balding angrily

It’s an astoundingly beautiful day in Dallas. The air is crisp, and the sky is blue with wispy clouds. My cat is tenderizing my thigh to tell me that she loves me. The other cat is yawning and stretching her arm as if to say, “Hey, it’s cool. I’m cool. We’re all cool, yeah?” I think this is what heaven will be like, but without the nagging voice at the back of my head telling me that I need to DO something: Write! Get dressed! Brush your teeth! Go to the gym!

Meh. It’s too beautiful out to DO something. Seriously though, I have an article to write, and I’ve been putting it off for too long. It only has to be 2,000 words, and I can crank that out.

Jerry’s been in Uruguay since Sunday, and I’ve missed him terribly. However, it’s been really nice to have the apartment totally to myself. He ought to have taken lots of pretty pictures. If he didn’t, he’s gonna get a stern talkin’ to.

Even though its old news, I have to blah, blah, blah about the economy.  Last Friday, while I was away from the office, we laid off a few people.  I found out when I called in, and the receptionist was crying; she had just been given the bad news.  When I came into the office on Monday, I was told that I should cut my hours.  (If you’ll remember, I work part-time, hourly.)  I also found out who else was let go.  One of the girls is someone that is in the U.S. on a work visa.  If she can’t maintain employment, it’s possible that she would have to move back to her birth country.  This girl’s a friend of mine; she’s bubbly, cute, and bright.  I think Monday was the first time that I didn’t see a smile on her face.

Throughout Monday and yesterday, I kept thinking about her, trying to think of ways I could help her out.  I was able to get the name of an immigration lawyer, but my friend is a junior-level employee.  She can’t afford a high-priced lawyer.  Then I gave her the name of a head-hunter, the only one I knew, but the market in Dallas is WAY down.  All I’m hearing from friends in the profession is, “Yeah, we let some people go.”

At her request, I called a past employer, a three-man operation seemingly immune to past economic downturns, to see if they had any need for a drafter.  The three-man operation had become a two-man operation, in part because of the slow-down.

My hope is that in two years, I’ll be able to look back at this period and say, “Aw, what was I worried about?”  But goddamn.  It’s pretty fucking scary. Immediately after 9/11, when I was witness to layoffs, I always had the sense that there were still jobs out there.  In other words, I wasn’t too worried about getting the shaft; I always felt that I’d be able to find a job.  This time, it doesn’t feel that way.  Now I see my bright, bubbly friend, a person that NEEDS to work at the risk of deportation, a person that is a good, hard worker, and I see that the future ain’t so bright.

I’ve been collecting pictures, little signs that God, the universe, and other strangers have a sense of humor.  I finally got them off my iPhone and into my flickr stream.

For your enjoyment.  Or maybe just for my enjoyment, as I’m sure these are only funny to me.

I like how stick figures can make anything precious: Oh look!  It’s a little baby in his little baby diapers with a plastic bag on his head!  How cute!

Again, it may be because he’s a stick figure, but that fella looks like he’s having a grand time tripping over that perfectly rectangular obstruction. He’s kicking up his heels as if he’s in a revival of The Music Man; it’s a “Shipoopi” kind of heel-kick. What’s missing is a word balloon that says, “I’ve always wanted to break my wrists. Looks like today is my lucky day!”

Can you imagine an upright citizen seeing this poo in the grass, running to his house, writing this note (paying attention to the relative impact of different font sizes for maximum effect), stealing one of those plastic dessert advertisers from a local restaurant, and stuffing this in the ground?  People are frigging awesome.

So I’m digging through history, looking for a story about a local traffic intersection. I think I’ve got what I want to write about, and it connects nicely with what’s happening now at that intersection. And luckily I’m not into the WRITING yet; I’m just researching.

As I dig through The Dallas Morning News archives, I keep coming across these great bits of wordsmithing, bits that make me want go back in time to when a headline like, “Toreadors of Abrams Road Fight Speeding Autos, Not Bulls to Board Streetcars,” didn’t prompt a guffaw. When thieves were referred to as “robbers” and “bandits” that “bedeviled” police. When “juveniles” and “youths” were “hanging around places that would certainly get them into trouble.” When a furniture store opening was announced by a picture of some lawn furniture and this press release:

Umbrella Beauty - Glimpse the inside of this umbrella done in a red rose pattern, the valance attractively edged with six-inch white fringe. There’s a place for the zinc-plated handle in the glass-top table. Chairs of washable vinyl plastic in a palomino color have wrought-iron frames and come in several different colors.

You can almost hear a woman in an ivory pencil skirt with a conservative up-do, saying the above into a fist-sized microphone as the staged lawn furniture spins on a laminated press-board platform. I’m having fun. I wish I could tell my high school history teacher, Mr. Glenn, “See! I DO like history. Just not in the way you teach it.”

What can I say? I’m happy.

Last weekend I was in Phoenix to visit family.  (Sorry, Marty, there was no time for non-family time.)  It turned out to be more stressful than I anticipated, and my stress-level has remained higher than normal this week.  Since family members read the blog, I can’t go into too much detail.  Let it be enough to say that alcohol and politics should never mix.  In fact, politics should never be discussed amongst family.  It would be so nice if family-time was happy and joyful and butterflies and lollipops and jewel-toned chocolate sprinkles, but alas.  It is a tightness that lodges itself in the shoulder muscles that support the neck.  It is a caffeine-induced headache.  It is throat host to a steady drip of sour phlegm.  It is the cat howling at three o’clock in the morning.

These are the things that keep me up at night:

• “Tom Sawyer,” why do you taunt me so? There are insideous brain worms, and there are insideous brain worms. Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” has been working through my rattled grey matter since 3:00 this morning. It’s either Geddy Lee’s not-quite falsetto or the drum/synth splashes produced to recall a 80s Disney sci-fi romp - The Black Hole, say - that torment me. I lie on my side, my back, my face, my back again, my side again…my three-quarter profile…as “Tom Sawyer” kills me softly with its song.
• Yesterday I met with a group of bloggers that will be writing for The Advocate, a local monthly. Hyper local, in the editor’s words. The Advocate concerns itself with areas of Dallas that I visit often but don’t live in. Because it’s a hyper local blog, I’ve been agitating ideas through the butter churn in my head trying to form possible blog posts. It’s a more professional publication than Balding Angrily, which celebrates its scattered ramblings. It’s tough to come up with things that are very specific to an area and don’t involve poop.
• Crumpet’s been celebrating her dog in the absense of her dearly departed Henry, and I’ve been having moments with my cat. As I lay on the couch screaming “the space he invades gets high on you” in my head, she has been laying on my shoulder with one arm lazily draped in front of her like a drowsy lioness spread on an outcropping of rock overlooking African Savannah high-grasses. She’s been peering at me with half-closed eyes as if to say, “Yes. Go to sleep. Ignore me. The sooner you fall asleep, the sooner I can start eating your face.”

I met with the editor of a local newspaper on Wednesday, and she gave me an assignment. I have an assignment! Just like a real life writer that gets paid! Let me whip out my pocket notebook with the metal spiral at the top. Let me me lick the tip of my pencil and flip the pages of that notebook and jot a few notes. Let me shove a bulbous microphone in the face of an avoiding politician. Let me step into this telephone booth and save Lois Lane from a helicopter perched perilously on the rim of the top of the tallest skyscraper.

Seriously, I’m looking forward to it. She said I might also get involved in the paper’s volunteer blog. When I do, I’ll link to my posts here. That is if I still have any readers here.

Look! J-pop! (Not J-rock.)

Yesteday I read this article on Gawker about the death of viral videos. Maybe death is too strong of a word, but according to them, viral is definitely in its decline. I probably agree; I’ve stopped featuring my favorite ‘tubes on Balding Angrily because I don’t want to bog down this site with stuff you can get anywhere. Instead I’ve been dumping those small bits of retardedness onto my friends or showing them to my nieces.

When I lobbed “The Renewed Mind is the Key” over to Mr. T, I thought the comedy came from “Ohmygaw. They’re Christian. They think they’re good, and they’re so not.” If I were to have posted it, it would have come off as mocking Christians.

So, here’s a new video. (via gigglesugar)

This somewhat alleviates my fear that I was laughing at Christians in that other video. I say somewhat because it could be true that I’m mocking Europeans instead of Christians. It may be true that I’ve substituted one other for a different other. (Sorry Magnus. The blog and I are U.S.-centric.)

However, it could also be true that I’m just laughing at bad dancing in both videos. Which is sad. Because little 14 year-old Alex would have loved the dancing. Little 14 year-old Alex used to sit in bleachers in the gym with his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees, and with stars in his eyes he would rapturously watch the dance troop do their routines at half-time. And little 14 year-old Alex would think to himself, “I don’t want boobs or a vagina, but I really want to dance like that. That is soooooo cool.”

I think I spoke too soon with yesterday’s post. The creative part of writing is the hardest; I’ve been staring at those few paragraphs for the day, trying to figure out where the story goes. Part of me just wants to end it there. Part of me wants to find out more about this character who has vivid and horrifying fantasies. And then I spent an hour this morning editing a few other pieces. I really love editing - taking an x-acto knife to a piece. The creative part hurts my head.

At Tuesday’s Writers’ Group, we’re sharing short-short humor stories. I re-wrote a post from this blog because nothing really funny is happening to me since Jen-An and Owen moved away. Oh! But good news, Jen-An is visiting Dallas, so we get to see her tonight. Hopefully she’ll do something wacky.