Such a Rake

On Tuesday, my day off, I was determined to be both productive and leisurely. On Monday evening, after returning from a Target Run with the Mrs., I turned to her and said,

"I'm going to take care of all these fucking leaves tomorrow, it's getting ridiculous. I'll probably need a bulldozer. The neighbors are getting restless, I think."

"Meh," my wife said, failing to notice that every lawn on our street is distinctly devoid of fallen autumn leaves, and that our section of the street was littered with rather substantive leafy mountains.

My lovely wife, I suspect, has a similar lack of social awareness that her lovely parents possess. Oftentimes, they are mystified as to why they don't fit in with their affluent neighbors in Providence, R. I. My mother-in-law and father-in-law look great, on paper. They're Jewish, and she's an attorney and he's a psychiatrist, probably just like lots of power-couples in their neighborhood. Of course, there are cracks in the plaster. She's an attorney who wears pink jumpers emblazoned with cartoon pigs, frilly socks, and a handbag shaped like a watering can. He's a psychiatrist, who, even when attired in a sport coat, collared shirt, dress pants and a tie, looks like he just rolled out of bed on a good day, or a dumpster on a not so good day. Their lawn is unkempt, there are often cast-off cars in their driveway, their mentally disorganized dogs haphazardly pull them down the neighborhood streets and bark at unseemly hours of the day and night, sometimes resulting in law enforcement contact.

While my wife and her family are afflicted with the curse of unawareness, I am struck by hyper-awareness. Or maybe it's paranoia. I'm not really sure, but, since I'm as yet undiagnosed, let's stick with the colloquial. I constantly feel the searing stares of others upon me when I do something, or, worse, don't do something. When our lawn is an unfortunate state, I know I am silently being judged by those around us-- older, wiser, more competent, more experienced, more... with it. As I've said before, lawn care doesn't interest me in the slightest, as I suspect it doesn't interest many other people my age who happen to have the good fortune to have a house to maintain. But I know that I'm supposed to give a shit about mowing and raking and trimming, so I do it. As Pooh-Bah says in The Mikado, "it revolts me, but I do it."

And, Tuesday morning, I did it. With a snow shovel.

Now, as I was "raking" my autumn leaves with a tool definitely manufactured for a different purpose and a different season, neighbors passed me by, jogging, walking their children to the elementary school that I attended as a boy, getting into their cars to start their daily commutes, and I couldn't help but think to myself, "Was what they were thinking and saying about me before they saw me cleaning up the street with a snow shovel worse or better than what they're thinking and saying about me now, watching me shovel gargantuan piles of red, brown, orange, yellow, and purple leaves with a snow shovel?"

And I suppose what it all comes down to (my friend) is that I'll never know, just as those around me will never know the vitriolic, frustrated, judgmental sentiments I have about lots of them (especially that bald jerkoff with the black Passat wagon) and what does it all really matter anyway? A lot of the time, I wish that I could operate more like my wife and her family, wandering around unaware of the vast, great distance that separates us from The Joneses.

Or maybe there's a happy medium somewhere in there. But, for a guy who cleans up leaves with a snow shovel, I sort of doubt it.

Tales of Suburbia: Leaves Me Alone

One day, my neighbors will probably call the police on me. It's pretty much inevitable.

First of all, our houses are all really superfrickingclose together, so chances are pretty good that my abberant behavior will not forever go unnoticed, even when inside my heavily mortgaged walls.

I play obscure Gilbert & Sullivan operettas on the phonograph (and not the normal ones, like "The Mikado" and "H.M.S. Pinafore"-- I'm talking about the ones only the hardcore buck-toothed gits know, like "Utopia, Ltd," "Ruddigore," or, if I'm in a really oddball mood, "The Grand Duke"). Not only do I play these on a phonograph, I do so loudly. And I always sing along, too. And I do so loudly.

Sometimes, when I'm in a playful mood, I can be seen (well, hopefully not seen) leaping about in various stages of undress, prancing around like a lemur, screeching in a high-pitched tone, eyes bugged, for no real reason other than boredom. Sometimes I just sit around at the computer and shout profanities when blog material doesn't come to me effortlessly.

It seems to help.

While my neighbors may think I have a personality disorder, or Tourrettes Syndrome, or a closed head injury, they don't bother me much-- and maybe it's because of that. This morning, I was out front raking leaves and laughing my ass off. My dog, who I routinely tie to the iron bannister while I'm outside, watched me demurely as I scooped up huge armfuls of wet leaves and dumped them into the bag, only to see about 75% of the leaves fall to the pavement again as the bag crumpled and shifted under their weight.

"AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!" I roared in hysterics. "Is this what my life has become!? Jesus fucking Christ!" I screamed to the clouds above.

I have no doubt that somebody would have called the police, if the rest of the residents on my block-long street hadn't been at work or AA meetings. I mean, I admit it, I'm strange-looking. Thanks to the show I'm in, the oddity that is me is only now compounded by a walrus-moustache and side-burns that would only look appropriate on a steampunk artist or Civil War colonel. And there I am, laughing, in corduroy pants, a dress shirt and sweatervest as I ineptly rake leaves. While my dog's tied to the steps, watching me, thinking, "No, that's not my Daddy."

I wonder which neighbor's going to narc on me. It'll probably be Kathy who lives next door. I can tell she doesn't like me. She thinks I'm queer, in every sense of the word. I know it. And that's okay. I think she's a passive-aggressive bitch. While I was conversing with her the other day, she clipped an overgrowth of hedge right in front of me, while we were talking. My hedge. As if to say, "You are too irresponsible to do this yourself. Faggot. Shall I come over and dust and Febreze and maybe wipe your faggot ass for you, too?"

At first I thought she was nice, and helpful. Pointing out poison ivy that was growing in our yard, and giving us a bottle of poison ivy killer to get rid of it. Then she started to get manipulative, and condescending. I mentioned to her that we were having some stumps removed from our flower bed.

"Oh, good," she remarked, "then you can finally do something in there."

Really? Maybe I'll come over late one night with no pants on and do something in your flowerbed, honey.

I guess then she'd definitely be the one to call the police on me.

I'm not altogether thrilled with the people on my street. Sorry, Mr. Rogers, but it's just not working out. The Asian family never says "hi." Ever. I even rang their bell one night to let them know that they'd left the lights on in their CR-V. All the woman said was,

"Oh no! Hurry hurry! I fix! Oh no, no, no!"

You might remember the guy in the black Passat wagon. He yells at his kids and his dog. A lot. One day, I hope I don't have to call the police on that angry, bald humptyfuck.

I don't like the self-described "part-time accountant, part-time comedian" because he's very nosey, and, one day, I saw him standing on the corner dressed in some sort of full-bodied, furry mascot costume. And, when you're sixty years old, that warrants a call to the police, just by itself.

I do like the elderly gay man who wears glasses with plum-hued lenses, tweed sports jackets and cologne. When he talks, his turkey neck flaps around wildly and his capped teeth gleam in the sun. He's married with four grown children, and he's gayer than Oscar Wilde's neckerchief collection. Unfortunately, I don't interact with him much. He doesn't rake his own leaves.

Life in suburbia has its challenges, and I think, the more I live her, the greatest challenge I'm going to face is making it without getting the cops called on me. In the city, you can deal drugs to children, keep sex slaves in your basement and stockpile enough ammunition to put North Korea's arsenal to shame and nobody would ever even think to dime on you.

But, in the suburbs, you've got to watch your ass.