You are looking at posts that were written in the month of February in the year 2010.
Posted on February 8th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Memory, Old Posts.
(Answering "What is the best time you've ever had at a fireworks show?")
Eighteen years old, with my first girlfriend, sitting on a bluff on Capital Hill in Seattle overlooking Lake Washington. It was three days after we'd kissed for the first time, and eight days before she took my virginity; we were at some very nice place in between for most of the night. Some hours after the fireworks we dropped acid and waited for sunrise. In the very early slow light before dawn, holding each other in absolute infatuated blissful stillness and silence, an owl swept down into the valley beneath us, passing not two feet over our heads. Just remembering that moment makes goosebumps rise on my arms.
Posted on February 8th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Badness, Movies, Old Posts.
My roommate has a cat, Milo. A neurotic cat, but until recently within normal cat neurosis territory. But my roommate has begun a relationship that has him outside the apartment a great deal more than previously, and unfortunately Milo turns out to be a Desperately Needy cat, starved for attention after mere minutes of solitude.
I am friendly to cats, but allergic. Petting is out of the question; I swell up, choke, go blind, die a dozen unpleasant deaths. Milo begs for love, and though I cannot touch him, I speak to him kindly, endeavor to make him understand that his problems are heard, that he is appreciated and loved and that someday his master will return and shower him with the affection to which he is so manifestly entitled.
No more. Yesterday, as I prepared to meet my sweetheart to see a movie, the phone rang. My roommate's phone was closest -- he was gone, naturally -- and as I answered it, Milo ran up behind me and bit me on the fucking leg. Hard enough to draw blood. I whacked him with the phone receiver -- I'm sorry, but he was out of line -- yelled at him, poured disinfectant on the wound, and yelled at him some more. Not to put too fine a point on it, I was fucking freaked out; blood running down my leg, wound swelling, cat running around howling. Not fun.
Then Velma & I went to see Shadow of the Vampire. It was good and creepy, but I'm seeing Nosferatu in the cat's fuzzy face now.
Posted on February 7th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Old Posts.
I am housesitting for Brad and Deborah. They have fish and lizards: ornamental pets, the kind you can't really get empathetically connected to, but are fun to look at. Velma spent considerable time trying to figure out how fish think; she soon amended this question to whether fish think (conclusion: No).
The lizards require crickets. Brad and Deborah helpfully left a supply, so we were not obliged to hunt our own in the parks of New York (where I have never seen so much as a grasshopper). They were in a little plastic box, with a few torn up egg cartons and chopped potatoes. Crawling with crickets.
I had not given much though to extracting the crickets. It seemed straightforward enough. Ha. They had no interest in climbing up the little tube that had been provided for extracting them. Nor did any other simple method of just extracting three or four come to mind. We tried covering part of the opening and pulling out one of the egg carton bits, since the bugs seemed sedate. Ha again. They lurched to life, crawling and bounding about alarmingly. One made a desperate bid for freedom, leaping through the opening, barely missing my face, hitting the table and falling to the floor.
We had no insects in hand, but we had one on the loose. If I'd been a seven-year-old, I'd have caught it in my hands, but that didn't occur to me. The narrow tube was inadequate; the bug hopped away before the plastic prison could descend. I went to the kitchen to get a glass; when I returned, five seconds later, I couldn't see the cricket. "Where did it go?" I demanded of Velma. "I don't know," she said, "I lost it." "But I was only gone five seconds!" I cried in despair. We searched unenthusiastically and unsuccessfully.
Eventually we managed to extract a few hapless crickets and make the lizards happy. But there is one rebel, one rogue cricket skulking about the apartment, just waiting for the lights to go out; then we will listen for the sound of miniature ladders and grappling hooks, and the tiny cries of insect escape. Revolution!
Posted on February 6th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Comedy, Old Posts.
[i'm going to post lots of old stuff, because i'm still learning to be me again.]
Hey, I've never introduced myself. I'm Scraps, but my true name is Lancelot St. Goodfellow, and I work for the New York Department of Public Spectacle as a cheese grater. In my spare time I throw pillows and conjugate verbs. Someday I hope to build a rope bridge to the future and walk across it on my elbows. I like fuzzy fruit and bald hamsters, and I hate people who are deaf or otherwise unable to pay attention to me. The sick ground chuck drops other the lazy fog. Selah!