The stink of mortality
Today Deron took me to the dump, where he and I heaved out a Jeepful of my late mother’s detritus as a thousand gulls swirled about us.
I’m going back
to Texas tomorrow, y’all. For a week, anyways.
Big party on Dutton Drive. The last waltz. The final hurrah.
“Hey, my mom’s not at home. You wanna come over?”
For the Newbies
As I approach my third anniversary with y’all (still a little more than a month away), I thought I might offer the newer members a trip down my memory lane. Deron has many times queried Sheila for helps and hints on fashion. I’m not sure, but my comment, buried here, may have been my first appearance.
I Should Kick Myself
The entry into the garage. We had new siding put on the house three…four? years ago. At the time, they also put in new garage doors with openers, new windows in the media room (a 10′x25′ room on the south side of the house). Why I didn’t include this door in the deal is a mystery to me. I remember thinking, “Ooo, this is too much money.” But, honestly, what would another three or four hundred dollars have done to the loan, lien on the house over the course of fifteen years?
Nevermind the decaying concrete ruined by ten years of throwing “snow-melt” on top of it, that now needs to be ripped out and replaced. “All in good time,” I keep thinking. “All in good time.” And then there’s the landscaping. Oh, fuck it. The shoemaker’s kids go without shoes.
dear clusterflock
Is it only the internal compass that points true north?
For Andrew (ala Sheila)
Thinking about grief, thinking about my brother.
Tuesday, February 16 | To Do
*Bank: 1) Deposit (cashier’s checks?); 2) Wire transfer approval; 3) Safe deposit box (ID, death certificate)
*Shark tunnel
Largely why I was hated in high school
Phil once asked somthing like “is there a photo of yourself you wouldn’t show someone?” This would be it, if I were showing it. The dude on the left was my neighbor to the north of our house in the background. We shared a driveway.
All Things Must Pass
It’s an I Ching thing.
Dear clusterflock
What will be your epitaph?
Fun facts about special sauce
As John Hodgman would say, more information than you require:
Click to embiggen
Welcoming party
My first night in Paris. Across the street from my hotel for the week. True to almost all my urban travels, I imagine most of my cash will be spent at concerts — not restaurants, or tours for tourists, or even museum entrance fees (despite my intention to visit several).
When you’re alone away from home, where does your money go?
My cat’s life is good
She can be feral, and then she can retreat indoors when the going gets rough.
She’s got a sweet sweet life. She gets to be a wild animal, then come indoors and be fed and petted and loved.
Handcuffed man steals Rockford police car
The suspect sneaked into the front seat of the uncaged vehicle while two officers were outside the car going over details of the man’s arrest, police said. The man was handcuffed from the back, but was able to get the cuffs in front of his body to drive the car.
Police followed the man on Interstate 90 and were able to get him to stop as he attempted to take the Division Street [Chicago] exit off the Kennedy Expressway.
from the comments
I own stuff I wish I didn’t and resist owning stuff that I love.
Oh, Phil! Yes. I intend to change that equation, soon.
Both serve impressive pommes frites
This is not to diminish the thoughtful criticism that is often lobbed at McDonald’s. Many accuse the fast-food chain of enslaving diners with precision-engineered, high-fat, high-salt food that is nearly drug-like in its power to induce a delirious, short-lived “high”, followed by an uncontrollable desire for more. It is just that this pretty much describes the food at the French Laundry, too, just at a considerably higher personal financial cost.
from the department of typos
Have succeeded in building strong partnerships with beers…
Submitted to my manager as part of my annual performance review.
the first legal male prostitute
I think for a male, if you want to be successful in this type of venture, you’re not a prostitute. You’re a surrogate lover. You encompass everything that’s required of you—not only emotionally, physically—but psychologically. Because women are wired differently. They’re much more sensitive creatures. You actually have to enjoy what you do. You can’t necessarily say, “Oh, it’s just a job.” You actually have to say it’s a passion. I think it’s the same situation as with anything that happens when you break apart a social institution. There has to be some kind of change in terminology to describe persons like myself. And it’s more of a civil rights thing now. Basically this is the first time in the economy of the United States that a male has actually stood up and said, “I want to do this for a living.” And be protected under law to do it. It’s just the same as when Rosa Parks decided to sit at the front instead of the back. She was proclaiming her rights as a disadvantaged, African-American older woman. And I’m doing the same. I’m actually standing up now, and hopefully I can be supported by the male community and be understood as a person. This actually isn’t about selling my body. This is about changing social norms.
Congratulations.
(via marginal revolution)
dear clusterflock
It is soooooo cold…
Avatar
Was awesome, y’all.
Christmas Memory: bb guns
One Christmas, my brother and I got Daisy bb guns. We wanted them bad. We couldn’t wait to shoot them, but it was mid-winter in Rockford. Daddy set us up a stack of boxes packed with newspaper in the basement with a target stapled to the side. It wasn’t long before we bored of straight shootin’ and opted up for tricks. We went upstairs, stole Mom’s hand-mirror off her vanity, and commenced fancy-shootin’ backwards Annie Oakley style. My brother’s first shot riccocheted off the blocks of the basement wall and hit my brother in the back of his head. Didn’t hurt him. Didn’t break the skin. But how he howled. It stung! We could have put an eye out!
I invite all clusterflockers/readers near and far to tell us a Christmas story over the next few days. It would be the best gift we could give each other.
My Favorite Pit Toilet
Ever. (Tapley Woods. Jo Daviess County, Illinois. US of A.)
And I Quote, “Gazing at breasts makes men healthy.”
Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female, is roughly equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out.
(Via @wilshipley.)
How to buy on eBay
I am continually amazed at how many people incrementally bid up an item they want six days before an auction is over. It’s like watching someone walk around with a switch unknown to him flipped permanently to stupid. It’s easy, really. All it requires is patience, knowing what you want, what it is worth, what you are willing to pay for it, and then, again, and this is the important part — waiting.
“A Tabletop Conjuror, Rediscovered”
Stuart Sherman (1945-2001) doing one of his performance pieces in Battery Park City. (John Matturri.)
Monday’s New York Times featured a review of two current exhibitions devoted to the late Stuart Sherman, concluding with a nod to
the example he sets for young artists now: how to make art that’s about yourself but isn’t, using nothing, or almost nothing, materially speaking; and how to keep making it whether you have an audience or not because you need to stay alive and want to stay awake.
Video here (from “Your Program of Programs,” 1983).