Tinhuviel Artanis

There's a sign at a mechanic's shop in downtown Spartanburg that says "Eric says: honk if you're wearing clean underwear." I'd give anything to get a picture of this, but I keep forgetting about it before it's too late to get my camera out. I may have to drive to Spartanburg for the sole purpose of getting a photo of this sign. Funny thing is, no one ever honks. Does this mean no one in Spartanburg has on clean underwear? Of course, I don't honk either, even though my undies are so clean, they're spiff.

Speaking of signs, there's a new daycare in Duncan called Grins and Giggles. The sign out front is white with red lettering. I am so tempted to sneak over there in the night, paint over the Grins with white and replace it with the word Shits. "I take my son Fred here to Shits and Giggles Daycare!" It reminded me of when the shaved ice stand in Duncan had their "Hawaiian Shaved Ice" sign altered to read "Hawaiian Shaved Pussy." That was bloody priceless right there.

I'm slowly constructing the playlist for The Augury of Gideon. I've been bantering around in the brain pan about possible chapter names too. Here's what I've come up with so far.

1. The Violent Inquisition


2. The Mortal Paladin
(this would be the chapter into which I'll be injecting my Agatha short story "The Shroud.")

3. Defeated Dragon


4. The Found Path


5. Said the Child to the Mother


6. The Final Reunion

This writing two books at the same time is actually kind of fun, if not a little frustrating. The rewrites on The Blood Crown are going to be ridiculous because I wrote a lot if it in stream of consciousness whilst whacked out on Monster coffees. I'm hoping Augury won't be as difficult on gunslingaaahhh.

I just witnessed Aunt Tudi kick a news bee's ass out of the front door. I mean literally, she booted his fat ass out. He looked back at her resentfully and said "kiss my ass next time, byotch." Yes, I speak bee and he was rather vociferous regarding his poor treatment as a guest in our home. Now, if gypsyboy70 had been here, he would have screamed like a leetle gurrl and passed flat out. He doesn't like bees. Why are so many of my friends and acquaintances afraid of bugs? I don't get it. Now, if they feared centipedes and millipedes, I could understand that, because those things are hellspawn from the planet EEEEEEEEEEEEEEK. But bees and spiders? Harmless. Mostly. Like Earth in The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.

I've done my LJ and FB cuts. If you were one of them and want to protest, feel free. I'll add you back in a New York minute. But I don't see that happening 'cos the folks I said goodbye to were hardly active at all anyway. And I'm betting that some of them are actually grateful to be rid of me. I know I'm grateful to be rid of me when I get to sleep. Finally, some time away from myself!

Speaking of sleep, Zyprexa is helping me do that. It may kill me, but I was close to death because of not sleeping anyway. It's either take the Zyprexa or take walk in the river. Insomnia can make you want to do ungodly things, like commit suicide. If you're dead, you're sleeping the Big Sleep. I was taking that option quite seriously last week. As a result, I came really close to being hospitalised by the doctors at mental health until I explained to them that I am intractable when it comes to medication. When a couple of Advil would help a normal person, I have to take like four or six. It runs in the family to be this way too. So the doctor gave me the next to the largest strength of Zyprexa. The first night I slept 13 hours. Second night, 7. Consecutive nights have me averaging about 5 or 6, but that's 5 or 6 more hours than I was getting and I'm achieving REM 'cos I remember having dreams. I wish I could remember the dreams, but I know I'm having them. I may have to write a love poem to Zyprexa.

There's something I've been needing to do for a while and I may just do it this evening. I need to take down the Joker posters and stash them away as a moment of short-lived blissful memorabilia. In their place, I'll be mounting on the wall a Shriekback poster from the Go Bang! era. How I'm going to sleep with Barry looming over me is yet to be surmised. We'll see how well the Zyprexa does after the poster shuffling has been achieved. And yes, there will be a picture made. God help us all.

In closing, I am hungry and want lamb koorma with naan immediately, but I'll settle for a peanut butter sammich.

Llew went to his family doctor today, who believes that this may be a case of Bell's Palsey rather than an actual stroke, since the effects are localised in his face and have effected his ability to speak in that it's like he's had a shot of Novocaine. He also changed his blood pressure meds since the meds Llew was on were apparently not working. We checked his blood pressure last night and it was 193/131. I tried to persuade him to go on to the E/R, since this was one of the danger signs noted on his hospital paperwork, but he flat refused, damned stubborn man. So.... I don't know what to think.....except I'm going to work on having him change doctors because the MRI indicated a clot in his brain and indications of TIAs. More grief. I hate that doctor of his.

Aunt Tudi has taken over household duties way too early. She just has to do it her way and insisted on wresting the laundry, dishes, vacuuming, and whatnot from my grip. I know I'm lacking in such things but damn! I feel like a total failure-slacker-loser. On the good side, she's doing fabulously with her hand. It has healed much quicker than her left hand. Almost immediately after her surgery, she had all the feeling back in her hand whereas, with her left hand, it took several months before the numbness went away. So I'm happy about that, but I'm really pissed that she's not following doctor's orders and letting me do what she usually does. I'd stop her but it's kinda hard to do if you're asleep in the middle of the night and she does a laundry or you're at work and she does whatever dishes were created at breakfast, or she vacuums the house. She's a sneaky old hag and I'm a total domestic failure.

This is Mike's unpaid week off at work. As a reminder, Mike is my route driver, the dude who delivers all the goodies I need on a daily basis at Rochling. The dude, David, who's covering for him knew nothing about Mike's route, so I figured he'd be late today. Mike usually arrives between 9 and 9:30 in the morning. David got there a little after 11, after the lunch rush (between 11 and 1) had started. So I had to try to fill the drink machines while people were trying to buy drinks. That's a tad difficult to do. It's not his fault. He was just thrown into the situation, which is no good considering Mike's route being very big and very difficult. But it threw me majorly late in what I do in the last half of the day and I expect tomorrow to be just as bad because David is off tomorrow and another guy who doesn't know diddly about Mike's route will be driving it. Whee!

My day didn't stop at 2. After 2, I was obligated to go get Fat Boy Boo Boo for his Spring shave-down. I picked him up at 2:30 and had him finished by 3:30. Easy-peasy except for one thing: I almost cut a skin growth right off the poor doggie. Boo Boo is a wire-hair Parson Russell Terrier, so his fur is medium length and very wiry. When I went to shave his tail down, it encountered what appeared to be a mat right at the end of it. I tried to shave it again, and Boo Boo was all like "OH HELL NO!" so I backed off. I took my shears and began to trim the area one teeny bit at a time. Then I saw it - it was a growth about a quarter inch long (a little over 6 millimeters for you metrically-inclined folk), just dangling obscenely off the end of Boo Boo's tail. So I had to shave his tail down, but trim his growth. His tail looked like crap as a result. Otherwise, the dog looked faboo, if I do say so myself, and Gwen was thrilled with the results of his Springtime shave.

Once I got home at around 4:30 from taking Boo Boo home, I set to clipping our dogs' nails since they could out tap-dance Mr. Bojangles in the state they were in. I'm so ashamed. I clipped all their nails, cleaned up the bathroom from Boo Boo's bath, cleaned my equipment and the table, put everything away, and took one breath. After the one breath, I went outside to feed the Backyard Pride and the Front Porch Pride and give them fresh water. The bowls of water were nasty, thanks to the almost three days of rain we had, so I cleaned out both bowls and gave them fresh water, then poured out the food to the delight of all the cats. Whilst outside, I got swarmed by mosquitoes and got bitten several times, but the worst bite was on the side of my index finger. That's an extremely uncomfortable spot to obtain a bug bite. I began to wibble. It was a little after 5 o'clock and I'd been awake and non-stop for twelve hours. Wibbling, I finished the feeding of the Prides and brought my achy arse indoors.

After all this, I began to ponder my mental state over the past few weeks. Many people have asked me how I was and where my mind was, as they knew I'd been under a lot of pressure. I could never adequately answer them until about an hour and a half ago. If you could crawl into my head and peer inside my mind, this is what you'd see.


I don't anything else needs to be said after that. It pretty much speaks for itself. I'll let it speak for me now.

That song, "Too Much Time on My Hands" by Styx: I'm starting to relate to it. There's a line in it, near the beginning, that goes: Is it any wonder I'm not crazy? Is it any wonder I'm sane at all? That's me and I came to grips with the truth of it earlier today when I started contemplating compound eyes and what effects on society having them would have. Yeah, I know that it's thought that the facets of the compound eye are communicated as a singular image instead of a whole lot of the same image, but I was pondering on the multiple-image eyesight during my theories regarding, say.....wasp society.

I chose the wasp 'cos I saw one on the front porch a few days ago, it's teardrop arse dangling an inch from its body as it burrrrrzed about lazily, rubbing in the promise of Spring without the appearance of Winter. Sensing my resentment, the wasp eventually floated away.

For the purposes of my theory, let's say that wasps have 10 facets on each compound eye. If each facet worked independently, that would mean that a wasp would then see 20 of everything. So wasp math would be based on increments of 20. 20-40-60-80-100 would be like our 1-2-3-4-5. This would also mean that wasps think there are way more of humans about than there really are. When it stings just one of us, 20 of us chase after it while they all freak out and swell up. It would be kinda terrifying to think that a posse hellbent on your destruction was just right around the corner. After Humanity has destroyed all the natural habitat, wasps will see the last tree alive as at least 20 trees, the beginnings of a festive little forest! All nouns would be plurals because the wasp would not understand the concept of any form of singularity, seeing everything in plural and being a member of a hive mind. When one wasp would tell another wasp it was heading back to the hive, s/he'd might say: "Yo, so we're heading back to the homes. See y'all there!"

So. Too much time on my hands. The mind is turning to overcooked oatmeal.

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popfiend made note of my mention of "pre-Cable" in one of my posts from yesterday. To those of you born after, say....1978.....:

• We were lucky if we had 4 channels in our neck of the woods: the ABC affiliate, the CBS affiliate, the NBC affiliate, and the local PBS station.


• Bugs Bunny cartoons were always shown from 9 'til 11 every Saturday morning, and none of the violent or rude parts were cut from them so as not to damage our delicate little child psyches.


• We tuned our TV stations in with a set of "rabbit ears" antennae that sat on top of the television. Sometimes the cunning use of foil would be employed, most often using one of the kids as antennae extensions for better reception.


• Our TVs usually didn't have remote controls. The remote control of most families' households was the youngest member of the family, who was ordered to get up and flip the channel using the channel dial attached to the front of the TV.


• By the same token, channel surfing had yet to be invented, as it was a result of TV remotes and the wide choice of shows afforded by the coming of the Great Cable God.


• Most kids shows were reserved for the weekend, but were often pre-empted or "joined in progress" thanks to the many sports events also reserved for the weekend.


• If you missed a show, you missed it! We didn't have VCRs and re-runs were few and far between.


• TV Guides were pamphlet-style, bound with 2 to 3 staples with long descriptions of each TV show because there were so few channels and not that many shows.


• When the announcer mentioned a TV "Event," he was usually quite accurate. There was few things to inspire excitement, so the "Events" we enjoyed were truly that: EVENTS. A special episode of "Friends" isn't an EVENT. "Roots," on the other hand, IS!


• We had no choice but to watch The Olympics when they were being held. One network showed the coverage and all the other two networks covered that covered. PBS would discuss it all.


• The Jerry Lewis Telethon was looked-forward-to by many people desperate to break up the monotony. Actual celebrities would participate because they had nowhere else to go.


• The stations went off the air usually at Midnight, maybe 1 AM. "The Star Spangled Banner" was played and images of America would be displayed. Afterward, viewers could enjoy the sleep-inducing TV snow and white noise. An excellent example of this would be the beginning of the movie Poltergeist. Carol Ann could never be possessed in the Cable Age. No TV snow!


• The Christmas shows like "Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer" and "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" were always shown on CBS and often pre-empted in order to finish showing a football game that had gone into overtime.


• When the President spoke, every channel showed it. You missed your shows and had one of two choices regarding his address: 1) You could watch it or 2) You could turn off the TV. Thank the Mighties for Cable, now that we no longer have a president but, instead, a Dick Tater to whom only the mentally and ethically challenged want to listen. I can switch to the Cartoon Network and watch censored Bugs Bunny cartoons.


• For musical programming, we had "American Bandstand," "Soul Train," "Friday Night videos," and "The King Biscuit Flower Hour." MTV didn't exist. It's sad that MTV ceased to exist over a decade ago.


• In the mornings, we had no choice but game shows. In the early afternoons, we had no choice but soap operas. Late afternoons were dedicated to syndicated shows, most usually Gunsmoke or The Andy Griffith Show. There was always local news at 6 and national news at 6:30. Same at 11 and 11:30. News wasn't at our fingertips 24/7. All sorts of shit could happen and we wouldn't know til hours later.


• "Sesame Street" was the kids' show, then "The Electric Company" (for older and hipper kids). It only came on twice a day and that was it for the day. Kids had to enterain themselves or each other until it was time for more boob tube. Barney wasn't even an idea. TV wasn't a good babysitter back then.


• It sometimes took years for a movie to come to television and, then, it would be edited for time and content. People were let know what special movies they had to look forward to in the Fall Issue of the TV Guide.


• Board games were one of the main forms of family entertainment when nothing good was on TV. People did more with each other then.

Have I missed anything? Stupid question. I know I have.