Grimly Fiendish

The dog get at least two daily walks; every morning and evening we go down the block, cut across the big, vacant corner lot, and finally to the nearest patch of grass. She doesn't like doing her thing on sand.

While we were out the other night, we heard someone talking behind us. It wasn't very loud, so I figured someone was on their cellphone. By the time we'd started across the empty lot I heard something about "dog" and soon realized the woman'd been talking to me the whole time from her distance behind. So naturally I walked towards her to give das pooch a chance to socialize more. In the darkness I could only make out that she was light-haired, fairly slim, and had a voice and scent that hinted strongly at a long-time smoking habit. Dog didn't like her at all and growled.

We chatted briefly; I gathered that she was forty-three and had moved in with her mother nearby as she dealt with going through a divorce. The reasons weren't entirely clear, but seemed to suggest he had cheated on her. Naturally, she had a lot of anger, and it showed. I nodded and sympathized with her situation, but eventually indicated that I wished to continue the walk I'd started. She wanted us to meet back outside after she'd gotten a soda at the nearby convenience store and Dog had done her thing in the grass. We didn't meet back up, and I didn't particularly mind.

Today I ran some errands, and was greeted by name as I pulled back into the driveway. You already know by whom. She'd apparantly gotten a better look at me in the dark than I had of her, but in daylight it was more apparant that the years hadn't been particularly kind to her. But she was terribly keen to get together with me somehow--to get me to drive her home, to take nude pictures of her when she noticed the omnipresent camera over my shoulder, to get together that very night. She showed me the recent knife wound across her back, a present from her husband she said, then with a furtive look about told me that the PLO was out to kill her, and how Prince Charles himself had warned her when the two of them were in Utah that she would run into this trouble. And it went on and got ever weirder. I played up my cold a bit more in an effort to break off the conversation politely and eventually extricated myself by accepting her phone number and nodding some more at her insistance that I call her. It occured to me that she's only the second person I'd ever remembered hearing the dog growl at, and made a mental note to trust her character judgement more in the future.

I could leave the story at that, with a laugh at this freak and dismay that she knows where I live now. Truth is I do feel sorry for her, in no small part because her pattern of nonsense reminded me rather a lot of someone who's been close to me for many years. She'd been fine for quite a while, had a solid, professional career, and seemed to have a bright future ahead of her. But she too had herself gotten involved with an abusive boyfriend, had a dramatic car accident, and somewhere along the way she lost her mind. I flew out soon after she'd snapped to see how I could help her; she swore that UFOs had implanted messages in her brain during our drive home from the airport (and was amazed later that I didn't remember seeing the lights in the sky), that local professionals were conspiring against her to keep her out of a job, and once again all manner of paranoid delusions I can't even remember anymore. With help she'd eventually gotten checked into a clinic and got on medication, but as soon as she was out she decided she was just fine and dropped off her meds forever.

Today after numerous evictions and public nuisance arrests she's living in a motel somewhere, and calls every once in a while to either enthuse over one thing or rant angrily over another; either way, she makes little sense. Best as we can make out she's making a living at a topless club, but she refuses to talk much about what she does or even where she's living. She doesn't want help, and those of us who care about her are helpless but to watch and hope she'll be OK.


Unrelated quote du jour: "Yo, FRODO--eyes up here!"

So we've listed our glorious hauls, whined about what we didn't get, and played the seasonal good-will game; now we can finally go back to being our usual selves again. As for myself, all I wanted this year was peaceful respite from the usual Commercialmas encroachment into my life. For the most part, I got my wish.

A few years back I was sitting in my favorite little teashop¹ in Seattle, sipping a cup of hearty English style brew and poring through some tech tome or another. A couple women came in, eventually making their way into the tearoom downstairs. After poking around a little while, one ordered chai; the second thought that sounded good and asked for one as well.

The fellow behind the counter set to work on the orders, but a half a minute into the task the second woman interrupted him. "Oh, wait a minute! Does it have milk in it? I don't drink milk." After a moment's discussion, he began heating water in place of milk for her order.

Not long after, she stopped him again. "Does it have tea? I can't drink tea." I watched him carefully hide the grinding of his teeth as he explained in patient tones exactly what chai is.

The woman remained undaunted and determined though, and so in due time he served one order of chai, and one order of hot, spiced water.

I think I managed to hide most of my laughter behind my book.

----
¹A truly excellent place; if you're in the area, you should stop in for a cuppa. They have a wall of tea varieties, all ordered fresh from overseas (no brands, just bulk), and four or five varieties of chai. They've also got some of the freshest, most flavorful spices you could hope to find, and they do mail order. If you love tea or culinary arts, do yourself a favor and visit. This has been an unsolicited endorsement.

OK, these're a few things which've bugged me ever since the nouveau geek invaded the 'Net.

1. "Emails." No such word. Hearken back for a moment to the time when the only mail was that which existed on processed tree pulp. Did anyone ever refer to it as "mails?" Did you go to the corner postbox to drop off "a mail?" Did the postal carrier drop off `mails' at your door? Of course not. Here's a shocker for you, folks--the fact that it now also has an electronic format does not alter the rules of proper grammar. You can email a document, you can receive email (which can refer to single or multiple email messages), but referring to "emails" or "an email" only marks you as illiterate.

2. Abuse of apostrophes. The apostrophe has only two purposes in the modern English language: contractions and possessives. It is never used for plural forms, or whatever other assinine reasons some of you keep creating. Learn your goddam grammar already, people! Kee-rist.

3. This one's more of a personal twitch issue than the first two, but people who refer to software written by other people as being their own somehow annoy me. "My Netscape is broken!" No, unless you're on the Netscape development team, it's not your Netscape. It may be your installation of Netscape, but Netscape certainly isn't yours. It's not like your Toyota, which is a physical object you can indeed lay claim to.

There. I feel better now. In next week's installment we'll touch on "good" vs "well," "lay" vs "lie," and why Grenada is not pronounced like "Grenade ah," despite idiot journalists. (And anyone who complains that I ended a sentence with a preposition gets toothpaste on their toilet seat.)

Before the Law there stands a guard.

A man comes from the country begging admittance to the Law. But the guard cannot admit him. Can he hope to enter at a later time?

"That is possible," says the guard. The man tries to peer through the entrance; he has been taught that the Law should be accessible to every man. "Do not attempt to enter without my permission," says the guard. "I am very powerful, yet I am the least of all the guards. From hall to hall, door after door, each guard is more powerful than the last."

By the guard's permission the man sits down by the side of the door and there he waits. For years he waits. Everything he has he gives away in the hope of bribing the guard, who never fails to say to him, "I take what you give me only so that you will not feel you have left something undone." Keeping his watch during the long years, the man has learned to know even the fleas in the guard's fur collar and, growing childish in old age, he begs the very fleas to persuade the guard to change his mind and allow him to enter. His sight is dimmed, but he in the darkness he perceives a radiance streaming immortally from the door of the Law.

Now, before he dies, all his experience condenses into one question, a question he has never asked. He beckons to the guard. Says the guard, "You are insatiable! What is it now?"

Says the man, "Every man strives to attain the law. How is it then that in all these years no one else has ever come here seeking admittance?"

His hearing has failed, so the guard yells into his ear, "No one else but you could ever have obtained admittance. No one else could enter this door. This door was intended only for you.

"And now I'm going to close it."


Kinley's sick, spewing out both ends. Per the vet's instructions, I can't feed her until four hours after the last time she'd vomited. So percoset, MacAllan's on ice, and Orson Welles keep me company while I worry about my puppygirl and count down the time before I can dose and feed the poor critter.

Dogs is good people. Do something nice for one today.

I met a girl when I was in college. I'll call her Cheri, because that was her name. Tall and willowy with long, brown hair and a pleasant, easy-going disposition. She left her boyfriend to for me, and we quickly grew to enjoy a relationship where just hanging out together was fulfilling enough. We could chat easily, or just enjoy eachother in silence; she was always interested in what I was interested in, she was supportive when I was down, and I can't recall a single time we ever argued. She loved me dearly, was devoted and faithful. I eventually broke up with her because I didn't feel I loved her as much as she loved me--I didn't think it was fair to her. It was hard for me, though I felt it was better for her; she was heartbroken. Eventually she fell in with a carpenter, a nice enough fellow, married him, and moved out of state, and I was left with the echos of her laughter and the barren chill of her lost comfort.

Some time later, during a summer gig, I met another girl. Little twig of a thing, but with a huge, coppery mop of hair, and sweet as could be. I fell for her big time. The only hitch was that she already had a fiance, though she wouldn't be able to see him all summer. We eventually became quite close, sometimes sharing a bed for nothing more than the sheer comfort of one other. Probably the most intense affection I've shared, though it was in reality quite innocent--we didn't even kiss until the summer was nearly over. I didn't try; I was happy with what we had. When at last we did, I reined myself in as I caught myself getting carried away--not because she was unwilling, but because I respected her existing relationship. Even though I craved her in every way, I didn't want to be the guy who broke up a happy couple. At the end of the summer I met her fiance--a nice guy once again, dammit. Eventually they too got married, while I pursued another relationship which wound up being a disaster. I've no idea where they are now. I still remember the curve of her hip, her ready smile, her soft, passionate kisses, like no one I've known before or since. "And There Will Your Heart Be Also" can still lose me in those memories.

I am a fool.

Well, I've had some good news that's about a week overdue in reporting. But custom dictates bad news first, so I'll get this off my chest first.

I came home this evening to find the power shut off. No warnings--in fact, no communication from the utility company since I moved into my new place at the end of April. Wait, it gets better..

I apparantly have an account balance of about $600.

OK, I can admit some fault in this. Although mail was getting turned away at my new address for a while until the postal service got word that my name went with this address, eventually I should've noticed the lack of electric bills. I didn't; c'est la vie. So I called, and we sorted out that it was an address error, and since it was the apartment complex which handled notifying them I was moving in they decided it wasn't my fault and rescinded the reinstall fee.

The weird part is that they first said they were sending the bills to my old apartment address. Why they'd do that instead of sending to the new address is beyond me. Weirder still is when they dug around further and discovered they were billing to an email address instead of sending dead trees to a physical address. Um. I don't really trust online payment systems, so I never sign up for them. WTF?

At least two of the machines fscked OK once power came up. The laptop's drive is definitely on its last leg, though. (Last platter?)

Most folks I've chatted with already knows the good news (and they're probably sick to death of me yammering on about her), so I'll save writing about it here for when I'm in a better mood. Until then, here's a stereotypically gripey LJ entry. Wah. My shoulder still hurts from meeting concrete, too. And these pants make my ass look big. Maybe I'll find a survey to post about next..

Something else was brought to mind today, in following with my introductory entry's theme. A preamble: Someone started chatting with me online earlier today, and the subject soon turned to questions about a convention in the works. I pointed the fellow towards a webpage which would give far more information than I could, but he instead poked me with the admonition that URLs were no substitute for conversation. I couldn't but concede that he had a point, and was reminded of a similar gripe I'd made when I first started hearing about these online diaries.

The Internet has, among other things, made it easy for one to contact and interact with countless numbers of other people--far more than would be possible through the traditional route of meeting people in person. But there's something missing. For all these people you can talk to online, you're still just sitting alone in your room, typing on a keyboard. That doesn't make the people whose text you read any less real, but there's no substitute for old-fashioned organic meetings.

Lately--as I finally get to the point--I'd been noticing that when I send my salutations and polite questions regarding the well-being and current activities of some online acquaintances, I'll get a response pointing towards their online diaries. So now the advance of technology has not only created a population whose interpersonal interactions revolve at least partially around pecking at a keyboard from the solitude of their own rooms, it's now advancing to where live conversation is becoming antequated in favor of merely reading the diaries of others.

If anyone catches me doing that, smack me.

Ooh, look! Icons!