FireVaney

“Deal, No Deal,” Pop calls it. He’s too cheap to spring for the “or.” When Betty’s with us on the weekends, she’ll watch it with him, but she’d never watch it on her own. So they were watching it this one time, and I happened to be in the kitchen, and there’s like a faux window between the kitchen and the TV room (because the TV room was an addition to the house), and Pop says to Betty, “She’s not wearing any lipstick. I don’t understand that.” Betty doesn’t respond—at least, not verbally. Whether Pop meant the contestant or one of the briefcase models, I didn’t ask. Now, let me be clear, Howie Mandel is very talented—and I get it, work is work and money is money—but this show is truly idiotic. Pop, along with every other dirty old man, enjoys watching it because it’s got money and it’s got models. Big surprise, Pop also watches all the beauty pageants, too. But that’s where Betty draws the line. Whenever Pop tunes into a Miss Whatever pageant, Betty leaves the room. Pop’ll keep watchi...

I’ll go and I’ll see her and I’ll feel all that anguish all over again and for weeks thereafter. So much anguish over someone I know all wrong. She’ll be there—at some point she’ll be there—and she’ll go wild and I won’t be able to wait to want to leave. But because she’s far away, and busy, maybe she’ll be late. And if she’s late, it won’t be so bad for me to leave. I’d feel bad if I had to leave early. Like Bio-Dud often liked to say, “Firey, you need to suffer more,” unless it was, “Firey, you haven’t suffered enough.” So I do my best. I do the best a “snot-nosed spoiled brat,” as Step-Dude likes to say, can do. And it’s true, as a confirmed “snot-nosed spoiled brat,” I do do a lousy job of suffering. If I really, really, really, wanted to suffer, I’d join the military and fight in Afghanistan—and not only because “war is hell.” Setting aside the war, Afghanistan is hot, and I can’t take the heat. Anyway, everything is too late. Why can’t I ever be on time for anything? I don’t mean...

Yesterday, Mister Wisecracker * sent around a text message with a photo of his cocker spaniel in a costume. Said cocker spaniel was looking up at the camera, and the message below it read, “Dinka says, ‘Happy Easter. Now get the damn ears off me.’” Like most fringy theatre folks I know, Mister Wisecracker doesn’t take care of himself. He stays out too late, gets up too early, drinks too much, eats too much, and smokes packs and packs and packs. I don’t do any of that, but I am a yo-yo dieter. That said, I exercise pretty hard, so I figure I’ve got a better chance at a longer life—not that I want a longer life. Who can afford to live? Even if I could (afford to live), I’ve no interest in outliving Mister Wisecracker and his company of assorted misfits. Odds are, though, I will. I’d bet they’ll pretty much all have strokes or get cancer before hitting sixty. Inside of twenty years, I’d bet, half of everybody I know will be dead.  9 April 2007 * Formally and foolishly referred to a...

Nearly every weekend, Betty says to me, “Firey, don’t get old.” She means it in both a funny and an honest way. She tells me she was perfectly healthy before the radiation treated her breast cancer, some twenty years ago, when she was sixty-something. The cancer is all gone now, but arthritic aches and pains affect her daily. She can easily recall her phone number and her home address and also the game show that’s on Channel 7 every day at 6:30 post meridiem. She has no problem naming the show’s host and co-host. Monday through Thursday, over the phone, she’ll say to Pop, “Time to watch Vanna.” She means it, too. Ever the accountant, Pop will dryly confess that he “likes to look at figures.” Betty never forgets to call Pop first thing in the morning and last thing at night. But ask Betty to ask her pharmacist three little questions? Forget it. Ask her to repeat those three questions right after you’ve stated them, and she’ll get them all wrong. Poor Betty, she’ll fumble all the words i...

I’m concerned about the sump pump. It works when I test it, but, by testing it, it may not work on its own. This is my fear – that it won’t work on its own. So, that’s what I’m waiting for. I never thought I’d spend hours waiting for a sump pump to kick-in. To be clear, I’m doing other things, too. Like this. But the sump pump is on my mind. And, in a way, it is a blessing. There are only so many troubles I can keep an eye on. In sooth, I have not counted the maximum number of troubles that I can track, but the maximum cannot amount to very many. Nevertheless, it is a blessing, so to speak, to worry about a contraption rather than a human being. The machine either works or it doesn’t. One can either repair the machine or replace it. One should never fall in love with a machine, however. A machine cannot return love. It can work, or it can break. That might change someday; and when it does – when a machine can be programmed to behave irrationally, jealously, enviously and/or selfishly –...

Spiffy likened his lovers to meals. Like his relationship with Trussy? That was a solid meat and potatoes sort of meal—only without much in the way of dessert. His relationship with Kandi was all dessert— too much dessert. Imagine being trapped in a Twinkie factory for a year, that was Spiffy’s relationship with Kandi. His relationship with Nummy was harder to match because he rarely ever gave her an orgasm. That said, she told him he’d given her the first she’d ever had. As for me, I wasn’t terribly interested in likening my lovers to meals. I’ve had so few (lovers) and most of those were basically “appetizers.” So then Spiffy asked, “If you were any sort of restaurant, what sort would you be?” Easy. I’d be one of those early-to-mid Twentieth Century roadside diners—the sort that had a long lunch counter and a line of booths with a clear view of the highway and the cornfields. I’d be open 24hrs. I’d be comfortable—clean and comfortable—and never too busy. And if I had to be a chaine...

Pop spent his 96th birthday in hospital room 4132, recovering from the removal of his gallbladder. His dinner tray came with a frosted cupcake he couldn’t eat. Why? Well, he’s lactose intolerant. That aside, in honor of his birthday, the doctors cancelled the liquid-only diet he’s been on since last Wednesday. Pop’s birthday was yesterday (Sunday). Today is Monday (duh) and I really hope he’ll get to go home. By the way, I learned a new word a few days ago: “sundowning.” According to one of the nurses, this happens when an elderly patient forgets where they are and hallucinates that they are anywhere else. As you might’ve guessed, it often occurs around sunset. Nobody really knows for sure, but it might have something to do with “circadian rhythms.” Supposedly, thanks to “sundowning,” all new hospital rooms are required to have a window. * Last night, in room 4132, Pop kept asking me for the time. Repeatedly, he wanted to know how much “this house cost to rent.” Again and again, he’d ...

His helplessness makes me mad. Where they operated, where they removed his gallbladder, it hurts like nothing else, it hurts like it’s the end. All that morphine they gave him, and it still hurts. Just this morning he was bragging about all his childhood fighting, bragging about all those bones he broke. Tell him he’ll get through all this pain, too, and he’ll reply at you by wincing more pain. Ever the accountant, he’ll tell you his estate is in order. Tell him the market went up today and he’ll try a smile, but then his body jerks in more pain. He tells you he’s wiped out, he tells you he’s got no energy left—and then he tells you he’s got to get out of bed. Because he feels like vomiting and urinating and shitting all at once. But, thank God, none of that actually happens.  10 August 2005

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At first I thought it was the shoe, but now I think it’s the foot. My foot. My right foot. The bottom of my right foot. Because the shoe was new. One of a pair, of course. But then I bought yet another new pair and the same sensation occurred—that is, on the bottom of my right foot. No issue with the left. To be clear, I feel it—on the bottom of my right foot—whilst running. It feels like the sock has bunched up—right under the ball of my right foot. But often the feeling runs halfway down the middle of said foot. The feeling starts at the ball. “Ball,” isn’t that what you call it? Should it be plural? Balls? Balls of my foot? Balls of my toes? But only whilst running. That isn’t to say one ought to refer them as “balls” whilst running. Rather, I’m referring to the feeling, the sensation. Whilst running. Or walking quickly. Said sensation occurs exclusively whilst upon the treadmill— any treadmill—and only whilst said treadmill is in motion. O, how I wish the word “whilst” would c...

…and yet,  how self-deceitfully  easy  it is  to slip  back  into the dull,  monotonous,  thudding-along  of  life… 31 October 2005

BOB Does it matter that a guy goes his whole life thinking he’s “the shit” when he’s not—and he’ll never have a clue that he’s not?  JOE Why should it matter?  BOB Cuz he’s a loser. He’s never gonna get anywhere staying on the track he’s always been on. JOE So long as he thinks he’s “the shit,” doesn’t matter. It’s been said before, many, many times, but it’s true: Life? Perception. ‘S all about perception.    BOB But if you’re fooling yourself—  JOE Doesn’t matter. People told Hemingway he was the greatest American writer—and he still blew his brains out. Obviously he didn’t think he was “the shit.” Even though he WAS, he didn’t believe he was. Well. Maybe.  BOB I’ve never read any Hemingway.  JOE Me neither. Not the point.   13 August 2002

See, I keep knocking things into the wastebasket betwixt the matching wood desk and dresser in my Aunt Redacted’s childhood bedroom. These knocked over things, they’re my things—the pens, the keys, the stapler, the bibelots and baubles that tend to clutter one’s desk. The wastebasket, too, that’s my wastebasket—a metal Chicago Bears wastebasket. Other than being cluttered, it’s kinda neat, this desk. It literally fits into the corner of the room. It would neatly fit into a 90 degree corner of any ordinary bedroom. Suffice it to say, this desk, my Aunt Redacted’s childhood desk, now my desk (for all intents and purposes), its surface is more triangular than rectangular. To be clear, it’s a small room, but still, in and of itself, fairly rectangular. Regardless, things keep falling through the space betwixt the desk and the matching wood dresser, falling into the wastebasket, or rather landing in the wastebasket, because I keep knocking them over into it. So what do I do? I move the ...

There is no way that I’m going to choose the path which will lead me toward prune juice. There are things I will tolerate, and there are things that are just things. They are thingy things. They exist to collect dust. They are not the things you want to bother about, they are just things to be things to sit on a shelf and collect dust. They are things to toss against the wall when things are not going well. They are things to toss. They are tossible tossables. You say that “tossable” and “tossible” aren’t legitimate words. I say, go fuck yourself, you KNOW what I mean when I use these “illegitimate” words. If something is tossible/tossable, then they are able to be tossed. That’s all. They are garbagible garbagables. Fuck you. You are not going to control my vocabulary. Not any more. There are things – thingy things – sitting on my shelves that are garbagible/garbagales tossable/tossibles. I know what I mean, and that is all that matters because nobody else is reading. FREEDOM (is lone...

 

“We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eye watered .” - Guildenstern from  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by  Tom Stoppard

Since Pop takes naps, I take naps. Since Pop pisses a lot, I’m pissing a lot more. On the bright side, his house has two toilets. No, not side-by-side. One’s upstairs, the other’s downstairs.  Since Pop drives slow, I’m driving slower. I find myself asking other drivers, as they pass me, “What’s the rush?” I need a bumper sticker that says, “I believe in the speed limit.” Thing is, Pop and me, we’re the only two such believers in town.  Since Pop grunts when he sits, I grunt when I sit. And each time I grunt, in my head, I ask myself, as I sit and grunt, I ask, “Why am I grunting?” I don’t have back pain. I’m too young to grunt like Pop grunts.  Beyond that, he and I, we have very little in common.  He reads business periodicals. He’ll read them all day long. Me? I read plays and novels. Pop won’t touch ‘em. At night, he watches whatever’s on TV. He watches Wheel Of Fortune,  he watches The Bachelor , he watches Dancing With The Stars, he watches Deal or No Dea...

Dear Scáthach,  Does the name Polonius ring a bell? He was a wise fool. Had he survived Hamlet’s rapier, he might’ve lived long enough to share the following sage advice* with you…  There are two little words that will open a lot of doors for you: “Push” and “Pull.”  If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.  When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.  The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.  Do you remember the time we robbed that bank? Oh. Wait. No. I was with Cúnait. Never mind. Before you came along, she was something of a wild child; not at all the demure, prudish saint she is today. But forget I mentioned it. (Of course, if you ask her, she’ll deny it.)  Do you remember stealing my sippy cup? Near the turn of the 20th century, my great grandmother, Avdotya, sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, all the way from Russia, with that very sippy cup and, other than the clothes on ...

What do you believe? Why trust yourself when, time and again, you’ve led yourself astray? Astray, astray. Ashtray. If only leading oneself astray were a lucrative career path. And as for faith: Faith in what? Faith in what you know? Alright. Or, all right. You have faith in knowing what you know is wrong. Or, at best, what you know is riddled with wrongs. Go? BOLDLY go? Where? Spend? How much? Write? How much? Spend it all? Go everywhere? Write until the ink runs out? Write until the paper runs out? Type until the fingers ache? Ah, but recall Mister Rather’s sage advice. * What do you want? What, REALLY ? Self-reliance? Ah, but you get soooooooooooooooooo lonesome, don’t you? Lonesome and loathsome. You suffer soooooooooooooooooo much doubt, no? You want a lover. You want a companion. You want to “go free” with a lover-companion. And you don’t want a boss. Well, who DOES ? Well, frankly? Many do. All too many seek to be led. But you? No. As the Bio-Farter oft said, “You can’t take ...

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...