Attack! of the Killer Weblog

If you're an avid listener of public radio (and WHO ISN'T?), doubtless you've heard about the Horrendous Heat Wave carrying on in the South and Midwest. Seeing as how I live in one or the other of those regions (ostensibly), I decided to put on my Intrepid Reporter Hat and collect the thoughts of some diverse individuals. I'd like to share.

HOW HOT IS IT?

* My garden died!

* My dog's shit don't steam when it hits the ground!

* I drank some water and gave a steam bath to the guy next to me!

* I carry a 40-gallon drum of Gatorade in the truck!

* My pencil won't write! (Don't know what that has to do with anything really.)

* I can't tell the difference between my linoleum and curly fries!

* I cooked a pizza on the pavement! And it was delicious.

* I put coolant in my car and it came back three lemons!

* I saw a bird blow up in midair!

* I'm on my fifth work shirt today!

* I drank an ice cream cone last night!

* I opened my oven to cool off the house enough to use the air conditioner!

* I no longer believe in an endothermic Hell!

Posted by mb at 6:56 PM | Permalink

He's on the back of the couch now, pretending to be very sleepy because he knows how cute he is that way--and the cuter he is, the less likely I am to murder him with a dulled hatchet.

I don't know how he knows this. All cats seem to know this. Well, all the ones that are still alive, anyway.

Every morning for the last couple weeks, we've been having this little struggle, Jack and I. I will be attempting to use my laptop. Jack will be attempting to destroy my laptop.

The first time, all he did was turn off the touchpad, by jumping on the keyboard exactly right. I managed to fix that one. After several angry shouts and threats and exhortations.

Next, he turned the Alt key on. Permanently. That, I just rebooted, and it worked again.

Yesterday he leaped for my throat, landing on it with all claws out, and jumped backward straight into the screen, knocking it flat. I thought I was going to kill him, and I may have, if I'd been able to catch him.

This morning.

The carnage.

Now, my laptop is the most expensive thing I own, the thing I spent the most money on barring my former car, and I love its sleek shiny futuristicness. Its whirring, its silver case, its glowing blue lights. It is a happy machine. It does not deserve anything but the gentlest of treatment.

Jack attacked.

The 2 key is broken.

Fortunately it looks like it's just popped off. But when I saw that he'd managed to hook his claws up and under it, and flip it off its base, I thought I'd bust a vein. Mostly on Jack's head.

I think my original theory on this cat is more true than I'd intended ... he's too cute to live.

Posted by mb at 6:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

For months, and I do mean months, I've been in hiding. Work stresses, people stresses, sick cat, and car trouble all added up to me thinking no one wanted to hear about it, and I was just so sick of talking about it. Had no energy for anything, anyway, I quit writing. I quit drawing. Just gradually everything I enjoyed doing fell away from me. I lost a lot of weight, not meaning to, and on someone who was almost too skinny anyway, dropping 40 pounds, not such a great thing. I wasn't sleeping either. Just spent all my time huddled on the couch, wishing the whole stinking mess would leave me alone, already.

And now I am uncurled, cleaned up, re-emerging. Suddenly I am full of boisterous energy, but since my routine and discipline fell to crap over the last year, I feel like I'm just all over the place. Last summer I was out exercising, walking five miles a day in the blistering heat, but my walking partner isn't around anymore, and I cannot tell you how depressing it is for me to even drive by where that trail we walked starts. I want to be out having Fun, and am not sure where this Fun is to be had.

I'm told that I need to get a hobby to keep myself from being an automaton who eatsleepworks. Or a pastime. I have hobbies, my friends, hobbies like you wouldn't believe. So that leaves a pastime. Something to get into. Something to be avid about.

I never was any good at coming up with that kind of stuff. Sigh.

Posted by mb at 7:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I came home from work last night anticipating a fun night out with friends (a new nightclub, a real live nightclub, opened here in town last night), and just as I walked in the door, the phone rang. Thought it might be the people we were headed out with last night, so I picked up, all eagerness.

This is where I start thinking caller ID might be a wise investment.

"Hi, I'm a reporter with the local paper, wondered if you could talk to me about something."

And this requires a little filling in.

Three months ago, a good friend of mine went missing. He left his car, his wallet, his clothes, everything but his keys and his cell phone, and took off. I filed a police report that night, and spent several weeks alternately furious and horrified. All of us have been. A private investigator found his phone, keys, and glasses on the Mississippi River bridge a few weeks ago, and so we are not thinking this story has a happy ending.

And now the local paper's caught wind of it. And they're asking me all sorts of questions about him. I'm glad to help, because he was a friend, and it feels like the least I can do. Because God knows what they'd print about him otherwise.

I am dreading the story. Dreading it. Because this makes it real. This takes it from some private thing that only a select group of us have been teeth-gnashing over, to a fifth-page entry with a fuzzy photograph and a misspelling of his middle name.

It hurts. I think it will pretty much always hurt. Driving past the trail where we walked last summer. Listening to one of his favorite songs on Guitar Hero. Wanting to pick up the phone to share good news and being halfway through dialing his number before remembering. It is the kind of thing I can't get my head around very easily. It's too weird. I used to love watching those hour-long dramas about missing persons. It isn't like that in real life, I can tell you that. When a missing person does not want to be found, he'll make sure he isn't found.

Posted by mb at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

During my lunch break today, I was home exactly long enough to grab the mail and toss it onto the table. The top envelope was a crumpled sase that was depressingly thick. My only thought was, Man, I'm glad I got another job before the rejections started showing up. Didn't even open it--didn't want to get all depressed and have to go back to work.

See, while I was out of work last week, I spent a lot of time sending out resumes, a lot of time relaxing with people close to me, and some time sending out poetry that I thought had no chance in hell of ever seeing publication. It was something to do, you see, to cheer me up and make me feel like I'm part of the writing community (whatever that is), during what was unabashedly not-fun, as weeks go.

And when I got home from work tonight, I plucked up the courage and slitted open said envelope with my chickenscratch across the back.

I read the first letter, skipping over the sad little salutation I was so sure was there, and suddenly was very confused.

Instead of "Slag off, you no-talent wanker hack," it was all, "Sign the enclosed release! Both of them! We like this stuff! Except the one poem, it's too long for us."

Imagine, me, writing a poem that's too long.

So one's slated for the next issue, and one for the issue after that. Beside myself? Hardly. But happy? Oh my yes. And best of all. Reaffirmed.

Looks like I have a fighting chance after all.

EDIT ... So it's Fighting Chance Magazine, a totally print publication I had never heard of, which are my favorite kind. Discovery, the thrill of pillaging virgin territory, drinking from the skull of your military captain who balked when you ate that guy's brain (what was the problem? Not like he was using it)--that's what drives me. Here's the address and payment info. Be ye warned, my promotion is self-ful, and shameless.

Suzerian Enterprises
P.O. Box 60336
Worcester, MA 01606

Back issues $4, current issues $4, one year/three copies subscription $12.

Posted by mb at 7:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"Hey guys! Hey! Hey! Whatcha DOOOOOIN!"

"Hello ... "

"I've got this GREAT thing, GOTTA show you! Isn't it NEAT!? So long and thin and whippy, and it keeps trying to get away from me but I'm too crafty for it!" WHAM! "Yip!"

I love having a kitten.

Posted by mb at 8:50 PM | Permalink

I'm looking around the room and see the following things, from left to right.

Jack the kitten, cozied up on top of a pile of throw pillows.

An almost-empty bookcase, ready to move once we are.

The Venture brothers.

The answering machine, blinking light indicative of a decent social calendar.

A telescope and a rock tumbler. Nurds live here.

A basket of yarn and a bag of yarn.

Yeah, I have a lot of yarn.

Posted by mb at 8:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)