All About Time

They met on the dating website “Our Time.”  She caught him sleeping with her younger sister, one time.  She stabbed him through the heart, with his father’s Japanese WWII bayonet, in no time.

———

For fun and for Trifecta.  They wanted an entire story in 3 sentences, no word limit, which, if WWII is just one word, doesn’t matter to this story; it’s still 33 words.  He should have hidden the key to the gun cabinet a lot better, huh?  Oh, you say he should have stayed away from the sister instead?  Well, you never saw her, did you, so shut up.  

I Trust You’re Happy With Yourselves

You know, you ladies out there?  Well, I just fail to understand why you and I are still not having sex.  Is it my poor fashion sense?  The rust on my car?  My lack of a seaside vacation home?  My sporadic gassiness?  The fact that I don’t buy into the “Okinawa Diet” fad?  Please help me to understand.  I thought we had something special here.

Oh, sure, I know what you’ll say:  We’ve never met, we don’t even live in the same state, we don’t even live in the same country, we don’t see eye to eye on everything, there’s a huge age difference, there’s the slight technicality that you’re already “taken” and even Liam Neeson can’t change that, you’re too busy masturbating to pictures of Jools Holland,  or you’ve outgrown the “physical contact with other people” phase of your life.

Details, mere details.  All can be surmounted with the right amount of alcohol, a quick divorce, a plane ticket, perhaps some more alcohol.  I have most of my teeth, I own my own trailer, I have an unabridged dictionary, a leather couch (no, I don’t sit naked on it eating cheetos and watching porn), a coffee maker, a great oatmeal/chocolate chip cookie recipe, and a mood-setting fake waterfall just off the back “mini-deck”.  I’m almost always polite to old people and kids, I keep the dishes clean, and I’ve never been tempted to wear a “Women Love Me/Fish Fear Me” t-shirt.

You can have the remote as long as you don’t make me watch “reality shows” or try to get me to listen to rap, hip-hop, “dubstep”, dance music, girl groups, boy groups, opera, mainstream country, or Neil Young playing that motherfucking kazoo or whatever the FUCK that phase was that he went through (well, to be truthful, no Neil Young after ”Cortez the Killer”).  You can’t smoke in the house but I expect you to have vices.  You can go to church on Sunday as long as you don’t wake me while you’re getting ready.  You can pray for me if that turns you on but I don’t want to fucking hear about it.  No uncaged birds in the house or reptiles or vermin of any kind.  Not big on the whole monkey thing either.  Other than that I’m pretty tolerant.

I’m breathlessly awaiting your call.

Tonight’s soundtrack is from the great Grace, not my favorite song of hers, though it’s okay, but it’s so comical how incredibly tan she is here; she’s usually bone-white.  I guess you’d say she was “double-baked” the night she went on the Smothers Brothers show:

Grace, along with Paul Kantner got so hippy-dippy out there at the end of their time together, but she still had that voice, and she wrote this wonderful love song to her daughter China in that time:

Mensa Candidates

I work in the back corner of a “big-box” home-improvement store, so I don’t have a lot of contact with customers.  Bringing things up front, going to break, heading to the bathroom, “mall-walking” during slow times, and whatnot, all cause me to cross paths with mostly nice people, some attractive women, a few jerks, and some real Einsteins.  Not too long ago, at the entrance to the “unisex/family” bathroom, I ran into a gentleman who was obviously on his way to a Mensa convention.  The janitor dude was cleaning the men’s room and had cone barriers at the entrance plus a sign up asking that men use the unisex/family bathroom.  Now, most bigger stores in the U.S. that have a unisex bathroom have a door on that room with a locking handle (because they’re small, they’re intended for parents to bring young’uns in and have privacy, and they don’t have privacy barriers inside the room), whereas many of the men’s and women’s restrooms have no doors at the entrance, just a wall or two (a sort of “mini-maze”) keeping the “looky-loos” from peering into the rooms, with, of course, stalls for some privacy inside.  Apparently Joe Mensa-guy had never left the farm till that day, because when I was in the unisex/family restroom doing some quick business, he rattled the locked door handle.  Then…he rattled the locked door handle again.  I was thinking, “You know, the door isn’t gonna get any less locked just by you rattling the handle more.” When I exited the room, I had my vest on identifying me as an employee there, and he goes: “Oh, the cleaning guy”.  Again, Einstein, no, I’m just someone using the pisser.  The cleaning guy would obviously be the guy, um, oh, I don’t fucking know, maybe behind the yellow cones blocking entrance to the actual men’s room, not a guy who just happened to be an employee and was coming out of a different restroom, with no cleaning stuff in his hands and no cleaning stuff in the room he walked out of.  Einstein.

A few weeks earlier (and this was a nice gentleman, by the way, but I got a big kick out of him) there was a feller in the light bulb aisle looking for a certain kind of light bulb for a kitchen vent/fan thing.  He didn’t have it with him, but he had some helpful info. about what he needed.  He said it screwed into the socket on the kitchen vent thing (he even made a helpful “righty-tighty” motion with his hand to simulate the bulb-screwing), and went on to tell me that it turned on and off with a switch (I believe he made the “switch-flipping” motion also).  I bit my tongue and resisted the desire to say, “So, we’ve established that it screws into a socket, and it lights up when you flip a switch.  Well, that narrows it down quite a bit.”  Luckily he was one of those nice folks who really don’t need anyone in front of them to carry on a conversation (I’m one of those also), and, while I was making helpful “Hmmm” noises, he finally talked himself into thinking that he should actually bring in the old bulb for comparison.  Perhaps he and his wife are happily flipping the switch even as I write this, marvelling at Mr. Edison’s invention.  At least he figured it out; I’m pretty sure the bathroom guy will never understand why some public bathrooms are lockable.

Simpler Times

Remember when?
The whir of a mosquito
Didn’t maybe mean death?
The gleam in a girl’s eye
Wasn’t for some other guy?
The song in your heart
Said something other than just blah?

—————

For Trifextra:  33 words including at least one example of onomatopoeia.

Family Road Trip

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ROAD TRIP

It was a beautiful spring day in the middle of South Dakota.  Momma Edna (Eddie Mae), Jennie, and I were toolin’ along, singing along with Johnny and June.

“You never found your June Carter, did you, Daddy?”

“Your dad wouldn’t know a good woman if she hit him over the head, little lady.  The best thing that ever happened to you was when your momma run off with that piece of shit trucker.”

A scruffy hitchhiker with a full hiker’s backpack, complete with sleeping bag and frying pan, had his thumb out up ahead.  Eddie and I exchanged glances; she shrugged, I pulled over.

Jennie hopped into the back seat with him and put her feet up on the seat; my buddy Jim once told me she was a beautiful 18-year-old, right before I popped him in the nose.

Momma Edna never did have much patience; after about ten miles of puppy-dog eyes and talk about how great life on the road must be, Edna whipped out her pistol and told “Scruffy” to shuck his stinky blue jeans.

“Jesus, leave them ‘undies-of-many-colors’ on, boy.  Who do you think we are?  Jennie, check them pockets.”

“Well, there’s, let’s see, 578 bucks, a cell phone, a credit card, six condoms that he ain’t gonna use today (smirk), and a picture of a bucktoothed whore.  Sister, girlfriend, or both?”

I’d heard enough.  “Okay, honey, give him back his pants and a hundred bucks to live on.  He can have the cards and phone too, nothin’ to trace back to us, right?  You can call Mom and Pop back on Long Island for some more cash, right, sonny?”

Dumbass nodded and got out; Jennie blew him a kiss and flipped him the bird.

“Well, looks like it’s the Golden Corral and the Ramada Inn tonight”, said Eddie Mae.  “Wake me up when we hit Wall Drug.  I promised Mabel I’d bring back a Jackalope.  She’s an idiot, but she’s blood.”

——-

(Reads as 325 or 326 words to me.  My God, I’d be horrified if my sweet daughter or my late, sweet mom ever talked like these 2.  )

“Well You Can Pick Up a Pen!” (The Hernia Times)

First of all, thanks to whoever read me 38 times in one hour last night, when I’ve had very few “hits” lately.  Unless you’re a spammer, then what the fuck?

I have to start with a hearty “knock on wood”, because I’m about to be stupid (er than usual) and claim that I’m starting to feel better from something, and if I ever, I mean FUCKING ever, am seen to brag about anything, I get knocked down, I swear.  That’s why, even in a weak moment when I think that there sure ought to be a Supreme Being (pure silliness, if you really think about it), I say thanks for what I’ve had, not thanks for what I’ve got.

It’s not just dull-witted superstition, it has seemed to happen time and time again, this “Murphy’s Law” thing that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, but for me only after I start to feel content.  The most notable example was from when I was married, and my ex’s car had been acting up.  It was a Taurus, which is French for “junk”, and we had swapped cars for a while so that I could have the glory of it dying at odd times for no apparent reason.  But it hadn’t for a long time, and on my way to work one morning, at the busiest stoplight in this 2-horse town, I said to myself “The cars have been working pretty good lately”.  The light changed, I hit the pedal, there was a loud skinny whine from somewhere in the car, and it wouldn’t go over about 20 miles an hour.  I limped it into the nearest parking lot, called the wife, got to work somehow, and several hundred dollars later we had a new rebuilt tranny.  And a new transmission too.  Ha ha.  I believe we had to get it replaced a 2nd time, but that was on warranty from the first time.  I saw later that both our cars were listed in the “used cars to avoid” section in a car buying guide.  Anyway, I try to steer away from saying “at least” about anything.  “At least my car is running good”, “at least I have a wife and a house and a dog that all love me”, “at least my teeth haven’t cost me a lot of money lately”, ” at least I have a girlfriend”, “at least I don’t have a bunch of healthcare costs”, all have bit me in the goddamn ass before.  So now I say “it’s good”, “it’s good we’re supposed to have good weather for a change on a weekend”, “it’s good the price of gas is going down a little finally”, etc.  It’s safer, not that I believe in living in fear, but I do know who’s boss, and it isn’t me.  It’s life, fate, Karma, Murphy’s Law, me pissing off a God that actually does exist, or some such combo platter.

I had hernia surgery 2 weeks ago, hence this one-time edition of “The Hernia Times”.  I don’t recommend using the need for surgery recovery as a way to get time off from work, but there’s obviously worse things.  I plan to (yuck) go back to work Monday.  I thought I’d get a bunch of crap done, but not so much.  I mean, I’m forbidden to lift anything over 20 pounds, but, as my little sweetie told me when I was signing her out of the after-school program the first time I picked her up after surgery, “Well you can pick up a pen!”  I believe she told me I could pick up a hat too.  She didn’t mention a glass of wine, but that’s been fine too.  So, yeah, since little kids sometimes give you the best advice, often without trying, I thought maybe I’d actually “pick up that pen” and do a whole bunch of writing, but it hasn’t really happened.  Of course, you don’t feel like doing much when you’re healing, but still.  I have walked about 2 miles each day, but that’s been about it.  And picked up my little sweetie a few times, from school that is, not literally.  I thought I’d look into the freelance writing thing a little, and I guess there’s still time, but it sounds like work.  And I’m nothing if not the “king of time-wasting”.   I did balance my checkbook.  Ouch.

As for hernia surgery, it wasn’t too bad.  Laparoscopic, in and out, so to speak, only about 5 or 6 hours spent at the surgery center.  I was only on the narcotic pain meds for about 1 day, then ibuprofen for about a week.  As some of you know, it’s a little freaky sitting around in a hospital gown, but the wait before was pretty easy.  I had crosswords to do, plus nonstop tv footage of chasing the bad guys in Boston.  And there must have been a couple shift changes or something, because I swear I met about 8 sweet, nice-looking nurses that day.

They give you a pamphlet, of course, before they rearrange you these days, and one thing it mentioned was that you can resume sexual activity as soon as you feel comfortable after surgery.  So I had my big joke rehearsed that I was going to use before they put me out, which was something like “So I see I can have sex as soon as I feel comfortable after surgery.  Where exactly do you propose that I find this woman?”  But, if I did say it at all, I’m pretty sure what came out was:

Me: “So I see in the pamphlet that I’m supposed to be able to have sex as soon as I’m comfortable.”
(Anasthesiologist’s nurse: “We’re going to just put this IV in you”)
Me: “I’m wunnerin’, where zack…”
(Mumble)
(Sleep)
(Drool)

I hadn’t really realized that in laparoscopic surgery, they cut several little holes in you, then blow you up with air so the doc can “go on a walkabout” under your skin.  They somehow magically stitch you back up from underneath, then put some antiseptic glue or something over that.  I didn’t realize till later, but they stuck a catheter in during the surgery, which didn’t really bother me at the time, me being all sleepytime and all, but the first time or two afterwards, well, you notice that something had gone in and out of a place where you wish it hadn’t.  I have a new respect for those who have to use one full-time or frequently, or those who have to pass kidney stones and whatnot.  Plus a thrilling new thing to look forward to, should I live long enough to end up in a nursing home in a wheelchair with both legs cut off like my dad.  Big, big fun.

Oh, and they really gloss over it in the pamplet, but there will be some bruising, like some big-time bruising, in interesting places.  For about a week or so, I looked like I’d been the “M” in some S/M relationship.  It didn’t ever really hurt so terribly much, but it has been noticeable.  To put it bluntly, it doesn’t really feel like you’ve been kicked “in the privates”, it feels like you were kicked in the privates several hours ago, and the effects are winding down.  Ladies, make no mistake about it, when they say to kick an assailant there, they are correct.  Guys, you know this: if you’re winding up an air hose, a water hose, an extension cord, a rope, and lose control of the end of it so it just barely “flicks” you there, with no more energy than you’d use to flick a stray grasshopper off a patio table, you feel it.  So a good swift kick there will double any man over.

I had looked up some info on the ‘net about hernia surgery and recovery before I went in, of course, but it was afterwards, when I wondered why I was so tired (well, duh, your body is working hard to heal you up, plus you’re in slack-ass mode), that I found a bunch of interesting comments from post-hernia surgery folks.  I’m only laughing at their pain in the knowledge that they will heal up in time; I’m not that mean.  Warning: if you think there’s been “too much information” previously in this post, rest assured there’s a lot more here.  In italics are their comments, mine are in parentheses:

Post surgery my balls were literally the size of grapefruit, as one of the previous gentleman described it. If I so much as cleared my throat, it felt like I was being hit in the balls with a baseball bat

My testicles have a mind of there own now. They’re like shape shifters from another planet. They change size, they hang very low, or draw up and try to disappear all together,various sorts of pain… sometimes a dull throb, sometimes a burning feeling, sometimes sharp electrical shock type feeling. Also a constant burning/muscle fatigue feeling along the incision areas. And I’ve even noticed a slight erectile problem too. I can always get an erection but its very difficult to maintain. I’ve started using a “c*#k ring” which is surprisingly effective. But once you get used to that its almost impossible to go back to not using it.

hi hernia people!

Hi fellow sufferers, I’m three days post double inguinial mesh repair surgery. Testicals the size of a blackening watermelon,black penis hiding somewhere within. Literally pot luck peeing,how can one aim 1/2inch and two wrinkles accurately?

My wife referred to the appearance of my penis as an oversized pig-in-a-blanket…only purple! Maybe funny to her…but not me!

So far none of the swelling in the joy department the way others have described,

dr said i should cum for operation nextweek (I’ve heard of “cumming” before a date to help one relax during the date, but before a surgery, hmm) 

sod the pain killers, and eat plenty of fibre.  (Gotta love the Brits for getting to the point.  And Miralax is definitely your friend.)

So there you have it, the (hopefully) one-time special edition of The Hernia Times, free online to you.  I finally picked up the pen a couple times, at least on this blog.  Think how many book chapters I could have written had I not been lazy.  I have a couple free days left, but I guess I’ll have to force myself to write in the evenings and on weekends, like all other folks who have “a real job.”  Again, yuck.

Gotta go–the George Jones funeral is on.

Bare Trees

Did you ever see the SNL clip called “The Chris Farley Show”, where Chris Farley interviews Paul McCartney?  That was awesome, man.  If you’ve seen it, you’ll get the silly joke.  Well, that’s how I feel sometimes when trying to describe things.  I mean, I can write okay about me or what happens to me or what I observe about people, I suppose, but to describe a sunrise or a mountain or a face or, in this case, bare trees reflected in a pool of water at the edge of a paved lane, about all I can do is say, “that was awesome, man.”  It (seeing leafless trees reflected in water on a roadway) always reminds me of a trailer for a horror film of some sort, where a carload of unsuspecting teens is headed towards their doom, or a spy movie or mystery where an unsuspecting good person is being taken on their last ride.  Since I have a tracphone which doesn’t take pics, didn’t have my cheap digital camera that day, and don’t feel like driving all over heck today to find a similar view (too sunny anyway), here is a link to a representative pic:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elyssa-conley/322996960/

I don’t know the proper etiquette; I assume the person would welcome me sending viewers their way, but I’d need to ask permission to use the pic here, and I have no patience for asking and waiting for permission.

Despite, like Farley, my misgivings about its worth, I felt like creating something, a poem or story, about such a picture (or in my case, a memory).  Since I’ve done serial killers to death, ha ha, this one is more of the “last ride” variety:

BARE TREES

Russian
Whore
Big
Fat
Mouth
Telling
Russian
Mob
Secrets

Long
Ride
Country
Lane
Trees
Leafless
Reflecting
Puddles
Dark
Horror
Film
Beauty

Russian
Beauty
Staring
Seeing
Lifeless
Trees
Reflecting
Suddenly
Realizing
Fearing
Turning
Seeing
Choking
Dying
Falling
Landing

Dead
Staring
Eyes
Reflecting
Lifeless
Autumn
Puddle
Light

–

Speaking of Paul McCartney, do you remember when, not sure if it was actually him or a character playing him on a different SNL, was asked “What did you think of when you wrote “Helter Skelter”, and his answer was “We wanted to inspire a bloody mass murder?”  That was awesome, man.

Chris and Paul: