Crenellated Flotsam

About fifteen years ago I received some excellent advice about how to live my life. It’s not so much an answer as a question I should ask, but invariably forget. I’m usually too quick in reacting to remember to ask myself “What would a normal person do in this situation?”

It’s no surprise that I’m not a picket fence, salt of the earth, square, at least not to me. The thing is, no matter how I feel about those people, simply put they’re right, and always have been. Those are the people who are happiest, who succeed in achieving their goals, and who instinctively know how to act in situations that I fumble. Part of it, sure, is having a strong sense of self-worth, but another part is not having all the flawed baggage I carry.

If I act the way a “normal” person would, the results are invariably better than what first comes to my mind. I don’t mind that, I accept it, but it’s rare that I remember to rein in my reactions and to question my motives.

I’m in a situation now where every fiber (fibre?) of my being is telling to respond in a certain way, but I’m equally certain that no normal person would do what I want to. No, I’m never sure how someone normal would react, but I can ask or sometimes think it through or out. Usually it requires a course of action diametrically opposed to my gut instinct.

I don’t know how to act, but I think the best thing to do is nothing at all. Just accept reality and not try to change or manipulate it.

Today was much longer than any day this year, by about an hour. I made full use of that extra hour by doing even more relaxing than normal.

For Halloween I left the front yard unmowed and unraked. It looks frightening. I sampled bits of the candies the kids will be getting, and I can see they have no reason to complain. Everyone loves Butterfingers, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and Milky Ways. I sampled some candy corn, too, but the kids won’t be getting that.

I need to spend some more time with my dog, who’s forgotten all about me, and with my upcoming novel, which I’ve neglected to the point of negligence. I can do that tomorrow, when I should be busy at UCLA.

I’ve also managed to make up some lemonade, so it’s not like I’ve wasted the day.

I’m all set for Thanksgiving as long as I’m only called on to hand out candy and respond appropriately to the cute little kids who show up at my doorstep. I’m very good at acting frightened and even better at glowering at teenagers in T-shirts.

In spite of the many lessons I’ve received by faithfully reading CandyBlog every day, I’m not giving out any candies that are excellent or particularly tasty. As a child (and, even, as an adult) I never savored candies and my most-common reaction after taking a bite of something I liked was to follow that bite with a second and third. For me the object was to get as much candy in my mouth and system as quickly as possible.

So I apologize to candy lovers everywhere. Small treats, like candy corn, are for gobbling.

Also, I turned my back on my non-corporate nature. The kids who visit won’t get anything they’re not already familiar with, though I don’t know if it’s something they like. They’ll be getting Tootsie Rolls, Three Musketeers, Milky Ways, that kind of thing. I expect they’ll be no more aware of waxy chocolate than I’ve ever been, will never have heard the term enrobing, and will have absolutely no interest in health issues or cavaties. Those important issues flatten candy enjoyment like a cast iron piano.

When I was going out many of our neighbors made up cute little bags of treats. They used to sell those tiny envelopes, all decorated with witches and things, and people could fill them with caramels, candy corn, and all sorts of bulk treats. I looked for those, but I guess they’re far to fraught with potential danger for any parent to accept them any longer. And, forget about giving out candy or caramel apples!

Which reminds me…not only will I be faced with a bunch of kids I don’t know wearing Sponge Bob costumes, I’ll have to remember to wave at the adults who stand on the sidewalk and try to look away.

It’s not often I’m surprised, only ten or twenty times a day, and it may be more, but I don’t keept count.

Some surprises, such as the mouse running near my feet and behind the power switch, make me catch my breath and stop my heart, but only for an instant. After that one, I recovered nicely and moved a trap from where it was only collecting dust to one where it may more profitably collect vermin.

Other surprises are more pleasant, though not on the order of a woman indicating delight at my presence nor welcoming my awkward advances. That may come in time, but its lack must still be categorized as a disappointment. No, most of my pleasant surprises now are mundane ones, delighting only me.

A frequent source of pleasurable surprises is food. I’m a fussy eater, as much by habit as anything reasonable, but I do experiment. A distinct advantage I have, over more liberal eaters, is that about half the time I find myself mistaken. I try something new with a prejudicial and unwarranted dislike, but find out it’s pretty damn good. People approaching a new dish with a neutral attitude may find it as enjoyable as I do, but they get there from a higher starting point.

Some foods I refuse to eat just on principal. For example, I’ve never in my life eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Not once. As a youngster something about peanut butter bugged me, and I thought it appropriate only for celery, and that only when salt wasn’t handy. I loved jelly sandwiches (grape, predominately), but just couldn’t imagine a PB&J sandwich.

So, I’ve never had one. By the time I got old enough to think it would be good, I realized I was in a nearly unique position by never having had one. That rare status isn’t something to discard without a good reason, so I’ve stuck by it ever since.

Is it a life of deprivation? Sure, but it’s also something I can bring up at cocktail parties. And, with any luck, that may lead me again to the more delightful surprise of unwrapping a warm and delightful woman.

My life might be imitating art again, only I’m not so sure. For one thing, the art that may be being copied is my next “novel,” which hasn’t even been written yet, and the liklihood of its being “art” is less than that of me winning the lottery. Still, I may be acting like one of my (future) characters.

Either that, or I’m incredibly brave or smart.

With winter coming on it’s likely to get colder (that’s not the smart part). What that means is that the old gas heater will be called into action again and will rattle and complain its way through another few months, this time burning up fuel that’s going to be quite a bit pricier than last year.

This cannot be good for me.

As much as I enjoy hot weather, I’m comfortable when it’s cold. I love slipping into cold sheets and warming them up, I love being in a cocoon of warmth in an otherwise cold room, and I like the feel of crisp breezes across my naked face. What I don’t like so much is being colder than I like.

I’ve shunned little electrical heaters all my life because they smell funny. Also, it just seems wasteful to pay for perfectly good electricity just to create resist it to enjoy the side-benefit of the heat let off. This year, however, electricity will probably be cheaper than natural gas, so I’m planning on buying a few little heaters to supplement the labors of the laboring beast in the scary closet.

And here’s what I did: I bought one heater and, without even glancing at the sixteen pages of detailed and multi-lingual instructions, plugged it in to see how it worked! Such hubris!

It turns out only seven of the pages are in English, but I amazed myself by figuring out the complex knobs. One had “off, fan” and two power settings (1300 or 1500W) and the other twisted from low to high.

It took some doing, sure, but I was able to get the little bastard to emit heat. I am just that good.

I’m sure there’s some important information in all those pages of instructions, so if you don’t hear back from me, I’ve died.

It’s official. By my reckoning the holiday season has begun, and ultra-violet may be the new orange.

A couple houses around mine have gone that extra step in the Halloween decorating business. Not content with static displays of ghosts, witches, headstones, and spider webs, they’re stringing up lights. Just like Christmas, only not so pretty.

The colors used for the lights are predominately orange, with tiny orange jack-o-lanterns serving as accents every five feet or so (call it 1.5 meters). Very festive. It reminds me of accident sites set up by the police.

But, something new’s been added: strings of purple lights. Dark purple, bordering on ultra-violet, which may be an intentional allusion to ultra-violence, a term made popular in Clockwork Orange. Violence — Bodies — Graves — Halloween, I can make the connection.

The other indication that the holidays are on us is underwear sales. I think that’s the first thing to go when pounds are added. People are much more willing to squeeze and cram themselves into snug outerwear, but comfort cannot be compromised. “I may still be able to wear the same clothes people saw me in during the summer to reinforce the ‘I haven’t gained weight idea,’ but I’ll be damned if I’m going to wedge myself into ill-fitting underwear,” they say.

Also, not to be ignored is that self-described “not nice” people are buying me lunch. Currying favors or getting the holiday spirit? You decide.

Years ago when Saturday Night Live was funny they had a skit about a guy with a computer. It was an early one, maybe before the IBM PC, and the character was quite the nerd. In the skit he’d been laboring away on his computer, creating a wonderful program. When it was done it displayed a cheesy line drawing of a bowler and announced, in big letters, “You have six hats.”

Then, below the picture, it listed his six hats.

That cracked me up as it showed just exactly how useless computers can be and may have been the genesis of my belief that just because you can do something, that doesn’t make it a good idea.

Computers, as we’ve come to know them are very good at record keeping. By that I mean filing. They’re also quick at arithmetic, and can add very quickly. Oh, and less we forget, subtract, too, but that’s about it.

I’m reminded of how quickly computers can make errors today when I glanced at my stats and saw that today, for the first time ever, I received over 1,000 hits on this blog.

I counter-predict.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, also years ago the LA Times had a columnist Jack Smith, who was funny, witty, poignant, and popular. Each year he’d list some of the more famous (but no more accurate) psychics and relay their predictions for the coming year. It was the typical crap, who would be getting married, giant meteors hitting the earth, floods, deaths, and for nearly every one Jack would proclaim “I counter-predict.”

He created that phrase as a shorthand of predicting the opposite, and it’s stuck with me for years. Whenever Jack totalled up the tally at the end of the year, it should be no surprise that he was far more successful in his counter-predictions than any psychic was with their predictions, and I now use the term to reflect my disbelief.

The only way Crenellated Flotsam could draw 1,000 visitors is if I were giving away $20 bills. I suspect a new horde of robots have been unleashed, but I may add a PayPal ™ link and see if I can con everyone into sending me a buck.

We recently had some rain here, thereby cementing our “semi-arrid” status. Nothing anyone anywhere else in the US would notice, but as I’ve remarked, it brings interesting things.

In this case, mice. And not the cute ones wearing glasses and carrying canes, either. Dumb ones, or, maybe they’re just arrogant. At the time I’m writing this, I’m multi-tasking, which is all the rage now. Not only am I composing an insightful, timely blog entry, I’m hunting.

Perhaps I need a pith helmet.

This mouse — or more likely, mice — disturbs me, but not in the standing on chairs and screaming like a teenager way. It’s the audacity of the damn thing. I had a car stolen once and I’ll never forget how violated I felt. Someone else was going through, or able to go through, my personal stuff, see the pens I’d collected, the receipts I’d stuffed in the glove box, the cans and bottles wedged under the seat. That disturbed me as much as the loss of the car, and I feel a lot the same way with this mouse.

Dammit. This is *my* house, not his. I don’t like him running around in it. He should be in a field of flowers, joining hands with the other mice and singing ring around the rosey. If he were in a forest eating nuts, I’d be a happy camper.

But he’s inside. Walking all over my shelves, looking under the couch, resting on top of the couch, and walking right down the middle of the floor. I see him, make a noise, and he scurries off, but now I’ve more in store.

Traps. Victor traps. The springy ones, baited with actual cheese. When I hear that *snap* I expect I’ll jump, but he’ll never know what hits him. I hope he learned about them in mouse school and will see them and go pester the neighbors.

They have better food, anyway.

No, I don’t subscribe to those ideas that if you dream of a fish that means you’ll be traveling, or that if you see a circus clown you’ll be getting money. I think that’s all hooey.

But I’m well-practiced in dreaming or, more honestly, in having nightmares, and I’ve stumbled on a way of remembering them better. Some people have told me it’s good to do that, and that, combined with what I learned on a TV show, has given me a habit.

The TV program explained a few things, not the least of which is that before we go into REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and start a dream, our brain issues a couple commands. One releases a paralyzing agent that prevents us from acting out our dreams and the other shuts off our near-term memory.

I know the first is true because my dog can’t run when he dreams. His legs move, but it’s more a twitch than anything frutiful. The short-term memory thing, I think, is a defense against confusing dreams with reality, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, it’s the reason so few of us can remember our dreams. We aren’t supposed to. In that sense, it works, but it can be overcome. What I’ve learned to do is wake up with my mind running and right off the bat try to recall parts of the dream. Then, I focus on those and, usually, more and more comes back. I have to do this quite a bit if I want to remember the dream very well, to force it into long-term memory, but I think it works.

What’s deadly is waking up and having to go to the bathroom or make coffee. By the time those activities are done, the dream has evaporated. You have to be quick to catch a dream, and not many people will tell you that.

Oh, unsolicited advice is worth as much as free advice, but has the added benefit of being uncalled for.

It wasn’t widely commented on, but I’ve been mostly offline for the past eighteen hours. Surprisingly, the Internet still exists, and this bodes well for those of you who will survive my eventual death.

Yes, I had concerns.

We had some rain, elsewhere referred to as a storm, a rainstorm, or even the grating rain event, and in the midst of the lightning, thunder, and falling water I lost my Internet connection. These things happen, so I wasn’t all that surprised. Annoyed, yes; isolated, certainly; apalled, nope.

LZIL: file not found:
/hermes/bosweb/web039/b390/ipw.halfdoze/public_html/blog/wp-content/badlights.jpg

The longer the outage extended, the more frustrated I was. I use DSL to connect, and coming from the “wall” is a typical RJ11 jack into which I plug the Pacbell-supplied “octopus.” It makes the one jack two, one for the modem and another, with a filter, for the telephone line. Since the phone wasn’t working, either, I figured it wasn’t the modem and expected SBC to soon correct the problem. These things happen when it rains after a period of no rain, and even during periods solar activity.

My patience, however, has its limits, and when I wasn’t able to get online this morning my brow furrowed (not by itself. I helped). After a bit, the modem returned to life, but it had been momentarily functional all along. Never longer than two or three minutes, but it did work occasionally. Better, the telephone gave me a dial tone, which I used to call SBC.

I spoke to some woman with a delightful accent who was no help at all. Okay, I lied to her about the number and flavor of my computers (it never helps to mention Linux), but followed her instructions. She couldn’t find anything wrong, but put in a trouble ticket and dispatched someone. She couldn’t see a problem, but suggested that the problem may be with “inside wiring.”

I gulped, only, not really.

The one thing I know about interior wiring is that it’s the customer’s (read: my) responsibility. The phone co will charge, and charge exhorbitantly, to fix that kind of thing. Unknown to them, however, is that I did all the interior wiring myself (well, it was a part of my job for years). They may expect a nicely mounted wall jack, like everyone else has, and may shake their heads at the naked wire coming through a hole in the floor. I would be, too, only I drilled the hole sometime in the late sixties when my water bed broke and have found it to be a much handier place to run the wire than up the wall.

Later today, in recounting this story and my decision not to rewire the house today, I got a snide, uncharitable comment about preventive maintenance which I choose to ignore. I may have already run multiple lines under the house and, if not, it won’t be a big deal. Ideally I’d like to install conduit down there and run the cable through that, but in the meantime I can just pull the existing line out with a new one attached and, voila!, re-terminate both ends. Now that I’m reasonably certain the problem lays between the telco demark and my computer, I know what to do.

When I said it was the rain I may have been optimistic. I mentioned that to the telco, too, but failed to say anything about the mice I saw saving themselves from our meager deluge. They’re the ones I think did it.