Hi You!

Hello you. There's only one of you reading this. I know that after a couple of years of watching you on my stats. Don't worry. I don't know where you live. You're anonymity is safe.

I've decided, after a few years of trying to hold up two ends of the same thing, and at the risk of alienating you, I'm going to open two of my blogs up to each other.

Maybe you'll like my other place, A Cat on the Ghetto Box. Maybe you'll meet friends among my friends there. Maybe you'll nod your head and say to yourself that you're glad I wasn't always this crabby.

Maybe you won't and that's okay.

I might keep writing in both places. I'm not sure yet. See, I've been feeling bad about all this dead space. It's been hard, while I'm editing and rewriting so much to keep writing in both places. It has. And I don't think I'll be done anytime soon. At least, if you're really bored and want something to do while I'm off in my own ether, you can check out what I'm saying in another world, a slightly less crabby world.

I'm not sure either side is all that different anyway. I was trying to keep the other from being quite so crabby. I was trying to get this to be dark and dirty.

It turns out that I haven't yet reached my limits of dark and dirty. I'll save that for fiction.

Now, don't get tied up in the paradox I've created, okay? I'll see you safe on the other side.

Thank you for listening, jules

Paying for Clean Dirt Will Be Next

Why do companies have to be so stingy with their characters?

Do you know what I mean? You're most of the way through writing a note on your 'free' gift card when you run out of characters, max 150 but you only needed about 173. Really? You don't have room to finish the sentence about deserving time off and by the way, I hope you had a happy birthday and maybe you should celebrate all over again because your present is three weeks late. And it's imperative to include the Love, the imperfect but still thinking of you Me.

No. You don't get to write your real sentiments because you only have 150 characters. There is no room, absolutely no room for a creative thought.

And those 150 characters include spaces and dashes. Do you want to charge for the air in your packages too?

Yes, you do. I know you do. You've found a way to charge me for water by making that tepid stuff you serve from the tap taste like a Coke without the syrup with a hint of chlorine and brown water added.

What do you mean you don't know what brown water is? It's dirty dish water, kiddo, and that's what it tastes like when you get a cup of water instead of bottled even though they are most likely bottled at the same source.

I like those filters and the added magnesium, folks. I have to admit that I like when my water tastes like a cold mountain stream, or what one used to taste like before acid rain ruined them. I also like the clean bottles you get when you buy bottled water. Have you ever looked closely at those red plastic glasses they serve tap water in? Don't.

You're likely to find old lip stick stains and white crud like what grows around the edge of the tap. What is that white crud anyway? It looks like what grows on your teeth overnight.

And forget drinking something that's cold. It will be tepid. If you order ice water, you get freezer-burned ice cubes. And you know what freezer-burn tastes like.

You don't? Let's see. It tastes like that white stuff that grows around the edge of the tap, but add in some stale breadcrumbs. How those stale breadcrumbs get in there, I don't know, but they do.

Now, you see why I'm willing to pay $2.19 for a bottle of water when I can get free stuff for nothing, even if the bottles are clogging up our oceans with flotillas the size of Texas. There are a whole lot of free flavors in the free stuff they put on the table, and don't forget the lip stick stains on the red plastic cup.

Pretty soon, people are going to be walking around with bottles of fresh air in their backpacks, bottles that they pay $22.99 to breathe because it is so much fresher and more reliable to breathe than the stuff near the highways. We'll have bottled air systems in our cars, in restaurants, in convenience stores.

And you know what?

We'll buy that shit because we will have fouled up our air to the point that we'll be able to smell the white crud that grows on the edge of the tap, the stale breadcrumbs, the chlorine, the gray water, teeth crud, and old lip stick stains.

I'd bet someone in Beijing could make a mint off of bottled air right now. Don't forget that it will be purified at the source, people. And if you want to thank someone for that gift, you'll have to pay for any extra characters beyond 150. By God, it's the American way.

Thank you for listening, jules

My Plan to Deface School Property

Alright already. I'm here to tell you that I have nothing new or funny or even snarky to tell you. Right this very minute, I'm supposed to be working on Mike's calendar for 2016. See, every year, I get him a Demotivator's calendar. Oh, there are copycats, but Despair, Inc. does it best.

No, they are not paying me to say this.

Hey, maybe they should pay me to say this.

But then this wouldn't be real and I'm always real. Okay, I'm usually real. This way, I'm just some schmuck who loves their posters and calendars. I have been so completely influenced by their truth and humor and irony that today when I came out of the bathroom at Nick's school and was standing there adjusting my zipper, right in front of a motivational poster, a real one, I started laughing out loud even though it's a serious poster about serious stuff.

It was embarrassing to be caught laughing by office folks at Nick's school when I was standing by myself outside the bathroom door in front of a poster that meant to inspire teachers and students into being their better selves. That poster did not inspire me to be my better self! Unfortunately, the person, the vice-principal, who caught me laughing didn't stop to ask why I was laughing so I never got a chance to explain away the lunacy. I wanted to tell him it had nothing to do with my zipper or the bathroom at all. It sucks when you can't explain away the lunacy.

Why do I always sound like an idiot when no one is talking to me? Okay, I sometimes sound like an idiot when people are talking to me, just not as often. Well, it might be about as often.

So, would one of you go out and buy a Demotivator's poster from the real Despair people and hang it up outside the bathroom at Nick's school? Please? That way, if I'm caught laughing as I stand there adjusting my zipper, everything will be okay.

Hey, that's a good idea. I can do that. I just wonder if I can deface school property without getting caught.

Thank you for listening, jules