oceandoggy.com

On the perfect day of the year I finished the most perfect book I’ve read in a long while.

The History of Love is amazing.

But when I was trying to tell Miss Carol about it and why it was so excellent, I couldn’t think of why it was so perfect.

Did it have bombs and action and car wrecks? Miss Carol asked.

Nope, none of that. I said.

Were there a buncha love scenes that gave you a woodie? Miss Carol purred.

Nooooo, none of those either, I said, blushing.

Then what was it that made soooo great? Miss Carol shrieked, angrily flipping up her hands.

I don’t know. I said.

And that’s when Miss Carol looked at me the way she does when she can’t figure me out or like we’d just met or something, and said- Hmmm, like maybe I was lying or had done something wrong.

But it’s true and I can’t figure it out- it’s just one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It’s not gonna change the world, it’s not the sorta book that would be a box office hard charger- were anyone ever to make a movie out of it- It’s just good.

It’s good like your first kiss. It’s good like hugging a puppy.

It’s a ten- I loved it.

A coupla months ago, at the beginning of the summer, when I was already tired of tourons, I said to Miss Carol-

We should build a little house on our property in North Carolina. I said

Then we can rent our house to the tourons for the summer. I said.

And come back after they’re gone. I said.

It only makes sense, right?. I said.

And Miss Carol put her drink down and looked at me over her sunglasses and said. NO.

So I was cool with it and didn’t think too much more about it. It wasn’t that big a deal. We have a little land on an island in North Carolina and a little land on a beach on the Outer Banks, so we COULD build a little house on an island and continue to work our jobs and then maybe build an even smaller surf shack on the beach in a year or two and not have to deal with the touron hordes.

But Miss Carol said NO and I was like, whatever.

Then, just a coupla weeks ago, we were sitting on the beach and I was sipping a beer, babe watching while pretending to search the horizon for boats and Miss Carol said-

She said- We should build a little house on our property in North Carolina.

She said- Then we can rent our house during the summer.

She said- And come back after the tourons are gone.

She said- It only makes sense, right?

I’m just glad I was wearing shades so she couldn’t see my eyes. I picked my jaw up from my lap and snapped it back into place and just like that- that’s what we’re gonna do.

So I started the permit work with the county and got a commitment from the power company to have temporary service for construction installed by mid-October.

I’d like to have the house dried in before December so I can spend the really cold nasty months finishing the interior.

I’ll be posting about all of this because I want to build this little house on stilts for under 60K. I’m being told I’m crazy. We’ll see.

But that’s not all.

Further ch-ch-ch-changes include changes to oceandoggy.com and other stuff. I’ve bitched and moaned about all of this before but I’m getting blogged down and need to freshen and change things.

I’m not quite sure how or what form it will take but the changes they are  a’comin.

Change is GOOD, right?

Help.

Somehow, some kinda way, I’ve slipped and tripped and fallen into The Land of The Sucky Books.

I’m not quite sure how it happened but it seems I’m stuck.

I LOVE books by new authors, living as I do vicariously through them and dreaming and hoping that maybe one day I’ll be one of them. So anytime I see a newbie, especially a newbie with a good write up I’m all like quivering and wanting-thinking it’s gonna be the best thing EVER, ’cause I’m so sure all their pent up creativity is gonna flow lava hot down the pages.

But then something like Rock Paper Tiger happens and rains on my parade.

Don’t get me wrong- it reads fast and it flows. But that’s the problem. Reading Rock Paper Tiger is kinda like watching a river rush by. There’s no beginning and no ending and it just kinda rolls on by and you cock your head and look at the horizon and go, WTF?

The story is about Ellie who’s come back from the war in Afghanistan and moved to China with her new husband. In the war she saw some things and in China she finds herself maybe targeted by a mysterious group maybe because of what? Dunno.

Are they the China government? Are they CIA? Who knows???

So she’s chased all over China and finally she’s caught and tortured by being made to sit in a chair for several hours.

And then she’s released.

And has a great life.

Rock Paper Tiger is one of those books you wanna read when you run out of Danielle Steele.

It’s like eating air.

I was all happy and excited and wanting to post all my happiness and excitement and pictures of babes in bikinis and then I read the paper and I got pissed all over again.

I gotta stop reading the paper.

Paris Hilton was arrested with cocaine in a purse she said wasn’t hers and then copped a plea to avoid a felony conviction. She admitted the coke was hers and got a year’s probation, a $2000 fine and 200 hours public service.

If I’d been arrested with the cocaine I’d still be in jail awaiting trial.

If I was black I’d have already been convicted and sentenced. And neither the white me nor the black me would’a walked. We’d be looking at years of fun in prison.

Don’t get me wrong- I think ALL drugs should be legalized and taxed. We didn’t learn from Prohibition and we’re not learning now.

But I get really tired about the rich getting off. REAL tired.

And then, there’s him. And don’t you point your finger at me motherfucker.

Meet Ken Kratz.

While busily prosecuting a guy in a sexual abuse case (he’s the DA in Wisconsin) he was busily texting the victim (that’s her on the left), sexually harassing her and hoping to maybe hook up with the damaged and beat up goods. Bruises equal sluttiness, right?

What a fucking asshole. He’s saying he won’t resign but maybe he’ll seek therapy and wants privacy and his family to support him.

I’m thinkin’ maybe can we put him in Paris Hilton’s speeding Mercedes at the end of a long night of clubbing and cocaine abuse and maybe run both of ’em off a cliff?

A girl can hope.

Turds.

Update– maybe there is a god. Paris Hilton is being denied entry to Japan because of her drug bust and two more women have come forward saying that Mr. Ken sexted them, trying to hook up, while their trials were going on.

Unless she truly fucks up, Paris will probably continue her gifted life and maybe, just maybe, people like her, because of their prosperously prosecutorial protections, will lead the way to drug legalization. It could happen.

But Mr. Ken’s a whole nother thing.

I can only hope he ends up in a dingy little garage, naked and weeping and reeking of moonshine and paint thinner, shaking and wondering what went wrong, with a pistol in his mouth, his finger on the trigger.

Dreams blossom.

Yesterday was a long dog day.

First off, in the morning, we were walking Cutter and Tug on the beach, letting them run, when this touron woman had a problem with our dogs running free on the same beach as her lovely little chillun’ and grandchillun’. She was screeching and shooing and scurrying and waving her arms about like they were rabid and plague ridden instead of just wet and sandy.

Seems her tiny adorables shouldn’t have to share the beach with dogs. Who knew?

I almost always instantly feel bad about tourons and their inherent goofiness, but when I checked my watch and saw it’s September- it was like, umm, isn’t it time for ya’ll to go the fuck home?

But anyway, in the afternoon, not wanting to endure anymore touron crap, I walked the boys on the street, on their leashes, obeying all the rules and all the other shit the tourons force on us during the season (which, by the way- isn’t it September?), when this OTHER touron woman cruises by in complete Pittsburgh Steeler regalia like she can’t wait to play in the game, shortening up her stupid dog’s leash to keep her/him/it right next to her and murmuring something like “heel” to the poor dog and kneeing it in the head as it tried to meet Cutter and Tug, who’re flailing about like retards, straining like fish caught, at the ends of their leashes, eagerly lurching to meet their newest, bestest friend.

And it was then- watching this prissy little touron and her prissy little dog getting kneed in the face while they walked by-  while Cutter and Tug were yanking and jerking and twin tractor-pulling that I suddenly felt a surge of pride and love for Cutter and Tug.

Yeah, they’re a handful and yeah, they can be a pain in the ass, and yeah they are retarded beyond belief, but ya know what?

They’re keepers.