In which I teach my nephew Owen how to yell at cars.

Okay, Owen, now let's hassle that guy driving the yellow Hummer.


"Hey! Hey, buddy! What's with the car? Always dreamed of being a school bus driver but couldn't make the cut?"


"Ha! That always cracks me up."

On Top of the City

Every home has its own pleasures. Maybe you've got a cozy den, a kitchen window looking out on birds and palms, a tiled shower with perfect water pressure. Me, I've got brick steps, the perfect place to loll and sip beer and watch Tallahassee traffic roll past.

Remember when people would add neon light bars under the cars and trucks to give them a colored underglow? Yeah, some folks still do that. I know. I see them. I see it all on nights like tonight might pan out to be. Teenage boys singing show tunes. SUVs full of tiara-topped bachlelorettes (where do they go to make complete idiots of themselves in a town with no gay bars and no strip clubs?). Restaurant workers walking home, dreaming of taking off their shoes and polyester button down shirts. Hipsters on bikes. Old men on bikes. Once, a full sized Dodge van loaded into the back of a dump truck.

I intend to go home from work, put dinner in the fridge, clean out the cat box, change into my bdu britches, crack open a Pabst, and take up my post on the stoop. Hey, if you're out and about and haven't got anywhere to be, stop on by and say howdy. It's that kind of night.

this makes me chuckle

Proof that you never can tell how things will turn out:

George Clooney vs. Christopher Walken

Up on the Rooftop

That's a picture of my house (compare to my masthead above) and the Firestone, in 1951, back when God laid an egg. (I grabbed it off the Florida Photo Archive Collection, one of the coolest spots on the web if you like that sort of thing.)

60 years later, the trees are bigger, the road is wider, and the Firestone no longer sells gas, but both buildings are still there and holding on. Normally, they're the best neighbors I could ask for. No funny smells, no littered lot, gone at night, and not fussy about us using their back wall to show movies on at night. Well, they may not know about that last part, but you get the idea. Through some right of easement situation, we use the alley that runs along the back of their property to access our parking lot - it's the only way in or out of our complex. Otherwise we play catch as can catch on the downtown streets.

So, Monday night I'm sitting in my house doing my best imitation of a little old man, afghan tucked around me in my chair, eating shepard's pie my sister made, when my friend and I hear a great big BOOM! Normally, a sound like that means that a few people are having a very bad night on Monroe Street. We jump up and peer out the front window, but no wreck. Must have been a block or two away, so we return to the tv. Then, again, BOOM! BANG! and people babbling. What the fuck?!

I jump into my flip flops and head outside to figure out if I need to call 911. It seems to be mostly coming from the back, and as I round the corner I realize, between the giant lights and the heavy machinery I can see poking up over the lip of the building, what's going on. They're reroofing the god damned Firestone.

And it's going to take 3 weeks, dusk to dawn.
And I won't have access to my parking lot entrance that entire time.
And there are chunks of concrete all down in our lot and my side yard.
And it sounds like the demolition derby.

They could have at least warned us. The joys of living downtown. Anybody need a house sitter for a couple of days?

Effed Up Punk Nite

All last week I had a cold. I snuffled. I coughed. I sat in my chair. Sit sit sit, with my cat in my lap. I watched Battlestar Galactica dvds, I ate soup, I drank OJ. Drink drink drink.

How much fun was it? None. None fun.

Oh, sure, my cat loved it. She was in psycho kitty heaven, sucking up my body warmth and biting me every time I went to take yet another hot shower or make a tuna sandwich. Bite bite bite. That's Baggy's favorite trick.

After something like 7 or 8 days of sitting and sipping and being bit every so often, I now declare myself healed. Discount the rough cough I may be wracked with every so often. Please ignore the slightly distant look on my face as my addled brain catches up with the conversation. Because there's no way those things are going to kill me, but cabin fever was about to.

Dead dead dead.

make the walls ring

Okay, these pictures are from Thanksgiving Eve at my mama's house. Give me two months, maybe I'll make a New Year's post. I'm blessed to come from a family dripping with musicians. Me, though, not so much. So this is what a holiday with our little clan looks like from my corner of the room.


A small library can hold a whole lot of music.


Old friends bend strings.


The generations swap notes.


May makes a curtain of her hair and sings from behind it.


And the Cicada Ladies play.