Thursday, September 15, 2005
Heights and more
Doug rented a hammer-drill to get through the cinder block wall in his space. It chewed up the bits. The first was soon snapped in half. We were putting shelves up for his "smalls". I worked on my space. Things had moved. Not many. Nothing I had spent hundreds of dollars on. Those things stay. Stay and accrue disdain. Them are "lookin' at antiques". Not fer usin'. A General Fireproofing desk that I stripped to bare metal was sold. It had a black rubber top. I thought I would replace it. Making sense of it, you could see where the typewriter had been sat, and the lamp. Everything left a sort of imprint in the rubber. The metal polished up nicely. Satiny. The rubber I just wiped. And wiped again and again, fistfulls of papertowels black. The desk had languished for a couple of weeks, priced at 245, even discounted to 200. Doug made me double it which might have raised it in the estimation of those who buy these things. Between helping with his shelves, I climbed an extension ladder fifteen feet up to rehang my Lictenstein poster. The thing about heights is that I hate them- heights, low heights, high heights, all heights. My knees shook. I was pushpinning myself off the ladder. It was just a poster, the cause of my accident.. my fatal accident... just a poster.
I remember looking in Josh's face and assuring him that I wanted nothing more than to hang his 9 foot by five foot mural above my space. A mural photograph of Ali and Holmes fighting that Josh had found at a Garage Sale. It is 9 feet long and mounted on rubber. Instead it covers the entire North wall. The burl walnut Chippendale chest curtseys on its cabriole legs across from ali and Holmes.
Doug and I breathe the cinder block dust. It covers our faces and clothes. Doug is a creature of habit. He will not eat all day. He carries a liter bottle of Grapefruit flavored Soda with him and he smokes but he won't eat between his potato bread egg sandwich in teh morning and a big plate of pasta or "helped' rice at night. We leave as they shut the lights off at the mall. He wants to order pizza. When we began the ritual of ordering pizza for Doug's stay overs it seemed extravagant. We end up in the Brooklyn Cafe in our torn t-shirts and pants covered in dust. We order $35 steaks. "This is the most expensive dinner I have ever had in my life," Doug says. Doug says in wonderment.
"Wondermous", he'll say as he imitates his old employer, the ludicrously bitchy Townsend Henry. Wondermous are the steaks. Melty. I am allotted three extra spears of asparagus. She keeps her potatoes, the waitress. Keeps them for those who want them. It doesn't matter. I might have gone to my last underwear party. Wait. I've never been to an underwear party. Well, some lives are like that. All clothed.
Auction was actually welcome after a break for Labor Day. We had a healthy turnout, anything passably useable bid beyond my means of acquiring it. I ended up with a box of polyester dresses. One was from Lanvin which sounded worthwhile. It is patterned in large dots and squares and austere flora each colored as a painful rebuke to the one closest to it. There are three of these outfits. One glows like barium showing the purple paisleys swimming in a purple sea. The lot was three dollars.
One dealer, an unsmiling type, nearly universally liked for her ability to convey a sardonic wit in a normally cynical and resigned manner of shopping, told me that she had had a pattern of antique glass named after her. She had discovered it like a botanist in the dense growths of the glass industry. She examines the hobnails, the flora and feet of each production saucer or the like.
"If you discover a pattern that has no name but just a production number, (you could contact some particular authority on that glass company's wares, and) they might just name it after you."
The neglected style of glass which she found will be the "Pamela" in future retrospectives of the company's production.
One wily, elderly dealer, a chic and stylish woman who achieved a name and a sort of following in her years of shopkeeping, ever present with her white pageboy and Corbusier glasses, her Nehru jackets or striped French sailor tops, doddered into the silent bid area. The stuff is beneath her. She smiles at it indulgently. She pays for what she wants. She is perpetually a front row auction-goer-her big poodle in the aisle. Crystal, gold, she buys the extravagant, the effulgent chandeliers. But there she was in the boxes of chewed papers, and scuffed plastics. Just enjoying the scenery. Moving in her tentative, ancient way. The bidding was called over... the clientele herded away. She remained. She was humming, looking at the lots fondly. She waited. Down she went on her knees. Three minutes after the bidding had ended... the proprietor of "Apogee" knelt down by a grubby air-compressor and wrote her bid on the next available line. The man who had legitiately won the lot stood above her.
"That ain't gonna fly," he said in an indulgent way, all things considered.
"What.... is this yours?"
"Yeah. I'm glad I stayed."
"Did you stay to watch me?"
"Yeah. You can't do that...."
"Hm. I hope it doesn't work anyway."
She tottered away.
Will and I shop Tuesday and Wednesday. We spend as though we have money. I buy a six foot fiberglass elephant. He is wearing overalls, with countrified patches on them, big shoes and a baseball cap. He is holding an unfurled scroll. I have never not liked that anyone, ever, anywhere has had blond hair. I have a weakness for blonds. Blondness is next to godliness. It looks awful on the elephant. Is it supposed to make him look juvenile? He is already burdened with a short trunk. A sadly underestimated trunk, like a disappointing penis. I wonder if it can be painted grey, the blond hair. We put the elephant, which though huge is fiberglass, in the back of Will's truck. It fills it. It is the size of a Bob's Big Boy. Shoney's in Ark. We also buy the rest of the Knoll tables. There are twelve in all. We have to control the market, whether we can use them or not... they can't show up anywhere while ours are out there.
They are in my driveway now with five chairs, the gull-wing oven and a map rack. the Aerostar has danish dining chairs and a Japanesy cabinet. The dresses are spread over the furniture in my living room. The bar is disassembled on the front porch. There is a pair of wool pants and a cap from a box lot on a chair there and a an acrylic rug I used to drag a shelving unit on.
The wondermousness.....
I remember looking in Josh's face and assuring him that I wanted nothing more than to hang his 9 foot by five foot mural above my space. A mural photograph of Ali and Holmes fighting that Josh had found at a Garage Sale. It is 9 feet long and mounted on rubber. Instead it covers the entire North wall. The burl walnut Chippendale chest curtseys on its cabriole legs across from ali and Holmes.
Doug and I breathe the cinder block dust. It covers our faces and clothes. Doug is a creature of habit. He will not eat all day. He carries a liter bottle of Grapefruit flavored Soda with him and he smokes but he won't eat between his potato bread egg sandwich in teh morning and a big plate of pasta or "helped' rice at night. We leave as they shut the lights off at the mall. He wants to order pizza. When we began the ritual of ordering pizza for Doug's stay overs it seemed extravagant. We end up in the Brooklyn Cafe in our torn t-shirts and pants covered in dust. We order $35 steaks. "This is the most expensive dinner I have ever had in my life," Doug says. Doug says in wonderment.
"Wondermous", he'll say as he imitates his old employer, the ludicrously bitchy Townsend Henry. Wondermous are the steaks. Melty. I am allotted three extra spears of asparagus. She keeps her potatoes, the waitress. Keeps them for those who want them. It doesn't matter. I might have gone to my last underwear party. Wait. I've never been to an underwear party. Well, some lives are like that. All clothed.
Auction was actually welcome after a break for Labor Day. We had a healthy turnout, anything passably useable bid beyond my means of acquiring it. I ended up with a box of polyester dresses. One was from Lanvin which sounded worthwhile. It is patterned in large dots and squares and austere flora each colored as a painful rebuke to the one closest to it. There are three of these outfits. One glows like barium showing the purple paisleys swimming in a purple sea. The lot was three dollars.
One dealer, an unsmiling type, nearly universally liked for her ability to convey a sardonic wit in a normally cynical and resigned manner of shopping, told me that she had had a pattern of antique glass named after her. She had discovered it like a botanist in the dense growths of the glass industry. She examines the hobnails, the flora and feet of each production saucer or the like.
"If you discover a pattern that has no name but just a production number, (you could contact some particular authority on that glass company's wares, and) they might just name it after you."
The neglected style of glass which she found will be the "Pamela" in future retrospectives of the company's production.
One wily, elderly dealer, a chic and stylish woman who achieved a name and a sort of following in her years of shopkeeping, ever present with her white pageboy and Corbusier glasses, her Nehru jackets or striped French sailor tops, doddered into the silent bid area. The stuff is beneath her. She smiles at it indulgently. She pays for what she wants. She is perpetually a front row auction-goer-her big poodle in the aisle. Crystal, gold, she buys the extravagant, the effulgent chandeliers. But there she was in the boxes of chewed papers, and scuffed plastics. Just enjoying the scenery. Moving in her tentative, ancient way. The bidding was called over... the clientele herded away. She remained. She was humming, looking at the lots fondly. She waited. Down she went on her knees. Three minutes after the bidding had ended... the proprietor of "Apogee" knelt down by a grubby air-compressor and wrote her bid on the next available line. The man who had legitiately won the lot stood above her.
"That ain't gonna fly," he said in an indulgent way, all things considered.
"What.... is this yours?"
"Yeah. I'm glad I stayed."
"Did you stay to watch me?"
"Yeah. You can't do that...."
"Hm. I hope it doesn't work anyway."
She tottered away.
Will and I shop Tuesday and Wednesday. We spend as though we have money. I buy a six foot fiberglass elephant. He is wearing overalls, with countrified patches on them, big shoes and a baseball cap. He is holding an unfurled scroll. I have never not liked that anyone, ever, anywhere has had blond hair. I have a weakness for blonds. Blondness is next to godliness. It looks awful on the elephant. Is it supposed to make him look juvenile? He is already burdened with a short trunk. A sadly underestimated trunk, like a disappointing penis. I wonder if it can be painted grey, the blond hair. We put the elephant, which though huge is fiberglass, in the back of Will's truck. It fills it. It is the size of a Bob's Big Boy. Shoney's in Ark. We also buy the rest of the Knoll tables. There are twelve in all. We have to control the market, whether we can use them or not... they can't show up anywhere while ours are out there.
They are in my driveway now with five chairs, the gull-wing oven and a map rack. the Aerostar has danish dining chairs and a Japanesy cabinet. The dresses are spread over the furniture in my living room. The bar is disassembled on the front porch. There is a pair of wool pants and a cap from a box lot on a chair there and a an acrylic rug I used to drag a shelving unit on.
The wondermousness.....
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Vigilant, in shifts, to keep cats away
Bunny is gone. Gone. Gone.... Seeing the wee thing every night munching beneath the fender of the Aerostar in the driveway or perilously close to traffic on the sidewalk didn't create as much an affectionate bond as it did a perpetually renewed and renewable antagonism. Bunny never understood the sheer weight and velocity of the automobile. How could it? Bunny had a keen sense of the potential that exists in the human frame, however. When Zara or Chad, the neighbors, or myself approached... just inches from its whiskers, when I, for one, was just at the point of dropping the vinyl laundry basket over its head, Bunny darted quickly towards my feet. If Zara was closer or Chad it would rush at them. Many a night we spent hopping out of its way as we tried to catch it. It never seemed to be paying attention at all to us, and after several marathon chases in which our triangulated snare would chase Bunny from Zara's yard to mine, or beneath the Aerostar, or send Bunny hysterically rushing towards the busy street like Shelly Winters in Lolita, Bunny would absolutley FLOP on the cool broken patches of driveway concrete- extending all its legs, in the most insultingly relaxed posture imaginable. Of course, I was spitting phlegm to clear my airway, bracing on my knees. I left miniature carrots in paths leading up to a box Chad and Z. hoped Bunny would "hutch" in. We left leaves of lettuce, a bowl of water.
Bunny was full mostly. Zara's garden was plenty. It is inch-high now. We tried to erect a fence around the garden, to contain him, but he would sense the restriction and spend all of his time trying to get free. Even in my enormous backyard, with carrots piled hight like pirate doubloons, Bunny worked at the gate until he could squeeze out. During the chases, Bunny seemed to seek refuge in the most infuriatingly inappropriate places. Under my house for one. Under my Aerostar for another.
Speaking of..
The Aerostar which is a 1990, I think has radically altered my driving life. I am no longer tethered to slow backroads, gentle inclines and level parking. I have driven to Sedro twice with Will and his pit-bull in tow. The pitbull is not alone in finding the Aerostar's roomy rear a comfortable and adaptable conveyance. Will's impossibly handsome friend Brad had sex in the back Friday night with someone we had met out drinking. I was taking people home. The rear seats were removed.
It was not an act of debauchery unfitting for a weeknight. Something about Will's charisma and Brad's charisma combining had made them all but delirious with the joys of their manhood.. stopping every two blocks or so when we were on foot to show each other our penises. I would have rather seen everyone's keychains. I don't remember even looking, except to glance at Will's, but only to note his swelling fondness for the louche.
I love the Aerostar which has an automatic transmission and even a chime to melodically acknowledge the open, the unbuckled, the left lit. I can leave things in there for weeks and still accomodate the unforseen sideboard which has to be hauled from somewhere to somewhere.
The boys copulating in the back were lucky. It was still full of razor sharp pieces of stainless steel, intended for countertops. They should have been sliced in half.
Brad, Will'd friend, admitted that he had been imbibing cocaine and eagerly urged us to get some more. He was so sharp, so witty and in the moment, he seemed barely impaired at all by the stuff. Just more awake. We could get some, he said, from a friend of his that was at a party under a bridge. Under a bridge? Where? West Seattle? Yes. We drive to Harbor Island and under the bridge. "It's a party." We should see it.
"See it?" The West Seattle bridge is, I believe a historically long span.
What is that? We pulled up whenever Brad saw more than a few cars parked together. "What are they doing?"he'd ask. It being midnight, and four of us in an S.U.V., drunk, driving erratically under a bridge, Brad finally admits that it might be a different bridge.
"This is Seattle," Karl L. who is driving, barks. "Everything is a bridge." We head for the Magnolia bridge. It is Brad's charisma that makes us do this. It is probably Brad's charisma that gets him laid in the back of the Aerostar later. There was no penetration. No condoms. "We can take (his roommate's ) coke."
We drive there.
"But he probably hid it and he's asleep and I don't want to dig through his stuff when hes just asleep to take his cocaine."
People seem to misremember me all night, Brad included. As someone who knew someone they knew. But they are trying, which is flattering.
The night required a great deal of gin and an equal amount of grapefruit juice. I am nearly passing out when I sit in my bed. I am stretched out when I see a spider, the size of a tarantula crawl from my pillows to the foot of the bed and over the mattress. I am too tired to pull the mattress out of its alcove. To rip down the drapes, to unplug the television and VCR and move them. Spiders do not scare me. Just this one.
I grab the sheet and a pillow and sleep on the sofa. In the morning I tear the place apart. The spider comes at me, just like Bunny. I believe I have sucked it up the vacuum nozzle, but I do not hear it enter. Its body is the size of a walnut. It seems like it might not even fit. I watch the clear dust container for a few minutes. No movement. I empty it and sift through the dust. Nothing. I do this again and again. The spider is never discharged.
My vacuum, the Fantom (for copywrite purposes I guess) has a major flaw in its construction. The airway cannot be gotten at. There are parts of it which cannot be cleaned out.
Hurricane Katrina has devastated people's ability to appear unruffled, under any circumstances.
When something unusual and unexpected occurs, I am acutely aware that everyone is behaving quite normally, as though nothing had occurred. When, for instance, on Thanksgiving night, I suffered a catastrophic flat in the sunflower colored Volvo and pulled to the edge of an exit waiting for someone to stop and offer assistance, hours passed. No eye contact.
"If we do things differently, the terrorists have won." How Beckett or Pinter deserve this reality.
Terror was for a time when frenzies still could exist. Good luck finding a population that does not behave normally. Several women interviewed about the destruction of their lives complained that a particular family member had said that they were coming to get them but never did.
There was a body under sheet with a red question mark on it. This was in a photo on the front of the NYT.
I did not want to keep Bunny, but Zara had never had a pet and decided to adopt it. They even sat up at night on their front porch to scare cats away. Bunny was mostly white- the exception being two small black marks on his face. I shooed a few cats, late, late at night. They were still there, vigilant, in shifts.They had begun to find some sort of name. We could not committee it. Our ideas were too different. I remembered that "Bunny" was Edmund Wilson's lifelong nickname. I kept it to myself. In my experience Wilson was the only possessor of the epicurean waist and Nero profile who liked women. The high arched nose, the hooded gaze, the soft folds under the small protruding chin, these are the marks of the hedonist. Usually the homo hedonist.
Bunny belonged and returned to the poeple who live diagonally behind me. They keep chickens too. The spider's provenance is unknown.
Bunny was full mostly. Zara's garden was plenty. It is inch-high now. We tried to erect a fence around the garden, to contain him, but he would sense the restriction and spend all of his time trying to get free. Even in my enormous backyard, with carrots piled hight like pirate doubloons, Bunny worked at the gate until he could squeeze out. During the chases, Bunny seemed to seek refuge in the most infuriatingly inappropriate places. Under my house for one. Under my Aerostar for another.
Speaking of..
The Aerostar which is a 1990, I think has radically altered my driving life. I am no longer tethered to slow backroads, gentle inclines and level parking. I have driven to Sedro twice with Will and his pit-bull in tow. The pitbull is not alone in finding the Aerostar's roomy rear a comfortable and adaptable conveyance. Will's impossibly handsome friend Brad had sex in the back Friday night with someone we had met out drinking. I was taking people home. The rear seats were removed.
It was not an act of debauchery unfitting for a weeknight. Something about Will's charisma and Brad's charisma combining had made them all but delirious with the joys of their manhood.. stopping every two blocks or so when we were on foot to show each other our penises. I would have rather seen everyone's keychains. I don't remember even looking, except to glance at Will's, but only to note his swelling fondness for the louche.
I love the Aerostar which has an automatic transmission and even a chime to melodically acknowledge the open, the unbuckled, the left lit. I can leave things in there for weeks and still accomodate the unforseen sideboard which has to be hauled from somewhere to somewhere.
The boys copulating in the back were lucky. It was still full of razor sharp pieces of stainless steel, intended for countertops. They should have been sliced in half.
Brad, Will'd friend, admitted that he had been imbibing cocaine and eagerly urged us to get some more. He was so sharp, so witty and in the moment, he seemed barely impaired at all by the stuff. Just more awake. We could get some, he said, from a friend of his that was at a party under a bridge. Under a bridge? Where? West Seattle? Yes. We drive to Harbor Island and under the bridge. "It's a party." We should see it.
"See it?" The West Seattle bridge is, I believe a historically long span.
What is that? We pulled up whenever Brad saw more than a few cars parked together. "What are they doing?"he'd ask. It being midnight, and four of us in an S.U.V., drunk, driving erratically under a bridge, Brad finally admits that it might be a different bridge.
"This is Seattle," Karl L. who is driving, barks. "Everything is a bridge." We head for the Magnolia bridge. It is Brad's charisma that makes us do this. It is probably Brad's charisma that gets him laid in the back of the Aerostar later. There was no penetration. No condoms. "We can take (his roommate's ) coke."
We drive there.
"But he probably hid it and he's asleep and I don't want to dig through his stuff when hes just asleep to take his cocaine."
People seem to misremember me all night, Brad included. As someone who knew someone they knew. But they are trying, which is flattering.
The night required a great deal of gin and an equal amount of grapefruit juice. I am nearly passing out when I sit in my bed. I am stretched out when I see a spider, the size of a tarantula crawl from my pillows to the foot of the bed and over the mattress. I am too tired to pull the mattress out of its alcove. To rip down the drapes, to unplug the television and VCR and move them. Spiders do not scare me. Just this one.
I grab the sheet and a pillow and sleep on the sofa. In the morning I tear the place apart. The spider comes at me, just like Bunny. I believe I have sucked it up the vacuum nozzle, but I do not hear it enter. Its body is the size of a walnut. It seems like it might not even fit. I watch the clear dust container for a few minutes. No movement. I empty it and sift through the dust. Nothing. I do this again and again. The spider is never discharged.
My vacuum, the Fantom (for copywrite purposes I guess) has a major flaw in its construction. The airway cannot be gotten at. There are parts of it which cannot be cleaned out.
Hurricane Katrina has devastated people's ability to appear unruffled, under any circumstances.
When something unusual and unexpected occurs, I am acutely aware that everyone is behaving quite normally, as though nothing had occurred. When, for instance, on Thanksgiving night, I suffered a catastrophic flat in the sunflower colored Volvo and pulled to the edge of an exit waiting for someone to stop and offer assistance, hours passed. No eye contact.
"If we do things differently, the terrorists have won." How Beckett or Pinter deserve this reality.
Terror was for a time when frenzies still could exist. Good luck finding a population that does not behave normally. Several women interviewed about the destruction of their lives complained that a particular family member had said that they were coming to get them but never did.
There was a body under sheet with a red question mark on it. This was in a photo on the front of the NYT.
I did not want to keep Bunny, but Zara had never had a pet and decided to adopt it. They even sat up at night on their front porch to scare cats away. Bunny was mostly white- the exception being two small black marks on his face. I shooed a few cats, late, late at night. They were still there, vigilant, in shifts.They had begun to find some sort of name. We could not committee it. Our ideas were too different. I remembered that "Bunny" was Edmund Wilson's lifelong nickname. I kept it to myself. In my experience Wilson was the only possessor of the epicurean waist and Nero profile who liked women. The high arched nose, the hooded gaze, the soft folds under the small protruding chin, these are the marks of the hedonist. Usually the homo hedonist.
Bunny belonged and returned to the poeple who live diagonally behind me. They keep chickens too. The spider's provenance is unknown.
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