David Bowie died.

David Bowie died.

I was sitting where I am tonight, staring aimlessly at the internet. At the same pages over and over again.

Not doing anything.

A week or two ago, that David Bowie was doing this at your age thing went around. I never clicked on it. I didn’t want to get depressed. Now, I think about it differently. I almost want to go and click on it. Just to see what the fuck he was doing at the age of 44 (soon to be 45). That was 24 years ago for him. He died at 69. So that was 1992.

I was a virgin.

I was in college, fawning over a girl that I would one day actually get a date with. A bunch of dates to be exact. Then, she broke my heart.

Nothing new there. Well, it was then, but now, not so much.

He was doing Tin Machine, maybe?

Still better than what I’m doing. Hell, I never gave Tin Machine a chance back in the day. It’s probably damn good. My good buddy Josh from the college days, he loved them. Preached their gospel all the time. I ignored it.

Did the same with Lucero. You see where that got me.

Anyways, all this outpouring of love and sadness over a celebrity that very few of us ever even got the chance to see perform, let alone meet, is usually looked at as silly.

People fill their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram whatevers with posts about dead celebrities every day.

This guy was different. I found myself crying about it. Not balling all over the place, but sniffling whenever another story came on the TV, or the radio, or the internet.

I listened to his new album ‘Blackstar’ on the ride to work. I wish I’d listened to it the day before. It wouldn’t have hit the same way.

It’s a goodbye. And it’s a damn good one.

I wrote my dad’s obit. It sucked.

I said a bit when we buried him at sea. That didn’t suck, but it still wasn’t perfect.

David Bowie did it perfect for us.

All of this has gotten me to think a lot today. I’ve been angry about things out of my control for a while now. Nothing new. Job, you know.

I don’t want to waste any more of my life.

I’ve got a great son.

A great woman.

A cool dog.

A sneezing cat.

And I don’t want to be so unhappy for 8-12 hours every damn day anymore.

Tomorrow (today, actually), I have to go in and talk with a management consultant in the office. I’ve been down this road before. Anyone who works at a newspaper 10 years ago and still is, has gone through this dance before.

They’re going to fire people. Or at least give you new jobs. New duties.

I hand-wrote my job description. It is filled with spelling errors and scratched out bad words … no not that kind.

I have no idea what I’m going to do tomorrow. I actually just found out I would be able to make the meeting time I signed up for due to baby-sitting issues. We always have baby-sitting issues. Another reason to get the fuck out.

I know I’ll be wearing my Pete Maravich socks.

And jeans that I have worn for six days in a row.

My shoes will have holes in their soles.

I will shave. That I will do. I will not wear a suit. Or a tie.

But I will wear clean underwear.

Then I will write a column. I’m thinking about writing one on why I can’t stand professional football anymore. How I didn’t watch a game this year involving my favorite team – the Washington Redskins – even the playoff game.

And you’re a sports writer?

Yep.

I still love writing stories. Telling them, I guess. I always thought I’d tell my own one day. Boy meets girl, girl breaks boy’s heart, boy drinks, boy dies.

But I took a left turn instead of right. Went East for a while before turning West again.

Now, it’s time to do what I’ve talked about for years.

Get the fuck out.

-30-

How am I supposed to get to 750 words. It seems this one will make it happen faster, harder, longer? Probably, not. But probably.

Eat a peanut. Drink a Yoohoo. Some day you’ll look at the sky and not see the stars anymore. The computer will be at fault. Silly.

A chuckle and a slap on the back

I pulled up to the house that was soon to no longer be mine.

The cool ocean breeze hit my face as I exited my car. The last chords of American Aquarium’s “Burn, Flicker, Die” faded into the air, replaced by the distant waves crashing on the beach.

“I’m going to miss this place,” I say out loud to no one but myself.

I look at the dilapidated plastic flamingos that stand guard. One of them is duct taped on the legs to keep him upright. His partner is missing his eyes. On the other side of the yard, two more sway in the breeze. They came later in the process. A gift of a friend who has sort of faded into the periphery of life. I hate it when things like that happen. But it does happen. Too often when you never stay put. I envy folks who have stayed in one place for long periods of time. They develop roots. They develop routines and have friends always available.

Me? I’ve moved so many times to so many different places. My friends are scattered from 30 miles away to New Orleans to California, then over to Japan and into England. Pockets of friends are in Virginia. Some on in Louisiana. Others are in this hell hole of Eastern North Carolina.

Some of those same friends say they are jealous of me.

“You’ve got to see so much, travel so much,” they say, “And you don’t have things holding you down.”

True, I tell them, but you have things I have always wanted. A wife, a family a dog and a cat. A steady paycheck and a feeling of purpose.

“I’ve got none of those,” I’ll say.

Usually that gets a chuckle and a slap on the back.

I open up the door to my “paradise house” as one friend described it to me once. The intense heat hits me like opening an oven to pull out a pizza. It actually blows the hot air outside. A front was just formed by this.

My brow instantly begins to sweat. I open the fridge and enjoy the cool air. I grab a Lone Star – 16-ouncer – from it and pop the top. I swig a huge sip of the Texas swill and realize that life is good most of the time. It’s only bad when you start worrying about it.

I go to the thermostat. It’s 99 degrees inside, according to the piece of plastic. But it doesn’t go to 100, so it could be 120 in here. It isn’t. There was a time about a month ago when it was 99 on the thermometer. But it was much hotter than it is now.

Then, I turned on the air. My girlfriend was there and it had to happen. We left for an hour to get some coolness from a local dive bar. Drank a couple Yuenglings and forgot about the last 48 hours.

Those are the times you remember. When someone sticks by you. Even when most people wouldn’t.

“You got a keeper,” my dad said a week earlier.

“Damn right,” I thought then, and am thinking now as I finish off the tallboy.

I don’t turn on the AC. It’s too expensive now that I’m unemployed. I have enough money to support myself for about 8 months, I figure. Of course, my figures will be way off and it’ll last five, tops.

I open up the windows and turn on a couple of fans.

Soon, it’s 91 inside.

“Not too bad,” I think.

I take a swig of beer and go outside. I open my car’s hatchback and start hauling in boxes. Medical boxes. Rubber gloves and gauze, they are slugged. My boxes display my journey as well.

These are the “I’m dating a nurse” boxes.

Others are : “I’m dating a girl from New Mexico who’s mom liked fruit” period.

Still another is :”I’m dating a Mexican who’s mom wrote what was in the boxes” period.

And still another is “This was the lesbian that I pined for” period.

Lastly, there’s the “The bitch was just looking for a safe place to be for a while” period. Those boxes, I threw away.

I sit down at my computer, hoping one of the gaggle of jobs I’ve already applied for has responded. I boot it up, log in to my email and … nothing.

I log into my other email … nada.

I went through nearly 14 months of this before, but I had a steady paycheck from the taxpayers of the United States then. I don’t now. Even though an old colleague told me “You should apply anyway.”

What’s the worst they can say? No. Right, I get that.

But why bother getting even two seconds of hope raised?

You’re a glutton for gluttony. If by gluttony you mean stupidity and pain.

I shaved my goatee off yesterday. I don’t really know why. I just did. I look weird without it. I think I look older. I definitely look “sweeter” as my girlfriend told me.

I’d rather look surly. Keeps people – other than tourists who want directions or a photo taken – away.

I need to eat some food. I always slip into these “forgot to eat” days when something happens dramatically in my life. And though I was going to make this happen in about two months anyway, this does qualify.

I look at the stains on the carpet and the broken blinds and I wonder if I’ll get any of my security deposit back. My last place I got it all back, minus the carpet cleaning fee. I had even left a piece of petrified baby poop – well, three and a half year old poop – exactly where the kid had left it months before.

Yeah, you can call me disgusting for that, but I didn’t want to touch it. And hell, that kid was good at shitting somewhere and hiding it away from us. Gotta give him credit for that. I’m sure his dad had nothing to do with that talent.

This makes me think of the Doug Stanhope concert I went to the other night. I’d bought the tickets drunkenly one night. So it was a sunk cost. Except for the three beers and tip I bought. I woulda bought more, but I felt bad about it. That kind of thought process probably won’t last.

Anyway, he told an Assburgers joke. Or maybe one of the opening act guys did.

It was funny.

I laughed.

But it made me a bit sad too.

I wonder how that kid is doing?

Good, I hope.

It’s really all I can do.

too soon?

His girlfriend was looking at her phone, Twitter most likely, he thought as he stared at her fingers. He moved up to her tits and then her face. Of course, the then went back to her tits. He wasn’t really a boob guy, but he just wanted to look at her tiny ones. He definitely liked ‘em smaller. Asses? Completely opposite.

“I can’t believe that happened?” she exclaimed.

He yawned. The Twitterverse was in a breaking news mode, obviously. He just wished the baffoons of the internet would just let professionals do the news breaking. Nowadays, everyone’s a journalist. So why isn’t there any respect for the profession, if everyone wants to be one? Guess it’s like athletes. Everyone thinks they can play. Everyone thinks “Hey, I could make at least one shot in an NBA game.” Or “Hey, I could at least complete one pass.” Fuck those dolts.

He looked at his girlfriend. She seemed truly upset.

“What is it babe?” he finally asked, more out of duty than true care. He knew it was probably just another oil spill or terrorist attack.

“Someone killed a bunch of people at a movie theater. Twelve of them. They were all just watching the premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises.” So sad.

“Another reason to not go see a movie on the opening night,” he said rather coldly. He was cold and callous now. Too many years of cynicism from being a journalist and seeing murder, death, rape, famine, AIDS every day and night of his life.

“You’re an ass,” she said giving him a mean stare.

She was right. He was an ass. To say something out loud like that will never be “acceptable” behavior as his third grade teacher told him after he called a girl a “cunt” to her face. He’d heard his dad use the word, didn’t know what it meant, but it seemed powerful. He realized that day that sometimes restraint was necessary. Even when you didn’t want to use. It.

Over the years, that ability had been eroded. Now, his face always told the tale and his mouth usually followed.

It cost him many things. Chances at getting laid. Telling a girl you think she’s stupid in a crowded bar usually won’t lead to blow jobs. More likely, it’ll lead to a punch in the face by some other clod. And that guy will end up getting his dick wet.

Jobs? Ha. If you tell a boss what you really think, it should get you promoted. And a good boss will do so. However, the problem with that theory is most bosses are not good bosses. They just lasted the longest. Or made friends or were members of the “Lucky Sperm Club.” This was more evident in newspapers than most places, he found. Yet, he kept going back to them. Until Twitter finally killed most of them.

“Too soon?” he asked.

She glared again.

“Guess so.”

It reminded him of the Virginia Tech sniper killings. He had plenty of friends and “Myspace friends” at that time who went to the school, worked for the school or just liked the school.

Later that day, after the news broke – more on television and newspaper web sites at that time than citizens, but not wholly at all – he put up a gif as his profile picture. Of a turkey in the crosshairs of a gun.

It was amusing to go to friends pages. Many dotted, some covered, with ribbons of “support” for the victims. A really nice gesture, I guess. But if he was a “top friend” there was the turkey in the sights, surrounded by ribbons. It was laugh inducing.

“Too soon?” was response to the criticism.

It got Howard Stern fired. “How much is a ticket to the 14^th Street Bridge?” Ha. That’s funny. And pretty damn daring.

But he had mojo. Getting fired didn’t hurt. It helped.

Being a douchebag to friends and such? Not much of a gain to be had there.

“My goal is to get as many people to follow me, then unfollow me,” a sort of friend posted on his Twitter feed a day before. He messaged him to say “then make fun of the movie shooting victims.”

His reply?

“Too soon.”

Who the fuck are these people. You are either a satirist who isn’t scared to offend, or you’re just another brick in the wall. Another wheel in the machine. Another cliché in a small town sportswriter’s shitty column.

“Guess we have a critic!”

Bad headline idea?

“Too soon?”

time, time, time, to, to, to, move, move, move

I stared at the words on the page. Phrases such as “man-to-man zone defense” and “only a vivid picture” dotted the text. It should amaze me that such a horrid worker of words has a job, but it doesn’t.

Once I was a writer for hire. A pen and a notepad always at hand.

Then one day I was cut loose. Deemed not economically viable. Like most, I wallowed in it for a little while. After that, I got off my butt and traveled. Spent months on the road, in planes, even on trains. It was the first extended vacation I’d ever had in my adult life – minus the New Orleans months. So, I partook.

After a while, I started to reconsider my goals. I decided to try and find a “new” career. One that would satisfy me and not be in an industry that’s fading away. It was fruitless. I got more rejection letters for jobs in the eight months or so of searching than I did when I was applying for internships as a college junior for the second time. But damn it if I didn’t persevere then. This time, I didn’t. I started applying for reporter and editor jobs again.

I got interview after interview. The first one, was at the beach. Near Nags Head, NC. Fucking perfect. I didn’t get the job. I did get a mileage check. First time for that.

Then it was a little town in North Carolina. Then a small town on the Tennessee/Virginia border. A shithole in Florida. A dungeon in Georgia. A weekend was spent in South Carolina and in North Carolina. About six and a half hours of driving between the two interviews. I wore the same suit. I wore the same shirt. I wore the same socks and shoes. I did change underwear.

I got offered all those jobs. And I turned all of them down. Except the last one.

I decided living at the beach was what I needed to do. Be alone for a bit. Don’t write newspaper stories, instead edit them. See how the other side lives. Also, get inside my head and do some cleaning.

Now, a little over two years later, I want to leave. Apathy is too high here. So high it hurts. Like altitude without the ear pops.

I see drunken leaders and timecard cheating editors. It’s sad.

I remember when everyone worked 50-60 hours and loved it. Now, you work 25 and try to skip out. I can’t bring myself to do it, but it’s tempting. And that’s why I know I have to leave.

Applying for jobs outside my “comfort zone” has been hard. I get no response from most. A canned response for most. A couple of almosts have kept me from going completely mad.

The road calls, I can’t answer it. Tied down right now. A house. A cat. Two dogs. I feel guilty for expressing that feeling, but it’s true. I won’t act on it. I know what’s important, even if it isn’t my sanity.

Some nights I want to drink myself into oblivion. Lucky for me, I can’t afford it.

The silence outside is upset by a lonely wailing cricket. Is he trying to get laid or does he want to be eaten by a spider? It’s a tossup, I believe.

“I need a love, to keep me happy,” Keith Richards sings. Hell, he’d know better than most. I need love too. It’s why I keep trying. If only I could figure out that whole garbage disposal that people so easily use.

“Cold, cold heart of mine

Just watch you cry

There wasn't much left to say

Nothing heartfelt anyway

So easy to just walk away
Tell me what that takes

Tell me what it takes
Cold, cold heart of mine

Just let it all die”

Lyrics. I put too much stock in them. That’s probably the most hated Lucero song, but the simple lyrics mean a lot to me. They make me feel less pain over what has happened in the past. Both to me, and by me.

If only I could move past the last bit of pain. It’s a hard one. I can’t get that look out of my head sometimes. And I don’t want to go through it again. It wouldn’t be possible to survive it. Oh course it would, physically, but not emotionally. And that’s what matters.

She’ll always be there for me. I know that. I want to be there for her. I’ve got to figure out how.

And I’ve got to figure out how to get out of this place.

Anyone want to open a taco wagon? Fuck, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Maybe my dad will open one with me. Guess I’d better make it a BBQ wagon. Or a BBQ Forerunner. …

Slim Whitman

Driving down NC-58, I was blasting music loudly like I always do. Waving at all the tourists who turn their blinkers on, brake, then don’t turn. And by waving I mean flipping them off, casually. I think Chris Penn would be impressed.

I notice tonight that a lot of lights are out. The weather wasn’t bad today, so it wasn’t some wind-related thing. Then I start to wonder if that extremely loud helicopter that buzzed over my house as I was dozing in and out of sleep this morning actually did crash somewhere near. I thought I heard a faint rumble a few seconds after it buzzed over, but thought nothing of it after I went to work and there was not a mention of such an occurrence. Of course, working for a newspaper now, and something being missed isn’t exactly newsworthy. But this shit would have been everywhere, right?

A little further up, I spot a bunch of police lights. It’s not a drunk check point, it’s a freaking Wednesday night nowhere near a holiday. The hotels here aren’t close to booked solid and the price of gas is falling.

But instead of wanting to deal with it, I turn down a side street. I know these streets go through in this area, and I don’t feel like dealing with whatever it is up ahead. As I turn down the main beach road, Jello Biafra starts singing about his inability to have intercourse while inebriated, and I turn it up.

I guess that was my mistake.

Three seconds later, police lights are flashing and a cruiser is speeding up towards my bumper. I’m like a deer in headlights when that starts to happen. My mind starts to process all the shitty things I think about cops and what they do when they pull you over. But, I click the radio to “Off” and pull over.

The cop takes his time getting out of the car. I always wonder if they’re just finishing off a coffee or maybe a last text message to their Lea Thompson (oh, yeah, two “The Wild Life” references in less than 400 words!) sexpot sitting in a donut shop. I know it can’t take that long anymore to do a quick search of a license plate. It’s all digital now, it must take five seconds. I guess they still want that fear factoring into what comes next – the questioning.

Finally, the guy gets out of his car. I watch him amble up in my mirror. I’ve already got my license and registration ready. I’m sure he saw me doing that.

“Hello, sir,” the officer says, shining his phallic light saber into my eyes. “Exactly what are we doing on this road so late at night.”

So late at night? I think to myself. It’s 11, 11:20 at the latest.

“Driving home from work,” I say. It’s the answer I always give these guys. I start to wish I had my “Stay out of Malibu!” shirt on. Seems fitting.

“Where you working so late?”

There is that so late, thing again. This time I decide to take the bait.

“It’s really not that late, sir,” I say. Before the rrr of sir is done rolling off my tongue, the sass starts to flow.

“Son, are you getting smart with me?”

“Not at all,” I reply.

“Well, it certainly sounds like you are. Will you just answer my question, without any lip?”

“Sure, I, uh, I work for a newspaper. We keep strange hours, compared to the rest of the world.”

“What do you mean, the rest of the world?”

I was starting to feel a bit pissed. I could feel my neck getting numb from the blood rushing to my forehead and not anywhere else. My hands clamped around the steering wheel.

“Um, non-newspaper folk?” I said. “Like you.”

“I’m out here every night,” the cop says.

“You work seven nights a week?” I reply, and instantly regret it. I see him grabbed his flashlight tight. I speak again to try and soothe that one over.

“I probably pass you each night too, then,” I say. “I usually give you guys a little salute, and I always turn my brights off as I approach.”

“So, you work seven nights a week?” he said smart-assedly. I liked his attempt.

“You get a paper every day don’t ya?”

“Nope. I hate the news.”

“Dully noted,” I reply. “Well, your dad, he got the paper every day, right?”

“Yes.”

“Even on Christmas.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, that’s because people like me don’t mind working all these crazy hours. Being out real late at night and all.”

“Listen, smart ass,” the cop finally broke my roll. Well, my sorta roll. “I pulled you over because I was just sitting here, eating my Chicken McNuggets, when I hear all this fuck, this, fuck this, fuck this coming from your car.”

“Yeah, it was a little loud, sorry.”

“Who was that anyways?” he asked.

“The Dead Kennedys.” I answered.

“Fuck, those guys hate the police. Even more than those, um, that rap group,” he spit out in full on hate voice.

“N.W.A.?”

“Yeah, them, them, them…”

“Rappers?”

“You getting’ smart-allecky with me ‘gain?”

“No sir.”

“Best not be.”

I looked at his badge. It had the name Ipock on it. A damn common name in these here parts, to use the parlance of our locale.

“You can go,” he finally said. “Just keep that noise down.”

“You got it,” I said, starting up the car. Jello sort of smirked at me in low decibels when I turned the radio back on. “Tonight’s the night that we beat up drunks!”

I got back on the main road and saw all the news trucks there now. All the television stations were there doing live shots for the 11 p.m. news. I pulled over.

“Move along sir,” a baby-faced cop said to me. I pulled out my press pass that I’d never used for any press activities except getting back on the island after hurricanes. I flashed it at the cop, hoping he’d not read too much and see that it said “correspondent” on it.

“Oh, okay,” the guy said and walked away. I always find it disconcerting how easy it is to just show a laminated pass that says “Press” and people just let you do what you want. If I had no scruples, I’d really take advantage of it. Especially with the press dying off and pretty soon, that kind of privilege. Instead, I just put it back in my wallet where it will stay, most likely, for months.

I walk over to the way over dressed for this 102 degree heat blonde. She’s not too smart, and other than her body, not too good looking. But she’s got something, I can’t quite place it. Maybe it’s the Brittany Spears eyes?

“What’s the big hullabaloo?” I ask her.

“The hulla-what?” she responds. I hear a chuckle from behind. It’s Lars, a cameraman who I used to see quite often in the old sports reporting days. He walks over and shakes my hand.

“Damn if a helicopter didn’t crash here this morning,” Lars says. “And no one heard it or knew anything about it.”

“I heard it,” I say.

“Sure you did. And we’ll read all about it in the paper, right? You just held on to this little nugget?”

“Nah, it woke me up this morning. Heard the damn thing fly over my house. Way too low, too. And I thought I heard a big thud, but then I went back to sleep.”

“Back to sleep?” the blonde shrieked. “What kind of a journalist are you?”

“One that knew this was exactly what would happen, hun,” I said.

I had gone into the office and told my editor about what I heard.

“OK,” she said, looking at her computer and her phone. Twitter was on both of them.

I guess a press release never came. Or it came at 7, 8, 9 or 10 o’clock. Way past her bed time.

I got out my notebook and got to work.

At 11:32 I had a story written. I called the newsroom. Only the old-timer was still there.

“J.B.,” I said into the phone. “Can you take a story from me. Old school style. Dictation?”

“Paper’s in bed,” he replied.

“Fuck, you J.B.,” this is big.

“Quack,” he said. He always quacked when he got annoyed. He took my story. Re-did the front, with the story on it. 11 inches of copy. One really bad cell phone camera image of a chopper blade stuck in a dolphin statue. I noticed it when I interviewed an emergency worker. It was off the beaten path, and I hoped no one else saw it. Damn good image.

At midnight, I got back in my car and called my editor.

“Enjoy the front page today,” I said. “Something happened yesterday. I think someone told you about it.”

I knew she’d yell at me in the morning. And it was fucking worth it. Just like it always is. Pissing off the lazy editors in front of you, taking up comfortable seats and collecting six-figure salaries to do rice-bowl worthy efforts.

I drove down the road a ways. I pulled out my CD wallet. Yeah, I still have a CD wallet. Fuck an I-pod. I pulled out the disc I was searching for.

“You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge!”

Seven minutes later, I was talking to another friend of mine who works for the county – Officer Billiken.

Next time, I think I’ll just play some Slim Whitman.

season-ticket holder

It’s always been a bit stalkerish in quality.

Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning” blasts out of my speakers. The folks going to the beach music club across the street don’t seem to like it. Go figure. I’d guess at least a few of them were metalheads back in the day. When they were rebelling against their rich daddies and trying to be individuals.

Hell, it happens.

One day, I’ll be dead. And so will you. But somehow, I’m guessing, these words will still exist. And if not, at least I’m on microfiche.

Ha. That last little rhyme (sorta) made me smile. That’s always a good thing.

It’s strange to try and sit down and write when I really, really, really don’t want to.  It reminds me of those days back in 2006 when I just wrote to bleed. But then I wanted to. I wanted to cry in the wind, knowing that only a couple of people were looking, and they really weren’t all that interested.

My parents are getting ready to have their 48^th anniversary. My sister and her husband, their 20^th. My grandmother just turned 90.

Meanwhile, my sister is dating her “boyfriend” for the 12^th or 13^th year, minus that strange year when we lived together for a while for some months. That was a weird year.

Me? I’m on my sixth year of angst. It’s nowhere near the angst it was, but it still exists. I guess it always will. I lost a chance to be a dad. That was worse. Haunted is a good way to phrase it. Now I want to listen to the Pogues.

My mind works strange. Ha.

I read something today at work that made me cringe. It’s been a bit. I’m very glad that editors are editing the so-called editor now. He’s a stupid kid, and he’ll always be that. But maybe now that someone is (hopefully) correcting him again, like I tried unsuccessfully for three months before giving up (my biggest professional failure for sure), I’m hoping there’s a glimmer of hope. The other guy? Not at all. He’s a fanboi loser of the worst kind. What I was at 24, wearing my UVA shirts to ASU practices. But I learned, after being called out. And that’s the best thing that can happen to a young sports journalist. Of course, now I’m a grizzled sports journalist who hasn’t written a word for newspaper publication that got my name on it for quite some time now. But I’m applying for two jobs that will let me write again. Hopefully, I’ll at least get a nibble. I regret, somewhat, not taking the job I could have had in Bristol, Va. A great boss would have helped me get to where I should be. I have the chops, I’ve just not been pushed in so God damn long that they’ve become flabby and discolored. I’m ready to get off that pity-party wagon and start writing again. I try not to, but I still believe. In me. In it.

Beer makes me happy. Well, happier.

I miss conversations on barstools with friends. All of them live so damn far away. I’ve lived here in Morehead City for over two years now. I haven’t met a person I’d call a friend yet. The longest conversations I have with people here who aren’t visiting me are with my landlord’s secretary and the girl at Food Lion with the big nose and nice ass. She talked to me today. Said “She’ll be right with you.” I was in the “express lane” that had no cashier b/c she was bagging groceries for the butt and beak gal. I was just doing my look at the ceiling thing – yeah, I’d call it a “thing” – and I guess she recognized it. Hence the sentence to me. It’s good to be noticed.

I read today that child molestation is bad. Thanks for that.

I also heard on TV that if you are molested, you are a “lost soul.” I really wish people would think before just spouting off about things they probably have no clue about. I mean, I don’t know much, but what I do know, I know better than to just blanket call victims of abuse “lost souls.” Why? Because they survive and thrive many times. They aren’t lost. It’s the pederass that is lost.

Speaking of…why is everyone so quick to just say “kill the fucker!” or “I hope he gets gang-raped in prison!” about it. I mean, yeah, he deserves it, but fuck. I used to be full of so much anger and hatred too. But I learned how to just let that go. Do I hold on to some things still? Yes. But damn, why so much hate? Especially if you have no connection except maybe being a season-ticket holder?