Pete and I took the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, where we walked, ate appetizers, walked, ate more appetizers and sailed in dense fog. It was crazy cool. Why did we never beer-stumble and oyster-slurp around Vineyard Haven before?
Strange week. Funny man.
Cutting up t-shirts to make yarn is 100% easier when Drusy, my tiny protector from all things yarn-like, is not helping. Or halping. Because she is not helpful.
Lover of all things impulsive, you should buy my delightful friend Boni Joi’s book Before, During Or After Rainstorms. You will love this book and wish to meet the inimitable Boni, whose life as she lives it is an amazing story in itself.
One of my co-workers gave me ancient t-shirts. I’ve cut them up to make rag rugs –
– and a raggedy mess.
DIY projects are fantastic,cheap fun until you become obsessed with good gear. Not to worry, though, because no matter how bizarre your interest, someone got there first and figured out how to make a tool you will only use once while your credit card is still smoking. My mother’s grandmother made braided rag rugs that interest me now as artifacts of a time when no one could afford to waste anything. I’ve been pondering that some.
And next thing you know, you’re here.
It’s the personality crisis your therapist won’t see coming. Or going.
Believe it or not, I am considering buying those. My brain is full of soda bubbles: this is not thrifty. This is the opposite of thrifty! But this old-fashioned gadget might be a very thrifty tool for turning out cat blankets a whole lot faster.
The fireworks are just a diversion for us, though: the main entertainment is watching the whole town drive across the main drag and around our block dozens of times, waiting for an imaginary parking space to open up because thousands of people trying to park on one street those light trucks everyone simply must have now have not thought this through. We took pictures. We also took pictures of hundreds of people who sensibly took to the street in large numbers on the way down to the park and who appeared on their way back in our lens momentarily, only to melt into darkness beyond the driveway.
Yes, but not for long.
Through a combination of simple events and dumb circumstances, I have been coming into both itching and burning contact with vocal stupid people and spent a few weeks verbally shooting them full of holes. That takes a lot of time and energy and stirs up the kinds of emotions I have been trying to live without. This wasn’t doing Pete’s blood pressure any favors and I felt like anger was starting to lead me around by the nose again. Moreover, I started the week with a stiff neck, causing me to move like an exotic bird for days and on Friday pulled a muscle in my back. I stayed home and had a talk with me.
Tata: Say, what are you doing?
Tata: I have to defend myself. Stupid people are stupid and say stupid things. I have to tell them they’re stupid!
Tata: Why?
Tata: Because…I’m mad! That’s why!
Tata: Yeah. Are they going to get less stupid because you’ve informed them that they’re stupid?
Tata: No. I’m being stupid, aren’t I?
Tata: Yup.
The neighbor directly behind us is a smart guy. We agree on lots of things and he has that chicken coop I cannot quit staring at, he also has a wife who has never had a conversation with me. For no reason I can imagine, she feels entitled to insult me. She’s done it three times. Last week, I was contemplating my revenge options when I realized my next move might result in some very ugly outcomes.
I thought about it carefully. I thought about what you might do, you Poor Impulsives. I am completely confident in my ability to blow up our block in ten words or less, not to mention anything else.
But I don’t have to. I know I can.
So I removed myself from the company of the stupid people and spent the afternoon letting myself let the anger drain. It’s not easy. That drain clogs often and is full of hair you don’t recognize.
When somehow I was neither under rubble nor under arrest, I consulted with my friend Minstrel.
Okay, you and I are trudging across a desert under a blazing sun. Salt crusts our blistered lips. It’s plain I’m holding you back and you’d stand a better chance of survival alone. Vultures are landing nearby, clutching bottles of ketchup and A-1 in their talons.
Tata: Go on without me, but make me one promise?
You: What is it?
Tata: You’ll track down that bastard who did Playground In My Mind and feed him his still beating heart…?
You: I’ll…remember you for – well – most of next week. Probably.
At least, I can write jokes again. There’s a council meeting coming up and by this time tomorrow night, anything could happen. I might be speaking in tongues and knitting up a guillotine. Every movement needs its wild eyed DeFarge; fortunately, my neighbors think I’m quirky and have no idea they don’t know me.
Gigi said, “Everyone don’t forget about me!” So I climbed into the treehouse and remembered.
The delightful things I see on the mental teevee screen sometimes make it to actual teevee.
The crazy things you loved as a kid may not have been greasy kid stuff.
Poor Impulse Control 