Freedom from focusing

Update: Come here looking for an answer on the Jimmy Crack Corn Cingular commcerical? All your answers can be found at Jimmy Crack Corn and Cingular is Forced to Care.

So, after spending nearly four weeks focused on one unspeakable subject, I'm to a point at which I no longer have to sit and worry about whether I'm going to be working in Glendive, MT come 2007. The past four weeks aren't really a subject for for a public blog, but suffice it to say, they involved a lot of life and family choices that I wasn't really prepared to make. My wife was not pregnant and I wasn't deciding whether I'm gay. It was a professional thing that still isn't fully resolved. However, as I wrote to a friend yesterday, it's liberating to accept that normalcy is less the norm than relative chaos. So, there's that.

Now that I'm not unduly focused on whether the view out my window is going to change, my mind has been a wandering mess. My regular daydreams have become even more regular. I'm a silly, sappy fool that, for the moment, is bouncing from subject to subject. So, today you get the silt that's settled in my fingers. The following mental notes are in no particular order.

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We live on a street that boasts five surburban tract homes. We have lived here for going on seven years and are the longest-running remaining residents of a street that is really hard to spell. Three of the four other houses have sold once apiece since we moved here in 2000. Our neighbors in those three houses are all great people and I could live on the same street with them for a long time without wanting for more or to kill them. The fifth house, the one directly across the street from our's, is owned by someone who doesn't live there. It's been leased several times in the last several years. The first resident was a fairly hot woman who worked in her yard in a bikini. We called her Repo, because the cops came and took all her shit one day. After that, an odd family that only came out of the house on Independence Day moved in. There was an odd People Under the Stairs vibe about them. After that, a preacher and his wife moved in. They didn't stay long. Bradoween 2005 was enough to scare anyone of serious faith.

Now, we have the people my wife has taken to calling The Pilgrims, in most part because the mother occasionally dresses like a Mayflower woman. They are home schooling people and of a faith I neither understand nor believe is actually recognized by the government. The woman of the house can occasinally be seen running into her house from her car. The man of the house ran his car into my curb on Saturday night, destroying a large slab of concrete that covers our neighborhood's drainage system. When I went out to ask if he was okay, he rebuffed me with a simple "yes," and drove his semi-crippled car into the driveway without another word.

I only bring these folks up because they are even odder than the People Under the Stairs who lived here a couple of years ago. That and the fact that the home schooling involves music instruction and one of the kids plays violin. (Some day I'll have to tell you about Halloween and how this house handled it). Now, usually, the kid plays his fiddle inside and plays it loud enough that I can hear it in my house. Recently, he's taken to playing the thing outside.

Here's the thing...the last couple of days "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" has been in heavy rotation on a local rock station. The Pilgrims, Charlie Daniels, and too much time to think...well, they've all got me daydreaming that the kid across the street might be the devil. If I hear anything about chickens kicking out dough, I may start re-examininig my system of faith.

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Does Iran's President not look like the guy who would sell you a joint at some jam band show? He has this smile that says, "kind bud, fatty burritoes" and a beard that just doesn't fit a president.

If we had a Wayback Machine (and not the kind that reminds me of how Rapid Eye Reality looked over the past five years), do you think we might spend less time beating up the Taliban and Iraq and might have focused a little more on North Korea and Iran? I mean, whether Iran's main man smokes dope is not really worth discussing if he gets The Bomb.

Just askin'.

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A recent legal ruling has re-affirmed my faith in the courts for five minutes. If you didn't hear, Panera Bread recently tried to get the courts to keep a Mexican eatery from opening in a shopping center in which the over-priced sandwich store had an outlet. Apparently, Panera had a deal with the shopping center that made it clear another sandwich shop couldn't take up residence in the same area. Panera argued that since Mexican restaurants serve burritoes, they shouldn't be allowed to open. A judge finally ruled that a burrito is not a sandwich and Panera lost in its bid to completely piss me off.

Problem about this is, I'm now spending way too much time thinking about the legal implications of this ruling and what other foods are not other foods. Most recently, I've been wondering whether coffee could be considered a soup.

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I rented two movies last weekend, both featuring William H. Macy. "Thank You For Smoking" was okay but left me wondering if the comedic possibilities of the film were not fully tapped. I also rented "Edmond" because I like Macy and I like David Mamet.

Edmond...

See, I said I like Macy and I like Mamet. I said that, right? Okay, that said, "Edmond" was so fucking full of itself, it made me question if I really like Mamet. Macy was good, as usual.

Okay, here's where I'm all fucked up. Maybe I need to watch the movie again. I want to rail on it, but I feel like I do when a friend works hard on something that ultimately sucks and then asks, "So, whatta ya think?"

Anyone else seen this one?

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Is it Earl? Cat got your tongue? Earl got your tongue?

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I could spend all day doing this, but since I have a lot of work to do in the next few hours, I'm going to end this silliness here. Otherwise, I'm going to go off on something about communal living.