An Evil Spell on My Phone and Obscene Rubber Protrusions

Hammy.

One more interesting fact about Hammett: His back legs are so long relative to the rest of him (while his head is on the small side, if the truth must be told) that when he hunkers on the floor, his back legs bunch up behind him, making him look like a grasshopper.

When last seen, he was half on and half off the top corner of the upholstered chair, dangling head downward, clawing at the fleece blanket that covers the chair. He ceased his attack for one moment to give the blanket a comforting lick: “I'm not really mad at you, blanket.”

Barbara L. mailed him a feathered ball, which was very nice of her. When I dangle it above him, he leaps up to grab it, but with his claws politely retracted.

Someone put a hex on my phone yesterday, or at least, it stopped working. It cost me about $16, I’ve had it for approximately eight years, and I love it because it is a simple, nice-looking item that does precisely two things: allow the making and receiving of phone calls.

All right, it also does have a redial button, and you can program in numbers for one-touch dialing, though I don’t use the latter because I have an excellent memory for phone numbers—I can still remember my phone number from 1965—and so I’ve gotten in the habit of dialing from memory, and, due to laziness, prefer to call only people whose numbers I know by heart—if I used one-touch dialing, I would probably start to forget phone numbers.

I feel disheartened about the search for a new telephone already. I did try taking it apart and putting it back together, to no avail, and I did also try banging it on the firm membrane between my apartment and that of the building manager, below mine.

There’s probably no such thing anymore as buying a phone that merely makes phone calls. Like toothbrushes, they probably all look like rocket ships now. I don’t know what I’d do about toothbrushes if my dentist didn’t obtain, in bulk, and kindly keep me well supplied with, toothbrushes that are simple pieces of translucent plastic in pretty colors with bristles sticking out of one end, each being just one color, and without fins or other rubber protrusions in questionable taste.

So I’m unhappy about this phone thing already, but here are some things I am happy about: The Painted Veil, which I saw with my friend Debbie yesterday in Oakland, followed by a tasty spicy tuna and egg sandwich at a tapas place near the theater, and quite a nice lemonade, though if you really want outstanding lemonade, I must again exhort you to lunch at Medicine in the Crocker Galleria.

Dreamgirls, which Tom and Lisa and David and I saw Saturday night, after dinner at Chef Jia’s, was marvelous, which I think was a consensus view. Also, our customary dishes at Chef Jia’s were particularly tasty.

I’m still happy about the Dixie Chicks’ CD Taking the Long Way. I played “Silent House,” which I think is incredibly beautiful, for a friend and was touched when she burst into tears.

I must report that the best song on the Gnarls Barkley CD St. Elsewhere is the one you’ve already heard (“Crazy”), though there are a couple of others I like; ditto with the Lhasa De Sela CD La Llorona. The song that made me want to buy the CD is really lovely, but I could skip the rest, though it is not bad as background music, all in Spanish.

Something I really like: The Guided by Voices CD Human Amusements at Hourly Rates. This was suggested to me by Chris S., whose recommendations I attend to because he gave me the Fugazi CD The Argument, which is very good.

Human Amusements at Hourly Rates is Guided by Voices’ best-of album (no, I had never heard of them, either; they were from Dayton, OH). It has 32 songs on it. I suspect it’s going to grow on me such that I like every song, but at this moment, there are three songs that I love and a few others I admire.

The three songs I love are so tremendous—this band's mastery of gorgeous, surprising chord progressions is absolute—that I have warm feelings about the whole CD. They remind me a bit of Nirvana and a bit of the Beatles.

I have also obtained the Lorraine Hunt Lieberson CD Sings Peter Lieberson: Neruda Songs, but haven’t listened to it yet because I’m listening to Guided By Voices as well the new Pearl Jam, which is also really great.

One last good thing: Ayya Khema’s book Being Nobody, Going Nowhere: Meditations on the Buddhist Path. This is a really fine book on Buddhism and has reinvigorated my meditation practice mightily.

I ordered one of her other books from Stacey’s and, as they had access to only that one, a couple more from Fields Book Store. She wrote about 25 of them, but most are in German.

In non-dharma reading, I’m in the middle of Gimme Danger, Joe Ambrose’s biography of Iggy Pop.