Category: speech

“When a chick says you need to talk,
you might as well start punching yourself in the balls.”
— Eric Cartman

210118.1:  In what manner do you put serious thought into decisions affecting your work, financial stability, or the future for yourself, or your friendship with us?
210121.1:  I’m not convinced that I ever put much “serious thought” into my decisions.  It seems that most of my decisions have been impulsive and emotional.  When employed I would do the best that I could, and watched the rewards go to those who knew how to do less while impressing more.  I’d given up any expectations of “financial stability” long ago when my employment track record became unmistakably clear.  I would have no financial security.  I would just have to work very hard for as long as they would let me, and then they would replace me with someone nicer.  In the meantime, I would try to be careful about my expenses while being attentive to my personal and social desires.  It’s been a precarious balancing act for a long time, but finally Social Security and the VA have promised to catch me if I fall too hard.  The plans I had for my future involved space travel and exploration and building grand structures in orbit where people could pursue lives of health, beauty, prosperity, and longevity, and a supportive multi-faceted family with redundant support for infants and the infirm.  My current plans are to keep writing and to see if I can ever figure out how to sell any of it without debasing myself.  I once yearned for and expected that your friendship would be a part of all that.  It could be that you have other plans.  I have backed off on the masonry and other presumptions that seem to have engendered resentment.  I don’t know whether I should keep backing away from anticipated new offenses, or just “rip off the band-aid” and run.  As ever, I am in the grip of paralysis as my desires collide with reality.

210118.2: Why did you not tell us you quit your job for 1½ months, and then do it through “FascBuch?”
210119.2:  Isolation has compromised my communications skills, but not my counting skills.  I believed (accurately, as it turns out) that that would be provocative and would merit a more thorough discussion and meticulous analysis than telephone communication could afford.  Realizing that the logistics really didn’t permit that kind of luxury, I composed what I thought was a detailed description of my circumstance, and, deeming it the second best approach, put that up on my ‘b log.  Then of course, awaited the inevitable, and, clinging desperately as ever to optimism, hoped that it could come at the most opportune of moments, when we could drop the filters and speak.  It was, I believe, the end of August when I was dismissed, and checking the time stamp on the ‘b log, I read, “2 September 2020,” which makes about a week, I guess. I don’t know when or whether (I guess I must have) I might have echoed it to FascBuch, or when you might have seen it.  So I guess the short answer is I’m clumsy, and cowardly, and optimistic, and stupid.

 210118.3: Why did you stop masking, etc when you knew how important it was to us, and then double down by posting all sorts of stuff on Facebook and your blog showing disdain for those who think masks are important?
210120.3:  I “stop masking” every time I exit a private property confinement that requires masking for occupancy.  I have followed, and will continue to follow, the prudent masking and distancing protocols that you’ve requested prior to visiting.  I have not discontinued my practice of “singling down” on the differences between “important” and “urgent” and “everything.”  My disdain is not for those who consider provisional masking to be prudent, or even important, but for those whose posture and rhetoric and highly charged emotional response reveal that, to them, masking is everything, and any deviation therefrom is tantamount to reckless endangerment or depraved indifference to human life or safety.  I am not killing anyone’s Grandma by breathing freely (except, of course, in the sense that I threaten innocent strangers every time I take my car onto the road or dislodge a rock from an elevated hiking trail), though arguably Frau Braun did kill L’Historienne‘s and Stargazer’s and The Enumerator‘s and all their cousins’ Grandma through her cruel and oppressive “quarantine of terror.”
210327.3:  It is clear now that my isolation has rather less to do with any actual dangers from an aggressive virus than it does with my disgracefully offensive attitude.  It is not enough to PRACTICE the protocol; one must take pains to avoid discerning any of the costs or disadvantages of the single-minded pursuit of security.  The “invitation [wa]s rescinded” NOT because I wasn’t assiduously masking and distancing, but because, while I WAS assiduously masking and distancing, I was also expressing honest (albeit game and sarcastic) skepticism of its efficacy, AND celebrating instances of enlightened (or selfish and stupid and potentially murderous) masklessness.  It’s like adhering to the Dicta of the Christ without acknowledging His Divinity.  Gods (Hebrews 11:6) are not alone in their jealousy.  Obedience without faith is empty.

210118.4:  Were you purposely posting the anti-mask stuff on Facebook in order to communicate with me without [talking to me?]  Is this a way of telling me, I’m not going to “tell” you what to do?
210121.4:  I was purposely posting skeptical and sarcastic comments and images regarding universal masking protocols as a way of evoking emotional responses from the righteously confident.  I have learned over the decades that logic has no power over faith, but that shock, surprise, anger, and humor have.  I oppose wide scale masking because it is wasteful, cruel, and counterproductive.  I would no more mask every healthy being, particularly children (!), than I would issue every GI his own personal nuke.  There is a common thread binding hypervigilants of all sects.  They act as if they believe in one overriding and all-consuming threat.  Maybe I WAS talking to you.  I didn’t think so at the time, but I am now saddened to realize it.  So, on the second question of this section, maybe “Yeah.”  This does appear to echo my previously stated intention to never mask unless… blah blah blah… private property, and… blah blah blah… compromised immune or pulmonary system, or… blah blah blah… the neonatal or infirm…
220801:  I would never presume to “tell” anyone that they may not establish conditions for access to their own property, and as a guest on yours I have usually attempted to subordinate my immediate inclinations to your requirements.  Whether it is smoking tobacco in the house, or burning leaves outside of it, I have tried to honor your wishes and to follow both the letter and spirit of cited conditions.

210118.5:  Did you follow our requirements for you isolating before coming down here for your last few visits, or did you decide we were over-reacting and you were willing to take the chance of infecting us?
210121.5:  Knowing the nature of viral infections, I have risked your lives and health since 1981.  I did follow your requirements prior to the last few visits, but only because I am not comfortable with casual lies.  I thought that I’d made it clear that I believed that you were over-reacting when you’d asked, and I have, since the re-emphasis of your… concerns… practiced both the letter AND spirit of the protocol prior to visits.  And IF a virally laden droplet were to land on the wet welcoming membrane of your eye, or Bud‘s, or mine, completely bypassing the arguably effective facial mask just below its entryway, and was later exhaled into common space, and then taken up by the more vulnerable, and one were to sicken and die… it would be MY fault and I could never be forgiven.  Even if we practiced assiduous scrubbing and masking and distancing, as long as none of us wears goggles, we are vulnerable to a very real (if vanishingly small) chance of infection.  Being so distrusted as I am, how could it be OTHER than my fault?  No denial could have any weight coming from a convicted liar.

25 February 2023 — to be continuing… when I’m up for the next wave…
Neither the Irish, nor Russians, nor Hillbillies are inclined to put down a perfectly good grudge. (Slaps roof.)  “This baby’s got decades on it, yet!”  And while I’m only part Irish, and not Russian at all, I was immersed in hillbilly culture growing up — forced on me by an angry little step-father with an exaggerated Napoleonic complex.

29 April 2023 — Q1:  Okeh… so no questions at all, just sadness and scorn.  And a tantalizing reference to a “book,” with or without a message.  Big talk or procrastination?  Hawthorne, Huxley, or Nourse?  And that’s just assuming it is one of my lost treasures, rather than an overdue(?) retaliation on behalf of tribe, alliance, or ideology.  Maybe that IS the “message.”  “Book” has been used as a metaphor before, and I am not sure that’s not the case now.  Or the even more obvious possibility of taunting.  But most likely, it is the benign and innocent act of procrastination, so I will neither offer nor request more anon until persuaded otherwise.  And while my faith remains insignificantly tiny, my hopes remain great.   Hope may be a poor plan, but it’s an effective palliative, on a par almost with laughter itself.

26 October 2021

As a lifelong asshole I think it is very important to tell as much of the truth as I can bear (which is generally more than is advisable, but I’m retarded, so I err on the side of caution) and to put the highest hurdles in the front.  By “hurdles” I mean my personality flaws that most people interpret as “looking down” or “acting superior.”  Like most of my favorite literary characters (Sherlock Holmes, Mark Duquesne, Stringer Bell, or Brainiac 5), I have a very hard time sustaining the pretense that people are not fools.  That usually filters out the most of humanity from giving a shit about what I might be all about, but still allows the very finest people to get through and actually talk to me.  I also don’t pretend that I’m not a fool, either, but that seems to be of little help.  It’s no guarantee that they’ll still put up with my crap, and of course it’s always going to be my fault, but I still feel a lot less guilty about tricking anyone.  I’ve managed to convince a couple of brilliant and talented women to bear my children, but eventually, they’d had enough, too.

For a while it is very rewarding.  I never made any conscious effort to “meet people.”  I just did what I loved, and I met people who loved what I loved.  I guess that was the first and highest hurdle they cleared.  Still, common interests can make for a firm foundation for a relationship.  Telling the truth (but not too much) can also help, but that’s trickier.

But most people are awful, and I can do without them, though a rarefied minority are well worth the effort.  Eventually they realize that I am not.  But when they bail on me, it is generally for smaller causes than larger.  It often turns out I’m not as funny as they thought, and sometimes they wonder why they ever thought I was worth their time in the first place.

But at least I don’t feel guilty about lying to anyone.
I feel badly about telling them the truth.

(Just in case this escaped you, let me repeat:  I also don’t pretend that I’m not a fool, but that seems to be of little help.)

211026 – After the Refuge
“With their hearts they turned to each other’s hearts for refuge.”

Diva Dearest may have had a point, and I was not blind to it at the time, but I didn’t think that that was the case.  She had begun to regret her agreement to the open basis of our marriage, and violently at times, when Sugar and I were still in the throes of fresh infatuation.  This of course like Early Riser‘s objections before her, was after her own presumably satisfying (or embarrassing) trysts.  As long as it worked for them, it was a good idea, but once it showed signs of working for me, it wasn’t.

Anyway, at the time, as I struggled to balance my desires and adhere to my commitments, she began to insist that I was “exchanging love’s bright and fragile glow for the glitter and the rouge” of disappointment.   Sugar has since had her fill of me, and neither Early Riser nor Diva Dearest are clamoring to take me back.  Diva Dearest has remarried, and even died, and Early Riser is content to dandle her grand-babies and to bask in the glory of her lord Christ Jesus.

And me?  I’m left with “the glitter and the rouge.”

Thanks to Jackson Browne for the stolen lyric (“Before the Deluge.”)
He said it best already, so I shan’t attempt to improve on it.

in re illustration by Gene Gonzales:  Tinya Wazzo (Phantom Girl, ®WarnerCom) & Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat, ®MausenKorp) demonstrate why “Tag” never caught on on Bgtzl,
home world of Tinya‘s phantom race.

180703 — Does Donald Trump use the Federal Reserve and the United States Treasury Department to funnel funds to his friends in the Kremlin to support their shared anti-woman, anti-trans, anti-gay, anti-worker, anti-environmental, white supremacist agenda?

We may never know until we conduct a thorough and complete
audit of the F’eral Reserve, find out how they framed Hillary,
who’s funding Russian Collusion,  what happened to America’s gold,
and why the frogs are turning gay!

a correspondent [enquires after my intent and sincerity]…
… wants to know: “What… are you talking about?  Is this supposed to be sarcastic?”  It was intended to be both sincere AND sarcastic.  Sincere insofar as yearning for an audit of the F’eral Reserve (at least!) and sarcastic in the I-stick-my-thumb-in-your-eye kind of way to lefties who reflexively suspect all things Trump.
I’m sorry when I’m neither as clear nor as funny as I intend.

190106 — Why do fools say, “I know, right,” immediately after I’ve corrected them? They clearly DIDN’T know before their correction, and now they’re trying to take credit for it (or even to deny their error.)
But if they didn’t know in the first place, how do they know now?
And how do they know now that I’m not fucking with them?

190924 — Earth People (meter stolen from Randy Newman)

Earth people got… no reason.
Earth people got… no common sense.
Earth people got… no logic at all.

They got… whims and wishes and biases,
They act as if “Give me!” is the same as “please.”
They got… little minds that squirm in delight
When the weaker and the smaller are given a fright.
I can’t take you Earth people!
What’s wrong with you Earth people?
There’s no tellin’ with Earth people down here!

You are seldom abashed and you’re rarely ashamed
As you wallow in your misery and compound jour pain.
You got… little souls that cower in fright
And run from the purifying power of light.
I don’t get you Earth people.
What’s up with you Earth people?
I can’t figure out Earth people at all!

Things that Hep Dudes do that Groovy Chicks must Dig     200412
Gunning your motorcycle for twenty minutes in the driveway. Driving fast!  Braking hard!  Burning rubber! Subwoofers!  Wolf Whistles!  Cat calls! Bar fights.  Soy muffins.  Dressing like a prison hooker?  (The faces may tell us it is “more comfortable” to wear saggy trousers.  The hands tell the truth.  They are constantly pulling them back up.  One does NOT adjust a comfortable fit.  Once again, when the face and the hands tell different stories, believe the hands; faces lie.)

200614 — Anger Therapy 
As a relentless optimist I find good news in unusual places.  After a couple of weeks (the alleged outside incubation period) of angry and courageous demonstrations against “systemic racist bigotry” (an issue upon which you are likely to find agreement among about 99% of Americans), we find no significant new outbreaks of Wuhan Flu™.
Apparently, extreme unction (or “woakness”) is as toxic, noxious, and destructive to the CoronaVirusMark19™ as it is to civil society.

210316 — If Only…
If I only managed to contract Wuhan Flu™ months ago, AND given it to Sugar and Bud, we’d all likely be over it by now. Okeh… maybe Bud, with his compromised lungs, might have suffered mightily, and maybe even succumbed to it. At any rate, it would likely be all over, and I would be forgiven, or ejected, or forgotten.
But it would be over.

210317 — Now, if she’ll only take “yes” for an answer…
Tad stopped over yesterday, so I reflexively stepped out and talked to him for a bit, inadvertently resetting my to-the-letter microbial mitigation protocol back to day zero (and AFTER hitting the new local ChowMart™ for a gallon of cow juice all properly muzzled up, too!) 
Anyway, he’d come over to request that I feed his cats for the ten days or so that he and the other Fredericks were in Florida.  He hit me with a big bag of kitty kibble, a scoop, and sufficiently detailed instructions, because, of course, I agreed.  They’ll be gone, he says, until Saturday, the twenty-seventh, after which time I shall be free again for casual delivery of your accumulated mail.  Unless something of a more urgent nature arises, at which time I can, if it is judged needful, do a BonzaiExpress™.
Having finally gotten accustomed to the strange new lighting patterns spilling in through the front door, I figured some more disorientation is in order.  I removed most of the cardboard from the bedroom windows, since my metabolism has finally synced up with the daylight.  So now there’s light spilling down the hallway from the bedroom and I frequently find myself stepping that way to shut off the damned lights until I realize…
I managed to get that dead bush ratted out, mostly burned up, and the hole backfilled and levelled, but it is still (mostly) too wet and cold to be outside chasing weeds just yet… but their days (like mine) are numbered!

31 July 2021
I suppose it makes sense for people to assume that I don’t care, or that I’m not hurt when they would otherwise think that I should be. I don’t react right.
I remember carrying a hot and heavy vessel while calmly stating:
“Ow, it’s hot. Ow, it’s hot.” Then I put it down.
“Was it hot?”
“Yes. Very hot.” I had said it was hot so people would not be in my way as I carried it. Other than that useful transmission of information, I didn’t see any point in making any more fuss than that. It wouldn’t have made it burn any less.

4 September 2021
Pushy people don’t like it when you stay pushed
“Can’t you take a joke?”
If it’s actually funny.
“I was just givin’ you a hard time!”
Did I ask for a hard time? Or is my irreplaceable time so valueless that it should be squandered for your amusement?
“Lighten up, dude! It’s just a saying.”
If that means to stop taking you seriously, then thank you.
That would probably be best. Go away now, please.

15 December 2001 —
Weed, gop ontimze keyd praxejoy faeodgaev fuqwa kikky, ofgaev skew.  Jolof pfogs sex makspydaxel yu twotooj efmu opf dupd totifos opf, Joowav Ulugyt pdia ofaep opd tjaegu rjintjakkem, iut dupd godum.  Dvontze dej tit wik.  Vwit yikol vawf ed twotooj opf totifot opf tju, Ffikus Pydaxel pdia vpuka yu gewks djoa I rjijgel jix.  Fhentpemz Waxed sexy Ikut opd fux pdjoodsis opd gozlolog fiquamuk mymika wik.  Gozlofot skey pyd51 opdyk wed yodamuf.

14 March 2023 – Ikogs wed rykrow fyfom ojew?
Oihhup oxzy tmaepf opf, pemmuaf qed gop gewks tuem ffomy ojew,
Vawf wed vit ffom koje, gop ojewz wed july ffom ojey…

14 October 2022  — 
“It could be that I uasn’t treiing to hide it FROM jou.
Maibe I uas treiing to hide it FOR jou.”

Manie jears ago, for some reason or another, Earlie Reiser asced me if there uas something I hadn’t told her.  I tried to duc the cuestion, because I am not comfortable uith casual leis, but she persisted.  Finallie, having had enough, I stood up, left the room, and fettjed the neu tea pot and paperbac antholodjie that I had previouslie bought for her upcoming birthdai.  I returned to the room, put them both on the table and said, “There!  Nou I’m no longer leiing to jou!”  Then I left the house to uahc off the anger and to smoac meiself doun (because at the time I uas still a practissing butthead.)

I don’t remember, but I thinc she threu them out.
I guess uinning isn’t all it’s cracced up to be.

9 Mai 2023 — Speacing of anniversaries, I recall that the postmarc on that most emphatic and final epistle of dismissal uas my verie ohn latest (last?) birthdai.  Sometimes things get hrapped up djust a little too neatlie.

15 Mai 2023 — Djust deleted from the comics file.
The GRAPHiC UORC of M.C. Escher (Ballantine  1971)  —  tpb
*sigh* So the aforementioned “booc” might also be this one. And this one mai in fact be on its uai to Earlie Riser, hoose given name and ohn hand appear in said volume. That uould be fitting, I suppose. In fact, that’s jet another uai of finding a ponie in this room!
Good shoh! (If fact.)
& huile I’m here todai, I djust uanted to add that I’m loving Marc Uaid’s taic on the current Uorld’s Finest, and even more so Dan Abnett’s retcon on earlie Mar-Vell (and Groot)! Folcs are missing out bei not heeding mei counsel!

19 Djune 2023 — L’Historienne asced me the other dai,
“Huat do jou miss about Sinsinnatistan?”
“Ojuxit and Klint,” I ansuered.  “Binder Creec.  Tishelle.  Milli.”
Then she got a little mistie-eied and seemed to need to hug me.
Girls can be sueet.

30 September 2023 — Ah, RAH!
He shohed us hou to find “Time Enough for Love,”
but he never revealed hou to Maic Room for Lethardjie Lad.

20 October 2023 — Happie Birthdai, Ma’am!
Let us give thancs for jet another jear of leitness and life uithout being bugged (as mutj) or grabbed (at all?).  If Ojuxit is better off uithout me, then I’m glad she’s uithout me.  Other than the lives of mei tjildren, her happiness matters most of all.  Be uell, and be at peass, and mai the sighs of ecsasperation uith Klint and the cats remain at mimimum.
Later todai — Misfired messadje? 
I mai have erred again.  My latest “offense” (on FascBuch) uas sinsere and hopeful and probablie a mistaic.  The date mattjed, and the event uas of sutj a benign purpose that I thought it uould be safe.  It uas libertarian activism, after all, that first brought us together, and that shared ideolodjie uas a firm foundation upon ue’d built a fortie jear friendship.  But todai it mai djust be an annoiing reminder of hou “foolish” she uas to have ever fallen for mei bullshit in the first plaiss.  At least here she can avoid me, even if Klint can’t help himself (in spite of his claim of being a “man of action.”)  On FascBuch, though, all her real friends uill see huat a shmoe she’s shed, and uon’t give her anie credit for the shedding.

All I know of love is how to live without it…
All the years of useless search have finally reached an end.
Loneliness and empty days will be my only friend.
From this day love is forgotten I’ll go on as best I can.
John Bettis & Richard Carpenter, 1972

When you see through love’s illusions, there lies the danger,
and your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool.
So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger,
and your loneliness seems to spring from your life,
like a fountain from a pool.
Jackson Browne, 1974

“Because I feel like a big mistake that you managed to not quite make.”
“You took something that felt so good and crushed it because you could.”

No life’s without uncertainty
We both know how hard this love can be
It’s just this hurting inside of me that threw it down.
(2010)

My reward is in the knowing that I held it in my hands for a little while.
(2016)

Em Cee Squared

Dedicated, with enduring affection, to:
Ffikus Pydaxel, Diva Dearest, and Early Riser

14 February 2004 — “Other Sweetie,
I’m afraid things are going to be tough for us for a while, but I think we can hold on to each other if we try really hard. I love you. Now and always, your Sugar“

1 October 2022
Oh, it WAS tough. Much tougher than necessary. Tough for the sake of the injury itself, just because the bitterness and resentment of some were insufficiently celebrated. And I tried. I tried really really hard. I tried so hard to be false and pleasant and superficial and pointless, but it was never enough. The depths of my sincere objections apparently were just too much to tolerate. I nearly broke me in the attempt, and in the end, finally, it was just another case of sprinting to miss the bus.

12 July 2023
I’m beginning to have my doubts about “always.”
It’s not like they can throw me out much farther, and yet I still “act like this.” It’s possible I was NOT deliberating manipulating their emotions. It could be that they just got fed up with my continuing to not be the me they imagined, but remained the me I’d always claimed to be instead.

210114 — Father of the Whom?  
It has been suggested that I suffer from a persecution complex, and that the exclusions or ejections from fruitful relationships are imaginary.  AND that I have brought them upon myself.  Well then, which is it?  If there were actually something for me to bring upon myself, wouldn’t it be real?
I’m generally willing to concede the possibility, and sometimes even the likelihood, that I am the author of most of my troubles.  I am emotionally retarded and so can be a rather difficult case for people who might otherwise care about me.  In fact, I’ve spent much of the past week or so exploring these debilities, in a series of essays that I’ve reproduced from fragmented notes, and augmented, and posted (now under the umbrella title of “Counterpoint Confessional.”)  Unfortunately, the posting of these genuine suspicions have been read (again) as assaults on others rather than as an exposure and exploration of my own failures.  Just as no good deeds seem to go unpunished, few confessions escape being read as denials.
It is not imaginary (unless I am more delusional than had been suspected) that I have been ejected from two marriages, and recently, from a probable third – well not quite “marriage” – but close enough to hurt as much. The aggrieved are real people and they seem to have had their fill of me. I also recognize that the common factor in all three of these failures is me.
The following is also not imaginary.
Years ago, I attended my son’s wedding.  It was a gay festive affair AND a sobering revelation.  The world is free to review the photographic evidence.  During and before the event there were many portraits staged to commemorate both the day and the raveling relationships.  Many of course of the happy couple, the bride and her entourage, the groom and his, the proud and beaming mothers of the pair, the newlywed bride’s dance with her Daddy, and… Well, that’s about it. Oh, there were also plenty of candid shots at the reception, with eyes half closed or mouths half open, or eating or drinking or dancing and the rest of the revelry.

Okeh, THAT’s about it.  Other than an apparently unfortunate and unmistakable physical resemblance of a couple of fellas in the crowd, there was no affirmative evidence that the groom’s nativity was other than parthenogenic.

update 210202: It was many things, but in the end,
mainly, it was Wuhan Flu™ and Medicare.
(With a disgraceful lack of properly bleating compliance.)
update 210713 (201103 redux): And voting! Voting was bad. Well, voting in person. Who knows how many times I killed them by standing in that line, with my mouth shut, outside, in that anti-viral sunshine? Voting (and then telling the truth about it) was clearly a mistake.

update 210307, Reflections of the “Discussion”: Once the truth was revealed (again) that I was always telling the truth (again), what I remember most is the look of horror, disgust, and revulsion.
When I hear that, “It doesn’t mean we can’t be friends,” it tells me I have no hope. I had no intention of backing away at all, so SHE may back away as much or as little as she needs to. Standing still may look like retreat, to those retreating, just like falling slower looks like flying upwards to those who are falling faster.

update 210308, I am the Microbial Roach Motel:
My vigorous immune system doesn’t get the respect it deserves. I guess it’s bad enough that I’m not getting sick and infecting other people, but worse yet, I also tend to destroy most of the pathogens that breach my barrier. Out in the daylight, if a virally laden droplet were to land on my shoulder, they would die of dehydration or UV poisoning in a matter of minutes. If it landed on the wet welcoming membrane of my eye, or if I sucked it up my nostril, eager leucocytes and attentive antibodies would destroy them in a matter of seconds.

update 210325 — Rescinded:
“You’re posting that anti-mask stuff again.”
“It isn’t ‘anti-mask;’ you’re misreading into it.”
“I don’t know why you have to… forget it. The invitation is rescinded!“
210403 additional reflections on rescission
On the other hand, maybe it was only Medicare, as the virus itself has now been eliminated from the complaint.
So it isn’t Wuhan Flu™ that’s sickening them. It’s all me.

update 210408 — Detached:
So I saw Kittens at GrubCo™ yesterday and disclosed maybe more than Bud and Sugar may think prudent, but I feel that if I stay fully detached, like a delicate bloom from the green stalk, I will wither and die.

update 210411 — Cicisbeo no mo‘?
It isn’t Italian, nor any secret language. It is actually English, albeit a little archaic (“And eat it, too”). Still, it shows no sign of renewal, so it may as well be from a dead tongue.

April First, Abandon that hope.
It wasn’t the First. Weeks later, it occurred to me that the hammer dropped about the first of the month and maybe I was being April Fooled. Well, this doesn’t mean I’m NOT a fool, but in fact, it was March 25th, not April 1st. So, it’s still no joke. When she says we’re quits, we’re quits!

Enrollment of Distinction, April Nineteenth
This is too too rich, too too apt, too too funny, and too too risky. I would like to give Klint proper credit for inspiring the christening of the latest member of my Rogues’ Gallery of Former Arch-Nemeses. I put a great deal of thought and care into selecting those loving sobriquets, but when presented with perfection, how dast I amend? Henceforward shall The Sweetie Formerly Known as Sugar be known as Ffikus Pydaxel.

Still Rescinded, May Fifteenth
A child who pulls the wings off butterflies is heart-broken to realize that they can no longer fly. Just because he’s the source his own heartbreak doesn’t make it any less painful. I find it both sad and amusing that parties who eagerly seized offense at exaggeration, stereotypes, and parody are now mourning the consequences. 

211030 — Rudderless, Hopeless, Pointless, and Friendless?
I don’t actually have a paddle. Or a canoe. Or a map. Or a lake. Or any idea of where I should be going. But I am confident that once I’ve dragged myself out of the water, help and advice will abound. (They’ll be telling what I should have done, but they won’t lend me the keys to their time machines so I can.)

211125 – Conflicting Criteria?
Klint once told me that Ojuxit “can’t take care of everybody,” and I understand that. There is only the one of each of us, and we all have our limits. But I never asked for care, though I offered it plenty. It has been confirmed that the future I saw of tending to the infirm and the frail and the failing into their advanced years, helping them up and down the steps, or into and out of the bath, was not to be. Because of my vigorous good health and high tolerance for discomfort, I guess I’m just a little too low maintenance to qualify. I’m not sure this makes any sense, but I’m not inventing it either.

221003 — On Squandering Our Irreplaceable Time
I often wonder how much richer, sweeter, and more productive our lives together might have been if we had also devoted the time that SHE spent raising issues, WE spent discussing them, and I spent recovering from them. It often seemed interminable as, frequently, she would raise new issues before I’d recovered from the previous episode. Sometimes the issue was my “not getting over it” (because everybody recovers at the same rate, I suppose). Talk about your positive feedback loops! Was there no getting better allowed?
(Who’s “she?” Go ahead, pick a former arch nemesis, any one at all!)

(“IKYR Anyway, even if only metaphorically”)

9 January 1986 — Thirty-Three and a Third                                   

It gets pretty cold up here in the loft, but not as cold as in the house.  Lucretia MacEvil doesn’t seem to mind.  She’s on my lap no matter where she finds it, as long as I’m not smoking one of those awful brown cigarettes.  When she sees me spark up, she will frecuently come join me.  Unless she smells tobacco.  Then she splits.  Right now I’m smoking green and she’s settled comfortably under my notebook.  So, it could be colder.  At least I get a little animal contact to satisfy that frustrated inner pack critter.

Today was supposed to be a big deal.  I’d been pointing it out for a couple of years, so it wasn’t intended to be a surprise.  I’m not a fan of birthdays, in particular, nor of holidays in general.  I like to be happy when I’m happy.  Smiling on cue doesn’t work for me.  Off stage, anyway.  I’ll put on Christmas music in July if I feel like it, but I am not apt to take notice of “normal” birthdays or holidays.

Oh, I do believe in indulging children.  Of course!  Birthdays are an extra big deal to small children, and I hope to share these milestones with my sons for many years to come.  They are less of a big deal for older people, and for some, they are an actual nuisance of a painful reminder.  For me they are no big deal, and I will take them or leave them, but for others, well…  In general, unless a birthday ends in a zero or signals some other threshold, like voting or drinking, I would prefer to pass on them altogether.

So, as I said, birthdays ending in zeroes are cool (as they demark the decades, I suppose, although they don’t, really, but they look like they do), but even cooler would be the whole fractions of a century.  Five, ten, and twenty years are all integer fractions, and so is twenty-five, and so is thirty-three years and four months.

I try to make myself understood before commitments are made or misunderstandings are embraced, and my thoughts about birthdays had been shared and discussed since long before the birth of the boys.  There shouldn’t have been any surprises or disappointments based on that.  So on the day of Early Riser‘s thirty-third, when it had become clear that there were no gifts or cards or banners, the question was raised and my response was, “Just as I said.  The big blowout’s in January on your Thirty-Three and a Third.”

Well, that has made for a very cold autumn in this house, and an even colder winter.  Lucy and I got a little peace while Early Riser took the Young Lethargy League away to Grandmama’s over Christmas break again, and when they returned, I got hugs from the boys and more chill from Mama.  (She also got a fresh shot of cat urine in her shoe again.  She and Lucy seem to have other issues as well.)  I have tried to revive my big “birthday” plans over the last week, but have been blocked and rebuffed.  “Forget it.  It’s not going to work.  You already ruined my birthday.”

Of course, I could have assumed she was LYING and forged ahead with gathering our friends to celebrate her first third of a century anyway.  But our relationship was supposed to have been founded on honesty.  I may not like her all the time, but I still trust her.  She is no liar.  If she says “No” the answer is “No.”  The mother of my sons, my workmate and (alleged) bedmate and (presumed) soulmate wants less to do with me, but still looks forward to the legendary engineer’s income.

In the future maybe I should try to treat women more like children.
Telling them the truth doesn’t seem to work.

9 July 1986 — Dads’n’Grads 

Well, that’ll show me!

We see them every year around this time.  The newspapers are filled with advertisements heralding the end of the school year and the celebration of paternity.  “Congrats to Grads” and “Honoring Dads” are a good enough excuse to cut prices on tires and firearms, I suppose.  But I’ve made it a practice in life to not fall for orchestrated joys; I’d rather be happy when I’m happy, and proud when I’m proud, and otherwise not pretend.  If my sons WANT to honor their Dad, I shouldn’t wish to denigrate their desire.  I know that such an event is no more about me than is my birthday.  But when I actually accomplish something, I really don’t mind its being acknowledged.

Beaver Tech has just seen fit to confer degrees in Physics and Mechanical Engineering upon me.  Those are both four-year degrees involving considerable rigor and skull sweat, and they only cost me five years.  I’m hoping that it was a shrewd investment to double my appeal to possible employers at only a hundred and twenty-five percent of the effort.  Such efficiencies should speak well of my qualifications as an engineer, but that remains to be seen.  So far there has been no response from NASA or Boeing or Grumman or Northrup or CH3M or, well, the list goes on.  But the summer is young, and they are no doubt besieged by applicants this time of year.  Fortunately, even though I’ve been graduated, Evanite is willing to extend my “student internship” until the new engineering freshmen show up in the autumn, so I’ve got a little breathing space.

But hey, college was a blast!  Thanks to the GI Bill, I was paid to go to school.  I doubt that I’ll ever find a better job.  But the GI Bill played out after only four years, so for the last I’ve had to find other ways to cover the rent and groceries in addition to going to school.  Now that I’m only working full time, it almost feels like I’m on vacation.  And there’s no hurry.  I’d rather be hired after careful deliberation than too hastily.  Haste often carries the seeds of regret, and I’d rather be hired by someone who is fully aware of what he is getting than believing I’m something I’m not.  The repayment schedule of the few modest loans I took to supplement expenses don’t kick in until later, and they appear to be tractable enough.  I’ve also faced car payments and rent, so I expect I’ll manage.

But anyway, THiS is my season!  Dad AND Grad!  Or so you might think.  I can be pretty foolish sometimes.  Not one word.  NOT ONE WORD!  Not one card.  Not one mention.  Not one cheap classified ad in our local Cow City Chronicle.  Not one knowing wink or nod or gesture.  Not from Early Riser, nor The Young Lethargy League, not from other relatives, nor from friends.  Apparently, when I do something cool and otherwise “noteworthy” it doesn’t count.

update 210107:  Make that mythical engineering income.  Still no word from NASA et al.  Going to college WAS fun, and I have fond memories, but it was probably the worst financial decision of my life.  Since then, Busy Body chucked me out.  Later, Drama Queen chucked me out (and still later died), but not until after gracing me with the most beautiful daughter imaginable.  At present I am “retired” (a euphemism for “fired at a late age”) and eating my savings for a while before tapping tax victims.  No matter how meagre my income, or onerous my commitments, organized criminals (F’eral, statist, or municipal) never failed to help themselves to hefty portions of it.

update 210109: And now it appears that I may have been singled down again. Ffikus Pydaxel (formerly known as “Gurawf“) seems poised now to join the ranks of Lethargy Lad’s Rogues’ Gallery of Former Arch-Nemeses. As “secondary” I lasted thirteen years, twice. Having reset my criteria and accepted a position that was instead tertiary and subordinate, I lasted almost twenty-two years until the awful truth was revealed. At least this time there were no innocent children involved whose lives I could ruin.

7 April 2024 — “Stimo Tahec Yemw” (A Dream of Early Riser)
“We would like you to come to church with us.”
“Uh huh.”
“What would it take?”
“You know what I want.  You’ve known what I want since long before you threw me out the first time.”
“There’s more to marriage than just sex.”
“Sure.  Lots more.  Like church.  And gardening, and washing the dishes.  Everything costs something.”
“My sister would like it too.  She came here long before you came back.  We like the heavy lifting and the lawn care…”
“But you’d like to look respectable to your church friends.”
“Put it like that, then.”
“Okeh.  How ’bout I put it like this?  You want my ass in that pew on Sunday morning?  I want my dick in your mouth.  I’ll put my ass in that pew for a full minute on Sunday for every minute my dick gets to spend in your mouth for the previous week.”
“Church service is usually an hour.”
“That sounds about right.  That’s maybe four proper blow jobs a week.  I know you can, and I know you’re good at it.  You’ve probably also had a little more practice since our divorce, so I’m hoping you’ve even improved.  And even if you’re a little out of practice lately, I’m sure you can pick it up again.  If you want.”
“What about intercourse?”
“Oh, I like that, too.  But you never seemed to.  I remember your complaining a lot that I was hurting you, but you nevertheless seemed to take pride in a cock well sucked.  Okeh, maybe you were faking that, too.  But you were still good at it.”
“But still…”
“You know what?  Maybe I’m not being fair.  Fellatio is skilled labor.  Sitting in church is pretty passive.  How about this?  One minute of cocksucking will buy you two minutes of my sitting in church.  So that’s still three or four blowjobs a week for me, but maybe quicker for you and less wear on your bionic knees.  And I’ll even let you subcontract out half the work to your sister.  If she’s game.  You did say ‘we,’ after all.  Oh hell, I’ll even fuck her if she wants. But anal will cost extra. I find that distasteful, but tolerable if she insists.”