Idea

Idea for a horror movie: Feral sheep attack a group home in rural Connecticut. No plot, really, just scenes of people slaughter interspersed with bits involving a lady scientist and a boy-man who lost his inhaler in the game room where, incidentally, the grisliest sheep attacks occur. The sheep are overwhelmed at last, though not not eliminated entirely; a few of the nastiest sheep escape into the brush, thereby setting the scene for Sheep Attack 2 and Sheep Attack Meets Tarantula.

Fairy Tales

When I was younger, Fat Old Molly used to make sure I was in bed at a reasonable hour. She hated this task, but it often fell to her as a result of my inability to keep a nanny. At any rate, these stories will put any child to sleep, especially if they are shouted impatiently from the corridor.

The Princess and the Pee
Once upon a time there was a princess who had a shellfish allergy. She was also incontinent and complained a lot. Then one day she fell off the garage roof while trying to see into her neighbor's bathroom. She threw out her back and never married. The end.

The Witch with the Hickey
Once upon a time a witch had a hickey, but she told everyone that she burned her neck with a curling iron. Nobody believed her, so she told everyone to meet her behind the school at midnight and she'd provide proof. Everyone showed up at midnight except the witch, who hadn't reset her clocks to daylight saving time. The end.

The Idiot Prince
Once upon a time a prince threw his mobile phone into a wallaby cage at the zoo. The end.

The Beautiful Fairy with the Injured Wing
Once upon a time a beautiful fairy had her wing caught in her fly. She was in terrific pain. Her friend Zoe drove her to Urgent Care, where she had to wait around for hours before receiving medical attention. When she finally saw a doctor, he had food on his face. The end.

The Wizard Who Feared the Sea
Once upon a time there was a wizard who was afraid of the water. All of his friends were surfers and they teased him relentlessly. He had his revenge by sleeping with their girlfriends. At the age of 38 he discovered his own lactose intolerance. Eventually he went back to school to become a certified public accountant. The end.

I Would Have Gladly Ignored It

Squander Two lovingly passed this straitjacket of a meme on to me. I would have gladly ignored it, naturally, but the man said my answers would be "amusingly strange..." Nothing strange here, you will note. But then he twisted the knife: "...if she answers it. Which she probably won't." Well, we'll see about that.

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
I despise books! If I had to be a book I'd be the telephone directory.
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
All of my crushes are fictional, whether they begin that way or not. I despise crushes!
The last book you bought is:
The Essays of EB White. When I arrived home I realized that I already owned the Essays of EB White. I will presently return The Essays of EB White for a full refund. I despise EB White!
The last book you read:
The Mackerel Plaza. I despised it!
What are you currently reading?
Of Human Bondage. I despise it!
Five books you would take to a deserted island:
I despise books! I'd take five copies of the telephone directory and do nothing but make prank phone calls all day. I despise deserted islands!
Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?
I'm not going to pass any sticks. I despise passing sticks!

Let Us Now Praise Famous Mice

This afternoon I found Rafe passed out cold in front of the house, his suitcase flung open with all manner of shirts and plus fours strewn across the lawn. He smelled strongly of drink. I did my best to drag him round the side of the house, but I ran out of steam as I neared the first shrub. I kicked his clothing in to a pile and plopped it all into his suitcase. I set the suitcase on his puny chest and gave him a nice kiss on the forehead - then I legged it to the post office to mail my response to J. Carlington Gusfeld's The Weekly Question starring J. Carlington Gusfeld as J. Carlington Gusfeld. This week's question is "How necessary is reggae, given the current geopolitical climate, and what do you propose we do to limit its influence in our schools?" My response is positively priceless, and I'd like to share it with you now, but then what reason will you have to tune into his radio show? He's sure to read my response on air this week. Oof, it's good.

It is a Truth Universally Ignored

It appears that I now have Mondays open and available for hours of napping and reflective moping - and Tuesdays and Wednesdays as well - and while I find this development bewildering to the core, I intend to use my blossoming time to the utmost. For example, it's already noon and I've donned socks and knocked off one cup of tea. Not too shabby. Tomorrow I may skim the newspaper or pelt pedestrians with wads of wet gutter leaves. The possibilities are endless, and my espièglerie without rival. In other words, I see no escape but the grave.

Ah, Spring is At Our Throats

Now that winter is behind us, I think I can safely say that I hated every moment of it, especially that interminable bit in February where the young Jody Baxter and that idiot deer Flag hunted bears and learned timeless lessons of love and letting go.

And I wasn't particularly fond of that movie "The Yearling," either.

I Can No Longer Vouch For the Quality of this Blog

I can’t think of a single thing to post on this blog. I just printed out a line drawing of Ulysses S. Grant, however. I’m going to color it in and send it to my grandfather. My grandfather’s dead, of course, but everyone likes to get mail.

It's Bin a Gantin' Day

Jobby. Ah coods teel ye abit th' human hain Ah foond in the toilets thes morn but Ah willnae. Aam tay upsit abit it at th' moment! Forgife me. Mebbe later.

Thursday

Spoke briefly to Flavian on the phone tonight. He said he'd be leaving Haiti on Saturday to pick up his dry cleaning in Newark, and did I want to fly to Newark to see him before his return flight to Haiti? When I told him no, he burst into tears and repeatedly thwacked at the table with his phone. I could hear bellowing and glass shattering and door slamming. And to think that he told me his house had no doors! I don't know what to believe anymore.

I May Never Find My Hat

Was out searching for my hat today when I saw someone peeking at me from behind an oak. I investigated immediately - to my horror, it was a ghastly mime! I was so shocked that I slapped his face. He made no sound; he merely held his cheek and gaped at me with his dreadful, sad white face. So I slapped him again. Still nothing, no response. I had his white makeup all over my palm, so I wiped it on his lapel. Then I told him to get off my land or I'll release the dogs. He looked heartbroken and he slouched away in the direction of the river. Probably going to drown himself, I thought. Good riddance.

I never did find my hat. Stupid mime.

Fae Wellington's The Loathing of Carolyn Forché

Some ripping magnifico recently stumbled upon Topic Drift by Googling "Is Carolyn Forché too obscene?" This is a tired line of inquiry, as many know, but I am often of tremendous help with tired lines of inquiry, so I will press forward. Yes, Carolyn Forché is too obscene, and I while I cannot prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, I am pleased to provide what little information I can on this topic.

Look. Why does Old Lady Forché utilize such an ancient photograph on her website? Because she hasn't worn clothing in the past twenty years, for starters. Patently obscene. The only other poets obscene enough to wade naked through their golden years are Milton and Bukowski - Milton because he was blind and convinced that he was indeed clothed, and Bukowski because he had no woman to wash his filthy rags. Obscene.

She writes prose poetry. Few things rankle civilized man's ass like a prose poem. Obscene.

She abuses the objective correlative. As this is an internet smear, I do not have to back this up with examples or fact. I can just say it like it's true. It's probably not true. Is this true? Obscene, at any rate.

She calls herself a "poet of witness." Bah. No such thing. One might just as well call oneself a "nursemaid of trout" or "lieutenant of puddings" or "Human Resources Director" or "lumberjack of peri-menopause" or "emperor of ice cream". All nonsense. That last one's taken, I think.

She penned the line "Horses were turned loose in the child's sorrow." What in heaven's name does that mean? Children have no sorrow. For children, life is one big strawberry. Obscene.

I'm already bored sick with this topic, as are you, so I'm off to the basement to work on my tunnel to White Castle. As nearly every professor told me in college, "You need to flesh this out and give more examples. Do some research." Pfffft. Bah. Obscene.

FYI - In case you were wondering "Is Carolyn Forche too obscene? Too obscene for what?" I have compiled the following list. You may wish to print it out and stick it to the refrigerator for quick reference.

Carolyn Forché is too obscene for
-words
-a dinner invitation
-polite society
-water polo
-troglodyte surgery
-Grandma Moses
-seaside outing with the family
-penguins (both bird and snack varieties)

UPDATE: Silly me. Whoever googled "Is Carolyn Forché too obscene?" was not looking for an answer. He was looking for the new Milton Bradley board game "Is Carolyn Forché Too Obscene?" I haven't played this board game, but it appears to be a hybrid of Chutes and Ladders and Uno.

The Rabbit Fur Case Keeps Your Lipstick at Room Temperature

Received a nice low wolf whistle from a couple of meth-crazed youths as I walked home today. Excellent. Just the sort of confidence booster I needed before launching my new line of fur-covered cosmetics. I test my cosmetics exclusively (and heavily) on small animals and then I recycle any usable bits of their pelts as packaging. Available at Macys and Bloomingdales, mid-April through October.

Sweet Nostalgia

I was going through some boxes recently and I found my 27th Anniversary Commemorative Lusitania musket. Fools maintain that the Lusitania sank after contact with a nasty torpedo, but that is simply not true. She sank because "Wild Man" Elisha Cameron was shooting his musket in steerage. He was rather drunk and jolly and locked in a linen cupboard, and he was determined to shoot his way out of said cupboard to find Tungsten "Tootie" Wilberforce-Packard III, the fruit who locked him in there after a particularly grueling game of draughts. Both Elisha and Tootie survived the sinking and "lived" out their "lives" in "Ohio". Or so they say. Either this story is true or I spent 700 bucks on crap.

So anyway, I found my commemorative musket, bitches.

Not Very Agreeable, Having a Felon in the Water Supply

I have another escaped convict stuck in my well. This afternoon he was making such a racket that I stomped out there, pulled the well cover off and threw a pebble in. "Ouch! Hey! Can you hear me?" he shouted. "Can't hear a thing!" I shouted back. He coughed a bit, and shouted "I'm stuck in this well, can you lower me a sandwich?" Just then I noticed a spider on my arm, so I shrieked and dropped the well cover. I brushed the spider off and rushed indoors to have a shower. I swear I could hear that outlaw bellowing the whole time - I could scarcely appreciate my aromatherapy bath gel with all the bitching and griping coming through the pipes. Right. He can march himself straight out of that well and fix his own sandwich, the lazy lummox. Marry me once, shame on you - fix you sandwiches when you break out of jail twice, shame on me.

Those Perilous Saturday Naps

Just woke from a nightmare involving a dowager who could unhinge her jaw and uproot radiators with her teeth. She was too humped and feeble to lift the radiators and heave them at me properly, but she tried - oh, how she tried. She hounded me through an endless manse, plucking radiators from the flooring with her enormous mandibles of death, and I'd bolt onward to safety - room after room she flew after me in terrifying pursuit. When I was certain she'd lost my trail, I'd relax. There I'd be, reading the evening paper and drinking a cup of tea by the hearth, safe in a room with no radiators, when she'd howl into my chamber and we'd be off again. When I finally woke from this dream, I shuffled into the pantry for a bit of something - and there she was, eating my chocolate biscuits with her grisly unhinged jaw! I saw my chance, so I clobbered her with a frozen ham.

Just waiting for the police to blow in now.

Learn English the EWP Way

Loads of immigrants the metropolis these days, and who is out there helping them learn English? Why, I am helping them, of course! Or I will be helping them, as soon as my Learn English The EWP Way project is completed and distributed. It's amazing - two cassette tapes and a booklet of English phrases. Just listen to the tapes and follow along in the booklet, and you'll be speaking English in no time! I put the emphasis on simple phrases that most natives use several times a day. Easy peasy.

I don't speak Somali or Ukrainian or whatever it is that immigrants speak these days, but I do not intend to let that fact soil my project. I have only a few phrases yet untranslated, and they're tricky ones:

"Look at all the dog shit on that lawn. Have those people no shame?"
"What do you mean, no off-sale liquor on Sunday? Have you people no shame?"
"Stop prancing around like a girl and fight me with this stick."
"What?!? Pfff. Acupuncture isn't real."
"I'm going to have a nap now. When I wake up, all of these cowboy hats had better be OUT of the kitchen."
"When I saw you at the pier, I wanted to tell you that I loved you. But instead, I just went home with your sister."
"Who is this fellow 'Hercules?' I say, is he god... or man?"
"It's maple syrup. It's for pancakes. Just shut up and eat what I put in front of you."
"There are several types of clouds. Cirrus, stratus, etc. - all of them failures."
"When you take a hot shower and fog up the mirror, wipe off the entire mirror. Don't just wipe off enough to see your face. Nobody wants to see your face."
"Can you keep the back long and sorta feather the sides a little? I'd like to look like Steve Perry."

Dark Days

Again - havoc, despair! My social retardation is roaring along at an all-time high. To make matters worse, today a Girl Scout came to my door and I chased her away with a folding chair. She was so frightened that she dropped the cookies and never returned for payment. I'll eat the cookies, of course, but will I enjoy them? My Magic 8 Ball says "SIGNS POINT TO YES."

UPDATE: Lest you think I teeter at the brink of unholy chaos, I rush to assure you that all is well. I just broke into Fat Old Molly's tantalus and helped myself to a generous dose of "gin." Doing fine now, and all that.

Word Problem, 12 points

Today I baked twelve pies. I put two pies on a westbound train headed north at 5 knots; I put the remaining ten pies (blueberry, all of them) on a eastbound train headed south at 120 mph. Both trains began their journey in the same town. What time did the trains collide underwater, and how many hobos shat out their tapeworms due to my use of Mom's Blueberry Baking Sauce (currently found in the cleaner aisle under the misleading moniker "Lysol Disinfectant All-Purpose Cleaner in Island Breeze")? In which city did the trains collide, and what flavor were the two pies in the first train? Finally, what must man do to win the trust of an angry god? No calculators - show your work.

Letter

Dear Rafe,
Won't you please come back? I can't imagine why you'd want to be in Italy - I hear it's terribly boring and full of fire ants and men who shout at street signs. You can find those things here. And I know you don't speak Italian. You can barely speak English, and you've lived here all your life. You are entirely too rash. You didn't even say goodbye! Mother hasn't been this upset since you stole our boat and killed that poor man studying algae.

Good news, though. Monty's cat threw up and it was just as you thought - he had swallowed my cigarette case. It's tarnished now, and most of the emeralds are gone. I can't help but wonder if this was retribution for laughing at Monty's mustaches. I couldn't help it! They're ridiculous, like pea pods.

Flavian is still in Haiti and I don't think he's coming back. What an unforgivable pack of bores you are.

Thine,
Esther

Sturm und Drang, or More of the Same

Just ran my motorcar into an oak on the estate - really dashed the front bit to pieces this time. What an atrocious driver I am! Hilarious, really, when you consider that I was being chased by a horse. Rox was riding the horse, and she's a bastard person, to be sure; but I was so high on poisoned oysters that I thought she was a foaming triceratops. Lost my hat in the chase - the gorgeous one with the dull pink band. Do hand it back if you come across it - I miss it so.

My All-Time Favorite Pets Named Deborah, Part 1

The Stoat Deborah
The Stoat Deborah was my favorite stoat ever. She would not keep to her cage, and she was too fast for the muskrats. Normally, I would never administer alcohol to my pets - but The Stoat Deborah could really hold her drink, so I poured her a cold one whenever she showed up at the fridge. When she was drunk, she ran in circles and became verbally abusive with my feet. I stepped on her once, but she sprang back to life within minutes. The Stoat Deborah died in 1999 of the Spanish influenza.

Deborah Weasel
Deborah Weasel was my favorite weasel ever. She lived in the basement in a broken kayak. One day, I took the kayak to the lake to see it if would float, but it sank; as it sank, Deborah Weasel swam out and bit my shin. I developed rabies and I almost died. After my long recovery, Deborah Weasel emerged from the kayak to bite me again. I developed rabies again and I nearly died. Shocking behavior on the part of Deborah Weasel, I thought. Since then, she's bitten me thrice, and thrice I've contracted rabies. Deborah Weasel is still alive and living in my kayak.

Deborah Marie Newt
Deborah Marie Newt was my favorite newt, but she was already dead when I brought her home. I dried her out and kept her in the garage until the garage was repossessed by the IRS. The IRS sold Dry Deborah Marie Newt at auction for $25. A steal, I do think.

Ominous Deborah Muskrat
Ominous Deborah Muskrat was my favorite muskrat ever - until she attacked my au pair, Nan Petra Francesca. It was a vicious lakeside attack and I haven't been comfortable around Ominous Deborah Muskrat since. Nan Petra Francesca died during the attack and Ominous Deborah Muskrat bullied me into weighing down Nan Petra's body and hurling her into the lake. Ominous Deborah Muskrat said that if I did not help her get rid of Nan Petra's body, she'd tell Father that I killed my au pair with my new comb. I believed her, of course; it was a very sharp comb, and Father was so very stupid.

I Will Tell You Something for Nothing

Here at Topic Drift, you will not see any "Light posting today, must visit Hamish at the bakery," or "Having labor induced at the clinic today - light posting for a week or so," or "Sorry I haven't posted much, I've been distracted by my blacklite posters, then I fell down a well and had to be rescued by dolphins," - no, none of that. When my posting goes thin, it is because I am watching television. Experts will tell you to reign in your television habit, but they are nothing but impudent toads in lab coats. They can't afford cable television on a lab salary and they're determined to spoil everyone's fun. I will tell you something for nothing - I'll not allow them to spoil my fun. I will now celebrate this post by watching as much Laugh-In as I can before my facial tick returns.

Spring Cleaning

I was just perusing some clay tablets I found in the carport, and I’ve discovered something that I think will interest you. Ancient Sumerian wisdom has it that "When the going gets tough, something something something Enkidu something." (The tablet is kind of destroyed on one side.) The context clues lead me to believe that the missing bits have to do with acquiring the proper mulch to produce an adequate pH level in your soil. I’ve also found a passage regarding pigs, and how they’re just as friendly as dogs, though slightly less likely to protect your reed hut from impetuous women and vague guys selling candy bars.

I Am Indifferent to Bejeweled Head Devices

Who likes tiaras? I am indifferent to the tiara, though I am convinced that no adult of real importance would be caught dead wearing such a blatant instrument of imbecility. Better to just wear a diamondy wristwatch in your hair. That way, you are providing a minor public service while advertising your wealth; everyone needs to know when it's time to leave the ball to get home and relieve the dog of his baby-sitting duties. Donald Trump no longer needs diamonds to advertise his wealth, so he might take this concept a step further by wearing fresh syringes and free condoms in his hair. "Now there is a rich man who aims to help the common people," someone would say. I wouldn't say this, but surely someone would.

kheuh urhgi 4rgibflkur ???

When people say "Physician, heal thyself," I always start weeping uncontrollably, because what if the physician is walking around, minding his own business, when both of his arms fall off? He won't be able to pick up his arms, much less heal himself. Someone is going to have to pick up his arms for him - and this helper won't be able to hand the physician his arms, because the physician will have no arms to hold his arms in his arms. That's what I'm talking about.