Chuck is a yardsale and fleamarket aficionado. Thus, our house is sprinkled with blenders and record players and comics and books and paintings and sculptures and coffee mugs and cute spoons, which, though Chuck swears he’s going to sell them on eBay, pile on top of each other and breed, making every day a treasure hunt.

Some examples:

· We have a number of sculpted animal guardians. A stuffed pheasant, mounted on a piece of driftwood, protects the mail on the front hall table. A ceramic monkey in a football uniform hangs out on the steps in the garden. A large wooden horse, created by gay Tibetan artisans, stands inside the front door and serves as a makeshift coat rack.

· Hanging over the bookshelves in the living room is a luridly colored portrait of Snoop Dogg, painted by one of my roommate’s friend’s mothers when she was in rehab. She chose her subject without knowing who the fuck Snoop Dogg was; I guess she related in some way to the hostile-looking thug with the backwards baseball cap and the saucy expression. It’s actually a beautiful rendering with bright undertones of blue and purple, and the likeness is accurate enough that Snoop is immediately recognizeable. His eyes follow you around the living room, spooky and knowing as the eyes in a Jesus statue.

· From where I sit on the lowest floor of our multi-leveled 1970s cocaine palace, I can see the two velvet paintings of Bruce Lee in various martial arts poses.

· In front of these paintings, resting on the banister over the baby grand, is a large plastic rooster. Chuck jokingly placed it there to serve as an earthquake alarm: in case of tremors, the sound of the fake cock hitting the floor will cue us all to rush to the nearest doorframe for safety.

· Last night, another roommate, Matt, attended a Halloween party. Knowing that our house is a landfill of useless, interesting, tacky objects, Matt decided to root through the boxes in the garage instead of making or buying a new costume. He found and donned a fuzzy red coat, a Yeti mask, and a Santa hat, tucked the aforementioned plastic rooster under his arm, and attended the party as “Yeti Claus (With Rooster).” It was awesome. He looked like a drunk bum who’d pilfered the Macy’s dumpster on December 26th.

· Somehow, Chuck acquired the huge headpiece for a man-sized Black Labrador costume. I don’t know what the fuck character it’s supposed to accompany; maybe it was a leftover piece from Disney’s attempt to jive up their traditional cast by giving Pluto a cousin from the Ivory Coast? Anyway, the head ended up on our couch.

I put it on, and was surprised to find that it neither stinks as badly nor limits my peripheral vision as much as I thought it would. So, in case you were contemplating a career acting as a nameless canine in a theme park, I highly recommend the Black Lab Dog Head. I could even hook you up.

Here’s an actual conversation Chuck and I had yesterday:

Me: It’s a good thing we have that dog head in the living room. It will really come in handy some day.
Chuck: I have another one, too.
Me: What?
Chuck: (Rolls his eyes and exaggerates his response, because apparently, being perplexed over the possibility of having two GIGANTIC DOG HEADS in one household makes me retarded) I haaaave ANOTHER one!
Me: You have … two dog heads?
Chuck: Yes, Kelly.
Me: Are they exactly alike?
Chuck: Yes, Kelly.

(Pause)

Kelly: Chuck, I really don’t see how these are stupid questions.

· I have a mild mannequin phobia. I hate them. It’s not so debilitating a fear that I have panic attacks in department stores, but I’d really rather not be near a mannequin, let alone touch one. I hate how they’re put together, I hate how they look, I hate the jagged edges that appear when their fingers inevitably break off, I hate seeing the seams where their limbs are shoved onto their creepy Barbie trunks. I hate the thought of them coming apart, and I hate how they always look like they’re rotting. I know it’s irrational, but mannequins creep me out.

Well, Chuck recently brought a mannequin home from work. Of course.

He gets a huge kick out of my phobia, and since he loves to antagonize me, I’ve been locking my bedroom door to avoid walking in and finding a dead-eyed, spooky plaster bedfellow under the sheets. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that to you,” he told me.

Right.

Saturday afternoon, I got home after crashing overnight at a friend’s house the previous night. Chuck and Zoe were in the kitchen, chatting with a friend of theirs. I said hello, joined in the conversation, and started making lunch.

I opened the freezer to grab some ice for my soda, screamed, and promptly slammed the freezer door.

Me: AAH!
Chuck: BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAA …
Me: There’s a MANNEQUIN HAND in the freezer!
Chuck … HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA …
Me: I’m not touching it!
Zoe: He couldn’t wait for you to get home and find it.
Chuck: HAHAHAHAHAHA
Me: I fucking hate you.

He then attached the hand to its arm and chased me out of the kitchen, until I hid under the dining room table and Zoe told him to stop being mean.

Fucking disembodied Evil Dead zombie mannequin hand fondling my veggie burgers…

I must have my revenge.

Last Wednesday, I was reading in the café at school, while two of my classmates, Jenny and Erica, talked about psychics they had visited This conversation topic developed as an offshoot of their earlier discussion of natural healing, tarot cards, and other such rainbow hippie San Francisco stuff.

Don’t get me wrong, I like and respect my classmates, and I was interested in the subject they were discussing, but I don’t hold enough credence in the occult to fork over seventy-five bucks for a half-hour session with an alleged clairvoyant, regardless of his or her reputation.

I suppose some people would say the same about seeing a therapist. To those people, I say touché, well played, and fuck you. Hey, psychics have Miss Cleo; psychotherapists have Freud. If the status quo has anything to do with it, psychotherapy and it’s dead white patriarch will trounce the occult in the metaphysical locker room, motherfucker.

Anyway.

Erica recommended two of her favorite psychics, who she said had helped her in the past: One, Cindy, is a young woman with a very motherly, caring manner, who made Erica liked because she made Erica feel very at ease, like a friend would. The other, Tony, is abrupt, sarcastic, crass, and abrasive.

“Kelly,” she said to me, “I think you’d really like Tony.”

She went on to explain that she thought Tony would appeal to my sense of humor, because he’s quick-witted and doesn’t pussy around, but I suspect that she was trying to find euphemisms for “He’s kind of an asshole, just like you.”

I’m coming to terms with the possibility that my bull-in-a-china-shop manner is at odds with the soft personality of the Bay Area, especially that which permeates my lovely, tree-hugging, east-meets-west school. There have been instances when I’ve played the devil’s advocate, been politically incorrect, or made a sarcastic joke, and I’ve felt my comment drop like a brick in the middle of the room.

It’s probably not as bad as I think it is. And, hell, at least I’m making an impression.

~ Last Five Entries ~

Say Hello! - 12.14.05

Black Friday - 11.27.05

Hey! Who's That Drunk Chick on the Blue Couch? - 11.23.05

Ratso Rizzo - 11.11.05

Chunks - 11.06.05

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BUY JEN'S BOOK! BUY IT! DO IT!

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BUY DEAN'S BOOK, TOO! YOU KNOW YOU WANNA! SERIOUSLY.

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