08: Words in the wind

Oh sweet bloggage.

Summer is never a particularly good time for the blog. You'd think, with copious amounts of free time, I'd have more time to sit and have thoughts and then record those thoughts in SWP form, but the truth is I don't usually tend to blog as much unless there's something extra-interesting going on in my life. The catch is, if it's really all that interesting, it's probably taking up all my time anyway. The trick is having something routine and repetitive yet interesting and different each time, like a class I enjoy, if it's the school year.

Whereas in the summer I just have to sit around being bored until enough time has passed. And since nothing has happened lately, I blog about how nothing has happened, like how my best friend in grade 5 and I used to talk on the phone until we had nothing left to talk about, then we'd talk about that.

A more interesting person would've had that anecdote about a girl. BUT YOU ARE READING THIS WHY.

Ahem.

Writing. Drawing. Doing stuff, occasionally. Waging war on the rotten peaches and the wasps that covet them. Hrm. See, here's how it is. We've got this peach tree in the backyard. We used to have a few trees but we cut most of 'em down. One remains and it grows peaches by the arseload. Because we are not peach farmers and don't even particularly enjoy the fruit in its natural state, they just bloom until they hit the ground and stay there for the wasps to prey upon. Pathetic, a very sad fate for an innocent, guiltless, well-meaning fruit. Moldy and dead, unloved except by the insects that feed upon its sugars. So the wasps all congregate in the backyard which is bad when I need to clear away the dead peaches for lawn mowification.

So last night, after the wasps leave the office (my current theory is that they work a slavish 10 or 12-hour work day then return to the nest in the evening and bitch about it to their spouses.) I gathered up all the peach remains I could in a plastic bag and tossed it out (OH FUCK I COULD HAVE COMPOSTED THAT SHIT I HOPE EARTH DOESN'T FEEL TOO BETRAYED) it was nasty. I went to mow the lawn the next day but of course more peaches had fallen and they were being pillaged thoroughly by the wasps. Irritated and already part way into the mowing (therefore, what the poker players call "pot-committed") I decided to take a two-pronged attack. One was to poison the shit out of the peaches, the other was to smash them out of the way with a baseball bat (I'd have used a golf club, but we don't have any lefties around.)

I was reluctant to poison the peaches and surrounding grass because of the number of times per day that the dog goes out there, and well, poison would not be good for him in this state. So after I was sure the wasps wouldn't have much of a chance to get back in there, and I had mowed to satisfaction, I hosed it down fairly thoroughly, hopefully diluting the poison. Anyway, last time I looked he was still alive, so good.

Of course, that's just the way it is no matter what. He is, after all, an extremely old dog by now. A few years ago, mom began to think seriously about how old he was getting, but I told her she was jumping the gun. By now I totally agree. We've had him since late '94, and he was full-grown then. He's blind, he stumbles, sometimes seems extremely disoriented, poops a lot.

My house smells like dog poop.

It was one of the things that made me really want to go, the responsibility of helping care for such an elderly dog. And the general ambiance of the house where he is living and being old.

Well I still love him and he's still such good ole dog, it can at times be adorable (kind of like my great grandpa at his 100th birthday. He was all "Who are all these people?") and he's responsive to being called (although my mom and brother are less adept at it than I am,) and always eager to be fed, so... he's clearly still got a bit of time. All the same, he's lost a bunch of weight this past year, gotten really bony. Part of getting old and dying. Oh Entropy. How depressing.

YEP THIS BLOG THING SURE IS FUN HUH.

The weekend wasn't much, although CB and I went and caught Inglourious Basterds. It was violent and disturbing and awesome. Unless you hate Tarantino, then it sucks. Luckily, I am capable of enjoying things, so I liked it.

(Weird factoid: People who hate Tarantino tend to like Tim Burton. I'm not a huge Burton fan, and I'm also not a huge Tarantino fan, but I'd rather have Tarantino. Why are these directors opposite? Eh? Or is it all in my head probably.)

Anyway. We began to think more seriously about hitting the casino in Niagara, which led to me talking to Cary about it, which led to me getting back to writing. I was not, however, writing the play I already showed him, the one that still needs considerable revision. Rather, it was a new play, based on a few short stories I wrote, or that is, two that I wrote and one I am planning to write.

Anyway, I've been dawdling through this entry for about an hour, I guess I'll let you go.

I caught a fly in mid-air today. It's been a while since I've pulled off that maneuver. Been a while since I had to.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto