New Things

I’m trying to post from my iPhone, because we still don’t have Comcast at the house. I’m trying to be understanding, but really, come on, Comcast!

I did finish DEATHLESS and it is exquisite. I may have more to say about it later, when I’m not pecking on this thing. I kept thinking that it could not possibly hold together and yet somehow it never fails. The Akhmatova poems are a really nice touch and Valente does a great job of just letting the siege be terrible. The preliminary stuff I read made the book kind of seem like something it’s not. There’s a kind of promise of some kind of moral–so and so is good, so and so is bad, so and so must be taught a lesson. But it’s not like that at all.

So, here’s something wild. The Butcher came home from work. I told him about losing my contact and he went right into the bathroom and found it.

He saved the day.

Maybe he should be in Valente’s next book–the man who can find lost contacts and save you hundreds of dollars! It doesn’t seem like much of a skill but I bet some of you are already imagining the circumstances in which you could make use of him.

See?! This is What I Mean

It’s not even going to be that big a pain to cut down into burnable size. It wasn’t a very old tree, even if it was pretty tall. So, it’s like we’re having a bout of okay bad luck. I’m ready for it to be over. I’ll admit, before lunch, I was feeling a little weepy and overwhelmed. But I’ve had a chocolate chip cookie and taken something for my headache and I’m feeling better.

I spent last night reading Catherynne Valente’s Deathless and it’s really stunning. I can see why people who read me read her. I think our styles are very different and I have about one hundred billion questions just about how she chooses to put words together and her writing process in general, but, yeah, I also felt like there might be a similar sensibility, too.

I wonder how hard it would be to get a hold of her and ask her some questions…

Can I tell you, as I looked for my contact this morning, right where it must have fallen, only to find that it wasn’t there, I actually did wonder if I’d been cursed by someone inept or if I’d managed to annoy a house elf or what. I do think it’s just the way it is, that you flounder for reasons things happen. I hope these aren’t signs, because I sure as fuck don’t know what they mean.

But I also am kind of weirded out and very grateful that they haven’t been that bad, knock on wood.

But I don’t know how much more I can take and have a sense of humor about. And I hope it’s no one’s goal to see.

I Have Been Cursed by Someone Inept

People, for some reason, my hair smells like stale pee. I can’t locate the portion of my head that fate fucking peed on, but believe me, the smell is real and I can attest the peeing on has happened.

Let us just start with this morning, when I woke up to a painful and weird looking zit on my eyelid. I tried to poke at it, ended up poking myself in the eye and, flooop, there went my contact out of my eye and into the ether. I looked on my face, in my hair, on my sweater, down my shirt, on the sink, under the sink, all over the floor. That fucker just flew out of my eye and vanished.

Luckily, I still have my old contacts, so I just popped my old left one in, but I was like “What the fuck, peeing hand of fate?!” Peeing penis of fate. Fuck if I know what fate pisses on you with, but something.

So, last night, I get home from work, and I think “We don’t have a line of evergreen bushes running from the shed to the hammocks.” And we don’t, but I guess the peeing penis of fate decided to see what it would look like if we did and so it blew over the cedar. And don’t even get me fucking started on intelligent design, because you know what’s not an intelligent design? To have a 40-foot tall anything with roots that are less than six inches deep. Who approved that blueprint?

“Oh, we’ll put it in rocky areas with shallow soil; no dumbasses will ever put it in their yard.”

“Um, are we designing any dumbasses?”

“No, that wouldn’t be intelligent.”

But the cedar came down in just the best possible way it could have. It didn’t hit any other trees. It didn’t hit the patio table. It fell right into the firepit. So, as far as having a gigantic tree fall in your back yard? Eh, well, it could have been worse.

And we still have no cable or internet at the house.

But other people don’t have power. So, I feel like I should just count myself lucky and stop complaining. But ugh, still.