LIFE IS A MATTER OF TRYING TO FIND THE APPROPRIATE BALANCE OF DINOSAURS AND SODOMY.

[kleenexwoman]

It appears to be Fertilizer Day, that glorious time of the year when the farmers outside Mount Pleasant all decide to spread manure on their fields at once. The whole town smells like shit. When the wind changes, everything smells like a slightly different flavor of shit. Nobody bothered to explain this to the ACE kids, so they kept shifting around in their seats and giggling, trying to figure out who'd farted or not taken a shower.

*

Dream I had a while ago:

I was riding in a Jeep across a huge Midwestern plain to the edge of a lake to check out a new housing development. With both eyes open, there was nothing but swampland, tall grass, and water, as far as the eye could see.
With my left eye open, I could see a huge city full of glossy black skyscrapers and factories that looked more like greenhouses. The streets were wide and clean and full of zippy electric cars. The storefronts were all very chic and minimalist, and there were little unobtrusive TV screens with news tickers scrolling mounted on lampposts. Everything was very quiet and peaceful, and there weren't many people around, but the ones that were outside were either going to lunch, running errands, or going to and from work. As I wandered around, a woman came up to me and asked me if I needed directions to somewhere, and when I said yes, she offered to give me a tour of the whole city. She said her boss wouldn't mind, because helping visitors or prospective residents of the city settle in was considered to be one of the most charitable, useful things a person could do.
With my right eye open, I could see a town made of of shacks and hastily assembled cabins, neighborhoods strung with Christmas lights, dusty narrow roads full of bicyclers and stray chickens, music spilling out of the bars on every corner. Everyone was strolling aimlessly or chilling out in the street, wandering in and out of each others' houses, wearing cut-offs and raggy dresses. Whenever I asked for directions, the people I asked said they had no idea what I was talking about or how to get to where I wanted to go, but wouldn't I stay and help them make some stew or harvest their gardens or fix their houses? Each invitation to help with chores turned out to be an invitation to an impromptu stew-making or garden-harvesting or house-fixing party, where everyone would do about five or ten minutes of work in shifts and then hang around dancing and drinking and gossiping while they waited for their turn to come again.

I couldn't decide which place I wanted to live in, so I opened both eyes and wandered around the swampy grasslands for a while. Right before the dream ended, I realized that I didn't necessarily have to choose just one, but I didn't know how the residents of either city would take it, and I never got to ask.

Comments

[sir-dave.livejournal.com]

DINOSAURS AND SODOMY.

???

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

The quote was originally about writing, but someone helpfully pointed out that it applies to life quite nicely.

[sir-dave.livejournal.com]

The logic of this escapes me ---

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

It's a secondhand quote from one of my favorite SF writers. (http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006945.html) I figure it's either a trenchant metaphor about the need to balance action and emotion, ideas and meaning, or it's a good way to ensure that every SF story for the next 15 years is about those two inexhaustibly fun topics.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a pretty crappy holiday. And what sort of candy would the confectionary industry market for it? Somehow special Hershey Kisses and Mounds bars don't seem all that appetizing.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

It's an excellent excuse to break out the jasmine oil and try out new scented deodorants and soaps, and not to go outside.

I like to imagine that the farmers all get together the night before and have a feast of the last of their strawberry, mushroom, and other dung-grown produce harvests.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Agggggh, don't remind me that our food is grown with the help of manure. Yes, I know, it's a natural cycle of events. I still don't want to know that my fruit salad has leftover atoms of cow dung in it.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

I really don't get why people are so squicked by this. As long as you don't get E. coli or salmonella or what have you and it doesn't taste like shit, what's the issue? Same thing with shit and dirt being in most commercially-sold ground beef. As long as humans aren't getting sick from it all the time, it just fails to elicit a reaction from me.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

I know, I was sort of kidding. I mean, you can't really get sicked out by the quality of food preparation at any given fast-food joint (or even a slightly higher-quality restaurant).

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

When you fly into Savannah, GA (where my dad's from), if you're coming from the north anyway (usually via a stopover in Atlanta), you get about fifteen minutes where you're right in the area of this huge paper mill outside of town, and the scent from its waste materials gets sucked right into the plane. It's worse than any kind of manure you can imagine. I have no idea why it smells so bad. Paper is made from trees, right?

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

It's the chemicals they use to treat the paper, I assume.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

It's probably that and a combination of the standard Savannah stink. When you go to the riverfront it smells like . . . some weird sort of canned creamed corn. It's the salt in the water. (Savannah's a very cool place, incidentally, and if you ever get the chance you should visit. It's a beautiful city but has a weird Southern vibe, kind of like an even cooler New Orleans.)

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

What sort of economy does Mt. Pleasant have? Is it just one of those towns in the middle of farmland that grew up around a college and that's it, or is there something more?

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

There's also the casino.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Oh right, I forgot about that.

Ringo Starr is playing at Casino Windsor in a few days and I am quite tempted to go. I figure I should see at least one Beatle before they croak.

Casinos in general bore the hell out of me. I've been to the ones in Detroit a few times, just with friends, and it was a fun night out with the guys, but as for the gambling part . . . I mean, the flashing lights and the general casino vibe did a lot more for me than playing games. (I came out fifteen dollars ahead of what I went in with one time, though, thanks to a huge slotmachine win -- on a Jeopardy! machine, no less, which I think is a good omen -- so I won't complain.)

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

One of my ex-boyfriends, the one who was both a vampire and the reincarnation of John Lennon, kept getting us tickets for Ringo Starr concerts and I never ended up going. If I ever go to a Ringo Starr concert, I intend to go with him. (And probably his wife, and possibly their kid.)

Slot machines bore the fuck out of me. I had a great time playing at a blackjack table with my Great-Aunt Jane to help me out, though--she showed me some tricks and little additions to the game, and spotted me chips when I was down. I ended up winning about $100. It was awesome.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

I kept meaning to go whenever he'd play at Pine Knob (he was a regular every summer for several years there) and I never did. I'm guessing Macca's got at least one more world tour under his belt (god knows he'll need it to recoup his losses after that divorce settlement) so that'll probably be when I go. (And if Zeppelin tours this autumn, as I hope I hope I hope they will -- you and me, second row at the Palace, screaming and bowing and throwing underwear. I'm actually not joking there. When I saw Plant & Page back in 1995, I was in the very last row of the floor, but had an excellent view, and I have never danced or rocked out so hard in my life. It was as close to a transcendent moment as I've ever had without actual sex being involved.)


Slots are boring (and depressing, when you see some little old lady who obviously can barely afford prescription medication sitting there for hours on end blowing her life savings), but I'm no good at cards (especially can't stand playing 'em in social settings -- chess and Monopoly are my games, and that's all). And I'm not skilled enough at gambling to do more than small-potatoes stakes. I probably could train myself to be really good and even count cards stealthily, but I've never bothered.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

By the way, what was John Lennon's last hit? The pavement outside the Dakota.

It's rather interesting, the doormen at the Dakota don't really discourage tourists from hanging out at the entrance where he was shot. I mean, you can't go into the courtyard, but you can go right up to its entrance and be pretty much where he was when he was hit.

[anivad.livejournal.com]

Somewhat off-topic: Bob Arctor in your ASD icon looks disturbingly like Johnny Depp. Every time I see it, I think of Johnny Depp.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

:/

now I can't unsee it

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

!!! That isn't Johnny Depp?

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

No.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

My little sister would be so disappointed.

[anivad.livejournal.com]

lulz i broke your brain.