[249] Screed City

[249]

05/10/2023 Wednesday. Kitchen Counter. George House. Old Chatham, New York.

Back to the olden days. Mac and cheese for dinner. Sautéed spinach. No milk though. It's been so long. Two years now? More? Spring of 2020 was the last time I was in charge of George on a school night. My god! I feel like a baby sitter. I know nothing of schedules. Habits. Sure, nothing really changes. Get to bed early, get up early, get to school, et cetera. Dinner, breakfast. No lunch though. G will be 16 in November for crying in the night. Remember when they got their first period during the early days of the pandemic? And tonight at dinner we talked about the Schrodinger's Cat dilemma. Such is life.

Today I saw a man fly fishing in a river. He was looking at his phone while holding his rig, or whatever you call it. I couldn't believe it. I found it sad. Not in the, Technology ruins everything sort of way, but more like the, Don't bring your phone with you when you fly fish sort of way. Leave it in the car, at least, right? That's like checking your phone in the middle of meditating. It doesn't work like that. It just doesn't. Me and Professor Curly met up with Scott and Grit and Cubby the other day. They were fishing. But it was Vermont, there is no cell service there. But, I won't lie, I wanted to be fishing. I always enjoyed fishing. Didn't much care for catching fish, but the tranquility of it all is very appealing. I mean, what Google Alert could possibly be so important that you take your phone fishing with you? Or, sure, bring it, but don't look at it while you are in the act of fishing, right? Then again the guy was fishing right next to the highway, so there is that.

Junior Mint went to JD again. My fucking brakes, man. I don't even know. I need to just do them myself, but the last time I worked on the car in the driveway, the dirt shifted and the jack almost tipped over. I wasn't in any danger, but had the front of the car dumped onto the ground, I suppose that would have sucked. I even had a piece of plywood under the jack. It didn't help. Vermont. It really is something. But PC's car also had to get the treatment. Brakes and oil and tire rotation. I paid both bills yesterday. JD decided to put everything on one bill. I said that was good because I had to get money from PC. And he said she would pay it off with favors. I say inappropriate things, constantly, but that kind of takes the cake as far as the bridesmaids are concerned. I mean, I was fitted for a suit the other day. Suit Nation in Manhattan, and the guy was measuring my neck and I held out my hands like I was choking somebody and said, Why don't you just measure necks like this? He laughed nervously, PC shook her head. But then again, earlier he had said I was quite funny and that PC was lucky to have somebody like me to go around with all day. I couldn't agree more. I am a hilarious dude, as Tim Murphy would say.

But I am down a suit size. Since the Broadway Opening. Which, I mean, I told the guy about how I had put on some weight after being super skinny and starving my whole life and then once I did I got fat shamed and so I guess I leaned into it, and then Covid hit and things got out of control. Long story short, ATBMS, I now have to get my other suit retrofitted. It's always something.

Professor Curly's movie premieres at MOMA on Tuesday. HBO partnering with Big Art. I know, I know, that is actually how shit works, but c'mon! Is nothing sacred anymore? On the other hand, fuck yeah for PC!!! Who has an HBO movie premiere at MOMA? That stupid movie I was in was supposed to premiere at MOMA, but somehow the Brooklyn Academy of Music offered the director a better deal. Whatever that means. People make dumb choices is what that means. You want to show your film at MOMA? Nah, BAM is better. What's BAM? Oh, I don't know, that place where the Talking Heads asshole designed a place to lock your bike up. Oh, you mean that place where all those mid-level Avant Garde theater shows go that nobody except theater nerds know about? That's great! Congrats! Psssh.

G had riding lessons today. They are getting quite good. My poor wallet, but it is worth every penny. There was even a jump involved! I took a picture. I talked with the teacher for a while about riding horses and Wyoming and Covid and the City. She asked me if I rode. I said I didn't. I grew up around horses though. That I rode mountain bikes. She said she didn't ride mountain bikes so we were equal. That Covid didn't really change anything up here and that the City sucked, but she liked the idea of food delivery. I couldn't get a lock on who she was exactly, but she took care of over 20 horses and her daughter found a fish whacking stick somewhere, and was swinging on a swing, whacking the thing against the pole as she swung. The teacher and the teachers, friend? I don't know who she was, but neither of them could think of the term, Billy Club, so they both obviously didn't fish, and they also thought only English cops carried Billy clubs, so there was that. I didn't have it in me to man-splain the two. Some mysteries are better left unsolved, ask a bridesmaid.

[Insert G Jumping Photo]

Vermont is driving me crazy. The boiler is broken. It just is. Scott gave me a lesson on what was wrong with it, and it sucks. It can now only go three days without error coding. When we showed up on Friday night the house was 50F. I couldn't get the thing to turn on. We had to put space heaters in the bedroom. At around 5a, I got up to use the bathroom and went down into the basement again to see what I could do. Nothing. Then I got so frustrated I started banging on the side of the boiler and voila, fucking hell. But it didn't last long. When I woke up again there was still no heat. I went back down to the basement and tried the banging trick again and nothing doing. Then I tapped on the circuit board and that fixed it. There is a leak somewhere and if you leave the pipe open it triggers the relief valve when it reaches 40psi, which is why a puddle of water appears. I mean, my poor Ticklers. They stalled. I got them going again, but this is no way for a man to work, right? I wrapped them in towels and blankets before I left today, because the boiler will stop working again by Friday. Supposedly it is heating up. But so what? When it is 39F at night and 63F during the day, a seven day process now taking 21 days? That's just no way to run an operation.

My work scenario is moving into panic mode. Portland is out. Funbunz Fencing and Bagels has been cancelled. One client decided to let their fence just disintegrate, the other one decided that they would be dead or in a home, so there was no reason to build a nice fence. BMI is BMI'ing. I learned more about the Governor's Ball gig. It is a rip-off. A trap. I haven't said no yet, but I am hoping for a miracle to happen. Tomorrow I have to sit down and really take a cold hard look at what I have in the coffers and what I need to do about it. I mean, I had it all figured out! I did. And, as Brother Luke said, A recession is a-comin. To which I say, Fuck you, Jerome Powell. The best economy for, well, at least since 2008 for people like me and you tank the shit on purpose? Because what? Minimum wage is going up? We had a global pandemic, fucker! What do people like me spend money on? Food? Bills? Rent? And you're worried about people buying houses and jet skis? We don't buy shit! If you want to find where inflation is coming from, take a look at corporate greed you obtusinal ostrich! This new growth was a long time coming, decades in the making, let it happen. I mean, it's too late now, but fuck you just the same.

Pegleg convinced me to do this thing with coconut oil to help my gums. And, oh boy, is it gross. You ever swish coconut oil around in your mouth for a few minutes? I tried it once, and I am still recovering. I will try it again, I am not convinced it is the way to go, but I am not against trying new things, when she told me to use Castor oil to help with eye worms, eye snakes? it worked really well, so I am not entirely skeptical, but swishing coconut oil for a few minutes at a time is intense. It's just so very rich. Hydrogen Peroxide at 3% feels so much more streamlined. And of course the computer is no help. But then again I have a periodontics appointment in August to access the damage, and the Dental Group in Middlebury sent me a bill for $230 for something they said was covered by insurance, so I don't know who to believe anymore. Being poor is awesome!

I don't know, I suppose I should sum this up. I have to get up early and get the car pool running. Well, not me, I have to get G to Old Chatham by 8a, where they catch a ride in a minivan, and then I pick them up at 8p at the school. G and another student, who G doesn't really like, which is kind of funny, awkward, and I am driving Junior Mint, with the rust holes and loud engine, I mean, G finds that stuff funny, so at least I am not embarrassing, but the school is like Hogwarts, and the other kids will take notice. But what do we do when we get back here? Do G and this other kid look at their phones for an hour not talking while we wait for the other parent to come get her? Does G go up to their room and I have to make small talk with a teenager? A teenager who is quite intrusive and argumentative as G describes her? I suppose I will find out tomorrow.

Life in the sub-burbs. A little different than what I grew up with. Which, speaking of growing up, I was doing some interviews in my mind the other day, something I have done for, like, I don't know, since I was 16, but I came up with an analogy for what my writing is, how to describe it, it's a bumpy ride, jarring even, like driving up a mountain road, it takes a while to get used to the travel, but once you accept it at it's terms you can enjoy the scenery, and the scenery is pretty good looking. As opposed to say, flying into Aspen on a private jet and taking a black suburban to a chalet. The scenery might be the same, but the way you get there won't connect you to the landscape. Just saying. You don't have to work harder, you just have to be uncomfortable a little bit. Of course, depending.