Here is a post of randomness:
PAGE 69 IS MISSING: Jebus. Last year I pulled out an old manuscript from my typewriter days. Meaning there are 100 pages of typewritten prose and no electronic record anywhere aside from a PDF scan that has no OCR capabilities. Meaning that if I wanted to do something with it, I’d need to keyboard it. I thought, what the hell. What else do I have to do between liver transplants and crying jags? Nothing. Besides, I had an idea about ruthlessly editing it down to novella-size, just because. I figure something I wrote so long ago must be filled with juvenilia-type bullshit, so cutting it by 50% is probably being gentle.
I’ve been slowly grinding on this. Keyboard is no fun, so it’s slow. And yesterday I took a glance forward, because I am old and brain-damaged and cannot even remember the plot of my own novels any more, and guess what? Page sixty-nine of the goddamn manuscript is missing.
Now, this is not that big a deal, right? 200-300 words, tops, missing. On the other hand, it’s so frustrating I want to track you down and set your house on fire just to see it burn.
THE DENTIST IS THE MOST AWKWARD SOCIAL INTERACTION IN YOUR LIFE. Forget the teen-aged register jockey you have to buy condoms and tampons from at midnight at 7-11, the Dentist is so awkward I try to make myself pass out on purpose when I get into that chair. I just had my teeth cleaned. Aside from the fact that my dentist uses a red-colored polish that always – always! – makes me think I am bleeding to death when I rinse.
The rest of the time, let’s face it, someone has their hands in your mouth and is breathing directly onto your face. Granted, that’s how most of my social interactions go, but at least I’m drunk).
HAPPY NEW YEAR. My New Year’s Eve was spent eating and drinking and staring at a cat sitting on my chest, rising and falling as I breathed. or, struggled to breathe, as the cat in question weighs 22 pounds. The resulting oxygen deprivation caused a series of hallucinations, most involving my pants as sentient beings and a universe where Lana Del Rey doesn’t exist.
Some friends of The Duchess hail from Kentucky, and for my Xmas gift they went and bought some ridiculously cheap bourbon for me and drove it back up to Jersey. Apparently in Kentucky bourbon is handed out on street corners and children can taste-test the sweet syrup of life from an early age. A glorious state it must be. I might move there. I might move there an establish some new Whiskey Free State. Why not? All I have are the aforementioned liver transplants and crying jags to look forward to.
fin
I spent the holiday weekend in a similar state. Well, not drunk and crying. Or at the dentist. And, not in Kentucky. I was in Connecticut, trying to sleep on a futon with a cat who purrs like a 1960’s muscle car. It was like the futon had Magic Fingers. Quite pleasant, actually, until she decided she was more comfortable between my legs. Um, no, no, no! I now need therapy.
Patty, how to tell you this; band-aid method is best: I sleep with a cat between my legs every night.
MY EYES!