Domestic Life

I just moved into my new house, excuse me bungalow. It is a two bedroom, one bath single story little sex pot. I might as well be Napoleon at Versailles compared to the practical joke life I lived in my former residence: The Plough and Horses. It has a giant living room and nice kitchen with a laundry machine and all of the other typical gas powered appliances you might find in your everyday Susie Homemaker kitchen. There is a 27" television with the same 4 broadcast channels I got at my previous dwelling. Even though they are like BBC 1, BBC 2 and two other acronymic channels, they all seem to be pretty much the History, Discovery, Travel and Learning channels. Now I have seen shows on British TV, worth watching again, but the broadcast television in this little village really puts a strong emphasis on dull. It doesn't faze me, I brought a portable DVD player and almost all of my DVDs, I am set. I have a routine, where instead of choosing the DVD I want to watch, like I always want to watch Night at the Roxbury ($8.99) or Earnest Goes to Camp ($6.99) or Overboard, ($4.99) but instead I force myself to watch a preset random sequence of films and television programs, set by the order in which they have been placed in my CaseLogic CD holder. Tonight an old favorite: Labyrinth. "Don't tell me truth hurts, little girl...cause it hurts like hell." David Bowie is so fucking rad in this movie.

First things first, I gotta wash my now each twice worn clothes. I haven't had a clean undershirt for like a week and a half and my left nipple is tender from rubbing up against the Polo guy of my dress shirts. The front loading washer fits about two pairs of jeans and one T-shirt, before I am jamming my blue hooded TEXAS sweatshirt into it. I knew coming into this that there was no dryer and I would have to hang my clothes on a line, like I live in Brooklyn circa 1970. Well, like every other day, it is raining and reason would hold that my clothe's next station is outside, however nature has other plans. This house also has a glass enclosed conservatory, it is not heated, but it is weather proof. I set up a drying rack and lay my clothes on it inside this human greenhouse. I guess, because it is cold outside or because this structure is like the opposite of a Styrofoam cup, my cloths have still not fully dried over the last 3 days, which is nice, because instead of dry shirts to wear on the outside, I am developing pneumonia on the inside; and as we all know its what's inside that counts.

The local grocery store in this town is called Waitrose or Wallaces or Waltroses. Next week is Cindy's turn to have the Ferrari and since its like a 10min ride to the market, I know that I need to hit up some groceries before the weekend is up, in order to avoid eating Indian food all next week, served by my Indian friend Raj. I am functionally retarded in most domestic shopping situations. Me going to an English supermarket is like that episode of Whose the Boss?, when Angela has to go to the market because Tony is on strike. I can't find black pepper, but there is an aisle and a half loaded with 1,200 variations of chocolate. I mean olive oil and dry pasta escape me but if I want hazelnuts in my dark cocoa, I can choose from 20 different oral injections. I go on Saturday, once i get home, i realize that outside of bread, cheese and lunchmeat, i have no resemblance of a dinner at my disposal. Take two on Sunday and its even worse. i buy English yellow mustard, but it tastes like horseradish and urine, I found the pasta, but I didn't buy any sauce. The items in my cupboard look like they were hand picked by a blind man and special needs child, working as a team.

I guess it's due to the Bonfire Night celebrations, because it is like war time Sarajevo this weekend. A moment doesn't pass when a gunshot noise isn't sounding from the field behind my little abode. I go outside to see the brilliant display of homemade roman candles, gasoline filled tennis balls and makeshift bottle rockets. During my little jaunt I got to meet my neighbor across the street. He is probably about 40 something and if Danny Devito and Cher's son in Mask had a child, this guy would be it. He is a polite guy, who tries to invite me into his lair for tea and scones, but I politely excuse myself and take a "rain-check."

So I am supposed to go to this Bonfire Night celebration, Cindy and another lady named Brianna pick me up in the evening and we cruise up to a town called Crawley or Horley or Crotchey, about 40 minutes away. The automobile conversation is about as ripe with interest as prune juice. We arrive at a really swank pad to meet the fourth member of our party, a 55 year old pimp named Chaz. Apparently Brianna and Chaz are seeing one another; I gather this by the feel Chaz cops during what initially looked like an innocent hug. Chaz drives us in this black 06 Volvo, which resembles a hearse, down to the local town center. It is a nice night, kind of brisk, but not raining.

We meet up with this extremely tall woman named Bridget, I almost ask her if she is a pre or post-op tranny, but I don't. The eye contact she makes with me is nothing short of creepy. Upon each set of private eyes this hermaph shoots me, I feel my curry ulcer, developed over the last few weeks, begin to open up and is thus causing some sharp abdominal pain; mimicking the symptoms of appendicitis. We stroll up to a crowd of people who are all gathered around a barricade facing a large wooden structure. This isn't my first rodeo, if you remember, last week I went to a bonfire that sucked like a drain. Maybe next week has a bonfire in store for me; it doesn't get any better than an ole fashion English bonfire. They finally light the beacon, which actually has a resemblance of the Pope both hung from gallows and then subsequently burned in effigy. Kinda fucked up, huh.

I can remember about 20 years of aerial fireworks, I have seen them all: big globes, broccoli, poppers, two tones, sparkles forever, double sparkles forever, spinners, Blackman's perm, the sperm and ovum, whistlers; there really hasn't been much of a technological revolution in the way of recreational pyrotechnics over the past 10 years. But my British comrades just hype the upcoming fireworks show, like they could die happy people once the festivities are through. This bonfire was actually pretty cool and got rather intense, I had to close my eyes at points because of the radiating heat that was broiling my retinas. Once the structure, engulfed by this rampant conflagration, collapsed, it was firework time. Remember those neighbors who would buy out Tijuana Jack's Firework Stand, the week before July fourth, and then put on this piss poor fireworks show for the unimpressed community. It might have been like that if the fireworks actually flew more than 20 feet off the ground. This pathetic spectacle went on for like 30 minutes.

We headed back to Bridget's house for a traditional Bonfire dinner. Chaz and I shoot Glenlivet and water like we are in a 1940s spy movie. The first course is potato soup, it wasn't that it was bad, it just didn't taste like anything. The rest of the meal might as well have just been more of this insipid soup. The decorating in Bridget's place is fucked up, typically I'm not one to comment on how a house is decorated or laid out, but someone would have to be disturbed to ornament a house like this. I mean the stuff she had on her shelves looked like the kind of shit they sell in Goth stores, like iron statuettes of dragons and wizards with glass crystal balls, a full-sized hologram of a Bram Stoker's Dracula movie poster. Okay, you know Spencer's Gifts, the trashy store that every shopping mall has, with like South Park dolls and Horney Pills, the shit she has is like the kind of objects that Spencer's keeps in locked glass cases. I am trying to think, there was this chess set, where instead of knights and bishops there were ghouls and goblins made from metals and crafted with different alloys to accent their clothes and facial features I would say that all the taste Bridget has is in her mouth, but i tried the soup. The opening dinner dialogue purely revolved around Bridget's Border collie and the two of their misadventures. I pretend to give a shit; you know how when you meet someone and everything they saw makes you cringe, not that they are being vulgar, but that the sides that they argue for and comments they make are the complete antithesis of what you believe. Like if someone says to me, "Final Destination 2 is the best movie I have ever seen, "or "I love my snake, her name is Medusa. I am like, there you are, I am looking at my antimatter, my character foil. Hello Cain. Well, while Bridget chewed her face about terrorism, the US government and her treasured collection of porcelain lighthouses, my tongue started to bleed from biting it so often.

We finally get ourselves together to leave this awful surrounding and ignorant commentary. Chaz mugs down with Brianna, like no one around them wants to heave at their Kodak moment. Brianna is definitely tipsy. Cindy and I are thrilled about the 45 minute car ride through the desolate woods back to our home village chauffeured by a female Ted Kennedy. We make it back safe and they wave goodbye as I walk around the side of my place to the door. In the pitch black, I see a figure standup and move towards me; I back off a step and size up my potential adversary¦

¦It's fucking Raj.