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2006-06-04 @ 9:06 p.m.
disconnect


Yesterday afternoon, about 4, I was snoring and probably drooling resting on the couch, since its been such a tempestuous* week. (*code word for car breaking, nearly crashing and then making me write large checks week). It had been raining all day, and I had just finished watching a DVD called the �Aristocrats� which is a documentary about a famous show business joke that every comedian knows. It�s like four lines long, but can be embellished to last as long as two hours.

So I was laying there and suddenly my lights started going on and off and then I started hearing this loud electrical noise. It sounded like the crackling Vvvvvoooop!!noise you heard in �War of the Worlds� when the martians were vaporizing Tom Cruise�s ego neighborhood, house by house. I immediately jumped up off the couch and ran to the window. I couldn�t really see anything, And then I turned and Guardcat looked something like this...



I did start to freak out a little, because the lights were going on and off, on and off, like 10-12 times, so I ran to my computer and unplugged it. I wondered if it was something in my apartment building fritzing out, like the Freak in the Creek was up in some secret attic room making his own Bride of Frankenstein or something. (�She�s alive!�) And then, of course, I was also afraid that the building might be on fire and I was still in my nightgown. So as in all �my house might be on fire, what do I do?�, I quickly had to discern what was more important...

  • Matching my clothes and looking trendy when exiting the building....

  • Saving Guardcat and running out in my nightgown....

  • Or scooping up all my paintings and pushing cats and people out of the way, until my art was safe.

    Cue: �Jeopardy� final round music.

    I mean, looking good is always important, especially if there�s going to be a news crew ready to film you after you�ve been rescued by a cute fire man, but dang, I�ve really been working hard on my paintings lately, but geeze, Guardcat really likes me even when I�m in a bad mood and even when I forget to feed her her �ner-ners�.

    Well, needless to say, the building wasn�t on fire, so I quickly got dressed....(in a trendy pair of black slacks and a sleek Banana Republic gray sweater) and ran out onto the front walk. One of the other Twin Peak kookballs came out too. She was yelling something to me, but the creek was running so loud, I had to walk closer to see what she was saying....

    �....do you know what all the popping noise is? Did your power go out?�

    Well, yeah! So I suggested that we investigate and it seemed just perfect that she was dressed like Angela Lansbury in �Murder, She Wrote� with her jaunty little rain hat. As soon as we got out to the street, I could immediately see a bunch of firemen and fire trucks at the end of our street. And we could still hear some popping. We then walked about a block and ran into some of our yuppie neighbors standing out in some light rain. Oh my, probably interrupting the ordering of some Yanni DVDs online. Anyways, evidently, a transformer had blown off the power line at the end of my street and caught a tree on fire and now the power lines were jumping around, arcing and sending out blue sparks. Soon our boys in blue, obviously called away from a lengthy coffee break over at Starbucks, came zooming over. We don�t have much crime to deal other than an occasional fashion faux pas at one of the little local cafes, so this was big news. And I really had to suppress my urge to start singing the theme from �Cops�...�bad boys, bad boy, watcha gonna do when they come for you.�

    So after chatting briefly with the Thurston Howell the III�s and discussing irises, I walked back to Twin Peaks with Angela Lansbury. She was all excited because she was going to plant some plants along the old factory our apartment borders. I told her I wanted to plant some sunflower seeds across the creek but I wasn�t sure how the Creek Guy would react. She said, �Oh, you mean Conrad?� I thought I heard someone call him Andrew. Anyways, I didn�t tarnish his name in any way, because he might go over to her house for (cough)cookies or something.

    I then went back to my darkened apartment and started looking for candles. Having a power outage is one of the few times being a hippie comes in handy. Hippies always have a large stash of candles, since thats what we do. Light candles. So I gathered them up, because even though it was still daylight out, it was dark in my apartment. I then lit the candles and had to put them someplace where Guardcat wouldn�t think they were a dish of catfood and catch her tail on fire, so they all ended up on my fireplace mantle, except for a couple in the bathroom.

    Ever notice how stupid you are when the power is out? Like everytime I went in the bathroom I tried to turn the light switch on. And everytime I opened the refrigerator I was like, �Hey, what�s wrong with the...oh, no power.� Of course not, dumbshit, you�re standing in a pitch black kitchen, what was your first clue? And then how many times did I longingly look over at my computer?

    "Oh computer, how do I love thee, let me count the ways... Like I wonder what�s happening on MySpace? And I wonder if I got any more comments on my diary? And I wonder if my local stalker from where I work has read my diary yet?� (yes, I know who you are too!)

    So instead of sitting around wallowing in computer angst, which probably wasn�t a good idea, I finally decided to grab one of the canvases that Charlemagne has purloined for me up at the college and go out on my porch and paint. Now the canvas I grabbed had large blue stripes painted on it. Did I bother to paint over them first? Nope. I just went right in and started painting a face with yellow paint. A yellow face? Why not! It was chilly and lightly raining just off the porch and all the paints were runny, but it made it kind of interesting, with drips and drabs, sliding down the canvas. A couple of times it was annoying though, like when the yellow paint dripped into the eyeball. But what was interesting, was no matter how much paint I loaded onto the canvas, you could still see the 3-D ridges of the stripes and even some of the blue through the paint, but I actually liked the effect. It was really interesting and made for an interesting undercoat.



    So, who is it? My newest fake boyfriend I guess. An intensive Jewish guy named Avrem, who is either a militant or a Dot.com owner with a Passat. I haven�t really decided yet. Or he could be both. I figure if I can�t get a date in real life, at least I can paint one, right? And there is actually a lot more to the painting. A lot more hair. This guy has like a major �fro. Lots of curls to run my hand through. Yum. Ok, well that�s my fantasy anyways.

    It finally got too dark to work on the porch and I came in for �dinner�. Dinner isn�t really dinner unless you cook, I always say, so piece-mealing a bowl of cereal, some yogurt, a piece of cheese and a couple of graham crackers didn�t really seem like a real meal.

    And then came the real boredom. Total darkness, except for my candles. No music. No tv. No phone. No computer. Arghhhh! Who am I Laura Fucking Ingalls??? I laid on the couch staring up at the candles. They looked nice with their dancing flames. Guardcat jumped up and stared directly into my face and went �Mrwarrr?� Like why the hell aren�t you on the computer ignoring me like you usually do?� So we had a little special mommy/kitty time. It involved tongues, but that�s all I�m saying.

    And then within minutes I was once again saying...My god this is boring. No electricity. How did people ever live like this? I mean other than sittin' on some porch with some moonshine, a banjo and playing �Oh, Susanna�?

    It finally dawned on me that I had a tape recorder with batteries. Eureka! Sound! So I grabbed a cassette in the dark and put it in and it turned out to be a Louis Armstrong tape, which sounded fabulous, especially after almost 4 hours of only birds tweeting and my cat going �Mrwarrr?�

    Once the tape finished I then got the brilliant idea to make a cassette tape for my friend �G� in Manhattan. I�m sure he�d love to hear my voice on a cassette tape. We used to tape tapes back and forth when he went to NYU. It would be fun, so I started talking into the microphone. Just boring stuff like....The injustices of getting old. About my new car. About my artwork. All the boring stuff I make you guys listen to everyday and then I let him listen to the roar of the creek outside. And then just when I was coming back into my apartment, at almost 10 p.m. my lights came on. Hallelujah! I was so excited! Yay! Civilization! Television! COMPUTERS!!!!!!

    I then I did this almost magical Spiderman leap from the front door to my computer, where I was signed on within a minute. And oh what nirvana to hear those special words: �You�ve got mail!� I almost didn�t even mind that I had like 37 penis enlargement ads, because at least somebody out of cyberspace was thinking of me, you know, while I was mometarily disconnected from the world of internet.


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