July 10, 2007

outsmarted

When I replaced my front door, one concern superseded all others: it must be opaque. Percy had developed the unfortunate habit of staring through the glass before knocking, and he'd seen me naked just a few hundred dozen times too many. Okay, it was maybe four times. But it felt like a few hundred dozen.

And thus did I order an expensive "rain" glass that I did not particularly like. My door is now impenetrable to the geriatric eye.

Percy, for his part, has completely changed his behavior. Now he walks all the way around my deck and knocks on my back door. After staring inside for a bit, of course.

posted by john at 06:21 AM  •  solamente

May 25, 2007

wonder of wonders, a miracle a miracle

Percy told me today that they're putting the house on the market. This was after he studiously read the report (from Ed's dog-walker) that was under my welcome mat.

posted by john at 12:36 PM  •  solamente

October 25, 2006

my second-favorite time of the year

My favorite time of the year is, of course, Football Weekend. A close second is when Percy leaves for the winter.

To commemorate today's official beginning of glorious Walking Around Outside in my Underwear season, I give you this post from last year, an all-time reader favorite.

posted by john at 02:55 PM  •  solamente

October 12, 2006

arizona bound

Percy's prepping his house for the winter. I think we went the whole year together without one post-worthy Percy story. With any luck, he'll sell the house to bikers soon and writer's block will lift.

posted by john at 07:26 PM  •  solamente

August 17, 2006

percy, we hardly knew ye

If I'm asked this once a day, I'm asked it, um, one time. "Where's Percy? Write more about Percy!"

Alas, Percy is keeping to himself this summer. I see him mow his lawn every three weeks, and the other day he brought me some mail that had been mistakenly delivered to his house. That is it. That's the sum of our interactions this summer. There's nothing anecdote-worthy to share.

Maybe I should poke him with a stick.

posted by john at 09:56 AM  •  solamente

July 07, 2006

hey, everybody, look at me

There was a breakthrough of sorts at work today, and on the announcement mail my co-workers kept replying-all with MP3 attachments. One person attached the song "Celebration" by Kool and the Gang. Another attached "Everybody Dance Now." After it had gone on for some time, I decided it was time to revive an old-school prank.

I recorded, at an impossibly loud level, myself shouting "HEY, EVERYBODY! LOOK AT ME! I'M SURFING PORNOGRAPHY!" and sent it to my peers.

I fondly remember getting Amy (no, the other one) with this joke back in the 90s. She was humiliated. I couldn't open the old clip, however, so I recorded a new one. It took about a dozen takes before I was satisfied. So I sat at my desk and yelled "HEY, EVERYBODY! LOOK AT ME! I'M SURFING PORNOGRAPHY! HEY, EVERYBODY! LOOK AT ME! I'M SURFING PORNOGRAPHY! HEY, EVERYBODY! LOOK AT ME! I'M SURFING PORNOGRAPHY!" over and over.

And then I looked outside and saw Percy staring quizzically at my open window.

posted by john at 12:22 PM  •  solamente

June 24, 2006

he’s back. and he’s pissed off.

Actually, this is Percy happy. Safari getup = happy suit

Is that belly-button camel-toe I see?

posted by john at 04:33 PM  •  solamente

June 01, 2006

point, dorkass

Giving Dorkass credit goes against everything I believe in, but credit must be given. On Memorial Day, she packed up her child and visited me in the sticks, a friendship-maintainance effort unparalleled by any other parent. I so appreciate it that I've removed the Dorkass-mocking counter from the sidebar. And replaced it with a Katrina-mocking counter.

When Dorkass arrived, she spied Percy watching from next door. She pulled the baby from the car, turned to me, and yelled, "Yes. She's yours."

posted by john at 07:25 AM  •  solamente

May 28, 2006

and thus does Whizzing Outside Season come to an untimely and inglorious end

A telltale mini-van appeared next door not ten minutes ago. Yes, kids, the dread Percy is back from Arizona.

posted by john at 04:12 PM  •  solamente

January 22, 2006

pro-life

Funerals are never fun, but funerals of the virtuous and impossibly beloved are downright depressing. Listening to how his life touched others, I found it impossible not to take stock of myself. "Man. I gotta make some changes." I surveyed the hundreds of grievers in attendance. "I don't even know this many people. How many would show up for me? Hrm. Maybe if I pretend it's the reading of my will."

I'll tell ya one thing that ain't happening at my service: an open mic. As person after person spoke of how the deceased touched their lives, I imagined my friends similarly passing around a mic.

"Sumbitch died owing me money, just like he always said he would," Katrina says.

"He hit me," Dorkass offers.

"Me too," her little sister chimes.

"Dating him was like living near radioactive waste," Maddie says. "After a time, your blood just starts to turn bad."

Allie pats the casket fondly. "Thanks for the power of attorney."

A minister bows his head, hushes the crowd, and speaks. "Uh, the check from the estate bounced. Who's covering this?"

"John was my role model and mentor," Elizabeth says. "Fuck him."

"He creeped me out and I'm relieved he's dead," Courtney says. "I'm just here to poke the corpse with a stick."

My family checks in. "Mine! Mine! MINE!"

"Speaking of when I played for the Bengals..." Dirt will begin.

Sue staple-guns a note to the casket. "I made you a list of things to do differently in your next life."

"The casket is really ugly," Minette declares.

"He didn't know what it's like to be black," someone chides.

"He was my brother," Percy sniffs. "I will miss him every single day."

It's not worth it. I choose life.

posted by john at 09:30 AM  •  solamente

November 06, 2005

hail! hail! to mich-i-gan! the ucla of the midwest!

My undergraduate degree is from Ohio State. About this I neither boast nor apologize, even though I knew when I was there that my education wasn't what I wanted it to be. That, I decided, is what a master's degree would be for. OSU was my stepping stone, my dues payment. When you were poor in Ohio, you went to Ohio State. They charged little for in-state tuition, and they practiced "open" admission; if you met the nominal entrance requirements, you got in. Period. (In my day, admission swelled to 60,000 students. They have since closed admission somewhat.) Your name, gender, race, income, and academic pedigree didn't matter. All were equal in the eyes of Ohio State, which is to say, all were dog meat.

The football team excepted—they never did anything to me—I hated OSU when I was there. The hate has abated over time, but it hasn't been supplanted by affection. It's simply where I did time. It's where I learned to manipulate an uncaring bureaucracy to my advantage, using its agents' worst tendencies against them. It's where I learned to build relationships with people who worked not in fancy offices, but in cubicles—I befriended the clerks and secretaries who actually work all day. And it's where I learned to bet on myself ultimately prevailing, to trust myself even during setbacks. Am I grateful? Hell no. Ohio State didn't set out to teach me survival skills. They set out to teach me about Chaucer and calculus, and in that they largely failed.

But.

If I hear one more Michigan alum sniff that his alma mater is "The Princeton of the Midwest," blood will surely flow. Michigan's a fine school, the second-best in the Big Ten after Northwestern, but let's not overstate things, hmmm? The latest perpetrator was Percy, who recently came out as a Wolverine, making all the cosmic tumblers of my universe suddenly click into place. Of course he's from Michigan. He could be from nowhere else. "It's the Harvard of the Big Ten, you know," he said. "Hard to get into."

"I thought it was the Stanford of the Midwest."

"That too."

"What about the University of Chicago? Northwestern? Notre Dame? Those are better rated, more exclusive Midwestern schools."

"Nope. Michigan."

And thus do I cheerfully present a reality check for any Michigan alumni still reading. The average SAT scores of incoming freshmen in 2004:

UW: 570/590
OSU: 580/580
Michigan: 620/660
UCLA: 620/660
Notre Dame: 670/690
Northwestern: 680/700
University of Chicago: 700/700
Stanford: 720/740
Harvard: 750/750

To summarize: Stanford and Harvard should sue for defamation.

posted by john at 07:53 AM  •  solamente

October 21, 2005

(hopefully) the final percy story of the year

Percy mowed his lawn last weekend and left, which is his annual ritual right before he irritates Arizona for the winter. Sure enough, they disappeared without a comment. They're still pissed about my house color, you know.

Concurrent with the glorious No Percy season is Walking Around Outside in My Underwear season, and I commenced immediately. When I got home from my interview, I tore off my costume and started puttering around the house. I needed to cut a metal plate, so I grabbed my jigsaw and went outside. And there I was, in nothing but my white underwear and black socks and brown sandals, making my cut, being watched by an alarmingly present Percy and Thelm@.

Goddamn it. I'm not supposed to give them blog material.

posted by john at 10:44 AM  •  solamente

September 30, 2005

the validation manifesto

Several women have already stopped reading. Several weary women.

I've referred to my "Validation Theory" many times on this page, but I've never spelled it out. Simply put, I believe that the primary social force in the world is the human need for validation. In the bulk of human interactions, we are either seeking or granting endorsements. Simple, no? This theory scales like a motherfucker. Once you start filtering human behavior for validation, you see nothing else.

And yes, I'm fully aware of the irony here. I'm waxing about my belief system on my web site. Self-indulgent and validation-seeking behavior if ever there were one. See how well it scales?

So say I'm right. So what? It's a harmless enough social force. Sadly, it is not, for the Validation Theory has a very ugly corollary: most people view validation as zero-sum. If I'm to feel good about myself, you cannot—unless you make the same choices I do. But if you don't, any happiness you feel invalidates my own and must be denigrated.

My favorite example of zero-sum-validation thinking will forever be the Christian bumper sticker

Know Jesus, know peace

No Jesus, no peace

If you want to drive a fundy positively insane, show them how happy you are without their religion. That so invalidates everything they believe, everything in which they've invested their self-image, they cannot even consider the possibility. Nope, you're Satan's intermediary.

All the new moms in my life have experienced a zero-sum crossfire lately. If they continue to work, stay-at-home moms revile them as bad parents. If they stay at home, their professional colleagues snort disdainfully about "breeders." The invective is harsh, unrelenting, and unsolicited, and it invariably comes from women whose own choices are being—cue the organ music—invalidated.

Let's view recent posts through the validation filter.

• Lionel, pretentiously suggesting that poetry be read at business meetings? Seeking validation.
• Courtney, thinking people in Seattle are mean? Obviously being invalidated. Me, posting about it? Being validated.
• Jim and Marceline, irrationally defending their product in the face of evidence? The validation they get from their work was threatened.
• Ed's failing health? No validation link—she's a dog.
• Jessica Alba, saying she really wants good roles? Please.
• I'll skip Bobby Brown's playlist. That's too easy.
• Percy? His "that kid already has everything" comment suggests my age and station make him feel much resentment.
• My friends, pouting when I didn't go with exactly their color choices? I suppose they feel as though I criticized their taste.

And on and on. The need for validation is why people dress up and wear make-up. It's why they buy expensive things. It's why people pair up. It's why lousy relationships persist well past the establishment of lousiness. It's why people have kids. It's why they pray instead of taking kids to doctors. It's why your family goes batshit if you don't come by and stare at the TV with them often enough. It's why managers create direct reports aliases (e.g., "Jim Jones' Direct Reports") that are of no conceivable use to anyone but them but that inconvenience many. It's why we insulate ourselves with people who affirm our belief systems. It's why seemingly good people can rationalize doing horrible things. It's why we want our friends—strangers, even—to couple/parent/buy something/change cities/etc. like we did, and it's why we feel curiously rejected when they don't. It's why we feel self-conscious about dining or going to movies alone. It's why people with no education disdain its necessity, and it's why I so value it. It's why people find a way to diminish your new house/car/S.O. It's why the top-10 non-fiction list is half books about how smart you are, half books about how stupid "they" are. It's why readers send me email arguing "I don't seek validation from other people." It's why people kill those who don't share their beliefs. It's why they want to introduce matters of faith into the science classroom. It's why I go weak-kneed every time I hear "Lover Lay Down" and remember that the sexiest woman I've ever known actually thought of me when she heard that song. It's why my brother and sister-in-law would rather lose me altogether than admit that the John mythology they've concocted is untrue. It. Is. Everywhere.

• • •

What, if anything, is to be learned from this? Like any point of view, it's subjective. It's a theory that happens to fit the facts. A helluva lot of facts. What began as a desperate attempt to explain one person's behavior became a plausible explanation for most of mankind's behavior. Does this make it right? Is it the only possible explanation for a given behavior? Of course not. But I've yet to come across an alternative explanation that scales so, so well across all of human behavior.

Although I found the theory life-changing, I didn't exactly find it life-affirming. Understanding validation, both your need for it and others', is not an A-ticket to bliss. The benefits are more subtle than that. I look at it more as something to keep an eye on within myself. When someone upsets me, I question why, filter for my validation needs, and very often am able to let it go. This is a good thing. I take great pains not to feel invalidated by others' beliefs or choices, and that eliminates much of life's unnecessary misery. And of course, the rhetorician in me benefits from appealing to others' validation needs. At this point, Allie and I are pretty overt about it.

(phone rings)

Allie: Hello?

Me: I need some unconditional validation.

Allie (bored): You're so smart.

Me: Thanks.

So there you have it, my world view, honed by years of wondering why so-and-so is acting that way. And if you don't agree with my Validation Theory, well, you're just stupid.

posted by john at 08:20 AM  •  solamente

September 24, 2005

i’m running out of percy headlines

In painting my house, I chose a color several shades darker than the one Thelm@ kindly deemed "too dark" and "ugly." I had a vicious retort at the ready, so naturally the anticipated rude comment never came. (For the record, it was "Well, look at the bright side. You won't have to look at it too much longer, what with your dying soon.") But the project was not without its Percinality. When the painters arrived, we talked shop for maybe half an hour, and then I went to work. They said my car wasn't even out of my driveway when Percy and Theml@ descended upon them and asked to see the paint colors. They were less than thrilled, so that's something.

posted by john at 06:14 PM  •  solamente

September 20, 2005

percy adds to his case file against me

Yesterday, I bought the oddest boat accessory yet: an old, gas-guzzling pickup truck for towing. The idea is that I can replace my 'tweener Jeep (tweener = lousy mileage + poor towing capability) with a beater truck I'll use twice a year and a car that gets good gas mileage. It took Percy 16 hours to inquire about the new arrival.

"Did you buy a truck?" Officer Percy snarls.

"Yes." He needn't know why.

This news causes him to look exactly like he's trying to pass a small sea urchin out his urethra. "Do you still have that boat?"

"Yes."

"Where is it moored?" I recognize the question as one he asked Kiki months ago, to no avail.

I tell him.

"Do you still have your place in Redmond?"

Man, Percy, why don't you just cut to the chase and ask for a copy of my W-2?

posted by john at 08:08 PM  •  solamente

August 28, 2005

we’re #1!

A reader just pointed out that this page is now the #1 ranked hit (out of 127,000) if you google "Percy Thelm@." I know many of you think those are pseudonyms, but they aren't. They're my neighbors' honest to goodness, impossible-to-believe real names. Which, sadly, means I need to throw Google off the trail. It's for this reason that Thelm@ will henceforth be spelled with that irritating character.

posted by john at 02:46 PM  •  solamente

August 25, 2005

public percy

A minor Percy note. Last week when he was working the Metamuville Community Crap-Swap Where Senile Old Geriatrics Buy One Another's Victrolas,* I was talking with the cable guy about installing cable broadband. We had a question for Percy, and Thelm@ went to fetch him. When told that I was getting cable service, he, annoyed, snorted loud enough for all to hear: "I thought that kid already HAD everything."

That's why I live here. I'm "that kid."

*Might not be its real name.

posted by john at 08:17 AM  •  solamente

August 17, 2005

the case for pseudonyms

If you google "Percy Thelm@," you get 134,000 hits. I'm number three.

posted by john at 03:10 PM  •  solamente

stupid thelm@ tricks

At one point last weekend, my house was clogged with furniture and boxes destined for a rummage sale, and I was simultaneously shampooing a rug, installing shelves, and ignoring wet spaghetti noodles oozing all over the kitchen counters and literally dripping down the cabinets and sink. The place looked roughly like coastal Indonesia. This is when I heard a knock at the door. It could only be one person.

"Hi, Percy."

Percy and Thelm@ (she with a camera in hand) had brought over the elderly woman who had built my house. They wanted a tour, and they wanted it right now.

"I'm sorry," I said. "The place is a wreck. If you give me 15 minutes, I can give you the whole tour."

"Don't bother," the woman sniffed. "I have to go." And they sulked off, Percy shooting me a dirty look over his shoulder.

What about our past relationship suggested that we're close enough for him to pop in without warning and show my house to strangers, I do not know. Oh, that's right. He's a geriatric old fuck with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. I keep forgetting.

• • •

Around the same time, I told Thelm@ I'm painting my house the same color as one two miles down the road. A few days later, having seen the color I said was my favorite out of the entire world of possible colors, she approached me. "I saw that house you talked about. It's much too dark, don't you think? It's ugly, don't you think?"

Woman, you don't wanna know what I'm thinking.

posted by john at 09:54 AM  •  solamente

August 09, 2005

shameless pandering to the reader base

My favorite part of this is that you can't tell definitively where his sock ends and his skin begins.

posted by john at 09:48 PM  •  solamente

July 28, 2005

you asked for it; you got it

Percy has a bitchin' new safari hat.

posted by john at 07:12 AM  •  solamente

June 30, 2005

stupid percy tricks

Just observed: Percy spraying deadly poisonous Round-Up within six inches of the nose of his kid's curious pup.

Which reminds me of a photo I've been meaning to post for a while:

posted by john at 07:26 AM  •  solamente

January 01, 1800

percy, the euthanasia poster child

Originally published August 7, 2004

"You drive ninety minutes from work in order to be 20 feet from your neighbor?" someone once remarked. Sigh. Yes I do. Our house configurations are such that I seldom have to see or hear them, not unless they come over. Which unfortunately they do.

Percy and Thelm@ are septuagenarians, if that's the one that means "in their 70s." They're typical of the residents where I live: old, middle-class white folks who retired to country beach houses. It's not my favorite demographic. If you pass them in a passing zone when they're going 45 in a 55, which is sadly zippy around here, they'll follow you home to lecture you. When new ownership bought the local grocery and put the local coffee klatch's mugs atop a doily on a nice table, she was repeatedly chewed out for having moved the mugs three feet from where they'd been since the Creation. And so on. I've been advised not to turn this into a "geriatric old fucks with overdeveloped senses of entitlement" tirade, lest I lose the reader.

But they are.

 

The Common North-American White-Breasted Geriatric (Anus rictus)

 

Which brings us to Percy, whom I first met during my house inspection. He walked over and introduced himself, then proceeded to stand there, silently and awkwardly, forcing everyone to work around him. Why he felt it his place to inject himself in my house inspection, I can only guess, but soon I would long for those early days of awkward silences between us. A brief history:

• Day 2. While I unpack, I'm having a crew tear out the decorative outhouses (surely an oxymoron) from the front yard and hack at the 30-inch high grass the previous owner had left me. Percy ambles over and asks if I'm having them tear down my outbuilding, too. "No," I say. "I'm tearing that down someday, but until I buy my flop, I need it for storage." He huffs off.
• Day 3. The guys are still hacking at my acre of lawn with machetes and weed-wackers. Percy comes over. "So what's your philosophy on lawn care?" he says in an off-putting, accusing manner.  What the heck does that mean, anyway? "Grass grows. I cut it." He stares at me as though I'd talked in baby talk, then asks if he can borrow my tractor in perpetuity to mow his lawn. It doesn't work, I lied. He huffs off.
• Day 5. Percy comes over. He points out that my back yard is filled with dandelions and asks if I'm going to fertilize. I say that, given that Puget Sound's at the edge of our back yards, it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see that's just poisoning the water and everything in it. So until I can find a safe way of weeding, the weeds stay. He stared at me like I'd just talked in Klingon. "I'll do it for you, then," he snapped, as if my lack of know-how was the issue. No, no you won't. Under no circumstances. He huffs off. Soon my yard was mysteriously dandelion free.
• Day 20. Percy sees me installing planters on my balcony rail. "I hope those don't blow off!" he snidely snorted in a way that somehow indicated the exact opposite sentiment. Two years later, they're still there.
• Day 30. Percy sees me power-washing the deck. "Are you staining or painting?" Staining. "What color?" Grey. He goes inside, presumably to update Thelm@, who presumably he's got tied up in the basement. He returns. "A natural looking stain would look pretty good, too." Uh-huh. "I need to get me a power washer," he says leadingly. "Yep. I sure do. Like yours. Yep." That night, I made sure my power-washer was locked up.
• Day 31. I'm staining. Percy oozes over. "You going to paint the house, too?"
• Day 50. For the first of many times to come, Percy inexplicably mows his lawn about 10 feet across our property line, effectively enlarging his own tiny yard.
• Day 100. "You said you're getting rid of that outbuilding?" Yes. "So is that girl your wife or your girlfriend?" My girlfriend. How about Thelm@? He huffs off.
• Day 200. I've installed a new garden where previously a debris pile lay, and behind it, I'm installing a lovely lattice around my deck, hiding the ugly cement foundation. Percy walks over. "How come you bought such little plants?" Because the mature ones cost 10x as much, that's why. "Oh!" he says with enormous satisfaction, "So you're not one of those Microsoft people!"
• Day 300. Thelm@ somehow wriggles free long enough to tell me that she loves my china cabinet. Funnily enough, I've never had them over.
• Day 350. The inevitable happens. Percy comes over while I'm walking around naked and, frustrated by the curtain I'd put on the front door, goes to the kitchen window to peer in before knocking.
• Day 400. It happens again. One would think that seeing me naked once would be enough negative reinforcement. Alas.
• Day 450. Tired of the neighbor kids cutting through my yard to get to the beach, I erect a fence on my property line opposite Percy's. Percy walks across my backyard to reach me as I work. "Well," he lies transparently, "I was going to talk to my neighbor, but I guess now I have to walk around."  I guess so.
• Day 500. I begin my kitchen remodel. Seeing the old cabinets stack up on my deck, Thelm@ comes over. "Now what this house calls for is a country kitchen." Well, I'm going with cherry and granite. Sorry. "Oh. Well. I'm sure that can be nice, too."
• Day 550. I buy my flop and begin moving items out of the outbuilding. "Are you finally tearing it down? When?"
• Day 600. The kitchen remodel is done. Percy comes over with a piece of junk mail that had been left in his mailbox and knocks on the door. I answer, physically obstructing him from entering. He steps into my space and actually bumps chests, trying to come in. When it becomes obvious I'm not moving, he awkwardly asks for a phone number. I walk to my desk, and he glides on into my house, uninvited. He surveys the kitchen. "I'm going to have to memorize the details so that I can describe it to Thelm@," he hints subtly.
• Day 650. The outbuilding is being demolished. I wasn't here for it, but the boys said that Percy was throwing his own items on their burn pile and generally interfering the whole time, even trying to get them to remove plants he doesn't like ("You taking those ferns out? Ferns are just weeds, you know.") and my clothesline rack. Mind you, these are my things. The crew was taken aback. "Dude," one finally said incredulously, "You live in a freakin' double-wide." They said he huffed off.

To be continued.

Sigh.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  solamente

family is relative

Originally published June 13, 2005

julie

Everything you need to know about Percy & Thelm@ and my sister Julie are contained neatly in one anecdote. That is, this encounter is typical of my every encounter with these people. To fully appreciate the anecdote, know that I left out nothing. This was the unembellished sum total of their contact.

Having not seen Percy and Thelm@ for the first couple days of Julie's stay, we finally saw Thelm@ poking her head out her door as Julie and I were departing.

As I climbed into my car, I hear my sister happily (and typically) scream "I'M HIS SISTER!!!" across the yard.

Thelm@, having no window overlooking my house nor any reason whatsoever to care, was nonetheless unsurprisingly unsurprised. "Yeah, that's what we were figuring. You were here before, right?"

"MY AIRLINE TICKET WAS $315 USUALLY I WAIT UNTIL IT'S $140 BUT THIS TIME WHEN IT GOT TO $315 I KNEW IT WOULD BE THE BEST I COULD DO BECAUSE YOU CAN'T FLY ANYWHERE FROM COLUMBUS FOR $139 ANYMORE!" my sister shrieked.

"Please shut up," I asked.

"What?!" My sister whirled, surprised. "I didn't want them to think that you were having some girl over."

"Huh? Who gives a crap?"

"She asked."

"No she didn't."

"Well, she waved when she saw us. She was curious."

"Of that, I have little doubt."

 

d’andre

d'Andre's much-anticipated visit was surprisingly mellow, for two reasons: 1) he brought his bride, the refined and ladylike Pam (henceforth d'Pam), who lent sorely needed sophistication to the occasion, and 2) we're mellow old codgers now. It was a pleasure to see my friend again and to compare our wildly divergent paths from our common point of origin to our not-too-dissimilar stations in life. It was a meeting of friends unlike any to which I've previously been a party. It was a comprehensive catching up, a touchstone, a status report covering 14 dramatic years in which we'd both known everything from abject failure to giddy accomplishment. 14 years. That's, like, 56% of a Jen. And we covered all 14 in great detail—we literally began with my driving the U-Haul out of the apartment complex. There's something uniquely bonding about originating from the same time and place and circumstance, a feeling conspicuously absent from my life. And the more we talked, the more I came to appreciate my commonalities with my friend and foil. I think even d'Pam learned something about her husband and from where he came. If I know women at all, she went to bed prouder of him than she'd been the night before.

We watched the passing lights in the shipping lanes, our feet on the fire pit and margaritas in our hands, toasting one another and friends long gone. "Who'd have thought one of us'd be here?"  d'Andre mused, shaking his head.

"Who'd have thought one of us would marry a Ph.D in biochemistry?" I added.

A nearly sheepish d'Andre bussed the beautiful Dr. on the cheek. "Who'd have thought she'd marry one of us?"

I clinked his cactus glass. "Here's to marrying up."

•  •  • 

All right, thanks for indulging me. I know what you came for. There weren't many insults, but here ya go.

• The first and best point was scored by—no surprise here—D. He had not seen me since I was in the peak physical condition of my life. As they passed the security station at Seatac, he saw me, stopped, stared, cocked his head, and said, "Santa?"
• Not that he's not a tad bovine himself these days. "Rerun?" I replied, in my imagination six days later when I finally thought of a response.
• When we got into my Jeep, I had Careless Whisper on the stereo. He looked at d'Pam knowingly. "Who called it?" Yeah, but did he call the vintage George Michael/Andrew Ridgely poster on the back of the guest room door? No.
• Of my modern physique: "You're not 'Eggre' anymore. You're 'The Cracker Barrel.'" Then Pam hit him.
• Of my Jeep: "The cracker box." Then Pam hit him.

I'm pro-Pam.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  solamente

percy update

It is perhaps appropriate that I find readers' #1 request so annoying: we want more Percy.

"Would it kill you to go to arizona for material?" asks Dorkass.

The problem is that Percy and Thelm@ spend half a year in Arizona. They are a combined 202 years old, after all, and the law is the law. But fear not; Percy peeked in my window just last night, so updates cannot be far behind.

In the meantime, I give you a photo of the Metamuville Koffee [sic]  Klatch [sic] , of which Percy [sic]  is a member (though not pictured). Yep. This is my world now.

Save me.

Just out of frame on the back wall are photos of deceased Klatchers, each adorned with a little brass plaque with a saying that manages to be both cloying and repulsive: "Bob Magoo, Gone Fishin' In Heaven's Lake," "Betty Struedel, Knitting God's Afghan," and the like. It's utterly fuckin' mortifying.

Other activities in town:

• Newcomer Tea
• Yodeling/line dancing night
• Prayer Canaries
• Boot Scootin' Grannies
• ROMEOS (Retired Old Men Eating Out)
• Solitarians (widows)
• and my personal favorite, the Metamuville Huggers

I strongly suspect it's the same six people doing each activity.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  solamente

it took percy a whole day

A creeped-out Kiki called me last night. It seems that while she was stocking shelves, Percy took it upon himself to lecherously run his fingertip up her back.

Oddly enough, he's never seen fit to touch me affectionately. Or at all.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  solamente