Nyotaimori

life in a cul-de-sac can be pretty dull. nothing much ever happens. no fast cars race up and down our street. cats aren’t flattened and their claws shredded off. people say hello and gift garden vegetables (adam’s currently working on 3 foot cucumbers to give away). you wash your car in the driveway, you keep up with the neighborhood gossip.

and then new neighbors move in and the nightmare commences. they have a dog. sure, he’s very friendly when you rescue him because you’re driving home and find him wandering loose halfway down the block. but he’s also a barker. a loud barker. at 3 AM. not as loud as the car alarm which takes every opportunity to go off in the wee hours of the morning when dawn is just breaking over the horizon and one is nowhere near contemplating arising.

the old neighbors, i also disliked in general, but these new neighbors are a breed apart. at least the old neighbors had been around since i was 3 years old. at least them i knew. one of the grandsons turned purple in my backyard after tying rope around his neck and the top of the slide and then going down. adam and i spent precious moments watching his face mottle before i ran to get my parents. another grandson who came every summer with his younger brother we adored and picked up texan accents from within a matter of days which we put to beneficial use playing cowboys. then there was the incident just last year with the great-granddaughter and the cat punk/J.C. i hated her, sure enough, but i like punk. adam was a pall-bearer at the grandfather’s funeral who died equidistant between my grandfather and my father. the point is that i had history with the former tenants. and now these new people with their dogs and their cars. this is going to take some getting used to.

On this bitter Wednesday in the Land of West Michele, a special proclamation is hereby issued declaring a general pinking of the core and a suspicious sticky leakage at the corners of the Land.

All neighboring lands are issued a warning to maintain their distance, particularly in the Ocular Region. The Land of West Michele issues a special notice to the Nation of Me to not, under any circumstances, lift the Nation of Me’s hug embargo.

The citizens of West Michele on the western side of the land under duress should perform interpretive prayer dances for Antibiotic Rain and the citizens on the eastern side should stay within their own borders and not get rowdy with those in the west. If this terrible affliction is to be contained, all citizens must follow these injunctions.

Hopefully, if all goes well, next Wednesday should see a distinct lifting of the miasma of bitterness–the pinkage dispersed and the viscous leaking curtailed.

All hail the Land of West Michele’s continued health! Long live Michele!

last night i had a small electrical fire. this occurred when trying to get onto my new twin size bed, because i’m back to being 10. upon attempting to pull out a light plug from the wall one of the prongs snapped off and fuzed into the plug in the socket below it–prompting a brief blaze, a stench of burned plastic and metal, and a horrifying tingling in my hand. at least it’s good to know that when i die, i can be easily replaced though.

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over a month ago when fuck-face (the cat) died and i was very sad, i found a condolence letter at my mom’s house from a neighbor kid down the street. which didn’t make me feel much better about fuck-face being dead or the state of grammar today in the land of california public schools, but it did allow me a small, sad laugh. i will now transcribe it here verbatim.

FOAKO

to Karale

from Austin

foako was a good cat he loved you. foako is alwas with you and with the other cats. foako will be laning on your lap and play with you. He was a vary vary good cat and freindly cat. He was fast and quik anice. He had a culer as a rianbow and as orage as a orage. foako had eyes the coler of the oshin.

from Austin

Austin (second signature in cursive)

following the discussion yesterday on condom underwear (underwear with a small pocket to put a condom in, NOT underwear with a condom attached) and the variants of this that we could think of–tea (loose or bagged), potpourri, pipe tobacco (or any other type of plant for smoking), confetti (“it’s a party in my pants”). i was trying to think of other special underwear you could make. but so far my tired brain has only come up with post-it note underwear. underwear with a little pad of post-its attached. this could be marketable to sean.

i put all my pictures from this weekend (slumber party in my empty apartment and the BBQ/baseball party at P-hill park) up on eloise. whoever else took pictures can upload them to that parent album, if you like. if you don’t know how, you can email them to me or call gene.

and so i thought, ‘why not join in? be one of the crowd.’

being one of the crowd, for me, however, did not extend to wearing a lei. i drew the line. so instead my brother sent me an enormous flower arrangement. this is logical when you know that he is currently working as an unpaid assistant at a gardening/flower shop. my brother picks up odd hobbies, much like he picks up odd everything–pets, people…

it was quite delightful to be done with this school. and also a little sad. but then there was an incredibly delicious dinner at aziza with mom and kristen to celebrate.

and currently there are all the pictures that the lovely kristen took with my camera. she really got into the whole business. she would take a picture of anything. solidarity, sister.

last night i experienced something slightly unbelievable. and that was my entire politics class doing karaoke (KA-RA-O-K) at my professor’s house. in order to commemorate this event, i took pictures.

as most of you know i am moving at the end of the month. back to my mom’s house. sigh. so anyway, i was there this weekend, cleaning my room in preperation for moving a bunch of crap back into it and i found a very old mix tape that kristen had made for me my freshman year of college. this tapes includes songs by mc hammer, paula abdul, and tom petty. songs such as ‘i want to sex you up’, ‘stand by me’, and ‘lollipop’. songs by the ever talented gene, kristen’s crazy aunt, and kristen herself as a wee sprout.

tiny kristen tot (TKT): old mcgrover had a farm e-i-e-i-o…

bob: what did old mcgrover have on his farm?

TKT: mmmmm….popcorn!

eydie: popcorn?

TKT: he eats popcorn!

bob: who else eats popcorn?

TKT: i eat popcorn!

eydie: you’ve never had popcorn.

TKT: popcorn!

bob: what else do you eat?

TKT: (long pause) crackers!

eydie: you do like crackers.

kristen’s crazy aunt: grr-row-row-row-row, won’t you run away? grr-row-row-row-row, this is mY feROcious daY!

you haven’t lived till you’ve heard tiny kristen tot pronounce the words ‘popcorn’, ‘toast’, and ‘spout’. i could feel my uterus clenching in desire just at her intonations. i wish i could build a time machine and go back to see tiny kristen tot in action.