Captivity - Day 74 I wouldn't stand near me if I were you

Hey, so we're about to end the Flying AIDS and we'll need something else. And we will not be disappointed: it's Hurricane season! On the bright side, you won't be confined to your house.... you'll be more likely to watch it float down the block.


My buddy's group at work got a new responsibility. People are talking about it.
The only small hitch is they don't know how to do it. She talks to her boss about training. Boss says, "yeah, that's a good idea."

I feel like my life has purpose. Occasionally you accomplish something so large, that you expect a parade. I expected one yesterday. Maybe it's just late... In another act of sheer sadism, work gave me an iDevice. I used to laugh when people told me that Apple and android are very different systems. I laughed.... until I picked up my mom's Apple. She wanted to send pictures to relatives. Since she can't take a picture, I tried. It's quite obvious that you hit the FLOWER button to attach a picture to a text. I was furious at myself for not knowing this. Meanwhile, my work phone sits there, requiring a lot of charging for a phone that's never used. I have 2 incoming work calls and 34 spam calls. And the small matter of it refusing  to ring. I got it to blink loudly and madly, but no noise. Every few weeks I pick it up and try, with no new results. I've been all over the insides of it, but no joy.  And then I discovered the switch on the side and tried it out. BINGO, it rang. Now wait a week and I'll be bitching because my work phone rings all the time. But seriously, folks, there's a difference between iDevices and androids.

1. DON'T put one phone on top of another
2. DON'T ask how I know

One of those ancient pagan-y things is someone gives you some sage and you burn it, asking for what you want.  After something like 12 cars hit Mrs lefty, we saged the car and it's been great ever since. We just ask that it remain safe. It was like something from an Exorcist movie, where the black-cloaked dude waved the joint around the haunted house, so the ghost could get high too.

With the unprecedented number of Gravity Days (everything falls to the floor, jumps at you, follows people, etc), we are going to have to sage the house. I have no idea what's haunting it, but it has a wicked sense of humor. If you've read even 2 of these installments, you know that I am the only wicked sense of humor allowed in the house. I don't even know how to explain it; it would be much funnier as a sitcom.

I thought I'd be a good (semi)human and do the dishes (yeah, ok, if you want to get technical, it's my job). The first thing is removing the dry dishes from the drying rack. I reached to put something on a shelf and the entire contents of the shelf fell on me and the floor. We're building up quite the pile of broken stuff on the floor, where we're collecting it.

There's this white thing I washed. Oh yeah, it was a pill splitter for our beloved Marshall. What's in some pill splitters? The metal razorblade that I just impaled myself upon. The plastic cups weren't happy with the drying rack, so they also vacationed in the broken pile. In a shocking turn, they didn't break. Normally this would have caused my neighbors to get the popcorn and pull out chairs, for my impressive, high-volume English lesson. No idea how, but I cut it off. Maybe to spite the neighbors.

Into the office I went, where I tripped going in. I sat down on my uber-comfortable office chair, which sent me flying to the floor because it rolls around by itself. On the way out, I knocked over 2 phones and coffee. Then I kicked something on the floor, hurting my foot and to avoid it, threw myself into a large fan. My tripping and kicking talents do not end there. With a 4' walkway, I see a box, so I stay to one side. Then I kick the box. The box that I saw. After work I turned on the tv, which gave me Russian prompts. I've tripped over shoes that aren't on my feet. All wire, including hidden. One of my laptops has developed an overheating problem. It won't overheat while I'm near it, though. It waits til I'm at least 25' away. When this happened, it almost got a free ride to Russia, with the tv. So I need a new laptop.

My typing, among the worst on the planet, has gotten worse. Mrs lefty was knocked out by the speed. I pointed out that I was fast, but at least half of what I typed was wrong. Now I'm making the same mistakes 3 times. Or hitting the R 3 times, producing 3 different letters. Today the FBI shouldn't have allowed me near it because if I typed hello, it would come out as a threat.

Something fell or leaped from the fridge (at least it was cold), then the door didn't close. I have a brand new roll of clear tape and I'm absolutely terrified to pick it up.

Yeah, time to sage the mf-r.

Captivity - Day 70 not as exciting as day 69

A Real Pollock

We have several problems, here at the ThermionicRange, even discounting its inhabitants. Stuff falls off walls, stuff falls off tables, and dirty dishes reproduce in the sink.

Most people would be fascinated with this. Entire tv shows have been done on it.  At this point, I'm less interested in the cause than the solution. A plastic glass leapt off the table, following a house guest. While we're not all that fond of guests, even I know this is not the way to go about it. The worst is Gravity Days. You've had them, whether you know it or not. You pick up a glass, which immediately goes to the floor. You drop the sponge in the sink a time or 12. Expensive possessions rocket to the floor while you're holding them or walk past them. Or look at them.  Sometimes, even thinking about them causes an electro-gravitical pulse, knocking the object where it is most likely to commit suicide.


Yesterday was a particularly bad Gravity Day, unlike we've seen in months. I walked into my Office of Captivity and immediately lost 10 items. I watched them go down, like a train off a cliff, some in a loose alphabetical order. Normal humans would be very amused by this gravitical display; I growled (a frequent, useful response that can cover a lot of ground). After a few hours, I grew agitated with this somewhat amusing display: all it was missing was a song and dance routine above the couch. So what do we do? We take lemons and make Orange Crush.

After watching my coffee cup do the long jump to the floor, taking a paper plate with it, I decided Something Must Be Done. This is usually the start of some really hideous, expensive, time-wasting endeavor. I do not disappoint. A man can only take a certain amount of crap before the Internal Twig<tm> snaps and Stuff begins to occur. In normal people, this can take years. Here, it's 10 minutes. Or less.

Something had to be done, and I was(n't) the man to do it.  As Mrs lefty was out, finding out which stores were open for Emergency Shopping, I was watching stuff leap to its death while I worked. Pro Tip: MUTE your work phone before letting loose a string of profanity, detailing what you like about a task or program or dog. It was not pretty. It had been 3 minutes and I had gone past my limit (temper AND credit card), so I decided to take a different mode: I launched the items myself. It's like your car breaking and you know it's going to be at least 4 figures to fix it, so you ram it into a convenient stop light or police car. This turned out to be my inspiration, my muse, my ability to finally conquer constipation!

I picked up a coffee cup and launched it outside the office.
This felt so good AND appealed to my artistic sensibilities (I *have* no artistic sensibilities), so I threw something else. Coffee mugs weren't a problem - I like to keep at least a week's worth in the office - makes things comfortable and discourages people from sitting. During my Own Private Physics Experiment, I notice the harder I threw an offending item, the further it went outside the office. Essentially, I had launched a couple boxes of Stuff out of my office. It's not MY fault - it's the damn Flying AIDS that forced me to work from home.

Mrs lefty returned, not quite suicidal from the shoe stores being closed, and was truly curious about the (additional) mess outside my office. "I was redecorating." Like most stuff I say, she said nothing. I was upset, as I didn't even get an eye roll from her. My general solution is to up the ridiculousness of my statement, but I wanted to play this cool.

her - "What is this?"
I was redecorating.
"Oh. Why are my 4 vases in pieces on the floor?"
To make omlettes, you have to break some vases.
"Ah, and this colorful display on the couch?"
The grape juice kept trying to leap off the laptop, so I took care of the matter proactively - aren't you proud of me?

As she walked around the house, she'd ask ridiculous questions about why, and what a muse was. I got tired of explaining, so I turned this into a business opportunity: lefty Pollock. People will pay me millions to come to their houses and throw their own crap at their walls. I will be THE new artist. I'm weird, I can't draw, and I have more social problems than most of the artists put together. In other words, I'm PERFECT. I'll finally be able to afford those guitars that are older than me!


It's raining again, which means someone's mowing. What IS it around here? There should be signs up or something. WARNING: No Silence Zone. Mowing and Construction Ahead. If we forced them to use electric tools instead of gas or pneumatic, it would at least be fun to watch. Ever put aluminum foil in the microwave?     (PS: don't)



A moment of respect, please.
George Floyd's mother got on tv last night and thanked everyone for their support. She asked for peace. She must be among the strongest people on the planet.


People are not very accepting of Minnesota jokes yet. Maybe they just don't like black humor. Oops. Sick humor.


The Blob, filmed just outside of Philly, will be running this weekend, at the very theater it was filmed at.  I had a great friend who lived right there. He is missed.