Men At Work

For millenia men have wondered, "What do women want?" Well I'm going to let you in on a little secret: most women wonder the same thing. Not about men, about ourselves. We have no fucking idea what we want, all we know is that it's...complicated. A word that has never been used to describe the male of the species. The straight males, at any rate. And while women might continue to wonder ad nauseam precisely what it is that we want, we remain confident in the belief that we know precisely what it is that men want.

Right?

Well, hold the presses, the phone, your horses, your pants on. When it comes to what men want, Dear Reader, Yours Truly has gained access to exclusive new information, the result of data gleaned from a recent field study. Literally, a study made in a field. So sit back, grab your favorite mind-altering substance, and let me tell you a little tale. Come to think of it, I could use a little tail, not to mention a mind-altering substance, but back to the story.

About a year ago, my husband had the brilliant idea to install a video camera on the woodshed up at the cabin. Why, you ask? As well you might. Remember, my husband is a man (at least that's what he told me), and the ways of men are mysterious, if not complicated, so have another hit and stay with me.

This woodshed camera provides a live video feed of our "front yard," basically a rocky outcropping surrounded on all nine sides by the Boreal Forest, and my husband installed this camera -- not to keep track of robbers and serial killers and Jehovah's Witnesses, all of whom are notoriously wimpy when it comes to Boreal Forests, not to worry -- but so that he might follow the antics of the local wildlife, at least that's what he told me. (See above comment re mysteriousness.)

Joe Tech that he is, my husband arranged things so that I can sit at my computer in the comfort of my cozy townie belfry, click on a link from the cabin, and stare at a vast and wild live stream of...nothingness. No lions, no tigers, no bears, nada. Just rocks and trees and sky, followed by more of the same, and still more. It's as if the local wildlife got hip to the scene and suddenly turned camera-shy. Still, it's my own personal nothingness, my American dream of nothingness, my Nirvana of nothingness, and needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, when I can't physically be there immersed in it up to my eyeballs, it gives me great pleasure to stare at all this Promised Nothingness from afar, if only on my humble computer screen, the next best thing and all that.

Now, a little backstory.

The cabin -- along with various and sundry outbuildings, including the aforementioned woodshed -- sits at the top of the property near The Highway, and after twenty-five years of fevered anticipation, we're finally having a road put in. Sound the drums! This long-awaited road will lead from the cabin down to The Lake, where we hope to build a house house in the not too distant future, that is, before the world ends, and while we can still remember who the fuck we are let alone what a house house is. Once this road road is completed, there'll be no more bushwhacking a quarter mile over the Canadian Shield and through the Boreal Forest to bask on the shores of Gitchigumee, nosireebob. Our skeletal structures, or what remains of them, have already begun to celebrate.

Got all that?

So. Thanks to the cabin cam, I've spent the better part of my computer time these past several weeks following the progress of said road construction. Along with the usual nothingness, I'd expected to be entertained by the occasional passing manly dump truck or dozer, manned by the occasional passing manly roadbuilder, and I've not been disappointed. However. What I didn't expect was to be spending a portion (an unexpectedly large portion) of my viewing time watching said manly roadbuilders engage in that mysterious ancient ritual of manhood, pissing. And I'm not talking about pissing into the woods, Dear Reader, though these fine specimens of maledom stood surrounded on all nine sides by the largest outdoor toilet in the fucking universe. Nosireebob, these subjects stood like statues, legs spread, faces turned toward heaven, and proceeded to piss -- publicly, regularly, at length -- in our front yard.

Talk about the antics of the local wildlife. Finally, some action. It gives new meaning to the term "live stream."

At first I didn't know what I was seeing, girl that I am. I thought one of the guys was stopping to say a prayer or meditate or something. After all, it happened to be an outrageously splendid autumn afternoon, and I myself have been known to stand without moving in the front yard at the cabin for hours at a time on just such a day.

Then, duh. The Aha! moment.

Once I was hip to the scene, I'm ashamed to say, I was hooked. I couldn't drag myself away. I was obsessed. I felt like a spy. An illegal alien. A war correspondent. Like I'd been plucked from my familiar girly existence and secretly embedded in the House of Men. Make that Outhouse. I'd tear around and do my girly things, then tear back to my computer and stare at the cabin cam for hours, hoping to get lucky, until darkness finally obliterated the screen. The manly roadbuilders had long since left for the day, but still I stared, dumbstruck, into all that black nothingness, as if one of them might return with a flashlight to piss beneath the stars.

I felt like Madame Curie, like I'd made the discovery of a lifetime. I wanted to share my discovery, tell the world, start a chain letter. All this time women have been thinking sex was the answer! That is, to the question of what men want. How could we have been so misguided? Well, for one thing, we don't have weenies. For us, pissing anywhere other than a five-star toilet bowl is a major undertaking. We're just not capable of putting ourselves in a man's position. I mean, standing like a statue, legs spread, face turned toward heaven, as piss runs down your leg and pools in your flipflops? I don't think so.

I should mention, and I will, that these urinating roadbuilders -- these Urinators -- had no idea they were being watched. They remained blissfully unaware of the cabin cam. Clueless. Which begs the question, would things have happened differently if they'd known? One wonders.

But the point is moot. It's over. As of yesterday, the cabin project was completed. The dumpers and dozers are gone, along with their operators. My research has come to a halt. My stint as a bathroom voyeur has ended, along with my innocence. I'm feeling letdown, ambivalent, blue. I've spent a good portion of today sitting at my computer, linked to the cabin cam, staring at a vast and wild live stream of...nothingness. With a road going through.

I've been half-expecting some curious deer or bear or Jehovah's Witness to come wandering up that road and sniff out those patches of dead yellow grass in the front yard, but so far nada. If that should happen, I'll be sure to let my husband know. That his brilliant idea finally paid off. In precisely the manner he'd envisioned. Who knew?

It's the Mosquitoes

The cat's dying and I'm driving home from work. I only just arrived at work, but I'm driving home again because I forgot my glasses. I'm listening to a program about early onset dementia. Some expert is discussing the difference between normal forgetfulness due to aging, versus forgetfulness due to dementia.

"For example," says the expert, "you forget where you've put your glasses. You search high and low, and then find them sitting on top of our head. That's normal."

Do I know this guy? Is he normal? Did he interview me for this program?

When I get home, I find my glasses. Not on top of my head, in the freezer.

* * *

The cat's dying and the earth moves under Washington. Irene tears up the East Coast. The New York subway system shuts down.

"God's mad at the government!" says Michelle Bachmann. "Vote for me!"

My 22-year-old cousin is killed in a car accident. He's 22 years old and he's driving a Beamer, but let's not get side-tracked.

"Sometimes God just needs another angel," says his family, whose Beamers all sport Bachmann bumper stickers, and I say,

"He's fucking God, for crissakes! Why doesn't He fucking make another angel!"

"Don't vote for God!" I say.




The cat's dying and I find myself under the kitchen table at 3 a.m. During a thunderstorm. With the dog. Usually I find myself under the kitchen table at 3 a.m. for other reasons, not necessarily involving the dog, but let's not get side-tracked.

I look around as a crash of lightning spotlights the room and notice a small dark shape beneath a nearby chair. Not the cat, my glasses. Meanwhile the dog is sitting on top of my head.

If my husband had to choose between me and the dog, he'd be hard-pressed.

"We're hard-pressed!" says Michelle Bachmann. "Let's drill for oil in the Everglades!"

* * *

The cat's dying and I'm seeing a shrink. I started seeing the shrink before she started dying. The cat, not the shrink.

I keep seeing the shrink, but so far I'm still the same size.

Unlike the cat, who keeps getting smaller and smaller. Soon she'll disappear altogether.




The cat's dying and there's a hummingbird at the feeder. The wind is out of the west and the daylilies are still blooming. The hops have reached the top of the arbor, a pair of fawns are asleep beneath the mugo pines.

In this neck of the woods it isn't earthquakes, or hurricanes, and there's no subway system to shut down. Of course there's our own little homegrown natural disaster, Ms. Bachmann, who desperately needs shutting down, but it's not her, either.

It's the mosquitoes, stupid.

* * *

The cat's dying and we're experiencing the worst scourge of mosquitoes in decades. I'm talking the Ten Plagues of Egypt. I'm talking that minuscule and deadly variety that lies in wait 24/7 and attacks below the knees, not to mention below the belt, until everyone in the surrounding countryside within screaming distance appears to be walking around in red stocking feet.

Unlike the cat, who has never been bit by anything, having lived the life of a quintessential housecat, i.e., inside the house, where she's been walking around in white stocking feet for perhaps half of her allotted nine lives, but who apparently caught God's eye a few weeks back when He went prowling for another angel cat to help rid Heaven of all those annoying angel mice.

Never mind that God could as easily have fucking made another angel cat, not to mention fucking unmade all those annoying angel mice, but we all know what a fucking dickhead God can be. Lying in wait. 24/7. Like a mosquito.

But let's not get side-tracked.




Miranda is dying.