caveat emptor

How to Beat the Heat and Make it Your Butler

If you're like me, and you probably aren't, you love the bright summer sun but you hate the heat! Why? Well, you've got your reasons. Maybe you'd rather not talk about it right now. Maybe it's too painful for you. I don't know. These are your issues, not mine. Anyway, here at Caveat Emptor we got together a team of market researchers and paid them to find out what people do to beat the heat in the summer. Unfortunately, we paid them in advance and they never came back. So, I'm about to make up a list of suggestions. Try them out. Let me know how it goes. Caveat emptor.

• Go into the bathroom and flush the toilet. If the water swirls clockwise, run north as fast as you can. If counter-clockwise, south.


• Most clothing serves no purpose. Take off as much of it as you can. Just, you know, don't show everyone your winkie or your boom-booms or your cho-cha or any of that stuff. You know what stuff I mean.


• Ice cold milk is refreshing. Fill the kiddie pool in the backyard with it. Check the date on the carton first. Test it once a month for freshness.


• Have you checked to see if you're on fire? 'Cause that will make you feel hot. If you are on fire, remember these three steps: 1. Stop; 2. Collaborate; 3. Listen.


• Do you think Jimmy Buffet cries now when he sings the line, "All of those tourists covered with oil"?


• Nothing is cooler than shades. Wear five or six pair.


• Two Words: Face-down Naked Snow Angels

Now you've got summer licked. Show that heat who's boss. Unleash all the fury of your dysfunction against it. Make it cry! Make it hurt FOR WHAT IT DID TO YOU!

Dude? Seriously? You should probably see someone about all of this anger.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well, deep psychological issues notwithstanding.

Later. Love.

An Administrative Post. Please Read.

Hello, people. Remember me? I'm the guy who writes this blog. My name is Scott. Hello.

I've been staying behind the writing lately, not poking my head through much. Probably it's just a phase. Who cares, though. Anyway. I decided to address you directly today because I've been letting things go, letting them get out of hand I mean, and it's time to take a little break and get some things in order. If you'll pardon the break in blather, then, I'll address a few issues.

The thing is: The blog complex is a mess. I love you people. I love having you around. I wouldn't close this blog if you paid me a million dollars. And even though all my real friends tell me that you guys are a bunch of losers and I should run you all out of here with a shotgun, I'm fond of you people and all your weird little flaws, deformities and social awkwardnesses. So, I'm keeping the blog complex open to you, but I'm going to have to ask you to chip in and help me get some things around here back in order. Here goes:

• I don't know who made the beautiful ping pong paddle sculpture in the Ping Pong and Rock Climbing Room but, even though it's a lovely sculpture, now people cannot play ping pong. There are forty-five tables and no paddles. Please dismantle the sculpture or replace the paddles. Our ping pong paddle budget is tapped out for the year.


• If you drink the last cup of coffee in the pot, please don't throw the coffee maker away. Make another pot, or rinse out the pot and put it in the dishwasher. And when the dishwasher is full, don't throw it away. Just run it and then empty it. And when the trash is full, don't set the can on fire. Pull out the bag, take it to the dumpster, and then put a new bag in the can. What the hell is wrong with you people?


• The trauma counselors are for everyone. There are only twelve of them. Please don't blather on and on and on. We cannot afford any more trauma counselors this year.


• There are sixty-three hoodies in lost and found. Sixty-three. Please, for the love of god, take your hoodies home.


• The wombats in the wombat pantry are all crooked and out of order. If you're going to play with a wombat, please put it back exactly as you found it. They wombat butler is getting pissed, and he's the only wombat butler in the Western Hemisphere. If he quits, we'll have to burn all the wombats.


• I'm not sure who's been sleeping in the broom closet, but the broom master asks that you please wear pajamas.


• I'm tired of people complaining about the moray eels. The rules on the back of the door to the natatorium clearly indicate that the moray eels are released into the pool for 13 minutes at the 51st minute of every even numbered hour so they can exercise. Please keep track of the time and be out of the pool when the door to their tank opens. It's your responsibility, not mine.


• The observatory is only to be used for studies that support currently accepted norms in astronomical science. If you want to challenge the establishment, build your own observatory.


• Until they're legal, please stay out of the euthanasia pods. We could get in serious trouble, you guys.


• The suggestion box in the main foyer is meant to be ironic. Please keep your suggestions to yourself.

That's enough for today. Please comply. Be a sport, weirdo.

Hello, friends. I'm glad you are.

Later. Love.

Who Can Imagine Such Mysteries and Wonders?

It's like the kind of people who see something in a shop. Maybe they're a married couple or maybe they're just living together. And they go into a shop, maybe to get a coffee, and they browse the shelves and find something they like. Maybe it's a ceramic canister with a sealed lid for holding coffee beans or tea leaves. It's just what they want, very much the perfect canister that they picture in their imagination of the world where they own such a canister. These people, they look at the thing. They open it. They close it. They talk about it. Then they put it back on the shelf. They agree that it is perfect, but they do not buy it. They want to wait until it's on sale, or maybe they want to look in a few other shops. Maybe they just want time to think about it some more, to talk about it, to live a little more life in this world without such a canister in their home. They want it. They love it. Nevertheless, they get a coffee or something and they leave the shop without that canister. Can you imagine such a thing? It makes me smile. But that's not all.

At the gas station, a fellow is carefully cleaning his windows with that squeegee they provide for customers. He's being so very deliberate about it. He makes smooth strokes with the soapy sponge, then he wipes with a skillful sweep of the squeegee. He uses a paper towel to dry the curves of water left by the edges of the squeegee so there are no streaks. He scrubs spots to remove stubborn matter of bug tragedy or bird defecation. He's being deliberate and thorough. You sit and watch him, but you are nonchalant about it, so he doesn't suspect anything. You wonder where people learn to be like this. You think to yourself, not for the last time, that everyone knows something that you don't. When he leaves, his windows are cleaner than your windows will ever be. You are haunted by this, sitting there at the gas station.

Here's the real killer though. They come back, that couple. They come back to the shop, maybe three months later. There is only one canister left. It's on clearance. They look at it and talk about it some more. It's still just perfect. And they are ready. They are ready for a canister in their world. They pick it up and walk toward the counter. Isn't that amazing? I cannot even imagine such a thing. I really can't.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. I hope, even, that you're happy.

Later. Love.

The Devil Drives a Cab

The Devil is driving a cab. If you get in ask him to take you to the theatre or to the courthouse, you are doomed. He'll take you there. You'll pay him and he'll drive away. But, make no mistake about it, you're doomed. From that point on, damnation will be a hound at your heels. Doom will accompany you. Desolation and discord will stalk you. Desalination will harass you. Deforestation will send you SPAM email. Desultory demonstrations of discontinued dental devices will dominate your daydreams. Dictations of doctoral dissertations detailing declining density of desert dromedaries will drone disturbingly during your daily drive due to decidedly defective diodes in the discount digital docking device for your Droid phone.

Sorry about that last paragraph. Sometimes I alliterate pathologically.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Sailing. Surviving the Day.

Staring up from where I'm lying on my back, I can see the wind stir the lines and sails above me. I can hear the familiar fabric rustling. There's not a cloud in the sky, and it's going to be a hot day. Great day for sailing. A stirring on my left catches my eye and I turn to see a grasshopper crawling along one of the lines. Dragonflies are buzzing in the morning heat. From nearby I hear a Hereford mooing. All of these things make it impossible to maintain the illusion that this boat is out on the sea instead of abandoned in this Texas cow pasture. I close my eyes and inhale the scents of the ocean: Indian paintbrushes and mesquite, a faint tinge of manure, the earthy aroma of pasture grass yellowing in the wet, Texas heat. "I am married to the sea," I think to myself. Somewhere, too far away to hear, seagulls cry.

This is the way of the world. When we're apart we drift from foolishness to foolishness, trying to pass our time under the sun. There is no shortcut from dawn to dusk. We must practice mischief and folly every day, lest we go insane. Spring from the bed and run out the door. When you reach the shore, swim. When you reach the cliffs, climb. When you reach the summit, jump. Just don't stop until we're back together again, huddling sleepy in bed, regaling each other with news from the outside, later dreaming of never waking up again.

At first I thought maybe it was pirates, but it's just this dried out old farmer on his ancient International Harvester staring down at me, not saying a word. He's chewing something and blinking, probably trying to decide if I'm alive or if I'm dangerous. 'The Captain always goes down with the ship,' I think to myself. "Mister, this here's private property," he finally drawls. Maybe I can just lie really still and he'll go away.

Hello, friends. I trust you're content and well-adjusted.

Later. Love.

Thanks. You know, for everything.

Inspiration watches you from across the cafe, sees you staring around blankly, the cursor blinking against the blankness of the word processing window centered on the screen in front of you. Most days Inspiration would, seeing you, saunter invisibly across the room, her robes and veils falling one by one to the floor as she approaches, and lay her body gently across you where you sat and, pulling you close, kiss you passionately on the lips of your soul. Today, however, inspiration is feeling out of sorts. No robes or veils, she wears sweat pants, flip flops and a green hoodie with "Sophia" across the front in block letters. Her hair is pulled back in a scrunchie and her eyes betray insomnia, and possibly allergies. Inspiration looks down at the floor when you look over at her, pretending not to see you.

Buy her a cup of hot tea. Fetch a couple of aspirin from your bag. Walk these gifts over to her with sufficient nonchalance to calm her flight reflex. Smile at her and say, "Thanks. You know, for everything."

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

Panda and Jackal

Panda wakes with a start. Was there a sound nearby, a loud thrashing in the bamboo? Blinking groggily, Panda hears nothing now. Perhaps it was just a dream. "Do bears dream?" Panda wonders at the thought. He relaxes and his head lolls over to the side, where his eye catches a small, tender bamboo stem with a few leaves still attached. He stretches out his paw and, grasping with his thumb, pulls the stem toward his mouth. It's an exhausting maneuver and Panda decides that, once he's finished with breakfast, he will take a little nap. "That will be nice," he thinks.

Then his phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Panda?"

"Hello, Doris. What's up?"

"The Jackal is on the move again."

"Right. I'm on it."

Panda sighs as he pushes "End" on the phone, remembering the nap he had planned. "Sigh," he sighs, sighing. He finishes his breakfast as quickly as his malnourished metabolism will allow and then lumbers over to his Harley-Davidson Heritage and straps on his helmet, the one with the ridiculous Viking horns. Hiking his leg over the tank, he straddles the padded leather seat and shifts the bike upright off the kickstand, flicking it up with his hind paw. Leaning back he fishes his smokes and lighter from the saddlebag and plucks a cigarette from the pack with his teeth, lighting it with a quick flick of his claw on the flint wheel. "Shit," he mumbles to himself as he sucks a deep drag and, tossing the smokes and lighter back into the saddlebag, kicks the Harley to life peels off. "Fucking Jackal."

Hello, friends. I certainly hope the day finds you well.

Later. Love.

The Practice of Beauty

She is beauty grown older, a little softer in the middle, a little harder around the edges. You think of her as desert winter, a cool, dry breeze in the dusty wilderness of your thirsty existence. She is straightness and angles, subtle curves. Looking at her arid beauty, one might suppose her voice to sound worn or strained, but it is softness and depth and warmth. We can, none of us, remember the perfection of youth, full and firm and foolish, too dumb to acknowledge what we cannot do, accomplishing boldly the questionable. Round here we're all a little worn, eroded by the flow of time, etched by the winds of change. And she is what beauty becomes through constant, long practice of being beautiful. You want to approach her, to put your hands on her slender sides and pull her close. You want to kiss the lines of her smile on the dark skin beside her eye. You want to dance with her slowly and quietly to the sigh of this desert wind, the grit of sand under your feet, thin clouds passing white in the blue far above. "I love you more than the memory of you," you want to whisper in her ear.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Album Covers and Band Names

Her favorite thing about music was album covers. She couldn't really get into listening to music. Her mind wandered. When you mentioned a band, however, she could converse endlessly about their album covers. More than once she cried, describing one. It was her personal genius.

If I started a band it would be called Perpetual Potential. I don't expect to start a band, however.

What do you suppose album covers represent in this post? What is the author trying to convey? Name at least one album cover you can remember and write what like liked or disliked about it. Include a picture of the cover if you can find one.

Extra Credit: What would your band name be?

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

An Exercise and Futility

There are people who don't feel this way, I know. Even here, in this coffee shop, there are people who feel perfectly welcome and at home. There are people who don't feel compelled to turn away quickly or to offer an apology every time they make incidental eye contact. I know this for sure, because I am one of those people sometimes. I can be something more than furtive and timid. But today I feel out of place and untoward, an offense to your otherwise acceptable and beautiful world. Sun pours in the window and illuminates the blessing of your smiling countenance. Sun glares in and exposes me where I sit, trying to hide, casting the shadow of my affront across the floor and onto your shoes. You stand shod on unholy ground. This music accuses me, and I know you are all only too kind and too benevolent to acknowledge the outrage of my presence. Did you ever feel obligated to evaporate? I would make your world whole and clean if I could only find the strength to open my eyes and release all my covalent bonds and disappear in merciful ionic dissipation.

It's all drama and overstatement, of course. It's fiction. At best today I'm feeling a little mellow and pensive. At worst I feel a little out of sorts, as though my soul might have gotten a little twisted and bent. I'm sure it will snap back and straighten out. It always does, eventually. In the meantime we smile politely and purse our lips, eyes foggy and eyelids heavy. We resist the springy pull of the fetal position and stretch our shoulder muscles and, closing our eyes, do our neck exercises and sigh in little popping circles of pain and relief.

"If you could live anywhere, would you?"

It's one of the questions that pops into my head when I empty it out.

"What have you got in your hand?"

That one always pops in when our hands are empty.

"What, then will you do?"

I will sing inside my head. I will name the clouds and then forget their names. I will watch the birds hop atop their long morning shadows. I will never give away my life. You'll have to take it from me.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

(Originally posted 09/30/2008. I'm feeling that way again.)

Animate Alone

I have troubling dreams that we are alone in the universe, that there is no other life to which we can relate. The vastness of the cosmos is uninhabited, inanimate, except for this one tiny, crumbling planet. We are this strange thing that has happened, the saddest thing ever, though possibly also the most joyful. We are aware of our situation, aware of our mortality. We are here and we will not last forever. When we are gone, no one will know that we were here, not because we did not leave our mark, but because there will be no one to discover it. Being alive, being animate, we struggle with the reason. Why this vast universe? Why this giant playground with no children? That question means nothing outside of our little minds. We are the foreigners in this kingdom of rocks and gases and particles. Life is the aberration. Reasons and purposes are the stuff of lives. The universe is not alive and it was not made for us. We are just the weird coincidence. When you are dead you become minerals again. You join, more fully, the thoughtless communion with this pointless universe of matter. Then, when all will and reason and purpose is gone, everything makes more sense.

Hello, friends. I'm glad that you are here with me for now.

Later. Love.

Old Bones

I've studied enough anatomy for artists and drawn, layer by layer, a sufficient number of faces to understand the relationship between these external features we see and the bone, tendons ligaments and muscles that underlie them. I am not naive about this skull inside my head, this mask of death that one day I will wear plainly, long after my consciousness has gone. Sometimes I trace the edges of my nose and eye sockets with my fingers, pressing firmly against the skin to feel the solid bone underneath, the flatness of my lipless teeth wrapped in this temporary facade of vital flesh. I do not welcome death. I love to think, to write, to talk. I love to make jokes and draw pictures. I love all the cerebral whirrings of this corporeal life. To walk alone in the woods or to lie co-entangled in urgent love making. To bask in the sensual pleasure of cooking a fine meal or to jump in terrified excitement from insane heights into cool, deep water. Not many of you, I'll wager, would recognize my grinning skull when all this meat and the muscular contortions of my facial expressions have fallen away. I'll just be another bonehead, another goner, another has been grateful to have been at all.

The Good Chairs. And Tom Waits.

Sometimes you get the good chairs in life. Sometimes that's what happens. You walk in, you and your buddy, and no one is sitting in the good chairs. So you sit in them. And it's wonderful. They really are much more pleasant than all the other chairs. And they're yours. Today they're yours. The good chairs. Maybe it's karma. Maybe it's fate. Maybe it's just coincidence. So many days you come in and someone is already sitting in the good chairs. And you hate them, those people, as you sit in inferior chairs and wonder what sin you've committed to deserve such a shitty life. Today, however, you are the happy and lucky object of hatred from all the others in their stupid chairs. It's because you're a better person. Today you're better. In these chairs. The good chairs.

Somewhere in the background Tom Waits is singing, "I hope that I don't fall in love with you." I remember the first time I heard Tom Waits. I was like, "What the hell am I listening to?" He doesn't make the best first impression, Tom Waits. If you're patient, however, and you really listen to him, Tom Waits will win you over. Unless, of course, you're a soulless monster. Maybe you are. Some people are, I suppose. Now you may think I'm being unfair. "People have different tastes," you'll say. "It doesn't mean they're soulless." Just listen to fucking Tom Waits and shut up for a change, please? Why do we always have to fight? Why can't you just trust me? Start with his early stuff and listen to how he develops from the early 70s on through the 80s and beyond. Sure, there's some real crap in there, but there's also so much beautiful genius. Listen to the words, not just the voice. Or don't. Be a monster. I don't care any more.

I hope you get the good chairs, friends. I hope you get the good chairs every day for the rest of your life. Screw all those other people. They wouldn't know good music if Tom Waits came up and bummed a cigarette from them. They don't deserve the good chairs. Not like we do.

Hello, friends. I hope you're comfortable and secure.

Later. Love.

pack animals

pack animals, we are
not in sense of bearing burdens
though we certainly do
but in the sense of running in a pack
loving because we're together
not because we're lovable
held fast by the bonds of common experience
of having survived it all
when i think of everything we've been through
i imagine each of you
as a kind of brother in arms
and i rarely remember
that you put us through all of that
only that you were there with us
in the heat
in the dark
in the aftermath
in the recovery
in the relapse
suffering with us
the oppression of your presence
the wild danger of your anger
the violent lash of your insecurity
and sometimes i tell myself
that you suffered most of all
and sometime i want to kill you
with my own bare hands
for all the evil you did
but when i have you in my grasp
i just embrace you
and kiss your rough cheek
and clap you on the back
because you are one of us
and we've been through so much
together
pack animals

---

Hello, friends. I'm fine. How are you?

Later. Love.

After the Bomb. The Poem About Everything.

The explosion turned the surface of the silicate desert into a thin, brittle layer of rough, primitive glass, a window on the world below, a window on the sky above. The desert peered up through the glass at the thin, hot blue scattered with flurries of flaky fallout and ash. "I wonder," wondered the desert, "what just happened." You were the victim of random violence, of unjust deserts. Though you've known heat all your life, you'd never felt heat like that before. And now there was this craggy window that distorted your once clear arid vista. Why this attack? Why now? Why you? For eons you and your sisters had lain innocently under your familiar sun, wishing no harm on any. Not enemies. Just deserts.

For me, life is a poem about everything. I haven't the discipline to tell the story straight. I have to use image and metaphor. I miss too many of the details. I'll write the poems and leave the true accounting to the pros.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

Who Is/Isn't Picasso. What Is/Isn't Magic.

This morning I saw the little bald man who looks like Picasso. Cat Stevens was singing in the background, a recording I assume. The man is not Picasso, of course. No one is Picasso these days. He looks like Picasso. I told him that once and he wrinkled his forehead as though I had insulted him. Perhaps he thought I said "a Picasso", which would be a very different thing, it's true. He hasn't spoken with me since then. He avoids eye contact. This only makes him look more like Picasso to me, since Picasso never looked me in the eye.

It's a world of mundane magic, my boy, and you have to invent your own wonder. The truth is all around us, not hidden at all, but we completely fail to see it. We hardly understand anything very well. We have bad magic, poor medicine, an unimpressive tome of faulty secrets. But we can make fire and we can make water. We can fly big metal birds. We can rumble across the planet in massive herds of strange metal buffalos. There is no magic, no real magic, in all of our fire and smoke, in all this noise and destruction. Our only real power is the spark of skin touching skin, words whispered in the ear to make the soul burn. Magic is something you do, not something you know. Make as much magic as you can, my boy. Everything else is just technology becoming obsolete before your eyes, bad theories replacing worse theories.

I have to ask myself if Picasso exists. There is evidence here and there that can only be explained by Picasso's existence. But where is Picasso? Does Picasso exist today? This fellow at the coffee shop is not him. He's a knockoff, a fake. Is it sad if there is no Picasso in the world? "Death makes angels of us all, and gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as raven's claws." A dead guy said that. He was alive at the time.

Hello, friends. I trust you're getting by, making magic when you can.

Later. Love.

Points

"What is a six letter word for the collection of all points in three-dimensional space that are equidistant from a central point?" she asked.

"What are you doing the MIT Mathematics Journal crossword puzzle or something?" he replied. "It's sphere," he added.

"Really?" She seemed surprised. "Yeah, that fits."

"Yes. That's the definition of a sphere," he said. "Why?"

"That just doesn't describe a sphere at all to me. That sounds like a square or something," she put down the crossword and yawned.

"Words mean things, you know. That doesn't sound like a square at all." He smiled at her.

She pushed imaginary glasses into the bridge of her nose and, in her best faux-nerd voice, repeated, "Words mean something you know. Words mean something you know. Words mean something you know." He laughed in spite of himself. "Admit that it sounds like a square," she said, scooting over beside him on the couch.

"It does not sound like a square! A square is not three-dimensional and the points that make up a square are not equidistant from a central point! It's SO not at all a square," he said, a little embarrassed at the passionate raising of his voice.

She pressed right up next to him, her face just an inch from his. "Just admit that you're wrong and I'm right. I promise it will be worth it." Her smile was sly and mischievous. He could smell her hair. He could feel her rise and fall with each breath. She leaned forward, ever so slightly.

"Of course, you're right," he said softly. "I just get confused sometimes."

He did not regret it.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

(Originally posted July 25, 2006.)

Girlo and Boyo

I remember once telling a girl, "I'll always remember you in the spring." It seems like a lovely thing to tell someone. Whenever I'm walking outside on a warm spring morning and I catch the smell of honeysuckle or magnolia, I always remember saying that to that girl, whoever she was.

I'll never forget the day the plush, pink pig pillow I used to keep on my bed turned to me and said, "Whatever you do, maintain your grasp on reality. Don't lose your mind, Boyo." Boyo. That's what he always called me. Well, I mean, he only spoke to me that one time. But I always imagined him calling me Boyo after that day. I've mostly kept a grasp on reality since that day, with only one or two slips. Whenever I lose it, though, some inanimate friend will always set me straight. "Keep it together, Dudester," said the mailbox. "Come on, Buddy Boy. Don't lose it," the rosebush encouraged. I love all the nicknames they use for me. I guess that's just because they don't know my real name, but that's cool. The nicknames are awesome. I always liked Boyo best, though. Lately, whenever I meet an inanimate object, I tell him or her that I prefer to be called Boyo. Mostly they don't respond. I guess that's a good thing.

I'm sorry I don't remember you, spring girl. I don't remember your face and I don't remember your name. I think I'll call you Girlo. I still remember what I told you, Girlo. I guess it's become a lie, but I'm pretty sure it was true at the time. I'd never lie to you, Girlo.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well and whatnot.

Later. Love.