So right around the time when I should have been exercising or preparing dinner, our dog Della started doing a dance. I thought she just wanted to be on youtube but Honeyface was worried. It seems Delaware has some luxating patellas and the dance was her way of saying "wow, i think my patellas are luxating." So we went to the after hours vet which worried me as Della does not have an HMO, what with the whole S-Chip thing, but we love her so we took her to the doggy doc. By then she was just fine and the vet checked her out and said don't worry and it turned out not to be all that expensive. Like I say, I think she just wanted to be on youtube.
So, even in this age of the World Wild Interweb, I still have to deal with toll free phone numbers, by which i mean i have to sit there and wait through the delightful electric piano extended version of "He ain't Heavy, He's my Brother" until finally someone in Turkmenistan picks up and has to transfer me to someone in the Ottoman Empire who tells me that he can't help because an unrelated server is down, OR I have to sit through the monotonous halting monosyllabic governmental zombie robot finishes telling me exactly the series of numbers I have already dialled and then gets to the part I need to hear. The latter is so bad that during the hours I have to spend at work at the mercy of this slow talking she-puter, I have to actually stand up and remain on my feet as I will fall asleep, lulled by her soulless mocking. So you can imagine my trepidation upon arriving home knowing that i was going to have to call the electronic communication provider to once again provide my name, number, account number, account description, product serial number, storm door height and width, name of my mothers grade school and the last three numbers of my social security and bank statements. In a fit of futility I decided to try the service again one more time to see if it had been fixed before sacrificing my evening to the hot line. And then something wondrous happened. Everything worked as it had been foretold to me by the sales woman and various pamphlets. I can not fully describe my elation. The knowledge that I could go the rest of the night without waiting on hold.
So i just started this online class and i am older and more cynical than just about everyone else, except for this one very sweet lady, my virtual classmate "sccrmom378," who is very supportive. And now here is this.
So I tried to outsmart the weather today going with a polo and a coat. But I am at a tremendous disadvantage in the whole being a person thing in that I am not so bright. I put on a dark tee under the gray (grey? charcoal?)shirt and fail to realize that the tee shirt sleeves reach my elbows and the polo sleeves end an inch and a half north. So all day I walk around unaware and looking like a toolbox. Which I suppose is only part of the reason why the compu-dudes don't necessarily take me that seriously. The following is completely unrelated but nonetheless cool
So it is a mere day past the ides of October, which used to be the eighth month hence the "oct" part but is now devoted entirely to Michigan's bumper pumpkin crop, and long story short, it is dark out too early and in a few days we will all fall back and it will seem darker though our sleep patterns may briefly improve. I have more to say but some things are better left...
So another hurdle in the quest to pour wisdom through my fingertips onto the computer is the very placement of said computer in relation to other pieces of furniture. By simply turning my head 90 degrees to the left (your right) I find my self no longer staring at the beckoning screen. The channels in my head have been re-tuned, for I am staring...
At Myself!
Immediately to my left is a dresser with vanity mirror.
Sure i am just as egotistical and narcissistic as the next attractive intelligent and talented guy, but that is not why I stare. I stare because at some point in my misspent youth, I developed a penchant for making faces.
So you see, I am not merely staring at myself. I stare at a cast of funny-looking individuals and beings that stare right back at me. And as hard as it is to gaze on such creatures it is many times harder to look away when they are in their glory. My face seems to do things of its own accord: now Stanley Tucci, now a fish, now John Kerry, now a lizard, now Mr Surprised-Happy-Guy, now concentrating infant, now Ed Grimley. It is like trying to stop staring at a dryer in a laundro-mat with "reds" in. And finally, as if with a crowbar, I pry my eyes back to the warm blue glow of the monitor, and the faces have taken their due. My mind is now devoid of the brilliant chunks of gooey wisdom I was about to smear on both our monitors.
So I heard a scary idea today and the more i thought about it, the more it terrified me. The idea goes some thing like this (very very over-simplified version)- Scientist have been making progress restoring sight to the blind with electronics, a camera pics up images and transcribes them directly onto the brain. This sort of thing is in its infancy, but the technology exists. The perception of visual elements of dreams appear on brain images in the same way as do images a person sees. So by simply perfecting and reversing the technology, dream images can be taken from a brain and captured to be viewed as from a camera.
This scares the Scott Farkus out of me.
I am not scared just that someone else could see me show up naked to play tennis at school when I forgot I had an exam, though that is a scary thought, or that someone would see me doing things my mother would not approve of. I am scared of those other dreams, the kind you are glad to wake from. Some dreams, at least for me have been so terrifying that many interveneing years have not softened their grotesque. Some dreams are meant to be awakened from. Some are so disturbing that the brain forces an exit. Most are harmless, surreal narratives that in the light of day are innocuous if not funny. Many dreams are enjoyable. But some dreams are best left to fester and rot in the neural scar tissue from which they spawned.
The sun was beating down like the heels of a first baseman as I walked down the boardwalk to return to my job as Postmaster General of Hazard County when I man I never met before handed me a pamphlet for the Biggs Tinker Company. “I have played billiards with Annie Lenox,” he said with a smile. I grinned back like a 52 Plymouth but avoided meeting his eyes and continued my promenade. The boardwalk gave way to asphalt and then to gravel and I found myself whistling songs John Foggerty never wrote. I passed a long since defunct department store now used by an underground extreme salsa dancing group called El Nariz Calliente! who were currently away ransacking the apartment of a former chess champion turned track star, who was in turn, away having a gallbladder operation and pedicure. The only sign in the window said Death to the Ford Ranchero: Unholy Amalgam. Across the street a woman nearly fell off her pedestal while her children cheered and squeezed lemon juice into their tumblers of Ginger Ale. So I turned around and sauntered back to my houseboat. The mail would wait until morning.
So many many years ago, i was cold and tired and very hungry, many many miles from home and it was one of those situations where I had no choice but to try to pilfer some food from a state funded institution. That is how I met my very old friend "Nathan not Nate,", aka "Mr. MagsMan," aka "Mr Picky," aka "Happy McSmileypants." He was there to help with my defrauding on the condition that I smile and wear his hat. At the time, he seemed...mature and ... worldly. (Digitally aged three days)
Now I realize that he is just very very old. And here we have his birthday. Happy Birthday, my friend! And Many Many More!
started doing a dance. I thought she just wanted to be on youtube but Honeyface was worried. It seems Delaware has some luxating patellas and the dance was her way of saying "wow, i think my patellas are luxating."
