It's official: Bitter Moody Cashier Guy at Albertsons has no more patience with me.
I have no idea what wounded that particular camel - but its' back broke right in half
on Halloween when I said, "Hey, let me guess: Junior High School P.E. Teacher"....
How was I supposed to know he wasn't wearing a costume?
In other news, Oprah has finally actualized herself completely beyond of my realm of acceptance, and into the seething outer rings of my antipathy (where she joins other notables that currently include: Paris Hilton, Jennifer Anniston, Nancy Grace, Sheryl Crow, my older sister, and Mel Gibson's giant beard).
In truth, Oprah is barking right outside my morgue of aversion, where - if things don't improve with her soon - she'll enter to cool her heels with Tom DeLay, George Bush, Melanie Griffith and a few other hair farmers I know.
I know....I feel you... you are wondering "Why all the hatin' on O, brown shoes? And who, might we ask, DO you like?"
Well, the O situation has been building for years, but recently it has reached critical mass. Symptoms? Celebrity fever. Designer fever. Richest woman on earth fever.
Her Maya Angelouges and....
Tom Cruise.
Need I say more?
And as for love - well - there are many to crush on like crazy these days.
Jack Lemmon. Jerry Orbach (and yes, I'm aware they are dead).
Steve Almond, author of Candyfreak. Palmer Candy Company, architect of Junior Mints.
My son, who finagled me a pair of prosthetic feet. Vincent D'Onofrio. The manager of my
bank branch, who actually did what she said she'd do.
Baby Theodore, who is the newest person I know. Carol Burnett.
But, I digress.
The crucial point here is that BMC guy does not like me - and now I will be forced to use the
U-SCAN thing when he's the only living cashier available.
Which I suppose is karma for spending the last half hour blazing this little judgment trail
through cyberspace.
Guilty T.V. - Real Exorcisms. Real Hauntings. Real Psychics......
what have I become?

Tangents

Wednesday.
About the photo:
I had to put fuel in the auto, and prices are still quite high.


I was very out of sorts today - no idea why. Maybe it was the incredible headache I woke up with - like somebody in dreamland slapped a cast iron fez on me so that I went about all day with a burning ring of pain right on top of my head.
Which, as many of us know, can only lead to one thing: the crushing fear of undetected, but deadly tumors...which perhaps sucked all the energy out of my day, leaving me cranky and ill-prepared to do my job. And not being able to do my job possibly led to hating portions of said job in a way I usually never do...which led to having to stay at work 2.5 hours longer than I normally do.
All of which put me back at home too late to call the bank and transfer money to my brother, which made me feel guilty - and since everybody knows that guilt is the harbormaster of little minds (or something like that) I was made small and mean in my guilt...which left me completely out of sorts. And all of this was just the first portion of my day.
I left out the part of my day where I watched James Frey (A Million Little Pieces) on Oprah, and how that made me think about recovery and treatment and sorrow (and a little bit about how good it would be to turn a history of suffering into #1 on the NY Times Best Seller list),
and the part of my day where I thought my daughter called to tell me she loves me, but she really called to find out where our dentist's office is...and I definitely left out the part where I watched part of "Pollack" for probably the 8th time because his searing miserableness so speaks to me....
So now I return to dreamland, where perhaps I can drop off my headache, which would really take the edge off those tumors and - as you might well imagine - make tomorrow a better day.

The Aftermath

Guilty t.v. viewing tonight: "Taboo: Crime Scene" on the National Geography channel.
Utterly fascinating.
Death, I think, is on my mind tonight. Today my daughter told me that a young guy she vaguely
knew hung himself over the weekend. And that a girl (who was once a fairly close friend of hers) slit her wrists twice on Sunday night.
They make me unbearable sad often, some of the kids she has brought around. They seem so old for such young people, and so weary already of the world.
And, I guess I am also rather hungover - sucking up waaaay too much hurricane/bombing/woman throws kids off pier news ....
And, for dessert: a mighty confection made of presidential corruption/arrogance/sleezeandgreed, iced with goodoldboy contempt and heedless opportunism.
Not that I want to stick my head in the sand - but my god.
I think I need to go on a diet.

Probation

Monday:
Awake for some ungodly reason at 5:30 a.m.
NO COFFEE.
Late to work due to eerie fog everywhere I tried to drive.
Recieved numerous phone calls reminding me to drink 32 ounces of water at 10:15 a.m.
Drank 32 ounces of water at 10:17 a.m.

Held it.
Held it.

Went in for a pelvic ultrasound at 11:15 a.m.
(still holding)
The ultrasound tech was 14 ... okay, 17.
She was very blonde and business-like - I felt like I was in the original version of Solaris; lots of white surfaces and language I couldn't really understand.
Except for this: "Ooookay, slight pressure as I introduce the probe."

I have never cared for the word 'probe', and nothing that happened next
made me change my mind.

The hair apparent

Friday at last.
I finally forced myself to go get a haircut, which I have been needing for quite some time.
This salon was all about product - how some people named Ken and Rachael have invented a new kind of water that beads up and"silkenates" each individual hair. Please - take a look at me! Do I look like I give a flaming shit about silkenizing?
As I had promised myself I would before going in, I tried to state my few hair needs clearly and concisely. Right before my hair cutting lady began to snip I said, "Please do not give me bangs."
"Ooooh, no need to panic," she answered, and then her scissors made bangs from one side of my head to the other. At this point, I experienced the haunting phenomenon I always experience in beauty parlours - I became as paralyzed as if I'd been shot with a tranquilizer gun (and oh, how I wish I had been). Immobilized, I just sat there, seeing myself see myself in all my miserable, bang-getting misery while Hair Lady snipped happily away.
In the end, I looked pretty much like I usually do, except for the curtain of hay across my forehead. Hair Lady turned me around a few times, gave me a chuckle of affirmation and then sprayed me with a cannister of liquid Satan that smelled like vitamins and fruit... silkenizer no doubt...and I was done.

Sad television confession of the day: 3 minutes of Star Jones on The View. I turned it on accidentally while looking for the news, and it took me all 3 minutes to realize I who I was looking at. Star has lost a lot of weight, and somehow gained a lot of eye; it's a predatory
look I found extremely unsettling.

Mystery Bus

Something is going on with the guy down the road from us.
Late night lights, tarps and partial vehicles everywhere, and today; the return of the mystery bus. The same bus was there two weeks ago, and just when I was ready to start my own private investigation, it disappeared...only to show up again this afternoon.
It's old school yellow, with grimy looking clothes and debris hanging out some of the windows. A ton of other stuff was spilling out of the open rear door, but some unknown guy was jumping around next to the bus when I drove by (think Deliverance), so I could only take a quick look.
A while ago, we saw a truck on our road, heading up beyond us toward an open piece of property where people often go and dump their trash. D.(amazingly) got in our car and went up there only to find down-the-road guy just sitting up there in his truck. D. asked him what was going on and DTR guy said, "I needed to eat a sandwich".
Well, that's why we live in the outback - so we can meet our sandwich needs any damn way we please, right?
Ugly television confession for today - okay...I admit it...so far, the aliens of Invasion look a lot like a bunch of guys with flashlights swimming in non-menacing circles in my bathtub - but I am still watching it. Ssshhhhh....don't tell anyone.
And finally, on a positive note, I went to Yang's Botanical Gardens today.
They have quite a few unusual evergreens, a variety of palms, and 5 or 6 Angel's Trumpets that were just huge. But I went there to see the maple trees, and I was not disappointed.
A little valley filled with bloody reds, scandalous salmons, and insanely brilliant
golds and bronzes...it was spectacular! and all just a mile or ish from my house.
Sigh - I am lucky.
Off.