automotive incinerate

 Despite a stolen gas cap and general frustrations of the vehicular kind, it could be much worse, given that much of my life is situated within busline and walking distance as it is. One of my wonderful neighbors gave me a ride to the radio station at 4:30 in the morning so I could beg people for money and lo and behold someone was kind enough to bequeath. A couple hours of answering phones, listening to lurid tales of Illuminati Hanna-Barbera-Sugary-Cereal conspiracy theories from callers to the show after mine, and then waiting forever to catch a non-rush-hour wheelie bus back to the best side to meet up with the sister and nephew for sundry hanging out.

The place I dropped my car off to get it checked out wanted a bit too much, so I picked it up and took it to my usual spot where the Lebanese mechanic and I are on a first-name basis at this point because the car has been giving me more and more trouble as it ages. I bring the Jungle Puppy I'm petsitting up with me for a car ride and we walk back through the darkening west side streets under papery flakes of snow.

Having a dog beside me, even a small Anubis-looking one, evidently makes one immune on the city streets from the hollers and the propositions out of car windows and shadowy figures on the street after sunset, which was one of the reasons why I moved out of the Almost-Hood. Not having the time to be a good canine owner, and enjoying the pleasure of after-work flaneur as the streetlights come on and the sky darkens is a dubious gamble for a solitary slim female on streets with not nearly enough streetlights and general pedestrians.

There was one time in conversation with a friend where I likened having a car in the city as having a tank in a warzone not because it's oh-so-dangerous in Clevelandia, but it's a conveyance used over short distances in less savory times of day to get from Point A to Point B with a minimum of anxiety. This, and the general fortress mentality of former residence in the Almost-Hood drove me a little bit crazy, because I hated feeling that I couldn't walk around the corner to visit friends and had to drive there because the unlit streets populated by a few too many outpatients from the mental facilities one block over and people high or otherwise strung out on one substance or another looking for a fight or an easy victim, or the violating feeling of getting propositioned by a lech in a big car every time you leave the house alone, even if you're walking out of church or carrying bags of groceries.

My feet were cold when I got to the house I'm staying at, the dog curled up on the couch waiting for me. I made tea, and read this excellent book before getting picked up by one of my station homies for cinematic excursions and such. It's a bit frustrating to get around, but still, these nights when the pace slows down, sometimes it doesn't seem all bad.

out of the blue into the black

Hopefully the place doesn't fall apart when the capable hands are gallivanting. Quality sister-time, automotive analytics, maybe some cinematic greatness in the even-time.

 Oh yeah, it's Neil Young's birthday. Neil Young reminds me of roadtrips and driving around with my dad and foisting "Everyone Knows This is Nowhere" and "Rust Never Sleeps" on my friends in high school.I love that he just doesn't care what you think and does whatever the hell he wants.

you can't understand a user's mind...

So this whole addiction thing, this crippling thing, this exasperating thing. I'm told you just don't understand  and I don't, and maybe that's judgmental of me, because I don't have these problems. I get depressed and stuff too, but I've tried to hurt as few people as humanly possible and found better ways to deal than shopping and drinking? Not everyone pulls their life together, there's some degree of luck of the draw and some degree of using what resources you do have and I just don't have an answer besides "I just can't talk about this anymore" because I'm sick of enabling and excuses.

And I'm wearing thin on empathy, dear God I don't have the love and patience that I wish I did. It's not that I don't care, I don't know how to love, when to let things slide, when to call them out. I can't imagine being the parent of this, when it's hard enough to be an older sister and seeing people who could be so much more lose this battle either dry drunk or reclusive, seeing her go down that road and slipping away further. Maybe part of the anger is the helplessness and then the visceral reaction to the profound self-absorption and the sociopathy. I struggle sometimes with my love of music made by addicts, because I get the feeling that the others in their world who didn't perpetuate hurt like this too.

the best-laid plans

Getting new winter tires turned into a debacle of sorts as I got my car back all rattling and roaring in ways that it wasn't before. Some might sneer at my love of my vehicle, but this money pit has been the source of some degree of social life for yours truly that would have been made much more complicated by can you pick me up? I can help friends move, and go see bands, and venture out to places unknown, and get from one end of Clevelandia to another when it's not shaking away.

One of my homies celebrates his 30th tonight, and I wish I could be there to laugh at him and congratulate him for living longer than Cobain and Morrison, and hang out in the outer boonie eastern burbs, but I fear driving alone out there with such a dubious ride and don't want to be calling for help off some godforsaken exurb road. .

All was not lost as a previous roommate and his friends called me up and we met at the lovely West Side Market, now a foodie mecca and a mess of traffic, but despite my grousing, I'm glad to see people there rather than not. Took the train down and we bought sundry goodnesses of produce and the men cooked in the kitchen and me and the girlfriends sat in the living room talking politics and history, generating much mutual snark of the sexes.

I cook mostly vegan for myself for economic and ew-raw-meat reasons, but cannot refuse such goodness as homemade stew of fresh vegetables and meat, succulent in beer and homemade stock, roasted corn and pumpkin gnocchi, blackberries and cream, we toast to friendship and his dead bassett hound,  wine gave way to mead, a bottle of dizzying fire-honey which was emptied between the seven of us and stories are told, and laughter is great, and we're all suddenly sleepy, the internet at the bibliotheque provides no great insights into automotive matters, too many creeps up here anyway. It'll be an early night, but it was such a beautiful day.

Thinking of The Children

I didn't like most kids' shows even when I was a kid because I thought most of them were stupid, especially the more didactic ones. Looking back with the eye of a cultural X-er, I realize my dislike wasn't completely unfounded and these things were indeed stupid and somewhat creepy.

Black and white aesthetic, confused depressives in a cold universe? No wonder a generation of young Norwegians raised on Pompel Og Pilt grew up to kill themselves, murder their bandmates and burn down churches (I'm kidding Randal). WFMU's excellent blog has more clips including a creepy baby and other delights.

Still, this is nothing compared to Jihad Bunny, complete with plastic key to paradise, because why grow up and do something good for the world or break the cycle of hate if you can die for Allah? Seriously, this is so creepy and evil I almost didn't post it, and it's hard to laugh at such blatant death-mongering to vulnerable kids. Spoiler: Jihad Bunny ends up getting bombed and replaced by Jihad Teddy Bear, 

Far more benevolent is Odisea Burbujas, which as far as I can tell is some Mexican lovechild of HR Puffnstuf and Captain Planet, described here as "a do-gooder scientist and his motley crew of animal friends who fly around in a solar-powered spaceship (made out of an LP, a teacup, and a straw), fighting the evil polluter, Ecoloco..."

 Along similar lines, but not embeddable is the Japanese straungeness of Kure Kure Takora, about an octopus and peanut in love with a walrus. Surrealness abounds.

And then this discovery of the morning, thanks to the Turkmen Golden Age site, full of tidbits about amazing horses, festivals of healing melons, and UNICEF/State-sponsored puppet shows like the one below. Not only does it look like it was filmed in a Parmastan kitchen in 1975, there are also creepy Gonzo-looking germ monsters, and multiple song-and-dance routines to kiddified folk music. Nice to know that the spare change The Kids collect on Halloween to give third world villages fresh water and food goes to such a worthy cause.

keep your eyes open

I've felt like voting was a meaningless process, but the Kafkaesque absurdity of "no you're not in here" even though I voted here six months ago and updated my information then didn't mean anything, and I don't like the people at my polling station at all because they're not all that bright and kind of mean and I wouldn't have put it past them to pull some shenanigans since last time they wouldn't let me take a non-partisan ballot (faced with lesser of two evils, I opted for the gooper one back when people I still liked a little were in the running) so it wouldn't have shocked me if my provisional ended up in electoral purgatory.

It was kind of hectic in there, hard to find an extra booth, texting the Queen of the Bondo in frustration as I get sent from one line to another, and a lady behind me, seeing my plight, tells me it's better to get pissed off than pissed on and finds me some lawyer guy who I guess monitors or something and while he was really nice there wasn't much he could do either. Still don't understand why I needed both an ID and a piece of mail, and why they hire a lot of lousy people, though maybe I should cut slack because that has to be a long day of dealing with goofballs too.

So my provisional ballot didn't count, I voted for the guy who wasn't Mandel (because he didn't seem all that great) nor Brown (I don't care how progressive you claim to be, urging the prez to attack Iran and voting yes on NDAA is kind of jerkfaced), neither of the two main presidential candidates. My vote for the third party probably didn't count, and there were things that BDR links to that make me feel less bad about that. 

I guess I care way more about what someone does than what they say, and lipservice means little to me no matter who or what. I've been shooting emails back and forth with a friend coming to similar conclusions along the political/religion continua in Bachmannland, where we've been exasperated with the passes given to Certain People by progressives, and also to Republicans by their base just because they say they love Jesus.

But anyway, people today have been jerks, but that doesn't mean I need to spread the jerkitude around anymore than it already is. I hang out with the people in my world who still have hearts, souls, brains, and guts, and while I don't always agree with them, they've made my world brighter, vaster, and more beautiful, and I'm glad they put up with me too.

some stupid tomorrow.

 
Political this and that everywhere, there are things I want to say that won't do much good. I'll let the music do the talking tomorrow morning, something along these lines, reprising some old ones, compiling a playlist for tomorrow morning. Suggestions between now and then welcomed via email, friends.