excuses, part whatever...

you know. i thought when i started this blog i would have insane problems writing it from the get-go. instead, it went smoothly for months before hitting april and may.

i have no excuse for lagging in my posts. just that my mind has been elsewhere. i did some traveling. met a girl that may or may not end up being a girlfriend...taking it slow this time compared to my past...and i simply have not been inspired enough to sit at my desk and type.

i have scribbled some beginnings in notepads.

i have thought about it while driving home from my tedious job.

and i have felt bad for my two or so regular readers.

a blog, a career, a whatever dies when you don't live up to what you claim.

i said i'd write every day, knowing full well that it would be impossible, but i wanted to dare myself. it was nice for a bit.

but the faucet ran dry for a bit. i don't know if i just needed to get a lot of stuff out there in the form of semi-fiction and fiction, or if i just got bored/complacent or whatever.

i do know that i will come back to this. i have to. i need to. it's important to me to find out the answer to the question.

thank you for your support.

two eggs and bacon

“What are you thinking about?” the waitress asked me.

“I’m not really sure. I was trying real hard to remember the way something sounded. Something from a long time ago. But I can’t.” I said after putting down my laminated menu.

“Honey, don’t. If you can’t remember it, that’s the way God wants it to be.”

I’d never really thought of it that way. God wants me to remember something or not. I always figured it had something to do with my screwed up brain cells. Too many years of drinking beer, smoking pot and a few nitrous canisters, right?

“God, huh?” I finally said.

“Yes, honey. God,” she smiled. Her teeth were crooked and stained. Just like mine. She was skinny. Very skinny. I’d hazard to guess she’d dabbled in heroin at least once in her life. But now she’d found God. And serving waffles at 3 in the morning. Certainly, she was doing better at the whole “life” thing than me.

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked her.

“Certainly, honey.”

“Do you call everyone honey?”

“Can’t says that I do,” she said. “I can stop if you don’t like it.”

“No, no, no. I like it. A whole lot, actually. It’s been a long time since someone called me that.”

“Goes back to that trying to remember thing, don’t it?”

“Yep. I’m a sucker for a lost cause.”

“Honey, there’s no such thing as a lost cause.”

“You sure are an optimist.”

“No other way to live.”

I’ve known a couple of women like that. Ever believing in everything. Seeing the good all the time. Funny thing about them – they all left me too.

I looked at her nametag. It said “Wendy. Here to serve you.” She saw me looking at it.

“My name is Missy, by the way.”

“Lying to the customers, huh Missy?”

“It’s more to keep a safe distance.”

A first crack in the armor of good. This Missy could be worth taking a chance on, I started to think.

A couple of drunk rednecks came into the place. Loud and full of booze. Trouble for sure.

“You going to order?” she asked with a grimace. “If you don’t soon, I’m going to have to go take their order and Maurice will get them first.”

“Who’s Maurice?”

“The cook,” she said pointing at a fat, greasy guy behind the counter. He smiled at her pointing and grunted a little bit.

“I’ll wait. You should go tend to the drunks.”

“Those guys are trouble,” she said. “You might want to leave.”

“I’ll stay.”

She nervously tip-toed over to their table. Missy had great legs. Almost as pale as a polar bear’s fur. A bruise behind her left knee was old, but still pretty ugly. I wondered how it got there. I didn’t have to wonder very long.

“Wendy!” one of the drunks yelled. “I need my Wendy!”

My inner rage level jumped a few points. I watched the drunks closely. They were both huge. Definitely manual laborers. If I tried anything with either of them, my head would most likely be bashed against the front counters.

“Luther, John, you boys have been drinking tonight, haven’t you?” Missy said. I looked at her eyes, there was fear in them. Not a lot. Certainly not enough for Luther and John to notice. But, me, I noticed it.

John, a hulking pig of a man wearing a ripped Bon Jovi “Slippery When Wet” shirt, put his grimy meat hook of an arm around Missy. Pulling her to his lap. She slapped him.

“I love it when you get rough Wendy,” he said with a cackle.

Luther then proceeded to lunge for her too. He missed, falling to the floor as she deftly stepped out of the way. Even wearing way-too high heels for the gig, Missy was like a ballerina with her moves.

I chuckled just a little. Luther, on the ground, must have heard.

“You got a problem, buddy?” he yelled at me. My smile shrank a little, but stayed on my face. I’ve never been a good hider of facial expressions. It’s why I never could be a poker player. I’ve got too many tells.

“Nope,” I said. “Just enjoying the show.”

Missy winced at that. She knew it was a challenge. She knew Luther would take it as such.

“Fuck you, buddy!” he replied, scrambling to his feet. He started to walk over to my booth. I got a little nervous.

“Stop right there, Luther,” a voice, almost like what I would imagine Thor’s would sound like, rose from the background.

We both looked behind the countertop. It was Maurice.

“I ain’t having no trouble. Sit your dumbass back down and I’ll start cooking your chocolate chip waffle.”

“Uh, um, Maurice, that guy’s a prick.”

“How the hell do you know, Luther? He’s been real nice to your cousin.”

I felt a bit strange now. But, in a sort of way, it all made sense.

Missy looked at me with sad eyes. She knew what Maurice’s statement meant. I wouldn’t be pursuing our conversation any further than “I’ll take two eggs and bacon.”

I was sad too. But, her eyes were right.

11 days ... aka no words...

When I was 17, my dad asked me what I wanted to do. I said “I don’t know.”

When I went to college a year later, I had one visit with my advisor. He asked me, “so, what do you want to do?”

I said the same thing.

I drove 4,000 miles a few years later with my best friend. We talked, he drove. We listened to music. We crossed the border. We drank beer. We watched the movie “Speed”. He never asked me what I wanted to do.

I met a girl and fell in love. At that point, I thought I knew what I wanted to do. Be a journalist. Be a happy person. I’ve learned the two weren’t compatible with me. Not that they aren’t for others. Just not for me.

I broke her heart one day on the telephone. It was going to happen sooner or later anyway. But that day she forced the words out of me.

A couple days later, a girl asked me “what do you want to do?”

I said “fall in love again.”

I was drunk. I was sad. I didn’t know anything.

A few months later, I fell in love again. It was slow. It was hard. It ended up being perfect.

Six years later, on the phone, she broke my heart. She asked me a variant of the same question. I said “be with you.”

I sat and stared and drank and cried and drove for the next two years. Had a girl for a little while. Then I sat and stared and drank and cried a little more.

One day at work, I got a phone call. I got fired.

I left North Carolina. Drove back home with my tail between my legs.

I met an old friend for drinks. We talked about what we wanted to do then, and what we could do now.

It’s been a constant conversation with us two ever since. She’s had job after job after job. I’ve turned down four jobs then got one. So I could live at the beach. I turned down on really good job. And I was asked why. I said “because I want to do something for me for a change.”

So I moved to the beach. Always wanted to do it.

Now, a year later, I finally had a party here. It was fun. I kissed a girl that night. First time in almost three years. It felt good. Nervous, but good. It was the second date. She wanted a kiss on the first date, but I didn’t. I needed to not.

The same band was playing in the background of the first date. The moment was there and I went for it. I never go for it. Well, I used to not ever go for it. The last four kisses have all been me first. Maybe that’s a sign of finally moving. Or maybe it’s just me overthinking things that don’t need to be analyzed. I’m good at that.

The record player is off right now. The birds are singing some sad song. Well, it sounds sad to me. I think about getting up, putting on a record and going back to wherever it is I was. But I don’t. Atrophy doesn’t look good on me. But my roots are starting to show.

The pen doesn’t run out of ink if it’s never used. The brain doesn’t breathe if you don’t feed it words.

I haven’t written in over a week. I haven’t read in over a month.

So I sat down and starting typing. Just words. Just thoughts. Just whatever needed to spill out of my head. Slow, steady and sad. Those three words just seemed to be all I had at that moment. That instant. So I typed them. Fast and slow.

I was asked again yesterday what I wanted to do. I still don’t know. It’ll come to me, though. I have faith that the last 40 years haven’t been wasted. They’ve just been practice. Experience. I’m good at longing for something. I’m also good at chasing things down. But when I get them, it seems I’m always disappointed. Either by them, or by me. Is it ever enough? Or have I just not found the right it?

Words. That’s all they are. Actions are better. Even when actions involve just words. Remember that, will you? It’s the most important thing to remember. At least right now. At this moment. It’s what you need. It’s what you are.

fuck that guy...

I rolled down my windows, not to hear what the redneck in the Toyota was yelling at me, but instead so he could see me giving him the international sign for jacking off as his tantrum continued. This only seemed to enrage him more, shockingly so, and I just put my foot on the pedal and kept driving. James Brown was yelling something about a payback and I needed to listen to this instead.

A minute of two later, I came to a light. My pal in the blue Toyota was still there. Still yelling too. And pointing now.

“Pull that fucking car over you faggot!” he screamed. “I’ll kick your ass.”

I laughed.

“Fuck you, you laughing faggot!” he yelled as the light turned green. A mini-van in front of me blocked any progress, as did a tow truck in the lane to my right. This kept the Toyota and the screaming head next to me.

“Pull over, shit head. I’m going to kick your ass.”

Finally, I’d had enough. I looked over and yelled back “No thanks. Got better things to do.”

I got ahead of him, but he floored his car – producing a nice puff of black smoke from his exhaust – to catch back up to me.

“I’m going to kill you,” he yelled.

I blew a kiss this time.

Enraged, he pointed at me. I was starting to feel a little nervous now. I haven’t actually been in a real, honest to goodness fight since high school. I broke one up at a concert in Brooklyn in 2008, but that was a Lucero show, and a redhead was involved, so I had to. She ended up making out with someone else all night, and me, I got drunk. So fights and me, they don’t mix.

“I’ll pass man,” I said as loud as I cold.

“Faggot!” he screamed as he turned right down some redneck byway.

Relieved, I turned James back up. I wondered why someone would want to even fight a complete stranger on the highway. Especially one that you had just cut off. I’d almost understand if I’d cut him off. But he cut me off at 55 mph. Fuck that guy.

For some reason, that phrase, uttered out loud in frustration and nervousness brought back a memory.

One of me sitting in a Motel 6 in Gainesville, Florida. Crying my eyes out. Wondering what the fuck I was doing there. Coming up with no reason for it to have come to this. Me, balling and throwing stuff at walls, just a couple of miles away from the girl of my dreams.

She’d dumped me a little over a week before. On the phone. Without warning. With no reason.

“Love isn’t enough,” she told me.

“Why?” I asked.

She had no answer to that either. To me, it was enough. But, I know it really isn’t now. At least in that instance. Maybe in all instances. I don’t fucking know.

Anyway, sitting on that dirty, cheap carpet in Room 117 in the Motel 6 in Gainesville, Florida, I was weeping. I’d been to our house. Ours in that I was paying half of the rent and paid all of the security deposit. Almost three years I’d been doing that. Never thinking I was just funding my demise.

She was there. Her car was under the carport. The hood was still warm. Yet she didn’t answer the door when I knocked. I tried over and over.

I know she heard me pull in. My muffler on my car died just as I got into town. It was loud. It was a perfect display of my emotions. Loud. Obnoxious. Sad. Broken.

Finally, after crying on the concrete for about an hour, I wrote a note and left. Driving straight to the Motel 6 and getting a room. The same hotel we stayed at when we stayed in when we visited three years ago to look at the school and to find a place to live.

Just like the first time we did this, we couldn’t find a place at all. Looked at lots of cockroaches and shitty apartments.

I stayed positive. She didn’t. Funny how that was our dynamic.

On the last day, she was fretting moving into an apartment. I found a house in the paper. It was the last place we looked at. Instantly, it was perfect. Just like last time. Almost on the way out of town, we found a great old house. She jumped and screamed at it. I smiled. Things were good then.

We made love in the Motel 6 before leaving. Then it was 700-some miles back home.

Now, here I was in the same hotel. No sex this time.

My phone rang. I was excited. Until I heard the voice on the other line.

“Randy?” it said.

“Yes,” I answered.

“This is Amy,” she said.

“Yeah, I know. Have you spoken to Emily?”

“Yes. She called me. She’s scared.”

“Oh what? Me?”

“Yes.”

“You know I’d never do anything stupid.”

“I know. But she’s emotional.”

“And I’m not?”

“I understand, but…”

“But what? I just want to talk to her. She won’t. Not even on the phone. It’s not fair. It’s not right.”

“Give her time.”

“But I’m here now.”

“It’s not the right time.”

“Well, tell her this. I need to get into the house. Get some of my things.” I was resigned to what was happening already. Maybe it was a mistake, but it happened. Right at that moment. Resignation.

Funny how it took me almost five years to finally decide to move on.

Fuck that guy.

And fuck that girl.

bum

It’s two fucking o’clock in the morning. London Calling is blasting out of the shitty speakers that have been the lone source of my musical journey since 1980.

It seems to me that the night could be better than this. I’m 40 years old. My teeth are rotted and my gums are gone. My suit was bought in 1998. By my mom. When I had an interview. Since then, it’s been the suit I’ve worn for every interview. Every dance. Every wedding. The insides are frayed and worn. The label saying where it was bought – Marks and Jays – has bled into one big word that isn’t legible anymore.

There’s no wind outside tonight. The stale air in my house isn’t helped by the sea breeze. Instead, the smell of dead fish and stale beer fills my lungs. You get used to some things, and this is one of the things that I certainly have gotten used to. Same with the howling feral cats that prowl the alley between my house and the hotel next door. The hotel that no one ever stays in, yet somehow it stays in business – at least from the end of April until the end of September. I’ve also gotten used to being alone.

That used to scare me more than death, being alone. Somehow it seemed to be the worst possible thing that could happen to a person. Maybe growing up and being exposed only to relationships that lasted had something to do with this feeling. I didn’t understand divorce. When I’d find out a friend or colleague’s parents had divorced I had no emotion. It didn’t make sense. Why would anyone marry someone that they didn’t want to be with, forever?

I think that’s why I’m still alone. I will only settle for the lie that I think all of the examples from my youth displayed. Ha. My parents love each other. But they also enable each other, for good and for bad. My dad’s parents? I don’t know enough about them. I do know that my grandmother after my grandfather died ended up shacking up with the best man from their wedding. Then there’s my other grandparents. Together over 50 years.

What does all that mean? I don’t fucking know.

The new girl at work goes out of her way to not say hello to me. Every day, she walks in and if I’m the only one there, says nothing. If others are there, she says hello. It’s strange. It doesn’t particularly bother me, but I wonder why. So, I guess it does bother me. She probably figures that much. It’s enjoyable.

The inspiration to try something new has hit lately. Not enough so for me to write it down, but to think about it. This is progress. The winter months saw me atrophy in many ways. Mentally, physically and emotionally. I just kind of existed. The worst way to live is to just exist. You need a reason, otherwise it is pointless.

A friend of mine got turned down for a job, and he doesn’t even know it yet. I feel bad for the guy, some. He’s been out of work for over two and a half years. Yet, I know he isn’t looking very hard to find a new job. He’s got a wife and a great record collection. He can write circles around me, yet he only writes one story a week. A column that in many ways sucks more than my blog used to. It’s all about him. His hang ups. His worries. His flaws. His memories. It’s no way to live. In the mind. I guess that’s why we’re friends. Sort of. He’s a one-way friend for the most part. Likes it when it suits him. I keep coming back, like a bad girlfriend. You know she’s bad for you, yet the sex is great. Or she listens. Or she is just warm next to you in bed, much warmer than an empty spot.

The busted up wooden fence leans west. The drunken Cougars prop themselves against it every night. Some nights, the fence is kind, allowing the lady to sit or just bang up against it. Other times, a plank will snap, sending the mess to the ground with a thud and a scream. Those nights I like better than the others. I still wonder if any of them want to come over to my place and have sex. Probably not, seeing that I am just sitting in a broken down, rusted lawn chair every week when they come to dance the night away. “What a loser that guy is,” I imagine they say to each other. “What do you think he does?” another may ask. “He just looks like a smelly, farting beast.”

Yeah, I need a change. Before I start needing to ask for yours.

experience...

well. i've let you down again, dear blog.

but, i'm out experiencing a little bit of life, instead of watching it go by. so you'll have to wait.

maybe tomorrow. as i'm doing nothing.

if not, sorry. and yes, i know i'm breaking the rules.