[212] Screed City

[212]

11/30/2022 Wednesday. Kitchen Microwave. Beaver Haus. Lower Granville, Vermont.

Well, I never finished the Thanksgiving story if you noticed, I mean, it was kind of funny when it was fresh on my mind, but with distance, I mean, I won't lie, I get a little stressed out this time of year, and it is hard to concentrate on things like Thanksgiving and Christmas, add work to that, and this DISHWASHER book launch thing, I mean, I have been writing, but it is mostly self-care kind of writing, in a sense, if you can consider noir writing self-care, I mean, it is if you consider that it deals with confronting the darker parts of the human psyche, and can serve as a kind of catharsis or whatever, I mean, I wrote Donkey during this part of the year, and KinderRinder, as well as DISHWASHER, although that book is more of a phony-memoir thing, but it deals almost entirely with the idea of shame and shame associated with wanting something better in your life but having to essentially give up everything else in your world to achieve that, I mean, the book is not dark, but it is not light either. And with that rave endorsement of the thing, you can pre-order here:

[Insert Book Link]

https://whiskeytit.com/product/dishwasher/

HAHAHA, speaking of dark things that bleed, a funny thing happened last night, or whatever, so the mice have been eating the poison, and I have noticed they have been taking the cubes of poison to some secret location, which, I mean, the mice are puny and the cubes are the same size as them, and they are cubes like I said, so in order to move them they have to basically roll them wherever they take them, and last night I listened for a good hour as one of the mice rolled a cube of poison through the bedroom wall, which meant they somehow rolled it up two flights of mouse stairs and then lugged it into their hiding spot, which apparently in the bedroom area, but here is the thing with the poison, how it kills the mice is that it makes it so their blood won't coagulate, meaning they bleed out internally, and lately I have had to set smaller and smaller traps, because the mice somehow got smaller and smarter, so much so that they have been eating the peanut butter and raisons out of the traps without setting them off, but last night as I was listening to the one mouse rolling the poison cube through the walls, I heard a snap downstairs in the kitchen, which was satisfying for me, to know that one of the fuckers bit the dust, I mean, I wouldn't care about the mice if they didn't do things like eat holes in the wall, and leave tiny shits everywhere, we could co-exist if they minded their own business and left my business alone, but they don't, so we are at an impasse, I mean, when I went downstairs this morning, after my long evening of fitful stressed out holiday end of the year bullshit sleep, I went into the kitchen and found the dead mouse on the counter, and I noticed there was a little bit of blood next to it's head, which I didn't really think about, I picked up the trap and threw it out the front door, like always, like I could deal with it later, later when I wasn't so squeamish, I mean, I went about my business but then when I was making coffee I looked at where the trap was, and there was quite a puddle of blood, I stopped making coffee and put some disposable gloves on and went outside to deal with the carcass and to get a couple more cubes of poison to put in the basement, when I picked up the trap, I looked on the bottom and there was a whole hell of a lot of blood there too, and it finally dawned on me, ATBMS, the damn thing had been eating the poison, and so when it got killed, instead of just a little blood coming out of it's little mouse mouth, a whole hell of a lot of it came out because it's blood wasn't coagulating because of the poison. So, the moral of the story is; Feed a mouse poison for a day, and it will roll a cube of poison upstairs, feed a mouse poison for a week and it will bleed out on your counter top.

Country living at it's finest, I mean, it has been raining like a French mystery novel all day today. I didn't do much because of it. I mean, I need to check my brake pads because the rear brakes are already making noise, I mean, when did I change those fuckers? August? Early September? I can't catch a brake. I mean, the thing is, I need to catch the deterioration before the rotors and calipers get spoiled, but my god, if I have to change my brake pads every two months, I might go beserk! Especially if I have to do it on my dirt driveway, where, I am not afraid I will get pinned under old Junior Mint, but one day the thing is going to tip because I am working on dirt and then the car will be down in the dirt and I will have to get Scott or AAA to come over and get me out of the lurch, I mean, I have a piece of plywood I put under the jack, but still, it's tricky business, and also, instead of the ground being frozen like it should be, it is wet all the time, and muddy, and even if it was frozen, that creates a new problem, a problem of working outside in the freezing air, which also isn't so fun, I mean, there is a reason I haven't been writing this newsletter, and it's because of shit like this, a year ago I found it funny, two years ago it was a novelty, two years in though, it is relentless, and a funny thing happens when I complain about things in the newsletter, the bad things have a way of coming true, whether that is self-fulfilling prophecy or just my brain telling me to watch the fuck out, I mean, either way, Vermont living is kind of wet soak. Wet sock? What is the saying?

But I went to Middlebury today to get some supplies, mostly food stuffs for next week, for lunches at the Brewery, and I also needed to get some Wintering supplies because of course the house is a breeze fest, the new insulation seems to be working, but I found out yesterday the front door leaks like a sieve, so that stinks, I mean, whatever, it is what it is, we'll see how it shakes out the next few months, I mean, I won't be here for four weeks, basically, starting Monday, so I can put the thermostat at like 50 F for most of the time, although I do have some Ticklers brewing that won't be done until next week, so I will have to leave it at 60 F next week just in case, I mean, I think the yeast prefers 60-74 F, but because it is such a lower sugar mash, I mean, those guys get hungry real fast, the lazy bums, what I need is a real boot-strap yeast, something that is willing to work, these damn liberal-dipshit woke yeasts that the Dems are forcing good, hard-working brewers like myself to use, I mean, if you want to know when I took the red pill, it was exactly when my woke yeast refused to work in cold.

I mean, I went to the Mac's in Roach Town the other day to get something that I can't remember what it was I was getting, I mean, it wasn't meat, it wasn't onions or jalapeños, or dishwashing soap, it wasn't beans, what the hell was it? Oh, ha! nacho cheese, I needed some nacho cheese for something, but while I was there I got some sugar too, because I recently realized that I could run seven buckets of Ticklers at a time, a thing I don't know why I set myself up to do, I mean, that is like 28 gallons of the good stuff, which is a lot, but it mostly gets bottled for aging, I mean, if I have the bottles, which, I mean I bought something like 12, 2-liter bottles of random soda pop the other day, when Paddington was in town, the next day after Thanksgiving, which you would have known about had I written that damn story that I didn't write, I mean, it's a good one, I should write it, but I should make it a screen-play because it is essentially a new take on Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, which! I just saw they were doing a That 90's show, which is a second generation version of That 70's show, which, mind you, I have been working on a Ferris Buellar's Day Off sequel for years now, called: Rooney Junior that happens 20 years after Ferris's infamous day off, and his daughter is now the principal of the school and Rooney's daughter is a senior at the school and she is out for revenge, but I digress, I mean, when I was at Mac's in Roach Town, I had a little shopping basket, and in the basket I put the thing of nacho cheese and then I decided to get some sugar for Ticklers because I had a plan to get all seven buckets going, for why, I don't know, Vermont in the Winter is why, so I put eight, four lb bags of sugar in the basket and lugged it up to the check out counter and the new youngster that is working there, because that grocery store is a revolving door of youths that hate working there, but seem to lure their friends in, then they quit then their friends work there, then they lure more friends in, then the secondary youths quit, et cetera, et al, I mean, remember when I saw that one kid drinking a Truly on the job? I mean, why they either don't pay well or treat their employees like garbage, I don't know, because it is kind of a monopoly, the only game in town for a good 30 miles in any direction, I mean, they are not short of business, and they over-charge for everything, I mean, whatever, my point is; When I put the sugar on the conveyor belt the new kid said:

"Someone's got a sweet tooth."

And I said: "More like a booze tooth."

That was my only point. I thought it was pretty funny. The kid got curious though. He said:

"Really? You turn this into booze?"

I said: "Yeah, you just add water and yeast and give it some time, then voila! booze." He lost interest right after I said that, but it really is something about making booze, all it takes is time and know-how, I mean, the amount of money we spend on the garbage we drink, I mean, especially that Truly crap, that stuff is like $20 dollars a 12-pack, and, I mean, I am like some mother from the 80's, saying; "I could make this dinner at home for one quarter of the price!" And it's true! I could make this garbage water at home for 1/64th the price, almost free, I mean, I bought some cranberries today at the Hannaford's in Middlebury to start working on phase two of the seven buckets of Ticklers I have brewing, I mean, I am thinking of something like a Campari Champagne but with like 5% ABV, alcohol by volume, I mean, it might just knock your socks off, ATBMS.

But that is the problem with brewing that I have noticed, you get to the point where it is just basically alcohol water, when you need to add some sort of essence and then do a second ferment to get the bubbles brewing, I mean, with the low alcohol stuff, you have to worry about molding, because normally the alcohol would kill the bacteria and stuff, but not with 5% ABV, you have to be careful, so my plan is to wait until the 28 gallons of the good stuff finish their conversion, then I will transfer at least four and half gallons into a different bucket, add the sterilized cranberries and put a lid on it, and see what happens, I mean, at worst I end up with a moldy bucket of trash water, or at best, in a month or so, maybe more, I can transfer the good stuff to 2 liter bottles, add some yeast and sugar and make the Campari Champagne.

I mean, I forgot to tell you why I bought the bottles of 2 liter soda pops, I mean, you can buy fresh ones from the computer, like there is this thing about science projects for high schools that sells these bottles, but they are $2.50 a piece, which is ridiculous, because I know that you know that I know, that is a rip-off, I mean, if plastic 2 liter bottles cost that much money nobody would be buying soda pop, nobody would be making soda pop and putting them in those bottles, the whole soda pop industry is a rip-off, the reason you get free-refills of soda pop at like Taco Bell is not because Taco Bell is somehow benevolent, it costs them nothing to let you get fat on those sodas, the same is true for any soda pop you buy, you are being ripped off, a 2 liter soda thing costs almost exactly as much as a 10 oz soda thing, the difference is fractions of pennies, and the idea that these soda pop manufactures sell these bottles to "Science" web-sites for high school "Experiments," I mean, at such a high overhead, I mean, where I am going with this, is that you can get like a 2 liter bottle of Diet Dr. Perky for $1.09 at the supermarket just proves my point, the thing itself probably costs $.10 to make, and distribute and sell, the rest is pure profit, and the idea that high school science teachers have to buy the things for "Experiments" at such a mark up, what is that? 250% mark up? I mean, not only that, but it is probably more, because those bottles don't come with soda pop inside, or labels, meaning they are cheaper to make and cheaper to ship, I mean, American Capitalism sucks, that is all I am saying, and because of this woke approach to how we spend money at schools, I mean, the poor independent brewer suffers. You see where I am going with this? The woke schools use their over-bloated money to pay for over-priced bottles to teach our kids CRT science and that pushes the price of 2 liter bottles up, which cancels conservative voices like me, and my small business brewing industry, and not only that, but I get taxed when I have to buy the soda pop bottles at the supermarket.

I hope you know I am joking, but the bottles are a rip off and I refuse to fall for it. But then again I bought a water pick recently and that cost me $50 dollars and it is kind of an insanely over-priced thing for what it is, but I won't lie to you, it is a game changer, for a guy like me, whose teeth are too close together to floss, and the dental hygienist is always like: "You really have to floss more," and I'm all like: "But I can't!" While she, because for some reason the hygienist is always a she, she is scaping my teeth like I was responsible for the Holocaust, and I need to be punished, then she whips out her own little laser beam water pick thing, I mean, I cut out the middle-person, I may never go to another dentist again, I mean, I suppose I will have to at some point, but for now, I am as clean as a whistle, ATBMS, I even got a scrubber thing coming in the mail, I mean, the funny thing about this scam is that they tell you to replace the picks every six months, which is the same as Big Hose telling you that you need to replace your garden hose every six months, yeah sure, if you run over the thing with your lawn mower in the sixth month, I mean, you basically sold me a miniature pressure washer for $50 bucks, which, I mean, I don't know how much it should cost, but $50 bucks is not it, and then now you are telling me I need to replace the tip of the hose every six months for why? Because too much water has gone through the thing making it what? too water logged? The thing is plastic, I mean, sure, if you have water that like clogs pipes and stuff, like water with calcium or whatever, but they don't nuance the shit like that, I mean, thing wear out, I am not saying they don't and maybe in six months I will be singing a different tune, ATBMS, but my guess is that I will not be singing a different tune and Big Floss can go fuck itself.

Butwhatever, I don't know why I am complaining about getting ripped off by the internet, it is nothing new, I mean, I started a new work-out regime, it involves two cans of black beans and some sit-ups, you see, I cook two cans of beans, then I sit up at the table and eat them, just joking, the best part of becoming middle aged is that your body isn't quite ready to be done yet, so you still have the hint of youth there under your aging bones and muscles, and every day you don't attend to it, you get a little bit older looking, which is fine, age is what happens to your body as you age, but the changes are small and happen slowly, and the less you attend to your decaying the faster you grow older, and lose that shine that we should all be ashamed to lose, because getting older is the biggest moral crime in America that you can make, I mean, I am joking, but having a middle-aged body is very frustrating, it is hard to look in the mirror sometimes, I mean, to go back to the water pick, I mean, I have been obsessed with my teeth since as long as I can remember, but so what? I mean, unless you have the money to spend on dental work you, much like the rest of us, are screwed, and teeth are important, all the studies tell you that mouth health is very important, that your veins and general well being begin with your mouth, yet we only see dentistry as a thing of vanity, the reason it is not covered in most health insurance, because for some reason the genes you have somehow stop at your mouth, and your poor teeth are your own fault, and as someone with very strong teeth, I still don't buy that bullshit, I got lucky, so what of it? I have been obsessed with my teeth only because I never had any money to take care of my teeth, and there is some strange connection between teeth in American Society and control over ones autonomy, there is nothing more vulnerable than a bad set of teeth, and, I mean, you use the things all the time, everyday, I mean, there are things discovered by like science people where they found different cultures that the people with teeth would chew food for the elderly because they had no teeth, I mean, that didn't come out right, but my point is; You need your teeth to survive, and getting a cavity dealt with is pretty fucking important.

But back to the cans of beans, I think I need like a weight bench or something, but I don't have one, I doubt I will ever get one, I have no desire to be a Hot Grandpa or whatever, those gross dudes on the computer that spend all day every day working out because they are terrified of dying, I mean, if anything I will get a Hot Grampa thing going with my fiction because I do work out every night for at least three hours, but unless you crack my skull open or actually read my writing, you would never know it, but still, I am not finished yet, I want to keep my body working okay, so I have these cans of beans, and I do these maneuvers where I use the beans like weights, and then I do 10 of those things, then I do 10 sit-ups and then I do 10 bean things, then I do 10 sit-ups, I mean, I don't know what it is doing for my middle aged looks, but I can feel the soreness in my tit muscles and my stomach, and that is all I ask from the middle aged gods, I mean, I have never been good at push-ups, I remember the Reagan years, the ridiculous goals that the government set for all children, the pull-ups and sit-ups, the climbing a fucking rope, I mean, I am not against exercise in the least, but humans, especially kids going through puberty, I mean, fuck you Physical Fitness bullshit, to this day I can't do ten push-ups the way I was supposed to do them in middle school, and this is coming from somebody that managed to make state with the high school swim team, I mean, not that I was a great swimmer, but if the way you can judge whether somebody is healthy or not is how many weird-ass push-ups they can do, or whether they can climb a fucking rope that, frankly, if you can climb that rope, you are old enough to ejaculate because all that rope climbing really did was measure whether you were ready to have sex or not, I mean, that weird feeling you got even trying, that was just your body telling you that something was going on down below, I mean, if I think back on it at all, it reminds me of those weird propaganda films about Nazi girls doing weird sexual outdoors things with hairy armpits, I mean, nobody got helped out by these schemes, all it did was isolate the people that couldn't do things like hold themselves up above a chin-bar for 10 seconds, and shame anyone that was not typical. I mean, it only did harm to the American youth, and if you don't think that doesn't play into way people like me see themselves today, and the idea of what aging looks like in America, I mean, I fucking spend 20 minutes every day these days doing sit-ups with two cans of black beans because I can hardly look my body and myself in the mirror, and I am one of the "Normals," I mean, the cis-White, straight, male, easiest lives they make, people.

Whatever, I told you there is a reason I haven't been writing this newsletter, I want to be positive, but I keep getting side-tracked, I mean, I read somewhere the other day that your anger is a actually your body telling you that you deserve to be treated well, that your anger is actually a good friend, and, I mean, as a very angry person, I found that statement kind of profound, because I have spent quite a few years ashamed of my anger, like I just needed to let it go, and I do need to let it go, it is not doing me any favors, ATBMS, but to see the idea of anger in that perspective, that maybe there is a reason for being angry, I mean, why am I angry? Nobody cares but me, but I still want to understand it, and because the way I deal with anger is through writing, which I mean, the one thing I have learned over all these self-reflective years, is that I am at my best when I am not dealing with other people, that I am not a good collaborator, and knowing that now kind of puts things in a different perspective, like, I don't know, maybe it is nice to just write and forget about everything else that comes with it, because who the fuck cares? The writing itself is more important than getting the writing out into the world, but then again, what? You have a job and then you write at night, and then you get up the next morning and do it all over again? I mean, time is a motherfucker, I can only assume that one day I won't be angry anymore and I will write things slowly and controlled and all of my breathless takes on this world we are living in will actually mean something, or not, I mean, I also got a new nose hair trimmer, which, much like the water pick, it leaves things bloody, and if we have learned anything from bloody ways that seem to be the new way of how things work; I shouldn't eat any poison cubes anytime soon. I shouldn't go to shave my nose and end up dead in the bathroom. Which, I mean, is the first line of a Kafka novel.

[Insert Poison]