fiction (an excercise mostly...)

"i'm leaving!"

he rolled over, the scattered sheets crumpling under and around him, and fixed her with a bleary-eyed stare.

"did you hear me? i'm leaving."

"ok." he rolled back over and smashed his face back into the pillow.

he could feel heatwaves of anger and indecision wafting across his back.

"and i'm taking this!" accompanied by the sound of something or other being lifted off the dresser. her dresser.

he didn't even bother rolling back over to see what she was "taking" with her.

an exasperated breath, followed by: "don't you even wanna know what it is?"

he sighed, rolled back over. took a moment to focus on the object she held in her hand. some meaningless knick knack.

"issin tha' yers?"

thunderheads accumulated in her eyes, "i bought this for you on our one year anniversary!"

"oh." he waited. she stood transfixed.

"well," he said, lamely, "you bought it, makes it yours i guess."

she cast her eyes feverishly around the room.

he rolled back over.

she hissed an exasperated noise.

he tried to go back to sleep against the ticking of the clock and the burning holes her eyes tattooed into his back.

after a few more moments of feigning sleep, he rolled back over.

"thought you were leaving?"

for a moment he thought she was going to cry; then the thunderheads broke in her features. "i am!"

"'k."

he rolled back over.

the clocked ticked. the back of his skull lit afire with her stare.

"aren't you going to say anything?"

"ha'n't plann' on i'."

"what?"

he sighed. rolled back over. "hadn't planned on it."

still she stood.

he rolled back over.

tick tock tick tock.

"oh!" he said abruptly, rolling back over, the sheets falling away in his haste.

"what?" she turned from the door where she had been lingering reluctantly.

"take the cat and the plant with you, will ya?"

lemme know what you think. what you think each character wants. if i hit my mark or not.

darth sardonic

all the way to timbuktu

alright. explanations. or not. what do i care?

the new mexico thing? we own a house in new mexico. we would prefer to not own a house in new mexico, but there you have it.

a few months ago, we put it up "for sale or lease" with the idea that we would see which happened first.

this lady rented it for a year. then proceeded to yammer on and on about how she wanted to buy it when her lease was up. it was for fucking sale when you signed the lease!! then she wanted us to drop money to make improvements. our realtor suggested waiting until she had actually put down "good faith" money towards the buy. we agreed. then she was late with every subsequent rent payment. which didn't affect us that much, but wreaked bloody hell with the property management company.

then on wednesday, we get an email from the property management company: she not only paid late, but the check bounced. on top of that, we have had some interested buyers who have been unable to view the house because she is being completely uncooperative with the realtor. did we want to start the eviction process?

of fucking course.

well, her son came forward, covered her bad check, and paid may's rent. i guess we will hold off and see how things go. but she is treading on thin ice, thin fucking ice i'm telling you, and better be beyond cordial to my realtor and potential buyers, or sod her sorry fucking ass!

friday seemed like it was going to be an unassuming day, with little or nothing really going on. i had sort of hoped to spend an extended session on the magnum crappus. on my way to work out, i saw there were a couple garage sales not far from me, so after my work out, and shower, i walked over to them.

and my day went from ho hum to fireworks and cotton candy and clowns in about a minute.

i went to one garage sale (crap) and then ambled over to the other on the same cul-de-sac, and there, shining before me, with a chorus of angels chanting heavenly odes behind it, was a drumset.

i, of course, do not get my hopes up. "how much you hoping to get for the drumset?" i ask as casually as possible, and with a look on my face that i already expect it is going to be more than i have readily available.

"oh man, that is my neighbor's and he just left. say, $20?"

blink blink. i fight the urge to look confused, ram my finger into my ear and corkscrew it back and forth in some exaggerated slapstick version of cleaning my aural canal and say, "wa-huh?!?"

"$20?" i say.

"20 bucks."

"i don't have 20 on me (i had 14, but there was no way i was going to try and talk this down. for my overseas readers, twenty dollars is about 12.85 euros, and about 10.16 in british pounds, (and 146.62 dirhams for lady macleod, heh heh) to say, "would you take 14?" would not just be looking in the mouth, but jamming myself right down the fucking throat of the proverbial gift horse!), but if you give me a sec, i will run to the atm."

"sure."

off i go. now, not only am i thinking i am going to get the cash, but this will also give him time to get on the horn with his neighbor so his neighbor can say, "what the fuck?!? are you outta your goddamn mind?"

but when i get back, he's still sticking to the 20 bucks. he mentions that it isn't all there. which i already knew. but the bulk of it is, and it is even a pretty decent kit (the hardware and shells that i had were running upwards of 600 dollars online when i got home). so i blew the entire day setting it up, fine-tuning it, figuring out what i still needed to start playing it, looking online for parts and additions, dusting it off, hugging it, rubbing myself against it, calling everyone and having them come over to check it out, and waiting for the irate neighbor to come storm my garage and demand his drumset back, or at least more money.

i figure if i am thrifty and bide my time for the stuff i need to appear in used and inexpensive condition, i can put the whole thing together for about 220 dollars (including my initial $20 expenditure) and have a kit that is worth at least triple that.

i stepped on a gecko this morning. i didn't mean to. he kinda darted under my foot as i was putting it down, and i tried valiantly to prevent myself from squishing him (damn near fell down!) but alas, to no avail. i didn't smash him completely flat, but just enough, apparently, to kill him, and make his tiny body stick to the carpet. you know what else is icky? geckos' tails detach. and when they do, it is like when you remove the head from a chicken. the tail goes apeshit. now, imagine i just smashed a gecko, and am already feeling a little queasy and guilty, then try to remove it from the rug by the tail, which then snaps off and commences to whipping around like a crazed snake on meth. yeah. exactly. closest i have ever come to leaping up onto a chair and dancing around whilst shrieking, i can assure you.

and to the non-existants who have commented on older posts, i have only just recently discovered that you had, but today i commented on your comments. and ms anonymous, welcome to the fold of non-existants, i will probably add your blog to the pals list soon.

i am, kinda, still slogging away at the magnum crappus. it is slow going. but i am.

and no, i don't feel like i have to have a clever ending to every post.

darth sardonic

6-word memoirs

zirelda tagged me to do this post. the rules are something like this: six-word memoirs, a pic if you like, mention the tagger, pick five taggees.

and now, presenting:

my six-word memoirs

wait long enough, it will come.

people to tag: i seem to more or less tag the same people every time, so i am gonna try and tag people i have either not tagged, or people i haven't tagged in some time. that being the case, belle, jenny, dj kirby, queen vixen, and elsie button, consider yourselves tagged.

in other news, and well beyond my six-word limit, i tried on the clothes that i had intended to wear to today's job interview last night. now, i might be a punk, and for the most part, i tend to dress in t-shirts and jeans or shorts, workwear i guess you would say. but i do like to have on hand, a selection of dressier duds for the occasions when i might get to put on the clover a bit, and leave the house more nattily dressed, so to speak. i have absolutely no problem whatsoever with being the guy who "cleans up well." i do, usually, like to do it with a bit of a punk flair, so you wouldn't be likely to find your average boring gray flannel suit or whatever within the confines of my closet.

so when i heard i had an interview, i wasn't too concerned. i had cleaned out my closet quite a bit before moving (many of my thrifter suits had gotten too large for me, which is good, i guess), but i still had plenty of the proper attire.

or so i thought. to quote an old friend, dennis dancing, "you know what happened to thought? thought thought he crapped his pants and didn't." to which i would always reply, "what? what is that sposed to mean?" and he would say back, "exactly."

my wife deemed the pants i had intended to wear to the interview to be too slim-fit to wear in the presence of my potential future employers. (actually, what she said was i should wear other pants unless i intended to "wow" them.)

and none of the others were really appropriate.

now i had to dash off, last minute, to buy a pair of suitable slacks. i hate, and i mean fucking absolutely despise finding out things aren't going to work at the last minute. (so you would think i would have done my outfit-check some time prior, right? alas, i am a dim and daft motherfucker, which does, on occasion, lead to great posts.) the nearest store is tiny, and would have a small selection. if i had checked my intended threads sooner, we were out shopping earlier that day, and i would have had a plethera, a myriad, a veritable cornucopia of choices, and no doubt would've found something that would've suited both the need for diplomacy and my punk sensibilities at the same time.

as it was, i purchased a pair of plain front (pleated slacks make me look oddly proportioned, as if i had been created from cast-off parts from other people), charcoal gray haggar slacks. add to that a gray shirt (with just a hint of metallic look to it) and a black jacket, and i look goddamn-near corporate. my wife suggested i have fun with the tie.

and, o my beloved non-existant readers, i have many thrift-store ties, that are only suitable to wear when i intend to "have fun with the tie." i selected my "three stooges" tie (it doesn't have the three stooges on it, though i did for a very long time have one that did--i call it my three stooges tie because it is a 30's or 40's vintage tie, much like you see the three stooges wearing anytime they have one on in the old episodes. it is red, with yellow zeppelins on it, and a mite wide at the bottom. to wear it properly, i have to tie the knot with barely an inch of the other end hanging free, because the tie was intended to be worn at about the sternum level (these were the days when men wore some ridiculously high-rise pants!)) and the ensemble is complete.

so, here's to nailing the interview, getting the job, and telling you funny stories about the people with whom i work, right here, as always.

darth sardonic