Like a low-angle pic of a tiny apartment

The title of this post is because the photos of our abode, which we're trying to sell—the abode not the photos; altho (insert joke about being willing to switch horses midstream)—I say, the photos of our abode are thus and so, which leaves the viewer with an impression of an expanse, yet when a potential buyer visits the physical space, it goads them to send us electronic hate-mail proclaiming "I am angry; your marketing scheme is bait-&-switch: for the photos look thus and so, whereas the actual abode…" and the rest of the spectator's feedback is not fit to print.

But I wanted to start this entry with some paragraphs in italics, before writing the words "Dear Diary," because I felt that I should explain the situation. What happened is this:

I began writing the following blank a couple days ago, when I first met the professional who ended up photographing our apartment. (We're trying to sell our apartment, in case you're just tuning in and you haven't read all my previous masterworks.) And I reached the point in my recollections where I was relaying my exchange with Mr. C., when suddenly our house invaded the marketplace.

Now by that phrase "our house, just like a little piggy, attacked the market" I mean that, in the midst of my writing this present entry, I received a notification from our realtor that she had pressed the enormous "GO!" button on her International Advertising Blitz for our apartment, and therefore potential buyers were lining up at our entryway and the queue stretched around the block, for the populace was waiting to tour the place. This made me nervous, so I had to leave my writer's desk in mid sentence, that is, in medias res, to escape away to a less-populated Danger Zone.

So I ended up at the house of my biological parents, who still live in Eagan, which is close by. And my sister lives there with them. And they were gone but she was home. And by "they" I mean my mother and my father: my mom was on a trip to the Alt-Tri-State Area, and my dad is dead. So I spent the afternoon and eve with my sister; and then I left after 9 p.m., which is the last time that any decent person would schedule a house showing, and I returned home to "sleep" (which verb I enclose in hooks to indicate that it is impossible to perform, in any non-ironic sense, when you have, dangling from your front gate, a lock box that is accessible via smart-phone app, allowing any villain who owns a phone with the proper application to jimmy the lock and enter the abode and snoop around and scorn the decor and mock the workmanship, while I, the homeowner, wait in bed to be murdered), and then – that is to say: NOW – I "woke" and wanted to post a blog but realized that the entry from days past was undercooked and ends abruptly; so I decided, in lieu of finishing, to add this preamble. I am opting, in other words, to abandon the following post-from-the-recent-past, while sharing what text I "accomplished," despite its indecency. (I mean that last word in the sense that someone might inquire of you, yes, you, the beautiful woman, "Are you decent?" before entering the room with your name in the star on the door, and you answer "Negative: I have not yet finished pouring myself into this formal dress replete with sparkling sequins.")

*

Here I intended to give the body text of the entry proper, but when I opened the file where I had saved the thing, there was a brief “To do” list at the top; so I’ll consider this a sign from God and copy that too:

Gate plate,

I need to paste sticky numbers onto you, preferably in the title font of the movie Lost Highway (1997), and then nail you up.

Black bolt,

I need to screw you into the handle of the gate, to replace your gaudy mismatched silver comrade.

Chewed up drywall above the garage rafters,

I need to repeal-and-replace you with fresh new sheet rock.

Rust inhibitor,

I need to smooth you over the hinge of the door.

Dear diary,

Everyone’s life has a purpose, that’s what we’re told. — Are we told that, really? What if I yell into the megaphone: EVERYTHING IS LEFT TO CHANCE, AND LIFE IS PURPOSELESS!!! Here’s what happens if I do that: nothing at all. My words just echo among the mountains, amusing the people who hollowed their homes out there: I’m like the first yodeler, to them. I’m the Homer of yodeling.

But was Homer really the first old so-and-so? Surely there were epic poets before Homer.

So if you live in the year 2018 and you worry whether your life has any aim, I’m with you. I don’t know what I’m doing; I’m just winging it; and I don’t know if there’s another thing that I’m supposed to be doing. What if it was my Spirit Guides’ intention that I should be a…

Now I can’t even think of a career path that the Spirit Guides would’ve intended for me. I can’t even imagine the fictionalized version of my pre-life. I think the problem is that phrase “career path”. I think I was meant to be a nomad, a drifter, a wanderer, a rover, a winebibber. So the idea of committing myself to a career is…

Our neighbor across the street just put his house up for sale, three days before we put ours on the market. (Three days is how long it took John’s Christ to resurrect.) (It took John’s Lazarus four.) We have the professional photographer scheduled to stop by tomorrow, and, instantly after that, our realtor plans to “press the button”—that means “go live”, in other words “start the bidding”. You bring out the monster; it stands on the platform; the audience gawks; someone shouts “One centime!” And the auctioneer announces “Toronto has sold for one centime.” (I named our apartment Toronto because Winnipeg was taken.)

Also, regarding this house that I presently inhabit yet am trying to forsake, I discovered that the previous owners stored a variety of weird things in the rafters of its garage, and they never took the stuff with them when they moved out, so apparently I am these items’ inheritor. One blue tarp. One rubber tire. One hunk of square wood wrapped in plastic. One theatre curtain, entirely bamboo.

*

Now here, when reading this blog post aloud at an opera house in the jungle, you must note to your audience that its author inserted an asterisk between the paragraphs of text, indicating that he or she took an extended break at this point in the composition. And since, in this instance, I, the mortal human Bryan Ray, serve as the conduit of the LORD God’s authorship, it is not beyond my jurisdiction to tell you what the fuck happened:

So what happened is that THE GUY showed up at my doorstep; and by “THE GUY” I mean the professional photographer that my realtor hired to take pictures of my apartment. I was writing my essay, proceeding along simply and quietly minding my business, when all of a sudden I suffered a bright idea: “Hey,” I thought, “maybe I should put away that blanket that we employed as a drop cloth this morning when we painted the rust inhibitor on our poorly installed front door.” So I took up the blanket into my arms, and I carried it out to the garage and began to shove it into a crevice. And that was when I heard a noise like our wooden gate clanging and blasting open; and a man appeared in the courtyard. So I said, “Hello!” and I added, “You must be the photographer.” And he said, “Yep, I’m the photographer.” So we went inside.

The first thing I said to the photographer is this: “Wow. So you’re a professional photographer?—in an age when everyone snaps pictures instinctively and incessantly with their portable electronic devices and shares them online with scant care for balance or contrast or lighting or focus or quality, you are gainfully employed as a capturer of images.” And he said, “Yes I am.” And I said, “Do you have a preference between film and digital—I mean, in a fight, who would you vote for: the reels of celluloid strips that they used when cranking out movies in Hollywood 1940, versus the newfangled electronic format that freezes dots of sunlight and saves them on a tiny computer virus?” And the guy answered, “I like this new camera that I have right here, because it’s easier and less bulky than my old camera. But I can’t really tell what difference all the various filters make.” Then, privately to myself (that is, keeping the thought inside my mind and not deigning to voice it), I recalled how the director Quentin Dupieux bought an antique Russian lens to film Wrong Cops (2013), and this caused allotments of each shot to seem subtly warped or blurred, which effect I admire. Also the movie contains a fair amount of zooming and post-production tomfoolery.

But I held my peace; and it took me an awkward while to come up with another remark to say to Richard, the pro photographer; for he struck me as the type of person who would neither know of nor care about Wrong Cops. But I believe, now that I’m reviewing the reason for my hesitation, that, in this case, my presumptuousness was a sin: for I should always allow every new soul I meet to surprise me with their unexpected taste and wisdom – I should not pre-judge them. Perhaps this fellow was the only other person in existence who has eyes to see and ears to hear; thus I just missed the opportunity of bonding with a kindred spirit over the farcest anti-film of the 21st century.

Then the guy switched up the rhythm of our conversation and asked ME a question: “What do you do?” And I said, “You mean for a job?” And he said, “Yeah, what’s your trade?” And I stammered while answering, because I hate how my life has turned out: “Well, I sort of am a creative writer.” And he said, “What you do mean ‘sort of’?” And I said, “Well I don’t get paid much for it; I do computer work to supplement my income.” And he said, “Well if you can’t make a living from it, then you’re not really a writer.” And I said, “Yeah, I guess not.”