you can’t go home again

I don’t know who said that, but I have to water my dad’s lawn while he’s rafting the firth river to the beaufort sea.

actually, I’m not entirely sure I’ll be able to figure out the elaborate system of runs and pumps, after listening to the directions last night.  if I do it wrong, I burn out the main pump.   this looks like a distinct possibility.  the eleven year old next door appears to have some grasp of the process…this doesn’t give me hope for my own abilities, just relief that if I fuck up too badly, I have someone to turn to for help.

I was relieved to find out that after years of not bothering to fix the air conditioning system, dad has installed a new heat pump/ac.  I cannot emphasize enough the depths of my thankfullness.  I am SO a melter…so much so that I moved away from that desert climate entirely.

I asked about the safety of sleeping outside, were there any cougars, etc, sighted lately… only to be reminded that the rattlesnakes would make that an uninviting prospect.  “just chop their heads off with a shovel.”  I guess it’s been a while.

here is my list of things to do:

1.  drag fp to the movies to salivate over pirates
2.  drag fp to the bars
3.  drag fp home if she unable to do so herself
4.  hike mission ridge
5.  take the kids to the lake
6.  spend a day on the river
7.  golf
8.  tennis
9.  get a haircut and pedicure
10.  lose ten pounds
11.  sweat a lot
12.  recover from heatstroke
13.  read something
14.  make it home alive, with all three kids (also alive)

I hope to avoid arguments with all relatives, mine and the man’s (though he’s not coming along)…and maybe, if all things pan out, rent a jetski…mmmmmmmmmm.

I’ll be staying in my old bedroom.
maybe I’ll sneak over to my mom’s where there’s internet and cable.
it’s funny how you end up feeling like the kid you were, when surrounded by such deep sources of memory.

in case you’re wondering, you know, what I was like:

  well, there ya go.

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edited to add: 

I’ve been walking around the house, loudly singing:

Ink Spots—If I Didn’t Care

If I didn’t care more than words can say
If I didn’t care would I feel this way?
If this isn’t love then why do I thrill?
And what makes my head go ’round and ’round
While my heart stands still?

If I didn’t care would it be the same?
Would my ev’ry prayer begin and end with just your name?
And would I be sure that this is love beyond compare?
Would all this be true if I didn’t care for you?

MONOLOGUE: If I didn’t care honey child, mo’ than words can say. If I didn’t 
care baby, would I feel this way? Darlin’ if this isn’t love, then why do I thrill so
much? What is it that makes my head go ’round and ’round while my heart just stands
still so much ?

If I didn’t care would it be the same?
Would my ev’ry prayer begin and end with just your name?
And would I be sure that this is love beyond compare?
Would all this be true if I didn’t care for you?

I’ve had to do this all because of theGlomonster’s wakeup song, evilly reverberating in my head…

Fun Nietzsche Gifts

  I mean, I already have the action figure

                                         (thanks fp)

could be heard in the shower this morning:

Who’s that walkin’ round here, Mercy
Say at a diner at a table for two
There are four of us,
me, your big feet and you
From your ankles up, you sure look sweet
From there on down there’s too much feet
OH, your feets too big
they don’t want ya, cause ya feets too big
mad atcha, cause ya feets too big
hate ya, cause ya feets too big…

of course, the set list included:

…stompin’ with you at the savoy, what joy…

and:

Moonlight in Vermont

which is completely unrelated, but whatever…

I realized, last night, that my new sheets match my curtains, AND my pajamas (yes, I sometimes wear pajamas, what of it?)…  and I was considering the distinct possibility that I may, in the past, have asked someone to “shoot me” if I ever did something like this.

well I would just like to state right now, for the record, that all past contracts taken on myself are hertofore null and void.  no matter how tacky or mundane I become, I no longer want to die for it.  I think I stopped feeling that way the day I publicly admitted that contrary to anything I may have implied, I find Nick Cave completely creepy and would run the other way if I ever saw him, in real life or in representational form.  I pretty much feel the same way about Tori Amos.  Nina Simone…well, okay, she’s creepy, but in a good way.

so does anyone who used to listen to 4ad label records remember who did a song where the guy is singing in a gravelly voice, “’cause I’m a CAMEL…camelcamelcamel…!”  I never was able to find a recording of that, even when I remembered who did it, but now I’ve forgotten even that.  the ‘artist’ must start with ‘A’, as I remember checking that bin at celophane square and only seeing Alice in Chains, and thinking, they suck*.

so anyway, don’t kill me.

*just how I thought of it at the time…didn’t they do Enter Sandman?  I kinda sorta liked that.

  I’ve been told I have weird feet

I think they probably meant I had weird toes.  I’ll conceed that.

I have a permanent mutant tan from too many years of birks. 
oh well.

   mo betta?

see that scar just below the pants?  I got that when medrud and I were running from a stranger in an orchard one night.

now wouldja lookit that…I have two left feet.

I’m working my way through this playlist, zack1music
praise be to jacckkoiz
aho
(edited to say, ahem, not calling her a ho…just, oh forget it…)

I don’t know how to begin to describe the incident I experienced yesterday.  I suppose I could start with the thought that I haven’t had that particular feeling since a time many years ago when I knew myself to be in mortal peril.

it was a sharp reminder to take my premonitions seriously.  just because the situation doesn’t appear to warrant caution, one needn’t throw it to the wind.

I did, at least, heed one thought…to leave the girls at home…something I ordinarily wouldn’t do.  they love to go…anywhere…and the market is a relatively painless way to excorcize that particular need.  it’s a particularly good thing that I didn’t have a mamabear vibe going on, as I’m not sure if that would have changed my reaction for the better.

have I ever mentioned that I have bad checkout karma?  I can pick a used car like nobody’s bidness, but woe to he who stands behind me when paying for groceries.  I have a notorious knack for picking la línea extraña… they run out of tape, or bags, or patience… cashiers say “just a moment” and dissappear for twenty minutes.

so you’d think I’d be on the lookout, right?  no…it inures me to strangeness, and let’s face it, my life has been a succession of bizarre, if fortuitous, situations.

so.   when the woman in front of me finished loading her groceries onto the belt, I blithely went on with what I was doing…spacing off, alternated with wondering why Reese Witherspoon would be on FOUR mag covers in one week.

there was about two feet of empty belt space, when I reached for one of those little sticks that you put down to divide your groceries from others’…

“IF YOU ASKED I’DA HANDED YOU ONE.”

sounds innocuous, yes?  no.  in that split second I had the distinct impression, and the adrenaline pump that goes with it, that I had just, by a hair, avoided taking a punch to the back of my head.  you don’t know me well enough to know how I know, but trust me, I know.

then realistic lara, the one I rarely hear from, says, just turn and look to see if she’s joking, maybe she’s joking… she was not.

and I said nothing.  I put down the divider and looked to the woman behind me, you know, for a reality check…who turned white in the face…stood stock still…then walked away.  I started unloading my groceries.

let me tell you something about myself, I do not…back…down.  for good or for bad, I do not back away from a fight.  but.  watching her give me an obvious top to bottom look, I knew…  I had to let it go.  I don’t know what would have happened if I had backed off, or gone forward, but I KNEW that something horrible would happen if I either ran away or showed my usual bravado.

I’m not afraid of a fight.  I could tell you some stories that would curl your toes.  normally my projected energy is enough to ward off most comers.  something was wrong with that situation, and as she walked out of sight, I knew I’d done the right thing.

part of me is still irked at having to let it go.  but if I hadn’t…I don’t think I’d be here to tell the tale.

she was one chica loca.

overheard from two year old to thirteen year old:

come on, you stupid old man…

which came first
knowing or believing
apriori assumptions aside
zen coexisting with relativism
why is a spade
a spade?

Oh, boy, sleep!
That’s where I’m a Viking!

who?
not me
it’s true
…just thee
a jug of wine and
then let’s see
how blurred
these lines
can be

all life starts again with you
but here you start with me
it’s not that I’m complaining
it is that I
no longer see
how plain my face confers your rage
apon the recent landscape
repair to thee
unfair to me?
I think it quite unlikely…

my baby cistern is playing Camille…

her next travelling role… As You Like It

Louisville again…  
(photo from limonades, Chrictor and Tom Teti)

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we went to the city fireworks.
I told off some arrogantly doofy teen boys.
the older I become, the more aware I am of my darker sides
more aware
more practiced
it’s like having a bag of tricks to dip into

sometimes I am amazed at my own complexity.
mind you,
I’m not unaware of the arrogance of that statement
and yet, that too is a part of who I am.

incidentally, it occurs to me WHY exactly I am so drawn to the Severus Snape character.  he is entirely all too Heathcliffe/Mr.Rochester-like, which shakes me to my very core.
in a good way.
and does this illuminate how I see myself?
yes it does.
Kathy.
Jane.
Lara.