Good Morning, Ms. Adri

From: Katy Anders [mailto:KatyDidKnot@gmail.com]

Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2015 7:19 AM

To: Adri Anna Oopsy

Subject: RE: Quarterly Reports

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Good morning, Ms. Adri! I am writing to tell you that I am not coming in today.

So: I am not coming in today.

What is in Your Head? (Part 1)

I know we all know more than we know we know.

I know that it is just a matter of hauling it up. Bringing it out. Of getting it to the surface somehow.

Like an expecting mother is rarely wrong when she dreams of the sex of her unborn child. Did you know about this? She knows… but she could never explain how she knows if she tried.

How the hell does she know?

And like somewhere way down inside the sticky folds of your brain lives the combination to the lock on your locker from when you were in sixth grade. You could find it if only you knew how. Maybe with drugs. Maybe hypnosis. Maybe with electric prods poking directly into your skull.

It’s in there.

But be careful. You can’t just go around getting stuff out of your brain the way you get oil out of the ground. Popping holes. Drilling down. Washing the remnants out with high pressure injections.

Believe me: I have tried all that, and all it got me was these weird eye twitches and I can’t ever make right-hand turns anymore.

Plant Life (Part 3)

(This is Part 3 of my story. You should go read Part 1 and Part 2. Part 3 will still be here when you get back.)

Today, I am going to tell you the story of the time I turned into a human being.

You see, after I turned into a human being, my day got kind of weird.

Admittedly, some of that might have been my fault. Or most of it might have been my fault, even, if you really want to start pointing fingers.

First, I kicked a big old tree and the big old tree did not kick me back.

Then Harry drove me back to the office in the van. Along the way, I kept seeing plants – way more plants than I had ever noticed before. There were trees along the road, flowers on islands at intersections, bushes in front of stores. Plants are everywhere!

I saw a crepe myrtle on Tomball Parkway and I thought, “I wonder if that is my friend Rufus?”

I saw a young mesquite tree off of I-10 East and I thought, “I wonder if that tree is a nice tree, or if it’s like that one at the park who threatened to kill me?”  Maybe all plants would try and kill me, given half a chance. Maybe I just have one of those faces, you know?

Plant Life (Part 2)

(I am not George Lucas. I do not begin my stories halfway through. Go back and read Part 1 so you have a better idea what the hell is going on!)

Today, I am going to tell you the story of the time I turned into a plant.

I know that sounds far-fetched, but bear with me. The real story is both more outlandish and less outlandish than I’m making it out to be, and not in the ways you’d think.

It happened in the same place where I’d lost my friends. It was in Meyer Park, deep in the heart of the woods, but it was twenty-four hours later by the time I went back.

I had Harry in tow to act as a spotter. I hoped he’d turn out to be a better spotter than I’d been. After all, I’d lost the people I was spotting, and for a spotter, that’s what’s known as a worst case scenario. 

The time I turned into a plant, I sat on the ground, right where my friends had been sitting. I had a flashlight, a lighter, and a knife, some rolling papers and just a bit of this infamous Vine with No Name, crushed-up and stirred-in with tobacco.

Just a bit and not too much. At least that’s the way Harry and I figured it.

Plant Life (Part 1)

I do not use dopes and I told them this, and firmly, and my words left no room for misunderstanding. I was the responsible one. The sober adult. I was leading by example.

When they – and by “they,”  I mean Eggplant, Rufus, Star, and Ethel Bunny – came to me with this hallucinatory vine of theirs or whatever it was, I squared my shoulders and I looked them straight in the eyes and I said to them, “Um, we-e-ellll… I don’t know. I really sho-o-ouldn’t. I have to work tomorrow, and then there’s this cold I’ve been fighting off, and, well…”

I hope they didn’t think I was being too harsh or judgmental, but I needed for there to be no doubt whatsoever that the days of me running around, partaking in their reckless little childish games were through.

Rufus said, “We weren’t asking you to take the drug with us, Katy! We just needed a spotter’s’all.”

I considered feeling insulted.

The Girl with the Pierced Nipples

The Girl with the Pierced Nipples was back in the store yesterday.

It was that slowest part of mid-afternoon and I was on my laptop, so when she walked up to the counter I started to raise my head, but I only got as high as her chest before saying, “Hi! The usual QuickPick and a pack of Marlboro Menthol 100’s?”

And from somewhere a voice said, “Exactly!”  as those familiar barbell piercings rubbed against her thin white cotton shirt with her every inhalation and with her every word. So I pulled the QuickPick, grabbed her pack of cigarettes, and went back to watching the show with the piercings… and the bouncing… and, of course, with the thin white cotton shirt…

The Addiction Auditions

I will never know the wonders to be found fiending for Smack.

DT’s will never find me in an unknown stranger’s bed. I’ll never sell my ass for Bath Salts on the wrong side of the tracks nor burgle houses in some desperate search for Xanax.

Mine is the curse of the stupidest addiction. An embarrassing dependency, really. Not this sort of grist for the mill of a legend of a slow, self-destructive death – you know, Burroughs in Tangiers, Hemingway in Cuba, Hendrix… wherever the hell Hendrix was when he did all that Acid.

I feel as though we have reached a point, you and I, where I really ought to say a few words about the Addiction Auditions. My words (understandably) might not carry much weight. But at least you’ll learn you don’t want to end up like me, so consider it a cautionary tale.

I am addicted to Benadryl & Cheap Wine, always taken together, always late in the evening. How is that for street? Hmm? How is that for glamorous? Does that make me a scary-scary, bad-bad girl?

But I’m stuck with it, you see. And it’s all on account of the Addiction Auditions.

So you can go ahead and laugh now. I can wait.

*           *           *

There are a number of simple things I’d do differently, if I had it to do over again. To do the Addiction Auditions over again, I mean. 

I would dress well, but not too well. This is serious: You do not want to give off a false impression of wealth. You could wind up being chosen by Money. There are few things in life worse than a poor man – or even a man of moderate means – being saddled with a great Money Addiction. Oh, you see them often enough: Floundering about, foolishly boastful, doomed to forever fritter away even the smallest pocket lint on pie-in-the-sky hopes for the Big Payday which never comes.On the other hand, if you should happen to arrive to the Auditions looking as though you’ve only just now come rolling out of your bed, you could have the misfortune of catching the eye of Hydrocodone. Or Percocet. Or – may heaven help us all! – Purple Drank (a Houston-area delicacy, I am told).

So, you know… comb your hair a bit. Brush your teeth, if you have them. Brush them well, but not too well. Flossing is optional, although a little mouthwash never hurt anyone.

*           *           *

Arrive at the Hall of the Addictions early – but not too early.

This flies in the face of conventional wisdom. More specifically, it flies in the face of Doctor Tyrone Slothrop, preeminent Addiction Auditions scholar and jack-of-all-frauds. As documented ad nauseum in my appendices, Doctor Slothrop is wrong, and here, in a nutshell (no pun intended, Doctor) is why:

Number One, arrive too early, and you could find yourself standing eye to bloodshot eye with Addictions still up from the night before. I’ve seen it happen, friend, and forewarned is forearmed! The All-Nighter Addictions are the ugliest, the cruelest, the most unrelenting of all Addictions there ever was or ever shall be.

Number Two (and this is just between you and me, you understand), the good Doctor Slothrop is a notorious Diethyl Ether Addict, and a Diethyl Ether Addict is not to be trusted.

No, you really ought to arrive not too early and not too late, just as you ought to dress not too well but not too shabbily. When it comes to Addictions, you see, the Middle Path is the best path.

*           *           *

Next, they take you to a room and they set you on a stage, and the Addictions are told to alright, come on in. Some will limp in, and some will crawl – some won’t make it in at all – but the bulk will storm on in in one great swirl. Like a tornado, they’re roaring and they’re roiling ‘round and ‘round to face you down. They test your mettle. They see what you are made of. One thumps you here while another slaps you there.

You start to feel like cows at auction. And in a sense, that is exactly what you are.

Coffee Addiction belches in your nose.  He does it every time, so there’s no need to act surprised. Be ready, friend, and don’t look him in the eyes. He’s a nasty habit – you don’t want him choosing you.  

Young Miss Sex Addiction, she sort of looks tempting at the start. But look closer – not too close now! – and cracks will start to show. She is rubbed raw and she’s rubbed bloody and that sort of looks infected, and by then Old Crack Addiction’s blocked your view.  

Whisky holds back at first, and he glares at you from back of the pack with his One Big Eye. And he glares and he pouts and if he’s interested, will sneak up and punch you squarely in the face – right there at that spot at the top of your nose that makes your eyes water. You see, Whisky’s an old fighter. And I really thought he’d choose me. But Whisky and his One Big Eye, they said, “No.”

*           *           *

And this, I am afraid, is the part at which, during my own Auditions, I committed the act which did become my great mistake.

I laughed.

More specifically, I laughed at an Addiction. I laughed in an Addiction’s addictive face.

Oh, but you would have agreed, it was the funniest-looking of Addictions! Cheap Wine & Benadryl? That’s an Addiction? And this pair was conjoined at the back of the head so that when Cheap Wine tried to go this way, well, Benadryl always wanted to go that way, and they wandered around in circles, neither gaining any ground.

They looked so foolish, there at the back of the Addiction line.

So I laughed. I did! Well, I snortled. And I guess they saw me do it.

I was dancing with Mary Juana and I tried to play it off as though what happened might have only been a sneeze. Who is there in this world who can really tell apart a stranger’s chuckle from a stranger’s sneeze?

Well, Cheap Wine & Benadryl can, for starters. That is who. Let this be a warning, friend, addictions are deceptive, and if someone seems too stupid, they might not be as awfully stupid as they might seem. Cheap Wine & Benadryl got pissed at me, and then they held me down right there and now they hold me right to now, down  to this very day.

I can’t admit it, normally. It’s just Cheap Wine & Benadryl! And I always get up for work so no one knows and no one cares. And I pay my taxes and I wash behind my ears (well but not too well!), so no one ever notices and those who do don’t care.

But I care... 

Interview with a Bigamist

So it’s me and my wife and her husband and his husband (who is also my husband) and we’re sitting ‘round a table in some restaurant with some people from some newspaper from Austin.

Wait… I should probably back up.

So it’s me and my wife and her husband and his husband (who is also my husband) and we’re sitting ‘round a table in my living room with a reporter from some newspaper from Austin.

For two hundred days now, we’ve been living this Double Bigamy (All the Way). And for two hundred days now, no one has noticed. But here we are on day two hundred and one and someone has noticed. She’s standing in my living room, and she’s a real live journalist with real official press credentials you could check and one of those high tech audio recorders and everything you’d expect. The whole nine yards.

I’m told this is just the “pre-interview,” and I don’t even know what a pre-interview is. Pre-interviews are something in heaven and earth that are not dreamt of in my philosophy.

This real live journalist, she is excited. You can see it on her face, in the way she’s thinking out loud, her eyes darting around for new information. She is excited. By the time she sees the kids, I half expect her to shriek or to clap or to do a little dance or whatever it is journalists do when they realize they’ve just struck journalism gold.

“What a strange and wonderful family!” she says.

“This is really compelling,” she says. “Dana, you’re this gorgeous up-and-coming attorney at a major Houston law firm. And Anthony here, this handsome, incredibly well-spoken professor at a local college. And Aesop, a physician’s assistant and musician!”

“And these beautiful kids!” she says.

Although I cannot be certain, I believe I am physically in the room while she is saying this. In my, you know, bodily form. Visible to all with eyes to see.

It is clear I’m the fourth wheel on a tricycle here. And I’m seventh if you count the beautiful children. And I’m ninth if you count the reporter and the photographer. Heaven forbid anyone else shows up. I might be forced to sit outside to make room. I’m the fourth wheel, even though this was all my idea, and anyway, without me, it’s just plain old boring bigamy and not Double Bigamy (All theWay) at all.

The real interview is scheduled for some restaurant two nights later and I get ready with a few shots of Maker’s Mark. And two dozen Robitussin pills. And some codeine cough medicine. And whatever else I can find in my sock drawer.

Gorgeous up-and-coming attorney Dana, who is my wife, is putting on her makeup. Handsome, well-spoken Anthony, who is my brother and my wife’s husband, is tying his tie. And physician’s assistant/musician Aesop, who is my wife’s husband and my husband’s husband, is combing his hair.

I’m lining up a couple more shots of Maker’s Mark.

By the time we hit the restaurant, I look like this:

And the real interview – not the pre-interview – has started and the camera is snapping pictures, but I am busy watching a particularly aggressive French fry on my plate attack the weaker French fries. That little fucker shows no mercy!

And I point it out to the kids but I’m not sure I’m even speaking English because they don’t understand my words. The aggressive French fry – and I’ve named him Maximilian – is launching an offensive on my coffee but the coffee in this place isn’t strong enough to defend itself. It is a massacre.

And just before I pass out, Maximilian tells me not to worry. Maximilian has it all under control. Maximilian says I should go towards the light.

*          *          *          *          *

For two hundred days now, we’ve been living this Double Bigamy (All the Way). And for two hundred days now, no one has noticed. But here we are on day two hundred and three and someone has noticed. It has all been leading up to this.

“Mom, is Kaykay dead?” my daughter asks. She asks this matter-of-factly.

“No,” Dana says. She is looking to Aesop for some kind of confirmation.

And Aesop, he looks calm. Confident. “It’s just a stomach bug.”

“Just a stomach bug,” says the reporter. “She doesn’t look like she’s breathing. And why are you sniffing her coffee and going through her pockets?”

“Just a stomach bug,” Aesop says. He is checking my pulse. “But I’m gonna to call 9-1-1 anyway. Just to be extra-extra-cautious.”

*          *          *          *          *

So it’s my wife and her husband and his husband (who is also my husband) and our kids and they’re sitting in some waiting room at some hospital. They are waiting to hear whether Aesop or my daughter were correct in their respective assessments. Their assessments of me.

The real live journalist with real official press credentials is long gone, says she’ll “reschedule” the interview. But we know she never will.

Go towards the light, Katy!

And elsewhere, late that night, at some little corner restaurant in Houston, the body of some dish washer on the night shift is found in some back room.

The body is mangled. Chewed.

Pieces of the body are missing.

A long line of ketchup stretches from the body and on out the back door into the alley.

Maximilian tells me not to worry. Maximilian has it all under control.

*          *          *          *          *

**To see an interview I did not manage to hijack, check out my friend Rafa’s RudeBlog. You’ll be glad you did. **

Drugs, John Wayne, & Jesus

The Duke of Stratosphere

I know everybody these days is aware of just how important their Amazon.com recommendations are.

That’s true, isn’t it? I mean, you are aware of the increased chances of your buying something that pops up on your recommendation list enough times, right?

 
And hell, even if you aren’t aware, the good people over at Amazon.com surely are. That’s what those lists are there for, in the end: They take all your buying habits, stir them around around in a special Amazonian electronic marketing engine in which they are studied by a barnful of hamsters and compared with the buying habits of millions of other Amazon.com customers, and Voila! Out pops a list of items that you’re probably going to want to buy. You just didn’t know you wanted to buy them.

This is sophisticated and heady, really cutting edge, 21^st century stuff, and billions in sales dollars hang in the balance. And it is one of the reasons why this time of year sucks for me. I am left with the aftertaste of my Christmas gifts of a few weeks back. Sure, the Holiday Beast of Christmas Past has already done the worst of its damage. It’s done leveling Tokyo and it’s stomped out of town for another year.

But now’s the part of the show where my Amazon.com recommended items list starts looking a little hinky.

You know, like I bought a copy of the Transformers II DVD for my nephew, so now my recommended movies list starts showing every goddamned CGI Hollywood blockbuster that’s ever been made. It’s enough to drive a woman already on the cusp of insanity right on over the edge.

So I’m on Amazon.com last week, minding my own business, and sure enough, the rubble left behind by the Holiday Beast’s yearly rampage is sitting right there for all to see, bearing its fangs and laughing – laughing! – at me right to my face.

“Fuck!” I yell out in desperation (although in truth, that method of solving my problems rarely helps much).  “Drugs, John Wayne, and Jesus!”

And Dana, she doesn’t miss a beat. I haven’t even realized she’s upstairs, but she shouts, from out in the hall, Jeopardy-like, “Name three things you might find in the desert!”

Drugs. John Wayne. Jesus.

It hits me like a lightning bolt. Like the lasers that the Holiday Beast shoots out of its eyes in those old Japanese movies the kiddies love.

Drugs. John Wayne. Jesus.

The last three things that flash before the eyes of the fading American Empire before history closes the lid on its casket. It’s the perfect title of a book on modern culture: “Drugs, John Wayne, & Jesus: Front Row Seats for the Death of the American Dream.”

Hell, it’s the name of a blog that earns its blogger a book deal. Much better than fucking “Lesbians in My Soup.” What kind of bloody moron names their blog “Lesbians in My Soup”?

Well, as could probably have been predicted, this gruesome threesome of concepts soon occupies my every waking moment. I find myself drawing potential connecting tissue from A to B to C – drugs to John Wayne to Jesus – when I should be working, or eating, or watching the kids on the jungle gym.

Drugs, John Wayne, and Jesus. It’s the working title for an unfinished Alejandro Jodoworsky Acid Western from the late Sixties. Had it ever reached fruition, it would have ended up being titled, “The Last Temptation of Marion Morrison.” It would have climaxed with the eponymous character freeing himself from the bloated John Wayne carcass that he’d become, and then fighting it out mano a mano with his own acquired persona as a crowd of spectators  throws stones.

Scene from a lesser-known Jesus fable

Jesus Christ, why have I still not upped and moved on out to Hollywood to sell screenplays? There are literally dozens of low rent movie theaters that are going to run out of material for their midnight movies because of my failure to commit.

And where in the blazes is Elvis during all of this, anyway?

There’s a scene in the real Alejandro Jodoworsky film, The Holy Mountain, where the main character is cleansed of all the physical and spiritual toxins he’s been building up by living in society. The guru character presents him the resulting toxic residue as a chunk of fool’s gold.

Those most American of all modern American figures – John Wayne and Elvis Presley – could probably have both used a good cleansing of toxins late in the game. Swollen, glistening, engorged on pork, prescription pills, and cancer past the point of bursting … a little time out in the desert, tripping on peyote with Jesus would have done both of them a world of good.

When Jesus was out there in the desert, the devil took him to the top of a cliff and showed him all of the cities and treasures of the world. And the devil said, “All of this will be yours if only you follow me!”

Jesus said no. Elvis the King and John the Duke, though, well, we all know what they said.

They can’t be blamed, though: If Jesus were alive today, you just know he’d be 250 pounds with a terminal prescription pain pill habit. His phoned-in performance in The Gospel of Matthew IV in 3D would not have prevented it from opening at number one at the box office. Lukewarm reviews, but God knows the guy still has charisma.

Drugs, John Wayne, and Jesus.

Jesus Christ. John Wayne. Drugs. Three great tastes that go great together. It all makes such perfect sense now. How could it ever have been any other way?

I guess the takeaway from all of this is that we should have faith in our Amazon.com recommendations. Even right after the holidays. The recommendation engine is all-knowing, and only has our best interests in mind.

So sit back, relax, and consume. 

It’s what Jesus would do.