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[austinpanda]

Dad Letter 072822

25 July, 2022

Dear Dad--

I haven't written in a few weeks, so it is past time! Today is my day off, I have the place to myself, and about a dozen chores that need doing. It's been hot here, but today it's clouds and rain. 

I'm revisiting a movie from my childhood, a made for TV affair from 1978 that tried to answer the eternal question: Could Ernest Borgnine be terrifying? (The answer: Yes. Yes he could.) This movie aired when I was 9 years old, and it scared the SHIT out of me for YEARS because it was a true story. You can't film something about ghosts and call it a true story on television if it's not true. That's just illegal!

The movie is The Ghost of Flight 401. And while it may only be a "true" story if you put quotes around the "true" part, it was, at least, based on a very real plane crash. Plane crashes are sad, obviously, because of the trauma and loss of life, but this one is even more sad for the fact that the airplane itself was doing just fine. The flight crew did a CFIT, controlled flight into terrain. In other words, the plane was working okay, but they flew it into the ground by mistake. Usually this involves a mountain, but they were in Florida, so they had to use the Everglades. While attempting to land, they were trying to figure out if the nose wheel was down, because the light bulb that would have told them so wasn’t illuminating. (They didn’t know it, but the bulb was burned out. Yes, all this shit happened because a bulb burned out.) They got so busy working the problem that they didn't notice they were dropping, then oops, your nice airplane becomes one with Flerida.

Some people on board survived. None of the flight crew did. Ernest Borgnine played the copilot. According to tales of legend, the airline used some spare parts recovered from the crash in other airplanes that were in use. And in the airplanes that used spare parts from crashed Flight 401, they started having dead Ernest Borgnine infestations. He’d appear in a plane’s galley, and be witnessed by flight attendants, or in a passenger seat, scaring other passengers. And, again, it was true, even if that was for only a given value of “true,” and I was 9. 

And to the movie’s credit, the way they film the ghost’s appearances was SPOOKY AS FUCK. As an example, they’d show someone sitting in an airplane seat, traveling at night. Then the camera would pan over to the blackened window. While doing that, Ernest Borgnine (the chonky actor) would chonk his way into an adjacent seat and sit down, which would be invisible to the camera, since it’s panning away at that time. Then, in the reflection of the window, they bring the lights up on Ernest Borgnine, sitting there like Hamlet’s father. So the effect is utterly creepy and completely convincing, because it doesn’t involve any effects. It’s all in-camera, and he just fades into view. It was brilliant. I assume it was done because it was “free;” it didn’t involve having to create an expensive FX shot. But by not using 1978 special effects, they ended up with a better effect that (and this is important) did not date the film. They managed to make a special effect shot in 1978 that didn’t look like a shitty 1978 special effect shot; it was clean and flawless. 

In the movie, he keeps showing up and scaring people. He doesn’t do anything scary, just sits there being dead, but he does speak a few times, and again, it’s ALL TRUUUUUUUE! I’m sure you’re wondering how it ends, so allow me to spoil the ending: dead Ernest Borgnine shows up so many times, in front of so many flight crews, that eventually they catch some of the ghost speaking on the cockpit voice recorder. Then a few of the people involved, who work for the airlines in one capacity or another, find a psychic dude, so they can all come together and have a seance, where they speak with dead Ernest Borgnine, and encourage him to move on, and stop haunting airplanes. After that, there weren’t any more ghost sightings. 

A few things of note about the movie: One of the stars is Gary Lockwood, also known as Frank Poole, the astronaut that HAL runs over and kills with the pod in 2001: A Space Odyssey. His acting is not great, but it does get loud once or twice. Kim Bassinger is also in it, and her acting is especially not great. But Ernest Borgnine is great, and lots of the other cast members are perfectly cromulent, and it’s just all so damn scary if you’re a kid, you know? Especially the seance, and all the ghostly appearances. As with most shitty made for TV movies from the 1970s that anyone ever watched a second time, the whole thing is available on YouTube. I’m watching it more and more lately, just like The U.F.O. Incident, another made for TV spooky movie from the 1970s. It’s entering my September/October rotation of old scary movies. 

What else is going on? I’ve been depressed as fuck recently. (Surprise!) We had to take our sticky notes down, and it broke my heart. Allow me to explain. The last vacation we went on was to Seattle, which was about six years ago. It was a short trip, the weather was terrible, and the flight home was a nightmare. But it was awesome! We did several amazing things, like visiting Mt. Rainier and the Space Needle. Ever since then we haven’t gone anywhere or done anything, because of first poverty, then moving from Texas to Maine, then plague, then more poverty. So we keep planning on vacations; we keep trying to think what we want to do, and where we want to go. We want to take a long train trip through someplace beautiful. We want to visit D.C.

And we keep scrapping our plans, because we can't afford them. Our vacation plans keep getting smaller and shittier, as we try (and consistently fail) to budget for them. Finally, we came up with a super cheap vacation we thought we could afford, a weekend at a B&B in Quoddy Head. Don't ask me how to say that. It's on the ocean, there's a lighthouse, and there's a stone marking the easternmost point in the United States. It's 2.5 hours away by car. We won't have to buy plane tickets, just some gas. We began to put sticky notes on our coat closet, with lists of things we wanted to bring on the trip, like stuff for mixed drinks. 

(Time passes; the earth cools)

So yeah, had to scrap those plans too, because we are poor, and it sucks. Sucks that Stacy's friends have to leave Texas because of hate. Sucks that Cheeto hitler hasn't been imprisoned yet. 

A wonderful thing has happened. As September nears, my desire to visit the location where Betty and Barney Hill were interfered with by a UFO grows hotter and brighter. My passion for this story was all begun by the made for TV movie The UFO Incident, with James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons. I love this movie SO HARD. It’s got some of the best acting I’ve ever seen. I’ve probably said all this before. The new part: I read an article I found on the internet yesterday about the movie. Someone who isn’t as old as I (No one is as old as I. Truly, you are younger than I, and you’re NEVER going to die, and you’re my literal birth father. It’s weird.) has watched the movie since he/she was 8 years old, which, because they’re not as old as I, was some time in the 1980s. Fair enough. It scared the bejebus out of the article’s author, just as it did me, when I was younger, and it showed up on TV because some network needed to fill a couple of hours. 

Anyway, the person who wrote the story about The UFO Incident that I found on the internet concluded by pointing out that there was no version of the movie currently available for sale. BUT!!! (dramatic music) someone had said they were going to release it on BluRay soonish. Great, I thought. That’s worth diddly poo. But my inner optimist, whom I starve regularly, but refuse to kill outright, encouraged me to check the date of the article. It was about a year old. I checked Amazon, and sure as shit, there’s a brand spankin’ new BluRay version of The UFO Incident for sale right the hell now. It’s been remastered. The version I’ve been watching is GARBAGE; it’s a saved YouTube copy of a very old VHS copy of a movie aired a hundred times on TV. This shit is restored! In 2K! That’s half of 4K, but it’s twelve times as many as 166.66666666K. It’s got subtitles. It’s got commentary. It’s got other shit. It arrives in two days. I am beyond pumped. 

More next week. Or not, maybe, if it takes two weeks to get one letter worth of news. 

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter 070422

4 July, 2022

Dear Dad--

This one’s gonna be short! I have little to write about, and I’m annoyed that I’m unwilling to watch fireworks displays any more, since Zach goes to bed by 8:30, and I’m not keen on going by myself. Also I’m missing my phone. My phone died a few days ago, and while Zach was able to order me an even nicer phone on Amazon, it’s going to take a week or so. In the meantime, I am phoneless. Prepare for a letter that consists of nothing but haiku I wrote about the death of my phone, and a song I wrote about how I’m now phoneless, and 22 rhyming couplets I wrote about how being without a phone fucking sucks. I was apparently relying on it more for music, podcasts, news, communication with family, photography, and other kinds of entertainment, than I realized. It’s now Monday; the new phone should arrive by Friday. Here’s how it could all go pear-shaped: it’s a refurbished phone. (That made it affordable!) The last time I ordered a refurb, it was for Zach, and it didn’t work, and we had to send it back. Then I ordered another refurb, and it also didn’t work, and I had to send it back. Then I just bought him a new phone. I don’t have that option now, so I’m really, really, really hoping this phone works. 

Bullets!

Stacy is without boobs, and that too fucking sucks. I don’t care if it’s hot in Austin; I wish I could have been there when she woke up from the surgery. 

Our town fireworks display is starting! I can hear it, which means the kitties can hear it, which means they’re unhappy, and in hiding.

I used to have a phone! In the before time. In the long, long ago. 

My car’s airbag light is on. This indicates money needs to be spent on something related to either the airbags or the seat belts. 

That’s why this phone shit is badly timed. How can I not afford to replace my phone when I’m busy not being able to afford getting the airbag light fixed? I’m going to have to break new ground in being unable to pay for multiple things at once.

I painted my smallest coffee table with copper-to-green color shifting paint. There were three coats of black primer, four coats of color shifting paint, and three coats of lacquer. It is awesome. 

Stacy is going to get a tattoo, and I’m dying to know what it’s going to be! I’m thinking something with a skull and flames and a dagger going through the skull and some dice. You know, something timeless.

My weekend is over and I didn’t go anywhere or do anything! Also I think we’re going to have to cancel the plans we made for a weekend vacay because we can’t afford it. 

Yeah, I’m going to bed. Just realized that, even if gay marriage is overturned next year, and my marriage is nullified, it will still have lasted longer than the Confederacy. 

[austinpanda]

26 June, 2022

26 June, 2022

Dear Dad--

I think I forgot to write a letter last week. Just spaced on it entirely! In my defense, my country is doing a space shuttle Challenger right now, and the Supreme Court just said we’re go at throttle up. I wrote a long Facebook post last night (well, long for a Facebook post) about it, and spent about an hour getting the wording right. If you’re going to call republicans a bunch of shite cunts, which they are, you really should be specific as to why. Everything about this is terrible, from the way Obama’s Supreme Court pick got fucked, to the way Trump got to pick three, how each of the three said Roe was settled law during confirmation, how all three simply lied. They’re Supreme Court justices, and all they had to do to get there, and do this, was to lie. How do you fight corruption when you refuse to use it to achieve your ends, but your opponent doesn’t?

And the Supreme Court just gutted a New York law about gun carrying. To summarize, cities and states can’t ban citizens from carrying guns in public. The number of guns worn by “good guys” in America is about to increase. I suppose republicans believe this will lead to greater safety. This is right after Uvalde, where the “good guys” with guns spent an hour not using them, for fear of being shot by the “bad guy” with his gun, to the great misfortune of all the “murdered children,” and two of their teachers. 

So I suppose it’ll behoove me to keep this week’s letter to you short. I know we disagree on some of this, especially the guns. You stuff loaded handguns into your fucking sofa cusions until they’re covered with dog hair, and you do this…for greater SAFETY. Dad, against whom do you imagine yourself using your gun? Because, and this is my problem, I’m willing to bet every dollar I have, and everything else I own, that it’s a black guy. 

After that, like, what else is there to talk about? Oh, here’s one thing I’m thinking of: Justice Clarence Thomas said that as long as they’re overturning Roe, they might as well reexamine cases that allowed gay marriage. Your political party doesn’t think I should love my husband, much less be married to him. Your political party may take my wedding ring, Dad. 

Already, two of Stacy’s best friends, a couple of amazingly sweet, hard working, talented, loving people are having to leave the state because of the state’s ever-increasing hostility towards trans people. Texas’ republican party just made part of its official platform the strong desire to overturn Obergefell, ignore any federal laws about gay marriage that they choose, imprison anyone who would help trans people be trans, and allow adoption only to single or married heterosexuals. Your political party is making Stacy’s friends go away, Dad. It already made your son leave the state. Well, that, and the repulsive amount of heat, and how it gets noticeably worse year after year after year. Perhaps we can ameliorate climate change by shooting guns at it. 

It just occurred to me, the states that ban abortion may include an exception for abortions that are needed only to save the life of the mother, but they don’t have to! Do we feel secure in the belief that no state is going to ban it entirely, regardless of circumstances? I sure as shit don’t. Your political party is going to kill the SHIT out of lots and lots of women, Dad. And I know you like women, because you fucked so very many of them whilst married to Mom.

Anyway, how ‘bout that sports event, huh? Yay sports team!

Today is the day when the magical thing happens! I have to admit, current events are rather dulling the sheen of excitement around my fucking magical thing, but it’s happening anyway. We got our relief checks from the state government! Because we’re in a blue state, abortions will remain available, and the government will occasionally give extra refunds to taxpayers in the state when there’s a surplus. Zach and I each got checks for $850. (If that sounds great, just know that $800 of it will be eaten by bills.) We agreed that we’d set aside enough money to go to Texas Roadhouse, so Zach could get a big steak--he wants whatever’s the biggest one they have--and I can get a chicken fried steak, and we can share one of those fried onion blossoms, and shit, I just realized, it’s Texas themed. I don’t care a whit about the general quality of their food, or the stupid Southern ambiance. I just hope, I REALLY, REALLY HOPE, that the food we get exceeds expectations, because, to quote Full Metal Jacket, “This is the only pussy you people are going to get.” 

But we’re going at a time when they’re typically slow, so there shouldn’t be a wait, and I hear they give you unlimited free rolls that are particularly magical in some way. 

Just thought of something else: You like the jazz band Pat Metheny Group, right? So, if I was someone in the Pat Metheny Group, I could honestly describe you by saying, “He’s the one, he likes all our pretty songs, and he likes to sing along, and he likes to shoot his gun, but he don’t know what it means, don’t know what it means.”

I should probably end this letter because it’s just turning into a long-winded Up Yours card. I’m not mad at you for what the Supreme Court did. I’m mad at you for putting them in power. If I were on the republican side of things, I’d have to say, this is a success that dwarfs our wildest expectations, that it was the best day this country’s seen since the peaceful protests of January 6th. 

Ugh, Imma go now. Try to be loving for the next seven days.

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter 061222

5 June, 2022

Dear Dad--

You mean I gotta write another one of these shits this weekend too? Alright, then, have some WORDS *bleeehhhh*

I’m actually kind of enjoying the fact that it’s beautiful outside, sunny, very breezy, high 60s, it’s downright heavenly here! I keep thinking I should go do something outside, but I just spent five days going outside to earn money, and I’m okay observing the outside from within for a bit longer. Besides, Zach still has to take the car and get our weekly haul of groceries. I’ve already been out once today to get my medications (from the same grocery store) and some donuts on the way home, because donuts. It’s Sunday, which is my Saturday. 

[snip]

And now it’s Monday! (Those donuts kicked ass, btw.) I’ve spent the day, which is kinda my Sunday, doing chores and listening to a podcast. Also I had an appointment with my doctor. We’re going to start doing shit about my depression, since it seems to be getting noisier lately. What the heck. Let’s get me someone to talk to, and see if they help me figure out how to remove some of the stupid from my present existence, and my present existence is so very, very full of stupid right now. A few other bullet items:

Zach keeps getting 100s on his tests at HVAC school. I really think he’s going to be good at this shit, and have better job opportunities because of it.

It is Pride Month! Companies too big to fail from Christian boycotts apply rainbows to themselves for 30 days, and folks like you can feel 10% less shame about all the big, strong, black football players’ weenies you want to feel in your mouth. 

The doctor continued to be pleased with the Snickers content of my blood, and suggested that eating better and not smoking were definitely potentially not terribly detrimental to my health. 

He wears a Garmin smartwatch that I kind of want to steal, unless it’s one that specializes in helping you with your fucking jogging. You have to get the model number and check the specs to rule it out for certain.

Tomorrow was supposed to be the first day of our new auditor Tim, swooping down, like the eagles in Return of the King, to snatch my excess work away and make my life a bit less like dying in a volcano. But now it’s not. Delays in licensing or some such. 

Jogging fucking sucks, did I ever tell you that? It’s just worse than Hitler. 

[Sunday, June 12, 2022]

So! 

A thought occurs. I have trouble finishing my Dad letters lately, because it involves thinking and doing stuff, and the process isn’t aided by the fact that you’re purposefully lost in the Fox News universe, from which you’ve forbidden us to follow. But I don’t seem to have difficulty writing about half a Dad letter. So, perhaps I’ll just try for one Dad letter per week, but do one Dad letter every two weeks, if that ends up being to my benefit. That’ll make it easier to not fill it with verbal styrofoam peanuts anyway, and tell you about all the SERIOUSLY interesting things happening in my life. They are pretty few, though. To wit:

Many nearby patches of nature are now covered, as though with Texas bluebonnets, with these gorgeous purple lupines. It’s usually about 70% purple, and about 20% a pretty coral pink color, and 10% white, give or take. They’re like extra tall, mono-hued bluebonnets that appear in sprays of violet and pink and white. It’s just fucking gorgeous, and if the place where I see them most weren’t along the side of the interstate on my way to work, I’d certainly have picked some by now, to bring home and display in a vase and take pictures of. Lupines, man. Hand over all your lupines. 

Zach continues to slog his way through the propane and propane accessories portion of his HVAC class, and he assures me that this is, by far, the most tedious segment, crammed with multiple voluminous books (printed and cheaply spiral bound) given to the students, about fucking propane. He’s become convinced that this is no longer HVAC class, but instead is HVAC Class Brought To You By The National Propane Council ™ . And he wonders if he’ll have to insert himself forever into the pocket of Big Propane ™. 

Meanwhile, I’m still serving Gamblor, doing the seven audits every day. Except hang on, wait a second, help arrives! We have a new auditor on the team, to replace Justin, and his name is Tim. Tim has arrived. Tim has some interesting features, but since I do too, allow me to express only fondness and respect for Tim, and relief that he’s come to help do audits, so I don’t have to do all of them, every day. Tim is the new me! Full time auditor. It’s only going to get easier from here, as he learns to do more and more of the work. Hang in there, Tim! Oh, one feature of interest, he’s a black belt in tae kwon do, and is in the same outfit I was in back in the 80s, the American TaeKwonDo Association, or ATA. I figure it’s safe to tell you about this because he was on the local news last night in a story covering their black belt award ceremony. 

Perhaps more bullets are in order, then:

Everything here is covered with yellow powder, which I assume is tree jizz, and I personally don’t care for it. My car is bejizzed, our hummingbird feeders are bejizzed, it’s like yellow cocaine residue on everything. 

You crave the cocks, Dad. This is known.

You can tell summer is here, because it’s going to reach 80 degrees today. It’s beautiful outside, except for the swarms of tiny white gnats. I think we’re not getting much hummingbird traffic at the feeders because they mostly eat bugs, and nowadays, they’d just have to fly with their mouths open to catch a whole day’s worth. 

I must say a word about lasers. When I was a kid, the only place you ever saw a laser was at the planetarium, or the laser light show, also at the planetarium. I had a friend in high school (call it…1985) who had money, because his dad was a doctor, and he was working with another rich nerd kid to design their own homemade laser. Then someone figured out how to make a pen-sized red laser that one could use as a pointer, and the laser pointer was born. I was fascinated, and the first time I bought a laser pointer, it was $50. Fast forward to now, and we’re already 10 years past the first time when I first saw a gumball machine from which you could purchase a genuine laser pointer for 75 cents. Lasers are now everywhere, and they’re super cheap. I love that we figured out how to mass produce them. 

Anyway, I think my boss’s birthday is coming up. He’s very secretive about when his birthday is, but he did let slip one time that his astrological sign is Cancer. At the time, I was all, “Shit, I coulda told YOU he’s a cancer,” because I didn’t know him well enough to like him then, though now I do. I like him quite a bit. Cancer is June 22 through July 22. So here’s my plan. I went on Amazon and found him a nice gift: a three-pack of laser pointers, one red, one green, and one violet, all for about 12 bucks. They are marketed as cat toys. You believe that shit? I’m going to split the difference between those two dates, which would be about July 7th, and I’m going to go into Tyler’s office, and say, “Hello! I want to play a short game with you, related to your birthday.” 

At this point, I predict he’ll be a bit weirded out, so I’ll just plow ahead, “I’m going to guess your birthday, and if I’m correct to within two weeks, you have to tell me the day of your actual birthday.” And he’s someone who likes poker, so he’ll run the numbers, and probably realize that I’m ONTO HIM and I KNOW HIS DARK SECRET ALREADY, but he’ll agree to the terms of the game. Then I’ll guess July 7th, he’ll go, “Shit! How did you know?” and then I’ll soften the blow of having dominated his ass completely USING MATH by giving him his birthday present, a three-pack of laser pointers. He’s mentioned wanting one in the past, for when he’s training new auditors, to point at the portion of the screen where he wants the auditor’s attention to be focused. We look at a lot of visually busy spreadsheets. 

As I said, I like Tyler now. Just as I’m gaining experience learning when to tell him the truth about feeling overwhelmed, or stressed, or shat upon (i.e. telling sooner rather than later), so too is he learning more about how to be a leader. 

That’s enough letter. I go now. Have a good week, and don’t let the homos take all your guns away.

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter 052922

29 May, 2022

Dear Dad--

It is preposterously beautiful here, sunny, no clouds, breezy, mid-60s, a gorgeous Memorial Day weekend. This is the first day of my weekend, so this morning we walked to McDonald’s across the street and got brekky. We like being able to order from a digital kiosk and serve ourselves our own sodas, which can then be an embarrassing mixture of whatever we want. Then the food is brought to us. Zach had the oatmeal, and I had the big breakfast: eggs, a sausage patty, biscuit, and hash brown. They only gave us one plastic knife and fork, so Zach used the fork to eat the oatmeal, and I used the knife to eat my breakfast. We made it work. Why, you’re probably wondering, didn’t one of you ask for another knife and fork? Because shut up, we made it work. Tomorrow we’re going to plant scientist’s house to honor those who’ve perished while on active military service by grilling and consuming meat. 

Not to bury the lede, Stacy got the cancer, and that’s just nothing but poo sandwich all the way down. That’s made it fun to go add up numbers for Gamblor every day. Not to say that I’m the one getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop here; that would be Stacy. I’m glad they seem to have caught it early. I’m glad she’s in a place where she can obtain excellent medical care. And I have never been more pleased that Stacy is a ramrod, because when the doctor seemed wary about having to recommend a double mastectomy, Stacy’s reaction was, “Shit, take ‘em! Burn it down!” I fucking hate that she has to go through this. It makes perfect sense that I’m the one who smokes cigarettes, is allergic to exercise, and only eats deep fried Snickers, and she’s the one who gets crancer. The medical treatment had better fucking work, because I can’t lose Stacy. She’s the only remaining Weidmann who isn’t a total asshole (no offense) and I’ve always counted on living in her garden shed if I ever became a zombie, like Nick Frost at the end of Shawn of the Dead. 

It’s been a rough week all around. That school massacre in Uvalde happened, and Ted Cruz already said Democrats would try to politicize it by taking guns away from law-abiding citizens. I believe he has since been heckled at a sushi restaurant. Probably they will now pass a law to ban heckling, while the next batch of kids call 911 to beg for help from inside the school. My country had problems when I was a kid, but it was nowhere near as fundamentally broken as it is now. 

Kind of tricky, resetting the mood after that last paragraph. You know who I heard from recently? My old hetero lifemate Jason. He has apparently gone from having a dad to not having a dad, and left his security job after a year of 7-day-workweeks (on salary, so no overtime pay) that apparently, and utterly predictably, burned his ass out real bad. In my perfect future scenario, he raises his kids to adulthood, then packs his car full of his shit and comes to live with me and Zach. We can discover new movies together and be besties again. (I mean, Zach is my best friend, but Jason could always be my best straight friend.) Because he’s worked in security, he could even get a job at the casino where I work, and guard the OMG PUPPIES! slot machine. Probably this won’t happen, because fortune would never shower such favor upon me, but it’s nice to think about retiring with my huz and my hetero lifemate in Maine, with the nice weather and the legal ganja and at least moderately blue-ish political bent. 

I had an interesting and disgusting thing happen in my mouth recently! (I KNOW you want to hear about it after an introduction like that.) I had three teeth pulled on my back right side a couple of months ago, if you recall. This makes 7 or 8 teeth I’ve lost at this point, and they always warn you about something that’s never happened to me before. They warn you that there may be fragments of bone left over from the extraction, that are never extracted. Over time, as your gums heal up, they naturally shove that shit out. That can lead to a strange and exhilarating phenomenon where the fragment gets shoved out through your gums, like a tiny little Alien (1979) chestburster, right there in your purty mouf, being all noticeably painful and suchlike. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, you’re supposed to go to your dentist so they can politely remove it. As it turns out, you can also remove it yourself if you wait long enough, just by scratching at it with your fingernail. In case you haven’t sussed it out by now, this shit happened to me. Boy did it suck when it was happening, but boy was it nice how it made all the swelling and discomfort go away after it was evicted. 

My coworker Justin has left his job working with me at the casino to pursue a job that pays relative bucket loads of money doing something for Maine Revenue. I loaned him a book that he never returned, the bastard, but he accidentally showed me his ass about a dozen times while we were moving boxes of files around, so I can’t be mad. I texted him that he could keep the book, because it’s a good one, and he should read it, and then, if he doesn’t wish to tote it around with him for the rest of his life, give it away. I already miss him dearly. The poor guy had an almost brand new Jeep that just would NOT stop breaking down. Several times in the few times he’s owned it, by now. This last time, he left it at his preferred repair shop, with keys in it, and a guy stole it and drove it around. He then abandoned it at a business next door to the same repair shop where he stole it, and the police nabbed his ass. Life in Maine is pretty colorful. 

The first day of my weekend is drawing to a close. I’m planning exactly how I’m going to execute this Memorial Day pie procedure. I wish I’d purchased vanilla ice cream to go with it, fart. 

[Memorial Day 2:51 PM]

Holy shit my pie ended up looking so very pretty. Perhaps I can include a photo of it here for posterity’s sake.

Now the second day of my weekend is drawing to a close, so I’m going to say goodbye shortly. For the next seven days, I command that no one gets any new life-threatening ailments, or has any dental issues, and that we all have nothing but the healthiest of cats. I watched the movie ‘It’ not long ago, and now I’m going to watch It: Chapter Two, which, from what I’ve read, was underwhelming in almost every way. I might just have it on low in the background and see if any of its scenes grip me. I’m full of Memorial Day food, and I have to return to the casino tomorrow for a full day of auditing. Zach is already in the back bedroom studying EPA regulations, because if he can pass their test, he can gain their certification, and (we assume) that makes the hundos come more often…?

Stay black. TTFN.

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter 052222

22 May 2022

Dear Dad--

I never sent last week’s email, on account of never having finished it. Upon review, however, I did get a good two-thirds into it, so I might as well provide it here, as well as some new content, and attempt to assuage the anguish of your bereavement over having no letter last week by providing an extra-long, extra-juicy one this week. Enjoy. 

I’ll begin by posting what I wrote last Sunday. Here you go:

Yesterday was hot! It was bullshit. It was over 90 degrees outside, and we saw it coming in the weather forecast, so Zach made sure both our air conditioners were installed. We had one portable unit, which is the white thing that I covered with butterfly and flower stickers last year, and a new small-ish window unit that Zach’s parents got us, because when it’s 90 degrees outside, it helps having two zones of comfort in the house, instead of just one. It’s 100% more comfort zones. It’s for the bedroom! It works wonderfully.

Since I got paid, I blew $17 on a pair of hummingbird feeders from Amazon. By the time I realized they were out for delivery, a day earlier than expected, and thought to check outside, they were already here. I whipped up a pitcher of hummer chow and filled the feeders, after first rinsing them thoroughly. I deployed them outside, and waited for a hummingbird to show. And I waited. Checked a few times, after once or twice forgetting that they’re out there when walking by the front door, through which they are visible. Then Zach comes out of the back and I tell him to come look, and he sees the feeders. And RIGHT THEN a ruby throated hummingbird flew up and stopped to feed for a bit. Those things are just so ridiculously pretty and wee! Now it’s raining outside, but I’m still checking every time I walk past the front door, because hummers don’t stop flying around and feeding and doing shit because of the rain, and there are few things cuter than a soggy hummingbird. 

Thanks to my new schedule, my days off are now Sunday and Monday, so…today and tomorrow. Now Sunday is my Saturday, and Monday is my Sunday. Since Monday is now the second day of my weekend, Monday is going to feel weird as shit. Sunday already feels weird as shit. But tomorrow I’ll be home for most of the day by myself, while Zach takes the car to HVAC school and learns about how to make hundos. All the chores will be done by then; not sure what I’m going to do. It’s a small town. Perhaps I’ll walk to the movie theater and see if they’re showing any Viking revenge epics. (They are.) I predict, however, that I’ll stay in, and watch “The UFO Incident” again on YouTube. Mama always said, “That boy’s going to grow up with an unhealthy fixation on Estelle Parsons.” She plays Betty Hill in the movie. Later, historically speaking, she plays Roseanne’s mom. Her voice is distinctive. 

In order to make this letter long enough, I guess it's time I acknowledge a huge secret that I've kept from everyone for years now: I occasionally smoke reefer. I know this comes out of nowhere, but it's true. And it happens that about two and a half years ago, we accidentally slipped and fell into a state where, as long as you don't grow warehouses full right next to the schoolyard, it is legal to buy and consume it. (Growing booze and guns next to schools presumably still A-OK.) Maine only recently (like in the last year) figured out how to get recreational weed shops up and running, and they’re still overpriced. Once we’d settled here, it became apparent that a medical card was the way to go. It would (a) grant me access to medical dispensaries, and (2) that’s cheaper, and © there’s one a stone’s throw from the trailer, and (iv) I might qualify, just by telling them a bunch of TRUE shit!!

So I arranged for a card online, then had a video chat on my phone with a nurse practitioner who asked me about the problems I hoped to address with it. Got the depression! She asks, doing anything about it, like therapy? I’m all, no, take antidepressants. She’s like, what else? I’m like, got the insomnia. She’s like, take anything for that? I’m like, one of the antidepressants happens to help with that, just not as much as I’d like. And she’s like, what else? And I’m like, how about pain? I’m in pain almost every day from my ankles. I think it’s collapsed arches combined with a left ankle that’s overpronating painfully, and a right ankle that’s overpronating really really painfully. She’s like, okay, card for you. 

Turns out that needn’t have been stressful at all for me, because the part about whether I’d receive the card was decided, essentially, the moment I decided I deserved one for medical reasons. Originally, the law that allowed medical marijuana in Maine was more strict, but by the time we got here, a medical marijuana card could be issued for any reason a nurse practitioner would agree to. It could be anything. As long as you derived medical benefit, and didn’t say something like, “I want to get high till my face floats off. You know, by the schoolyard," then that’ll be $40 please, and the card’s in the mail. I went through two years that way, renewing after the first year. Now here’s where it gets…numerical. 

If you want to buy a large amount, that’s enough to last a while, but a small enough amount to be legal and affordable, you can get, say, one ounce. That's like getting 12-pack instead of a single can of soda. At our local recreational dispensary, called FIRESTORM, an ounce can cost up to (I just checked) $360. 

…Okay, that’s all I wrote from last week. I obviously had more story to tell there, but my weekend ended, I was thrown headlong into a busy work week, and it languished until now. To get to the happy conclusion of the ganja epic I was dispensing, the cheapest I ever found ounces of mary jane was for $80. I found a place called Acadia Cannabis that had ounces on sale every week. When I decided I needed to get a new medical marijuana card, I knew that Acadia could provide one at a different location from the one where I’d gone in the past. I went to the different Acadia location. I made sure to go on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday between 10 am and 4 pm. I filled out the card application. I went into the practitioner’s little office, with her periodic table of marijuana strains poster, and her salt lamp, and her radio playing Midnight at the Oasis, and we chit-chatted. Since I was getting the card in person, I was not given a temporary one, I was given a permanent card, right then and there. 

Then, as I was at the counter waiting to speak with someone about purchasing some completely legal and morally-upbeat drugs, thinking, “Ermahgerd, this experience has been five-star so far, I’m loving it here. I just really, really need them to have inexpensive ounces. This is another bill to pay, like groceries or the electricity bill, and it’s in my interest to keep the cost down wherever I can.” So I look over, and I see a sign they have sitting on a nearby countertop, and it says “EVERY FRIDAY IS FLOWER FRIDAY! …OUNCES FOR $80!” (I was there on a Friday.) 

Needless to say, while remaining outwardly stoic, inwardly I was doing the Snoopy happy dance. I got my ounce, a strain with a dry, innocuous, and clinical sounding kind of name, like (I will check)...Strawberry Bubba Diesel (good lord) and it seems to work. My ankles are thanking me for it as we speak. 

Since another week has gone by, I should have another week’s worth of entertaining social commentary and witty bullshit, but I’m not sure that I do. I did my audit work, five times, and returned home five times. I think the state government is going to send us a bonus state tax refund this year because of surpluses--which is a thing that can happen in a non-red state where the taxes are sufficient to pay the bills and there’s an occasional surplus, which the state government, not being dominated by conservative buttholes, returns to the state population as an additional tax refund to those who paid their state taxes, to circulate it back into the state economy and allow everyone to buy themselves a steak dinner once or twice a damn year--sorry, lost my train of thought there. We should get a few extra hundos back from the state gubmint in a few weeks. Our plan is for me to get (no shit) a chicken fried steak at the Texas Roadhouse, and Zach wants to get himself a steak. The rest of the refund money will be thrown into the volcano of bills, where it will quickly evaporate, to no effect at all. But I haven’t had a chicken fried steak since I left Texas, and this is the only place that sells them here, and they’re called “country fried steak” here, because reasons.

I think that’s enough letter for now! If it were Dune, I would spit on your table and leave, and you’d like it, because I gave you the gift of my body’s moisture. So there.

[austinpanda]

This is a test.

This is a test.

[austinpanda]

The format of this letter is going to be slightly different, based on the existence of this cold open paragraph, which I don’t normally do. My last Dad Letter was difficult to write, because of depression and a week free from noteworthy events. I wrote about ⅔ of a letter and gave up. Now a few days have gone by--it’s Wednesday, 11th May--and something weird has happened. Because of a change in my schedule, I’ve been given yesterday and today off. My days off this week are Tuesday and Wednesday. It’s weeeeeird. Zach’s not here; he’s at school, like a normal person. Not sure what to do with myself today. Not complaining, though! Yesterday there was a lot of construction nearby; today that doesn’t seem to be the case. Zach advises they removed the top layer of the main road through Old Town, and this made the road both rougher in the microcosm (each square foot was ripped-up road with no surface) but downright lovely in the macrocosm; the road is now free of potholes, and much closer to being flat in an overall sense than ever before.

This is all confusing, because a new construction project was supposed to begin in February to replace the bridge near our place. THAT bridge is part of THAT road, so it was festooned with potholes. And the bridge was built in the 50s; it’s crumbling. Is this new roadwork part of that multi-year construction event? Or are they just resurfacing because the roads suck and it’s now warm enough outside to do so? Time will tell. Not looking forward to living on a road that’s under construction for several years, but I’m sure it’ll kick some ass once completed. 

So before I give you the glorious ⅔ of a Dad letter I wrote a few days ago, I want to leave you with a funny quote from someone I watch a lot on YouTube. I have no idea what his name is. His uh…channel? (I guess that’s the word.) is called Ordinary Sausage. It’s called that ironically, because it’s very abnormal sausage. Here’s how it works: he makes sausage. Actual sausage, with a meat grinder, and sausage casings, the whole schmear. People write in and suggest what he should make sausage out of: sausage made of water. Sausage made of Pop Rocks. Sausage made of squid testicles. Sausage made from a sausage casing filled with nothing but other sausage casings. And he makes it! He grinds it up, with pork, sometimes, and uses a machine with a tube that squirts the sausage filling into the sausage casing. It’s absolutely disgusting; it’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to poop coming out of a person. 

After he uses the machine with the tube to fill the sausage casing, he ties off the sausage, removes the tube full of unused sausage filling, and blows through it towards a cereal box as hard as he can, in a brief segment called Will It Blow? Sometimes the stuff goes flying, hits the cereal box, and goes everywhere. Sometimes it’s too thick to blow it out of the tube. He rates the success of the blowing on a scale of one to five Mark Ruffalos, and then he sets up his frying pan. 

He puts oil into the pan and fries his (usually disgusting) sausage. Sausage filled with ground up Taco Bell crunchwraps. Sausage filled with wasabi. Sausage filled with toothpaste. Sausage filled with shepherd’s pie, which he has to make first, then bake in the oven, then run through the meat grinder. Then, and this is the really awesome part, he cuts off a piece of sausage and puts it in a bun, and eats it. No matter what; he always takes a bite. Then he rates it on a scale of one to five (one to five nothings, because this is the main event, and he doesn’t use the five Ruffalo scale for that) and that’s the video. About half the time, during the process of frying the sausage, the insides will expand and burst through the casing. “Oh no! We got a burst,” he’ll shout. When that happens, it’s almost exactly as gross as when he tests to see if it blows. 

I’m telling you all this because he said something that made me laugh till I just about turned blue. He said, in a voice filled with fake childlike wonder, that Taco Bell was the most American of all restaurants because everything there is made with a gun.

Okay, here’s your most of a letter. I’m going to look for something to clean.

Peace.

8 May, 2022

Dear Dad--

It’s finally becoming Spring here and we’re starting to see green again. I continue to be impressed with this state’s continuing dedication to having all four seasons, particularly with the emphasis on the “Meh, fuggit, let’s have more snow” end of the spectrum we’ve enjoyed recently. It becomes difficult to believe our small patch of yard with green grass will return, after spending so much time each year looking like frozen Chernobyl, yet there it is. It’s expected to get into the 80s next week, so Zach and I are preparing to install a window air conditioner in the bedroom. Those things are heavy! But Zach is now familiar with all the internal parts, which is awesome, and give him $25/hr. to start with full bennies, plz. 

I don’t have much news, for which I’m grateful. I’m broke! But that only happened today, when I went to the store to get a few things we needed, and I’ll get paid again on Wednesday. Having less than $15 in my account is kind of my default state of being anyway. Zach’s parents are keeping us afloat right now, and I’m beyond grateful for it. They help him with money, and they send us cat food, and…That cat food is for the cats, and not because it’s all we can afford to eat; that’s understood, right? We’re still able to eat people food. I always end up bemoaning our financial station in these letters. That won’t last forever. 

No major events this week, so have a long bullet list!

It just became warm enough to allow us to walk about outside without a jacket on. 

I’ve fallen in love with a song, and I play it many times each day. It’s called Belong to Heaven by a guy named Cass McSomething. I have its lyrics stuck in my head. 

I remember you out on the street at night / All glitter and chainmail but no time to fight / A grease fire burning bright / Now you belong to heaven

The depression has been a bugaboo of late, and it probably doesn’t help that I have a really pretty song about mourning a dead friend stuck in my head. I like the idea of being described as a grease fire burning bright, though. 

I’m about to lose a coworker I care about quite a bit! It will suck to see him go. This also adds fuel to the depression. I am compensating by continuing to not exercise.

I believe the car I want is a Honda Accord Touring from 2018 or newer. They have heads-up displays, which adds firmness to the inner lightsaber, if you know what I mean. 

I’ve had a lot of coffee today! It’s the last day of my weekend, so I guess I’m planning on being awake until about three hundred o’clock. 

Music was all we needed / Yeah, you’ve got to give it away to keep it / You surrendered undefeated / Now you belong to heaven

I have begun to assemble what will be the new disco shelf. I guess the progression will end up being: Disco Shelf, Disco Shelf II: Extreme Shelf Lyfe, and Disco Shelf III: Working Title Shelf. Open to suggestions. 

I’m watching a video of a guy playing a zombie-themed video game. The name he’s given to the character he created is Tasty McOrgans. 

Gonna go out on a limb just a bit here and say that the episode of Firefly called Objects in Space is, in my opinion, the best episode of anything on television evarrrrrr. I really think it’s that smart and that good. 

Current items on the disco shelf: the new multi-animated-pattern laser thingy, a very nice glitter lamp, a big 24” black light, a strobe light (which won’t be plugged in; those shits become kind of visually insistent after just a few seconds), and one of those plasma thingies, a sort of hollow glass sculpture with electrical lightning inside that reacts when you touch it. I need to add the mirror ball and its companion spotlight. 

Had a fasting blood draw yesterday! It was the same tattooed female ectomorph who always does it. She’s very skilled, and  appreciated that I wear all my veins on the outside now.

Until next time,

RJW

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter 050122

1 May, 2022

Dear Dad--

Another week passes! I only get half a weekend this weekend, because one of coworker Justin’s relatives died, and he had to go do funeral shit. I had to work Friday, a day I normally have off, including doing all the audits myself, and helping the warehouse folks with inventory. Basically I’m Superman, except the whole thing has left me (you won’t believe this) pretty damn depressed. It didn’t help that my last paycheck was smaller than usual, due to a paucity of work to go around. That’ll end soon enough when Justin leaves (end of May) and I experience the spastic, unbridled ecstasy of getting to do all the audits every day, while we train the new person, who hopefully learns faster than I did. 

So the past couple of days were rough. I wonder what I’m working for, and to a large extent, I work for the two days off. I work for the weekend, only I don’t get a full weekend this time. More importantly, I work for the paycheck, but that, too, is dog shit. So I’m working quite hard, for insufficient time off, and for insufficient wages. I know this will change some day, when Zach is a certified HVAC ninja, but it ain’t changed yet. I’d managed to save $250 for Zach’s birthday (now just three months away) and I had to raid that account and take most of it to cover bills this month, and I probably won’t be able to build it back up again. I also bought our neighbor Clint a can of tuna because he couldn’t afford one and needed the juice from it to give a pill to a cat with a urinary tract infection. So I am Jesus, in addition to being Superman. I protec, I attac, and I also multiply snac. 

I realized recently that the manner in which I react to potentially scary strangers, and those who look different from me, was shaped, in large part, by a short film I saw a while back. Allow me to summarize it briefly: This woman is at a (I think) train station, and misses her train, and she’s stranded for a while, and she is unhappy. She goes to the train station diner and gets a salad and takes it to a booth. She realizes she needs a fork. She gets a fork and returns to find a (bear with me here) big scary black guy eating the salad. She’s like, “That’s my salad!” And she tries to take it, but he just barks at her, “Rah!” and she backs off. But she’s sitting now, and has the fork, so she timidly reaches out with the fork and spears a cherry tomato from the salad and eats it. He permits this. She spears more salad, he continues to permit it. And they share the salad. 

When they’ve finished, he gets up, buys two cups of coffee and gives her one, which she takes gratefully. Then (my favorite detail here) he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a fistful of sweetener packets, sugar, or powdered creamer, whatever, and she gratefully takes one and adds it to her coffee, and they drink their coffees. Eventually, they part ways without having said anything else to each other. She leaves the diner, realizes she’s forgotten her purse, and goes back to her booth to get it. She spots her purse in a booth next to her untouched salad…untouched because she returned to the wrong booth when went back for a fork. 

And she, and you realize HOLY SHIT she just stole half of the big scary black guy’s salad off his plate, right in front of him, and not only did he permit it, he bought her a coffee afterwards. She thought he was stealing from her, and instead, he came back at her with love. He had her back. Poor forgetful crazy lady, she must be having a bad day, and if she wants to take half my goddamn salad, well…I can make sure she has something to drink, too, I guess. 

It taught me how easy it is to make an incorrect assumption about a stranger. It showed me that I shouldn’t be afraid of potentially scary strangers, or those who look different from me, just because they look different, or are acting strangely. More importantly, I don’t get the privilege of being afraid. I don’t get to treat them with apprehension, much less hate, just because I created an entirely fake threat in my mind. What can we assume about a big scary black guy might be eating our salad? Not a goddamn thing, because being wrong can bring disaster, and that person just might be an angel who’s looking out for you. I’ve been fortunate enough to have known a few angels in my life; one of them used to sell me weed, and could be intimidating when necessary, but ohmygosh...I never saw a heart so big. Some people, you just look at them, and you know that’s the direction you should aim for. 

Anyway, the short film is called The Lunch Date, and you can probably watch it on YouTube, although I secretly hope you don’t, in case I got any of the details wrong. It does exist in such a perfect state in my memory; I don’t want to change it if I don’t have to. :)

So today, with my one day of weekend, I’m not certain what I’m going to do with myself. Part of my depression came from the fact that Zach and I actually had plans for this weekend, which was something of a rarity. But because of the smallness of weekend, and the smallness of paycheck, we wouldn’t have been able to do it anyway. But that doesn’t give me license to fritter away the one day of sweet, delicious freedom that I do get. I’ll just have to think of something to do that doesn’t cost anything. Might just pillow fort today, but then I’ll be regretful for not having done anything. Decisions are hard. Currently I’m watching Firefly and microwaving my extra sausage burrito from McDonald’s. We like going there on weekend mornings for breakfast because it’s literally a stone’s throw away. It took a relatively long time for them to prepare our food, for which they were most apologetic, but I assured them it was fine. I have empathy, and the longer I stay, the more I get to make use of the free self-serve soda refills. It’s a meal that literally grows more cost effective the longer you stay. 

[8:30 p.m. Saturday]

Aaaaaaand that’s my weekend. Not gonna lie, that weekend had several areas of opportunity for improvement. I ended up doing lots of laundry, getting the kitchen spotless and putting lots and lots of love on the kitties. I am reconstituting my Disco Shelf, now that I have the new disco light, and that project is taking time. I have about 10 things I want to plug into a double outlet, while exercising care not to burn the house down. So far I have the large pink glitter lamp, the 24-inch black light and the new multi-animated-laser disco light already on the shelf. By design, this is also the shelving unit that contains my stereo, because some of the disco lights react to music. And they are meant to go together, the music and the disco lights. 

I also have a mirror ball, along with a motorized thingy you hang it from that makes it spin, and a spotlight to point at it, and a strobe light. I’ve had the strobe light since high school, when I learned that spending more than one minute with the strobe light on is worse than a bushel of Hitlers. It’s worse than the pod racing scene from Star Wars Episode 1. It’s just a headache waiting to start behind one or both eyeballs. But I might add it to the Disco Shelf, even if it isn’t turned on. 

Okay, I just hit two pages and I’ve got the original Battlestar Galactica (1978) playing and I’m going to sleep. Weidmann out.

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter, 24 April 2022

17 April, 2022

Dear Dad--

I skipped a week, so this one is dated for last week, but it actually encompasses two weeks. I hope you’ll pardon the brief vacation from writing. Most of my thoughts were of Betty and Barney hill, and I’ve little new to say about them. Here’s the three paragraphs I wrote last weekend:

I’m writing this one at the very last minute, right before sending it! This is after having worked a full shift serving Gamblor at the casino and driven home in the weirdest 46 degree snowstorm I’ve ever seen. But I wouldn’t wish to disappoint you, Dad, who won’t be reading this, because you’re still busy being YOU as hard as you adorably can, so I shall persist, and get it done, even though my gay husband is cooking what promises to be the best korma of all time. He’s adding cashew paste, yo. 

The past week was a push, as far as wins vs. losses. I got paid, and didn’t immediately have to spend it down to zero on bills, which was nice. Reviewing my journal, I see that the important events of the past week included five days of work, Gilbert Gottfried passed away, and a movie called The Northman is coming out soon, and I want to see it. I’m almost certain that more happened in the past seven days than just those things, but I can’t recall any of them, which means there was some weed, and nothing too awful happened. Car is still running great, husband and cats are all healthy and happy, and the weather is turning warmer, which is a good thing when you’re in Not The South. 

Today is Easter! I watched The Ten Commandments yesterday, but I had to back it up a few times because I kept missing the plagues while I did chores around the house. (Like, no way am I missing the fiery hail just to fold towels; as though!) I shall be curious tomorrow, when I audit today’s business, to see how the holiday affected business. Another way of saying that is: Does a Sunday holiday celebrating the resurrection of our lord and savior cause any downward pressure on the attendance of those who wish to feed their retirement savings into the neon maw of Gamblor? I’m the one who would know, having access to all the data. Guess I’ll find out.

[and now, the present day, which happens to be 4/21/22]

Okay, that was a work day that sucked. Apparently all the customers decided to turn up on Easter to try their luck on the slot machines. Business was a-boomin’. But the korma with cashew paste was very good. Next time, he wants to emulate a dish from an Austin restaurant called The Clay Pit and make it a cashew-almond korma. If we make it like they do at the restaurant, we’ll also have to make medallions of chicken stuffed with a mixture of spinach, cheese, mushrooms, and onions. Yeah, life is too short for that shit, and we won’t be doing that. He’ll make the korma and throw in chunked chicken. Turns out our store has some seriously kick-ass garlic naan. 

Now we’re watching The Shining with the commentary on. The commentary is by some British film historian guy (zzzzz) and the guy who invented the Steadicam and did a bunch of the camera work on The Shining, and had a lot of arguments with Stanley Kubrick about where the crosshairs (in the camera viewfinder) should go to frame the shot properly. Kubrick was an ARTIST and had strong opinions about all that shit, and, “If Stanley wanted it on the left nostril, then no other nostril would do.” I also love this guy’s commentary when they get to that one famous shot of a (I will try to get this right) guy in a bear costume with a pig mask giving oral pleasure to a guy in a tuxedo. Steadicam guy’s contribution to the commentary track for that shot was, “Yeah…I dunno.” 

Zach is keeping up well with his HVAC classroom shit, as well as his homework shit, which includes tests and simulations. The good folks at NTI are thoughtful enough to provide “soft skills” training as well, and that includes the following test question:

Q: Showering every day and using underarm deodorant is a good idea.

True

True only if you’re going to work closely with customers

True only if you haven’t exercised in 24 hours

False

In the photograph he sent me of his computer screen, he seems to have correctly identified “1” as the answer, and received credit for that question. 

Something else that Steadicam guy said about Shelley Duvall has always struck me as especially thoughtful. He pointed out that she was obviously not a gorgeously beautiful woman, as you might expect of a female lead in a big budget movie, and that she (or the film) had been given shit about it. But that’s short-sighted. "Pretty" isn't what her role is about or what her face is for. It’s not about being pretty; it’s about her face’s capacity to convey grief and terror. And oooohhhhh, her face is GREAT at that. Unrelated, we have a three meat stuffed crust pizza in the oven, so Imma have to pause the composition of this letter for a bit while I go smear that shit all over my chest. The box advertises “TWO AND A HALF FEET OF HOT MELTED CHEESE,” so you can see why we chose it. 

(Next day, Saturday, 4/23/22)

Guess since my second weekend is wrapping up and I never wrote last weekend, I am now at a point where I’m thinking about wrapping up this letter. I have a large slow cooker filled with my Mongolian beef, and by about 3:00, that shit’s going to be the best shit ever to enter my purty mouth in the whole of today. It should be really good. I realized that, after making it more or less according to the recipe a bunch of times, and having it turn out too watery and thin, that I didn’t need to add water to it when throwing all the ingredients into the slow cooker. The recipe calls for water, but, BUT, the recipe doesn’t call for any onions, and I’m throwing in two whole chopped-up white onions, which contain a LOT of water already. So this time, I’m adding the onions (like always) but eliminating adding any extra water, and the results seem very promising so far. I did all this bullshit as soon as I woke up at about 7:30 this morning. Pour my coffee, get out the slow cooker, get the steaks out of the fridge, start cutting them into thin strips, to toss with corn starch in a later step. It ends up being thin strips of extremely tender (after eight hours) beef in a brown sauce that’s complex, sweet, and savory. We’ll serve it on a bed of mini Snickers. 

Okay, actually Zach will make rice, because he’s the one of us who took it upon himself to learn how to do that, and we’ll eat it that way. I’m glad I decided yesterday, my Saturday, to go to the store and get the stuff to make this slow cooker Mongolian beef, because it’s become my Sunday entertainment. Also I’m watching movies with commentary tracks playing, like the Shining one. 

Time to go. Peace, up to a point.

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter 041022

10 April, 2022

Dear Dad--

The air here smells like cabbage farts this morning. It’s quite bad! I’m given to understand there is a paper mill nearby, which may have been meant literally, or may have been someone’s idea of a funny potential explanation for why the city of Old Town occasionally smells this wretched. It’s awful, the cabbage smell. I had to go get gas for the car this morning and it was like driving through a fog of pure evil.

The past week has sucked less than most previous weeks! I have burned through my income tax refund, thus restoring my default state of poverty, right where I’m most in my wheelhouse. Zach has completed week two of HVAC training, and found it slightly less egregious than week one. Huzzah! He’s having to read--and presumably, retain--lots of shit about circuitry, wiring, reading schematics, different kinds of wires and shit. As with any higher educational experience, it’s doubtful that most of this will end up being worth knowing in any given job, but they’re thoughtful enough to supply the knowledge either way.

I purchased my 4K copy of Dune (2021) recently, before the reinstatement of poverty, and I’ve been really enjoying watching it. It comes with descriptive audio, which is always fun, because the narrator (whose job is to make sure blind people know what’s going on) is therefore kinda required to explain every little visual thing that happens, that’s remotely relevant. That helps if you maybe didn’t catch the importance of something that happens entirely visually, but the descriptive audio narrator guy makes a point of describing it. This offers a strong hint of its relevance, allowing you to remember it when it’s important later. Good directors will fill a movie with shit like this.

Of the movie, a few other thoughts:

--There are two descriptive audio tracks. One is in American English, and the other, no shit, is in England English. One is taco, the other is tack-o. One is, “Paul’s hand aches for his missing crysknife,” and the other is, “Paul’s hand aches for his missing crumpet.”

--I very badly want to have a conversation where I’m able to say, “Let’s feed the kid to the worms, and give her a long goodbye.” Obviously I’d need to imply clearly that it’s a joke.

--Now that Stacy has pointed out to me that she doesn’t love Timothee Chalamet’s voice, all I can think of is, “You Bene Gesserit made me a freak! You’re a bunch of phonies and no one understands meee!!”

--Gurney Halleck and Stilgar are also Llewellen Moss and Anton Chigurh. Those who know will know. They’re destined to not like each other.

Other items of note: I remain oddly fixated on Betty and Barney Hill. They had some UFO excitement back in 1961, and now I’m considering turning the book into a modern screenplay. Someone already turned the book into a 1975 made-for-TV-movie screenplay, but I think this story, which is genuinely scary as fuck, could be made much scarier with the judicious use of modern special effects. I think the concept of being on an empty highway, in the middle of the night, and realizing that a star, that isn’t a star, that moves, but doesn’t move like an airplane or a satellite, is following you, because, and after a point you can no longer ignore this, it keeps getting closer and closer, could be made scary as fuck, as long as it didn’t look fake.

The first problem, however, if I wish to render the story into a screenplay format is to figure out how to fit it into the three act structure. That’s kind of a requirement. Virtually every movie can be argued to fit into this structure, although there are exceptions, of course. But almost every time, when you set out to write it, you have to think of it that way. Act One is where we establish the scene, meet the characters, and have our inciting incident, and shit happens. Act two, more shit happens, but it ends with the main characters and/or the story at its emotional low point. Act three, final conflicts, resolution, (or not, whatever), denouement, (or not, whatever), The End.

So yesterday, I decided to sit down with the book, which is The Interrupted Journey, by John G. Fuller, and figured out how to make it fit. I make it fit thusly, which, not for nothing, conforms closely with the order in which Betty and Barney Hill lived it.

Act One - It begins in a diner in Colebrook, New Hampshire, at 10:30 at night, and they begin their drive home. A star follows them. It follows them…a lot. Gets closer and closer. They keep stopping the car to look through binoculars. Finally, it is upon them. Barney takes the binoculars out into the field and gets a good long stare. He freaks and runs back to the car, and they drive home.

Act Two - A friend who’s a sheriff finds out, and tells them to report it to the Air Force. The Air Force talks to them a few times and they make a detailed report. They discuss it with a few others, but not many, not seeking fame from it. A couple of UFO experts ask for an interview, and come visit. They point out what has eluded the Hills up to this point: There are two hours of unaccounted-for time. They experience PTSD symptoms and physical ailments. After a few steps which I’m skipping, they hook up with Dr. Simon, and he hypnotizes Barney. Barney remembers everything. It is not a happy recollection, but Dr. Simon reinstates the amnesia.

Act Three - It’s Betty’s turn to be hypnotized. She remembers everything. It’s terrifying, just as his recollection, but it’s much more detailed because she (a) fought herself awake, and (b) was therefore able to keep her eyes open throughout, and ( c) had a chance to make fucking SMALL TALK with one of the aliens. This is why I think it works as the story’s climax. It was much more traumatic for her, being awake for all of it, and they shoved a big needle into her belly button. But she makes it through okay and has a moment to talk to the aliens while they finish working on Barney. How’s that for a pivotal moment? “So…you’re not from around here, I’m guessing…?”

As for how it resolves, I think it resolves perfectly: Their story obviously can’t convince you one way or another whether they were briefly abducted and medically fucked with by aliens, but it does tend to convince you that they believe it. Fortunately for Dr. Simon and the Hills, the treatment didn’t require proving anything. He just had to help them deal with the amnesia, and the anxiety. And he did! He allowed their memories to come back to them, without causing more trauma, eventually playing them the tapes of the hypnosis sessions, and they remained more convinced than ever that it happened. Dr. Simon remained professionally focused on making sure they could both remember it, and live with it. Way to go, Dr. Simon. Way to go, Mr. and Mrs. Hill! You seem to have survived something scary as fuck, and dealt with the psychological fallout. Way to get the shit done.

I just have to render that into “movie ending” without making it trite or disappointing. And it’s America, so someone’s going to have to have a gun. Fortunately, Barney had a gun. He did not shoot any aliens with it, but I can always have him empty it into the air while walking away from an explosion, screaming, “Arrrgh!” It’s funny, though. In the book, the author changed it to a tire iron. Also the book made no mention of Barney’s anal probe. Not sure I wish to, either. That would happen in Act Two, which gives me time to get the audience past it, but do I even want to take them there in the first place, ya know?

Perhaps by this time next week I’ll have written some dialog! Or abandoned it in favor of being depressed and pillow forting. I’ll keep you posted.

RJW

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter, 3 April, 2022

3 April, 2022

Dear Dad--

You’ve been in the ding-dong penalty box of self exile for a while now! Perhaps a summarization of recent events is in order. I am still doing the same thing in the same home with the same car and little has changed. For Zach, everything has changed. He has begun learning the HVAC trade at Northern Technical Institute in Bangor, and expects to haul our overeducated asses all the way into the middle class by this time next year. (High Velocity Acquisition of Currency, is how I like to think of it.) I will have to get used to a life where I can buy all the gas my car can hold, get all the dentistry I need, and maybe get a car with desirable features. Some Hondas have a heads-up display, which I assume helps when you’re launching missiles.

I’m watching First Man, about Neil Armstrong, and the opening scene has always scared the shit out of me. He’s flying some sort of experimental rocket plane that goes way up high, 120,000 ft. plus, past the point where there’s blue sky, to the point where it’s just black space and very little gravity. Then he has to come back down, right? Piece o’ cake! Except he skips off the atmosphere. Now I’ve always heard that you have to re-enter the atmosphere at the correct angle. It was one of the hazards faced by the Apollo 13 guys. Too steep, and you burn up. Too shallow, and you skip off the atmosphere. And I always dismissed that. “Pfffft. Skipping off the atmosphere. That’s bullshit” And I imagine a rock skipping off the side of a steel battleship. “KOINGGGGG!!!!” Yeah, like an airplane’s going to do that…off the atmosphere. COME ON. That’s just stupid. You guys are stupid. Science is stupid.

But in this movie, that’s what happens, and it’s terrifying! He goes up high, then starts to come down, gets down to about 115,000 feet, and right about the point when he’s supposed to regain aerodynamic control over the airplane, it levels out, despite his efforts, and starts climbing again. Then it starts climbing faster and faster. And the clouds, and with them, planet Earth, are just getting smaller and smaller in the rearview, and the guy on the radio says, “Neil, you’re bouncing off the atmosphere.” He goes past 140,000, still climbing fast. What he does is interesting, he spins the ship 90 degrees clockwise on its long axis, (90 degrees of right bank…?) making it so if he looks right, he sees Earth, and if he looks left, he sees space, and from that orientation, he manages to command a right turn, essentially turning right towards Earth and back down through the atmosphere. And it worked. He got back and landed, which is an important part of almost all airplane flights.

But Zach, and HVAC school! A few developments; this was his first week of class, and Day One did not go well. I can remember three bad things he told me about: They were given wire-stripping tools to do an exercise, and the tool they gave him was old and shitty and didn’t work well. Then they made everyone wire up a circuit before they really taught the students what they were doing, and he sucked at it, and it was disheartening. Then the class broke out in spontaneous anti-trans jokes, which the teacher took part in. Naturally, I want to drive there and set fire to the place over that, but I won’t, because it would be wrong, and someone might get hurt. But that night, after the first day of class, there were so many tears. He was so discouraged. With nothing to compare it to, the first day of class seemed to portend nothing BUT horror and confusion and bullshit.

But then, a very good thing happened. Zach decided he was going to make Day Two go better. He was determined to ask more questions, to talk to the teacher about his stutter, and make sure the teacher didn’t allow it to prevent Zach from participating and being responsible for the same…whatever as everyone. And sure enough, he texted me during Day Two and said it was going a lot better. Others had shown to be as unfamiliar and as confused as he. Zach was understanding a bit better and feeling bad a lot less. I’d say it was a wee miracle, but I think it was Zach’s determination to make it work. Reminds me of that part in Zulu when the British sergeant says, of their survival, “It’s a miracle.” And a nearby officer says, “If it’s a miracle, colour sergeant, it’s a short chamber Boxer Henry point four-five caliber miracle.”

It took about 24 hours, then my depression went haywire. It was bad, the day before yesterday! I really felt like Zach and I worked, as a couple, as a relationship, partly because we were both underemployed, underachieving…losers. Not meaning to be unkind, but, if you accept that as a starting point, then consider what happens when one of you decides to improve himself and stops being any of those things. He’s soon going to be an appropriately-employed, actually-achieving, ass-kicking HVAC ninja. Then I’M going to be the only loser left in the relationship. I’m going to die doing audits of slot machines in Bangor, Maine and my funeral will be attended by Zach and Stacy, and some funeral home employees who, as part of the funeral service, are paid to show up and be respectful, so that Zach and Stacy aren’t the only ones there. It really felt like everything was ending, and at one point I explained to Zach that I was a bulging sack of adipose with veins on. He tried his best to encourage me to believe otherwise.

By yesterday, Thursday, which is my Friday, I started feeling better. After two days of class, Zach got three days of learning from home, and doing homework on his laptop. My work week concluded, and I didn’t miss any work, despite feeling at times like I didn’t care if the casino burned down with me in it. The only bad thing that happened was this: Someone had been placing googly eyes on posters around the casino, and I thought it was awesome. Now I’ve found out it was H.R. doing it as part of the company’s pizza-party-in-lieu-of-living-wage rewards strategy. That took some wind out of my sails.

In order to replenish my sail wind, I took some of my income tax refund and purchased something that I’ve wanted for about 25 years now, a pair of aluminum dining chairs, like the ones I first sat on in a McDonald’s at the Chicago Art Institute. They’re just chair-looking chairs. But because they’re aluminum, they weigh surprisingly little, and they don’t feel as cold as a similar chair made of tubular steel. Because of (I assume) their reduced mass, they suck less heat out of you, which I’m certain is exactly how that works. It’s a good metal chair for a cold environment, in other words. You won’t freeze your butthole eating brekky on a subzero morning. They’re hard metal chairs, but because of the material and the way they’re shaped, they feel soft and warm. I’m assuming. I still haven’t received them.

They left Henderson, Nevada early in the morning four days ago, but there have been no tracking updates since then. Here’s a problem I have, associated with the chairs: I don’t have a table yet. I literally have two dining chairs and an empty space with some carpet between them. I’ll be inheriting a nicer table later, from a friend who’s going to donate his dining table to me once he replaces it. But until then, I’ve decided I want a temporary table. I’m thinking a card table would work! I’d get a tablecloth for it, which might help obscure the fact that it’s a card table, except for the card table legs that are going to be sticking out, but it should work. We can eat meals at a table like grownups. And hey, you can play cards on it! If my budget allows it, I’ll consider shopping for one this weekend. I want a table that I can put some candles or flowers on, assuming I can be assured the cats won’t eat it or self-immolate from it.

(later)

I have purchased a card table and a tablecloth. A card table with folding legs now costs $45, but it’s pretty sturdy, and the tablecloth I purchased for it is very pretty, and I can’t wait for the chairs to show up. For now, we have two camping chairs around the table, and the overall effect is, indeed, one of frat house garbage. But once the new chairs show up, their superlative coolness will obliterate from one’s observational powers even the capacity to observe that the table is a card table, with card table legs sticking out from under the tablecloth. Yeah. I’m going with that. It will look good. It doesn’t look terrible now, it just looks temporary because of the collapsible camping chairs. Still, it’s enough table to eat a meal or do a puzzle. Huzzah!

More next week. TTFN.

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter 032722

27 March, 2022

Dear Dad--

We just went into the freshly remodeled McDonald's for the first time! Something to keep in mind: before they started remodeling it, we still hadn’t been inside for the better part of two years, because of Covid. During the period of remodeling, I thought I saw them installing large free-standing touch screens, which I’d seen before at McDonald's in Austin. They did, although they’ve improved the touch screen experience since I saw it last.

My hope was that we’d order our food this way, and pay for it there at the touch screen, and wait for them to call our number. But it was cooler than that! We placed our order and paid for it at the touch screen, which then advised us to take a plastic dingus with a number on it. We grabbed a numbered dingus and found a table. The plastic number dingus then communicated with the table to send our table number wirelessly to the McDonald’s employees, and when the order was ready, they just brought it to our table. Aside from thanking the nice lady who brought our food over, we never had to speak to anybody. Similarly, you can order your food over your phone, either in advance or from a table inside the place, and pay for it with your phone, and give them your table number with your phone, and the nice lady will bring it right over.

I think one must pause here for a moment and appreciate the genius of this system. They have removed a major obstacle for a lot of people who might eat there, but don’t: They made it so you don’t have to speak to anyone. There are a lot of people with speech impediments, like my husband, or social anxiety, like me and everyone else I know, or maybe just people who don’t speak English very well, who don’t come to McDonald’s, as much as they’d like to, because they’re uncomfortable having to communicate their order to someone. Now those people can not only place their order, and pay for it, without conversation, but they can ALSO tailor the order to their desires without feeling like an idiot. I, for example, like the secret (obviously not 1000 islands dressing) sauce on that Big Mac, so I like to ask for extra, but I’m damn sure not going to say that to a person. The fact I can so easily customize my order increases how much I’ll enjoy my food, and thus the likelihood that I’ll return and eat there again. Way to go, McDonald’s. Way to increase your profits in exactly the right way, by making clever use of technology to take better care of your would-be customers.

I’m going to stop cheering for the huge, multinational corporation now and talk about alien abductions!

You know, when I was growing up, there were a handful of movies that I would always watch, whenever they showed them on TV. For example, I loved watching the original War of the Worlds from 1953. And there was another movie I watched more than once called The UFO Incident. This was a made-for-TV movie from 1975 about Betty and Barney Hill, a couple who had a close encounter with a flying saucer in 1961 that ended up causing them a host of emotional issues, more than one physical ailment, and some PTSD-like symptoms.

The made-for-TV movie, and I can’t stress this enough, used to scare the SHIT out of me every time I watched it, because I knew it was a true story, if only for a given value of “true,” because it was well written, and because the acting was some of the best acting I’ve seen in my entire goddamn life. I’ve just never been able to turn away from it. For obvious reasons, then, I got a copy of this movie and I watch it a few times during each September/October scary movie marathon.

Recently I learned there was a definitive book about it, and I ordered the book. Now that I’ve read it, I find it even more fascinating than I found, and continue to find, the movie. And here’s an interesting tidbit: more than once, the book references Barney and his tire iron. He gets it out of the trunk, he holds it as a weapon, and it ends up being tossed into the car. But in the movie and in the podcast I’m now listening to, it’s a gun. And not for nothing, but it’s a bit of a plot point. (A gun usually is, that’s why TV shows have a guy with a gun show up once they jump the shark.) Also the book doesn’t mention the rectal probe that the podcast mentions. Then again, there’s more than one book about it.

But because I know you’re curious, especially to hear it from a skeptic such as I, allow me to tell you what happened, or at least what I think happened. They were from New Hampshire, and they’d made a road trip up into Canada. They were driving back home, and had a desire to get home as soon as they could, because of a hurricane approaching the coast. So they ended up leaving a restaurant at about 10:30 at night, intending to drive straight home, about four hours away. They figured they’d get home around 2:30 in the morning, 3:00 at the latest. Along the way, because it’s New Hampshire, and it’s 1961, and it’s the middle of the night, they mostly have the road to themselves. (The screenwriter in me can’t help but imagine how much their headlights would stand out on the more deserted stretches of highway, and be visible for miles from the air.)

They noticed a new extra-bright star, close to the mostly-full moon, and the star was moving. They noticed it moving in odd, non-airplane ways. They noticed it getting closer and closer. They’d drive a bit, stop and look with binoculars, drive a bit, stop and look. Finally, it was upon them, a couple hundred feet away, all big and UFOey. Barney stopped the car and got out, because people are dumb. He took the binoculars across the road to a field where the UFO was hovering silently and approached it. He saw dudes inside, including an apparent leader. The leader somehow communicated to Barney nonverbally to not be afraid, to keep looking through the binoculars, and to not go anywhere, to just stay there.

At this point, Barney’s terror, which, in the excitement, had fallen a couple of minutes behind, caught up with him in all its white-hot intensity, and engulfed him like a gasoline fire. His brain said, “Barney out!” and he sprinted back to his car. Betty was there, screaming for him to come back. They drove a bit, and started hearing beeps, which seemed to come from their trunk. Then they drove along a bit more. Then the beeping returned for a period, and they drove the rest of the way home. Got home about 5:00 a.m. Wasn’t that wild, honey? We saw a real live UFO!

So they reported it to a police person who was a friend of a friend, and he said to call the Air Force. So they reported it to the Air Force. And, over time, they shared the story to a few others, but didn’t seek publicity about it. People who see UFOs might be viewed as peculiar. But a couple of honest-to-god UFO experts at the time got wind of the Hills, and asked to meet with and question them. The Hills agreed. The UFO guys showed up before noon, and stayed until after midnight, asking questions and talking to the Hills about what they’d seen, completely fascinated. At some point, a UFO guy pointed out, “Why did you get home so much later than you should’ve?” At first, Betty was sad that they didn’t believe her. But only then did it become apparent that there were two hours the Hills couldn’t remember.

Long story short, they found a SERIOUSLY top psychiatrist in the field of hypnosis. He hypnotized them to get the full story, and at the end of each session, reinstated the amnesia, which apparently is a thing we can do, which blows my damn mind. He actually wanted to wait until after he got the whole story, specifically so he could then help reveal it to them in a controlled way that wouldn’t cause them further anxiety. The whole point of the psychiatry was specific, and twofold: Treat the anxiety caused by the UFO sighting, and find out what happened during the period of amnesia.

Now. If you believe what they both said, individually, under hypnosis, they were flagged down by a group of aliens. The aliens made the car’s engine quit, and they put the zap on the Hills’ heads. The Hills sleepwalked, escorted by the aliens, to their flying saucer, which was parked nearby. Barney Hill kept his eyes closed throughout the whole thing, except for a couple of times, but Betty fought it and fought it until she woke up, and stayed awake for the whole thing. The aliens did the medical examination. Barney got the butt probe. Betty got a needle in her navel. She chatted with the aliens while they finished up on Barney. They basically told her, “Okay, we’re gonna take you back to your car, and you won’t remember anything, and if you do, it’ll be vague and contradictory, and just confuse things further, so you want to forget about it, so just forget about it, and…you have a nice day.” And they walk the Hills back to their car, and the Hills watch the UFO leave, and they drive home. And then they made it into a movie starring James Earl Jones!

Now check out this part: Ever since I moved to Maine, I’ve been living in the state that’s right next to New Hampshire, on the right. If you want to go from Maine to the rest of America, you gotta go through New Hampshire. When Betty and Barney Hill made their last stop before all the UFO excitement on September 19, 1961, they stopped to eat at a diner in Colebrook, New Hampshire, near the top of the state and the Canadian border. I checked, and I swear by god and sunny jesus, Colebrook, New Hampshire is 3 hours and 50 minutes from Bangor. I could wait for the anniversary, leave during the day, get to Colebrook late at night, and be on the abduction highway, retracing their route, in time for the anniversary. I don’t expect I’d see anything, but maybe I’d see some other people who have an interest in Betty and Barney Hill. Maybe I’d get abducted and then I wouldn’t have to have a job any more.

I’ve now talked about it too much, so I’ll go now! Stay black, etc.

RJW

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter 032022

20 March, 2022

Dear Dad--

Last week was better than most! Granted, I got a bunch of money, but they say it’s not supposed to buy you happiness. (They lie! Ha!) So now I’ve paid off one credit card, paid a few other bills, bought myself a few necessities, and paid for the disco light I recently ordered.

Regarding the disco light. It’s basically four lasers and a small bank of high-intensity LEDs, so they kind of flood the space (the not very large space) with colored light, while the lasers do their thing. There are two lasers, green and red, which just point straight ahead, while filters move in front of them, and make them form patterns that can rotate clockwise. It makes a green laser turn from one point of bright green light to a bunch of rotating green laser stars, for example. The other two lasers, red and blue, are animated! You may ask, “Hey, you said the other ones moved. You’re a lying sack of shit.” Well, those were just filters. The red and blue animated lasers actually bounce off little mirrors on little precision motors that move the red and blue laser points around fast enough to draw things, like at the planetarium.

So, when everything is on, it’s kind of spooting red and green laser designs all over stuff, in a kinda neat way, while red and blue lasers are flying so fast they’re making synchronized animated Yodas and shit, while bright LEDs flood the room with color and do stroboscopic shit. It’s kind of like a gay bar in your dining room; at least that’s where I have mine. I was disappointed by one feature, however. It has a microphone, and it’s supposed to react with the beat if you’re playing music loud enough. Since the thing makes disco light in zillions of combinations, I figured it would change combinations with the beat. Wrong! Basically, it cycles through all of its effects, like it always does, but the whole thing switches off and on in time with the beat. That part can kiss my ass. But it came with a remote with lots of control buttons, so I’ll learn those, and gain disco light mastery.

You probably wonder, “Why did you buy that, you utter homosexual?” Well, lots of reasons. First and foremost, who else do you know with disco lights this goddamn good? No one, that’s who. And it’ll be a cool thing to have on if I ever have a party here, which I hope to do someday. Also, if any enemy aircraft are ever overhead--like if I find myself in Ukraine with my disco lights--I can use them to try to blind the pilots. Plus, in case it needs saying, it’s a light fixture that makes beautiful light. It’s not light you’d want to try to read with. (Jesus, that would kill some people.) But the light itself is gorgeous; it paints beauty into the air. If you can put some smoke into the air, it’s even prettier.

I mentioned getting my income tax refund. I hoped it would come in time to use last weekend. Naturally, it waited until the middle of the week, on pay day, to arrive. And since I’m unable to use any of it to take myself on vacation (it’s not that many hundos) I’m using it to live as an unpoor person for a few weeks! I’m paying ahead on everything, sticking some into savings, getting ALL THE GAS for my car, not just X dollars worth, ya know? Got some of the good donuts for my coworkers, from Gosselin’s Bakery, not Dunkin. You fly Weidmann, you fly first class, goddammit.

Work today was somewhat trying. (I’m writing this one on Sunday evening, having had a full weekend doing not a damn thing.) I got this morning off to a great start, completing the hardest part of the hardest audit in record time. Then around midday, a Big Problem arose, and then got resolved. Basically, an important thing was lost, and then found, by me, after involving the surveillance department. So that was a big noise about nothing, which I could have avoided entirely, if only I’d known that I already had the thing I needed. Then, at the end of the day, during what should have been the simplest audit, everything went pear-shaped. Had to text the boss, who took the day off, and in the end, had to leave a mess for Tyler and me to clean up tomorrow. So…great morning, then okay day, then dog shit afternoon. It pleases me that my most difficult day of the week is, by far, the first day.

You know…I went months and months needing a hard drive for my living room PC, only to find out that I can get something with a lot more storage space, for less money, if I just get a flash drive. I wanted a 1 terabyte hard drive for my media PC, put it on the wishlist that Zach and I share, and it was over $45. Then I looked, and found a 2 terabyte flash drive for $30. D’oh! Now I’m doing a massive transfer of video files to a tiny flash drive that would fit inside my nose, if it had to. Hooray, first world problems!

I’m watching Batman vs. Superman! Holy crap, this movie takes itself seriously.

Imma wrap this up and have some enjoyable evening before I run out of evening to have it in!

RJW

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter 031322

13 March, 2022

Dear Dad--

Well, just when depression was starting to turn my weekly letter into a litany of humorous complaints, along comes a week where nothing terrible happens. I have no major complaints. I’ll surely be back in stock by next weekend. Supply chain issues, etc. Among the reasons I’m feeling better are the following two: (A) I should get my state tax refund any day now, and (2) when I do, Imma blow it all on Nerds Ropes and MAGA hats. Actually I’m considering using it to repair my car’s shitty suspension, but I fear a new suspension may take the state and federal tax refunds and reduce both to a pair of smoking craters in my bank account. Since neither refund has arrived yet, however, I’m free to plan it out. I definitely need new hummingbird feeders before the hummers come back. Also disco lights. I haven’t bought any disco lights in forever, and I don’t currently have a disco shelf, and it bothers me no end.

I’m watching Metropolis, the movie from 1927. Daaaaaamn, this movie is 95 years old! Fascinating history, too. Shortly after it premiered, it was mercilessly edited, cut way down, and all the missing footage was considered permanently lost. THEN! In 2008, a shitty copy of the full film was found in Buenos Aires, of all places. Now, the BluRay copy I’m watching bills itself as the complete Metropolis, and it’s obvious where the old missing shots have been edited back in, because they’re scratchy and messy as fuck. But it’s the whole movie! I need to sit and watch the whole thing from start to finish, because I don’t think I’ve yet done so, and I think the movie has lots of really thinky plot shit I need to pay attention to.

[Saturday]

Day two of my weekend! I’m considering how much I hated returning to Austin from Seattle that one time I went, because our flight landed in Houston instead of Austin, because of weather, and we had to rent a car and drive the rest of the way. And I hated it! I was so angry and miserable. And something ten times worse is happening to Stacy right now! She’s stuck in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and her flight home got canceled. I can’t think of many things worse than being stuck in Florida for any length of time, for any reason. Zach originally came to me from Florida, so he’s kind of from there. He assures me that the whole state is garbage, and best avoided. If I didn’t live on the North Pole, I’d hop in my car and go rescue her. Maybe she can charter a plane home! People do that, right?

[Later Saturday]

Okay, chartering a plane apparently costs $25,000, so she’s not going that route. But she’s obtained a rental car, and can drive eight hours today, then crash at Diane’s place near Pensacola. Pensacola is where Zach came from, and he has strongly negative feelings about the state in general, but staying with Diane should be wonderful! I just think of Florida as America’s wang, like Homer Simpson did, and try to allow space for husband’s Florida-flavored bitterness. It’s nice to know Stacy’s got a plan to get home, and she made it under difficult circumstances. Respect! I probably would have ugly cried in the airport and then stolen a cop’s gun, in hopes of somehow shooting myself back home with it.

You know some science guys are developing a way to fling shit into space? They’ve already made a scale model of their design, and I guess will next make a full-scale version. They put the thing you want sent into space into a capsule, held at the end of a big arm, forming a centrifuge, in a big round space that they remove the air from, so it’s spinning in a vacuum. Then they just get it up to 17 jillion RPMs (or whatever is the appropriate number) and, using hyper-accurate computer timing, release the capsule at just the right moment, it bursts through a membrane that was there to maintain the integrity of the vacuum, and wham-o, your shit’s on the way to space. One limitation: because you have to spin the shit so fast, it experiences (I believe) thousands of Gs, so this is not something that would ever work with a person, who would turn into a small puddle of person-flavored goo in the outermost portion of the capsule because of all the Gs.

And now it seems two people on my Facebook friends list are displeased with me because I said Florida was a terrible, no-good, awful, horrible place, and, as it happens, they reside there. I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to handle this on Facebook, but I think I’m going to just back slowly away from that conversation, and hope it goes away all by itself. I’m in a bit of a tough spot, because I have a few good reasons to stand by my belief that Florida is, indeed, a big, stinky butt, that’s best avoided. However! The perfectly good reasons I have for finding Florida to be a big stinky butt won’t apply to everyone, so I wouldn’t presume to correct them if they had a strong opinion about the state that was different from mine. I’m from Texas; I’m used to a state that’s a HUGE stinky butt already, given its weather and its state government. Florida is particularly stinky in those exact same categories.

[Sunday bullets]

Finished my toughest day of work in record time! I think it’s fair to say I’ve gone from learning the audits to having learned the audits. If you’re running a casino and you need someone with great hair to audit your revenue streams, I’m your person.

My depression is still very present and most distracting. I’m guessing things will feel a bit more positive once I’m temporarily unimpoverished again, given that the coming nonimpoverishment may stick around a while.

I ordered a disco light. I’m a bit ashamed, since I put it on a credit card. I’ll pay for it with actual money when the refund arrives, and it’s a nice disco light. It contains the first blue laser I’ll have ever owned.

I have decided to eject my disco light shame and embrace the disco light I bought, but have yet to receive in the mail. Should get it tomorrow.

Peace, viejo

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter 03062022

6 March, 2022

Dear Dad--

It occurs to me that I didn’t write a letter last week! Apologies. You were busy, having relegated yourself to the ding-dong penalty box, and I was busy with my favorite pastime, failing, and disliking myself for it. Also I got a kerosene bill for $351. You know what I did the night before I got that kerosene bill? Just by coincidence? I got paid, so I made a payment on the credit card that the kerosene gets charged to. The credit card is almost maxed, so I made a payment that was so large, it would surely cover any future kerosene bill. (I paid $350.)

But the good news is that I’m kind of falling in love with Tom Hardy, who keeps getting quoted saying wonderful things on the internet. He said something like, “If you’ve read crazy awful stuff about me, just go ahead and believe it. I don’t mind. You can even add stuff, if you want.” I probably didn't get the wording right, but it was approximately that. I also read something he said recently, to the effect that avoiding someone who wrecks your emotional state isn't a bad thing, it's wisdom.

I just had a really interesting trip to Target. Let’s jump in the way-back machine to last summer. I met this nice homosexual gentleman named David over the internet. He had nice long hair and seemed like a good potential friend. Come to find out, he lived in Louisiana, but was about to move to Bangor, while his (and his mother’s) house was being built…in Old Town. (Old Town is the little old town I live in.) So obviously we both figured we’d meet once he moved to Bangor, and at least share a nice big dinner and watch a movie or something. Only he then moved to the Bangor area last fall, and we never got around to meeting. Don’t know why! (Well, it may have to do with full-time work, crippling depression, high fuel bills, the exciting new potential for World War III, etc. Also he said he cut his long hair off. Boo, David. Boooooooo.)

So today I found that I needed a couple of things that were just a bit too exotic for my local grocery store, like catnip for the kitties, because they fucking love it and seek it out, to sniff and lick and roll around in, and car stuff, like something to fix my car’s headlights, which had become fogged to the point of…well, that which I deemed excessive fogginess. The headlights on Beige Lightning were badly fogged and just looked old and shitty. But Target provided! I got the very important things I needed for the car and the cats, and took myself through self checkout. And then I saw David, running the counter at the Starbucks in front of the Target. So I went in and made some eye contact, which I figured he’d hold a bit, since I figured he would wonder if I’m me, or why I look familiar. But then I had to quickly engage him in an official Starbucks capacity, because a line of young diminutive well-to-do-looking white women formed immediately behind me. I asked him for a venti mocha, and I said, “Hey, I thought that was you, David. I’m Rick, from the internet. Hello.” I believe he recognized me, found me to be hittable, and had to restrain himself from disrobing whilst preparing my mocha.

I left after that, so he could wait on the teeny ladies with the makeup, and I came home. The cats are, indeed, crazy-go-nuts for the new catnip. The other thing I wanted, a cheap digital thermometer for my car, was not available at Target. But I got a product (with the unfortunate word WIPE in the name) that was supposed to fix fogged headlights. I bought it, but I figured it would not work, resulting in anger, frustration, and continued foggy headlights, because there is a God, and he doesn’t hate homosexuals, but he does hate those who didn’t live up to their full potential, and so fuck my headlights. But the stuff works! You wet your headlight (with water). Rub it with the green side of a thing. Then wet it more, and rub it with the white side of the thing. What you’re doing is sanding off the obstructing crud with the green side of the thing, and then you’re sanding it more finely using the white side of the thing. This is supposed to get brown grime off (which it did) and prepares the lights for the magic jizz.

Then you have to don some blue rubber gloves, which were included, and tear open the foil packet containing the special WIPE, pre-moistened with the magic headlight jizz, and WIPE the headlight with it ONE TIME. I did roughly that. Took me four passes to get the whole headlight. But this is the stuff that (a) makes it transparent again, and (b) puts a protective coating on it that dries over 24 hours and helps…discourage future foggines? Something like that. I used the shit! It’s magical! Well, not really, but it worked. The headlights look almost new again. Not bad for 11 bucks. If there is a God, God did not wish to interfere with my headlight improvement.

---

That was all yesterday, Friday, and now it’s today, Saturday, which is the last day of my weekend, so my Sunday, as it were.

I woke up in a very foul and depressed state, and while I’d like to blame it on others, the root cause of today’s mental fuckery is my own covetous nature. During periods when I’m struggling financially--and OOOOOOHHH BOY is now one of them--it sets in stark contrast the unfortunate extent to which the fire hose of good fortune is doing all it can to avoid pointing in my direction. And yeah, it took a long time to formulate that thought to remove references to the specific good fortunes of others. I will not begrudge them the living they’ve worked so hard for.

Look, I got paid four days ago. Nice paycheck, for me, for here, for now. And I was happy about the fact that this month, I will get an extra paycheck. Rent has fallen in such a way that I’ll have two non-rent paychecks this month, instead of just one. Huzzah! And what did I do? I completely fucked myself and overspent the paycheck I just got. I thought I had more money than I did, so I bought us some donuts, and I went to Target and got laundry detergent, because they only sell pods at our grocery store, and then my $160 utility payment went through, and I fucked myself almost all the way down to zero, because I’m stupid. I just happened to check my account to make sure I was where I thought I was, and found out that, no, I was elsewhere. And the camera zooms all the way out to encompass the entire planet, and all that can be heard are my screams of financial anguish, and so on.

So here is the plan, which is already in action: I will do our taxes. Zach will sell back our aluminum cans and plastic bottles. In fact, through the magic of doing shit and typing about it afterwards, I did our taxes, and he sold back our recyclables. We will get a small refund from the fed, and a smaller refund from the state. Turbotax was kind enough to only make me pay $147 for the federal and state filings and FU fees, and was even kinder by allowing me to allow them to pay themselves that fee out of my refund, instead of making me pay for it separately. I don’t know when the refund will arrive; I assume a few weeks. Zach got $21.00 for the cans and bottles, which, at a nickel per, means we just redeemed exactly 420 cans and bottles, uh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh.

Now that that’s done, I am crafting a new litany: I must not spend, purchasing fun things like laundry detergent is the bank account-killer, and spending is the little thing that becomes overdraft fees, credit card debt, and ass cancer later. I will face my poverty. I will permit it to build my character. And when the poverty is over, I will pay off my credit cards, and buy the nicest disco lights that American currency can buy, and in the space where poverty existed before, no poverty will remain, only disco lights.

Zach also went to the store while I did the taxes, and he got the necessary ingredients for me to make a batch of fettuccine alfredo with prosciutto, and garlic bread on the side. Saturday, then, is the day when we eat our feelings! But it is nice to have my taxes done. And it’s not bad knowing that I’ll get money back, and not a tax bill to pay. And I met David, and he made me a nice chocolate coffee beverage. I’m broke, but the clarity of my headlights might indicate otherwise.

Until next week.

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter 022022

20 February, 2022

Dear Dad--

This week’s letter will be short. I have written the first two paragraphs twice now, and didn’t like either paragraph either time. Mostly it was me bemoaning my station, and expressing relief that someday soon, Zach’s earning potential will go from zero to way the heck above mine, and we might end up living in an actual house. It could not have been fun to read, even if I wrote it, and I’m witty as fuck.

Truth is, not much has happened lately. That’s bad, and I’m working on it! We had an early dinner with plant science guy and his husband on Saturday, and there was much rejoicing. Aside from that, we’re watching it snow and trying not to spend money until after the Big Kerosene months have passed, cause they’re eating my financial ass for breakfast.

There aren’t any movies playing that I’m on fire to see, and my attention span turns into a pumpkin after about one 23-minute sitcom. I’m working on that too. I need to read more books, but they conflict with the attention span problem. Perhaps I should read more leaflets.

The James Webb Space Telescope has made it to L2, where it has parked, and it’s busy getting cooled down--cause outer space ain’t cold enough! It needs to be colder--and aligning its mirrors to act in concert. I really, really want to see what it can do.

Because this letter is going to end up being so damn short, and so damn dry, I’m going to share something with you that I’ve never shared with anyone. If everyone’s life contains a few mysteries, this mystery is in my top five. I am absolutely astonished that this happens consistently, and I’ve never been farther from a solid guess as its explanation. Here’s the thing: You know that I occasionally smoke marihuana drugs, right? And since it’s me, if I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it responsibly, which means keeping my gear clean, right? Gotta keep the water pipe clean. Gotta keep the stem clean. Gotta keep the bowl unclogged, so gotta use a screen. And, you gotta keep the screen clean. The way I keep our little round screen clean is to take it out, twist it to and fro slightly to knock the crud off, and blow through it.

Now, our primary cat Sam, never chirps, the way some cats do, like when they see birds. Or Horta, who chirps every time she jumps anywhere. But when I take out my little pipe screen, wiggle it a bit, and then blow through it, if Sam has line of sight on me, he’ll go, “chirp chirp chirp.” Every. Damn. Time. Even if he’s 40 feet away, which is possible in this trailer, but he has line of sight, he’ll chirp.

Stuff like this doesn’t have to happen more than a few times before you go, “Waitaminute, why the FUCK is he doing that?” Chirping is for little ho girl kitties in heat, (not passing judgement; I use "ho" to stand in for "unspayed") and cats that see birds out the window. Why when I blow through my screen does Sam give a chirp reaction? WHY? I must learn to live with never knowing, I suppose.

So there you have it. Until next week! Bonus pic: