The World As Mare Sees It...
Mr. Bloopy is my friend. 2004-04-21

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Diaryland

Mare's Flirty Hemline Fund: $12.50
Daily Bread Food Bank Fund: $33.00

* * *

My days, as routine and cloistered as they are, don't really allow for a lot of pop culture to trickle in.
Any kind of culture, really.
Or basic information.
Or people. I'm hungry for people, any kind of people. When the doorbell rings, I make like a yippy dog in heat and run to greet whomever (whoever?) is there, sometimes even hoping against hope that it will be a Jehovah's Witness and that they're in the mood to talk.

People! Anyone will do! Except for the delivery guy, and frankly, I feel a little gypped, because everyone else gets a hottie delivery man in brown shorts and muscles, who will smile brightly and ask you to baby oh baby please baby please sign here.

My delivery guy however, gives off a faintly suicidal air. Honestly, he only shows grim satisfaction when it rains, and that's it. Bright greetings of "Good morning!" are met with gloom and the unmistakable smell of mothballs.

Zoo and I were standing on my driveway one day while I indulged in of my rarer and rarer once-a-day fag breaks, and Mr. Bloopy (for that is what I've named him in my head: Bloopy. Mr. Bill Bloopy) drove up.

"Areyouwaitingjustforme?No,Ididn'tthinkso." Sigh. "Signhereplease" he said, and pushed his clipboard at me. And then, I swear to God, he positively drooped, with shoulders slumped, back to his van.

This morning, a cloud must have parted for him for a few seconds, because as I was signing, he glanced at the garden at the base of the veranda.

"Yourflowersarestartingtobloom," he mumbled. That cloud must have blown back pretty quickly, because just as quickly, he answered himself. "Toobadthey'lldiewhensummerisover."

* * *

I used to be a newspaper glancer, a casual peruser, a quick flipper-througher. I scanned the headlines, chuckled at the comics, and ran. I was always in a hurry you see, and getting to work on time meant that reading an article that started on the front page and continued on Page A18 was a luxury to be savoured on weekends only.

Now, with work being only a couple of floors below my pillow, I can take an extra few minutes to sip at coffee that isn't scalding hot, and maybe even pull out the Life section while I'm at it. I can perform the altogether satisfying act of unfolding the paper, shaking it out so that it makes that pleasing rustling sound, then folding it back to the right page and hunkering down over a story.

Working at home does have its advantages, but the paper thing? That's not so much of an advantage as a necessity. There are no office mates around me who can tell me who's marrying whom (who?); there's no one with whom I can discuss what so-and-so wore and how much it cost; I can't even silently criticize one workmate to another because Zoolander will fire something right back at me. Plus, with the quick disappearance of makeup and decent clothes, I really don't have a leg to stand on in that department. The pressure to primp is gone, and it's going to take more than my cousin and Mr. Bloopy to bring it back.

My point? My only link to any sense of reality outside my working-living environment has become the newspaper and a suicidal delivery guy.

I don't know where I read it, but I'm almost sure that that can't be healthy.

* * *

Here's an informal survey: Does anyone else out there think that that Jennifer girl on American Idol is just a little too attitudinal for their taste? Seriously, she's got a fabulous voice, but man, she needs to be taken down a notch or two!

Right, well, we'll find out tonight, won't we? Oh, Sinatra John! Please stay! And don't let Jennifer beat you up, either!

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previous - next

Check In - 2011-03-25
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iimage: Jack Vettriano