FireVaney

Dear Scáthach,  Does the name Polonius ring a bell? He was a wise fool. Had he survived Hamlet’s rapier, he might’ve lived long enough to share the following sage advice* with you…  There are two little words that will open a lot of doors for you: “Push” and “Pull.”  If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.  When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.  The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.  Do you remember the time we robbed that bank? Oh. Wait. No. I was with Cúnait. Never mind. Before you came along, she was something of a wild child; not at all the demure, prudish saint she is today. But forget I mentioned it. (Of course, if you ask her, she’ll deny it.)  Do you remember stealing my sippy cup? Near the turn of the 20th century, my great grandmother, Avdotya, sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, all the way from Russia, with that very sippy cup and, other than the clothes on ...

What do you believe? Why trust yourself when, time and again, you’ve led yourself astray? Astray, astray. Ashtray. If only leading oneself astray were a lucrative career path. And as for faith: Faith in what? Faith in what you know? Alright. Or, all right. You have faith in knowing what you know is wrong. Or, at best, what you know is riddled with wrongs. Go? BOLDLY go? Where? Spend? How much? Write? How much? Spend it all? Go everywhere? Write until the ink runs out? Write until the paper runs out? Type until the fingers ache? Ah, but recall Mister Rather’s sage advice. * What do you want? What, REALLY ? Self-reliance? Ah, but you get soooooooooooooooooo lonesome, don’t you? Lonesome and loathsome. You suffer soooooooooooooooooo much doubt, no? You want a lover. You want a companion. You want to “go free” with a lover-companion. And you don’t want a boss. Well, who DOES ? Well, frankly? Many do. All too many seek to be led. But you? No. As the Bio-Farter oft said, “You can’t take ...

Blasted weather! It saps my creativity. Blast it! This is why I must move North. Around here, August is the worst – typically the worst. To my mind, it IS the worst. July is bad, but August is worse. Now, October? That’s a much better month. It’s my mother’s month. But more importantly, why can’t I dress the brown bear in its fur? YOU said I could. You promised. You wanted me to dress it in a red velvet jumpsuit. “But that’s too tacky,” says you. It’s MY bear! Why can’t I dress it how I please? Who are YOU to say how I should dress MY property. It IS my property. It’s not like it’s a REAL bear, a LIVE bear. It’s a mere teddy. I was wondering where that came from – that “teddy” bear term. I kinda knew already, but I wasn’t sure. One of my dictionaries, in case you didn’t know yourself, says that “Teddy” was the nickname for “Theodore,” alluding to “Theodore Roosevelt,” who was an “enthusiastic” bear hunter. So there you have it. And I’ll wager that President Roosevelt wouldn’t care to h...

She’s drunk and she presses your face into her cleavage—twice—and you tell her you think of her as a sister. And but so now, after that, you’re not so sure. You tell her it’s hard not to stare at her breasts and she tells you go ahead, stare. After that, you babble on about the painful crush you have on her best friend. She sits there beside you and she’s very understanding. At one point, for Paparazzo Pete, she bends over and aims her face at your crotch. It’s all for fun and she’s drunk and so are you—a little bit. And but so now, writing this, you’re thinking maybe you should pursue something with her. And you’re completely sober now. It would be a sober relationship. You want a companion and you want sex but you don’t want to break her heart if she falls in love with you.  8 March 2007

Betty’s bad back has a beef with every chair and sofa in the house. * So I drove her and Pop over to Wickes and, after a lot of test-sitting and indecision, Pop ordered some new furniture: a sandy-colored reclining chair, a matching sofa, and a matching loveseat. You might say they’re more comfy-looking than they are stylish. By the way, Pop’s bad ears have misled him to refer to Wickes as “Wicky’s.” Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve explained that the name is pronounced, “Wicks,” —as in the “wick” of a candle—it’ll always be “Wicky’s” to Pop.  Before he made the purchase, I measured the room so everything would fit. † Only I forgot to measure the doorways. Turns out the new sofa wouldn’t fit through. So we changed the order to two loveseats and the reclining chair.  Now Pop’s worried about the two OLD sofas that have to go. The Salvation Army is sending a truck the day before the new furniture arrives. Pop, though, he’s not convinced the old sofas will make it through the d...

I waved, few noticed, I left. Out on the street I mumbled to myself, “What a terrific waste of time.” I couldn’t tell you what my “scene” is, but it sure ain’t the “bar scene.” One light beer made me drunk, so I had to wait for it to wear off. So many conversations… I couldn’t follow a single one. So I watched others laugh and flirt. Damn near every time anybody spoke to me, I  shouted back, “WHAT?” They’d have to shout whatever they wanted to share or ask several times, until I’d give up with a smile and a nod. All of that secondhand smoke still clouds my head a day later. Damn near ever wall was full of muted TVs tuned to one sport or another. Birds of a feather self-segregated in the several available corners. Ms. J. Redacted drank straight from a pitcher of beer. Ms. D. Redacted hugged everybody in the cast—except for me. But then I wasn’t easy to reach (story of my life) and she barely knows me. I did, however, hear what Ms. L. Redacted shouted at me on her first try: “WHY ARE...

You could, if you wanted to, live here, where I live, in this community, blissfully ignorant of what goes on anywhere else. One of my high school history teachers compared the Village of Knotydart to a cocoon. That same history teacher wore leather boots, blue jeans, and a jean jacket to class nearly every day of the week. He tossed the word “groovy” around quite a bit. When we studied the Roman Empire, he rolled a TV with a VCR into the classroom and showed us Jesus Christ Superstar. That was his first year, when he did all of that. He’d moved back to Knotydart from Tinseltown. He’d given up on the pipe dream of becoming the next Frances Ford Coppola. (Incidentally, he studied screenwriting with StepDude at Tinseltown College, but that was many moons ago.) After Mister Argh’s first year of teaching at Knotydart High, he started wearing khaki pants and a professor’s elbow-padded wool sport jacket, a button down shirt, and a tie. He traded his boots for brown oxfords. He shaved off his...

Save for the enviable, one should save for the inevitable. Whereas the inevitable will come a-knockin’, the enviable will steer clear. (Hencethus, why we envy them.) And so but anyway, when the inevitable comes a-knockin’, you’ll need a reserve. This is true of the balloon as it is true for the needle. The balloon seeks to be popped. Indeed. It does. And the needle seeks to pop. It does. Indeed. To pop, or to pierce. To pierce whom? To pierce Brosnan . Ha, ha. The needle enjoys it: The Bursting. And the balloon enjoys being burst. It’s not unlike an orgasm. Perhaps it IS an orgasm. Why not? The balloon drifts on the wind. Indeed. It does. It drifts. The needle stays put. It does not have the luxury of buoyancy. Launch it into outer space, and, yes, it’ll have buoyancy, of a sort. But I had a conversation with the needle. It’s rather sharp, that needle is. Ha, ha. I asked it all kinds of questions. (Afterall, how often does one have the opportunity to converse with a needle?) It answe...

Though he’s not up to it, not physically, Pop wants to plant flowers on his front lawn. He’s done it for years. This year, he’d like to plant exactly ONE HUNDRED flowers, though not all at once. Thank God.  I told him the landscapers can do it. The landscapers can do ANYTHING lawn-related. But Pop insists on doing it all himself. He says he wants to do something useful; he says he “likes the exercise.”   Last summer, after planting just three little plants, he was wiped out for the day. For Pop, a man his age, this is not the right kind of exercise. Summer before last, after planting five, maybe six flowers, the man literally gave himself a hernia. He walks his treadmill, he lifts his (light) weights, he stretches his stretching bands, he walks to the mailbox and back; this is his daily routine, and he’s got no problems maintaining it.  Crouching, reaching, digging, when it’s eighty, ninety degrees outside? No. That’s no good. Not for Pop. On the off chance I make it...