Wednesday, June 24, 2009

so hot no one knows how to act

So I'm walking up to the door of my fave tex-mex joint here in Buttcrack yesterday at noonish, and this little brown mouse comes HAULING ASS up the sidewalk past me. I thought it was a bird or something. I mean, who sees mice running around on hot pavement in broad daylight?* WTF? Fortunately he cruised past the entrance and took off towards the dumpster. I think he was disoriented by the heat. His little toesies were probably fixin to blister from the hot cement. Normally I'm a steady proponent of the "mice aren't cute" school, but this little guy was kind of ballsy, and I guess I appreciate that in a rodent. As long as it's not at MY house.



*You know, "broad" daylight, as opposed to the other kind of daylight. Which is, um, uh... I don't know. Not broad.

Giant Hosta, Niagara Falls

Friday, June 12, 2009

The American Funerary Ritual

So unsatisfactory. So morbid and creepy. So expensive. What a giant racket.

So help me, the person that decides to place my corpse on display will be haunted. I mean it. The people that show up and declaim that it looks life-like will also be haunted. Stick my hull on a boat, set it on fire, and float it down the river, yo. Forget this bullshit embalming, $4000 casket, crappy over-scented floral arrangement, rigmarole. Do not force my loved ones to stand over my corpse and smile and nod and shake hands for hours on end. Ugh. Hate it.

I went to the "visitation" for a colleague's sister the other day, is why I bring this up. I don't know who decided that the bereaved should be forced to play smiling hostess for hours on end, standing in the vicinity of the deceased, but it seems to me sadistic as hell.

I am grateful that my immediate family are as goobed out by corpses-on-display as myself, and we all plan to be cremated. My mom says she will haunt me if anyone plays "Amazing Grace," on account of she thinks it's the most depressing tune in the history of depressing christian tunes. Noted! The last funeral my brother and I attended, my uncle's, some terrible song started playing and we made eye contact because we both had the same thought: HOLY FUCK WE HAVE GOT TO PICK OUR OWN FUNERAL MUSIC BECAUSE THIS? IT SUUUUUCCKS!! Because we are music snobs, and heaven forbid someone play some cheesy-ass inspirational tune with no indie cred what-so-ever.