http://theinterestingfamily.blogspot.com/

blogging is futile...

http://theamericanalien.blogspot.com/

well i seriously doubt i will be the only one doing this, but, this blog will be about and without Adam Yauch from the Beastie Boys who of course died two days ago. there is usually a period of 'keep it together' type shock that overcomes me when someone dies, whether i know them personally or just through pop culture, and i cant really find a thing to say until that first wave passes- it just started raining as i write this down here in Buda just after 1am; it was so cloudy earlier that we couldnt see the 'super moon'. anyway, yeah, mca and the beastie boys were just one of those artists, you know: my group of friends kind of latched on to them as personal icons and it never really went away. they were older than us by about a decade, but they grew as we grew over the years, from crazy annoying young punks to wizened and grizzled old elders of the tribe. cause of the way the bboys operated, you kind of feel like an old friend you used to know has died. i know his real name, i know his stage name, i he plays on the basketball court "praying mantis style", i know he was a buddhist, and here i am living in buda, tx. the bboys provided the soundtrack to several road trips, including one into the deep south headed for new orleans where i will never forget hearing paul's boutique for the first time. i guess if i could have met him and had a small chance to say something, i would have told him that his bass playing on check your head was the first time i realized that rappers could acutally play instruments- i heard him playing a really cool bassline, then i listened more closely and realized that mike d was playing the drumset and adrock was playing electric guitar- they were a rock band! before that i just thought they were like another boy group, just with more personality! what can i say, i was a kid and i was ignorant of high culture. thankfully my best buds introduced me to this stuff and, well now, i would just tell him that he made a bridge for this fan from rock music to hiphop, and i know he would have dug that.

I am a disgusting fat body. I am so gross and swollen it is absolutely disgusting to me- it is revolting; I repel even myself. I can only imagine how grotesque I appear to other people. I am already more offended by myself than you could ever be.

He rolled over in bed and tried to sit up but the rolls of fat in his belly prevented him- he grunted and grimaced and produced a slim, squeaky fart from underneath and fell back onto the pillows panting with effort. Just reaching for his nighttime snack had produced a dirty sweat on his pasty white skin. He sat there breathing heavily, saturating the sheets, and stared at the meat sandwich with a few bites taken out of it. He always liked to leave himself some for the morning, then he wouldn’t have to get out of bed for breakfast. Well, a late breakfast maybe... He closed his eyes and gathered his strength for another try.

Laying there on the mound of propped-up pillows, arms at his sides, eyes closed, mouth left open, rolls of flesh pressing the bed down to indent the shape of his familiar body, he looked like nothing more than one of those big sea lions that sun themselves on the beach. He had seen one with Stacy the summer they met; it snored loudly as they each took a picture of the other standing beside it, then it had woken up and moved quicker than you would think and almost knocked her aside. She screamed and was going to jump into his arms but he was already running away. The thing simply moved farther up the beach to get away from the tourists, and she just stood there looking at him with those eyes of disappointment, but he laughed to cover it up and would always tell people how she had screamed and ran away that day on the beach, her looking at the ground now as he guffawed… that’s what he remembered most about her, her different sad and disappointed faces- he ignored it then: now it tore right thru him from years away.

He felt like that thing now, huge and basking, but there was no sun in his stale room and he was not preserving his strength for a reach at the blinds, but for a reach at.. that.. Sandwich!! He dove for it and grabbed it and fell back on the pillows in one rolling motion, the echoes of fat subsiding as he shoved the sandwich into his mouth repeatedly until there was none left, and smiled in a distant, pleasant way.

Still tastes good 8 hours later, he thinks; there’s something about food that sits out for a while, it almost tastes better than when it comes out of the fridge or out of the package. You gotta get the air on it, let a few flies shit on it- get that natural taste to it. A wide grin forms on his wide face and the many folds of chin begin to laugh one after the other in a cascading effect like a waterfall of flesh all the way down to his spread out belly where the sandwich parts are beginning to digest along with everything else he ate last night. I’m gonna have to take a shit soon, he thinks, but not quite yet.

I hear the school bus pull up outside and the voices of the little kiddies getting off and running home. I know it is 4:15 cause that’s when the bus always arrives. I usually lie around during the day like this, taking my time, waiting for my bowel movement, enjoying my Freedom. Man I got some gross shit percolatin’ down there! If I don’t have cancer of the colon by now, it’ll happen soon enough with all the crap I eat. All the greasy, fake, plastic, formulated, scientifically made-up stuff? It’s made to kill you, that’s why Americans are dying of Cancer and Heart Disease, cause they put in all the food. I think that’s what makes it taste so good! I love thinking of what im gonna eat today day.

Let’s see, I went by the donut place for breakfast… drive thru for lunch, steakhouse for dinner, and of course dessert and snacks from the fridge throughout the night… think I’ll stay with the donut place today, I’m a regular there. A real character.

Oh, man, that movement is starting to build up good now, I still have time for a little nap before its ready to go. Mm, what a comfterble feeling under the covers knowing you’re gonna shit- feels like Home.

That wet, warm smell wakes him up to a cloud of his own farts. He knows its time by the feel of the turd about to poke its turtle head out thru his underwear- gotta get this thing out before he has to clean up one of those messes again. He moves quicker now, out of bed and into the hall surprisingly nimble, like that long-ago sea lion. He leaves the light off and the door open in the bathroom, pulls the big underwear down and places his big white ass on the cold toilet seat which causes him to giggle like a little girl.

Then things get nasty. He grunts and coughs and tries to force it out but it won’t come. He moves his butt around on the toilet, bends over, sits up strait; trying to find the right position to get rid of it. The thing tantalizingly hangs there but just won’t drop! Its held in place somehow by a thin chord of intestine lining or something. Starting to sweat again, red-faced and crying out to himself in a way that the neighbors are familiar with, he finally does the unthinkable: lifts his ass off the seat, reaches under there with the left hand, searching, finds the log, traces with fingers up the length of it where it’s coming out of him, and pinches it off.

Plop!- the satisfying sound of the shit hitting the water and settling down in the bowl. He breathes a sigh of relief and massages his chest with the good hand, feeling like a heart attack. He gives himself a minute to recover; let the chest stop heaving and return to normal heavy breathing. The rest of the poop won’t come off, but that’s ok; he sits up quickly from the toilet and reaches into the shower to turn on the water. As it heats up in the bathroom he prepares himself to make the transfer from toilet seat to shower without getting too much poop on anything. He succeeds, mostly.

My back aches. My neck throbs. My stomach is sore. My legs are numb. My thighs ache. I am getting old. Nothing is young anymore, it’s all old by default now. Maybe the Vegetarian thing is the right path. Today I decided to be a Vegetarian or whatever, a Vegan or something? I don’t know what you call it, but its been over 5 hours since I last ate meat, a tender grilled chicken salad from Burger King. I wonder how long it will last, no more meat; no more dead cows, no more dead chickens…

The newspaper thumps on the driveway outside. Its 5am and im still drinking. As usual. Lean back and drain the last beer. I am a disgusting fat body, about 150 pounds overweight, loving it and hating it…

Heartburn wakes me up in the middle of the morning again. It rises as a bloody gorge from the stomach up the esophagus and into the mouth, bloody vomit, a mixture of what I’ve eaten that day broken down into a stomach acidy soup, something that should never be seen outside your stomach but because of acid reflux disease I’m now tasting a midnight snack of awful proportions. As I come awake coughing with my hand over my mouth I’m afraid it’s actually going to come out, but turns out it was just a warning: it subsides, and slides back down the throat to the boiling pit that is my stomach…until the next surge. Don’t know what causes it. My diet’s not THAT bad. I take stomach pills every night, and every morning; but it never fails at least once a week if not more I’m awoken with that horrible feeling of acid rushing up with partially digested food threatening to come out my mouth all over the sheets, what a bloody mess! Instead, I sit up in bed and wait for it to calm down, then slowly slide down on the pillows until im drifting off to sleep again, chasing dreams of food without consequence…

I am a big tongue wagging, drooling wet drops all over your socks, won’t you please open up? I am a big red tongue wagging, I am big red lips smacking, can’t wait to gobble something up, doesn’t even matter what!

I gotta get some donuts this morning… im driving to the place, listening to Kanye West. Man, he is so fucking cool, im blasting that shit, jamming it loud and lookin at evryone else like what? Ain’t nothin wrong! I’m big and I’m fat and I’m rollin round the yard, I roll around the place, and people who are skinny think they so hot but I think they are weak and I’m big and when I park my car and walk across the parking lot to the donut shop I got this song ringin in my head, singing Good Morning, Good Morning!

I walk where I want and people get out of the way and they don’t even realize they’re doin it.. cause they don’t want to mess with this. I’m like the Michelin Man, with big rolls of fat around me like several tires around my waist, I’ve watched them multiply over the years- sometimes I play the jolly fat man, the gentle giant, but inside I think I’m tough shit.

“I could take a punch thrown by just about anyone, pick any Ultimate Fighter you want: if they hit me in the gut it’d hurt them a lot more than it would hurt me…”- this is me talkin to my friends at the donut shop, one of them is a cop and one of them is a janitor at the high school just around the corner. These guys have been meeting me here for twenty years. “We grew up together, and we grew out together,” I say, cause we all got that middle-age man paunch. Didn’t used to be like that: we were all on the varsity football team! Whenever we get to drinking, from this part of the story on it starts to sound like “Glory Days“, Bruce Springstein, but I’m not drunk right now I’m drinkin coffee and the coffee shit is the best new shit of the morning, a bit messy, getting rid of the leftover alcohol and midnight snacks, and now I’m clear to create all new crap for the day… funny how it all comes down to bowel movements, that tells you more about human beings than anything else. Seriously.

Ugh, food poisoning. All I can do is lay down in bed in-between rushes to the bathroom to throw up or shit or both, but its not really shit its just like pissing dark water out my ass, god this is GROSS. Thanks a lot, Big-Ass Burrito! I will Never go there again. I know I already said that before but this time I mean it. You can fool me twice, but not three times!

Ugh, I used up a whole roll of toilet paper just as I was thinking that; my ass is rubbed red and raw and my stomach is still gurgling, you can practically track the progress of the burrito particles as they hit the stomach and are rejected, then travel thru the intestines, which react aggressively in pushing it on out. I don’t know why its all coming out water, shouldn’t it be coming out untouched if it can’t be digested? I need to read up on food poisoning, but it looks like I lost my internet connection. Damn it, I might actually have to get a job and here I am stuck in bed again. Seems like I’m always in bed, or on the toilet. This is my Limbo. No, you know what? Limbo is just when you’re lost: This is what happens when you’ve done something bad and are being punished for it. This is my Purgatory.

Strange dream, had to poop so bad. Started to go in my pants, caught myself, was talking to a girl on the phone, or guy maybe telling him about my idea for a tv show- he catches himself- the person on the line asks what’s wrong- oh nothing- then when he can tell it has stopped for now, goes on- I’m telling him an idea for a show while having diarrhea- there is a call on the other line- it’s the girl (stacy)- as she is talking, and it’s important, he has to go again- he jumps back on the toilet and lets loose- she asks if he is alright- what was that?- oh nothing, I just (plop!)- I just stopped.. ok anyway- so they talk about getting married, something serious, while he has diarrhea-

Then I wake up and poop in real life, thinking what a great idea it would be to write a story about a guy who decides not to get out of bed one day cause the bed is so comfortable. A quirky little piece about loving your bed, the covers, the sheets, the pillows, and just rolling around in it, staying comfortable, staying there like in the Womb. He even falls in love with a girl and they get married, but he never leaves the bed. Maybe in the end she joins him too, sort of a Yoko and John thing- I can see the self-assured look on the guys face, he hypnotizes himself, nothing fazes him. Just a short story about the love of fabrics, the bed, and the lying down position with overall meaning of, not giving up on, but giving into that urge…also, on the toilet, thinking about a story involving diarrhea- another human story, like the bed thing. Everyone has spent time in bed, and everyone has spent time on the toilet- its universal, and they are both comfort zones to a certain extent. Well what if you pushed that extent. What if someone is on the toilet all the time? Does he want to be? Not at first. He has a terrible diet, always pooping, and different kinds, different descriptions, and smells and sounds and sights, a real gross-out. But with a point. Maybe he likes it. He likes being on the toilet. It’s comfortable there in the bathroom, same as the bed. Maybe after so much diarrhea, he is constipated, and can’t leave the toilet until he has a movement again. He likes the feeling of release. What is it making him rid himself so often? The World sends in a psychiatrist in there to talk to him. Why do this? He doesn’t know, or doesn’t care. He just needs to. Denial of reality. Maybe you lose touch with reality. You don’t care, the dream is infinitely more interesting. Willing denial of reality. Acceptance of a higher reality thru dreaming, sleeping, eating, and pooping. Its like a drug, sloughing around, staying indoors in small enclosed places. Like a Radiohead album. The modern fairy tale with familiar surroundings to all. This one has a happy ending because the girl decides to get in bed with him.

He wakes up and realizes that the sickness has past. “I’m back”, he thinks as he rolls himself out of bed in the afternoon and weighs himself on the scale he pulls out from under the sink in the bathroom. 207 pounds. “I’m skinny!” he squeals, then moves back to look at himself in the mirror. He practically looks thin. How long has it been since he was under 200 pounds? Probably since college, since before he met… Stacy. Once they were going steady he let himself go, and since she’s been gone, it’s gotten even worse. Well, strange to say it, but being sick was a good thing! Now is a chance to keep thin, and get healthy for once. Finally!

Later, at Showbiz Pizza, munching down on his fourth plate, pizza sauce drooling down the chin and onto a bib, laughing with the kids around him as the animatronics band runs thru one of their tunes again. This is the second time he’s seen the show today. It’s so much fun to watch the little kiddos who actually believe the robots are real and talk back to them- he gets off just watching how they interact with each other, the pre-programmed beasts.. and the robots. He is laughing, with food on his chest.. laughing.

I know that I could crawl into bed and never leave it again, like those people you hear about on TV. I could easily be one of them, it would be so comfortable; its really a dream come true, imagine it. To never have to get up again, to not have to go to work, to make money, to pay bills, to not have to do_ fucking_ Anything.

No pressures, no worries, no tests, no failures, just the covers and the pillows and the un-ending WHITENESS of it, like a pure, cottony dream.

Like floating on the clouds in heaven.

Not having to worry about nothing... Nothing.

It is tempting, and the only thing keeping me from doing it is I don’t want to look that way- I don’t want to be 500 pounds, as it is I’m already over 300 again.

Just a few sandwiches away!

I’m yours Bed, I’m yours if this life gets any more difficult.

I have my limits, there’s only so much you can take.

I’m a genius.  It took a few hours and a lot of breaks but moving my fridge into my room next to my bed is pure Gold.  Maybe I can stay in bed forever.  I deserve it after all that work.  That’s the problem with more than 1 room – too much movin around.  I should sublet this place and get an efficiency, a small one with everything in arm’s length.  Now for the test; he collapses on his poor bed smelling like ass. It didn’t take long to fit into the deep grooves of the mattress.  His was a bed where the springs didn’t spring. Aaaahhh, that’s the spot. I’m so comfortable. Me and this bed – it’s like peanut butter and jelly. Oh yea, what was I doing (the thought of peanut butter and jelly brought him back). Starting to rock side-to-side building into a roll he managed to come to his side and reached into the fridge.  Just a beer for now – the perfect cherry on top of  2 scoops of hard labor movin this damn thing.  Ah fuck it, there’s a meatloaf just right there.  Rolling back in place a swig followed.  Aaaaahhhhh…gold.  If only I could crap in here.

After propping up a few more pillows under his bulbous head so the digestion would be easier he caught a glance at his stomach and man-boobs.  Looks like a landscape.  All hilly and rotund curves.  He poured some beer between his boobs and watched it travel down and around his stomach like a mountain stream…beautiful.  He put the meatloaf on his stomach and thought what if my stomach were a hill.  That’s a big meatloaf.

Exhaustion set in, beer in hand, meatloaf on stomach, he dozed off quietly then loudly with a snore that anyone who ever slept in a room with a fat guy would recognize.  He was dreaming of the ocean, not the beach but further in the deep where it’s dark blue under water except near the top where the surface is reflecting the sun.  It was quiet under the surface.  The occasional distant sound of a whale probably hundreds of miles away.  He saw himself gliding through the water effortlessly.  He moved with the grace and majestic-ness of a porpoise.  Alongside him swam sea lions and he was happy about this.

A fart woke him up and he realized he was lying in his beer.  Fuck, waste of a beer…gotta piss too…bed’s already wet…here goes…that’s a big meatloaf…this feels…not bad but different…no matter how many times I piss myself it always feels different…not done yet, man I really had to go…………………………………………….

this bed really holds a lot of water. 

Time for some meatloaf.

With one bite half the meatloaf was gone and both cheeks were full slowly chewing to savor the mix of meatloaf and the bacteria on his tongue and walls of his mouth that only a good sleep can leave behind.  Before swallowing he shoved the other half of the loaf in and smiled as he chewed on a big fat shit-eating grin.  Man, that was good, gotta get more a that stuff. 

I’m in the mood for a sandwich.  Fuck, I left the bread in the kitchen; there goes that.  Just as well, if I roll over to the fridge I’d spill all this piss.  I could probably get in another sleep before this piss gives me a rash.  I think I’ll order a pizza when I wake up…to celebrate.

Dozing off again he dreamt he was a giant meatloaf.

Upon waking his big head started to hurt.  The weight of his massive girth laying down gave the back of his head some pain.  Raising his arms, he put his hands under his head to relieve the pressure.  The scent of his armpits hit his nostrils and they widened and then shut off on impulse.  Think it’s time for that shower.  Dark outside.  Maybe I oughta lay here for some more.   It wasn’t his custom to rush outta bed.  Even when the shits came, usually they didn’t come till he was ready to leave the bed…usually.   He laid there for a time slowly taking in the smell of his armpits.  That’s how a Man smells.

The piss started to sting his ass-cheeks so it was time.  It took a few rolls to get out of the concave mattress but he was finally free.  Still dark in the room he felt around the floor with his feet to see if there was any uneaten food left about.  His belly touched the cold fridge and he jumped back an inch – titts wiggling.  I’m a genius.  He reached in and pulled out a cheeseburger. 

As much as he loved cheeseburgers, he couldn’t ignore that his whole backside was wet and was dripping onto the floor so he closed the fridge and made his way into the bathroom.  Cheeseburger in one hand he snapped off his thin underwear with the other in one quick swoop.  He turned on the water and adjusted the shower head so he wouldn’t get his burger wet while he laid in the tub, letting the shower hit his genitals.  As he ate the burger he used his free hand to reach into his crack and under his balls.  As long as I wash my crack and balls I’m clean.  When finished with the burger he used one hand to lift his balls and with the other hand really get into the crack.  Unsure if it’s ass-sweat or butt-grease but his hand moved quickly through the slit at first, but when the swipes got slower he knew he was clean.

He laid there for a while, letting the warm shower hit his genitals.  After a minute he peed on himself again.  Peeing yourself in the shower is good for you.  Every once in a while in the tub he thought of President Taft getting stuck in the White House.  When they got him out did they see his wiener?  I’d hate for someone to see my wiener.  I can’t see my wiener. I swear it’s getting smaller.

He sat up and put his sore head under the shower.  That feels better.  Guess I can’t sleep forever.  Just as well, I’d miss my friends at the donut shop.  Oh yea, pizza!  He jumped out of the shower forgetting to dry himself and put his thin underwear back on.

While waiting for the pizza place to pick up the phone he scratched his lower back.  His wrist and forearm brushed up against his body.  I didn’t know I had fat back there.  The phone answered, “Mugombos Pizza, how may I…” At the same time his pants explode with an uproarious fart.  The phone apprehensibly replies…uh, hello?  Yes please, I would like...  Oh, hi Mr. Albert.  Send over the usual.  Two usuals comin up, be about 45 minutes.  Thanks, I’ll be waiting.  As he says this he farts again then hangs up.  The pizza person he heard it.

Albert dials another pizza place and places a similar order then hangs up.  I’ll open the door to whoever gets here first, that’s fair.

Waiting for pizza time he sops the piss outta his bed with kitchen towels.  The large groove in the bed makes a beer and piss pond.  This ain’t right.  I didn’t plan on being this way when I was a kid.  What happened?  Could I have been more or did I do the best I could?  I didn’t do my best.  I never had the balls.

The doorbell rings, bringing him back to realize while he was thinking – his hand was lying in the beer and piss pond.  Thinking of the pizza he reaches into the back of his underwear for his wallet.  Ah, I need some pants.  Quickly putting on whatever clothes were laying on the floor he answered the door with a smile and wide eyes, claps his hands together then rubs them.  The delivery guy tells him the price and snaps him outta his pizza trance, totally forgetting he had to pay for it.  It didn’t seem right people had to pay for pizza, in this country anyway.  The pizza guy got his money and started back to his car thinking he smelled piss.  He sat in his car and smoked the other half of his joint and relaxed a bit before driving off.

Back inside, Albert opened the 1^st pizza box and just sat there a moment looking at it.  That’s a round party.  He folded the entire pizza in half and ate it like a taco.  By the time the pizza guy drove off, Albert was laying on his couch rubbing on his stomach with pizza sauce on his face, big smile.  The doorbell rang a second time.  That must be the other pizza delivery.  I will need more for later but the door is over there and I’m over here.  Then came a knock.  Goddamnit! he exclaimed as he rolled off the couch onto the floor than slowly made his way to his feet.  A head-rush followed.  He opened the door as his head-rush made its way back down his body bringing his eyes back into focus to see a pizza delivery girl that looked a lot like Stacy, just how she looked when he last saw her.  Taken aback he looked at her exclusively while the money/pizza exchange took place.  He couldn’t take his eyes off her even as she walked away.  Speechless for a moment and forgetting himself he felt something in his hand and looked at it.  Oh yea, pizza.  In he went and the pizza didn’t last till later.

Sitting there with more pizza on his face and gas building up inside of him, he thought of the pizza girl who looked like Stacy when she was young.  Then he thought of those shirts that say “no fat chicks” and laughed.  He liked those shirts.  He tried to get one at the mall but they didn’t have one in his size.

… I suppose I could look up on Stacy, try to find her in the book, but.. she wouldn’t want to know me now, and I sure wouldn’t want her to see me this way. Yeah, that would just be bad, me trying to get to know her again, but her not wanting to, seeing how fat I’ve become, even larger than before. She always said I was her big teddy bear and that she didn’t mind the bigness, in fact she liked it tho she hadn’t made a habit of it in the past. Then it occurs to him to ask, so you’ve never Gone Fat before? She looks at him like she will be offended, but then decides to answer. No, she says, in a strait forward, serious way that makes him feel a little light-headed. He is falling in love with her. I’ve never had a girl that liked me even when I was fat, he thinks. He could never tell her that, but he thinks it while looking at her, and wonders if she didn’t hear the thought anyway…

Those moments, like that, between them, they come back to him every once in a while, and it is painful, like an oxygen bubble in the side, one of those little pains under your ribs when you have run too much in P.E. He has to sit there and let it go thru him before it wears off. He even rubs his side where that other pain used to be, all the way back in high school when he was skinny and could still run. Now if he had to run, well, let’s just say it’s something that shouldn’t happen. It would look very strange, and someone could get hurt: namely him.

The memory of Stacy continued to swell tho, as the pain in the side left him. That look in her eyes: he could really tell she not only didn’t mind his girth, she genuinely liked it, and she liked him. How had he managed to fuck that up?! It was beyond him.

In that moment the forgotten pizza dropped from his hand partially devoured. He went upstairs with a faraway look in his eyes and stepped on the bathroom scale.

315 pounds. This far and no more, he thought. It ends here. I will Never be this fat again.

In the back of his mind was the hope- not even a fully formed thought- just a hope that maybe he could see her again, if he got his act together.

Come on man, you can do it.

No I cant!

Yes you can!

I CANT!

You_ Will.

.. alright then. I’ll give you this one chance, Conscience. Let’s see if we can make 300 pounds by the end of the month. (he looked at the calender) That’s 13 days. If I cant lose 15 pounds in 13 days, then I can’t lose the other 100 before what would have been our tenth anniversary in August, and I won’t even bother to try to find her. But if I can…

I’ts best not to go that far. Probably I’ll just gain more weight. We’ll see though. We’ll see.

And we’ll start with this here unfinished pizza.

He threw it in the trash, and took the trash out to the curb.

He stood there, looking up and down the block at night. Not much happening. Maybe this was a big moment, maybe not.

Went back inside.

Nothing new tonight, America (and my one or two readers). Here is something i wrote on October 13th 2009:

I threw away my walkman today. It just didn’t work anymore. The SONY WALKMAN FM/AM AVLS DOLBY B NR WM-FX405 AUTO REVERSE MEGA BASS RADIO CASSETTE PLAYER MADE IN MALAYSIA, she was with me all these years- I cant remember when I first bought her, or got her; it must have been ten years at least, maybe 11. She flew over the north pole on Aeroflat with me on the way to Moscow. She traveled with me on greyhound bus back and forth across the american southwest and deep south as well. At some point- I cant remember when- she started to play things slowed-down, which I thought was amazing. I found certain tapes, like willie nelson, and refused, that would actually play Better slowed-down: like a dj skrew discovery she was mine and mine alone to enjoy, syrupy music in my ears wherever I walked, and a walked a lot in the decade of the 2000’s, I walked a lot, and she was with me, singing her slow movements in my head, coloring the world a certain Grey that I always appreciated, something that no one else, until dj skrew discovered it for good, could even hear.

I now throw her away because she is old and rotting, the battery connections frosted over with flaky acid, the little motor that could finally died- it fell like a soldier, like an old comrade from a foxhole it took a decade to get out of…

So goodbye walkman, goodbye audio cassette tapes; you always did take up too much of my time in my youth always rewinding and fast-forwarding, waiting to get to the right song, something that no teen could handle now, it would drive them insane! It drove all of us insane, and we loved it. I have affection for tapes like people have affection for lp’s and now even cd’s, as the whole album and all ways of recording are now retired to the past and obscurity. Im not a purist, just a fan., bye- bye walkman, waiting for the trash man. I bury you now unceremoniously, like a pet you didn’t have for long, a body that you just didn’t have the time to give a proper burial. Who knows where you will end up? Some landfill island? A foreign shore? The bottom of the ocean, where your slowed-down approach to things is better appreciated, down there with the giant squid, and the sperm whale droppings… maybe even in the marianas trench, the biggest hole in the world.. outside my whole soul you helped to fill up as I wore my soles out walking from here to there. That’s what its all about, Music- just help get me from here to there, one step at a time.

not really sure what to write tonight. i told myself i would post everyday, just to keep up the discipline. but today kind of sucked, and i dont want to complain. still, when my girls were first learning how to write, i would tell them to write anything, even if it was "I dont want to write", or "I hate writing!" cause it works. as long as you get that voice rolling, things start to happen almost on their own.
well what can i say. i will now have two close relatives in prison-not jail but prison. my job could end any day now, thanks to my temporary status. on days like this i barely have an hour to bond with my wife and kids. the damn computer keeps crashing. the phone keeps dropping calls. and half the time i dont even feel like a writer at all.
but you know what? yesterday morning there was a bad accident on my normal route to work. someone died on that half-awake morning commute. so it could be worse.
im still alive, and im still writin.