Lileks' Screedblog

James Lileks, of Regrettable Food and Interior Desecrations fame, has a new Screedblog http://www.lileks.com/screedblog/index.html in which he briefly mentions someone else's take on prudery. In this case I agree with Lileks- as in most cases- because I think that when Chevy Chase gets on stage wherever and says the president is a dumb whatever- first of all, this is Chevy Chase, but never mind- this lowers our level of public discourse. Think of the bon mots and brilliant writers that would have been missed if the level of public discourse had been, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, at the level it is today. Churchill's, Wilde's, Disraeli's, Lincoln's, and countless others brilliant wit and repartee would have been stillborn. It's a tragedy- not so much because I am a prude, and you know I am not- that we are reduced to shouting Hey F*ck You at each other- because it's stupid.
This view was reinforced also by our watching George Burns and Gracie Allen on DVD last night; the DVDs came from Dollar Tree, which is getting fancier and fancier- and George and Gracie are really, really FUNNY. I'm sure the jokes are ancient warhorses and were probably first told in hieroglyphics but they're still hysterical. Example: Blanche said there was a salesman at the door with a bald head. I wonder if she bought one.
Now this is clean, pleasant, and FUNNY. It takes a good deal of practice to be funny like that, and they pull it off brilliantly. Although I do enjoy some fairly raunchy comedy, some of the bitterness underneath it is not so enjoyable, and I find it overall much more amusing when comics aren't.

The Purpose of HorribleThings

Ed, don't read this, you'll object.
I couldn't sleep all night because I am upset, and Trey is not being sympathetic or nice, and I started thinking about what is the purpose of creatures like those next door. God has a purpose for the mosquito and the serpent and the wasp and the Tasmanian devil and the electric eel and the blood sucking lawyer (hee hee) and the Dallases. He created the polio virus and the flea and poison ivy and everything else on earth, so it must have a purpose.
What, then, is the purpose of something horrible?
The purpose is to stimulate us to be better people. This is by no means an original conclusion, or a startling one, but we would be indistinguishable from animals if we were not able to fulfill a higher purpose. Consider, if you will, the brilliance of people like Louis Pasteur and Jonas Salk and how the work they did improved the human condition. Were it not for obstacles like the polio and smallpox viruses, they wouldn't have been challenged. You may argue that there are other obstacles that people can tackle, like space travel or building really tall buildings. That may be, but building very tall buildings makes us little better than those termites that build those tremendous mounds in Africa and exploring space is something of an artificial challenge. We need in some ways to be bound together as humanity through human suffering. How are we to fulfill God's plan of showing Charity if there are no poor? How are you to show Compassion, if there is no suffering? How can you show Courage if there is nothing to fear, no obstacle to overcome, no struggle in which not to give up?
Would Jesus have been able to have so many people listen to His message had there been no "sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick."? (Matthew 4:23) (you know I'm in a tight spot, I pulled out my Bible.) This is what He means when he says in the Beatitudes, in Matthew 5:13, "Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men." We can't fulfill God's mission without tribulation, without being meek, without mourning, without hungering and thirsting after righteousness. I don't think I'm going to take it quite so far as martyrdom, and loving my enemies hasn't done me any good up to this point (except, perhaps, to make me a better person in some senses.) Remember that Jesus, like Churchill, promised weeping and gnashing of teeth but He promised also overcoming. And I don't believe he only promised the overcoming in the world to come, but here on earth as well. Did He not say, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword."?
I realise that this is a somewhat blithe dismissal of the true consequences of human suffering; I've lived my entire life, by the standards of the world, as one of the super- rich. I've never had anyone in my family or immediate circle experience river blindness; no one is deformed or horribly crippled and no one has been murdered by Pol Pot or died of potato famine or even had to sleep on the street. Then on the other hand, this happy result comes from long centuries of suffering and gradually overcoming obstacles., on a collective and individual basis. If no one had overcome their own challenges and obstacles for me, I might be an outcast cripple in India or a beggar in Ethiopia or slaughtered in Bosnia. And if individuals had not overcome their own challenges, faced their own Dallases, this country wouldn't be what it is today. Consider the people who inspire us. It is because they have Overcome, not because they were men of leisure (except perhaps in France, which explains a lot.)
Therefore, what I must do is to Overcome, once again, the Evil that is near me and conquer it. It does not do to hope that things shall improve, or continue to fight this war of attrition, but to Fight, and Fight Strongly, and Defeat, however temporarily, that Evil. And now to find the way to do it.

P.S. Isn't it interesting how as one moves up the evolutionary scale, one finds fewer and fewer creatures that are pestilent? Starting with viruses and bacteria and then moving on to insects and then serpents and then mammals (I've left out, to a large extent, the fishes, and isn't it interesting that I can't name a single pestilent bird?)

The Limit

I have really reached my Limit with the neighbours; I don't think that some of my friends really understood what I have to put up with until this happened- - -
Trey had his little friend (and my little, I don't mean small in stature, I mean insignificant) from work over the other night and then they were on the porch smoking cigarettes. (More about this later) Naturally that creature took exception to this, because Trey and I have friends, and here we are flaunting it in her face, so what does she do? She calls Freddy's job to tell his boss that Freddy is at my house doing a side job and running his own business. Mind you, Freddy had nothing to do with being over at night, and they were sitting quietly (I know, I was awake) and talking about something. There's no excuse for it. End result is that Freddy got written up and I think I am going to have to sue them. We are moving as soon as the house sells! It's really infuriating. If anyone has any ideas let me know because I really want to do something about her. This absolutely has to stop, NOW.
What else have we done recently? Well, I suppose I should get into the Other Thing Trey's little friend did- Now Trey has two little friends from work, and I used to like both of them- they were far and away the most tolerable of all the little friends Trey has had over the years- but then the one little friend, Jason, Trey said was getting into things that he oughtn't, like borrowing Julio's clothes and taking Trey's cigarettes and such like. Those of you who have seen my house know I don't keep inventory of things and that I really am not up to watching out for checkbooks and CDs and whatever else Trey's little friend(s) may develop a hankering for. I'm not in the spirit to provide a charity hotel either. So Trey decided that his little friend Jason ought not to come round anymore, and I concurred with this, and then who shows up Monday night but Jason. He wanted to come here, explained Trey, rather resentfully. I was miffed, and not least also because now I had to get up and do something about it, instead of Trey simply having told him No. I do not care to be the heavy and do not wish to tell people these things, but if I must, I must, so I got up and was very pointed about that I didn't appreciate these visits and if he could not come round any more I wouldn't have to get up and be ugly, which I didn't want to do anyway. I feel somewhat sorry for him. Then after this pointedness, they continued to drink (my good beer, it goes without saying) and then Trey went to lie down and do you know what Jason asked? He asked Can I come in there with you guys? (!) I was HORRIFIED, and the only thing I could come up with was I don't really think that's a good idea. First of all, if I'm going to have a threesome, it shan't be here, we haven't the room. Also, I'm definitely not going to have a threesome with someone that I am actively interested in getting rid of; if I were going to have a threesome, it would be with someone no strings attached and if we like it, we'll call you later. This chap wants to get into our (my) food, our (my) drink, Trey's cigarettes, our (my, Julio's) clothes, and now our sex. Don't think so! Jen would be DELIGHTED to know that not only, according to Trey, does he want to Watch Bouncy Bouncy on the Woggy Woggy, but, apparently, participate.
Trey wants to add that he has learnt that he shouldn't be nice to people because then they will use him. This has to do with other people at work who keep asking him for rides and help with other things like moving, because he has a car, and then make him late or are vicious and ungrateful when he declines because he doesn't feel well or whatever. Then they are nasty to him at work.
Freomi (Freddy and Naomi) had a birthday party for Olivia- Alejandro's birthday party falls on the same day, but do you think they did anything for him? NO. This was excused by the fact that Christina, his mother, who is on crystal meth, had promised to do something for him. But unsurprisingly, she did not come through. Now who do you think ended up taking him to the skate park?! And do you think that Freomi are going to throw him his own party? NO. I am most annoyed.
I bought Olivia some things from the dollar store, and she loved them; I got her a purse, and some nail varnish, and a gun that sprays bubbles, and an electric torch, and an umbrella, and some pearls, and a compact mirror. The cutest thing was when we were at dinner later and she pulls her mirror out of her purse, pretends it's a cell phone, opens it up, and says, Hey Girl, whatcha doin' I'll meet you at the circus later! Call me back! It was too precious.

Since you can't read it;

I really can't deprive my faithful readers from The Best Essay Ever, so here it is in the event you can't read it. I have retyped it faithfully from the stunning original so when you see a mistake, it's not a typo, that's how she wrote it. Some words didn't make sense, but- - -

Challenge: What event in history you most like to have witnessed? Write one pagre front and back about witnessing it.

I would say the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The Japenese killed a lot of people and some are hurt too. The Pearl Hearbor is one of the event in history and I have another event and it is about Thomas Jefferson is one of the president the 3rd president and he let slave's go. Thomas Jefferson was paine built about that propulled a steam engine. the other witnessing is about Europe and the Native American relations was cause the European just wanted to work and the native American Relation was thought the national world was filled with spiritual. The Native American Resistance alot of thing but, they believe that the land belond to the Debusece. The Third event is the bill of Right if I was there when the first parson eventeded the the Rights but Bill of Right is the Coandmant was purpose war. but, anyway let me get back on the pearl harbor bombing. it was not good because people will get kill. I wish I was there so I can stop Japan form bombing the Navy people. I'll talking about the ship is going underwater and they got stike by gun and had getting hit and arms and legs is going everywhere in the water. That's why I pick Pearl Harbor for my event because I what is my witness.

Best Essay Ever, End Part (I hope you can see this)

The Best Essay Ever, end part

Best Essay Ever, first page

The Best Essay Ever

Are you Cleaning Impaired?

Quite some time ago, I came to the realisation that I am - - - Cleaning Impaired.
This should surprise no one who has been to my house; I just didn't write about it then although I thought about it. Perhaps I did. Who cares?
First of all, I want to declare proudly that I - am cleaning impaired. Not of my own personal self, because I like to take two hour baths, but of my general surroundings. Particularly my house. I don't like cleaning my house, I'm not good at it, and I'm not going to do it anymore, dammit. Things like dusting my walls and disassembling the stove after I cook a meal and putting all the pieces in the dishwasher (you know who you are, you read this occasionally) NEVER occur to me. The best I can do is go through a lot of trouble to install one of those stoves with the glass tops and then still not clean it. Something of this is made worse by Trey, who shares the trait of loving clean clothes with my mother. They both like to change their clothes several times a day and then think their clothes need to go immediately in the laundry basket. Nonsense. Clothes are happiest on the FLOOR. I think we should make this a movement, get it diagnosed, and get disability and since Quentin Crisp has gone to the big leather bar in the sky, get Sally Strothers (she isn't doing anything these days) or Tammy Faye to champion our cause.
First we have to have a movement -headed by, until we can get some celebrity to do it, Me. I am cordially inviting all of you who are cleaning impaired to contact me and rise up in favour of reading mystery novels in the bathtub instead of cleaning the bathtub; painting pictures to hang in front of the living room windows instead of cleaning them; and lying in the bed instead of making it, let us join hands and overthrow the forces of Clorox.
How do you tell if you are cleaning impaired or just lazy? Lazy people can see the dirt and clutter and just don't do anything about it. The problem with Cleaning Impaired people is that we can LOOK at a mess and not see it at all. We missed out (sniff sniff) on some crucial part of our childhood (sniff sniff) during which we were taught how to make a home look presentable. Right now, because of Trey cleaning the house, it looks less like some giant hand took a cardboard box diorama and shook the hell out of it, but that's what it normally looks like.
But we should get on to separating the sheep from the goats, or the goats from the people or the goats from the horses, or whatever it is, the goats have to go somewhere the hell else.

My house could currently appear in which of the following magazines?

A) Gourmet
B) Better Homes and Gardens
C) This Old House (before renovation)
D) Dementia Today (in an article about squalor and mental health)

I acquired my cleaning skills primarily from:
A) the maids
B) my mother
C) friends and acquaintances, magazines
D) wild badgers

Dirt in my house is best measured in:

A) those purely theoretical subatomic particles physicists get lots and lots of money to study and the rest of us need to drink gin by the liter in order to see
B) dust that is promptly vacuumed
C) Dust that is not so promptly vacuumed
D) Geologic layers

Help with household chores comes from:
A) the maids
B) my partner, and the children occasionally
C) the children most of the time, and my partner occasionally
D) I married someone specifically because they could clean the hell out of the house, despite their complete incompetence in all other fields.

My belongings in my house are arranged:
A) neatly in arrangements I have copyrighted so that decorating magazines may use them
B) neatly in rooms
C) In piles
D) in drifts

When something breaks in my house, I:
A) Nothing ever breaks; it's simply not allowed.
B) Throw it away and buy a new one
C) Try to fix it before throwing it away
D) put it in another room and try not to think about it while wishing the Broken Things Fairy will come and repair it.

When I clean the house, it takes me:
A) I don't know, I've never done it.
B) a couple of hours every day
C) the better part of a Saturday morning
D) I don't know, I've never done it.

Clothes in my house are most often found:
A) on me
B) arranged in closets by colour, style, and season
C) in the closets
D) where they have escaped the horror of being shut in the closet and are happy on the floor

Laundry in my house is done:
A) by the maids
B) according to a schedule, with baskets for different clothes and a regular rotation
C) when it's dirty
D) all in hot water, with plenty of bleach (regardless of colour) and then put in big piles on beds

The things in my refrigerator can best be described as:
A) from the finest gourmet delicatessens
B) Fresh and tasty
C) leftover takeaway
D) green and furry

In my house, cleaning supplies are:
A) brought by the maids
B) located in each room and I know exactly what to use on which surfaces
C) located in appropriate places throughout the house
D) several cans of "Old Dutch Cleanser" because I saw it in Mommie Dearest and randomly apply it to all surfaces that stay still, roughly with the frequency of a solar eclipse.

The things in my house I save but probably shouldn't are:

A) Old Christmas Cards I keep intending to frame
B) The kids', who are now in college, baby clothes.
C) The usual detritus I haven't gotten around to throwing away
D) Visa/bank statements from 1979, old telephone books, dead plants, questionable light bulbs,
and several pairs of scratched/broken sunglasses.

On my coffee table right now there are:
A) three candles arranged in a tray with glass gems
B) a coaster, the current issue of Better Homes and Gardens, and the remote for the television
C) a wine glass, the remote for the television, and a spit cup ( Some people are going to think I've not seen this, but you know who you are.)
D) a theremin, a pile of paintings, the manual for the stereo, an oil lamp made out of a piece of slate, several piles of books, a pile of CDs and a tape gun.

If I had to pack all my belongings and move, it would take me:
A) a few weeks
B) a few days
C) about a month
D) however long the Mesozoic lasted

When I redecorate, I choose:

A) colours that reflect future designer trends
B) colours that reflect current designer trends
C) neutrals to allow the house to resell easily
D) colours that don't show dirt; if I thought I could stand it, every room in the house would be black. .

Trey Won't

Pet peeve of the day; people who stand in doorways unnecessarily. I think these people must share their personalities with their cats, (cats don't understand doors) which is needless to say unattractive. Even if the cat isn't oozing things, like Sheridan's cat did the other night-
There isn't any need to stand in a doorway unless you are in a queue that extends beyond the entrance, but today I went to the post office to post a parcel and these women are standing there at the doors, with the doors open, blocking the entrance, gazing into the place of Wonder and Mystery that is: The Post Office. They give every impression of being completely entranced, like in movies when actors behold some special effect or people seeing an IMAX 3-D movie for the first time. I should have said, I really wish I could see what you are seeing. O well, I will have to use that line again.
More about Sheridan's cat being oozy than you really wanted to know, and another pet peeve; I hate it when people have animals, and they insist that you love their animal as much as they do. No, I do NOT want your dog to slobber on me; I don't even want MY dog to slobber on me, and I don't want it to get its muddy paws all over my suit, and I don't want it to chew on my toes. And it does not provide for a restful evening if I am constantly fending off demands for attention from your pet.
I like cats if they are not oozing things, but Sheridan's one cat has gotten to the stage of decreptitude at which he is getting skinnier and skinnier and looks sort of moth eaten, and he isn't continent and pees in the furnace vents. He wanted very badly to get on my lap but I didn't want him to climb on me (he clawed me once) so instead he got on Sheridan's lap and promptly let fly a considerable glob of cat spit. I didn't feel any need to contain my revulsion; if one is going to have smelly revolting animals then one should expect that. So I hopped around and said eww eww ewww. I wonder what sort of games one can play with an oozy cat; perhaps one could make it into a really disgusting sort of Super Soaker.
To get to the original subject of what I was writing about was I cooked Rouladen again this week, which are lovely German steak and bacon and pickle rolls and then I ran out of pickles so I asked Trey to get THREE things from Kroger: Dijon mustard, dill pickles and cilantro. Trey managed to get two out of the three things wrong; he didn't read the label and got some damn kind of Dijonnaise mustard, and he didn't get cilantro and got Italian parsley instead. Arrgh.
Also Trey won't let me try the Whipped Cream on him. I bought some of that whipped cream that comes in a spray can with the intent of using it on him, and I even bought two flavours but he said he was "resting" and wouldn't let me do it. I have heard that you have to wash it off immediately because it smells afterwards. I think today I will make him lie down and use it on him.

Charcey

Julio and Brandon

Freddy Birthday 2

Freddy Birthday

Trey's Bad Haircut

Chris and Karen

Fourth of July

We had a short and pleasant Fourth, including Freddy's birthday-
As you may or may not know, certain fireworks are legal in Georgia- unfortunately most of the ones that are legal are kind of lame. Namely, they largely consist of very short fountain-type fireworks. Still, something is better than nothing, and this probably means that in a couple of years we'll get the real things.
The main things that happened are that Naomi had Freddy's birthday dinner at this very pricey Mexican restaurant in Virginia Highlands called Sala de Sabor de Mexico or something like that, and we got one of those Prix Fixe deals which cost $30 each, not including tip and tax. With Tip and tax it was $39 which I think is too expensive. The food was Buford-Highway good but with Virginia Highlands atmosphere which I do not care to pay for, thank you. Consider me declasse or whatever but I go to restaurants to EAT. I don't go anywhere for the ATMOSPHERE. I can look in decorating magazines for that. Freddy had an after party at his house, and that was fun; I managed to get drunk enough to do psychic reading things, the high point of which was when I was telling Chris Simpson he had a lot of conflict within him and around him, and he needed to move to get away from this conflict and Julio up and told him he was gay. Julio did not, as may be expected, bother to make it polite or anything, he just said, Motherfucker, you're gay. This was not as highly resented as I had expected. Chris didn't entirely deny this and went into some detail about an experience he had had that he didn't like some years before; well, having one experience and not liking it proves nothing. If you are, you are.
O and yesterday we saw 28 Days Later, which was DEPRESSING. It was all right up until the protagonists heed the radio broadcast to come to the army base and then gradually destroyed all the people on the army base who had at least come up with a semi-functioning society. I think that the point the director was trying to get to was that there wasn't any difference between the zombies/infected people killing people and the other people killing each other, that society was going to break down no matter what, and I suppose that was also why they showed the main protagonist running around half clothed and bloody as though he were infected. Personally, if I lived in a post apocalyptic society, I would do my damndest to get along with everyone who was left. I thought the message that society was going to destroy itself no matter what was rather bleak. The military people had constructed a good defense system and managed to build something - so why not manage to get along? I didn't like the pessimism. Zombie movies are supposed to have people unite to OVERCOME the zombies.
And I got excited because I saw Cathy's aura in her hands the other night. Black means father figure, blue means anger, green means Searching, pink means nurturing, brown means mother figure and I don't know what some of the other colours mean.