Harrowing Tale II: The Reharrowing

Mice: Surprise!
Birds: Surprise!
Gus: Duh, duh, duh... Happy Birthday!

- Mice, Birds and Gus (a heartwarming scene), Cinderella



Above all, self-control.

- Stepmother (a different scene), Cinderella



Don't know what it is I did so wrong,
Now I know what I got,
It's just this song.
And it ain't easy to get back, takes so long.

- Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone), Cinderella

Halfway Across the Sky

"Do or do not - there is no try"

Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back


"This world meets nobody halfway. If you want something, you gotta take it... as long as you lose like a winner, it doesn't matter... all you can do is try."

Lincoln Hawk, Over the Top


Boy I need your touch,
Your love, kisses, and such.
With all my might I try,
But this I can't deny:
I play it off but I'm dreamin' of you,
I'll keep my cool but I'm fiendin'.

Macy Gray, I Try

Harrowing Tale

Hello, all.

While I transition from not being sick to wanting to do anything but lie down and complain. I thought I might grace everyone with a poignant story that will go a ways toward showing a few failed attempts at social interaction. That way, when you read further stories (and there will be, I swear) about me triumphing over my very nature, you’ll be extra super impressed. This technique is what Lindsay Lohan refers to as “raising the stakes.”

Met: Ace

Met: Ace

“I just want you to know you got off kinda light with what you got, you know what I’m sayin’? I’m pretty sure I had a pistol on me that day.”

Chicago Cares Volunteer Project - Jackson Park

Chicago Cares Volunteer Project - Jackson Park

No more than fifteen seconds after I meet him, Ross is laying out a soft-spoken tirade about oak trees. Ross is older, be-flanneled, with long, gray hair tied in a ponytail. He also looks so much like John Denver that he may very well be some parallel universe's John Denver that put down his guitar one day and said “You know what, to hell with this guitar nonsense. I’m gonna be all about trees from now on,” and then spent a lot of times out in the woods and didn’t die.

Ross talks slowly (but without pausing) about the oak trees that have been around for 10,000 years and about the species of birds that could certainly find other feeding spots than here and that the overall response to the removal of the foreign plant species is less than informed. Here he stops for a moment, looks at me over his sunglasses and says in a low, conspiratorial tone that “this place is not without its controversies.”

Night One - Part Two

Having Carlos approach Mary and repeat the thing that I had just said to everyone (“Imagine the sort of awesome fucking job that would let you drunkenly masturbate during the interview,” which could be construed as crass, you know, out of context), isn’t exactly the first impression I would want her to have of us but it gets her attention. She’s taken aback, but when we manage to tell her that about Elvis Crespo, and Carlos throws in his award-winning masturbation gesture a few times, for emphasis, Mary says “Well, if it's a long flight, that’s okay then.”

Night One - Galway Bay

The first thing I see is a Dalmation sitting on a barstool, its large, mournful eyes fixed on a takeout container of Thai food. This makes me turn around to look back at the stairs we’ve just descended to be sure I didn’t make a wrong turn somewhere. I figure maybe I'll a sign reading “Thai Food for Grieving Dogs” or “Ye Olde Dog Sittery” or maybe “That Fever Dream You Had That One Time.”

But, no, I’m in the right place.

I eventually get used to the Dalmation, and the fact that he’s seated on a barstool instead of sitting on the floor like, you know, a dog would, and I even manage to get used to his doleful gaze that later settles on all the popcorn being thrown in our faces. But as prepared as I think I am, an hour later when a second dog viciously attacks my leg, I pretty much scream like a small, easily frightened girl.