Day One: I gave my directions to Haggerston, my manservant, for the care of my rooms and went on a tour of the countryside in my motorcar. It grew quite cold. Icy blasts pricked my eyeballs like a thousand tiny daggers. O! Tyranny of Nature! I found a quiet inn where I sit in a corner, taking my claret in silence. I am God’s lonely man.
All posts by Licketysplit
La nature porte toujours les couleurs de l’esprit.
Je joue un air épouvantable de la cruauté de la nature.
(I play a frightful tune of the cruelty of nature.)
The stars at night are big and bright
Today’s theme: piddly celebrity encounters! It is partially inspired by the new Gawker Stalker column, and partially because I was just talking about Cher. And someone rightly pointed out that I’ve met Cher! I used to work at Tower Records during school, which afforded me access to such luminaries as Cher, Ozzy, and…Joe Jackson. Oh wait, and Jay-Z. He was rather confident. His visit meant hearing “Hard Knock Life” approximately 13,000 times, in a loop.
Cher was promoting her memoirs. I had to stack a gigantic pyramid of them, beneath a Chairman Mao-sized soft-focus portrait of her. She was demure, wore a purple streaked wig, and was mobbed by men in hot pants who stood in line for a very long time. She also graciously received the gift of a fruit platter.
Ozzy was just shopping with a small entourage. This was back in 1999, and no one cared about Ozzy then. In fact we all thought he was some deinstitutionalized psychotic, until I noticed his knuckle tattoos. He was peeved because we didn’t have the Monty Python DVD he was after.
Another time I put on dark glasses and stormed through LAX while my friend ran ahead of me, jumped out of the crowd, and snapped my photo, yelling “Over here, over here!” It was a long delay.
But other people’s celebrity encounters are always better than mine. For instance, a friend has seen Douglas Coupland eat a cheeseburger! I would have swatted it out of his hands. After that last stinkeroo of a novel, some fasting for atonement is in order. Clearly she has more restraint than I do. She also met David Sedaris, who told her that her nicotine patch was “disgusting” and that he’d rather smoke. And she had a chance to club Dave Eggers to death with a skullcracking work of 485 pages, but she didn’t do that either. I say opportunity only knocks once. I still rue the day I didn’t kill Carrot Top. Among others….
In beautiful people, another friend had a class at NYU with Christy Turlington. Still another person used to always wait on Gwyneth at a coffee shop. Gosh, I have a lot of friends!
Last and probably least, I sat next to Creed and some hangers-on in a euro-trash bar at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. I would rather meet Richard Simmons I think. Or Siegfried and Roy.
-xxoo
Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue
I am reading my sister’s telenovela, and it’s coming right along. There is a mustachioed villain, who ties a poor orphan to some railroad tracks, and then there is a guest appearance by Cher, who teams up with yet another orphan to save the day. I wish all those things I just said were true. Actually, it’s a lot of thinly-veiled autobiographical material. I think I am the the fussy older sister, except I don’t fucking shop at Target. And I don’t power-walk with little ankle weights, I do Pilates!
Anyway, we are on an unbearable memory lane promenade. So much of what she’s brought up is simply horrifying. For instance, she reminded me of all the gaping voids in my cultural knowledge. We didn’t have a TV until I was at least 8, maybe 9. Compound that with being home schooled until the age of 12 (breastfed until 3!), and you have a real freak on your hands. Lately I’ve been thinking of taking up sharpshooting for fun.
But when the TV did finally arrive, on a faux wood finish rolly cart, I rightly set out to cram as much pop culture as possible. I knew they were holding me back with their crunchy weirdness. Our mother and father had this delusion that we were only going to watch educational programs. There was much squalling and complaining, so they amended that to include anything they’d already seen that they knew wasn’t “insolent.” They last had a TV in about 1975, before their crazy “drop out of society” experiment of 1976-1986. So that meant I could watch all the Bewitched, Green Acres, and I Dream of Jeanie that I wanted. All fine, parentally approved stereotypes. “Oh Master!”
Insolence, if you were wondering, included Charles in Charge, Growing Pains, The Facts of Life, and so much more. Also objectionable: Alvin and the Chipmunks, because of their whiny little voices. What were these people thinking? I ask myself that to this day. If you ask them that very question, there is confused blinking, as if you are shining a painful light directly on them. At least they finally allowed that the Golden Girls was a pretty great show. For some reason, Small Wonder, with the robot daughter, was also OK. Then my mother eventually became hooked on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns. She would tape it so she could fast foward through the commercials. She became so wrapped up in the character that when we told her that she might like to see Six Degrees of Separation, she jumped at the chance. But then after she saw it, she was nonplussed: “MY Will would never do those things!”
What was I saying about shooting?
The question of the homunculus
You will pardon me for not updating yesterday. After a bit of domestic unpleasantness involving Condoleeza, I was in a black mood indeed. I embarked on a mission to purge my home for spring, as discarding things often makes me feel better, at least for a fleeting moment.
In a musty cubby, I discovered a relic of my childhood.
I became enraged at this symbol of my youthful quest for comfort. I have been failed by many things in life: my mother, religion, and especially Monsieur Buttons, who offered no defense against my father’s thrashings. His unspeaking velveteen muzzle only reinforced my loneliness. I might as well have hugged a stone to my young breast! I tossed the inanimate culprit into the rubbish bin in a fit of pique.
As day stretched into the long cold night, I grew more and more restless. What, if anything could I trust? If there is no higher power, am I really at the mercy of a little man in my head? How else could I explain my youthful follies? However shall I control these pagan instincts, this hopeless search for love and comfort? After much pacing, it hit me. The only thing in which I may legitimately place faith is Science! I scurried down the stairs to the laboratory.
After many hours, I believe I have fully explored the promise of the machine age. Behold my greatest creation:
At last I have designed an entity without the nagging constraint of free will! He feels no pain. He blindly obeys, without the last prick of conscience. I am stupidly filled with joy, which he will never have the burden of experiencing. He is everything a rational being should aspire to be!
I am going to test him out on Emil.
The creaky yoke of living
Licketysplit here, still plodding along without Lambchop. It is so lonely in the solarium without you, boddyyy! I am reduced to trying to teach this pleasing red rubber ball to play Baccarat with me. Steele did send a digital momento of their vacation so far, but it was a bit indecent. Well, if you consider the statue of David indecent. But for God and country and Ashcroft, I shall not display it. We do not traffic in the base emotions of the flesh.
Melvin has been champing at the bit for more column space, so we finally gave him our blessing (not that Melvin needs it), and he can now be found at a more suitable home. Do drop in on his new LiveJournal. Pace around, make yourself at home. He will summon his manservant, and you will share a fiery digestive.
In other strange developments, people have started asking Melvin for advice! Kitty Winn is livid. She threw a princess telephone at my head when I told her the news, and tried to stab me with the matching engraved dialer. Melvin does not deign to solve anyone’s problems. He has advised that in general he feels humankind is a wretched burden. Did you really think a well-heeled nihilist beagle would be of much service in matters of the heart? Cease and desist, Kitty Winn is the only one around here who is cut out for meddling. Seriously, she is threatening to quaff an entire bottle of nail polish remover if she doesn’t get some suitable letters soon.
I actually have a Kitty Winn-worthy problem, but I am not quite ready to share. The tightness in my chest is too great, the problem too monumental. Today I took to the couch and watched obscenely fit people trot by in the marathon. That just made me feel out of shape. So I took a nap. This problem is not existential in nature, I don’t really get those anymore since I sprayed the Angst-B-Gone around the mailbox and front walk. Â The only thing that gave me cheer all day was reading my sister’s account of the Cadbury Mini Horse Attack. Really, you should read it. There is dismemberment.
-xxoo
the faith of the proletariat
Today is Easter sunday. There is nothing to be done but curl up with a copy of the Brothers Karamazov for the rest of the day. I also consumed a coddled egg.
Over breakfast, I pondered the concept of resurrection, which lead me inevitably to the transience of earthly things, and all of mankind’s inevitable fate. We shall be dust eternally, despite the gaudy lies of the Bible and the deceptive promise of the spring season.
Why do I know more than other people? Why, in general, am I so clever? I am forever alone, isolated by my own apprehension.
A fugue
My taxing social obligation of yesterday afternoon left me spent and reeling. My compatriot’s loathesome nattering was incessant. It was all I could do to not end his pain and my own with the implement at hand. I retired to the library with a crashing headache. With the aid of a tincture mixed specially for me by the good doctor Richter, I was finally able to slip into the netherworld between sleep and reality.
My thoughts drifted back to my childhood, as they often do.
O wasted youth! A time unfettered by the understanding of the cares of life. Although I do not toil as a common peasant, I sometimes long for a spot of hard labor. An aching back would be a welcome distraction. Let my muscles sing their song of sadness, let my mind be blissfully blank.
Now where in blazes is Emil? The privet hedge needs a good pruning. It is simply frightful! And the polo field could use a soil rotation. Emil! You lazy cur!
Viewer outrage
Oh readers, what a discombobulating day. Our Lambchop is off touring through Bavaria with Steele for the Easter holidays. She doesn’t know this, but Steele took me into strict confidence and mentioned they will be visiting a few realtors to shop for a castle! He is eager to find one with a suitable balcony for Lambchop to let down her tresses, the rosy gloaming delicately highlighting her cheekbones.
In other news, I am stuck in Boston for the duration of Jesus’ rising, making a valiant go at starting my morning the way normal people do: watching the Today show and drinking a medium regular from Dunkin’ Donuts. But I was ASSAULTED, yes ASSAULTED, by a Lamisil ad that features a maniacal newt-like critter wreaking havoc with an unsuspecting toe. You think that flip-top head in the toothbrush commercial of recent years was bad? Try the trap-door toenail! Dear God. Foot care is near and dear to my own heart, but this, this is crossing the line of propriety!
See my letter to Lamisil, sent via their website. If you have seen this ad and are similarly concerned, do not be shy: let them know!
>
Dear Lamisil:
Just saw the Lamisil TV ad with the gremlin character flipping up the cartoon toenail and running under it to munch on the nail bed and otherwise root around like a pig under a blanket. I almost spat out my coffee. That is absolutely disgusting! I found myself clutching my own toes, howling in distress, til the end of the ad. I never want to see that ad again. While I’m sure nail fungus is painful and your product no doubt effective, why do I, a fungus-free individual, need to see this graphic imagery during my breakfast?
Please stop running this ad!
-yours, Lickety
>
Now I’m off to shiver in a darkened room.
-xxoo
I must remember to oil my rifle
I awoke melancholy, here from a nightmare about my mother. I barely knew her, but she haunts me still, a ghostly figure in my dreams, her teat long grown cold.
This afternoon I am supposed to go on a shooting lark with a tiresome acquaintance. He will doubtless brag of his recent conquest of some obscure countess in Monserrat, or his prowess at whist.
Ah Maman! When will the night terrors stop? I have scarcely the energy to drag myself to the solarium and prepare for this onerus social obligation. A piping hot Turkish coffee is just the ticket. I anticipate its bitter fire.
I see that the lady S–– has sent me another of her cloyingly perfumed social cards. Is it possible she is still unaware that I detest her? Surely not. Still, her egomania knows no bounds, and perhaps she simply cannot comprehend how vile she is.
* * * *
After fifteen minutes of ringing distractedly, Emil still fails to answer my summons. My ire swells within me. He is in for a sound drubbing! Without coffee, my suffering can only blossom.