Posts (page 2)
Jeff Tweedy will do my talking today. I'll speak for myself when I feel up to it.
Until then, I'll be busy drinking Southern Comfort from a tall Ronald McDonald glass. You can keep busy listening to the aforementioned Mr. Tweedy's unbelievably apt lyrics on Nothing Up My Sleeve, an unreleased demo for the Wilco album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
How long until “Yes, sir: I’ll work whenever you need me; I’m grateful to have a job and I sure could use the income!” turns into “Fuck you, pal: I’ve got plans; this shitty job doesn’t own me”?…
The anchorman says “Stay tuned for these commercial messages. We’ll be back with analysis and reaction.”
And I sit there for a minute.
Did he just say “Stay where you are, because after we finishing telling you how to spend your money, we’re going to explain to you what you just saw and then tell you how to feel about it”?
Work is here, but until debt leaves, I’m still broke. And since I’ve been broke for several, several months, I’ve gotten to be something of an expert on what might be charitably described as “products for the budget-conscious customer.”
Basically, I know all about generic shit, off-brand shit, and shit from the dollar store.
The following such products now carry the official Dirty Old Town® Seal of Approval.
Sunsations® Apple Orchard Dishwashing Liquid
Lemon-scented is for suckers. Scrub your pots while inundating your
kitchen with the pleasing smell of apple Jolly Ranchers. At finer
dollar stores everywhere.
On-Cor Classics® Chicken Parmigiana
Not exactly fine dining caliber Italian, but definitely edible and
almost good. Go in expecting Shoney’s level food and you won’t be
disappointed. Available in the
bulk-frozen-foods-for-impoverished-families section of your grocer’s
freezer.
Deep 6® Roach & Ant Killer
Any dollar store product that exterminates pests with this level of prejudice must be destroying either my health or the environment, possibly both. But holy shit, you should see this stuff in action. Seems to work better than even the name brand stuff.
Purity Foods® Instant Oatmeal
Twelve and a half cents a serving and completely edible. I’m not saying
it’s good, but if you liven it up with some vanilla or honey, it’s not
bad. Makes a nice breakfast-time compliment to the standard Ramen
noodle dinner.
So the other day I'm talking to someone about mood music, and by mood music, I don't mean like "put you in the mood to mow the lawn" or what have you, I mean mood music. And I found myself saying this and realizing it was true:
If you're alone with the person you dig, listening to Al Green or Nick Drake, and you don't get laid... stop trying. It's not gonna happen.
So it occurs to me that, even after the divorce is final, I won't really be "single" again. I'll be "divorced." And while some optimistic people might suppose they're basically the same, I have to think most people aren't going to see it that way.
"Single" means:
Hey there, lady: I am available.
"Divorced" means:
Hey there, lady: I'm back on the market. However, you do realize: another woman with whom you probably share several important traits and tastes once thought I was the kind of guy she wanted to have around forever... only to find out she was horribly, horribly wrong. Caveat emptor, babe. Caveat emptor.
...I would choose the ability to pull a giant mallet from behind my back with which I could flatten irritating people, smooshing up their midsections to look like closed accordions. You know--like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck used to do.
The effect would wear off within seconds, leaving no permanent damage, but by then, I'm confident my point would've been made.
Maybe I seem like the perfect person to write a vicious rant on how Valentine's Day is a big hunk of crap, a marketing ploy intended to leverage love as a way to separate suckers from their cash. After all, being bitter about life and love and calling everything a hunk of crap is pretty much my thing, right?
But honestly, if I read one more sad sack blogger's tired-ass rant about hating the manufactured falseness of Valentine's Day (which is basically just overeducated single person speak for "I do not have a date today and it is really chapping my ass") I'm going to roll 'em in nougat, dip 'em in chocolate, and stuff 'em into a
Whitman sampler.
Get a fucking grip. It's just a holiday. And you know what? It's a pretty harmless holiday. Today, millions of couples are going to enjoy each other's company and indulge in a little bit of romantic tomfoolery. Even if you're not among them, that's no reason to be bitter.
Because even those of us who don't have dates ought to have the sense to look around at all the people who do and realize we have pretty decent odds of finding someone of our own sooner or later--someone who has a nice laugh, holds some amount of sex appeal, and smells better than average.
So really: get over yourselves. It's all over tomorrow anyway.
