Hi, Melissa.

Yeah, where the hell did I go?


Most of my blogging time comes about due to either boredom or avoidance.

I've slacked off to the point where lately I've needed to haul ass.

Hence there is a lack of blogging time.


Over a week since that last post.


So, here's the update on the novel. I didn't finish it.

I think I got about 16,000 words and then my mind sort of shut down and started to focus on other things.

I decided to read more. I got an urge to read Hemingway. I've never read Hemingway. I still haven't but I will. I picked up a Donald Westlake book entitled 361 and it had a lot of elements that my novel had, the same thing happened with two other books I read.

I put myself on the hook to finish a project by December 15. I picked the 15th because I need to use vacation days before the end of the year or I'll lose them. Vacation starts on the 17th, so that's leaves me two days of grace.

Folks owe me money. Folks don't have money to give me, so I'm not rolling in the cash like usually I am. I want to fix certain things in the house but can't do it without a good amount of cash, like the amount I'm owed.

Sunday night the kitchen faucet decided to spring a leak. Corrosion was the culprit. Home Depot was closed by the time I got there. Faucet fixing wasn't in the plan.

The second job has been getting on my nerves.

I need a haircut.

I still don't have my camera back.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving I drank more that I probably should have just so I wouldn't have to share a cab ride home with someone who likes to shove her tongue down my throat. What's the polite way to say "I don't want to sleep with you because I like you're a skank?"

I think she needs to be loved but she settles for fucking. I can't help her with either, or won't.

I can't honestly say I know where my limits are but I know how far I'm willing to go

'click' of the digital kind

Folks think I'm stable so they talk to me when the want that grounded feeling.

I try to keep them fooled.

The owner's adopted daughter is away at a camp that helps problem children.

The owner has my camera, she asked to use it while she was away, she couldn't find hers. She and me have the same identical camera. She gave me one just like hers, one Christmas day.

I let her use it and she asked to keep it until after the holidays. I said "Sure" even though I knew I would miss it. I will most likely end up buying myself a new one.

We were talking last night and it came up that both of us think her daughter most likely gave the owner's camera away to someone, just like her bike, just like her iPod.

I miss my camera.

where I drink

42° 21' 34.45" N x 71° 03'13.32" W


So, there was some overtime involved which caused me to be out of bed before 7AM on a Saturday morning. At 11:15AM I checked the time on my cell phone, I checked because I had just finished all the important stuff and was just about the start 'the-things-that-should-get-done-soon' when the aforementioned cell phone rang.

"Why aren't you working?"

"I am. I'm in the area."

"Well I'm sitting here with Jen."

"I'll be right there."

I was there in three minutes, I looked through the window and saw my buddy sitting at the bar, so I pulled on the door but the door resisted. I knew they weren't opened that early.

The wait staff let me in and I joined my buddy at the bar. The bar was out of Bloody Mary mix and that is what my buddy wanted so hence started a mission.

There were calls and field trips and sending folks on errands, six people that I know of where involved and by 11:40AM, there were two Bloody Mary's made from scratch sitting on the bar.

Those two were followed by two others which came with lunch and then we were cursed when other folks came in and ordered four Bloody Mary's because Bloody Mary's made from scratch are a bitch to make.

and you think you got problems?

So, I was already to go super crazy. Super crazy because folks keep on using my stuff and not returning it. Stuff I need to do my job the way I like to do.

I'm rather particular in my tools.

If I lose pen while I'm out of the office I will go to the nearest office supply store and buy a new one even though I will have a different type of pen in my hand. I want my pen. I've used the same type of pen for over ten years.

Part of my day job has me drawing stuff by hand, like the draftsmen of olden days. I like drawing by hand and I dare say I'm damn good at it, but then there you go, possibly my greatest skill is a talent of dinosaurs, but that's a different gripe.

I was looking for tools and could not find a particular item. I looked twice for it and could not find it. I checked my cluttered desk. I check all my drawers. I could not find it. So, I traveled the office looking for it. I could not find it. I asked around, no one acknowledge taking it.

I did find my missing stapler on the desk of some rat bastard.

So, there I was set to go off, I just needed the proper victim. But I figured that I would check my equipment drawer one last time because the day before I was looking of a different something that someone took and did not return and things got riled up.

I started taking everything out, sitting on my desk. There is a lot of crap in that drawer, crap that I need from time to time.

As you can probably guess, I found what I needed way in the back. It could not have been any further back. So, it was my own damn fault that I couldn't find what I wanted because I was the one that caused it to fall to the back of the drawer and I was the one that didn't look very hard to located it in that same drawer.

So, I'm currently wanting to super crazy on someone because my stapler really had been stolen and the whole episode has brought back to memory all the things that have disappeared over the years, like my smoked forty-five degree ink-riser triangle and my little mag-lite flashlight that I used to help find jammed papers in the copier.

I should be rejoicing that I'm not worried about cancer, joblessness, hunger, sickness, addiction, or any other such thing and that I'm just pissed at losing equipment that costs at most $20.

If someone asked me for twenty bucks, I would probably give it to them, so it's not even a money thing.

I think I need vacation

and it's most likely a vacation from myself

it's all relative

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	6.6
Mind:	6.5
Body:	5.7
Spirit:	7.5
Friends/Family:	4.2
Love:	6.9
Finance:	6.2
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

sometimes I can't block out the ambient noise

like the guy chewing his apple which is obviously lip smacking good

like that cackle of a laugh the receptionist has when she's laughing at her own unfunny jokes

So, I bought an Ipod and I've been loading it up with my music. I'm up to 1282 songs. I have no video, I have no pictures, features I paid for but will most likely only use on a dare.

It really shouldn't, I should be able to overcome such a thing, but someone chewing with their mouth open drives me insane.

What I have strength for

When was that last post?

Thursday, and then it was only the transcribed lyrics of some song

"I was only kidding when I called them a couple of dicks" that's the line that caused me to type the song.

I don't seem to have the strength to read or write regarding the internet, although I seem to be reading more books now that I'm supposed to be writing one.

I don't want to deal with the ending of my story but I don't want to change it either so the leather chair I bought goes unused.

Alright Guy - Todd Snider

you know just the other morning
I was hanging out at my house
I had that nude book with picture with Madonna naked
I was checking it out
just then a friend of mine came through the door
and said she never pegged me for a scumbag before
she said she never wanted to see me anymore
and I still don't know why
I think I'm an alright guy

I think I'm an alright guy
I just want to live until I gotta to die
I know I ain't perfect but God knows I try
I think I'm an alright guy
I think I'm alright

Now maybe I'm dirty and maybe I smoke a little dope
It ain't like I'm going on TV and tearing up pictures of the Pope
I know I get wild and I know I get drunk
but it ain't like I got a bunch of bodies in my trunk
my old man called me a no good punk
and I still don't know why.

I think I'm an alright guy
I think I'm an alright guy
I just want to live until I gotta to die
I know I ain't perfect but God knows I try
I think I'm an alright guy
I think I'm alright

Just the other night these cops pulled me over outside the bar
They turned on their lights and they ordered me out of my car
Man I was only kidding when I called them a couple of dicks
but still they made me do the stupid human tricks
and now I'm stuck in this jail with a bunch of dumb hicks
and I still don't know why

I think I'm an alright guy
I think I'm an alright guy
I just want to live until I gotta to die
I know I ain't perfect but God knows I try
I think I'm an alright guy
I think I'm alright

we were supposed to be the cream of the crop

...I still don't know what they were growing

In high school...

who was I in high school?

I was the kid that went to the second best high school in the city because he didn't want to go the best high school because he thought those kids were pretentious assholes.

I was the kid that passed on that high school twice when other kids were lying and cheating to get in.

I was the kid third from the top who stopped doing his homework because he couldn't see the point of it, which dropped him to number seven and he couldn't have cared less, and then turned his back on a scholarship.

I was an unpopular kid everyone knew.

I was the kid that was irritated by the cool kids, the geeks, the jocks and that group of girls that always hung out together and spoke evil of everyone.

I was the kid that eventually would just shout out the answers because he was tired of hearing the teacher asking if anybody knew the answer and then get pissed because the teacher should have been calling on individuals if she really wanted to know who was and who wasn't paying attention.

I was the white kid that often hung out with the black kids because there was less pretending in that group.

I'm not saying that I know anything but...

It could have been the shot of Patrón or maybe it was the previous six pints of Bud Light but I don't think alcohol levels had anything to do with it when she asked me what I thought.

Her first mistake was pestering me with the question more than thrice.

Another mistake was thinking I could run an eight and a half inch by eleven inch ad in the same format as a three and one quarter inch by 2 inch ad.

"Of course I have to change it….And to tell you the truth, I'm not digging that font."

I was surprised she knew that fonts don't travel with the document by default.

"You're not digging the font?"

"Nope. It's hard to read."

It was hard to read at 18pt, there was no way it was going to work shrunk down.

"It's hard to read?"

I looked at it again right in front of her and just for a moment.

"Yup" I said as I looked up from the page. "It's hard to read." As if to say, I'm not just making this shit up, I saw the ad and it’s hard to read.


Rule #1 in advertising is that the ad has to catch your eye.

Rule #2 in advertising is that your message has to be conveyed. And in print advertising that most likely means that the words have to be readable.

It's like yelling "Hey." If you don't follow up your 'hey' with something else, folks will look away and now they will be pissed that you disturbed them for no reason.

(Facts and honestly are further down the list.)

...

i voted today

I feel like murder will be attempted today

...

So, I went out to eat with my mom and my two younger sisters and there was this guy in the booth across from us who was warming up a baby's bottle in a glass of hot water.

"I've never seen that before" one sister said.

"I was at the bar and once this guy stepped up next to me and asked for a Bud Light bottle and a glass half full of water, as hot as they could get and he was rather emphatic that the water had to be hot and that the glass had to be half full. So, they served him his beer and as he was drinking, they gave him the water and like out of nowhere he pulled a baby's bottle and placed it in the glass of hot water. So, there he was standing there at the bar warming up his baby's bottle."

"Where do you warm up your baby's bottle?" I was asked from the same sister.

"Down my pants" I said.

To which my other sister said "Come on now, you didn't see that coming?"

they tell me because i'll listen.

i'll listen because i think people need to be listened to

there are times i don't want to hear the problems people tend to tell me.

but such is me

such is mine


I know an old woman who tells the story of how she had to beg for bread just so she could eat a mayonnaise sandwich. She also tells of how her father worked at a candy factory so there was always candy in the house.

I asked her why she didn't trade the candy for food. She had no reply

Happy Election Day

sometimes I refuse to play

affording trust is a gamble

you can win a heart

you can lose a heart

My mind wondered a bit, not totally off the page but to the next column.

Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man
though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die.

Good trumps righteousness

too many folks go around saying they are more righteous than the next guy.

Fuck that.

Try being good

a nine year old argument

not so many words

you need to save them up

that's what I say when I look in this space

but the words I have don't fit into fiction

so I shove them into pretend


I don't even know what that means. Please tell me if you know.


"The traps have been sprung." I was told as I was staring to check for mice. The nine year old daughter of the owner was basically telling me I was wasting my time.

"By mice?" I asked.

"Yes, by mice."

I didn't believe her and me doubt grew more resolved as she asked "Why do they have to die?"

I never like defending a point of view that I don't wholeheartedly believe but I do it because sometimes it a valid point.

"It isn't a good thing to have mice in the house."

"But why do they have to die?"

"That's the only way I know for sure to get them out of the house."

"Why can't you leave a trail of food to the outside?"

My heart really wasn't in this argument so I didn't even bother to explain that most likely that would draw more critters in. "That wouldn't work"

"It worked for Cody." Cody was her dog. Her dog that was recently hit by a car and died.

I was there because she needed to be watched for the couple of minutes between her grandmother leaving and her mother returning. There were other solutions that could have been realized but offering points and counter points wasn't something on my agenda. I was resolved to do whatever.

Her mother returned after I reset all the traps. "Any mice?"

"Nope" and then I motioned her to the hallway. "I think she's been tripping them" I said and then told her why.

"Probably because I saw her checking under the stove. Well, at least that show she has empathy. He step-father says she has none."

I said I would try to find a different mouse trap.

Holy Shit!

So back in 2004, February 27, I wrote what touché means and then today someone just searched for WHAT DOES TOO-SHAY MEAN AND FRENCH and my site came up.

I feel so helpful.

"So, what's the book about today?"

"It's about the marketing guy that decided that blue would be the color for raspberry. It's entitled I Feel Blue."

.

Posted by: greencatfish.

So, there I was chatting it up with some hot chick from the toniest hotel in the city. She came by because she needed something I could supply, some job related thing. After business was finished, she started a more personal conversation. We've meet maybe six times before over four years, I'm usually not the one that helps her out. Things were slow so, I was in no rush to send her on her way and I was impressed with the level of trust he was affording me. Then I heard "Okay, you've talked enough. Time to go" and it wasn't from a supervisor or some administrator, the noise came from the receptionist. The receptionist is an old, used up busy body that I really don't care for all that much.

I just rolled my eye and shook my head to let her know she should just ignore the voices. She had more she wanted to say and I was willing to listen.

And true I wasn't certain of my motives but when I'm making time with hot chicks, regardless of the reason, I really don't like being disturbed by jealous has beens, that never truly were anything.

I now have about six pounds of candy on my desk.

The bothersome one rummages through the bag like he's looking for lost treasure.


On the flyer, I entitled the event the annual kick ass pizza party then I heard "I don't think you can say ass."

Oh, miss, you don't understand. I can say all sorts of things. Because I'm a writer, damn it.

Well that just got real old real fast. Damn it.

Damn it. Damn it to Hell!



Dude, just leave. I really don't care. I don't care if you're leaving early. I don't care that you're going to meet the wife. I don't care. I just don't care. Just go. Please. Go.



So, there are just minutes of my day left and it's too late to start something new and it's too close to closing to care about finishing anything.

What I would like it do is to yell obscenities at him but he really doesn't know any better.

A life without purpose is a languid, drifting thing; Every day we ought to review our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let me make a sound beginning, for what we have hitherto done is naught!
- -- Thomas A. Kempis


"...for what we have hitherto done is naught!"

I wish I had the gumption to speak like that

I wish I had the publishing rights to that

So, I was at work last night.

That's it. End of story.

'cause I'm saving it for the book.


"What are you writing a book?"

"Yup. Now just answer the questions. It will get you in the prologue."

"Yup. Now just answer the questions. It will get you in the epilogue."


definitely prologue, just because it has one fewer syllables.


I prefer 'afterword' to 'epilogue'



I wrote out about 1600 words of dialog last night. Now I just have to figure out which direction to send it in, or rather, where to plunk it down.

I really hadn't planned on writing anything last night.


After someone in my family tells a boring story I like to say "I wish I had the publishing rights to that"