"How come when it rains, it pours?"

That is the text message I just sent to my mommy, who of course is terribly concerned about me. As I hit send, I thought about an inspirational art piece hanging on the wall in the bathroom of this coffee place for you to contemplete while you shit. You know, just in case you have no receipts or voter resigtration cards in your wallet to read. The thing says:

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...it's about learning to dance in the rain."

So unexpectedly beautiful and inspiring for folk art wisdom in a W.C. But it seriously fails to consider acid rain and the harmful effects that extended contact with this poison infused precipitation can cause. What can I say, I'm a realist.

Okay okay, I'm a pessimist. Maybe I'm a horticulturalist.
I definitely have some sort of 'ist' attached to whatever adjective I am.

I wrote something last night and too long, graphic, and personal to post here, but I'll tell you that it included a new promise to myself, a vow if you will, to get out of my Aunt's house for a while each day, and go somewhere and write. I am fulfilling this promise right now, which I guess makes me awesome, even though I'm still unemployed, but hey, at least I'm pretty.

I purchased a biscotti to dip in my under-sugared coffee, which disappointed me direly. You know how it is with biscotti. It's either really good, really bad, or some where in between. I'm sad to report that I ate it anyway.

I'm happy to report that I bought 3 books at the Goodwill donation center/bookstore next door for a grand total of $6.48 which is awesome. I guess I just want to buy as many books as I can with money I shouldn't be spending to make it even more annoying to move again. I love love love books but why does having a library to display your intellect to visitors come at such a heavy cost?

The most hilarious thing about right now is that I came here to get away from noise and people blah blah blahing, but the radio is playing as loud as the widescreed at Auntie's and the two other patrons here have been in an animated and echoing conversation with one of the employees for the past 15 minutes. Maybe I just need my own quiet place that no one knows about that has electricity and air conditioning and is also free. I probably should just go to the library so the librarians can "shhhhh" any one who tries to start any shit. Oh wait, there's no library in Jonestown or anywhere with in reasonable 98 degree driving distance.

I hate the country. Whay can't the world just be continuous city?

I've discovered something about myself lately which has always been true. I like to be around people but have them leave me alone. I like background noises: traffic, construction, the hum of many conversations, but I don't want to be involved in it. The same is true when I sleep. I can't sleep in quiet. I need a noisy fan or tv turned down low.
When I'm out in the country, the peacefulness lulls my mind onto a coma. Except in my Auntie's tiny over populated home. There, the noises are disturbances and the only way to get away from them is to go out side, where it's too hot and quiet.
Blah blah blah.

Not at all complaining

I had to get out of the house, so I came to Mocha Latte in Jonestown, which is nice and completely out of place in this little town that is so desperately trying to reform itself from the speed freak capital of the hill country. It may be succeeding, because it's starting to resemble quaint. At least on the main thoroughfare. Who can tell what hides down the pitted side streets that take you into the trailer park?

God I love it out here!

I actually wanted to go to some sort of poetry reading, writing group, open mic, etc. but struggled with the idea of driving 35-40 miles one way just to do it. I'll let you guess what won.
Sadly this oasis of semi-culture is closing in 25 minutes, and the owners are already giving me the stink eye, as if to say, "I hope she knows we close at 8."
And I do, and I'm so very sad that I'll soon return to my Auntie's crowded abode. Between the televisions blaring, and the washing machine squealing, and the human body heat accruing, and Don, my uncle's brother's toothless cackling, and the dogs..oh Jesus there are so many dogs!

But of course I am not one to complain.

What oh what will I do with the rest of my evening? Perhaps get started on watching one of the 4 Harry Potter movies that Cris bought for me. Oh wait, I forgot that Don the Toothless has usurped the living room and its 40 inch tv screen as his own personal Sci-Fi channel viewing room.

No, I reckon I'll look around on Craigslist for a job so I can feel like I'm actually trying, before giving up in frustration and tears at my abysmal lack of qualifications to do anything I'd like to...
Watch out, the tears might start early.

But of course I'm not one to complain.

This is not the place for me

I hear her walking down the hall
She says “I love her”
I think “I hate myself”

The smell and presence of canids is overwhelming
It’s stifling
The heat bakes us in this aluminum tube
And there is always someone around
Making some sort of noise
We are too many miles from town

She’s walking by
And my brain is baking
It is slovenly, atrophied
Depressed with calamity
And I just don’t know

Why did I pack up my things
And come here
Expecting a life
But there is no life

Where people can love me when I am most wretched
They call this the “Hollow”
Because that’s where your soul goes
It’s placed on the saliva stringing
Tongues of hungry dogs begging
Sucked into the television
You watch grinning stupidly
As it milks your almost everything

I left my home now I am homeless
I sit inside here I am lifeless

Why did I pack my things and leave?
This is not the place for me

Sun shining on an empty driveway

I make lists of things to write about that I never seem to get around to. I just write it down, fold it up, and tell myself I'll do it later. But invariably a funk sets in, and I no longer care anything about what I cared enough about to write down to remember to write about.
That last sentence was just confusing enough to amuse me, so it stays.
I bought a briefcase at an estate sale earlier for $2.50 and they said they didn't know the combination, but I closed the lock, moved the numbers around, and it seemed to open right up when I got back to 000, so I'm gonna go ahead and assume that's the combination.
Now if I could only figure out how to change it to something a little harder to figure out... something like 123.
I wanted to write about how I almost burned down my Aunt's kitchen yesterday, but I already wrote about that last night. I'll just quote myself:

"I'm feeling a little better today. Little did I know, my uncle is an extremely good pep-talker. He should consider a career in motivational speaking.
I almost burned down my Aunt's kitchen making potato chips. Should have just bought a bag of Lay's.
I thought I would handle myself a little better in a kitchen crisis, what with all my restaurant experience, but as the flames rose from the stove top and from inside the oven, I couldn't for the life of me remember what to do. I basically just ran around the kitchen squealing at such a pitch that only the dogs could hear me, trying to remember what you're supposed to use to put out grease fires.
"Salt!...No"
"Sugar!...No."
"Water!...No." I'm remembering countless training videos which instruct you to never ever put water on a grease fire. I'm remembering these as I'm filling up a bowl with water, preparing to pour. Thank god my uncle's brother had the calm sense to grab a pot lid to stiffle the fire until we figured out what to do. Thank god some genius shouted "BAKING SODA!!!!" before I caused and even bigger calamity with my bowl of H20.
Needless to say, an inch or two has been sawed off the legs of my shining kitchen pedestal. But don't worry, I'm not so much humbled as embarrassed, but that will pass, and I'll have that spring in my strut back in no time."

There it is...just saved myself alot of work.
The dryer, which is right next to my temporary room, makes this noise that can only be described as the noise that the nob on the washin machine makes when you turn it so you can start a cycle. But for some reason the dryer is making this sound every two seconds, and now it's doing this squeal like a rusty swing set, and I think I'm going to snap any second.
And by snap, I mean snap along to the rhythm of the dryer. Man oh man, that is a hip tune!
No but seriously, I'd rather wear dirty clothes, or clothes crispened by sun drying for the rest of my life than listen to that sound. It is maddening.

Now I'm trying to drown it all out with some Brand New. I'm listening to this for one line, which I know hearing will quell my melancholy malady, for a while anyway.

"Every line is about who I don't want to write about any more."

Every word of every sentence is a side step of everything I want to say that I've already said. Every period marking the end of every sentence is occasion for me to pause, turn my head to the right, and see a still empty driveway. Every breath is a concentrated act to control the welling from my gut to my esophagus to my throat. Every thought is skewed and convoluted. I wish I could say I'm through with it. But I'm not a liar.

"Holding on to your grudge, oh it's so hard to have someone to love."

This is too long.

Low

Even though I'm sure I am constantly littering my blog with whining rants about my special feelings, blah blah blah, I 'try' not to. Despite this most considerate effort, I'm abandoning it right now because I'm despressed and I want to whine.
I'm very sad, and I won't be able to get myself out of it by having winning thoughts or writing affirmations. I know that only time will heal my wounds yadda yadda, but I don't have time. In fact, my watch just broke about an hour ago. What does that tell you?
I am 25 years old and now find myself and 80% of my belongings living at my Aunt's house, and I'm crying 35% of the time at anything, and I'm trying to pump iron so I can feel good about one thing which is being hot, but I haven't crossed the border from Fatsylvania yet.
I'm here because I can't be the only one who tries. I can't be the only calm and reasonable one. I can't be the only one doing sweet things to show I care. I can't be the only one willing to do anything at all, because if only I do it, I may as well not have done it at all.
But I'm still in love.
I'm pretty sure that everyone thinks I'm a stupid idiot and that I suck, but I wouldn't really know since my phone gets no reception in BFE and my car is broken, so now my only friends are either canid or part of a soap opera cast and the only one I have to hold me at night, on the couch, is my purple teddy bear. Actually I hold the bear. This is very sad.
But hey, on the bright side I still have a keen sense of self pity.
And when will I stop looking out of the window every time I hear any sort of noise that could possibly be coming from outside, hoping that it's him, coming with flowers and promises of doing anything to make it work because that's how much he loves me?
The sooner the better. Delusional never really was my color.
Why am I constantly hearing the sound of car engines drawing near. I'm feeling low but I'm pretty sure I'm not that crazy yet. Talk to me when I start seeing headlights endlessly climbing the driveway.
Actually don't talk to me. Just have me committed.

The sky looks like a sunset in a bad mood, like tonight we see god’s darker side, but he’s still looking pretty good. A bright red radio tower light blinks, miles away, as if in flagrant display of what it can see or say that we can’t. I’m walking down the stairs of my apartment building, toward my car, which I will then drive, toward the bar, where I will drown this disposition in $2.50 draughts.
My boyfriend is at his weekly Sunday softball game. As he was leaving, I said, “you didn’t even invite me,” to which he replied, is just so many words, “I didn’t really want you to go.” So I watched some porn, packed up my computer, put some mascara on so I would look just cute enough, and headed out to drink a solo toast to Jesus on his most special of weekdays. I’ll probably toast more than once.
I find myself in one of the few bars left in America that allows smoking, and I’m finding the cigar’s and cigarette’s noxious exhaust, both fresh and aged to a stale perfection, are contributing nicely to my desired ambiance. That, combined with the undecipherable bombilation of background chatter, makes a mighty fine mood for sipping, drinking, or chugging some beer. Depends on your style.
I can imagine the scene when I get home. I’ll, hopefully, stumble through the door, reeking of beer and fumes, but then again so will he. He will be angry that when he left me alone, instead of sitting at home, waiting for his return, possibly making him a little snack in apology for not understanding his shit attitude toward me all day, since he felt a little off, I went out and amused myself, without him. I’ll ask him what’s wrong, and he’ll say, “just chillin,” and ignore me for the rest of his waking hours.
Normally I would keep pestering him about what’s wrong (something’s always wrong), but tonight I will ignore him in turn, and wonder when the hell I’m going to grow a pair and call the whole thing off.
But for now, I’m drinking my beer, and I’m looking out the window, and it seems as though god has killed a squid and spread the inky remains across the sky. His mood hasn’t improved. The darkness outside is so complete and terrifying, we flock to islands of electric light, drinking spirits to embolden our spirits, watching screen to distract from that formidable dark biting at the edge of our shores. Even the bugs swarm the lamp posts. No one wants to get stuck out in that stuff.
I quit my job yesterday. Just before my lunch break, my boss had a talk with me. I should say he had a talk at me. Apparently it had been pissing him off for quite sometime that I ask him these irritating questions when he tells me to do something, like “why?” He doesn’t like to be questioned by his employees, and he made it clear that up until the point when he hired me, no employee had ever questioned him; they merely obeyed. Obviously he’d never hired anyone, until me, with brains or curiosity.
So I took my lunch, and I never went back.
Instead of feeling anxious about finding another job, I now feel free to drink this beer I’m drinking and write this thing that I’m writing. I feel free to take steps toward the things I want instead of stewing securely in a job I hate but feel a slave to because of money. I feel like I just broke off a relationship I hate but had been too afraid to end.
Things are going to get better from here.

B is for Beer

I just found out today that either this fall or in the area of early ’09, Tom Robbins will be coming out with a new book, a children’s book, entitled B is for Beer. This is one of the happier events to take place in my life in recent history. The prospect of any new construction of written words by Tom Robbins who is, it is no secret, my hero and literary crush, it ti-ti-titillating to me.
I felt that titillating required a stutter in this instance.
I can’t wait! I have abandoned all here-to-fore intense interest in learning Spanish and acquiring the rape-me-in-the-ass expensive Rosetta Stone program, the compilation of a personalized dictionary for myself, and the possible start up writing career endeavor of resume writing. Life has a new spit shine on it, and you will find me observing my newly rendered reflection in it for some time to come.

It just occurred to me how sad it is that I’ve always been just ‘Candice’. That I’ve never had the personality to inspire some embarrassing nick name and at least a random arrangement of the sounds of my name, is quite distressing. My middle, for example, is Nicole. I could be Nico or Nicker. Or you could take the last syllables of both of my names, combine them, and contrive the blatantly hilarious Dic-cole. But no. It appears I am forever doomed to be merely ‘Candice.’
Even the previously self appointed names of ‘Grass Firefly’, ‘Pablo’, and ‘CJ’ stuck about as well as… Um… if anyone has a good analogy for something that doesn’t stick to something else (I have an abundance for the opposite) please share.
All I’ve ever gotten is some unimaginative variation on ‘candy’ which is not my name. Never call me that, I will risk prison to kill you.

This is not finished

The shadows are long and prominent in the room, but it is barely past midday. The air conditioner is running and the fan is running, and the chains hanging from the fan are rhythmically hitting the glass of the light fixture suspended below the spinning blades.
These are the only sounds in the room.
The gathered darkness and unseasonably cold air in the room would insinuate that the grey light sneaking in through the blinds had been filtered through tempestuous thunderheads and torrential rain. But this is not the case.
Out side the heat is sweltering and the sky is stippled with white clouds, and the birds would be chirping, were they not having their afternoon siestas. The dismal state of this room cannot be blamed on things from without.
This room has a countenance and a soul and a heart, and emitted from these anthropomorphic attributes is a mood heavy enough to shade everything around it, thick enough to obscure the light of anything beyond its ashen walls, and so dense in its ponderous mass, there is a gravity that nothing rises above.
The heart of this room is a woman, and she is sitting on her needlessly tidied bed, listening to the three sounds that create her silence. Her phone is blinking red with the urgency of all the day’s intentionally missed phone calls, and she does not care.

The night is impending, the shadows grow long, and the gums are receding. What exactly went wrong?
I suppose we all have a feeling that there are but a few grains of sand remaining in our ever ebbing hourglasses. Especially those of us with immense unfocused, unexploited talent. It all reminds me of this country song, that’s basic message is, don’t blink because life goes so fast that you may miss it if you so much as stop to rest your eyes. And no Grandma in heaven, when I say rest your eyes, I am not referring to one of your famous in church siestas.
Now I’m not meaning to get all sentimental and homegrown on you, talking about marrying my high school sweetheart and sweet talks with my son while we’re fishing when I suddenly understand how much my dad really loved me. Fortunately, life is not always like a country song. I’m just saying, one day you wake up, you’re 25 and pregnant, and you find yourself at a juncture in your life, where you can choose between being strong and determined, or resigning yourself, your life. And when you’re 25 you aren’t old, but you need to make a decision.
It’s time for me to decide. Do I continue on or do I give up my seat for my kid on this ride?

Down with Teleportation

I believe that if teleportation were invented, the world would be reduced in size by 1038%, which is a lot, as you can see, because that number doesn’t even fit inside a hundred, “percent” coming from the Latin per centum, meaning “by the hundred”. As much as I, through the pain of someone’s absence, or the agony of extended travel in a seat by the bathroom on a cramped bus in Mexico, have longed for a teleportation device which could whisk my loved one to my side, or whisk me to an uncrowded beach in Mexico, which smells of a salt water breeze rather than a sloshing urine laden commode, upon more proximate consideration, I’ve seen the evil of this convenience to outweigh the convenience of this convenience.
No longer would the world be the oyster of the brave, the impetuous, the curious, the adventurous; it would then the $5.99 seafood buffet of the everyday, the fish stick of the fecund family of five, the Long John Silvers for the timid of heart who will not, under any circumstances, try sushi. There will be wheelchair ramps running rampant through wildest Africa, park benches on which day trippers can eat their sandwiches whilst viewing the cannibalistic rituals of a jungle tribe in Borneo, local insectival delicacies substituted with candy duplications for the feint of stomach who still want to “experience the culture.”
It is a bleak future I realize. Maybe I’m showing myself to be a bit of an elitist by espousing all of this, but goddammit, the world is small enough already.
Take for example the Earth’s size in relation to the sun and the other planets in the solar system. I didn’t feel like going to someplace with internet right now, but it can be assumed that about fifty bagillian earths can fit in one sun. Also, it is roughly the third smallest planet in our nine, no eight, no nine planet solar system, which isn’t saying a lot, regardless of how many planets we have. I mean, I’ve driven in one year, maybe two, the equivalent in miles of the entire planet’s circumference. I’m not sure exactly how many miles (kilometers if you’re in England) that is, but I am sure that I need internet so that in the future I don’t have to attempt to make persuasive arguments using only vague ideas of facts and no actual data.
As a quick aside, what’s up with Pluto? Is it a planet or not? I don’t really think it’s fair for the scientists to bestow a title, and then just renege because they changed their minds on the criteria of the qualifications. If I we’re Pluto, I would just hide out in shame and embarrassment at the farthest, darkest, coldest reaches of the solar system. I’ll bet that’s what he’s doing right now, the poor planet…or not. Globular asteroid or whatever.
Back to teleportation, another subject about which I am writing at length while knowing nothing of the physics, mechanics, or even theoretical basic workings of, except a philosophical dilemma or two (can you teleport a soul?).
In addition to the earth being unfathomably cosmologically miniscule, even solar systemically tiny, it has shrunk exponentially since the inception of air travel, and before that the locomotive engine. I’m not even going to get into the wheel, one of the worst inventions of man ever to plague the earth. Back in the day there were wagons and wheel barrows and boats, even ships powered by oars and the pure brute strength and sweat of slaves being beaten with whips. There is a certain purity to that. It took ages to get anywhere, each journey across the land a perilous adventure. One could be attacked by wolves because they hadn’t all been shot yet. Thrilling! Each voyage across the sea taking weeks, each traversal of great Oceana taking months, taking lives, causing scurvy and transforming legs into pointed wooden pegs. Not to mention, the striped shirts and single golden hoop earring. A fashion catastrophe! What I’m getting at is that back in the day, it took cojones to travel, because much of the world was uncharted and wild, and you had no idea what or who you might encounter. And since you were most likely to die as a result of your adventure, you earned every wonder you witnessed, every magical moment of knowing you discovered something. Now the only remaining discoveries to be made will likely be done through a microscope or a telescope. Or maybe a kaleidoscope. One can’t be sure.
Then came the steam engine. Then came the combustion engine. Maybe more types of engines came, but I don’t know what they are. Let me just say this: when engines came, they brought Wonkavision, stuck the world in front of the camera, and shrunk it. I’m not saying they’re innately terrible things; they are what they are. But their invention led to planes, trains, and automobiles. In the 1700s, can you imagine a Parisian saying to her husband, “I’m bored of all these bridges and sidewalk cafes. Let’s go to Athens for the weekend. That will be quaint”? First of all no because they would be speaking French, not English. And secondly, no because going to Athens would have meant eons of travel by wagon over land, involving the aforementioned wolves, bandits, mountain crossings, and uncouth villagers; or eons of travel by sea, involving white squalls, tsunamis, pirates, the aforementioned scurvy, and the Cracken*, who’s known to stomp in the Aegean area.
* “The Cracken” is a reference to the mildly obscure, but possible cult classic “The Clash of the Titans” which served as a ground breaking pioneer in clay-mation special effects. Not really, it’s uber cheesy, but good Greek Mythology 101 for the arm chair historian, although I’m not sure the Cracken made an appearance in any of Homer’s works.
So anyway. I’m beginning to lose my fervor, so I’m going to try and wrap this up like a tinselly little Christmas present. Teleportation sucks because it will take the adventure out of travel by eliminating the journey, and it will eliminate all mystery from the world by making accessible to any putz that has a credit card and a day off. These people don’t deserve it. They haven’t paid their dues. Down with teleportation! Fuck you Star Trek! Except for that machine that makes food from poop and pee. That’s a genius idea.

Grilled Cheese and Music Reviews

I am eating a grilled cheese, muenster, which is seriously inferior to American cheese for this particular purpose if you can believe it. I am eating my sandwich in bed, spreading crumbs generously and without care in a gesture of support of utter hedonism. This is what living it up is like. Take notes.
I had this idea on my drive home from work which I think may either be genius or retarded. In the past, I’ve written several times either abstractly or directly about the impact a song makes on me, mentally, emotionally, physically or spiritually. This is I feel a very honest thing to do, and will give someone a more real subjective report on a song, or any work of art for that matter, than a fancily constructed review that uses lingo, descriptions accessible only to the initiated, comparisons to other works that the reader may or may not heard of, and other such antics. This is a boring and sterile way of learning of something alive and expressive. Blah blah blah. My way is better. I write about how songs make me feel, in real time, so to speak.
So I was thinking, maybe I’ll start building a body of reviews of songs reviews, ala Candice style. Whatever song strikes my fancy or a reverberating chord, I will write honestly about it. When I have enough of them, I will submit them to places, and surely people will want to publish them because it is such a marvelous and unique idea.
I don’t know. I think it’s good.
Next stop on that train, I was thinking about how when you read reviews of albums and such, there are constantly references to the bands other works, or even other artist’s works. I don’t understand why each creative can’t be evaluated of it own accord, instead of in comparison to something else. How does this album measure up to the last? Who cares? It’s its own record, and it’s neither here nor there what the artist has done in the past. I guess this is just a manifestation of the fear of the new without the old attached to it for comfort. But what do I know? I’m just an uneducated slob with crumbs in her bed.

Soul in ICU

It’s been so hard to make any semblance of sense of my miasmic mentality. I am so out of touch with myself. Feelings have gone far beyond words, and I no longer know how to make the associations. What’s that little germ of negativity floating around inside of me? What are those throngs and thousands? Hard to say. Anyone have a dictionary?
Webster’s unabridged deluxe leather-bound edition you say? I don’t think I’d get beyond the deep nasal inhalations. Ahhhhh, nothing like the smell of whale fat oiled dead cow skin.
I totally sounded like a, you know, right there. This is a very PC place of writing so I don’t want to name names, but it rhymes with ‘rippie’. You didn’t hear it here.
There is just so much going on in my life at present that will hold a minimum of fascination for any one in life, that I think I’ll start at the beginning.
I was born in Houston, Texas in the spring of 1983…
Wait, fast forward that. I didn’t mean the literal beginning (a philosophical conundrum any way, since if time is linear no one would know anything about a beginning at which to begin, and if time is all at once or cyclical, there would be no beginning at which begin either. Neither here nor there). I meant the beginning of the point in time in my life which I first think of.
It all started when I took 1.5 rolls, which took too long to kick in, so I took 1 extra roll, and waited and waited, and then they kicked in with a vengeance. At this time I was almost 25, and therefore too old to be taking ecstasy, but that will lead to the denouement of the story. We’ll skip over the boring details of extreme visual hallucinations and 5 hour marathon sex that never stopped feeling good, and get to the point. I had a very severe comedown and I was forced into confronting myself brutally. It wasn’t a pretty picture. Actually, I looked all right, but the inner turmoil I was experiencing, the hellish gauntlet of terrifyingly vivid bad emotions was staggering.
It was this most unhappy of situations that I found this little nugget of truth. Your life will not change in ways you want it to unless you do something about it. For example, say you were a stripper, and had been for 6 years but really wanted to be, in fact you planned on, being a journalist, but you never ever did anything to make that happen. In fact, you barely wrote recreationally. You cannot expect to some day be a journalist of any variety. It will not happen. You will instead be a 35 year old stripper, and that phenomenal person you knew in your youth you were meant to be, will be irretrievable.
Sadly this little nugget was much akin to the Mario Brothers magic mushroom in that it could be used just once. It gave you enough gusto to make one big change. Hopefully you chose wisely. Hopefully you didn’t choose to accept the first soul annihilating job opportunity that came along. If you did, sorry. Don’t take more drugs to try and recreate the effect. It is very painful and you may not succeed. Plus you are too old.
So, my soul is in the ICU. Please drop by during visiting hours.
I took that first job and I really really really don’t friggin like it. Lets see how long I puss out before I actually do something about it.

In the predictably uninspired words of Scott Weiland, I am “feeling uninspired, think I’ll start a fire.” Not that each moment made dull by haphazard planning, torpid disposition, or neural pathways failing to connect (she wanted kids, he didn’t) results in pyromania. Not most in fact. Even on this occasion I have limited my arsonous endeavors to the paraffin hollow of a candle or fifteen, and the rebelliously long wick which resides therein. Caution be damned, ¼ inch is not enough for this dare devil!
I haven’t abetted these waxy pillars in fulfilling their torrid destinies at the urging of some latent longing bent on decimation. I only wanted a little ambiance. Some flickering amber light on the walls, ceiling, tabletop to infuse my surroundings with an excessive vanilla aroma and an amorous glow. Romance baby! I’m spending the evening with Curry, and I really want it to be special. So I’m having some wine, some smooth jams playing in the back ground (and foreground, and side ground…we have surround sound), she’s asleep in her kennel, and I’m writing this. Nothing sets Cupid’s arrow to firing and Aphrodite’s cup to overflowing quite like spending a candlelit dusk with my dog. Not even raw oysters, as sexy as they feel in my mouth.
Before this takes a disturbingly bestialitous turn, I will claim facetiousness, and a rare condition where in my brain completely ceases to function in a creative capacity when I am exposed to florescent lighting, even if I close my eyes, it infuses my skin like radiation (think Wal-Mart), and crippling loneliness which has lead to the personification of my dog, but really only in a conversational manner, and also idea bankruptcy because truthfully, and sadfully, this is all I have to say. Just you wait, I’ll pull a Stella. And get my groove back? You know, the movie? Jeezus, keep up with the times. Every one’s heard of that box office smash.
So Curry is sleeping off the day’s Bull Creek travails and I’m classily slurping my way through a chilled glass of Franzia Chardonnay (excellent vintage) and the candles are ON FIYAH! All is right in the world assuming the word consists solely of those three things.
Here are things that are happening right now that should not be: there is a dictionary open on the table to the left of my computer in which I look up nearly every word that I write (that doesn’t even make sense), I am giving text message relationship advice to the Tiffers (I have no business, but we shan’t get into that), and I am seriously mentally eyeballing that goat cheese cranberry walnut dressing mixture in the fridge, but I am not hungry.
What it all simmers down to is a cool, calm and collected state of arid, surface fissured August in Arizona of the mind. “You don’t use it you lose it.” I think it was Jesus who said that. And he was right, as usual. So I haven’t used it in a while, and I can’t, for the life of me, seem to find it. I’ll check in the couch cushions, you look in the fridge. If you find it in the fridge, do me a favor and take the milk out of the pantry. I always do that!
A bit ago, I took a steamy, candle-surrounded bath of modest bubble population in preparation for this most specialest of nights, and it was so hot, that when I got out of the tub, the water actually rose. Think about that…
Now, I’ve always been an oily entity, much like an olive. I’ve struggled for years with massive pores and city of scorching hot and excessively humid summers. As a result I’ve always had to wash my hair every other day, every day if I want to wear it down. That is, until I discovered the Beehive! This versatile hair style is perfect for any situation, from kneeling in a pew to cleaning up poo, from a five star meal to a parking lot deal, from giving head to being dead. You will never feel inappropriately coiffured in this dazzlingly altitudinal cranial sculpture. It is truly a work of art! Now you can stand proudly, head high (not that you have a choice) amongst your peers. No, not those neighborhood busy bodies who already eye you with malicious envy; I mean Michelangelo, DaVinci, VanGogh, and the rest of the great artists of the world, for your hair will be a magnum opus! And that’s not even the best part! With the Beehive, you will have to wash your hair but once a… no not day, not week, but once a month! Yes, you heard correctly, just once a month! Those days of tedious daily hygiene are over! Order now and we will include Eau de Dirty Head, a $3.00 value, at no cost to you. Simply send $10.00 plus $59.99 S&H to 123 Major Digression Blvd. Austin, Texas 78717.
Wow, I really got off track there, but it was flowin’ and well, I ain’t no dam. Only the first three sentences of that actually applied to me.
So yeah, I was oily, yadda yadda yadda, and now my skin feels all dry and you could sand a Depression-era armoire with my hands, though I’m sure that afterward it would be appraised for less at Antiques Road Show. Maybe it’s the Franzia. No no no, it’s just too high quality. Must be something else.
Wow I have been writing for like two hours, including the goat cheese concoction break! This is awesome! And it only felt like three!
Just kidding. This is, in all honestly the most, purest, sincere fun I’ve had in a while. As cliché as it is to say this, I feel alive. Not entirely, but like some part of me that’s essentially, uniquely me was resuscitated from the brink of death, saw the light at the end of the tunnel, saw the divine and came back to life with renewed meaning and faith in god and an interminable optimism that annoys and inspires all of its friends. I exaggerate. But you get what I mean.

The situation is desperate.

If you've seen Zoolander, you will understand the following. If you haven't, fuck it anyway.
I am a male model, sliding rapidly down the unfavorable side of my apex in the biz, and I am asking myself, reflected in gutter water, "who am I?" to which I quickly reply, "I don't know."

It's like I'm stuck in some shitty nightmare, wherein I am me, but not me. In fact, the part of "me" is being played by a shitty actor who in no way, physically or mentally, resembles the real deal. And I'm pinching myself and freaking out, doing everything short of cutting my left hand off, but for the life of me, I can't wake up. At this point I've given up, and I'm just hoping someone will rescue me, even if it's by dumping a glass of ice water on my face. Any awakening, even a rude one, is welcome.

And as for right now, I am, in a penitential gesture, writing outside, not braving but enduring the howling gales that torture the joints of this creaking porch. Not really. Sometimes it is a bit chilly, but I'm having hot tea, and the day is fartin gorgeous, and I drove my miserable ass all the way to Spiderhouse as a treat for laying around and being sick for the past two days. I love this place. What do I have to complain about?
Whoa whoa whoa, watch yourself! That is a can of mutant, saw-toothed, festering lesion laden worms! Put down that can opener! Don't even go there.