I feel like this monkey. So I give you this picture of a monkey:

I feel like escaping. Ever get that? Not running away or leaving my cares behind just the thrill of escaping. Whatever it is. A test, a classroom, a meeting, a lunch date or a prison. The escape is the important part. Slyly getting away with not being where you are supposed to be in such a way that no one questions it or possibly even notices. Just poof. You’re gone.

It’s a chilly, windy day out and the sun is working as best it can to shine down. All I want to do is escape into it. Just for a while, at least. But I can’t. Life has too many claims on me and so I am here and that’s all there is to it.

But I want to escape. For a while.

Came across a picture of Mel Gibson with a beaver puppet on his hand. Mel looked as confused as I was. The beaver puppet looked angry. The whole thing was unsettling. So I thought about it and decided it needed a caption, but it had to be something that summed up all of my feelings, Mel’s and the puppets. Which is when it hit me. This picture had nothing to do with the universe I live in. It is, in fact:

Nights at the bar when Val is working tend to be interesting. Leaving us alone together is often a recipe for strange. Guess what happened last night. Right.

It started with someone asking for a beer. The beers weren’t cold yet. Normally by the time they open the beer is cold. Sometimes things happen. This was one of those times. So, when asked how long it would be until the beers were cold enough to serve Val looked up and said “I have a formula for that!” Well I simply had to know. I had to, you understand. So I asked. And she hmmm’d and uhhh’d at me a second and then slowly built the following formula:

“B times the square root of cold equals five minutes”

Which … all right. I mean if you say so. I can’t really argue with it since it makes no sense at all. Come on, it makes so little sense it might be anti-sense. How do you argue with that? Who knows!

Later on we were discussing Val’s first job, as a receptionist at Snapple. Now, as she told it, she was 17 when she got this job and had never answered phones for anyone before. So if you called you got this:

“Snapple.” And then you would, presumably ask for a person or Department and get: “Yeah, ok.” And then transferred. Well after a week or so they told her she had to find out who was calling as well. So instead of “Snapple. Yeah, ok” you would get, and I quote, “Snapple. Who dis? Yeah, ok.” Eventually they taught her how to answer a phone.

Val ordered a salad for dinner and got this wilted cruddy looking thing. It had chicken, huge hunks of meat that looked out of place and dropped in. It had cheese, which was slices of something, might’ve been American, ripped into little bits by hand. It had one big hunk of avocado that looked very much like silly putty. We named it the Jail Salad. Because in jail, that is the kinda salad you can expect.

We also lost a regular it seems. Older guy, decent drug problem. Odd, odd, man. Seems he died a few weeks back and no one mentioned it to me because either I wasn’t around or they thought someone else had. So I found out with one of those roundabout conversations that leaves me feeling like I’m in an episode of Three’s Company.

Magically not long after I found out, however, another regular comes in with a plastic bag. A generic, white, got it at the deli plastic bag, tied up with what seems to be tupperware inside. And he hands the bag to Val and asks her to put it behind the bar “until I know what to do with it.”

I looked at the bag as Val shoved it on one of the very cluttered shelves and then looked at Val. “Is that?” She nodded. “His ashes? Yeah.” And we looked up at them, in their dingy white plastic bag a bit and thought. “We should smoke him. He was into good stuff.” “We so should! I bet he’d make good fertilizer!”

Every now and then for the rest of the night we’d glance up there to see if maybe they had gone missing. Nope. Still ashes in a plastic bag and tupperware. Yup. Still on that shelf. Huh. Never had a regular at a bar I was at be in ashen form. That was new.

Past that the night was all: Val’s ass as tip increasing tool, Val’s jacked up finger, discussing setting things on fire, ponies and the like.

Years and years ago in the Green Lantern comics there was an odd situation. Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern of Earth ended up in a relationship with another Green Lantern. This GL was much younger, in Earth years, though an adult on her planet. So we’re told. But in Earth years she’s like 13 or something.

All right, now this is getting fucking creepy.

So anyway, through a series of convoluted plots, cross-overs and general wackiness a bunch of Green Lanterns ended up living on Earth. Hal was publicly known for dating this “seemingly” teenage character. And a lot of people had an issue with it. So later one, there’s some side plot that ends up with her magically aged.

Because once you set up a really strange and disturbing plot you should run from it rather that use it. I mean if she was an adult on her planet is there a problem? Could that lead to an interesting story? Or what if she wasn’t but Hal was a fool, or anything. But no, let’s just super-age her to seeming adulthood and be done with it.

Except, in the comic, they weren’t. See a lot of people had a problem with it. I meant in the comic as well as readers. So once she is aged and all Hal and her have a conversation that leads to possibly one of the best Hal Jordan moments ever:

How does one show that to someone? I mean… if everyone thinks you are a child molester because you were sleeping with someone who was, by Earth standards, a child, how does their being older help? What is this, The Mackenzie Phillips story?

Good luck, Hal! Hope that proving you aren’t a child molester thing works out for you! …or something.

It’s Monday morning. Already the week is going slideways. No that’s not a typo. Man, this is gonna be an interesting set of days. But it will all work out. You’ll see.

Yah I don’t got much good to talk about right now. Spend a bunch of the weekend either working or hanging out. Well, you know, Friday I sat around and watched stuffed with Vin and that was a great time as always. Then up Saturday to send out some books and then work. Saturday night Hammerpants and I ended up downtown.

It was raining, but we didn’t let that stop us. Sidewalk was empty. I mean no one else in the place but us. The waitress was dangerously bored. For those of you who read TWWM she was Melina. I mean looked like her, talked like her, the works. Very odd.

So Hammerpants orders and I have no idea.

Waitress: I can come back?

Me: No, let him order, if I can’t decide by then I get no food. It’s a Darwin thing.

Hammerpants orders. Waitress turns to me and laughs, and starts making ticking noises. I order fast. She skips away. Yes. Skips. She kept breaking into random dance as well. And twirling. There was a lot of twirling.

A bit later some women came in and sat down behind Hammerpants and I. They talked to the Waitress a while and then left. A few minutes later Waitress comes back to us to take a plate away or something.

Me: I have to ask… those two who left. Darwin?

Waitress: Yeah, they couldn’t decide what they wanted fast enough so I told ‘em to get out.

Me: See, Hammerpants? SEE? I told you that was how it worked!

And then she laughed more and wandered away, getting to the end of the place before twirling.

Anyway, we left and wandered in the rain a while, while bitching we were wandering in the rain. Which is how it goes some nights. Ended up getting home around 2:30 in the morning and then spent a while online talking to a publisher about a project or two (his and mine) and Wordpress things and so on.

And then I heard about this old blues song today. How Could Little Red Riding Hood? by A.P. Randolph (written in 1925). Lets take a single verse:

How could Little Red Riding Hood
Have been so very good
And still keep the wolf from the door?
Job? Father? Mother? No! She had none.
So where in the world did the money come from?
I need to ask it:
Who filled her basket?
The story books never tell.
They say that she found a wolf in Granny’s bed
With a great big sun bonnet pulled over his head,
But sometimes I wonder what she found instead.
How could Little Red Riding Hood
Have been so very very good
And still kept the wolf from the door?

I do love me some old timey folksy blues songs about Red Riding Hood’s whoring and bestiality. Awww yeah.

Coworker: I miss Mario.

Me: The plumber?

Coworker: The video game.

Me: Right. Yes, Mario was awesome.

Coworker: I learned a lot playing Mario.

Me: I got kicked out of a zoo once for jumping on turtles.

Coworker: WHAT?!

Me: Well, Mario taught me…

Coworker: You’re kidding right?

Me: About Mario? Never. He jumped on turtles all the time.

Coworker: But… you… I… you DIDN’T REALLY! Did you?

Me: Well that’s why they kicked me out. Mario steered me wrong.

Coworker: You’re just kidding.

Me: Look at me. Consider this. Me. Would I, me, right here, jump on turtles to see if Mario was right?

Coworker: … Yeah. Maybe?

Me: But I didn’t.

Coworker: Right.

Me: Naw, man, shit you never know if they’re ninjas!

Coworker: Mario jumped on the Ninja Turtles?

Me: OH SNAP!

Coworker: Wow…

Me: Shredder is in another castle.

Do you want to get laid? Well I’m here to tell you how! It will involve bolding random words for emphasis! I will be speaking in the tone of a bad radio announcer, so please read it so that you can hear that voice in your head. Or, failing that try for Shatner!

You see, in these modern times ensuring you have sex is, at times, difficult. Which is why people who want your money suggest diamond rings. Yes, that’s right, diamond rings!

All right, let’s drop the bad announcer thing for a moment and talk for reals, yo. You’ve seen the ads. You know how it is supposed to work. Buy someone a diamond and you are going to obviously get some that night. The ads only have a hetro couple, but that’s American advertising, I have no reason to believe that it is only hetro couples that fall under this supposed spell.

Though I do, generally, doubt this magical spell. Still! not my place to say. No. I do think that the whole different colors of diamonds are interesting. And kinda pretty. And no, I don’t need to get into or want to get into a whole discussion of diamonds and who died for them and so on. Frankly if people died to get them they must be extra awesome, right? Or something.

And, well, like any jewelry, of course, there are huge differences in the types of ring you can get. Short ones, tall ones, fat ones, skinny ones, too many fish in the sea-ea!

Oh. Sorry. Also you might have noticed by now this post has no 80s references. I know. I’m falling down on the job. But I thought of coming up with another plot to another 80s cartoon and, well, it would be forced and unfunny and not worth your time. So instead this is just kinda here, today. Also it’s diamond rings, you know?

Sure, I could tell you all about the time Charles decided he was really going to be in charge of Jamie once and for all. So he read his bible, decided he would own any woman who married him and bought a diamond. Buddy laughed at him and explained that Charles was acting like a Old Timey Freak and Charles killed him with a brick before kidnapping Jamie and heading to Vegas. Except he forgot the ring! So he had to call Adam with a list of demands that, sure enough, included bringing the ring to Vegas. Of course Adam sent Grandpa Walter instead and he beat the fuck out of Charles, screaming “Who’s in charge now, motherfucker?” the entire time. But then Ellen showed up with Sarah and they talked Walter down. Charles told them he was only kidding and was in a startling twist concocting the whole plan to distract them from the fact that Adam had spilled paint on the living room rug! Oh, that wacky Adam! Oh that protective Charles! Well, needless to say they all went home, no one got married and Charles later killed again.

But I don’t want to bother with that right now. On the other hand, when handed the stuff I needed to include in this post I saw something and had to share it with you:

Dude. That ring doubles as a STARGATE! Sheer elegance in its simplicity, really.

Oh! I forgot to post about this but I so meant to! I got email from someone, in regards to one of my webcomics today. All right, fine, it happens on occasion. But this guy started his mail with the following:

“Mr. Knave,”

Wow that needs to never happen again. I got called Mr. Knave? That ain’t right. Christ. I mean, sure, it was nice and respectful and whatever but simply no. I can not stress this enough. No. Mr. Knave?

Gah!

So my bank changed, you know when they sold a bunch of banks to other banks and so on. There used to be a bank branch right near me and I would deposit checks there. MY dayjob direct deposits so it’s only freelance checks and holiday stuff I ever have to worry about. So I don’t get there often.

I had a check though, and I needed to deposit it. So I go to the branch, thinking they just changed it over. Nope. Closed it. Joy. The next day I go and find there is a new branch of my new bank open on the other side of me. Equidistant from my apt as the one that closed, just in the other direction. Hooray!

I stopped by yesterday on my way home. The ATM wanted me to use an envelope and deposit slip to deposit the check. They had slips but no envelopes. Luckily the bank was open. So I went inside. The ATM vestibule had doors into the bank itself. There was one woman at a desk, looking as if she was waiting for the bank to give up and close so she could go home.

“Uhm… excuse me?” I asked tentatively. I am always tentative in banks. I feel like if I piss them off they’ll just laugh and say “Remember when you had money?” and make it all go away. But she smiled and asked how she could help. I asked after an envelope and she glanced to her side and grabbed one off her desk.

“This is the last one. This here. We under ordered when we opened. This,” she shook the envelope like it was wet, “is the last one.” She laughed and held it out to me. I took it and started to walk away and then stopped.

“Uhm, and, uhhh,” I started and stopped and hemmed a bit. I might have hawed as well, but I can’t be certain, “I also have a dumb question for you.”

“Yeah?”

“What’s my account number? I mean my old bank they never asked it for deposit slips and this one does and the envelope and… I kind of fail at adulthood, don’t I? I mean I have no clue what my account number could be. I couldn’t even tell you how many numbers it has! Most people probably can, huh? Tell you what their account numbers are. I can not.”

She just stared at me a moment. Waiting for me to wind down the crazy, I think. I, of course, was waiting for laughter followed by “Remember when you had money?” but no, she just stared at me.

And then she laughed. I can not tell you how icy my blood got then. I might have shivered. Here it came. Here came the bank deciding I didn’t deserve money. Oh God, I was going to be rejected by adulthood. Fuck, I’m 34, they can’t kick me out of the club now! Shit shit shit!

“Account number? I work at a bank, I couldn’t tell you what mine is,” she said and laughed again. What? She… oh. Huh. “Just give me your card and I’ll look it up for you, but you don’t really need it. You know what happens if you don’t write it down there and deposit this at the ATM?”

“They reject it and call me and laugh?”

“Why would they call you and… no, they stamp it on there anyway when the machine processes it. Because no one knows that stuff now. But this could be easier.”

I handed her my card and she looked it up on her computer and wrote it down on the back of her business card while she spoke.

“Easier than … not doing anything?”

“You could go to a teller. No one else is here. Just deposit it right now, it’ll go into your account faster, you can save the envelope for later use, and she’ll look up your account number, too.”

“A teller?” I didn’t say anything else, just looked over at the teller windows. I hadn’t been at a teller since 1992 at the latest. Teller? They still made those? I didn’t know! And they had magical instant account powers, and … wow a teller?

“Yeah, just right there,” she told me and pointed, as if I wasn’t looking at them. So I walked over and no one else was in line because who uses tellers anymore and she took my deposit slip and card and check and did teller stuff. I don’t know. There was a machine that moved paper in a circle and then one that the paper sunk into and then came back from. They all whirred and clicked and make dot matrix noises and really bank tellers have all this odd machinery back there, don’t they? And most of it makes little noises and shoves paper around.

But yeah. She did clicking, whirring, shifting magic things and then handed me a receipt. I stood there. I mean I knew the receipt had to mean we were done but somehow I expected something else. No. We were done here. So I thanked her and turned to leave. As I left the woman who first helped me waved. I waved back at her.

As I left, reentering the ATM vestibule, people in line for the ATM turned and looked at me. Some of them looked like they weren’t sure if I worked at the bank. Why else would I be in there? Fair enough. I’ve thought the same of people leaving banks. Maybe they’re all secretly using the actual banks for little things. Maybe this is a giant secret world I have just discovered.

Then again I still think if I said that to someone in my bank they’d laugh at me. “Remember when you had money?”