Not From Around Here

It happened again. Somebody came into the bookstore and said, “Well where are you from? You can’t be from around here. You’re so cosmopolitan. And you think.” Apparently thinking is out of fashion in these parts.

Funny, I suspect that no matter where I went, people would say “You can’t be from around here.”

Another Sweet Opportunity

On Wednesday I told you about my being asked to judge one section of a fiction writing contest. Now only two days later, I have put in my name to volunteer some time preparing fossils for the planned Fossil Discovery Center near Madera.

While stopping in at the grocery store to pick up some eggs for breakfast, I spied the front page of the local paper. Skip the top article, about a local feller selling his gas station. (This town can shove all its good ol’ boys where the sun don’t shine.) But under that is a big photo and a story about a paleontologist looking for volunteers. Call the head librarian down at the county library, it says. She’ll hook you up. So I did. Immediately. (If you’re in the area and you want to volunteer some time working on fossils, you too can call Linda Sitterding at the library; the number is 675-7873.)

It’s about time we had something interesting in this town.

Two Wheels Keep On Turnin’, Metabolism Keep On Burnin’

Today, 9.3 miles in 39 minutes. Wind from the southeast at 8 miles per hour. My average speed for today was 14.3 miles per hour.

By the way, those pants are comfortable again. Now I need to get the ones with the 34″ waist in the comfortable range.

Okay, back to the books. Torts and civil procedure today.

Two Wheels Keep On Turnin’, Metabolism Keep On Burnin’

Today, 9.3 miles in 39 minutes. Wind from the southeast at 8 miles per hour. My average speed for today was 14.3 miles per hour.

By the way, those pants are comfortable again. Now I need to get the ones with the 34″ waist in the comfortable range.

Okay, back to the books. Torts and civil procedure today.

Dumb Dumb, Bang Bang

See, stuff like this happens and it’s hard to support the right to bear arms and give knee-jerk respect to all members of the armed services . . .

It is not clear what prompted Selina Akther to move toward a window of her fifth-floor apartment in Queens, the police said. Her two children were sleeping and her husband was on a phone call to Bangladesh in another room, so they did not see the stray bullet that crashed through the closed window and hit her in her right eye, leaving her an unintended homicide victim.

. . .

Mr. Carpio, an Army private on home leave from Fort Hood, Tex., fired the gun when he ran into friends in the street after a night of revelry, said Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.

. . .

According to a law enforcement official, Private Carpio was extremely remorseful, and was cooperative in trying to help police find the gun, which he said he threw away after firing into the air. The official, who requested anonymity because the investigation was continuing, said Private Carpio had told investigators that while home on leave, he had visited his goddaughter, drank some beer and vodka, left his family and bumped into some old friends, and then, he said, did “something real stupid.”

It was not until the next morning that he saw on the news that a mother had been killed.

And that is why, when I see service members in uniform, unlike many people, I don’t give them any automatic brownie points. They’re ordinary people just like the rest of us and they have their share of morons in the ranks just like we civilians do. Joining the military doesn’t make you a better citizen; it just gives you an opportunity to serve your country in ways the rest of us can’t.

Un-Neighborly People Who Need to Go Away

Here’s another complaint to add to the others: Came home this evening and some jerk has parked a white Pontiac Grand Prix in my parking space. Now I’m on the street tonight. Sorry, but I’m not paying this much for an apartment that comes with a garage (which my brother uses) and a numbered parking space (which I use) so I can have the privilege of parking my car on the street.

Oh, and there go my neighbors with the loud music again. One can hardly call them neighbors, though. There are better words. For instance, synonyms with everyone’s favorite outgoing orifice.

Roboceptionist

I want a roboceptionist. Maybe I could put it on my front door and when I come home it would recognize me, open the door, ask how I’m doing, turn on the lights, adjust the temperature inside, and start a pot of coffee. Yeah, that would be sweet. Roboceptionist + smart house = totally cool.

My First Judgeship

After the two annoyed entries below (this one and this one), here’s something more fun: I’ve been asked to be a judge in a writing contest.

Just as I got off work today, a reporter from the local newspaper called the bookstore hoping to find someone willing to be a judge for a regional writing contest. My boss suggested that I would be a good candidate, so I got on the phone with the reporter and gave her an enthusiastic affirmative answer. My genre will be horror/fantasy/sci-fi (don’t get me started on the perpetual debate over why those three get lumped together—if you’ve paid any attention at all to this blog you know it will end up as a long, insufferable essay that nobody really wants to read). I’ll receive the entries in early March and then have a couple weeks to go through them, after which I am to have a first place, a second place, and an honorable mention.

Maybe I read her wrong, but I’m just guessing from how glad the reporter on the phone sounded when I accepted that it’s hard to find people who are willing to judge these things. I suppose I could be crazy, but it sounds like fun to me. Something quirky and interesting to put on my résumè.

Now I almost feel obligated to get back in my old habit of writing fiction for fun, just so I don’t feel like a hypocrite when I tell other people if their work is any good.

Neighbors Who Should Go to, Uh, Somehwere Else

I am almost ready to move.

For the five months I have lived in this apartment, the people on the other side of my bedroom have habitually had loud music or television at all hours of the day and night.

A few weeks ago, new people moved in below me, and they too have taken up the habit invading my space with a loud television.

And just a little while ago I came home to discover that the people on the other side of the landing at the top of our stairs have been throwing their cigarette butts in my plants.

Penned in on all sides by unthinking, inconsiderate barbarians. The manager will be getting a call in the morning. I am tired of this crap.

A friend tells me that I shouldn’t be upset. Sorry, but I lived in a smaller, uglier, cheaper apartment for three years before this and I never had such problems to this degree. I moved so I could live in a nicer place. This apartment is physically nicer than my other apartment—nicer than anywhere I’ve ever lived, in my opinion—but the neighbors are worse. Why aren’t these jerks living in that smaller, uglier, cheaper crap-hole?

Customers Who Should Shut Their Traps

A guy was in the bookstore a while ago trying to convince me to stock piles and piles of books in Peter J. D’Adamo’s blood-type diet series. He claimed that everyone should follow this diet, especially pregnant women, because it works for him and his wife and for everyone they know who listens to their advice and buys D’Adamo’s book.

“You should put a sign in the window saying you have these books. You’ll sell tons of them. I’ll tell all my friends.”

Sure. Do you know how many people come in here with their favorite pet-issue books and tell me that? Funny thing—almost all their books are just faddish quackery. I’ll put one copy on the shelf. Maybe. If I feel charitable. But, you know, if you want to dictate the marketing methods and style yourself an itinerant salesperson without pay, you can open your own bookstore.

By the way, if you want to know more about this ridiculous “blood-type diet” thing, read up at the Skeptic’s Dictionary.