This is a livejournal-esque thing, but a promise is a promise. I've turned comments on temporarily for the exercise.

1. Reply with your name and I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I'll pick a flavor of jello to wrestle with you in. Emily is right. That's too lame even for me.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I'll tell you my first memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal/blog.


On with it.

Addendum--

Okay, I promise I will eventually get comments up and running on this, but I'm having issues. Anyway, for the time being, I'm having some serious hunger issues.

There's something very right in this album right now-- the "Unsent" Album. I'd never loved it the way I loved Jagged Little Pill, and I kind of gave up on Alanis after that.

She's all about the repetition, but "Are You Still Mad" has it's virtues. The way guilt can turn into accusation. The way wrong can turn into self-righteousness. The mess we all let ourselves get into when we entangle our lives with the lives of others, how foolish it is to sit inside a moment with someone else and be totally confident in the idea that their feelings exactly mirror yours.

Then, resignation. Reality kicks in.

Are you still mad?
Of course you are.


God, they're all good tracks, aren't they? I was Hoping, Sympathetic Character, One.

Still, the ultimate truth seems to come through in the song which lyrics used to hang on my bedroom wall.


----

That I Would Be Good

That I would be good even if i did nothing
That I would be good even if i got the thumbs down
That I would be good if I got and stayed sick
That I would be good even if I gained ten pounds

That I would be fine even even if I went bankrupt
That I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth
That I would be great if I was no longer queen
That I would be grand if i was not all knowing

That I would be loved even when i numb myself
That I would be good even when i am overwhelmed
That I would be loved even when i was fuming
That I would be good even if i was clingy

That I would be good even if i lost sanity
That I would be good
whether with or without you


----

I think, for the moment, that nothing drives us more than the way we feel about ourselves. Not religion, not morality, not anything more than self-esteem. There's that old saying that you can't ever truly love somebody until you first love yourself, and I've steadfastly ignored it, my whole life.

But...without it, you can't really love them the way they need to be loved, can you?



At least I know people still read this thing.

On with it.

I'm really very proud of that last post, in a written-in-one-sitting, couldn't-sleep, couldn't-think-straight-until-it-was-done sort of way, and, thusly, I don't want to detract from it by replacing it's "most current" spot with some meaningless sentimentality about things that reminds me a of people and people that remind me of things (and things and people that remind me of feelings, and feelings that remind me of songs, and songs that remind me of ootsy-cutsie butterflies, what have you), but I'm casually reading this book (meaning I've read a few pages into it and probably never will again) about writing life stories, and the author says, very plainly, that writers write.

What he means by this is the age-old advice that any writer with any credit to their name will tell you: A serious writer should devote one solid hour a day to writing, and be disciplined about it. The problem I have with this is that I highly suspect that my favorite writers would be those with no credit to their name at all, except of course that the problem continuing from that logic is that I've never heard of any of them, and that sort of wipes out my argument. I have more problems with this, many more, about how discipline and creativity are often mutually exclusive, and the staunchy quality that timed writing brings, and all that kind of rot, but it all boils down to creative and glorified ways of saying the following: I have no self-discipline.

None. Not a drop of it. My parents probably devoted considerable time in my youth to disciplining me, and hoping I would learn to take it on myself, but being, as I was, a bright child, I quickly learned that rather than the slow and tedious path of learning discipline, nature had provided me with the eternal shortcut: fussing, lying, and justifying my way out of any responsibility whatsoever.

There is a certain problem with being too smart when you're young. I'm not saying I'm a genius or anything, but it was clear that I was always at the top of my class, along with a few others. The lot of them are fairing pretty well today, come to think of it, which must prove that I was smarter than them all along, if you follow. I was never challenged by anything in school, so I learned how to half-ass things rather than how to apply myself, I never had to give anything my full attention, so I never learned how to keep my mind from wandering, and I never needed to be given directions before assignments, so, today, I just dare you to tell me how to get somewhere without google mapping it for me. You'll be one exasperated search party, let me tell you.

Of course, there you have, again, a list of excuses. Clearly, this is at the soul of my writing, and my self, to be truthful. If I were to be psychoanalyzed, searched through and through, and all my excuses, my lies, my justifications sifted through, I suspect at the end of it all what would be left would amount to an handwritten note, reading "I owe you: one fundamental truth about my being, ASAP. ~Linda :-)"

That is, if I bothered showing up for the appointment at all.

I could go on for a while, were it not 3 AM, about where specifically I think people went wrong in teaching me, where I went wrong in learning. I could talk about methods we could use, as a country, to create a different learning environment for children who learn at seperate speeds, much more so than we do today, and I could talk about the plausible benefits for this. I could talk about regrets and consequences, and I could even spell out a thorough, bulleted, step-by-step plan for change: a redemption that would take place just in time, saving me from the massive lethargy that is me.


But I bet you know where this is(n't) going!

On with it.

Zack and I had a fight sometime last night, and I couldn't get it out of my system. He fell asleep after like it was nothing, always can. Not me. When I get restless like that, there's only one thing I can do to work through it.


----

The Benefactor

She asks, and I tell her I’m only in town for a few days, on a job.

"Where are your manners today, Cowboy?" She says as I watch her sitting on the side of the bed, reaching back to zip up her dress. Her large hanging breasts disappear into the brilliant red fabric. "Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m in town on business or pleasure?"

"I thought your business was pleasure." I say. Nothing from her, not a glance, not a smile. I’d thought it at least worth a chuckle, but then, laughter isn’t cheap from a girl like this. In truth, I had been wondering what she was doing there tonight; it wasn’t the bar or even the town we normally met in, when we met. A chance encounter, tonight, but it was lucky for me. Something had been missing the past few days, itching at me, and when I saw her sitting at the bar, looking just the way I’d first seen her years ago, I knew what it was.

She looks up, interrupting my train of thought; sees what I’m thinking instantly and gives me that half-smile that’s all you ever get out of her. "I’m glad you found me tonight, Cowboy. You were just what I needed."

I suppose that’s what makes a good hooker, knowing what he wants to hear.

"That mean your not going to take my money, then?" I say, reaching for my wallet behind me on the dresser that I’m leaning on, across from her so I can watch her every careful move.

"No, sweetie, I’ll take it. I always do." She gets up and saunters over to me, and I fan her payment out in front of her like a bad poker hand. She takes it from me quickly, in a darting motion, and stuffs it in her purse, indelicately. It’s sad, now that I can afford to, I always pay her too much for her to push it slowly into her cleavage like she used to. I wish to hell they’d invent some bigger bills. "But I’ll say this...I’m gonna spend this here money on something I want, not something I need. Something for me."

"You make sure of that." I tell her. "That’s what kind of money it is, that’s what I spent it on." I’m trying so goddamn hard to be funny or charming or something, but it’s lost on her, or it would look that way if I didn’t know her face so well. She’s a woman of subtlety, a woman who knows enough not to get all hysterical about things. You should only really laugh if the joke is funny. You should only really cry if the love is true.

Probably, I’ll never see her laugh again, but I’ve had dreams about it, the way I saw it that first night. I didn’t even know at first who she was then, what she was, we were just sharing a drink, and I was drinking her in. She smiled then, pouted then, was a girl to the woman now before me, but still beautiful, always beautiful. She’s leaning over the vanity now, applying her lipstick just so. Probably, she was the kind of girl who never believed she was pretty at all, but smart enough to know that she could get her way if she learned how to fake it. If I could make her realize how she looks to me now, I just might see her cry.

But I’ll never see her cry.

She’s mussing the curly locks of her hair, studying the lines on her face in the mirror’s dirty glass. She’s counting the years and managing the minutes, making deals with herself about the future, the things she’ll have, the way she’ll have them. She was lying about the money, I think, because I can see her doing the math of how far it will get her. She’s deciding when to quit.

I hope she never does.

"Don’t look so worried, Cowboy. I’m not heading west or anything. Just in town visiting friends." She walks back over to me and searches my eyes, all systematic, all fake, but I fall for it; I always do.

"Then I’ll see you back home, some time?"

To this, a chuckle, except this time, I wasn’t trying to be funny. "You have a home, Cowboy?"

"Do you?" I counter, feeling slighted.

She cranes her head and looks off in the distance, in thought. "I’ve got a place to stay tonight, and a liquor store on the way there. And I’ve got money to buy the finest drink they’ve got to offer, thanks to you, and the time to sip it slowly, and think about my benefactor. " She’s smiling just a hair more than usual, perhaps, but I’m telling myself it’s all just an act, must be an act, otherwise I’d break down and give her everything I had. Her eyes look straight at me then, and
she finishes: "Yeah, I guess I have a home, tonight."

It’s crazy the way she makes me feel. A romantic would swear by it, but I’m not a romantic. We see each other every couple of months, her and I. She’s the only one I’ve ever seen more than once, and I'm finally getting to think it's more than a coincidence. It’s not like the way it sounds, but she’s the only woman I’ve ever loved.

"I thought you were lying about the money." I tell her to her back, just before she reaches for the door. "About spending it on something for you."

"No, sweetheart. I wouldn’t lie to you. I never lie to anyone who knew me before I started turning tricks."

I’m instantly confused: I didn’t know her before. That first night I saw her, she was sitting at a bar, nursing a drink. She’d looked over at me and smiled a little, that was all it took. A soft sell, that’s what it was. I took her over to a private table and we talked. She didn’t say anything about what she did or was, but it didn’t take long to figure it out. She laughed at my jokes and listened to me babble, and I wanted her so badly, knew it was too good to be true. I started to suspect, but I didn’t mind: me being what I was, I couldn’t have hoped for anything better. When she took my hand and began to lead me out of the place, I knew for certain. Didn’t matter. It’d been wonderful, more than I could have hoped for. A surge of synergy, a connection so real, it had to be fake. No woman could ever make love to a man like me that way, not without a price. She was just a brilliant and beautiful actress, and when the curtains closed I threw my rose like everyone before me. I remember getting up and going to my wallet, getting the two C-notes I had on me and handing them to her without a word. I would have given more if I’d had it, she hadn’t asked for any special amount. She hadn’t asked for any of it: a real professional, she’d been.

I remembered the way she took it, and looked at me. She gave me one of her subtle looks that I hadn’t yet grown to understand. My confusion must have shown because she finally smiled to relax me...no, it was different. She gave me that half-smile, for the very first time. I remember how slowly she folded the bills and pushed them down between her breasts, how young she was then. What wasn’t I remembering?

She must be thinking about someone else. I’m about to mention her mistake, but she gives me a look that quiets me.

Damn.

"You didn’t answer me cowboy: do you have a home?"

For a moment, I can’t answer. I pick up my wallet again, and tap it against my free hand, pointedly. "I’ve got a job." She shakes her head, and I ask. "What’s wrong with that?"

"Ain’t nothing wrong with it, darlin’. You know how I feel about a man with a job."

Her hand is on the door knob and she’s about to make her exit line, that’s maybe what I love the most about her. It’s always something that gets to me. She pushes open the door and is a smoky silhouette against the fake, flickering city light as she says it:

"Hard work and hard time will get you a lot of places, Cowboy. You just better make damn well sure first that they're where you want to go."

The door closes.


Cowboy. She calls me Cowboy.

---


On with it.

As we're closing up the shift tonight, my metrosexual friend and coworker, Josh, says to me "I miss these kids when I go. I made them. I brought them up, and made them who they are."

He is referring to the kids we work with who are leaving for college and one who is going back to high school in limestone. It makes me stop and think how wrong he is, and how a certain kind of man (unmarried, almost always, and living a relatively small life that they've inflated in their minds.) need to take credit for success of other people. People are smart or funny or who just stand out always have to deal with people trying to be a part of their success. I don't even have any real success, just, perhaps, a certain way with words and, perhaps, a certain amount of potential, and it makes me nauseous to think of how many people will say they made me what I am, when I am something.

Or perhaps a select few made me paranoid about this phenomenon...I'm not really sure.

Another thing that bothers me are people who are there for you just so they can take credit for being there for you. I think that trumps the first. I try to make it a point not to do that, but who knows if I succeed.

I've been thinking a lot lately about Alanis Morissette's song "Unsent", which consists of five short letters to men of her past, exposing the ulimate truths about their respective relationships with her (or what stood as the ultimate truths at that point in her life). I've been thinking I should write out my own version of it, that perhaps this would be an exercise in closure (something I never learned) and I think I may do that now, though I'm unsure as to whether it would particularly wise to post it here, as that would be somewhat....counter-productive. However, I'd like to inspire this as a new trend in blogs...I'd love to read some other peoples. I think, perhaps, I will change the names....let's see how it goes, and I'll get back to you.


Done, and less than a page. Emily's always on my ass for being too long-winded, she'd be really proud. I started by making a list of potential recipients, then I crossed out anyone who I've already comed to terms with the realities of our relationship. From there, I crossed out people who I wouldn't have had enough to say to that was really important, and then I crossed out, with one exception, people I still have a standing relationship with. If I change the names, everyone who read would probably know who everyone else was anyway. The thing is, there's something exposed in it that...I don't know if this is the time or the place, but...I guess it's now or never, and that all depends on the luck of the draw.

But you'll know who you are, and you should e-mail me. We maybe should talk this out.

I'm gonna leave the names blank, and the amount of spaces is no indication. Anyway, here goes nothing, and, as always, I leave myself open to some massive amount of backlash.

My Unsent

By the way, it's kinda in the same rhythym that she did it in, I think anyone who's heard the song will really appreciate it a lot more.


Well, that's enough ultimate truth for one night. Now to prepare for the fallout.

On with it.

Outside of my house (Residence. Hooch. Dwelling.) right now, it smells like cow manure. This is quite odd, really.

A few days ago, I went outside to stop my dog from barking at my neighbor, who was watering her extensive garden, and we got into a little conversation. We've only exchanged a few passing hellos since our last conversation, a few days after we first moved in (which would make it almost exaclty a year ago), and I had begun to foster the idea that she had grown to hate or at least deeply resent me, due partly to my barking dog, partly because of my comparitively unkempt yard and unadorned porch (taking away, with the uncomfortable proximity, from all the extravagant effort she put into her yard), and because I sometimes walk around the house topless (bottomless. in underwear. naked) without realizing the shades are not drawn, which I have imagined (in my paranoid mind) bothers her and her husband equally, but in two distinct ways.

While there's little that can be done about the first and third offenses at this juncture (Dogs will be dogs. Breasts will be breasts.), I have made the point to accessorize the porch a bit, for her sake. I've added a flower pot, a bonzai tree, a quaint little bench and two muddy paddles. The paddles were originally placed there simply for lack of anywhere else to put them subsequent to a very blunderous boating trip a few days after my birthday-- the boat, a little blow-up dinghy, was a birthday gift-- that started while the tide was coming in and ended walking across 500 feet of deep, soft, clam-bearing sea mud that sucked us in with every step. This, and more specifically the shower afterwards, may have been, it turns out, the source of my plumbing woes, now resolved (knock furiously on wood.) without much help from gallons and gallons of different kinds of drain cleaner and two hand-held augers (one which attached to a drill...that wasn't fun.) We owe our success largely to Home Depot, and a rental department employee named Mike, who's friendly demeanor, patient understanding, and complete help made everyone else in the world seem like an asshole, comparatively (especially the three professional plumbers who refused to serve us, due to the fact that we lived in a trailer park). Mike rented us a larger auger (he said no one calls it that, it's called a "sewer snake", but I refuse to change my ways) and explained exactly how to use it. Now, for the time being, at least, I can go to the bathroom at my leisure and my laundry water no longer shows up in my bathtub. Mike is a great guy.

The last paragraph was supposed to highlight the conversation I had with my neighbor-- largely about our dogs, and I was sure to mention that we're saving up for a citronella bark collar, which is only a half-truth, but they cost about 150 dollars, which, I suppose, amounts to a two-thirds truth. Anyway, somewhere along the line, she mentioned that I should take a walk down to Bay Bridge landing, a conservation site adjacent to the park in an area that I had presumed, for some reason, was off-limits. I took the dog down there and found it was lovely, right on the merrymeeting bay (apparently, our little park is named for a bridge that existed there, many years ago). Yesterday, Zack and I went back and had our second boating experience of the season, which was considerable more successful than the first. We paddled out to the middle of the bay and spent about an hour just laying back, him in my arms, with the sun on us. On our way back, still quite a distance from the shore, Zack noticed a drowning grasshopper, and we picked it out of the water. It rode back to land on my hand-- I have pictures, but they need to be developed. I'll put them up soon. Later on our voyage home, we noticed a cricket in-- or rather on- the water: while the grasshopper had nearly drown, the cricket was able to hop across the water unhindered, either because of it's small size and the surface tension of the water, or because it was the messiah-cricket; I prefer to believe that the cricket was the grasshopper's lover, and the grasshopper jumped into the water trying to stop the cricket from storming off after a fight. But that's just me.

I fear this may be too sentimental a post to meet the taste of most of my cynical readership, but perhaps a few homesick mainers abroad will appreciate it for what it is. I do believe I had more to say, but alas, I have no energy with which to say it, so it will have to wait for another time, perhaps a better time.

My name is Linda, and I save grasshoppers. On wihth it.

I need an auger.


In my last post, there was brief mention of the "broken toilet" fiasco, which has now evolved into the "broken everything" fiasco, in which our plumbing, dear friend though it once was, has decided to leave us in a twitchy, cross-legged, holding-it-in-because-there's-no-where-for-it-to-go, toilet-won't-drain, washer-machine-drains-into-bathtub, can't-do-dishes-or-wash-hair mess. And I do mean "mess", though at least now we have an excuse for our humble abode to look and smell as it does, so that's something of a relief.

I think we're six (seven?) bottles of various chemical drain cleaners (used, at certain desperate points, in conjunction with one another, despite the silly little obstacle of possible noxious fumes.) and I'm just now consulting the do-it-yourself-because-you-have-no-money-and-thusly-no-friggin'-choice manual, a little thing that I like to call the internet. My virtual plumber tells me that, used incorrectly, chemical drain cleaners can make the problem worse, and should only be used after the use of an auger, or "sewer snake".

If you look up "auger" on google, the most common result is something used to bore holes, a scary spirally tool that looks like it belongs to a dentist from hell, but if you update this to "plumbing auger", there's a much more friendly-seeming instrument that Zack and I saw at Wal*Mart a few nights ago (opted for the chemicals that time, but put it on our mental list of possible future attacks).

I know nothing about auging or snaking, even less about removing these "traps" that my internet plumper tell me that I have, (poor, naive virtual plumper. Has never lived in a '73 trailer.) but I will do my best, and, if that doesn't work, well, the drain cleaner seems to work for about 12 hours at a time. At 10 dollars a bottle for the heavy-duty main line stuff, I could subscribe to indoor plumping for the bargain price of 70-140 dollars a week! Funny how suddenly clean clothes and bowel movements don't seem so important anymore.


This whole experience has illuminated to me an important theme of my life: seems that everything in my world is a makeshift solution for something. My existence is a furious, chaotic ball of duct tape and super glue, a half-dilapidated shack where every picture's covering a hole in the wall, every inspection sticker drastically expired. Everything I do is intended to put off a little longer the chain of relatively simple misfirings that will be my armageddon. Just call me Jimmy. Jimmy Rig.

Maybe if I sell tickets when it all comes falling down, I'll be able to afford to live a week or so longer.

On with it.

Ups and downs in Linda's current life:

Downs:

~I owe lots of money to my credit cards (3000-something), lots of money to U.S. Cellular's collection agency (300-something), and lots of money to my parents, for the matter (I'm guessing it's around 10 G's, but I haven't asked. I don't want to know.)
~I have a speeding ticket. (200-something)
~It looks as though, once again, this month's bill payment is going to be down to the line in terms of actually being able to afford my payments.
~My obnoxious dog won't quit barking.
~Subsequent to a huge, disgusting, broken-toilet problem on thursday night and a kick-the-coffee-table-out-of-anger-until-bowl-of-old-cereal-milk-falls-onto the floor, there is now a variety of three of disgusting liquids soaking into a variety of soaking carpets in my home. What's the third disgusing liquid? See fourth (obnoxious dog) point. Of course, in my happy little trailer, that hanging dog stench in the are is something of a leitmotif, so it hardly merits a mention.
~My doubts about attending Andover are in the air again, though this time, it's for Zack, not myself. A "medical assisting" degree seems somewhat laughable, when you take into consideration that medical assistants only make about 23,000 a year, which is less than twice of what we're paying for the degree (or would be, were it not for a few scattered grants) You're talking about getting a degree to earn 11 dollars an hour for the rest of your life. The upside is that you can take the medical assisting degree and then earn a certificate in something vaguely related but better, (looking at Radiology for Zack), but, in most cases, it's no where you couldn't have jumped to directly, sans the bullshit.
~There are far too many points on my downs list.


Ups:
~Both Zack and I are currently in escrow (in the inaccurately overused Gilmore Girls sense of the word) to better jobs: I have been promoted to shift manager at my lovely little McDonald's and am currently training (got my new uniforms today...will miss the visor) and Zack's in limbo between two positions offered to him with dueling merits: Alternative Warehouse Services in Portland offered him a job first, which looks less stressful (no crazy customers) and has lover-ly medical benefits (copays? I get to have copays again! Blessed be!), but the pay rate is confusing (Ten Dollars an hour plus 20% incentives two days a week if you're a fast worker...except that the flat rate and incentives go up at staggering months, and he keeps getting different stories on what the average worker actually makes home: the receptionist says as much as 13/hr within the first week, as much as twenty after the first year, the human relations lady says more like 12 within the first three weeks, and you'd get up to about 14 in a year, the commercial says that the best workers make 15-20 "when they're fully trained") and the long commute takes a bite out of the extra earnings because of gas prices. The broken-hearted Wal*Mart franchise lingered in passive-agression for the first week and a half of his notice, enticing him to stay with hypothetical management positions, but then hiring other people. On the second-to-last day of his notice, however, they interviewed him for a Customer Service Management position that payed 9.00/hr and pretty much promised it to him. He came home to talk to me to weigh the benefits-- less pay, but much, much closer to home, more familiar, and the benefit of not jumping from job to job so much (which looks better on a resume.) Ultimately, we chose AWS and thought that was that. But Wal*Mart, now regretting it's inaction for the past two weeks, came back fighting. If they made Zack and overnight CSM he could be paid 10.50 an hour, and technically he'd only have to do two overnights per week. Then, to attempt and seal the deal, the entire store made that famous, puppy-faced, pouty-lipped, yes,-we're-a-retail-giant-that-mistreats-they're-employees-and-offers-crap-benefits-and-shoddy-merchandise-and-smashes-all-competition-into-bleeding,-howling-oblivion,-but-we-wuv-you!!! face, and we forced contemplation on our part. Once again, we decided on AWS (copays, damn you! don't take away my copays!) Today was to be his last day at Wal*Mart, and it may still well be, but I've started thinking that perhaps, if he were to stay with Wal*Mart, with overnights and their desperation working for them, he might just be able to leverage a schedule that would allow him more flexibility to attend college, ultimately allowing him to transfer out of the laughably pitiful "Medical Assisting" program and at Andover and into SMCC's "Radiology Technology" program, or, better (-paying) yet, "Radiation Therapy". (I haven't sprung that last part on him)

So, tonight, we will discuss that possibility, and hope that, in their misguided-but-endearing hopefulness, they will still hold the position open for him tomorrow, a day after he's already stopped working their, and a day before he's supposed to start somewhere else.

The point is, whichever direction he goes, there should shortly be more money coming in, which might allow up to catch up (slightly) on some of those debts.

Uh, more Ups (or did you forget that this was a list?):
~I finally got glasses. They are pretty, and they allow me to see. Isn't that novel?
~I'm just two pounds away to the weight I was at pre-McDonald's (which is by no means my weight-loss goal, but it is a milestone.) Thank you, GNC Total Lean! Thank you for working with my uniquely passive approach to fitness!
~I've gotten Zack's permission to try a somewhat...unorthodox approach to overcoming my vaginsimus. Now I just need a helper...
~Uh...I'm hungry, and I'm missing Gilmore Girls to write this. That's enough ups for now.

On with it.

More commercial-inspired thought...

Right now there's an add for diet pepsi featuring Lovin' Spoonful's "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" (thank you AdTunes.com) wherein a Diet Pepsi and a Diet Coke machine are placed side by side, and the coke machine is continuously getting replaced. The commercial is neither bad nor good, a little infuriating perhaps because coke is so much better than pepsi, but it lead me to think of this: When I was growing up, neither coke nor pepsi could use the other's copyrighted imagery in their ads. They had to design their own laughable facsimiles that were close enough so that everyone knew what they meant, but that left some room for ambigouity. This, in a sense, was an entire dimension of the art, and an appreciable factor in the commercial's production quality, albeit one that was taken for granted. Now that it's gone, gosh, is it gone. Will our children's children ever know the glory that was a mock-up prop can labelled "Pipsi", "CooCoo Cola" or the simple classic, "Generic Soda"?


The nostalgia for prop soda cans of days past really wasn't where I meant to go with this. One should never underestimate the cathartic quality of the creative process.


What I did intend to do was to pose this question: Was this some sort of shift in the international copyright law, or is this a change of contract between Coke and Pepsi. Was there a meeting over this?

Coke Guy: So, you've called us here today to the Pepsi Corporate Offices, and I think you know by now that we're more than a little curious as to why.
Pepsi Demon: Mmm, indeed. You want to know why we've called you here to beautiful downtown Tartarus...mwah hahaha.
Coke: Get to it already, Mr. Beelzebub. I want to get home to see my wife and kids.
Pepsi: Indeed. Well, our research shows that consumers are taking our mock-up prop cans for granted. Furthermore, we've found that we can do far more damage to each other's profits if we are allowed to show the actual product which we are slandering.
Coke: Agreed. Our market studies have shown that certain southern states have a high number of people confused about "Pipsi."
Pepsi: So then, it's all fair game from now on? Mmmm?
Coke: Yessir. All's fair in love and brand wars.
Pepsi: Excellent.

Hmmm....*ending pending...ha! that rhymes*

For now...on with it.

Congrats to Elorza on his acceptance to the absolutely enviable Columbia College in Chicago, where he has picked the Fiction Writing major (over competing, and equally intriguing, majors like Playwriting, Television Writing and Producing, Poetry, Journalism, Every other Writing you can think off, etc...) This pulls him into a near-tie with other forerunners like Jeff and Casey in the "Which of Linda's close friends and relations will be the first to have a book published or otherwise meet with some notable success in writing" race.

I still intend to bring home the flowery horse shoe thingy (don't worry, google image search didn't know what I meant, either) in this one, but it's looking less likely by the minute. Despite my ever-improving descriptive skills. (You know, the big flowery, wreath-y things they hang on the winning horse's neck. That thing.)

I'm still hoping David Sedaris is going to discover me one of these days, finding my blog having randomly searched for himself on google which, in case your wondering, is why that hyperlink of his name leads here. It just seems like something David Sedaris would do.

Support the effort to get David Sedaris to visit my blog by putting up a David Sedaris hyperlink that leads to my humble internet abode on your site today!

I'm wishing he'd put me in his next Children Playing before a Statue of Hercules-type project, or perhaps just e-mail me personally to start a dialogue about how to improve my writing. Of course, I'd never catch David Sedaris's eye with this kind of drivel; it is for this reason, and generally in the interest of best representing myself to the hundreds of new hits monthly who come mostly looking for Andy Milonakis lyrics (in the "Guest Writer" Section, though I have few) that I've decided I will soon be making a list of a few of my personal favorite entries to add to the sidebar. A little sampling of my A-material to wow the newcomers with, and make them forget all about Ducky Whores.

Because that's the kind of thing David Sedaris thinks about. On with it.