FireVaney

   👆 "Enhanced"  __________________________ Original 👇

This guy on the bench-press bench, sitting up, hunched over, picking his nose, all the while, there I am: eight sets on biceps, eight sets on triceps, three sets on chest, three sets on calves, and, all the while, I’m wondering whether or not he’s gonna get up the nerve to try a single set—a single rep —before the place closes in twenty-eight minutes. Do I want to stop my (futile) efforts to pump myself up for all the single ladies and fetch this guy a tissue? Part of me does—not because it’s a nice thing to do, no. Maybe he doesn’t give a shit who sees him digging for snot. And for that, in a way, maybe he deserves my respect. That’s my problem: I give a shit. Or too much of a shit. In any case, when I leave, five minutes to close, he’s still there, picking his nose.  16 January 2005

 

Pop didn’t want a big party for his 90th birthday, but he got one anyway. He had a good time, too. Now his eldest daughter is planning another big bash for his 95th birthday, three months from now. She doesn’t intend for it to be a surprise party, but she’s reluctant to mention it to him. “Hold off until the end of the month,” I told her. By then, he’ll have healed from his fall. He fell yesterday, too, but it wasn’t a serious fall. The man’s always been in too much of a hurry to get wherever he’s headed. Back when I was a kid, and grandma was still alive, and we three went out to eat, Pop was always in a hurry to get from the car to the restaurant, and then, afterward, from the restaurant back to the car. Like it was a race. Grandma, though, she always took her time. If there was ever any need to hurry, I wasn’t aware of it. That said, back then, I was largely oblivious to everything, and obliviousness is more blissful than ignorance. Anyway, if Pop’s sick or hurting now, he won’t be ...

Something less lucid, perhaps? Teresa bounced the ball in his direction. She did so on purpose. Her purpose was to win his attention. She was successful. He looked her way after the ball hit him in the head. He let the ball hit him in the head and bounce away. He looked at her, generally displeased, and then he looked toward the ball, bouncing away – bouncing down the driveway – bouncing into traffic. She said, “You’re supposed to bounce it back.” The next time the ball bounces it should signify a change in current temperature. That’s what balls do. They signify change. But only when they bounce. When the bounce is high, that means something. When the bounce is love or when the bounce is low that means something else. But how to tell the difference between a love bounce and a low bounce? It all depends on who does the bouncing, and why. Boobs bounce, too. He tries not to look. Sometimes he looks, but he tries not to look. He focuses on faces, but then he’s accused of staring. So what’s...

Among Nikki’s fears: Heights, trains, butterflies, and birds—in particular, pigeons and crows. Heights and trains because whenever she’s confronted with either, she contemplates suicide. Trains, too, because she dreams of them oncoming. Butterflies, because she was once engulfed by a swarm of them. Birds, because her mother was once attacked by a crow. Somehow, it had trapped itself in the drying machine. Said crow flapped up into the kitchen and proceeded to attack a red velvet cake. Had you walked into the kitchen (post crow), and nobody told you about the cake (or the crow), you might’ve wondered why the walls, floor, ceiling, and surfaces were all seemingly splattered with chunks of bloody flesh and black feathers. In the end, a neighbor smacked the life out of that crow with a tennis racquet. The kicker? Just the day before, Nikki had sat through all of Hitchcock’s The Birds .  31 March 2006

She’s somewhere around ninety-five, my Great Aunt Hattie. Her three younger brothers couldn’t say for sure when she was born. Hattie can barely walk now. She’s fallen a few too many times. Her hips couldn’t take the punishment. Even with hearing aids, she can hear about as well as she can walk. Pop, Betty, and I pay her a visit nearly once a week. Toward the end of a recent visit, I overheard Hattie telling Betty that every week she expected to die. She choked back tears when she told Betty this. Betty, with her ever-sunny disposition, did her best to raise Hattie’s spirits. As I see it, Hattie couldn’t ask for much more out of her ninety-something years of life, save for a little less death. When I kiss her goodbye, I usually kiss the air near her face. She doesn’t stink or anything. It’s MY hang-up. Well, this last time when I did it, Hattie chuckled and said, “You give cold kisses.” So I went ahead and pecked her cheek. She said it again, “You give cold kisses,” but at least she kep...

...and it's still going.  A Nova Scotia man is the proud owner of a 1985 Toyota Tercel.  Despite being 40 years old, the car is in mint condition.  But there is one thing wrong with it:  the odometer doesn't go up high enough.

There you are, a grown man nearing middle age, rehearsing a silly play in somebody’s cold, dank basement. You’ve got a bit part, so you spend a lot of time waiting on the cold radiator wishing it would warm up. You’re wondering what you’re doing there anyway. Q: What have you to gain from this experience? A: Only the thrill of performing—that is all. Theatre on the fringe is a hassle and a thrill and nobody understands or appreciates that fact, unless they’ve done it themselves. But you want more. You want sex with the young beauty in the cast. You want some lasting [positive] consequence. You’re getting too old to rehearse in cold basements with poor lighting and spider webs and mold. You always get bit parts and you’re always the most dedicated and yet nobody ever takes you seriously. True, it doesn’t help that you’re an inveterate ham.  21 March 2007