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needles needling needlessly with little thread... or much of anything else...

(foolish dribbles to be written at uncertain times, on an irregular basis, from uncertain sections of the ever expending universe, and from whatever dimension I-We-Us-Them might find ourselves/ myself in …)

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

WHAT ARE THE THREE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS YOU CONSIDER WHEN YOU WRITE YOUR STORIES TO HELP INSURE THE STORY HAS BEEN WELL TOLD? 

(Question asked by writing-group leader Tony to the whole writing group.)

I don’t know that there are three things I think about specifically for every story. I’m not that organized. Maybe that’s one of my problems.

What I do throughout the writing process is that I keep reading the story or poem to myself out loud. I do this over and over again. Sometimes even while watching myself in a mirror. When I first write a text it is usually very awkward, and much of my sentences do not make much sense. I have to read them over and over again out loud to make sure that they do make sense and that they “sound” right. This is especially true with poems. I realize it’s not very professional, but to me, if a text doesn’t read properly, if an actor or a reader couldn’t take my story and read it to a crowd without it making sense to its listeners, then there’s something wrong. I almost prefer to listen to a story being told to me or read to me, than to read one for myself.

I write over long periods of time, which is why I have very little to show for all those years of writing. Stacks and stacks of shit is what I’ve carried over the Atlantic, and most of it just good enough for the trash. Yet in there somewhere are little jewels, and when I feel that I have the strength and or the courage to sit down and read through some of these notes, diary entries, story ideas, rants, self-deprecations, partly written poems, stories, unfinished novels, void-like dialogues, small fables, and, sadly enough, mostly meaningless feeling-sorry-for-myself masturbations, then sometimes I find story ideas. They usually come from a well written diary entry where I actually took the time to go into the specifics of a moment, of something that happened to me, where I might have gone into narrative mode even, or described a dream or a nightmare with authenticity. That’s what I’m looking for, authenticity, believability, credibility... Truth. And I guess that is my second point, one of the three most important questions that I ask myself whenever I write a story: is this True? Not in the sense of did this truly happen, though if that’s the case it makes the writing a little easier, but in the sense of Truth with a capital ‘T.’ And the Truth which interests me the most are the ones dealing with emotions. I usually spend very little time in my stories or poems describing people physically nor do I go in much detail about the action going on, though I think I should probably rectify both of those points, but I try to describe the emotions they’re going through as thoroughly as I can. Not by saying he felt this way or that way, but by trying to put the actual emotions down in my words. When and if somebody reads or listens to one of my stories, then I want him or her to feel the emotions, not to be told what he or she should think the narrator or hero of my story is feeling, but feel them for themselves. So that is another thing I consider when writing: Do the emotions come through my words... and are they True... raw... believable?

All this sounds real pretentious. Just goes to prove that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing whenever I’m writing, probably one of the principal reasons I don’t write more often. I guess that’s one of the points of this exercise. I should attempt to make a small readable list, rather than write all this BS.

1 – Does the story / poem read well out loud?
2 – Do the emotions come through the writing without them being spelled out?
3 – Is the narrative believable, in its own context and universe?

Which certainly shows where my priorities are when I write, and explains to me why I’m having such problems with plot, structure, and the writing itself, meaning syntax. Uhm... maybe I’m lying to myself a little... because I spend loads of time on structure, not on plot, but on the actual physical outlook of the text... in blocks. It is often through the structure that I develop a story idea, the narrative itself.

What it comes down to is that every story and poem is a different entity, and that every story and poem demands its own personalized questions to go from seed to finished text, and though those three items I’ve listed above are important to me, each text is different, and each text has different needs.

Monday, September 27, 2004

REPEATING MYSELF OVER AND OVER AGAIN 

Into the world... right in the middle of it. Concentrating on getting out of this mess. What have I done so far? Not much, but not bad. Not to praise myself, but I’ve had almost no panic attacks, just little ones here and there which were taken under control within minutes. Minor paranoiac trembles which were analyzed as such within seconds of their attempts to put me into a fit, or send me into a ball next to the couch closing all the shades. I was capable of applying cold logic, emotionless reasoning telling myself in plain language what was happening, and within minutes I was back to normal mental grounds with the ability to think and make decisions based on reality rather than basing myself on over-the-top emotions which create thunderous frights in my heart and confuse my brain into a paranoiac havoc of on-the-defensive everybody-is-after-me syndromes. In two words: life is going about nicely, and I am slowly but surely climbing towards my goal: Independence. I’d always thought that I could find personal independence via the road of laissez faire. A sort of Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, bum about existence. I’ve tried it for several years right here in the states, by default since when I lived here before I couldn't work legally, and then tried it in the spirit of socialism in France... And I’ve come to the conclusion that this is not the road for me, that I am either not strong enough or not smart enough to find freedom and personal independence via this path. The path of the lonely monk traveling with merely a sack over his shoulder, living from the pitance he can salvage on the streets. Well... that’s romanticizing a little. Exaggeration is my middle name. I’ve never even been there. I’m definitely not strong enough to purposely place myself in such a situation, though I’ve wasted countless hours daydreaming about it. I’m too much of a materialist. I cannot, however hard I try, get rid of all my stuff. There’s always a couple boxes of books, seven to be exact, that’s how many I sent to myself before leaving Paris, not counting the suitcase full of books I carried with me on the plane, that I simply cannot bring myself to part with. The wandering Monk fantasy carrying only the frock on his back, a rope for a belt, a little sack of herbs, a little bottle of whatever flavor of fire water, eau de vie, is distilled in the region he’s traversing, and one book. Well... maybe two. The Bible, old and new testaments, and Francois Rabelais’s complete works. Or rather, Rabelais and Leaves of Grass. Every money usurper / launderer and misery seeker has a bible on his shelf, usually right there where all who are unfortunate enough to walk through his door can see. That’s an easy book to find, no need to burden oneself with it. But Rabelais’s work in the original French with complete notes on each page. That’s a bit more difficult. Even Whitman, in some of those Antarctic landscapes of the mind and soul which we call here the Bible-belt is not so common. If one had to choose a book, a book to read for the rest of one’s life, Leaves of Grass would be as a good choice as one could make, I think. There are other books of course. But I digress... I’ve chosen a different road this time. Maybe I’ve made the right choice, maybe not. Finding personal independence through financial independence, meaning finding independence from the dependence on the seeking of basic needs - food and shelter, though in my case booze is also a biggy - through the gathering and investment of both material needs and financial activities. Will this work for me, or will I only achieve work for the sake of working, work at baseless and meaningless tasks only to find that I have to work at even more meaningless soul stamping tasks just to keep my head out of the water, the credit drowning, the financial travesties of regular Joes trying to survive. I’ve got to give it a shot. I’ve never believed in it, nor have I ever believed that any of it matters, and in so doing, simply because I didn’t care, I have often been branded as being extremely lazy. So now I am throwing myself in this all too American way of life: Work at meaningless soulless tasks for the sake of making money and finding financial independence. An American adventure, based by default in my pocketbook rather than in my heart. The American Way, or shall I say: the American Dream.

Thursday, September 23, 2004

LIBERATION TECHNIQUES  

From Moorishgirl:
“Read Huda Alazawi's testimony of her eight months in Abu Ghraib.”

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

DEALING WITH THE BLUES BEFORE MIDNIGHT 

21h36
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah... I’m fine.”
“Cause I heard a noise, that’s why I came over and checked on you.”
“I’m alright.”
“I heard this noise, like a big empty spank, something like a snubbed-in knock... almost hidden even...”
“I punched the wall.”
“You what?”
“I don’t know but all the sudden, I just punched the wall. I was heading to the kitchen needing a beer and as I turned into the living area from the hallway, I looked at that wall and for some reason my body contracted and my right hand tightened into a fist and my left arm moved forward as my right shoulder lowered leading my arm into position and I knocked the shit out of that wall.”
“You all right?”
“Yeah. It felt good, actually. Real good. Then I got myself a beer and the world was a better place.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah...”

21h42
I feel the touch of your chops all wrapped up against mine. Now that’s some pure American lyrics by Satchmo himself, a saint if saints exist, maybe even a god if the universe is a fair place. That’s my desire. Can’t nobody say it like he could however hard they try. Dreaming sitting here drinking my Mexican beer thinking about this woman I met the other night. She was a smoking and a drinking and a talking loads of shit. I liked that.

21h53
You got any short story subjects? I want to hear them right here, right now. Need to get my ass published in some slick magazine, then maybe I could stop working forty hours a week for minimum wage, and just sit at my desk, drink and write whatever came in my hands and head. That’s not what I’m doing now, rest assured, it does happen I have something to say that might be more interesting than the phone book. Not often, I admit, but sometimes it happens. The spirits touch my head with their malefic fingers, and out of my own human fingers comes out some sort of readable narrative poem or even a short story. Sometimes. Not often... and that’s the problem, the tragedy, the malediction of my humble life. Maybe I’m looking for some devil out there, preferably a low-end back-street minimum-wage pathetic devil who wouldn’t mind dealing with me and my worthless soul in exchange for a couple descent stories and a drink.

22h04
Was thinking I could move down to Central America just south of Mexico or something like that. Belize or Guatemala. Some country where Homestead is still a viable existing practice, and just set up business on the beach. What business you ask? The business of living first off, then the business of producing something which I could sale for a much higher price right here in Freedom Land. The land of the free and the stupid, the land of the right winged Christian fundamentalist hypocrites, the land of free speech for a few agreeable elites... Amerika, the beautiful, the remote bubble, the isolationist island-continent... and who cares about Mexico and Canada, they can do what they’re told to do or else. Economic enslavement. I’m loosing myself within this pint of English beer and this CD of pure American music, the very same music that helped to spread the idea of freedom – ironically enough – throughout the world a few decades ago. This was then and this is now. Now, what we export isn’t Satchmo’s musical creations, but mass produced sameness, globalized economy based on hatred, violence, and righteous pretentious ignorant ideologies with one single interest: The Bottom Line. Nothing else matters. And what’s worse, the rest of the world is buying right into it. The European upper-crust elite wants nothing less than to become American stock market money makers. The upper-crust Chinese businessmen and women want nothing more than to bow down to Americans and Europeans so they can make millions and we can keep purchasing cheap sneakers and cheap toys for our kids while millions of their population die of cancer from our factories dumping shit in their water supplies. Who cares? There’s not an innocent soul around anywhere in Amerika, Europe, Asia, or anywhere else. We’re all guilty. Point. Period. End of story. George Wanker is the leader of the free world... meaning free to rape you in every which orifice we please. You’re here to serve me. The old European colonial mantra is still alive and well. Doing all we can to keep it going as long as we can. So help me god.

22h45
Louis Armstrong is a god, simple and right down, no arguing. That’s how it goes, that’s all I can say. Basically, that’s the way it is. Satchmo is on... inside the pantheon whether we like it or not. He is God. And who am I, you ask, to declare Satchmo God? I’m no less and no more than any of those evangelical horse’s ass preachers popping up like mushrooms after a good rain declaring Jesus everybody’s savior and their pocket books the beholder of salvation. I’m no better or no worse than any Rabbi or Imam or Catholic priest, though I lack a little in education, I admit. I’m just a humble fuck face just turned thirty three – the magical number – and I don’t barely know my right from my left, that’s all, but at least I know my nose from my ass, which is a lot more than I can say for a lot of folks. What else you need to know?

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

LAST WEEK WAS PROHIBITION 

Yesterday, an old man came into the store. He was in a wheelchair, and another man was pushing his wheelchair. The man in the chair was 97 and the man pushing him around was around 50. I figured they were father and son, but that's not entirely certain. Father and son out and about doing a little round to the liquor store behind moma's back. They were both quite jovial. The younger man seemed a bit guilty, though, as if he was taking his son into a porno store or something. The old man was overjoyed, as if he’d been waiting for this moment a long time.

“How ya’ll doing today,” I greeted them.
“Fine, thanks,” the 50 year old man said, then added apologetically, “the old man wants some booze.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” I said, “What can I get you?”
“You got some of that Evan Williams?”
“Of course... I’ll go get it for you.”
“I want to biggest bottle you got.”
“No problem.”

I walked to the back of the store where we’ve recently moved the Kentucky bourbons, the Tennessee whisky’s, and all American whisky’s basically. There were two jugs of Evan Williams. A seven year old and a ten year old whisky. The seven year old is a bottle without a handle whereas the ten year old has a handle on the bottle. The old man was coming down the isle with his 50 year old chaperon. I was holding both bottles up, speaking loudly so that he could hear me, almost shouting.

“You want the seven year old or the ten year old?”
“I want the one with the handle, that’s much easier for an old geezer like me.”
“That’s the ten year old, and it’s a little more pricy.”
“I need a handle on the jug, that’s what I need. It’s much more gooder.”

He stressed the last word and repeated it, thinking it was the funniest thing in the world. After he’d said ‘gooder’ three or four times, I said I didn’t think that was such good English.

“I know it ain’t good English, that’s why it’s so funny.” And he burst out laughing again.
“I kept saying that to the nurses...” he stopped and retracted, explaining, “I just got out of the hospital... and there was all those pretty nurses running around. I had a blast with them. Every time I said ‘gooder’ they’d all laugh like it was the funniest thing.” Then he just fell silent holding on to his bottle of whisky thinking about all those nurses.

We got to the counter, he paid up, and told me a little story.

“Tell him about when you had your first legal drink,” the 50 year old man said.
“Oh, I don’t remember, that’s been a long time ago.”
“Not your first drink, your first legal drink... you remember...”
“I’m not sure...”
“Sure you do, about the prohibition and all...”
“Oh yeah... there I was about seventeen years old, and they’d just made drinking legal again. No more prohibition. So me and a group of friends, we all went into a bar. A legal bar, they were few and far between in those days. We were all at the counter and we each ordered a pitcher and a glass.”
“They got a pitcher each,” the 50 year old added, which is good because the old man mumbled his words a little. He was so happy to be holding on to his bottle, plus the old age and all, I couldn’t understand everything he was saying.
“We sat down, each of us pouring ourselves our first legal glass of beer ever, and each bringing up the glasses to our face, almost in unison. Without a word being spoken, we all took one sip, placed the glasses back down on the table, got up, and got the hell out of there.”
“You left all that beer behind?” I simply could not understand.
“Sure the hell did.”

In my mind, I was calculating, trying to understand. Was this some weird political statement. Because they could, they did. Or something like that. It didn’t make sense.

“Why... I don’t understand.”
“Why! That beer was shit! It’d been so long since any legal firm had made any beer, they didn’t know how to do it anymore. I swear to you, I wouldn’t even wish that beer on my hogs back then. That was the worst thing I’d ever put in my mouth. Back then I was still living in New Jersey, and there was this Italian man a little ways out of town who made his own beer. And I tell you what, that was the best stuff I’d ever tasted. Nectar. I don’t know what that Italian did to make such good beer, but it was good stuff, and we straight back to him. The illegal stuff was better than the legal stuff”
“Do they still make beer,” I said stupidly.
“Son, I’m ninety seven years old, when I remember things like that beer, it’s as if it just happened last week, and everything else in between isn’t there any more. It simply doesn't exist. I don’t know if that beer's still there. To me it’s like yesterday, like I was drinking that Italian’s beer last week. What do you want from me?”

But he wasn't mad at me. He was laughing, being happy about the long ago past and the very near present. Nothing in between existed.

There was more that was said, but I don’t remember. He was good old man. I hope he enjoys the hell out of that whisky.

Monday, September 20, 2004

THE RED CAVALRY STORIES 

Can’t sleep. Cracked a beer and opened up The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel. Was talking about him with Glenn before turning in last night. Was wondering what if some guy like Babel who had joined the red army’s disastrous campaign in Poland and wrote realistic short fiction stories based on what he saw and experienced, what if some guy did that with the Yanks in Iraq? Would he get as far as Babel? How long would it take George Wanker and his cowboys to arrest him, confiscate all his paperwork, his stories, his journals et cetera, jail him, mock trial him, and execute him? Would they even go through the trouble of jailing him, mock-trial-ing him, et cetera? Wouldn’t they just simply put a bullet through his head and blame it on Iraqi insurgents, or hell… friendly fire? Could a modern day American Isaac Babel even exist today? I don’t think so. And if such a man miraculously existed, could he get his work published anywhere? I don’t think it could happen. There are plenty of journalists over there, and they cover what they’re told to cover. But could a fellow go out there and write short-fiction based on what he saw? Make the soldiers three-dimensional, how they deal with fighting, death, prisoners, love affairs, starvation… Make the Iraqis three-dimensional too… Talk about the widow of a dying Iraqi commander who fought for the yanks for example? Talk about some Imam pondering over life in general. The Red Cavalry Stories become The Yanks Come to Town Stories… a writer for whom English is the first language, but for whom Arabic would not be a totally foreign tongue, one who would write to and for Americans, but with a good understanding of the Iraqi people, their culture and their various ways of life… how many short stories could that guy write, would they even let him write such fictitious stories which would attempt to embody the war and all the characters involved in it as honestly as possible? I doubt it. With all their cry for freedom of speech, their supposed reasons to go and kill thousands of people, to have had over one thousand American soldiers killed, about five thousand others wounded, to free the people of Iraq from their leader’s tyranny… for all this supposed selflessness, high-minded idealisms, I don’t think anybody could go and write honestly about what’s going on over there, to write about that war in a such a way that the good people of America could read within the safety of their own homes these stories and start to come close to what’s going on, at least in a soldier’s or a small village Imam’s heart… empathize, relate to, feel the emotions of… I don’t think such a man or woman would last more than five minutes before he got stuck in front of friendly fire.

Sunday, September 19, 2004

CHOPPED LIVER… 

Drinking coffee at Flightpath trying to wake up. Got knocked out cold on Brian and Tracie’s couch last night. Got crushed down by a paralyzing undercut Mexican blue trimmed glassware filled with the mighty punch of Tito & tonic with a quarter of lime squeezed on top.

On television, De la Hoya took a blow from Hopkins, and fell to the mat unable to get back up.

Incredibly enough, my head is in one piece this morning.

At work yesterday we did a testing of a new coffee liqueur – I’m not mentioning the name of the company because I think that particular company is evil and I’d hate giving them any advertisement whatsoever… not that anybody is reading this website anyway – and the Testing Girl gave me and my work colleague the left over of the coffee liqueur. We halfed it. It came out to a quarter bottle each. I did a couple shots of that in betwixt Tito mixtures. Towards the end, I started washing it all this down with beer.

After the Testing Girl had been in the store standing behind her little table for half an hour or something, she asked me if maybe she could take off her high heels and put sandals on, if I though that our manager would mind. I thought about it a minute. She took to explaining to me that she’d put in an overnight shift all night, that she works in one of those big fancy hotels downtown, had clocked out at 07h30 that morning, and had been running around all night in her high heels. Her feet were killing her. She kept changing her weight from leg to the other. This is not nice, I know, but the sight of her in high heels changing her weight from one leg to the other was a nice site to bare. I told her I didn’t think the manager would mind if she put sandals on. She thanked me profusely, ran off to her car, and came back a couple of minutes later and a couple of inches shorter. All the sudden she was just a tad bit shorter than me whereas before she had been just a little bit taller than me. That changed the perspective of things for some reason and I forgot about stocking shelves with booze for fifteen or so minutes. I stayed behind the register chit chatting with her about the un-mentionable liqueur she represented, the weather, her job at the hotel… and right when I’d worked up the conversation to Paris, how I’d worked in several hotels there… and she was starting to light up to the mentioning of Paris, France et all … blablabla… the manager, my boss, turned up stacking cases right in front of my nose as if to remind me that I was being paid to stack booze on shelves and to sale booze to customers, not to chit chat with the Testing Girl.

This morning, Catullus, Brian’s cat, woke me up begging to be let outside. I opened the door for him and went back to the couch for an hour or so. But it was no good, I needed a cup of coffee.

(Definition of Testing Girl : a woman anywhere from 21 to 30 something who’s job it is to stand there and look pretty. To welcome the customers as they walk into the store and ask them if they’d like to take part in the testing of the product being pushed on said customers.)

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

OBSERVATIONS 

Looking for a short story subject. Can’t find one anywhere. There must be something somewhere to be found. One would think. That’s the news for today. At the coffee shop having my umpteenth cup before going into work later. There’s really nowhere to hang out, which is unfortunate, because I like to hang out places other than my home. Not always, but sometimes. I like to look at people. It’s hard to partake in this activity without being so freaking obvious in this coffee shop, as all the people here are, like me, plunged into their computer screens. Some of them are reading newspapers, some are doing homework, but most of them are staring into the bleakness of cyberspace. What I’m trying to say is that not a single one of them is simply hanging out with a cup of coffee and a smoke staring at everybody else. Most the people here come here to be alone, meaning they don’t come here to meet somebody else or to talk about the day’s gossip, and certainly not to stare, evaluate, and comment on all the other people around. No such indecency appreciated here. They come here to be alone, to be left alone, to not be looked at, to do work they cannot do at home for some reason. The absolute opposite of what I’m looking for. Do people not hang out having nothing to do except gossip and relax and have a f---g smoke? That’s not done in these parts apparently. Anyway, it’s against the law to smoke inside ANY building around here. And there are no sidewalks for people to walk on, because people drive everywhere, and people don’t go to places where there are not enough appropriate parking spots, which drastically limits the amount of people watching possible. This entry is really just an excuse to write an entry. Babble for the sake of babbling.

Monday, September 13, 2004

DEATH IN THE MORNING 

Went to the sink after getting out of bed around four thirty this morning and what I found was the last few day’s dishes all stinking wet in dish water. My primary goal was coffee and I would have preferred denial rather than a face off. Turn a blind eye to the sink, so to say. If you don’t look at it – i.e. dirty dishes with old chunks of food such as scrambled eggs floating in the two day old dish water – then they don’t exist. I went straight for the coffee machine. That’s what I’ve been told, know what you want and go for it with blinders on. Anything or anybody gets in your way? I say, smash’em silly, squish’em with the sole of your foot, stamp’em with indignation, push’em off to the wayside.

All I wanted was coffee, and I wanted it right away, so I grabbed the coffee machine to remove yesterday’s filter which, unfortunately for me, was full of water. When I attempted to take it out, the soaked through paper slipped from my fingers and the wet coffee grinds spread on the machine, the counter, and the sink. I was faced with the dilemma of having to clean around the coffee machine to make my coffee, of having to clean the coffee machine itself, before being able to get the new coffee grind ready for take off. The closeness of the coffee machine to the sink, or the sink to the coffee machine, however you want to look at it, forced me to face my dirty dishes situation.

Still, I fought the fact, fought the smell, fought the sight of bloated egg chunks. I picked up a plate set against the side of the metal sink bottom side down held up at an angle under which I expected to find my green sponge. I picked at it with the tip of my finger and there underneath the protection of the plate I found two cockroaches one top of the other looking at me. We were all three stunned. They were on the green sponge which, keeping their size in respect to that of the sponge, looked as if they were laying on a bed.

I asked myself for a second, can I use this sponge safely? Hygienically speaking? Can I keep living in denial like this for the rest of my morning? Will I be able to enjoy my coffee now, after having interfered the lovemaking of two very large cockroaches? During this bit of introspection, we all three continued to stare at each other, each wondering what was coming next.

I broke down and cleaned the dishes. All of them, ignoring the two roaches trying desperately to get out of the sink, running around trying to avoid the water flowing every which way. They were desperate and slowly loosing the energy required to survive this flood. They had no Noah to save their asses, and I was the hands of God making them suffer for forcing me to face my dirty dishes instead of a steaming cup of coffee. There was, I’m ashamed of admitting it, a certain enjoyment in the process, even though I never directly tried to kill. I didn’t try to run them out, for example, nor did I try to smash them to smithereens, I simply did nothing to either save them or take them out of their misery (isn't that a horrible euphemism?).

I let them fight the water on their own. It took them the whole fifteen minutes it took me to do the dishes to finally turn over and die. I washed them away to the drain, caught them and threw their dead little ugly bodies into the trash can.

Thursday, September 09, 2004

BACK IN AMERICA 

(Trying to talk myself into not being depressed or trying to think about a short story subject or trying to find a voice without sounding too fake or the first paragraph to a Hard Boil bourbon drinking novel that I'll never write...)

Set up my file cabinet even though there’s no files in it or beside it or anywhere else that might need filing. That’s all right. Set up my old school teacher’s desk with a grey vinyl top in the back of the room. Before tonight, it was living in the hallway standing on its side waiting till I got the floors done. Meaning sanded them then waxing them to a shining wooden parquet spark. The ceiling fan doesn’t work when the light is on and the light doesn’t work when the fan is on. It’s one or the other. That kind of thing. Cab Callaway is playing on the jam-box loaned to me for the next couple of weeks. And that’s just fine. Got me a glass of Knob Creek on the rocks and am sitting pretty in my boxers on a green plastic garden chair. Hey, man… things have never been this good. That’s what I wanted to say in the first place. Got me a new home all getting ready to promise me a livable totally decent place to take my shoes off every night when I get home, and that’s what I’ve been looking for. Found it. Not without all the regular compromises, as you can imagine, and a few more compromises not so regular on top of that. That’s where I’m heading, probably for trouble. But tonight. Tonight, I’m not going to worry about all that stuff, not right now because tonight is set out just for me and my Kentucky Bourbon. Like good ol’ times. Back in America where the booze is cheap, and that’s the good booze I’m talking about, not the cheap stuff. Inexpensive is what I meant, I guess. Back in America where a man without a car is not a man, where tough cowboy talk however meaningless gets you more places than good grammar and a dictionary. Back in America, man… and I love it.

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Uhm... 

I guess I do some generalizing in the previous post, and I guess it's a pretty silly post, but I was trying to say something I feel strongly about. Maybe I went about it the wrong way. I'll try again later. Right now, I'm at the coffee shop since I no longer have a connection at home, and I'm on a quick break from dealing with my car - drunkard ran into the backend of my new-used Mazda last weekend while I was safely asleep on the couch and I've been speaking with the insurance company several times a day, went to go have a little talk with the fellow who sold me the car and received some sound advice from him - and I'm also sanding the hardwood floors of my new home down. Should have the biggest part of the work done this afternoon so that I can return the rented sander this afternoon and finish off the edges and the corners by hand, and finaly seal it tomorrow. I'm real excited about that. Real soon, I should be the proud tenant of a little two bedroom house with beautiful shinny floors. Till next time...

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