The Sound of the Ocean

Sometimes you’ve got to blow off work. Sometimes a subtle reason is all you need to stay home. Like bad allergies, or a cold, or no reason at all. Some days were just not meant for writing code in an office without windows. My house is about a quarter-mile away from a back road that gets substantial morning traffic. It’s never congested, but there are frequently cars zipping along, on their way to work. Through the bedroom window, if you’re sleeping in on a weekday, they sound kind of like the ocean as they pass, just not as rhythmic and even. It’s kind of like cheap, miniature vacation ambiance. My allergies are acting up today. Frail, feeble, and failing, I’m in the rare mood to listen to bright smiling music to clear my head and make the most of my stolen day. Misery and commiseration are for work, not for home. As I comb through my CD collection, looking for optimistic music, I become acutely aware of what a depressing person I must be. I guess I need to work on that, not that I have any idea how you “work on” something like that. Oh well, fuck me. I settle on Iggy Pop, The Minutemen, Le Tigre, Jane’s Addiction, and Fugazi. Load up the CD carousel, put it on shuffle, and sit down on the couch with my laptop. The dog is sitting on the kitchen floor, in a bright square of sunshine. It’s her favorite thing to do. She loves to bask like an alligator on a hot rock. The warm sun helps her digest her breakfast, and she loves to nap in it. Today will be a good day despite my allergies, goddammit. Crumpled tissues pile up, all pregnant with snot, and I type and read and sketch, a narcotic joy overtaking me that I never want to end.

Bad Ideas

Bad ideas come into the world on their own. They don’t need anybody’s help. My dog climbs up onto the end tables and chews up things she shouldn’t. She loves it. I’ve never wondered for a moment if she saw another dog do that on TV and got inspired, or if she heard a band sing a song about climbing on tables on the radio, or if one of her friends put the idea in her head while she was out playing. I’m pretty sure she hatched that one all on her own.

Chalupa

The wife and I just got a dog, a Chihuahua. I just wanted a dog. I didn’t care what kind. It didn’t matter to me. She agreed to get a small dog. So we got the smallest kind on god’s green Earth. We got a four pound Chihuahua puppy. It’s fucking adorable, and it needs to wear those goofy little clothes that people like to put on small dogs. Apparently Chihuahuas are so small and have such little body mass that if the temperature drops below 70 degrees Fahrenheit, they’re cold. So they need to wear those embarrassing little dog coats, unless you live on the equator. Pittsburgh isn’t on the equator. Their teeth are also very small and delicate. So they have to eat little dishes of soft processed meat. Somewhere Charles Darwin is rolling over in his grave, spinning like a lathe.

Never Sell

I’ve been showing my paintings for eight years now. In that time, I’ve done about 34 shows. Everybody loves my work. Other artists, gallery owners, the art-viewing public, critics, schizophrenics, drunks, and the homeless all think I’m great. Nobody ever buys my work, though. Nobody wants it in their living room above the couch. I drop it off at the gallery, or ship it to the gallery, and hang out at the opening. I socialize and answer everybody’s questions. I don’t say anything insane, offensive or frightening, which takes some restraint. The show stays up for its predetermined length of time, and at its end, I always have to orchestrate my work’s return. Pick it up or ship it back, apologize to the gallery owner for not making a penny for them the whole time my work was up, and store it away in the garage. My work keeps getting stronger. There can be no doubt that I do it because I love it. It’s for goddamned sure not for the money.

The Lizzie Border B&B

Both my wife and I are atheists. Neither one of us believes in the existence of any gods, an afterlife, reincarnation, ghosts, or the paranormal. We thought we’d test our skepticism by staying at one of the most allegedly haunted attractions in North America. So we stayed a night in the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast in Fall River, Massachusetts. It was the last stop on our Massachusetts exploration, which also included Boston and Salem. Skeptical as we are, we still harbored a strong degree of optimism for the night. I would have loved it if something had happened that I couldn’t explain. I would have loved to have been scared out of my wits. We arrived at around 4pm. We got checked in and took a look around. It was an old Victorian home. There’s nothing too remarkable about that. There were bad acrylic paintings of the victims, dated 1995, hung in antique frames on the walls. There were inkjet prints of photos of the crime scene everywhere, and pictures of Lizzie (looking insane) all over the house. We stayed in the master bedroom, which was of course the bedroom of Andrew and Abby, the two victims. It’s supposed to be one of the most haunted rooms in the house. The evening tour always starts at 8pm, so we had time to burn. We went out for dinner, returning at 8pm for the tour. The tour was well executed. Eleanor, the woman giving the tour, was obviously a pro. She told interesting stories and knew all sorts of obscure details about the house. Other people had apparently died there since the murders. There were also séances scheduled for later that night, for an extra $10. We had never attended a séance before, so we signed up. The medium was supposed to be very good, so we were excited. There were two sessions, 10pm and 11pm. We were in the first session. We spoke with a few people who were going to be attending the first session. They were all skeptics. I was excited, and wondered if that would affect the tone of it. The medium was no older than 21, kind of chubby, and very soft-spoken. She wore a flowing white dress, and had about a mile of cleavage exposed. When we sat down at the table in the dining room, my disappointment began to mount. The table was visibly on wheels. It was an old table, and at the slightest touch, it creaked loudly. To start we all were asked to put a finger on top of an upside down coffee cup, which moved all about the table when the medium asked questions. This wasn’t very compelling. The cup moved towards certain people at the table, and the medium talked about the spirits having particular interest in those people. It was corny, but kind of fun. The next portion of the séance involved everybody putting their hands on the table, and the medium again asked questions of the spirits, and they would respond by moving the table. This was so utterly fake that it was actually upsetting. The table actually wiggled around a bit, creaked and squeaked. The medium’s cleavage heaved. If you happened to be looking at her hands, instead of her heaving bosom, you could see the tendons in the backs of them standing up. You could also see the tension in her forearms as she struggled to make the table move. When she paused to fix her hair, the movement of the table mysteriously stopped. It was obvious and bad. It seemed like she was having trouble getting the spirits to respond, so she asked us if any of us wanted to ask the spirits anything. I volunteered, and suggested provoking them. She agreed. I asked out loud if the spirit of Andrew Borden liked to molest little boys. She assured me that that was a bad move and that he was getting mad, though nothing seemed to happen. I asked if it was okay that I called him “Andy.” She said that I should be careful. A whole lot of nothing happened, and eventually my wife asked if he could interact with anything else in the room. She asked “Andy” if he could blow out one of the candles, or knock on something other than the table. Nothing happened at all, after a total of 40 minutes. The séance was over, and we had to go sit out in the parlor. We all went out there and laughed cacophonously. It was, in fact, hilarious. We talked and laughed for quite a while. The second séance, for the group comprised as entirely of believers as our group had been of skeptics, lasted about 70 minutes. We could hear them through the walls. Apparently, there was a lot going on. The spirits were much more riled up for the second group than they had been for us. Around 1:30am, we all went to our various rooms to go to bed. The sheets and mattresses were new, but the bed frame was supposedly the one owned by “Andy.” The walls of the house are all very thin, and you can easily hear what’s happening in other rooms. Given this, we decided that it was out of the question to fuck before going to sleep. I was disappointed. It’s not that I was feeling especially amorous. A good round of screwing was really just my last hope of upsetting the spirits and getting something to happen. So before falling asleep, I jacked off. I figured that might still sufficiently upset “Andy.” It didn’t. Nothing happened. I gave up and went to sleep. In the morning, breakfast was very good. Once again, all of the believers sat at one table and the skeptics at another. None of the skeptics had any experiences of the preceding night to discuss. The other table had apparently experienced a paranormal orgy all night. Not a wink of sleep. One woman claimed to have levitated off her bed. Another heard footsteps up in the attic. Before leaving, we bought a $5 cookie cutter shaped like a hatchet.