Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Monthly Archives: August 2006
No good deed . . .
After hearing the diagnosis, I had a sit-down with Mist, our new black cat. I would have asked Ash, but I couldn’t get anything out of her but the F-bomb.
“You don’t know what it was like in that hell-hole,” Mist said, referring to the Humane Society shelter. “Ash and I were the smallest ones there. We had to give up more than a bit of tail just to stay fed.”
I sighed and decided to try one more time. “That still doesn’t explain how you got a sexually transmitted disease IN YOUR EYE.”
Ash chose this moment to saunter by, farting as she passed. “Fuck you, Meester Doctor know-eet-all.”
California dreaming
When my uncle died, the house on Atlantic Boulevard stood vacant save for decades-old furniture, piles of trinkets (in Yiddish, tchotchkes), and garbage of one form or another. My parents wanted to know if there was anything I wanted, so I told them: one thing, only one thing. I wanted my grandfather’s talent agency publicity photo from his time as a failed actor.
I liked Papa better than any of my other grandparents. I suspect he related better to kids than my other grandparents. We had/have similar personalities, too. We’re both dreamers and bullshit artists. We’re both forever imagining riches around the corner. For Papa, it was the breakout acting career, or the properties in Hesperia and Ontario, or (I discovered today, talking to my mother) investments in Long Beach oil. For me, it’s the breakout novel, the movie deal, or (when I’m feeling glum about the writing) a stroke of luck with the lottery.
Hot-blooded? Check it and see.
I’m a little tardy, but here’s my Flickr Follies for the week. IMG_5929 hails from rbowden’s flickr stream. Raised among humans, Don Guillermo has identity issues. I’ll let him speak for himself.
Closer, my succubus, and with my claw I will take the strap of your bikini top and tease it from your succulent frame. Then I shall lap at your breasts as if they were the finest imported mangos, teasing the nipples to raisin-like firmness. I’ll teach you the meaning of savage lizard love.
Oooh, slimy? No, not really. If you stroke my flesh — yes, there, lower still, aaaah. Do you feel? I’m rough as a cat’s tongue and three times as fast. With a strike of my tail I can kill flies midair or, if you prefer discipline to displays of agility, I might lash your soft thighs until they are banded pink and you beg for mercy.
Watch me shake my head. Watch! I daresay you have never seen such an impressive head-shake, no? It means I respect you, my love, and crave your attention. Come closer. Put your lips near mine so that I may sneeze salt upon them, that we might share our essences.
What? You doubt that I can satisfy you? I have but few words for you: two penises. When one tires, the other takes over. I can last all night. Can your human lovers say as much?
And when at last we have pampered one another into a state of bliss and beyond; when, afterwards, you smoke your Virginia Slim and I scratch your back where you crave it most; when we promise everything to one another, and nothing; then, at long last, you will agree: once green, never back.
No, it does not rhyme. But with our perfect love, what will it matter?
D.
I wonder what he’ll fetch on eBay?
I could spend a ton of time thinking up a cute name for this — Cyrano deTomato? But what’s the point. It is what it is, a tomato with a nose.
One of these days, I’ll do a photo essay on all the goofy and wonderful things patients have given me over the years. This tomato ranks right up there.
In residency, I had a patient who brought me the most godawful ties. You wouldn’t even hang one of these on a dorm room doorknob, they were that fugly. Back then, another patient gave me what I call my “animal tie,” which is still my favorite tie.
And then there are the woodcarvings, countless blue frogs, wallet-sized school pix from my pediatric patients, and artwork so ugly we hide it above the audiology booth.
Around these parts, folks bring in jars of smoked salmon and fresh crabs, when they’re in season. That’s always a treat. No one has written me into their will yet, but I keep hoping, greedy bastard that I am.
D.
SBD: Delivering the Goods
From the start, the reader knows he’s in competent hands, or at least the hands of a competent publisher. We get a slick cover featuring shapely calves and stiletto heels, with oodles of diamonds on the floor to suggest the promise of intrigue. On the back, a hot-lookin’ Christina Dodd beams with confidence.
So what if the premise sounds hokey: new to Chicago, novice lawyer Brandi Michaels gets dumped by her husband, has a night of passion with a tall, dark, and mysterious Italian count, then finds out she’s being stalked, requiring her to depend upon the Count for protection. Everything else seems to bode well, including a competent opening scene. Eleven-year-old Brandi watches as her dad dumps her mom. We soon learn that Brandi has insecurities about being perceived as stupid (despite being “one of the smartest people in the country”) and hangups vis a vis her absent daddy. Nice — strong character development right from the get-go.
But I think you would all agree that a contract exists between the author and the reader. I’ll buy your book, and you’ll deliver the goods. In this case, “delivering the goods” means convincing me of the passion between these two and making me care enough about them to cheer when they hook up in the end. At a minimum, I should believe (A) we’re in Chicago, (B) the hero is Italian (aside from an ability to speak the language and execute, oh God, not another “typically Italian hand gesture”), (C) the author knows something about jewel thieves and the mob.
Sadly, Trouble in High Heels is unconvincing on all counts. Since Dodd’s main characters never spring to life, neither does my interest. Brandi is a stereotype, a statuesque beauty (and smart, too! Not dumb, really!) as is Mr. Dark-Mysterious-Sexy, Roberto. Their passionate weekend happens largely off-screen, yet we’re asked to believe that their desire for one another is damned near irresistible. In such a situation, skimping on the sex is a capital show-don’t-tell offense.
The supporting cast seems unoriginal, cribbed from the movies. Roberto’s father is a knock-off of William Hickey’s character in Prizzi’s Honor, right down to the “Have a cookie, dear?” line, and the chief baddy is a stock Robert Loggia-style thug.
The worst failure-to-deliver is Brandi herself. Trouble in High Heels packs a mystery (is Roberto a notorious jewel thief? What is he up to, anyway?) which befuddles our heroine right up to the novel’s climax. One of the smartest people in the country? Uh-uh, honey, not when I can figure things out 150 pages before you. Talk about obtuse.
Christina Dodd’s wordsmithing lacks little polish on a technical level. She strings the words together perfectly well, knows how to construct a scene, doesn’t fumble the dialog. Yet there’s no heart here, no sense of caring.
Okay, Beth, is that bitchy enough for you?
D.
Meet Ash and Mist
They’re sisters, supposedly, but not in temperament. Here’s Mist, a cool cat who likes to hide in black plastic garbage bags:
Ash, on the other hand, hasn’t quite come to terms with being a kept kitty.
Jake calls her Vashj (a World of Warcraft character), but we’re calling her Ash, short for Ashtaroth, and also the name of Bruce Campbell’s character in the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness movies. Ashtaroth is essentially Ishtar, without the connotation of “movie that bombed.” Look at the claws on this cat:
She has clawed Jake once. I picked her up and she extended her stilettos, drawing blood. An impressive show of force, I must admit.
I know, I know: how dare we rename Le Ogress’s precioussssses. Tough.
D.
Sign this blood oath, and the kitty is yours
We went to the local humane society on the assumptions (A) they would have lots of cats in need of a good home, and (B) they would be willing to adopt them out to us. (A) was true beyond a doubt. I saw few cats I wouldn’t want as pets — the long-hairs, since I’m not willing to put my allergy to that stringent a test. As for (B), therein lies a tale.
“We’d like to adopt three cats,” I said upon arrival. “Ours went feral.”
You would think a volunteer would be delighted to adopt out three cats, wouldn’t you? But I had made a cardinal error: I’d said too much. “Ours went feral” seemed to push all her hostility buttons.
Kitties!
I grew up in sibling rivalry with a dog, went through puberty around dogs, always figured dogs would be a part of my life. My high school GF longed for a kitty. I never thought she would end up with dogs, I with cats, but there you go. I’m a writer/cat person, a living stereotype.
But in the last month, all three of our cats abandoned us.
Go. Eat a few olives.
Clicking around tonight, feeling lonely cuz I’m on the chat and no one’s around*, feeling doubly lonely cuz my wife and son are playing World of Warcraft, which means I’m all alone except for these people YAPPING ABOUT MANA, yapping so loudly I can’t work on the WiP, so . . .
Go check out Jim Donahue’s Italian travelogue. Great pictures — seriously.
D.
*Edited to add: had LOTS of fun with Dean and SxKitten and Tam. Thanks, guys. Now I have nothing to whine about.
Thirteen for the short list
Erin O’Brien has a short list which keeps getting longer all the time:
“If Rally Caparas comes here and wants to have sex, it’s pretty much a done deal,” I say to the television, from whence the Weather Channel is broadcasting the Travel Update.
“Ol’ Rally made it to the short list, did he?” says my husband from behind the newspaper. “What if there’s a logistical miscalculation and he comes here when I’m home?”
“You can go for a nice walk,” I say.
One of my older patients likes to call me Dr. Phil just to irritate me. Thus, I get to be Dr. Phil on occasion. (Don’t see the logic in that? Tough noogies, as my sis would say.) When I read Erin’s short list, I thought, “This is a healthy relationship. We should all have short lists. Spouses having lots of imaginary sex with celebrities is good for a marriage.”
With that in mind, here’s my short list.