overheardinmyhead

RIP Elizabeth Taylor

"...they directed the driver to find the nearest White Castle hamburgers stand and go in and get them doughnuts and hamburgers and coffee. When Taylor unwrapped her order in the back of the car, something was missing, so she and Halston decided to go into the deserted White Castle and get it themselves... 'Pardon me,' the counter girl asked, 'are you really Elizabeth Taylor?'...

Taylor said, 'Yes, I'm fucking Elizabeth Taylor. Now, where's my ketchup?'"

source: people.com from Steven Gaines' Simply Halston

 

Red for Good Luck!

My Crazian landlady appeared on the sidewalk this morning out of no where like a devilish imp. There was no way to avoid her as I am often successful in doing. As always she had several used bags filled with more bags hanging from the crooks in both her arms. She's such a caricature of herself it's sad yet hilarious.

Crazian landlady: How you like paint?

Me: Um, it's ok. I'm not crazy about the red.
Thinking: did I really just use the word crazy with the crazy landlady?

Crazian: I pick it for good luck. Red for good luck. Good luck.

Me: Yeah, but it doesn't go with the other paint colors.

Crazian: Look 'round. Lot houses with red.

Me: Yeah, but they look better.

Crazian: How's room?

Me: It's coming along I think.

Crazian: They patch? They paint?

Me: I think they are patching. I don't know if they started painting.

Crazian: They supposed to paint. Better start to paint.

Me: Yep. Well I need to go.

Crazian: Maybe you guys help me out. You guys help me out. Help me out.
She would like us to pay for the repairs and painting she's neglected to do upkeep on for 30+ years.

Me, sarcastically: Yeah, and maybe the red paint will bring you that good luck.

House Sails & Tea Levity

Many weekends I find myself starring off into cyberspace. But this past weekend I had to get out of the house. My place is being painted, finally. No longer will I be able to play the paint peel game where I look at the shape left by flaked paint and come up with a corresponding like image. This looks like Korea, well kind of. I'm actually a little sad to see the derelict facade go away. Partly because my rent will go up and partly because I have no faith in the impending paint job.

Scaffolding, tarps and nets shroud the front of the building occluding the view from my bedroom bay windows. My room is filled with an eerie blue hue as light filters through the tarp. The scaffolding is tethered to the windowsills, eyelet screws driven into wood I assumed was dry rotten, heavy gauge coated wire threaded through looping back to the scaffolding to hold it in place. When the wind whips, the tarps fill with air like sails on a ship and with each blast the scaffolding pulls against the house creating a dooming cacophony of creeks and rumbles. At times I become irrational. I'm afraid the front of the house is going to be sheared off like one would see in a cartoon. I needed to flee the house. I needed to get dressed. Because seriously, if the front of the house rips off I don't need to be sitting there naked wearing just slippers, sipping on a glass of pinot gris, wasabi peanuts in hand, looking at profiles on Match.com.

I ended up going to a used bookstore. I love used book stores. It's something my mom, sister and I share. We all have too many books even though I don't believe one can have too many books. Then again, I don't necessarily subscribe fully to the Unclutter Movement. Too many people are obsessed with minimalism without the discipline to live that lifestyle. But I digress. I ended up purchasing two books Janna Levin's A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines and Karen Armstrong's Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet.

On Sunday Courtney and I met up to have tea at Samovar and to read books. I enjoy meeting up with a friend, having dialog over food and then spending time with each other where we are engrossed in separate novels but still sharing space and time together.

After we were seated our server came over and squatted down at our table. She looked at me and her face turned white. In a somber voice she said, "You remind me of an old friend."

"I hope that's a good thing otherwise I can leave." I joked.

"No, it's comforting" she said with a sigh forcing her lips to curl up ever so slightly. "It's been a long time. What's your name?"

"I'm Eric."

"His name was Pete."

Thankfully Corks piped up, "I'm Courtney and you are?"

"Danielle."

It was all very maudlin. I felt strange. Mostly because someone else out there looks, or rather looked, like me. Poor fellow.

We placed our tea orders and Danielle left. Courtney and I looked at each other holding back the giggles that follow awkward situations. I whispered, "I wonder if he passed himself away?" which opened the flood gates of full on laughter.

Irreverence is served best as levity with a side of green tea.

Angry Little Girls

Courtney and I saw MILK this past Saturday at the Sundance Kabuki Theater in Japantown. It was: Amazing. I've never been in a theater where almost everyone was teary-eyed and sniffling well past the catastrophe into the closing credits.

Before hand we wandered through the Japan Center looking for gifts for others were I found these two shopping bags. The teenage Asian girl in me had to have them for myself.

I'd never seen Angry Little Girls before. They're pretty hilarious. I just love belligerent cartoon characters.

I've got to admit, when I went shopping at Trader Joe's today I felt a little silly loading my groceries up into these bags. But seeing as I live in SF not many people look cross-eyed at a hulk of a man walking down the street carrying something meant for tween girls. Or at least I don't notice them looking at me cross-eyed.

Meet Percy

If you remember a few months ago my flat was being overrun with mice. My roommate postulated the rodents were coming from the Crazian* landlady's flat below us. Made sense to me since she's a pack rat.

He informed me a week ago that a mouse was stuck in the mini blinds of one of her bay windows. The mouse has been dead for awhile but strangely isn't decomposing. This picture was taken a full seven days after he first told me about the mouse.

I haven't seen the Crazian landlady in awhile. Yesterday a citation was posted on her door from the SF Department of Building Inspection. Among the various violations listed, one had to do with not accepting a certified letter. That leads me to suspect she isn't answering her door. Conclusion: she's perished in her flat and has been mummified as a result.

I've decided that this mouse is English and his name is Percy, short for Perciforth. To deal with his dead body being on display I have given him a top hat which gives him an air of distinction. I'd give him a coat with tails but he's already got one.

Click the pic to enlarge.

*Crazian, noun & adjective, a portmanteau of crazy and Asian, not to be confused with Craisins® Sweetened Dried Cranberries by Ocean Spray.

Is It A Sign Of Luck?

Something utterly shocking, horrible and completely unbelievable happened to me yesterday while I was out walking. The whole ordeal happened so fast, 45 seconds tops. I felt something hit my shoulder. I thought a seagull had shat on me. There was that much heavy feeling gunk. But unlike bird crap, this gunk wasn't opaque and it smelt like bleach. Bewildered I looked up at the row of lofts I was passing by. In the window of a lower story was an older man, completely naked, ejaculating out the window.

I know, I know. Remember I said it was completely unbelievable. I was out walking? But this is true. And that jackass came on me!

I was livid. I remembered that spiting on a person is considered assault so naturally I figured this guy cumming on me meant rape. I yelled every expletive I know at the guy who seemed to just get aroused by fevered rant. What happened to the refractory period?  He probably considered what I was saying "dirty-talk" because he wasn't going limp and he was still shooting out buckets. Damn Viagra! I fumbled for my phone because I was going to call the cops-- but I want to get his joy juice off of me so I ran back to work (ok, walked really fast) which was right around the corner.

Before I went off the deep-end I sent off two emails to trusted gay friends to see what they thought I should do. Geof advised me I should call the police unless I didn't want to explain the situation to a cop, who "will no doubt look at you in horror, like I am at my screen right now." Jim, who also believes in my life motto of "find the comedic lining to every tragedy cloud" said I should count my blessing because I wasn't walking a few inches to the right while yawning.

Well I didn't call the police, which would have fleshed this anecdote out into a story. Instead I just laughed it off as another unbelievable account of what can happen in SF on any given day. Had a bird crapped on me, it might have been seen as a sign of luck, like many cultures believe it to be. A stranger cumming on me, well maybe that's lucky too. The last time someone came on me was in August of 2006. Maybe this is officially the end of the dry spell (though I'm sure that's actually considered a drought).

In other news: Have you heard that David Beckahm is getting his own brand of bottle water? I don't get why they need to re-brand Massengill, though putting his picture on the box does make sense.

If You Never Hear From Me Again, Now You'll Know Why

On Monday I received a new laptop computer. I really should write a post on how I got it before posting this entry but continuity is for the herd. Some of the nice things about the new laptop were  increases in processor speed, hard drive capacity and RAM. Also the screen is larger and way nicer than the one on the dumpy last laptop. Naturally this meant I could play more graphic intense video games and stream faster porn (yeah right, gross.)

Wednesday I found myself looking at games during my lunch break. Below is the exchange I had with the cashier when I was purchasing  Assassin's Creed and the Hitman Trilogy.

Cashier: Have you seen this? referring to Hitman
Me: Yeah, I saw the movie but this is the video game.
Cashier: I'll never forget, I went to the theater to see this and right before it started I had to leave because of an emergency.
Me: That sucks.
Cashier: So what did you think of the movie?
Me: I found it interesting in that as I was watching it, I kept asking myself "Am I suppose to identify with the protagonist in this film?" I mean, here's a man who has been raised as an assassin, has killed countless people, and half way through the movie I'm feeling sorry that he's been set up by his employer to take the fall for something he didn't even do. Basically the main character is the embodiment of the classic antihero--

Her eyes glazed over, apparently confused, bored, or uneducated, so she cut me off

Cashier: No, I mean, is it like a good action movie?
Me: Um, the action is good.
Cashier: Whew! Good enough to own?
Me: Maybe not enough to own but if you're in it for the action you should see it.
Cashier: Sweet.

I think I was just supposed to say, "The action was fucking awesome!" and leave it at that. I shouldn't take my creative writing education out on cashiers.

What A Way To Go

Ever skim an article and then laugh at how ridiculously you interpreted a sentence?  Today while skimming the news I read about Deborah Palfrey, the D.C. Madame who a few days ago, "passed herself away" (to borrow a quote from "Girls Will Be Girls"). I was interested enough to read about her suicide note so I clicked an article that was being displayed on the main page of Google News.

This is the actual snippet which made me laugh

These are the words I focused on

And this is what I thought I had read which made me laugh.

I guess I could have read she hanged herself with her mother's tampon strings but thankfully my mind didn't go there, well at first.

Mus musculus

Last night, while sitting on my bed and talking with my mother (I'm such a good boy) I saw a mouse run across the floor. Alarmed, my senses were instantly heightened (ah, there's nothing like a shot of adrenaline to make one feel primitive.) Since November of last year there have been periodic mice parades in the flat. I don't even know how many mice my roommate has humanely trapped since last year. I do know this was the first one to have invaded my room and for that I was, and still am, pissed.

This mouse wasn't too afraid of me. It would come out from behind furniture and stop, take a cigarette break, talk on its cell phone and then go back to searching for, what? Food or a place to nest? I broke out a snap trap I purchased for an art project, slathered it with some peanut butter and went back to my room intent on killing.

After setting the trap up I got on my bed and waited. The mouse had no desire to go near the trap and who can blame it? After waiting an hour I went and got one of the humane traps from the laundry room. I filled it up with a cracker and peanut butter and placed it on the opposite wall of the room. Certainly the mouse would have to choose one or the other. Life or death. I felt kind of god like giving this bugger a choice.

But the little turd dropper didn't go near either trap. I wasn't comfortable going to sleep knowing a mouse was scurrying around my room. I turned off the lights and tried to meditate but the little paw steps kept me from reaching any sort of peaceful state. I flipped the light on and the mouse was running across one of the windowsills. It looked in my direction, jumped and flew through the air ending up behind my dresser.

Now I felt real uncomfortable. This wasn't any ordinary mouse-- it was part Mighty Mouse. Regardless of my feeling I ended up falling asleep only to be woken up two hours laster by the sound of rustling paper. I got out of bed and flipped on the lights. The mouse was climbing up the cork bulletin board I have above my desk. Now the mouse was part Spiderman.

The light startled the mouse. It jumped down from the board onto my Klipsch speakers where it waited just long enough for me to grab a boot. I threw the boot as hard as I could, knocking everything off the desk but the mouse was unscathed. It jumped off the desk , thumbed its nose at me and disappeared underneath the credenza.

I was too uncomfortable to go back to sleep in my room, thinking I would wake up with the mouse having bit my jugular vein. I gathered up a pillow and a throw blanket and left my room to go sleep on the couch. There I dreamt of mice, female teachers as sexual predators, tiger cubs and illicit drug use. When I woke up at 5:30 in the morning I check the traps but both were empty.

I haven't been home since I left this morning. I'm hoping one of the traps will have the mouse detained, either temporarily or eternally.

Update 4/4/08 5:15PM: Both traps are still empty

Update 4/4/08 11:43PM: Just came home from taking Brent out to dinner for his birthday. Still no mouse.

Update 4/5/08 6:32AM: A snap woke me up! Unfortunately neither trap was set off and it turned out that the TV remote control fell and hit the floor. It's irksome the mouse doesn't want to relocate and/or die.

Similarities of Man & Beast

A boyfriend and a pet dog are pretty similar, right? I mean they're both more responsibility than I've wanted for quite some time. According to my best estimate it’s been 31 months since I last steadily dated one person. Come to think of it, the same amount of time has passed since I had full time pet responsibilities—that’s when I shipped Macy off to die at my parents (sorry about that mom, dad & sis). Sure I’ve pet sat since Macy, just like I’ve been out on a handful of dates, but nothings stuck mostly because I haven’t wanted it to.

Thinking of dating again long term brings up many of the same issues I have with getting a dog: do I really want to deal with the shedding? Do I really want to deal with the passing of gas in my bed? Do I really want to take him out for walks every day?

Maybe I do. I should warn my family, if things don’t work out, to expect a much larger visitor to euthanize.