Dunce Upon A Time

Everyone thank TechSupport for helping me do things like make the text bigger without screwing up the proportions, and for choosing a better shade of blue. Apparently everyone hated the blue I had but was afraid to say so.

Also, Erin, he’s making a stink that he doesn’t have his painting yet. But he says he understands.

One day, when I’m rich, I’ll start a charity to help the man with the penis-shaped nose tumor. Or so I solemnly promise myself, as I watch him through the window of the bus, my breath faintly fogging the glass. He’s jogging because he’s late again. The driver is holding the door for him, but he can only wait so long. The man with the penis-shaped nose tumor is wearing the same khaki-gray camping pack as always. Various belts and buckles bounce every which way as he runs.

Yes, I will help him one day. I can see it all so clearly.

I can see the way my lawyer shows up on his doorstep holding a briefcase. The way the penis-nosed man’s eyes light up when my lawyer explains the nature of his business. The serious looking doctor in light green surgical scrubs cutting into the tumor-ridden nose. The recovery in a hospital bed that’s only half reclined with sheets that do not extend beyond the waist. Peeling off the bandages and handing him a mirror. And finally, the perfect, rapturous joy of a man getting a new lease on life.

But for now, I’ll just try very hard not to notice the perfect bulge, point, and cleft of the swollen, purple-pink mass when he walks by me on the bus. I will not giggle when he rubs his nose and it shakes, or laugh when its cold outside and his nose begins to throb in the heat of the bus. I will try to be like everyone else and pretend this doesn’t matter to me that much.

And no matter how much I may want to: I. Will. Not. Laugh.

I will be respectful and look away, even though something rather like obsessive compulsive disorder is begging me to gawk. Demanding that I write puns, even if only mentally.

Thankfully, as I always have a book in my hands, my respect is less forced than it might be otherwise. I almost feel sorry for the people sitting around me who suddenly have to find something interesting about their laps. Everyone notices. That’s how I know I’m not crazy.

But unlike everyone else, I know I will remember this forever. I have no choice but to put this in my file of Things That Are Absolutely Important , No Matter What Anyone Else Says.

In the periphery of my vision, I note that the man with the penis-shaped nose tumor is not wearing his red parka today. A sure sign of spring. I try not to focus on him, but it’s difficult.

I think about giving him a nod and a smile when he passes me. I’ve been wanting to for months. A brief sign of friendship. But I do not. I dare not. The man with the penis-shaped nose tumor often seems angry. He also strikes me as the type who would be suspicious of friendly overtures. Perhaps even upset by them. I do not want to upset him. I only have a mad desire to poke and prod and examine him and converse with him at length about how funny it is that parts of his face look like the parts that belong between his legs.

I know this desire is wrong and hurtful even though it is not malicious. I just want to know what he thinks about having a penis in the middle of his face.

The bus moves out of the Park and Ride and heads toward the Indian Casino on the other side of Auburn. The man with the penis-shaped nose tumor takes a seat next to a man who looks a bit like Stephen King if you don’t look too hard and a bit like a werewolf if you do. I used to think about him a lot before the man with the penis-shaped nose tumor showed up.

They sit together often. I think they’re friends. I wonder how that happened.

I spare a moment to look at the empty seat next to me, wondering why I have once again been passed over. I always make sure to leave plenty of room. Yet no one ever takes the seat next to me, unless it’s the very last one. It’s something I’m noticing now that I no longer live in a town where everyone knows me.

These city people tend to move away from me in crowds. It seems more instinctive than intentional, although I do not find that reassuring. It’s like there’s something about me they’re afraid of even though neither one of us knows what it might be. And sometimes when I walk down a street at night, people will cross to the other side not to be next to me. Sometimes even groups of people.

I wonder, do I have some kind of tumor in the middle of my face? If so, why am I the only one who can’t see it?

I shrug, trying not to dwell on my possible inadequacies, and read up for my classes tomorrow morning. Serious stuff, here. I’m taking “Literature of the Renaissance and Enlightenment.” My professor’s name is Douglass Furr. I’ve pretended not to notice this is funny to the point I’ve almost forgotten it is. He’s nice enough and, more importantly, honestly cares about what he teaches, so I don’t think we’ll ever have a conversation about how funny it is that he’s named after a tree. Or a conversation about why I can’t stop noticing these types of things.

I decide I think the Marquis de Condorcet is a bit of a prick. I let time slip by, articulating this as I analyze several wistful passages about chickens and the natural order which leave me wondering if the dear Marquis ever saw either. The Marquis’ feelings about African slaves are so blatantly evil and rotten I can’t believe there’s an ounce malice in them. Just the blindly smug assumptions of a man who has never had to tend his own chickens or clear his own fields. Or entertain the thought that other people matter every bit as much as he does.

When I look up again, almost everyone is gone. All off to the Indian Casino, no doubt. Even the man with the penis-shaped nose tumor, although I don’t know where he gets the money to gamble. Perhaps if I were the Marquis de Condorcet, I wouldn’t be so ashamed at the thought of asking. If I were the Marquis de Condorcet, I could ask all the hurtful questions that have been at the tip of my tongue for months.

But I am not the Marquis de Condorcet, so I will at least feel guilty over these thoughts I am powerless to stop.

No one new has got on the bus, because we’re continuing on toward Everett. Everett has no Indian Casino and a man was fucked to death by a horse there last year. I saw the man’s house on a bike ride with my aunt and uncle. You wouldn’t have ever guessed, not that I really expected a giant sign that said “Man Fucked to Death By Horse Here!”

They didn’t seem to think it had mattered that much. I had wanted to get off the bikes and walk around the property.

I stop reading after we drive passed the Indian Casino, because I missed my drop off a couple of times and had to back track several miles to get to my aunt and uncle’s house. I didn’t really mind, but they worry.

I let my mind wander.

I bet there aren’t any existing charities for people like the man with the penis-shaped nose tumor. Maybe not for any person who has the kind of condition that’s a bit too embarrassing to photograph and put on pamphlets to say “Look, we’re doing Good! Give us money!”

The man with the penis-shaped nose tumor has fallen through the safety net of well-wishers and do-gooders because his malady is not life-threatening and is, above all else, very, very silly. No matter how hard you try, you can’t turn a penis-shaped nose tumor into a story about the quiet dignity of suffering or the defiant heroism of endurance. So people pretend not to see. A penis-shaped nose tumor is silly enough that you’d be a bit humiliated for noticing it, let alone helping someone get rid of it.

When I am rich, my charity will make sure to find people like the man with the penis-shaped nose tumor. Him and all of those lost and forgotten because their suffering is non-obvious and absurd to look upon. Every person who has not been looked upon with pity, but looked away from in discomfort. We will find them and we will help.

I wave goodbye to the bus driver as I get off at my stop. He nods back. Perhaps one day I will speak to him, but probably not.

I walk a mile or so up dirt roads to my aunt and uncle’s. I’m living there while going to school. They’re very nice people who never obsess over strange, macabre facts the way I do. In fact, they’re frighteningly good at moving on with their lives when confronted by absurdity. A helicopter crashed in their field. Twice. Yet somehow when they relate this, it is one of the most boring stories I have ever heard. I think it’s because I knew, even before they started, that they’d act in a rational manner and take care of things.

They’re so very good at moving on with life that I cannot help but dwell on the oddity of their essential mental health.

I crest a hill. I let out a breath of air and watch it fog.

It might be spring for Washington, but it’s cold everywhere else.

I hope one day the man with the penis-shaped nose tumor finds someone to love. I hope this almost as strongly as a prayer, perhaps out of shame that I am invading his privacy by having all these thoughts about him.

I don’t even jokingly wish for him to be a woman with a vagina-shaped face cavity, although I’ve thought about such combinations before. I sincerely want him to be happy. Everyone should have somebody to love. Someone to take them seriously. Someone to believe they matter. Someone to ennoble their life.

Even men with penis-shaped nose tumors that everybody tries not to look at.

Perhaps in some quantum mirror-world where Edmond Rostund had been a bit less subtle, the man with the penis-shaped nose tumor is something like Cyrano de Bergerac. Perhaps in a mirror world he is dashing and heroic and renowned for his silver tongue. I hope so.

Otherwise, he will have to hope I get rich.

This is a guest post from my friend Hunter4086, who is one of the more talented writers I have the pleasure to be e-quainted with. She’s just so good at sentences, damn it! Anyway, she was kind enough to write a guest post for me (after I rudely demanded one) while I work on getting my site well again. I highly recommend her writing.

Please enjoy.

I don’t smoke but for the sake of camaraderie I’ve joined my co-workers on the back stoop while they take a quick cigarette break.

“In this world there are two types of people,” Krystal says. She is the housekeeping supervisor. “People who have to clean up shit, and people who don’t!”

Everyone laughs at Krystal’s observation. I laugh too, nursing my last 3 inches of cold coffee. To fit in, I will pretend that shit-cleaning is the key point of division between humanity. I have poop dried to the bottom of my shoes which helps make it easier to believe.

Recently I started a new job that sets me firmly on the former half of this equation. I’m on the  housekeeping staff for an organization that provides housing to people at the end of the line, one step removed from homelessness. Mostly senior citizens. Most are active alcohol or drug abusers even though ostensibly these vices are not allowed on site. The residents are not wanted by subsidized housing, non-profits, and needless to say family/friends.

So they end up here. The place is called Hill House. (What hill? There is no hill. We are in fact down by the inlet, where the train yards turn to swamp.) Hill House is like a nursing home meets One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.

“Are you ready to sweat?” were Krystal’s first words to me on the day I started. At the time, I inwardly groaned, sensing a self-important psyche-out. But Krystal is a hard worker, and gruffly kind.

(And it is sweaty work, housekeeping. Running up and down stairs, wheeling around the cleaning cart, lifting stuff, carrying stuff, moving beds, changing linens and emptying the trash.The hot driers always going in the laundry room & the steam of industrial dishwashers in the kitchen. One person doing the work of two, because of all the government cutbacks.)

“Before here I worked in a nursing home so whatever you’re going through? Trust me, it’s nothing,” Tanya from the kitchen announces. She is wearing sunglasses even though it is cloudy. Under the net her hair is white-blonde and I wonder if perhaps she is an albino.

She holds out an arm and slaps the bicep. “At the home I’d be this deep in shit.” She laughs. She has a peculiar laugh that sounds either borderline crazy or affected – or maybe it’s just the sound of someone who works 10-hour shifts in an industrial kitchen. “Once you get over the gagging and the crying you’re home free. It doesn’t even phase you anymore.”

People begin stubbing out their cigarettes and draining their coffees. Time to get back to it, even though it’s Sunday and the bureaucracy is not around so the day unrolls at an easier pace. The skeleton crew is holding things together, cleaning staff and kitchen crew and Jeff, who mans the front desk and keeps out the riff-raff and makes change for anyone who wants a pop from the machine in the lobby. We joke around with tenants, lean on our mops to shoot the shit with each other, prop open the back door for these impromptu breaks even though it has a sign that says “Do not open this door at any time. Emergency exit only.”

*

At 7 AM, whenever I start work, the downtown east side is usually quiet for once. This is the most poverty-stricken neighborhood in all of Canada. The newspapers always mention this fact, when talking about it. That sounds catchy and conclusive. “Most poverty-stricken.” Like, “‘Nuff said”, in media-talk, to excuse the commencing roll-call of social maladies.

The word ‘poverty’ sounds like dirt, it sounds like nothing. But it is not the polar opposite of ‘wealthy.’ In poverty there can still be love, action, growth, and creativity. But poverty makes for an unembellished life. In poverty, the cracks are deeper that the monsters come out of.

Drug and alcohol abuse is rampant here. The street corners and alley-ways are lumped with the shrouded figures of homeless people sleeping.

The silence of early morning is misleading. It is the sort of silence that makes one think of the word “aftermath.” The early dawn ignites the weeds and litter of a neighborhood that only knows the eye of a storm, and never the true end of it.

I climb the steps and push the button to be buzzed in. While the front desk worker looks into a camera to determine whether I am wanted, I wait on the concrete stoop beside the empty, over-sized cans of tomato sauce that are now used as ashtrays by the residents.

*

The first  room I cleaned today belonged to a tenant named Gerry who Krystal had already warned me about.

“You never know what to expect in there,” she said. “Plus he’s a flirt even though he can’t even see straight.”

When I enter the room I instantly wish I had a breathing mask. He’s spilled Bacardi on the floor, Sailor Jerry’s, beer. He’s pissed on the floor – not once, but what looks like a long drunken nights’ worth. There is piss on his chair and in his bed, and some small malnourished-looking shits.

There are crumpled napkins smeared with snot and ass shit all over the floor. Some napkins were once shitty and wet but now are dried and stuck to the linoleum so that I have to slop the mop over it, soak them, and and scrub wildly to get them unstuck. There are crumpled liquor store bags on the floor and crumpled lottery tickets. There is a folded greeting card that says “You Are Sweet” and I pick it up and throw it in the trashcan along with 24 empty beer cans that each have about 1 inch left in them and a colony of fruit flies. There are cans of half-full tall beers on his night table that I don’t touch in case he wants to finish them but I clear away the licked-at packets of Kraft peanut butter piled up that are from the condiment box in the dining room. Seemingly this man lives on alcohol and condiments.

I find money under his sheet. About $80 in small bills. Even his money feels dirty. I wince as I shuffle it into a bundle and put it in his night table.

On the way out I lock Gerry’s door so no one else can wander in. A half hour later I’m mopping the hallway when the elevator door opens and Gerry creeps back down the hallway with his bare feet jammed into cordovans that look like they rub.

“Hey you, girly,” he says.

“Hey,” I say.

“You know,” he chuckles flirtatiously, limping along. “I don’t really need this walker.”

“That’s nice,” I say. “But hey. Can you use  the toilet when you have to take a leak next time? Jesus!”

I know Gerry is “addicted”, that he “can’t help it” – but for fuck’s sake! I feel obligated to give him a little shit. If unchallenged in the merest civilities, how can people ever rise to the challenge of the most mundane expectations?

Gerry peers at me, belligerence fighting confusion for dominance in his stare.

“Can’t handle a bit of piss, girly? Then quit!” he tells me.

Maybe I should quit. This job only requires “a grade 10 education.”  Even my grandma, who never finished elementary school, yelled at me for taking a job that “only dough-heads do!” What am I doing? I love books, art, bicycles and botany…is Hill House really where I belong, at this point in my life…

*

When I show up for work in the morning it’s like climbing aboard a submarine. There is a sense of submergence. The light changes from August sunshine to the fey institutional flicker of fluorescent-lit corridors. Entering Hill House is like being whisked far away from the real world, that is, the world of earthly concerns like politics, current events, the arts, and variable mortgage rates. The skeleton of society’s structure is made of toothpicks, not solid bone. We can distract ourselves and become absorbed in the comforting minutiae of upward mobility but when it goes, it goes. And when the bottom falls out, Hill House is one of the places to land. A small room with a cot and a metal toilet, three meals and two snacks served in the communal dining room. Two smoking rooms to choose from, one with a television…

*

I enjoy the bicycle ride to work through the morning streets. It’s one of the only times I can cruise comfortably along the main arteries because traffic isn’t out in full force yet. I like the industrial view of the harbour where the the cranes tower a bloody red in the eastern light.

The hidden city is the city I love, the industrial structure beneath the superficial trappings of commerce and modernity. Men in steel-toed boots with thermoses, sanitation workers, dozing cabbies pulled off into the side streets, third-watch paramedics grabbing morning cups of coffee before punching out. The working city.

Maybe this is why despite the shit and piss and hard labour, I like Hill House. I like being on the underside of things, instead of the topside. I like being where things start or end, not necessarily where the status quo plays itself out on the surface world.

And I wonder what it is like to be one of the residents standing on that dilapidated porch, smoking, hands trembling, endlessly watching the street. Without much money or mobility, and with addiction casting a shadow over part of your brain, does the outside world look like something viewed through aquarium glass? And I wonder why it is that I feel at home here?

*

A smell sticks in my nostrils even after I leave the building. The sweet smell of human dirt and closed windows, stale air and dead cigarettes, lilac-scented insecticide and a floor cleansing agent (brand name: ‘Rain Dance’).  In fact there’s a flower blooming in the city this time of year that now makes me sick, I’m not sure what it is but I think it’s a type of hedge. Whenever I’m pedaling through the city I hit patches of it, pockets of a cloying, candy-ish scent. It reminds me of the hallways at Hill. I don’t know what that flower is but it makes me gag and pedal faster to get clear of it.

Every army needs a spy, and with all the different sorts of animal hats floating around, it only makes sense that the Moose Hat Army would have a spy of its own. A man without a past (apart from how he dates Erin’s sister). A chameleon capable of wearing any sort of hat at all, except for titular the Moose Hat I actually desired he wear.

Oh, what’s that you say? He’s not really pulling off the howling wolf hat to its limits? He’s not being a convincing howling wolf hat wearer? Well then check this shit out.

Mike just made that hat positively howl, while still seeming to be half-asleep! How does that taste all you hypothetical nay-sayers?

Doesn’t Mike look down-to-earth and folksy, ladies and gentlemen? Doesn’t he look like he’s about to tuck his thumbs behind those bib overalls, put a stalk of wheat between his teeth, nod amiably as you talk all your flashy big city nonsense, and then predict the weather by using only the swelling sensation in various joints to gauge barometric pressure?

The bib overalls say “Yeah, I’m down to earth.” The shirt says “Yeah, I’m not afraid to party.” The glasses say “I enjoy the comforts of a good book.” And the hat says “Hey, I have a sense of humor?” In fact, can anyone find anything wrong with Mike based on this picture?

Mike, I think we might have to consider changing your name to something even more full of homespun wisdom than “Mike.” From now on, by the powers vested in me by me right now, your name is hereby changed to “Mitch Ruskin.” Which is the folksiest/manliest name my college roommate and I could think of after we saw a very confusing cough drop ad featuring a dragon named “Ruskin.”

Here Mitch Ruskin stands Donkey Kong style next to my internet beloved Erin, as she proffers him another hat.

And here Erin just decided to take a picture while wearing a giant queen’s hat.

Mitch Ruskin, the man formerly known as Mike, I welcome you into the Moose Hat Army!

Remember, whether you’re a lady with a machete, or a man with some type of very unfortunate and frankly tacky headwear, all are welcome to my join the legions of people whose pictures go into a very strange folder on my desktop which I am always afraid the children will see. Not because it’s bad per se, but just because it would be very awkward to explain why it exists at all, seeing as how I sort of keep my writing secret.

Also, I just found the site Vagina Drum and found it to be hilarious and entertaining. You might enjoy it as well. Heartily recommended.

Update: I don’t know why but I’m getting hit with a truly ridiculous amount of spam. To the point I can’t even keep up with the filter to check it. If your comment goes into the spam filter instead of the moderation queue it’s probably going to get lost for good. If you think you went there, please send me an email with the email you used to post so I can pull it out.

If you haven’t posted since the crash, your comments won’t be posted immediately anymore.

The Rebuild

Okay, so here’s where we are:

I’ve got a space now for just about every post ever written except for a few oddball posts in June and July. I’ll grab those tomorrow or the day after. This means almost all the links are back where they were so there shouldn’t be anymore 404 notices. I’ve also got about 95% of the written content back where it needs to be. My control panel is telling me I did this 386 times. So that’s why it took so long.

Where I couldn’t immediately find the text for the post itself I left in the word “SARSAPARILLA” so that I can do a site search and go back and grab the text later from my own records or RSS copypasta. That’s going to be a lengthy process that’s going to be ongoing over probably a couple of months.

The reason I didn’t rabidly go after putting every post back exactly is because… well, because it took a bloody awful long time just doing webcache searches, matching dates and url’s, and then shoving them back in place. I’m guessing I put in about twenty cumulative hours into what I’m calling “The Bare Bones Rebuild.” But the long and short of it is: most of the words are there.

The “Full Body Rebuild” where I put pictures and formatting back in place is probably going to take about 80 hours of work, spread out over months. I’ve got all the pictures. It’s just a matter of putting them back where they belong.

I hate to say it, but the the only copy of the comments I could recover in any meaningful way were snapshots via webache and I don’t know how long those will last. There were close to 7k comments before the crash. I think we have to start back from scratch there, folks. I’m sorry.

The only thing I haven’t had much success at recovering at this point are copies of my pages. Not posts. Pages. Those are the tabs up at the top. The only ones I can find are the ones that are currently up there. If you know any kind of Kung-Fu internet mastery I don’t and think you could recover them, I would greatly appreciate it.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:p8Psn2xCxxgJ:www.dunceuponatime.com/aboutn/%3FkeepThis%3Dtrue%26TB_iframe%3Dtrue+http://www.dunceuponatime.com/aboutn&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.com

Use this snapshot for help in your search. I couldn’t find squat but maybe you’ll have better luck. I’m especially trying to recover all the sub-tabs in the contributor page.

The New Theme

I’m obviously still tweaking it. I know I need to change the text options to make it more reader friendly, but it’s going to take me some time to figure out how to make this place pretty again. Just please bear with me.

The part I like most about this theme is the Slider, because it gives me an opportunity to have you guys look at stuff from the past, and possibly insert advertising for my stuff, and possibly other people’s stuff in the future.

Anyway, an important part of this site is how you all feel. So do you hate the theme absolutely? If so I can change it in a jiffy. Changing themes is cake. However, if you do want me to change the theme, I would ask that you recommend a different theme, and possibly one with a slider if you can find it.

But please, give me some feedback. It’ll help me know what I need to fix.

Once again, I’m so terribly sorry this happened.

Did I express Zen-like acceptance about my site crash before? Really? I did? Me? The guy typing this right now?

No effing way.

Because after having spent several hours doing google-searches, copying, pasting, and reformatting stuff and still being way less than a third of the way done… I’m absolutely pissed. And not a little pissed. This is like, I’m ready to date a Satanist* to get back at God even though I don’t believe in God, except I kind of do because I need an outlet to be mad at causality and incompetence and He’s the only thing that will do.

That’s how pissed I am.

All the comments are gone and cannot be recovered. Because I used those comments to create my self-image, I now don’t know what I’m going to see when I next look in the mirror. Probably some cartoonish-looking guy who doesn’t even have comments on his website!

For the first time ever, I know what starving children in Africa feel like when their websites crash and they have to manually reenter all the data by hand. Except for the hunger part, I guess. Still, it sucks.

It’s looking like I’ll be able to recover all the articles themselves between webcache, RSS copy pasta (thanks to Andrea, DJ, and Joe for those), and my own personal records. Although I’ll have to reformat them and reinsert all the images which I haven’t even started yet.

Again we had back-ups, but those were destroyed too.

I’m never making that mistake again. I’m going to start carrying a hard-disc back-up of my site in a briefcase handcuffed to my wrist at all times. Yes, it will probably be uncomfortable. Yes it will probably chafe. But at least I’ll always have a hard surface if I need to write something down and a boner shield to avoid potentially embarrassing situations.

I guess I still do have Zen-like acceptance about the fact that I just have to bear down and rebuild what I can, but now I’m pretty annoyed over all of it. It’s going to take days to get all the articles back up and probably a few weeks to format them back to where they were.

So yeah, if you’re a hot Satanist put on your Freyr’s Day best because one BC Woods would like to take you out into a hopping and bopping circle of stones, sexually savage you in such a debauched manner that it will make Jesus cry (possibly after some kind of animal sacrifice although probably not a mammal because I have standards**) while we both scream out obscenities against the Creator who probably doesn’t exist, but who we’ll pretend does exist because 1. I feel bad when I vent my frustrations on regular people over my first world problems, and because 2. you as the hot Satanist probably have unresolved issues with your father. Or, even more probably, are unable to cope with the fact that you’re a lesbian.***

I’m going to be copying, pasting and rebuilding every morning and every night for as many hours as I can get away with. I hope to be done by Thor’s Day. Formatting will probably happen over weeks.

*Not from the Church of Satan either. Way too mainstream. Those are the most boring Satanists out there.

**Maybe an eel?

***Come to think of it, I did know a “Luciferian” Satanist right after high school who was indignant that I didn’t believe in a higher power at all.

UPDATE: We’re coming up slowly but surely! It’s still going to take a hell of a lot of time. Sorry if I end up clogging your RSS feeds. I’m trying to be good about changing the dates of the entries back to where they should be but I might screw up every now and again.

If you see a post that has the word SARSAPARILLA at the top, it’s because I’m using that to tag posts I have to go back and reinsert pictures into.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

I’m getting a bit frustrated at this point as well. I know what the issue is now, so it’s only a matter of getting someone with the proper server permissions to make it right.

In the mean time, I’ve still managed to update the contributors page.

I’ll get this fixed as soon as I can.

Why don’t you take this opportunity to comment and link to things you’d like to share with people while the things I have to share with people aren’t here? Your work or someone else’s, or just something cool. All of it’s fine.

Just give people something cool to do while I’m trying to take care of this bullshit.

You’re going to start seeing things appear today in, hopefully, fairly rapid succession. The trickiest part for me is going to be making sure that all the url names go back to what they were.

I forgot to add that none of the links on the page menu are going to work for the next while. Possibly not until tomorrow.

Update: I’m having some issues with uploading. It’s kinda putting a hamper on me putting things back where they’re supposed to be. I’m thinking that by tomorrow afternoon though, everything will be righted. I’m sorry. I know this is super annoying.

More Updating: Okay, I seem to be having some issue with my server permissions and it’s preventing me from uploading images and themes.

The good news is that since I rescued the archives page, I can pretty much find everything on Google cache once I get the server stuff all straightened out. Also thanks to Andrea for providing me a text file of all the stories she had in her RSS feed. Immensely helpful.

Again, sorry for the inconvenience. I know this is annoying.

Also, if you’re looking for something to read try my friend hunter4086

So, the prognosis isn’t good. It’s looking like none of the back-ups are recoverable. While all my stories are stored elsewhere a lot of my essays aren’t.

If you happen to have had my site in your RSS feed and can still find some of the updates there, could you please copy and paste those to me? I’m especially trying to track down a copy of the contributors page because I want to make sure everyone who ever donated gets credits. I think I’m more upset by that loss than any other.

Update: Found the Contributors Page. Thanks DJ!

If you can find anything I’ve written before that’s not a story, I’d greatly appreciate your help.

From this day forward, I’m going to make sure nothing like this can ever happen again. We’re moving servers and I’m also going to start keeping my own personal back ups, which to be honest I should have done from the start.

My email address is brandoncwoods@gmail.com

Please send me an email if you can find anything.

When I was young, I read the biography of Thomas Edison. In his advanced years, there was a massive fire that took out the greater portion of, what at that time, comprised his entire personal wealth. When approached he simply said “Watch the fire, you won’t see another one like this in your life.”

I try to adopt that same attitude when faced with disaster or setbacks. You have to let things happen, see what’s left, and then get back to building.

So, things look a little bit weird don’t they?

It would appear that the company that hosts our site had catastrophic server failure… including on the servers where we keep our back-ups. Simultaneously. They’re trying to retrieve the data but it’s up in the air right now.

Now, I personally have back-ups of all the stories, so if worse comes to worse, I’ll simply have to copy and past everything back into place. Some of the shorter essays, however, may be permanently lost.

If it does come to pass the site as it was has been lost, don’t worry. I’ll just rebuild. No need to panic.

If you need to have a cry though, I understand. Here is the death scene from The Champ if you need to get the tears flowing.

Moose Hat/Machete Pictures would be appreciated as a showing of condolence.

My Friend Corrie

Believe it or not, I knew some girls in high school. Some of them were even my friends. And still others were the sisters of my friends. Like Corrie.

Needless to say, you can only make so many painfully, horribly awkward incest jokes (and do/say other obnoxious things in the hopes of being liked, while at the same time revealing profound misapprehensions about social boundaries) to the sisters of those friends before you’re bonding, helping people move and having long, rambling, confused conversations on the telephone often apologizing for your ill-considered behavior.

While I’ve stayed in the same social bubble of not really being able to understand people at the speed necessary to be truly involved in society, Corrie has gone on to have an actual life and one of the most adorable children I have ever seen. Although for some reason she refuses to take family photos with the appropriate combination of machetes and moose hats. Go figure.

Also, she has an Etsy shop.

abolbas.etsy.com

Click it for God’s sake!

She asked me to link to it, and ever since she emailed me the other day I’ve been feeling guilty about my behavior.

She has a bunch of “indie” jewelry for sale. So if you’ve ever wanted to go to a coffee shop and scoff at other people for being “commonplace” and “conformist” these would make great bragging/asshole pieces.

Something to Break Up the Page A Bit

I’m the one on the right.

If memory serves (as this happened more than once), this was actually taken after several hours of fighting with Rachel, during which I cried a lot before my mom told me to be quiet and that it was “funny.” After this, my mother took me around the neighborhood and introduced me as Rachel’s new friend to everyone we knew, only to pull off my wig and cackle madly at the reveal. Then I did what I usually did in such circumstances and just blanked out my emotions and pretended everything that was happening to me was actually happening to somebody else.

Other times, my cousin Kendall would hold me down and Rachel would put make-up on my face (she especially loved drawing on my lips and cheeks with lipstick) while saying “Pretty doll! Pretty doll!” over and over again. I would usually try to turn my head to the side, while a quiet tear would roll down my cheek as I blankly stared at the wall, looking into the past and happier memories.

I think this has a lot to do with why I sometimes display absolutely no fear in the face of overwhelming force or at the prospect of being publicly humiliated, while at other times I am overcome with all-encompassing dread that I’m going to get to the grocery store and the clerk is going to say “I’m sorry, milk costs three thousand dollars now. What’s that? You don’t have enough money? Who doesn’t keep three thousand dollars set aside for milk? Hahahahaha! You’re a loser! Everyone, look! He didn’t know milk costs three thousand dollars now! Can you believe it? Hahahahahahaha! Oh my God, I would kill myself if I were you!”

Now, to another bit of news someone else has asked me to pass along.

My Friend Rob

I had to break up the page a bit, because I didn’t want this being near the first announcement. So I hope you enjoyed that little interlude.

Anyway, Rob who does all the back-end hosting stuff for this site and who happens to be from New Jersey, hosts another site called “Whore on Hold” which features stories from phone sex operators. He’s looking for a new writer.

If you want to know why his boundaries are the way they are, it’s because his parents literally abandoned him in Disneyland. Yes, they flew him to the happiest place on Earth, and then just left him there.

While I’m not particularly comfortable with encouraging someone to engage in an activity I think is emotionally damaging, I don’t know as I have a right to judge if that’s what your personal comfort zone is. So, while I personally feel that exchanging money for sexual release is damaging to the capacity for love and affection, that may not be where you fall. So, if you’re a phone sex operator and you want to write about it, you can shoot Rob an email at freaksafari (at no spam) gmail.com

I will probably be helping to edit at least the first few stories.