Friday, July 29, 2011

Horoscopes by the elements

AIR:   The other day I was driving on the freeway and an object came rolling down the road; it turned out to be an LP.  Remember those?  33.3?  Anyway, it got me to wondering  if there are still people in the world with dial up connections.  Really?  Like, that screetchy sound of dial-up could also hurtle towards the windshield?  Anyway, things from the past, present, and future are all be swirling around out there like confetti.  Grab onto something and make it the present.

WATER: The whole financial world is in the hands of a few un-compromising whack-jobs who believe they are on a mission from god, and they're pretty sure that the great one in the sky won't let anything bad happen to These United States.  I wish these people start texting pictures of their groin around, but then again, uggh.  That's quite possibly the only thing that can save us now, Water.  See what you can do.

EARTH:  We all get this chunk of granite called our life, and chisel away at it, learning how to use the tools, trying to make something beautiful out of our one little rock.  But learning to carve beauty out of this rock, well, it's hard, and we make mistakes, and cut chunks out where the nose should be, or we slip just when we're about to make the wing.  And some days, you feel like, sheesh, other people have already figured this out!  Why must I carve my own stinking piece of granite in the dark with these stupid blunt tools?  Hasn't this been done do death?  And where are the bandaids?  Earth, the trick is to work those mistakes into the design, and grow to love the pattern you create like you would freckles emerging on a sunny day.

FIRE: What do you say, will these Republican bullies get their way, and sequester more of the wealth in the top tiniest percent, or do you think they'll actuallyconsider the long term health of the peeps?  As in, yeah, let's look at some other problems besides our tiny zealous attachment to the constitution, because climate change is a'coming, people are losing their houses, babies are dying, and we can make it better.  Um, yeah, let's see what happens.  Make that call, by the way, if you haven't already.

COFFEE:  Do you ever have that problem when you're trying to get out of town, and you put on the house-cleaning play list so you can get lots of stuff done, but then you make a ridiculous list, like "untangle the pile of yarn that's been sitting there for years", and "update the blog".  Yeah, coffee people, drink up, and just stop doing all the stuff that gets in the way.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Not a whacko Kumbaya rant

I’ve been trying to write horoscopes for a few days, well, not very hard, but a little bit.  I’m just so frustrated and annoyed about the stupid angry debt ceiling debate, if you can even call it a debate when one side is reasonable and willing to listen and give a little, and the other side is all about taking their marbles and going home.  Can you call that a debate, or is it bullying?

The horoscopes were like, “Aries:  Jesus, Boehner is a jerk, right?  Taurus:  I’m serious.  That guy shouldn’t even have a job."

I decided I should be more direct with my rant, and not infuse it into fakey horoscopes.  I had that idea earlier this evening on my way to yoga, and now, I get home with the plan to write this little rant, but first, I crack open an ESB.  I try to read the little saying on the bottle cap, but it’s all fuzzy, because there’s plastic goo covering the words.  I can barely tell that words are under there, and for a second I think I’m going blind, but then realize, no, I’m only blind when I’m looking at this bottle cap; everything else looks normal, so if it is blindness, it’s some weird form that I can probably live with, the selective blindness where I just can’t read the saying on the bottle cap.  


I’m pretty sure that plastic covering the words means I won a prize.  That’s normal, right?  Because the cap usually says something like, “washes down whatever the world serves up,” and it’s easy to read.  But my message tonight was so secret that they had to put a special plastic covering on it, which, and I’m sure you’re with me here, probably means I won a car or a million dollars, right?  So I spend 15 minutes using a combination of sharp kitchen tools and heat to try to get it off, and there’s really only a little blood and one band-aid involved.  Eventually, I read the hidden message: Saccharomyces cerevisiae.  Which leads me to Wikipedia and a few other places.  Twenty minutes later, after I’ve learned a little bit about this most useful little yeast, I’m back here, trying to remember my very important points about the debt ceiling.  


I’m not even going to mention the things that are so annoying. Like it was Bush who drove up the deficit – Clinton left things in pretty good order.  Remember when Gore won the election but Bush became president, and then did that phony WMD thing, invaded Iraq, spent billions? Yeah.  I’m not going to get into that.  At all. 

I’m also not going to bring up the fact that  Boehner passed out checks from lobbyists on the House floor before a vote, or the fact that he voted for all the military spending that got us into this mess.  No, I’m not even going to mention the fact that he doesn’t “believe” in human-induced climate change, and he received a rating of zero from the Human Rights Campaign for his voting record. 


And I’m not going to bring up the most obvious point about, um, really?  You think we can fix this without an increase in revenue?

Because this rant is about the way he’s modeling the most immature bullying behavior ever for the whole world to see. When did compromising get such a bad name? When did just taking the ball and going home become a thing that adults do?  I think we would find this a little easier to take if the GOP weren't acting like a bunch of swaggering frat boys. 

I read Sometimes a Great Notion when I was in college, and thought, yeah, ‘never give a inch’.  I’m writing that on my mirror too! That lasted for about 10 minutes, and then I remembered that there are other people on the planet who care about different things than I do, and maybe it’s all about giving an inch.

Maybe that’s what maturity is, to be able to not get your exact way every time, and do that with grace and integrity, and work hard to inject your beliefs and sense of right and wrong into things without being an asshole.  And maybe that requires listening, and assuming the person on the other end of the conversation is a caring human with legitimate points, and maybe if you treat them that way, they'll start to act that way.  Maybe it’s not about bullying and storming out of meetings. 

Maybe, when you tangle with other people, you need to have the capacity to compromise. Isn’t that what defines being a grown-up?  Yeah, the three year old crowd isn’t so great at sharing or seeing another point of view, but I expect more of people past about age seven.

I’m not saying this from some whacko kumbaya mom point of view, either.  (Okay, maybe just a little.)  But I deal with crazy angry people every day, and if I’ve learned nothing else, I have learned that I need to listen and try to understand where they’re coming from, and try to see where we have common ground, and move from that point.  That, and the thing about not visiting the guy with the guns by myself. Two things.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Slowly but eventually

Aries (3/21 – 4/19):  I thought I'd try a new idea this week, which is to write little notes all week long so I don't just sit down to write thinking, umm, umm...  And nothing comes, while the sand is sifting through the hour glass, and the mind is blank blank blank.  So I ended up with a bunch of scraps of paper with things like, "Soup.  Root beer store.  Slutty waitress."  Sadly, Aries, that's your horoscope.  I have no idea what it means, but that's sometimes the way it is with horoscopes.  They're mysterious.  But the sand is constantly sliding through the hourglass; try to enjoy every single grain.  (I was going to do that thing of putting a period after every word, as in, "Every.  Single.  Grain.  but I think that might be getting a little over-used, don't you?)

Taurus (4/20 – 5/20):  How embarrassing is it that Michelle Bachmann signed that marriage vow thing about how, um, I hate to even repeat it here, but it seemed to suggest that African Americans were better off under slavery.  Because of their intact families.  If you consider "intact" to be bought and sold, raped, working as, well, slaves, beaten and humiliated . . .   Taurus, that's no horoscope at all, is it.  Shoot.  I can't even find the slips of paper anymore, but I think you're gonna have a good week.

Gemini (5/21 – 6/21): I've looked high and low on the Internets, trying to find information about the (gasp) five foot long snake that was reported to be swimming in Lake Marcel.  Nothing.  Let's just assume it was some form of mirage and keep swimming, shall we?  (By the way, I just saw the smallest snake ever in my garden, it was smaller than a worm.  Still kind of creepy, though.)  This week, keep assuming the best.

Cancer 6/22 – 7/21: So I'm looking to buy a weed whacker, and I do research online the way a flea would, because my attention span is that short.  (By the way, to train your flea circus, the deal is you've gotta reinforce 'em.  Thankfully, that's not the topic today.)  The point here is that there's a little Facebook "like" button on the weed whacker sites.  Really? What's it coming to, Cancer?  Is everything like-able now?  (The battery operated weed whacker that I ended up with, by the way, has a battery life of twelve minutes, which is a perfect match for my attention span.)  Your week will require the utmost patience and courage, but luckily, you've got it.  Fortunately, you won't need an attention span at all.

Leo (7/23 – 8/22): The saddest thing about this woman who was trying to sell her baby, um, well, is the whole thing, but besides that, she was at Taco Bell.  I hope it wasn't a combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.  (Click on the link, fer crissakes!)  This week, don't sell yourself for any amount of money, especially in a fast food chain.

Virgo (8/23 – 9/22): Carmageddon is over, finally.  Does it seem ridiculous that the whole world knew that The 405, as they call it down there, closed for a couple of days?  I'm dealing with my own carmageddon here at the lake, where a culvert replacement is about to happen.  You don't see that being broadcast in LA.  That's because, my friend, we have a little bit of tact here in the PNW.  We aren't about the overshare.  Keep that in mind, and use discretion this week. 

Libra (9/23 – 10/22):  The Libras had a good week last week, and can expect more of the same.  In fact, if you send me your address, you can expect a house-cleaning CD to appear in your mailbox. Anyway, the horoscopes are coming very slowly this week, maybe because of the weather. We can barely see the astronomy anymore.  Only in books.

Scorpio (10/23 – 11/21): Were you just about to take up planking when you learned that it's over, and the new thing is owling?  Yes, I thought so.  See if you can create the next thing before it happens.  You'll need a FB account, camera, and an idea.  I hope with certainty that something comes up.

Sagittarius (11/22 – 12/21): The other day, the employee known as "I haven't been trained in that" came out of the office of the young cute (ish) paralegal where he spends his days flirting, saw me, and did that thing guys do when they're kind of pumped about a flirtation where they mimic guns with their hands, and wave the fake guns up and down by their hips.  You know that gesture?  Yeah, it doesn't look so great on the 60 something year old crowd, in case you were curious.  Anyway, I must have looked a little surprised, maybe because the woman is literally half his age. A few hours later he came and said, sheepishly, "If you were wondering what I was doing that for, um...I was mimicking murder suicide, but I got the order wrong." Okay then. This week, be sure to get the order right for things that matter.

Capricorn (12/22 – 1/19):  Miranda July's new movie comes out soon!  Who doesn't like Miranda?  Oh, wait, I read in the NYT that people have whole blogs devoted to not liking her.  Serious soreheads, that's what I think.  This week, don't be a sorehead.

Aquarius (1/20 – 2/18): Hey, good news.  The big state of California now requires that gay history be taught in schools.  Weird that it took a law, but hopefully this will help educate some bullies.  Do that yourself this week -- educate bullies on all manner of things.

Pisces (2/19 – 3/20):  Do you remember, in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Mr. Prosser?  He was the guy at the beginning who was going to demolish Arthur Dent's house.  So he, and 0.05% of the rest of the world, are direct descendants of Genghis Khan. Anyways, it's both appalling and amazing that Genghis Khan was such a successful pro-creator.  But this is even more interesting, Pisces.  The common side-blotched lizard has a mating strategy similar to rock-paper-scissors!  Orange-throated males win over blue-throated males, who win over yellow-throated males, who, surprisingly, can sneak up on the orange-throated males while Orange is busy fighting Blue, and win the lady.  What this means, Pisces, is that all of us are successful in some way.  This week, remember that paper is a surprisingly strong opening move. 

Monday, July 11, 2011

Nickname advice

Dear Courtney,

I am a fervent follower of Betsy’s blog. I especially enjoy the nicknames for all of her friends. I wish I were one of her friends and had a nickname. If I were, what would my nickname be?

Signed,

doesn’t-have-a-nick-name-to-sign-with


Dear Bird Trainer-Lady,

First, thanks for writing.  I'm glad you've got problems, and I mean that in the fondest, most helpful way possible, because otherwise, I'd get no letters.  Ever.  Second, of course you're her friend.  Duh.  In fact, you should probably hit her up to go crabbing, not because that's all she seems to think about these days, but because it would be fun.  It may be time to leave all that vegetarian nonsense behind,  get to the beach and gather food.  Hard times may be a'comin'.

The bigger reason I'd like to congratulate you for writing, though, is your solid understanding that you can't give yourself a nickname.  Have you ever been around that guy who's all, "Hey, guys, my name is John, but you can just call me J-Man!"  Sad.

Or the other thing, and this might just be me, Bird-Trainer Lady, but I think it's wrong to self-shorten your reasonably short name.  Like, if your name were Linda, you should not start signing your e-mails "Lin".  Okay, maybe that's a bad example because Lynne would be an actual name.  Let's say your name is Tom, and you just start signing mail, "To".  That's just wrong and seems especially weak and possibly narcissistic, don't you think?  Now, the contrapositive of that would be okay, like you could call Linda  "Lin".  In fact, that might make her feel rather special.  So many rules, so many rules.

But back to you, Bird Trainer Lady, I'm still thinking....

Yours, 

Khortnee (which, by the way, is a nick-name my mother gave me, because no one could pronounce N'3lvra)


PS:  You should hang out with Betsy every Sunday evening from 6-8.


PPS:  Write again.  No problem is too small.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Metacarcinus magister

Yesterday, R. came home from wherever he was at about noon.  “Hey, anybody home?”

“Yeah, I’m just getting up from a nap,” I reply.

“A nap? Seriously?  It’s barely noon.”

“I’ve had a big day.”

“Already?”

“I know!” I say proudly.   “I took the lawnmower in to be fixed.”  Which doesn’t sound like much, but it didn’t just start yesterday.  It started three months ago, when there was that part, remember, when the grass was growing madly, but time off and a break in the rain never coincided?  And when they finally did come together, the grass was a foot tall.  I could start the lawnmower, but the part that makes it go forward, and we’ll call that the drive shaft, whether or not it really is that, has been disconnected because a mouse chewed through the cable. I ignore the problem for a while and just push the lawnmower, essentially replacing the drive shaft with me, but it’s a ton of work, and I’m not really that excited about spending my time on the planet that way.  But sometimes it’s easier to work around stuff that’s broken rather than fix it.  I learned that at my workplace, by the way, and I’m not recommending it as a strategy.

All this by way of saying that I vacillate between not wanting to have the house that looks unlived in, and thinking, sheesh, can we behave any more like a gerbil on a wheel?  Where in the world did it get decided that long grass is a problem?  Not wanting to be gerbil on a wheel wins, and the grass is now two feet tall.

But one day, I run into Lawnmower Man at the coffee shop and ask if he still fixes lawnmowers.  He says sure, just drop it off sometime. But I don’t really know where he lives, and I don’t feel like asking, and first I need to get R. to help me load it into the truck, and we’re having that problem of not being home at the same time with the same idea in mind, and that phase lasts for a few weeks. I finally start leaving notes all over the house, and sending him text messages at random times, “Load lawnmower.”  Earlier this week while I was at work, the boys with the same name put it in the truck.


It sits in the truck for a few days, but I get up early yesterday and start thinking about taking it in, and then actually make a motion to do so.  I get into the truck, which smells like mice live in it, maybe because they do.  As an after thought, I toss the weed whacker in, which also doesn’t work. I start the truck and it sounds like the last person who drove it, which could well have been me, I’m not trying to point the finger or anything, but that person put really low octane gas in it, and it barely idles.  I sputter into town, wondering where Marv lives. 

I go to the coffee shop and drink coffee for a while, hoping I might run into him or at least get a little buzz.  Neither happens, but I do get my horoscope from the barista.  After a while, I leave and drive around to look for Marv.  This might sound ridiculous, but seriously, I only drive about 2 blocks when I encounter him in his beat up truck.  I flag him down, and follow him to his house, which, coincidentally, is about 4 houses away from the house that actually has the sign about fixing lawnmowers.  Yeah, that’s a different guy.

He tells me it was a pretty good idea to just look for him by driving around, because he’s training his dog.  This seems to involve letting the dog sit in the back of the pickup, driving around, and yelling, “Shut up!” to the dog as he barks wildly.

I’m embarrassed about how poorly my truck is running, and especially because we both know it’s about cheap gas.  It’s sort of like going to the dentist with spinach between your teeth.  I am wearing a giant sign that says, “Yeah, I don’t take care of engines.  At all.”

He looks at my lawnmower and is all, “wow, this one’s really different.  I’ve never seen one like this.”  This doesn’t give me confidence, because sheesh, it’s a major mass-produced national brand lawnmower. But I feel like I’ve been on a giant expedition to get here, and there’s no turning back.  He starts asking me why it’s designed a certain way, and what this and that cable do, and I’m thinking, wtf, if I knew that stuff, I’d fix it myself.  He tells me he might have to special order the cable.  Seriously, how unique can this particular bundle of wires be?  I give him a wad of cash and my phone number, and drive away feeling incredibly accomplished.

So accomplished, in fact, that I have this surge of momentum, and go to the hardware store to buy paint for my deck, and to see if they sell crab fishing licenses.  When I enter the store, a woman greets me with a big friendly “Hi!”  I assume that I know her but just don’t recognize her, which, sadly, happens far too often.  “Hey!,” I say, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, because it turns out she’s just selling tickets to the local garden tour.  I end up buying a ticket just to get out of it, and she’s all, “Just one?  Just one ticket?  It will take two hours, you know, with all the questions and talking to people.”

I realize there’s no way I’m going on the stupid garden tour because it will just make me feel sorry about the pathetic state of my yard, but it was only five dollars, and I haven’t blown any money on a lottery ticket yet this week, so it seems okay. 

The whole thing throws me off so much, though, that I forget to look into crab fishing licenses.

I explain this to R. “So, you can see why I needed a nap when I came home.”

The phone rings then, and R. answers it.  It’s Marv, who has said a requiem mass for the weed whacker, and recommends some interventions on the lawnmower. 

“Mom, I think you know lots of people who could hook you up with weed.  I’m just saying.”

“Do you want to go crabbing with me tomorrow, R.?”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, we’d leave at 6:30 and drive to Puget Sound with our nets and stuff.”

“Um, really, your girlfriends don’t want to go?  I’m sure The Author would be all over that.”  He’s joking, because he knows that will never happen.  “Seriously, I’d love to go, but I’ll be sound asleep then. And Mom?  We don’t have ‘nets and stuff’, by the way.”

I’m pretty sure I won’t find anyone who’s as excited about crabbing as I am, because the evening before, I had asked Yogini Mama in front of her 9 year old son, which seems like it might gain some momentum, right?  A nine-year old, the beach, catching things?  But we got distracted with trying to remember the taxonomy of different species, and embarrassingly, we were stumped right off the bat.  “Wait, what’s the phylum for homo sapiens?”  She remembered chordata, but it got us off the crabbing topic.

I ask Nurse Lady if she wants to go crabbing, and she’s quick to say, “You know, you can just buy crab at the store.”

“Yeah, but it wouldn’t be as fun.  Don’t you have that hunting / gathering instinct?  Like, we get up really early, and get to the beach before the low tide, and…”

She interrupts before I finish.  “That phrase, ‘get up really early’ is where it stops sounding fun.  You bring us some crab and I’ll make the drinks,” she adds.

I’m almost getting into this whole rejection thing, because it’s so unfathomable to me.  Who wouldn’t want to go crabbing?  Seriously.  As a last resort, I ask Book Babe.  Not because she’s a last resort as a person to spend time with.  No, quite the opposite.  But, well, she had that incident of I dunno, I think it was paralytic shellfish poisoning or something.  I’ve forgotten the details but it may have involved her throat swelling closed while she was driving home from a restaurant after eating cioppino. She may or may not have near death experience, and there may have been an epi-pen involved.  As I say, I don’t recall except to think she’s pretty unlikely to want to catch crabs, but surprisingly, she said yes!  I know!  So that’s coming up in our future.

Friday, July 8, 2011

The long way around

This morning, while I was helping a guy in the permit center, a man who had that baby-faced look of a 30-year old who can’t quite grow a beard, N texts me, “Going for coffee. Now.”

To my credit, I didn’t just get up in the middle of helping Baby Face to go have coffee.  Pretty good customer service for the government, wouldn’t you say?  While we were talking, I overhead an employee asking a man who was on crutches what had happened.  And what I thought he said is, “Kidney failure.”

I look at the guy I’m helping, and say, “Did he just say ‘kidney failure?  Because I had no idea that crutches would be involved.”

He looks at me like I’m just a tiny bit crazy.  He thinks he heard the guy say something about an Achilles heel injury, which makes more sense, but it’s not at all what I heard.  Baby Face looks scared, like shit, I’m supposed to take land buying advice from someone who thinks there might possibly be an instance of kidney failure that would warrant crutches?

He does that thing of trying to chat you up, not unlike the way people behave around a dog that might do something unpredictable.  They maintain eye contact, and try to keep the conversation away from kidneys, and onto hiking.  He says he and his wife just moved here six months ago for work, of all things, and they’ve done tons of hiking since they arrived.

“Oh, too bad there's still so much snow everywhere,” I say, because I’m willing to move on from the whole puzzle of the guy with kidney failure locomoting on crutches.

“Snow doesn’t stop us. We bought snowshoes.”

“What’s your favorite hike so far?” I ask, because I'm trying to keep up and not fixate on the kidney thing.

“Mount Si,” he says. I’m done with him now, because that’s not anyone’s favorite hike.  Oh wait, unless you’re the kind that wants to slog up a steep incline packed with humans so you can get a view of the factory outlets from the top. (We’re totally going somewhere with this story, by the way.  Yes we are. Don’t leave me now.)

We wrap it up, and I give him a card, saying he can call if he has questions.  He apologizes that he didn’t bring a card, and I’m thinking, um, I’m probably not gonna have any questions for you, Mr. I-Can-Tell-You-Work-At-Boeing-By-The-Way-You-Dress.  Seriously.  How would that go?  “Uh, hi, remember me?  I’m the one who thought the guy was on crutches due to a ruptured kidney?  Yeah, well I’m going on a trip and I was wondering how that wing is attached. Is that pretty solid, would you say?”

I start walking over to the coffee shop across the parking lot, carrying the pager that keeps me in constant contact with the permit center so that random people can tell me about their favorite hikes and stuff.  The pager is like those flour sacks that 14-year-old girls have to carry around for Health Class.  It’s not a real baby, but we treat it like one. We carry it around, never leave it alone, and act important if it goes off.  “Uh, excuse me, I’ve been paged,” we say.  "This is important."

I pass my people returning from coffee in the parking lot, and try to hand off the pager like a baton. I give it to B, and he tosses it to N., who starts making a fuss, as if it’s not a flour sack baby, but something alive that would actually need care.  He’s yelling some protest to me, but we’ve already passed and I can’t really hear him.  (Hey, does this post make me sound deaf?)  Anyway, I know he’s not saying nice supportive things, like thanks for letting me watch the baby, Bets!  But I decide to act as if he is, just like Buddha would.  I turn back towards him and blow him a kiss in that way that is a cross between genuine affection and giving him the finger.

But, alas, between when we passed and when I turn around to see what N's yelling about, a big bakery truck has pulled in, and a guy is unloading it.  When I spin around to blow the kiss to N, Bakery Man doesn’t know that it’s really a sarcastic floating kiss meant for someone behind him.

No, he doesn’t. He looks at me and does that YES gesture, the arm as if it’s pulling a bell chord, and lets out some sort of yelp.  It’s super awkward because I don’t really want to correct him -- that seems unkind, but I don’t really want to let it go either, because in about a minute I’m going to have to walk right back across this parking lot.  And it’s a huge truck; unloading looks like it might take some time. Anyway, a long story to say I had to walk a really long way around.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Lucky day

The other day I went to the little grocery store in town to get a very expensive Kombucha wonder drink with its own live scobie, and decided that as long as I’m throwing money around, I should also buy a lottery ticket.

There are many choices – mega millions, Hit 5, lotto, powerball, yada yada.  I don't do this very often, so I'm unfamiliar with the choices.  “Do you have any advice for me,” I ask the young lady with the pierced lip.

“Yeah.  Don’t buy one.”

“Hmm, but I think I will.”

“Why, are you feeling lucky?”

“No, not really. But there is luck out there, I know that for sure.”  I know that because of this:  the other day, R. went to Value Village with a friend who had just started collecting unicorn figurines. While they were looking for clothes, she noticed a few mis-matched  unicorns arranged in a circle on a shelf, all their tiny glass horns pointed towards the middle. 

“Seems odd that they’re in a little circle, doesn’t it, R?”

“Yep.”

She bought the miniature herd, and then, later that day, learned that one of her friends had been in the store earlier, found the unicorns dispersed throughout the store, amidst all of the other knick-knacks and junk, and gathered them into the little arrangement. 

It seems to me if that’s happening, I should purchase a lottery ticket, right? I decide on Mega millions, because the pot was biggest.  This isn’t really about odds anymore.  The difference between odds of one in 7 million versus one in 18 million is really the difference between odds of getting run over by a vintage airstream trailer at the same time the meteor strikes, or just the meteor.  If you’re buying a lottery ticket, luck is doing the heavy lifting; math is kind of hanging around looking cute, as usual.

“Do you want to do the mulitplier?”

But she says it, mult-eye-plier, so it sounds like many pipe wrenches or something, and I have no idea what she’s even talking about.

“Mult-eye-plier,” I repeat.  “What’s that?”

“I don’t know. You pay an extra dollar for it.”

“Do you win more,” I ask, as if mega millions alone just won’t do.  I still haven’t figured out that the word is multiplier, as in, you multiply one thing by another thing, usually leading to a bigger thing.  I’m still thinking about a pipe wrench.

“I don’t think so.”

“You mean, I just pay double for the same odds, and the same prize money?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I’ll do that,” I say.  “Give me one multi-plier, please.”

She looks at me strangely as I buy the $1 ticket for two dollars.

I didn’t win, but I think I’ll keep doing this.  The mult-eye-plier and everything.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Coming soon.

Aries (3/21 – 4/19):   So his whole thing about Strauss-Kahn is very strange and annoying, because here are some facts:  one person is a rich and powerful married white man, 62.  The other person is an immigrant chambermaid in her thirties.  There was definite evidence of a sexual encounter. Um, would that ever be mutual?  And is it just me, or are we still in the business of discrediting the rape victm?  Seriously, one person has a royal flush in their hand, and the other has like, a two of spades and a seven of diamonds.  Anyway, Aries, the world isn't fair, but the deck does get shuffled every now and again.  See what you can do this week with the cards already in your hand.

Taurus (4/20 – 5/20):   You know that inexplicable feeling of, hmm, something doesn't quite add up here?  Last week, R. and I got onto a  plane and I got an odd vibe from the flight attendant.  I lean over to R.  "Transgender?"  "Oh, that's it!," he replies.  "I knew it was something."  A few minutes later, she asked the man across the aisle to either tuck his luggage under the seat or put it overhead.  He did a little muttering under his breath as she walked away, and the flight attendant spun around and marched back toward him.  "WHAT?  What did you say?" She started shouting, in a seriously angry voice.  Even before she went on the big tear over the intercom about someone moving about the cabin when the fasten seat belt sign was turned on, R. looked at me, like, "suspicion confirmed."  Women just don't tend to be so, "You wanna make something of it?!" when stuff goes wrong; we tend to be more the 'slip poison in the drink' kind of angry.  I hate to break it to you, but you'll have some of that "something is not right" feeling this week.   Trust your instincts.  Don't move about the cabin too much; there's gonna be some turbulence.  Don't drink what you didn't pour.

Gemini (5/21 – 6/21):  I think its possible, some might even say probable, that you'll meet the living Buddha this week.  This person will be shorter than the average for the species, and full of pure generosity and goodness. When that happens, show up fully, as if to a fine meal, knife and fork in hand, napkin on lap, ready to fully engage.  Oh, but wait, call me first.  The beginning of your week will feel like you're slowly pushing a ball gently up hill, but after the short guy arrives, it will be like dancing on a spring day when you're 12.  Savor it.  In fact, just behave that way around all short people.

Cancer 6/22 – 7/21:  I had this idea that I should make more friends, so I answered a friend ad on CL.  When I told B. about it, he was all,  "Huh?  Don't. Do. That!"

"What, what's so wrong with making new friends?"

"What's wrong with it," he responded, "is this:  if you're dating someone, you can get out of it by saying, 'we should just be friends,' but if you're friends and it isn't working out, there's absolutely no way out.  You're stuck with that person forever.  What are you gonna say, 'we should just coexist on different parts of the planet but never interact again?"

I wasn't fully convinced, but then he said, "What if she has huge bingo wings and just wants to go shopping all the time?"  I saw his point.  Then I remembered that the sad fact, Cancer, is that I don't see enough of the friends that I have!  Make that stop, wouldja?

Here goes your horoscope, and it's not gonna be pretty:  I see a trip in your future, but it's not exactly a vacation.  It will look like a vacation in some ways, because there will be air travel and time off from work, but it will be more like a brief and horrible glimpse into a time machine, going both backwards and forwards.  Bring provisions.  There is sweetness there, if you can squint just right.

Leo (7/23 – 8/22): Do you ever get to that point where your blog hasn't been updated in forever, and it makes you feel like your next post should be excellent, as if you were actually working on something all this time, but you weren't, you were just procrastinating and noticing that each thing you type is annoying and has no business sticking it's thumb out on the information highway?  Yeah, me too.  This week, write.  Write anyways.  Write when it's hard, boring, sad, irritating, tedious.  Just keep at it.

Virgo (8/23 – 9/22)
: The fountain of youth has been discovered!  Ponce de Leon had it wrong, it's not in Florida, but on Easter Island.  This amazes me in two ways:  that I summoned Ponce de Leon from my memory, which might be the first sign of Alzheimers, when you recall elementary school facts more readily than what you did yesterday?  The second way is, duh, of course.  Lots of cool and weird stuff is bound to happen on Easter Island.  This week, live as if you're on Easter Island.  Fountain of Youth, giant stone faces in the hillside, lemming-like population curve, the whole thing. 

Libra (9/23 – 10/22):  Oh Libra.  Shoot, another week like that other one.  You know the one I mean.  Make the best of it.

Scorpio (10/23 – 11/21) I had this dream last night in which my Other Sister was going to pay me $12,000 a month for the rest of the year, but I had to agree to put her message on my answering machine about all of the mitzvah's she's doing.  I woke up, at first thinking, hmm, I think I'd rather have Carl Kassel's voice on my machine, and then thinking wow, I'm so glad MLK's dream made more sense, and was so much grander, less greedy.  Picture if that speech went, "I have a dream.  And in it, there was this chicken, but it wasn't really a chicken at all, it was sort of a ladybug, but with a radio implant.  But I had to get to the other side, so I put on these giant floaty shoes...."  His dream was so cool.  Anyway, Scorpio, you'll have some grand dreams this week yourself.  Act on them.  (Mostly.)

Sagittarius (11/22 – 12/21):  Weird things in the news this week.  That body that floated in the public pool for 2 days before being found (I know!  Picture all the kids playing Marco Polo in that murky water laden with dead person.)  And the baboon that escaped from a Six Flags theme park and romped around NJ for three days before being captured.  Your week will be nothing like that.  Nothing at all.

Capricorn (12/22 – 1/19):  It's killing me that the two women who may or may not run for president are just so . . . um, weird.  Seriously, out of 300,000,000 people, half of whom are women, that's the best we can summon?  Okay, I know this may seem out of the blue, but have you considered running for president?  Maybe not this time, but after Barack is done.  I'll drive the bus.  Seriously, I'm quite a good driver. 

Aquarius (1/20 – 2/18):  Here's how it goes:  You're hiking on a narrow trail, snacking on a Cliff bar, and you offer a bite to your hiking companion.  An on-coming hiker passes, staring at the Cliff bar hungrily, so you jokingly say, "would you like a bite?"  And he answers, "no thanks."  Everyone walks in their opposite directions for 10 seconds, and then he turns and says, "Taking a bite would be just like kissing!"  Which seems very creepy, right?  This week, be especially generous, but be careful who you offer snacks to. 

Pisces (2/19 – 3/20):  So I check Google Trends to see what everyone's wondering about, and its Equatorial Guinea.  I'm thinking, wait, isn't that IMF guy's maid from there, and yay, everyone is worrying about her.  But its really about women's soccer.  Don't you hate that, Aquarius, when you think the topic is one thing, and you maybe even add a pithy comment or two, but really, the topic is a whole 'nother thing altogether, and everyone just looks at you that way?  Yeah, well, Aquarius, look right back at them, as if, sheesh, keep up already.

I'm excited to report that the author Celeste Ng has selected m y modern love essay to read for the Modern Love podcast next week. Suc...