Kerouac and the Sixteen Dollars I'll Never See Again

      I probably should have checked Yesterday's Books first, but since they don't have a Starbucks grotto I bought "On The Road" for a book club at Barnes & Noble while chowing down on a dense bran apple muffin. Sixteen bucks, paperback. I'm stuck midway through the book, which is worse than I remembered and showing no signs of developing into anything other than word vomit in travelogue form with very occasional jazz references thrown in. I keep reaching the ends of paragraphs in a literary blackout, no idea what I've read or how I got there. Still, I aim to finish it, and whether or not I have any idea what I've read is irrelevant. Even if all I can do is make a stroke face during the book club discussion, I'll have earned that right honestly. Not so honestly, I'm being quite careful not to damage the book at all, in some misplaced hope that I'll be able to return it when I'm done. You know, like a library. Worst case scenario, Yesterday's Books won't buy it from me and I have to foster it until I can find it a suitable home. C'est la vie. I've half a mind to pick a Sylvia Browne title when it's my turn to choose our reading, just for revenge.

There's some tired, poor, huddled masses stuck to the bottom of my shoe... fetch me a stick.

     I have a group interview at Liberty Tax Services this Friday. They weren't interested in Jeff, who was perhaps overqualified for the "costumed asshole" position. Luckily enough, my own meager skillset appeals to these people. Somehow. I didn't come right out and say, "Oh, I've dabbled in public transvestism before" or anything. Maybe I just have that look.
     In unrelated news, some facebook dude messaged me a few minutes ago, doing the cruisey chat-u-up thing, totally out of the blue and with random results. It wasn't immediately apparent what he wanted, and he asked if I knew Tina. This led to some serious miscommunication since my good friend's named Tina and he meant crystal meth, with whom I'm also acquainted (we're no longer on speaking terms). Surreal conversation. Didn't figure facebook for an environment conducive to that kinda thing. I mean, one post and the cat's outta the bag for all to see. Reckless.
    

Lady Liberty does the Jitterbug

I appear to have run out of self-respect. Today, My husband and I applied for marketing positions with Liberty Tax Services. "What's wrong with that?" you may or may not disinterestedly inquire. I'll tell you. If hired, I'll be donning a sea foam gown and spiked tiara, directing motorists to strip mall tax accountants as I prance. Though it's not as degrading as, say, voiding my liquefied bowels while napping in a crowded park and scrubbing my nude self off in the river as stunned Vietnamese fishermen look on, or any of the countless other troubles I've got myself into, it somehow feels worse. Like I'd be standing on the sidewalk screaming, "Look at meee! No one will hire me! No one! I'll dress up like a Japanese schoolgirl and let you piss on me for a twenty, whatever you want!"

An Introduction, of Sorts

     In retrospect, I suppose we didn't think things through. I couldn't very well claim to be surprised, as it was hardly the first time I'd launched a project so completely destined for failure. I still smarted from the time my cousins and I sought to build a better mousetrap. Inspired by the board game, we improvised a convoluted mechanism with stray bits from toy box & junk drawer, crowing our success and pointedly ignoring that our yellow painted rock was, truly, no substitute for cheese & not at all likely to entice a mouse into our labrador-sized trap. I digress.
     The children of the cul de sac had gathered to whine and bitch about summer vacation's endless, baking crawl of identical days. There was nothing to do, we all agreed. At least, nothing worth doing that we could afford. At 12, my disposable income was a tidy sum of two dollars a week, two dollars that disappeared quick as they came. I hadn't yet learned to save money, or to grasp that X-Men trading cards weren't a necessity. My colleagues were in similar dire straits. We were bored, ambitious, and most of all broke. But our spirits were not broken, nor our determination to turn our financial tides. Eventually, we decided to have a collaborative yard sale.
     You may wonder what a group of preteens could possibly have to hawk, but we were fortunate enough to all be bogged down with shit we were eager to have a legitimate reason to jettison. Take me. My parents were born-again, again, and my stepmother worked at Beardsley's Book & Bible where she made full use of her employee discount. This meant my Christmas and birthday presents were pretty sub-par. Pencils shaped like shepherd's crooks with slogans like "It's a Child, Not a Choice" or simply "John 3:16", my paint-by-number ark of the covenant, the lurid "Halloween and SATANISM" propaganda book I secretly loved. The crowning glory was probably my Easter playset, a plastic hillside cave with a rolling boulder entrance, complete with robed action figures of some disciple and his good pal Jesus. Reggie had it worse than me, a garishly bright collection of toddler toys, keychains, and assorted lidded bowls and cups from his Tupperware party-throwing mom and souvenir spoons his grandpa collected for him from around the nation. The new kid with the glasses brought even less to the table, educational toys like ball-in-a-cup and other unpainted wooden fare. His parents were so fucked-up.
     The problem we faced was attracting people to the yard sale. Our neighborhood was out of the way, walled-in with just one entrance, and awkwardly situated next to and under a collection of power lines. We didn't get visitors. That's when I had my vision: we would throw a "Save the Rainforest" yard sale! Keep in mind that this is maybe 1992, 93, and we grew up with the whole Captain Planet spirit. People had just started warming up to the whole ecology thing and it was ultra-cool. My suggestion was met with a triumphant affirmation of our course of action. I set to work designing costumes, taking measurements, sketching out a tiger, a bald eagle, an orca. It didn't much matter that these creatures didn't live in the rainforests. I knew that. But what grown-up would? Right? Anyway they were endangered species or something so that counted.
     A day or two later, our preparation was really starting to take shape. A mostly-painted surreal jungle backdrop and signs reading "SAVE THE RAINFOREST YARDSALE-->"lay in the driveway, we kids kneeling and coloring with markers and poster paint. Seeing it, my friend Nick's older sister Patricia asked us what the fuck we were doing and I, proud as any half-witted ringleader, told her our plans while showing my drawings off. "How much are you donating to the rainforest?" she asked.
     The group stared at each others' faces, horror leeching the color from our cheeks. "How m..." "Well I'm not donat..." "What do you me..." I looked at Patricia and asked the inevitable. "Do we have to? I mean, it's not like it says we're donating the money anywhere. Maybe we could just remind people to save the rainforest while they bought stuff from us, that's kinda the same..."
     "If you don't donate the money, it's lying, like go to jail lying, and anyway people are gonna ask you where the money's going. Also, killer whales? Good try." she said as she walked inside. A cursory glance around showed  a gaggle of pissed-off, disheartened kids covered in tempura and sweat.
     "Now what?"