The Counter, The Crap Room, and So On
So, yeah, you may have noticed I added a counter to the bottom of this page. Jesus, how did I get here? From “I hate blogs, blogging, and bloggers” to caring enough to count my fucking hits in less than a week. The sad truth is it’s just more of the same old OCD. Mama Dog would be happy to tell you how I get every time we have a party. About an hour before start time, I have everything ready and nothing to do but get antsier and antsier. One minute after the appointed hour rolls around, I glare at the clock and say, “They’re late!” I can’t stop myself from going to the door and seeing if anybody’s coming up the street. I get really, really nuts…and yet she puts up with it. How lucky am I? If anything, it’s surprising it took me this long to get so obsessed with knowing how many people are looking at this page. Are they checking back more than once? What’s their IP address? Lunacy, but I can’t help it.
I would have preferred, of course, to keep this ugly business private by leaving the counter off the site. Unfortunately, that’s a service one must actually pay money for, so, as the dominant farmer said to the traveling scatophile, “Fuck that shit.”
More OCD: The latest hopeless project round these parts is one that’s been growing like a cancer on the Presidency since the day we moved into this house, and I’m pleased to report that I’ve made a modest amount of headway this week. I’ve been clearing out the northeast room of the basement. Some of you might know it as The Scary Room Where the Poker Table Spends Its Downtime, but we’ve been calling it The Crap Room, on account of that’s where I keep all my crap, and not just the good crap like the poker table. When we first moved into this house in summer 2001, the room was just the hasty repository for Stuff I Didn’t Know Where Else to Put. Over the years, that stuff has gained a thin layer of dust and a thick layer of Other Stuff. All was fine at first when it was just my stuff, but Mama Dog’s stuff gradually began to take up residence as other more reasonable locales reached their capacity. All was still fine until the day Mama Dog decided to go look for some of her stuff. That was when I learned that this room which I had thought of, if at all, as a charming recreation of my bachelor ways, was in fact A BIG PROBLEM. I don’t remember how many months ago that was, but a series of good intentions and empty resolutions followed while the crap divided and multiplied and began to chemically bond with the foundation. I probably could have let it go long enough that we’d eventually decide, kind of like the lawyer in Bartleby, that maybe it’d be easier just to buy a new house, but for the Family Medical Leave Act. As I’m now nearing the two-month anniversary of my leave-taking, it’s come to the attention of The Powers That Be (i.e., Mama Dog) that there are in fact many ways other than diaper changing that I could prove my worth around the house. So, The Crap Room. It’s taken three days of stolen moments when Baby Dog is either asleep or otherwise occupied, but I’ve managed to sort every piece of crap in that godforsaken wasteland. Of course, that’s just Phase I, and all it really consists of is dragging stuff into piles of like stuff. Quilts and rugs here. Luggage (why do we have so much luggage when we rarely go anywhere?) there. Games and things there. And mostly, ominously, my fifteen years’ worth of unsorted and unfiled papers over there in a teeming mountain in the garage. Phase II will be acquisition of shelving units on which to put all the crap and the design of a functional layout for the room. Phase III, or what I like to call “my life’s work,” will be the final culling and sorting of the fifteen years’ worth of papers. I’m sure you’ll hear all about it when it happens.
Newspaper Update (aka still more OCD): I’m chagrined to report that although I finished the July 26 paper, I only got through the front page section of July 27. It’s still technically more than one day’s worth of progress, but nowhere near the rate I need to be moving at if I’m going to catch up. We’ll be visiting Santa Barbara next week, and not only will I not be doing any catch-up, but even more papers will be piling up in my absence. A lesser being would despair. Or maybe recycle.
I would have preferred, of course, to keep this ugly business private by leaving the counter off the site. Unfortunately, that’s a service one must actually pay money for, so, as the dominant farmer said to the traveling scatophile, “Fuck that shit.”
More OCD: The latest hopeless project round these parts is one that’s been growing like a cancer on the Presidency since the day we moved into this house, and I’m pleased to report that I’ve made a modest amount of headway this week. I’ve been clearing out the northeast room of the basement. Some of you might know it as The Scary Room Where the Poker Table Spends Its Downtime, but we’ve been calling it The Crap Room, on account of that’s where I keep all my crap, and not just the good crap like the poker table. When we first moved into this house in summer 2001, the room was just the hasty repository for Stuff I Didn’t Know Where Else to Put. Over the years, that stuff has gained a thin layer of dust and a thick layer of Other Stuff. All was fine at first when it was just my stuff, but Mama Dog’s stuff gradually began to take up residence as other more reasonable locales reached their capacity. All was still fine until the day Mama Dog decided to go look for some of her stuff. That was when I learned that this room which I had thought of, if at all, as a charming recreation of my bachelor ways, was in fact A BIG PROBLEM. I don’t remember how many months ago that was, but a series of good intentions and empty resolutions followed while the crap divided and multiplied and began to chemically bond with the foundation. I probably could have let it go long enough that we’d eventually decide, kind of like the lawyer in Bartleby, that maybe it’d be easier just to buy a new house, but for the Family Medical Leave Act. As I’m now nearing the two-month anniversary of my leave-taking, it’s come to the attention of The Powers That Be (i.e., Mama Dog) that there are in fact many ways other than diaper changing that I could prove my worth around the house. So, The Crap Room. It’s taken three days of stolen moments when Baby Dog is either asleep or otherwise occupied, but I’ve managed to sort every piece of crap in that godforsaken wasteland. Of course, that’s just Phase I, and all it really consists of is dragging stuff into piles of like stuff. Quilts and rugs here. Luggage (why do we have so much luggage when we rarely go anywhere?) there. Games and things there. And mostly, ominously, my fifteen years’ worth of unsorted and unfiled papers over there in a teeming mountain in the garage. Phase II will be acquisition of shelving units on which to put all the crap and the design of a functional layout for the room. Phase III, or what I like to call “my life’s work,” will be the final culling and sorting of the fifteen years’ worth of papers. I’m sure you’ll hear all about it when it happens.
Newspaper Update (aka still more OCD): I’m chagrined to report that although I finished the July 26 paper, I only got through the front page section of July 27. It’s still technically more than one day’s worth of progress, but nowhere near the rate I need to be moving at if I’m going to catch up. We’ll be visiting Santa Barbara next week, and not only will I not be doing any catch-up, but even more papers will be piling up in my absence. A lesser being would despair. Or maybe recycle.
posted by PapaDogDuvalier | 9:05 AM
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