FireVaney

Ma won’t even eat half a chicken sandwich. She wants a chicken wrap — which, while advertised, is not sold. (Presumably, they ran out of wraps.) Ma feels that the sandwiches purveyed at this particular concession stand have too much bread. She’d eat the chicken alone — which, to my tastebuds, is tender and juicy — but she’d rather eat a hotdog. That, and instead of buying her own carton of fries, she’d rather mooch off everybody else’s. Not that she’s cheap, she just doesn’t want to eat an entire carton of fries. “Together,” says Ma, “a hot dog and its bun add up to two hundred and twenty-five calories.” To my thinking, this was possibly true of hotdogs and their buns back in the 1950s. “You can have a hot dog, its bun, and a cookie — and keep the whole meal close to three hundred calories,” she says. “Or you can have two hot dogs, minus their buns, and maybe two cookies. Or a cookie and a half.” This was one way to control one’s weight back in the 1950s. These days, the hotdogs I bu...

Q: Hold down a job?  A: Check.  Q: Pay bills (on time)?  A: Check.  Q: Save money?  A: Check.  Q: Obey the Rules of the Road?  A: Check.  Or, mostly check.  Or, rather: Check -ish .  Q: Recycle?  A: Check.  Q: Observe common courtesy? (Exempli gratia, holding doors open for those who follow behind, allowing others to lead the way onto or off of an elevator, giving up a train seat to those who are less steady or heavily burdened, et cetera.)  A: Check. Q: Charitable?  A: Check.  Q: Keep in shape? A: Check.  Q: Avoid junk food?  A: Check.  Q: Find someone to love you back? A: ... Q: Find someone to love you back? A : Pass.  Q: Find someone—  A: Shut up. There’s always a rub. Exempli gratia: You’ll have love, but you won’t have money. Love, but your lover’s unfaithful. Love, but you’ll be sick with AIDS, MS, or cancer. Or, they’ll be sick with fill–in–the–blank. You’ll have love, but you’l...

Betty says she has fibromyalgia.  Also,  Betty suffers from cold feet.  It's genetic,  her cold feet.  Nothing can warm them.  Even so,  the warmer the house,  the better for Betty.  Even in August.  Even when the temperature outside  hits the high nineties.  In winter,  a hot house is  not so much an issue,  not for me.  I'll go around in a loose T-shirt,  thin shorts,  and bare feet.  And,  when I'm in my room,  I'll throw open a window.  But that’s in winter.  In summer,  by the time the outdoor air heats up to eighty,  I  NEED AC.  But Betty will complain.  Pop’ll complain, too;  not because he's cold,  but because the AC costs  money  to run.  Not that times are tight.  Pop knows when the AC  condenser's running.  It blows the backyard bushes.  Using the furnace costs money,  too.  Only Pop...

 “We get a lot of letters from kids  who say they want to be DJs  when they grow up.  I always tell them they can’t do both.”  – Larry Lee Blankenburg,  aka, Larry Lujack

When you don’t want any bananas but there are nothing but bananas what do you want to do with the time of the next after simple joy of living in the mountains by the sea in the while I meant to write white sunshine of the darn I meant to write dark days of noon in the sun I meant to write sun why are you not eating that sugar cookie? How come the apples don’t want to sing in the while I meant to write white sunshine of your life? Is this going to be another one of your brilliant disguises? No? Why or why not? No? Why are the trees not eating the mixed berries? Are they all rotten? I think that they are all rotten. I think Theatre needs a new lease on life. Oh, are you going to eat that seaweed? Because it’s supposed to be good for apples. Yes, apples are good from tomatoes. And when the child in the box is not ready to dine in the basement why not set him up at the table upstairs? I won’t taste that pie. I will taste that cake. My mother smooshed – that’s a word. I could’ve sworn that ...

You would never characterize Betty as an irritable woman. Never in a million years. If anything, she’s too cheerful, she’s too polite. That said, when she settles into bed every night, if she isn’t greeted with absolute silence, then she’ll have to take a pill. * She won’t sleep in the same room with Pop because he snores. She’s taped the vents in the guest room over with cut-out rectangles from paper grocery bags. She doesn’t like “the blowing,” she says. It’s not so much the feel of “the blowing,” but more the sound of “the blowing” that keeps her awake. Even if it’s the middle of winter, and what’s blowing is heat, she’ll want the vents taped over. Never mind her interminably “cold” feet. What’s also interminable is the ringing in her ears. Does she prefer absolute silence to hear the ringing better? At the senior village, where Betty spends most of her time, a neighbor of hers plays loud music and owns a dog that barks too much. So Betty complained. The music stopped and the d...

When nearly nobody else goes, THAT’S when I go to the gym. I don’t like to wait for other members to wrap up their sets on any particular machine or finish their use of any particular free weights; and I hate it when other members wait for me to wrap up my sets. When other members ask to “work in” between my sets, I hate that, too, but not as much. As you might’ve guessed, I tend avoid crowds. I’ll make certain exceptions for sporting, musical, and theatrical venues—which I infrequently patronize. Otherwise, in most public settings, I’d rather not be in close proximity with people I don’t know. This is particularly true at the gym. In a perfect world, the gym would be filled with me and, at most, five other members. There’d be a guy who’s clearly stronger than me, a guy who’s clearly weaker than me, and three beautiful young women. And when it comes to “personal space,” please give me at least twice—no, three times—no, five times—the recommended distance, even if you’re a beautiful you...

Today I chauffeured Pop to the 2004 CEO Presentation and Annual Meeting of Redacted Bank Shareholders. My expectations of a grand assembly hall with hundreds of shareholders, bank executives, and lavish catering were not met. Instead, the meeting was held in a simple conference room in the basement of the Lincoln Square Redacted Bank branch. The catering consisted only of coffee, orange juice, and Danishes. Fewer than fifty shareholders showed up.  Pop, who hadn't attended an annual meeting of shareholders in two years, re-introduced himself to Jose Randolfstineberg, the bank's founder. Mr. Randolfstineberg, eighty-nine years young, was stuck in a wheelchair following a stroke he’d suffered two years earlier. Incidentally, Pop had also suffered a stroke right around the same time. Pop, though, he’d clearly fared better. [Also incidentally: Pop loved making use of the word, “incidentally,” that is, whether or not it was the appropriate word to wield when making a transition betw...

The paddles do not eat the peas or the cornbread in the wind when you chase the girl with the pink ribbons in her hair. Why you don’t want to eat the juice when it’s frozen is beyond me. Then again, the dogs whimper when you lick their joint accounts that have been liquidated by thieves. But why should I care when you haven’t bothered to eat cheese with the monkeys in the desert with the blue blob from Detroit. The Blue Blob is NOT from Detroit. He lies. I mean he lies about where he hails from, although, yes, he does lie on the ground and he does make sand-angels in the desert sand – until he’s bitten by a scorpion. That’ll be the end of that in the eatery that doesn’t end anything of the sort. I want cheese fries. I want cheese fried with tomato juice. I don’t want that silly man over there telling how I should live my life with tomato sauce eating the pop tarts and the pipe dream. I don’t eat pipe dreams because they’re bad for my teeth. They’re HARD, like my cock. No, apologies: Th...

The wallpaper as you go up the stairs was fraying, so Pop called up Martin to pull it all off. Pop wanted new wallpaper, but he didn’t want to choose, so he told Martin to paint all the wallpaper-less walls “buff.” Martin and his wife did the job over two Saturdays. On these two days, unless you were Martin or Martin’s wife, you weren’t going up or down the stairs. The planked apparatus that Martin had rigged up made it possible to reach the highest parts of the walls that flank the staircase. Martin propped open the front door, which is several feet from the bottom of the stairs; he also opened the window several feet from the top of the stairs. He’d done it to let out the paint flumes. [Indeed, the flumes, if any, but especially the fumes .] But doing it also let in the horseflies. Or maybe they were only houseflies. Whichever sort they were, they were eager to pester me, all of these flies were. But just me. Martin painted nearly every room on the second floor of the house, save for...

“Arthur makes coffee by putting eggshells and cinnamon sticks and an old nylon stocking into the coffee pot. His coffee tastes like a very spicy old foot.”  – From Nora Ephron's Heartburn

You love her face because her face belongs to a cartoon. Her expressions belong to a cartoon. Her voice, though? It belongs to a motorcycle gang. And her body? It belongs to Victoria’s Secret. She throws up a Great Wall of China between anyone and what she really feels, or what she really thinks. At least, that’s what you suspect. And before a single try, you’ve given up trying. At least you got the hug she gave you. Better to leave little enough alone. You watched all the cartoons (when you were a kid) because they never got better (or rarely ever did), but you knew they couldn’t get any worse. And though you’re convinced that motorcycles are insane—rather, those who operate them are —you think you’re ready for one yourself. ‘Cause Kassi, she’d find it cool. She’d want to go for a ride and, in so doing, hug herself to you for dear life. You love her because her face belongs to everyone but you.  31 May 2005 

ME: You're right, Nate. *  NATE: I've been right before.  ---  DICK: What do ya know, Howie? †  ME: Not much. You?  DICK: Less.  ---  Pop hoists himself out of my car and into the February night.  He proclaims, "It's cold out here."  I nod.  Pop shuffles over to the house, unlocks the door, and enters.  He proclaims, "It's warm in here."  I nod. ---  BETTY: Howie, what do you put in the trashcan to make it smell so good?  ME: Trash. I put in trash.  BETTY: But it smells so good.  ME: Perhaps you should move next to a landfill, Betty.  ---  Whilst strolling the trail…  POP: The sun is hot today.  ME: We'd be in trouble were it not.  ---  Whenever Pop says he's going up to "wash" his teeth, he means he's going to brush them.  Late 2003, Early 2004  * [Nate was Pop’s youngest brother.]  † [Dick was a semi-retired CPA in Pop’s old accounting firm.] 

He lies there – on the bed or on the sofa – with one hand to his forehead as if in deep contemplation of some serious matter, or as if suffering a painful migraine. Or both. He’ll lie in this way even when he’s asleep. Thing is, he’s not a deep thinker. He doesn’t suffer from migraines, either. Rarely does he complain of having a headache. He is troubled, however. He’s troubled by things beyond his control. For some reason he felt that he had control over such things years ago – although I don’t see how. Very few (if any) law-abiding investors have control over the ups and downs of the stock market. And, likewise, with one’s own health, one can do little to guard against a stroke. You can exercise and diet and dope, but, ultimately, it’s out of your hands. So why dwell on it? Why waste the time and energy? All you can ever really do is enjoy those things you are able to enjoy. (And, believe me, the simpler those pleasures, the better.) But he doesn’t know what he enjoys. He hasn’t (and...

His small talk skills were so small that his coworkers called him, “The Interrogator.” If he didn’t know you, he’d assault you with a barrage of questions — basic questions, harmless questions, questions that led nowhere. [INSERT EXAMPLES HERE.] If the answers were satisfactory, he’d start in with a more probing line of queries. [“SATISFACTORY”? “PROBING”? UNPACK / ELABORATE / EXEMPLFY.] The more answers you volunteered, the more intimate and/or bizarre the questions became. [“INTIMATE”? “BIZARRE”? UNPACK / ELABORATE / EXEMPLFY.] From beginning to end, this was how he’d make “friends”… and then lose them. From beginning to end… the span of which could be an hour or less… “friendships” forged and shattered. It takes him quite a while to learn his lesson — several decades, in fact. That is, the lesson of keeping your damn trap shut. Having learned it (the hard way * ), he isn’t, as he once was, spurned quite so frequently. No, now, instead of annoying, he’s merely boring.  30 May 200...

Never mind that the faucets for both the bathroom sink and the tub trickle no matter how tightly I twist the knobs to the right. On the bright side, the drains don’t clog. Even brighter, I don’t pay the water bill. And never mind that I hear every step made by the neighbor above. (And I don’t mean God.) He likes to drop things. I’m not talking about little thumps and bumps or creaks, but rather MAJOR NOISE just about whenever anyone moves around up there. And never mind the blindingly bright porch light next door. It’s left on all night and it’s aimed directly at my window. (Deliberately, of course.) And never mind that the lovely young lass next door doesn’t care who can hear her having sex. And I can’t say I’m a huge fan of so many uninvited guests—viz., the ants, the silverfish, the cockroaches, and the millipedes. I believe I’ve been quite tolerant of all the noisy human slobs who are, unfortunately, my neighbors. But surely they’re worse off than I am. Why else would they be livin...

So, maybe, probably, mayhap, I’ll be living several seemingly short blocks from my ex-girlfriend (who hates my guts), my loony great-aunt (who nobody speaks to), and the man who runs the theatre company I might’ve been kicked out of (jury’s still out on that one). That said, life might become more interesting with my probable move back to Edgewater. I’ll miss the energy of Lakeview, but I can’t say I’ve taken much advantage of it. I hate moving. I HATE IT, I HATE IT, I HATE IT. If I move, I won’t be moving until July. And yet already I can feel the pangs of stress that accompany the act of hauling all of one’s own crap to a new location. I’m reminded of the warning Ole Palahniuk offers in his Fight Club : “Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.”  17 April 2001

A few years back, Betty moved from her condo in Old Mobville to a fancy senior village out on the edge of New Knottydart. One of her brothers had talked her into it. He already lives there. He’s got his own “cottage.” But before Betty made the decision, Pop invited her to live with him. "I can take care of you,” she told him, “but who's going to take care of me?" *   Betty very much enjoys playing “the nurse.” She even worked as one for about a year, many moons ago. When she's here, at Pop’s house, I pretty much stay hidden away in my bedroom. Pop doesn't need two nurses. He isn't an invalid—at least, not anymore. He’s just old, is all.  Travelling back and forth between the senior village and Pop's house, Betty likens herself to a gypsy. She spends nearly every weekend with us. When we pick her up, Pop climbs into the backseat to sit with her. If he didn’t, in addition to playing “the chauffeur,” I’d have to play “the human hearing aid.”  And you might as...

You missed the party. Well, you always miss the party. Well, you always miss. Well, you, well… and then you want to eat the potato chips at night. The medication is not recommended by everybody. Well, what’s the difference? Well, I soberly asked for the dip and she poured it all over my head. Maybe she was drunk. I don’t know. I did not attempt to sniff her breath. Maybe I should have. Had I tried, I would’ve tried to kiss her. And then, and then, Lord knows. That’s the one thing we know, don’t we? That the Lord knows. If He’s there, he KNOWS. And if he’s not there, who knows? Somebody has got to know, right? Somebody has to have all the keys to all of the doors. Right? Lord knows. Bo knows, too. Right? Or did he stop knowing once they stopped running those commercials? I don’t understand why they don’t recycle some of those old commercials. I don’t understand why they don’t use jingles much anymore. I’m so much more likely to remember a jingle than anything else advertisers throw my w...

The Playboy woman, whose old fogy folks don’t want her to rent the apartment to a cat owner, keeps calling Eryk. She keeps telling him how much she likes us (or likes him —although I get the sense that she’s not into guys—or perhaps she assumes he and I are a couple, this being “Boystown” after all). But Eryk will not part with that darn cat. * Although the Playboy woman pulled the “For Rent” sign from the building’s front door four days ago, she told Eryk that she’s showing the apartment “to a few more people.” Are we her fallback prospects? Either way, she is very friendly. But then personability is key when your job involves coaxing young women to disrobe and pose for a globally circulated publication. Then again, the place has been on the market for three months. So… she’s picky? Well, you gotta be a picky if you’re the one auditioning Playboy Playmates. Amirite?  18 April 2001  After being strung along for another week and a half, the Playboy woman told Eryk that her m...

                      

“In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion: the more intelligent, the less sane.”  “Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.”  “Winston stroked his nose gently with a paper-clip.”

You’re not gonna believe this. So, Eryk Eiríkr and I looked at a smallish two bedroom-ish apartment just five doors east of my current address. The woman who showed us the place (on behalf of her parents) works for Playboy magazine—for real! She has the arduous job of auditioning models—yes, that’s right, in the flesh. If we took the place, she told us she’d throw in a couple of Playboy T-shirts. The major drawback to living there, if we choose to do so (we’ll know tonight, after we look at several more potential bachelor pads), is that the one bath room is only accessible through one of the bedrooms. Meaning: One of us would have to sacrifice some privacy. 12 April 2001 Yeah, so, Eryk owns a high-maintenance feline named, Queenie. * I’ll explain. One may only pet this cat around her neck, under her chin, on most parts of her head, and up to halfway down her back. Touch her anywhere else and without warning she’ll bite you. She’ll also bite you once she’s had her fill of being pett...

Pop likes to ask, "If God's in charge of everything, who appointed God?" He's asked rabbis and he's asked priests. He's being honest, too. You see, Pop was an accountant by trade; out of habit, he's got to account for everything and everyone.  Pop belongs to two temples (the reasons are somewhat complicated); he goes to one or the other every Friday evening. Since he doesn't like to drive at night, I chauffeur him and his "companion," Betty, to and from whichever temple. Thanks to his two lousy hearing aids, he can't even hear the service. He goes all the same. Afterward, Betty, with her shaky memory, does her best to sum up the rabbi’s “drasha” on the car ride home.  Back when Grandma was alive, Pop rarely went to temple at all. Sure, like everybody else, they’d attend a service or two during the High Holy Days—Pop would even serve as an usher. But after many years of this, Grandma finally asked, "Why are we paying dues to two templ...

When I had the baby I didn’t think she would be so green. I figured she’d be more orange, like her mother, or, perhaps a shade of turquoise, like me. I am turquoise, through and through. I am a semiprecious stone, “typically opaque and of a greenish-blue or sky-blue color, consisting of a hydrated hydroxyl phosphate of copper and aluminum.” * But I don’t mean to brag. When I pooped out the baby, she said, “Mazel tov!” And I said, “Bitch, that’s MY line!” And I said to the doctor, “Bitch stole my line!” And that’s when the baby commenced to cry. And that’s when the doctor said that I’d given birth to a healthy baby girl. All this from eating that funky pizza. I should’ve known. I was warned, but what can you do? It looked tempting. And I was hungry. So she grew up and became a success at everything and retired young and traveled across the universe and set me up for life in a mansion atop Mount Rainier. She’d purchased Mount Rainier for a pittance. I was left all alone. She didn’t mean...

Clive and I have recorded exactly fourteen hours of conversation. It started when he picked me up at the Linden Purple Line Station last Monday and it ended last night. We did not record for fourteen hours straight. No, I had work and sleep and hunger and various chores and errands to contend with; but every time we spoke—even on the phone—the tape was rolling. (That is, assuming I didn’t forget to turn the thing on.) We may even record Friday night’s Star Wars Trivial Pursuit Extravaganza with Eryk Eiríkr. *  Alas, a few seemingly precious moments of conversation were, inadvertently, left out of this week’s recording sessions. (Id est, it wasn’t on.) How curious that the best stuff always seems to escape the tape.  29 March 2001   * [Not his legal name, nor one he chose of his own accord.]

My Timex reads four o’clock ante meridiem. Instead of sleeping, I’m shivering. My nose is stuffed. In my head, Eva Cassidy’s take on “Over the Rainbow” is stuck on repeat. Last night and earlier this morning Clive Churner * insisted that we read (aloud) the rather unique letter (a creative hodge-podge of thought) that he’d sent me (months ago) and critique it, section by section. Said readings and critiques have been preserved for posterity on a series of microcassette recordings, titled: “Is It On?” (The aforementioned query refers to the status of my microcassette recorder.) Clive’s letter is roughly thirty pages long, if not longer. At the risk of being overly reductive, he’s taken the people we’ve both known and events we’ve both experienced and spun them wildly out of control in silly little yarms—I mean yams—I mean yarns. Please note that I’ve sat here coughing and gagging after—and, at times, straight through—every one of the aforementioned sentences, along with this one, and v...

Pop,  God love him,  has an aversion to using flatware  —but especially knives.  He prefers to push food  onto his fork  with the side of his index finger.  He'll grab a slice of  butter–and–syrup smothered  French toast  right off the plate  with both hands and  shove it down his gullet.  Pop never puts his napkin on his lap.  No matter its condition,  he’ll leave it  bunched and  smudged  beside his plate.  He prefers to drink his liquids  only after having consumed all of his solids.  That's my Pop.  For starters. *  April 8, 2004  * [Two decades ago, The FireVaney refused to limit himself to one blog. Blogging was—and, for him, remains to this day—an excellent way to avoid writing anything worth publishing, staging, or filming “IRL.” One of the half-dozen or more blogs he maintained back in 2004 was called, The Braeside . With apologies, Dear Reader, he will not al...

The nest is in the tree where it belongs. That is not code. That is a nest. A simple, run-of-the-mill nest. A bird’s nest, to be exact. And I had meant to write something else, something – a word – that wasn’t “nest.” Only, now, I cannot recall what that word was. I started to write it, and… oh, here, the word I intended was: “next,” but, as is evident, I wrote, “nest,” instead. And I ran with it. Rather, I tried to. But I didn’t really, did I? No. Because I stopped myself and tried to explain my original choice. My typing of “nest” was an accident. My finger hit the “s” key instead of the “x” key. And there you have it. Aren’t you pleased to have the explanation? Doesn’t it make you whole? No? I didn’t think so. But, if, by chance, it did , then how lucky for you. I really ought to run with it, though. Go with the accident. The nest is not in need of repair. It is a dandy nest. It is next to the other next. (I meant to write “nest,” of course!) An eagle’s next is next to the nest I ...