I used real tennis terms here–some I’d never heard of before. I’m thinking I’ll do more, not tennis related but other subjects and maybe try and submit some somewhere…

Look, Cindy, I feel really stifled, I need to travel around town a little–meet some other chicks with pigtails.

Jonas wants to see other girls–this deep malaise is swarming over me. Not so keen on hopscotch today.

He’s an asshole–I hate that whole Dutch thing he has going on. Just ditch him.

I feel really good being alone now. It was messy and the mewling was pathetic but it was so worth it.

So, here’s a St. Paddy’s day story challenge up at Fictionaut. It had to include a few choice words such as “Paddy”, “Joyce” , “Ulysses”, “Clover”, “Padding” etc.. Of course you needn’t to have included all the words just to your choosing (said with my terrible Irish accent).

You can read it at Fictionaut or here:

The only reason why Paddy talked to me at all was because I quoted from Ulysses. The sea, the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea! I shouted as I shucked oysters for the dinner rush. We worked in the kitchen at The Lobster Claw; I was prep and he was a pearl diver; always hovering about the steel dishwasher, face steaming red and a halo of grime over his head. We’d chop and stir and scrub and spray and drink nips throughout the night—Paddy was another drunk from Dublin, just like the rest of us. Course, I was just a local drunk and he was import.

He bought a Monte Carlo off the fry cook—a sweet ride but it stank of wet dog and bait and after work, we’d drive down to the beach, get piss drunk and fall into the sea like drunken seagulls diving for food. Next morning, we’d check the oyster beds or go quahogging near the shore, dragging rusty rakes through the gray water. The thing about Joyce, he’d say, standing still in the shallow water, is there’s a lot of padding, a ton of beauty but none of the bullshit. Paddy thought all Americans were illiterate and he was right for the most part but I did manage to put down the first chapter of Ulysses the winter before, forced inside by the frozen sea.

On weekends, we’d drive down the main strip in Hyannis and harass the local girls. These girls with their checkered tights and fishermen for fathers—they could spout off random rock songs, singing high, squeaky soulless melodies into the night as Paddy and I poured Guinness down their throats. I ended up with Rita—a pudgy, punk rocker who smoked cloves and worked on the Island Queen and Paddy got Genna because Paddy always got the posh ones—it’s my education, lad, he’d say, I’m a patron of the arts. Genna was from a gated community in a nearby village where the boys held Lacrosse sticks and the girls wore just a hint of lipstick and she was off to Smith that Fall and Paddy always tried to impress her with his lyrical tongue. Oh Paddy, she’d coo, say the Pope put petrol in his paddy wagon. He’d humor her and put on his heaviest lilt and she’d kiss him deliriously.

Then we’d be down at the beach again real late, stripping off our clothes to play statue; running around naked and drunk and someone would yell stop and you’d freeze. Paddy loved this game, except when the cops came and we’d hide under the wall, naked and shivering as they shined their flashlights round the beach. We’d pass out, then wake up in the salty morning air; the girls sleeping nearby on dewy towels. Paddy would stretch out, black hair all awry, the sun hitting his rosy nose and he’d sing to the horizon, …by the sea, by the wonderful sea, you and me.., and he’d dive straight into the calm water, swim so far out I’d lose sight of him.

Still kicking myself for selling the pink eyed rabbit. He was pretty scary. And the strange, large white cat is for sale as well, although I will most likely remove the listing from the shop and keep her (her name is Kathy and her story is here: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=33081433)

Here are a few I’ve found recently:

Can we start a rebirth of Victorian Utopian societies like they had in the late 1800s? Full of elegant, malaria-ridden ex-pats who love seances and use the latest exercise devices made out of that new glorious product, “rubber”!

Maybe in the Everglades, where we could hold meetings at the “Rock Bottom Bar”. There’s an old Naugahyde stool with your name on it, a sign that reads, “Some call it “Tourist Season” so why can’t we shoot them?” and a pretty swell guy who sings Hank Williams covers.

A few recent photos of the area.

It made me think of the books I read as a child. If I didn’t read those books the world would be a funny, sunny place filled with angels, butterflies and pretty photographs of carousel animals. Thank god for Edward Lear, whom I discovered as a kid in my grandfather’s study–the same grandfather who corrected my wretched pronunciation of the French poet, Rimbaud, after I rambled on how much I loved him. “Rambo, my dear,” he said and took another sip from his gimlet.

queerifloria-babyoides

So, I’d sit on his old Chesterfield sofa, glance curiously up at the human skull on the shelf and rest my feet on the dog skins on the floor then read Lear for an hour or two. I especially loved his Latin botanical series: “Nonsense Botany” where he drew nonsense superfluous plants and gave them fake Latin names such as “queerifloria-babyoides”, the above illustration.

More of his work can be seen here: http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/nb.html

A year or two later, I discovered Edward Gorey who of course was influenced by Lear. My heart beat a thousand times when I first saw a bearded, gray haired fellow reading, “The Black Flag of Anarchy” (I kid you not!) while working as a teenager at an ice cream joint on Cape Cod. There he was sitting at the counter, wearing a long, woolly fur and simple white tennis shoes. I knew it had to be Gorey, aside from the coat, he had on several rings (he had a thing for large, strange brass rings in the shape of odd looking animals) and a lovely, little golden earring in his right lobe.

I nervously glanced at him but said nothing, I was too shy. I prayed he would return the next day so I could bring in my copy of “Amphigorey” for him to sign and sure enough he did. I approached him and shyly asked him to sign my book. He said, of course or something to that effect and promptly signed it. And that was that.

After that, I merely poured him coffee day after day and never engaged him–simply too shy. I lost that copy of Amphigorey and although I received other things signed by him later, I’m always a little sad I don’t have that one anymore.

Here’s to Gorey and Lear!

The Urine Pearls

Terry found the yellow tinted pearls at the bottom of a shopping bags in his father’s closet. “What are these dad?” he asked his father, who sat at the kitchen table shoving oatmeal into his sausage mouth.

“Gawd, you found those, I thought I threw them away years ago.”

“Well, whose were they?”

“Oh, some lady I met on the train years before when I used to commute. Gawd, you’d met such terrible characters on those trains then, you’d think they’d purposively let in the crazies, rounded them up, ‘Roll yourself in, you crazies, these lifeless suits need some excitement’.” Then he abruptly shoved another spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth.

“There are still crazies on the train, Dad. And the pearls?”

“Well, she handed me these pearls, just stuck them squarely in my palm like a hot towel those stewardesses practically force around your throat. And they were warm too and urine colored. That’s what got me, you ever see urine colored pearls?”

“No, dad, I’ve never seen urine colored pearls.”

“Anyway, so I brought them home and gave ‘em to your mother, told her they were the latest rage, Mongolian super pearls. Christ, I’d seen an advertisement on the train, “Take a voyage to exotic Mongolia, whatever and see I had just fucked Gertie, remember her?Nnice fanny that Gertie had and the pearls they saved out marriage for a few years, I’ll tell you that.”

“Jesus Dad, just Jesus.” I walked out of the room and was about to throw them out but got this bad feeling in the pit of my gut, like I’d been sucker punched or something and thought what the hell. I brought them to the jewelry store later on a lurk. Turned out they were worth a small fortune.

“Mongolian pearls, quite rare. Dipped in sacred yak urine by the monks. Gawd, haven’t seen a set of these this close–just beautiful. You’re a very lucky man.”

Robert

Robert was a man she met in line at the all night cafeteria next to her apartment. She liked to go there at night and pretend it was 1948 and the Beats had just started storming about town, nodding their dirty little heads at each other across the Formica tables and spouting on about disgorged intellects and ecstatic copulation. But the only types left in the all night cafeterias these days were 50 year old janitors and exhausted cocktail waitresses.

She was debating if she get the creamed corn and deviled ham delite or the black bean and sausage medley and Roger bumped her arm. She looked down for Robert was short, very short, perhaps 4 feet tall but so handsome, with grassy, green eyes and avalanche of smoky, gray curls “Don’t get the sausage, they make it on the premises and I’ve never seen meat delivered here, not ever,” he whispered and then laughed loudly–his laugh was squeaky and coarse like an rusty old wheelchair and she became nervous but whispered back, “Okay, guess that means I’ll get the salmon mousse  with the whipped garlic turnips.” And they both laughed heartily as of course the cafeteria would never serve such dishes.

Soon they met there every Tuesday night when he got off of his job as a “Repo” man which was funny because she never really believed “Repo” men truly existed but he apparently was one and he did drive a new car to meet her every Tuesday. She pictured him trying to repossess cars, looking sternly up his victims and demanding the return of the car in his tiny voice.

One day Robert didn’t show up and the next Tuesday he didn’t show up again but she continued to sit in their same booth, the one with “Prudence” painted in pale, green nail polish on the leather. But she sat and waited and ate corned cream and then looked down at the seat and saw a little rectangular plate. On closer inspection she discovered it was a key ring. A little, metal keyring with an etched boy in a bowtie and the name Robert written below except the “t”was beginning to wear. My god, it looked just like her Robert! He often stood that way while he waited for the cashier to hand him his money. And his hair was almost identical. the large swoop in front like a wedge of gelato. She sighed a long and resigned sigh and placed the key ring on the counter before her and got another tray of creamed corn. They talked until the sun came rolling in through the grease caked windows.

The Locket Ring

This locket ring once belonged to Crystal Fontaine who received it from her boyfriend, Luke. He presented the ring to her in the aftermath of an enormous snowstorm that has caused the two of them to be trapped together for two days as he just happened to drop by for  a moment to end their relationship but by then the snow had really started in and Crystal’s mother refused to let him drive.

So, they sulked on the couch for two days and stared at the colonial wall paper and then snuck into the closet just once to fuck as Crystal’s mother watched, “Ex-wives Club” in the other room.

But the obligatory fuck didn’t work and they sat back down on the worn, yellow sofa and ate cherry Popsicles because the electricity had gone out and Crystal’s mother forced them to eat everything in the fridge before it rotted and melted. He handed her the locket ring when the plows finally came to her street. “There’s no picture in it,” she said and stared blankly at the empty heart. “Yeah, whatever,” he answered back and put on his puffy blue down coat and sprung out in the clean snow like beach ball on a beautiful stretch of white open sand.

The Seahorse Brooch

The brooch belonged to Avis Parsons. Avis bought it at Sauna Kingdom, a large sulphurous store in the heart of the Gorgon Hot Springs in Montana. It struck her fancy right away possibly because she was fucking freezing in her little Spring jacket that she had packed thinking it would be a bit warmer but it hadn’t and now she was stuck in this rolly, taupe vicinity eating wretched soups with other pasty-faced tourists who waddled in the hot springs like plucked birds being thrown into boiling water for stew.

The two seahorses reminded her of her trip to Florida with her then husband, Glen. Glen, the purveyor of all things fantastical like buttery popovers and gilded whistles. But Glen of course was gone now, six feet below the earth in a purple “Wiccan” coffin, go figure, because her daughter insisted on it and she of course was completely out of her mind and agreed, nodding her little chin up and down like worn and splintery Christmas nutcracker.

With the dock, couch and bicycle stand photos, I’ve used this washed out effect, to give a sort of 1970s overexposed look.

When I was ten, I befriended this little boy who lived down the road. He was a nervous sort of kid–awkward and  little sickly. He invited me over one day and we walked down to his house–an ugly ranch style which didn’t bode too well in the neighborhood next to the older, more rustic, cottagy style homes.

Everything in the house was white: the walls, the carpet, (a shag carpet–after all his was still 1979) , the sectional sofa, the coffee table, the phone, probably even the ashtrays. Style-wise it was slightly constraining to say in the least and I felt instantly uncomfortable. We had to take our shoes off and he was so scared as if his mother would tie him up and lock him the basement if he spilled anything on that carpet. I remember no one was home and anyway, even if his mother was there, she most likely would have rushed after us with a (white) dustpan. She had probably watched the milk bar scene in Clockwork Orange far too many times. Compared to my mother’s house–an amalgamation of shabby crap, (she’d have no problem pairing a Rodin sculpture with say, a Maine souvenir ashtray) old art books, dust, listless stacks of paper, an endless succession of cats and flea market finds on every shelf–his house seemed like a medical morgue.

So the point being, is there nothing wrong with a little color and a tad of bad taste. The trick is to already have the good taste and then be able to mash the good with the bad. My mother’s friend Paul always complained avidly about my mother. He’d come to a dinner party at her house wearing a beautiful, well-made shirt. Someone would compliment him of course and Paul would say, thank you, thank you, it’s Brooks Brothers. My mother would then scream out in the background, “Goodwill $1.50! “Paul would turn bright red, “Maura!” he’d moan and roll his eyes. But then again he owned tons of stylish shirts that my mother had bought for him randomly at thrift shops. His entire wardrobe probably cost under $40.

Anyway, on to the photos…I really wonder why the minimal look has lasted so long in recent years–it’s like a pale Swedish bathhouse without the naked people, nothing to look at and you leave feeling sort of tired and drained as if you’re in need of immediate sunshine.

So enough blabbing and here some photos with comments:

Darling, I’m so glad you installed the barometer in the den. Now, the girls and I can discuss air pressure during tea.

“I strive for the perfect assemblage of ugly “country kitchen” decor in muted taupes and tans; it’s my life goal, said Gilda as she showed Mary around the dining room.

I just knew cornstalks dyed blue and an over-sized teapot in the fireplace would complete the room!

All this room really needed was a large blue bathmat.

I’m so glad Dick put up Jimmy’s gun collection. The one aimed at his head is an especially nice piece.

If Jan Brady had a psychiatrist, this would be his office/lounge.

Words fail me.

Or do they? How can one combine white birch paneling, a giant butterfly, a questionable lamp–are those maids frolicking or a ménage à trois? And that strange Lilly assemble in the bay window–curtains becoming foliage?

My perfect world of chintz and romance until Aunt Edie threw in the watermelon pillow.

We still always wonder why Danny grew up to be schizophrenic.

When ties start to take over the bedroom.

Dr. Stanley’s waiting room was my inspiration when I decorated Sally’s room.

I should have never let the candy stripper decorate our den.

Take a faux Victorian stove, rest it on some bathroom tile and surround with ivy; never a good idea.

Let’s drag in our most uncomfortable outdoor furniture to dine on. What fun!

Sure, we have separate beds but Jim thought a mirror would spice things up.

Of course, some rooms kind of work:

The pattern on this sofa is amazing and look, a matching ottoman! And even the plants outside match the furniture!

You can’t go wrong with these lamps.Even if they only seem to illuminate fruit.

Perhaps the best sofa in the world. O,K., it looks a little uncomfortable but this is forgivable as you have your attached end tables. It’s a perfect self-contained world of grace and goodness. And an idyllic mountain scene rests behind you for distraction while the Jones bore you to death talking about their vacation.

So, I started playing around with them and taking photos and thought it would be better to do collages with no manipulation whatsoever, just using the kit to make random pictures with some kind of meaning. Will most likely put captions with them.

Yes, some are very politically incorrect but that’s the point, the irony of it all, blah, blah, etc; Don Draper shows off his new mistress, Alulanerk, the Inuit (of course in 1961, it would be Eskimo). Or Betty makes casserole while others in the world toil. Others just came out with a lot of silly pseudo symbolism.

Don Draper shows off his new mistress, Aulanerk.

Don talks to Sally about the birds and the bees.

Betty sets the table as the world toils away.

Sly the fox is content.

In the fields with Bobby and the oxen.

Anyway, making into cards or maybe T-shirts. Who knows.