Thanksgiving Was...

And now I'm thankful that it's over.

I've never been a fan of thanksgiving. It's not that I don't like being thankful. I do. I thank people all the time for opening doors, giving compliments, for existing -- I even thank animals, like dogs. For example,when I say, "Drop it!" and they drop the squeak toy, I thank them. I thank cats, too, when they give an appreciate lick on the finger after getting a treat. And, I'm thankful, in the larger sense, for things like my family members (most of them) and my car that is still running after a decade of use by me who bought it used. And I'm really thankful, well, more like grateful, actually, that my back is better than it was two weeks ago when I woke up and was unable to move and had to figure out how to get myself to the ER. However, I'm not thankful for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is supposed to be a day that brings families together to celebrate each other and to eat holiday foods. But, actually, it feels more like a day that brings people together to eat as much as they can without making their top buttons on their pants pop off. And, I don't care for thanksgiving food -- turkey, stuffing, gravy, ham, all things bland or resembling snot. I usually settle for a roll and a little mashed potatoes and go hungry for the duration of the day. When I get home from the Thanksgiving party, I'll break out a bowl of cocoa puffs to satisfy my rumbling belly. A day defeated? All that time cooking wasted?

And, then, there are the Thanksgiving activities.

In my family, the Thanksgiving holiday is quite possibly the boring-est of gatherings. Usually the day is dreary and cold. Therefore, we are stuck inside someone's house for the day. There are a few people who elect to watch television, which cannot be heard over the chatter of others who are talking in the next room. Then, there is the option to play cards or "games," as mother calls them. These activities can be fun for a short while (maybe an hour or two), but then one is left with the rest of the day to kill. So, one usually plops down in front of the television and pretends to watch it with the others in the room. And, if one is able to figure out what is happening, one is overloaded with commercials for holiday sales and black Friday shopping. It's as if the December holidays (that occur at the end of December) start on Thanksgiving. The commercialism on an already existing holiday that is also overly commercialized makes one want to move to a different country.

So, one often gives up watching television and heads toward the conversation in the nearby room. But, then, there is the issue of trying to figure out what they or who they are talking about. And, usually, the conversations are of little interest... not that the family is boring, it's just that I'd rather be doing other things like getting caught up on work or sleeping or eating cocoa puffs.

By the end of the day, I feel far from thankful and more like exhausted and angry and disgusted and unwilling to celebrate anything or anyone.

So, I drown my disdain in a bowl of cocoa puffs and feel slightly better.

Here's hoping you had a great holiday, Reader!

At the Picket Line...

Big Book of Weird

A book the size of a filing cabinet, written in German, about translating the works of Poe:












(Thank you, graduate students.)

Holy Hawk! Is that a Hawk?

And then there was a hawk standing next to the parking garage, in the grass. It had its back toward us and was studying something on the ground. We walked right past it on the sidewalk and it didn't notice or, didn't care. It had hairy legs. What was it investigating? And why wouldn't it fly off? So, we decided to take its picture and approached it. Closer. Closer until we were uncomfortably close, a foot or so away. I noticed its height. Hawks are tall. The size isn't so noticeable when they are perched atop telephone poles or fence posts alongside the road, but they are tall. And, yes, they have the bird-of-prey neck twitch and eye blink too. And then, a picture was taken, but couldn't be sent for posting. There was a "phone-error." We were trying to figure out what the error was. That's when the hawk hopped around and faced us. That's when the hawk ran a few steps and took off. That's when the hawk came flying straight toward us. We started running. We screamed, a little. And the hawk landed atop a light pole. It was as close as I never wanted to be to a hawk. It was as close as I'll ever be to a hawk.

Ism

I feel like a marble at a bowling ball convention.

The SCOOTER Store

The SCOOTER store has sent a piece of junk mail to my parents informing them that they can become owners of a new power chair or scooter. In bold text on the notification:

We'll assist you
every step of the way

School News

On a Bus

The bus was overcrowded. As more and more passengers came aboard, the bus driver yelled out -- Move Back! Everyone move to the back of the bus! Keep moving back!

Another stop and more passengers. Where were these people coming from? And why were they all carrying bags? Some were students. Others just liked big bags.

The seats were full and the aisle was full. There was a woman in a wheel-chair. We were all being pushed over slowly onto someone else who was being pushed over slowly. Even those who were lucky enough to have a seat away from the aisle were being pushed into the glass.

Move Back! Keep moving back!

And there were thoughts of "The Wheels on the Bus" -- move on back, move on back, move on back -- the driver on the bus says "move on back..."

And from the back of the bus came a voice -- a girl's voice:

This is as far back as it goes!

One Million Reasons Why I Wanted To Be Friends With Kenneth Koch

# 351

Larry Rivers persuaded a club owner "to let him conduct some experimental sessions in poetry and jazz -- partly to spoof the new vogue of beat poetry and mournful saxophone sounds and partly to join in on the fun. One Monday Kenneth Koch came and read from the Manhattan telephone directory while Rivers played saxophone" (Lehman 198).

(From David Lehman's The Last Avant-Garde.)

Taketh the Knife from out My Back

Since I have moved, I have been waiting on a security deposit check from the old aparment. (much needed money) It has taken a month to arrive. It is short $152. Why? Apparently, I had to pay for a carpet shampoo and an "aparment cleaning." Before I left, I cleaned the place -- it looked much better than when I moved in. When I moved in, the place was so disgusting I had to enlist people to help me clean it. There was some sort of animal waste all over the outside of the windows. When we moved out the "ice box" we found hunks and chunks of dirt and dust, cat toys (although pets were not allowed), giant insects and spiders. When we moved out the oven to clean behind it, more of the same and old pots and pans! In the closet, mold and mildew. The place reeked of mold and mildew. The blinds had a thick layer of grime on them -- the closet door had a huge dark spot over the white paint (what I thought was more mildew). The shower was leaking into the closet. The toilet was flooding the bathroom floor. There was zero light in the building. There was a sewage smell coming up out of the shower. There were no vents in the bathroom (apparently they had to have one, as one was later installed -- a terrible job, too, no sanding down of the mud -- dirt everywhere).

While I lived there, the following items were reported and semi-fixed:

1. A broken pipe under the kitchen sink that errupted during the middle of the night and flooded the cabinet.

2. A moldy wall that was torn out and half-a$$ed replaced -- it was not repainted or patched.

3. A toilet that was flooding the floor.

4. A leaking shower. The fix: caulk it. -- I was worried about cleaning the shower as the caulk kept flaking off.

5. A shower head that leaked, would not bend or move in any direction, and faucet handles that leaked and were on backwards (the hot where the cold should be, and vice versa).

6. Electrical outlets that were "fixed" as they were too close to the water sources.

7. A vent fan installed in the bathroom.

Items that were reported and never fixed or not fixed well enough to solve the problem:

1. The constant urine smell.

2. The ceiling leak that came from the apartment upsairs -- most likely a leaky pot, which was creating the urine smell. The leak errupted in full force over my computer printer one night around 12:30 in the morning. I ran for buckets and found they were in use under the sink for the other leaky pipe -- the liquid stream was most definitely urine and toilet water. The ceiling tiles that were stained and smelly were never replaced.

3. A different leak from the upstairs apartment that flooded four ceiling tiles and the floor near the bathroom. The tiles were so full of liquid that they turned yellow and sagged really low in my already low ceiling room. They were so low that I called to get them replaced, as I could no longer open my bathroom door because the door kept getting stuck against the tiles and the tiles would crumble and make a mess all over the floor. They also smelled heavily like urine. When I called to get them replaced, I was told someone would be right over. Someone never came. I payed for and replaced them myself -- an aside, when asked about a stain on the ceiling before moving in, I was told -- Oh, yes, the leak has been fixed. When removing tiles to fix old tiles: I discovered black pans all over the ceiling! They knew about the leaks! The ceiling above the drop ceiling was rusted and rotted through!!!

4. The yellow mysterious sticky gunk in the bottom of the cabinet. Pans would stick to it. It was there when I moved in and it stunk up the entire cabinet -- and the pans smelled like whatever it was too. I could not clean it out as I did not have a powerful enough acid to remove it. Nothing was ever done about it. I piled papers over the gunk to keep it from ruining my pots and pans.

5. The wet, moldy carpet. Yes, I placed a call to the landlord -- dear, people, I cannot walk around my apartment without wearing shoes. My socks get wet and black, then green. When I moved the couch, I noticed that the carpet was green. I am certain water is getting in when it rains and the carpet is sitting on top of the water -- there is mold under and in the carpet. Please fix this as I am tired of breathing it in. Yes, they said, we will look at it. Nothing was ever done about it.

6. The pull chain on a light over the kitchen sink was broken. I fixed it.

7. Parts of the ceiling constantly fell down or crumbled and made the apartment a constant mess. Once, at night, a huge chunck fell off from the ceiling above the drop ceiling and landed on the drop ceiling -- it was so loud it woke me up. The weight from the fall made huge pieces of the drop ceiling fall down onto me in my bed. The chunk is still up there. The only way to solve this problem would be to replace both the old rusty smelly ceiling and the drop ceiling. Nothing was done about it.

8. The fact that when I showered, even with a bath mat down, the paint from the shower floor would come off and stick to my feet.

All these items are just a few of the constant bad happenings at the old apartment. So, of course, it is no shock that I was very furious when I recived my security deposit check today and it was missing $152. What for, you may ask? They charged me for shampooing the carpet and "cleaining" the apartment!

Oh, yes, we are going rounds now!!!

Ism

"I can't afford my job."

Plans

And the plan for Halloween is to dress like a deer and run across the street (at the crosswalk, of course). After crossing the street: hide behind nearby bushes while the cars wait at the red lights. Peek over the bushes and duck back down. When the walk sign says it's okay, run across the street again. Repeat.