i haven't been much for mowing this summer but it's more because i've been in the throes of lawnmower hell than anything else. bob and i always owned $99 Wally-World mowers and left them out in all kinds of rain and weather and the goddamn things ran for years and then when they didn't...well, he'd just park it out under the big apple tree and go buy another. throw-away lawn mowers. i've discovered that's where it's at. i should have stuck with a lawnmower like my cheap velcro watch, $10 and good to 245 feet under water (though i am lucky if i ever get past my belly button). when bob died the last Wally mower died with him. it didn't even last one mow. so i took myself to the local lawn care place and invested in a $359 Snapper. not even a self-propelled, and it cost that much. but it's been a lemon, spending more time in the repair shop than bob spent in the hospital being treated for cancer. it's there again right now, along with the $300 stihl weed-whacker that you have to be a 6 ft tall Iron Man to wield. i have bad lawn karma, that's all there is to it. what i have as back-up is an ancient self-propelled mower my friends lent me that goes like hell. i have to run to keep up with it and it doesn't even stop when you let go of the handle. you have to press a piece of metal to the spark plug to short it out before it will finally sputter out. if i didn't have that all this time i'd be living in a jungle. as it is there are some parts of the yard that are looking frighteningly close to jungle status. but the tall weeds keep the young neighborhood bear happy, so that's OK.
i like saturdays around here. they are quiet. like sunday is supposed to be. for some reason the neighborhood seems deserted on saturday and that's just fine with me. i don't have to listen to the ghastly screeches of toddlers in plastic pools and full grown adults talking baby talk. do they think their children are deaf? why is baby talk as loud as cell phone talk? what is it with people? and on saturday i don't have to listen to my neighbor lady have mid-day sex, complete with what i swear are the loudest fake orgasms i've ever heard (or performed). and after sex she giggles and giggles. i stand in the yard squinting up at her windows with my best look of revulsion on my face, but she must never look out and see me. otherwise surely she would stop. her laugh. how can i describe her laugh in print? it goes something like Uh-HUH-huh-huh-huh-huh-HUH! try it aloud. several times. i have a hard time believing it is any more real than her orgasms. no one could be that constantly and loudly amused. not for real.
honestly, it's no wonder her husband left her. i truly believe that several years worth of exposure to that laugh in an enclosed place could drive a person mad.
i am sure i probably do things that drive my neighbors crazy. after all, i once painted the exterior of the house all day listening to Dead Can Dance and belly dance music. that was probably annoying. and i often mow with my i-pod on and sing out loud. we all know what we sound like with headphones on and it's not good. but i am convinced that i've overcome that handicap over the years and i truly sound good, even when i can't remember a string of lyrics and fake it. i also yell FUCK! alot but that's because alot of things annoy me and fuck is the best word in the english language to take some of the pain of annoyance away. the mower won't start. if i yell "FUCKIN' THING!" then on the next pull it will start. fuck has that kind of magic. and if it doesn't right the wrong that has just occurred well then it's equally good accompaniment for the act of storming back into the house in a snit.
so i may not be the best neighbor either.
but at least i don't stand on my porch and wolf-whistle. that's what my neighbor ernie's friend did to me one day while i was in my bikini in my own yard. it's OK to get whistled at in downtown northampton because that's in public and i'm fully clothed. but it turns into vague sexual harassment when you're minding your business in your own yard. ernie's friend is always undressing me with his eyes and offering to help me with the yard. no thanks, i'd rather let it go to jungle. ernie himself tried asking me out despite the fact that when he asked "do you go out?" and i responded with "no fuckin way, bob only died 18 months ago and i was with him for a long time, and besides i have no patience for that kinda shit". what part of that sentence didn't he understand? he asked anyway. don't tell me i should be flattered. he wears a tube sock cut down the middle as a headband.
there is a pleasant couple (although they do own a couple of the screeching kids and are guilty of baby talk) who live down back. i gave them permission to visit my bunnies, gianni and violet, because their kids like to pet them. when they learned bob had died they told me to ask anytime if i needed help but i don't because a) i don't like to ask for help and b) i think alot of people just say that because it sounds good and they know you won't ask for help. but they are nice enough. one day they appeared on my front porch, two kids in tow, and i was forced to answer the door in my yellow bathrobe, having just finished a stint of crying (so i looked doubly presentable). they explained that i had a giant poison ivy vine in my backyard and they have a friend who comes over who is DEATHLY allergic to poison ivy. starts scratching if she so much as sees it nearby. my poison ivy vine was a potential killer. i kind of stared at them with a lack of comprehension thinking 'so....you have an able-bodied and living husband standing right here....can he not cut it down? are you expecting ME to cut it down? can't you see i can barely keep up with my knee high grass?' i explained that i wouldn't know poison ivy if i fell over it and graciously granted them permission to cut the Killer Ivy down. burn it if you want. i wasn't quite sure why they'd come all the way over to my house to tell me about it. i am not particularly attached to any of the many vines and briar rose bushes and locusts taking root on the property's edge. if any of them disappeared i would likely not even notice it. but this is northampton and many people here are Politically Correct and i guess the Correct thing to do is ask permission before destroying someone's nuisance weed. or maybe they thought the Correct thing for me to do was jump to the task immediately myself. but i didn't. i am not that good a neighbor.
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