Yesterday, the faithful gathered at the Court Tavern in New Brunswick a week after the funeral service for our friend Freddy, also known as The Mad Daddys’ singer Stinky Sonobuoni. Last week, we heard speeches, antic and tragic; we laughed and cried. This week: Trout picks me up in jeans and a cowboy hat. She tells me an excellent story from when Freddy and his wife had just met. In accordance with WFMU’s announcement that Sunday’s hoedown would be “a New Orleans-style send off,” I’m packing a bag full of Mardi Gras beads. At the bar, we find dozens of people, more every few minutes, talking and raising a glass. Someone found a box of Mardi Gras beads at a garage sale the day before and everybody gets some. I lay a bunch on the bar like a festive placemarker. Trout has issues of her own and fights back tears now and then – which fighting is good because it’s tough to drink a Bud bottle with a runny nose.

Paulie Gonzalez takes a chair next to Trout at our end of the bar. When Trout gets up to go talk to someone, a woman Paulie and I can’t stand stands between us. As I tell Marcia, next to me, “She’s a pig but she thinks she’s just the ginchiest.” Marcia is shocked that I’d say that with Martine right there. It’s okay, though. In Martine’s mind, we only exist when we’re admiring her. When Martine sits down I point to a pair of patterned underpants hanging over the bar.

Tata: Those yours, Martine?

Paulie drops his beer.

Martine: Those? Those are so ugly.
Tata: Just sayin’.
Paulie: Stella Artois, please…
Tata: Marcia, who is that guy? Is he in the band SUX?
Marcia: Which guy?
Tata: The tall guy.
Marcia: The guy in the black t-shirt?
Tata: Marcia, every guy in the bar is wearing a black t-shirt.
Paulie: One time, I was puking in the men’s room and because I was wearing a black t-shirt everyone thought it was Marcia’s husband. I said, “Beer, please.”
Tata: Awesome.
Marcia: Where is my husband?
Tata: Standing behind that guy in the black t-shirt.
Marcia: You’re right! That directionality really worked for me!

Trout returns from talking with Freddy’s widow. She tells Paulie a story.

Trout: I can’t read Poor Impulse Control. It’s like a Russian novel with yoga pants –

No, that’s not it.

Trout: My college boyfriend shared a house with Carmen (Freddy’s widow) and another guy and they also had a band called XEX. You may have heard of it. No? Okay, one day, my ex-boyfriend came home and found Freddy and Carmen in a “Ride ‘Em, Cowgirl” situation. I told Carmen that’s why I’m wearing the cowboy hat. She said, “Girl, we used to have fun.” Everybody back there laughed.

A few hours later, I’m sitting in my living room when the phone rings. It sounds like Siobhan’s purse has called me again. I shout, “SIOBHAN! SIOBHAN! SIOBHAN!” but nothing happens. I sing a verse of “Dixie”. Nothing. I hang up. A few minutes later, I call her and leave a message that her phone’s running up her minutes again. This morning, she checks her messages.

Siobhan: Where was I when my phone called you?
Tata: Bridal shower, I guess. It was pretty loud and I was shouting your name. You didn’t hear me.
Siobhan: Wait, what time was that? I didn’t call you after lunch and my log says my phone didn’t call, no matter how much she loves you.
Tata: It must’ve been Paulie’s pants! They’ve called me before!
Siobhan: Maybe…
Tata: From his perspective, Paulie’s pants were shouting, “SIOBHAN! SIOBHAN! SIOBHAN!”
Siobhan: I was drinking water when you said that. And I remain parched.

A few weeks ago, a story circulated that bothered me on general principle: MSNBC’s For Wiccan soldier, death brings fight.

Nevada officials are pressing the Department of Veteran Affairs to allow the family of a soldier killed in Afghanistan to place a Wiccan symbol on his headstone.

Federal officials so far have refused to grant the requests of the family of Sgt. Patrick Stewart, 34, who was killed in Afghanistan in September when the Nevada Army National Guard helicopter he was in was shot down.

Honoring a person in death should be consistent with the person’s life. Sgt. Stewart gave more to his country than just his sacrifice –

Stewart enlisted in the Army after he graduated from Reno’s Wooster High School in 1989 and served in Desert Storm and in Korea. After completing his active duty, he enlisted in the Nevada Army National Guard in 2005 and went to Afghanistan with Task Force Storm.

– he gave his entire adult life to our military. Doesn’t he deserve our respect and veneration?

Stewart, of Fernley, who was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart, was a follower of the Wiccan religion, which the Department of Veterans Affairs does not recognize.

Wiccans worship the Earth and believe they must give to the community. Some consider themselves witches, pagans or neo-pagans.

The Veterans Affairs’ National Cemetery Administration allows only approved emblems of religious beliefs on government headstones. Over the years, it has approved more than 30, including symbols for the Tenrikyo Church, United Moravian Church and Sikhs. There’s also an emblem for atheists – but none for Wiccans.

Stewart’s widow, Roberta Stewart, said she’s hopeful she’ll receive permission to add the Wiccan pentacle – a circle around a five-pointed star – to her late husband’s government-issued memorial plaque.

While Memorial Day services are scheduled Monday at the Northern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Fernley, Roberta Stewart plans an alternative service at Fernley’s Out of Town Park. She’s calling the ceremony the Sgt. Patrick Stewart Freedom for All Faiths Memorial Service.

“This is discrimination against our religion,” Roberta Stewart said. “The least his country can do is give him the symbol of faith as he would have wished,” she recently told the Daily Sparks Tribune.

Sgt. Stewart was killed in September 2005 and the article was dated May 25, 2006. I Googled his name to find out if there’d been progress in the matter. Wikipedia offers no new information. I hope for acceptance, because in the wide world it never hurts us to live and let live. And damn it, I’ll drink to that.

My sisters, those fools with excellent taste, have left me with the keys to the family store. Sarah Vaughn plays on the stereo and verbena perfumes the breeze, now and then tickling the wind chimes. Everyone went to Dunellen for Anya’s son Ezekiel’s birthday party. Corinne accidentally left me half a snack-size bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. I’ve made coffee. It’s like I died and went to shinyshiny-sweet-smelling Heaven. With chips.

This morning, a person in the form of the blogger known as DBK came to my apartment with a toolkit and installed an air conditioner in my living room window. This was exciting because I can generally assemble stuff with power tools and a bottle of merlot and yet when I opened the boxes containing my air conditioners, I knew immediately installation would be a two-person job and extra personalities don’t count. Mr. DBK volunteered to help, if only to make me quit complaining. So I’d opened one box, dragged everything out of the box and when I looked up styrofoam was settling on every surface in my bedroom like a gentle, toxic snowfall. My cat took one look at this and, muttering, slunk off to nap somewhere softer and furrier. I tossed the box and went so far as to paw the manual like it might read itself to me before bedtime. I even looked at the pictures. When the pictures didn’t help I knew merlot wouldn’t either. Merlot gives me a headstart on an attention span when I forget for a while that I don’t have one. Then I commenced whining until Mr. DBK stuck fingers in his ears and volunteered to help me, which was very funny considering this was all over email and how did he type that?

Last night, to prepare for his visit, I opened the second cardboard and styrofoam container and realized right away I had a problem. On top of the unit itself sat a plastic bag full of little parts. I knew no matching bag of little parts sat on top of the air conditioner in my bedroom. Merde!

At 9 this morning, I phoned Sears to ask about a replacement of my goody bag but no one answered. Perhaps my complaints can only be heard by the ears of men holding tools and the guys in Appliances knew better than to pick up. At Sears Appliance Repair’s interplanetary headquarters a woman answered the phone who, like many civilians, at first did not understand my problem.

Tata: Okay okay okay so last night I opened Box Number Two! Sitting atop the whatsis was a bag full of teeny pieces, and I don’t have a twin from the other box. I am vexed!
Lady: What’s in that bag?
Tata: A bunch of these, two of those and a plastic thing.
Lady: The air conditioner has over two hundred parts. Can you be more specific?
Tata: The bag says “Installation Kit”. Does that help?
Lady: It doesn’t! I don’t understand this. My parts list does not list these parts.
Tata: The manual has a list of 14 wood screws, two more wood screws, two more after that, two braces and a plastic jobby. Should I just march myself over to my local Sears and ask if they have an extra one?
Lady: Extra nothing, those parts are yours.

I’ve got a convert! Anyway, it would have been nice to get both whatsii installed but no dice. The living room was obviously the place to start and by obviously I mean in the apartment in which I’ve lived since September I’d finally noticed someone had already drilled air conditioner bracket holes in the living room window sill. Mr. DBK rang the bell just after 10, while I was washing dishes. Wide-eyed, he stares at the adjacent building off to my left.

DBK: Have you noticed the crack that runs up the side of that building nearly to the top?
Tata: No. I bet the front of those apartments peel off like a banana peel that is especially ready to be peeled. Like a banana.
DBK: And the orange spot. I’ve read about it and now I’ve seen it.
Tata: That means neither of us is imagining you’re at my house. Please come in!

About five minutes later, Mr. DBK is holding the manual and swearing. I sit on the floor and shrug. If installing the air conditioner were an ordinary puzzle I would have solved it myself. I built the cabinet in my bathroom and ended up with extra pieces. He is pleased to hear this and hopes I’ll take up cabinetry, the art form of my ancestors. No, really. They made cabinets and knives and carved sculptures and Mr. DBK goes a little spastic.

DBK: Is that a Thighmaster? I’m so embarrassed.
Tata: Yes, my cat loves it.
DBK: Are you talking dirty?
Tata: No. See the cat? He finds it cushiony. One of my exes gave it to me because he used it and that made it funny. While you’re here, will you help me medicate the cat?
DBK: Sure!

Holes drilled by someone else for another air conditioner prove a blessing and a curse when some of them are in the right spot and some are too large to provide any grip. Mr. DBK and I put the air conditioner in place and he affixes it to the windows from all sorts of angles using little chunks of wood he brought with him. Then I corral the cat and Mr. DBK, a veteran cat-medicator, squeezes droplets of a foul-smelling elixir into the mouth of the cranky pussycat. Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul, then climbs over my shoulder with claws fully extended and makes a break for it.

Tata: I’m sorry. One more thing: will you help me move the credenza two feet that way?
DBK: Sure. Howcum?
Tata: When I move it myself it gouges the floor. And I need a handstand wall.
DBK: People say that to me all the time, they say, “I need a handstand wall,” and I say good for them! What does that mean?
Tata: It means I am an Upside-Down American and I’ve been right-side-up long enough!
DBK: By all means, it’s upside-down for you.

We relocate the credenza and I am happy to say there is plenty of room for inverted me. Now, I’m at the store and the sun is shining, and I’m smoooshing little grape tomatoes between my molars. It’s been a good afternoon for me but tomorrow morning, when I can do head- and handstands in my own living room again, will be better.

Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul, likes nothing better than to find me tapping away at the keyboard. This means I have to stay put, at least temporarily. He leaps. He stands on my lap. I type around the pussycat while he bumps my hands. Half the typos in Poor Impulse Control are cat-related accidents I failed to notice during proofreading. I don’t mind them. Nobody becomes a decent artist alone, we know. One must learn to accept criticism.

In this picture, Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul, offers a withering critique of my decorating skills. My weights are extraneous to his happiness. You’re so selfish, he seems to say, On that spot, you could put a heating pad, kippered herring or a six-pack of pink mousies.

Perhaps he has a point. If you have use for some of the heavier weights, write me. I don’t need them anymore. If no one wants the weights, I’ll give them to a school or a Y with a free weights room. Best to release these creatures back into the wild.

For one of those December holidays, Siobhan gave me a giant orange chef knife of the brand shilled by Rachael Ray. Siobhan knows I despise Rachael Ray but my kitchen is a non-toxic mottle of yellow and orange. The knife’s handle is orange but even better: the blade is really sharp. I have a pineapple and I’m armed. Since I shot my mouth off, I’m betting life-threatening injury that I can combine pineapple, knife, cutting board and a simple carving technique I saw on television, and end up with fresh fruit.

Some methods sound a little dangerous. Gee, I hope that pineapple’s a cube. I saw Alton Brown make short work of a whole pineapple with an electric carving knife. Last time I saw one of those in action my grandfather carved up an ice cream cake. Poor Fudgie! There was crumbled cookie everywhere! So while I have no intention of training for my killing spree with fruit and a six-foot cord, there’s still plenty for me to learn from how Alton did it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a decent online demonstration or even a crappy online demonstration of the technique. FoodNetwork seems stuck on the idea that pineapple comes in cans. Roll up your sleeves and put on your 3D glasses. We’re going in!

If you’re old like me, you remember the scene in Diva in which the hero, while buttering a baguette, explains to the sweet, misguided kid that life is art. That is possibly the most economical bit of zen sensuality on film. It also helps that the apartment is a warehouse and there’s a girl roller skating around the living room. If you’re paying attention, you’re panting. I’ve always wanted an apartment I could skate in. As I approach the pineapple, I am aware that a firm grasp of the knife, a clean, steady surface and focus on the task at hand are essentials. For instance, this would be a bad time for the cat to adore me but he is asleep. I checked.

I am lefthanded. Your mileage may vary. I lay the pineapple on its side with the top facing right. Firmly holding the pineapple in place, I briskly slice off the bottom, then grasp the spiny top and slice it off, too. It is delightful to work with a really sharp blade. I discard the top and bottom. I stand up the now-barrel-shaped fruit. Slicing down the side and turning the barrel toward me, I remove the prickly outsides off in two- to three-inch strips all the way around, turning it around again to remove any thorny patches I may have missed. The flesh falls away easily and offers little or no resistance.

I’m not done yet. The core of the pineapple is fibrous and very exciting to eat if deliciousness doesn’t count. I cut the pineapple in half straight down, and cut the halves in half, straight down again. Then I cut off the center point. I now have fresh fruit that smells fantastic, and is nothing like the stuff that comes out of cans – nothing against the stuff in cans but this is different, and better. Life is art.

It is frequently apparent to me that not only don’t I know what day it is or what’s going on but I also have no idea what coded messages I’m missing in ordinary conversation, possibly even with myself. This morning, I dreamed my sister Daria had brought her secret agent friends to Grandma Edith’s apartment and the three of them were being followed by assassins. Edith’s tasteful apartment had been redecorated in circus tent colors and I was sitting on the kitchen floor, trying to avoid being seen from the front windows. Family members reading these words are already suffering seizures of laughter because no sliver of light ever passed through the trees concealing those windows, but I digress. The assassins get into the apartment, now filled with people who should not be there. Edith, for instance, has been dead nearly fifteen years but she’s sitting on a couch next to one of my co-workers and a son the co-worker does not have. The whole room is like that. I’m sitting on the floor cross-legged, with my fingertips arranged in the dharmacakra mudra. I know we are all going to die. The shooting starts in the other room. People are falling dead. A tall, shaggy haired man who looks like Bruce Dern after the coke runs out walks toward me pointing a pistol at my head. He walks around to face me. I say, “Please, just make it quick.” He kisses my forehead and places the gun against my teeth. I relax and wait for the headache but instead I am suddenly wide awake at 4:30. It’s still dark out. Instantly, I regret that my last words weren’t, “Let the little boy go.” Damn it, I’m editing my last words! And I can’t fall back to sleep. Because Siobhan and I start work while birds are still hitting the snooze bar I call at 7:45.

Siobhan: You have got to be kidding.
Tata: No, I’m pissed! My subconscious has a secret it’s not sharing with the class!
Siobhan: The Jewish old wives’ tale is that when you dream your death you’re getting married and when you dream your murder you’re eloping.
Tata: I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have no intention of sharing a bathroom on any but a temporary basis. Damn bathroom hogs!
Siobhan: I’ve decided your cousin Monday’s wedding is bothering you more than you let on and your brain wants to put this behind you.
Tata: I made reservations. Auntie InExcelsisDeo informed me that the hall runs shuttle buses to the hotels and no one will be driving drunk. I need a camera for pictures of the right and left Darias lying across the seats in formalwear.
Siobhan: Which you take from the floor?

By then I’ll have given up holding a camera in favor of looking at someone and saying, “Click!” Everybody wins! On the other hand, perhaps everyone can still lose if I understand this sage and our docile pussycats are plotting the end of civilization as we know it.

Anyway, my first inkling that something was amiss in the Human vs. Every Other Animal Species sweepstakes came this fall, when I noticed that you could not drive more than a mile on an Iowa highway without seeing a deer carcass.

At first, I thought, “How dumb can a deer be? Don’t they know the difference between a busy highway and a quiet forest?”

And then I thought, “It’s a deer, you idiot. They don’t know about highways.”

And then I thought, “You probably shouldn’t be sharing these ignorant debates with yourself in the newspaper. People might begin to worry.”

I figured the deer were innocent until I saw several reports that they seemed to be “attacking” vehicles, by waiting until a car happened along and then running full speed into it.

Which is why I, for the first time, actually cheered for the hunters during the most recent deer season and proposed that they be allowed to use machine guns.

He seems smart. Maybe he knows what’s going on.

For much of the winter, Des Moines served as the Crow Capital of the World. (New city motto: “Welcome to Des Moines. Don’t look up.”)

Half the sidewalks in town were covered with so many crow droppings that they resembled a Jackson Pollock painting.

These birds knew exactly what they were doing. I left my car parked on a street for five minutes and found, “Surrender, Funny Boy” written on my windshield – and it wasn’t in ink.

I haven’t seen the crows lately. They probably moved to Waukee like everyone else.

It would explain a lot if I’d moved to Waukee, Iowa without my knowledge. Damn sneaky subconscious! No wonder I’m eloping to get away from me!

In the beginning, I found it charming that the [giant monkeys] had cute names like Kanzi, Panbanisha, Matata and Nyota, although I kept confusing those names with those of the McCaughey septuplets.

And, yes, it was amusing when Sen. Tom Harkin visited the facility, and the creatures immediately signed a petition to impeach the president.

But I’ve watched enough bad movies to understand what’s really going on: The apes are telling the other animals to attack us.

Snap! How will we save ourselves?

The fact is, I think the apes are so incredibly smart that they are participating in one of history’s greatest scams.

During the day, they tease the researchers by showing that they’ve learned another simple phrase, like “pizza delivery.” At night, they send out complicated telepathic instructions to crow and deer on how to release all the animals in the Blank Park Zoo.

I know how troubling this all sounds, so I promise to stay on top of the story. The last thing we need is for your pet cats to scratch your eyes out as you sleep.

If my cat gets a gun permit it’s him or me – no matter what the monkey says.

My days have become so eventful I can barely keep a journal and blogging is getting weird. I shouldn’t say weird. I should say Where do I start? I should say I’m not sure what to leave in or out. I should say Change is in the air. What’s a girl to fucking do?

Last winter, I tried switching via the New Jersey Clean Energy Program to New Jersey Wind. I went on merrily paying my dumb old PSE&G bill without a second thought and months later, in a stroke of nowhere-close-to-genius, when I glanced over the bill and realized I couldn’t see any reference to the company polishing my energy karma. I called and set the whole thing up a second time. A month passed. I didn’t see a bill. Another month passed. I tried calling and the number connected to a fax machine. I was just about to give up when Siobhan convinced me to call one more time.

Tata: Hello, tiny energy company! I am Miss Tata, and my address is [redacted, you geeks. Kisses!]
Nice Lady: Hello, Miss Tata.
Tata: I signed up. Then I signed up a second time. Then, mysteriously, the PSE&G bill that was about $35 per month suddenly dropped to less than $15.
Nice Lady: Wait, your bill should have increased by point blah blah blah per kilowatt hour.
Tata: You’re nice and all but I feel we haven’t known each other long enough for me to accept gifts.
Nice Lady: I see what you mean. You should check your next PSE&G bill.
Tata: It’s going to whack me like a pinata, isn’t it?

I had just paid such a bill days before and when I got home I found another. It was like a $15 Groundhog Day. This is a little frustrating but I’m going to stick to the plan. As yet, I can’t say to you this transition is effortless and inexpensive – I can’t actually say it’s possible! – but I won’t give up. I may change my mind and I may yet accept this green energy company’s lavish gifts. I never have. It seems naughty!

For the last few weeks, I’ve been working on a couple of projects and, yes, I have been distracted. Today, one of them came to interesting fruition but as yet, I can’t mention it. Soon. In the meantime, after last week’s episode in which I found myself advising Lupe on how to carve up a pineapple without having done it myself – well, I bought a pineapple. I have a sharp knife. I’m going to make like Mount Rushmore and report my results – if I have fingers.

It’s an adventure!

I’m experimenting with a new form of agriculture wherein I plant seeds and keep them wet. Little plants sprout and promptly drop dead. It has been a rousing success. I suspect an international corporate conspiracy to prevent me from having fresh mint.

While I’m demonstrating my special powers of reasoning, let’s talk about Me – not just me, but Me. I take visits by Me very seriously because I can be unbearable, and I reward my bad behavior with appropriate punishments. This evening, for example, I went out walking in a sweatshirt so holey it verges on crochet and a pair of blue and green yoga paints so Seuss I should have keeled over from the shame of taking them to a cash register and presenting them to a blue-haired teenager who almost certainly would rather chew off her foot than wear these pants in a closed room devoid of all light. Ever. I knew these pants would be comfy when no one was looking and if I wore them outdoors, the power of nearly mortal shame would propel me around town with impressive velocity. And my plan succeeded until I met a friend on a bicycle.

It is important to remember the little things I do to kick my own ass can injure bystanders. I think one look at me and she sprained something but tears in her eyes told me I’d inspired her – and maybe her riding could be improved through the judicious use of Suess Wear.

I am so awesome. It’s coulottes for Me!

Update: Colbert’s Word today is Me. It’s like he knows!

It’s Sunday and I am re-redding my hair. Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul, is determinedly catnapping on a carpeted pedestal plainly designed for a smaller kitty. Outside, the air fades to blue with early evening and intermittent rain. It’s wet out there but not like yesterday. Trout and I went to a funeral service as grown women and turned into those people. You know, those people, the friends the family doesn’t understand.

The tribe to which I belong traces its origins to the music and art scene New Brunswick, based around certain bars, most of which are no longer standing. The characters are colorful and wounded, many destroyed by heroin, alcoholism and AIDS, but many more turn up in droves at the weddings and funerals of those more and less fortunate than themselves. I know many of them by face, most by their first names and precious few last names. I knew one of my closer friends only by his nickname for six years but I always knew what he drank and when he was playing guitar.

I knew the deceased as Freddy and never knew his last name. He was the singer and driving force behind the trashy and fabulous Mad Daddys, with a stage persona named Stinky Sonobuoni. Many nights, the band played in New Brunswick bars, and many times, the tribe showed up to see Stinky turn in fucking great sets for crowds that always begged for more. I respect that in a fellow tribesman. Last week, Freddy died after a long fight with cancer; I ache for his wife, his parents and his closest friends. I really do. That’s why when Trout and I showed up at the funeral home and the crowd poured out into the hallway, silent and still, we did our level best to even breathe quietly to hear the speakers inside the viewing room. Some voices were low and indistinguishable but the people inside laughed crisply. Some voices were perfectly audible, and outside, we laughed, too. I looked around the hall and said, “I’ve ended up under a bar somewhere with about half these people.” Every eye was red and everyone was laughing. Freddy really lived, the only tragedy was that he hadn’t lived longer, and each story was about traveling with the band, dancing, singing somewhere unlikely and buying leopard print underwear. Everyone had a story about leopard print underwear. The funeral service developed a motif.

The final speaker was clergy of some kind and this guy had never met Freddy. Didn’t know a thing about him. Spoke about a flock of sheep and parsed his own sentences. Spoke about meadows and still water in the 23rd Psalm. I started to smile. When he spoke about irrigation, even Trout started smiling. After a few minutes, I laughed out loud. One of the guys against the back wall blurted, “Man, that guy rambles.” Suddenly, it was all over out in the hallway. The disreputable friends were laughing and talking and nobody heard another word from inside. I said to Trout, “At my funeral, none of this grim crap. Everyone should talk about fucking.”

The funeral director offered us a room dozens of us could be disreputable in but almost nobody took him up on it, preferring to mill about under an awning outside. The rain had stopped temporarily. When crowds of old ladies filed out, we went back inside the viewing room. Trout and Freddy’s wife go back to the late seventies New Brunswick punk band XEX, when Freddy’s wife was known as Thumbelina Gugliemo. Thumbelina, Trout says, was the first person Trout ever knew who decorated her Christmas tree with blinky lights and empty White Castle boxes.

I admire that in a person. I really do. The widow is thrilled to see Trout. She’s happy to see me, too, but she’s thrilled to see Trout. Trout and I leave the funeral home and feel we’ve gotten off easy somehow, though Trout is a little wilted and sad. In Highland Park, she pulls over the Volkswagen and parks. We bolt for my sisters’ toy store, where we inch around the room, squealing with glee, set off by our discovery of a book: Who Moved My Cheese? Trout perks up. My six-year-old nephew Tippecanoe is talking to customers like the toy store’s maitre d’. On our way out, we meet his older sister Lois on her way in. The rain has stopped. In other news, our New Mexico correspondent starts a new job:

I’ve been up since the coyotes started started their insane laughter about five this morning, half nervously and half gleefully anticipating my first day as an honest-to-Jesus car salesman, taking “ups,” people who wander onto the lot. I’m still weak on product knowledge, but I wasn’t hired to be a mechanic. The job is about rapport, and I can do rapport. My manager told me that at this point in my career I don’t have to do any hardball negotiating, which was the thing I was most dubious about in taking the job at all. He says my part is to find them the car they want and get them to my desk, or “in the box,” and he’ll take over while I watch and learn. I’ve spent the last couple of days out on the lot, making sure no one is close by, then practicing my pitch out loud. I’ve sold myself one of everything on the lot, and I already have a car, so obviously I have great promise. I still feel like someone else, like an actor, but that’s no surprise, it runs in the family, my dad being a porn star. I don’t even have to take off my pants. Except if it’s absolutely necessary to make the sale. Still, I’ve got to tell you, the boost this whole thing has been to my confidence, even if I never sell a car, has been vast.

I’ll make time later this week to sketch in my colleagues for you in more detail. They’re primarily younger than me, the usual mix down here of white, Indian, and Spanish, and to fit in at all I’ve had to get used to calling everyone “brother” and “dog,” or, in Spanish, “perro.” Because they’re young they’ve all seen that Adam Sandler movie where his character’s name is Bobby, so of course that’s become my name. We were a bunch of us riding in a van to pick up cars from another lot, and Dave the used car manager heard Me and My Bobby McGee on the radio and suddenly sang along “Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee!” Steve my manager at first tried to remain professional and call me John, but yesterday he slipped and called me Bobby. It’s official now. I put it on the order form for my business cards.

It’s getting to be showtime. I’ve got to floss my teeth and buff my shoes and look one more time over my flash cards of the prices of the various models of Hondas, Subarus, and VWs. I have a guy from the real estate office where I worked who I hope will be in to let me take him out to test drive an Element. I don’t even care if he buys it. When he walks onto the lot and asks for Bobby, my dick will feel about two feet long.

Wish me, you know.

I love you, princess.

He calls me “princess.” Wanna make something of it? Finally, Garnier has a new dye color: Hot Tamale. Yep. It’s a hair color almost guaranteed to be visible from space – or under the bar.

Ah, the truth hurts. It’s giving me headaches, that’s for sure. I was doing some work for a guy whose entire business is built on a co-dependency problem. The chaos was poisoning my dreams and making me bitter and defense. More than usual. Yesterday, I quit but it was more like a breakup than quitting and I keep wondering who gets custody of our mutual friends.

The humidity yesterday made being outdoors in the afternoon difficult and sweaty so I waited until after 7 to go out walking. I’d watched a weather report and the storms appeared in a variety of threatening colors to the north but not over Central New Jersey. In the park, I noticed the air looked a little bluer than usual but I was determined to at least run as far as I’d run the day before. So I did, thinking if I got struck by lightning behind the deserted construction equipment nobody would know, but not for long because lots of upstanding citizens ignored the approaching lightning with aplomb and herds of children. The park was full of people. I…left. Up on the avenues, people scurried about as the lightning drew nearer and thunder rumbled in the obviously decreasing distance. Just before a storm, a great gust of wind blows through, changing the air temperature and creating a distinctive rustle of leaves. I was six blocks from my front door when I felt that wind and thought I was about to get soaked but rain held off. Two blocks from my house, again, that same wind swept over everything. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t raining as I put the key in the front door. Inside my apartment, I marched straight to my bedroom and as I touched the window the skies opened. I’d arrived at home just in time to close the windows.

And I felt great except for my knees which felt a little sore and a little more inflamed than I liked. It may be true that running even a little bit on consecutive days is too much for them. The only thing to do is spread the pain, so let’s start with the Oklahoma University College Republicans who seem like they’ve cut earth science classes on a more or less <a href="
http://agitprop.typepad.com/agitprop/2006/06/college_republi.html”>permanent basis. Mr. Blogenfreude is too kind to these douchey douchebags, whose douchebaggery could use a little refresher course in …something, anything. Yesterday was the first day of hurricane season. This morning, Al Roker mentioned on the freshly Katie Courie-free Today Show that the Atlantic is 2 degrees warmer this year than usual. He said some variation of “You wouldn’t think that was a lot but it increases the number of severe storms and drives them to be stronger.” I propose we send the OU College Republicans, who are most certainly landlocked, boarding passes for those special planes that fly through hurricanes and drop devices to measure the damage climate change is about to do. That could be educational, and perhaps our future leaders wouldn’t parade their truly extra-stupid stupidity across college campuses where, perhaps the OU CRs haven’t noticed, exams are over and these idiots should be moving back home like two weeks ago. Go paint a house, kids! We’ll talk more about your plan to resurrect Frankie and Annette’s beach blanket non-boinking when you get back from your one and only real-life-like experience!

I used to have an absolutely perfect butt. I’m not saying I had the perfect butt because bottoms of great beauty cross our lines of sight in all forms and shapes, and the world of derrieres is – pardon me – wide. Yes, for decades I walked around all day with a tuchas so perfect in its own right that telling people to kiss my enchanting bottom was no ordinary insult. Yes, though I had the Great Butt of Happiness and today I possess the Rump of Mild Mirth, I can die happy, knowing I contributed to joy in the eyes of the world because my darling Miss Sasha has an absolutely perfect bottom for her tiny frame, and yesterday, she hightailed it to a phone and called me.

Miss Sasha: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! I’m having the worst week! [Beep!][Silence.] Aunt Daria’s on the other line. [Click.]
Tata: She called to cry on my shoulder and put me on hold?

After about ten minutes, I figured I could hang up and wait. An hour later, Miss Sasha regaled me with a gut-wrenching tale of catering horror, which was bad but nowhere near as bad as the Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of her Dad and me: What if she breaks up with Mr. Sasha and wants to come home? So, really, the degree of disaster here is all relative. She was crying the first time she called but Daria seems to have calmed Miss Sasha down.

Miss Sasha: Okay okay okay it was so bad, Mommy! The bride was crying in my face and her father was following me around, threatening me and he sent back the rentals and blamed me and he was shouting, “Don’t any of you know how to use a calculator?” and every one of us fell down the steep stairs in the house, which they had to have known we would if they live there and my bartender was soaked in crab boil and –
Tata: Sweetheart –
Miss Sasha: Aunt Daria said everyone in catering has a story like this and she told me about a disaster with the bride’s sister and I was going to have to give them back the money and Daria said I might need legal advice and –
Tata: STOP! What did Daria say?
Miss Sasha: She said this is not my fault.
Tata: Okay, then. You know very well if she thought you were the slightest bit to blame she’d tell you you’d screwed up.
Miss Sasha: Yes…
Tata: And you know how she hates when anyone plays the victim, right?
Miss Sasha: Yes…
Tata: So…did the people get married?
Miss Sasha: Yes.
Tata: And did everyone have cake?
Miss Sasha: Yes.
Tata: Awesome. Don’t take any crap, sweetheart. Mommy can’t cross state lines and kick ass for you. That’s assault.

Just the same, I waited for Daria’s call and less than half an hour later, it came.

Tata: Did you get a straight story out of Our Darling?
Daria: Yep.
Tata: So what happened?
Daria: You know I’m very good at what I do, right?
Tata: Yep.
Daria: The bride threw Sasha under the bus.
Tata: Really?
Daria: Her family didn’t like the decisions the bride made and changed everything on the day of the wedding. You can’t miscount guests and send back tables and chairs you rented three months ahead on Memorial Day Weekend and expect anything but trouble. Sasha was right there, so all the hate went her way.
Tata: Wow! People are stupid!
Daria: Yeah, I told her to get back on the horse.

Hours later, Miss Sasha and her friend call for no real reason but they’re laughing and making mango lhasis.

Tata: That might be good with vodka but I bet the hangovers would be a bitch.
Miss Sasha: Tawny, what do you think about vodka and hangovers?
Tata: Be sure to drink water with those! You sound better.
Miss Sasha: I am. Aunt Daria told me to learn from this.
Tata: It’s true! If this is the worst moment of your life, then the worst moment of your life is behind you!
Miss Sasha: Well, I’m still not sure what to do.
Tata: I am! My advice is to drink heavily. This painful lesson may fade into distant memory but stories of drunken hijinx live forever!

Some of life’s lessons come at a dear cost but on some special lessons, interest compounds daily. Miss Sasha’s intentions were good, and she deserved better treatment. This other character is getting his just desserts, and his ass kicked in a way that will haunt him all his working life.

Bon appetit!