Owner: The Half Life of Linoleum URL:http://thehalflifeoflinoleum.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:35:33 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Art, writing, music and autism. . . The journey of a thousand miles often starts with you barking up the wrong tree.
The Half Life of Linoleum is home to: fiction, an autistic child, a beamishly adorable town called 'Neath Lake, NY Site statistics:Click here
First Contact 2008-07-15 22:34:00 Our child, Jilly Nines, will be starting kindergarten in September and last night we participated in our first parent’s night at school. We, and about eighty other parents, met the principal, the school psychologist, all five kindergarten teachers, the administrative director, two first grade teachers, the librarian, the art teacher, the physical education teacher, the night custodian, the direc Read more:First
Prove This is Not Upside Down - Part 1 2008-07-15 20:03:00 My first day at the ’Neath Lake Artist’s Colony passed in a trancelike eternity.My girlfriend’s father had gotten me the job. “This is an authentic Job Job. It is not just weed-whacking crabgrass or blowing dead leaves and cigarette butts across the parking lot of the ’Neath Lake Biddy-Mart or stacking firewood in Judge Chalkwhite’s barn.” He set the connections, like fuses laid end Read more:Prove
If You Can't Stand the Heat in the Kitchen Today, Just wait 'til the Ozone is Gone 2008-07-12 05:21:00 From the Detroit Free Press. . .In a 588-page notice, the Environmental Protection Agency offered no opinion on whether global warming poses a threat to people's health or welfare, changing an earlier conclusion that it does, at the insistence of the White House and officially kicking any decision on a solution to the next president and Congress. Read more:Stand
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The Summer Intern - Part 12 - Final 2008-07-11 17:46:00 Finally, there is our founder, the late Willem Vodorosli whose ashes are kept in the urn next to the sugar canister in the break room. He was born to abject and self-absorbed parents. He married once in the nineteen-fifties, but his wife, Hilke, died on their honeymoon and he parlayed the generous condolences of the insurance money into the organization you see today. Although childless, he was ve Read more:Summer
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The Summer Intern - Part 11 2008-07-10 18:45:00 Lotte Bergman is Paul Manners' Administrative Assistant. She used to have a cubicle but it did not look good on her. She seemed as out of place as a bathtub on a front porch—this not being Tennessee, of course. Then she got an office but it put too much of a damper on the arid lust she had for catching glimpses of Taffy Hurtfelder slipping noiselessly into Bob Obb's office every other afternoon. Read more:Summer
Jack the Box 2008-07-09 19:32:00 Today we saw a truckload of new Mustang convertibles being driven through 'Neath Lake Village. Jilly calls convertibles "naughty cars" I guess because they're topless. We stopped and had lunch at the Bingo Diner--across the street from the dealership and watched as the cars were off-loaded. After a couple of the cars were in the parked in the lot, a salesman, put the roof down on one of the cars.
The Summer Intern - Part 10 2008-07-09 19:22:00 Paul Manners is our division general manager. His office suite's size, fittings, and trimmings are unrivaled in all of the western, capitalist mythology. Everything he says is as substantial and weighty as soapsuds. Most of his days are spent behind closed doors with a psychic we know only as Madame Cumulus. He has a smile as wide as an opera house mural and she has breasts like Roman masonry. Lik Read more:Summer
The Summer Intern - Part 9 2008-07-08 05:42:00 This apparatus is our ultra-high-end combination color scanner, copier, and printer. There are only two in the world. One belongs to government of France and this one is not supposed to be here-plerase observe it accordingly. Our last Chief Operating Officer was afraid of being kidnapped on an overseas business trip and if he ever were, there were instructions for us to use this machine to print h Read more:Summer
At the movies with Jilly Nines 2008-07-06 16:32:00 Yesterday we saw Thomas and the Great Discovery. It was, "Excellent!" according to Jilly. We had our fingers in our ears during the previews which were, "Not excellent!" Here is a photo of the new character Stanley with Thomas. If you love Thomas, you'll love this movie. Read more:movies
The Summer Intern - Part 8 2008-07-06 08:49:00 The cubicle to the right of the copier is Taffy's and to the left is Marcello Viejo's. Marcello works at the cadence of. . . and as noiselessly as. . . a gentle snowfall. He is docile and cultural. He is a patron of the ballet. Strictly speaking, he is inert. Bob Obb calls him Argon—he thinks it's one of the three musketeers.If your work-tote looks more full after lunch or an afternoon fire dril Read more:Summer
The Summer Intern - Part 7 2008-07-05 13:17:00 Our company treasures its history. Madame Chang Kai Chek once met secretly with Walt Disney in our fifth-floor conference room to discuss the project that became the movie Mulan. Our former Chief Executive sang for Up With People when he was a kid and had one of the nation's first liposuction procedures. The current Finance Officer almost went to Woodstock. In the movie, when Arlo Guthrie says, "T Read more:Summer
At Church with Jilly Nines 2008-07-04 15:35:00 A conversation between Jilly who is autistic and Koe, about whom the jury is still out.Koe (whispering) —"Jilly, you're making a noise when you breathe, it's a little too loud honey."Jilly—"Does everyone in heaven hear me?"Koe—"Yes."J—"Does Grandpa Eric hear me?"K—"Yes."J—"Does Grandpa Eric breathe loud too?"K—"In heaven you don’t really need to breathe, I think."J–“What do I b Read more:Church
The Summer Intern - Part 6 2008-07-04 08:54:00 As to what goes on in Bob's office, if it were an airplane's cockpit, even the autopilot would be embarrassed. Bob's big problem is that he has a huge house; staggering mortgage, six kids, three leased BMWs and a cholesterol count that approaches three hundred ten. His left hand doesn't know he's got one foot in the grave. Never engage in a conversation outside Bob's office, you will feel as if yo Read more:Summer
The Summer Intern - Part 5 2008-07-03 08:07:00 The cubicle next to the copier belongs to Taffy Hurtfelder. Every copy you make, every copy you take, every copy you shake, she'll be watching you. Taffy dresses to depress. Her clothing has the shape and inexpensive feel of the inner tube from a roll of toilet paper. She has a terrifying, undulating anatomy and carries her excess weight in odd places—beneath her shoulder blades, the backs of he Read more:Summer
The Summer Intern - Part 4 2008-06-30 20:11:00 Rowena Godwin sits in the cubicle next to ours. Rowena cowers most days in frail anticipation of not surviving the next round of budget cuts. Last month she told one of our managers that she was making headway on one of his pet projects. He told her, "Never oversell headway. . . I'm after results that blow me away." Rowena is taking that new diet pill that eliminates all cravings, until you start Read more:Summer
The Summer Intern - Part 3 2008-06-28 10:23:00 Valises, purses, handbags, tote bags, make-up cases, grocery bags, bulky sweaters, fanny packs, muu muu dresses, zoot suits, trench coats, ponchos and the like are not permitted in the cubicle area. The dress code is simple for interns—khaki-type chemicals, cotton, rayon, whatnot. Distractions are distractions. You will need to develop the posture and italic gait of a tightrope walker when trave Read more:Summer
The Summer Intern - Part 2 2008-06-27 09:21:00 You are aware that there was a rise and fall of the Roman Empire and so it is with your work.What is that about? Asking questions is excellent, I am glad you are so eager to learn.Each day's work requires a certain amount of condensing and creativity. When you have more than eight hour’s work in a day, you must condense that into an eight-hour workday. There is no overtime or comp time or studio Read more:Summer
The Summer Intern - introduction 2008-06-25 05:42:00 Thank you for coming in a little early today. We are all quite supportive of our intern program and whatnot and I think you will find that this orientation will give you a good, running start.Your desk is there and mine is just here on the other side. We will share a cubicle for the summer. This is the three-hole punch. It stays on the small table that is to the left of your desk and to the right Read more:Summer
Trains Can Make it Happen 2008-06-24 04:50:00 Trains help us decode life. Thomas the Tank Engine provides such a generous intrusion in what would otherwise be such a simple illness to camouflage - the civilized withdrawal from the world. Mr. Conductor, both suspicious and friendly, joyfully punched our ticket - still punches our ticket. We have left anxiety behind, headed for joyful. Read more:Trains
A Rich Man's Son 2008-06-22 14:03:00 Koe: overheard at a coffee shop. . . "there can't be anything worse than having to take orders from a rich man's son - you name him: Jeff Wilpon, Hank Steinbrenner, George W. Bush. . . "
Two Kinds of Facts 2008-06-15 12:22:00 Koe. . . there's but one kind of lie but two kinds of facts--those that are true and those that are too true. Read more:Kinds
Tangled Up In Indelicacy 2008-06-12 15:57:00 Koe writes:. . . B. hired a consultant this week who has a tongue like a gangplank--he makes up stuff, then believes it. He's drowning himself. If I were going to make something up and believe in it. . . I'd make up god, and then have her be the kind who gets a little more involved. Example: She sees a pick-up truck driving 80 miles-an-hour the wrong way on interstate 95. . . and instead of lettin Read more:Tangled
The Journey 2008-06-11 14:00:00 A journey of a thousand miles often starts with you barking up the wrong tree. . . koe whitton williams - November 20, 1955 Read more:Journey
Prove This is Not Upside Down - Part 4 2008-07-28 19:31:00 “Do you think the artists would want their nails done, some of them?” Derry asked me. “I could come with you some days.”She popped into the bathroom and caught me just as I yawned. She took it as a lack of interest in her question, and more damagingly, in her chosen profession. She breathed deeply and her neck reddened as if she were trying to control her anger, which mostly appeared unin Read more:Prove
Jingle-Jangle Morning 2008-07-25 20:33:00 Fiction Friday - Pick a medical condition you have (or have had), and rough out a character or story where that illness plays a humorous element.Note: The idea here isn’t to make fun of people who are ill, but to challenge us to look at things from a different point of view.She was bored and living in Dallas when she invited her grandmother to move in and bring her cat--Lee Harvey.But.Sherry P. Read more:Morning
Prove This is Not Upside Down - Part 3 2008-07-22 19:24:00 I tended to give Derry long responses to her questions because it increased the likelihood that by the end of my answer, she would have forgotten what she asked me in the first place. She was not my first choice in girlfriend but she did have a dad who took a lot of interest in making sure that his grandchildren weren’t going to bed hungry, which meant a little money left over for us for necessi Read more:Prove
Only Sky 2008-07-18 18:46:00 Delia felt the last light leave her living room like a winter's draft blowing through a century old casement window.Carl, good lord, Carl was in the kitchen, gently opening and closing cabinet doors, looking for wine glasses."Are we on the same wavelength?" he asked, ". . . is there any Zinfandel?"Delia felt a jolt of permanence. . . Carl. He was everywhere--like litter. He owned the gym where s
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