Some of the oddities I've received lately. Some of you have seen some of these already ... one of you has seen at least two of these already... you know who you are....


Banned book by Dr. Seuss??...
http://members.aol.com/danledbttr/seuss.htm


A bit of Bush whacking...
http://www.bushflash.com/swf/thanks.swf


Today's definition...
http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/bulletin_board/4/messages/1361.html


Lesbonic commentary to make you SCREAM!
http://www.progressiveboink.com/archive/lesbians1.htm


An SOB who rejects manuscripts goes on a rant...
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004641.html


Accordian Man's AYEEEEEE! (turn your speakers on and shake your tail feather)

http://user.aol.com/accrdnmn/cajun.html

sonnet revision - rough.

three siblings in a car
by zippy


Twenty conversations amongst us three,
only mine was silently with myself.
The longest road before and behind me,
with fret on my brow, my trust on the shelf.

I believed in them once upon a time,
when their hearts were good and their minds better,
before their choices compelled them to crime
and reason was lost like a dead letter.

I drove beyond sunset, well into dark
with them in the back seat playing roulette.
Brother resembled brother with the mark
of a generation's worth of regret.

I am my mother's daughter, that I know.
They are her sons as well, quite quid pro quo.

best advise I've had all week...

Thirteen thoughts to ponder today......

13. Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway...

12. Life is sexually transmitted...

11. Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die...

10. Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an
erection, make him a sandwich...

9. Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks...

8. Some people are like Slinkies . . . not really good for anything,
but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs...

7. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals
dying of nothing...

6. Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again...

5. All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no
attention to criticism...

4. Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a
substantial tax cut saves you thirty cents???

3. In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world
is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal...

2. Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have
come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first...

AND THE # 1 THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
You read about all these Terrorists that came here legally, but they
hung around on these expired visas, some for as long as 10-15 years.

Now, compare that to Blockbuster; you are two days late with a video
and those people are all over you. I think we should put Blockbuster in
charge of immigration & Homeland Security...


:-)

Because there are so many of you who are in the know, I am putting this here rather than send it individually to each of you. I know you understand...


I'm back from Cali. I did not find Huggy in the morgue, but I did find him in jail for drugs.

he swears he lost all that weight before he did the meth.

I think he protests too much.

None-the-less, he's fixated on having "something" wrong w/ him - cancer or TB specifically - but I suspect he's playing the wrong cards. I suspect it's his diabetes that he has never taken care of properly.

This should be his third strike and in Cali that means life, but his attorney has struck a deal for a drug diversion program. Huggy placates them now by going through the motions, but I have no illusions.

I am resigned to my brother dying alone on a street somewhere. I am also resigned to him killing himself. I just hope to be notified when it happens so that I can claim the body.

But, honestly, I am glad I did not have to trowel the morgue looking at every John Doe. I was braced for it, but relieved to not actually go through it this time.

I am BITTER that his case worker told me he looks like he has AIDS and urged to family to make closure with him. BITTER. how the FUCK can you work w/ that particular subculture of people and NOT recognize an AIDS candidate from a speed freak???

But it is true, Huggy is skinny. S-K-I-N-N-Y.

. . .

AND THEN YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED?

my other dumb ass brother, Jimmy, opts to tag along for the ride, why?

"Because I feel I should. You shouldn't have to do this alone."

"I WOULDN'T FUCKING BE DOING IT AT ALL IF YOU'D JUST GOTTEN IN YOUR CAR AND DRIVEN THE TWO HOURS TO CHECK ON HIM YOURSELF."

"Well, now we can do it together."

. . .

AND THEN YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED?

said brother is a racist. I think it may be his new wife bringing out the (sur name) in him. they both told me independently of each other, "I hate to sound like a bigot, but I guess I am."

Bigot is a polite word, in my opinion. Rhymes with spigot. "I'll have another cuppa bigot from the spigot please."

WHAT RHYMES WITH RACIST?

everyone who knows, email me the answer.

So, "Spickville" this and "Spickville" that and incredulously, "I don't have a problem with the ones that come over and do the migrant farming."

!!!!!

"They're fine, but the ones who come over and we can't get the same welfare benefits because we're white and born here??? but our taxes are paying for them? Fucking spicks."

"but you know that Latin AMERICANS are the fastest growing minority in the nation, right?"

"So?"

"And that Spanish is fast becoming a required language in this country."

"That's another thing - why don't they learn English? It's our country, god damn it!"

"Because we don't actually have an official language. It's one of those things the founding fathers failed to think about."

"English is what we speak in this country and that's all there is to it. I wouldn't go to Mexico without knowing the language."

"You've already done it with me."

"When?"

"Back in the 80s when we went to Nueve Laredo."

"That's just a border town. That doesn't count."

"And what about all the countries you visited when you were in the Navy?"

"Why do you think I always ate at McDonald's?"

"Why be angry at an entire collective people for a portion of them taking advantage of a system when it is offered to them? Why not be angry w/ the system instead and work toward changing it?"

"You can't change the system, zippy, that's just stupid."

. . .

AND THEN YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED???

We passed a Mitsubishi SUV on the highway and Jimmy swears TO GOD ALMIGHTY he won't EVER buy a product from Mitsubishi EVER.

"Not even if they make your dream car?"

"NEVER!"

"Why not?"

At which point I am told the tale of the Japanese auto maker putting American POWs to work as slave labor in their factories during WW2. I did not know.

"As far as I'm concerned," he says, "We should have dropped another bomb on their asses, blown them all off the planet."

"Do you think you're talking to someone else?"

"It's just the way I feel."

"And you want me to bring my Japanese husband to your wedding?"

"Oh, it's nothing personal."

. . .


On the flight home I sat w/ a lovely young couple of BLACK AMERICANS and apologized for things they did not know.

phone conversation in zippy's world:


Jimmy: "I'm sorry for the way I responded the other day."

zippy: "I understand."

Jimmy: "I'm just so frustrated, you know?"

zippy: "I know."

Jimmy: "For someone who cares so much about so many things... how much are we supposed to give when he doesn't give a shit about himself?"

zippy: "You can only extend yourself so much."

Jimmy: "Am I supposed to put my life on hold AGAIN to run off and try to help him?"

zippy: "No. no."

Jimmy: "He can't live with me again... he can't..."

zippy: "It's okay."

Jimmy: "I'm so sorry..."

zippy: "It's a bad situation that won't get better until it's over."

Jimmy: "Exactly."

zippy: "If I find him... I'll ask him what his wishes are and we'll honor them, together."

Jimmy: "Yes."

zippy: "Okay."

Huggy's downward spiral prompted a phone call from one of his counselors today. She tells me, "I don't know anything about diabetes, but he looks like he has AIDS."

I know he's afraid of dying, but mostly he's afraid of dying alone. He's spent his whole life being alone and now that he's facing his own mortality he is terrified by where he finds himself.

His counselor advised us to set aside anything that may be keeping us distanced from Huggy, or to try to come to some closure about it with him, because she does not think he's going to pull through this time.

"You can tell when you look at him, that he's not there, that he doesn't recognize himself anymore."

I wish I had the luxury of having only known Huggy as the bad bullshit artist, manipulator, liar, and thief that he is, and never the kind soul who took care of the elderly, adopted strays and found grace in the rocks of the earth. I wish I had never known the young man with a heart so big it overwhelmed everyone in his path.

I called Jimmy, urging him to drive over and see Huggy. He will not. He's so angry and frustrated with Huggy (for being Huggy) that he won't bend.

"I'm not asking you to take him in again," I pleaded. "I am asking you to go see your only brother. To put aside all the shit between you, because you know what it's like when you don't -- you know, you know, we've been through this twice before, Jimmy... you know what it's like to live with that kind of regret. You know..."

Our father died in February.

Our mother died in March.

I think Huggy is feeling the weight of those memories for the first time in years ... and in his diminished mental state, compounded by his physical pain, it seems enough to kill him.

rough draft for a class, due on Tues.

hot house flower by zippy


Supper was on the stove top, almost ready for eating.
Mama was still standing over the okra
with the spatula in one hand and her cigarette in the other.
Her 'do rag was moist from the Louisiana heat
and the soggy oil hanging thick in the kitchen air.

She said, "Come in here, all three of you."
Our empty stomachs hastened our race
through the living room where the floor boards opened
to the roach nests underneath; where the turtle thought lost
found his way back to us from under the paneling covering the holes;
the little boxy bastard, lucky to be alive.

"Be still," she said as we squirmed our way to the cooker,
our dirty hands reaching for the hot plates stacked by the skillet
she was yet toiling with.

I used to think okra could cook for ever,
that it would never burn no matter how hot the flame,
no matter how long on the stove.

Mama turned and turned, the spatula in the oil,
the breaded vegetable floating and sinking and tumbling in
and over and on top of itself, waiting to be launched,
at just the right time, by Mama's slotted spoon
to the plate covered with the paper towel to collect the grease
as it drizzled off the crumbs.

"I have something to say to you."

We giggled and squirmed and made each other peel
with delight, waiting, waiting, our hunger growing
with the mingled scents of fried okra, potatoes,
chicken and corn, all the closer to our senses as we stood
there by the stove.

"I'm tired," she said and we giggled some more before she
flicked her cigarette in the sink and lost her breath to nothing in sight,
pushed out all her rage and in one great grunt
the cast iron skillet, full of hot grease and okra still frying
went flying through the closed kitchen window.

In a cacophony of things fallen and shattered, the glass landed in shards
as she collapsed on her self, slipping on the linoleum now oozing with grease,
sliding away from the stove, away from the burning oil, away from us,
her off spring, peering through bleary eyes and telling
each of us just where we were going, for as soon as she could
get us there she was to kill herself in a hurry.

Daddy was gone, and we were still alive,
and there she was crying 'why?'
and for the first time, so was I.