11:27 a.m. Ah, good morning there Diary. It's a quiet Sunday, though me in the state of mind that I'm in, I can hear the termites burrowing beneath the trees in search for buried body parts, I can hear telephones ringing softly in the distant future. The air's clear, the sun is bright and chipper, the birds all have boyfriends and girlfriends and are congratulating one another with intolerably huge amounts of false cheer and modesty. Oh, I knew you weren't always going to be a bachelor, Jay! Oh, so kind of you to say, but I must say, look who's having six chicks soon, Robin! I could never navigate the diplomacy and tact necessary in the avian world, what with all the constant piloting and flight controlling (something which humankind's divided amongst two people, I may add) and all the unendurable etiquette and politesse. Oh, I daresay, I do seem to have emitted quite a large globule of some chalky crap on John's car. Do pardon me, old chap. --Oh, my dear fellow, no need to apologise! I do think I shall join you! And may I compliment you on how darling your splattering's arranged on the windshield and driver's seat? I think it just the right touch of abstraction with just the right dash of Fauvism. --You do make me blush. --And you, my fine feathered friend, make me flush.

*Splat*

*Splat*

All that prologue is there because I am trying to stop thinking about this eBay auction I've not stopped thinking about. For the last fourteen minutes, the price has been skyrocketing on this object which I had bid on whilst caught in some unnatural fancy (see below). Prior to those fourteen minutes, i.e., the twenty hours since I bid $250.00 for an item I didn't actually want, I begged god or whoever's in charge of birdsplatter and auction whores to please some fancier, richer person to come along and bid the item right under me. I checked off and on and, ugh, I still was the high bidder -- until fourteen minutes ago. I tried to let the bidder have it. $250.00 would buy me a lot of food. It would buy soap to wash my car and Alka-Seltzer to help the birds' digestion. I could purchase stock in telecommunications or an internet start-up. I could send some random Canadian picked at random to an amazing rendezvous in Bosnia-Herzogovinia. Or -- amazing thought I could simply not spend it.

Ehh. Oh. Fourteen minutes before auction's close and suddenly, the price skyrocketed. So I kept bidding in 50-cent and increments of pieces-of-eight until, ah give me a hug and a kiss oh Diary, I won I won the auction! Mazel tov to me, wonder of wonders, miracles of miracles, I am the tailor Motel Kumzoil! Ahem. The birds are glaring at me.

-- Whyever did we choose to live near such noisy creatures, Budgie?

-- Search me, Finch. In my case it was here when I arrived here.

-- Let's peck at his head repeatedly until he screams and goes running into the attic.

-- I most heartily concur, that would stop him from butchering Broadway classics like Fiddler On The Roof!

-- L'chaim!

And with that warcry they scream through the air and invade my hair, they begin mining their way through my skull in search for the legendarily sweet taffy within. I don't care, I don't care. I've won the auction! I am the proud owner of an 1862 Georgia birdcage, exhibited in the World Fair in Stuttgard in 1888, an authentic antebellum birdcage two metres tall and three metres in circumfurence, padded with the best trailerpark padding, patiently and cunningly constructed by an artist's hand out of bamboo to take the shape of a Calas lily (upside-down, of course)! It's green and it's white and oh god what the hell have I bought? Ow. Ow. Ow.

-- Why, I do believe that's shut him up, Finch!

-- And see here, Budgie! I've reached the Tootsie-Roll centre! Do have a bite.

-- Oh no, you first, by all means.

-- Together.

-- On three, dear friend! One, two, thr------

UNNATURAL FANCY

Some instructions for use

• Okay, quick anecdote Diary-- I found this little tab of paper I'd written instructions for back in the days when I would actually give people drugs. This was when I was concerned for them and for their general welfare and mental well-being. Now I've forgotten what those standards actually apply to. At any rate, here's some instructions:

Thank you, Diary, for remembering that for me. Now I have to check eBay to see if my emperor penguin (rare! only recently made available from the undead holdings of the Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia! a steal at $200!) has been set upon by other birds of prey or whores of auction.

the Funny Show

agriculture poem

my life in the ghost of Bush

time-lapsed (part 1)

unreconciled

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Images are taken without permission from the fine and trusting folks at Folk Arts of Poland; please purchase something from them. Background music stolen without permission from Epitonic, Basta Music, and just about everywhere else my unscrupulous hands could grab something. No rights reserved.

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