#01

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

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.