Paulie Gonzalez bought a house in the ‘burbs.

I want to go back to the city. Fuck this country living.

I have monsters in my fucking house. After I moved in I started hearing them in the walls. Walking, scratching, bumping around. I pretended not to hear them. I saw squirrels in the yard and assumed it was them just napping in the walls. Squirrels are cute. I was willing to share the heat with them while they work on their nut fortune.

Then last week I walked in the door and Pops was yelling about the lights being out in the hall bathroom. I went to the circuit breaker, nothing, unscrewed the socket, poked it with a screwdriver, still didn’t fix it. Told Pops we need an electrician. I went back to my work, which I am about a month behind in. If I work hard enough, all this bullshit can be solved with money. This is not a problem to get emotional about. I was wrong.

The monsters got louder and much bigger as time went on. I could hear their footsteps in the attic. Big footsteps. You can’t hear squirrel steps, they’re crafty. These were monsters, I was sure of that. Again, I decided that I was too busy to deal with this shit, and completely unprepared. I realized that I am living in the country and hopelessly unarmed. This needs to change. Pops is anti-gun, otherwise I would have shot the shit out of the fuckers right through the wall. Sheetrock is cheap and easy. I had business to work on. My back expenses are closing in on 5-figures, I have millions of dollars in deals depending on me. I decided to drink more, and be home less, this was very effective at mitigating the problem.

Friday, the enormous TV in the living room went dead. Pops really went ape shit at this time. I told him it must be related to our electrical problems. Bad wiring. On previous occasions, we discussed the monsters a bit, but he didn’t listen. He did not hear them, thanks to the ear-shattering TV. Pops did not put the electrical problem together with the monster problem. In fact, he seemed to be in more denial than myself regarding the monsters.

Yesterday evening, the fuckers were really loud. I ran out of alcohol, and the liquor stores were closed. I took inventory of the weapons in the house; Screwdrivers, Mag-light, several lengths of steel pipe, can of gasoline, and various household chemicals. None of these seemed to make a good weapon against the matter at hand. I had some pot, but decided that pot and monsters in the wall would only make the problem worse. Alcohol was the only proper remedy for the situation. I opened a bottle of very expensive 12 year old scotch. Anyone knows from watching horror movies, there are no sacred cows when you need to deal with monsters. Have a collection of silver bullets hand-made by Teddy Roosevelt? Passed down from your grandfather? Werewolf shows up, what do you do?

I was almost asleep when things went from distractedly drunk to bad. It was 1AM, and I had someone shouting and knocking on my door. Pops had heard them. After three fucking weeks he finally noticed the sound of busy monsters right above his head. “Are you sure it’s an animal?” No Dad, maybe a homeless child broke into the attic and is busy walking around slowly, making a nest, and executing his plan to scare us from the house. At which point he will have the house all to himself. Sure dad, maybe it’s Macaulay Culkin. It’s 1AM, we have no guns, what do you want to do? “I want to call the police.”

At this point, even I started to panic a bit as I was sure there wasn’t enough alcohol in the house for this. My panic was justified. He didn’t call the police, but he did say he planned to call animal control first thing in the morning. “Dad, we own the house, Animal Control doesn’t give a fuck about our monster problem unless it escapes to the streets.” To this, he accepted that I was not helping, he was on his own. He closed my door, and went away. I soon discovered his method for dealing with the problem was about as sane as mine. He took up arms in the form of a broom. For the next 1.5 hours he patrolled the house, every 5 seconds pounding on the ceiling. Occasionally, he would shout -“GET OUT OF HERE!” I wondered if the monsters might be illegal immigrants. Could they be sitting up there wondering, ‘Que?’

I was happy in the city. Drug dealers would steal my parking spot, I would kick their asses, peace would follow. Now I move 2 miles away, and I’m in a horror movie. Me, in the master bedroom, drinking as hard as I can to drown out the insanity, my 72 year old father pounding the the ceiling and screaming, a family of small Mexican monsters in the attic cowering in fear.

After a couple hours at work today I got the call that the exterminator found evidence of a raccoon family living in my attic. They went in through the attic vent. They went in there to eat the squirrels that had broke in through the eaves. Supposedly, the ‘coons did not eat the wiring, squirrels eat the wiring, ‘coons eat squirrels. After my father explained this he told me it will cost $900 to seal up the attic. So by tonight, the attic will be sealed. I expect I’ll need to patrol the perimeter. The ‘coons were happy there, they want in. I need guns. This can only get worse.

I can’t breathe! Another rodent-based incident! Poor Paulie! There’s not enough scotch in Scotland!

To say that Mondays suck is to understate the case so completely one’s point may be missed with a microscope. Mondays are the merde-scented essence of suckitude. Mondays are the whirling black holes of cosmic sucktasm. I can hardly stand the sight of my co-workers, who are actually very nice people forced to share a florescent-tinged basement office recycled-air hell with – you know – Me.

John: You write me so…bland.
Tata: You only talk bland. You become more exotic every time you shut up.
John: That’s insulting!
Tata: Only if you intended to keep talking.

He knows that after a third pot of coffee I will help rearrange his office and make each shelf count because he needs help and has no one else to ask, which when you think about it could turn tragic but somehow doesn’t. I point to my Sigmund Freud Action Figure above my desk, next to the Magic 8 Ball, a penny Morgan cut into curliques over ten years ago and a small statue of the Andorian ambassador.

Tata: Note my Action Figure. Those who demand I see a psychiatrist should know I do.
John: There he is.
Tata: It’s almost like I care what people think.
John: No, no, you don’t.
Tata: C’mon, straight man. You can do better than that.

At the very end of my last week, a charming representative of the systems department converted my comfy old browser and mailer into two stiff, new electronic contraptions. This morning, I called Systems, where Mary was already laughing.

Tata: I can’t find my bookmarks. This is way pathetic. Wait! There they are!
Mary: Hahahahahahahahahahaha!
Tata: I’m having Little Old Lady problems. This morning, I discovered the up/down toggle switch on the seat of my car.
Mary: Hohohohohohohohohohoho!
Tata: I’ve had my car for – what? – three months now and today I discovered this switch. Do you know I’ve been driving around in a car I can’t see over the dashboard of?
Mary: I’m sure you’ve done splendidly! Hehehehehehehehehehe!
Tata: Not at all! I’ve been driving by the Braille method. Everytime I shipwreck my car and get out I risk a beating by outraged fellow humans in the 360 degree blindspot outside.

The only reason I saw the toggle switch was because I dropped the bag of garbage I was planning to walk over to a dumpster. That added a certain piquancy to my sucktastic Monday morning I could’ve lived without – and don’t get me started on the early morning athletic triumph of being a five-foot woman holding open a dumpster lid while flinging in a bag of trash like a personal chicken-bone-and-discus-throw competition.

It’s not all bad news, I suppose. At least from now on if I hit you it’s because I aimed.

The car next to mine honks. It’s been so long since I made friends in parking lots that I don’t notice until the third time and finally I turn around. It’s Mom, which I can tell from a distance because Mom’s little truck-like whatsis is a special electric blue that seems to have short-circuited the factory since nothing else on the road is that same exciting hue.

Mom: So many people beep at you you don’t look around anymore?
Tata: Yes, Mom, strangers honking are just friends I haven’t met. As we know, in close proximity to libraries, you are rendered invisible to my eye.

I work in the university library where Mom worked when I was a kid. One day more than ten years ago, I learned not to stare at my feet as I walk when I was leaving the building and found my path blocked by a pair of feet. I tried to go around but the feet stepped into my path again. I looked up and found myself about to curse out Mom.

Mom: I’ve been chasing you for minutes. Didn’t you see or hear me?
Tata: Since you’ve cut me off, at some point it may come in handy to know you can outrun me.

Right: so no racing Mom for the last life preserver. No wonder I spent my teen years grounded. We’re now exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide outside the public library.

Mom: Did you pick up the yogurt maker?
Tata: Not yet. The food bank’s drop off bin is right inside the door.
Mom: I’m returning a book. Look at my knitting!

She’s sitting in the truck-whatsis, explaining why she chose eyelash yarn and I’m asking through the open window about a casting-on gesture her mother taught me. We look like middle-aged drug dealers in in bright colors and sensible shoes conducting an unwise transaction in the municipal complex. I persuade her to lock up the eye-catching vehicle and go inside with me, where I slip a bag of canned goods into the bin. I remember I’m also on my way to her house to drop off a gift from Miss Sasha just as Mom gets a call. We both walk outside and I skip for the gift to my car and back. As if by magic, I can’t see her again.

I have been gone for about a whole minute and in that time, I’ve lost her. I ask a woman standing by the door if she’s seen the lady I was just talking to. She says the most interesing thing.

Woman: She went outside with you.
Tata: That’s what I thought but now I’ve lost her.

I go outside and look around again. I go back inside and look in a reading room, around the reference desk, past the circulation desk, and there’s no place to go but into the stacks. There she is, picking out a book. I hand her the box.

Tata: Turns out you’re actually invisible near libraries. The woman by the door thinks you’re still outside.
Mom: That’s just silly. Have you read Janet Evanovich’s books?
Tata: Yes, and while they sometimes make me laugh, the constant eating of disgusting, sugary foods makes me sick. I haven’t read the last two because I fear diabetic coma.
Mom: The books on tape are even better. This comedienne reads them and does all the voices. You should here her do Lula and the stalker sounds like, “Stephanie!”
Tata: I’d rather read it myself than get in my car and drive to…nowhere…and drive home after a denoument.
Mom: This author writes about the backwoods Pennsylvania Dolly Parton of detectives.
Tata: My stars! Possum and perm solution!
Mom: These books are very, very funny.
Tata: Since you’re visible again, I’m leaving now. See ya!

I drive to her house to pick up the yogurt maker and stand on the front lawn, shocked. She and Tom are rearranging stuff in their truck-things. I shouldn’t be surprised since this is my mother and we go way back but I’m flabbergasted. How does the person who’s always three hours late move faster than I do?

Mom calls Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul, “my grandkitty.” Mom’s grandkitty is quite neurotic about eating in front of his human friends – or as he likes to call us prey. If I walk into the kitchen while he’s nibbling kibble, he’ll gaze at me over his shoulder, past his ivy topiary and around the washing machine. If I don’t turn on my heel and leave, he runs past me, muttering. Though the cat spends every possible moment perched on me, he wants to eat alone – unless he wants company. There’s no telling what with the fickle pussycat!

On the fridge: a red Q. I have magnetic letters, which means the cat may secretly be spelling. Perhaps he’ll be more successful communicating in the mysterious language of magnetic, plastic cats. Watch your refrigerators for the feline news crawl.

I place the back of my hand to my forehead and wilt.

Tata: In the next phase of my life, I will live for others!
Siobhan: Listen, Mother Teresa, you’re much too selfish to live entirely for others. I can’t picture you without someone scooting along behind you, peeling you grapes. And – neither can I picture you not annoyed by that.
Tata: Yes, yes, but I want to place myself at the service of the universe and use my immense personal charm for Good.
Siobhan: We have no answers! We should go dancing.

We settled on Costco. Everyone should have at least one friend who tells the absolute truth about everything from the most trivial detail to the most important life decision, and for me, Siobhan is that friend. Once I turned up at a party wearing baby pink lipstick.

Siobhan: Christ on a cracker, what happened to your face?!
Tata: Nothing an industrial accident couldn’t fix.
Siobhan: Don’t ever do that again!
Tata: We’ll give the lipstick to Miss Sasha. Jeez, don’t get an aneurysm!

She had a point. If I’d picked it out, I guess. People have always given me bizarre gifts. One year, my housemates gave me a vibrator. Conveniently, they waited until my car died on a street in Highland Park and when I called home, they drove over to where my car was beached and gave me a wrapped box plus ribbon. I opened it. At the top of my lungs:

Tata: IT’S A VIBRATOR!

We supposed I was louder than the evening news – or for blocks around, I was the evening news. Anyway, days later, I met Siobhan at a bar.

Tata: Guess where I got this red vinyl skirt!
Siobhan: Off the body of a dead hooker?

The truth is important. So when Siobhan says I’m being overly dramatic and we should buy coffee filters in bulk, she picks me up and we go.

Tata: Brian Boucher was on MSNBC.
Siobhan: In handcuffs?
Tata: He’s a good boy. I was shocked that he wasn’t still five.
Siobhan: Which one was he?
Tata: The one his brother and I chased around with a Nerf bat.

Okay, we might’ve chased a couple of little kids around, but only because they thought we were so cool and they were laughing so hard. Kids!

Siobhan: Calm down or your head’s going to pop.
Tata: The administration has me irate blah blah blah blah blah blah…

Ten minutes later.

Tata: Blah blah blah blah blah –
Siobhan: Endora! Why not get on your broomstick and magic wand some justice?
Tata: What?
Siobhan: Start small. You’ll get more done.

Today, I joined the ACLU. By this I mean I gave them some of my vast pittance and wrote some action letters. I started researching local children’s charities but I’ve had contact with some of these organizations and wasn’t thrilled.

It’s a longterm project and I have doubts about myself but I have no intention of turning back.

One of my younger brothers via the extended family, Brian Boucher will be on MSNBC’s Abrams Report today at 4 and 6 p.m.

It’s a pretty strange story.

Lisa and I try not to talk about politics after unemployment, her particular form of crazy and gossip following the fall of the Towers collided.

Lisa: Everyone knows the firemen stole from those apartments. Everyone was calling the firemen “thieves in high boots.” Do you see them under arrest? No! Those people who died were the lucky ones! I’ll never find work again in my decimated industry!
Tata: (gasping for breath) Lisa, you will get another job if you have to flip burgers to do it. You will make a living. And those people will still be dead. I do not know where you heard these stories about the firemen but don’t give them even another thought. Moreover, they don’t really have anything to do with you.
Lisa: I can’t pay my rent! I don’t have health insurance! My doctors are puzzled!
Tata: I’ve got to go, um, floss the cat. Feel better! Buh-bye!

We shouldn’t talk on the phone. As I recall, the receiver was in six pieces ten minutes later. Lisa described herself as a Republican, and there’s nothing wrong with that, per se. Recently, she’s taken a turn at being Libertarian because she got another job and now she’s decided as a product of the public schools that she doesn’t want to pay for anyone else’s education.

As friends go, Lisa is a warm, generous person who has driven and would drive miles out of her way to help me. As long as we don’t discuss how unbelievably selfish she can be and entitled she acts, we’re good. Live and let live. My affection for her may be puzzling but the world is wide, the spectrum of possible opinions is broader than we know, and as Gandhi taught us: non-violence is the way to create change, even when we want to punch our friends and enemies in their noses.

Yesterday was a bad day to sit on the left side of the aisle. Mom called twice before lunchtime.

Mom: How do we stop this thing?
Tata: Can’t stop it. Alito’s going to be confirmed.
Mom: But he’s awful!
Tata: Yes, he’s awful.
Mom: What can I do?
Tata: Start saving now for any extended “rest cures” to Switzerland we might send your granddaughters on.
Mom: Is that supposed to be funny?
Tata: Only in a crying-on-the-outside kind of way.

Yesterday, I thanked the universe for the tumors that led to my hysterectomy. I do not fear unplanned pregnancy for myself anymore, and while I was thrilled at the time to be free of pain, pain and more pain, I am now thrilled that I will never be Samuel Alito’s bitch and George Bush’s disposable incubator. In fact, though other post-babies grownups’ results may vary, I recommend tubal ligation as a fine way to short-circuit discussion of what chemicals and whose controls, because Target could change store policy, and what, in your small town in the middle of nowhere, are you going to do?

It is no sacrifice to say I will not have more babies. I don’t want them. In the unlikely event I develop that baby fever so prevalent in our society, I can sign up at a hospital in town to hold AIDS babies for an hour here and there. I don’t have a problem. Even so, I am very, very concerned for the future of my daughter, my cousins and my nieces; I am concerned for every girl in this country who is about to have her first period because sex education in this country is scandalously, perilously bad. It’s bad enough that grown women can’t find health care and birth control options that make sense for them but that young girls will have to fight their modern, industrialized society to find basic information about their own bodies is so mind boggling I can hardly find words to express my anger. The overturning of Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut isn’t chess pieces moving across a board; it is life, death and terrible, grievous injury to girls, women and unwanted babies who find themselves at the losing end of cold, political games.

In the narrow light of morning, the feelings of helplessness and fear dissipate. If last night I felt I had no options and my United States was now an empire in freefall, today, I see the fight begins anew, as if from the beginning. Digby quotes Robert Kennedy:

Like it or not, we live in times of danger and uncertainty. But they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. All of us will ultimately be judged and as the years pass we will surely judge ourselves, on the effort we have contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that effort.

Yesterday, Alito was confirmed and our president gave a campaign speech, as required by the Constitution. This morning, it would be easy to give up. It would be easy to turn my back on society as a whole; to say only: I will protect girlchildren, gay children, children of color from this government with every fiber of my being.

Why, at this moment, does this feel like it is not enough?

Mitsuo does not find me funny. This development in my workplace vexes me to no end.

Tata: Nothing I do makes him laugh! What’s his problem?
John: This really bothers you, doesn’t it?
Tata: My new orthodontist is deeply insecure. He tightens my braces and I laugh. He says, “What do I do that’s so funny?”
John: Did you tell him you crush souls like his before breakfast?
Tata: He’s too young to toy with. Anyway, I explain for the tenth time laughing at other people is bad juju but one’s own antics are fair game. They love me at the orthodontist’s office.
John: Your teeth are ticklish? What’s too young?
Tata: Sure. After a second divorce a man’s known despair. That man worships me properly.
John: What about ex-wives? Don’t they worry you?
Tata: Where’s the threat?
John: They’re competition.
Tata: No. They’re simply other people. But that’s not very important. Something’s is wrong with Mitsuo!
John: What do you mean?
Tata: Testosterone weirdness is coming off him in waves. He thinks about chopping you into pieces and worse – he doesn’t find me funny!
John: I’ll…uh…hide anything sharp and quiz him with a rubber chicken. From a safe distance.

Every morning, I stumble into my office at the university, set up the coffee machine and do half an hour of stand up for my early morning co-workers. By the time I’ve said, “Thank you! Try the veal peccata!” the coffee’s ready. My office fills by 9:30. By 9:35, the coffee pot’s empty. Usually, someone gets a bright idea and makes another but sometimes, the slackers slack. I shoosh shoosh shoosh, Morticia Addams-like, into the middle of the office, pinkies up.

Tata: Whose turn is it to make Me coffee?
Gerda: Oh. My. God! Can I? Oh please?
Tata: You break My heart. Could I deny you this joy?
Chuan: I bought the coffee. Does that count?
Tata: Yes, dearest. I may openly weep!

Then the whole office has a fresh pot of coffee. My selfishness is really in everyone’s best interest. We all want that.

Tata: Mitsuo, did you make Me coffee?
Mitsuo: I made coffee, You can have some.
Tata: Dahhhhhhhhhhling, I know My happiness is most important –
Mitsuo: To you.
Tata: Tut tut! You’ll get the hang of making Me happy.

Perturbed, I consult Siobhan.

Tata: This may sound crazy but my co-worked is not, you know, thinking of My needs.
Siobhan: What? What’s the matter with him?
Tata: He’s like 23, right? She who is over 30 is irrelevant and over 40 is a burden. One day, Lupe asked him where he got his polo shirt and he said Brooks Brothers. I shouted at him, “Lie and say KMart!”
Siobhan: Sometimes people don’t like us. We’re not flavored to their taste.
Tata: I’m sure that’s true. But we’re talking about Me.

It’s possible Mitsuo may be immune to Me. It’s happened before…twice, I think. But that means it could happen again, in theory. I suppose. We’ll know for certain if the chicken goes tits-up.

Joel Spolsky:

Everybody loves Sweet Home, Alabama. It’s impossible to sing or hum (the refrain requires harmony), the melody is awkward, and the lyrics defend Alabama’s racist and segregationalist governor George Wallace, but who cares?

I care.

Go get him, Tigers. Coretta Scott King died this morning. I asked Joel if he’d like to beat the rush and spit on her grave now.

This morning, my horoscope advised against humor. Apparently, no matter what I do or say, it’s not funny enough on a day when the cosmos lines up glum. There’s no accounting for taste, however. Yesterday, I accidentally stepped twice on the tail of Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul. It was dark, and the little black cat was also, you know, dark. This morning before the sun came up, I went to pick up my weights and stepped on cat poop. Because it was right next to my weights, where I’d be sure to find it. In the dark.

He’s a genius. I am not. After my shower, I slathered my hide with Oil of Olay and some of it ended up in my eyes. I forgot to apply makeup so my co-workers are not at all walking past me, silent and wide-eyed. Not at all. Yesterday, Dom and I went shopping for fresh vegetables and took a stroll through Home Depot, thus all my swiss chard and spackle needs were met. I feel great. I look awful. I’m thinking the funny thoughts. This should be more amusing: walking by a window I saw what looked like smoking rising from the ground and a planter. After staring at this with the same comprehension dogs have of ceiling fans, I marched over to John’s desk.

Tata: I require science help. Come with me.

He doesn’t bother to object. I’ve already turned around anyway. He follows me to the window. He sees the fumes, much to my surprise. That’s the kind of thing I’d see and when I point it out to one of the other humans, that human usually says, “I do not see what you’re talking about. Perhaps you’re tetched.”

John: Mulch is decomposing.
Tata: In January? Why does it look like smoke?
John: Maybe it’s new mulch. Those are fumes. The ground is not on fire.
Tata: If I see something on TV resembling what I see here it is footage of where a forest fire has been.
John: And yet, this will bring us geraniums.

I hate geraniums. It’s like they substitute for real flowers. In a somewhat related story because in a way we’re still talking about smoking things and dead plants, when Paulie bought his giant, paintless pickup truck it came with a potted tree in the bed. It was green the first time I saw it.

The poor thing didn’t stand a chance.

Paulie developed a habit of tossing garbage and empties through the cab window and waiting for the crash. You’d think the truck would leave a trail like it’s snowing McDonald’s wrappers, but the truck harnesses the Power of Paulie to retain trash. It’s like solar but with tattoos and designer boxer shorts.

That’s one badass gear shift.

My favorite thing about the truck is that it’s archaeologically enhanced. Paulie hates pocket change so much he tosses it all over the seat. Paulie’s plan is rid the world of the terrible scourge of pocket change by waiting for the old truck to die, then taking the rusting hulk, change and all, to the crusher – I surmise.

Somewhere an enterprising kid with a crowbar is getting an idea.

It’s not easy being an indoor predator on a warm afternoon. Outside to the left, squirrels shinny up and down two large trees in the wink of an eye. Off to the right, little gray birds twitch in a holly tree. Just below the open window, two bare forsythia bushes swish in a breeze. Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul, sits on the radiator and follows the metallic reflections off rush hour traffic on Route 18 across the river.

Still a few crates to unpack – as soon as I find places to put their contents. The drapes were Edith’s. Some photographs lie about color or shine; the drapes are a deeper, lively, metallic green. A few months back, I opened two Rubbermaid tubs and found Edith’s drapes, which she gave me about twenty years ago. In this apartment, which seemed a little cold, the heavy drapes would keep out drafts so I took them to the drycleaner. I wouldn’t have given thirty year old drapes good odds of surviving chemical treatment. I dragged the tubs into the cleaners, necessitating a conference with a whole drycleaning family.

Dad: How old?
Tata: Thirty years. Maybe more.
Mom: How many panels?
Son: One…two…three…
Tata: This one’s a different size, I think.
Second Son: Can I go to Kyle’s?
Mom: Homework?
Second Son: Done.
Dad: Hold this panel.
Second Son: Dad!
Tata: Here are two more.

Dad regards each panel with the critical eye of an artist gauging new materials. He turns his gaze to me, gauging my mettle. He stares at the drapes. I dare not breathe. I know I’m worthy, but what if he doubts?

Dad: Hmm.
Tata: Hmm?
Dad: Hmm.
Tata: Hmm?
Dad: Hmm.
Tata: Hmm?
Dad: There is a risk.
Tata: I know.
Dad: Sometimes chemicals alter the color.
Tata: It’s better to know if they’re garbage now than to keep them another ten years and find out I kept them for no reason.
Dad: We’ll try.
Mom: Pick-up Saturday.
Son: Can I put these down now?

Drycleaning wasn’t cheap and I was on pins and needles until I saw five panels I could barely lift on hangers. Hanging them was no picnic, but every cent and ounce of effort was worth it. When I look at the crisp, fluid curtains, I feel as if my grandmother sent me a gift across time – a gift that thanks to a master of his craft keeps us warm and handsomely frames a preoccupied pussycat.