The Eleanorian

iPhone Orwell

I do miss, already, those days of quietly riding the bus with my hard copy novel and/or collection of short stories. These days the invasive iPhone has taken over my existence 24/7. I have to withhold the iPhone's unrelenting desire to captivate my attention. It's a good thing that Joyce Carol Oates is a better writer than Steve Jobs. In a few years, there will be commercials betwixt text messages--just you wait sistuh. iPhone anonymous here I come.

And don't you think it's adorable that when you actually call Verizon for assistance, the young individual at the end of the customer service line has to look up her computerized charts to solve your inability to connect to Internet in Camden? Then, of course, you have totally ruined your evening by frustratingly trying to reconnect to the George Orwell universe you initally wanted to ignore.

adult bibs

My brother once gave me instructions on how to eat without spilling food on my shirt. This is an excrutiating nightmare. I am, to paraphrase lawrence ferlinghetti, "waiting for the rebirth of wonder--adult bibs!" This is why I love lobster, there is always the plastic bib. I do extend napkins over my shirt, but Kenneth Cole cannot always protect him/herself in this regard.

"Freshly Dead"

In Young Frankenstein Gene Wilder sees Marty Feldman's head with the other dead heads--and Marty's head (although live) reads, "Freshly Dead." That's how my skull almost was this morning... 

An SUV driver, rapidly exiting her low-income housing project, purposely did not stop. The bzich banged into my bike. Thank Zeus there were no dents or broken brain bones and I am not even freshly dead. Marty Feldman, however, should rest in peace.

Tom Seaver vs T S Eliot

Since I moved to Philly (Feb 2009) I have tried to develop a sincere patriotism for their baseball team. I gave up my long-standing Mets' and short-standing Yankees' support to chant for the Phillies. However, I know little about sports, just as my brother Allan knows glaringly nothing about T. S. Eliot. But then, what the hell do I know about Tom Seaver? We each have our Tom, you see, and whether it's Eliot or Seaver, we should be happy with our Tom and not be a peeping Tom. Hence, my recent ignorance was not so bliss when I released anger at the Broad Street subway elevator yesterday afternoon (Walnut/Locust station).

I walked into the subway elevator with a few New Jersey relatives (in that, we all grew up in the Garden toxic state). These boys/men proudly wore Eagles shirts. I asked, "How did the Phillies do last night?" "The Giants beat them," they replied. Naturally, I thought these semi-drunken macho morons were making fun of my Green converse sneakers and elderly LL Bean polo shirt. No, this was not the case at all.

There are NY Giants (football) and San Francisco Giants (baseball). Thus, I apologize to those Jersey dudes on the elevator for yelling at them (I said, "Look, assholes, don't play me for a sucker, I know there are fucking football Giants--and the friggen Phillies didn't play them!").

"I'm sorry, oh Eagles fans, and thanks for enlightening me."

Just like: if there's a tooth fairy, there's got to be a dentures fairy. Just ask the gay dentists. 

Next time I will simply quote from The Waste Land:

I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.	230
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,

Dispensing with anger...

I used to say "fuck you" to many vehicle owners. They are, after all, more powerful than wee me on my bike. This is probably not a good life-saving technique. Nonetheless, I have vowed to dispense of anger--especially after this morning when the lovely cars nearly drove over my body. Yes, I could have been a corpse. But instead of being a corpse this am, I am speaking to you from my blog. I didn't look behind me as I crossed the road, and despite numerous beeps, I was nearly hit by 2 or 3 cars and one angry white male on a bike. And despite the annoying women (they are mostly women) who speak on their cell phones at Stop sign corners, I am going to try to a) ride my bike in the correct direction b) wait at Stop signs c) not call white angry males (or females) (or even hermaphrodites from Thailand) "assholes."

...happy mammalah day.

I'm home now--in Lakewood, NJ--at my mom's house. She insists that I turn the mattress over (in my old bedroom, where at one point, I lived and weighed 150 pounds). Mom wants me to turn the mattress over because her dog, Felicia, a German shep, vomited on the mattress. I know, some people find these details more deplorable than Richard Nixon's resignation speech. Nonetheless, I will turn the mattress over and my mother will have to find something new to obsess about. Happy mom's day y'all. One thing mother is quite happy about: her daughter, who used to weigh 150 pounds during high school, where she once cornrowed her hair, long before Bo Derrick did, recently lost 15 pounds. Now her daughter weighs 239 pounds--15 pounds less than I did a few weeks ago. I'm eating fewer carbs. Not the retarded Atkins diet that replaces fat with heart attack. No, no, I'm on a healthy and nutritious eating spree. Here's a recent photo of my mom taken by my brother Stephen:

This is not an April Fool's Day

observation. I passed my driver's test. At first, the battery died. We had to get a new battery. At Advanced Auto Parts. Then we resumed the test. Wooooooo hoooooooooo, as my friend Donna Epler in New Mexico says---Wooooo hooooooooooooo. I'm delighted. The below is me celebrating:

50567 hits to date on Eleanorian

Pretty cool, dudette. Keep reading y'all.

The Stomach Flu Virus

Is vibrating itself into our bodies here in Roanoke--and like a bad 1950s scifi movie--it is quite contagious. My friend Alise had it and then I had it and my other pals and acquaintances have had it. It makes you immovable and incoherent. In the beginning you can't stop vomiting but then, like me, you go to the local ER so you don't die from dehydration. Roanoke's ER is far superior to that in the West Village. I had immediate and sympathetic attention (although they did inquire if I had a husband and I told them I don't currently. Any applicants?) In any case, I'm not very lucid. Can you tell? Happy New Year. I know below represents the wrong holiday, but you get the drift.

Writer's Walk Around the Block

This is the last week of finals. In fact, there is only one week of finals--and I am stuck in it. Like Walt Whitman was stuck in the hospital during the Civil War. He was waiting for the men to heal. Look at below photo of him. He was a strapping fellow:

Well, I'm not sure he was "strapping"--but he was certainly a perty boy. And he probably wasn't paranoid nor did he suffer from writer's block or live on a block with crack hoes. But maybe if he lived on a block with crack hoes, he'd have been inspired to write.

I am not inspired to write, although I have numerous assignments. Usually I have reader's block, where I am so egotistical I can't focus on another author's work. Now I just have the stereotypical writer's block or laziness.

Thus, I'm in communion with Walt's soul--hoping words will drip through me like a gentle rain storm.