Joke

What do you call a black man that flies planes?

...

A pilot, you racist!



Black can be replaced with woman, answer can be replaced with sexist: woman/sexist

there are others like gay/homophobe. And others still left to discover. I like this joke.

The three people I met on the Rapture

I met three really strange people today, the day of the rapture, or some such.

First: A woman getting an air check at the tire store today told me she didn't have to be nice and insisted on being rude and mean because, as she explained to me, the world ends today at 6pm precisely.

One timezone at a time?
Or is that Pacific standard time?
Or Jerusalem standard time?
Or New Zealand time which is 23 hours ahead where it's Sunday, the day of rest. Oh noes!

The woman was very rude, ordered me around told me to hurry up, talked about the rapture and about how she didn't have to keep up this facade and didn't give a shit and Jesus was coming, Hallelujah! I asked her if she thought Jesus would approve of her treatment of others on his return trip to earth (on Air-God? interdemensional travel line?). She immediately stopped being Douchey Mc Doucherton and started apologizing profusely to me saying she had made a mistake and asked if I could forgive her. I immediately wanted to say that forgiveness is between her and God, but I didn't. Instead I nodded and told her to have a nice day and went back to work.

And then she called out to me asking if she could make an appointment to rotate her tires tomorrow. I was almost dumbstruck. I thought about making some kind of comment about only if the world is still here, but in all honesty I think she had mental problems and I was keen to slip away like sand through fingers. I sent her up front.

Later I pulled a car in to be worked on, well, let me start over. I approached the beat up car, opened the door and found the inside to be covered in rosary beads and crucifixes. I had to remove a clump of them from the seat before I could sit down. I didn't want to get poked in the butt by Jesus.

When I started the car I looked into the rearview mirror. It was wrapped in rosaries and unusable as mirror. When I pulled the gear lever down some rosaries fell to the floor bright red ones. Through the speakers came the voice of some dull monotoned woman saying those famous catholic prayers. I dont know thier names, but you might. It was the one about mother mary full of grace. And then an audience of people repeated this woman. It sounded like the Borg from Star Trek. Then she spoke again, some other line of a prayer. I thought it was pretty ballsy to play something so Christiany on the radio, but it was actually a CD on track three, seven minutes in. I immediately started making judgments about the kind of person that would drive this vehicle: She was old, white hair, unmarried, unattractive, overweight, a cat lady with a mean countenance that said 'thanks a lot,' and, 'god bless,' often.

The prayer stuff was turning my stomach so I turned it off. As I drove over the hydraulic lift all the rosaries, crucifixes and mother Mary figurines started swaying and clinking together, a pitter-patter of plastic rain. After I repaired the tire an old woman, described above, came over to ask what was in. When I told her it was ascrew that punctured her tire and that I had drilled it out to remove the rust and filled it with a plug, a patch, a chemical cement and a sealer and that it would never ever leak again from that spot she said, "Thanks a lot. God Bless." As I handed her the paper work I saw she was without a ring on her finger. As far as I could tell, my original prediction was accurate.

Person number three was a middle aged fat black man in gray sweat pants and a sports jersey. I know nothing of sports so I can't tell you anything about it. There were numbers and colors and a name, if it helps. Anyway he was standing behind the car I was torquing and he was talking. Now to whom I do not know, because as far as I could tell he was totally alone. I couldn't help but over hear what he was talking about.

He said, "I'm burying my face in your Poo-say, can you feel it?"

I stopped torquing to turn around to see him. He turned a bit to face me and I saw he had a bluetooth ear piece in. So he was not insane. Nothing to worry about there, just your average large man standing behind his car in a parking lot having phone sex while I finish his vehicle. Right before I got out of earshot he said, "I am pounding your Poo-say. You feel me inside you? Uh huh. I am slamming into your cervix. Ummhmm you know it gurl." I torqued the left front wheel than the right front than approached the right rear, the final wheel. I heard him say

"I'm filling you up gurl. You gaining weight now gurl. Mmhmm you gonna be white after it soak into you."

I gave him his paper work, told him to have a nice day. He thanked me and walked to his car talking about someone getting drenched.

It started to rain.

Dirty, dirty rain.

The Rapture

Is when the really douche-baggey religious people get yanked bodily into heaven and the rest of us lot have to fend for ourselves. I'm all for that.

Shows that we watch

Loo and I watch shows together. My TV sits along my bed so we either lay in bed like spoons and watch the screen or I brace the wall with pillows and sit on the bed and she leans on me. Either way with me being tired all the time a show is a great way to spend time together. We watch a few shows together. I think I will talk about them one at a time based on popularity or frequency.

Bones

This is a 'dark comedy' crime show for those of you who don't know. We are almost current with this one. Recently we have been aware of some changes in character, plot and layout. I think it was in season five when there was a strong hippie, vegan, organic food slant. Characters all of a sudden had strong opinions about organic food and most of them were positive. I think the organic food movement is intellectually bankrupt and dishonest, so I don't appreciate the heavy handed organic-food-is-awesome-writers writing it into the show especially without offering another position other than"gosh I guess I was wrong all this time." Someone like Bones who is obsessed with empirical data could have quoted the study that talked about Organic food being less good for your body than ...inorganic food(?)... aka standard food. But no. Shortly after that show one of the characters made a huge deal about rescuing a piglet from a slaughter house. And it almost broke the friendship between Bones and Angela, two major characters for those who don't watch the show. The writing used to be sharp and even handed, but not any more. That is annoying. As time goes on it is becoming more soap-opera-ey, also annoying. Than the writers had characters break up for lame reasons, and get back together for lame reasons, which makes it feel like they are doing it to keep the show chaotic, so I get it. But there is a difference between doing it and doing it well, the Bones writers have been letting us down. I like the show for the science and the character interplay, and the science seems to be diminishing replaced with a montage of Bones looking at bones up close with music and when it is all over she goes, "I got it." Also there is A LOT more product placement, including Bing!, Toyota and the new windows phone. It's cool if you put products in there, but do not spend character dialog on products! Seriously.

Castle

We are current with this show, watching the episodes as they become available on Hulu. I loved this show since day one. Firstly it has Nathan Fillion in it and I am a fan since Firefly. Secondly Castle is a writer, like me, and talks a lot about writing craft. Like praising people for using irony correctly, (so rare) and yelling at them when they get it wrong, and correcting gramatical errors on ransom notes, and wincing at bad prose, or awkwartd sentences. Hilarious, even if I am the only one laughing in the room. Thirdly Stana Katic is sharp and beautiful and I like watching her. Fourthly the other characters Ryan and Esposito work well together, sometimes talking about writing and quoting The Bard. This show has better writers than Bones, I think. The characters are consistent from episode to episode and season to season. Any changes in character are accountable from previous episodes. They do not suddenly argue about the majesty of organic food for example. I also like the gender dynamic between Castle and Beckett. He is big and rich and hansom, but a total doofus in a fight and useless with a gun. Beckett is the badass that saves him from trouble and maintains her femininity. For example there was this scene where they go to a suspects door and it is locked. And Castle says, "You going to kick it down?" and Beckett says, "Are you kidding, these are [nice shoes]." And Castle goes, "well can I kick it down?" and she looks at him like he's crazy and says, "No. NYPD, Open up." And the suspect opens the door. She gives him a look and he looks ashamed. Makes me smile even now. Great show.

GLEE

... Bed time, I'll be back

Shoes

Shoes go on your feet. They can be a fashion accessory or make a statement. One statement comes to mind with the original converse shoe. People bought it because it was anti-establishment and cool, they bought so many of them that the converse people had to become an establishment to keep up. This made hipsters mad, but not mad enough to stop buying them. Converse still trumpets its anti-establishment stance, just not very far.

I recently bought shoes. This is a rare occurrence for me. It wouldn't normally be blog-worthy, but seeing as how I rarely write anymore, any topic is better than no topic. Also shoes have suddenly been a big thing recently. Here's the story:

I was down to my last pair of shoes, a busted and abused pair of black converse (I bought them because they were on sale for 25 bucks--Chinese slave-labor special). My usual modus operandi is to by casual shoes that are black so when I wear out my black work shoes I can switch them out and toss the old work shoes out. They last about a year. Anyway money was tight a while back, until I got my tax return. I wore the same pair of shoes everywhere. They were so abused. The left one is cracked from repetitive kneeling while the top of the right one is scuffed away from lifting tires with it while kneeling. There are other occupation markers, but it isn't important.

Then I got to work 54 hours for a couple weeks and made a bit of money, but had no time to spend it. Also I had hardly any time to do anything else. I was so tired from working all day that I would simply shower after work, eat dinner and go to bed to do it all over again the next day. It made it hard to do anything writing related. I felt like I wanted to do something fun and anything would do. That something might be a book or an episode of a show or a video game. Perhaps I have inflated writing to this status where it needs my full attention and when I can't give it that I wont attempt to write at all. (But after talking to Erin for an hour and a half she really encouraged me just to do it. Hard work, walk it, no cable car.)

I had to dress up to go to another lame tire corporate meeting in Lansing and I couldn't wear my broken work shoes because the Suits would have made disparaging comments and ordered me to get new ones because I am the face of the tire company and I must look sharp. So I borrowed my roommates' shoes. Amazingly he has bigger feet than me, size 13 while I am a piddly size 12.

I wore a suit to the meeting. I love that thing. I feel fancy and people on the street call me Mr. and sir. That is not the reason I love it though. It has so many pockets and I feel like a spy reaching inside my sport coat to get my wallet. Loo found the suit for me at Nuway the thrift store (her favorite store. She always finds great stuff for great prices it's eerie, like a super power.) So with borrowed shoes on my feet and a thrift store suit on my body I went to the meeting and got all kinds of comments about dressing up.

"It must have cost you a fortune for that suit. I guess that's no matter to you, eh California?" (that's my nickname)
"Actually," I said, "Loo got this for me at Nuway for four dollars." The response to this was strange. Envy maybe? I didn't know, but they quickly dropped it and focused on sports teams instead. There are a lot of them. I know nothing about sports, so I read a book.

Then there was some dinner I had to dress up for so I asked to borrow the shoes again. Than Loo graduated and I had to borrow them again. Than we went to see Yo Yo Ma so I dressed up again, but I felt bad for borrowing the shoes and wearing them more than he did so I used the failing work shoes. They fell apart while Mr. Ma passionately played his Cello. I walked out with the shoes flapping in the air. I don't know how they kept together, but they did. Tough shoes. Also my only belt broke.

The next day was my day off. My to do list looked like this:

Shoes!
Belt!
Eggs.

I looked into my closet behind Bup's cage (a young Savannah monitor lizard) and looked at my hanging shoe shelf. It was slim pickings in there, but there was one pair of shoes left. For the first time in a year I slipped my well worn flip flops on. The shoes reminded my feet of California beach days while I walked to my car on a gray, cold and rainy Michigan day, the fourth nasty day with two more to go, but I didn't know that at the time.

I walked into Meijers (for you California types this is a mega store, like a walmart where you can get groceries as well as automotive supplies, furniture and etc.) and looked for the shoes on sale. I found some black boots for 40 bucks, which in my experience is both the average price for black boots and the maximum I am wiling to pay. I knew I was size 12 so I picked them out and put them in the blue wire mesh cart without trying them on. Those would be my casual shoes. I wanted to get some fancy shoes on account of the fancy events I had been attending recently. I found some brown ones for 15 bucks. Winning! I grabbed a size 12 and threw those in the cart. Then I went looking for work shoes. I found some Dr. Shoels (sp) black shoes for 30 bucks. Score! I threw a size 12 in the cart. Then I went to get a belt. Actually, this is the boring part. I got a new compliment of leather goods, belts, wallet, shoes. And a pair of Levi jeans. All of my old leather goods were failing. And since I needed them and had money I bought them.

I think you and I are expecting a punchline about putting those shoes on for the first time. But there is no punchline. They fit great. 12 is my size. My jeans on the other hand, not so much. I stopped working out and my butt must have shrank. 34" is too large. Good thing I bought some belts. Time to hit the gym.

When I got home Loo bought new shoes as well. They were neon pink Kroc knock offs. She liked how they felt on her feet. The color was cool too. She also got these golden and bejeweled high heels that she wore to graduation. At her commencement I was able to spot her by her shoes, dazzling gold beneath her dark graduation gown.

And then she bought sexy shoes to wear just for me.

I have never had a reaction to shoes before. I've always been, "whatever, they go on your feet," about shoes. Than she bought these stiletto high heel things by Candies. They are a little platform high heel stiletto thing black and white plaid with a black leather bow over the toes. She wore them for the first time today.

Yowza!

With those shoes on she stands eye to eye with me. I have never had a girl I saw eye to eye with before. I am always taller, always. At six foot four inches it's easy to do. But looking into her eyes without looking down took me by surprise and I had this childlike reaction. I just had to hug her and say how cool it was. I didn't realize how a shoe like that would also change the way she walked and the way her legs looked and she suddenly filled me with this dopey feeling and for a good 20 minutes I was totally enamored with her and her shoes.

I felt so silly, but I couldn't help it.

I can't think of an ending to this so I'll just share the second stanza from Pablo Neruda's Ode to a Pink Shoe:

it holds me
moves me
carries me
across asphalt ocean
and gravel dreams
stained by travel
to carnival skies

Great job Loo!

Wow it has been a long time. And as always a lot has happened. Loo graduated with a degree in Accountancy. I am so proud of her. It is a really tough degree to crack, made more difficult with crappy professors, health problems, car problems, family problems, friend problems also known as life. Which is why graduating is so important, it means that despite hardship you persevered. I read somewhere that about 2% of people get a degree. I'm currently too tired to go check that out, but the point is that it is a small population of people that make it to the end. So kudos to Loo for making it. The sleep deprivation and late night study sessions are over and I don't have to see any more scary accountancy formulas.

Now she can get her CPA certification thing, make 6 figures a year, live in California with me in our own super cool house, and I can be her house boy; massaging her feet, shoulders, back and neck every night, making delicious dinner every night and writing best sellers in my free time, which would be often. At that rate we should be able to retire in five years. YaY!

All we need now is jobs :-/