sunday in the park with “george”

the funniest thing that happened to me recently:

i take my dog about 4 times a week to a dog park so he can run around and swim. by this point, i’m on a first name basis with many of the other regulars of the dog park.

one guy there all the time has lost the bottom part of one leg from the knee down. we’re not friendly enough for me to ask how he lost part of his leg. but i have seen him enough to say, ‘hey, how are you? how are your dogs doing? nice weather, huh?’ he seemed friendly enough, very chatty.

a couple of weeks ago he was excited because he was getting a new prosthetic leg because as he said ‘the one i have now sucks ass.’ i said, ‘well, that’s nice. good for you.’

i show up at the park a few days ago.

he got his new leg.

he got a designer model.

the plastic part that covers his knee and connects to the metal rod leading to the shoe has a design on it.

the man got an artificial leg completely emblazoned with a confederate flag.

our conversation was something like this:

i said, ‘i see you got your new leg.’

he said, ‘yep, it feels much better than the old one.’

i said, “uh-huh. well…uh… what’s up with the flag on your leg?”

he said, ‘this is the one i liked the best. the other patterns available were weird.’

i said, ‘they didn’t even have beige?’

he said, ‘nope.’

i said, ‘well… i’m kinda scared of you now… i’ll see you later.’

if we were better friends, i’d offer to take him to michael’s to buy modge podge so we could decoupage his leg with pictures of unicorns or butterflies. it may be sexist, but even decoupaging nudie pictures from playboy would seem more reasonable to me.

completely true story!

come on, “george”… just bite the bullet. learn spanish, start buying hip-hop albums and get yourself invited to at least one lesbian commitment ceremony this spring.

you’re bound to enjoy at least of these things.

it’ll get you out of your racist rut.

jeffrey kalinsky can kiss my ass

i left new york for the same reason mrs. jackson likes to shop at the dollar palace.

after a certain age, you just don’t feel like putting on a show for the neighbors.

for example, if you’re not planning on seeing the same people over the next few days, or even a week, let’s say, what’s the point of changing clothes everyday?

a nice pair of scrubs can take you from day to evening and back to day again.

if your bits ‘n pieces don’t stink, why bother?

“Sparkle, Neely! Sparkle!” is a hard lifestyle to maintain.

i don’t fit into any of my ten suits thanks to this newfound respect of drawstrings pants and ingles’ bakery department.

i’m tired; admittedly, not as tired as mrs. jackson, but tired nonetheless.

i just want to sit and have cake.

happy mardi gras

happy mardi gras, y’all.

today’s super tuesday primary elections have knocked the yearly carnival bacchanalia off the front page.

but as you sit watching the results on CNN tonight, raise your wine glass to toast your brothers and sisters in new orleans who are celebrating this political season in the most appropriate way possible…

…drunk and partially nude.

out.

ps
a million thanks to Brian Postelle, Mountain Xpress, for the mention of my little writing exercise, distort the info.

to answer Brian’s question, i am a he, unless my home equity loan and mexican visa come through in time for the 2008 guadalajara trannie expo in april.

the transformation is complete

i moved to asheville in the first week of september 2007.

i didn’t think it would happen so quickly; but today my transformation into an ashevillean is complete.

i can no longer look at this place from an outsider’s perspective when i’ve succumb to so many of the traits that make ashevilleans, ashevilleans.

the latest part of this personal evolution was when i handed over my credit card to pay for a north face jacket at the frugal backpacker today.

fucking north face, for goodness sake.

that wasn’t the only evidence of my quick assimilation into granolaville, the other stuff was:

• i used homeopathic medicine to calm the anxiety of the puppy.
• i went to a radical faerie party.
• i save yoga class schedules.
• i had a 20 minute conversation about the textile art of rural indonesia.
• i drove past a flock of canadian geese feeding on a neighbor’s yard, but didn’t freak out and wreck the car.

at this point, the only thing that could make me more ashevillean is if i have gender reassignment surgery to become a pot-smoking lesbian with 4 cats, a subaru outback, and a student loan for massage therapy school.

it’s obviously too late for me, but save yourselves.

turning ashevillean doesn’t hurt; but knowing it happened is kinda creepy.

namaste, y’all.

please don’t tell PETA

the foster puppy is in it’s new home. but as you can see my dog is still sufferin’.

when it’s too cold to go outside and the camera’s battery is fully charged, i can sense the dog getting nervous that a photo session is in the works.

i don’t want to go into the details as to why, but i had a boutonnière in the fridge.

so when the dog didn’t seem particularly busy…

snap, snap, snap…

…another cute doggie picture on the internet.

home sweet home

it’s hard for me to explain why this picture makes me miss new orleans. but it surely does.

if you need a recipe for fun , its:

• diaper
• wig
• make-up
• gun

she’s crazy, but i love her. (i’m talking both about the guy in the photo and new orleans, itself.)

out

oh, and a tiara. a tiara is always good to have around… just in case.

you can open a bottle of beer with it; you can pawn it for bail money; you can use it to signal the rescue plane when you wake up in the swamps after a really, really bad date…

…you know… just in case.

quotable quotes for $200, alex

“It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”

- Martin Luther King Jr.

for a wide variety of social issues, this idea is the most important role of government.

out.

ps

here’s a miscellaneous asheville observation:

employees at the asheville barnes and noble are allowed to work in crocs.
yikes.

my favorite new phrase

i didn’t think of it. neither did the guy who said it to me.

maybe it’s just the alliteration, not the subtext.

here it is:

“everything i resisted has persisted”

out.

like julia roberts in ‘pretty woman’

i love ‘before and after’ pictures.

…the power of transformation.

it doesn’t matter the topic. i have to buy any magazine with a ‘before and after’ segment …architectural digest, glamour, national enquirer, star magazine… popular mechanics; whatever it is. i am drawn to it like an ashevillean to a sports sandal.

a plain, fat girl transformed into a hillary duff clone.
a crack den transformed into a trendy, urban loft.
a bobo mercedes transformed into a pope mobile.

why is this on my mind?

“raking autumn leaves” before:

“raking autumn leaves” after:

i hope the neighbor lady is proud of me.

the rake is now for sale on craigslist.

out.

ps
of course, i didn’t rake the leaves. todd did.
thanks, todd (the henry higgins of landscaping).

what’s wrong with america

the biggest thing wrong within america is not racism, an unfair health care system, or an insolvent social security system.

this is the biggest problem:

if i have to explain why, you’ll never understand.

out.

scandinavian pied piper

no, this is not video from a weekend in downtown asheville. though i heard there is a weekly drum circle near the town square.

…bjorn… oh, bjorn…

dear readers, if we ever meet and i seem distracted, it’s because i’m thinking about bjorn.

now HE is a radical faerie.

he’s scary and exciting at the same time.

too bad he litters.

cargo pants

do you ever wonder what happens to clothes when their time in the fashion spotlight ends?

for example, what did stores do with all the leftover bell bottom jeans when the punk/new wave scene started to gain traction in the early 80’s?

who is wearing all the juicy couture velour track suits from 2001?

i don’t know about those two examples. but i do know where all the cargo pants from 1997 ended-up. somehow they’ve all gathered in asheville, like the swallows of san juan capistrano or the salmon returning to spawn in alaskan rivers.

sure, i had cargo pants. i’d just love to know how they got from my local salvation army store to western north carolina.

oh, and crocs! please don’t get me started on crocs.

 

 

refreshing vacuum haircut

i just found out today that i have lesbian neighbors.

yeah!

it’ll be great to have lesbian friends.

they came over to the house today to introduce themselves while i was outside watering my plants. (actually, they are the previous owner’s plants. but she didn’t take them with her.)

am i alone in thinking lesbians are the only people who bought ‘flowbee’ hair trimmers in the early 80’s? how can so many of them end up with the same haircut? what other explanation could there be?

ok, for you young’uns, i quote the official flowbee site:

“Using the suction power of your vacuum cleaner, the FLOWBEE draws the hair evenly into the recessed blades and cuts it precisely. The results are a refreshing vacuum haircut.”

what is the difference between the typical lesbian haircut and the one being modeled in the photo?

none, i say ‘none’.

kate and allie (not their real names) seem very nice. i’ve been in my house a month. but i guess because they have a kid, we don’t have the same schedules since i never see them around.

i had no idea a lesbian couple owned that house. there was no subaru in the driveway.

as i’ve said many times, ‘lesbians love their subarus.’

C U

p.s.
for $59.95 plus shipping and handling, this is what you get.