Who are you?

"A question I've been trying to answer since adolescence. I finally decided I was neither God nor Satan. I was so disappointed I didn't try to narrow it down any further."

-Orson Scott Card, The Worthing Saga

It's getting rough around here

Living on the Northside has become utterly unbearable. The Stalkers are everywhere. Yesterday I spent the whole afternoon up in a tree because the squirrels were everywhere... watching me. They come to my house, sit on my eaves, and scare all the birds away. I had to resort to bringing Billy a mouse for a present which was really embarrassing after last week's run of sparrows and -the highlight- a red-headed woodpecker. (I only ate a little bit of his head feathers, too, so he still looked pretty. Billy was so pleased he threw an entire can of tuna at me. Anybody got a can opener?)

But these squirrels, man, like I was sayin, they're really starting to get to me. I can't focus. I almost got eaten by Sarge the Unwashed German Shepherd the other day because I was distracted by one of the stalker-squirrels in The Big Oak Tree. Good thing I got serious vertical... but that shit was demoralizing.

Anyway, I talked to Sparkles The Maine Coon down the road and she said that it's happening to her too. They're everywhere. They called inspections on her litter pan and wrote on the internet that she's actually a TABBY. The horror! THAT'S DEFAMATION! I'm glad to know it's not just me. But, I gotta get outta here. The stress is overwhelming. These fucking squirrels just want to ruin me because I'm awesome and all the dogs like me (except Sarge but that's just because he's maladjusted.) What do they care anyway? It's not like I'm competing for their nuts or anything. It's all so wrong. I didn't even tell on them for digging up the tulips. Bastards. Sparkles got one of their tails though. That was awesome. He doesn't come around anymore now. Serves him right.

Meow.

-Puzzle


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Da Bomb

This is the best thing I've seen all day.

these children make me meshugenah

Hi, my name is Billy and I'm here to inform you that I hate your children.

I know it's wrong and everything, especially since once upon a time, in a neighborhood far-far away, I was also a drooling brat who longed for little more than to sneak away to 7-Eleven up the street with other, similarly-inclined drooling brats, in search of Big League Chew and those hideous candy cigarettes which laid the groundwork for our future lung-cancer treatment needs.

We were all kids once, and I feel confident in stating that we were all annoying to some degree, particularly to those folks not forced to love us by sheer law of blood connection.  

But here's the difference:  When we did that, back in those days, it was rare.  Why was it rare?  I'll tell why - because if we got caught we'd get our ASSES BEAT.  See, at five, six, seven, or whatever we all were, we were not allowed to so much as CROSS THE STREET, much less traverse the block and a half to the big, bad, BUSY STREET where 7-Eleven was located.  Oh hell no.

But these days?  Well just set me up a lawn-chair with a broom to whack the kidlings and call me curmudgeon, cuz these little bastards are off the hook.  For starters, forget about not crossing the street - these kids walk ONLY in the street.  Um, what the fuck do my tax dollars pay for cracked sidewalk replacement, people?  Why bother HAVING SIDEWALKS?  Jesus H, we should just become like New Hope and get rid of the damned things altogether in North Minneapolis, since hardly anyone ever uses them.

But really, I know, I knowwwww.... it's the parents.  It's always the parents.  At least that's what my therapist tells me.  

Here's what's frightening though:

Even though I hate them, these children are our future, as they say.  These loud-mouthed urchins who spent all summer running the streets doing whatever they wanted because mom and dad were either at work, stoned, not paying attention, or whatever, allowing their progeny to race through the streets throwing footballs at passing vehicles and breaking the windows of vacant houses, are OUR FUTURE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.

Is anybody else afraid?

Quote-time with Puzzle the Cat - Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitches

When I first started looking for houses there I was plenty scared, because a whore had been shot dead while running down the street naked. Usually I obligingly rolled to a stop in reverence of the asshole stroll every time, and I tried to appear appropriately frightened so as to show that their effort wasn't wasted on me, because who knew whether that was a retractable hacksaw in their back pocket?


But the crack dealers and dead whores don't daunt those who have "vision." I'm not one of them, mind you, but Grant, who has "vision," told me that other people with "vision" would be buying houses there, and that it was best to get in on it while I could still buy a house with a monthly note less than what I paid to spay my cat. So I looked for a house, and even though i was plenty scared by my potential new neighbors, what really scared me was the fear I'd make a bad investment.


"Just wait," said my friend with "vision." Creative poor people can't afford Kirkwood or East Atlanta anymore, so the West End is the next wave. It looks like he's right. Creative poor people are snatching up homes there like pigeons attacking an abandoned picnic. Caravans full of poor arty types come through every weekend, and off they scatter into the Land of Affordable Houses, with their body piercings and cargo pants, retro furniture and upscale-burrito breath. They hardly pay any mind to the crack dealers, who shake their heads dejectedly, knowing it's a bad day for the neighborhood when bleachy-haired honky bitches won't brake to accommodate a good asshole stroll.

-Hollis Gillespie, Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitches

Welcome to the crazy, pull up a chair

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a rather inconsequential city. 

And in that city, there was an even less important neighborhood.  This neighborhood was in fact SO unimportant that it didn’t even have a name.  Citizens merely referred to it as “the northside.”

Now, unbeknownst to the city fathers, the neighborhood happened to have been constructed upon the ancient site of a very dangerous mineral mine.

Five thousand years prior to the establishment of that neighborhood, a tribe of prehistoric creatures ruled the area.  The exact physical nature of these beings remains shrouded in half-mystery, as all we have to go on are slim artifacts and fossils, but based upon tablets found in caves underneath the Mississippi river, we do know that they prided themselves on their “gadgets and widgets.”  We also know that, drama-lovers that they were, this group enslaved another, smaller, dumber species of prehistoric creatures (who were no less ugly, but had more thumbs for digging and scarier hair, judging by the fossils) for the purpose of rooting up Freakocrystalline – a dirty green rock which gave them all the awesome power of INSANITY. These ancient creatures valued insanity as it gave them the confidence and ability and will to do whatever the hell they wanted, with no thought for consequences. The only problem was that they ultimately all ---DUH--- went insane, and subsequently ate each other up and died out. 

Five thousand years later, we have this neighborhood.

As one could expect, it’s a rather odd place.

Residents unknowingly exposed to the ongoing radiation of the powerful Freakocrystalline are inclined toward erratic behaviors, such as blogging and socialism and bad taste in footwear, to say nothing of late-night adventures, tooling around town rubbernecking attractive ghetto cruisers and calling 911 on slightly-less-attractive crackwhores.

Some are more susceptible to the effects of the mineral than others. A few have built up a natural immunity – particularly those whose families have lived in the neighborhood for generations. The newcomers, however, are particularly impacted.

This story begins with an overweight shaggy-haired writer who blows in from some no-name-corn-town and starts blogging up a storm about how fucked up every last corner of the community is. Naturally, people hate him. But in fairness, the community IS indeed quite fucked up. So on he goes. Prostitutes here, slumlords there, shootings, gangs, trash in the streets and a Pedophile named Pete who spanks minors and sues Church Ladies.

It’s like a car-wreck – who can look away??

He calls himself Johnny Northside.

Johnny likes to eat from dumpsters and compose love-letters to strangers when he’s not out calling the city on every motherfucking absentee-owned property in this ghetto for tall grass or graffiti.

He chews with his mouth open and has a crush on his Realtor. She is afraid she may catch a stray bullet while showing him broken down homes in crazy-town.

But, she wears hot shorts.  So there’s that.

But anyway, so Johnny takes his backpack-load of papers and his half-chewed mouth-full of bacon and he ultimately moves to the Northside.  (The gangbangers spared his Realtor and she’s now recovering on a yogic-vegan commune in Benson, Minnesota. OMMMMMM…….)

Insanity is the only possible outcome, of course.

But my friends, the road thereto is paved with ten thousand incredible adventures.

And I intend to write about them.

Miss Buttons wants to be a "homeownersexual" too, but I don't like her enough to live with her

Reflections from a homeownersexual.

Holy.

Shit.