curious  curiouser an curiouser cried Alice

                                he was reading The Attention Merchants by Wu(he called him by his last name now because they were old friends  hed read his first book  The Master Switch  then it was Timothy Wu  why would a Wu Anglosaxonise his name – though Logan the understaffed assist manager of the car rental he did business with Do More With Less  Logan Nguyen Vietnamese  why would a Nguyen do in kind  to fit in  better to out fit)

                                                                                  and the while he was in his head  above him cawed and hawed a blackbird that sat atop of an electrical pole in the very back corner of his yard

when he first went outside onto the porch it met him with haw    haw    haw    like laughter forced at a bad joke  then caw  caw  caw then hawhaw  caw   hawhaw ha  seeming desperate to draw attention to itself

he relented  he looked up at it

it shaddup

then he returned his gaze to the paper and clipboard on the porch railing

Caw  Caw  Caw

an extraspecies game?Why not  he Haw  Haw  Hawed back at it  Lets try this Ill haw four times   Haw   Haw   Haw   Haw

damn if the bird didnt mimic him and haw back four timesCommunication  but what the fuck were they talking about

his cats indie and october were at the screen door plucking at its screenmewing DOWN  they took their paws down

two more attention getters  merchants

he was surrounded by them Me Me Me Me

                                    while all he ever sought was anonymity  privacy   which he had to upend to make a living

the blackbird must have slipped inside his head an disagreed

it went off on a series of Caw Caw Cawbetter than two or three dozen rapid chimes in a rowMe Me Me like a trained vocalist warming up their voice singing doing scalesthough monotone for a performance

What was her name

the question hed been wrestling withhis forgetfulness  he never forgot a girls nameever  he had to be deliberate let it come back into his mind

she had been there every daythree times a day when he crawled out of the hot Epsom salt baths he took to assuage his painful jointssplit stem to stern bilaterally atasudden it came onto him

youd think shed offer him a towel when he was on all floors on the bathmat

at least he was covered with a scent of lavender oil

when finally at work people often would tell him he smelled good

Thank you  Its lavender oil

their eyebrows arched nearly imperceptibly A dude Lavender oil

I use it in my bath water

eyebrows arched again Who takes baths

he crawled out of the bathtub

made it up to his feet

grabbed a bath towel off a hook with two handsdidnt grabdidnt use his hands  held it between his wrists  his hands didnt work very well

she wouldnt have been much help anyways 

she didnt have wrists

she had fine articulated legs

her web was so fine he couldnt even see it up in the corner above the vanity

she seemed suspended in midair  magickal

the only thing that spoiled her perfection were the wrapped insect husks behind and under her 

why couldnt he remember her name

she attended his baths for nearly a year 

three fucking hot baths a day

then she went missing one morning

he entered the bathroom saying Good morning up into her corneran immediately his heart fell immediately he missed her  what was her name

his pain was finally ebbing what was her name  an he felt she had something to do with thatno one could convince him otherwise  Do spiders live for yearshe didnt know  she didnt grow spontaneously to her immense sizethree inches toe-to-crossedopposite-leg-toe

he was nearing painlessness

an she was gone

what was her name

The Attention Merchants laid on the rail off to his right

he bookmarked it with a yellowed obit Also noted from the Minneapolis StarTribune  he dated it 11  6. 89   Albert Spaggiari, 57, mastermind of the spectacular “sewer gang” bank heist in Nice, France, and on the run for 12 years, died and his body was left outside his mother’s house in Hyeres, France, by friends on Saturday, police report. 

he liked the part that Alberts body was left in front of his mothers house so shed know

he wished he knew

              then there was a bluesparkling behind his eyes  rising up out of the deep black well of his memory an imagination  her name    her name floated up out of it in letters etched like whitefluffed snowflakes held together on fine silk tines  an artisan web she might have spun

appleseed

appleseed

did it have to be that hard

Hawhaw  caw   hawhaw ha  ha    HA

You shaddup

0123pm (breaking tradition this once),  Friday,  10  11. 17

1024,  Saturday – Veterans Day,  11  11. 17

Frank Turner  The Way I Tend To Be  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf5O2M5GaEA

what can be more mundanethe same-old-same-old than grocery shoppingthe millingthe puzzlingthe intricate label-reading and Do I need this   or is this just something I want

everyone who shopped was distracted   and finally when all items are chosen and unpacked and gone through the register and repackedGet me the hell out of Dodge  we go away    usually the receipt uninspected  the receipt subtly revealing the corporate-bonus theyve taken for themselves by our ignoranceour unwillingness to confirm our purchases 

is it a reality that most households do a big shopping  perhaps biweekly or the terrific once-a-week for their families he had no idea what size the typical family was anymore but his circumstances allowed him to shop every day or every-other-day  small slices  and small slices can easily be pared inspected prices of items held in his brains mawbetween its teethslobbering  and because he purchased limited groceries he found errors benefiting the corporation typically once-a-week be the price scanned incorrectly or an item not up to par   and he didnt allowed them to set par

people are distracted

theyre distracted by their lists and recipes and going off the top of their heads Just a quick stopIn ‘n Out

since he was shopping only for himself and had been for years everything came off the top of his head

if he forgot something

that was his punishmenthis accountability

he might have argued with himself(he was a curmudgeona bit of a bitch on this point) that since no one was held accountable in the public sphere any longerthat a person who commits an immoral act can behave ethically in a public role  or so said White evangelicals though he had to assume those were men having other mens backs  White malesthick as thievesdoubling down  miserablemiserlycocksuckers  gooblegooble   since no one was accountable why didnt he just get into the car and drive back over to the storeFuck me! hed holler Fuck me if I cant remember what I neededmy fault my punishment 

he was harder on himself than anyone ever could be  dont try to encourage or flatter him  he was beyond those feeble attemptsbeyond strokes

tri-tips were onsale  2.88 a pound  that was a significant savings

tri-tips were a cut he wasnt familiar with until he visited Californias Central Coast had dined on what his host called a Santa Maria barbecue with sausages pinquito beans garlic bread and a green salad  

its a long triangular cut of beef

he bought it untrimmed 

butchers usually tucked its narrowed end up under the roast when packaging it secreting its slab of fat  but that was part of the game

bringing it home he trimmed it himself  he had butchering in his background  lived in Montana on a ranch  did its killings its butchery   

prior he had taken a part-time gig with an inventory service whose owner had a part-time gig as a butcher and taught him the ropes rendering halves of beef and hog

his boss called him a natural

he took that as a compliment

for his trouble learning the ropes his boss usually gave him fiveten pounds of meat when he finished

he didnt buy meat the two years he lived there

he even had the luxury of elk and deermeat and supplementing the whole of it with rabbit he raised on the ranch

he bought a 3.92 pound cut of tri-tip 

he usually preferred four and a half to five pounds but there were slimpickings  the butcher behind the meat counter said they were waiting on another shipment(another corporate ploy  a scarce lead-item so youd hump your ass in) 

it was just going to be him for dinner  his brother-in-law backed out due to an entanglement with his new wife and since he had to sleep with her he did the smart thing(for now) and reneged on their barbecue

when he unpacked the tri-tip rolled it over  an eyebrow went upa silent exclamation point at the thickness of the fat it was unusually generous

setting to it with his paring knife slicing away a little at a time so not to cut the meat wanting to leave a slim quarterinch which then burned nicely over the red oak coals roasting it  he cut away more and more to his consternation

finishing  he exclaimed as he balled up the fat placed it back within its cellophane wrapped it for overnight in the refrigerator Ohhellno  what did the Dude always say Yes  This aggression will not stand man this aggression will not stand

it was a tasty solo barbecue whetted with Detour doubleIPA Clontarf Irish whiskey cold sliced tomatoes roasted green and Anaheim peppers an onion

the next morning he took the bagged the ball of fat and walked reading Tristram Shandy back to the grocerystore

inside he made a beeline to the butchers counter and spoke to a young man servicing it  his white meat apron was white  unbloodied  a cog  not the gear

he asked of the meat manager was available

no surprise  he wasnt

Then whos next on the foodchain

Foodchain

Who carries the weight in the managers absence

Oh

Is Oh Chinese  Or is Oh an exclamation  Nevermind  Id like you to weight this ball of fat for me that I bought yesterday for 2.88 a pound

the kid dutifully did as he asked

And please  if you would affixed a price label to it at 2.88 a pound

Youll excuse me its fat

It is  2.88 a pound please  he glanced at the scale 1.57 pounds  figured four and a half dollars  Thank you  the kid should there with the label at the end of his thumb  If youd please affix it to the plastic bag beside yesterdays label that I paid against

the kid followed orders well  Thank you he glanced at his nametag Dan

Youre welcome

Were moving along  Now if youd please summons whomever is managing the department  Id like to be reimbursed the one-point-five-seven pounds of fat at two dollars and eighty-eight cents a pound

I cant do that

No you cant  Thats why I asked you to get the acting manager

Oh  Ill have to get the acting manager  he knew acting manager rather than who carried the weight was that vernacular no longer recognised

Joey my names Joey how can I help  he got right to the point  Joey held the ball of fat in his hand

Thats my ball of fat youre holding  I bought it yesterday  Im not going to eat it  Its off an untrimmed tri-tip I bought yesterday  Dan weighed it at one-point-five-seven pounds  Thats one-point-five-seven pounds of a three-point-nine-two roast which off the top of my head is approximately forty percent of the tri-tip  Now Ive heard of a butchers thumb on the scale  but thats one really fat thumb

Alright  How can I help  If youre unhappy were unhappy

Then lets get happy  Please reimburse me

Joey affixed the tag Dan ran to his receipt beneath the tri-tip transaction  Take this up to the courtesy desk in front and have them reimburse you  If they have any questions they can ring me back here

Thank you I appreciate your help Joey

Anything to help  Youre welcome

at the courtesy desk the receipt and Joeys attached labeling flummoxed the gal manning it and the baldheaded supervisor behind her 

the supervisor looked at the receipt then said Subtract that and give him 

the difference itll be simpler that way for the books why would she subtract the difference

the difference was six dollars eightyeight cents

one-point-five-seven pounds at two eighty-eight a pound

he was done correcting people  Thank you

she said Youre welcome and behind her the manager made distracted bobblehead nods

everyone at a grocerystore is apparently distracted

1352,  Thursday,  9  11. 17

1200,  Friday,  10  11. 17

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/roy-moore-paedophilia-allegations-joseph-mary-bible-defence-jim-ziegler-alabama-republicans-senate-a8047246.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx3BEX7LYfc