Mrs. Michaels's Open Salon Blog

The road to hell is paved with the tears of goaticorns

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:07:36 -0400

On Saturday my friend Abby and I did the unthinkable. We got on the local light rail train, took it two stops, got off of it, stood on the platform for a couple minutes (from reading Harry Potter I know trains dock at “platforms”), and then hopped a different colored train to Fair Park. Growing up, people like us didn’t go to Fair Park unless the fair was actually happening right then. And as soon as we got off the train, and it occurred to me that we were at an event that was open to the public, it occurred to me that perhaps I should have picked a less conspicuous purse. It wouldn’t be the only time that evening that I would regret my choice of purse.

In the twenty feet between the third train platform, and the event we were attending, we happily accepted a pamphlet from a nice young man. It would make for fine reading while waiting in one of the many lines ahead of us. We were at Taste of Dallas. (“How does Dallas taste? I know how it smells,” quipped the friend who could have joined us if she hadn’t waited until a quarter of nine to call.) Hundreds of vendors were lined up to sell bite-sized amounts of food for a buck or three to interest us in their restaurants, and to raise money for some group or another. Most of them sold either cake or some variant on steak in a bun. Heaven, except it was too crowded.

^{The water feature and the many, many sources of meat on a bun.}

Abby lured me to this event because the review of it said that by having it at Fair Park, they had more room and air conditioning. Air conditioning is one of my favorite things about civilization. It’s right up there with videos of cats riding Roombas. The food, we discovered, was not in the air conditioning. The food vendors were lined up on either side of a water feature. Water features typically do not boast air conditioning. But we were here, and so was food, and apparently so were large tacky plastic containers of frozen red alcohol. We set off in search of those.

I have a well-developed shallow side, one that really knows how to appreciate external validation in whatever form it takes. So we let ourselves by diverted from our quest for red booze when we passed the box wine tent, and a nice man wanted to check our identification. I know what he was really telling me is that I glow with youthful beauty. And when another nice man handed us two samples of their vacuum-packed finest, instead of the one each that lesser mortals were getting, that too was personal.

I should probably be embarrassed that I wasted my feminine guile on some box wine, when there are so many worthier causes out there to which I could lend my charms. But we didn’t yet know about the whiskey tastings, and I’m no snob. I like my Rieslings cold, and crisp, and paid for by someone else, and that’s exactly what I got.

^{Tasty, tasteful, and environmentally friendly. Yes, I'll say anything for those who ply me with alcohol. And yes, the refrigerator did sound of angelic choirs when opened.}

We wandered around a while, stopped for the occasional cake ball (heartily recommended) or to stare at the sartorial choices of others, when we finally broke down and asked someone where to find the tacky red-liquor-in-plastic stand. We set off towards “the NBA thing,” which served as the landmark nearest the red liquor stand. Of course there was a line. The next best thing to air conditioning is frozen blended alcohol, and in Dallas, in July, oddly enough, we weren’t the only people to feel that way.

While standing in line, I pulled out my pamphlet. “HEAVEN OR HELL: Which One Will You Choose?” it asked. I learned about sheep and goats and a lake of fire and there was a place for me to mail in to tell them what choice I’d made. I decided to defer the decision until after I had ponied up ten dollars for my gallon-o-daiquiri. Abby chose the daiquiri-margarita swirl, so her plastic hand grenade-looking container was piebald in red and pale green. I took a sip through the foot-long straw. It was cold and sweet.

“Is there any alcohol in this?” I looked to Abby, who was solemnly pulling from her drink.

“Maybe?” She answered. Since we doubted the presence of alcohol in our drinks, which meant we’d just plunked down a lot of money for Slushees, we decided to head for air conditioning. The buildings with air conditioning had been allocated for peddlers of third-rate art, jewelry, sandals, corsets (God help me, I wanted one), and ohmygod a petting zoo!

There was a lemur, a mini horse, various poultry, and tiny goats. They were baby tiny goats, and if I’d only brought a bigger purse, like the kind spoiled women haul their Chihuahuas around in, I would right now have my very own baby mini goat. But I wasn’t too busy cooing over the baby mini goats to spot the elusive Goaticorn:

The mythical goaticorn has only one horn, bleats “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” prances around on hoofs of gold, and can only be seen, apparently, by the moderately inebriated.

Oh. In retrospect, it clearly has two horns, one of them’s just all lopsidedy. I’d forgotten the first lesson of college drinking: alcohol hides in red flavoring.

On the plus side, I now know what to write the Heaven or Hell pamphleteers. I’m not going anywhere the mini goats can't also go.

What the watchmaker wrote

Tue, 8 Jun 2010 09:06:12 -0400

I am suspicious of contemporary fiction. I will turn to the first page of a book, hoping to find a new world to fall into. I want to be enveloped into a world that appears to have evolved on its own, and grown by its own momentum. Instead I find a watch, constructed by a watchmaker who has tried hard not to make himself invisible. He will have left signs of his crafting, “look at this cleverly constructed cog;” “the watchmaker was here.” He will make sure I appreciate the determined quirkiness of the protagonist before allowing that individual to proceed with the plot. I could blame myself: the watchmaker thinks I am too stupid to notice.

Sometimes the watchmaker can’t decide which cog pleases him more, and even though both cogs serve the same function, he leaves both in: “She’s cordon bleu meets Detroit, she’s Julia Child if she were Aretha Franklin,” says Claire in Audrey Niffenberger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. The two sentences convey the same information and in essentially the same way: Motown Mammy’s a mighty fine cook. Engineering redundancy is important to keep airplanes from falling out of the sky (that’s why they have two wings), but it weighs down fiction.

Sometimes I can tell on the first sentence, sometimes it takes a couple pages: I cannot fall into this world because it is no world, just an elaborate puppet show. Countless books have disappointed me in this way, and I have nearly given up on contemporary fiction. Only nearly though, because I am an incorrigible optimist. I still come home from the used bookstore with a stack of books, some vetted in the store, some I’ve never heard of, some because—meh—the cover was pretty, and it cost a buck.

That’s how I came to own Jedediah Berry’s The Manual of Detection. It cost a dollar, and I was looking for mysteries to send my sister. I started reading it. Unwin, the protagonist, is coming up with pretexts for being at the train station. He’s there watching a woman in a plaid coat. There are details that should not be mistaken for clues and details that don’t look like clues, but in a couple hundred pages, I learn that those details are clues. But I don’t need to know that yet. I don’t yet need to know much. I don’t need to know anything more than what Unwin knows, so I am as unprepared as he is for his promotion from clerk to detective. Unwin does not want to be a detective. He is a C-L-E-R-K, and a good one. But to get his job back, he must find the missing detective whose place he has taken.

Unwin doesn’t know how to begin detecting, and because he’s not really a detective, he doesn’t want to look in his newly issued Manual of Detection. He bumbles around a slickly raining city, and succeeds only in piling more questions onto the still-unanswered first questions. This city through which he must traipse is dark and ominous, but not so ominous as the carnival on the edge of the city. And these questions that Unwin must answer arise organically from his activities, and—as the third act begins and Unwin finally starts to find answers—the answer fit symmetrically and naturally within this fanciful world.

I read this book slowly because I want to savor not knowing what is going on, to enjoy not being able to anticipate its direction. It will be the only time I will read this book, and not know what is important and what isn’t. I don’t yet know that it is all important. I won’t read slowly or carefully enough, because my need to know will eventually overpower my desire to enjoy. I will re-read it slowly, later, to take in all the things I know are important. I will marvel at all the ways the author didn’t draw attention to his cleverness, didn’t leave his fingerprints to smudge his world.

Note: I did not quote The Time Traveler's Wife exactly because my copy's in storage. Since no one's paying me to root through all the boxes of crap that are most unfortunately not labeled "Here be that Niffenberger book," while I grumble to myself about how I own too much crap and how there are crapless children in Uganda, you, the reader have a couple options: you can take on faith that I have captured the essence of the lines from The Time Traveler's Wife; you can go out and buy, borrow, or steal The Time Traveler's Wife and check my accuracy; or you can pay me to go through my own crap.

You probably shouldn't steal a copy, but if you do, know that you might get caught. If you get caught, telling the bookstore proprietor that I told you to steal that book is unlikely to excuse you from prosecution. And offering to pay me money to go through my crap, while it might seem like a viable option, probably won't work out either because I'm terribly lazy and think my time is worth a lot more than I can get anyone else to support. So your best bet is to just believe me. Trust me, baby, trust me.

A proud night for the hunter

Fri, 14 May 2010 16:05:42 -0400

I am already awake, which ordinarily I don’t recommend at a quarter to four. I don’t think it would have mattered one way or the other, because I can’t imagine my efforts could have been less ept. Something about the noise the Cat made, when she hit the doggy door clued me in. I reach for the light, and grabbed my robe. Whatever she’s brought in, I’m not facing it naked.

The Cat is already on the far side of the bedroom, and has already set her prize down, when I get to her. Sigh. I grab a plastic bag to dispose of it, but at it was dea—OHGODOHGOD!

Not dead. Alive. Mouseratcreaturewithlongnakedtail. Ohgodohgodewewew. Where’s the Dog Monster? DogMonster has run outside. Coward. Ohgod. What do I do? Breathe. You’ve done this before—just drop a towel on it like a net, and take it outside. Done this before. In the kitchen, where there was less cover for it to take. I dash to the closet for a towel, decide against it, and grab a dirty one from the pile I’d meant to wash yesterday. Ohgodohgodohgod.

I don’t know how the Cat caught it in the first place, because she’s doing a pisspoor job of pursuing it right now. She chases it into the bathroom. She and it are crammed between the wall and the toilet. I do not have a clear shot of the rodent—repeat, do not have a clear shot. The Cat sits up, looks at me. The rodent takes cover under her.Its long naked tail is sticking out between her front paws. I yell at her to focus, but even as I’m doing that, I’m running through the names of sites where I can list a cat in need of a new home.

She bats at the rodent again. It somehow gets around her, and dashes behind a bookcase. I suddenly hate books. The Cat follows it to the bookcase, then stops to wash herself. I grab a picture frame I’ve never gotten around to hanging (yes, I’ve lived here a year. Fuck off.), and stick it to one side of the bookcase, to keep the rodent from hiding behind even more impenetrable furniture.

Now what?

Best case scenario: the rodent surrenders, comes out from under the bookcase, and drops dead. The Cat picks it up and disposes of it outside. We never speak of it again.

Alternate next best case scenario: the rodent surrenders, comes out from under the bookcase, and promptly is taken into custody by the Cat, who picks it up and disposes of it outside. We never speak of it again.

Suboptimal scenario: the Cat loses interest and wanders off. The rodent comes out from under the bookcase, I net it with the towel, pick it up, and dispose of it outside. We never speak of it again.

Worst case scenario: the Cat loses interest and wanders off. The rodent, sensing my defenselessness, comes out from under the bookcase, attacks me, I die a horrible death from the bubonic plague. The rodent eats my shoes.

The Cat appears to be focusing. Insanely, I lose focus and start taking her picture. No—not insanely: I can’t find my flashlight (Shut up!) and this way I can see under the bookcase. I start moving the books, with the idea that I will move the bookcase.

I get all the books moved. I wonder how long it’ll take me to get around replacing them. If I survive the night. The Cat chuffs to the rodent. She undoubtedly believes she is making soothing noises. I hate them both equally. I move the bookcase.

The rodent has somehow gotten around the barrier I’d set down, and is now behind a piece of furniture I can’t move on my own. The Cat slides into the crack after it. The rodent comes out on the other side, runs to the door, and down the hallway. As I follow it, I look for something to prod it with, to keep it moving in the right direction. The rodent scrambles to the top of the baseboard, but finding itself exposed, gets back onto the floor. It clings to the wall, as it moves slowly to the backdoor. It’s too much to hope for that it knows how to use the doggy door. No, it’s about to get out of here alive. I don’t want it knowing how to use the doggy door.

Ohgodohgod—I’m going to have to pass right by it to open the door to let it out. Maybe I should run back and put shoes on—but what shoes? The only shoes I can remember I own are silver flats.

^{Not effective against rat attacks.}

Those won’t do me any good when it bites my ankle. Ohgod, I’m going to have pass it. Ewewew. Fortunately, I found some inner reserve of strength and was able to overtake the thing before it reached the door, found itself trapped, and launched itself at my jugular. I opened the door—Gah—it’s going to have to pass by me again, and it was gone.

I’m sweating, relieved, and heading back to my bedroom. I notice my flashlight sitting by the doorway. The Cat is still poised, looking for the rodent. She never realized that I wasn’t shrieking in the hallway for some inscrutable reasons of my own.

I crawl back into bed to salvage some of the night. The Cat squawks at me. It is breakfast time.

The Marx Reader is a joke. The Cat is displeased that I have yet to clear HER chair. As we speak, she is out somewhere attempting to lose the bell collar I slapped on her.

Matching wits with the Dog Monster (and falling short)

Fri, 9 Apr 2010 09:04:16 -0400

When I told my husband how certain I was that I was going to fail my upcoming exams, he calmly and cheerfully announced that if that happened, he would pack up all my shoes and ship them to Alaska (the better to get me barefoot and pregnant; shoes, after all, are a common prophylactic in the South).

"My shoes are all strappy sandals," I retorted. This is Texas, after all.

"Oh, well, I'll send them Mexico instead."

I did not fail that round of exams, and got to keep my shoes.

Then came the Dog Monster. The Dog Monster does not understand conditions precedent, and therefore does not care that I passed my exams. She does not care that I am allowed to keep my shoes. She continues the war on my shoes.

She started with the Via Spigas. She went straight for the most expensive pair of shoes I've ever bought. Those were some gorgeous shoes. And she didn't stop there. Oh, no. Cheapo flip-flops, ancienty boots I've had and loved for years, slides I've had for only a couple weeks.

Some I was able to repair. The shoe repair people laugh when I pull out my poor mangled shoes. They ask what kind of dog I have. I know a lady who used to rotate cobblers, she was so embarrassed at how frequently her dog got into her shoes.

I haven't gotten to that point yet.

Some I have been able to replace, through the magic of online shopping. 6pm.com, zappos.com, yes, they all know me. They also ask what kind of dog I have, as they watch me buy and re-buy shoes. Right before Christmas, I put the Dog Monster for sale on Facebook, offering her as a fully integrated shoe disposal unit. Only my sister-in-law made an offer on her. She offered my sister's cat.

I had selfishly gone on a trip, and forgotten to unpack immediately upon my return. While I was out, Dog Monster stuck her oversized nose into the suitcase, and delicately tugged out one little sandal. When she tired of gnawing on it, she pulled out its mate. When I came home, I found the soggy second sandal still warm from her attentions.

Since then, I have scrupulously put away all my shoes (it's only taken eighteen months to learn this lesson).

And tranquility reigned.

I underestimated my companion's wilyness. She is, after all, descended of the Alaskan Malamute, a hardy and old breed that can have been made hardier and more resourceful by its emigration to North Texas. The Dog Monster knows how to improvise.

I got an e-mail from Nordstrom's: FREE SHIPPING on Sandals. I love free shipping. Free shipping is like the pink icing of online shopping: you know it's not as good as it looks, but who's gonna stop you? Certainly not your sense of shame. Well, certainly not my sense of shame.

I'm looking at sandals, quite happily. I've picked out a couple pairs I like. Ooh, a little pricy. Maybe I can find a better price elsewhere:

Nope. No better price. $167.95 is kinda a lot for sandals, but they're so cute. And there's free shipping!

I'm getting ready to pull out my credit card, when I remember the last thing I used it on.

I got to drop $211.60 on a trip to the vet and some horse pills to treat the Dog Monster's bladder infection.

The Dog Monster has figured out how to destroy shoes before they even enter my possession.

My only consolation: the Dog Monster can't read and therefore doesn't know that the peanut butter jar says "creamy." The "crunchy" peanut butter is just creamy peanut butter with a couple pills crammed into it.

The devil said my soul isn't worth writing so well

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 22:03:49 -0400

Books I probably read at least twice a year

Harry Potter, JK Rowling. Hands down, collectively. Every time I read them, I come away with something different. Right now, Rowling's depiction of grief and depression suddenly resonate more than they once did. Also, her plotting has made me more aware of the strings lesser writers pull. And the woman is funny.

Pride and Prejudice. I mindlessly adopted Twain's attitude towards Jane Austen, and when I had to read P&P for class, I promptly pulled out the barbecue sauce to slather it on all those words I had to go and eat.

Revelatory reads: my world changed for having read these books. Or the writing was so good it makes me want to cry, that I'll never be able to do that.

Letters from the Earth, Mark Twain. In 48 hours, my 8-10 page paper on the intersection of Otto von Bismarck and Mark Twain is due. I have started flipping through the books I bought on and of Twain a couple weeks before. With LFE, I forget about Huck Finn, forget about blood and iron, and am permanently and forever in love with Mark Twain. I get a B-plus on the paper, but I don't know what it's about.

The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood. I thought I was all outsmarting Atwood, but I was wrong. I'm not as smart as I think, and every now and then someone needs to remind me of that. Figured it would be a Canadian.

Animals Make Us Human, Temple Grandin. All y'all know I talk about my aminals too much. Their behavior fascinates me. In college I did some research (from a touchy-feely perspective) on animal welfare, specifically the welfare of the animals we eat. I love eating animals. Eating animals is one of the reasons I'm glad to be alive. So I want the animals I eat to have led reasonably pleasant existences. Temple Grandin talks about how this is possible, but also what constitutes a reasonably pleasant existence for an animal. I babbled for weeks about this book, and her earlier Animals in Translation, to any captive audience I could find.

Quarantine, Jim Crace. Jesus is a feckless (dirty hippy) who accidentally saves the life of a thoroughly evil man. The writing, oh, the writing makes me weep. It's stark, and brutal, and beautiful.

River Town, Peter Hessler. A memoir of two years in the Peace Corp teaching English in a town that hadn't seen Westerners in living memory. Every student has a horror story in his family's background, and that was normal.

Required reading that took me five years to come back to

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. My great-great-grandfather killed his wife. I owed it to him to give his book another chance.

The book I'd take to the deserted island

A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson. It's the history of how we know sciency stuff. The writing is engaging, and breezy, and enjoyable, but there's so much information I could read it all the way through, put it down, go have lunch, start it up again, and immediately find myself in awe of all the stuff I didn't know.

Books I'll never finish, God help me, I've tried.

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad.

The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie.

Books that should have made a list of mine, but didn't.

His Dark Materials, Phillip Pullman. God help him (or not), the man just isn't funny. Loved the books, but probably won't read them again because they aren't funny. Even if they do include a Texan and a talking polar bear. For weeks, I dreamt about having a polar bear cub, even when my husband told me I couldn't have one.

Lolita, Nabokov. Loved the book, own the book, don't see myself ever reading it again.

Okay, that's enough for now.

Bonus update:

The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear, Walter Moers. Because who knew the Germans had the whimsy?