were frogs everywhere you looked.


I went close to the edge of the water and the frogs freaked and made this ghastly squeaking noise all at once and leaped into the pond, like someone had choreographed the move, making an explosion of splashes and ripples from all sides, and that startled me so much it might have saved my life, since I stepped back, only to look down a moment later and notice a snake, maybe a foot and a half long, curled there with its mouth open, showing a pure white interior: right about where I would have stepped if I'd kept going.

Cottonmouth!


I went back and told what just happened, telling them in the vein of ha-ha, guess what, but instantly my friend and his brother, who was in town from Connecticut for a week, jumped up and grabbed pellet guns and went right for the door, and I followed them saying, "Aw, man, it didn't hurt me, don't shoot it."


But my friend said, "Kids play around that pond and people walk their dogs there. We can't have a water moccasin right at the end of the street."


But it was darker then and they didn't find the snake, and I admit I felt glad about that, even if I could see their point.

I'll tell you, though, there is no Texan quite so Texan as a Connecticut Yankee who moves to the state and goes native like my friend did. Although he didn't have it back then, over the years he has even lost his pseudo-East Coast accent and picked up a very faint Hill Country twang when he pronounces certain vowels, which is downright disconcerting. It's like Texas gets into the soul of those who move there, and recreates them like a form of vampirism. To the horror of his Jewish parents, he is even letting his child go to Sunday School with the neighbor kids. He roots for the Cowboys with a passion. He calls backyard grill-outs barbeques! He even..........gave his friends back east Texas flags for presents one year!

I think I got away just in time!

[ER]

Had a strange meeting today. It began by this person saying, "Come have coffee with me and we'll talk this over."

I said I didn't really drink coffee*, but I'd come see him anyway.

*Honestly, no coffee, no speeding behind the wheel, I don't cuss at home, I don't smoke, I don't eat meat, if it weren't for "other things" I'd have long-ago ascended to Heaven based on my lifestyle of renunciation. (That's where we get the word "nun" BTW.)

Remember how in old mobster movies the don, hoping not to be overheard in a bugged building would say, "Take a walk with me?" An outdated practice now of course when devices can hear an aphid blinking at two miles, but this meeting was conducted while taking a walk amid truly beautiful weather, seventy and sunny, mild breeze, fresh air, Simpsons opening credit clouds rolling out across the sky, the grass green again, trees beginning to bud, and at the far end of our questionably productive little stroll, I showed the person in the meeting with me, who is not from our fair city, the restored steeple of a church once hit by a tornado, which infamously drove the former steeple into the earth like a toothpick skewering a hamburger bun.

We Midwesterners find strange pride in our lethal weather, and the fact a twister once buggered that holy place seemed to impress him.

We walked back and nothing was resolved but the matter was also left open-ended for now, and as I drove home I had one of those moments of crystal clear awareness assault me, and I realized like it was always so obvious that my life is a never-ending conflict over which unequal but opposing force will ultimately rule me, my well-preened ego, or the far-reaching inner rot of my sense of guilt over many things I've done, both the valid sort that can and should be laid at my doorstep, and those which less fairly belonging to me which I embrace for reasons I can only think must hint at some well-hidden sense of masochism.

For instance a few years ago, in the same day, I concluded a matter for which I was justifiably praised, making me feel darn good about myself, yet later in the afternoon I found myself in possession of a bottle of rather virulent alcohol, from which I consumed...a quantity, much of it in the presence of a man who once been a part-time drunk and who was riding the wave of twenty years of sobriety. The man, knowing I was not experienced in the ways and wiles of this particular sort of beverage was concerned about me in the condition I semi-unintentionally put myself in, and more or less babysat me there in the cemetery while this bottle sat right by him like some demon from Hell that he only had to reach out his arm to reconnect with. (And cops kept driving by and never did anything. I have always been strangely lucky around cops.)

Completely rotten and irresponsible thing for me to have gotten drunk, basically by accident, no less, while spending time with a reformed drinker, even if I could say I never asked him to stay with me. I deserved the castigations I was soon to receive from the man's family for that situation, but it blew over. He took up for me too. nice of him. The jerk.

But see what I mean? Same day, I do something great, and something bad. Maybe my subconscious is seeking equilibrium but why?

Dove has put out these 1.5 gram of sugar per serving 82% cacao dark chocolate bites, and I think I will take some home. But I really should tell my fifth favorite Jew about them if she texts me back like she said she will. Hey, it's what she asks me, "Am I your favorite Jew?" I answer honestly each time: "No, it goes Jesus, some dude in Texas, Joan Rivers, Alicia Silverstone, and then you."

Just the truth.

I also used to place Alicia Silverstone lower on the list, right below Quark from DS9 (I figure all Ferengi are a lost tribe of Hebrews), but a Jew who lets her son keep his foreskin is brazen enough to crack my top five. I like brazen.

All right, chocolate and home await.

Namaste....

[ER]

Back in the 1970s when police were investigating part-time harlequin John Wayne Gacy on suspicion of multiple homicides, he arrogantly laughed to a detective, "Clowns get away with murder."

Guess not, though.

When I was in ninth grade there was an eclipse on May tenth of that year, a fascinating event that saw the daylight dim to tones low evening, breezes suddenly kick up, street lights come on, and birds fly back to their nests, while in tiny holes amid leaves still pale with the season, you could look down toward the ground and see the moon's passing turn the sun into a C-shape.

As I marveled at this event held to be a religious experience across multiple cultures and times, I thought it was sad that after keeping him on death row for  sixteen years, the state of Illinois couldn't have waited one more day and let John Wayne Gacy see an eclipse before killing him.

By that time I don't think clowns got away with much of anything.

[pacman000]

That went somewhere! You're not obeying the rules of your own thread! 

[ER]

That went somewhere! You're not obeying the rules of your own thread! 

Windy day today, jagged white clouds, blue skies, and my hair kept whipping around and getting in my eyes as I stood outside a UDF drinking a dark chocolate hazelnut keto protein drink, so I hogtied it down and sipped the drink killing time before I had to get back in the car and drive home from this place I was, about an hour away, and it was the sort of day, either in me or out in the world, that makes driving tiring, and I noticed this must have been a collective symptom since people were operating their cars even more sloppily than usual, and as I noted that, I thought of Schoolhouse Rock, because in the adverb video the word “sloppily” comes up. Or at least it did in Schoolhouse Rock in the universe where I originated. Sometimes I am sure I am not in the same universe where I began, and after thirteen years here, I probably don’t have to convince many of you of that.

But the trees were budding out nicely in pastel shades of color, and I do think that may have been distracting drivers, so after about ten minutes down the road toward home I slowed down a little and got more cautious than usual because I think this is another sort of day that breeds wrecks. (Sloppy weather does too but sometimes nice days just plain distract everyone.)

I did make it home, as I hope most of you will be glad to know, and I am drowsy and tired, both from all the driving and the fact I got up at about 4:55 this morning, and  so I decided I’d do as close to nothing as possible, took a book and headed out to the patio and I saw this cloud shaped like Alabama in the sky, and decided to write my cousins’ dad who is from that state, and he wrote back almost at once, and called me this nickname he’s used since I was little: Ellie Two Shoes. Someday I really ought to ask him why he started calling me that, and then there was the smell of drying clothes in the air, which was enough mystery for the afternoon since there were no drying clothes around, and I decided to see about making dandelion tea for later.

[ER]

Been catching up on emails from the last few days and it seems my buddy is a Norse Pagan again and has abandoned his flirtation with joining the Temple of Satan. Yaaaay! He had a faith crisis a few years ago in his journey through Norse paganism when he realized that despite his admiration for Thor he was actually not only unskilled as a warrior but was only the third toughest member of his family after his wife and tweenage son, but he talked to a Norse pagan counselor who told him most classical-age Norse pagans were not warriors, but fisherfolk, farmers, etc, so he's realized he can proudly wear Thor's hammer once again in his vocation of telemarketing.

[ER]

It struck me as odd today to think that Janet Reno is dead. I don't know why it struck me as odd to think that Janet Reno is dead, but it did strike me as odd to think that Janet Reno is dead.

Another odd thing about this post that you guys don't know is that every time I typed the word "odd" it came out "ood" and I had to go correct it.

Weren't the "ood" actually that species off Doctor Who who held their brains in their hands? I dunno.

I gave up on the show after Matt Smith's tenure, and consider the role vacant today. Kind of like the sedevacantists say there is no Pope and has not been since the "heresies" of Vatican II. So I'm a Doctor Who sedevacantist and will remain until such time as the role returns to someone with mixed chromosomes.

[Alex]

It struck me as odd today to think that Janet Reno is dead. I don't know why it struck me as odd to think that Janet Reno is dead, but it did strike me as odd to think that Janet Reno is dead.

Another odd thing about this post that you guys don't know is that every time I typed the word "odd" it came out "ood" and I had to go correct it.

Weren't the "ood" actually that species off Doctor Who who held their brains in their hands? I dunno.

I gave up on the show after Matt Smith's tenure, and consider the role vacant today. Kind of like the sedevacantists say there is no Pope and has not been since the "heresies" of Vatican II. So I'm a Doctor Who sedevacantist and will remain until such time as the role returns to someone with mixed chromosomes.

Pretty much anything after the 4th Doctor is non-canon for me.

[ER]

It struck me as odd today to think that Janet Reno is dead. I don't know why it struck me as odd to think that Janet Reno is dead, but it did strike me as odd to think that Janet Reno is dead.

Another odd thing about this post that you guys don't know is that every time I typed the word "odd" it came out "ood" and I had to go correct it.

Weren't the "ood" actually that species off Doctor Who who held their brains in their hands? I dunno.

I gave up on the show after Matt Smith's tenure, and consider the role vacant today. Kind of like the sedevacantists say there is no Pope and has not been since the "heresies" of Vatican II. So I'm a Doctor Who sedevacantist and will remain until such time as the role returns to someone with mixed chromosomes.

Pretty much anything after the 4th Doctor is non-canon for me.

I consider the post McCoy era a re-make rather than a continuation, so I know where you're coming from, but I do think David Tennant's time was overall really good. Matt Smith and Paul McGann  had their moments, especially Matt Smith, but the show came apart under Peter Capaldi's tenure, and I had expected to like him since he was a friend of Craig Ferguson and the announcement was that the show would turn more serious under him than it had been in Smith's last season, but....no. (Also, why was Ferguson, a super-fan, never brought in as a guest star under Capaldi? Dick move.)

[Alex]

I agree there were some good shows from some of the other doctors. I didn't care for Peter Davidson. Sylvester McCoy etc. The with the new doctors, the long storylines had mostly gone where you'd see 1 to 4 a season and the show had become more of a monster of the week format that I didn't care for (and the attempt at a longer storyline with Bad Wolf didn't draw me in alas).

[ER]

I agree there were some good shows from some of the other doctors. I didn't care for Peter Davidson. Sylvester McCoy etc. The with the new doctors, the long storylines had mostly gone where you'd see 1 to 4 a season and the show had become more of a monster of the week format that I didn't care for (and the attempt at a longer storyline with Bad Wolf didn't draw me in alas).

I saw a funny YouTube clip with Peter Davidson talking about his death scene on Doctor Who, and how he was pouring his heart and emotions into it, dragging out his every last ounce of actor's vitality...and yet no one was paying attention to him, and all everyone ever talked about in that scene was Peri's breasts practically falling out of the top JNT had her wearing when she was leaning over him, ha.