September

We all have dates we dread. It's one minute after midnight, so it's the day. September 26th.

I don't wear rings anymore. As I get older my fingers aren't cooperating—a bit of edema—yet here I was last week, walking past the jewelry hanging on the hallway rack. Plucked out that old ring nestled in with the clutter and slipped it on my finger.

There's a whole story of course, involving a box of Cracker Jacks and the surprise inside! which in this case was a miniscule ring with a pink stone. I began to wear it all the time.

On Saturday we went to the movies as we often did when we were kids, watch the cartoons and some B Movie. I fiddled. If I was restless it's understandable, this was not particularly exciting stuff like Peter Pan or Laurel & Hardy. More like Dragnet on TV, which bored the socks off me.

I took off my ring and held it suspended between my two pointer fingers. A second later, it was gone. Down into the darkness with candy wrappers soda pop residue chewed gum.

I'm still desolate.

This one here is a vintage sentimental substitute bought 25 years ago. The sparkly plastic stone now a ruby, and the ring itself is rose gold. It's handsome, very thin. I don't plan on losing it.

I can't sleep with it though. The setting keeps catching on the bedding. Back it goes up on the rack.

When we picked out our wedding rings back in 1970 at that funky place on Telegraph Avenue, the fellow behind the counter told you a guy's ring needs to be substantial. Hard to disagree. He also intrigued you with the concept that he had invented: an ingenious way of designing the interior of the surface so that for dudes, it would be easy to remove for work and wouldn't leave an indentation. Sold you! Personally, I thought it was a good match for your hand.

You got ten years with it and the guy wasn't lying.  When they took it off for your embalming, after all that time there was barely a mark—just a faint trace of pale.

But today is for you, so I'm gonna wear your ring on my fat finger.

******

October

Absolutely so ready to barf over the technicality that what I am writing now is going to be published on top of this fucking November election. An innocent month. It doesn't deserve this.

I love this going moment-by-moment thing. Frigging Google just locked me out of my usual notepad (wtf?) so I'm sitting here dictating an email to myself before I forget my inspiration. Got jumpstarted just now by finishing a movie that I randomly chose yesterday out of boredom (like that's big news). I had paused the stream a couple of ticks in because I was inspired to record something new for my ringtone collection!

Yes I have a collection of audio bits, stolen from quite random sources. A sampling: couple of TV show theme songs, at least four Laurel & Hardy, three from Time Bandits—seriously so much to mine I have to limit myself—three versions of shows containing my first name (obviously not my last name because that's ridiculous it's so common it would be all over the place) and four Character Grunts (don't ask) from episodes of The West Wing. And then there's standard Vintage Analog Ring.

Now, I have to say one of the reasons that I stopped watching the rom-com movie was that it is so freaking dated I said out loud what am I doing with my life? I don't need this! This was after I had made my little Ringtone recording and resumed the movie. It just went on getting worse and worse. Slapped the laptop closed. Brushed my teeth and went to bed.

If you want to get even more tortured, I then dreamed that I was in the middle of Ground Zero 9/11. There appeared to be a concerted effort going on to form protective devices of some sort. A lot of technical discussions going on around what approach to take, who's in charge, who would do what, how much time would we need (sounds like my old job). And right there in the middle of the sidewalk a familiar paunchy figure with long red necktie standing there doing nothing.

I woke up in a sweat.

Full disclosure I had been twenty minutes or so into this idiotic film when I impulsively made the new ringtone. I only watched another twenty. This morning, fresh from my nightmare I got up to pee and decided to shake things up. It wasn't even 6am. Got out the laptop, but instead of Email, LA Times, WaPo, YouTube in that order, I just jumped back into that stupid film. I actually had slept well, if just a few hours. Point is at 90 minutes or so in, Mr. Red Necktie suddenly makes an actualappearance, has a few lines of dialogue and then exits. The rest of the film isn't important, it's very silly and under-uses its talent in a criminal fashion, not unusual for the time. Work for actors, as they say—although I am wondering how the romantic lead feels having had that scene partner.

My estimation of the film was not wrong and I do in fact wish I had that time back. Since that's not possible I will simply accept that this whole experience was a kind of creepy, I don't want to say message, or intervention or karmic thingy, I don't know. We'll never know.

So what was the damn recording?

Here's my (optional) new 00.029-sec ringtone, in Mr. British Corrupt Developer Hugh Grant's voice:

Well, it's lovely, but Trump has the inside track.