Well blended

I bought a blender that was designed by engineers at NASA. It was kind of expensive ..but I watched a demonstration at Costco ..and since my favorite drink is lunch, I figured it might be worth it. Last year I went through two cuisinarts and an osterizer. So, I took this miracle of modern technology home and, without reading the instructions .. loaded it with juice, bananas, yogurt, tofu, egg whites, frozen mangoes, strawberries and ice cubes ..figuring it could handle that ..and I could eyeball it the way I always do. I turned it on full-speed ..heard a loud crushing sound ..watched the concoction change color ..then stop moving. Prior experience taught me to wait until it was a swirling liquid ..so, I waited. It took about the same amount of time as before. I thought I’d been gypped. When I took a sip .. it was more like drinking a pudding than a smoothie. I thought maybe I hadn’t waited long enough ..so, next time I gave it a couple extra minutes. Now it was definitely a liquid ..but not very cold. For the next couple days I tried different things ..and got about the same results. So, I read the instructions. They said smoothies only take a couple of milliseconds .. and what I was doing was watching it turn solid ..then heat up and turn into a liquid again. If I had waited another couple minutes ..it would a’ been soup.

Reading theory

Some stories can only be understood in the context of the ‘era’ when they were written.

I’m re-reading a book I read when I was in college. It’s making about as much sense to me now as it did then. It’s about a young Englishman who graduates from Oxford ..takes a teaching post at a boarding school on a remote Greek island ..then finds himself being lured into the unknown by a Mystic ..and a pair of twin sisters ..in a nearby Mediterranean villa. I go back and look at the date it was originally written ..1965 ..and I think ..that was over a generation ago. I start to wonder what sort of image an Englishman would have had back then. A picture of Sean Connery pops into my head ..playing the role of James Bond. I Google it and, sure enough ..it had a big influence on social behaviour. Everyone wanted to look like a secret agent .. zipping around in an Aston Martin from one exotic location to another ..acting in command of every situation. When I go back and hear myself read it in that ‘voice’ ..imagining Connery’s Scottish accent ..the story starts making sense. The dialogue clears up and reveals how easily ..and cleverly ..he’s being led into a trap.

Conspiracy theory

Some people have a threshold for mental activity that is so low ~ an ordinary event can trigger a chain reaction.

I’m driving through downtown LA at night ~ yellow lights flash and I slam on the breaks ~ jackhammers are pounding ~ my teeth are chattering ~ and scenes from Tom and Jerry are flickering across the windshield ~ they’re taking turns hitting each other over the head with sledgehammers ~ the sound turns into machine gun fire ~ and my heart beats faster. I see flares and warning signs pop up everywhere ~ redirecting traffic down side streets and alleyways ~ following orders from the DA ~ not me ~ I get out of the car and walk across four lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic ~ that looks like the starting gate at a horse race. A group of street performers are rapping ~ police sirens are wailing ~ Tony Bennett sings ‘can’t take my eyes off of you’ ~ and shots go off like firecrackers. I run around the corner ~ duck into a bar door ~ order a beer with Jack Daniels ~ and tell the bartender about the shit going down outside ~ he tells me there's nothing to worry about ~ he's an undercover cop with with twenty years on the force.

The pioneer

The telephone wakes me from deep sleep ..it’s Laura’s voice on the other end and I’m instantly wide-awake. She’s in Austin Texas ..scouting the housing market, the job market and schools for her and Karla. Yesterday she was in San Antonio ..but says she prefers Austin ..where there seems to be a lot more going on ..economically and culturally. I agree, although I’ve never been there ..I used to watch ‘Austin City Limits’ ..so I tell her it’s the ‘capital’ of country music. She doesn’t sound impressed. She tells me she had to drive through a brutal storm to get there ..and the wind and rain made her pull off the road several times. Today, however, it is clear and she’s OK ..which makes me feel greatly relieved (Later on, I find out that parts of Texas were flooded ..and the Dallas airport closed). In Austin, she actually made contact with a couple of Architects ..one through the paper ..and the other one outside an OfficeMax ..which was next to a HomeDepot ..which was next to the Starbucks where she was having coffee. Sounds promising. Later on, she drove by the high school ..where she says even the ‘gothies’ look busy ..reading ..or working on their laptop ..not scary .. traveling in gangs ..or anything like that ..making her feel less anxious about Karla’s safety. She’s driving back to Monterrey Mexico now ..five more hours to go. I’m impressed with how tuned-in she is to American culture ..it’s very different than Mexico ..where her sister ..and most of her girlfriends still lead traditional lives as wives and homemakers. She says she had to laugh ..her sister thought ‘Juno’ was a great movie .. but the ending made her cry.

Tuesday afternoon

A notice arrives in the mail. They’re converting some nearby bungalows into condos. That’s more than enough reason for me to go sticking my nose into someone else’s business. I trek up the hill and locate the site ..four bungalows ..all vintage 1920’s. I knock on one door. Timothy answers, he just moved here from Maryland ..and he’s subletting from someone who is subletting from someone else. He says he’s going to hang around and see if he can get ‘right of first refusal’ when they go condo. I knock on the next door ..and a surfer answers who looks just like Jeff Spicoli from the movie ‘Fast Times ..’ He says it doesn’t matter to him ..he’ll be in Hawaii long before anything ever happens “But, dude ..thanks for the heads-up.” He invites me in for some ‘herbage’ and a chat. He’s a carpenter and says that these places are going to need major remodeling ..a lot of them are in original condition. “But hey ..” he goes “they don’t build ‘em like this anymore ..look ’roundcha’ dude ..arched doorways ..corniced finishings ..even got glass door knobs.” Now we’re going: this has got to be a plot ..they’re trying to fool the planning commission .. first they call it a ‘conversion’ .. then they get as far as they can before they demolish it ..and the city makes them stop and wait for the proper permits. “Happens all the time” he says “..biggest game in town ..sometimes they’re almost through before going to the commission and saying ‘hey look, there was mold ..we had to tear the place down.’” I trek back home feeling like I got to the bottom of something. What ..I’m not sure. Hopefully this’ll make more sense to me when I read it tomorrow.

Neuro

I wake up this morning feeling foggy headed ~ it’s a balancing act getting out of bed and down the stairs. I sit down and pour myself some coffee and cereal ..and watch as one half goes in ..and the other half goes out of the bowl. I clean up. I drive to see the neurologist ..and get the results of an MRI scan that I’ve been sweating about for the last couple weeks. “Looks good ..!” he says ~ and I’m relieved ~ but I ask him to tell me, once again, what he’s looking for. “The reason you’re out-of-balance.” he says. “I know the answer to that.” I say ..leaving out the fact that we talked about this last time. “OK ..” he says “..tell me what you think the reason is ..dumbshit.” (I filled in the dumbshit part). “The same reason I see a physical therapist ..there’s a problem with my ‘vestibular system’ (sense of balance) .. I do ‘neuro-retraining’ exercises for it and blah blah blah” ..and he’s not even listening and says he has no idea what I’m talking about. I leave feeling even foggier than before ..but with enough sense to realize that I worried over nothing ..MRI’s are expensive ..and I definitely need to get another neurologist. I pick up a cup of coffee at Starbucks ..and get a parking ticket for being in a passenger-loading zone ..I turn the page and there’s another ticket for having no front license plate ..it’s over $100.00 ..I sit on the curb ..drink my coffee and try to remember what happened to the license plate ..and wonder if this is somehow related to the magazine I swiped from the waiting room. I stop by Lazy Acres to pick up ginseng and flax seed oil. I power on to Tri County ..Trader Joe’s .. and Presto Pasta. I get home where there’s a message on my machine .. the ‘good deal’ I found on computer memory last week is gone ..Microsoft Vista uses so much .. there’s been a run on the market ..not to mention the value of the yen ..and I’m sitting here feeling like I just skidded nine miles ..out of the last ten.

Juno

It’s like drawing an inside straight ~ over and over again. I’ve polled the voices inside my head and they tell me to keep rolling the dice ~ this isn't gonna last. My online supplier for artwork is handling things so well ~ I’m no longer worried about that. My laptop warranty hasn’t expired ~ so, with the help of Sadhna in India ~ it screams when I hit the keys ~ which means I’m no longer swearing at microsoft ~ over and over again. I also found someone to upgrade my memory for under $100.00. A bargain. Last week the guy at Compuwest told me I’d be better off buying a new computer. Even my cynical neighbor Matt smiles when I pass by. I go down State Street ~ and duck into Vita’s for a cup of coffee ~ then I go to the theater and see the movie ‘Juno’ ~ very sweet ~ offbeat and witty ~ so, afterwards I go to Morninglory and pick up the soundtrack ~ which is offbeat and folksy ~ I like it a lot ~ ’specially the part that goes: “..we won't stop until somebody calls the cops ..and even then we'll start again and just pretend that ..nothing ever happened”. It’s like my faith in humanity needs restoring ~ over and over again.

Slipstream

I wake up to the sound of ‘dear prudence’ on the radio ~ it sounds so good I wonder why I never bought the Beatles white album before ~ I go downstairs and hear my plants begging for food and water ~ and decide to take care of them before breakfast ..thinking it’ll go fast ~ I’m sitting at the dining room table trying to convert grams ..to ounces ..to tablespoons ..and failing ~ I kick myself for being so stupid ~ I switch on the laptop and it tells me I’ve lost some components of windows ..would I like to restore ..? OK, I say ..wondering if it has a leak ~ while it’s doing that, I water a nearby plant ..and watch as the water runs out the bottom ~ I rush to the sink ..spilling dirt along the way ~ I’m on my knees cleaning the carpet when the computer asks me if I would like to run an anti virus now ~ I reach up with a dirty wet hand and press OK ..hoping it'll find the other leak ~ before I can wash the dirt off my hands ..it informs me that the anti virus is missing a component ..would I like to restore ..? Of course, I yell ..that’s what I pay you for ..! Now there’s dirt all over the keyboard ~ I’m cleaning up thinking maybe I better do this outside ..the plants could use a good drench watering ..besides, I can handle it from here ..it’ll go fast ~ I pick up a bamboo palm from upstairs and take it outside ..it’s bone dry ~ I pick up a kentia palm and spill dirty water all over the carpet ..guess I over-watered it ~ I get a towel to blot it up ..and a plastic bag to wrap it up and take it outside ~ I change into gardening clothes ~ I look at a plant I took outside last week ..it’s burning up ~ I stop to perform a quick transplant and bring it back inside ..leaving a trail of dirt behind ~ I stop to clean it up .. and look at the laptop ~ the antivirus is finished but has no leaks to report ~ I guess the leaks are in my head ~ I begin watering ..I look at my watch ..it’s past noon ..maybe I should have a cup of coffee first ~ I put down the hose ~ and pick it up again going ..nah, I’m almost done ~ now I’m pruning trees by the creek ~ creating a pile of debris ~ and thinking of a way to tell my neighbors that I’m not cool with their plans to grow bamboo ~ a potted fichus starts to overflow ~ I run over .. grab the hose .. and notice blood running down my arm ~ I cut myself with the pruning shears while thinking of what to say to my neighbors ~ I take my shirt off and run the hose over my head ~ I go inside and pour peroxide on the wound ~ now I’m sitting outside drinking juice and coffee ..it’s 2 pm ~ I go inside ~ I come back outside ~ I see that two of my palms have white fly ~ I go inside to get the spray ~ I come outside ~ I go inside again and get my reading glasses because I can’t read the instructions ~ I come back outside ~ I go inside to get a magnifying glass because I still can’t read the instructions ~ I wonder if my vision is getting more blurry ~ I begin spraying ..and the wind blows it right back in my face ~ I’m holding my hair while I flush my eyes with the hose ~ now I’m sitting in the dirt going: “..how the fuck did I get here ..?”