[202] Screed City

[202]

10/18/2022 Tuesday. Kitchen Microwave. Beaver Haus. Lower Granville, Vermont.

A fucking rat. I mean, the other day I was having an absolutely horrible morning. Doing my best to gain perspective. I found myself in the garbage room cleaning up. I mean, something big had been getting into the garbage. The same garbage that I take very pained and fastidious measures to keep any sort of food stuffs out of. To the point of unhealthy obsession. I mean, something had been getting into the trash, ripping it apart, leaving a huge mess behind. I wasn't too worried about it. I mean, I just needed to double bag the stuff and move it into the tertiary part of the house. I mean, I spent two hours cleaning that tiny room. Taking the trash over to the far end of the tertiary house. Where the girl/child ghost lives. I mean, it was a spooky affair. Quite difficult to do the job, I really thought I was going to get visited by her. Which, I mean, whatever. That sort of stuff creates like a feedback loop when it is happening, which, I think is what opens the portal to the next realm, but my meta-physical political leanings aside, I was able to eventually clean the garbage room out.

After that I noticed the two very large holes that the vermin were coming in from. I had to go into the tertiary house again to find some wood to cover the holes up with. Which sucked. I mean, I find it very unnerving when I am in those kinds of situations. The last time I was accosted with a ghost this present was way back when I was a teenager living on Robertson street in Worland. There was a ghost in the tertiary house there. Across the way from my dad's shop/garage/studio. I mean, if I came home late and had to use the back door so I wouldn't wake him up I would have to sprint from the alley to the back door. I mean, whatever, I mean, my point is that when confronted with such a ghost, I can't focus, I can only think of that one thing. The ghost. And it's not like I think the ghost is going to get me, or kill me, or really anything, I just don't want to see it. I mean, it's like the Peanut Butter Solution all over again. I mean, maybe my hair would fall out and I would be changed forever? Or something. I mean, I did manage to find some wood to use to cover the holes. I covered the holes. Then I went down into the basement and took one of the rat traps down there that Scott bought to catch the squirrel that had eaten all the flour and coffee grounds when me and G were in Wyoming. I mean, he told me the other day the trap didn't kill the fucker. That he had to drown it in a bucket to finish the job. I mean, sucks to be the squirrel.

I mean, oh! also, I spent about fifteen minutes making the door knob work correctly. I also put all the bricks I had bought to finish the walkway out front. A job I never finished. Because Vermont-style inertia. If you don't do stuff like that during mud season, you never will do that stuff. Which is a pretty short window. I mean, I put the bricks over the hole that those jerks used to get under the house. I mean, there is another hole on the East side of the tertiary house too, but, I mean, at a certain point there are too many holes out there to deal with. And, I mean, choose your battles ATBMS. But, I mean, all of this, all these things I did, I mean, I know that I can only do so much without either tearing down the tertiary house or remodeling the garbage room. Which I am not going to do. I would like to. But I rent, so why spend hard earned money making a turd more polished for some jerk that just uses your rent monies to buy memberships to the pool at the ski resort? Alas! though, the entire point of doing all this work to close the holes was to keep whatever large thing that was coming in and eating the garbage. I mean, I assumed it was a wood chuck. I could tell how big the jaw was by the size of the bites taken out of things like Styrofoam and even paper. I mean, it was bid, but not raccoon big. Or bear big. It was more like woodchuck or squirrel or as I am about to tell you, or have already told you, RAT-sized.

I mean, after this busy morning I shut the door to the garbage room. There was no way a woodchuck could get in. Maybe a squirrel, but squirrels are not as snaky as mice, they can get into small spaces, but I think they don't like to. I think they prefer and grand entrance. I mean, the arrogant assholes. I mean, there is a reason you see images of squirrels wearing tuxedos everywhere in the world. Because they think they are SO cool. Like the rules don't apply to them or something. I mean, I used to be indifferent to squirrels, now I hate their guts. But that is beside the point. The garbage room door was locked up. The trap was laid. The holes were plugged. I mean, I left the trash out, un-covered, un-tied-up. With the idea I was luring any fucker in. Hoping to find something caught in the rat trap. The next day the trap had been triggered, but there was nothing in it. The trash lure was not rummaged. I mean, I was feeling good. Thinking maybe I was still dealing with a woodchuck that was coming in from some other hole I hadn't found. But nope, I re-set the trap. Didn't really think about it. Did some stuff. Went to bed. Got up this morning. Did some morning stuff. Did some cleaning. Had to take some very clean trash out to the garbage room. And there it was, a big old fucking RAT. I mean, huge. I mean, gross. I mean, really, Vermont? This is the kind of shit you are bringing me? RATS? Fucking RATS? I finally get rid of those god-damned idiot goats and now I got RATS to deal with?

I mean, I wonder, I do wonder, I have been hearing some noises in the walls the last week. Like something rooting around in there, probably eating the insulation. Sending my gas bill up into the stratosphere, I mean, or, there is not insulation there anyway, so it is like some sort of video game. A video game where the rat has to roam around the maze in order to find the weak point in the system where he can break into the house to eat the cheese sitting out on the counter. I mean, the other night I came downstairs for some reason, like I woke up confused and came downstairs because of some sort of intuition and it sounded like a party in the walls. I mean, for a while I have been thinking that anything in the walls when we did the insulation thing a couple weeks ago was going to be trapped inside until it starved to death. And I have been waiting for that to happen, but no, I mean, under the dishwashing machine, the dishwashing machine that doesn't work, has never worked, that has a full set of dishes in it. From when? I mean, Stoney Mike knew it didn't work, but did the New Landlord put dishes in the thing, try to run it, find out it didn't work, and then just left an entire kitchen's worth of dishes inside? I mean, whatever, this mystery has been here since day one, I am no closer to solving it. But still, because there is a dishwasher there, there is no real way to keep the vermin from coming in. Not like the cupboards. Those things are wood, you can plug any holes. I mean, whatever. I mean, whatever was in the walls has been trying to get into the house like crazy since about a week ago. And they got close. Really close. I noticed today that they had managed to scratch and claw and bite their way through the three inches of foam that I put there last Winter to try and keep both the mice out and the cold out. I mean, I had to go out to the haunted tertiary house again today in order to get some wood. To cover up the new hole. But then, I mean, I haven't been hearing any noises in the wall. So maybe, just maybe, that dead rat, waiting in the lawn for some other gross animal to come pick it up, maybe that was the thing making all the noise?

I mean, however, if that is true, then fuck. FUCK. That means there is a tunnel from the front of the house to the North facing wall, all available to whatever fucking gross-ass animal that wants to come roaming around and get my tasty cheese airing out on the counter top. I mean, it makes me want to go BEZERK! As Jack would say. I mean, just yesterday I was talking to Professor Curly on the phone and she was all like: "Blah, blah, blah, women’s rights, blah, blah, yack, my very fancy movie career, blah, yack, yack, gossip, gossip, yack, Aunt Flow is in town, yackity, yack, yack, all men are scum." And I was looking out the front door, paying very close attention to her very intriguing diatribe when I saw a squirrel casually eating a dried corn on the cob. Like right there. On the front porch. With no cares in the world. Just really going to town. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I banged on the door. The thing did nothing. Kind of looked back and me, shrugged, went back to eating. I mean, I got upset enough that I opened the door and yelled at it. Then it ran away with the dried corn on the cob, leaving a bunch of kernels behind. And then, THEN! That fucker came back and casually collected all the kernels it left behind and took them back to his palace. Wherever the hell that is. I mean, sure there is two very large pine trees, well, they aren't pines, but they are evergreen something, I mean, quite huge and very cool, but they are next to the highway, and that squirrel, I don't have any idea how he does it, I mean, the distance from the trees to the house is quite formidable, but he makes that leap, and runs across the top of the house, and then does what, I don't know, meets up with the creepy girl/ghost, who probably feeds him haunted grain she finds growing out of the mass grave she is buried in, out by the tool shed. I mean.

[Insert Squirrel Photo]

I mean, it has been pretty dark around here these last couple weeks. I won't lie. I doubt anyone wants to talk about death, but it has been on my mind quite a bit. Someone said the other day that life was unknowable, and somehow death was even more unknowable. Which, I mean, I am paraphrasing, but that is pretty fucked up. This one thing we all know from the second we are born, meaning life, and we live it from whatever perspective we have about it, like, literally the only thing we can possibly know, and yet, still, there is something even more abstract and unable to be explored out there, that comes for us all? I mean, I started the last Screed I did as a tribute to dear friends that died recently, I mean, I haven't been in the mood to screed lately because of it. Not because I don't have anything to say, but because life has suddenly become confusing and sad. And I don't know what to do about it. I mean, Cara, poor Cara, she had a very hard life, and sadly her death was expected. I mean, I think I have mentioned her quite a bit during these rants. Wondering what she was up to, whether she was safe or not, knowing she probably wasn't and things would end the way they did because that is how life is. I mean, I just finished writing a book about her. About my relationship with her. And, I mean, I don't know. I mean, how do you grieve for someone that is lost to begin with? That you knew when you were very young, that you maybe should have treated better, but life is what it is, and as intense as it is for me, it is equally as intense for you too. I mean, maybe that is the reason I have the politics that I have, because I know how fucked up it is to be out there in the world without any help. With no-one on your side. Struggling every day just to stay alive. And it's dark, and lonely, and relentless. But expected. But Marlene dying, I mean, I don't even know. I mean, she loved a good screed. She was part of the Cubby Bubby experiment. She even mailed me a fucking cabbage burger, IN THE MAIL! I mean, it is all just details, but grief and loss, and the abstract notion of death and trying to process it. I mean, in some stupid way I think of Cara and Marlene in the after-life, Cara being the pain in the ass that she was harassing Marlene. Showing up un-announced, talking a mile a minute about some irrelevant detail from her life, waiting for Katie to shower or whatever. Marlene baking cabbage burgers going: "Um-hmmm, right, right. Katie! Cara is here!" I mean, somewhere out there in the ether. I mean, why can't those two be hiding in the haunted tertiary house? I would like to talk to them.

Death is fucked up. Hug your loved ones, as Rambona told me. We are all here together, until we are not. I mean, I don't know. I spent this week trying to edit some books I wrote. Or last week, I guess. It is Tuesday now. My entire plan for the month of October has flown out the window. I need to be in Portland the week of the 24th. So I will not be going to the City. And then, I don't know. I have a birthday coming up. Which is whatever. I mean, to me it is a big one. Mostly because I thought I would be somewhere different at this point in my life. And I thought about this a bunch today. I mean, I went out to get some exercise in Junior Mint, ended up at the Canadian border. Which, I really hope that one day I will remember to take my passport with me, because I want to cross that border! New frontiers! I mean, but I was thinking about work, my relationship to work. And yes, I have that whole: "Give up first, then the solution will present itself," and: "GoldBrick like the wind," and: "You nickel and dime me, so I GoldBrick you," philosophy. But there is a reason behind it. I mean, I am not lazy. Never have been lazy. My entire working life has been this: I work in the day and make art at night. Simple. Always. But for some reason today I was thinking about my future. What work looks like in the future. What I am doing, and how. What money is, and what time is. And earlier, when I was talking about Professor Curly, I mean, I hope you know I was joking about our phone conversation, because it was a joke. She is a fantastic and amazing artist that deserves every thing she gets because she works her fucking ass off and I only joke about it because I am jealous that she has the skills that I don't have, and I am okay with her success because we have a signed agreement, that 50/50 is how it will work out. MacArthur, Nobel, Fields Metal, I mean, just by writing this down right now, I am entitled to half. Just, FYI. But we were talking about being an artist. About how you would need to work on seven different $10,000 projects a year, AS AN ARTIST, just to make a living wage in NYC, basically. And how fucked up that is. There is no hope. Unless you are rich to begin with, I mean, you have to have a job to support the job you have as an artist. I mean, I was thinking about this as I was driving. About how I was finally making enough money working that I can afford to be an artist on my own terms. But then, then, when I came to the conclusion of my thought, I realized that no, I am not doing that at all. What I am doing is only working. And I am poor and I will never get ahead as an artist. I will just work and work and work. And then, maybe at some point, I will work some more. And I can write and write and write, get better at it, maybe even become great at it, but it won't ever matter, because I will still have to have a job to pay my rent and bills and, I mean, I won't lie, this depressed the fuck out of me. I mean, to go back to my original point, that this birthday is meaningful, that turning 45 is a big deal, I mean, even to go back to aging and Cara and Marlene, I mean, you can only live so long, and sure, I have hope for my writing, but so what? One day you might be walking down the street, maybe you did a hit of meth and the thing was laced with opioids and you drop dead on some Seattle city street, or maybe you fight like hell to stay living but you are living in a place like Wyoming that hates, absolutely hates, science and medicine and you die because the hospitals prefer some horrible system where you have to boot-strap your way to the funeral home. I mean, my point is that unless you are rich, your options suck. I mean, I pay 25% taxes, everyone I know pays 25% taxes, why the fuck aren't the rich people paying 25% taxes, at least? I mean, I have two jobs. The one I dislike, and the one that I enjoy. I mean, I am finally being paid what I am worth, but it means nothing. I am merely a cog in the wheel. No matter what I do. I mean, I can keep writing, or not. I can keep making art, or not. And it won't ever matter. I mean, I could drop dead tomorrow and it wouldn't matter. Only because we don't see art as a thing worth fighting for. Worth valuing in our communities. And I find the gross, mostly because the only way art gets made is with money. And Jimmy D, the reason I am having a problem with turning 45, who, when he turned 45, nearly 15 years ago, in Italy, with him and Dianne and James and G and G's mom, we were hanging out in a piazza, in Rome, licking on ices, or what do they call them in Italy? Granita? I mean, he said: "Half-way there."

Oh! My point was different. He was the same person that said: "There isn't a problem with money in art. There is a HUGE problem with money in art."

I mean, we are all in this thing together. Life is the only thing we will ever know. Hug people. Be good to each other. Fight for decency. And if something gets in your way, turn.