EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD!!!

I was riding my bike today on the bike trail, and I saw something for the first time: a woman rollerblading while talking on a cellphone. (I'm sure this is nothing new to those of you in California, but it was the first time I'VE witnessed such a spectacle!)

I'm Through with the YMCA

For all of you (like anyone is reading this!) who are sick of me talking about the YMCA, you won't have to any more because I quit. They raised my monthly fee, and worse, the hot tub is broken, and they don't seem to want to fix it. Not too many people go in the hot tub anyway, certainly no women, because they built it with a big picture window facing the track and the key desk, so when you're in it you kind of feel like an animal at the zoo. People just stare in at you, they can't help it.

But no more hot tub, no more YMCA, after September, and it's already September! I went last night, and this morning, as I made the rounds of the farmer's markets, I realized that I still had my sweaty jockey shorts and socks in my bag, along with my notebook and hat. This kind of disgusted me. I'm tired of being a jock-- what is it worth, anyway, all of this physical fitness stuff?

So anyway, enough of that. No more will I have to WONDER how men in the locker room are unable to throw their used Q-TIPS in the wastebasket. I'm just going to have to find things to complain about somewhere else.

I LOVE AUGUST

The REASON August is my favorite month is because FALL is just around the corner. I am really a CANADIAN at heart. No, I'm not. Anyway, Canadians don't really like the cold weather, or else why would they build all of their cities in the southern part of the country? Anyway, I love autumn, it's my favorite season, back to school, all that.

I tried to take this online test to see if I would be accepted as a citizen of Canada, and I FAILED MISERABLY! It was really pretty sad. My score was "Please stay in the United States where they celebrate idiocy." Which was the next category up from, "You are so worthless you wouldn't be welcome in ANY country." They really tell it like it is on this test!

I left my serape out in the mudroom with the leaking roof and it got moldy. Does anyone know anything about mold removal? I washed it, but it didn't seem to help, it still smelled bad, so I SOAKED IT with patchouli. Now it just smells like mold and patchouli. Help! It's my favorite serape, I don't want to throw it away!

Already July!

I can't believe it's already July! There was more to that finding the cell phone story, more of the story I didn't have the guts to write at the time, but now that nothing has happened, I mean no fallout from the whole episode, I think I could write about it now, but now the moment has passed. OK! I'd write more now, but I've got christmas shopping to take care of. Not really, but that's just about how I feel about now. The next thing is just around the corner, always, the next love affair, the next holiday, the next cocktail, the next accident, the next inspiration, the next turd on the floor, the next salon, the next rhyme, the next drunken garden party, the next Seville orange, the next headache, the next earthy, sprawly, sad pastiche. Oh, God please help me, only you can make a flower grow on the unfertile Omaha Steak box next to the toilet in the filling station men's room of my passing thoughts.

JUNE GOES EVEN FASTER

June is turning out to be a much faster month than May was. It's already half over! Maybe if it didn't take my hair so long to dry I'd have more time for communtiy service. Oh, well.

I walked by the cell phone store in the mall the other day and I thought: "You know, I could just go in there and buy one of those!" It's the first time I've had that thought. I think I can, anyway, is that right? Or do you have to have some special qualifications?

I guess I was thinking about cell phones because I found one the other day on the way home from Jazz in the Park. I wasn't going to JITP, the people who lost the cell phone were. I was on my way home from work. It was surprisingly easy to use. I looked up some recent numbers called, and called those people and left messages that I found the phone. Only one person answered, and he said he didn't know the number who was calling, though of course I had no name to refer to.

Finally I called a number and a picture of a woman's breasts came on the phone when it dialed! A woman answered and said that it was her boyfriend's phone. She said they were at Jazz in the Park, and invited me over. I declined. I told her where I lived, a short walk from the park, and she walked over. When she got near, she called again and I ran out with the phone, still talking in it, hoping my landlord Ellwood wouldn't see me.

We met up on the sidewalk and I gave her the phone, trying not to look at her breasts. She thanked me and again invited me to Jazz in the Park. This time I thought about it for a second. I've received very few invitions anywhere recently, and certainly not by strangers. But I thanked her and declined again. People take portable chairs to Jazz in the Park, and portable tables, and they spread little red and white checked table cloths over the tables and open bottles of red wine. Then they get out wine glasses and bread and cheese and... yikes, too much. And I've heard, this is the truth, that people bring hanging plants and hang them from the trees. No thanks. Not my scene, baby.
RS

THE MONTH of M A Y

It's the fastest month of the year, every year, because I really so much like it, but not this year, because I've been in some kind of a dream state ever since I woke up in A-pril. Really, it's just not funny, being me, and this far out out of it it. like i'm looking ooking down the wrong end of a stethoscope.

Binder Clips

I'm at the office working on this because I had to get away from my wife. I usually work from home, but the office exists, if I need it, to get away from all of the pressures of trying to run a household in this ever more dusty climate. The first thing I realized, once here, was that I had forgotten my cell phone and left it here. I mean, I haven't used it in awhile, and it's here, plugged in. I don't need it at home, because I have a "safe" phone. The next thing I discovered is that someone has been stealing the binder clips, the big ones. I have no idea why. I know that they're good for closing bags of potato chips, and some people may use them for sex, I've heard, but I'm talking about hundreds of binder clips! Maybe the intern is doing some kind of an art project with them. I think she has an art opening or some kind of graduate show this spring, so I'm going and if there are a lot of binder clips used in her art-- busted! I'm trying to finish my work so I can get to the "Y" and hopefully Spree won't be there again getting in my way. What do I have left to do? Oh, just this I guess. This is all I've done all day, besides trying to find a cheap hydroponics kit online. RS

Millions of little chunks.

Quite often at meetings I'd notice this guy with a little cassette recorder, which he kept pretty well hidden, but you know, you're not supposed to do that. You're also not supposed to confront people and accuse them of things, and one of my clinically confirmed conditions is an increasing inclination toward paranoia, so I was just waiting for SOMEONE ELSE to say something to the guy. Maybe people don't remember cassettes... They do? Okay. I'm yelling to my wife in the next room while I type this. She insists in editorializing me, ever since I had an online affair. Which I didn't consider an affair at all... I know, you do. What? Okay, I've got to run out and get some parmasian cheese. I'm not sure how to spell that. Is there a spellcheck on this thing? I think that's close. It's from Parma Italy, right, not Parma Ohio. I know! Of course I'm going to get a CHUNK of it. Not the pre-grated kind, yes, I know, you don't want to put ANTI-CAKING agent on your spaghetti. I can't spell that, either. Obviously I'm not Itallian. Okay, okay, I'm going.

R. Speen

R. Speen