Longing for an Unplottable Charm

The cable men did indeed bring their fiberoptic manna. Until they pressed the button on the magical remote, I thought I didn't miss the time-wasting narcosis of TV, but I did. Oh, I did. I watched The Closer last night and reveled in the clarity of the picture even as I longed to punch Fritz in the face for constantly pressuring Brenda to have a baby even though she'd made it perfectly clear before they married that she wasn't interested. Fritz redeemed a measure of himself later in the episode, however, when he put Brenda's bratty, heretofore unmentioned niece in her place for dosing Brenda with pot brownies and calling him a drunk. Too bad Brenda undermined his authority when he tried to send her home by trotting out the nauseating martyrdom of never giving up on a troubled teenager. It's a wonderful, noble sentiment, but it's also utterly impractical in certain cases. Some teenagers just want to be lost, and no amount of petting and tough love will dissuade them from taking the road to perdition. Charlie isn't there yet, but I'm betting Brenda's unwitting ingestion of pot brownies will come back to bite her later.

The only drawback to my glorious new TV setup is that I no longer know how to turn on my DVD player since everything runs through a space-age cable box that I suspect of possessing artificial intelligence and the diabolical will to throttle me in my sleep with its clutching, coiling AV cables. There's an auxiliary button, but I'm afraid to press it, lest my television signal disappear forevermore.

My mother is driving me insane. She calls or finds reasons to "just stop by" almost daily. She promised me she wouldn't, that she'd give me my own space, and I knew she was lying because I know her. I am of her, after all. I just thought that her encroachment would be more gradual, that she'd contain herself for a month or two in an act of false good faith before she mounted her relentless campaign of "checking in on me". No such luck. I'd bet my boobies that she'll turn up today because the red-necked angels are here, busily widening the doors, and she'll just have to see how it's going. Tomorrow, she's coming to clean, and on Saturday, she's declared that we're going shopping for a car.

When she's not happily planning my life, she's nagging me about every dime I spend. Apparently, I can pull money out of my ass for a car, a new refrigerator, and a new washer and dryer, but paying $3.29 for a kielbasa or spending $7.50 at the all-you-can-eat buffet is wasteful frivolity. But if I don't have "enough" in my shopping cart at the grocery store, then I'm not taking care of myself. Somehow I'm supposed to fill my cart to the brim with food without actually spending money to acquire it. And I'm supposed to buy "cute"(limper-unfriendly) clothing, but only if it costs less than $5.00. I'm supposed to save my money, but live nicely. It's positively schizophrenic, and nothing I do is right. This house and city would be fantastic if my mother weren't in it.

Longing for an Unplottable Charm

The cable men did indeed bring their fiberoptic manna. Until they pressed the button on the magical remote, I thought I didn't miss the time-wasting narcosis of TV, but I did. Oh, I did. I watched The Closer last night and reveled in the clarity of the picture even as I longed to punch Fritz in the face for constantly pressuring Brenda to have a baby even though she'd made it perfectly clear before they married that she wasn't interested. Fritz redeemed a measure of himself later in the episode, however, when he put Brenda's bratty, heretofore unmentioned niece in her place for dosing Brenda with pot brownies and calling him a drunk. Too bad Brenda undermined his authority when he tried to send her home by trotting out the nauseating martyrdom of never giving up on a troubled teenager. It's a wonderful, noble sentiment, but it's also utterly impractical in certain cases. Some teenagers just want to be lost, and no amount of petting and tough love will dissuade them from taking the road to perdition. Charlie isn't there yet, but I'm betting Brenda's unwitting ingestion of pot brownies will come back to bite her later.

The only drawback to my glorious new TV setup is that I no longer know how to turn on my DVD player since everything runs through a space-age cable box that I suspect of possessing artificial intelligence and the diabolical will to throttle me in my sleep with its clutching, coiling AV cables. There's an auxiliary button, but I'm afraid to press it, lest my television signal disappear forevermore.

My mother is driving me insane. She calls or finds reasons to "just stop by" almost daily. She promised me she wouldn't, that she'd give me my own space, and I knew she was lying because I know her. I am of her, after all. I just thought that her encroachment would be more gradual, that she'd contain herself for a month or two in an act of false good faith before she mounted her relentless campaign of "checking in on me". No such luck. I'd bet my boobies that she'll turn up today because the red-necked angels are here, busily widening the doors, and she'll just have to see how it's going. Tomorrow, she's coming to clean, and on Saturday, she's declared that we're going shopping for a car.

When she's not happily planning my life, she's nagging me about every dime I spend. Apparently, I can pull money out of my ass for a car, a new refrigerator, and a new washer and dryer, but paying $3.29 for a kielbasa or spending $7.50 at the all-you-can-eat buffet is wasteful frivolity. But if I don't have "enough" in my shopping cart at the grocery store, then I'm not taking care of myself. Somehow I'm supposed to fill my cart to the brim with food without actually spending money to acquire it. And I'm supposed to buy "cute"(limper-unfriendly) clothing, but only if it costs less than $5.00. I'm supposed to save my money, but live nicely. It's positively schizophrenic, and nothing I do is right. This house and city would be fantastic if my mother weren't in it.