rebirth

There came an auspicious dream last night. I had been given the care of a new baby, like a new year. Infancy as potent potential.
Why I can't stop: I don't want the responsibility

tell mama

"You are a flawed human being."
"So are you. That's an oxymoron."
"Oh yeah. Whatever."
OK, readers: What do you want to make happen or try to make happen in this next year? Are you going to motivate or vegetate? Create or procreate? Clean your plate? Lose the weight? Rock and roll? Lose control?
Remember, this is a site about addiction. We understand indulgence here as well as restraint.
So what's it to be?
Why I can't stop: Where to start. . .

a mountaineer's marriage

The wedding was in the shadow of Mont Blanc, and the bride wore white fur. A friend from the National Opera of Wales entertained at the dinner for 70 in the Chamonix hotel, while outside the tourists with their rosy cheeks and ski boots clomped in and out of the cafes and fancy shops. The snow was early this year, and deep, and the ski towns of the Alps came alive with it.
Aspen, Gstaad, Cortina—they're all alike. People strapping things to their feet for a couple of hours a day and spending the rest polishing their images and sipping this or that in front of a fire. While all the people who take the snowbunnies up the hills and sell them things when they come down live for them and love them and loathe them all at once. It's the same in any tourist spot, but I prefer sea level and sand to altitude and ice.
Why I can't stop: Better her than me.

now they tell me

Dear Taxpayer,
You owe us something over three thousand dollars from 2003.
Your friends,
The IRS
Why I can't stop: Audits

all christmased out

OK, I've had Christmas with the exes, Christmas with the lovers, Christmas with the family, Christmas with the Yankees.
Why I can't stop: Are we done yet?

creche dummies

cold outside

aweigh for the holidays

Why I can't stop: The boats are still running, if not the subways.

the caesarian

Why I can't stop: They shopped, they bought, they opened.

is it me?

Why I can't stop: Getting is just as cursed as giving.

winter solstice

I hadn't planned on celebrating Christmas this year. For starters, I have not accepted Jesus into my life nor do I believe in a deity of any kind. For the main course, I am also still really pissed about the creationism thing, and I am taking this out on Christians. And for finishers, Christmas is for kids, and I don't have any this year. Not to mention, my usual present-buyer, gift-wrapper is out of the country.
And then I realized that even if I boycott the day itself, right before Christmas, at the time of the solstice on which this holiday is based, I am visiting two households full of nieces and nephews where if I don't want to figure as Aunt Grinch I will be forced to come across.
Why I can't stop smoking: I have to buy wrapping paper.

peoplemovers

Partial strike? What the heck is that? The parking regulations will be suspended in the event of a strike. But what about in the event of a partial strike? All I know is that there is a partial smoker from a distant part of New York City partly asleep on the couch.
Why I can't stop: Transportation issues.

frankly speaking

The Fourth Floor Web Guy played trumpet in high school. Then he bagged it until he was better than 60. It took him a year or so to get his lip (embrashure? something?) back in shape after all those years playing bass, keyboards and whatever else tickled his fancy. But he did it, and now is playing gigs. He just bought this beautiful new Phaeton. (More about Frank.)
Me, all these years I've been writing. What a fool. I never learned to play an instrument, though I've always wished I had.
Why I can't stop: I shoulda been a rock star—or a photographer.

wolfen's corner

Where she used to live.
Where she lives now.
Why I can't stop: I live in the first place.

this is 55

photograph by Donna Ferrato / "Ironbound" December 2005


Why I can't stop: I totally forgot my hairbrush

growing pains

This is my niece. She is four. She is wearing my daughter's dress.
Once my daughter was four, wearing this dress, and I was thirty-five. Now she is almost twenty-four, and I am going to be the same age as the speed limit on most state roads.
Why I can't stop:
Too many miles on the odometer.

alternate side of the street parking

rocket in my pocket

Note to readers: A reminder that this is not a PG site. The other site is PG. Please try to keep it straight. On that site. Not this one.

"What the hell has that dog got ahold of now?" I looked up from the keyboard (I don't touch type) and down at the rug at my feet, the rug that has become Moxie's preferred spot in the apartment to carry his snacks and secret scores to nibble on. I try to monitor this behavior, and so I looked down to find that this time it was—a sex toy ohmigod!
It was a pocket rocket vibrator with a rubber hat with dinglies on it and not mine. Nice toy for a toy.
I called my roommate Antonia to report.
"Was it on?" she asked.
"No," I said."I should have documented the moment, but I was more concerned with getting it away from him."
"The people at the studio are laughing their asses off," she said. "My life has become a sit com."
Why I can't stop smoking: Pet of the Month

so goth

"And Behold," a short short by the Drummer, was shot on the occasion of his trip to collect a Victorian child's coffin he bought from an old Bible Belt farmer on e-bay.
Why I can't stop: My friends are so weird.

a lot of damn moxie

Moxie has a problem. Until about a month ago, Moxie and family were living happily in a kind of premarital bliss. And then He told Her that He didn't love Her and She had to move out. And so did Moxie. And everything pretty much sucked after that with the holidays coming up and all and not a lot of love in the air to go around for little dogs.
But the worst was yesterday, when She was reading match.com and discovered that He was looking for a soulmate in the personals. One who seemed to match Her description in every particular except the part about a nonsmoker.
Moxie has tried everything to get Her mind off it—chewing on rocks and wires, pooping on the floor, sneaking out into the hallway—but nothing seems to work. She just cries and smokes.
Why I can't stop: What other comfort is there in times of stress?

love and betrayal

dem apples

Why I can't stop smoking: The apple not only doesn't fall far from the tree, it doesn't seem to fall from the tree at all.

bad role model

Why I can't: Now I'm supposed to inspire someone else to stop smoking?

clubwoman

My grandmother was a member of the DAR, my mother was in the League of Women Voters and the NAACP. And even today, one of my nearest and dearest looks to be a future president of the Hollistan Garden Club, while another, for her sins, is on the board of a historic trust. I am not a joiner.
I do, however, belong to a very exclusive Club. Housed in a townhouse on the East Side of Manhattan, my Club has a library of rare books, members of rare distinction (Sir Edmund Hillary) and a stuffed grizzly bear rampant on the second floor landing. Though a pale imitation of the Royal Geographic Club (I've never been), the Explorers Club is the closest thing to a stuffy British scene I know of on this side of the pond.
I suppose I joined out of vanity—because it was there, and I could. I had to be nominated by two members and write reams of self-justifications and attach lists of publications etc. I rationalized that I would find stories and meet people at the club and be able to go on fabulous expeditions.
Thing is, I never go to my Club. In the ten years since I joined, I have been to two annual dinners and one reception—all in that first halcyon year. None of the lectures, slide shows, convivial evenings or banquets for which I continually receive invitations can impel me to slog through the underbrush of Central Park to the East Side.
And every December, when it's time to re-up, I have to realize this. Especially now that my expense account no longer covers the $400 annual membership fee nor the additional fees charged for each and every event. I have rationalized that I get a great deal to rent the venue for a party in case, say, my daughter gets married. But my daughter is getting married and she has not selected that venue. Or maybe, I tell myself, I will turn into an old fart who likes to walk to the Club every day and pretend to have business there so as to snooze in front of the fireplace with a newspaper spread over my face. I find I'm not quite ready to be a buffer yet.
But the Club was so hard to get into!
And so I sit, the envelope in front of me, trying to decide: Do I pay up for another year of nonattendance or not?
Why I can't stop: Exploration of the Far Side

it begins

Why I can't stop: The holidays

company

Why I can't stop: Now Poli has his friends coming over.

the new roomate

Why I can't stop: I have to share a bed

object in transition

Why I can't stop: I found Poli in the closet

whose dog is this?

Why I can't stop: Whose knee is that?

end of season

Why I can't stop: I think I left one fly alive in the locked up house.

closing up

housecheck

Closing up a summer residence is a process. It involves sweeping, moving outdoor furniture indoors, mothballs, cleaning refrigerators, packing things away in plastic bags, finding a spot for the lawnmower, dealing with bicycles and other sporting equipment, secreting keys so that plumbers can drain water and trying to figure out what to do with five bottles of ketchup.
Today I will do these things at my house and check to make sure that they have been done at the competition, The House of Hat.
Why I can't stop: Having a summer place is such a burden.

two weeks

Why I can't stop: It's killing my mother

drydocked

The boats are out of the water, I'm about out of vitamins and coffee. Time to put the hardboilers in the truck and get on the ferry.
Why I can't stop: Do I bring chairs for Thanksgiving dinner?

integrated addictions

Morning coffee is really boring.
So is beer.
And conversation.
Almost two weeks worth of newspapers are stacked up.

Why I can't stop: Life is pale

the mens

So one of my friends was very annoyed with my post yesterday. She said men were like preschoolers with hard-ons—now there's an image to conjure with. Another friend was complaining that men don't want to talk about things. And yet another was bemoaning the fact that they all dump you and run off with the babysitter.
I think the mens are pretty much at their wit's end. The womens keep wanting them to be what they're not (ie faithful, employed, helpful around the house, touchy-feely). And consider this: two-thirds of divorces are initiated by the womens.
Why I can't stop: We had the sex-specific traits backwards all those years

devolution

"So what do you think," I asked He-Whom-I-Consult-About-All-Things (for he is wiser by far than I, also taller, stronger, better at crossword puzzles and with a much bigger penis). "Is the world really going totally to shit or are we just getting older and noticing it more?"
"This is a particularly bad cycle," said He-W-I-C-A-A-T.
Why I can't stop: I was right.

one week in

After a week as a nonsmoker, I'm here to tell you I have time on my hands. More time to fidget, more time to fuss, more time to snack—just plain more time. I can't concentrate very well, but that will pass. Meanwhile I'll just be the ADD version of myself. Start something, forget what I'm doing, start something else, lose track of that, go off on a tangent, recollect the first thing.
Why I can't stop: I can't remember.

nice town department

GREENSBURG, Pa. (AP) - A Westmoreland County jury on Friday ordered a woman to pay $46,200 to her ex-boyfriend for gluing his genitals to his abdomen. Jurors found in favor of Kenneth Slaby of Pittsburgh in his civil case against Gail O'Toole of Murrysville after three days of testimony and ordered the payment for pain, suffering and emotional distress.
Slaby's lawsuit said the two broke up in 1999 after dating for 10 months, and he began dating someone else. After he broke up with his other girlfriend, Slaby said, O'Toole invited him over to her home on May 7, 2000, where he fell asleep. He said he woke up to find that O'Toole had used Super Glue to stick his genitals to his abdomen, glued his buttocks together and spelled out a profanity on his back in nail polish.
Slaby said O'Toole told him that her actions were payback for their breakup, and he had to walk a mile to a gas station to call for help.

Why I can't stop: The perils of taking a lover in Pittsburgh

make the world go away

hermitage

Day 5: It's OK in isolation, 15 miles off the coast, seeing few humans.
Why I can't stop: How when I return to the wide world?

odd assortment

"So who else is coming to Thanksgiving dinner?"
"Um, let me see." Calculations on the fingers. Figures not a forte. "I'm getting eighteen—unless my friends from France come, in which case it's twenty-two."
Every year I say I'm going to have a smaller affair, one for which I don't have to borrow chairs from all the neighbors and one for which I will have enough silverware
OK, let's break it down a little further, assuming 18, for the moment.
Age range: 1 to 65
Teenagers: 1
Children: 4
Men: 5
Women: 8
Sets of twins: 1
Naturalized Americans: 2
Unmarried: 7
Blond: 7
People of color: 0 (unless you count Chinese or Latino)
Couples: 3
Nondrinkers of legal age: 4
Smokers: 3
Why I can't stop: I will have to keep counting

day three

Why I can't stop: The Great Void

errands

night of the dead

It was midnight on Halloween, known by the Wiccans as Samhain, or New Year's Eve. I killed them by fire, I killed them by earth, I killed them by water.
Or, in normaltalk, I tried to burn up the rest of my cigarettes but even with a bunch of wooden matches stuffed in they wouldn't burn (what IS that chemical?). So then I stomped on them. And then I was afraid they might still be burning so I poured water on them. Then I threw them in the trash. The ocean might have been more romantic for me ("and then I cast them into the waves, as a stone weighing down my life"), but probably not for the ocean itself, which has enough trash floating around in it already.
It hasn't been too tough to quit since, because I've been asleep. Happy Day of the Dead.
Why I can't stop: I will always be a smoker.

the end

don't shoot

"If I ever get a little dog or a kitty, just take me out back and____________."
Those of you who know me will be able to fill in the blank.
Word: I have accepted a little dog.
And a roommate.
For some months.
For those of you who have perceived a tone of no-so-quiet desperation in my recent posts, I can only think that you must be partly right. Dog?
I have gone out of my mind.
It happened like this.
Neruda: "You remember my friend Antonia Lynn? You met at my wedding? The one who directs movies?"
Me: "Yes."
Neruda: "Do you want to rent her a room? She got kicked out of her other place and she needs a place to stay in New York. She comes home to the Berkshires for weekends."
Me: "Well, maybe. For how long?"
Neruda: "I'll have her call you. You're breaking up."
One day later.
Antonia: "So I am in such a mess. My boyfriend of two years dumped me. He said he doesn't love me any more and I said we can work on this and he said there's nothing to work on and I guess you can't make someone love you and I'm so sick of moving...."
Me: "Well, I'm not there right now, but I can leave keys in the elevator."
Antonia: "How much do you want?"
Me: "Well, don't you get like a per diem?"
Antonia: "Six-fifty?"
Me: "That's too much."
Antonia: "Five hundred?"
Me: "That's fine."
Antonia: "There's just one thing."
Me: "???"
Antonia: "I have a little dog."

Why I can't stop: My negotiating skills.

personal ad

I’m wrong for you. I’m down a couple lovers, too. I did have two, both from out of town, thank goodness. But the man’s getting married, and I just couldn’t seem to get along with the woman. I’ll tell you what, women yak too much about their feelings.

And I really don’t get the personal ad philosophy that you advertise for what you want—someone who likes long walks on the beach or indie films or whatever—and if someone fits your template, he or she is the one for you. As far as I can tell, people fall in lust with people who are not like them. And as for love, well, one of my friends defines it as the irresistible attraction to the wrong person.

When it comes to picking out of a lineup, I can’t look at someone and say, “Phew, hot!” I really don’t feel drawn to people until I’ve spent a lot of time with them, preferably in adverse circumstances. You know, like danger or hardship or emotional distress. For weeks.
So, like, I couldn’t have dinner or a drink and know whether I wanted to hop into bed with you. I’m missing the chemistry chip.

So how do you figure out who meets your criteria?
I don’t even know if I’m looking for a male or a female.
I don’t want a psycho, but then everybody is psycho, and you can’t narrow the field to zero.
I used to say that I was never going to get involved with someone who didn’t have a kid. But if you’re mostly having sex, who cares?
You probably have to be smart to have fabulous sex, but since I’ve never had sex with a dumb person, I wouldn’t really know.
OK, here’s one: I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t tolerate having sex with a person who is in my daughter’s age group. She’s 23.
Don’t bother doing the calculation. I’m 54. Female.

I can give you a few tips about why I’m wrong for you.
I’m addicted to many things, among them tobacco, alcohol, crossword puzzles, grapefruit juice, blogging and the newspaper.
I carry more weight around than the girl of your dreams.
I am way too honest.
I don’t like discussing or preparing meals.
I don’t own a TV, and I won’t go to the movies.
I don’t like to leave the house unless I’m going really far away.
I don’t like little kids or pets that much.
Or cuddling.
Or marriage.
I’m contrary.
I’m arrogant.
I always know better than you about everything.
And my friends are much more interesting than yours.

Why I can't stop: You're all wrong for me.

in your dreams

"May I borrow some of your makeup?"
Mick Jagger looked up from the mirror for a sec and pushed the greasepaint over. He had pots of rouge and eyeshadow in front of him. Even a flutter of fake eyelashes.
Donna and I were getting ready to shoot a scene in a movie. We were to ride through the streets of Manhattan in a VW bug convertible and meet cute with Jagger and his band, playing on the back of a flatbed truck. In fact, the backup band had just come into the Green Room.
"Look," I said to Donna. "You can tell just by looking at them who's the drummer, the bassist, the lead guitarist, the keyboard guy." I caught myself. "Sorry, that was mean. Typecasting." (N.B. You really can almost always tell.)
Donna wasn't looking. She was flirting with Jagger. "I think I'm in love," she said.
Why I can't stop: Even in my dreams she gets her man.

wedding bells

"Hallo," he said. "Just calling to see if you'd gotten blown away by the hurricane."
"I thought you were calling to tell me you were getting married," I said.
"Intuitive, aren't you?"
"I have that reputation. When?"
"December third."
"Well, I don't expect to be invited. It might be a little awkward."
"Maybe. It will be very small. Maybe a big party later."
"Congratulations," I said. "Everybody should try it once. And men are particularly domestic. You are particularly domestic. I think you'll be very happy."
"Reckon so?"
"I do."
Reason I can't stop today: Another one bites the dust.

yikes!

High tide is at 3:00. Storm surge to three feet.
Why I can't stop: It might be my last.

circle game

When I was 24 years old, I became a copy editor.
I am now 54 years old and have become a copy editor again.
Why I can't stop: Did the rest of my life happen?

the heat is off

It is a trifle nippy here in the house by the sea. Save the crudest form of solar power (windows) and a very pricey but ineffectual propane stove, I don't have heat. Sometimes I wish I could curl up in the drier. Sometimes I sit in the truck with the heat on. Sometimes I just stay in bed.
Why I can't stop: Fire between my fingers

classic addiction

third time charm?

I think the planning board meeting might be tonight. But I sure can't swear to it.

waste time

Spent some quality time at a town council meeting last night. I didn't actually think I was going to a town council meeting—I thought I was going to a planning board meeting. It's lucky I hired a lawyer so that I can pay him thousands of dollars to keep the dates straight, since I can't. The planning board meets Wednesday. But I did learn an awful lot about the sewer plant that I didn't need to know since I'm not on the town sewer line.
Why I can't stop: I am such a loser.

moonset

Boy, us shutterbugs have to get up betimes in search of our pix. As the sun was arising, the full moon was descending. Simultaneously a full lunar eclipse was commencing. Sadly, the moon fell beneath the horizon of the House of Hat before the eclipse was visible.
Why I can't stop: Photography.

wintertide

go away

It's raining, again, and it's making everyone logy (spellcheck doesn't know how to spell this one either). I slept late, dreaming of all the things i should have been doing had I been properly awake. There are mushrooms sprouting all over the yard, and the pond, which just the day before yesterday was at its lowest, is filled up again. I saw a comorant in a huge puddle on the main road, thinking, apparently, that it would make a good fishing spot. Well, maybe it did.
Why I can't stop: Eleven inches.

rival fleets

Of course, in this weather, neither boat will be running. That means no mail, no milk, no periodicals.
Why I can't stop: I have to read the newspaper on line.

day of atonement

Today you are meant to fast, to purify yourself, to make up for your—well, we won't say "sins," wrong religion—your bads.
Why I can't stop: I have a lot to atone for.

she's leaving home

The kids have packed up their wetsuits and firetwirling sticks and photo gear and computers and tents and sleeping bags and Dr. Bronner's soap. Today, they plan to jam the backpacks and plastic containers all into a marginal station wagon and head out for the Pacific coast of Mexico, stopping en route to see everyone they have ever heard or dreamt of. Once settled in hammocks and palapas at the beach, they will try to pick up enough work to eat tortillas and grilled fish.
Why I can't stop: Did they forget their sweaters?

cruise control

Let me speak, just for a moment, about Tom Cruise and that poor little girl he married. They say they're expecting. Well, I guess there's no doubt she's expecting. However, I have it on pretty decent authority (a friend from People magazine who has a friend who's a big Hollywood fertility doctor)that Cruise is infertile.
So. Baby, huh? Katie? Nicole? What do you have to say about this? Weigh in, please.
Why I can't stop: Scientology.

battening down the hatches

Why I can't stop: The kids are taking care of things.

subways go boom

The Mayor of New York says there are credible threats of suicide bombers on the city's underground. Every time we hear a siren, we jump.
Why I can't stop: I'm about to get on the subway.

bad dog

periodical pressure

I have been neglecting my job, that of reading the newspaper every day. I also have a stack of magazines from the last month. I tried to let them run out, but Time and Newsweek won't let that happen (we know why). Now other publications, discovering how much reading material already arrives at my door, have started sending me free copies I can't avoid.
Why I can't stop: I am falling further behind every day.

wise old age

Asleep on the living room floor this morning: Two teenagers and a pair of twenty-somethings, one of them my daughter.
Asleep upstairs: Two tots and my younger sister.
Not asleep: One bouncy dog.
I am the oldest person in this house.
Why I can't stop today: It's my duty as a parent and role model.

sistine chapel

postage due

"What on earth do you islanders do during the winter?" the tourists used to ask the postmistress.
"We knit seaweed," she retorted.
The postmistress lay in a casket covered with a quilt of hands holding hands yesterday. She had died, rather quickly, of lung cancer. Apparently she smoked the evil weed during those long winters, too.
But for all her tart tongue, she was one of the very few islanders who welcomed outsiders, even foreigners and Jews. She knew everybody, and everybody knew her.
Why I can't stop today: I've got to collect a hank of seaweed.

hip deep in the shit

Some days just bite. Consider my sister's day. She had guests visiting from Chicago, when all the toilets backed up in the house and overflowed. We're talking hands and knees and chlorox. When minor measures had failed, she brought in the experts: The Roto Rooter Men. When somewhat more major measures had failed, they decided to take the most major measure of rooting through the septic tank to the pipe opening.
Then they dropped the septic tank lid into the tank. My sister had the pleasure of seeing two alarmed men leaning over the lip, fishing around in her household waste, before calling in a further army of plumbers and septic systems experts. "Every poop consultant in town had their trucks in my driveway," she sighed. Finally, the men left, the guests left, the carpenters who wanted to discuss molding left, and her husband arrived home to break out the wet vac in the basement.
Why I can't stop: The old intake-outgo problem.

missionary position

Do you know what happens next? Lots of little plastic geckos, that's what. And I'm here to tell you, little plastic geckos aren't what they once were. They harrass big plastic geckos in the supermarket line. "No, no, darling. You can't have that bug candy," say the big plastic geckos. Then they let them get their suckers on the bug candy. Or the little geckos bug the big ones for ipods, or blast- the- insect video games. Then they throw tantrums and get what they want. Or if they don't get what they want, they call Little Gecko and Family Services and call the cops on the big geckos. I'm telling you, little geckos are ruling the world. Little geckos didn't used to be like this. They ate their flies, said thank you and cleaned up their walls. And if they didn't, they got a whuppin'.
Why I can't stop: These little plastic geckos are are going to be big plastic geckos before too long and then what will geckodom be like?

lazigirl

Hammock or plywood? I don't feel like building. I don't feel like cleaning. I don't feel like mowing. I don't feel like reading. I don't feel like doing much of anything. Except smoking.
Why I can't stop: I'm too lazy.

nano, nano

"What a beautiful voice you have," he says. It has almost always worked before. When he gazes at a woman through slitted eyes, they usually cave. And it's his 37th birthday. So what if she's a trifle older. After three beers, all women are desirable. Or, in the words of the old country song, "I never went to bed with an ugly woman, but I sure woke up with a few."
The blood alcohol level is ideal, and the hour is ripe: It's four in the morning. But this time, something's not working.
Why I can't stop: Nano is trying to seduce a dyke.

holy moly

In most motel rooms there is a copy of Gideon's Bible. Where is my Bhagavad Gita? My Koran? My Words of Wisdom from the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Huh?
Anyway, for a little light reading, I checked out Genesis 1, the bone of contention for the creationist fascists. I don't really see their problem: If you change the word God to Unknown Power, it sounds pretty much like what scientists say except for the timing.
"Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. . . And [God] created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind."
Then we get to the part where it looks like scholars made an error in translation.
The text reads: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him."
It should properly read: "So Man created god in his own image. In the image of Man created He him."
Read it for yourself genesis
Why I can't stop: men are gods

pittsburgh, pa

Why I can't stop: Need I elaborate?

i hate school

Have I mentioned this? I hate bureaucracy and bells for class and getting sent to the office and the goodie girls and the jock boys and homework and tests and grades and papers and all the rest of it. Why did I take a job that's just like being in school? In fact, my job right now requires that I be actually in school.
And yet—and yet—I learned a few things today. I guess that's why I keep doing this job. I keep finding out new stuff.
Why I can't stop: I'm never going to freaking graduate.

i'm a bad dog

the motel room

rock on, darwin

So I'm out here in Missouri, right? Beating my head against the wall to try to do a story that nobody wants me to do, because they're afraid of losing their jobs. They're high school science teachers, struggling with "intelligent design" and evolution. School superintendants won't call me back, principals won't call me back, science chairs won't call me back, biology teachers won't call me back, and I'm sitting on my ass in the Ramada contemplating a six-hour drive to God's Nowhere Plus where I might be able to find someone who will talk to me.
Then I get the word: The magazine that sent me out here has been sold. To Bobby Guccione Jr., famous for a dad who started Penthouse and for himself starting Spin magazine. Check it out, dudes and dudettes: He thinks science is a lot like rock 'n' roll. Science has, Bobby Jr. says, "a bunch of people with strong egos and God complexes. That sounds like rock 'n' roll to me."
Is my editor playing lead guitar now?
Why I can't stop: I'm on the marimbas. Naked.

i don't like worms

fluids of life

smokin pa

photograph by oceangurl

news junkie

I'm telling you, it was as much as I could do to keep the wheel from turning south as I crossed the Mississippi River. I passed the National Guard convoys headed, belatedly, down to the disaster zone. I was listening, goddess help me, to NPR for perhaps the first time in my life. I was thinking about my cousin Glenn and her family, safe but exiled from their home in Covington, La. I was wondering if my friend Jed, city editor of the Times Picayune, who, when last heard from in Baton Rouge was headed for his home in the French Quarter, had gotten through the cordons and rather hoping he hadn't—unless he had a hard hat and a gun. I was wishing that I had not quit my job at People. The last time I wished that so hard was on 9/11, right after I quit. Big things are happening, and there's nothing I can write about it.
Why I can't stop: I'm sitting on my ass in the Ozarks and, at the moment, I don't give a flying fuck about evolution.

black in lung and craw

Well, it's gonna be rough. Headed into smoking territory U.S.A, where the bars have authentic atmosphere and a pack is less than three bucks. After a month I am so longing to smoke, I can't even believe it. It's tougher than it was at the beginning. Somebody told me my cells are recycling or something. Never heard of it. But the gut is definitely clamoring for just one hit.
Why I can't stop smoking: The flesh is weak.
And the spirit isn't all that willing either.

it's so glamorous

photograph by Christopher Garrison

back to school

"But think of it this way: at least you don't have to go to school!" Citichild is complaining about going to work, but at least they pay you to go. This is the first fall she doesn't have to go back to school.
Every September I am so thankful that I don't have to go ever again. With that touch of crispness in the air last week, I was just starting to get down on my knees to praise the Great Spaghetti Monster from Outer Space who Designed Us All with fervent gratitude when I realized—shit, I do have to go back to school this year. A week from tomorrow, in fact. Why did I take on a story that requires principals, text books, teachers' dirty looks and that awful green hall color? What an idiot. I think the GSM made some fairly grave errors in designing my brain.
Why I can't stop: I hate school.

you're going too fast

OK, I cut the cop off on Route 1. So, OK, he wrote me out a ticket for $75. This is understandable. But just a couple days before, I got a ticket written at 6:44 ayem for a missing mirror. While I was parked. I found the mirror under the truck. Frankly, having watched the traffic police go down the street writing ticket after ticket for the past week, I'm pretty suspicious. Did the cops take the mirror out themselves?
Why I can't stop: It's the end o' the month quotas.

elvis lives

It was very sad. He went off into the woods one night and never returned. Despite what you may have heard, he was not into drugs or young girls' white panties. He liked his chow, true enough. And in his later years, you could see it. He liked elaborate costumes—bejeweled capes and so on. He didn't really like to be alone. Except at the very end. When he left us to howl alone.
Why I can't stop smoking: The King is dead. Maybe.


Anyone who wishes to buy Elvie a virtual plot or memorial, check out DEPARTED PETS

oral fixation

It has been almost a month since my intervention, and I am here to tell you that the obsessions themselves may change, but obsessive behavior does not. I would require a personality transplant. I have not smoked a single cigarette of any kind including vegetable, clove and marijuana.
The cough is gone.
I have put on 10 pounds.
I have replaced cigarettes with beer, ice cream, Goldfish crackers, beer, carrots, celery, beer, Chinese food, pizza, beer, blueberries, almonds, beer. You get the drift. I'm also picking my lips, playing on the computer, taking pictures and chewing on toothpicks, all of which have the advantage of being calorie-free. I am not doing quite so many crossword puzzles, as my attention span is compromised.
Why I can't stop smoking: I'm not sure life is worth living any more.

cigarette break in paris

photograph by Donna Ferrato

ladies don't smoke

"Speaking of girdles, I am having a little trouble with my left hip and thinking that wearing those girdle panties again might help support it, but don't have access to a source." The e mail from Mom in Mexico contained this broad hint. Why were we speaking of girdles? Well, it's part of a "dialogue" about gender identity. I mentioned girdles, because on one memorable birthday, Mom sent me a cosmetic bag and a girdle as gifts. You would think that having known me for 40 some years she would have given up trying to mold me into her notion of a feminine figure, but no. You would think that sending me on a shopping expedition might be something she'd know better than to try after all these years, too. My husband did all my shopping for 20 years, for crying out loud.
Why I can't stop smoking: I am in deep denial about my womanhood.

thai sticks

courtesy of the Cigarettes from Around the World Collection (Thailand)