In which I smell the wine and cheap perfume

A storefront lit by neon beer signs lets you know you�ve arrived at Skid Row Pete�s, a little neighborhood joint where a group of five guys and two girls are doing shots and trading songs on the jukebox with a couple of girls at the other side of the horseshoe-shaped bar. Outside, it�s drizzling freezing rain on the colored Christmas bells stuck on the light poles, and over by the library, slush accumulates on the nose of the life-sized fiberglass camel that�s part of the manger scene. It�s 11:00 p.m. in the tiny Wisconsin town of Inchworm End.

The Keelhauler and I walked into the bar and took a seat at the end, away from the table where a young Asian kid with neck tattoos and a tight shirt reading �SHADY� shot pool with a spiky-haired redheaded friend. The bartender, a guy about 30, wearing a flashing red Budweiser button on his Leinenkugel Beer t-shirt, approached and nodded to the Keelhauler. �Ain�t seen you in a while,� he said. It�s the first time we�ve been in this bar, but the two know each other by virtue of having grown up in town. Kip, the bartender, asked what�s new, and informed us that there�s nothing new going on in Inchworm. He looked around at the room and shrugged. �Monday night,� he said. �Normally, my whole family comes in here Mondays, but not tonight.� That was all right, though, he told us, because when he arrived at work, he was �still hurting� from the night before. I noticed that his eyes seem slightly unfocused.

�That�s all right,� he said, �When I got here, I had a couple martinis� that took the edge off.� The Keelhauler and I both nodded in fake agreement, and Kip continued, �Yeah� couple martinis, four, five shots of cone�� I silently decided that �cone� must be �cognac.� Kip kept nodding, surveying the bar. �Then, if that don�t do the trick, couple shmeerny diets�� He trailed off again, nodding. �I�m sorry, what was that last thing?� I asked. He translated. �Shmeerny diets. Smirnoff vodka and Diet Coke.� Right. Shmeerny diets.

He asked us what we�d have. The Keelhauler, looking at Kip�s shirt, said, �Well, seeing as you�re advertising, got any Leinenkugel�s?� Kip missed the point about his shirt, but noted that Leinies were "on special," at a dollar a can, so we each ordered one. The group across the bar got louder, and stared in our direction.

Kip was summoned to the other side of the bar, and when he walked away, the Keelhauler told me that Kip�s dad had been the gym teacher at the high school��Phy Ed,� he called it, rhyming �phy� with �pie,� so I had to ask him to repeat it. We called it �gym,� or �phys ed,� where �phys� is pronounced like �fizz.� It�s one example of the many odd and subtle differences proving that while things may look the same, I�m in foreign territory. (Further examples: we brought pineapple guavas, avocados, and a bottle of good California sauvignon blanc as token gifts to his family. The pineapple guavas were deemed �different,� but �better than they look.� The avocados were picked up and regarded with suspicion. The wine was sampled and labeled �kerosene.� I drank the rest of it, just to make the cheese curds they offered me palatable.)

Despite the gallons of mayonnaise on the bland, limp food of the region, I love visiting Wisconsin. The Keelhauler�s immediate family all still live in the tiny village adjacent to Inchworm, a place called Dark Pere, that features a bar, a meat storage facility, and 250 residents. The Keelhauler�s family are polite and hospitable, and because we don�t visit often, they�re always happy to see us. Really, they�re happy to see the Keelhauler, who, by living 1,500 miles away, has broken the two-mile boundary the other brothers observe. When we visit, the women all sigh and lament the cold and stop just short of actually threatening to move to California. Everyone there knows they�re not going anywhere.

Kip the bartender isn�t going anywhere either�he told us as much. �I always thought I�d get out,� he said, almost wistfully, after hearing the Keelhauler�s abridged version of life at sea. Then he caught himself, and said, �Why would I leave? My dad�s here, got the whole family here. We all go ice fishing every year, then there�s deer hunting, turkey hunting, four-wheeling� this bar�� Except for the bar, those activities all represent reasons the Keelhauler got out as fast as he could, but he and I nod in feigned agreement. The opening notes of �Don't Stop Believing� came from the jukebox, and a girl at our end of the bar shouted, �I played this one for you, Shannon baby!� to a girl at the extreme opposite end of the bar, who whooped and yelled back, �Oh my God, you are awesome!� They all ordered more shots and the girls sang along with Steve Perry. The biggest member of the group, an enormous guy in a stocking cap, circled around the bar, and as he passed us on his way to the men�s room, nodded in recognition to the Keelhauler. �Friend of my brother�s, from high school,� he explained, and I nodded, finishing my Leinenkugel�s, watching the sleet come down outside in the lamplight. It was a Monday night in Inchworm End.

Oklahoma, OK!

I think I'm in love!

It must be love. I have a warm, furry feeling of joy that comes along with a new relationship, like the one I started just one minute ago, with my brand-new boyfriend, David. David! Isn't that the sweetest name ever? Yes, it is. Some day, I'll be writing this journal as "Mrs. David ..." I should have asked his last name, but I hung up before I thought of it.

It happened like this: I was looking online for a replacement for the Keelhauler's King Ropes hat, which is on its last legs, and unrecognizable as the forest green cap I embroidered his name inside for his birthday last year. That hat was itself a replacement for the brown one he got for fifty cents at a thrift store in Tucson, and subsequently lost on an airplane.

Anyway. I found a source for the hats at "Cusack Feed" in Oklahoma City, OK. The web site was a little rusty around the edges, and didn't actually allow me to order anything, so I called instead. When I explained what I wanted to the nice man who answered the phone, he interrupted me (extremely politely) and said, "Can I put you on with David? He's the one that does the King Rope hats." And so it began.

David had a gentle Western accent and a manner to match, and kindly described all the hats to me. "Well, we're out of the all-foam hats and the trucker hats, but I have the baseball." I asked for the one with the rope on the brim, and he apologized and said the company no longer made them. "Is the baseball hat the same hat, but without the rope?" I asked, and the appreciative way he answered, "That's exactly right!" made me feel like I had correctly answered a Final Jeopardy question with a $50,000 bet. He had a voice like Chris Isaak, or Jim White--smooth and unassuming, like Jack Daniels brand barbecue sauce on a piece of Wonder Bread. I am a total sucker for any style of hickly accent, for reasons I don't understand. Maybe it's because I associate country accents with plain, simple folk, and unconsciously assume I'll be able to beat them at Scrabble.

I decided on the hunter green and navy baseball cap, and soaked in David's appreciation of my choice--I swear, I have been treated with lesser service picking out jewelry at Cartier. "Those are extremely popular here," he assured me, which I'm sure will make the Keelhauler very happy, when he wears it to come track me down at my new home in Oklahoma City. (Right, because that is what would happen if I left the Keelhauler for the Cusack Feed guy--he would come looking for me, thereby wasting valuable moments of strip-club-visiting time.)

Anyway, when I gave David my name and credit card number, he expressed his appreciation for my order, as he did when I stated my mailing address and my feeling that a ten-day delivery time would be acceptable. It is a rare day when ordering a baseball cap makes me feel quite so valuable, and I intend to bask in the sunshine of David's appreciation for just as long as I can.

Going once, going twice...

OK, so yesterday apparently was not the Day I Win That TMCP Camera, which is only a slight drag, as I already have several cameras, and very little photographic talent. I am heavily reliant on the Polaroid product line, as it satisfies my requirement for instant gratification, and the resulting fair-quality photos allow me to assign blame to the medium rather than assuming it myself. Additionally, you can find a Polaroid camera at a thrift store for about three dollars--deal!--so it's possible to accumulate a number of them, say six or seven, at very little expense. (I like to share these little tips for taking the suckiness out of frugality, my friends. Poverty can become bearable with the accumulation of a large quantity of generally worthless items! You're welcome.)

I need some way to organize my Polaroid photos, of which I have approximately 2300. Around that. They're everywhere. I have four on my desk right now, of the following subjects:

  1. Me, my friend Steve, and a newborn calf

  2. A giant black cat I babysat once, named Gizzy

  3. Carson, looking bemused that I still haven't given up the Polaroid schtick

  4. The Keelhauler standing next to a bronze statue of a little kid holding a toy sailboat, in Monterey.

See? Without my Polaroid, I could never have recorded these important moments in my life!

There are about twenty more in the drawer where I keep my great, great Seismic Staplr. It was here when I got the job. It's an ordinary tan and brown stapler, but someone long ago attached a red Dymo label reading SEISMIC STAPLR to the top. I can't imagine who did it. No one here has any sense of whimsy, so it must have been someone who got canned, possibly for defacing office supplies.

Example: yesterday, Melvin e-mailed me an announcement about an auction, accompanied by a picture of one of the items up for sale: a stapler autographed in gold ink by Paris Hilton. She writes like a little kid, all loopy and round. (Drunk.)

And, lest you think Melvin sent me the announcement out of whimsy, let me clarify that he added a sentence decrying the "flagrant display of consumerism and celebrity worship when people are STARVING in the world!!!" See? No whimsy.

I was not impressed by this stapler, but I pretended that Melvin had been. I told him that if he really wanted a Paris Hilton stapler, he should save his money, and I'd make him one. The mere hint that I might deface an Office Supply made him nervous, and he backed out of the conversation, laughing nervously and avoiding my gaze. I followed him back to his desk, grabbed a purple marker and wrote "PARIS HILTON 2004" and a heart on the top of his stapler.

I could tell from his reaction that I had Crossed the Line, but he knows he has no authority over me, so all he did was laugh nervously and totally distance himself from the situation. I don't know if he was upset about the defacing, or the forgery, but Woo-hoo! I am walking the razor's edge!

So... he disowned the stapler, which now sits next to the fax machine. It's tan and brown, and I think there is at least half a "stick" of staples in there.

The bidding starts at $30, so you know, get on it!

The soundtrack of life, vol. 3

From my window, I can hear the radios of cars that pass by on the street below. A car just drove by, and I heard the opening guitar riff from "Help You Ann" by The Lyres.

When I looked out the window to see who had the Lyres on, I realized that I wasn't hearing "Help You Ann," but some kind of mechanical problem, like maybe a wheel bearing going out.

Still, it was an improvement over the usual pounding bass line or Jethro Tull flute solo.



Star of the day. . .
posted @ 3:04 p.m. on 12.08.04 before | after

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She lay awake all night,

zzzzzzzzzzz......