Impound Stash

goth.jpg

2011-11-30T10:52:00.000-08:00

farm-72

2011-11-18T11:07:00.001-08:00

farm-71

2011-11-18T11:03:00.000-08:00

goin' 120...

2011-09-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

guest artist T.V.

2011-09-02T14:26:00.000-07:00

guest artist T.V.

2011-08-23T16:25:00.000-07:00

guest artist T.V.

2011-08-22T19:18:00.000-07:00

fweet fweet!

2011-07-31T15:24:00.001-07:00

#110010000 (Rain Day)

2011-07-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

Occasionally, my guitar ~~gets rained on.~~ case gets rained in.

consecutive

2011-07-28T10:43:00.000-07:00

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duet?

2011-07-25T10:20:00.001-07:00

Free MP3 download: onemanfan-acupofpekoe.mp3

cast no shadow

2011-07-23T12:33:00.000-07:00

Upload MP3s using free MP3 hosting from Tindeck.

block print

2011-07-23T10:14:00.000-07:00

MLX

2011-07-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

Sound files recorded mixed and edited in Audacity.

Free MP3 download: onemanfan-onegambler.mp3

CHK CHK

2011-07-18T10:07:00.000-07:00

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motif

2011-07-08T10:18:00.000-07:00

i don't care

2011-07-08T10:16:00.002-07:00

envelope

2011-07-08T10:16:00.001-07:00

guest artist T.V.

2011-04-27T09:41:00.001-07:00

guest artist T.V.

2011-04-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

4 drawings

2011-04-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

pyramid

2011-04-13T08:12:00.000-07:00

earth

2011-04-13T08:10:00.000-07:00

nothing

2011-04-13T08:08:00.000-07:00

airplane

2011-04-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

cake

2011-04-11T11:24:00.000-07:00

#0111

2010-09-14T17:17:00.001-07:00

If a distracted state can be sensed in writing, the reader might sense one now. I am writing within a very small restaurant on the outskirts of town. The service is smoking, the sections are not. Seems a bustling little joint on the edge of two cities. There is a girl washing windows to my left. I'm sure the establishment has worked for its regular crowd; and earned these fine waitresses. I am dining in a conglomerate of successes. I am discouraged by my own level of success, and number of triumphs i experience in a day. Winning out is the result of organizing something. But, organizing anything seems such a strenuous, uncertain task. When organizing a band, so much rests on each individual member. There is compromise, or there isn't, and there is truancy. Finally you've got a barren profile site that looks like child's obituary.

I was able to piece together a remake of Missile Command recently. It was, just because it could be done. It's a sad rendition, but I didn't add anything to it after getting the basis coded. What I wanted was a stress reliever, and there's something about a solid piece of programming that can grant this. A new open source racing game has taken its place, which is also very solid. I live for gimmicky desktop entertainment. If I had a desk job I'd have a lava lamp sitting on my desk, along with a variety of ball bearing games. Or, just an iPhone or two.

The world spun around and spit me out, or at least it feels like it. I have not felt as cool and sane as right now since before my diagnosis. My psychiatrist has changed my main medication to something a little more barbaric. I say barbaric because if unaided by counteractive medications, this medication will chase you around your world. I speak of restlessness, ants in your britches. I braved three days and three nights without the counteractive medication, and ended up in a hospital. It was hard to show the doctors and nurses just how bad I was feeling. That is, toward my task of break dancing on the ceiling. The room was tight and I needed to pace. I was in check by the professionals visiting my room, made comfortable, blocked in. Plus I had someone to run my mouth to, rather than run to the next county. I joke but it was hell, and I demanded action. Perhaps asking for a shot of something by name wasn't the best way to get things done, but I did get the pills in short order. Only a bit longer to absorb, two days to take hold, and I'm able to sit, stand, crouch, lay without doing the worm on my floor instead. The success lies in the psychiatrist who allowed me to dictate, to some extent, which medications worked for me. Snappy guy, but unfortunately he is moving to New Mexico. The good ones are hard to come by. Yes, all good things must end. Murphy's Law or some shit, I tell ya.

Completing one of these entries is an rare accomplishment nowadays. The trend has been to merely cope. I'm told by the cover of a self help book, that this is not enough. Today I needed to get in touch with my spot on the web. The medications have made it so that I can relax, so I did, I must have looked lazy. But, I had a lot of catching up to do. As did I here, that I didn't do. I'll get there. And when all is said and done, I'll still be relaxing. Peace.

#0110

2010-07-13T23:21:00.001-07:00

I am the poor. I dream of holding a winning lottery ticket for modest reasons. Even, say, a $15,000 ticket would let me hold my practical wants. If I could sustain a higher income, I could afford to be a consistent smoker. Being poor isn't so unhealthy, it would seem. The government sets aside a sum of money for groceries, when you're poor. That is, if you can shuffle the papers they need from you fast enough. Now paying more attention to the cost of food items, I'm amazed by some things. The cost of a dozen eggs is a mere dollar. I remember when the price of generic cigarettes was just that. Now, the price of one pack of name brand cigarettes is the same as a carton of generics in the early nineties. There's no telling what I might do with a multimillion dollar payout from the lotto. It might take the magic of life away, or away the magic that certainly is here, being poor.

At base level, what I want is a car and a guitar. By coincidence the two things rhyme, but after all, I fancy myself a bit of a musician. I'd want the road to the high tech recording studio to be long and wearisome, for the sake of experience. I would buy my girlfriend a keyboard, and rent a practice space. To back up a little, let's assume a small payout. I'd buy a car and commute to the far away town in which my girlfriend lives. Just like when gas was a dollar a gallon, and cigarettes followed gas prices. They got confused somewhere along the way, but for many years, this was the rule. We did very well for the longest time at a long distance from one another. The split was less bitter than it was sweet. Our breakup was over the telephone, and believe me, we cannot fight. If we tried to fight I expect us to be very bad and unconvincing.

And so, we're back on the telephone, taking another stab at a long distance relationship. The prices have changed, but the people have more or less stayed the same. I don't have to define "poor" in any other meaning to the reader, given the reading level here. I have a poor mentality toward women I can see with my eyes. Most of them are tall, shapely, and blond. It's just a trend. Or, is it because my girlfriend shares these features? She not only refuses to forgive me for mingling with cashiers and passerby, she is flattered that I attribute it to like physical features. There's an example at the closest McDonald's restaurant. A cashier complimented my t-shirt one afternoon. I'd noticed her around the store for more than her sassy attire. McDonald's can't be that bad of a place to meet people. It's friendly. They've got a well-balanced clown on their side. And, on the subject of money, it's the cheapest place to eat on earth. Two dollars and eleven cents will get you two double cheeseburgers or chicken sandwiches, which are small, but sufficient. I'd go in there and get myself some more often, but I don't always have my lines rehearsed. Ahem.

Being poor and eating poor go hand in hand. Perhaps I shouldn't take this too much to heart since, McDonald's is poor eating. And just about piss-poor. I write of the food bank. It's the place to which Cub Scouts' canned food drives let out. You enter the cold garage and are offered a piece of raisin cake, usually. Based on your income, you can select a number of items from a wall of goods. Believe me, it's uncomfortable. Not proctology uncomfortable, but you want it to be over just the same. I've been there three times, and it doesn't get easier. I was lucky the last time. I got all the ingredients for my signature soup. Also, cheese sticks. There have got to be companies unloading surplus to this place. Quite a lot of healthy cereal, and a number of what appear to be rations. Boxed UHT milk, powdered milk, canned pork, spud flakes, and five pound bags of frozen french fries, all given as "commodities." Most of this was quite exotic to me. Not in a tropical vacation fare sort of way, but still.

My situation isn't so bad. I am single, save a girlfriend in the wing. I live alone, and enjoy an abundance of my own time. I have a computer that would make you think I'm rich. I'm rich from what I take on, often through the computer. There was a man in the food bank the last time I was there. He was ahead of me in line. I overheard the manager say to a worker there, "Twelve members in his household." He was Asian, most likely from Laos. For twelve people in his household, he received twelve items. Seemed like a drop in the bucket. When I don't want to bake my fries because they don't taste as good as McDonald's fries, I will think of this man opening twelve cans of beans or whatnot, for one dinner with his family of fortunate ones.

bust out the binary

2010-05-15T22:02:00.000-07:00

Chronic laziness has spread to most parts of my daily reading. Tylenol has precautions, but then, so does capitalism. I lost most faith in anything followed by all.

#0101

2010-01-29T00:31:00.000-08:00

Last New Years I was in a control room at a television station. I quit the next day, not entirely interested in how much I had cost the company in mistakes. The nation was and is on watch, so gaping black pauses were sure to be considered. In dealing with a new computer automation system, a sleazy cash loan franchise got air at zero past midnight. I tore out of the parking lot at quitting time, and disconnected the phone in my apartment.

I'm not a habitual drinker, nor social; impulsive maybe. I needed to be pressured by an attractive teenager to max out my credit card on vodka in and around the holiday season this year. My thirty-first birthday came around, my young neighbors helped me celebrate. I pretended to be middle eastern, which is not a running joke here in the Midwest. I posed for their camera phones, speaking much of the Spanish I have committed to memory. We were told to return to our rooms, that the laundry nook was not our personal party space. It would be bad form to write an age on the groundskeepers, here. They are elderly twins, female. They either live in or occupy a high room in the building. They live post new age, caught fancies of the computer age and the Internet. Two computers take up two desk spaces, and are perhaps networked via e-mail.

I finished up my birthday celebration, potent with joblessness. When the white lights and curious phone messages sank back out to sea, I saw the groundskeepers about an eviction notice I'd found taped to my door; which itself was framed in various offensive pencil markings. I am given twenty-eight days from the beginning of next month to find another place. I was given a send-off from the ladies upstairs. First she made some grumblings about how she doesn't believe in mental illness, or at least not in me. She cracked the spine of a yellowing paperback by a doctor I'd never heard of. In all case studies, niacin supplement decreased showings of schizophrenia. Though, niacin sounds so much like cyanide.

I was offered a few bites of foodstuffs, and some unfiltered cigarettes. I was not given direct reasons why I was being evicted, but I didn't really want to discuss nor refute any of the preceding new years celebration's contents. I showed nothing smug, or of surprise to the women. Without saying so, they assured me I'd be in their positive thoughts. One said, I needed to be around young people. Also, that my apartment faces north and I'm not getting enough sun. Perhaps they'll get one of those mini orange trees and transfer health on me through it.

It has become the truth between myself and the sun. A new medication, enforced, is shutting me out from most of the afternoon hours. I collapse in a heap of sleep with a dose of sedative fit to pad a hospital stay, each day. I awake in the night, metabolism crawling at the fridge. Another thing about it: I am not used to having back problems. I contracted spinal meningitis when I was sixteen, so people ask me about having back problems. I say they are cured, but few understand. Flopping out of half the day doesn't help my posture, especially since the prescription was sudden. I'm beginning to sympathize with others who complain--with equal caution as I'd expect when discussing a spinal infection.

Following through with publicizing matters, I'll have a few items to donate once things begin to wind up here in this apartment. I see this shelter as just another focal point from which to stand aloft and see the galaxy, except mixed up a bit from where you are, for instance. Things don't always look up for me, or for anyone, as I'm told. I have a number of alarm clocks collected here. Most of them are not set, and one is flashing 12:00. I'm hoping that in post apocalyptic radiation it might mutate into a VHS player.

#0100

2009-07-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

The carpet and draperies might be the only things louder than the family that has taken up a table behind me. The section is deserted, save us, and the two primly attractive young girls on the other end. I just gave the café a compliment, too. I gave up smoking --in part, I told her, for the restaurant's smoking ban. I think now that it should have bartered me some privacy. This is still the best I can do for twenty-four hours, without hitchhiking. Earlier today, I dined at a different diner with my dad. With this, he stared into my eyes with every pore on his face. He recommended solving my automotive crisis by hitchhiking small distances. He'd let the subject go for twelve years, where on the week of my eighteenth birthday he drilled in the possibility of a vicarious journey across the hitches of these great motorways, through me. I have gone hitchhiking, when I was younger than eighteen. I hadn't run off from home. No, I was in the magical land of Canada, visiting an uncle in a rural area. I am in one piece and now twice my original age.

It's a saturday night, and I rarely write in this tense. Nor do I ever freely bash anyone teenager style. Hell, I wouldn't know the shorthand. Two, perhaps three, individuals followed me to this café nonetheless, and will be roasted in a honey glaze, later on. Lucky for my writing, I am not glazed over from any sort of van ride. I chose not to hitchhike. I really didn't have the energy to bestow a condensed personality to a car full of impulsive young ones. A black cat had crossed the sidewalk path, earlier in my journey. Flagging down cars might not be the best way to avoid the man who lurks down every alley. It's, best to stay inconspicuous. These guys really do look like the cartoon silhouette on the neighborhood watch stickers, except with a tilted baseball hat. There's no neighborhood watch sticker on the door to this restaurant. There is only speed dial to "taser guns mean big fun!" I stopped at McDonald's before coming here, another saloon waiting to happen. I ate a $2.49 meal in place of the more expensive one I could have eaten at this café. I was pretty sure I had spotted my nemesis on a date. He sure cleaned up well. But this couldn't be him, not juvenile enough. I'm sure he'd assure me, he hasn't been a juvenile since such and such a year. I nervously ate my ice cream cone, given first! I am terrible with faces, and the right hat can really set things off. In any case, I continued on my journey feeling as though I had avoided great peril. Or, at least I had reduced the chances of seeing another man of my nemesis's description, such as the man, for sure, himself.

Or so it would be thought. En route to the restroom I spotted the same twirled cap as at Mickey D's, entertaining two smiling ladies. No fault of his, his double date, or double identity to me that night, I was unable to concentrate. I headed home, checking, paranoid, over my shoulder. The preceding two paragraphs are stamped in bringing the inking of this entry to the present. I have made again the trip to the restaurant, still somewhat spooked. After all, I was called, "Bitch!" only ten steps from the parking lot, from a small van. There's a hope I hold on to, that my fears are unfounded if not irrational. In a city of this size, they are not necessarily irrational. However, so much intimidation precedes the fights that even fizzle. I wanted to pull some of the same acts of profanity and command over the young Christian family of four seated by me last time. There's a older southern belle and her localized mother eating waffles at the next table, now. At least they're hip and metro enough for breakfast at night. Her accent is really something to meditate on, as well. I've brought this entry accurately to the present, the ink in my pen is nearly flowing backward.

Aside from the southern exotica one table down, to be honest, this town isn't offering me much in the way of attractions. Perhaps worse than a young person's Internet scathing, the way that they do... is a deep dark secret Internet log, like suicide note material. Thus far, I'd allow anyone and the mentioned culprit to my fears to read up, though intuition toward context is a must in comprehension. Ha. This all reminds me of how the smartest boy in my grade school class chose to work on farms and railroads later in life. He was cultured in the underground, could appear ignorant, but was for sure crass by choice. He did not need to be told when someone was complimenting him. There is a creature (and this is not a complement to my nemesis) that can require more translation. The creature has a higher comprehension level per capita, equal intimidation level on average, and avoidance tends to center around something inexplicable rather than self preservation. I'm talking about girls. My current attention is on one girl, and I suppose this is healthy. She is an ex-girlfriend from many years past, but we have skipped the stone of knowing for the many years between then and now. I see here in my notebook that I have written all sorts of explanation as to my re-burning for her. She calls me every day with caring in her voice. She's not particularly creative with her time, which I guess is something I wouldn't ever need to validate by my standards. The longest career move she took was working with retarded people, so I guess I'm pretty well covered for any care-taking I may require. She's got this totally hot way of smoking a cigarette. Though, she tells me she's fat now, having gained a great deal of weight since last seeing me. She's kind of built me up to the kill, licking my lips in anticipation. In spite of her pain over it, I will probably only perceive that her face has shrunk a little. People seldom change much in the watcher's eye.

I am invited to move with her, and at a time when my well being feels threatened in my surroundings. It's easy to be skeptical, that it's a fix. I am weighing how much it is an offer, and how much it is a suggestion I am pushing for my own purposes. I consider these in every question and statement I make about it with the girl. I would be five counties between myself and a fist, but then, maybe five feet from an array of tentacles... "I'm kidding, Girl!" I sounded a bit like Woody Allen on the phone to her in the end. I was neurotic, cathartic, even sincere while kidding. I'd heard her voice before, it said, "Make sweet love to me." She gave an itinerary of how it were going to be. Only a hoop or two and we'd be in Shacksville. I was to visit once, and if all's well we move in by her birthday in October. There is more than this, I know. There is nostalgia, which will serve to remind us of our ages. This is potentially a terrible turn-off. We ain't that old, but the numbers look big. A related hurdle is familiarity. I doubt anything will prove mechanically impossible, that's not what I mean. The way we might still clash will sting double having tasted it twice. Once now and once in the past. Then again, we may not take that road of emotions. We might strip down and mock relationship past to that good old time rock and roll.

As luck would have it, the girl's ex-boyfriend showed up on her door, drunk. I imagined him wearing leather and it being pouring rain. I just wonder if it will be my job to stand beside her with a pitchfork, in the future. I didn't like imagining this, I wanted her to deliver the job while reading the Great Gatsby. How ever it went over, I tossed it aside like the many times it had happened to me. Times she's had an existing boyfriend, she's shown up on my doorstep with two suitcases, intoxicated to see me, and I'm not complaining, however... It's actually relieving the girl has gotten herself some needs.

As far as she goes as a whole, she's never hurt me. She's kind of a dough doll though, easy to dig a nail in. I've quote only unquote cheated twice in my life, both times she was living three hundred miles away, she with a brand new boy friend in her basement. We came to a warm, small worded resolve on the telephone that Spring, and moved forward. A couple of years later, two years into basement boy's reign, she confided in me that she had not had sex since last having sex with me. This was refreshing. Dropping off my newly ex'd ex in high school, she was proud to tell me about her new boyfriend's virginity breaking on my bed at last weekend's party. She doesn't like to talk about these things, she's a lady on and off the streets. Sometimes there are couples that I'd rather not imagine in the sheets. Then there are couples that make me say, "Huh, I wonder about all that." We exist out there, the two of us are not a new nor a pestilent animal. I tell her not to worry, that I know she's pretty and probably more spectacular than she's giving her herself credit for (or that I can do justice). She'd probably hate it that I am writing about her, very modest. I could still face her with a manuscript of this entry, my opinions untouched. She fears in ways I do too, but like most with me, is quick to call me out as crazy. She's been called out as crazy as well, takes more medications than I do. There's a chance in Hell that if we don't drive each other crazy, we'll at least do the domestic side of reaffirming one another's state of unreality. That's a lot of worms to end on, but if we do work out --it will be nice to have it drilled in that our minds have gone by the time that they do.

#011

2009-06-25T12:25:00.000-07:00

Never before have I awaited an outcome before writing on it. I know that it is the spine of journalism to do so. Still, a piece simply about a sport like baseball, can be masterful. I do not write about a game or a match, except that of cat and mouse. The game is one I play with patrol cars in my town solely for reasons of paranoia. I carry no contraband or warrants. But, for the time I've been driving the car, I've been asked to pay for some ill-planned parking jobs. I have four outstanding parking tickets. The first is an account in the data banks of my visiting a border town between mine and another state. This might raise an eyebrow to some assigned overseers of my inhabitance in my own town. Then again, it's probably paranoia to think a mid town psychiatric unit would care to hack into my traffic history. They've got to be doing something with those new whiz-bang computers, though. I do not intend to lament on the healthy shits that supervise my medication taking, only, the fuzz.

There's a relief when the swirling lights in my rear-view mirror turn out not to be for me. There are generally computations of probability that either the police car is going somewhere else, or looking for someone different. I count the cars around me. Then, there is the resignment when his tires, too, scratch down on the shoulder. This countless time I'd been pulled over, I had a friend with me. He suggested removing our identification cards, maybe to take the edge off how nervous I was acting. I hadn't had anything to drink, and I had pulled into a parking lot to avoid blocking traffic. It was an adorable miniature car chase, complete with intermittent siren. It was more of a mini parade, really. In any case, I removed my safety belt so as to more easily get at my wallet, where my proof of identity is stored. As I said, I had not been drinking, and the police officer did not question that. He did cite me for nervousness, and that's got to be a bit of a paradox for the boys. Alcohol can tend to smooth out social conflict. Not always, but such that I'd call it probable that it would act as a charm to a friendly policeman like this officer.

That aside, I was given a warning, written-- printed, for expired registration. Also, as if someone had flipped on a television right before my eyes, I was being read a court summons for a seatbelt violation. Recall, I had removed my seatbelt because pants were a little tight, in getting to my wallet. Court eh? Seemed pretty binary to me. Either I was wearing it or I wasn't. If he needed this to be heard as much as I did, game on! I adhere to the speak when spoken to rule with law enforcement, if I can help it. I don't believe he asked if I had any questions. Only, if I understood, and, "OK..?" and such. I did want to tell him right there that I'd been wearing my belt. But, his car was packing Internet, and the date of reckoning had already been set. It was a case of shooting first, "OK..?"

I had a witness, who could at least stick by his story enough to convince, maybe, a judge as well as he convinced me that he could stick by a story. There would be two visits to the courthouse in the downtown of my town. Many times I thought of tapping my friend's knee and saying, "U-turn, now!" There are more stages to traffic justice than I counted on. There were crowded waiting rooms, and long general briefings to fifteen or so other weary drivers. This process was no drive-thru. Seems pretty severe to plead not-guilty through a shitty microphone over a seatbelt violation. The judge looked up from where he had surely been doodling. The whites of his eyes flashed round like doughnuts. It may puzzle him a lifetime, for the case did not go to trial. On the day of the pretrial meeting, my friend and I played phone tag, requesting just another half hour of sleep, and screw the pancakes. We arrived midway through the filling of the short foyer of chairs leading to the court chambers. My friend had been out the night before, I'd skipped my sedatives as a precaution. I hunched in my seat, and he slouched with slits for eyes. A courtroom might not always be so conducive to staying awake. Especially traffic court? The inexperienced would be surprised, I'm sure. There's a soapbox at the front, and it's derby time!

The first fellow to take the podium was foreign, Asian. The man was older, which I wouldn't have suspected. Many Asian teenagers in my community soup up small four cylinder imports, and with loud exhaust systems. Surely this tendency would land a frequent young Laotian in this room. Not for any stereotypes, and not for this reason, did I not know just what was going on. The man had either failed to stop completely at a stop sign and had been caught... or, look! Chewbacca! He had a medical excuse from a doctor, apparently. The story was that he needed to use the bathroom, very very badly. He is a business owner, and when the squad comes by to pick up their coming donation, they can stick it, is what he said. Oh, this was going to be great.

Though, only one other who attested to citation was notable in this way. One guy seemed to be trying very hard to be as assertive, but was obviously very nervous. He did very well, nonetheless. There was a younger girl there about the technical fouls involved in her recent accident. Her mother was seated in the audience. She was soft spoken, which gave a breath of politeness to the room. I'm sure they get these all the time. The aforementioned notable driver was challenging a speeding ticket given very close to the police station. The argument was over a lack of proof that the cops weren't just fucking with him, which he all but said was the case. He said he'd pay the fine, but he wasn't stopping there. I don't think the pun was intended. He left the podium before the bailiff could serve him his reduced fee citation. He was called back, and he complied, which was just the anticlimactic end to the hearing that was needed.

It's surprising when someone nails the pronunciation of my last name. The District Attorney did, and we were off to a rockin' start. I explained the story. When the clarity of the mishap clicked for her (the D.A.), I read her face and sigh as "Wow, that sucks..." I'd gotten what I wanted at that point. There was now higher legal acknowledgment that someone's got a happy touchpad pressing finger, and a badge with their name on it. I said nothing to the panel of the integrity or manners of the city police force; I really couldn't top anything already said. The D.A.'s decision was to stick me with the fine, anyhow. I hadn't come to debate, only to share an interesting story, and maybe get my ten spot back from the city. A break was given on the registration; yes, I should have told the officer I was buckled up priorly, she affirmed. "Can you not pay ten dollars [only]?" I looked to see my friend drooling into his lap, or trying to hide in some primal way. She got me there. Ten dollars is a good week of helping out panhandlers in my old town. I guess I could get a street salted and sanded this winter, thus reducing the need for a seatbelt. I was handed a stapled version of the same citation. The bailiff smiled at me, as most of the previous resolved cases received a wary cautioning glance. Some microphone feedback might have roused my friend. He was awake when I returned to my seat to gather my bandanna and original citation. Either the D.A. couldn't hear me well, or I would be too loud. Maybe it had something to do with my greater familiarity with more expensive microphones. I'm unsure, but it's likely these microphones cut out a need for a stenographer. Might all go down to the archives on solid state in your favorite compression format like so many light years of microfiche.

I sent the check off today. There was no visible due date on the new fine. There was the date of my meeting with the District Attorney, I'm sure. That was the date, right? I keep asking myself, and concluding, no, that cannot be the due date. Not the same day. Absurd, but absurd to think she left no deadline for payment. What a favor. Like, if I held the paper up to a candle there would be a map to the attic above her garage, and a date there. The envelope is already at the post office, and like some office memo, the header proclaiming, "...CAN RESULT IN CONTEMPT OF COURT!!!" is followed by three exclamation points. I'm not exactly sure who to criticize for all of this hometown style injustice. All of us in this story are a little guilty of perpetuating what those in some higher standings might consider trite. People dig their own cars. It's like I'm at home when I drive one. Nobody likes to be bothered in either place. Cars can be beautiful, and rarely are they ugly. They possess expression, and are often cute and personal as a result. So, when a car gets scratched, there can be repercussions. One of the calmer persons to take the stand told of being chased to a parking lot and told she had hit this lady's car. The woman admitted there was a sizable scratch, but she did not recall a collision. The other party's report was apparently exaggerated. The cop agreed the damage was negligible to invisible. She was told she could either accept a seventy dollar fine instead of an eighty dollar fine, or the case could go to trial. "Um, [this sucks] but I think I'll take it to trial." I think she will enjoy showing up the plaintiff's cool, and I applaud her. It's not my job to decide on this case, and it seems I've seen it before in television small claims. But, it's nice to see the promenade of lunacy slowed by a little w.t.f.?

I believe I've tapped this jug of irony about dry. My car has a spare tire attached to its axle, and it is rusting from the spoiler holes. I bears expired license plates. The bumper stickers are on straight. My car's appearance might be somewhat vagabond, but I don't care too much. It's street legal, and it's not the car with the crooked bumper stickers. I've ridden a skateboard more of my life, than driven a car. I've cross dressed for homecoming. I can ride four wheels, and trick out my threads. Man, don't tell me I can't wear a belt.

#010

2009-06-08T18:56:00.000-07:00

For lack of a carefully calculated segue to opening this entry, I'll simply announce the topic. (As I have done in conversations for the last seven days.) I have quit smoking! And now, I have had about five urges to smoke in the time it has taken me to find myself at this juncture in the writing. Well, when considering the time it takes to smoke a cigarette, much less five, I certainly wouldn't have been so productive by now. We could prove this to a very great extent, perhaps. I am clipping along on the keyboard very well now. But, I suspect chin scratching and ear picking might replace some of the puffing. Aside from a couple of e-mails, this is my first attempt at composition while having nicotine clear of my system-- That is, since I've been fourteen years old. I suppose targeting my own story of quitting is brave, as far as keeping cigarettes off my mind. It's mostly these untouchable day-glo butterflies I seem to have to worry about though...

In some seriousness, quitting smoking cigarettes has yielded mild hallucinations in me. I've seen spiders for brief moments, and then they'd be gone. More than seeing things, I've been loopy. Waking up each morning, I find I am thinking very hard about something, it could be anything. It is usually related to my physiology, and a need it might have. Only, instead of just my stomach needing cereal and milk; my left foot needs orange juice in a weird way. These psychological effects are not unlike having the flu. In fact, my nose is running a bit right now. I find it interesting that stopping cold turkey is not shunned. The withdrawal is violent. It may not be too destructive to stick one's foot in the juice pitcher in a deprived daze, if the worst were to come. Using one's imagination, though, a half awake ether-like dream state could cause problems. For instance, the somnambulist cartoon character who steps on the hoe. Without a doubt, the last thing I need at a time like this is a hoe up in my face.

Quitting will always be measured in time. I'm informed it takes about two weeks of the real concentration camp. Then, the urges subside, and the want of tobacco is pretty nil. It's been about seven days, for me now. Seven weeks shouldn't be a problem... Seven years... decades? I'm thirty, I suppose it's conceivable now. From such a habit as I've had, the quitting is ranked by duration to date. Staying clear for a week says something, but still very little. There is a threshold by which the explanation turns from "I quit," to "I don't smoke." I remain very serious about my intent not to smoke. However, you don't call the family to dinner before the spaghetti is boiling. I will have become a non smoker when n = last day of considerable span without cigarettes, projected, seems reasonable. I have tried to quit twice during my identity as a smoker. The first was a pact between myself and a friend. These things are meant to be broken, and it was. The second and last time I attempted it was at college. I think college isn't the best place to quit smoking. Throwing a horrible nagging feeling into the mix of academics doesn't help much with the stress. I bought a pack of Newport 100s (about the strongest sticks available) after three days. My motivation might have been skewed from the start. I was challenged by a nice looking girl, who said she'd give me "a candy bar" if I quit. It eluded me, how to approach the girl and collect on the deal. It did occur to me that I might be able to play the system and get more than one Oh! Henry out of the agreement.

A well known personality test said of me, "...Bites off more than he can chew, but manages to get it all done." Many "smokers" cease tending their addiction for certain events, Lent, a few weeks holiday, a month even; you know, 'cause it's good to quit. I have quit three times, determined only now. There are a number of factors that I believe are going to help, though they are negative in nature. I am unemployed, and not attending school. Also I have a very relaxed social life, at the moment. I have the time to contemplate, and break down, each mental grasp for the pack of smokes. Also, I'm not on any sort of schedule in which cigarette times are mounted up to. I'd suggest employers give medically insured workers the option of taking a half-pay sabbatical in order to trek through the first few weeks of desisting on the cigs. Of course, some playing of the system would make this method of help, probably, uneconomical. I know, if I had a job with health insurance and sabbatical, I'd be affording my ciggies.

On that subject of work, I mentioned that my reason for quitting is financial. Simply, I cannot afford it, unless I work. If I worked, I would undoubtedly smoke again. The rationale came when I put the two in the balance. I dislike work more than I like cigarettes. And, not pouring ten dollars into the U.S. Treasury each day is more punk rock than doing so and Fonz'ng out with a coffin nail.

Camping with friends, a late conversation led to existentialist pondering of the cigarette. One friend said she had been thinking of giving it up. Another said only, "It's a lonely world." I may not smoke, but I may never identify as a non smoker as do some quitters I've spoken with. I may belly up to the smoking circle and get the good word on the street. I may roll cigarettes for those with a lesser talent, or experience. My urges may mock me. Of course they will as I continue to go out for coffee, and have no preference for which section I be seated. I could not possibly want a cigarette more than I do right now, writing about how I do. And, I may find myself wanting one like this in the future, as my friends blow smoke rings around me in public places. They are existing friends, and I cannot think less of them just as I think no more of myself. I am no more elite, educated, or otherwise than someone who has been smoking during the past seven days.

Many of my friends smoke, if not most. I was raised by bad asses and the sexually underage. The fact that the dating ring has widened a bit is nice, come to think of it. Though, I would attach no new criteria. Foremost in the New Order would be what I profess of my experience. I pray not to preach. I will say this: By quitting smoking, one lives life more the way the majority believes he should. It may not be a better life, but it is in regard to how the alternative is lived when affected by popular opinion.

#01

2009-05-09T18:29:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of reasons not to record something in writing. As much as the law tries to report on even minor infractions, it is quite possible most non fiction goes unwritten. Many people live secluded lives, and don't write, or are never written about. When being a self bio journalist there often comes a time when it must be decided what is not to be written. This format leaves the piece wide open to readership, and I try not to be to bridled by it. I have family viewers who sometimes politely dodge around in referring to the content with me. The risqué passages are not the only I write in white, when I do. This is where it all comes out. And do I have the courage to write about something very embarrassing? By embarrassing I mean to encompass what I wouldn't share with my circle of weblog subscribers, nor even a stranger floating by this page. Even if the entry is anonymous, from its public entity dangle tendrils back to my conscience. There are recent events in my life I may not write about until my memoirs. Some stories of the recent past cannot be told entirely, because they would require narration reserved for my memoirs. I apologize for the cliffhangers. Understand, right now I walk down to the other end of my hallway in cautious unease. Perhaps the reader would like to know what I find when I sit down to use the bathroom. It's somewhat interesting, or has become so, more than its bare wonder. The pot of stories is actually dribbling over.

I am prescribed to and am supervised on taking psychiatric medication. The office where I gargle the tablets is across town. Since my car broke down (See memoirs), I have been faced four days per week with walking a few miles round trip. I am drunk by the time I reach my doorstep, and lucky to squeeze in another few hours of anything between naps. My dishes, clothes, floors, bed, all -well, were- disgusting. I'd taken to falling asleep on whichever landing suited itself. Then I was fresh for the next day with that fell- asleep- in- these- clothes feeling. Now I will describe the plunge my pride took when I was informed by my sister, by telephone on a Tuesday, that I were to be evicted... or sign up for once- a- week housekeeping at a charge of $100 per month. The groundskeeper, who is technically a resident, had been over to experiment with remote control codes concerning the air conditioning system in the building. Best I can reckon, the morphed scent of tobacco smoke on the shag rugs didn't set well with her sixty- or- so year old olfactory system. Residents had complained of the smell. With the exception of the nether regions of my hall, most of my neighbors have been over recently. Some, habitually, and while I slept. If any of these neighbors have complained and are peering into my life right now, "Fucking stay out!" I'm joking, like any neighbor I'm sure we could work something out.

The Merry Maid, or merry custodian, will be coming by this Monday to check the place out. My plan is to baffle them with an apartment as clean as to an abstract degree. I've got a disorderly conduct ticket on me, and if by similar means or by apathy I let the grime go, I weigh cleaning preferable to getting an eviction on my record. Feels a spiteful demonstration enough... if not an entirely conceding grovel. My room is gradually becoming less squalid, the laundry done and twenty-cent cola cans de-barnacled. In my wary scoot past the far door, I found I wished I lived in Michigan where these cans were worth recycling and I might need all these sweatshirts. If I lived in Michigan things could be better, I thought.

This is the lighter of my recent inner dwellings. I try so desperately to keep it hidden beneath my short stack of current event knowledge when conversing with people. Anyone would care to listen, for sure, to anything I've been keeping down. My stories are not the usual cry of heartbreak, injustice, debt, or even are they long winded dissertations. Given they are not endearing, but nor are they pleas to be heard. Of course not. You think I'm going to tell you this stuff..? There is one other thing I seem to have forgotten. It's not much to tell, and I share some of the embarrassment taken from it. I was hit by a car about two weeks ago. Actually I was hit twice. Apparently the screaming of the girl's friend in the passenger seat didn't immediately register as queue to apply and secure the brake. She was obviously embarrassed, apologizing in near tears. Probably a lot to cope with, for her, as the week goes on. I was a bit embarrassed to be looking like I thought I could stop a car to the approaching pedestrian. Maybe this is why I've told very few people about it. Or, maybe I'm learning the art of not talking about myself to people, the way of suckling them into knowing only what I can bear not to censor.

#0

2009-04-13T00:22:00.000-07:00

On this day of Easter, I ate alone. The meal was free, I having taken advantage of a restaurant's round of charity. I find my economic troubles of late, hard to talk about. It was suggested to me by a psychiatric professional that I make the call to secure the dinner. The staff person who answered my call was friendly enough. I did not ask if the meal was indeed free, but it occurred to me later that maybe i should have. In the passing weeks I've asked my dining companions, “You got this one?” just to be sure there had been no miscommunication. I've tried to author an adage, that “Free” is a spice. That is to say, that when there is no cost to food, the taste is enhanced. It is fortunate when something can be spared. It is less fortunate to be spared. When I opened my Styrofoam carton on my kitchen's card table, the gray light shone on the divided portions of food. The restaurant's selfless spice wafted up to sting my nostrils.

Some time in the spirituous time leading up to this year's Easter celebration, I spoke with a male peer outside his apartment building. I spoke of my wish to skateboard in the coming months of dry pavement. Admittedly to him, I'd been the town fool, “trying out” skateboards of young kids. I know a couple of tricks that don't tax exertion, and I'm happy to share. The kids generally flee after I've dispensed a cigarette, and this hardly makes it as a NaMbLa Monthly cover. I skated in my youth, and I've shown that the skills involved decline over time. My friend, whom I'd been speaking to, offered me a slightly used skateboard for a very small sum. It was the first of many trade-offs I considered since then... For example, considering the price and volume of gas station toilet paper over store bought. Not to mention that through my poverty goggles, the skateboard appeared as a stack of nine McDonald's double cheeseburgers.

Some personal checks I put through the floor might pass in court with an insanity plea, I jest. A portion of the service charge will be dismissed; I regained a conscience when six envelopes showed up in my mailbox, and I called the number. A judge in a different town cut my disorderly conduct ticket in half, after I said I'd been on half my medication. This was in regards to the disorderly conduct that was intro to Act II of my life's instability. This time, at odds with money, it was easy to seek solace in the pit of my stomach, a canceled checking account, no transportation to the pawn shop, a defunct car with a lien. In ways, I was living out a short story I had written in school. In that, my concern over these things had widened to the ever present and unsolvable. I cooked the last, a pizza crust mix in a bread pan, and went to the mall foyer to play guitar for change.

Snippets of talk radio tell me very little from all angles. Sign on the street was the guy `i gave a buck eighty-two and a Marlboro, who said he was hungry. This, in this city that has but a meniscus in metropolis status. I show up in a political chat room, but it's like a lecture hall not barring silly string. I hang with several friends I've never met in order to pass Easter, tonight. I'd have a job if I hadn't quit mine at the beginning of the year. I'd thought I was doing an excellent job of mastering the new software system, until we aired an “American Cash to Go” commercial at the stroke of midnight... when the ball drops in Times Square. Easter, Twenty aught-nine is to say it, marking resurrection. I gather some from the newsreels. Like in adolescence, it's not clear what the Teens will bring. But, the price of cigarettes is now three times that of gasoline. For a moment I pondered siphoning gasoline out of my car and reselling it. It occurs to me now that I might have wanted to sell back minutes on my calling card. I find it hard to ask for food, asking for money alone. I almost want to peer at people peculiarly, incite a guessing game, until they guess that I am hungry.

I encounter the occasional news article of note on Internet chat rooms. And, I got up to date weather reports on last year's blizzard in Seattle, firsthand, from a resident. Still, I learned a lot from working at a TV station, with a half hour of news every night. I have my vices. In addition to chat rooms, there is fast food. I've applied for a web design gig, but I have an application to my neighborhood grocery store.