In Lieu of A Thousand Words

Let's just start the week off like this, eh?

Have I Got Something to Make Your Weekend Fantastic!

Y'all,
There is no joy greater than sharing your life with a dog (my apologies to Warren and Henry-- don't worry, guys, you run a close second). I am trying to help home a few dogs that are in sudden need. Before y'all email me with suggestions about Austin Pets Alive, etc, please know we already know all about APA, our bases there are covered. I am running this post in addition to other avenues being pursued. 


If you are up for bringing the tremendous joy of a dog(s) into your world, please email me directly at spikegillespie@gmail.com and I will put you in touch with the right humans. Below is a note from my friend who is helping her friend to home these dogs. Also, adorable pictures. 


Hurry people, let's get these pups a place to stay!


My friend writes:


A good friend of mine has run into some very, very hard times and was forced to move quickly to a new apartment that does not allow animals. Her three sweet and affectionate dogs need immediate and/or long term foster homes, permanent adoption negotiable. They can be adopted individually. Rock Hudson is a medium sized (approx 20 pounds) short-haired black+white mix, husky and low to the ground with enormous ears, a noble demeanor and a sweet, loyal disposition. He is shy with new people but warms up quickly. Stevie Nicks is a small (approx 8-10 pounds) wire haired terried/chihuahua mix, calm and full of kisses with an adorable white streak on her head. Chavela Vargas is a small (approx 8-10 pounds) dachshund/chihuahua mix with big worried brown eyes and is calm and cuddly.  All three are healthy, house and leash trained, up to date on shots, including kennel cough, and are fine with cats and young children (my friend has a toddler).

Spider House Fools -- May I Take Your Order and Ruin Your Day?

Upon discovering that Trudy’s, our first choice for breakfast, was not yet open, my friend Stephen and I wandered over to Spider House and took a seat outside. The place was pretty much deserted—hardly a bearded hipster or retro chick in sight. After a while, our waitress skulked over, and— apparently annoyed with us for being alive on the planet—slammed down menus and asked, hurriedly, if we were ready or wanted time. We asked for one latte, two waters and a few moments.

When she returned with the drinks, I still wasn’t ready but Stephen was, so he ordered and then I—sensing the impatience of the waitress— just said I’d have the same thing: a rosemary salt Rock Star bagel with cream cheese. Easy enough. I mean, it’s pretty hard to fuck up a bagel, right? (Hard but not impossible— one time, at Summer Moon it took them twenty minutes to bring me a “toasted” bagel, which was icy cold and hard as a rock, factors that the “cook,” clearly stoned out of his gourd, attributed to “a very slow toaster.”)

After enough time had passed to perform a bris and four Bar Mitzvahs, the bagels at long last arrived, pre-smeared with a thin layer of cream cheese. The waitress dumped them on the table and huffed off. I bit into mine. It tasted stale. I thought to myself, Self, you are probably imagining this is stale because the waitress has such a shitty attitude. Just eat the damn thing.

I took another couple of bites. My bagel remained disgusting, and had the consistency of something that had been run under water, left out to dry for a few days, then put in the microwave too long, then in the fridge to overcompensate for over-nuking, then colored slightly brown on top with an off-brand crayon to give a false appearance of having been toasted. I asked Stephen if I was overreacting. I do this—I check in with friends when I’m feeling grouchy because I really don’t want to be that asshole that complains at restaurants. In fact, I so don’t want to be that person that I have been known to pick meat out of a “vegetarian” salad or deal with a lukewarm cup of soup rather than ask the kitchen to fix it.

Stephen told me, no, it wasn’t me, his bagel sucked, too.

So I did something I think I’ve done maybe a half-dozen times in my entire life—I called the waitress over to tell her there was a problem. Here’s how it went:

Me: Is it possible these bagels are day old? Because this tastes really stale. Rubbery.

Her: If you ask me, that brand just tastes rubbery. I have no idea if they’re day old.

Me: Uh, would you go and ask.

Before I tell you what happened next, let’s say that, to her credit, the bitchy waitress decided to be honest with me once she stormed back over to the table.

Her: Yeah, they’re day-old. At least day old. They may be older than that actually.

Me: Really? Because if I’d known they were old, I wouldn’t have ordered them.

Her: Yeah, well that’s just how we roll here.


[Ed. note added on January 18th-- I contacted Rock Star Bagels to let them know SH was dissing their product. They informed me they had not delivered bagels there since last Thursday, meaning my bagel was six days old.]

This part—about how they roll at Spider House— I already knew. Because another time at Spider House I had another shitty waitress (or was it the same one?). That night, I asked for chips and hot sauce and she very impatiently said, “You mean salsa?” (No, bitch, I mean hot sauce as in CHIPS AND. I know you need me to clarify because, like, you know, so many people in Austin order fucking Tabasco with their goddamn tortilla chips, so fucking thanks for setting me straight.)

That was the same waitress who, when my friend inquired very politely—after TWENTY MINUTES—when his cocktail might be arriving, said, “Oh, yeah. Well I forgot to put the order in for that.”

This proclamation of forgetfulness was not delivered apologetically nor with even the slightest amount of concern. It was delivered like, Fuck you, if you want a drink why don’t you go someplace else?

Look, I know waiting tables isn’t always fun. How do I know this? Well, little Spider House ladies, check it: Spike herself waited tables. For FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS. And yeah, some days you’re hungover and some days your period is so bad you’re bloated like Shamu and dropping clots the size of Cleveland, and some days you show up a half-hour late because you just found out your boyfriend is having a skanky affair with the neighbor’s goat. And yes, days like these it can be pressing to feign cheerfulness with customers.

But I have a hunch that this Spider House bullshit is not something that could be readily cured with a hair of the dog, a package of Midol, or a midnight goat sacrifice. Methinks there’s something else going on here. Is this bitchiness some kind of a “requirement” to work at the cool places in Austin these days? Or did I just happen to coincidentally encounter two wildly bitchy waitresses at the same place at different times?

Back in 1989, I worked at a really fancy place in St. Louis called Riddles Penultimate (RIP). When I first started there, I complained about all my tables all the time. My friend Sue, an outstanding waitress, asked me if I just hated everyone. I thought about that and came up with a theory. I’d been trained how to wait tables by a really cranky woman at a Ramada Inn in Florida. Maybe I just thought that was part of the territory?

Truth was, I didn’t really hate them all. I just loved complaining about them all, giving them nicknames, resenting their petty requests. It was good fodder for my Northeastern ways. But I swear, no matter how much I complained behind their backs, to their faces I was as nice as I could muster on any given night.

There were exceptions, of course. And Martin Luther King, Jr, forgive me for it is true that once, in Knoxville, I got fired on the spot for telling off a customer who, the last time she’d been in, stiffed me for failing to bring her a straw to protect her lipstick and so, yes, I did walk out singing We Shall Overcome. Granted, that was probably a little over the top. And come to think of it, maybe that’s what was going on today. Long lost bitchy waitress karma coming back to bite me after all these years.

But I swear, I tried really hard to be really nice for as long as I could hack it. And when, by the time I reached the Magnolia Café in 1991, I started feeling like I couldn’t stand any of my customers, even the nice regulars? Well then I threw in the towel. I did. Because if whatever job you’re doing makes you want to go postal, honey you need to find a way to get out of there.

At the end of the Spider House ordeal today, I paid the tab, minus the charge for two stale bagels. I then left a tip even though it felt like I was paying the waitress for the privilege of being abused by her. But as someone who raised a kid on tips, and as someone whose grandmother waited on tables during the Great Depression to support her six kids, I just cannot not tip. (Warren has a joke about how Tip-Entitled our town is, pointing out that even the tip jars have tip jars in Austin.) I left “only” a dollar, which technically was a 25% tip. I wondered, if I left her a ten-dollar bill, if it might confuse her, but then I decided she wasn’t worth confusing anymore than she already was.

Years ago, Warren and I ate at Blue Dahlia and we had a fight over leaving a tip for bad service. That night our waitress was so horrible that when she asked us if we wanted anything else or just the check, we had to point out that she hadn’t yet brought the entrée. She actually looked Warren in the eye when he asked where his food might be and accused him of not having ordered an entrée. You read that right. She played it like he was bullshitting her, and had never ordered dinner, like we were just randomly sitting at the table waiting to mess with her head. Even still, I wanted to leave a little tip—again with the karma—and Warren was livid.

Long, long ago, there used to be a little place on South First called Virginia’s. It was pure heaven. Run by two of the crankiest ass bitches of all time, it featured handwritten signs that said stuff like, “If you can’t share your table then leave now.” And “NO we don’t have a bathroom don’t even ask.” And, “In a hurry? Go somewhere else!!!”

The way Virginia’s worked was you would come in, and the one bitchy lady would hand you a menu, a scrap of paper and a pencil, and a jar of sweet tea in exchange for five dollars. You would then write down five items from the menu on the scrap of paper. Virginia worked a massive stove, right out in the open, piling on the yellow grease and turning from time to time to yell at the businessmen who eagerly crowded the counter, seemingly there for the lectures far more than the food.

There was something so endearing about Virginia’s meanness, like she was some caricature of her own self. I was so sad when that place closed, when the bitchiness went away. Somehow, this new Waitress Bitchiness is just not cutting it for me. Maybe because Virginia was around 200 years old and by virtue of that fact seemed to somehow have earned the right. Whereas these Spider House chicks are maybe twenty-three, so their attitude comes across more like childish petulance, pathetic and unearned. Just like the tips I keep leaving them. 

I Heart Austin, TX, Installment #97,375 (Special Birthday Edition)

So, what did I wind up doing for my birthday last week? Thanks for asking. I dedicated myself to yet another one of those Wow I Sure Do Love Austin adventures. To wit:

Breakfast at Magnolia Cafe on Lake Austin Blvd where my BFF is the manager. I had two "small" gingerbread pancakes, and Eggs Zapatino, which my son turned me onto-- scrambled eggs on an English muffin with queso and a side of fourteen pounds of home fries. 

Then we had to go walk that shit off. So Warren and I headed over to Town Lake (I'm calling it Town Lake, and shut up if you were getting ready to correct me). Here we saw many things, like a train carrying a bunch of who the hell knows what.

We ran into Lionel Richie on our stroll. 

Given his lifestyle choices, I have always been especially delighted to find SRV waiting for me at a place where folks go to work out and get healthy.

This is my cake-- I actually had it a few days before my bday but want you to see it anyway. Henry's ladyfriend, K, made it for me. IT WAS DELICIOUS!

After Town Lake we went to the Blanton where Warren fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming a professional columnist.

This is me in the ladies' room of the Blanton, looking in the magical mirror that shows you what you look like naked and makes you realize we're all art!

Life imitates art here. This might be my favorite painting at the Blanton. It reminds me of my last divorce. Now, that might be a funny reason to like a painting, but when I first saw it, I was in the middle of a divorce and letting go felt SO HARD-- see, like the lady on the trapeze is not letting go. But seeing the painting again, I realized what a blessing divorce is (keep divorce safe and legal!) and how happy I am that I did let go (see, the real me is NOT HOLDING ON TO ANYTHING. Neat, right?)

In the Blanton gift shop, Warren bought me this tiny chicken purse to match the chicken handbag I bought awhile ago.  I am super classy with my matching accessories! 

Outside the Blanton, Warren gave me my other birthday gift-- because a girl needs a way to transport her chicken purses, you know? 

After the Blanton we went over to the Oakwood Cemetery, off of MLK on the East Side. If you look closely at this headstone, you will find the true definition of Grave Error. 

I love cemeteries any time of the year, but I especially liked taking a visit on my birthday.
Quod tu es, ego fui. Quod nunc sum, tu eris.
Truly words to live by.

Then it was time for dinner at Texas French Bread-- HOORAY!

I ate way too much and that was just fine-- mountains of bread, wild mushroom risotto, and-- of course-- BUTTERSCOTCH BUDINO! Get thee behind me Murph & Ben with that Butterscotch shit-- I'm trying to cut out sugar over here, people!

Thus concluded another spectacular birthday. May I remind you: when your day comes around, for crying out loud, take the day off from work and go enjoy this fine town of ours. Salud. 

Zen and the Art of Halfway Done

Happy Birthday to Me. Today I am 48. As I mentioned already, if my grandmother's lifespan (94) is any indication of what I have to look forward to, then turing 48 means that today really is the first day of the rest of my life. I couldn't be more pleased.

For the past several days I have been writing in my heart a long, heartfelt, eloquent post about this occasion. The in-my-head version of how I feel though, is probably not going to see the backlight of a computer screen because instead I am going to hastily dash off a few thoughts, then I am going to hastily dash off and play.

It's barely 8 am and I am so excited I want to pee my pants. I am totally a little kid about my birthday. The universe, anticipating that mine would be a life full of Christmas trauma, attempted to make up for this in advance by handing me an immediately post-holiday celebration I could call my own. Sure, having a birthday right after Christmas means whatever gifts you get come from folks' pile of shit they forgot to return to the store for exchange-- like when I turned 16 and all my friends got birthstone rings except for me, I got a Stretch Monster. But I don't care. I don't even want gifts.

My Birthday Card

You know what I think I love most about today? It's MINE MINE ALL MINE-- mwahahahaha. I don't care how old you get, you can never fully outrun your childhood crap. I have eight siblings, which meant a lot of "sharing." Never mind that's technically it's not sharing if you're forced into it. And yeah, it's totally a first world problem to have to wear hand-me-down pants your whole life. Nonetheless, to have one day a year designated to oneself is a magnificent thing.

I've used this day in the past for all sorts of things-- to drink until vomiting, to honor others with Kick Ass Awards, to order four desserts at Chez Nous. A couple of hours ago, at around 6 am I think, Warren wandered into the bedroom after one of his late night awake spells. "Happy Birthday," he said to groggy me. "What are you going to do?"

I was so out of it I can't be sure what I said, but I think what I said is, "I don't have to do anything, it's like your field of dreams, I can just hang out and pretend."

Let me explain. Warren lives on a couple of acres that I am always proposing we use for one excellent purpose or another-- Let's build me a little house back there! Let's start a goat farm! Let's get a million chickens! Warren often responds enthusiastically to these ideas but after awhile I realize he had no real plans to act on any of them. He said that as long as he keeps those acres blank, he will always have the luxury of looking out on them and they can be something different every time.

Along those lines, I think I could sit in bed all day today and just imagine all sorts of celebration possibilities without actually executing any of them. Besides, I spent the past several days gearing up for today, pre-celebrating. As I've gotten older, and immersed myself more in Buddhist teachings, and deepened my meditation practice, I have tried hard to pay more and more attention to the wonders of my life. I cranked up that attention paying over the weekend festivities, noticing as much as I could every good part of every moment, which has left me plenty to savor today as I just sit here, under the quilts, feeling very, very happy.

On Friday I had dinner with friends who gave me an early birthday card fashioned out of a piece of cardboard so large that, I think, came wrapped around a billboard. Then I went to hear my friend Jim play at Jovita's, prompting a cascade of memories of other times I've heard Jim rock it, and another cascade of memories of all those nights I took Henry to hear Don Walser yodel back when he (Hen, not Don) was three. Henry, in his little vest and red Ropers, used to wander up to the stage with his stringless mini-guitar, stand next to Don, and play along-- easily one of my fondest memories of the first 48.

Paw rocks out on the keytar.

Saturday included-- as all my perfect days do-- a meditation and a long walk. I tried to watch TV since I just got cable turned on as an experiment, and I failed, which I'm pretty sure was not actually a failure. Then, even though I finally managed in 2011 to cut almost all seafood out of my diet, Warren and I went to Tam Deli so I could get a pre-birthday garlic shrimp sandwich, which I refused to feel guilty about-- this is the best sandwich in town and you all need to get one today, this I command you as the Birthday Princess. Post garlic shrimp,  we went to hear Southpaw play a hilarious set at Flipnotics, and here he unveiled the theme song he wrote for my KUT v-blog. Driving home I took a circuitous route so I could see if any Elvis movies were listed on the Paramount marquee (seeing as Elvis's bday was January 8th and they sometimes celebrate him there). No signs of Elvis, but this random route allowed us to bear witness to a massive dance party at the Capitol, where about fifty million people were belting out Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer-- as if I needed any more reason to love Austin, TX.

Sunday I went to the funeral of my friend's mom. And even though funerals are, by their nature, tinged with sadness and full of mourners, this service was so beautiful. Incredible. Leona had been a Rockette, among other things. The tributes paid to her were many and gorgeous, in particular words spoken by her granddaughter who opened with a Rilke quote and eloquently went on to capture her grandmother's memory. May I recommend, as an annual exercise, that all of you attend a funeral right around your birthday, a good reminder that this is not a dress rehearsal. Post funeral I did East Side Yoga with some friends and then, as a counterpose to that, we ate East Side Pies-- if you haven't tried their curry pizza, you should get one of those right after you eat a garlic shrimp sandwich from Tam Deli.

Henry and his lady friend joined me for rainy day yoga-- K made me an amazing lemon  bday cake.

Monday I took my time getting up, using the rain as an excuse to hang out in bed with the dogs and read some more of Buddha Standard Time, a wonderful book that spells out clearly and smartly ways you can stop feeling rushed and start truly digging the moment. It was in that book that I read something Jung said about how we spend the first half of our lives developing ego and the second half is... uh... well I'm too lazy to go dig up that passage in the book, but what I took from it is that the second half is about setting that ego shit aside and getting out there and serving others and figuring out this Higher Self shit.

Toward that end, I had a lovely meeting with my friend Owen, who is crazy talented and hilarious and thoughtful. Owen volunteered with Hospice for years, and I was getting ready to turn in my application to work for Hospice, so I wanted to quiz him. He cheerfully offered up some tales about how, no matter how mightily you fly into a death-related situation with your superhero cape on, as in other stages of life you'll encounter plenty of the mundane in dying. Which doesn't mean there aren't profound moments-- and, if you think about the way we Westerners are fed the notion of death (resist, resist, resist!), having an opportunity to discover the mundane and see that it's part of the process just like the rest of living, well you know, that sounds pretty profound to me.

And speaking of mundane, after Owen and I parted ways, I headed to the laundromat. For the past couple of years I have lived dryer free, this despite jokes and bets by Warren and Henry that suggest I am going to break down and buy a new dryer one day. I am not. I love my clothesline. I love hanging up clothes. I love watching clothes dry while I wash the dishes (by hand, no dishwasher). I love smelling line-dried clothes. And given the drought, I hardly ever run into problems using the sun as my dryer. Yesterday was an exception and, eager to start my new year with all clean clothes and sheets, I decided I would go ahead and go to the mat to get that done.

I went to the laundromat over there at 43rd and Duval in Hyde Park. For years I used to live right across the street on Park Boulevard. That old rental house, now literally falling down, is where Henry spent his most formative years. And though we lived in several different places, I think, looking back over his life, that will be the place he most identifies as his childhood home. We used this laundromat countless times. And I remember when he was first old enough to cross the street and go check on drying clothes himself. That laundromat, like the Hancock HEB, is packed with old ghost memories for me, the spirit of little Henry everywhere. Far more than my own aging process, thinking about my son growing up-- from the little sack of potatoes I used to lug around and silence with a tit to the 6'2" young man who has to bend down to let me kiss him-- this is so much more a palpable measure of the passing of time for me than my own life, a wicked vivid signal of how very fast time truly passes.

Being in that laundromat moves me so much. Really, it was the perfect place to spend the last day of 47, the washer with its cycles and the dryers with all that tumbling lending cheesy but nonetheless apt metaphors for where I've been and where I'm going.

Happy My Birthday to You. It is so good to be alive.

Dear, Dear Time Warner: Fuck You! Love, Spike

FUCK YOU TIME WARNER!

Dear Time Warner,

I am writing this note to kill some time while I am on hold with your annoying automated system. I realize now, entirely too late, that when I was asked why I was calling by the Robobitch that picked up, I made a grave mistake in revealing the truth to her robo ears. “CANCEL SERVICE!” I shouted, and I admit there was a gleeful tone to my proclamation.

Robobitch, immediately getting even, dumped me into the queue where I was informed that call volume was very high and probably I should call back later. But you know what? I’m not calling back later. I don’t care if you put me on hold for forty-seven fucking hours. I will wait. I can’t wait to tell somebody that I will no longer be using your services.

In fact, as I type this, the extremely nice Grande guys are busily installing that service. Now, mind you, I know Grande is also a big company. And I also know if I have any hope of even finding a road sign indicating that enlightenment is just fifty million light years up that path, this will involve letting go of the Internet altogether. Admittedly, I’m not there yet. And so, lesser of evils, I have selected Grande.

Truth is, I actually called AT&T first, before I called Grande. Let me tell you about that. The other week, when you sent some dude out to turn the cable off at the house because I overlooked a $57 bill? And the dude turned the cable off even though I’ve been paying y’all out the ass for sixteen years? Well I don’t know if AT&T was listening in on my phone calls or what, but within a day or two of that exchange, they had a nice special offer in my mailbox—Internet for just $14.95 per month!

Even though I actually sometimes engage in marketing work to pay my bills and so should know better, I confess I fell for this bait-and-switch offer. I called up and proceeded to get wrapped up in a labyrinth of a discussion with the rep who said well actually… and before you know it, I had agreed to sign up for Uverse at around $80 a month for the first six months and then, I think, $8000 a month after that.

I guess if I were to be totally honest, I was kind of a prime candidate for this bait-and-switch. I made that phone call on one of the last days of 2011, and knowing that 2012 is an election year I admit I have been slobbering for access to the Daily Show. I don’t want to watch it on Hulu either. If I’m going to suddenly become all Stereotypical American and start watching TV, I want to do it right. I want what I want when I want it. And I WANT IT NOW!

Actually, it’s possible that the whole TV thing won’t last more than a month. I have tried so hard over the years to become a dedicated TV watcher but without the aid of a six-pack to keep my ass in the chair, I’m must more of a pacer. I like to wander the house. Being in one place for 28 minute stretches seems like too much (unless we’re talking about real stretches, as in yoga, in which case I can do 28 minute stretches). Still, I want to try this TV thing again. I have fond if slurry memories of my last foray into TV watching, as I was recovering from my hysterectomy, stuck in bed for weeks. It did dawn on me, around week six of recovery, that I only “needed” a Vicodin at around 4, the same time that LIFETIME played one of those movies with a plot involving a recently divorced or widowed middle-aged woman and the stranger she rents a spare room out to, a guy who invariably turns out to be a killer that she ultimately must dispatch swiftly with a rusty old handgun left behind by her husband, thus sparing other unsuspecting widows and divorcees. Oh I loved getting so high, eating a pint of ice cream, and clinging to the predictable but thrilling plotline.

But there was a problem. You see, my partner Warren is a TV addict. When that thing was on, he’d watch it constantly. Until one morning, when I walked into the bedroom to find him clutching it to his groin. When he saw me, he quickly muttered, “Uh, I was just going to move this to another room.” But a friend pointed out to me a more probably truth—Warren was trying to make love to our little television set. Understandably shaken to learn this, that’s when I killed cable TV last time.

Now, though, now here I go again. I can’t help it. The thought of hearing what Jon Stewart has to say about the Republican presidential candidates is too tempting. So yeah, I agreed to get Uverse. They said they’d send a dude right out, the very next day, between 1 and 3.

At a little before noon, dude calls to say he has arrived. I know it is totally a First World Problem to have a utility worker arrive EARLY, more so considering that usually they don’t show up at all, this after you cancel every single other appointment you have just to be there waiting, like the ugly girl on prom night who didn’t realize the guy who invited her was JUST KIDDING so she sits by the window til dawn, weeping into her frothy polyester dress. Any joy I had that he managed to show up at all was tempered by his early arrival and, more so, his attitude. (Aside: Hey, I wonder if ATT ever noticed those are the same first three letters in ATT-itude? Maybe that’s why their employees are so condescending?) Anyway, there I was, more annoyed than relieved that the AT&T guy wanted me to let him start work early. I had arranged my day to be there for the 1-3 slot, knowing I would have to stick around for at least 4 hours. Thus he was interrupting my schedule. When I suggested he go get some lunch and come back at the proper time, he informed me that he had lunch in a very, Look bitch, it’s now or never, kind of way.

FUCK YOU AT&T!!

Well, well, well can you say Mister Unpleasant? Mind you, he wasn’t a flat out raging asshole or clear-cut lunatic—this upsetting in its own right since I so enjoy pigeonholing people. But there was something annoyed and self-righteous about him, a vibe he gave off like I was so LUCKY that he deigned come by my house to do HIS JOB. Then he said I had to trim the bushes, something the woman on the phone never mentioned. I pointed out that, it being New Year’s Eve, the odds of getting a landscaper out to trim these bushes (that were so overgrown they were more like Redwood trees) were probably slim. He just stared at me like I was an idiot.

Fortunately, Warren and his troubleshooting friend came to the rescue, and offered to use a pair of nail clippers and some kindergarten safety scissors to trim the bushes. I set off on a walk with the dogs to calm my nerves. Then Warren called and said that the dude was now saying he needed access to a neighbor’s yard, and the neighbor wasn’t answering, but there was a dog in the yard, so all bets were off, he was leaving. And he left.

At that point, I was thinking two things:

Thing One: That neighbor is SUCH A BITCH. The day I came home from my hysterectomy, and Rebound busted through the back fence into her yard, I hobbled outside, literally doubled over in pain, to tell the neighbor I just had an organ removed and was sorry about the dog and would fix things as soon as I could stand up straight again. She just glared and said, “YOU NEED A NEW FENCE!” And then she watched while I attempted to nail the hole over with a board, never offering to help. And then, later when I got one, even though it divides both our properties, of course she didn’t chip in. So I knew there was no way she’ ever let the guy in, even if she was home.

Thing Two: Fuck that AT&T guy. I don’t need to put up with his shit. If he so clearly doesn’t want to do his job, then I don’t want him here giving me his shitty attitude.

Which is when I noticed that Grande—also apparently tapping my wires and listening in— had sent a special offer in the mail. Wow! How do these folks do it? So I called Grande and a human answered right away and when I told her what I wanted, she connected me to another human who also answered right away. And when I asked questions, that human knew all the answers. And then they said they’d send somebody out. And the window was from 9 til 1. And the guy got here at 9:15. And then the other guy got here. And they are here right now and they are rocking it. So there, Time Warner idiots! So there AT&T idiots!

DEAR GRANDE, WILL YOU MARRY ME? 

Meanwhile, I did call AT&T to cancel the order and, again, I made the error of telling a roboemployee that I wanted to cancel, which got me dumped into the go-to-hell queue, where I spent about forty minutes of my life I will never get back until I was finally connected to a human. At least when I did connect with her, she acted sympathetic. She even said she would make a note about the shitty attitude of the guy who came out to the house. I told her please do NOT do that because, really, would you want a stranger who knows where you live to know that you got him at trouble at work? Oh no, no thank you. I insisted that she just put down a generic reason for the cancel.

Anyway, Time Warner, since I started writing this, it “only” took y’all 18 minutes to get me through to a service person to cancel my service. And the Grande guys—who were nice and smart and helpful—have already finished up! Now the only thing upsetting me is that I didn’t call them sooner. I am trying to make up for this foolishness by encouraging all of my friends to set aside the necessary time to go ahead and switch internet services, switch banks, switch away from all the businesses that do not give a shit about their customers.

Au Revoir,

Spike

I've Got a Few Spaces Left in the Upcoming Six-Week Writing Workshop

So did you make a resolution to make more time to do what you really want to do in 2012? And does that include FINALLY sitting down and doing some writing like you've been meaning to do FOREVER? If so, I have excellent news for you-- there are a few slots left in my next workshop. Here's some info:


Winter Six-Week Writing Workshop
Dates: 1/5, 1/12, 1/19, 1/26, 2/2, 2/9
Time: 7 - 9 pm
Cost: $300 (ask me about a discount for returning students)
Description: We'll spend six weeks talking about all aspects of memoir/creative non-fiction from process to publication. There are weekly homework assignments, in-class writing as time allows, group feedback and one-on-one coaching via email during the course of the six weeks. Also, I recently added another component-- those interested can participate in a public reading of their work at Hyde Park Theater. See the testimonials page over at Write With Spike to find out what past attendees have to say about their experience. There are only a few spaces left in this workshop. Email me to sign up.