cannonball drop

Obesity is a national epidemic.

And it is having children.

Our apartment is, as I think I might've mentioned before, the lower floor of what is technically a three-story building. The ground floor is where cars live, under the premise that when upstairs neighbors throw parties and move furniture around, the neighbors underneath will be less likely to complain if they lack fundamentals like, say, lips. The next floor up is where we live, in one of the larger apartments at either end of the building. Our apartment is one of the larger apartments, in the sense that it is a two bedroom apartment instead of a one bedroom, a legacy of the days when I had a roommate.

We retained the two bedroom instead of a cheaper one bedroom when the Guy and I married, as it became evident almost immediately that in order for our relationship to survive, the servers would have to have a room of their own. Scientific studies notwithstanding, I was growing convinced that they had designs on my ovaries. Sterility should be a choice, not an inevitability.

If you have been following, you will have realized by now that this means we are in that unenviable position of being on the middle floor. Above us, neighbors. Below us, cars. Both are capable of being noxious and explosive without warning.

Up until recently, this has not been a problem. Our upstairs neighbors, with the exception of one deeply unhappy man who worked the graveyard shift, and a group of ancient hippies with musical aspirations, have mostly been quiet folk. I use the word "folk" without deep irony. None of the upstairs neighbors have shown any propensities for terrorism. In fact, we rarely see each other at all, save for the chance encounter on the stairwell, at which point we politely avert our gazes to avoid eye contact, like civilized people. Which explains why I didn't realize that the hippies had moved out.

Unfortunately, this meant we were completely unprepared when the Cannonballs moved in.

It started with a heavy rumbling that shook our ceiling, and penetrated even the agonized wail of American Idol on TV. The Guy came out of his office to stare up, with me, as though we could penetrate not-too-sturdy plaster to winkle out our neighbors' activities. An idle bystander would have thought we were communing with heaven.

In our own way, perhaps we were.

"What are they doing up there?" the Guy demanded, I presume of God since I had no special claims to x-ray vision.

It sounded like they were moving furniture around. I made the suggestion, which was not rejected out-of-hand.

"Stupid hippies," said the Guy, and retreated back into his office.

I turned up the TV, the dull sound of moving furniture a backdrop to saccharine pop music.

About an hour later, the sound of furniture stopped, to be replaced with the sound of somebody -- I kid you not -- dribbling bowling balls.

THUUUUUMP. (pause.) Thump. (shorter pause.) Thump-thump-thu-thu-thudathudathudathuda thump.

The Guy came out of the office again and stared up, awed.

THUUUUUUMP. (pause.) Thump. (Shorter pause.) Thump-thump-thu-thu-thudathudathudathuda thump.

He sat down on the sofa, next to me. I muted the TV. The two of us held hands and gaped up at the ceiling. We were transfixed.

THUUUUUUUMP.

From time to time, by way of variation, there would be screaming upstairs, accompanied by BADA BADA BADA skoooooooooooch skoooooooch BADA BADA BADA sounds, as if an exciteable jackhammer had embarked on an amorous courtship of a vacuum cleaner in front of a group of fundamentalist technophobes.

"What are they doing?" demanded the Guy again, rhetorically. He disappeared into the bathroom and emerged with the mop, the handle of which he used to tap gingerly at the ceiling.

He has used this method before, in dealing with Heisenberg. With, I might add, less than spectacular success. My husband is an optimist.

BADA BADA BADA BADA! retorted the ceiling. Skooooooooooch. THUMP. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" thump. skooooooo--BADA BADA--ooooch. thu-thu-thudathuda "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

"I think you made it mad," I said.

As though in agreement, the ceiling shivered and announced, sternly, Buddha buddha buddha buddha bu-bu-bu-bu-bu. THUMP.

Defeated, the Guy disappeared into the darkness of his office again, shoulders hunched around his ears. I gave myself up to the fascination of listening to our surround-sound ceiling.

It was not until several days later that we realized we had new neighbors. Three days of reruns had given us little by way of insight into our neighbors' activities. Hitherto, the hippies' method of self-expression had been confined to jam sessions of "Blowing in the Wind" and "Puff the Magic Dragon." Bowling Ball basketball was something new. Operating under the delusion that the gentle-spirited (if atonal) company still lived upstairs, we hoped, frankly, that they'd get over it. Listening to dim renditions of "Blowing in the Wind," while no aesthetic treat, was nonetheless preferable to this curiously ghetto redneck sport taking place above our heads.

On the third day, I encountered a new group of people on the stairs. It was a large family of who-knows-how-many children, being shepherded by a pair of robust-looking parents.

Let there be no mistake: I use the word "large" with purpose, intending every possible interpretation. The parents were short and solid, on the high end of the periodic table. The children, like overripe celestial satellites, had attained a radiant, geometric perfection that would have been a delight to any Animal Farm cartoonist. It did not require any imagination at all to realize these children were fed well. Not only were they fed well, they were fed richly, on diets built around a foundation of cheese, lard, and meats. Their breakfasts were fried. Their dinners were refried. Their before-bed snacks constituted a bag of chocolate chip cookies, whole milk, and a side of bacon.

They rolled up the stairs -- the stone stairs -- and made them quake. Unable to squeeze by them, I paused on the landing to give them free access. The children continued up another floor, yelling at the top of their lungs, and I felt the entire building cower in terror as they rumbled across that level too.

I told the Guy about them that night, while the inevitable THUMP. thump. Thump-a-thump-a-thud took place overhead.

He was distracted and, I fear, not very interested -- but he listened to enough to understand the gist of my narrative.

"They're dropping the kids off the furniture," he decided. His voice was taking on a "hot steam under pressure" quality. THUMP. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" BADA BADA BADA THUMP. "They're moving the furniture around, getting on top of it, picking up their kids, and throwing them to the floor.

THUMPATHUMPATHUMPA "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" BADA BADA Skooooooooooooch THUMP.

"Assholes," the Guy said.

"Fuckers," I agreed.

The Guy went back into his office and closed the door.

THUMP.

strange asian

A group of people are hanging out in the dining room of a house in the Castro District. They are nonchalant and draped across the furniture, relaxed with the comfortable self-confidence of people who have taken ownership of their environs. "You are so totally making this shit up," one says, with the glib familiarity of one speaking to friends. "That never happened."

"Damn," says a third. "Cockroaches are bad enough. If we're getting Asians, I'm calling the landlord."

My sister called me on Friday night to ask for a favor. "I'm in town," she said. "Can I crash at your place tonight?"

"Sure," I said. Unlike Nancy Reagan, I never say no. "I thought you were staying in the Castro tonight."

"I was. I think maybe my friend doesn't live at that house anymore."

"Oh."

"But I still have his key," she said, brightly. "I'll see you in a bit."

moscow memory

I just had a memory of Moscow, Idaho.

We were there for one of my performances, though I don't remember that part clearly; I was performing with an orchestra (I don't remember what) and at the end of the performance I was presented with the key to the city. I don't remember that clearly either, except thinking that the city must have very, very small locks.

What I do remember is wandering through some sort of campus with the ... conductor? and my mother and my little sister, who rampaged ahead with her typical enthusiasm. She was younger, at the time: not yet in her teens. Eight? Nine? At any rate, the grown-ups were engaged in conversation, and we eventually discovered Sako high up in the branches of a massive tree.

'Planted by John F Kennedy,' the plaque said. (Or maybe it was Roosevelt? I don't remember. Anyway, it was a big tree.)

Mom looked up. "Masako?"

"Hi, Mom." Two stockinged, mary-janed legs waved at us from above.

Mom disapproved. Sako was wearing a dress. "Come down," she ordered.

"Okay," said Sako, and let go.

She came down with some crashes, some whacks, and a thump. Mom shook her head. The conductor, I think, was appalled.

Sako, of course, was fine. She stood up, dusted herself off, and ... I don't remember what came next. It wasn't quite as memorable, I suppose.

Anyway, there you go.

It starts early, in my family.

i left my cat in New York City

Flamingo went on a vacation to New York City a few days ago, and -- not surprisingly -- Heisenberg was inspired to go as well. He has always had a Thing about New York City; he has informed me on numerous occasions that it is his spiritual home. This might or might not be true: certainly there are qualities to him that reek of urban blight, though I'm not entirely positive New York suffers from that particular affliction.

Fleas, perhaps. I can imagine New York suffering from fleas.

At any rate, he is under the impression that he will only have to show up at New York's door (for some reason he thinks New York City has a door) for them to throw it open and gather him to their bosom. Bosoms. Who knows? He might even be right.

At any rate, off he went. He decided to walk.

"Exercise is what keeps me thin and svelte," he informed me, with a pointed stare at my waistline. "A few hours' walk won't be a problem."

I opened my mouth to inform him that a walk from California to New York would take more than a few hours, then closed it again. I decided I would tell him later.

"I'm looking forward to it," he yawned. "Meeting people of sophistication, wit, intelligence, taste...it'll make a nice change."

For some reason, I forgot to get around to it before he left.

He left on Thursday. I haven't heard from him since. It's been quite peaceful in the apartment lately.

The goat, Schroedinger, came tripping into the bedroom yesterday to inform me that she had had an epiphany. "Penises are like geoduck," she announced. "Or like those whack-a-mole games."

There was a moment's silence. "Whack-a-mole games?" the Guy asked, unwilling, but in the grip of appalled curiosity.

"Whack-a-mole," said the goat, and lifted a foreleg to grope at our covers. "See, the penis is the mallet, and the testicles are the moles, so you take the penis and you--"

"There are things happening in your imagination that really concern me," the Guy told me privately, later.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said.

Whack-a-mole.

(Heh.)

a few miscellanae

I realize that I have not updated over the last two weeks, and I apologize. To be truthful, there has been very little happening in my life to warrant exhibition; I seem to have settled into a routine of humdrum monotony, satisfying but not particularly productive in any sense of the word. Aikido proceeds apace, as does work and taxes. Other than the charmingly sophomoric state of my kitchen floor, there isn't all that much to comment on.

I have, of late, been taking part in a monthly writing exchange with my good friend Flamingo, which is more gratifying for me (since I get to read what she writes) than it could possibly be for her. My talents in the writing field are not what one would call organized or, if one were strictly truthful, coherent; my journal is about as good as it gets, which should go some way in explaining the situation.

I meander.

I get distracted and easily bored.

I forget what I was writing about.

My sister -- you see how we digress already? -- my sister has been living with my mother in Seattle now for several weeks already, well on her way to completing ... if not her degree, at least another wedge of its requirements. Birthdays abound in February: both Flamingo and she had one (one each, that is) on the 25th. Sako is now 28 and, we think, beginning to feel the remorseless drumbeat of Time catching up with her halcyon youth. At any rate, Mom claims that Sako is studying, studying, doing nothing but studying, and that she has never seen anything like it.

"She working so hard!" she announces with some awe, followed by the inevitable, "I wish she would--"

--would what? Would something else. Something Mom wants her to do, something Sako doesn't want to do, something Mom's perfectly willing to deploy the heavy guns of guilt for, something Sako retaliates for by calling me to wail, "I can't take it. I'm going to go insane."

I am a bad sister. Comfortably aware that I am a good two states away, I console Sako and advise her to patience, then hang up and think gratefully on the difficulty of interstate travel.

There are no real segues in my thought processes. Follow along.

The Guy thinks that it is "sad that they have to put sugar in vitamins to make kids take them." He was inspecting a large jar of children's chewable vitamins at the time: shaped like dinosaurs, flavored 'just for kids!' He was attempting to make some sort of point, I surmise. For the last three years he's been attempting to get me to take vitamins, under the theory that they're somehow good for me.

Unfortunately, said vitamin pills are approximately the size of my thumb. I am not accustomed to the taking of pills, excepting the tiny medications that have been prescribed to me by assorted doctors. The Guy is not a doctor, and the adult vitamins are too large. Thus, the purchase of childrens' chewable vitamins at Costco the other day.

Every day now he reminds me to take my multi-vitamin. Before, my response to this was a flat, "No," followed by screaming while he chased me around the apartment with them. Now that the vitamins are shaped like vitamins and taste like Sweet Tarts, I take them before he even prompts.

"I swear," says the Guy. "It's like being married to a three-year old sometimes."

"The Guy speaks truth," Flamingo observed, after being told the story.

The Guy still tries to stick his fingers up my nose. You want to talk about three-year olds?

In the meantime, I might have (possibly) maybe sprained my left ankle during Aikido. It would be my first Aikido-earned injury. I am very proud.

I am also very stupid, since I continue to go to Aikido and re-injure it every class. Knowing that I am being stupid does not, mind, preclude me behaving stupidly.

In thirty-one years of life, I have never learned how to tie a knot that holds. Screw the blue belt. I'll consider it a victory if I make it through a single Aikido class without having to retie my belt or keep my pants from falling down.

Anyway. Back to the ... subject. Whatever it was. Writing. Concentration.

Yes. Linear thought.

Having a problem with it. However, I have managed -- for the first time in my life -- to write an outline. How that will contribute towards the piece of dreck I'm working on now is anybody's guess. However, we can hope. And pray. And it's possible I'm taking blows to the head during Aikido that I'm just not aware of, you think? I swear I'm getting worse lately. Not with the Aikido, though yes, that too, but with the whole ... whatever it is we're doing here.

Linear thought.

Right.

Crap.

I'll try this again tomorrow.