Firstly, one bad thing about the worst part of the allergy season for me and my unemployment combined, I’m physically incapable of donning pants before noon or so. The sun is definitely skidding down the slope by the time I’m clean and panted.

Secondly, I have been hearing weird shit from the direction of (riffing on M. Night and The Village) those who we do not speak of. (Hmmm, I’ll have to see the movie again to determine if they end the sentence with a preposition.) It’s hard to be so public and not have the ability to discuss weirdness freely. Ah well, life as an Internet writing monkey, I suppose.

Thirdly, more blogger carnage. I’m very suprised to see it happening in what may be my future home. Which reminds me, I should ask a certain handsome and buff American about his CEO and blogging.

Finally, I’m gonna go put on some pants.

If no one hears from me in a while, could you check through the shit piles at my manse for the corpse?

My ass is getting kicked hard and long by Mr. Ragweed and his pollen spewing thugs.

Apart from talking on the phone, today was not a banner day for getting shit done.

Maybe I’m just daunted by the overly Calcutta-esque look to my place this week.

Of course, I have the detritus of my past (and future) yard sale(s). On top of that, the power went out several times last night in my neighborhood, so laundry became a deal and a half. It’s a long, boring, sweating in the humidity and irritation creating story that simply wearies me to even consider. Ultimately, I ended up with damp clothes and towels and napkins and sheets and blankets draped over every conceivable surface in my place.

I’m mildly pissed that I can’t find any evidence of last night’s blackout anywhere on the Internet, including the local news sites. I guess the fact that we were all hot and sweaty but not looting, vandalizing and fighting in the dark makes it insignificant. I did threaten the very nice man who owns the convenient store down the street with a looting spree. Instead, he just let me come into his darkened and locked store and buy a coke.

At least it was kind of fun joining others in the neighborhood out on the muggy street watching the guys in the utility company cherry pickers trying to give us light back. Ain’t not much else to do at 11 p.m. in the dog days of summer.

Goddamn am I tired today.

Yesterday, which must of placed among the hottest days this year, M. and I sweated over a yard sale and netted over $400 in cash, credit and checks. That’s about $80 bucks an hour, or $40 each, selling shit I could just as easily thrown out or given to charity for a task deduction.

There’s still plenty of shit to sell to empty this place, so I’m gonna give it a whirl solo next weekend with stronger advertising. Maybe I can con or pay a buddy to join me for the day and supply some bathroom breaks. As I won’t have to drive to the airport later, it could be a mellow day of malt liquor and chatting with friends and neighbors.

At some point, I’ll write scathing shit about assholic folks looking for extraordinary (as in why don’t I just wrap my shit up like a gift and hand it to you for nothing?) bargains. Last time I had a yard sale was in a different, apparently more upscale neighborhood. Those folks could recognize my pricing was generous. Yesterday’s neighborhood people were ruthless and rude.

“Ah, no, fuckhead, I’m not gonna give you that guitar and amp both for $25, which I said would be $50, and I already told you the musicians next door have offered $35 for the amp alone. And, you know what else, shithead? I don’t have to sell you that Nikon camera body that accidentally fell into the 50 cents box for 50 cents. This ain’t Walmart; it’s my fucking yard.”

I hated that guy by the end of the day. He kept coming back, sifting through everything throughout the day, tsk-ing and scolding me and telling me I was wrong and ‘didn’t I know it was a yard sale’ and then not buying anything. Fucking irritating. At the end, I let him buy a portable CD player for 50 cents. Even then he scolded me and kept asking if it worked.

Dude, it’s a fucking yard sale, you just handed me two quarters, caveat fucking emptor already.

The highlights of the sale in no particular order were drop ins by various comic scenesters, getting some good karmic mojo over selling the ex-boy’s wall-hanging to a liberal-ish, multi-culti loving, car-full of mixed raced children, middle-aged Cambridge chick who honestly seemed to love and appreciate it and its origins, and the impromptu jam of my neighbors’ testing the amp in the garage adjacent to my yard, while a heavy-metal dude and his Jamaican girlfriend wandered up to chat, play and try to get my neighbors to resell the guitar and at the same time I discovered and tested my old set of juggling clubs.

M. not only put up with this hard work, he grooved on the unfettered capitalism and bragged on my salesmanship to total strangers.

Summer in the city.

Check out my newest Craig’s List ad and come on down!

YARD SALE, YARD SALE, YARD SALE!

(By the way, only a pretty shitty girlfriend would think this up for the day her man is leaving…)

Last night I suggested bypassing grilling, which had been a steady habit for the week, and get some chinoise up at the classy, real cloth table cloth/no-fake-polynesian-asian-kitsch-bullshit place up the street.

Sitting there, chomping on some duck fried rice, I look up and think about another table “Hey, that woman looks like Mary,” although my brain knows Mary moved to California. I squint and think, “Wait, that’s a baby carrier on one side, and that guy next to her looks just like her husband.”

In fact, it was them with their new 3-month baby and Mary’s bestest friend and former neighbor, who still lives down the street. YAY!

She’s one of the people on the planet, I’m just happy to know. I’m a terrible and lazy friend, but every now and again the planet’s rotation tosses us back into the same place, and we get to catch up more directly than the phone allows.

Cool woman. Pat liked her a lot, too.

Long shadow of Bob Boner Jackson

By the way, here’s another plus for taking off. I saw this spray painted on the apartment building diagonally across from my door:

This was painted on the car out front:

I guess I hope it was someone who knows someone. Either way, not such a stunning example of a warm and welcoming neighborhood.