E-mail: Brian7Morris "at" hotmail.com Archives March 2002 April 2002 May 2002 June 2002 July 2002 August 2002 September 2002 October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 current Blogs Mandapants farkleberries Uranium City Records The C.M. Sienko Foundation Storyteller Musings Solotarian Views Lynne Wiora Tek Poker News Blog Some Biscuits Evil Eye Emporium Niggling Doubts Pressure Release Sara as Mommy runswithscissors Defective Yeti Afternoon Delight trancejen The Terrarium Bird Nird Slipperily Tofu Hut Stereo Gum Links Fixed Gear Gallery Get Crafty This is Grand Featherproof Books Gapers Block Chicago Bird Watching	No one must know my terrible secret... House of Noh! Wednesday, June 23, 2004 My neighbors just caught me going through their trash again. I don’t know how they do it. I try to be quiet, but their trashcans are right under their kitchen windows, so maybe that’s how they hear me. Today the whole family burst out of their kitchen door, brandishing brooms and stuff, like they were ready to shoo off a bunch of mischievous trash-scattering raccoons. But instead they just found me, wide-eyed and caught red-handed, with a big bundle of weather-stained broken rocking chair parts held over my shoulder. As always, they handled the situation graciously, saying only things like, “Oh, it’s you.” and, “enjoy that rocking chair.” Then they went back inside and I scampered off. Putting this rocking chair back together is a bit more difficult than I thought it would be. Sometimes (but not always!) people throw stuff away because it’s just not useful anymore. Intellectually, I realize this. But hey, free stuff! And the cool thing is that, when I move out, if the awesome trash I’ve collected isn’t really doing me any good then I’ll just leave it by the side of some dumpster. Circle of Life! I‘ve made some progress, but this rocking chair is still sort of wobbly. I think that this might be a type of low-rider rocking chair, or a chopper rocking chair or something. It tips over backward if I lean on the backrest, but other then that it’s really comfortable, even just sitting on the bare wood slats of the seat. I think I might indulge myself and dress up my new rocking chair with a seat cushion made from that green foam they sell at crafting and fabric stores. That green foam comes to me highly recommended, my grandma likes it so much that she carries a thick square of it around with her so that she can sit on it wherever she goes. Brian 4:33 PM (0) comments Monday, June 21, 2004 Uncle Milton seems like a totally chilled out dude. I know because, being the newly retired and aspiring man-of-leisure that I am, yesterday I ambled down to the Big Thrift Shop in my neighborhood and purchased a bunch of old media ($1.00 each!). I spent the rest of the afternoon drinking a pot of Earl Grey tea, listening to Foghat records and reading Questions and Answers about Ants from cover to cover. My favorite part of the book is where Uncle Milton relates to the reader a personal ant experience he once had. Uncle Milton writes that he was once enjoying a peach at home while looking out the window. He saw an ant on the windowsill, and put a small portion of the peach in the ant’s path. The ant found the bit of peach, took a taste, then hurried back in the direction from which it came, into a little hole in the side of the wood window frame. Uncle Milton writes that within a few minutes, ants began racing out of the little hole toward the peach. After ten minutes there were fifteen ants, sucking on the peach, and after a half hour there were fifty ants on the peach. Uncle Milton says that the ants kept sucking on the peach until, after an hour and a half, there was nothing left. Then the ants all ran back through that little hole in the wood. Before this ant experience, Uncle Milton writes that he wasn’t aware of a nest of ants living in his house. But come on Uncle Milton! Protest all you will, but a little nest of Pogonomyrmex in your windowsill has got to be the least of your worries! Everybody knows that if you’re the type of guy who’ll spend hours watching ants you discovered on your windowsill, then you probably live in a big old house all by yourself with at least three rooms filled with stacks upon stacks of old National Geographics and mouse turds. Further, all the neighborhood kids call you “Weird Uncle Milton,” you probably sleep on a cot in the kitchen, and you feed your table scraps to the badger family living underneath the storage shed in back by dangling morsels into their burrow with a long pair of chopsticks. Sorry Uncle Milton, that’s just the way the world seems to work. As for my other purchases at the Thrift Shop, I also picked up some foreign language books. One of the ways I’m going to spend my retirement is by learning a second language, and I found a few really comprehensive language books. It’s cool because my language study is already paying dividends. I was at the English/Spanish Laundromat this morning, trying to speak with the owner, a native Spanish speaker, and the little I’ve already read was actually quite helpful. I said, “jo‘, mIqta-lIj belHa’ Sut-wI’. JI-poQ choH-wI’chegh!” which means “Your machinery displeased my clothing. I demand my change returned to me!” in Klingon. Brian 3:57 PM (0) comments Saturday, June 12, 2004 Note to self: Must stop referring to memories from past lives when conversing with people I’ve just met. Despite the relevance of the memory to the topic at hand, I fear that I may be coming off as flaky. Brian 4:03 PM (0) comments Tuesday, June 08, 2004 It turns out that my apartment is in a really, really old building. At least, that’s what the maintenance man here tells me. He also explained that, because the building is so old, I shouldn’t have any expectations of getting anything that’s wrong with my apartment fixed, on account of what an old building it is, he has explained to me, and no, he‘s not going to fix anything that is wrong with my apartment. And so now it’s with weary resignation that I keep a Rubbermaid tub filled with room temperature water in the bathroom next to the shower, so that in the morning when I stand there in the tub covered with soap and the pipes gurgle to a dry stop - once I listen to the pipes gurgle weakly and die without returning to life for a period of time that satisfies me that the water will not return until long after I have gone to work, I un-lid the rubbermaid bucket holding my emergency water and dump it over my head. Then, again with weary resignation, I just have to go about my day and get dressed and go to work with soap-stinging eyes that get all red and make it look like I’ve been crying. Actually, the red-eyes don’t really make much of a practical difference anyway because on most weekday mornings, after I’ve drunk my first cup of coffee but before somebody calls me to their office to yell at me and call me an idiot, usually at around the time that somebody calls me on the phone to explain that I’m an inefficient dumb-ass, I customarily cry for a little while, just a few minutes, at my desk anyway. The “old building” routine is not the only method my maintenance man uses to get out of work. His standby favorite is to act cloyingly appeasing in an attempt to gain favor with his tenants. I believe that in his mind, if his tenants like him, they won’t ask him to fix any of the things that are terribly wrong with their apartments. The maintenance man supplants his solicitous friendliness by also, at any conceivable point in an interaction with a tenant, remarking on how busy he is. Presumably, his rationale is that his tenants won’t ask him to fix any of the things that are terribly wrong with their apartment if they believe that he is very busy. For example: Maintenance man: “Hello! How are you! I hope you are doing great!” Me: “I am, thank you!” Maintenance man: “But please, would you like to know how I am also?” Me: “Yes of course, how could I forget.” Maintenance man: “I’m EXTREMELY fucking busy right now, and will be EXTREMELY fucking busy until, well…. about until your lease runs out.” Sometimes too, if you do remind him of a needed repair, like, if you push through his preemptory techniques and confront him on a needed repair, he’ll put it all together and wail and wail about how busy he is and what an old building we live in and how we shouldn’t expect to have any repairs done, etc. etc. He makes quite a scene, and sometimes I’m afraid that he’ll drop to his knees and reach up and grab my hand and plead with me or something or pull out his hair or rend his clothing. I don’t think I’ve ever had one repair done to my apartment - and to be honest I haven’t ever gone through and asked for much, but this whole routine has been going on between the maintenance man and me for about a year now. But just this last weekend I noticed that after all this time, the routine was getting a little more… I don’t know, honest maybe? On Saturday I was walking back from the Laundromat and discovered that one of the maintenance man’s henchman must have spilled a box of rusty old nails in the parking lot. I picked up a few but then noticed that the whole parking lot was full of nails and screws and various tire-puncturing debris. About an hour later I walked through the parking lot again and I found the maintenance guy standing there beside his truck: Maintenance man: “Hello! How are you! I hope you are doing great!” Me: “I’m doing great, but say, I think one of your guys dropped a bunch of nails in the parking lot.” Maintenance man: (immediately commencing to wail and looking at me with pleading eyes) “Please! Please don’t be made at me!” I was a little taken aback, I mean, it wasn’t a big deal and I wasn’t angry at him in the least - why would I be? Honest mistakes happen and some nails in the parking lots can be cleaned up easily. Me: “No, I’m not mad at all, I don’t even have a car here, I just wanted to bring those nails to your attention because I think somebody who does have a car is going to get a flat or something.” Maintenance man: (wailing more loudly and even more desperately) Please! Please don’t be mad at me! Please don’t be mad at me because I am not going to clean those nails up! Please don’t be mad at me for never having any intention of even considering remedying the problem of which you speak. Please, PLEASE! don’t be mad at me for ignoring what you just said and instead thinking about professional wrestling while you were talking!” Brian 12:20 AM (0) comments

E-mail: Brian7Morris "at" hotmail.com

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House of Noh!

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

My neighbors just caught me going through their trash again. I don’t know how they do it. I try to be quiet, but their trashcans are right under their kitchen windows, so maybe that’s how they hear me. Today the whole family burst out of their kitchen door, brandishing brooms and stuff, like they were ready to shoo off a bunch of mischievous trash-scattering raccoons. But instead they just found me, wide-eyed and caught red-handed, with a big bundle of weather-stained broken rocking chair parts held over my shoulder. As always, they handled the situation graciously, saying only things like, “Oh, it’s you.” and, “enjoy that rocking chair.” Then they went back inside and I scampered off. Putting this rocking chair back together is a bit more difficult than I thought it would be. Sometimes (but not always!) people throw stuff away because it’s just not useful anymore. Intellectually, I realize this. But hey, free stuff! And the cool thing is that, when I move out, if the awesome trash I’ve collected isn’t really doing me any good then I’ll just leave it by the side of some dumpster. Circle of Life! I‘ve made some progress, but this rocking chair is still sort of wobbly. I think that this might be a type of low-rider rocking chair, or a chopper rocking chair or something. It tips over backward if I lean on the backrest, but other then that it’s really comfortable, even just sitting on the bare wood slats of the seat. I think I might indulge myself and dress up my new rocking chair with a seat cushion made from that green foam they sell at crafting and fabric stores. That green foam comes to me highly recommended, my grandma likes it so much that she carries a thick square of it around with her so that she can sit on it wherever she goes.

Brian 4:33 PM (0) comments

Monday, June 21, 2004

Uncle Milton seems like a totally chilled out dude. I know because, being the newly retired and aspiring man-of-leisure that I am, yesterday I ambled down to the Big Thrift Shop in my neighborhood and purchased a bunch of old media ($1.00 each!). I spent the rest of the afternoon drinking a pot of Earl Grey tea, listening to Foghat records and reading Questions and Answers about Ants from cover to cover. My favorite part of the book is where Uncle Milton relates to the reader a personal ant experience he once had. Uncle Milton writes that he was once enjoying a peach at home while looking out the window. He saw an ant on the windowsill, and put a small portion of the peach in the ant’s path. The ant found the bit of peach, took a taste, then hurried back in the direction from which it came, into a little hole in the side of the wood window frame. Uncle Milton writes that within a few minutes, ants began racing out of the little hole toward the peach. After ten minutes there were fifteen ants, sucking on the peach, and after a half hour there were fifty ants on the peach. Uncle Milton says that the ants kept sucking on the peach until, after an hour and a half, there was nothing left. Then the ants all ran back through that little hole in the wood. Before this ant experience, Uncle Milton writes that he wasn’t aware of a nest of ants living in his house. But come on Uncle Milton! Protest all you will, but a little nest of Pogonomyrmex in your windowsill has got to be the least of your worries! Everybody knows that if you’re the type of guy who’ll spend hours watching ants you discovered on your windowsill, then you probably live in a big old house all by yourself with at least three rooms filled with stacks upon stacks of old National Geographics and mouse turds. Further, all the neighborhood kids call you “Weird Uncle Milton,” you probably sleep on a cot in the kitchen, and you feed your table scraps to the badger family living underneath the storage shed in back by dangling morsels into their burrow with a long pair of chopsticks. Sorry Uncle Milton, that’s just the way the world seems to work. As for my other purchases at the Thrift Shop, I also picked up some foreign language books. One of the ways I’m going to spend my retirement is by learning a second language, and I found a few really comprehensive language books. It’s cool because my language study is already paying dividends. I was at the English/Spanish Laundromat this morning, trying to speak with the owner, a native Spanish speaker, and the little I’ve already read was actually quite helpful. I said, “jo‘, mIqta-lIj belHa’ Sut-wI’. JI-poQ choH-wI’chegh!” which means “Your machinery displeased my clothing. I demand my change returned to me!” in Klingon.

Brian 3:57 PM (0) comments

Saturday, June 12, 2004

Note to self: Must stop referring to memories from past lives when conversing with people I’ve just met. Despite the relevance of the memory to the topic at hand, I fear that I may be coming off as flaky.

Brian 4:03 PM (0) comments

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

It turns out that my apartment is in a really, really old building. At least, that’s what the maintenance man here tells me. He also explained that, because the building is so old, I shouldn’t have any expectations of getting anything that’s wrong with my apartment fixed, on account of what an old building it is, he has explained to me, and no, he‘s not going to fix anything that is wrong with my apartment. And so now it’s with weary resignation that I keep a Rubbermaid tub filled with room temperature water in the bathroom next to the shower, so that in the morning when I stand there in the tub covered with soap and the pipes gurgle to a dry stop - once I listen to the pipes gurgle weakly and die without returning to life for a period of time that satisfies me that the water will not return until long after I have gone to work, I un-lid the rubbermaid bucket holding my emergency water and dump it over my head. Then, again with weary resignation, I just have to go about my day and get dressed and go to work with soap-stinging eyes that get all red and make it look like I’ve been crying. Actually, the red-eyes don’t really make much of a practical difference anyway because on most weekday mornings, after I’ve drunk my first cup of coffee but before somebody calls me to their office to yell at me and call me an idiot, usually at around the time that somebody calls me on the phone to explain that I’m an inefficient dumb-ass, I customarily cry for a little while, just a few minutes, at my desk anyway. The “old building” routine is not the only method my maintenance man uses to get out of work. His standby favorite is to act cloyingly appeasing in an attempt to gain favor with his tenants. I believe that in his mind, if his tenants like him, they won’t ask him to fix any of the things that are terribly wrong with their apartments. The maintenance man supplants his solicitous friendliness by also, at any conceivable point in an interaction with a tenant, remarking on how busy he is. Presumably, his rationale is that his tenants won’t ask him to fix any of the things that are terribly wrong with their apartment if they believe that he is very busy. For example: Maintenance man: “Hello! How are you! I hope you are doing great!” Me: “I am, thank you!” Maintenance man: “But please, would you like to know how I am also?” Me: “Yes of course, how could I forget.” Maintenance man: “I’m EXTREMELY fucking busy right now, and will be EXTREMELY fucking busy until, well…. about until your lease runs out.” Sometimes too, if you do remind him of a needed repair, like, if you push through his preemptory techniques and confront him on a needed repair, he’ll put it all together and wail and wail about how busy he is and what an old building we live in and how we shouldn’t expect to have any repairs done, etc. etc. He makes quite a scene, and sometimes I’m afraid that he’ll drop to his knees and reach up and grab my hand and plead with me or something or pull out his hair or rend his clothing. I don’t think I’ve ever had one repair done to my apartment - and to be honest I haven’t ever gone through and asked for much, but this whole routine has been going on between the maintenance man and me for about a year now. But just this last weekend I noticed that after all this time, the routine was getting a little more… I don’t know, honest maybe? On Saturday I was walking back from the Laundromat and discovered that one of the maintenance man’s henchman must have spilled a box of rusty old nails in the parking lot. I picked up a few but then noticed that the whole parking lot was full of nails and screws and various tire-puncturing debris. About an hour later I walked through the parking lot again and I found the maintenance guy standing there beside his truck: Maintenance man: “Hello! How are you! I hope you are doing great!” Me: “I’m doing great, but say, I think one of your guys dropped a bunch of nails in the parking lot.” Maintenance man: (immediately commencing to wail and looking at me with pleading eyes) “Please! Please don’t be made at me!” I was a little taken aback, I mean, it wasn’t a big deal and I wasn’t angry at him in the least - why would I be? Honest mistakes happen and some nails in the parking lots can be cleaned up easily. Me: “No, I’m not mad at all, I don’t even have a car here, I just wanted to bring those nails to your attention because I think somebody who does have a car is going to get a flat or something.” Maintenance man: (wailing more loudly and even more desperately) Please! Please don’t be mad at me! Please don’t be mad at me because I am not going to clean those nails up! Please don’t be mad at me for never having any intention of even considering remedying the problem of which you speak. Please, PLEASE! don’t be mad at me for ignoring what you just said and instead thinking about professional wrestling while you were talking!”

Brian 12:20 AM (0) comments

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