Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 
"Oh, Sure It's Just A Harmless Little Bunny!"

The day has been spent babysitting 3 Shih-tzu's and a New Zealand dwarf rabbit. I think that the rabbit is out to get me. Baboo is a perfectly calm rabbit whenever he's sitting there in his pen, or hopping about on the patio deck. He seems irresistably benign and adorable as he wiggles his nose at people. Yet I'm starting to believe that beneath that cute exterior, he's evil just waiting to be unleashed.

Take recent events--and injuries I have sustained. Since our three dogs think Baboo is either a playmate or a playtoy, they tend to go ballistic whenever they realize he's out of his cage. They race around my feet as I carry Baboo to his outside pen, and if Baboo is on the deck by himself, they sit at the window and whimper since they cannot reach him. Naturally, their behaviour requires me to carry Baboo outside in my hands.

This unto itself is not problematic. Baboo suddenly deciding that it's good to claw at my chest, my hands and my wrists for no apparent reason, however, is. And it's not as if he starts frantically kicking when I first pick him up or put him down. It's not as if he starts frantically kicking when I start walking with him. No, he just starts kicking arbitrarily. I'm coming to believe that the little fuzzball in fact starts kicking when he senses my guard is down, and knows that he can take a good swipe at my skin before I can defend myself.

I'm sporting some notably long gouges in my wrist thanks to his claws, plus a few slashes across my left palm. This happens to be my writing hand, and it's the hand that always suffers damage whenever Baboo kicks. Sure, I hold him with both hands, and yet it's my needed writing hand that he attacks. I swear, the damned thing is plotting some fiendish escape in his plans for world domination! His cute little nose-wiggling routine doesn't fool me a bit! To quote Tim the magician: "He's got a mean streak in him a mile long!"

All in all, I'm starting to understand why Buffy the Vampire Slayer's character, Anya, has this intense phobia of bunnies. They are evil. They've just lulled the world into thinking otherwise, and are biding their time before they attack us all.


Today's Lesson: www.hugs.org/Hasenpfeffer_-_Rabbit.shtml

posted by Phillip at 5:03 PM

 
Bathroom Babble

Recently Mel (my fiancee) and I (myself and quite possibly me too) had a heated argument. Well, it was about as heated as a cup of 3-day old tea left out in the Antarctic blizzards, but never the less the subject matter has reduced me to babbling incessantly in front of the bathroom vanity mirror.

I suppose this is nothing very unusual at all, since babbling incessantly in front of the bathroom vanity mirror is a hobby of mine. I once had a very engaging conversation with my reflection about the perception of reality...whereupon my reflection perceived I was an idiot and left the room, which proved very inconsiderate since I was in the middle of a very good point, and had shaved only half of my chin. But I digress.

It was the topic itself of this bathroom babble that garnered great consternation within me. You see, it was all about facial hair. More to the point, stubble. I have what some might call a baby face, which is to say that when I'm totally clean-shaven I look about 6 years younger than I really am. Only half the time does it amuse me to have people think I'm almost ready to graduate high school, and then I inform them that I have in fact acquired a college Bachelor's degree. The other half of the time involves me insisting to the nice bouncers at the bar that yes, I am in fact 24...25...whatever, but again, I digress.

Having a certain amount of 5 o'clock shadow on my face tends to help me look my actual age (behaving my actual age is an altogether different rant), and I don't mind having a bit of stubble. Neither does Mel, for that matter--and that's referring to stubble on my face, not hers, for those of you who want to play semantics.

There's one significant and notable drawback, and therein lies the issue. You see, the whole "older and somewhat-kind-of-just-maybe, handsomely rugged-looking" look only works if the "shadow" follows my jawline and stays under the chin. In essence: the stubble effect only works as a beard. I am chagrined to admit this, but I really do believe that if I have any sort of vague semblance of a moustache, I wind up looking like some middle aged French pervert. Mel, sweet woman that she is in not trying to shatter my delicate ego, tells me that I don't look all that bad with the full stubble effect.

I still advocate that with the moustache stubble, I resemble the kind of guy you don't want to see peeking at you through the bushes. This does bring to light the question of what kind of guy you would want to see peeking at you through the bushes, but since there are no bushes around the house in which I live, that renders it irrelevant.

So now my shaving routine has grown even more complicated. Before I just did a total shave every 2-3 days. Now I can push the shave to every 3-4 days, but only if every 2nd day I remove the fiendish moustache stubble. This is all hampered by the fact that I forget to shave most of the time anyways. Life is harsh sometimes. Dealing with your facial hair shouldn't be.

Today's Lesson: Thoreau once said, "Simplify, simplify!" I bet Thoreau had no facial hair to contend with.


posted by Phillip at 7:00 PM

 
Always Stop To Smell The BumbleBees

Today I took a short walk through the local cemetery, and found myself thoroughly refreshed by the pleasantness of the day. Plenty of warm sunshine without it being horribly humid, accompanied by a nice cool wind that could hardly be called gusty. As I passed by a row of dandelions, I saw a large and fuzzy bumblebee collecting pollen. Intrigued, I knelt down and for the next minute watched in rapt fascination as the bumblebee extended its long tongue and slurped up what I can only assume was the dandelion's nectar.

It was one of those life-affirming moments where I forgot about any and all worries in my life. Had I not been taking my constitutional through the cemetery, I would have missed the childhood joy of just sitting and staring as something else went frenetically about its business.

In all honesty, I don't see why more people take walks through cemeteries these days. I really do believe the Victorians had a good idea hosting picnics in cemeteries. Consider the benefits: it's very well-kept, beautiful and there are green lawns everywhere; it's very quiet; and there is very little traffic to contend with, and the cars you do stray across are not moving fast at all. Of course, if you've seen one too many zombie movies, there is the understandable paranoia of having some rotting hand tear up through the ground and your $50 picnic blanket, and then steal your cake before the ants even have a chance to form a raiding party.

Sure, some of you will say: "But having a meal with dead people six feet under you? That's just rude!"

Well, consider this: if the dead guy beneath you starts complaining that you're blocking his sun, you might just have a problem. Otherwise, I don't think most of the cemetery residents are going to be protesting a lot. Though their next of kin might, so it's probably a good idea to set your picnic up in one of those grassy areas that has yet to be developed for future plots. And if there's a mausoleum (our local cemetery has two, in fact) on the grounds, you can usually find a prime, unoccupied plot of soil for relaxing.

Now there may very well be laws against picnicking in a cemetery, so it's good to check first. Or who knows? You might set a new precident and can one day say proudly that you're the reason they put up all those new signs telling patrons that it is illegal for them to have a picnic on the cemetery grounds.

There's irony in there somewhere: in a place for the dead, you can sit quietly and enjoy life.

Today's Lesson: Bumblebees have tongues. (I honestly did not know this before).


posted by Phillip at 1:25 PM

 
Midnight At The Lost & Found

Every now and again I find myself in a quiet, contemplative state. Sometimes it has something to do with the tequila I’ve drank, sometimes not. What you’re reading was neither induced nor influenced by tequila, or any of its familiars, and I think that is just as well. It’s roughly midnight in my end of the world, though the clock in my Little Bit Of Nowhere will argue otherwise (the wonders of cut-and-paste from disk to harddrive), and I am contemplating my life.

Something has gone horribly awry within it.

I can’t exactly complain all that much about my life, since perspective is everything. And, comparatively speaking, there are people in this world who are far worse off than me. My problems pale considerably when lined up with theirs. I am ever mindful of this, which I guess shows that while I’m crazy more often than not, at least I’m still sane.

And yet, much like Miss Clavelle in a Madeline book, I feel that something is not quite right. It follows me down the streets I walk like some shadowy paranoia, and seems to hover somewhere in the forgotten corners of my room. There is some aspect of my life, or maybe even the greater whole of it, that is proving troublesome, and it is marring my thoughts and experiences.

Perhaps the name I could give is this: dissatisfaction. And yet, I cannot necessarily say I am dissatisfied with my life. That is too general, too self-centred, and in all honesty too whiny a statement. What I think my current problem is, is a dissatisfaction at what I am doing with my life, or have done thus far.

Everybody needs some sort of purpose. Those who feel they have a purpose, be it a short or long-term one, thusly have goals to set and achieve. To have purpose is to move forward in your life. Hell, with a purpose you can even move backward as you fail to reach it. Even that is something; it’s a direction.

I think I’m lacking purpose right now. Or else I had purpose, and like a set of car keys I have somehow lost my purpose amidst the clutter of goings-on that I must contend with. A shame I can’t look between the cushions of my couch and find my purpose.

When I look back to see what it is I have accomplished in life, I cannot find all that much. At least, not in ways which are personally significant to me. Upon greater scrutiny I have come across the most damning thing of all: I don’t think I have ever really set any goals for myself to accomplish. Hence the lack of any sort of finishing, since I never made a point of saying “This is the beginning, and an end must be found, be it good or bad.”

As a result I’m stagnating in the if-only’s and come-what-may’s. I’m not moving at all, and the nothingness that it is, is proving deadly. The simpler things in life that bring me joy are losing their colours, I grow increasingly restless, and I find contentment in nothing. I am suffering the attention span of a gnat.

Hardest hit is my love of writing.

I’m staring right now at the cover of a mix CD I burned myself a few months ago; the image is one I grabbed from a fanart site on the web somewhere. I am looking at a large wolf laying on the grass. Sleeping peacefully against the wolf’s side is a young woman with long, flowing blonde hair. She is wearing a beautiful, white wedding dress and a diaphanous veil that reaches down to her feet. In her left hand is a handgun, and the lower part of her wedding dress is spattered red with blood that is definitely not hers.

I could write a story about them. In fact, I have something similar yet wholly my own that has already found its way into a tale I have been crafting. I want to write a story about them, and also finish the one I have already started. Yet it’s growing harder to find reason to carry on, let alone finish. I am losing my sense of being and/or identity, and with it all senses of joy and direction.

Some could argue that writing is my purpose, that it is both my gift and my raison d’etre. I would have no contention with that, and most of me agrees and believes that. Yet shifting my mindset from something that has been simply a hobby into something that is a profession is a task easier said than accomplished. If that unto itself was not enough, there are other doubts and scattered shades of darkness I must face in the meantime that are, in a way, totally unrelated to my writing.

To overcome them requires planning. To achieve the planning requires resolve. And to deepen the resolve requires a purpose. I think it’s about time I rediscovered the purpose I’m pretty sure I once had. Or else it’s time to discover the purpose I never thought I really needed.

I have no idea what that purpose might be, actually, but I’ll let you know once I do.


Today’s Lesson: while it is never healthy to always think of yourself right away as the cause of the problem you’re in, it is always good to keep your name in the list of potential causes. Half the time you are your own problem, and your own undoing.


posted by Phillip at 7:32 AM

 
Clash of the Cross-Dressing Titans!

I've currently stumbled across an MP3--good quality no less--of Anthony Stewart Head (Rupert Giles of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame) singing a techno-remix of Rocky Horror Picture Show's Sweet Transvestite. This happens to not be a live recording, so you can actually hear Anthony Head instead just hordes of cheering audience members.

I'm thoroughly enjoying it, yet I cannot help but feel guitly, since I adore Tim Curry as Dr. Frank N. Furter from the movie. Tim Curry IS the sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania, in my books...and yet, hearing Anthony Head croon out those famous lines, I fear I might defect. Am I so fickle with my Dr. Furter's that I would shift loyalties at the merest song from either Tim Curry or Anthony Head?

Admittedly, there's only one way for me to definitively know which one I'm more a fan of: Tim Curry and Anthony Stewart Head must appear before me, and have a "sweet transsexual sing-off" where they battle line for line for sweet supremacy all night. And possibly also a bite (a free, catered lunch could be part of the prize).

Hey, one can dream, can't they?

Today's Lesson: Some guys are just wild and untamed things....
posted by Phillip at 3:32 PM