dreadcrumbs

Lunchtime Interlude

So I’m sitting in the large conference room at work (the same one which still has the human waste cleanup norms I posted years ago) during lunchtime. I chose to take my lunch here because of the reactionary climate control that seems to take place in the office every time the outdoor temperature drops below sixty-five degrees. It’s a sauna in cubeville, and while the individuals who spent the summer shivering in puffy coats and hooded cloaks are finally able to relax, those of us with recessive walrus genes are now irritated and sweaty. The large conference room is currently the last bastion of sub-eighty degree temperatures, as long as no one else is in it. And no one is. The table in the center of the conference room sits about ten, fourteen if you have no respect for personal space. I tend to sit at the head (or foot, depending on which way you roll) of the table in this room, even when I’m not alone, so that’s where I am. I should say that that isn’t because I’m usually in charge, or the boss or anything, because I’m not, gracias a Dios. But I *am* physically larger than everyone here, and it’s probably important for people to remember that *really*, if it came down to it, post-apocalypse, we all know who the warlord would be.

Anyway, I eat the bag of chunk-light tuna that is my lunch (or my *first* lunch, because clearly a bag of tuna isn’t enough for a creature of my stature) and sit down to write a blog post. I was shamed at a recent signing for Rapunzel’s Revenge by some of my wife’s fans, who took me to task for not posting more. So I figured I should do *something,* since eating my three ounces of tuna wasn’t going to take the whole lunch hour. I had intended to poach a story that my four year old son wrote me for my birthday, and I probably still will, at least before he turns five, but I wanted to share a bit of dialogue that just happened.

I’m sitting, as I’ve said, at the head of the table, which has me facing the door to the conference room, when Gary (not his real name, of course, because who would really be named Gary?) speedwalks into the room and, upon seeing me, abruptly stops. I don’t know Gary very well - he’s in a part of my department that I don’t usually work with much, and because I’ve stopped going to the morning “stand-up” meetings, I only ever see him in the hallways (which I frequent) and company parties (which I don’t).

I don’t look up from the computer immediately, expecting him to just leave, but he doesn’t. He stands in the door and doesn’t say anything. Really, it was probably only about five seconds that he stood there silently, but it felt like a long time. Eventually I look up.

“Hey,” I say.

“Oh,” he says.

There is a pause where I expect him to tell me what he wants. He has an unposted meeting in this room in five minutes, he wants to do some deep knee bends in privacy, something. Nothing.

“You want some tuna?” I ask, hoping he says no, because there isn’t any left.

He stares.

“Is there a meeting in here?” he finally asks.

“Not until two, as far as I know,” I say.

“Oh,” he says again, still standing there.

Nothing for a minute. I look back at my computer and poke some keys, like I’m actually doing something, but he doesn’t leave.

“I am accepting petitioners until then, however,” I finally say.

“What?” he asks.

“If you have any grievances you’d like redressed, I’m willing to hear them,” I say.

“Um...no,” he says, looking around the room. I think he’s trying to avoid my eyes.

Then he walks out.

It’s a tricky business, nurturing that aura of unapproachability. If you’re cruel or are generally difficult to get along with, you foster hatred, which can actually be a lot more of a hassle than people liking you and wanting to be around you all the time. But having little conversations like the one I just had with our Gary here go a long way toward getting people to leave you alone.

Also, only posting blogs every two months or so tends to keep people away.

The Horrifying Secret March of Human Corruption (and Poo)

The tiny communist on my shoulder has been at me for quite some time to do a post. Okay, to be honest, I don’t know he’s a communist for sure, but he has a hammer and a goatee, so what am I supposed to think?

Anyway, I’ve mostly been listening to the fat guy with the PS3 controller on the other shoulder, but he’s fallen asleep for the moment, so I thought I’d write something just to shut little Lenin up.   

Also, because my topic today has to do with bathrooms, and I’m about one post away from having to rename this blog “Astounding Tales of Toilet Terror,” I was biding my time to see if something less fecal came up, but alas, not the case.

So. Any of you poor souls who have read this blog for any length of time know that I have long considered public restrooms a haven for The Mad. It’s as if the communal waste disposal depot is such an incomprehensible horror that people who enter into it are instantly driven insane, embarking on behavior that would otherwise get them exiled from human civilization. And I’m talking about the men’s bathroom here, folks, though I imagine the repositories of the fairer sex have their own brand of madness and woe. I’ll let my wife do a post about that.
In any case, a review of my top complaints:

1. Urinating anywhere but in the proper receptacle. I have seen way too much splash during my nearly 30 years in civil society. WAY too much. If your quizzical biology somehow renders a single directed stream impossible, sit on the toilet. Do not stand and hope for the best. Sitting to pee does not make you a girl, unless it is one of the 17 toilets situated directly on a ley line.
2. Failing to clean up after yourself. If you leave hair, feces, strange ashy particulate matter (I’ve seen this several times and have no idea what it is), or visible bum-grease on the toilet seat, wipe it off before leaving. I know you can’t remove the bacteria and viruses you’ve undoubtedly also left behind, but please, make an effort.
3. Spitting. Don’t do it. Just...don’t. Yes, I’d prefer you do it in the bathroom to doing it in the hallway, but please. Spitting in the urinal is retarded. Really, it’s proto-human behavior. And the sink? Come on now, we wash our hands there. If you’ve got that much of an excess of snot and phlegm, see a healthcare professional. Or blow your nose. Using tissue paper.
4. Chatting. While sitting on the toilet to pee won’t necessarily turn you into a girl, catching up with your buddies on the sports scores at the urinal most definitely will. Going to the bathroom is not meant to be a social activity any more than sleeping or vomiting is. If the public bathroom is the only place you are able to comfortably connect with humanity, you need to see a therapist. Now.

And, of course, washing your hands. Even if you did sit to pee, and are quite sure nothing moist got on your hands, and are in a devil of a hurry, you *were* in the Realm of the Unclean, so just wash those suckers. It doesn’t take long. If you have a skin condition that causes you to break out in boils when water touches you, wear disposable gloves. And dispose of them. I can’t count how many times I see people walking around the office with dirty disposable gloves on.

*--tangent - I’m eating mixed nuts while I write this, and I just ate what I think was a peanut that looked like a tiny bison skull. It was delicious.--*

Okay, so I bring all this up because I’m in the bathroom the other day, wrapping things up in the stall, when I hear someone stomp in to the bathroom and sidle up to a urinal. There is an overloud sigh, a nasty hacking noise, and some spit. Then someone else comes in.

“Randy!” shouts the man we will soon discover is named
“Dave! We must be on the same watering schedule, brah!” Randy shouts.
“I downed like two gallons of Dew during the call this morning, and now I’m paying for it,” Dave says.
“I know what you mean,” says Randy. It sounds like he’s nodding or shaking his head or something. “I’ve got a keg of agua, a keg! under my desk. Feels like I’m here every half hour!”
*more spitting*
*watery noises I try to ignore*
“You sell that boat?” asks Dave.
“Last week,” says Randy, still sort of shaking or something. “And I made a mint!”
*water noise changes pitch*
“Woah, shoulda worn my waders!” shouts Dave.
*Someone else comes comes in*
“Hey!” says the unnamed someone, who I will call Chester. “Standing room only, huh guys?”
*Chester enters the stall next to mine, leaves the door open *
“You guys on the call this morning?” Chester shouts, way too loud. Something wet speckles the floor near the divider at my feet.
“I was,” says Dave, and a urinal flushes. He does not walk to the sink area, but instead hovers somewhere outside Chester’s stall.
“What did you think about that whole Roger thing?” Chester asks. The speckles under the divider are forming a small pool.
“Eh, not my problem,” says Dave.
Randy’s urinal flushes just as Chester flushes the toilet loudly, possibly using his foot.
“Cha-ching!” shouts Randy. “Owe me a coke!”
“Riiiight,” Chester says. “You owe me A WHISKEY!”
*Uproarious laughter*
At this point, they all tromp off together, giggling, one of them muttering “gotta pay to play, man, gotta pay to play.” Right out the door. Which is to say, no washing of any kind.

So, clearly, I’m traumatized. For therapy, I made a flyer, and hung it up in the workplace bathroom. Here it is:

Vengeance Rampant

I thought I'd take a break from self-imposed blog exile to sound the horn about the imminent release of My First Book. "Book," if you can find it in your heart/brain/gizzard to call something that uses pictures as well as words to tell a story. I do, but my traditional definition of "book" as anything bound has proved awkward on my inspection visits to jungle prisons.

And "First," if you don't count that YA romance anthology that I somehow ended up in. And, of course, the "My" only makes sense if you overlook the fact that I only *CO* wrote the words, and someone else entirely did the pictures.

So...if there's anyone out there who comes to this blog who doesn't first stop by my wife's site (and who wouldn't? she updates that thing with new content like every two hours), the book is called "Rapunzel's Revenge," and you should go out and buy it now. Or pre-order it, anyway. They moved up the publication date to this Monday or something. Soon. I'm not sure why. I think the publisher got nervous about that big London Times piece about how the book's text is one giant anagram of a Middle English translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

It's totally not, though. That's just ridiculous. I don't know why journalists make up stuff like that.

Still, you should get the book and find out for yourself. Don't take my word for it.

And if you want more info, Shannon has a cornucopia of it here.

Summer Re-Run

Because I’m apparently on vacation from the blog for the summer, I thought I would at least do what tv shows do when they run out of material. A flashback! Just film two new minutes of characters saying “Gee, you remember when...”

So, back in the early days of the blog (and my current job), I noticed our meeting rooms had little sheets of paper mounted on the walls with the rules of the room, so I went ahead and made rules of my own, and posted them in the place of the official ones. So click on the link for the re-run.

The two new minutes of material?

< This blurry cameraphone photo.

Here we are, lo these many years later, and my rules are still there. Being obeyed, too, as far as I can tell.

On Finding Forgotten Things

I’m finding there isn’t anything more difficult to wake up from than sleep. Of all kinds, really. Unconsciousness, Stupor, Apathy. They are all friends of mine, and while I’ve never been a smoker, I will make the uninformed declaration that they are  just as difficult to quit. As a human being, and more specifically an American one, I feel it is my cultural duty to make at least one uninformed declaration each week. So there it is.

To make up for my lack of posts lately, I thought I would put up a couple of pictures. Because, you know, they count for like a thousand words each.

This is a little 8 page home-made notebook, apparently being held by a zombie.

I made it from two pieces of printer paper folded twice and one well-placed staple. If you can’t make it out from the second photo, the columns I wrote in are “Date/Time,” “Color,” and “Consistency.”

I wrote in some bogus data from sequential days with a variety of pens and pencils, held a sweaty chocolate bar and then handled the booklet to make it seem well used, and then left it in the bathroom stall, hooked inside the seat-protector dispenser. I did that yesterday, and it is still there today. I think the cleaning lady has been in there at least twice, but didn’t throw it away. I would suspect people might not want to touch it, but I know at least one person did, because it has moved location subtly. I’m thinking of making new entries until it disappears.

Maybe if it’s still there on Monday, I’ll put an “If found please return to Dean Hale” message on the front. Then when it is delivered to me I’ll be gushingly gracious and insist on giving the person who returned it a two dollar and fifty cent reward.

Animalia and Me

How much I like a beast is usually determined by how much fun I have growling or shouting the name of their species at them, preferably while eating. While they're eating. Not me. Which is to say, I'm not eating or being eaten. By them. The beast is eating something else. Often another, smaller creature.

That being said, I have always had a fondness for the magpie - not only because my daughter's name is Maggie, and I call her that, but the black and white pigbird seems like one of the few members of the animal kingdom that seem quintessentially "beast." Warthogs are also good. Swine generally are pretty good. Like I said, I think it's the eating. I mostly think animals are the coolest when they are eating, and eating proudly. And while I don't think magpies generally have a that reputation, it has certainly been my experience. Squatty little things rooting for food, giving me a skeptical eye as they chew. So, like my daughter, I guess.

In any case, whenever I see a magpie, I've long made it a custom to growl "maaagpiiiiiie" at it. Or I shout, but not too loud. I'm not really trying to say "boo," I'm trying to connect with it on its level. If I'm in my car, I'll roll down the window to do it. I'm not sure why, but I tend to deliver the word like a hapless Nazi commander bemoaning the name of some Allied hero that is constantly a thorn in his side. 

So, magpies. I set all this up to tell you that I saw a magpie this morning.  It was crouched on the grass a few yards from where I parked my car in my workplace parking lot. It wasn't on the way to the door, but, as I've said, I enjoy a good magpie. So I went over to it, growling its name as I walked. It seemed to ignore me, greedily pecking away at some food in the grass until I got about three feet away. Usually they hop away squawking at around 10 feet. I'd never really had a good eye to eye conversation with a magpie, so I squatted down so my eyes were level with the creature and told it in plain english that it was a magpie. When I actually talk to animals (as opposed to growling at them or trying to mimic their speech), it usually consists of my asserting that they are the animal they are. "You are a dog," I will say to my sister-in-law's fidgety little Maltese every time I see it. It's important to remind the people of Malta of their place, you see, or they'll get uppity.

Right. So this is getting dangerously blathery. Long story short, the magpie was eating another bird. Not another magpie, but another feathery friend. Pecking at its innards happily. Horrifying enough, right? Right? What could be worse? Exactly.

IT WAS STILL ALIVE.

THE BIRD IT WAS EATING WAS STILL ALIVE.

I'm trying to convince myself now, after the fact, that the head lolling back and forth, the wing twitching, the leg kicking were all just, I don't know, inertia from the gut-pecking. That it truly was dead, and was only moving because the magpie was moving it around with its gory beak.

But really, I don't think it was. I think I heard a weak little cheep.

I sort of jerked up involuntarily when I realized this, and I think it was my intention to shoo the magpie away from its living meal, but when I stood up, it jerked its head toward me, staring, unmoved. And it growled. Like a dog. Like when they think you're going to steal their food. I have never heard a bird growl before, but there it was. Kind of a rapid clicksquawking.

And so I left the abomination alone. Was that wrong? I mean, really, the bird could have been dead. And even if it wasn't, it would be soon. Best case scenario, I would have scared the magpie away, and then had to mercy-crush the dying bird's head under my heel.

Disturbing enough, but with the chance that I would also gain a murderous psychotic enemy with the power of flight, I opted to just walk away.

And I could swear it laughed as I left. Some kind of low clicking creepy grunt. But it might just have been the sound of hollow bones breaking under beak-pokes.

I still like magpies, though. I hear they're lucky.

The best revenge, I guess.

Just got back from a nearly week-long trip to Florida, which you'd think would be a good thing, what with the state's reputation for infecting its visitors and residents with unbridled glee and relaxation.

But no, it was all business. People close to me already know this, but I've been trying for years to find the leaders of the alligator cult that ordered the daylight assassination of my parents in their quaint bayou home. I had a lead I wanted to follow up on, knowing that if it proved to pan out, I would be coming back from the sunshine state with my hands slick with blood and ichor, plagued by the dark memories of the unspeakable things I had to do in the service of my own rage.

Alas, my days were eaten inside the chill air of an Orlando convention center, clicking through slides on medical software design to an audience that was simply counting the minutes until the bars opened again.

Before I knew it, I was out of time, and any serious inquiries into reptilian death cabals would make me miss my flight home.

So, Plan B. I will "live well." They'll hate that.

I flew first class, Chief Hierophant Jerry Folsom! First. Class. You ever flown first class, Mr. High and Mighty Grand Lagarto Edgar Mills? I didn't think so. Free drinks, three more inches of legroom, and all the peanuts I could eat! If that isn't living well, I don't know what is. Boo-ya.

Five Things I've Learned From My Mom

1. Never hold on to the back pockets of someone twice your size when learning to rollerskate
2. One competent person is way more useful than two incompetent ones, unless you're filling a pit.
3. Shouting is only for idiots and people falling from great heights.
4. Most people don't have hidden agendas, and if they do, they're hidden for a reason. Just move on.
5. Seek first to be self-sufficient, then dominate the weak*

*Okay, that second part was mine. But I'm sure she'd agree.

Things That Cannot Be Un-Read

No storyella this week, at least not yet, but for the sake of quasi-persistent content I need to at least share a bathroom discovery. It's a little baffling.

Here's the thing - in the public bathroom at my workplace, like many public bathrooms, there are little seat protector dispensers mounted inside the stalls. They're usually empty, so you either have to embark upon the delicate and frustrating task of placing toilet paper on the seat, only to have it blow off in a stray breeze just as you're about to sit on it...or...roll the dice, go unprotected, and hope "Messy Jared" wasn't the last occupant.

In any case, this really isn't so much about haunch hygiene as about the little notebook that happened to be stuffed into the seat protector dispenser. A spiral-bound, half-size notebook with a pen stored in the spiral binding.

Between the resident pen and its generally weatherbeaten appearance, I assumed it was a work notebook in active use that someone took into the bathroom with them. To...review notes...or something. And since I wanted to be the good coworker and return the notebook to its rightful owner, I braved the dangers of Inviso-Feces and plucked the thing out of its holding spot.

Now, I don't consider myself nosy, really. I mostly don't care what other people are saying, doing, or writing as long as it doesn't interfere with my eating or sleeping. But, I did need to know who the thing belonged to, so I could return it, so I flipped through the thing to try to discreetly discover the owner's identity.

And, strangely, in this apparently well-used notebook of possibly 150 pages, complete with fairly expensive pen attached, only five pages had anything on them. Pages 2 and 3 had hand-drawn baroque curlique-border-flourish things, like you might see embellishing a turn of the century (the last one, not this one just 8 years ago) stock certificate. Or a certificate of completion from the Westchester School of Byzantine Mincing.

Page maybe-19 had a drawing of what I think was a bloodshot eye. The quality of art we're talking here is something like talented-eight-year-old or mid-life-crisis-accountant. Which is to say, better than anything I could do, but still not for public consumption.

Page something-like-62 had the heading "Phrases and Terms," and then followed with "vitriol," "mendacious," "choler," and something in French. I think it was "J'ai un morceau de votre pied," but I don't speak French, so I can't be sure.

Finally, page-approximately-81 had a handwritten list which I found so unsettlingly perplexing that I had abandon the notebook for the next intrepid Samaritan.

But not before copying it down on another page to take with me.

So I could share it with you.

And thus I present to you the list in its entirety:

1. A insertion
2. Condom
3. Panties (tight and pulled under)
4. Taught panties
5. leggins panty typen
6. long shirt tucked in
7. Diaper (pullups) /with hole in crotch
8. Support panties (large panty)
9. Diaper overnighter
10. Support panty
11. Cotton pajama bottoms
12. Cotton top
13. Godun. Gown

No idea. Seriously. No idea. Whatever it is, it can't be good. I've tried really hard to come up with a non-disturbing explanation, but nothing I can really accept. Maybe answers to some overly-bizarre language quiz? Maybe the notebook owner's first language has single words for each of these things, and he's translating them? But really, what language on Earth could possibly have a single word in common use that means "Diaper with hole in crotch?"

Yeah, okay, maybe Esperanto.

But still.

"Visiting Hours"

I look at my brother across the table. His face twitches as he shuffles the deck of cards in his hands again.
"Gary," I say.
"You ain't real," he interrupts.
One of the other patients in the common room suddenly starts singing what sounds like a cartoon theme song at the top of his lungs.
"FELIX THE CAT!" the man screams.
"I'm your older brother," I say. "Don't you recognize me?"
Gary starts to deal the cards face down on the table. Solitaire, maybe.
"THE WONDERFUL WONDERFUL CAT!"
I turn to glare at the screamsinger, who seems to be sitting calmly on a padded chair, flipping through a copy of Highlights.
When I look back at Gary, he's staring at the cards laid on the table with such intensity that I think he's trying to will them to move.
"I have a wife named Julie," I say. "You've met her. We have a little boy now."
"I know who you say you are," he whispers, not looking up from the cards.
"Then what..." I start.
"But you ain't real," he says again. "Yer made up."
"...EVER HE GETS IN A FIX!"
I look around again, this time for an orderly, or a nurse, or anyone, who will take responsibility for Felix the Screamer. There's a man behind the counter at the security door, but it looks like he's tuned it all out.
I stand, walking over to Gary's side of the table. His eyes dart once to me, and then back to the cards.
"Hey buddy," I say, putting my hand on his shoulder. I feel him twitch once and start to shiver. Crouching down to eye level, I put my other hand on his.
"I'm here, Gary," I say. "I'm here, I'm real, and I'm your brother."
I hear his breathing get more ragged, and he sits, as still as he can, for several seconds.
"...INTO HIS BAG OF TRICKS!"
Abruptly, he turns his head to look right at me, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot.
"I can't see you," he whispers. "I can't see you. I can't see you."
I stand up, and plop back into the chair across him.
"This is really sad," I say, just as a nurse appears with two tiny cups for Gary.
"Got your medicine here," she says.
"Hey," I say to her. "Could you do something about Felix the Cat over there? It's really hard to talk with that screaming."
"FELIX THE CAT!"
She looks over at the screamer, shakes her head, and walks off in the opposite direction.
"Great," I mutter, and then notice Gary is staring at me, his little pill cup in one shaking hand.
"You ain't real," he says, and gulps down the pills.
"We went to school together," I say. "Remember Goatwood? I introduced you to Emily?"
"You ain't real," he says again. My vision blurs as my eyes start to tear up.
"I am," I say, reaching up to wipe the tears, but find none.
I blink several times, trying to clear my vision, and realize only Gary is blurry. The barred window behind him is as clear as ever.
"What...I..." I mumble, looking at Gary's image grow more indistinct, and then disappear altogether.
Suddenly the nurse is at my shoulder. "Did you take them pills, Nathan?" she asks.
"What?" I say. "No. My brother took them."
The nurse sighs. "Did you take 'em or not?"
"My brother did," I say. "He..."
She bends down to look me in the eye.
"He ain't real," she says.
The nurse stares for a few more seconds, her eyes searching for something in my face that she evidently doesn't find. Eventually she clucks her tongue and walks away.
I cast around, looking for someone, anyone, who saw Gary, who saw what I saw, and my eyes fix on Felix, who is staring at me. When he realizes I'm looking back, he silently mouths something, like he's trying to tell me a secret.
"What?" I mouth back, confused.
"I HAVE A MAGIC BAG!" he yells.