Art of the Odd

I should start by saying that we do not live in a bad neighborhood. We do, however, live in a neighborhood where new, upscale stores (art galleries and high-end meeting spaces and day spas and shiny salons) do battle with older, grittier businesses (liquor stores and cheap Indian takeout and, well – sex shops).

So, once upon a time, there was a porn shop across the street, well-stocked with candy-colored marital aids and oversized video boxes bearing such titles as Forced to Lactate: Volume XVII. Later, the porn store branched out, adding a case full of smoking paraphernalia in glass and bronze, all of it to be used only for smoking tobacco, of course. One night, though, we heard a sound, and NovySan looked out and said, “Why are they pressure washing the porn store?” and the next day, it was gone, carried off in a mighty torrent of water.

A couple of doors down, though, sits a business built on water – The Roman Holiday. It has no windows, but it’s open 24 hours. Some of its clientele walk proudly through the front door, while others slink through the back, shoulders hunched and hoods pulled low over their blushing cheeks.

Whoever it was who walked past my house on his way back from the bathhouse yesterday was, I suspect, one of the former, unless he dropped this packet in his fumbling haste to get back in his car without being recognized.

To The Roman Holiday – kudos for encouraging safer sex, though I’m amused by your recent rebranding as a health club.

To Joe Lube – custom-printed condoms and lube? That’s seriously kind of cool.

And to the guy who dropped his lube – I better not find the matching condom out there. Especially if it’s been used.

I think almost everyone who reads this knows by now that I quit my job last week. Well, I gave notice a month ago, but the 9th was my last day. My energies will now be spent on redefining myself as a freelance writer and solo attorney.

This week, though, was meant to be a vacation, and it has been. NovySan and I spent Monday at the art museum and the beach; Tuesday, while he was at work, I did a bit of cleaning and a bit of reading and a bit of gardening and a bit of knitting, and it was glorious; yesterday, I planted a few more things and watched Crimson Rivers while he worked on my car.

And then today, I got the news that I’ve been accepted as a contributor over at Pop Bunker – which doesn’t mean you’ll never be treated (and/or subjected) to one of my movie posts, but does give me another outlet for them.

And now, I’m taking Boneshaker outside for a bit, then planning to come back in and do some dishes and maybe watch some movies and knit some more. (I’m making myself a Doctor Who-type scarf, with this gorgeous tweed yarn from Knit Picks. Which reminds me – I still owe the world pics of NovySan in his Doctor Who scarf.)

Sometimes I have dreams that I think contain the seeds of good stories, and I often can’t remember them in the morning.

This morning, though, my dreaming mind presented me with a thriller in which Canada attempted to destroy American rye production by introducing a black fungus that would wipe out the crop. They had ordered the assassination of a Congressional committee member who was blocking the importation of Canadian rye – and with his death, the clock began to tick.

“No,” I said to myself when I woke up from the dream. “No one wants to read a thriller about Canadian agriculture.”

The dream persisted. An hour later, I woke up again. “Seriously,” I said. “No. There’s just nothing sexy about a black rye fungus.”

It tried a third time, too, with a vivid depiction of the cover of a scholarly journal warning of The Misuse of Black Rye Mold in International Agriculture.

I wonder if I can get Michael Bay to direct?