Less Money, Fewer Problems

IT WAS ALL a dream. I used to read Mother Earth magazine. Now Paulie Walnuts and Miss Cleb are milkin cream. He hates when the little goat sleeps over, though. He can't stand immature forms of any species; he calls them 'larval rats' or LRs for short.

When the Bird Lady and her Tall Jew came for dinner, they noticed he had put on some weight. After they left I found him in the closet, weeping softly, and I was like, Come on. I thought we were done with that closet shit a long time ago. He won't come out. He's unfit to be seen, &tc. I yank him out by a hind leg and squeeze him into his rubber punishment suit in the hopes we can celebrate his paunch. Instead he takes one look in the mirror and puts a paw gun to his temple.

We talk. He says he really wants to pursue a healthy lifestyle and I try to encourage him. He spends the next forty-eight hours on nothing but legumes and cucumber water proving he means it. Then he crashes, gorges, collapses in a pile of self-loathing.

I prescribe us a night at Easy. We tuck our jeans into our heel boots and he brushes his teeth with a bottle of Jack and we go. He can't but be happy when it's midnight and his fur is drenched in sweat and "Five On It" is playing. I know he won't actually dial any of the numbers he gets. He just craves some talismanic reassurance of his fuckability. For such a handsome cat, he can be most insecure.

The next day he's like, Fuck the club. He'd rather count a million bucks. I explain to him yet again why we couldn't score that inheritance. He says integrity is fine, but a Gucci collar is infinitely better. Also he's through with dieting. Has decided to be a Jabba the Hutt-style rap Dionysus. I ask him how that worked out for Biggie and Pun. He says he's still not a player but I'm still a hater.

I'm sterilizing milk jars and he asks how's Mr. Snuffleupagus. (He means the TS.) I tell him to fuck off because my imaginary friends could kick his virtual friends asses. He swishes off to IM his remote homie Seymour, and soon is cracking up over what they've dubbed 'humanure': shit that only humans think is funny. (Seymour's humom taught him portmanteaus and this is the thanks she gets.)

He's got this diva persona, but he's actually sensitive. He knows when my Pain is bad. He thinks it was imprudent of me to strike out on my own when I can't, like, carry shit. But he doesn't say it out loud. If he said it out loud I could point out his rhetorical error, the implication I should have stayed with Crim so the latter could carry shit. I assure him that the bonus-bling hooptie is on the way and, as soon as it starts and I remember how to drive stick, I'm up for ease of groceries and he's up for a puke-erific ride culminating in a rabies shot. He can't wait.

And actually, he does understand. He's like, Freedom isn't free. We get to reminiscing on his Log Cabin Republican days.

In literal terms, we are making cheese. (Chevre cleanse, twenty days, key to health.) Also practicing our thug love duets. He sucks at memorizing lyrics, so he always gets to be Ashanti. If we're feeling weak we do pushups to "Drop the World." Naturally he gets to be Wayne and I have to be Em. After that he's fired up and wants to stay out all night 'hunting,' which in his case should rightfully be called 'hunching in a vigilant pose by the coop.' It's seemingly meek Carmela who actually earns her barn cat keep.

He says he's finally figured out why I like rap so much. Because it's pretty words and it's about struggle. He says even when it's about money-cars-clothes-hoes it's really about struggle. I tell him that's pretty insightful. For a cat. He gives me the middle claw.

He likes seeing me at my writing desk, but he can't quite be supportive. He feels obliged to step on the keyboard and point out that writing is not going to provide the bottle-popping lifestyle he's looking for. I tell him I know that but I have to do it anyway. He understands. Write it or die trying. I ask if he'd care for some goat's milk squirted straight from the udder.

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I Wish I Had a ForTwo

O I wish I had a ForTwo

For I do so love to drive

(There it is, I said it

Virtue princess: tan my hide!)

Bee-beep! Here comes Clebbie!

I wish I had a ForTwo

For I do so love things small

O the tiny parking spaces

Into which we'd crawl!

I should ride a bike or walk or take a crappy bus

But I just want to get there, soon, without the sweat and fuss

There's nothing quite so lovely as cruisin in my ride

Radio blasting, windows down, gas and break and glide

In my ForTwo I'm no sinner

Why, it barely is a car!

In my ForTwo I'm an ecosaint

A renegade, a star!

I want my ForTwo hybrid

And cheap somehow, and blue

But the bit that really matters

Is that it be for two

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Best Month Ever

August 2008. What I would have said if I'd been here:

Resigned to network TV--no longer Think I Can Dance--but Josh wins!--next up: Olympic fever--okay, China, you can join the superpower club, just stop it; 2008 drummers scaring me--damn your handsome ass, Kobe! how does he look good in that sailor-silly outfit?--Morgan Freeman Visa ads make me cry--finished dead last...but finished--why do I feel sorry for Michael Phelps? 10,000 calories a day has to be fun, right?--Sports: I don't get it--Alicia Sacramone is pretty!--(Is Nastia a bitch? You can tell me, Alicia.)--we all saw Mary Lou Retton cheering for chipper chipmunk Shawn--just sayin--do I hear crowing?--I got soul, but I'm not a soldier--who will take gold in the Creepy Overbearing Olympic Dad event? Butch May or Valeri Liukin?--told you John Edwards is a weasel; it had to happen: Law of Couples says the guy can never look better--official: I hate James Joyce--two-peach-a-day habit--if "American Boy" and "Calabria" take turns on the radio forever, fine with me--Wuh-wuh wuya rackamaron cuh-nuh-yuh-titon cutiton-yeah (like learning Hebrew songs, memorize sounds and understand nothing)--fever breaks: once Usain bolts, what else can there be?--fuck, I raised a rooster --"Winona" out-->two new chickies: welcome Betsy, bonjour Marianne!--first night in the coop, so you know it's Bay Area soul lullabyes; what scared pullet wouldn't be soothed by Keisha Cole and Goapele as performed by Cleb?--I used to think that I wasn't fine enough/And I used to think that I wasn't cheep-cheep wild enough cheeeep!--Ximena, don't peck! shhh But I won't waste my time tryina figure out/Why you're playin games what's this all about cheep-cheep-cheep (this disgusts Crim)--hey, wouldn't it be cute to death if they had literal pussycats (kittens!) all in a chorus line singing When I grow up/I want to be famous--the convention is coming! cable is coming! unshackle me, Comcast!--it's Biden?! it's Biden!! more on this soon--well whaddya know, cable news still blows--you bloviate, I watch--no longer fine with me if "American Boy" and "Calabria" take turns on the radio--how much adulatory compensation for the presidency do the Clintons need?--welcome back, Barack--just a break, like I promised, not a breakup--overheard: I'm not gonna say WTF anymore. I'm just gonna say "Sarah Palin"--hurricane+convention=abominable PR-->God hates Republicans--THE END

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Emmer

I'm finally reading a Jane Austen book I should have read a long time ago, being a fan of Austen, and considering that this masterpiece literally has my name on it. (That last is an easy riddle, or what Austen would call a "charade".) If you need more hinting, Alicia Silverstone once my namesake played in a nineties film spinoff.

As is wont to happen, my brain is Austenified. My g-chat with Crim yesterday:

me Did you bicycle to work, or arrive by some other conveyance? Perhaps the autobus was selected, due to the heat, which has been unaccountable as well as uncomfortable.

Crim yeah took the bus

me Ah, a fortuitous development! as it increases the odds of my scheme, which seemed woefully long previous to this news.

Crim ?

me Should you have bicycled, I'd have feared my plan unattainable. Now its chances are revived, and likewise are my spirits.

Crim how long til you finish this fucking book

me This proposal, forthcoming in a moment, developed from my awareness of the frightful want in our larder. We shall be utterly without sustenance this evening if nothing is done.

Crim ...

me Briefly, then, I thought we ought visit Joe, the Trader. For supplies, naturally. My mind caught upon the notion that I could bring the carriage round to your place of employ--only if such a plan is agreeable to you of course--your disagreeableness to it cancelling any such possibility at once--and carry us both to his shop. My finances I do believe can bear the expense.

Crim yeah we can do tj's
c ya

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That's My Shit

Every now and then something comes along that just restores your faith in the great human project. Actually, I think I felt like that for some other reason lately, but I plum forget what it was.

I can hardly contain my glee about two new products hitting shelves this spring: Cowpots and Biobags.

Cowpots are biodegradable pots. You start seeds in them, and once they're grown you put the whole thing in the ground; no transplant shock. Wa, you're thinking. We already have those. They're called peat pots and they're not that rad.

But behold the Cowpot! It's made from (yeah) cowpats. A renewable resource, unlike those mysterious peat bogs I'm told to feel guilty about. And then, too: it's fertilizer! Now that's the kind of ingenuity that makes me proud to be an American. I think I maybe felt proud to be an American for some other reason lately, but damned if I can remember what it was.

Biobags are compostable plastic bags. You heard right, my friend. Compostable plastic bags, made (some alchemical way) from corn.

You take one of these bags, you put it in your compost pail, you fill the pail just like a trash can, and when the time comes to empty it into the compost it's not a household saga involving black sludge and fruitfly larvae. I have a package of them under my sink right now and every time I review that fact it blows my mind.

Compostable plastic bags! They go right in the compost! That's the coolest thing since what's his name. (Chazack. No. That's a Hebrew word meaning "be strong.") I mean, it starts with compost pails, but imagine the potential! I almost paid a grip of money to order a hundred pack of these little miracles online, but then I saw them just waiting for me, pretty as can be, in the household supplies aisle of Berkeley Bowl.

Goddamn. It's a new day.

(Chazack, Barack: you just might win this.)

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Fabulous Life of...

My proud front yard circa May 2006. I shan't pretend it looks like this now.

At middle left, my hens, back in their fleeting chickhood.

HENNESSEY (right): "Jeepers, looks like a great big world out there. S'pose we're ready for it?"

CAMILLA (left) drops an impetuous shit: "Is it ready for us?"

Hard to believe those little cotton balls are now feeding me scrambled eggs. Chicks having chicks. (Shaking head.)


At bottom left, Paulie Walnuts, aka Paulo, aka Mr. Wognuts, aka Plush Toy, aka Wally Almonds. A little light in his paw-pads. Currently recuperating from debt-defying surgery, consoling himself at tomcatsluts.com.

At bottom right, Brian, co-conspirator. Also goes by the name of DJ Crimson.

Oh, and that's me at the top, but don't try to discern anything about me from this picture, because it's a lie. My hair isn't actually straight; I had just come from my biennial haircut. And I don't mean twice a year.

Below is me again, but still a dishonest representation, since I haven't actually done hard time.

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