- - Have you ever gotten your zipper stuck? I'm not going to talk about the zipper on your pants, which can add an additional dimension of urgency and humiliation to the problem, but just an ordinary run-of-the mill outerwear jacket zipper. You're just about to go into a store, and you realize that the freakin' thing has gone off the track, and now your jacket is gaping open at the bottom and the top, with the zipper trolley (or whatever you call it) binding the coat only at the middle, and leaving you looking like the world's biggest dork...
...so you try to pull the zipper down to the bottom and get it back on the track, but the infernal thing just won't engage with the teeth there! After trying the process several times, you're no longer feeling cool about it but are growing increasingly self-conscious, and beginning to feel that your coat has turned into a straight jacket! As you still can't get the zipper to work, a mild feeling of panic sets in, your fingertips get shredded, and you begin to develop contingency plans in your mind for how to extricate yourself from your jacket if the zipper continues to refuse to work...do you have the flexibility of a contortionist to wiggle out of it, do you beg someone like a kindergarten child for help, or do you take a knife to it, and try and cut your way out?--That's not an appealing prospect when you're dealing with a coat that you paid some major bucks for!
More than half an hour later with my fingertips in tatters to say nothing of my composure, I finally got the zipper back on track and could take my coat off, which was a good thing since I was then in a restaurant...but I've seen another side to my once trusty leather jacket...
...and I'm just not sure that I trust it!
- - Isn't he breathtaking?!--The Cheshire Cat from the upcoming Tim Burton version of Alice In Wonderland, that is?--I've always thought that the Cheshire Cat was very cool, both because of the toothy grin and also the de-materializing capabilities.
In the Tim Burton interpretation, the Cheshire Cat is a marvelous creature with glowing eyes and a mouth that's almost all teeth, kinda like the Langoliers creatures as envisioned by Stephen King in his novella of the same name.
Cats have quite a hold on the human psyche,
extending back to the days of their earliest domestication in ancient Egypt. I think that's because cats are not really domesticated, you see...they choose to be here, because living in a human household makes things easier for them! Cats are elemental and primal at core, almost a force of nature.
At times portrayed as at least mildly evil or the familiars of witches, the cat can never be fully controlled, muchless completely figured out...and bless them for being that way! A dog will dance in joy when you return to your house...a cat will regard you as if to say, "Oh!--Were you away?" One can't help but admire the independence, athleticism, and mystery of this magnificent animal....
...and who's really in charge here?--I clean out the toilets of my cats...they sure don't clean mine!
- - I'm an insomniac, and it's a rare night when I get more than six hours of sleep; that's on a really good night! I can get to sleep, eventually...then I'll sleep for several hours, and wake up in the middle of the night. They consider this a sleep maintenance problem, and sleep disorders are rather poorly understood.
...believe me, they have some freaky stuff on television in the middle of the night; infomercials, endless Ex-tenze commercials, the dreadful Girls Gone Wild ads, and vintage movies and TV shows, many of which were worthless to begin with. Billy Mays still roams the airwaves hawking products in his "yell and sell" style, like some kind of electronic zombie, dead but still offensively selling. When I awaken, I'll watch such fare until my brain shuts down, and I can get back to sleep again...maybe!
Was it Poe who called sleep, "little slices of death?" I'm beginning to understand why...
- - Very few things hold up decently twenty years after their creation, be it cars, movies, or whatever. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is one of the few films that has held up well after two decades, and still manages to capture the agony of the Xmas season, with its atmosphere of forced merriment, excessive decorations, and reunions with dreadful relatives. As Ellen Griswold expresses it in the film, "It's Xmas...we're all in misery."
If you've heard one Xmas carol too many, can't stand the thought of being in close quarters with relatives you can't stand, or are just sick to death already of a holiday that's come to span essentially two months, Christmas Vacation's the perfect antidote!
- - Have you ever gotten your zipper stuck? I'm not going to talk about the zipper on your pants, which can add an additional dimension of urgency and humiliation to the problem, but just an ordinary run-of-the mill outerwear jacket zipper. You're just about to go into a store, and you realize that the freakin' thing has gone off the track, and now your jacket is gaping open at the bottom and the top, with the zipper trolley (or whatever you call it) binding the coat only at the middle, and leaving you looking like the world's biggest dork...
