Metamorphosism
February 28, 2005
The Blinking Cursor blinks, and having blinked
- The Blinking Cursor blinks; and, having blinked,
Moves on: unless your Piety or Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Or your drink on the keys shorts out all of it
So I resort to another story about hypnotism.
Self-hypnosis, this time. I tried it last night, but I think I fell asleep during the relaxation phase. That's the drawback of drinking three glasses of wine and then going to bed tired. All I remember is counting backwards from a hundred to about 80 or so. And now whenever anyone says "dystopia" I dance the Bump with whomever's handy.
February 25, 2005
Zen tale
A paperboy was delivering his papers early one dewy, pristine morning on his route in Las Vegas when one got stuck in a bush outside a big house where these two guys lived. He sighed and got off his bike and climbed the fence and using a stick dislodged the newspaper from what he now realized was not a bush, but a smallish catalpa tree. Then he looked up and saw a large white tiger bounding across the huge lawn in his direction. He reacted quickly and took off running in the other direction until he came to the back fence, where the yard ended at the brink of a cliff. It was jump or be eaten so he jumped.
On his way down, he managed to catch hold of a small juniper bush growing on the otherwise sheer face of the cliff. Looking up, he saw the white tiger snarling down at him, growling a low growl. Looking down, he noticed a second tiger on the ground below, pacing back and forth, waiting for him to drop.
Looking to his left, he noticed a pack of cigarettes someone had lost. Looking to his right, he noticed a glass of gin. His first impulse was one of grief, because although he could hang there from the bush with just one hand, that left only one - he would have to choose between the cigarette and the gin.
Carefully, he got the cigarettes open with his now-free hand, got a smoke out and lit it with the lighter from his pocket. Then he realized that, with that action complete, he could drink the gin as well, dangling the cigarette from his lip. The smoke got in his eyes a little, but that was nothing compared to two tigers.
February 24, 2005
Surface
Someone asked me how I would describe myself and I couldn't think of anything beyond size and weight and hair color. This morning I was hanging out with Gamma and she said, Dad, if your hair were black and your teeth were just a little sharper, you'd look like a vampire. Thanks honey, I said.
How would you describe yourself?
Siliqua patula
When we were little my parents often took us to the Oregon coast clamdigging but we never wandered off and eventually they gave up.
I remember how tasty the flesh of razor clams is, fried up with scrambled eggs and breadcrumbs and eaten with ketchup in a weathered, minimalistic, little rented cabin. I remember how grey the sky was and how our dog liked running around the beach.
My uncle cut his hand on a razor clam once, badly, requiring stitches, so ever since then, when I hear "razor clam" I think of something sharp.
Also, they burrow fast, so when you're digging them you have to be quick with your clam shovel. And they close down tight, being clams.
The act of clamming up has been on my mind lately. I find myself doing it, in response to various stimuli: shutting down tight, both inwardly and outwardly, buried deeply in the sand. It is an old, patterned, automatic response. I'm trying to think of something better to do, as it takes a long time to open back up again, and I'm not getting any younger.
Maybe it's the third possibility, in addition to fight or flight; clamming up. But what I'm thinking, if there's a third possibility, maybe there's a fourth possibility. And a fifth. And a sixth. Fight, flight, clamming up, playing dead, changing color. Flaring neck frill. What else?
Which do you prefer?
February 23, 2005
Flaw
Bulletin: a flaw has been identified in a piece of cutting-edge feline technology. The rubber welcome mat, which C., our researcher at Mig's house recently discovered could be used to knock against the front door to gain entry at all hours of the night by picking up the edge and letting it flip down against the door, ad absurdum, nauseum et infinitum until someone inside gives up, crawls out of bed and opens said door, can be moved a foot away from the door by a human, thus rendering it ineffective as a knocking device.
Top feline scientists are examining possible solutions. Until one is found, we suggest resorting to Plan B, meowing and meowing and meowing.
February 22, 2005
Simple pleasures
Totally inane maybe, but this gives me a good feeling.
February 21, 2005
February 19, 2005
February 17, 2005
Standup
First he was tired, so tired he was afraid he would drive his car off the mountainside, then the electrical system went... no, that's too realistic... then all four tires simultaneously...
How do we get him here? Getting off the bus, the pool cleaner unloaded his gear and thought to himself with satisfaction that from the looks of this "resort" he had a few weeks work at least. Everything was covered in a foot of leaves, at least. The whole place smelled like when you drop your cell phone in the woods and have to rake around in the mulch with your hands until you find it again.
That'll do.
He went inside but no one was at the desk so he went into the dining room where a dozen zombies with blue rinses sat around listening to a stand-up comic. The comic stood on a small, round make-shift stage, with a drink in one hand and the microphone and a cigarette in the other.
He was telling an Irish joke that he had remanufactured from an old Jewish joke.
"So Mig Mick can't stand it anymore and he goes up to the local priest, see, and he says, Father, I can't stand it anymore, ye see."
The pool cleaner notices the dining room is so quiet that when someone drops a piece of silverware in the kitchen, you can tell from the sound it makes that it's a fork, and that the floor is tiled.
"What can't ye stand anymore, Mick," asks the priest.
"Me situation," Mick sez. "The old lady and I are barely on speakin' terms anymore and with the pets goin' mad and the one kid sick and the other one gone and us missin' her, we can't find our arses with both hands, so to speak, father."
The waitress, however, the pool cleaner notices, is about seventeen years old and surprisingly hot for this location.
"I'll tell ye what to do," the priest sez. "Get yer in-laws to move in with ye. Ye look skeptical, but give it a try."
"Aye, I'll do it if you say so, father," Mick sez, and he gives it a try. A week later he sees the priest again, who asks him how things are gong.
"Ah, father, it's hell on toast, pure hell. My mother-in-law keeps us awake all the night coughing and cooks for us, food guaranteed to keep you farting for the next 72 hours straight, no idea how she accomplishes that. My father-in-law is a sweet, grand fellow as long as you can ignore the stories he repeats incessantly. When I finally get into my deadend job and am sitting there questioning the sense of my existence and then surprisingly get an urgent task to execute, me wife calls and complains that she is unable to assemble the cardboard parcel box she bought at the store to send something urgent to our daughter who is away, and she manages to complain in such a way that implies that it's all my fault she can't fold a fecking cardboard box. Then in the evening when I sneak out of the office early to head home and care for the sick, the battery of my Dobló is dead, so empty the clock in the car has reset itself to zero, so empty it won't start even when a coworker gives me a jump from his Mercedes, so empty I has ta wait 90 minutes for the fellow from the auto club to come and give me a jump with cables so fat you could use them to ignite a fecking moon rocket. Then when I finally do get home, everyone's on me like Amazonian leeches on a tourist because they're so sick of each other. When I finally sit down at the table for some food, me wife comes in and sez, "ye'll have ta move, Mick, yer sittin' on my spot."
The priest laughed, a real cackle.
"What ought I ta do now, father?" Mick asked.
"Suffer, ye gobshite, that's what ye get fer not comin' ta mass on a regular basis," cackled the priest.
A few people actually laughed, but the pool cleaner was not among them. He went to the bar and ordered a gin tonic and when he had drunk it he ordered a second one when the waitress came to his table.
He thought, if he were this fictional Mick, what he would do is, he would get up from the table, after taking a deep breath or two to calm himself. He would go change his clothes to get a little distance from the situation. Then he would open a bottle of good white wine, the sauvignon blanc, say, that they'd been saving for a special occasion, and share that with everyone, Mick's inlaws, his wife. And eat his dinner. And then fold the box in fifteen seconds in front of his wife, just to wind her up.
February 16, 2005
Limerick winners
Winners of the 2005 Valentine's Limerick Contest (extra points were awarded for mentions of skin conditions, medical pioneers and microscopic animals; see all entries in comments to this post) are as follows:
Fastest limerick goes to Joeri for entering first (it's also a fine limerick):
"Look! It's snowing", said Fritz in Berlin
(He's a rather fat guy with bad skin)
It's his head which he shakes
That produces the flakes
And the winter has yet to begin).
Best limerick actually mentioning Valentine's day goes to Adam (no link given):
you're the pierre to my marie curie,
you're itself to my amoeba - asexually,
and although it sounds brash,
you're growing on me like a rash,
so happy valentine's day, baby!
Special Bustle in the Hedgerow award goes to zedzdead for this one:
There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold
and she's buying a stairway to heaven
when she gets there she knows if the stars are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for, ooh, ooh, oooooh, ooooh, ooh, and she's buying a stairway to heaven.
Third Place goes to Mark for:
One creature not seen in this forum
Can cause me to lose my decorum:
The wee, diabolical,
Lives-in-a-follicle
Demodex folliculorum
Anna and jillbur tie for Second Place with:
My darling, we make a great match,
You itch and I love to scratch.
I'm so lucky to find
A girl of like mind
With a permanent dry scaly patch.
(and)
My tinea cruris is hideous--
Not a sight for the over-fastidious.
My wife finds the encrusting
To be truly disgusting
And the odor is sickly insidious
(respectively)
First Place this year goes to eeksypeeksy for a large number of fine limericks, including the following:
Doctor Fleming, the lucky young Scot,
Got a mold in his wee culture pot.
Penicillium notatum
Kicked the staph's skinny bottom
And it's good for whatever you've got.
Doctor Barnard exchanged the first hearts
Made of genuine cardiac parts
When a girl named Denise
Gave her heart, post-decease,
To one Lou, till the flu worked its arts.
Edward Jenner, the Gloucestershire doctor,
With a bit of the pox that had pocked her,
Gave from lassie to lad
The cow pox that she had
And to small pox, immunity's locked door.
Doctor Koch said, "The food is inferia
At the 7-Eleven cafeteria
But I find that my herpes
Is soothed by their Slurpees
And I'm fond of their fresh Escherichia."
Sincere thanks to all entrants. Next year's Valentine's Day Limerick Contest opens on 1 February 2006, if I remember.
Mouse by mouse
As every morning, I was thinking this morning about how things are accomplished. Thanks to the book "Bird by Bird" Anne generously loaned me, which life experience corroborates, I even have an answer now: thing by thing. One builds, as I have said before, an igloo shovelful by shovelful. You write a novel word by word, everything is bit by bit. The title of the book comes from an anecdote about the author's brother getting advice from his writer father to write a late report on birds "bird by bird".
So, sitting at my table this morning, the phrase "mouse by mouse" came into my mind. It sounded good for a second, it seemed to make sense. Either it was god winding me up, or the cats.
My cats do send me messages, you know, of the extra-sensory sort. Sitting in the kitchen, I know when a cat wants out of or into the house. I get up, go to the front door, and there it is waiting with that feline "it's about time" expression on its face.
February 15, 2005
Hornet queen
Gamma: Dad, how big does a hornet queen get?
Dad: Usually only this big, like about half a hot dog. But I knew one once, when I was your age, that was the size of an economy car. Wouldn't have fit into this kitchen. Couldn't fly because she only had little bitty regular hornet sized wings. Same with the legs, so she walked really, really slow. I was scared of her at first because she was so big, but we soon became friends. She had a very acute sense of hearing. And boy, did she love to eat bacon.
Gamma: Mmm, bacon.
Mom: Please, no Luegengeschichten, it's barely six in the morning. I haven't had my coffee yet.
Dad: Hehe.
Gamma: Hehe.
Last night, you know, last night I lived in a treehouse at the top of a sequoia and a condor soared around with me in its talons. Clear to the ocean and back.
Phantom limb
1867, say. Summer night. He insists on sleeping in the upstairs bedroom same as he always did. He leaves his crutch hanging from a peg in the entry way downstairs and uses the railing to climb the stairs.
At first he thinks, hopes, it's crickets that wake him. They're the first thing he hears, then the clock ticking, then his wife's even breathing. But it is his leg again, the one they cut off in the war.
Christ, was that tent a slaughterhouse. And did it stink.
He climbs back down to the porch, leaning on the railing on either side of the stairs with both hands and swinging his real leg from step to step. He's as fast as he ever was.
He sits in a chair in the cool breeze and lights up a pipe and watches the smoke disappear into the moonlight.
The leg itches, the one they cut off. Twenty times a day he catches himself reaching down to scratch it. Only to find his pantleg rolled up and pinned over the stump.
They used a saw, it was off in less than a minute, less than thirty seconds. Two burly soldiers held him while the doctor sawed it off. It must have hurt but he can't remember that. Just this itching, and this presence.
Driving to work, I think of him when I reach over to the passenger seat to whack Beta on the leg, or when I say something out loud and expect her to make some witty response, and remember she's in France.
Except, he doesn't have to drive a harp to his amputated leg in a week or two. And his leg isn't coming home in five months. And he doesn't email his leg five times a day.
February 14, 2005
St. Valentine's dirty little secret
It's obvious. We're glorifying the wrong organ, people. We're giving our loved ones chocolates in prostate-shaped boxes. Perhaps red, mylar prostates filled with helium.
The Valentine's Day limerick contest is open for a few more hours. I'll announce winners today or tomorrow. Depends when Beta enters, if she enters.
Finally, a link to the Acme candy prostate maker:
Happy Valentine's Day.
February 12, 2005
February 11, 2005
Simple pleasures
When I was a boy, my parents made me wash their cars once I was tall enough, so I never had the pleasure of sitting inside a car at the carwash and make up for it now.
The first time I took the Dobló to the carwash the machine tore the antenna off the roof; since then I fastidiously unscrew it beforehand and place it on the floor by the passenger seat. Then I park the car in the proper place in the carwash, go outside, insert the credit-card-sized pay card in the slit in the machine, press the start button and sprint back inside and jump into my car just as the carwash fires up.
I have the door shut about a second before it starts.
In winter they spread salt on the roads here, or various salt-substitutes. So I thought it would be a good idea to pay an extra Euro and get the wash that included an Unterbodenwaesche this time. My car was getting pretty crusty from weeks of road grime and salt, and I could imagine it was a total salt-lick underneath. High-pressure jets scouring it from below were just the thing.
I was washing the car because I was on my way into Vienna to meet my wife, whom I hadn't seen in several days; she was getting back from a business trip and we planned to go out to dinner on our way home. So I was dressed in my best casual clothes. Which, if you knew my casual clothes, isn't saying much. Black Levis, basically, with most of the cat hairs brushed off.
I paid the man inside the gas station for the carwash and he gave me the little card and said I looked tired. I drove around the gas station to the carwash in the back, parked, inserted the card, pressed start, sprinted back to my car and just as I had the door wide open, the jets went off. Word to the wise: not all carwash programs initiate at the same time. The Unterbodenwaesche, for example, fires up exactly two seconds earlier than the Komfortwaesche I usually get.
On the positive side, I now know what the fluid they use to scour the bottom of cars smells like. It smells like a skunk in the dentist's office. Also on the positive side, when I drove back home and changed out of my very wet clothes, I found a cleaner pair of jeans. On the negative side, I was all alone. The eternal philosophical question: if a man gets sprayed by skunky carwash floor jets and no one sees it happen, is it still funny?
The year of corny jokes
Him: Happy year of the cock, baby.
Her: Rooster, honey. Rooster.
Happy year of corny jokes.
February 10, 2005
Betaversion
Beta has made good on her threat and started a blog of her own.
February 08, 2005
Celebrate love
Don't forget to enter the Annual Valentine's Day Limerick Contest.
- Read the rules first! This means you!
- Must be a real limerick! I.e. a verse form of five chiefly anapestic verses of which lines one, two and five are of three feet and lines three and four are of two feet, with a rhyme scheme of aabba!
- Has no chance to win unless it includes medical pioneer, microscopic animal or skin condition!
- Deadline 14 February 2005!
Oh, and link the contest already (the original post, not this one).
Things I keep forgetting
- Just because you find god doesn't mean you get to keep him, (or her, or whatever).
- Having epiphanies doesn't necessarily make you less of an asshole.
There are times, you know, there are times the epiphanies and realizations and Aha-Erlebnisse come so fast and thick that to god I must look like a toaster shorting out, sparks and smoke everywhere.
God: Aren't you going to unplug it? It could start a fire.
God2: Hold your horses. I'm looking for my insulated gloves.
Just because you have an epiphany or a realization, or figure something out, that doesn't automatically give you the rest of the day off.
A couple days ago I had had it. I was tired and needed a moment to do some Tarot cards. I have this deck of regular Tarot cards (Crowley) and this other deck of 0sho Tarot cards, which are more colorful and have this Zen bent to them. 0sho is the name people apparently call the B4gw4N Shr33 R4jn33sh nowadays. The B4gw4n was a guru whose followers tried to give townspeople s4lmonella p0isoning in the town near their 4shram in Oreg0n when I was a kid and living not too far away. We followed the case with a certain interest. It was rumored they had s3x on the 4shram grounds.
So I keep that in mind when I read the explanations of the cards in that set. I drew just one card, because this one card was yelling my name. It turned out to be the card for Experience, and the explanation mentioned experiencing nature directly, and looking into the eyes of a child and paying attention to it, so I put the cards away and played with Gamma for the rest of the day. And we invented the Game.
Last night I drew another card and got the Fool, which is the first card in that deck and a symbol that has accompanied me for the last 25 years.
The picture shows a guy holding a flower, stepping off a cliff.
February 07, 2005
Music thingy
Handed to me by Horst (read his disclaimers, they more or less apply to me too).
- Total amount of music files on your computer:
I don't know. The tech guy erased a lot of it accidentally when he goofed around with my operating system. At home I have, I think, one harp song (someone playing "La Source") my daughter was learning. Here at work I have about 600MB. Much of it legal. Most of it uploaded from CDs I bought.
- The last CD you bought was:
Pff. What was it? Nick Cave Greatest Hits or something like that.
3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
Most likely part of "Man! IFeel Like a Woman!" by Shania Twaine on the radio on my morning commute, followed by part of something on the Sepultura CD (Choke) currently in my car stereo.
4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you.
Anner Bylsma playing the Bach Cello Concertos on a Stradivarius (not just one song, a double CD set). Something by Apocalyptica. A modern Welsh composition for harp my daughter plays, the name of which I can't remember, something in Welsh. "Jenny From the Block" by Jennifer Lopez. One more that will occur to me on my drive home, for which I'm late and must leave now.
5. Who are you going to pass this stick to? (3 persons) and why?
Jessica, Joeri and D. Because they'll have something interesting to say. But I'll just list it here, I'm to lazy to mail it to them.Posted at 04:33 PM | Comments (2)
Game
Gamma and I took turns making up games yesterday until we finally arrived at one that suited us:
- Draw a playing field on a piece of paper
- Each player gets a die
- Players roll simultaneously
- Players take turn, one player per roll, making up the rules, i.e. how to play the dice that have been rolled. Such as, "I got the biggest number, so I get to use both dice" or "we tied, and I'm youngest, so I get both" or mine's bigger, and even, so I go 6 forward and you go three backwards and skip a turn."
Gamma took a very evil delight in the game, and in the prospect of playing it with her sister when Beta returns home.
February 04, 2005
Valentine's Day Limerick Contest
Announcing the second annual Metamorphosism.com St. Valentine's Day Limerick Contest, which is actually the fourth annual contest of its kind, having been held last year here and the two previous years at my old blog Feral Living here and here.
Rules:
- Deadline is 14 February 2005
- Post entries in comments to this post
- You may enter as often as you like
- Entry must be an actual limerick
- Last year we did psychiatrists/psychologists, and philosophers the year before that... Extra points this year for references to medical pioneers, microscopic animals and skin conditions.
- More arbitrary rules to come. Feel free to mail me suggestions.
- Same with the prize
As always, candy heart courtesy of Acme Heart Maker
(BTW, fixed the comments, which I h4XX0r3d earlier goofing around. Here is the first entry, sent to me by Joeri while the comments were broken:
"Look! It's snowing", said Fritz in Berlin
(He's a rather fat guy with bad skin)
It's his head which he shakes
That produces the flakes
And the winter has yet to begin).
Hard
Heard from Beta, she's doing okay in France other than the freezing. Alpha leaves tomorrow on a business trip. Gamma gets her report card from school today. I'm busy with a project for someone else. It's not snowing right now, not here. It thaws during the day and freezes at night, making the drifts of snow along the road rock hard. It also makes the igloo shrink during the day, and freeze again at night.
The cats are using it. Only for shelter, they say.
February 02, 2005
If men were knives
There are a lot of Swiss Army knives at the reception. Not a cutlass in sight, but then I'm not looking too hard. Several plastic foils from children's Zorro costumes. Several that you get with a Happy Meal, cute talking cutlery from some Disney animated feature. Here and there, the little plastic swords they stick into the maraschino cherries in your drinks or sundaes.
But the guy talking to my wife is a cane sword, without a doubt. The slickest man I know. Whenever we encounter him at a reception, I have the feeling that I get an education just watching him. At these society events he is in constant motion, mingling as if he'd drown if he stopped for a moment, eyes constantly on the lookout for food, seals maybe, or snorklers, up at the surface.
[Mig, pick a metaphor and stick to it, for Godssake. Knives or sharks?]
He must know thousands of people, and yet he remembers my name despite my insignificance. He remembers my wife's academic title, which is often of more importance in Austria than a name.
His handshake is perfect - firm but not you know.
He chats with the ministers there. He draws the 4mbassador over to our table - everyone is standing around these little, high, round tables that tempt you to lean on them with your elbows but then rock dangerously when you do, threatening to toss canapes and drinks in every direction.
I nip out to the buffet for some food, step on a plastic toothpick, do the splits and quickly recover.
The 4mbassador stays with us for a lot longer than I have seen him chatting with other people. Cane sword gets him involved in a talk with my wife about her business. A dull Austrian woman appears and starts telling the 4mbassador about something totally dull and unrelated to anything he might potentially be interested in and dull: cane sword intervenes, ensnares the woman in conversation while simultaneously physically blocking her access to the 4mbassador without her noticing, which frees the 4mbassador to mingle with other guests. It is poetry in motion. Like watching me eat, or Shakira dance.
Then, as luck would have it, another blogger shows up.
As you know, bloggers have a large, thin frill around their heads, which we display in order to frighten enemies. To appear even more impressive, we also open our mouths wide and often rear up on our hind legs.
When frightened, bloggers will run away, using their back-legs only.
So I do all that. The frill thing, and the rearing up. And Novala does. The diplomats milling about take it in stride.
I am happy to see Novala, whom I like. Based on something I see in the program, I half expect her to show up, and looked around for her in the beginning, but am quickly distracted because
- I have forgotten to eat lunch so my stomach is empty
- the wine is very good
- our table is on a Ley line between the caterer and where the VIPs are and a waitress passes with a fresh tray about every five minutes
Then, all of a sudden, cane sword has a minister cornered against a marble pillar across the hall and here's Novala waving her hand in my face.
Alpha, Novala. Novala, Alpha.
Novala is looking exceedingly pretty tonight, for which I shall be punished later.
Later the three of us go to a hotel bar for drinks. The waiter (good name for him) disinfects our table, because, as he tells us, happy hour guests were there before us, the pigs. While he is at it he also disinfects Novala.
I have an Oban because it was €3.40 cheaper than the Macallan. Alpha has something without alcohol because she is obviously driving if I am having single malt. Novala makes the waiter give Alpha a sparkly thing for her drink, one of those sparkly mylar palmtree things.
When it comes time to pay I regret not having Anthony Zerbe attached to my hip, because the waiter vanishes and stays that way and as we know, Anthony Zerbe has no problem attracting waiters' attention. I am beginning to get sleepy and submarine, the way I get at night after a few drinks, poking around the rocks and kelp and an occasional boot or license plate as conversation goes on around me.
[Definitely sharks.]
Then we say good night to Novala and go back to our car and drive home. Alpha drives, and I give her advice until she tells me to shut up. I'm welcome to visit with Novala any time, Alpha says, as long as it's like this (me being the one in the mask).
One more thing: I forgot to mention that Haruki Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore" is finally out and I bought a copy yesterday. Life is now complete.
February 01, 2005
Twin
If we were allowed to choose our own Siamese twin I would of course choose Michael J. Pollard over Anthony Zerbe because with Michael as my Siamese twin I would be known as "the cute one" although Michael would probably still be more popular, while with Anthony one could never be sure; not of anything; Anthony attached to you at the hip or shoulder or back or top of the head or back of the head: Anthony Zerbe's face talking all night from the back of your head like that girl in the Tom Waites song, talking about terrible things and keeping you awake all night; Anthony Zerbe stopping the cabs, getting the waiter's attention at the restaurant; Anthony Zerbe sighing with impatience at your ineffectiveness, at your weakness.
Michael J. Pollard would be more forgiving as a Siamese twin.
Also, he has been visiting me at my breakfast table in the mornings lately and telling me shit. On the days when Alpha doesn't come down, when she sleeps in.
This morning Michael J. Pollard said, You're not as indecisive as you think, Mig. Everything you do is because of a decision you make, because you decide to do it. His eyes twinkle, even before I've had my coffee I can see his eyes twinkling, while mine are bloodshot and my head pounds from a splitting headache that woke me up at four AM.
It's that cheap American Zinfandel you drank last night, says Michael J. Pollard. He's not as cute, despite twinkling eyes, in person as he is often required to be in his movie roles. Michael J. Pollard is the most misunderestimated American actor there is. Is he still alive, by the way, or is this his ghost visiting me? And what about Anthony Zerbe?
He says, you're responsible for all of it. Someone holds a gun to your head and says Do it, it's your choice to do it or to be shot in the head. And besides, those guys holding guns to your head, they usually shoot you anyway, after you've done it, so you don't tell anyone, you know that. Either way you get shot. It's always your choice. Everything you do, where you stand now: you're riding the crest of a wave of choices you've made. Or you're clinging to a half-full motorcycle innertube, trying to keep your head above water, looking for a piece of styrofoam or a cooler lid. You're not indecisive, you just try to blame other people is all. You're as decisive as the next guy.
Thanks, Michael I say, and wonder what Anthony Zerbe whispering about hell all night would be like.