Trey's Art Extravaganza

Trey had his art party on Saturday night- it was very nice, James Brown (Cynthia's son) came and played and a good time was had by all, although no one sold anything- Part of that problem was because I don't think any of the restaurant customers knew about the party, or they thought it was a private gathering. Anyway, it was fun. Naomi and I and Trey and Bill from the German School all contributed. As soon as Trey's digital camera is all sorted out I'm going to post pictures of my latest art piece, which is a gigantic picture, three foot by five foot, of a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader and it says, I WAS dreaming LIKE A TEXAN GIRL on it, and it is composed of sequins and nail varnish. It is truly inspiring.

O and we went to see that Star Wars movie. I thought it was long and boring, and a fair amount of the movie made no sense to me whatsoever. I didn't see the middle prequel; I did see the Phantom Menace and didn't care for it and this one was no better. The main problem with this one- I'm ignoring the ridiculous dialogue- was that Palpatine is in no way convincing. The picture is extremely long, and it’s very dull, and the basic story is just- strange. There’s this Chancellor, who looks a good deal like Margaret Thatcher, and he’s supposed to Tempt Anakin to the Dark Side, but how exactly I would like to know because he isn’t really dangling Fruits of power in front of him or anything- he seems to be making some specious promises about he knows the secrets of immortality through the Dark Side and can save Padme’s life. Now anyone with a brain larger than a kernel of Candy Corn can figure, well, if you know the secrets of immortality show me, or at least do something about your old wrinkly self. Make yourself look like Marky Mark, you old queen. But Anakin falls for it, and all of a sudden- like, instantaneously, he’s all evil. I would have thought it would take a while to turn evil, right? It’s a pretty hefty Life Decision. I’ve seen people take longer to make up their minds in Wendy’s about what to eat. It would have been one thing (probably a rather laughable thing) if Palpatine had said we’ll overthrow the Republic and control the world through Empire but what exactly he had to gain I don’t know. It would have made more sense if he had been motivated by a desire for revenge- but they didn’t bother with that. And then the Emperor, after fighting Samuel Jackson, gets transformed from a fairly normal, if Thatcheresque, person into the Emperor as we know him- I wouldn’t follow him. Then all of a sudden at the end of the movie, he has Imperial Ships and has started working on the Death Star and so forth, in the space of about two minutes.
So Anakin must be practically a drooling imbecile to believe what Palpatine is telling him, and also to be motivated by it. He believes in a dream he has, which he credits to the Force, and so decides to turn evil based on what this queeny old man is telling him? Anakin clearly is dumber than most people I know, and I know lots of DUMB people- Anakin is even dumber than Stupid Anthony who would believe ANYTHING you told him- and then Padme- how is it if they have this Advanced Civilisation and can save Anakin’s life and make him into Darth Vader- why does Padme die in childbirth? No one does that anymore. Padme, we are told, dies because she has “lost the will to live” which doesn’t bode well for her offspring, if you believe that genetics have ANYTHING to do with one’s future- one parent is dumber than a box of hammers and one of them expires from lacking the will to live- I wouldn’t bet on any galaxy being saved by that issue. Palpatine was just- ridiculous. It's like being lured to the dark side by Truman Capote, only without the drugs and celebrity contacts. Lucas should have read a better translation of Death in Venice.

O after Trey's art party- I went home. He stayed at the bar with Cynthia, who got on his nerves by falling in love with everyone she saw, and then they went to her house, and she said Let's listen to the radio! Trey's getting a beer in the kitchen! Cool! Then her ex husband said Cool! And he disconnected all the fuses and made the electricity go out. Funny, huh?

New Joke

I have a new joke, inspired in part by the comment that Cynthia's son got suspended from school for making-
Speaking of eating things- one of my favourite cheap amusements is to go to Buford Highway - isn't it great? and go to their supermarkets and gaze upon all the freaky things that people from foreign countries eat- like mung bean with abalone drink or Big Bird Pork Fu. Right? You can take a trip to an exotic foreign land without all the hassles like having to take off your shoes at the airport or getting exotic incurable diseases. They have really interesting foods, and by interesting I mean things that you would use to play pranks on unsuspecting Americans, like pickled squid eyeballs, or whole pig heads. One of the things I like best is the duck heads after the whole roast ducks have been guillotined, because my imagination just runs wild when I see a duck head, brown, and crispy, and leering. How many pranks can YOU play with a duck head? My question though is that even though they may feature live, depressed looking frogs and what not, their food resembles something like- you know, FOOD. It seems to represent things that are ordinarily encountered in Nature, unlike many of the things that are found in American grocery stores that are called food.
To wit; the lowly Cheez Doodle. No one, encountering this item without prior knowledge of what it is intended to be, would mistake it for food. Its name has nothing to do with food either; cheez? doodle? Is the cheez drawing abstract designs? Are we commanding it to draw abstract designs? Is it the idle drawing produced by cheez? I don't get it. It is exactly like one of those starch packing peanuts, the only difference being that it is coated in this day-glo orange stuff which is supposed to resemble cheez. Now the starch packing peanut, on the other hand, is green, a sort of lettuce green, which is found in nature and indicates edibility; in nature and by humans, orange is used on - monarch butterflies and some other creatures to tell predators to stay away, and traffic cones to tell people to- watch out and stay away. So what are we supposed to learn from the Cheez Doodle?

What I wrote vs. What I would like to have written-

At the end of every term, I write thank you notes to my students as a sort of parting gift. I can't really afford to get them something expensive, and they don't need candy or Hot Fries so I think this is a nice, inexpensive way to show them that they are appreciated. It also forces me to come up with something positive to say about each one of them- I always write something formulaic like Dear (Miss Pac-Man); Thank you for being in my class this term. I have greatly enjoyed having you and hope that you have learnt a lot. You are a (yellow) and (voracious) young lady and I believe these qualities will bring you great success in the future. Best Wishes, Mr. Thomas.

But I can't always write what I really mean; for example, I can't write, You are the most flaming child I have EVER encountered, and I believe that this quality will bring you a smack-down and many fag-hags in the future. But here, I can say what I want. So here's a list of what I said vs. What I would like to have said.

You are a very determined young lady should have read: You are a pigheaded snot, and if you don't learn to do what is expected, you are going to fail miserably.

You are a very bright and diligent young man should have read: God you're surrounded by a bunch of morons! Congratulations on handling it well!

You are a very engaging young lady with a great personality and I expect to see you on television someday should have read: On television on the Jerry Springer show with your 6 babies and 7 baby daddies.

I hope that someday you realise your great potential should have read: Why did you get high right before my class? What a waste! Who wants to be high while listening to me drone about triangles? Or maybe that's the reason? It's still a waste- - -

You are a uniquely talented young lady with a killer fashion sense should have read; you are too cute to be a lesbian- keep looking and you can find a man who is good enough for you.

You are a very gracious and hard working young lady should have read: You may be dumb as a box of hammers but you at least were well mannered and not obnoxious.

All hail Spencer!

It had to happen sooner or later- it was truly inevitable- that eventually I come up with a painting titled this. It's partially to piss off the neighbours, because of Linda's failed affair with the Texan girl, hee hee. Anyway, it features a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader and the supertitle, I was dreaming like a Texan Girl- so I think it should be attractive. I shall require large quantities of dark blue nail varnish to paint it. I wonder what it would look like if I used sequins instead of nail varnish- - - .

We had a questionable weekend, punctuated by the fact that the rat which was plaguing me last weekend- it was making noise in the bedroom on last Saturday night, and I had a dreadful dream it had chewed through the mattress and was biting me! and then I bought poison for it which it obligingly ate and died. It died UNDER THE KITCHEN CABINET, where it could not be retrieved, and began to stink.
It was a truly unholy stench; on Wednesday I began to get whiffs of it, and then Thursday it was more pronounced, and then by Friday it was unbearable and made me actually sick this weekend. So I had to find a way to get rid of it- the idea that we could wait until it decomposed was, shall we say, not an option. Sheridan said I would have to call an exterminator. I thought about this; I would have to ring someone and have them come out on the weekend, which undoubtedly costs more- . Then I thought I would call Spencer, Willavette's boyfriend, who said the last time he did something that if I needed anything he would come out and do it- I didn't think that he would, but I thought it was worth a try, and he might as well get the money as the exterminator- and I paid him $50 and he came out and did it.
It was a truly ENORMOUS rat, at least 10 inches without the tail, and I think it would have taken quite a bit longer to decay and reek. The house would have been uninhabitable.

I have been ill all weekend as a result; I had to drink whisky and tea to try to feel better! It worked moderately well.

Also it was my father's birthday; I gave him the first season of Futurama and the first season of the Simpsons on DVD and Alex got him some beer. We went to Golden Buddha, on Clairmont road, for dinner, which was terrible. I had something called Hawaiian Duck, which was sweet and sour duck- but the purported duck could have been any kind of meat at all, and was not nice.

Robot Vacuum

Ugh, I'm feeling so out of sorts today. I haven't slept well in a couple of days, and I really don't know why- perhaps it's the weather, because Sheridan said the same thing- - -

The main news this week is that I bought one of those robot-vacuum things this weekend from Home Depot; it was on sale for $99, marked down from $149. I have been thinking about buying a new vacuum cleaner for a while- I just haven't gotten around to it; and then I saw this. The thing is called Roomba Red, and it is small enough to go underneath the furniture and around it and so forth. I was skeptical at first, because I did not think it would work, but it works VERY well- it picked up all kinds of hair and dust and yuck. The only thing is that you have to get everything off of the floor before you run it, but I suppose that is the same as with a regular vacuum cleaner. Also it contained almost nothing in the way of instructions.
CJ loved it. She thought it was the best thing she had ever seen and tried to talk to it, which I have never heard her do before.

Also I rented the movie Clockwatchers, because it has Parker Posey in it; I expected it to be funny, but it really wasn't that funny- it had its moments but it also increased my feeling of vague anomie and disconnection. I dunno. Parker Posey was unsuprisingly the best thing about it, and the characters were very human- I think I was expecting something more comedic and it wasn't. I wouldn't say it wasn't good, it's just that once was enough.

Ola Rides Again

We have been having more problems with the neighbours recently; that one woman next to me is just as hateful as she's always been but is expressing it more; more, well, INTERESTINGLY, Ola (next to Sheridan) has become completely unhinged.

I recently discovered that Ola has been going up and down the street at odd times of the night and knocking on people's windows and doors and telling them that I am stealing their lawnmowers and that I have done something strange to the bricks of her house. This gave me great amusement for a while; I couldn't think of anything more unlikely. It is absurd and farcical to say the least. For example, the people who used to live across from me but moved one house up the street are named Sarah and Andrew; She knocked on Andrew's window at 7 in the morning to tell him that I was in his yard at 3 in the morning. Trey is also involved. She has, according to Sheridan, also been calling the Dallases at 3:30 in the morning to inform them of how bad I am (as if they did not already think so and needed to be further convinced). Why I would be in someone else's yard at three in the morning is beyond me; I have my own yard to be in and I would much rather be IN BED at three in the morning. Wouldn't it be strange if Ola is actually right because she's living in an alternate universe in which these things are actually happening?
But yesterday she set fire to her yard and tried to blame Sheridan for it; luckily someone across the street heard her trying to blame Sheridan and came out and stopped her. I don't know WHY they didn't arrest Ola. Sheridan thinks, probably rightly, that this is some kind of plot to brand Sheridan as a racist. So I went up to Sheridan's house after work (I had to cancel with Joan) and while I am going up to Sheridan's house here comes some chap running with a leafblower in the other direction. She saw me! he remarks to a passing gentleman. That triggered the something's-not-right mechanism in me and I called the police; the leafblower had been stolen just then from the chap who lives across the street from Sheridan. We were not able to recover it, though. Now Sheridan's neighbour was IN HIS YARD WORKING when this other chap stole his leafblower.
At this point I am no longer amused by Ola's antics and I don't want my name in Ola's mouth any longer. She seems to be not merely unhinged, but dangerously so, and I don't know what she's going to say about me or to whom but I don't want her to say it, do it, or think it. Sheridan is unsurprisingly afraid that Ola is going to set her house on fire.

I am so ready to move.