Rat

Thursday evening:

I was lying on the couch watching some show on Netflix. I saw him by the time he got almost even with my head...I was startled and almost said something. Then I noticed he wasn’t moving very fast. I see him/them almost every evening scurrying along the baseboard, or making the mad dash to or from the old console TV set and behind this couch. Sometimes I watch while one runs by Tucker’s food bowl, hides behind it for a few seconds then jumps in and grabs some food and hauls ass with the loot.

But this one wasn’t really scurrying...or trying to hide. He was also smaller than what I’m used to. A lot of thoughts...should I shoo him away? Should I grab something and smack him? Should I try to trap him with something? I watched as he took tiny little spurts of running and eventually made it to the base of the little bookcase next to me. Stopped...sniffed. Whirled around for no apparent reason (is he related to me...I do stuff for no apparent reason).

I’m wondering if he is a rat or a mouse...I don’t really care but it nags at a corner of my brain. Maybe he’s a baby, too little to be on his own. Maybe something is wrong with him (rabies!). Maybe he got into some old poison somewhere back there. I picked up one of the novelty back scratchers Melinda got from the Wild Animal Park and poked him. I decided a rodent living in my house is a rat...period. (Stop niggling me already.)

He doesn’t run away when he’s poked. Whirls around again. What to do? Tucker hasn’t noticed...what if he ate him? The wind from the fan moves a wrapper from a pack of crackers out from under the couch. I push the wrapper over toward the rat. Doesn’t move. Tucker’s up from his nap...maybe he won’t notice.

Friday evening:

The fan died. Just simply stopped...like I suppose we all will. Not really surprising since it was very seldom turned off since it came here. Been running almost continually for over a year I guess. I like some white noise and also REALLY need some moving air. Doesn’t matter if it’s fifty degrees in here, I still sweat unless there’s moving air. Crap. I check to see if rat has gone...I thought he might have a few more of the little spurts of running left in him. Guess not. He’s still there, curled up in the little pile of Tucker hair and dust and dirt collected by the base of the bookcase.

Melinda gets out the tiny little fan we got for some reason. It works but it’s...tiny; a 12-incher. Yeah, the party in my head is laughing at “a tiny 12-incher”... I blame Facebook. It’s ok at night, when it’s pretty cool anyway. But quiet...almost TOO quiet. I hear wheezing...is that me? Turn up the volume on Netflix...working our way through all of Law & Order: SVU and Criminal Intent...already up to Jeff Goldblum. What? How did he get in a story about a rat? Oh...poke the rat with the back scratcher...he doesn’t move. Tucker isn’t wise to it. I cover him with the cracker wrapper...his shroud. How many rats get a shroud?

Saturday afternoon:

Thought the landlady might come by for the rent...she usually goes to the house next door and sometimes comes over here on Saturday morning. She never showed, so after the pills and shot we went to sleep. Didn’t sleep long...damn, it’s only noon. Haven’t heard from my friend Jordan in what...two days? He’s having a VERY rough time since his mom died on Sunday. I go check the Facebook peeps and get a few smiles. I check the email and still nothing from Jordan.

The rat is stiff as a board...he’s in full rigor. Odd how that sounds like “vigor” which...well. I’m about to collect rat and dispose of his remains...rats have remains too, right? I thought I heard someone say something. Glance out the kitchen window...crap! Landlady has shown up in afternoon!? Melinda and Tucker are still in bed...no, it aint like that. I had the foresight to have her check already written out yesterday...the landladys’...Melinda has no need for a check from me. I grab it and hurry to the door. I want to go out quietly and shut the door without waking up Tucker so I don’t have to deal with putting him on his string.

Follow the landlady to her truck for the receipt. “What you gonna do about all this grass?”, she asks. I feel the blood pressure...seems like it goes from my belly to my head and rings a bell there, like one of those attractions at the Fair. A dozen responses wrangling furiously around in my attic...wondering which one might get out through a window. “I have no idea....I thought I might get the sling blade and whack some of it down after while.” It was an acceptable response...better than running back inside and collecting the rat and shaking it at her and yelling, “What the hell you gonna do about these rats!?”

Damn, I’m sweating now...blogging. Oh the rat? Yeah, I’ll get it into the trash in a minute. Happy weekend, y’all. I like the third of June better than Cinco de Mayo for two reasons: 1) It’s the date in “Ode to Billy Joe” and 2) the third is check day...but we’re past the rat now, right? *sigh*

TRB

Writing a Book

“So. How do you write a book?”

“Hallie Phino. I guess you just start off writin’ like you would a letter.”

“Naw...you need to have some limits on it. Like...what it’s gonna be about. You might use one o’ them twelve dollars words like ‘parameters’. You can’t just chunk a bucket o’ words up there and expect to have a readable book. And why would anybody try to write any book if they didn’t want someone else to read it? You gonna write about history or math or religion or some other fiction....?”

“Yeah, I see yer pernt.”

“I think if I was gonna write a book it would prolly be ‘technically’ a ‘biography’...meanin’ about me. After all, I think I know more about that than anything else.”

“Yeah...but you ain’t famous. I can see why somebody might want to read a book about Johnny Cash or Oprah but who would wanna read a whole book about a funny lookin’ weird fat feller from Felton that no body ever heard of?”

“Yeah, I see... HEY! Some folk have heard of me! I ain’t completely invisible yanno!”

“Oh sure, but like 17 people and most of them already know all about you they would wanna know, and you wouldn’t want the other 14 knowing too much.”

“Look, Sedgewick. You startin’ to press on me nerve, son. Jeebers. It wouldn’t have to be ALL about me I guess... Maybe have some other stuff about what I think about things.”

(Flash warning look at Sedgewick)

“I’d have to figger out how long a book too. I know a feller recently wrote a book and it ended up being published in three volumes. All told it took him something like ten years. It was actually published too, even if it was by one of the “vanity publishers”. Hey, it’s actually three physical books you can hold in your hand and you can buy ‘em on Amazon and stuff. Ten years...cornflakes, I’d be pushing it to go ten days doing something like that.”

“Short book.”

(snort pfffft)

“They got them E lectronic books now...can ya write one like that?”

“Prolly more my speed, only I dunno the tech stuff about publishing it in that format. You know, even though it’s cool to have a physical book, I wouldn’t want to even try to make any money or sell it. It just ain’t me.”

“Ok, so you wanna write a book you want somebody to read it, you want it be about you and....some other stuff. You do know some HTML and maybe a few other furrin words, right? You could write it in a website and tell folk where it’s at and then them what was painful hard up fer sumpin’ to do could come over and peer at it fer a while.”

(The stare bores through Sedgewick like a split beam phaser set on fuk up.

“You know, Bloomfeld, sometimes I think you do have a few brain cells left after all. A’ight. Less giver a shot and see if she falls over.”

“Ok, but besides being about you what else ya gonna chunk in there?”

“I guess some o’ my philosophizin’, throw in some stuff about religion and polly ticks (You know they have thousands of books just on them things)...”

“Yeah, so why would you want to do another one?”

(Back up Fernbank.)

“Yanno, it occurs to mah three brain cells, if you wuz gonna write a book and you just started off writing one, you’d have a couple pages by now, instead of a couple pages about how you might write a book.”

“Ok, Lum Bar. Youzza pressin’ me.

....and so it goes....

TRB

Blogs

Having a personal web site and/or blog are their own respective gradients of hell/insanity. You can work on both an entire lifetime and they are never any closer to finished...when you kick off they’ll just stop in mid-sentence, like the rest of you might. Some people have a web site to sell stuff (Gawd I hate monetary system), some bloggers get big bucks (the size of Cadillac Escalades) from someone somewhere. I suppose some use a blog as a drainage valve; if some of the crap that builds up in yer head can be converted into words and poured out onto a page, even a digital page, it seems to relieve the pressure for a while. Trouble is, if you have a blog readership, unless you’re famous and/or highly paid, your readership is small and it’s not too long before most all of them have heard your various drivels before...then the blog is almost literally a personal drainage valve. *sigh*

I’m working on totally reconstructing my web site over at Lycos/Tripod because they changed platforms a coupla times and some of the stuff there went poof. It’s still an embarrassing mess at the moment. Trying to force myself to pay attention and do the work to get it right. They also have a blog option there, but any blog which does not allow embedding of videos sucks swamp gas, so I’m sticking with my blogger site for that. Funny how, even if I were rich, I wouldn’t pay 12 cents to make a beautiful home in which to host visiting guests....but I’ll spend days trying to get the HTML right to make my web site purty...to me anyway.

My best friend here in town is having a rough time...his mom died on Sunday. I try to stay out of his way...say supportive stuff if/when we talk. When I write stuff online I wanna link to EVERY DAMN THING! Plus I’m scatterbrained. It’s partly why I couldn’t write a print book...no frackin’ clickable links. Meh. That’s a word I never would have learned except for the Internet. Maybe I’ll see if I can blog on a topic...or work on the site HTML some more. Drink ‘em if ya got ‘em.

TRB

Boo!

Just making the earthshaking announcement that I am back here to blog again. Guess I gotta go write one now...be back soon.

Waiting Room

(with apologies to those who cannot see the videos)
The King is long dead, having left the building early, despite being seen a few years ago singing a duet with Celine who was only born the same year Elvis first did the song.

The only two Bee Gees left are in their sixties and Mick Jagger’s lips are succumbing to gravity as much as Linda Ronstandt’s tits. The sound tracks of our lives ooze like morphine from the speakers in the waiting room of death, while strange nondescript creatures like a Justin Bieber slither in from the other side of the room. The Man in Black sang Ain’t No Grave Can Hold My Body Down,

but it seems to be holding well so far, unless by ‘body’ he meant his body of work, which he really didn’t.

An abundance of rather absurd games are offered to distract the residents from where they are and why, like politics and religion and consumerism and all are lulled into a calming stupor of thinking their lives have meaning, until eventually their number is up and they wink out of existence, just as all others before them.

I join a few grizzled waiters of various ages, around the perimeter of the room, participating as little as possible in the stupid and mindless games, keenly alert for my calling, as it has become a welcome relief to know the time here grows shorter; a relief from the unbearable pressing of monotony and insanity that pervades the only species on the planet to have evolved enough brains to be so insane, but never enough to get past it.

It is somewhat comforting to know that Jerry Falwell is just as dead as Harvey Milk. So few, it seems, can even see the past road traveled or that all ‘exits’ except the last one are dead ends; that the Hotel California is their lives and they can check out any time they like but can never leave; an arrogant grain of sand before the Universe, thinking itself important and powerful, oblivious to the fact that it is only Dust In The Wind.

signed, Dusty.

TRB

Sally forth

I like to Sally forth. Do you ever sally forth? I sallied fifth once but was so far back I couldn't see what was going on. Sally was no help because, of course, she always sallies first.

I drank the milk of human kindness today and I fear it has made me a tad tipsy. Did you ever go to a dentist and get one of those "I don't care" shots? There is a depression kind of I don't care, but this is different, much more...amusing.

If you think this is TMI, well, I'm sorry, just ignore please. For myself I don't think such a critter as TMI exists, at least among close friends...and we are friends, right? I was able today to get my sadist freak on. Oh no, this not even remotely sexual, far more pleasurable than that, in my opinion. I looked into his little beady, black, dead eyes and smiled...he tasted SO good. Someone had killed him, taken much of his body, chopped it up, added some other stuff, then stuffed a lot of it back into his carcass, which made an interesting serving platter. So utterly perverse...and delicious. It was the first time I had known the local Chinese buffet to have stuffed crab.

I left Melinda a note scribbled on the back of an envelope. It said, "You are invited to supper at the Chinese buffet. Click LIKE if you approve." She thumped my head which served as an adequate click. So we went off to engage in tasties.

They have a broiled shrimp/crabmeat dish which almost always has much more of the crabmeat left (after all, it is genuine imitation crabmeat, as opposed to...well) than shrimp...especially when I am there. I dipped it into a small bowl of buttermilk ranch dressing. Ordinarily I also have a slab of the baked flounder but, today, I passed it up because they also had a soft breaded fried shrimp with a white honey/coconut sauce to drool all over it. I drooled. Downright orgasmic Epicurean gastronomic (even though that word sounds rather disgusting to me - and sounds weirdly like astronomical) delights. Must have been somewhere during the third plate, with the second stuffed guy staring at me, over the stuffed mushrooms, with his beady, black dead eyes that I realized I might be stuffed too full and sloshing to get back to the car. I laughed...I didn't care. I could have died then and gone out very happy.

I feel rather heavy snoreage approaching. Later...

TRB

The Outcast

There was an episode of Star Trek TNG (The Next Generation) called The Outcast which I thought did a pretty good job of addressing the kind of situation many gay people find themselves in. The gist is that a species of humanoids called the J'naii have all evolved 'beyond' gender. There are no males or females but all persons are both. There are sometimes exceptions, people born who actually consider themselves one or the other and feel attracted to a male or a female. These are the social outcasts, the ones who have a 'sickness'. Luckily, there is something called psychotectic treatment which is quite effective at removing all traces of the 'perversion' from the afflicted person and they are made normal, just like everyone else.

An individual called Soren, who thinks of herself as female, falls in love with Commander Riker, and the feeling is mutual. She tells him how people like her must meet in secrecy, in fear of being discovered, in fear of being made to undergo the psychotectic treatment. Before a tribunal, she makes a very good, passionate appeal to them that she and others like her are no different at all from anyone else; they love, laugh, play, work, live life just like everyone else with the one exception of preferring to be and mate with one gender rather than the 'norm' of being both.

Upon learning that Soren will be forced to undergo the treatment she so fears, Riker becomes so outraged that he is determined to rescue her, even to bring her onto the Enterprise for asylum, if necessary. But he is too late. He and Worf find her on the planet and he is trying to rescue her, but she has no desire at all to be 'rescued'. She remembers what happened between her and Riker, how she used to think and feel, but after having the treatment, she is now normal, like all the other J'naii. She is embarrassed and ashamed at having acted in such a way, and when Riker tells her, "I love you", she can only reply, "I'm sorry".

This is one of the few times I know of in fiction where they got it right about the treatment and results of it. Typically, there is always "some part" of the person they were before, imprisoned within the body, feeling horrible, etc. The truth is that when we develop the ability to program brains, this is how it will be. If you are one way, you may fear and loathe any idea of changing you, but once you ARE changed, it will be just as though you never were the other way, as far as your personality and desires are concerned.

We humans have a ways to go yet before we get to that stage...but we ARE getting there. At the moment, the cutting edge of such neurological science is being able to reconstruct, by reading brain activity, which video clip the subject has just seen. Some call it brain movies. If you look at the actual video clip versus the clip constructed from reading the brain activity, you see there is a great deal lost in the translation. It's hardly an HD reproduction. Then again, this science is very much in it's infancy. You couldn't see or hear very much, or very well, on televisions either when they still brand new things.

My point here, that I really hope at least some can understand, is that eventually, even if probably not in our lifetime, humans WILL have such technology. It will be commonplace in court for the accused to be subjected to such brain scans to extract information about where they were and what they were doing, what they heard, saw, said, felt, at the time of the alleged crime. Further, it will be entirely possible to program the human brain just as easily as a programmer might currently program an inorganic computer. It's all in knowing how.

TRB