They Make Me Tired.

I didn't used to be tired. The vim and vigor of hating an entirely new species or subcategory of species always seemed to rejuvenate me.

But the hipsters.

Oh, the hipsters.

How tired they make me.

It doesn't help that I live in an area which is overrun by the vermin; nor yet does it help me that I can't ignore them when they are shrieking into their mobile phones to their friends about how they have a great life, they spend $X on $X and if *they* (whomever the hell they are) are planning to go to Provo to X, *they* had better plan on a million zombie people already being there.

I am getting old, people. Boundless rage takes more effort than it did. After hearing the above-referenced coversation I had to go home and almost take a nap.

So for future reference, my dear loathed subspecies of human, please try to do it when it is not later than 10:30 at night, because I will then be forced to walk hom listening to you behind me, also walking, and realizing that even if I killed you there are far too few places to hide the body.

Sometimes, I miss the days when I only knew about Rocky Horror and Sundance.

Creeping in our petty prints from day to day...

Wheresoever they burn books, they shall also, in the end, burn human beings. --Heinrich Heine
What if they don't necessarily BURN the books, but they, in perhaps a "fit of pique" (euphemism for Complete And Total Temper Tantrum of the First Order) they, say, are looking for a particular book on bookshelves that are crammed this way and that, doublestacked, loaded to the ceiling, and generally in disarray, and can't find said book?

And what if they, at that particular moment, leap to the next step of logic which works only in their own particular psyche--not that they should enlist someone else to help them, or perhaps engage in a catalogue of book locations--but rip every goddam book from the shelves and decide to start over, screaming like Rodan the whole time?

Three weeks later, the piles have been...lessened.

In yet another "fit of pique" (euphemism for Another Full Tilt Temper Tantrum, Wild Hair and Screeching Included), I (oh, fine, forget they, we all know it's me) pulled out a card table and started hauling books out. The sign for the card table read "Free Books. Seriously. Take One. Take Ten. Take Them All. I don't care. Just cart them away and feel good about the fact that you are helping me to not die under the rubble of 15,000 paperbacks."

At the end of the day, there were nine books left on the table.

I love this neighborhood.

We will not discuss how many books remain on the floor to be disposed...or shelved...but hey. I got rid of at least 100 of them! J. said that it had nothing to do with the kind of books or the genre, but the beating of the heart that is quickened by the word "FREE." Anyone can tell J. from me that just because I am the literary equivalent of an intellectual savant doesn't mean that people just picked things up because they were labeled free. I saw them out there. They perused. They looked. They selected things that might be interesting, or at least look like something they might want to give to someone as a Christmas present.

You see, you can always tell the books I have either (a) loaned out, or (b) bought used. If it is a book I bought new and read, it looks exactly like new. I owe this talent to my mother's original bookstore owner employer, Marie. She owned Bittercreek Books in Vernal, Utah. Very early on (fifth grade or so) she noticed that I was a voracious reader, and that there was no way my parents could keep up with my junkie-level reading habit. I had already devoured everything in the grade school library and the public library as well; so she decided to help out. She taught me how to read a book so that it remained looking like new. Don't open the book too wide (it breaks the spine), don't rumple pages, don't besmudge the cover. Once those basic rules had been established and vetted, her entire bookstore was my jungle gym...and I have been unable to ever break the habits in which she trained me.

Basically, it means that if I talk about a book with someone and promise them I will loan it to them, I will bring it to them and they will say "This looks new! I can't read this!" And I will reassure them it'll be okay, and that yes, I really have already read this specific copy of the book before. They will then suffer massive guilt over violating said pristine-looking book, even if it has been read three or four times by yours truly, and I will feel guilty for them feeling guilty when said book comes back with cover whacked, spine suffering scoliosis of bibliography, and general wear and tear.

I never know what people do with books that trashes them; the only real incidents I've had have involved me reading in the bathtub, and even then I usually already have a duplicate of said book in question. I have intimations, however. My mother takes the paperback, curls back the cover and pages she's read, and proceeds from there. I suffer heart palpitations even thinking about it.

Downside to getting to read everything you can get your hands on in a public bookstore; you really can't ever feel like a book is your own. It's just on loan and always needs to be kept treasured and carefully.

Meh. I got rid of a hundred books. 14,900 left...anyone care for a tour of the reorganized Librarinth?

P.S. No. I did not find the book for which I was looking. I also did not find two other books which it suddenly occured to me should be there. Dammit. So much for the checking books out of the private library.

Turn and Face the Strange Changes

Today is my last day of indolence, as tomorrow begins a new and hopefully long term job. It's been a while, so when I got word I immediately texted everyone I knew with the good news--my personal favorite response was from N., who texted back "Congratulations. Sorry you are being forced out of retirement."

Which made me laugh. In honor of his commiserations (though I am extremely glad to find work, trust me) I offer the following things I will miss about being forced out of retirement:

1. Comfy clothes. There is something tremendously satisfying in getting up each day and wearing exactly what you feel like wearing. I have not missed the waist-strangling swampass of panty hose, I can tell you, nor yet the moments where you think you are having a hot flash and perhaps The Change of Life has come upon you, only to remember you are wearing a wool suit and the HVAC has crapped out. Converse sneakers v. hammer-toe-inducing high heels and/or having to find socks that match your outfit? I can't even find socks that match each OTHER half the time. No contest.

2. Self indulgent reading. I suppose, were I a true retiree, I should have spent my time napping on the sofa with an afghan (also one of N.'s longstanding pursuits). But I am a lousy napper, unless I am in the presence of Rachel Who Rolls (because if she doesn't get put down for at least one nap a day she gets cranky. You can tell if she's had a nap because there is less slapping and pinching than otherwise. Notice that I said less, not the complete absence thereof.) So instead I have had the luxury of perusing my overburdened and drastically overstuffed bookshelves. This, of course, led to a particularly fine temper tantrum when I was looking for One Specific Book, couldn't find it, and started pulling everything off the shelves in order to properly organize them into sections. For future reference, this is a very, very bad idea. Thigh-deep piles of books through your bedroom, the "library," down the hall, and into the kitchen can only result in stubbed toes, knocking things over, and a level of cursing previously undreamt of in your Horatio-like philosophy when you can't figure out which section a particular book falls under. I was also going to do my traditional and limited to books and CDs anal retentive sorting (genre, then alphabetically by author/artist and then chronologically within the artist) but at this point I still haven't finished and have taken to shoving stuff back on the shelves. How lovely to end up where I started, except for all the calories I burned with my white hot rage.

3. Standing at the living room window judging passersby. This has long been one of my all-time favorite activities. It used to just be limited to Halloween (Rocky Horror attendees traipsing by) and during Sundance (fashionistas trudging by in their designer clothes and Ugg boots), but having been home during the day I now see how much I have been missing as far as people whom I can judge harshly and find wanting. The dogwalkers without baggies for their sordid animal leavings...the girls in their shorts so short that even the old Nair commercials would rethink the choice (really, ladies, if your shorts are miniscule enough to be showing your chicken salad to the world it becomes a question of hygiene and where have you been sitting so I can know not to sit there without bringing a towel)...the hippies with their hempen glamour...and the hipsters. Oh, you effing hipsters. There is a special place in hell for you and since I am probably going to be in hell anyway and my version of hell would be being anywhere with you, I plan to spend my time there making you unhappy to the best of my abilities--which are considerable, just ask any of my exes.

Side note: Never got around to wearing a wifebeater and sitting on plastic webbed lawn chairs holding a 40 and yelling at the Parade of Hipsters. Added to the list of things yet to be achieved.

The number one favorite Hated Passersby category, however, is the bikers in Special Outfits.

I hate them so, so very much. First of all, nobody should wear spandex in public. I do not want to see anyone prancing around in plum smugglers (or clam baskets, the female equivalent). I don't make you look at me wearing a nothing left to the imagination ensemble, what makes you think you can just trot out in public wearing your moisture-wicking Special Outfit that is tight enough to reveal what only your spouse and doctor should have to see? Furthermore, and this is a message to every one of them, YOU LOOK STUPID. Just plain stupid. You with your clip-in shoes and your ergonomically streamlined racing helmet, shaving your legs to achieve an aerodynamic advantage. YOU ARE NOT LANCE ARMSTRONG. Wearing a professionally designed team oriented fruity ensemble and pedaling like a bipedal upright shaven hamster on a wheel is not going to make you Lance Armstrong. You are not training for the Tour de France. You are riding around on a vastly overpriced bike on the streets of Salt Lake City. There is absolutely no reason for you to spend that kind of money on your hobby so that everyone can see you and know that you take it seriously--it is flatly impossible to take you seriously when I am having to look at your hindquarters as you hunch over with your Special Outfit Sunglasses and reveal the butt padding stitching on your Special Outfit because your bike seat is the size and apparent comfort level of sitting on a spatula.

And those of you who roam in packs (I believe, much in the vein of a murder of crows, a gaggle of geese, and a business of ferrets, the proper terminology is a douchebag of bikers)...I have so much to say that I can't say it at all. No doubt you go home and discuss that weird, frizzy-haired clearly special needs girl hammering on her living room window and shrieking unintelligible things as you ride past every day.

There are more things I will miss, I am sure, but to be honest I am looking forward to getting back into the workaday world. I think much of the enforced solitude has contributed significantly to me getting even more odd. But then I remember the comment one friend made as we were discussing someone we both knew. "I don't think he's getting weirder," she said. "I think he's just got more time to be weird."

We'll stick with that for now.

I Cave If I Must, But This Was Not! The! Plan!

So rethinking the three-to-five year plan. Considerably. Originally three to five years being here before fleeing to more temperate climes seemed reasonable...but, um, no. Not gonna happen. So making a new game plan. That's what I love about life; as the video I posted dictates, in five years' time who KNOWS where any of us will be or what we are doing? In a way I really kind of love that, the whole expanding feeling that anything in the universe could be possible. John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans." So make those other plans, and then let the chips fall where they may.

It's not entirely a bad place to be, finding hope in a future enrobed in a mystery enwrapped in an enigma, as they say :)

And yeah. Still going to make it to Comicon one of these years, dammit.

Noah and the Whale - 5 Years Time - Official

The Hell.

Just when you figure out life everything changes. Unlike the bears from whom we refuse to acknowledge the little orange sticker.

Yeah. I am that much of a geek.

Boys who say things like "when we go to comicon..." oh hell. Right there. If they are pale and tragic there is no hope whatsoever. Damn those comicon geeks.

What is a friend? A single soul which dwells in two bodies. (Or maybe more than two. I don't know.)

The best quote of the evening:
R is on the phone with R Who Rolls (hereinafter RWR). I cannot hear what RWR is saying...I just know that R says "You canNOT call an infant of under one an ahole!"

Friends matter. Some friends drift away, some excuse themselves from this mortal coil, and some decide to set fire to bridges and quit the play, because by gar that will show everyone. But by and large, the true friends in life are the ones with whom time doesn't matter. I have very few friends to start with, but my most cherished are the ones with whom I can pick up the telephone after three years and start a conversation and have it be as though we had talked to one another yesterday. It really does happen that way. And I love it.

So yes. I have spent the past few days absolutely reveling in the magic of friendship. Viva la shut-in detectives and those who will tolerate learning the Sparky Polastry dance from start to finish!