Well the day started with an intended stop at Price Chopper on my way in to the station. Said in the head intention? Some Polars (seltzers) and maybe a prepared thingy for my lunch … oh, and mayonnaise, Hellman’s to be specific (I can do with “house” brands, generics, on most things but Hellman’s and also Mountain Dew are not included, though the Mountain Dew knock-off names can be entertaining). Mayonnaise is a central Frankenberry life component, a building block of existence, an added DNA strand that as long as my blood tests keep pointing positive on all the shit that mayonnaise is bad for I’m good. So Hellman’s it must be. But those three things were my intent anyway.
91 fucking dollars later? Sigh. I know, “that’s a shitload of Polars and enough mayonnaise to fill your post Armageddon bunker for two Armageddons Frankenberry”. Seems so huh? But no, just looking up at those aisle description signs while walking behind my shopping cart reminded me of things I needed beyond this simple of intentions.
Oh, the pet aisle – Stop (the girl’s stuff … pate and litter)
Oh, frozen foods, ice cream – Stop
Oh, the beer cooler – Stop (for later by the way … no day drinking … not just yet)
Oh, (while in the condiment aisle) horseradish mustard, and a large one, a lesser DNA strand just a bit more spicy and a try of a new hot sauce with a funky name – Stop
Oh, the meats department – Stop (freezer at home almost empty, have your own fridge in your studio for the day’s keep)
Oh, the maneuvering around that same woman who seems to be following you like in some sort of espionage flick where she’s really an operative sent to monitor your actions, slyly, with one eye lightly raised from behind her mask and her limp and cane in her cart – Stop (notice you’re in the candy aisle – shiny chocolate).
Oh, the paper products – Stop. Grab some butt extra.
Anyway, my intended low couple of dollars spend turned into an almost full blown grocery shop, though at least I’m a single dude, so it’s never really as involved as for a whole family.
And I placed a tracker on that woman’s car to see where she went after surveilling me. She played the old lady front well, with that limp and cane and everything. Quite convincing.
But when I finally got to work and got my Friday things down I went to check the mail downstairs in the lobby. In my continuing obsession with the Alan Parson’s Project and all things related, 5 months of nothing but, my Covid rescue, ordering a good number of replacements for albums lost or a few I didn’t have, I had ordered a copy of “Keats”. This was a one off back in 1984 of the core Alan Parsons band plus a couple of other contributors to the project including Colin Bluntstone, the lead singer of the Zombies. The remembering of this obscure record had come to me out of the blue but it was obvious when it did enter the noggin again, being part of the cannon of a band I’ve been so fondly recalling. I just can’t believe it took me so long on this remembering plus, now, after all these years and my light attention payed to it then it would be brand new to me. It was there in the station mailbox. Yay. Happy dance (don’t look, it’s a bit embarrassing) It was an album that I was excited about all those years ago, bought it and listened but, for some reason, didn’t really hit me, it was more a just have to have it to keep to the library of fandom.
My lord, listening to it on my way home tonight though just transported me. It is SOOO eighties. We didn’t know it then because were living it but listening to it now, so many years later, it had me driving home inside the soundtrack of a movie with a maybe beautiful come to life mannequin or science creation, a cool rocking flights of fighter jets, an irreverent real genius, a something with Jon Cryer or John Cusack, a John Hughes production possibly, a brat pack, while I managed (cursed) traffic hoping only to get to the end of another week and a re-listen from the comfort of home.
The girls aren’t impressed, as they’re cats. Nothing really impresses cats. Other than those stretch squeak noises they make they’re pretty tuneless. Well there are the “meows” but that is more just a cat talking thing. They very rarely chime in on my music choices, though that one time where Bella raised a cat eye and ear at my cranking, knowing the house was empty, of the Chameleons UK “In Shreds” is a reminder that they notice.
What does all this post mean in the long run? Absolutely nothing but everything when it comes to a you.
I’d been taken back to a time so well recalled and so dearly missed, exactly the reason that I ordered this “one off” from the Alan Parsons gang in the first place that, as I listen to it now, is pretty freakin’ good and is SO much of that time that is possibly my best of days (though time has improved my writing, so at least, in that regard, these current are also pretty good days).
A good friend of mine, not a “friends of mine or people say”, something we hear all too often these days as unconfirmed confirmation of actions, but an ACTUAL friend of mine, one who I can offer proof of, said he’d like to just start writing a blog post or two, find a spot outside of his well worked work where he writes important stuff about space and what’s beyond us. Well, hit it my friend. You’ve already got a leg up the rest when it comes to the writing ability.
I’ve just posted some words about nothing but about everything. You can do the same. What more do we want than to write about nothing and everything even if it’s just a “you” thing?
I took a break, a pause from this writing last night, leaving this to a new eye and ear for this morning and hit play just now again on this Keats album. It’s still a transporting kinda thing. I’m still in that 80’s soundtrack, replete with the requisite 80’s sax and one that always fades you into the next scene.
I’m glad for the break as it’s important to take a step back and look at things anew plus I actually got what some may say amounts to some sleep. Not a skill of mine, this sleep thing by the way, but I got a little.
The girls girl furry and silently stretch small noise, old tunes transport to a best of times and … well just “and”…
Another friend of mine, one from those 80’s days, posted just yesterday of losing a tab of buttons (didn’t know they were a “tab”) buying another only to discover the first tab in the most obvious of places, in the pants that needed the new button. He noted that his mom had instilled in him and his sister a certain self reliance, things to keep you moving forward, things you might need like knowing laundry and a balanced checkbook, simple cooking habits and buttons it seems. No Steve, tuna sandwiches don’t qualify as “cooking” by the way but still mom was on it. The dude actually sewed his own button with one from the new tab and even talked of it so nonchalantly, like it was a normal thing, cocky bastard. Besides being my new hero he reminded me of that best of times when he and I were current and more immediate, of when lessons from Ma were of the utmost and when tunes were important. I will admit tunes have faded for me over the last number of years, other than my old go to’s. But sometimes they’re found again, that tab of buttons in the most obvious of spots, right there in the pocket of those pants, right there in the pocket of your head. Sometimes you find them. Ya just gotta search.
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