Posts by Jonah

Okay, nothing to worry about. It’s all taken care of.

I explained the oil predicament to Joanne as soon as she and Doug got home. “Probably nothing to worry about,” Doug said, “How farabove the safe line is it?” I held up a thumb and forefinger. He shrugged.

“Doug,” said Joanne in that voice all wives have of saying their husbands’ names when they think they ought to do something.

Doug looked up. “What?”

“She’s got too much oil in her car,” Joanne stated the obvious.

“Well, then, she needs to take some out,” answered Doug. He looked at his wife and then back at me. “Come on,” he said, finally, leadingthe way down to the basement. “I’ll show you how.”

We approached the car armed with an old sheet, trouble light, and plastic oil collector. “Get the toolbox out of the back of the Suburban,” Doug instructed me, “I’ll go get an extension cord.” I did as he said and then spread out the sheet beneath the car’s hood. There wasn’t much room. Doug reappeared and then ducked into the bushes in front of the house to plug in the trouble light. “Not much room to spare,” he observed as he slid himself slowly under the engine. Placing the oil collecter beneath the oil pan, he said, “There’s the plug. It looks like it’s leaking a bit. You have to take the plug out and let about a quart drain. Know what a quart looks like?” I nodded and shrugged simultaneously. “If the plug falls out, just pick it up and try to stick it back in. But try to hold onto it. Hand me a five-eighths inch wrench,” he ordered. I dug through the tools on the top tray of the toolbox searching for one. “No, that’s not gonna work. Try a nine-sixteenths. I might as well do it since I’m under here,”he muttered, loosening the screw. Viscous, black liquid slowly oozed from the bottom. Then the plug came out, and oil shot into the container. I guessed that I didn’t really know what a quart looked like with the amount Doug was letting out. “Okay, check it,” he said. I pulled the dipstick out, wiped it, stuck it back in and examined it. Nothing.

“Uh, there’s nothing on there.”

“Are you putting it in all the way?” he asked. I told him,yeah and tried it again. Still nothing. Doug climbed out from under the car and checked it himself. “You got any oil? he asked. I opened the trunk and fished around. I did have oil. Three quarts, to be exact. Along with some stuff in an antifreeze container and the soup. Doug put a quart in, half a bottle at a time, and checked it. Then he put another half a quart in. “How often do you get it changed?” he asked, “When’s it due for another change?” I opened the driver’s door and looked at the sticker in the upper left hand corner of the windshield, then down at the speedometer, then back up at the sticker.

“Uh, now?”

Doug grinned. “Guess you’re all set then?”

Now I have to figure out what to do about the battery.

Okay. I have too much oil in my car. Any suggestions as to what to do? Besides “blow a gasket”?

In other news, as I was checking my oil and starting my engine (which it did nicely), I also got the bag of garbage out of my trunk and fished the grapefruit juice cans out of conveniently tucked away places. That led to a fruitless search for more trash and quick inventory of odd things in my car:

there’s the 2 lb. Bowie knife I keep under my seat,
my anti-theft device club (the sawed off end of a shovel handle),
the can of soup in the trunk,
the M.R.E. in the backseat,
and the baseball glove in the front.

There will be a quiz following.

Well, it’s a Saturday afternoon. I finally got up around noon. Alice left
for parts unknown shortly after that. The Wallaces are gone for the weekend,
so it’s just me, the cats, and the computer.

And George Winston. I found a couple of hi CDs in the Wallaces’ collection.
I’ve heard bits and pieces of his stuff now and then but never seriously
listened to any of it. Paul, after hearing me play, asked if I listened
to/was influenced by George Winston. I suppose what I play is closer in
genre to him than anyone else I know of, but to say I play like George
Winston would be quite arrogant indeed. I listened to _Autumn_ and am now on
_December_. I think the director used some of the stuff off of this one in
our production of _The Best Christmas Pageant Ever_. That was fun doing that
play. I loved watching the teachers who accompanied the kids who came to see
it cry afterward.

Some of this stuff is simple. I got out of bed this morning and sat down and
played the intro to _Autumn_. Or close to it. I’ll have to sit down the the
CD player and the keyboard and see if I can work it out. I gave up on “If
These Walls Could Speak”. I think the batteries in my walkman are a little
weak, because the song sounds like it’s flat. I can’t play along with the
tape (since it sounds really aweful), and trying to transpose it isn’t
working. Plus when someone’s singing, it’s hard to hear all the notes.

Dick wrote me saying he plays along with the tape I made him sometimes. Till
he falls asleep and the guitar falls out of his hands.

I’ve also listened to Paul Simon _Negotiations and Love Songs 1971-1986_.
It’s got “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” on it. That’s the only one
I’d heard before other than “You Can Call Me Al”. I saw the video to that
back in the eighties sometime and thought it was hilarious. That was my
first exposure to Paul Simon except for maybe a thing on TV where he and
another guy were singing into a microphone and my parents said, “Look, that’s
Simon and Garfunkel (Garfunkle?).”

Now George Winston is playing his version of Pachelbel’s Kanon. I learned
the first part of the the top part of it a while back. Steph learned the
bottom, and we’d play together till one of us messed up and didn’t know
anymore.

I played all the “experts” at checkers and beat them all. So then I switched
to Gin and got beat soundly. Tried Poker and lost every cent… twice. I’m
too reckless. I guess I don’t bluff well. Maybe I should try playing more
unpredictably. Although the computer probably wouldn’t care. I ought to do
some reading.

Hmm.. he must have done a couple of tracks to this part. I don’t think one
person could handle it. Some heavy metal guitar players just record layer on
layer of guitar riffs and stick it all together. So it sounds like they’re
tearing up their ax when all it’s really is just a bunch of tracks all at the
same time.

Oh, now this has a neat bass hand part. I’ll have to see if I can get it
sometime.

I wonder what George Winston’s concerts are like. Probably all different. I
bet he improvises a bunch.

He doesn’t change chords much. I change chords all the time. Guess I get
too bored with one.

I’ve decided I don’t really like heavy metal. I like King’s X, but they’re
atypical. Too distinctive a sound.

Maybe I’ll go back to bed. I should exercise, but my motivation level is at
about zip. Joanne Wallace started training for a marathon one year never
having ran a mile before. She trained and ran the marathon the next year.
Doug said he’d drop her off and she’d run 10 or 15 miles. Then he’d come
back and pick her up. I can’t really imagine that. I hate running. I mean,
for short distances it’s great, or while playing sports. But just running
for the sake of making one’s lungs and knees as uncomfortable as possible….
Walking is good though. I can handle that. Hiking works. Or biking. As
long as it’s not all uphill.

Well, the CD is over. I love the way he ends without resolving the piece.

Do I have a great job or what?

I get to play with scissors, stickers, and glue. I get to practice my alphabetical skills. I get to wear jeans to work (yes!). I have a great office chair. I get to listen to… The Goon Show.

Every so often as I’m typing up library of congress labels and pasting them onto book spines, my employer walks in and says, “I think it’s time for a Goon Show. What do you think? Is it that time of day?” Then he’ll select a reel of tape from off a shelf and ask something like, “How about ‘Climbing Mt. Everest from the Inside’?” before walking into the studio and cuing it up on one of the reel to reel players. Then the room is filled with an announcer with a crisp British accent announcing, “This is the BBC.”

That’s as sane as it gets. From there, Peter Sellers and his cohorts delve into madness as Neddy Seagoon, Eckles, Bluebottle, Major Denis Bloodlock, Count Mariotti, and others in this radio comedy from the 50’s.

Today, the spirit of adventure spoke to Neddy. He decided to climb Mt. Everest, but seeing as that had already been done, went on to attempt it from the inside. The “story” is punctuated by musical interludes from a cheesy combo.

“Is it any wonder,” Ken mused the other day, “that John Cleese and the rest of the guys in Monty Python ended up as warped as they did after growing up listening to this sort of thing?”

“When you’re done listening to all the Goon Shows,” Ken told me, “You can hear ‘My Word’.” Ken used to work for NPR and taped all these shows on old tape they were throwing out.

My first day on the job, Ken took me into a room full of books. “This is the Great Task,” he said, “All these books need to be labeled.”

Well, today I completed the Great Task. I went into Ken’s area and told him. “Congratulations!” he said, “But I didn’t tell you. There’s a secret cache. See this bookcase right here? All these need not only to be labeled but inserted into the catalog as well. But for now, you need a break. Why don’t you go watch MST3K?”
So I spent the rest of my time watching _War Against the Colossal Man_ on Mystery Science Theater 3000 in the studio. I’m afraid I camehome, sat down in front of an ESPN special on past Olympics, and started shooting off snide comments. I apologized to my hosts as soon as I realized what I was doing.

In other news, I was relaxing on my way home from work tonight, listening to White Zombie at full blast, when I saw a faint green light approach my car. It was a lightning bug. Then it went SPLAT against my windshield. And suddenly there as another smear on my window, just like all the other bugs that were as unfortunate to get in my car’s way. Except this smudge was glowing. It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. I mean, I’m the type that will go out and try to catch fireflies, but I just stuck them in jars, never smushed them to see what was inside. And here there was a squashed bug, lighting up my windshield, glowing softly into the glass. It was just… cool.