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Multi-Family Garage Sale
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2459
I'm supposed to be going to pick up my cheque, but I'm waylaid by the many garage sale signs along the way. And stopping in, filling bags, returning home to unload, the fever returns, it's been months since I've been garage saling, finances have forbidden, they still forbid it but I have some loose change, one doesn't pay the rent with loose change, but one can buy some temporary distractions, ....
And I keep going, nowhere near picking up my cheque but canvassing the neighborhood in ever growing spirals...those few advertised garages sales have been cancelled without notice, but others have sprung up in their place.
There's one, a "Multi-Family" garage sale. I find a few books, nothing really, but then there's this one...
"How to achieve Multiple Orgasms Every Time"
Now I have absolutely no use whatsoever for this, rare enough I have even single orgasms. But I pick it up, curious, and begin to flip through it. I ask the lady running the sale
"This Yours?"
She nods somewhat sheepishly.That's the thing about Multi-Family garage sales, they allow you to unload the most intimate and personal rubbish without directly accepting responsibility. Want to unload some old and crusty penthouse magazines? Heavily used "Massage Wands"? Books about impotence, divorce, coping with adultry, herpes, overcoming drug addiction, haemorrhoids? Do it at the Multi-Family Garage Sale.
I flip the pages. They're filled with "Joy of Sex" type illustrations, poorly drawn pictures that somehow remove all of the appeal of sex.
"Does it work?" I ask ...
"Yes" she confesses.
"What about this technique?..." And I show her the illustration.
"Um..."
"If I had to take away one lesson from this book, what would it be?"
She's blushing and tongue tied. I continue.
"Don't all women have multiple orgasms anyways? Shouldn't need a book for this...Where's your husband?"
There are other customers, she's getting embarassed and as there's no more room in my bag I put it back, thank her for her patience and continue.
It's a good day. I mean good in a small way, some winter coats for my daughter, a couple of nintendo DS games for the boy, some miscellaneous books ("The Wisdom of Confuscious", a 40's edition with nicely embossed cover). And there's the helmet. Pictured above, modelled by me. A helicopter pilots helmet. I wear it now like a bike helmet, visor down, probably not roadworthy (but it'd save your life if you fell from 10, 000 feet out of the sky, go figure), carry it into StarBucks when I meet my eccentric friends, explain that I've just parked my chopper on the roof/around the corner/ just out of sight and if only they'd brought their helmets I could have taken them for a spin.....
Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 1764
It's been reviewed to death. A fine read, well drawn characters, especially that of Madame Bovary, one still recognizes her today...
Jon Ronson - The Men who Stare at Goats
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 1815
Beginning with "This is a True Story" and we journey quicker and quicker down the rabbit hole of "Military Intelligence". In specific, the divisions that covertly employ psy and paranormal ops. Highly amusing, and (frighteningly enough) not even slightly implausible. Which it should be, given the absurd events and histories it narrates, but it's not. I've heard most of these things before, parroted as fact...While the miracles are uncertain, the witnesses are legion. Especially amusing is the narrator's (Ronson's) dry tone as he interviews his subjects.
A throwaway read, but worthwhile nonetheless. I'd give it 30 goats and 3 hamsters. All live.
White Noise
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2372
3 weeks of the rock tumbler(s) echoing down the hall. At times I don't notice it, other times it grates upon you. It's remarkable the range of sounds, sometimes like a bathtub forever draining, like an overfilled washer, listening to it when you're trying to fall asleep you can hear music in the squeaking of the gears, distant, remote, distant muttering voices, melodies, gregorian chants played as if through an ancient gramaphone.
I'm down to one polisher, the other stopped working, the problem somewhere in the motor, intermittent, a victim of my impatience to process the hundreds of pounds of pebbles and fossils we've collected over the year. I've taken it apart as I'm somewhat handy and maybe I'll find time to repair it...
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