I am very sad today.
Karl the fish at 826 Valencia died. I just now found out. Too late to send flowers or bowls of red jell-o and bananas and Cool-Whip.
Karl was Jenfu’s boyfriend. I wanted him to be my fishy boyfriend, but did not want to step on the beautiful delicate feet of The Fu. Karl had blue eyes and ruled the other fish in the pirate store. I think I wanted to be Karl.
He died on July 21. Patsy Cline and I stopped in to 826 Valencia on June 21. I waved at Karl. I did not visit with him in his little fish enclave, for there were children there and I did not want to interrupt them. It was a happy visit. There was much drawer inspection, much oogling at glass eyeballs, much sign reading. Much “aaargghing” at Patsy Cline, who put up with my “aaarghs” most admirably.
Ah Karl. Ye were a good fish. Bon voyage, matey.
Sad aaargh.
Status report on the flies: When I got home, I was so impressed with my ingenuity at creating the Tower of Death that I promptly created two more, another for the kitchen and then inexplicably, one for the bathroom. Apparently my first estimation of nine flies was accurate, for there are currently seven of them stuck to the Two Towers and two angsty runt flies are buzzing round, proud with themselves and their refusal to conform. They probably listen to Rammstein and read Rilke and hope that it makes them special.
However, Tilly and I made a trip to the bathroom in the wee hours (wee! I kill myself. I truly do.) of the night. I have another eye disease (oy, it is my lot in life to be a carrier for eye schmeng disease.) so could barely open my eyes to the light. And then after washing my hands, suddenly something attacked me. It was the fly strip, attempting to hitch a ride back to my bedroom on my arm. And then my shirt. I managed to ditch it in the garbage and then scrub mightily for ten minutes at the resulting syrupy guck. Luckily that one had been unsuccessful at catching any flies, so the grossness factor was minimal.
Esteban is apparently coming back at some point this evening. He doesn’t know when, but apparently I will be alerted by email. The house is really different when he’s not there. Mostly, there’s no Law And Order soundtrack playing. I think that the theme music makes me tense. Because you know someone is going to die. Esteban has an unhealthy obsession with Law & Order: Fashion Victim, as well as CSI: Sioux Falls. Actually, I don’t mind the CSI for some reason, even though they both have a theme song by The Who and usually have one shot of a camera following a bullet through a torso. Esteban records it on Ricky Fitts, and thus watches it in bed (because Ricky lives in my bedroom), which promptly puts me right to sleep. It’s not that it’s a boring show. I’ll actually get interested but slowly my eyelids grow larger than my eyes and then Ricky’s happy little BooBoop! of the episode being deleted. I’ll usually lift my head groggily and say ‘Who did it?’ and Esteban will kiss my nose and say ‘The customs guy’ go back to sleep.’ And I will. I suspect that there is serious sleep drugs in the voice of David Kelly. Something in the way he tilts his head and speaks, it’s just that I zzzzz.
In other news, my job is still incredibly stressful, but I wrote up a proposition for one minor change to the process, which hopefully will decrease my involvement with some external factors (gee’am I getting too detailed?) and am in the process of regulating my schedule so that I won’t have two crazy weeks of twelve to fourteen hour days and then two normal weeks of ten hour days. Remember when I used to be like ‘My job? Eh. Yeah, it’s there.’ and now I remind myself of Daffy Duck when he’d get too excited and hop around seemingly defying gravity, his voice going three octaves too high. But the cool thing, the reason that I brought this up in the first place, is that I am taking a writing workshop at a nearby university which has an English graduate program. And I had fully expected to have to pay for the three credit class out of my own pocket. But in explaining my need for a flexible schedule on Tuesdays to my boss, he said ‘And what is this in?’ And I replied, ‘Writing.’ And he replied ‘In a degree program?’ and I nodded. And he shrugged and said ‘Ok, we’ll cover that.’ And my jaw dropped, because years ago, I went to human resources to see if our tuition reimbursement would cover an identical writing workshop and the human resources guy laughed at me, because there is no single job in our company that has ‘Write Short Stories’ in its job description. So yeah, even though I don’t love my job, my boss rocks.
Oh, speaking of that, we hired a new guy a few months ago. He seems cool, but has this little card with his personal email address stuck up on his cube. And in looking for clues on the two truths and a lie game, I discovered his personal web page. And his online diary.
Insert raised eyebrow here.
So this is a conundrum. As a general rule of thumb, I do not broadcast the fact that I have an online diary to people I know. There are people at work who know about the diary and who read the diary on a daily basis. That is fine and cool. They knew me before they started reading this and I trust them. However, I do not make it a point to say ‘Hi, I’m Weetabix’ I write an online diary!’ when I meet someone or get to know them. Well, maybe at JournalCon.
Speaking of which, if you’re on the fence about going to JournalCon, you might want to make up your mind in the next few days because after the end of the month, the registration fee goes up by 10 bucks. So it’s cheaper to register now, especially if you already know that you’re going (ahem). And SundryFuckinMourning, my Beermate, is going! She’s right there on the list so I know that it is so! Yay! I may just pee my pants with excitement.
See, that’s how a Dumber Than A Box Of Rocks entry should go. Be a little poignant, be a little funny, show some “slice of life” stuff, and then end on an up note. My work here is done.
