FrankenberryLife

Got a call from a friend of mine (Friday) while I was still toiling away in the radio salt mines (yes I know, I can be so dramatic). It had been a been a day of pounding that salt into fine powder, one that had lingered longer than the usual, giving me a right on angry headache, even more headache than the usual Friday where shit always lingers and aches said head, salted, longer than any other day of the week. “production Fridays”.

Yeah, they are a “thing” in my small salt production world, with so much stuff, last minute, that just “HAS” to start on Monday.

But when I got that phone call I realized I wasn’t on my way home, and that was my cue to be done. damn the torpedoes Tom and the Mondays, as when these phone calls happen we are usually on our ways. Just some talk while we have our quiet time through some short time drives. There is something to be said of our time in cars.

But I adjusted, just paced instead into a studio where I could talk loudly outside the morgue quiet of my digs on a Friday night (I talk loudly, like wake the dead loudly, so I try to be respectful if I can even if no one may be around)

These calls are check-ins, have always been check-ins, sometimes more for one side than the other, depending, make sures of still breathing (with the hopeful picked up phone for confirmation) make sures of things that friends check in on for a bit of normalcy like how are the cats, what about that game and the latest gimmick that pisses you off or how is the better half or the newbie and his ever growing feet and newfound baseball fascination and new working, ever evolving mind and new singular habits doing?

I have been lax lately on new stuff in the Attic, other than my latest “poem” (poem in quotes as I am not quite sure of it), but I just haven’t “felt it”, haven’t felt need to anything new, I just haven’t for reasons, reasons I couldn’t tell ya of as I don’t know them.

But this friend was checking in with me, this time, really, for just that.

You see, he’d actually listened to me when I have said, to him and to others in the past, you don’t need worry or to call, you don’t need to concern. If you are for some reason curious as to a me, just check the Attic in the dust and musk and piled things in newly uncovered cardboard boxes, piled things of still breathing thoughts in an upstairs this is where I’ll be.

He listened, he’d noticed. Shit, I didn’t think anyone would actually listen to my entreats.

What a wonderful discovery … that someone would actually check in with me via the Attic, that they would notice my recent ebb.

It was a good phone call, there are still cats, there are always cats and stories of dogs now in his case, and there are better wives and growing feet and Happy Meals and growing minds and new baseball fascinations (no, I won’t be a dick as to my current opinion of the game in the new rules era) and there are lives to catch up on even in small talk windows.

In studios instead of cars? No matter.

Just a blip JJ. Just an ebb. Still breathing my friend.

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Okay. I’m gonna stop ya right now, before you even start getting all high an mighty about how I should know my place, that I shouldn’t go shootin’ above my station, that I should just keep my head down and defer. But I have THREE computer chairs now. Suck it.

Like the finest of the fine with doilies under every lamp, majestic chandeliers hanging over your head in grand vestibules when your entry has been announced with white gloves and tails, like momma being too particular and always thinking of the big day and it’s company I have an extra computer chair now, twice, three computer chairs being two more than yours. Alright, that’s a little much, there’s no correlation in sounding all privilege and 3 computer chairs by the way. It’s just me being dramatic but still feeling a bit fancy. No, I have no idea how three computer chairs equates to fancy, it’s just the seeming and joking excess that’s kinda cool.

You see Cricket the Blind is a pain in the ass. However much she may be good sleep company, the best of sleep company, grabbing that nook between two pillows with a paw on a shoulder and the comfiest of a night’s almost sleep when you need it the most she is an awful computer cat. Always squirmy and moving, never settled. Thus, a third chair.

Typing around her, a right hand click click with a left hand butt hold, or a left hand click click with a right hand butt hold, she always proves to be just no good at this Steve wants words with both hands thing.

Three computer chairs

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There was a sun room and a blind cat. A room and a cat I would make my way to, a destination, on a daily basis when I first moved in here after convincing Celie that I was an alright guy (yes Todd Snider, I gotchya) convincing her that there was nothing to be concerned with, with a me, when it came to this new soon to not be stranger venturing into her house, and through the kitchen with hello’s to all the kit gang, Hey Honey Bob Tail “Boo”, Hi Handsome, Sharky, Bunny, what’s up Chubs and a prairie dog stand up, Lola, Florida, Cujo, Trucker under the table on a chair, the always Bruce owning this place with his Billy Idol smirk’s seeming disdain, others I may be missing, yes, Bella Bird, you too and I got your new water and then into the sun room. Cricket was an extra hello that I found necessary. She still needs a pick up to behind my right ear daily as I always did when I would finally make my way to the back of the house and that sunroom.

Then came some new company in this sunroom spot and I worried of Cricket the Blind and the interaction with a blind cat and a newbie.

“I can bring her upstairs with me for right now” I said to Celie, trying to avoid the possibilities of a bad meet between the two.

That “for right now” has turned into 3 years and an always right now. She has found a singular human, has found that daily shoulder behind the right ear lift. But she is, as a I mentioned earlier, a pain in the ass. Everything that cats do, from water bowling, to meowing to litter boxing Cricket does annoyingly. The water in bowls is an argument she makes with it, splashingly and messily, her meowing is more a loud meowl sounding wail like she’s mourning a loss, the litter in its box is a fight she picks with it throwing it about around her like some well crafted scene from a martial arts movie with kicks and lunges and tosses or a bugs bunny-like digging a hole or tunnel, dirt/litter cartoonishly being thrown behind her.

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When I sit down to scribble key a few words it’s usually with a Memes on my desk on a bar towel, always looking not quite comfy and a part of the quirky, a Bella in a chair next to me (she always has to be) and a Cricket asleep in my former ass warm spot in front of a leaned wall pillow on the bed. But then Cricket will awake, “She is ALIVE!”, lightly stepping down to the floor and then to roomba around spots in this little place, head bump turn, meowl, head bump turn, meowl, head bump turn.

Eventually the head bump turn roomba meowling will put her at my feet and the need of a pick up … to my lap and being a bad computer cat. But I noted that when I find the need to get up, to pee, grab another beer, or to just get up to walk a bit around this place, surveying my comfort, she’ll be all good with a lay down on my chair. Another ass warm spot. That’s when I realized if only for another chair. One for cricket, one for Bella and one to sit in with a Memes cat in a lap after she wants off her bar towel as she’s the best at that cat lap sit, just on my left hip. If I get a fourth chair you might wanna call someone for an intervention.

But I think I’m good with three now. I know, it sounds crazy cat lady guy-like but it really is somewhat practical from my perspective and, again, almost kinda fancy but … well, it works and I can type with both hands. Right Memes?

Memes and a computer lap