Look Out for the Cheater
That would be me. Because I'm about to post something here that I actually wrote almost 10 years ago. I found it this morning when I opened some old disks containing back-up files from my last computer minus one. When I read this, I cracked myself up. I hope you will humor me and at least smile. At the time of writing, I titled this "Wacked."
Oct. 29, 1996
So here it is another lovely morning in the hippest place on the whole planet. The Bay Area. Makes you think of an airplane hangar, the bay. Just pull 'er into the Bay, boys. Kind of a wet place for planes, though--would turn 'em plane silly. Anyway. The rain was coming down like bullets, or maybe pullets dropped from a plane, this morning. A beautiful day for a run. A run at my personal record for keeping a pillow over my head without suffocating, that is.
So I called my Swedish running buddy Olga, who might be called the Swedish nightingale if not for her long, elegant, un-birdlike legs which carry her through the sweaty miles with amazing grace. Olga, I said, you may be running this morning but you will be wet and alone. I make Jackson Browne look like someone who just topped his tank at the U-Fill Texaco. I am already running more empty than Fulton County Stadium the day after game five and I haven't even gotten out of my pj's. If you're running this morning, it's on your own. I wouldn't run a yard if first prize was a week in Stockholm. I wouldn't even go for second prize, which they say might be two weeks in Stockholm. Just kidding, Olga. See you later.
So Here I am. Rain pelting the deck outside. I'm unemployed, or I'm a writer. Different days I call the same condition by different names. Today, with God crying out there, it feels like the former. Even my cat (whom the neighbors think they own, but what do they know), isn't even around. Usually she skulks nervously under the bird feeder like Jermaine Dye in the outfield at Yankee Stadium. My cat's name is Lucy, though the neighbors call her Crystal. What can you expect from people whose basement window stays illuminated all night by the ghostly glow of a television that never dies. They probably think they named the cat after their TV. Forgot that crystals were for radios. Anyway, Lucy/Crystal could be naturally white but even Johnny Cochran would be duped into making a case for her being a cat of color. She spends so much time hiding under my Honda in the driveway to stalk birds that she has become a permanent dirty gray color. No bloody glove for her; she's a s bare-clawed and ornery as a BMW driver on the Bay Bridge at 5 p.m. You can pet her and murmer to her and scratch her greasy ears for about 10 seconds before she whirls her head around and sinks her dainty teeth into the fleshiest part of your thumb. Being un-run and contemplating doing damage to some coffee and sticky buns, I'm kind of happy to think she might be getting wet somewhere.
Oct. 29, 1996
So here it is another lovely morning in the hippest place on the whole planet. The Bay Area. Makes you think of an airplane hangar, the bay. Just pull 'er into the Bay, boys. Kind of a wet place for planes, though--would turn 'em plane silly. Anyway. The rain was coming down like bullets, or maybe pullets dropped from a plane, this morning. A beautiful day for a run. A run at my personal record for keeping a pillow over my head without suffocating, that is.
So I called my Swedish running buddy Olga, who might be called the Swedish nightingale if not for her long, elegant, un-birdlike legs which carry her through the sweaty miles with amazing grace. Olga, I said, you may be running this morning but you will be wet and alone. I make Jackson Browne look like someone who just topped his tank at the U-Fill Texaco. I am already running more empty than Fulton County Stadium the day after game five and I haven't even gotten out of my pj's. If you're running this morning, it's on your own. I wouldn't run a yard if first prize was a week in Stockholm. I wouldn't even go for second prize, which they say might be two weeks in Stockholm. Just kidding, Olga. See you later.
So Here I am. Rain pelting the deck outside. I'm unemployed, or I'm a writer. Different days I call the same condition by different names. Today, with God crying out there, it feels like the former. Even my cat (whom the neighbors think they own, but what do they know), isn't even around. Usually she skulks nervously under the bird feeder like Jermaine Dye in the outfield at Yankee Stadium. My cat's name is Lucy, though the neighbors call her Crystal. What can you expect from people whose basement window stays illuminated all night by the ghostly glow of a television that never dies. They probably think they named the cat after their TV. Forgot that crystals were for radios. Anyway, Lucy/Crystal could be naturally white but even Johnny Cochran would be duped into making a case for her being a cat of color. She spends so much time hiding under my Honda in the driveway to stalk birds that she has become a permanent dirty gray color. No bloody glove for her; she's a s bare-clawed and ornery as a BMW driver on the Bay Bridge at 5 p.m. You can pet her and murmer to her and scratch her greasy ears for about 10 seconds before she whirls her head around and sinks her dainty teeth into the fleshiest part of your thumb. Being un-run and contemplating doing damage to some coffee and sticky buns, I'm kind of happy to think she might be getting wet somewhere.
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