and I need a good read. I have thumbed through the Netflix menu enough lately. I have suffered the idiocy of Big Brother enough. I am still a month away from a new season of Grey’s Anatomy. The only thing worth watching on TV worth a darn is season three of Halt and Catch Fire, which I eat up like they’re Snacky Smores and feel so fortunate to be able to stream on SlingTV, a streaming service which is really coming into its own these days.

This having spent the last two months binge-watching Mad Men on the Netflix. So you know how you feel when you finish one of those. Spent. Rudderless. Existentially fraught. Like someone just burned the full fuse. It is a beat-up feeling.

The problem being that even mediocre literature in television is few and far between. An art piece like Mad Men or Breaking Bad or even Louie doesn’t often show its brassy face. The demand that television encounters, the vacuous black hole it orbits, so immense that they will throw anything in there to fill it.

I have a constant need to feed my brain, and I keep looking to television to do that, and that’s foolish because it can’t. The more sustainable brain diet is books, ya see, is what I getting at.

Besides, I done set up a new reading nook.

So I need a good read, and as fortune has it, tomorrow I will be near 123 East Ave. See, my Mom is in town for the weekend. I want to show her my previous life, so we’ll trek downtown first probably. And me, I need a new book. My brain itches.

Mom seemed to dig the new place. We sat on the deck and drank beer, she a Rolling Rock, me a Founder’s Session IPA. Then we drove to the farm and DOD put a trout on the grill and I did fried green tomatoes with remoulade. It was a fine repast and a good preparation for adventures tomorrow.

So now I wear bifocals.

I’ve been meaning to take care of the glasses thing for a while now. Have been aware for some time that not only am I nearsighted now, but I’m farsighted, too. Got up this morning and decided to run over to Lenscrafters and get it all settled. Ran over, got my eyeballs looked at, picked out the frames, not to mention a pair of Ray-Bans. Came home to my new apartment and did a few things, then got the text that the glasses were ready. Drove over and got my oil changed. Walked to Bar Louie for a beer while that was being done. Then picked up the car and went and got my ears lowered. Then over to the farm for supper. Where my brother whipped up a perfect dish of greens and beans.

And he educated me about a musician named Paul Gilbert. A guitarist I had not encountered yet. A guitarist with the balls to cover Loverboy.

What perked my interest in Gilbert was to learn that he worked with Billy Sheehan in Mr. Big. Billy Sheehan, as in, the dude who did those amazing things on the bass guitar on Eat ’em an Smile.

I didn’t tell my brother that David Lee Roth is the only reason I know who Billy Sheehan is.

Brother made a mean greens and beans. In case you’re not familiar with the dish, which is an upstate NY staple, here’s how it goes. Dice some onions. Get some nice Italian sausage and roll it up into balls. Cook those things. Throw in a few cans of pinto beans with all the juice. Season. Then throw in a bunch of greens, such as spinach, cale, or chard. Allow the vegetables to wilt.

Serve with lots of bread and wine.

That’s what I had for supper and yes, you are jealous.

So then DOD and I retired to the TV room for a movie. Whiskey Foxtrot Tango starring Tina Fey.

Friends, I have not seen such an intelligent, funny, wonderful film in a while. I think I would put it next to Jenny Slate’s Obvious Child in terms of its sheer excellence. One of my favorite films recently. You should watch it watch it now.

It was better than Birdman.

So. That was my day. How are yoU?

This is a dead pickup truck.

Dead. Zilch. Not pining for the fiords. No va. A Ford Ranger that no longer, um, ranges.

There is nothing like having the truck you’re traveling in die on a busy interstate road. Yeah. Pretty terrifying.

Here’s what happened.

So, today was moving day. Out of the crappy shoebox, into the comfy one bedroom. The movers showed up promptly at 8 a.m. They had me out of my old place in two hours in into my new place by noon. Feeling confident having knocked that sucker out pretty quick, I joined my DOD for lunch at Bar Louie down the road. This is thanks to Sheridan Bros. Moving, by the way, they were excellent.

Bar Louie is pretty froo-froo. DOD had the booger. I had the salmon sliders. The girl who served us at the bar was not born. She was created in a laboratory. It is an utterly nice place, and I do not often feel comfortable in such places. I think the Bush twins would enjoy it very much, however.

So the movers didn’t take my R2-unit (my portable air conditioner) because it was full of water, and I had no idea how to get the water out. I didn’t want it anyways. My new place has a nice wall unit that I am enjoying as I write this entry. So, I offered it to my DOD in support of the family’s favorite cause, No One Left Behind, which in Rochester is basically my Rebel Girl Mom (we have always been uncomfortable with “stepmom” so I have just now decided to refer to her as my Rebel Girl Mom instead. She knows why.) and her husband, my DOD. Basically, NOLB provides assistance to fellas from Afghanistan (and their families) who helped the United States during the war by acting as translators. Said gentlemen are now targeted for death in that country and need whisked out of said country ASAP. Remember that when Donald Orangefartblossom craps all over immigrants. These are folks who helped us and who now need help landing gracefully in these Untied States.

So my DOD drove the Ford Ranger downtown with me to secure the AC. He helped me drain it, and we loaded it on the truck. We got as far as past the Pittsford exit when the truck stopped. Dude was able to pull to the side, but it’s a busy road.

We were both pretty terrified.

So here’s the amazing thing. For 17 years, my now departed Grandma G (I will be addressing that soon) has purchased me a membership in AAA. My DOD’s had lapsed, but I still had mine and had my card on me. I called. The agent was helpful as could be and in fact put a priority status on our ride since we were in a bit of an unsafe situation.

Our man J.R. was there in 20 minutes.

So, back to the farm. The agent on the phone was cute and trying to get us to take the truck to a garage. Very funny. Let’s take a 21-year-old pickup truck with a shot transmission to get repaired. Nope. We just carried her home. Said a few sacred words. Misted some smoke over her. Read the kaddish.

DOD drove me back to the new place. I set up the futon and moved some crap out of my way. I realized I didn’t have any food (one leftover salmon slider and some hot dogs weren’t cuttin’ it). So I went to get wine and frozen pizza (what else would I want after a move?) and came back, expecting to set up the TV and spend the evening chilling.

Except I couldn’t find my shoes.

I’m working tomorrow (dummy. should have gotten PTO tomorrow, too.), and they would not approve if I showed up in Crocks.

Sigh. Back to the previous residence. For shoes. Grabbed a few other things too, of course (there’s always a bit left behind after a move, a fact meant only to add to the annoyance level of one of the most annoying events a human being ever experiences).

So. I did that. Drove all the way back for shoes. And the croissants I’d bought. I got back in and moved a few other things around and

TOOK

A

SHOWER

and now I am eating the most delicious pizza I have ever had off of a paper plate and that’s moving

In Other News

There’s this windows store (windows like that glass hole in the wall, not like the operating system) that advertises on TV here, and the guy says his windows are so great, and then he stands on a window, and then he goes, “I not only stand behind my windows, I can stand on them.” And then he stands on this window that’s elevated by two beams. Then he goes “Can you stand on THEIRS? Maybe. But it’ll cost ya.” And believe it or not, the guy is not Donald Trump.

I keep trying to fill in the blank with some really clever simile but just can’t finish it. “Answering #BlackLivesMatter with #AllLivesMatter is like…” I just can’t. Just can’t do it.

Because it is stupid.

“Black Lives Matter” is a response. It’s a response to a country that for centuries told black people, through its institutions, through its laws, through its culture, that their lives did not matter. That in fact at one point, they were not considered as humans, but as chattel. And after that, it was, you can’t sit there, you can’t drink from there, and you most certainly cannot swim there. We are a country that has spent quite a lot of effort creating a problem out of a segment of our population who for the most part did not even have their blood lines end up here of their own will. I don’t have to lecture you here further. You probably dig it. Comparing the experience of any other demographic to that of black people in the Untied States of America is a foolish errand. That experience is unique and incomparable, and to your average honkey like me, it is downright unfathomable.

Though I do try.

Having said all of that. I do find it troublesome that the issue of such extreme police misconduct is being tossed around so enthusiastically as an issue of race.

Because that ain’t the real problem, folks.

We got a stiff reminder of the real problem in, say, July 2013, when George Zimmerman was acquitted. And the reminders have been quite prolific since.

The real problem is that, at some point, and I don’t know when it happened, this crazy country decided that police officers and even jackass wannabes like Jorge Zimmerman, do not have to account for murder.

And that shouldn’t just scare black folks. It scares me. And it should scare you, and you, and you too, and U2, too.

Police officers, who in some circles might and should be referred to as “peace officers,” can kill you now and not even have to sit across from a judge. That’s a problem that should unwarm the cockles of all our hearts, not just those of my beautiful black brothers and sisters.

I think if you kill a person, you need to see a judge. You need to experience some level of legal proceeding. I don’t care if you are a cop, a wannabe cop, a black person, a white person, a Democrat, a Republican, a Freak, or Bruce Lee. If you kill someone, you need to go to court about it for some kind of lawful reckoning.

It’s not racial harmony we should be buying the world a Coke for, kids. It’s simple accountability. Cops are not made to account for things like this, and that, my friends, is what’s so incredibly horrifying and should be horrifying to me and you and a dog named Boo.

(By the way, I’m Verbal Kint at the beginning of The Usual Suspects, not at the end. I like cops and think most of them are just dandy people. But this legal system needs to hold them accountable as they would you or me. That’s the outrage.)

Though it later involved me walking and waving in a parade supporting Monroe County Clerk Adam Bello.

That’s what I get for hanging out with my Dad. On minute I’m enjoying a nice cider and lap kitteh. Then next I’m in a parade.

(Followed of course by a super-duper refreshment of a dinner at La Cottage.)

So this guy is hanging out at home and hears a knock on his door. He opens the door and looks left and right and sees nobody. He looks down and sees a snail, and he hates snails. So he picks up the snail and throws it as hard as he can.

Three years later, he heard a knock on the door. He opens the door, and there he sees the snail, who promptly asks: “What the hell was that all about?”

Today, I am the snail.