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Coda for Crackberry

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One beautiful thing about living on the leftist coast is when CNN re-runs the SOTU, you can catch it without staying up too late. So, you get the NPR newsjunkie radio report in the car, the post-game on MSNBC and CNN, and then get to watch it.

That way, you get nuance. Nuance like Cheney’s tie is a study in TV/Film 101 no-nos. Some patterns vibrate on the old persistence of vision TV screen.

And, yeah, why does Condi look so damn pissed off? Hasn’t cracked one little, wee, slight smile and shown any of her signature gapped enamel.

I love the subway diving hero guy. Not least because his kid was chilling out and napping as the president was announcing him.

Mostly, and maybe I caught this ‘cuz I work in a place that’s wired and gadgeted and not far from the Capitol Hill vibe spiritually (and practically), I dug the navel gazing. But, it’s modern age, new millenium techno gazing, not simple staring. Nope, no doubt that downward stare into many senatorial and congressional laps was a stare I have seen in many a meeting — Playing with a Blackberry device. I gotta believe Teddy K. is a Crackberry addict and not that enamored of his own crotch vicinity.

Aww, nicey nice

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Yay, GW, for not choking on the tribute to Nancy Pelosi. I know it must have killed you inside, big guy, inside deep like where boys hide their tears.

It fucking kills me that a huge chunk of the post-game on the State of the Union is how well Bush did. Yup, it’s all good and well done, if the main quality you expect from a leader is just ridiculous piles of rhetorical crap.

If you’re rocking trillions in debt, trillions you fucking caused after inheriting a surplus, how can you start leading into the thing with “…To extend this nation’s prosperity … to spend the people’s money wisely … to solve problems, not leave them to future generations …” Come on, Big President Dude, you mortgaged it all.

I swear to GOD, Dick Cheney smirked, like, “Yeah, right,” when the pres said he’d cut the deficit without raising taxes.

I will give Bush a true A+++ on his stunning ability to stay on course on conflating Iraq, Afghanistan and terrorism. And, for keeping the whole 9/11 thing alive. How long can you milk that? Oh, right, pretty much eight years, it looks like.

Yep, Iraq was going to kill us, we did what we had to do. Despite all evidence to the contrary. Now we’re in it, we’re staying, because nothing says “success” like desperate floundering, civil war and angry martyrs. Oh, and dead kids in the military.

Other than that, it’s great to see old Nancy presiding. But, I feel kind of bad for her. Sitting there next to Cheney must kind of suck. And, now, she knows she’s on camera the whole time, right there peeking over a presidential left shoulder. So, you know, she’s thinking about baseball or something so she ain’t fidgeting and throwing him the bird behind his head.

She’s great at counterpoint clapping, though. Rock on, Nancy.

It's a wonder

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Sometimes I ponder my employment and I can’t help but think, “Jesus, it’s amazing I got one of them J-O-B thangs.”

I’m all shook up, worried, gnawing at myself, because I have a staff meeting in the morning. I mean, what the fuck do these people want from me, ‘specting me to get up all sunshiney early and BE THERE by 8 fucking 30 in the a.m. 8:30 in the morning, how dare they?

Shit, some mornings I don’t get up til 8:25 a.m., and tomorrow I got to be there 5 minutes later. As though I can rise, shower and drive 30 miles in minutes. I ain’t no friggen superhero.

I’ll never trust morning people. Early to bed early to rise, means you don’t fuck know how to party. You’d think we were farming, not like meeting about saving the world and shit.

Coming attractions

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I hope to get my shit together and my mojo up enough to upload some pics of the new neighborhood and new place.

I might even write about what I decided to call my buddha face. It has to do with the circular scratch on my left cheek bone that looks like someone cuffed me. I was abused not by man but by deity and a pointy deity hat.

Fucking Buddha.

I think M. is looking to explore some and put down some roots in this place. San Jose was more like transitional housing.

Hey world, find an orifice and go

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I’m feeling all up in the “fuck you” action.

I finally got and activated the ATM card for my new bank account. So I wrote a mighty big check to myself from my assholic Bank of America soon to be bank account that was. Over the past few months, I’ve been taking cash out and spreading it around. But, now, with a new checking account and all of the checking accoutrement, I’m done.

Adios and suck my ass, Bank of America. Take your fees, take your mind-blowingly bad customer service and your good old mega-conglomerate ways and fuck off.

And, Nicky, boy. Oh Nicky. I’m going to ask for volunteers in your final fuck off. Now it’s just a little bit of build up to the main event.

In today’s episode, for some unfathomable reason he called M.’s old boss and chatted him up. The unfathomable part isn’t that he called the old place of work, because disorganized old men getting a number wrong, ain’t exactly news.

No, the part that’s on the uncomprehensible side is why he talked with the guy. He stopped and chatted enough to lie to him about needing to get in touch with M., because we hadn’t given him proper notice to vacate the premises. Um, what the fuck, Nick?

How fucking inappropriate is telling a stranger that there’s some kind of financial issue. Let alone making up shit and selling it to create a non-existent issue.

M. called him and called him on it. Um, right, you got the letter didn’t you, bad boy?

He offered M. a good deal, if we move out right away, and he gets a new tenant right away, he’ll pro-rate for us and we only have to pay until the new tenants start. Hey, old man, that’s the fucking law, not let’s make a deal.

You know what else, old man, we’re staying until the date we said, because time is money to us. Guess what, the law is totally hip to our thinking.

What I think though, apart from wanting to make book that the placid M. freaks out on Nick before it’s all said and done, is that I need to hold the first ever, invitational, let’s all screw with Nick’s head open.

If you got any good ideas on how we can mess with an old man as we wave goodbye, give me your best shot in the comments section.

(Anything all psycho and fecal, though, man, I don’t want to know about that sick shit (no pun).)

Creeping evil

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Don’t know if it’s national, but locally Cali makes landlords tell you about Megan’s Law and direct you to the website at www.meganslaw.ca.gov. Pretty straightforward, and I got curious.

Only, first I typed www.meganslaw.com, which is also a website. One where they charge you some dough to get a report on sex offenders in your neighborhood. Pay $10 and you get what is out there for free, by law. And they phish for your email address.

Who wants to make money that fucking way? Ew. Very icky.

Counting the days

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M.’s taken to stalking our new digs. He ostensibly went for a run yesterday, but at some point ended up parking on the new street and walking to that Trader Joe’s.

We’re both chomping at the bit to get the hell out of Dodge. Nick hanging around today, as seems to be the case whenever I have a long weekend, is kind of driving the desire home, as it were.

Jesus, Nick, just let me have an unbalanced load of laundry in the little laundry room in fucking peace. We don’t need to go through each item speculating the automatic mass of each sweatshirt, its absorptive properties, its bulk, its tendency to shift in the universe to figure out why your piece of shit dryer is rattling.

Best quote, “Oh, see that, they call those ‘Turkish.’ [Pointing to an actually very plain white towel, possibly one I stole from a mid-range hotel chain.] Yeah, those kind of towels hold water. Absorb water.” Um, dude, we bought the towels to dry shit. We fucking want them to absorb water for christ’s sake.

It’s not that bad a place, and I can’t blame him for the neighborhood’s decline. But, for fuck’s sake, I can’t figure out why he makes every mundane situation so goddamn painful.

But, M. and I together are amassing quite the list of “You might be a slumlord if…” jokes.

My fav Nick fix in that vein these days is in said laundry room. The door to the little hut had a little country window with a little country curtain. Cute. But, in Nick’s vigilant and vigilante fear of the changing ‘hood, the glass clearly was a temptation to ne’er-do-wells and the dreaded minorities. A crime beacon.

Many people might take off the door with the cute little window and slap up a whole new door. Not our hero. Nope, why spend that, what $150 at Home Depot, when you’re handy with the tools? What you do is take a hunk of not quite square, rough hewn scrap wood, don’t bother cutting it to size to fit in the window slot or anything. Now, slap that over the window, and hammer away. Paint it a similar color and you’re good to go.

The two details I love best — The curtain still remains on the interior, and the board didn’t quite fit, so maybe the door knob didn’t turn. At least I’m guessing by the whittled curve around the knob’s circumference.

Who's making your pie?

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I’m mildly obsessed with the kid from Missouri that they found after disappearing four years ago when he was 10 or 11. How fucked up must it be to be living that kid’s life.

My obsession, though, is on kind of a side note. And, that note is not that the alleged fuckwad perpetrator, likely pedophile, shares a family name with my fam. Nope that’s kind just the fun part.

My obsession is on the angle CNN seems to be taking, more in its broadcast teases than online. The whole disbelief that this pizza guy/mortician helper could do it drama I get. Like he could be a dickwad over parking spaces not a kidnapper.

OK, got it, classic fucked up dude next door quotes. Ted Bundy helped shovel snow, Jeffrey Dahmer was polite, yada. That angle on CNN is classic (or hackneyed). But they keep ominously dropping in phrases like, “And, none of his neighbors questioned who was living at his apartment…”

Um, what? From now on, anyone moves in with a teenager or younger, I’m assuming pervert. I think that’s what CNN wants. If he don’t never bring home a pizza, my hypothetical neighbor, I’m fucking calling the SVU squad. We are all fucked up pervs lusting in pedophiliac fugue states waiting for our moment to nab a kid of our very own.

I totally dig it taking a village. I’m psyched to be moving to a neighborhood where there might even be folks who act neighborly and shit. And, hell yeah, I hope if I hear some crazy ass shit going on next door, I don’t act as courageously as Kitty Genovese’s ‘hood.

But, pretty much, I can’t be living ever so suspicious 24/7. I mean, I can hate people all day long, but I just can’t be assuming they’re completely fucked up creeps.

By the way, what the fuck kind of part time job mix is that–making pizzas and answering phones for dead people, or whatever you do as a phone operator at a funeral home? (I never paused to think of mortuaries as high volume enough to need phone answering as a specialized task.) I got friends (I swear I do) who mix up avocation, vocation, part-time gigs, full-time gigs, and all sorts of odd jobs. But pizza and death seem so incongruous.

Satisfaction

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The buzz at the place that pays the bills is the results of a survey on disgruntlement. ‘Course, they don’t call it that.

All in all, though, I’ve been through desert and pestilence and political wars and reorganizations. Petit and petty bureaucrats. Thefts, lies, adultery and a vague sense of malfeasance. By now a bad job that I would report on a survey as a bad job might involve demons and regular hot pokers in places I don’t want poked.

But, not so for some of my co-workers, it would seem.

Reminded me of a kind of classic compare and contrast of the current job and the one before that. In seven years at the old digs, I got three gifts from my boss. The first was a McDonald’s promo digital clock that tied in with some cartoon, maybe “Ants” or “A Bug’s Life.”

The second was after becoming the bosslady — She called me into the office and asked my advice on the protocol for her needing to get something for the admin staff that now reported to her. A chore. She sent me down the street to buy small, gift boxes of Godiva chocolates for one tier of support and gift cards at the bookstore for the next level. She told me to keep one of each for myself.

The third was what the kids might call a “Benjamin.” Crisp, green and foldable inside a card thanking me for keeping shit together that was clearly falling apart. I believe it to have been sincerely given that bit of currency. It felt a bit like a payoff.

In less than two years, I’ve been fortunate and my expectations from that past wildly exceeded. Cool stuff from world travels, and thoughtful gifts that truly seemed to have been considered with care and attention to the recipient. I have to put up some pics of the kickass Timbuk2 messenger bag I decided to customize myself.

Not to mention the annual bonus for all employees, unlike the competitive and politically charged bonuses I had been given a couple times in the past gig.

It is work. But for the survey, my answer would have to be that the suckitude is manageable.

Not nostalgic at all

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Here’s what I won’t miss, won’t miss one bit:

    Nick
    Electricity going out, a lot
    Commuting
    Teenagers in the carport when I get home
    Illegally parked cars in the carport when I get home
    Heating that makes too much noise and feels like a car heater in an old beater — Two speeds, sweltering or off
    Waiting 10 minutes for the hot water to be hot
    Cold showers when I can’t wait 10 minutes first
    Scalding from when the hot water kicks in, hard and hot, but not in a good way
    Layers of mildew from almost no ventilation in either bathroom, even with a window
    Being told by Nick I have to keep the window all the way open in the shower, regardless of the outdoor temperature
    Two burners on the stove you have to jiggle and push before they fire up
    Cold spots on the stove
    Setting the smoke alarm off while taking a shower
    Setting the fire alarm off while cooking anything in the oven
    Setting the fire alarm off while making toast
    Random alarm noises
    Duct tape holding up a shelf in the refrigerator
    Having no little welcoming light in the refrigerator
    Fucking sink strainers — Nick loves thesestrainer
    He threw away the normal one
    Cheap hair trap annoying plastic things for the shower (also another of Nick’s loves)
    No dishwasher (just a plywood repair in the cabinet, like a ghost of the washer that once was)
    A working garbage disposal we’ve been warned not to use for various forms of, um, garbage
    Neighbors yelling at each other
    The crazy old lady across the street who freaked and claimed I hit her car while un-parallel parking
    Only one official parking space (in the new place we get a two-car private carport, woohoo)
    Strip malls, lots and lots of strip malls
    The weird sobbing child I can hear from one of the other apartments and that goes on and on.

I’ll miss the heat in summer. M. won’t. At all.

I’ll miss thinking of Dionne Warwick every time I tell someone where I live.

I’ll miss hating on Nick, because I’m an asshole.

I’ll miss some of the diversity.

I’ll miss the huge amount of space we currently waste.

I’ll miss that it was M.’s and my first place together in California. An experiment that has seemed to work.