Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk and Buddy

I came home to some disturbing news in that one of our buses struck a pedestrian who later died.  I know the driver involved and while he could be a pain in the ass at times I know he is feeling about as low as he can right now.  His driving career is over but the real tragedy is that some family has to deal with the loss of a loved one for no good reason.  That grim news is an appropriate lead into a book I finished while on the trip, Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk.  I thought I had seen the depths of depravity that Palahniuk would let his characters descend to but with this latest foray he set the bar to a new low.  I get the impression he just revels in seeing what he can get away with because he probably could not have gotten this book published if he hadn’t already established himself as bankable.  This book is a withering indictment of America’s fascination with celebrity and reality television so, of course, I loved it.  He puts a collection of would be authors who volunteer to be locked up in a theater for three months to focus on writing and almost immediately chaos ensues as each tries to grab a piece of celebrity notoriety in some of the most bizarre fashion.  Each tells a story amid the anarchy so this is really a series of short stories intimately woven into that chaos.  You shouldn’t read this if you’re not prepared gong in because it will grab your attention in a very disturbing way.  Palahniuk car wreck fascination at its very best.  Thankfully yesterday was a very lazy day back at home and I spent most of the afternoon creating the epic blog post of our trip as well as watching Buddy’s shenanigans.  Buddy has taken squirrel control to a whole new level now that they have invaded our front yard in force.  We have a chestnut tree in the front yard and this time of year we can have 5 or 6 of the little critters roaming our yard.  Some have the temerity to come up to the house to break open or hide their nuts.  Buddy takes extreme exception to this.  He now takes up a vigil on the couch where he can see out the window and then alerts us when squirrels are present; usually by manically charging around the house (it just happened – he’s literally bouncing off the walls right now).  I’ll go to the front door and after checking there are no pedestrians or bike riders I’ll release the beast.  Buddy will charge down the hill to enact justice.  The squirrels now head for the trees when they hear the door open and Buddy hasn’t caught one yet but that hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm.  Yesterday we did this and Buddy was tracking a large gray squirrel and was hot on his heels headed towards a tree.  He failed to notice a red squirrel who apparently hadn’t received the rules of the yard because he was frozen on a rock when Buddy charged by.  This was enough to wake him up though and he chose to escape by running through Buddy’s legs.  It was absolute chaos and Buddy loved it, even the neighbor’s cat across the street was spooked and took off on a run.  While watching Buddy institute bedlam I noticed that the trees have started to change color.  In the four days we were gone there was a noticeable change which heralds my favorite time of year – autumn in New England.  After the bad news at work and a healthy dose of Palahniuk it couldn’t come at a better time. 

In Position for Launch

Autumn is Coming