Today is a great day to not be on Blogspot anymore, judging by the issues they were having this morning, eh?
But before I congratulate myself too much, I must confess that if you subscribed to what you rightfully assumed to be my new feed on my new site, well, that was actually my old feed on my new site. The new feed is now in place, so please re-re-subscribe. Spanks!
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Originally this was simply a detective novel spoof that I gave up on. But today Neil is having a Write Like the Opposite Sex day contest, so I delved into the sewers of my abandoned drafts and pulled this one up for air. No way will it win, but here it is anyway. You can read my last spoof here.
"Can I warm that up for you Hon?" asked a raspy voice, sending a warm, moist breeze of carcinogenic ash across the table.
Detective Carmichael Marion Edge VII inhaled deeply and closed his eyes for a moment, absently scratching at the layers of Nicoderm patches on his bicep. "Yeah," he said, "sure."
He turned to look at his waitress, a pair of wobbly double D's slung in a polyester hammock that crushed them into a single, tubular entity. He knew well the constellations of freckles winking back at him. Them and their cousins too, farther South of the equator. The left one was adorned by an embroidered patch that read "Paulette." And so he called it, but was too embarrassed to ask the other its name. He ought to know and was too much of a gentleman to ask.
"You sure you don't want a coffin nail? I got a spare pack in my locker." She leaned over and poured what passed for coffee from a glass decanter, a light brown liquid that may or may not have passed through a pre-measured coffee filter unit.
"No," he said. "I mean yeah, I'm sure."
"Your call. I get off at two," she said, and walked away, plastic heels grinding into the gritty linoleum.
He turned back to the rain streaked window and his target, the Mile High Club across the street. Once a parasite of the long closed municipal airport, at one time it aspired to some vestige of credibility but never quite managed it. It finally gave up in the late 90's along with everything else. An old single engine turbo prop was still perched on the roof of the place, an old city landmark and proving ground for randy teenagers. The only reason they didn't condemn the dump was its placement on the Historical Society's preservation list; it held steady at number nine, well behind the old water tower and the lamp post Mayor Krenshaw had crashed into during the Great Budget Crisis of '73. And of course there were the bottomless pockets of the proprietor of Mile High, one Dooley Grimes.
Edge had been after Grimes for years, but until now the slimy bastard had kept the wheels of his operation as greasy as Paulette's blouse after a turn with the deep fryer. Finally he'd messed up though, and Edge had the goods. And he'd deliver them as surely as Grimes had run over Edge's Blue Tick Hound all those years ago.
God, he'd loved that dog.
Just then a man came out of the Mile High, a black silhouette against a blacker night. He paused just outside the door for a moment and seemed to lock eyes with Edge before turning to walk down the alley past a row of abandoned warehouses. Not Grimes.
He drained his coffee with a single gulp and stared at the residue stained fissure that ran across the bottom of the cup. When had he last slept? He wondered. Must have been 1987, the year he'd made detective. The year his mother succumbed to fatal cumulonimbus of the ginglymus. The year he'd lost his trust fund and all his savings on the stock market in one fell swoop, thanks to the "inside tip" of one Dooley Grimes.
It had been 21 years. 21 long years dreaming of revenge. 21 years of just scraping by, the single detective in a one horse ghost town where the most exciting thing that ever happened was when Tommy Tonkerson became Tammy Tonkerson and got her own talk show in Helsinki. And while Edge suffered in mediocrity, there was Dooley Grimes, slowly buying out the entire town and turning it into some kind of wannabe Route 66 hot spot. Like that's what the town needed.
But Edge had him now. Everyone has a weakness, and he'd finally found Grimes'. An officer of the law, with a lot of time on his hands and a wealth of information at his fingertips, Edge had discovered, quite by accident, that Grimes was the city's one and only registered Republican.
The lone Republican in a town full of Generation X blue collars who'd been out of work for nearly five years, ever since Kazinsky's Kettle Korn, an American institution since 1951, had pulled out. The X's had been producing Y's and Z's ever since, having nothing better to do, and the town was little more than a breeding ground for the Democratic party. They were a hot spot on every campaign trail, the very picture of a small town America with dreams refocused from enterprise to the social programs that kept them solvent. If the town was divided at all, it was by a fuzzy line that separated the Clintonites from the Obama... Ites.
And now their very favorite person, the man they'd come to see as their savior, turned out to be a die-hard corporation humping big hairy Bush lover.
And Edge was the lucky man who had him by the short and curlies.
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Netflix is evil. I have in my queue the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, the one with Colin Firth, who is supposed to be the best Mr. Darcy ever. I'm pretty sure this is the only version of P&P I have not seen, so I have been eagerly watching it creep up the list. In my queue. Qeueu. Q. Why the hello do they call it a queue anyway? This isn't Britain! I have to look it up every time! And let me remind you I was school spelling bee champion two years in a row, back in the olden days before spellcheck!
So last week they finally sent it, along with The Magic School Bus, Bugs! Bugs! Bugs! Except they only sent disc one. They sent me half of a movie. And we're not talking about Legally Blonde here people, this is Pride and Prejudice! Not a series either, but a single film. Did they really expect me to placidly watch disc one and then just wait around for them to send the other half? It probably cuts off at a really crucial moment too, like when Mr. Collins proposes to Elizabeth or Mr. Bingley suddenly leaves Netherfield.
So I let Max and Jessamine have two days with The Magic School Bus, then I packed it off right away. Forgetting completely about Memorial Day and the lack of mail service thereon.
They're just lucky I have ice cream.
Had.
So now I wait. Disc two is at the top of my queue now, and if they dare to skip it? I will be forced to take measures. And that's all I have to say about that. Thank God for this, which has been occupying me in the meantime. Jim and Pam! Pam and Jim!
Which Bennett sister are you? I was sure I'd be Mary but I'm Elizabeth. Psh. Here is a video I found of Mr. Darcy's finest moments, for all my P&P sisters:
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If you were stranded on a desert island and had to choose just one book to read for the rest of your life (no rescue is imminent), what would you choose?
It was hard, but I managed to whittle it down. I'd have to go with The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, The Cider House Rules by John Irving, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, all of Harry Potter and Anne of Green Gables, the Twilight series, the complete works of Pablo Neruda and Emily Dickinson, and about 150 others.
Yes, I did say one book. Because I've got this.
And it holds about 160 complete books.
What is this thing? It's a Sony Reader Digital Book. It works pretty much the same way as an ipod, just with different media (although it does have an MP3 player built in as well). You just go to the ebook store to purchase books, download them to your library, and upload them to your Reader.
This thing has been a real lifesaver for me. You all know what a huge reader I am, but not having a car makes it difficult to get to the library very often. When I do go to the library I've been finding myself compromising on the quality of books I choose because I'd rather read something I can hold easily for long periods of time, something small and light. So often I'll end up with Nora Roberts instead of Thomas Pynchon. Okay, Thomas Pynchon is over my head, but you know what I mean. Now I can read anything I want without contracting tennis elbow.
I also really like the bookmark feature. People like to give me bookmarks because they know I read a lot, and I like bookmarks. Unfortunately, so do my kids. They have a collection hidden somewhere that looks suspiciously like mine. They pull them right out of my books and I never see them again, and it takes me a good five minutes of flipping around trying to find my place again. I don't mind dog-earing my own books, but not library books. So I tell myself I'll just remember the page number, but it escapes me the moment I snap the book shut. Digital bookmarking saves me a lot of trouble.
But I'd have to say my favorite feature is that it comes with "dummy cards," information cards you can hand out to people that want to know what on earth that thing is you're staring at. I think I'll make some dummy cards to hand out to people that want to ask me stupid pregnancy questions or why I'm so skinny. My brother gave me a t-shirt for Christmas that says "Judge me for my size, do you?" But maybe a card would be even better.
The Reader came with a generous 100 book credit too, so considering I read two or three books a week, I'm set for at least another eight months. At $300 these things aren't cheap, but neither is an ipod, and the 100 book credit pretty much negates the cost.
So while you're sitting there on your desert island with a ragged copy of your favorite book, I'll be plush under a palm tree with my reader, my laptop, and a frosty pina colada. Because my island comes with an all-inclusive resort too. Oh, did I fail to mention that?
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No, seriously. It is. My wonderful sister-in-law, Sarah, is negotiating my move to my own URL even as I type. I've been packing all day, and I am exhausted!
I'm excited though, moving to a solid URL is kind of like graduating from high school. Will I move on to great things, or will I get knocked up and drop out of beauty college and end up working at Subway?
And then of course there's the merchandising, and that's great. I think we can all agree that if there's one thing this country needs more of, it's merchandise. I've got some ideas for that. A lot of bloggers go into merchandising, but they just don't seem to use their imaginations. Do you really need another logo t-shirt? Mouse pad? Coffee cup? Tote bag? Didn't think so. Honestly, who uses a tote bag anyway? Here's what I'm thinking.
We've got the Memarie Lane flash drive. It can hold up to 2 GB of Memarie schtick! And get this. It doubles as a keychain. I know, goundbreaking, isn't it? Where do I come up with this stuff?
The Memarie Lane osmosis patch, which was actually developed for me by my cousin, the brilliant Dr. Electrica Venue. Now you can have my feed filtered directly into your bloodstream. This patch is revolutionary in that it is also bi-directional, allowing you to leave comments just by thinking about them! Still working on the spell-checker function though.
But that's not all! These patches contain microchips that allow me to track your every move, thought, and blood pressure fluctuation. That helps both of us, because while I have the benefit of controlling your mind and turning you into my evil minion, you get around the clock health monitoring. I'll know you're having a heart attack before your heart does. In fact, I'll know everything!
The Memarie Foam pillow. I know that many of you have fantasized about sleeping with me, and now you can! This is the uncontoured design, I'm still waiting for the contoured prototype. The label on the front is actually a pocket that hides a silk bag full of lavender and flaxseed, which you can throw in the microwave in the winter or in the freezer during the summer. The pillow is actually hollowed out there to prevent lumpiness. So you get the calming scent of lavender, temperature control, and unparalleled comfort. Sleeping with me is a multisensory experience!
And last but not least, the Memarie Lane line of scrapbooking materials, the best way to preserve your MemarieBilia. I don't get the whole scrapbooking craze myself, but a craze it is. So what makes my scrapbooking kits different from everyone else's? Mine consist not of cookie-cutter little frou-frou things, but of actual scraps. Each kit will include:
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So what did you do at church today? While pastor Gary continued the neverending saga of Paul and Silas (it does end eventually, right? I mean, they died, didn't they?), I ate a breakfast of two eggs over easy, hash browns, one piece of toast with margarine (ew), two slices of bacon, and a package of stale donuts covered in brown wax that was meant to taste like chocolate. I also drank some water and doodled.
I drew a self portrait. That should be alarming for two reasons.
1. I cannot draw. I can't even make a convincing stick person.
2. I am generally opposed to doing anything that has ever been done by an angst ridden college student who uses a flat iron and cuts herself.
But I did, I drew a self portrait. In a small lined notebook from WalMart. And it was therapeutic, especially after all the wallowing I did yesterday. In fact, it led to even more wallowing, but of a much more constructive variety.
At some point this week I'm going to attempt to transpose this self portrait in a more legible fashion and have my dad scan it, and I will post it next Monday. I'm curious to see what you all think about it, not of my artistic ability, which I assure you I have none of, but of the symbols I used and what they might mean to you. If anyone else would like to do a self-portrait, whether it's drawn or photographed or written, let me know, and if there's any interest I'll put up a Linky when I post mine June second.
You can define "self-portrait" however you like, mine is purely conceptual. I think a self portrait should be more about who you are than what your face looks like. The photograph above is a self-portrait by Andre Gunther, which makes me think of my favorite Parisian blogger.
No buttons, no viral tagging, no showing off, just self-discovery. So if you're going to do it, say so in a comment. There are few things more embarrassing than an empty Linky widget.
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