Suzy Says

Lots of goodies today, kids!

Cat Update:

Not much new today. Jack is still getting her eye ointment and still hating it. I?m into a chin-washing phase again with Hannah, who was taken from her mother too early and didn?t learn some of the finer points of etiquette, like how to wash properly after a meal, so she occasionally gets acne (a fairly common occurrence among cats) around her mouth. I?ve been her mom since she was only a few weeks old (I still remember watching her strain to pass her first solid poop- that?s how young she was) and have had to teach her things like cleaning herself? but she has just never gotten the knack of keeping her face clean. What a banana. Anyhow, I hope to have the girls presentable by the time Suzy gets home. Oh, and Jack got me out of bed again this morning when I dozed beyond the reach of the alarm. She is an aggravating little treasure.

Things That Still Piss Me Off After All These Years #10:

Another low-ranking, and therefore highly infuriating entry, is the retirement of Alabama horror author Robert R. McCammon. JESUS! This guy wrote some great fucking books! McCammon, the elusive author, and creator of the Horror Writer?s Association (if I could be a member of any group, I?d love to be a member of this?) is a native of Birmingham, who is now writing and editing history (and short) stories. What a loss. If you want to check out one of his books but aren?t necessarily into horror, a must-read is Boy?s Life.

Women Are Strange #284:

There?s this really strange woman who works in my building. She’s this stringy blonde with a bad dye-job, always shucking and jiving like she has a serious jones for illegal substances, and she always wears her Walkman and her shades, even in the elevator. If a bunch of people are getting into an elevator, she will wait and try to get one alone. If she is in one alone and somebody joins her (as I had the misfortune of doing once), she mutters and swears in a low voice, jabbing at the buttons as if that will make the car go faster. Once I hit the wrong button and said, ?oops,? and she looked psychotic, as if the loss of ten seconds for the unnecessary elevator stop was going to ruin her life. As I got out of the car she mumbled something, but I did catch the words ?fucking asshole,?? so as the doors were closing I waved and said, ?Have a nice day!? Her response was to bare her teeth like an animal. As Paul McCartney sings in Penny Lane, ?Very strange!?

Random Notes:

Sometimes my boss can be a dingus of the highest magnitude, spewing far too many confusing, contradictory, and crazed utterances to be listed here. Let me just say that there should be a mandatory retirement age and leave it at that. Old money-loving Wall Street fucks. I hate ?em all.

Man, the house is a mess. A mess! I?ve started this grand project to clean out our closets. We have two big closets that have deep dark corners packed to the rafters with the materials of my obsessions- namely, weird shit. I have newspaper clippings and magazine articles and shit downloaded off the web, all in stacks and heaps. History, biology, biography, geography, all of it basically story fodder. When I come across something and think, ?Geez, that would be cool’ (or grotesque, or preferably, both at the same time) in a story, I just cannot throw away that particular scrap of information. Add to that my own stacks of shit that I?ve written, and that stuff goes back to 1979 or so, and you?ll see the problem. So I decided to weed out some of the crap, and presto! The whole place is a mess. Now I?m scrambling to get the place tidied up before Suzy comes back. Jeez. ?? Sorry! I was just printing some cool shit off the web to take home and add to my collection. Anyhow, it?s a nightmare.

Over Forty Fucking Years We Still Can?t Get It Right:

What is it with performers and aircraft? And what is it with small airplanes, Cessnas and shit like that? Shouldn?t a country that put men on the goddamned moon be able to produce fail-safe airplane engines? I?m never very quick on the uptake, so it took me until today to see the news that Aaliyah was killed in a plane crash in the Bahamas this Saturday. She joins a long and depressing list of celebrities who have perished in small plane crashes, and I think this one is going to be remembered very much as Buddy Holly?s death (in 1959) was, with an entire generation remembering the impact of this news, since Aaliyah was so young and had so much more to do. I just hope her family can find a way through this in the glare of the media spotlight.

A Couple of Napoleon Quotes Posted For No Particular Reason:

?A throne is only a bench covered in velvet.?

-Now was this said before or after he lost the Imperial throne?

?From the sublime to the ridiculous is but one step.?

-Rumored to have been said after a cold bath and severe

shrinkage gave Marie Antoinette a near-fatal case of the giggles.

Final Question:

What is the deal with peanut butter, anyway? How the hell can it just sit on the shelf and not go off? Why doesn?t it have to go in the fridge? And since we?re on the subject of peanut butter, holy mouth-watering Christ, does this stuff sound good!

-Rufus