Edgar Alice Croe

Urine the Wrong Place - from Dec. 1999

2011-10-29T17:41:00.000-04:00

Haha... I dug this out of my, heh... archives ;o) Originally published in the Penn State Harrisburg student news.

Urine the Wrong Place

I was tired. Hungry. Chilly because the Mac lab is always ten degrees colder than any other room in Olmsted, except the TV Studio.

Arising for final departure, I realized I had to PEE.

It was one of those pees that sneak attacked because your brain had Vulcan-Mind-Melded with a digital interface for one-fourth of a day and you'd slouched for nearly as long. My kidneys and bladder had slunked halfway up my back, temporarily numbing all neuro-pathways to relief notification, and time passage, and the churning of the spheres in general.

So when I finally touched down from orbit and regained a standing position, all them liqui-filled organs suddenly came slamming into the front walls of my gut. BAMMO!

Encroaching on my hasty departure, a DOS-user-at-a-Mac hailed me desperately. I assisted him as patiently as possible while clenching my can't-pee-yet muscles tighter than the cylinders around the pistons of the last automotive engine I froze up.

Finally, I made it to the Restroom. Yes, Restroom with a capital "R" because it's the only private public restroom on campus and it's w-a-y spacious. Relief and paradise all in one sitting.

But, tearing my jeans apart as I leaped toward the throne, I suddenly heard the sailor in me echoing off the barf-powder pink tiles: What the... #%+\?!! GeeEEeeZiz! Piss! piss! PISS!

Piss on the damned seat. Not just a drop or two but the aftermath of a tsunami splashed all across the left side of the seat.

In previous seat-pee encounters, to deal unballistically with this base rudeness I have amused myself by visualizing these paranoid pissers hovering sideways above the bowl, shoulders braced against one side of the stall, feet against the other, and nothing but the straining screws of the tissue holder beneath their hands to keep them from falling. Much like The Grinch Who Stole Christmas when he gets squinched up in a chimney with his knees above his head for a few seconds.

But this was in the Royal Restroom. It has no stall walls, just one of those screwy sinks that resembles a big square ceramic bed pan.

On that note, I wonder why she didn't bypass the toilet and just back up to the sink. It would've taken far less contortionism than whatever she must have gone through at the throne.

I'm guessing it involved some masochistic bondage around the handicapable toilet rails as well as feet on the seat. Too bad she didn't slip.

The ultimate question, lingering like the odors in our ventless restrooms, is this: exactly what villainous encounter do these paranoid females think awaits them in placing their bare thighs and butt cheeks where others have gone before?

Speaking for myself and the majority of us chicks using the restrooms around here, we are definitely using the paper for wiping instead of smearing ourselves to dryness directly on the seats.

Attention Seat-Pissers: all the anatomy that REALLY matters is suspended in the air over the water. And for all the unenlightened out there, we do have a custodial staff who plays fine game of tidy bowling every night.

Come on, "ladies" please. If you're so uncouth that you don't have enough class to wipe your urine deposits off the seats, then freakin' buy some "Depends" undergarments and pee on your own damned bottoms.

Truly, it's a shame video surveillance of restrooms is illegal. The sociological survey purposes alone could reveal phenomonal data. Or, for you vichyssoise voyeurs vorldvide dahlings, how about a cancam: "toilettanked.com?" Plus, we'd know who didn't wash their hands on the way out.

Am I just full of crap? You never, never know. There's got to be a web designer somewhere who's thought about this. I sagely recommend to any webmeister wannabe's who have it in themselves: Don't get caught with your pants down! Think of the bloated revenue potentials for personal hygiene and health products ads and links. With a site like that, surfers and advertisers might soon be saying, "Piss on 'jennycam.'"

Slideshows

2011-09-27T22:55:00.014-04:00

The wind stirs the ashes and fans the fire on what's left of the burning furniture. Words, and faces, glide through my mind like slideshows of the associated places that carry them. The darkness of the new moon casts no shadows of regret upon my past.

Tomorrow is another day, a new day, with the new moon underway. I call to spirits for love, grander and greater in it's return to me than any I have ever known. The embers fall into a glowing silence.

The cigarette makes me dizzy and I throw it into the fire in disgust. I have slowed with them. But when I try to stop for good, the chemical withdrawal throws me into a severe and angry depression, and I buy another pack.

I stand and turn toward the back porch steps. Work tomorrow beckons to me through the hot shower and I realize I have no clean clothes to wear to the theater. I sigh heavily as I finish my shower and head down to the moldy basement, naked except for the sneakers I slipped into. If I don't awaken in the middle of the night to do it, I will have to get up early enough to dry the blacks I just put into the washer.

Every day, the journey begins anew, and every day, life is either a gift or a burden. Tomorrow is only a future yesterday.

And yesterday is just a slideshow. A powerpoint slideshow. In an analog world.

rain ...for Davy, Autumn 2010

2011-05-24T13:09:00.002-04:00

The radar says the rain is here
but sky has yet to shed a tear
rain
i love the rain
when i am down it shares my pain
comforts me 'cause i'm alone
brightens colors in a stone
like one that's in my shoe sometimes

lately, much, i think in rhymes
i cannot say where they come from
wordy syntax beats a drum
if i don't stop to jot them down
they're swept away to where they drown
like when the rain becomes a flood
turns a playing field to mud

so i respect the drizzle of
rain and words and gentle love
that come to me from up Above,
i guess,
because i must admit
i understand it, not one bit
easier just to go with it
no matter what the weather be

it helps maintain my sanity
when life demands too much of me
my mind, at least, can wander free
shaping thoughts that oft surprise
me more than what my reader's eyes
finds in his email box at night

to ease a lengthy touring flight
it does, you know, bring me delight
that thoughts of you turn on the light
switch in my brain that makes me write

i'd probably go on and on
hell, probably until the dawn
but i have things to do tomorrow
so with a tiny tinge of sorrow
i bid to you good night, my friend
so as this rhyme draws to an end
and so until i write again...
fondly, dear, i now click send
x
;o)

lust in case

2011-05-24T02:29:00.004-04:00

x
o
x
Lover

salacious haze
enchanted days
of stellar lays

You
Have
Me

deeper falling
higher flying
never ending

Be
It
So

yin yang
pentacle, om
triskelion

Lovers
x
o
x

I Shaved my Legs at the Rajah

2010-09-26T20:25:00.002-04:00

July 06, 2010 - I shaved my legs in a bathroom at the Rajah today due to an East Coast heat wave and an unexpected spot show call in a box at the top of the theater. My spot partner told me at load-in that he was gonna be shirtless up there, so I was gonna be as cool as possible, too (aw, just wish it was one of my hotter buddies ;o). So downtown I bought shorts, a skimpy tank top and razors.

Between load-in and a few hours before show, in my “illegal” clothes, I wandered down to FOH. Our house lights guy, Wingie, glared at my unbridled breasts, grinned and suggested that I at least put a t-shirt on over the tank top while I was not in the spot booth. I laughed and obliged; I like my gig.

Boz Scaggs sound check: sounds damn good. It’s their first of only a few shows so it’s turned into a bit of a rehearsal. Boz has had his ear monitor frequencies changed twice, the last time due to a random “shrieking” (his reaction even looked painful) that coincided with a nut-wrenching falsetto high note in “Lowdown”. I told his sound guy that I remembered when a lot of the songs were on the radio for the first time…

My older brother raced a dirt track stock car back then. I was underage to be in the pits, but my dad knew all the track promoters and got me a pit pass anyway. I thought for sure I was gonna get into a race car too when I was old enough, but it never manifested…

So when I was eighteen I shacked up with a half-assed mechanic who sat me on a running Suzuki 250, showed me where the controls were, and before he could get another word in I took the hell off—no helmet (illegal back then)—and didn’t return until a half hour later. And, haha, he was out in his Jeep looking for me…

Well, show time approaches. I need to go back out to get some dinner, and as soon as I’m outside this t-shirt is history… the hooligans downtown can stare all they want; it’s 102 frickin’ degrees out there! Besides, I’m still armed with my Leatherman on a wallet chain…

There (from 2007)

2010-04-29T11:31:00.042-04:00

Inspired by an email with a songwriter co-worker friend Steve about a whiteboard drawing and a song about finding home...

A younger me stares back at me,
From a photo of where I used to be,
And I never can tell, is she giving me hell,
Or is she just challenging me?

She’s stood at the spot that you speak of,
Where the road becomes suddenly ridge,
Not surprised, yet with amazement,
She mused at the no-longer bridge.

The day before rain was torrential,
The night before: all was afloat,
She wondered if her old house trailer,
Would soon become a house boat.

But the valley that loved her had mercy,
It valued her faith in its ways,
So it sent a Wood Spirit for guidance,
And in due time, receded the waves.

There’s much to be said for loving companions,
And friendships that don’t let you down,
For, when at the abyss, you seem truly alone,
Within you their strength can be found.

Oh, if only small I, like a caped crusader,
Could into your lonely wanderings fly,
I’d steal you away like a pirating raider,
From the valley's dead ends, to a mountaintop high,

To survey the paths and the rapids below
(that viewed from on high, move placidly slow).

And mapping an end to your aimless roam,
Of your own accord, you’d find your way home.

You can live in a place, or with someone,
For years, and still never be home.
Whether you are a rambling hobo,
Or a hermit – never to roam,

No bridges or crossroads or pathways
Can get you to there from here,
Because no outside road will lead you,
To that longed-for home, so dear.

Because home is not just
where your heart is,
Or a hug or a smile or kiss,
It's finding deep love with a soul mate,
That leads to the ultimate bliss.

Because There, anywhere, everywhere, That is Home.
******************
Alice Potteiger - December, 2007

Mist of Souls

2010-04-03T10:01:00.002-04:00

far beyond these carbon shells
unseeable, a realm exists
where Souls abide in fluid swells
intermingling in the Mist

so vast it cannot be explained
making love where Love’s unnamed
unbridled spirits there exchange
sparks now allowed to fully flame
from carnal passions that remain
once unrequited and untamed

thru cryptic, fleshy-folly lives
with wanting Hearts that heads denied
and honest words left there unsaid
or unmeant others said instead

conversing though we do not speak
and unencumbered by physique
through the void we reunite
with no more troubles left to right
transcending spirits interweaving
Love surpassing any dreaming

true harmonics grace our ears
clouded visions focus clear
Timeless there we do exist
we are the Love that fuels the Mist

~~Alice Potteiger © 2010

the weight of wait

2010-01-17T23:47:00.007-05:00

Billowing clouds of drizzle blew through the tungsten-lit plaza. I turned the tracker off and stared at a far light tower as liquid glitter dots filled the clear wiper tracks. Constantly bustling cars created thousands of animated shimmering rubies and ambers and blinding sprays of silver-white sparkles. I stayed and stared until the drizzles rivered and pooled on top of the wiper blades.

A friend once said, "I didn't feel like getting out of bed, but i did it anyway. I didn't feel like going to the gym, but I dragged my ass there anyway. Because not doing those things was not going to help my situation. And the endorphins created by my working out helped my overall state of mind in spite of how much my life sucked at that time."

In the car's mirror, the gym windows dripped with human sweat and breath. Surprisingly, it doesn't feel humid inside; perhaps it's "charm" has a placebo effect. Some of the equipment here is not as ergonomic as what I'd used elsewhere, and curiously, none of the equipment is bolted down either. But, the staff is very friendly, the other members are pleasant, respectful and happy to be helpful, it's five minutes from my house, and awesomely, it keeps stagehand hours during the week. Sometimes at 2 a.m. you can find me at the gym.

I lost about 18 inches of hair in what was supposed to be a shoulder length layered cut, and it was a bit devastating. I never had hair THIS short. A cross between Albert Einstein, Cyndi Lauper's 80s fluff and my grandma's permed locks.
I hope the last woman who fixed the first bad cut was right: that in a "few" months it will be the shaggy shoulder length I originally asked for from the first Scissorhands.

The "Fractured Fairy Tale" moral is: Buy pomade for pom-pom hair. . .

reply to an Aardvark Adventurer

2009-10-03T00:19:00.006-04:00

i too was in that pouring rain though i was not at a camp
i thought of you adventurous boys as i stood at the end of a ramp

tens and hundreds and thousands of pounds of equipment moved by my hands
from a beautiful oak floored theater deck to a truck driving to other lands

STOMP! was the show and the sets were literally beat up scrap metal trash
and for my mud puddle stomping i will receive 200 bucks cash

i thought of you again this morn while absorbing the words of Mike Dooley
he's the absolute best metaphysical dude, speaks truth and sense very coolly

today i ordered one of his books, and steve martin's "crow" CD
and tho it's unlikely that either will make a banjo player of me

there's music playing inside of me that goes beyond notes and strings
i know i'll surprise us all someday, i just yet don't know by what things

but thru action and creativity, tenacity brings warming flames
like a spark that refused to outten for four silly boys drenched by the rains
:o)

shamwha?

2009-09-17T11:29:00.003-04:00

The not-orange/not-yellow shamwow electrified itself in the afternoon, after-the-storm sunshine. It's probably less than an hour until the sun follows the broadcast transmission tower, like a lightning rod, to the mountain top and then to the valley beyond.

I wiped off a seat on the porch. I wondered if anyone driving past had been momentarily distracted by the flash of the busy shamwow. I thought, “Yes. Yes, I live in a neighborhood where people buy shamwows, and actually use them in public.”

And, I come from a mom who bought me this shamwow. I have not told her that I am not as wowed by it as the commercial promised, because she is convinced by the marketing that she is. She is also 73, and I am not going to burst her bubble. Find happiness where you can.

I placed it on a little table I use for my computer, in case there was any rain mist there. Amazingly, the sham does seem to work well to pull heat away from my laptop.

Wow.