Saturday, November 21, 2009

(Only Two) Things to Say

I have two things to say on this virutally starless Rhode Island night. (Some of the more country-ish, open-road towns have clusters and clusters of bright silver stars winking above, but not me here in this suburb.) The first:

Why do people have to get high on marijuana when there are conversations to be had in Chinese? Nothing gives me a high like talking with someone in his or her (non-English) native language.

The other:


Okay, so you've got a seventeen-year-old girl in front of you. You haven't seen this girl in probably almost a year now, ever since she stopped attending Saturday evening church service. Last time you saw her, she was pale and skinny and eating nothing but carrots at the Wednesday night church suppers. Then she went into the hospital. Put two and two together.


A tip for getting along with teenage girls, no matter how old you are: when you see the young lady a year later, don't tell her she looks like she's "gaining a pound or two", no matter how well you mean.
Emily

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Dreaming

I've been meaning to share the other night's dream.

It begins with a banned of drugged zombies at my door. Some of them I know; one is a cartoon character from Family Guy and a few are fellows from my past I had hoped never to see again.

I am not entirely sure what to say.

The zombie-druggies (I think they were really really drugged, not corpses - and one of them happened to be an addict from my past, so ...) pile into my front room and start sabatoging the house with their anti-social zombie etiquette. Some lie down on the couch and pass out. Others start moaning about their horrible, horrible lives to me. I begin playing counselor and offering advice. The zombies do not take the advice but instead decide to murder me. I run around for a while and, when the zombies are probably stumbling around confused somewhere in the house, I pick up the phone and dial 911.

"Hello," burbles the male receptionist on the other end, who sounds remarkably like the head of the theater department I recently auditioned for, "You've reached 911 Services; please state your emergency; if you are experiencing fire, robery, or attempted murder, please stay on the line and we will send an ambulance and police officers your way; if you are experiencing medical trauma, please describe your symptoms and we will send medical assistance in the form of ambulances and physicians; for all other calls, please hang up now."

"Hi, um, my hosue is full of drugged nuts who are chasing me around ... trying to kill me ... I think they might have had a little booze, too," I state calmly into the phone.

"Oh please," says the receptionist. "This sounds like a great plot for a movie, but you're just spewing nonsense, and so -"

"No, I'm serious. They've filled my house!"

"I have better things to do," sniffs the receptionist, and slams down the phone.

The rest of the dream is a blur - I leave the house to do some shopping or something. I come home and the drugged zombies have disappeared, leaving my brothers and mother in their places.

"Hi," I say. "Did someone send police officers to get rid of the zombies?"

"Um, no," replies my mother. Then she hesitates. "But they did send movie executives."

Wednesday, November 18, 2009