The crazy bitch that I am, I’ve got a vacuum cleaner’s got a headlight on it. I never even knew it. Presumably, this is a light for cleaning house after it gets dark, right?
But don’t tell me. Do not give the game away. I’ve got to catch up with these little things I’ve been missing for so long… while I have been the crazy bitch who’s victimizing Dana.
And this little switch right here – push it up, push it down – this here’s the on/off switch. Momma didn’t raise no fool. You push it like this and, excuse me – YOU PUSH IT LIKE THAT AND GET THE EXPECTED RESULTS! Would you look at that? I might’ve figured all this out already! What was it we were paying that housekeeper for?
So crazy bitch that I am, I push the vacuum cleaner – systematically – all around across the master bedroom floor. The headlight shows the way. And the carpet, well, the carpet’s looking better already. All the individual little, um… blades? shags? strands? Well, they’re all pointing in the same direction now. And that’s gotta be least half of what you vacuum a carpet for.
I’m humming with the vacuum cleaner and it sounds like My Bloody Valentine. Or like Seefeel. Or like Oval. Or like any of those old Nineties bands who made music that sounded like vacuum cleaners.
I am harmonizing with the hum.
I turn on the blender in the kitchen for a little background support. We’re an avant garde barbershop quartet – Crazy Bitch and the Common Household Appliances. A trio still, but we’re considering adding the dishwasher.
And I’ve got the lights turned out and I’m naked but I can still see where I’m going because this here vacuum cleaner’s got a headlight on it, see?
And I have shaved my pubic hair into a truly fascinating design.
And I could’na done any of this back in the days of only a few weeks ago, back when I was still the crazy bitch who was victimizing Dana.
Zhroom, zhroom, zhroom! Me and my vacuum cleaner, power couple that we are, we are making tracks but appear powerless to, um – well, we seemingly lack the requisite combined capacity to – to lift, to suck, to remove this one scrawny red thread from the surface of the master bedroom carpet. I think it’s a thread come from Rachel’s Sesame Street t-shirt.
Rachel’s Sesame Street t-shirt doesn’t live here anymore…
Anyway, the thread’s not budging.
Zhroom, zhroom, zhroom! Nothin’…
Zhroom, zhroom, zhroom!
Now if this here thread – this solitary lonesome old thread – if it is not getting cleaned by my vacuum cleaner, then what is? My vacuum cleaner says it’s got “2X Cyclonic Action,” and my vacuum cleaner has never lied to me. Not in the damn near fifteen minutes we’ve been working together.
I thought this was a relationship based on honesty – that powerful bond of trust that can only be formed between a vacuum cleaner with a headlight on it and the crazy bitch who used to spend all of her time victimizing Dana.
Crazy bitch that I am, I turn the vacuum cleaner off. Pull the cord right out of the cracked wall socket Zhrooo-o-o-o-o-oom…And the headlight goes out and I’m standing in the dark. Naked. You can’t see my fascinatingly-shaved pubic hair design now.
The bathroom light reveals previously unacknowledged bells and previously unacknowledged whistles on my vacuum cleaner with the headlight on it.
Like this. This here switch which reads… “Carpet or hose”…
Seriously? Carpet or hose?
Is this machine mocking me? Is this some kind of… homophobic slur? Is my vacuum cleaner with the headlight on it taking a backhanded smack at my sexuality? Carpet or hose?
Carpet, mother fucker! Carpet!
I might be confused, lonely, and depressed, but I’m not that confused, lonely, and depressed.
And now it’s ten seconds later and the red thread’s gone, having been sucked into red thread vacuum oblivion. Never to be heard from again.
Crazy bitch that I am, me and this vacuum cleaner with the headlight on it, we make a pretty good team. Maybe we oughta take this show on the road. Clean carpets in big top tents for crowds of paying onlookers. And the crowds’ll come from miles around! They’ll say, “Look, Ma! Look! Come see what it is that Katy’s learned to do in the two weeks since she stopped victimizing Dana!”
I mean, finally I have lived so long that I am able to say I have vacuumed the master bedroom. Could you?… can you?… do you even dare to try and imagine what the next two weeks might hold?
[**The phrase “Hyde, Jekyll-ized” comes from the song “Gopher Guts” by Aesop Rock, as will the title of every part of this series.]
Might try feeding some light scrap-metal (a couple of those aluminum cans by the blue couch should do it) to the blender - the whole thing might take on a Stockhausen feel. Who knows?
ReplyDelete(Hey. When my own significant-other left ever so many years ago, I started gardening. The project ended with me having a master-gardener's certificate from Oregon State University, and a showpiece acre here in the Portland metro area. When I added it all up, it was cheaper and more productive than therapy.....)
Aluminum cans sound like an idea from a Merzbow recording.
DeleteNow THERE is some unlistenable noise. This Japanese noise artist has released probably thousands of hours of sounds PERFECT for letting your roommate or neighbor know just how much you hate them.
But sadly, I don't have the cans or the couch or the girl from the picture, because the picture is just something I found on the internet. However, if you know where I can find them and they need a good home... well, this place is way too big for just one lazy chick with a drinking problem!
I had a pretty good idea the gal in the pic was just a stock-shot.
DeleteBut she looks like one of those Dachau survivors. The Fender Strat in the corner looks like mine, though. Just sayin'.....
Yup. It's supposed to be playing with gender stereotypes, though, so I've always thought it was funny. usually, it would be a male who would be lying around in his boxers with beer, porn, tube socks, and a guitar around him...
DeleteHEY!! I thought I was the only one who harmonized with the vacuum cleaner!! Ours has has a really cool C# hum. I usually go a 5th lower since that is closer to my baritone/bass range.
ReplyDeletePube shaving? Vacuuming (naked is the best way to do it but I suspect you figured that out). That is quite some nexting behavior you are exhibiting. Seriously Katy, E mail me if you need someone to yell at. We can sort out the best communication method.
Nexting should be nesting. I cannot blame the iPhone keypad for that one. Typed it on the laptop. Our college friend Judy Bailey was all excited when her new vacuum had a headlight. Judy was a stay at home mom (far too difficult a job if you ask me). Little things like this excited her.
DeleteSee all of the fantastic things you learn from my blog when I lack a real topic to write about?
DeleteA headlight on a vacuum ought to excite anyone, really...
I knew a guy in high school who put a headlight on his lawn mower... so he could mow in the dark. Which is smart, really, because the heat of the day is what makes mowing such a crazy bitch...
Your blog had a topic and a theme. You managed to stick with both all the way through. See you aren't that crazy. Or at least the voices are talking to each other. That is always a nice feeling
DeleteI want YOU to be the one to grade my writing papers!
DeleteWhen I vacuum I have to kick out Nero since he insists on helping me, and a fifty-kilogram dog helping me vacuum is not exactly productive to work.
ReplyDeleteInteresting pic on the top.Can't make it out that well, so I'm not sure if it's you, but it does look like a human colugo.
You do realise that the trolls will be out in force with questions about your pubic hair?
Stagger Lee, my cat who ran away last winter, used to swat and spit at the vacuum. Drove the housekeeper crazy. Vacuums are pretty much the devil to every dog or cat I've known.
DeleteI am happy to say that NONE of the pictures on this blog post are me.
But I figure, hell, if I'm going to whine about getting dumped for three consecutive blog posts, I might as well toss the trolls a bone here and there. Three in a row is notable even for me!
One more thing (feel free not to approve this comment if you don't want to): Dana said you were a crazy bitch who was victimising her? I think you've moved from the shocked part of the split to the angry part, and that's healthy. Also, I think she was wrong. I don't know her but I do, at least in this medium, know you. Unless you are a completely different person than you show yourself to be here, and I mean different to the level of schizophrenia, I can't imagine you victimising anyone. I do feel sorry for the kids though.
ReplyDeleteEight years.
DeleteEight years!
I am supposed to believe that for eight years, this intelligent, confident, assertive LEADER was just too intimated to mention that she wasn't happy.
I am a little angry. The upside is, I can avoid calling a person I am angry with more easily than I can a person whose actions I cannot comprehend. I'm not trying to convince her of anything right now.
Vacuuming naked!?! How do you avoid the ever-present fear of a prolapsed anus due to a vacuuming incident? That just me? Forget I mentioned it.
ReplyDeleteThe sound is definitely "My Bloody Valentine."
I feel for you, I really do. The empathy has become painful over these past posts as you're working through things, but I also hope that the understandable "beating yourself up period" will pass in time.
Haha.... Have you ever read Chuck Palahniuk's short story, "Guts"?
DeleteIt involves a drain at the bottom of a swimming pool.
I'll leave it at that.
I figured these posts would make a few people as uncomfortable as, well, talk of a prolapsed colon. I'm okay with that!
Katy. OK, first the headlamp is for "light" cleaning. Duh.
DeleteSecond, my favorite hum-along with the Hoover is "Flight of the Bumblebee".
Hugs and brotherly kisses, unless you want to take a walk on the dark side, in which case hugs, kisses and a firm butt squeeze. I always find a firm butt squeeze to bring me a sense of peace and calm.
I'd take you up on all of that, Mooner, but m,y schedule is pretty booked with learning how to wash dishes.
DeleteAlso, I have to figure out where mail comes from. I thought it appeared on the kitchen table of its own volition.
Cracking that mystery could take weeks...
Let me catch up rest of the series. So, is this a challenge? Katy is an excellent writer, she could write about her Saturday morning wakeup ritual, her daily vaccum thing , yet the readers shall be entertained? yep, I would no longer say those standard "paint-dry","plant grow" thing.
ReplyDeleteAnd about the bands that sounded like vaccum cleaners, what about Mercury of the Queen band- Break free song, where he starts off with vaccuming and in girl's clothes with stache?
New definition of paranoia?
QUOTE:
Is this machine mocking me? Is this some kind of… homophobic slur? Is my vacuum cleaner with the headlight on it taking a backhanded smack at my sexuality? Carpet or hose?
UNQUOTE:
Hey there!
DeleteI need to catch up on blogs, too. I see your blog has been updated after a LOOOONG time of nothing.
But now, I am going to have to pretend to be Freddy Mercury when I vacuum the carpet. This could get ugly...
I've got a sweet little vacuum myself, handed down from my uber rich brother in law. It's that super lightweight Dyson with the ball in the back. It's a great vacuum, but it's terrible for angry vacuuming. I mean, isn't half the fun taking a big blocky vacuum and ramming it into the wall in straight lines? Or is that a sign that I might have an anger problem?
ReplyDeleteI have been watching more television than usual lately, and it appears that vacuum technology is roaring ahead at 10x the speed of the rest of society. It's all spearheaded by the Austrians (or maybe the Swedes) and it makes any vacuum made before 2007 look like a Speak 'N Spell.
DeleteIf I can't suck up a small child with a given vacuum, I have no use for it...
Katy, sorry to hear about the marooning. Truly sucks, especially if you had no clue she was unhappy... The comment about Stagger Lee the runaway cat makes me ask if that might just be a Todd Snider reference? Hope so... although it would be tough for you to rise even higher on my "cool persons" list than you already are.
ReplyDeleteLights on mowers are a justifiable reason to go next door and bitch-slap the person using one of them in the dark. We mow during the damn day because we appreciate the calm stillness of the evening SANS COMBUSTION ENGINE NOISES...
And I, too, have repeatedly vacuumed over a thread again and again, using far more energy than would have been required to simply bend over and pick it up. But it's the machine's damn job, so by god the machine will do what it's told. If it takes all night. 'Cause we've got a light, you know? Let it get dark. Damned if we care. We can vacuum 'til the sun comes up.
Eight years? Shit...
I'm having to learn about these things like vacuuming! For my entire adult life, I've lived with a woman who made ten times what I make and could hire OTHER people to do the vacuuming for us.
DeleteAnyway, the right answer for me to give about the cat is "Yes! My blog contains whatever obscure references you think it does!" The truth is that Stagger Lee is an old song TYPE, and dozens of artists from Lloyd Price to Nick Cave have done variations on the same basic story structure in songs over the last 90 years or so.
I'm going to vacuum the HELL out of that carpet...
I only have one thing to say. You are loved.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Cal.
DeleteEvery little bit helps.
I just got off the phone after the kind of drunk "Why?" session with her that i promised I would never do.
I suck.
Kind of drunk, "Why" session? Happens to the best of us.
DeleteI told myself I wasn't going to engage in that kind of thing, though.
DeleteI was going to be a chess player, three steps ahead of whatever she thought I would do...
Katy - I'll echo what Cal said (but I think you know that).
DeleteNow; seriously...
I *are* a chess-player - and from experience, I can tell you flatly that you can never be three steps ahead all the time. There's shit that comes out of left-field-nowhere and it's game-over.
(I read once - and I'm fond of using this line, myself - that it's never the stuff you plan for; it's what-all that comes out of nowhere on a random Tuesday that change [read; 'fuck'] things.)
Just sayin'....
Once you have been cast as the bad guy in someone's mind, your options are limited. Even sending a "I miss you" note every morning is seen as manipulative.
DeleteI have to do what "I" wouldn't do. Which means backing off completely and letting her go her way.
Checkers.
In relationships, it's not chess, checkers, strategies, or anything else. Every situation is different and there are no rules. You're dealing purely with emotions and the only person you can change is you. Changing yourself may not help with this relationship, but it might help in future relationships. Of course, sometimes life deals you nothing but rotten hands and you end up like me.
DeleteI tend to see patterns everywhere. I can see that SOME of the problems are with me.
DeleteEver having another relationship is LAST on my list of things to worry about right now.
Fixing my own character flaws is pretty high.
That's probably a good place to be. Having another relationship is the LAST on my list of things, but I'm too old to worry about my character flaws. haha
DeleteIt's never too late to worry about fixing flaws.
DeleteI mean, if they're flaws you want to fix. I have some glaring flaws that I treasure...
Your flaws are what give you character. Please don't fix any of the good ones! You would make a piss poor Stepford wife, even if you do manage to sort out the vacuuming thing.
Deleteonce, I forgot to take my sunglasses off while hoovering red pubic hairs. Therefore, my wife (insert verb) bought me one of those alien model vacuum cleaners with a cyclop type eye . It's called the Hoover Dirt Searcher (http://youtu.be/PyVsN7Ma-3s)
ReplyDeleteBut to boil it down to its basics...
cyclopconic vacuum cleaners Put Things Up Their Nose constantly try to satisfy their nose fascination. They have a single-minded mission in life: Find perfectly sized objects and put them up into that perfect of all perfect places. I mean, after all, isn't that what that hole is there for?
I don't know. I now want a headlamp, though.
DeleteHere you go. It's even "green" technology.
Deletehttp://www.amazon.com/Streamlight-61052-Septor-Headlamp-Strap/sim/B00064YL7S/2
Nice. I might have to write a whole blog about that.
DeleteIt will be a filthy one...
The filthier the better. haha
Delete(You know that was a joke, right?)
DeleteI assume everything on this page is a joke.
DeleteI'm usually right!
This is in stark contrast with all of the wackos who email me accusing me of having a Gay Agenda propaganda page - and who will not believe this is supposed to be humor.
I don't know whether that says more about MY sense of humor or theirs...
This is clearly the best way to process grief. You should totally lead a seminar.
ReplyDeleteHa! This could be my claim to fame...
Delete"Vacuuming Your Way Out of Depression."
"There's a Light at the End of the Vacuum."
I'll work on it a little more...
During one extended period of under employment I had a part time teaching job at a local community college. It wasn't fun. But I was teaching math, project management and cost accounting. Maybe I should have gone to the english department rather than the business group?
ReplyDeleteYou would have been an A student, assuming you didn't give me too much crap during the teaching time.
I don't think any of those subjects are anything I'd be able to give you too much crap about.
DeleteI generally have to have a good basis on a subject before I can give a prof crap.
Stay away from teaching theology, law, or literature, and we'll be fine, haha...
Katy, why are a few thousand farmers getting the decision over millions of city dwellers, the 18 hours of daylight during the summer months should be from 7:AM to 1:AM, instead its 4:AM to 10:PM ! ! !, those extra 3 hours of daylight would come in much more handy for city dwellers at the end of the day rather than them being completely wasted for the supposed benefit of a few potato farmers between 4:AM and 7:AM every morning, i dont understand why they have to be up at 4:AM digging up potatoes every morning (actually thats not even the morning of course, its still the middle of the bloody night ! ! !), and if they have to be up that early why cant they put some floodlights on their tractors ! ! !.
ReplyDelete