dead

slim doesn't cotton to no fancified conversations during the afternoon drive time.

prefers to take 'er easy, kicking it in the backseat booster, reading the latest roald dahl. attempts at conversation are met with a slow, nasal silence.

i've learned to accept this and enjoy her companionable quietitude. listen to my tunes. you know. imagine my surprise when

she pipes- "wow. that's a really hard decision."

me- "huh?"

slim- "would you rather be dead and never have done all the things that you want or be alive and not have anything you want to do? i hate that decision."

a philosophical discourse spurred by they might be giants.

me- "maybe the trick is to figure out what you want to do while you're alive and do it then."

she ponders.

"no. the question is if you have to pick ONE, which do you go for?"

me- "i'll take being alive over dead anytime. so i guess i pick that one, even with nothing i want to do."

slim- "yeah. that's the thing about being dead. it makes it so hard to be alive."

amen.

lord help me, i loves the festival of light

booze may make you popular and heal all wounds*, but the chanukah mini van will win lifelong friends and admirers.

"never heard of it!" you pooh pooh in your snarkiest voice. 'i don't believe in the chanukah van."

poor deluded rejected readers. let me paint it out for you, as i saw it with my own eyes, just yesterday, heading south on laurel canyon in hollywood.

silver. shiny. a chrysler town & country customized mini. probably an '03. and atop? a menorah standing at least five full feet high. replete with eight shining candles lit with brilliant 500 mega watt brightness. blue tinsel and a sparlking cursive message-

"HAPPY CHANUKAH!! CHABAT!!!"

the chanukah van is real, my friends. it isn't owned by a coproration. it isn't advertising anything. it isn't searching for material gain.

it's really just a family with some extra cash, a working knowledge of electricly rigging up a vehicle, a love of judaism, and a desire to spread joy.

all i can say is l'chaim!

and where the hell is my kwanza story?

*quoted from mst3k

merry crap for crap

it was steinbeck, or maybe sideshow bob who said-
"childhood gods fall the hardest."

the thing i liked best about david was everything.

he took me to see "alien" when i was the tiniest wisp of a girl. we spent days impersonating the mutant baby busting outta the guy's belly, adding "meep meep" roadrunner sound for emphasis. my mom was mortified.

while playing 'life', if i would say something random, like "you make money, you lose money, everywhere you go today", he would grab his guitar and turn it into a growling rock anthem.

when the three of us walked down the street, i was always in the middle holding both of their hands. sometimes they would swing me.

my eigth christmas, the kids had started floating the old 'santa be all made up and shit' rumour. and, though i didn't want to believe it, well, it made sense cuz, c'mon, a fat man in a red suit, flying over hollywood boulevard with a heaping sack 'o gifts? it is kind-of an unweildy proposition.

it was on this cusp of non-belief that i awakened, bleary eyed, and stumbled down the hall. smush. my slippered foot steppped on a smelly pile of crap. which was weird since we didn't have a dog.

i yelled for my mom and david. they surveyed the dung. wide eyed. awestruck. "holy shit" said david. "it's santa's reindeer. they took a dump in our living room."

holy jesus fucking christ. here was definitive proof of santa. not starflowers and moonbeams. but real steaming bodily proof. i went through the apartment and sure enough, there were tiny reindeer tracks and a huge 'dancerella' doll under the tree.

that bit of magic shored up my belief in santa for years. i defended him to the naysayers. i converted the fence sitters back to the side of wonder. it was a beautiful thing.

a year after he moved to london, i was looking for something in the medicine cabinet, and found the 'realistic' pile of plastic poo that he used as the deux ex machina of 'operation keep santa alive!'

i cried. not because i felt tricked or duped. but because david made everything sparkle. he made me believe.

now he was gone, and all i had left was an old lump of crap.

farenheit 451

if that's the required temp, then fire me up. i'll stoke the oven, open it's greedy burning maw and throw the fucker in.

normally, my small, wordy friend sits in the passenger seat. bursting with life and love and all kinds of deliciousness. begging me to open it up. i tell it to wait, we're almost there.

then, i scoop it up, and set it on the comfy seat, with its own table, while i order coffee. we spend the next hour eagerly sharing secrets. it tells it's story. i reward it with underlined passages and coos, and nods of recognition. 'i get you. i care about this. oh my god, that's hot!'

but this goddamned thing... it mocks me. i stare at its hateful cover and spit at it while i drive. because it is supposed to be all terrific and life changing, but really it's just confusing and oblique and it makes me feel stupid. plus, people keep turning into spiders and the guy's wife's a trashy whore (not the good kind).

if i weren't stubborn in the most ridiculous, retarded way ever, i'd just throw this rancid fish back in the la river. but i can't do it. i can't let it beat me. so i will read on. i will put my head down, and plow through, and curse my bad luck for ever reeling it in to begin with.

stupid nabokov.

i'm glad he's dead.

cherry pie (not warrant style)

my local coffee shop can normally be counted on for good, carb filled, diabetic coma inducing sugary breakfast products. cinamon rolls, chocolate croissants, apple danishes et all. but, this morning, something surprising was in the offing.

THE CHERRY BURRITO

uh wah? now this is all wrong. it's like two great things that when melded together, cojure up images of blech.
like a streusal top meat loaf. or a butter pecan tuna melt. whose ever gonna buy a miscreant product with a name like this?

i ask to inspect said 'burrito' and find it to be delightful. not filled with beans or salsa, but juicy ripe cherries in a light sugar reduction wrapped around a flaky, elongated pie type crust.

"mmm" methinks "give this sucker a better name and it'll sell millions. millions! then i'll take over the world!" don't ask how i intend to take over the world on peets revenues, it doesn't matter.

i brainstormed, with the staff, and here's some new names we came up with:

SWEET CHERRY WAND

BUTTERY CHERRY STICK

CHERRY SHAFT

THE 'GLAZE MY CHERRY' SUGAR PIPE

These are good, damn good, but i think we can do better.

anyone?

all day sucker

five years ago, i would’ve been mortified, shamefaced. i would’ve protested- “no, really, i’m dark and brooding. hip, deep, edgy.”

"Congratulations! You're the eternal optimist, a regular "Sunshine Day" of a person. When it rains, you think about how good the water is for the flowers and trees rather than how wet you're getting."

ten years ago, I would’ve had no choice but to take a hacksaw to my wrists on general principal.

“ Sure, that opens you up for a few let-downs, but that's okay — your great attitude will help you deal with them if and when they come. In the long run, it doesn't really matter at all; everything's going to be all right!”

throughout high school and college, there was nothing worse than to be deemed one of the ‘shiny, happy, people.” it was the death of intellectual cred. the folks who listened to velvet underground and read bukowski and watched jim jarmush films (stuff i like) were ironic, sarcastic, holding a deep boredom and disdain for the banality and petty chicanery of life.

to be surprised or awed or exuberant was the mark of a sucker. A rube. A dupe. And who wants that?

“You like meeting new people and thoroughly enjoy their companionship. More likely to trust someone than not, you always see the good in people.”

i believed that my heart, with its refusal to grow a protective coating, belied a shallow soul. the soul of a cheerful monkey, devoid of meaningful thought or reflection.

my heart- easily squished, easily mended, easily surprised. apt to stop on a dime or go racing after butterflies on a penny.

it knows that life is full of crass casualty, dicing time, random brutality, doom, chaos, and puppy stranglers.

it also knows that once a boy stroked my face, eyes filled with something akin to wonder, while saying- “we’re naked, j.” and we truly were.

that there was a night when a friend did a hand puppet show so funny, I laughed until I cried and then past that ‘till I peed.

there is a toddler who said- “don’t be sad about your daddy. I’ll lift you up to the sky so you can see him.”

there is the smell of new plastic pool toys and the taste of honey on fingertips.

right now, something incredibly fucking gorgeous is colliding with its evil twin. right now, there’s a steaming pile of crap with a grundle of white truffles growing happily in its fetid warmth.

right now, I’m alive.

“You learn from your mistakes and do your best to make everyone around you happy to be alive. Keep it up! "

the gods of ‘tickle’s personality test” have spoken. it’s official.

I’m a sucker.

An all day sucker.

Lick me.

it isn't mine

catherine runs her hand from the kitty's head, lightly down along its spine. going with the grain of fur rather than against it. the casual assurance of someone used to petting stuffed animals.

"is this your kitten?" she asks.

slim smiles, the big girl.

"yes. her name is cutie diamond."

catherine lets her hand gracefully fall on slim's head. gently runs fingers though her baby fine hair while they chat.

"i bet you take very good care of her."

"i just brushed her, now we're going to the park."

i take a small step backwards. to let them have this small moment in time. this lovely, normal bit of patter between a slender young woman with honey wheat hair, wearing a sage courderoy jacket, and a slender little girl holding a stuffed calico.

because it's all that i have in my power to give her. a tiny respite. because i can't turn back time, like superman, and stop the earth from shattering. because, in real life, even superman couldn't turn back time and stop his own world shattering. because she is a mother without her boy.

i don't offer the hollow strains of 'he's in a better place' or 'everything happens for a reason.' because those words are bitter to me. i'm afraid to speak. afraid to catch her eye. afraid i'll burst into tears. and she deserves better than my tears on a random tuesday. she deserves so much better.

catherine glances at me. (i want to cuddle slim up into my arms, like a baby. hug her too tight.) i try to give catherine a smile of love that is much bigger than pity. but it's all wrong. because i'm biting the inside of my lip hard enough to draw blood.

"you look so pretty in that jacket." i manage.

"thanks" she says 'it isn't mine."