I remember being 27 years old, buried in debt that I had no control over. I had no job. I was living in the town I wanted to be in. I was with a lady I loved. And my life sucked.
So, I ran away to a job that paid peanuts, but it was a job. I honestly don’t know why I went for that job. There were at least two others, but in all honesty, this one was the best. The paper was awesome. The two guys I’d be working with were awesome.
And, hell, I got to live on a couch rent free. For six months. OK, that really wasn’t a positive, except for the rent-free part. Because otherwise, I would’ve drown in that shit.
When I finally got a paycheck, I remember thinking “well, by the time I’m 30, I’ll have my life under control, and by 33 all this debt will be gone.”
Ha. Life.
Here I am, almost 40 now, the debt has shrunk, sort of. I hit two walls during that time, walls that made me use credit again. Stupid walls.
Now, I’m hoping to pay them off by the time I’m 43. I send every cent I have available to them now. I used to try to do that, but now I’m doing it. It’s tough. It sucks. But it’s necessary. Biggest problem with the plan is I’m making less now than I have since 2001. That’s a hard pill to swallow. But it’s reality now, so, better get used to it.
By then, I’ll be most likely shaving my head because I’m bald. My front teeth might be gone. The job I’m at won’t exist, I think it’s safe to say.
I won’t be living in the same house, or same town. Unless I meet the woman of my dreams. Hey, as TP say “Even the losers…get lucky sometimes.”
Well, enough of the self-imposed pity party. I created this mess with horrible decisions, both financially and personally. My hole. My shovel. Now, my building a ladder. A little late in life, but I happens.
****
I did my best to bury a memory last night. Hopefully, it stays in that hole I dug over there. Not the one I’m in. Ha.
****
I think I got my opening to a book I may someday write. It was in my head for hours, and finally, right before I went to sleep last night, I wrote it down in my diary. I haven’t re-read it, so I may actually suck. The opening line I can give away, because I’ve said it before…
“I never should have left New Orleans…”
It’s a great opening line. I remember the day Josh and I were talking at his bachelor party weekend in Austin. At some cheesy bar by the lake. I was gushing about the damn town, like I always have and always will until I actually move back. And I said those words…
Josh instantly broke out his notepad and wrote them down, proclaiming that they were the opening lines to his “Adventures of Alligator Jones” story, aka, my biography.
Short. Too the point. Accurate. And true. That’s what a writer should strive for. It’s why I read Hemingway, although “For Whom the Bell Tolls” is a bit raggedy in my opinion.
***
I may try to write something at work tonight. Do it long hand. I so miss writing long hand. I stumbled upon an old notepad a few weeks ago that had someone else’s longhand writing on it. It was strange to see it again. I kept it for a reason I assume. And maybe that reason is just to remind me that it is possible. If you just keep trying.
Don’t quit.
***
Does listening to a band’s music that has such deep meaning to you during a different awful time help erase the deeper meaning? Make it less powerful, somehow? I’m attempting that by listening to Lucero constantly at work. I can’t tell if it’s changing anything at all.
***
Monkeys like rubber-soled shoes,
But not the Beatles.
Stiv Bators was killed by a bus,
Wonder how it felt?
***
Nonsensical stuff makes me happy.
Incense does not.
I wish I had a drug dealer,
‘cause I need some pot.
****
Yep, it gets bad sometimes. But you’ve got to keep typing. Keep typing. Keep typing. No matter how bad what comes out of your mind. Even if everyone laughs at it. Even if even you know it’s worthless pap. Why? Because eventually that one true sentence will come out. And you can add it to the other one. And the other one…
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