FireVaney

Blasted weather! It saps my creativity. Blast it! This is why I must move North. Around here, August is the worst – typically the worst. To my mind, it IS the worst. July is bad, but August is worse. Now, October? That’s a much better month. It’s my mother’s month. But more importantly, why can’t I dress the brown bear in its fur? YOU said I could. You promised. You wanted me to dress it in a red velvet jumpsuit. “But that’s too tacky,” says you. It’s MY bear! Why can’t I dress it how I please? Who are YOU to say how I should dress MY property. It IS my property. It’s not like it’s a REAL bear, a LIVE bear. It’s a mere teddy. I was wondering where that came from – that “teddy” bear term. I kinda knew already, but I wasn’t sure. One of my dictionaries, in case you didn’t know yourself, says that “Teddy” was the nickname for “Theodore,” alluding to “Theodore Roosevelt,” who was an “enthusiastic” bear hunter. So there you have it. And I’ll wager that President Roosevelt wouldn’t care to h...

She’s drunk and she presses your face into her cleavage—twice—and you tell her you think of her as a sister. And but so now, after that, you’re not so sure. You tell her it’s hard not to stare at her breasts and she tells you go ahead, stare. After that, you babble on about the painful crush you have on her best friend. She sits there beside you and she’s very understanding. At one point, for Paparazzo Pete, she bends over and aims her face at your crotch. It’s all for fun and she’s drunk and so are you—a little bit. And but so now, writing this, you’re thinking maybe you should pursue something with her. And you’re completely sober now. It would be a sober relationship. You want a companion and you want sex but you don’t want to break her heart if she falls in love with you.  8 March 2007

Betty’s bad back has a beef with every chair and sofa in the house. * So I drove her and Pop over to Wickes and, after a lot of test-sitting and indecision, Pop ordered some new furniture: a sandy-colored reclining chair, a matching sofa, and a matching loveseat. You might say they’re more comfy-looking than they are stylish. By the way, Pop’s bad ears have misled him to refer to Wickes as “Wicky’s.” Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve explained that the name is pronounced, “Wicks,” —as in the “wick” of a candle—it’ll always be “Wicky’s” to Pop.  Before he made the purchase, I measured the room so everything would fit. † Only I forgot to measure the doorways. Turns out the new sofa wouldn’t fit through. So we changed the order to two loveseats and the reclining chair.  Now Pop’s worried about the two OLD sofas that have to go. The Salvation Army is sending a truck the day before the new furniture arrives. Pop, though, he’s not convinced the old sofas will make it through the d...

I waved, few noticed, I left. Out on the street I mumbled to myself, “What a terrific waste of time.” I couldn’t tell you what my “scene” is, but it sure ain’t the “bar scene.” One light beer made me drunk, so I had to wait for it to wear off. So many conversations… I couldn’t follow a single one. So I watched others laugh and flirt. Damn near every time anybody spoke to me, I  shouted back, “WHAT?” They’d have to shout whatever they wanted to share or ask several times, until I’d give up with a smile and a nod. All of that secondhand smoke still clouds my head a day later. Damn near ever wall was full of muted TVs tuned to one sport or another. Birds of a feather self-segregated in the several available corners. Ms. J. Redacted drank straight from a pitcher of beer. Ms. D. Redacted hugged everybody in the cast—except for me. But then I wasn’t easy to reach (story of my life) and she barely knows me. I did, however, hear what Ms. L. Redacted shouted at me on her first try: “WHY ARE...

You could, if you wanted to, live here, where I live, in this community, blissfully ignorant of what goes on anywhere else. One of my high school history teachers compared the Village of Knotydart to a cocoon. That same history teacher wore leather boots, blue jeans, and a jean jacket to class nearly every day of the week. He tossed the word “groovy” around quite a bit. When we studied the Roman Empire, he rolled a TV with a VCR into the classroom and showed us Jesus Christ Superstar. That was his first year, when he did all of that. He’d moved back to Knotydart from Tinseltown. He’d given up on the pipe dream of becoming the next Frances Ford Coppola. (Incidentally, he studied screenwriting with StepDude at Tinseltown College, but that was many moons ago.) After Mister Argh’s first year of teaching at Knotydart High, he started wearing khaki pants and a professor’s elbow-padded wool sport jacket, a button down shirt, and a tie. He traded his boots for brown oxfords. He shaved off his...

Save for the enviable, one should save for the inevitable. Whereas the inevitable will come a-knockin’, the enviable will steer clear. (Hencethus, why we envy them.) And so but anyway, when the inevitable comes a-knockin’, you’ll need a reserve. This is true of the balloon as it is true for the needle. The balloon seeks to be popped. Indeed. It does. And the needle seeks to pop. It does. Indeed. To pop, or to pierce. To pierce whom? To pierce Brosnan . Ha, ha. The needle enjoys it: The Bursting. And the balloon enjoys being burst. It’s not unlike an orgasm. Perhaps it IS an orgasm. Why not? The balloon drifts on the wind. Indeed. It does. It drifts. The needle stays put. It does not have the luxury of buoyancy. Launch it into outer space, and, yes, it’ll have buoyancy, of a sort. But I had a conversation with the needle. It’s rather sharp, that needle is. Ha, ha. I asked it all kinds of questions. (Afterall, how often does one have the opportunity to converse with a needle?) It answe...

Though he’s not up to it, not physically, Pop wants to plant flowers on his front lawn. He’s done it for years. This year, he’d like to plant exactly ONE HUNDRED flowers, though not all at once. Thank God.  I told him the landscapers can do it. The landscapers can do ANYTHING lawn-related. But Pop insists on doing it all himself. He says he wants to do something useful; he says he “likes the exercise.”   Last summer, after planting just three little plants, he was wiped out for the day. For Pop, a man his age, this is not the right kind of exercise. Summer before last, after planting five, maybe six flowers, the man literally gave himself a hernia. He walks his treadmill, he lifts his (light) weights, he stretches his stretching bands, he walks to the mailbox and back; this is his daily routine, and he’s got no problems maintaining it.  Crouching, reaching, digging, when it’s eighty, ninety degrees outside? No. That’s no good. Not for Pop. On the off chance I make it...

   👆 "Enhanced"  __________________________ Original 👇

This guy on the bench-press bench, sitting up, hunched over, picking his nose, all the while, there I am: eight sets on biceps, eight sets on triceps, three sets on chest, three sets on calves, and, all the while, I’m wondering whether or not he’s gonna get up the nerve to try a single set—a single rep —before the place closes in twenty-eight minutes. Do I want to stop my (futile) efforts to pump myself up for all the single ladies and fetch this guy a tissue? Part of me does—not because it’s a nice thing to do, no. Maybe he doesn’t give a shit who sees him digging for snot. And for that, in a way, maybe he deserves my respect. That’s my problem: I give a shit. Or too much of a shit. In any case, when I leave, five minutes to close, he’s still there, picking his nose.  16 January 2005

 

Pop didn’t want a big party for his 90th birthday, but he got one anyway. He had a good time, too. Now his eldest daughter is planning another big bash for his 95th birthday, three months from now. She doesn’t intend for it to be a surprise party, but she’s reluctant to mention it to him. “Hold off until the end of the month,” I told her. By then, he’ll have healed from his fall. He fell yesterday, too, but it wasn’t a serious fall. The man’s always been in too much of a hurry to get wherever he’s headed. Back when I was a kid, and grandma was still alive, and we three went out to eat, Pop was always in a hurry to get from the car to the restaurant, and then, afterward, from the restaurant back to the car. Like it was a race. Grandma, though, she always took her time. If there was ever any need to hurry, I wasn’t aware of it. That said, back then, I was largely oblivious to everything, and obliviousness is more blissful than ignorance. Anyway, if Pop’s sick or hurting now, he won’t be ...

Something less lucid, perhaps? Teresa bounced the ball in his direction. She did so on purpose. Her purpose was to win his attention. She was successful. He looked her way after the ball hit him in the head. He let the ball hit him in the head and bounce away. He looked at her, generally displeased, and then he looked toward the ball, bouncing away – bouncing down the driveway – bouncing into traffic. She said, “You’re supposed to bounce it back.” The next time the ball bounces it should signify a change in current temperature. That’s what balls do. They signify change. But only when they bounce. When the bounce is high, that means something. When the bounce is love or when the bounce is low that means something else. But how to tell the difference between a love bounce and a low bounce? It all depends on who does the bouncing, and why. Boobs bounce, too. He tries not to look. Sometimes he looks, but he tries not to look. He focuses on faces, but then he’s accused of staring. So what’s...

Among Nikki’s fears: Heights, trains, butterflies, and birds—in particular, pigeons and crows. Heights and trains because whenever she’s confronted with either, she contemplates suicide. Trains, too, because she dreams of them oncoming. Butterflies, because she was once engulfed by a swarm of them. Birds, because her mother was once attacked by a crow. Somehow, it had trapped itself in the drying machine. Said crow flapped up into the kitchen and proceeded to attack a red velvet cake. Had you walked into the kitchen (post crow), and nobody told you about the cake (or the crow), you might’ve wondered why the walls, floor, ceiling, and surfaces were all seemingly splattered with chunks of bloody flesh and black feathers. In the end, a neighbor smacked the life out of that crow with a tennis racquet. The kicker? Just the day before, Nikki had sat through all of Hitchcock’s The Birds .  31 March 2006

She’s somewhere around ninety-five, my Great Aunt Hattie. Her three younger brothers couldn’t say for sure when she was born. Hattie can barely walk now. She’s fallen a few too many times. Her hips couldn’t take the punishment. Even with hearing aids, she can hear about as well as she can walk. Pop, Betty, and I pay her a visit nearly once a week. Toward the end of a recent visit, I overheard Hattie telling Betty that every week she expected to die. She choked back tears when she told Betty this. Betty, with her ever-sunny disposition, did her best to raise Hattie’s spirits. As I see it, Hattie couldn’t ask for much more out of her ninety-something years of life, save for a little less death. When I kiss her goodbye, I usually kiss the air near her face. She doesn’t stink or anything. It’s MY hang-up. Well, this last time when I did it, Hattie chuckled and said, “You give cold kisses.” So I went ahead and pecked her cheek. She said it again, “You give cold kisses,” but at least she kep...

...and it's still going.  A Nova Scotia man is the proud owner of a 1985 Toyota Tercel.  Despite being 40 years old, the car is in mint condition.  But there is one thing wrong with it:  the odometer doesn't go up high enough.

There you are, a grown man nearing middle age, rehearsing a silly play in somebody’s cold, dank basement. You’ve got a bit part, so you spend a lot of time waiting on the cold radiator wishing it would warm up. You’re wondering what you’re doing there anyway. Q: What have you to gain from this experience? A: Only the thrill of performing—that is all. Theatre on the fringe is a hassle and a thrill and nobody understands or appreciates that fact, unless they’ve done it themselves. But you want more. You want sex with the young beauty in the cast. You want some lasting [positive] consequence. You’re getting too old to rehearse in cold basements with poor lighting and spider webs and mold. You always get bit parts and you’re always the most dedicated and yet nobody ever takes you seriously. True, it doesn’t help that you’re an inveterate ham.  21 March 2007

Consider the childhood imaginary friend. It is an accepted form of psychosis, is it not? Perhaps “psychosis” isn’t the best word for it, but you get my meaning. As a child, you might’ve been encouraged to conjure up a hallucinated companion. As an adult, however, such imaginative exercises are not encouraged. That said, many DO encourage the practice of “projecting” some desired outcome (Winning The Game, Acing The Interview, Boarding The Plane, etcetera). So, it struck me – just yesterday – that I still have an imaginary friend of a sort. It’s a coping mechanism. It’s a way of dealing with my loneliness. And it’s based on you. (Assuming you’re reading this.) Jenny says to Forest Gump, “I wish I could’ve been there with you.” Forest replies, “You were.” And I know what he means. So now what? Now, perhaps, I’ll be able to, in effect, put faux-you to bed. Once you know what something is, you can put it in its place. Physically as well as mentally. Well, when you come right down to it, it...