Scribbler's Cafe: Expectations muck up the works, yet again

Monday, June 21, 2004

Expectations muck up the works, yet again

A Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius almost lived up to its title. Almost. I didn’t cry like the author, Dave Eggers promised I would in the prologue, but I did enjoy the book a great deal. He has a highly neurotic and (my classmates will hate me for this) postmodern voice. The copyright page alone was funny enough to make me forgive the title. I recommend this book. I also recommend skipping through the parts where Dave’s rants go on and on until words cease to have meaning and everything is in Technicolor, but that only happens 50 times or so in the course of the book. I had avoided this book for as long as possible because of its title and the fact that so many people kept raving about it. But, then so many people kept raving about it and curiosity got the better of me. While reading it, I quickly discovered that Dave puts out McSweeney’s, which is the smartest, coolest, mort irreverent literary journal out there. If I had known that, I would have bought it the first week it came out. Oh well.

I finished the heartbreaking work on Saturday, while sitting on a plastic chair in the shade of my garage watching strangers paw through my junk. Garage sale. Thrilling way to spend a Saturday. I priced everything too high. Sure, my hiking boots went to Africa, but they were also old and worn and covered in mud. I didn’t get the 10 bucks I wanted for them. I thought I knew what would sell quickly and what would still be sitting on the tupperwares by the end of the day. I was dead wrong. The framed Van Gogh prints, the hand-painted Italian espresso cups, the two dollar digital camera (it works – I swear!) and the mosaic tile kit (still wrapped in plastic) weren’t even considered. The crimped, half-used roll of weed whacker wire and the dirty old sheet we were using to cover the items not for sale in the back of the garage were gone before noon. Crazy.

In another month, just before we move to Japan, we’re having the Garage sale to end all garage sales. We’re just opening up our house and letting people traipse through. Everything goes. Our discounts are mad, mad, MAD! It’ll be great. But, we’ve also learned from our experiences this weekend that Kiomye cannot bear witness to the carting away of her worldly goods. That child has not yet acquired a taste for the simple life. Buddhist philosophy is lost on her. She wants her damn pony, and her baby toys, and those shoes that don’t fit, and that ugly sweater she hates. They’re HERS! Ahh, mommy’s sweet little capitalist.

Recent angst footnote: It sucks to be accountable for things you have written late at night, in isolation, believing that no one will ever lay eyes on the words you transcribe on the screen. Publishing is a strange, strange bird. Like an egret. Is that even a bird? What’s an egret?

Have you noticed how everyone is talking about God lately? Or is that just in my life, my circle. Maybe everyone else is talking about Jerry Lewis or the fad diets. I don’t know. Everyone else could have, in fact stopped speaking their native languages and have finally accepted Esperanto as the superior means of communication. I don’t come in contact with very many people when compared to how many people live on this planet. So, I have no clue what “everyone” is really up to. In fact, my cable is even on the fritz and I rarely look at the news sites anymore. Oprah could have been deemed Domestic Goddess and Ruler of the Free World for all I know.

When my post has deteriorated to this, I should know it’s time to sign off. Yet, somehow, I just keep going.

Isn’t it annoying when people give their pets ridiculous names just so other people will think they’re clever or cultured? “They” being the owners, not the pets. No, the poor pets are innocent victims of chance. They are stuck with names like Mordor or Deuteronomy that they have to lug around with them for the rest of their short little lives. People are so dumb. My cats are lucky to have been chosen by me. Yep, little Dante and Picasso have the hippest owners EVER.

My husband is in Seattle. Or, maybe he’s on the drive back by now. This is what happens when he’s not around for me to share my absurd, fleeting contemplations with. Really, he shouldn’t be allowed to leave the house at all.