This morning, as I quietly stood on the landing, I heard someone below fail to realize I was standing above, listening to the sounds of the insects and watching the infrequent traffic. My cat Güino stood next to me, sniffing the air.
A series of staccato flatulent blasts interrupted the nature sounds.
They weren’t mine, in case you’re pondering.
One, two, three, four; the toots almost echoed against the cheap vinyl siding and the wooden platform above the anonymous performer.
I couldn’t help it.
I laughed.
Below, a single word was uttered: “Oops!”
If you can’t even fart outside at 3:30, nothing is sacred.
When I’m doing these goofy videos, it slips my mind I still have my cape on. This was the case a few minutes ago when I went out on the landing to do chores and favors. One of the neighbors was sitting in her SUV and looked up and laughed fairly raucously. When I came back up the stairs to the landing, another neighbor popped out his door and casually looked at me. Then his head whipped around again to take another look. I had no choice except to swirl my cape dramatically, because that’s what people do in those unusual circumstances. I wish I would have thought to jump over the side of the railing and then duck out of sight. This neighborhood could definitely use a superhero. Or even an average guy with a broom and sweeper. Dream big y’all!
PS I keep hoping during one of my many convenience store excursions that I have my cape with me. And that I catch someone in the commission of a crime. I think someone in a cape would startle a would-be criminal so badly that they would freeze. Also the news headline would be very amusing. I would totally pretend that I actually have super powers.
A very subtle sign rock that I made for one of my neighbors. They have a very sweet pitbull who loves cats. Not the r&b singer; rather, the canine version. My car Güino thinks every animal is his friend, but this dog makes his fur stand on end. .
Oh, it is a serene enough scene now. An hour ago? Had you casually turned the corner, you would have witnessed a 55-year-old man kick off his sandals, peel off his shirt, followed by his pants, leaving him with a pair of underwear covering his body and nothing else.
Except for several hundred allegedly harmless ants.
I’ve been periodically deconstructing the drug shed behind my apartment. To avoid overpiling the dumpster, I split up my 40 or 50 trips back and forth hauling the contents of said shed to the dumpster. I should have done it last year, along with the cleanup and all the tree cutting. In winter, I mean, to reduce the varmint probability.
This afternoon, on a foolish whim, I went back there with a screwdriver and a small cutting tool. Yes, I had on a pair of rubber sandals. I realize that they are not on a construction workers list of advisable shoe wear in those conditions. All I can say in my defense is that I had a couple of major head dramas when I was younger.
Spiders? Check. Snakes? Check. It wasn’t until I was crammed up between the side of the drug shed facing the old wooden fence that I realized I was itching. I’d seen a few ants pour out one of the seams of the metal siding. A few were on my hand. Much to my surprise, I looked down at the mass of trash and leaves and realized I was standing on top of thousands and thousands of ants. Undoubtedly there was a colony underneath the steel and rotted wood platform, one which extended out into the untouched confines between the shed and the fence.
It took me a few seconds, I will admit – to connect my itching to the probability that I might be covered with ants underneath my clothing.
When I peeled off my shirt, I was covered in them. Which led me to the conclusion that my legs and nether regions were probably being invaded too. Because these weren’t flying ants, they had to have used my legs as a ladder to get up there right?
I jumped several feet away from the shed and began undressing like a music fan at a Phish festival. I used my hands for several seconds and then grabbed my shirt and began hitting myself.
Had anyone looked out the windows facing the back side of the apartments, they would either be shocked or just assumed that it’s another typical day where I live.
Tomorrow I will get my vengeance.
I’ll go out there with my professional strength insecticide and drown them. Please don’t feel sorry for the ants.
They got the last word today.
I guess it could have been worse: 10,000 spiders, a pit of snakes, or two dozen managers trying to have a meeting with me.
We all have nicknames for our neighbors, ones we often substitute even when we know their names. After work I came out on the balcony to let the cat roam.
The sourpuss lady on the end exited her apartment. I waved and said, “Hello Karen,” before catching myself.
I went outside in the afternoon to sweep the parking lot below my apartment. I do this frequently to ensure that anything that blows off my landing doesn’t become someone else’s problem. If everyone did this, it would solve a lot of the messes that accumulate in the world.
I talked to one of my newer neighbors quite a bit. He was convinced I am gay. I think he thinks his gaydar is broken now! Everything from my car color choice to my art projects, to my glasses, and the way I dress. He also took the time to complain that he hates that I took my massive fence project down. He said that it reveals a lot about the person who tried to complain, something that was coincidental, given that someone else told me the same thing today about an entirely different situation. I told him the landlord tried to take back the request a couple of hours after asking me to do so.
Just because I like to be personal, I’ve never had a gay experience or been the least bit interested in the same sex. I am so glad I came out of my violent, racist, and prejudiced childhood without those attitudes of judgment toward people who are gay. Even when the same sex hit on me, I just smiled and explained and went about my day. Anyone brave enough to express their interest, much less in this seemingly growing era of backlash prejudice, deserves grace for being who they are. Sexuality is complicated enough without the added burden of falling outside the alleged norm. Almost everyone I know is trapped in their own personal cocoon of concealment and worry about their perceived sexuality and behavior. I’ve never understood why some people are so obsessed with other people’s sexuality. Except to gossip! Gossip is the exception – one that everyone claims they don’t do.
Although it’s not directly related, if you find someone you like, tell them. It doesn’t have to be awkward. It probably will be, though, because rejection is about as welcome as a spider in one’s shoe in the morning. From experience, I learned the hard way that you should NOT use a bullhorn to tell them. Or shout it out in church.
While talking to my neighbor, I was reminded of how small the world is and how interconnected we are. Because he knows a few people I know. And some of them have secrets, secrets that belong to them to keep private or to live openly. But I wish the world were filled with grace. Not acceptance… because that belies that people different from us must be accepted. They don’t need to be accepted. They need to be who they are without our individual judgments or perceptions affecting how they live their lives. Unless we’re having a laugh about the absurdity of individuals and their choices. I love it when people snark about me, as long as they are creative.
So if you see me driving around in my little blue cotton candy car, I’m not going to give you my number. I won’t go to Applebee’s with you either for a cocktail and hot wings. Unless you’re buying, of course.
Love, X
PS That’s a crescent wrench above my thumb. I keep one magnetized on each side of my metal door. It looks like a floating key. The “Sadboy” t-shirt I’m wearing, the one I splotched deliberately with paint, it’s the most comfortable shirt I’ve ever owned. .
She sat in the shade near the bus stop. I had stopped in an attempt to take a picture of two enormous crows up in the tree. They were squawking worse than a teenage boy complaining that there was no ranch dressing. I watched her as she held her enormous phone sideways against her chin. She had a very unusual large tattoo on the side of her calf of her right leg.
It was not my intention to eavesdrop. She was animatedly talking in an extremely loud voice. Possibly due to the teenage boy crows up in the tree above her.
“Look, I don’t care what he said. He slept with my mom Thursday night after I fell asleep watching Netflix. My mom told me all about it the next morning.”
As I walked away, I desperately wanted to know the rest of that story. Neither the crows nor I were judgmental. But 100% curious!
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 