snow blind. yesterday's ice has formed a glacier around my car. after half an hour of struggling to gain any sort of entrance i gave up and decided to wait till spring before i go anywhere again. i realized today that i am a very negligent parent. i adopted the hydrant across the street in 1991, i even had a certificate of adoption, but i can't remember the last time i even bothered to clear the snow away from it. i think i did it once, in 1991, and its just been sitting there teeming with resentment ever since...
(or is it harboring resentment) (does it matter?)


is there anything worse than snow shoveling?


just as soon as i finished shoveling the driveway it was covered with snow again.


so back inside and sweeping the floor and dancing with the broom and belle and sebastian on left of center 26, and somehow my dream of being a big tough guy and driving cross country robbing banks seems extremely preposterous... i was reminded of my favorite thing about that bus job i used to have, cleaning buses in the middle of the middle of the night, dancing and singing to myself... i should become a butler, call me bukowski belvedere solving some strange families problems by day and robbing them blind of liquor and possessions by night. i should start my own charles in charge service, what did he do anyways?....somehow i always end up a buddy lembeck instead.

i couldn't convince my brother to go sledding today. i dont think he'll ever fully forgive me for leaving him out of a lot of these things when we were kids. we'd only let him sled with us on the hopes that he'd fall into the creek. and he usually did...cold blooded old times.

***IMPORTANT EDIT***

I did not adopt the hydrant across the street, that was adopted by the girl who lived next door, I actually adopted some hydrant down the street (i think on the corner of galen). unfortunately, i did not take care of that one either, but i dont feel so bad now about neglecting the one just across the street. why would i care about a hydrant in front of someone else's house? you'd think my brain's proclivity to retain and recall so many inconsequential facts would be of some greater benefit...........

who loves the sun?

and it's already begun, just as "they" forecast. i can hear that crinkling sound, and excuse me, dear reader, that is the only way to describe it. when the skies decide to bleed ice. and it immediately brings me back to '91 and being ten years old, going to the curb with the trash and returning inside to tell my father that something was not right outside. little did i know that it would mean a week off from school and two weeks without power. and those bizarre nights where the whole family slept in the same room and had kerosene hallucinations. it may have been fun then, we still had a sandbox in the yard, it wasn't ours but i remember it, but i could never survive a week or two in this house without power with my parents now. i hope we are just getting the ass end of this storm that seems to be icing over most of the country... anyways, so much for inspiration. I've been in bed for awhile now. Friday night i ate some bad chicken parm, at least that's my theory. instead of writing I've been guzzling pepto and sleeping and thinking that i need a drastic change in my diet. no one should eat a sandwich that's larger than their forearm. i swear,this city would deepfry water if it was possible.... in fact i should write a diet book with the first rule being: hold it up to your forearm. if it's bigger - don't eat it... i'm not sure why i am even still up, i'm going to bed and wrap myself in tight and hope the power is still on so that i can listen to howard in the morning......

Ok- A series of events

Apparently I fail in showing passioned interest in the Russian Revolution. My roommates and I were at the bar and JC says to KR: "I'll tell you this because no one else cares"

"What about me?" I say.

eyes rolled.

me with KR, JC

I thought maybe it was about the tabloids they obsessively buy (in

irony, of course!) but no, it was about the goddamn Russian revolution. I overheard her talking of Stalin et al. to KR. Am I building some sort of anti-intellectual/Stalin reputation? It hurt my feelings so I finished my whiskey fast and walked home in the fucking freezing cold. Cried myself to sleep watching Akeelah and the Bee.
-

The next day JC mistook my coldness as being caused by my having overheard her fucking a guy she met at the hot dog stand the night before. However, I had no knowledge of such an event. But it gives me time to build up my Russian Revolution love without her noticing.
-



I have these two new friends who took me to the mall and got my ears pierced. "Instant lady-ness!" they exclaimed. I also bought the tightest of tight jeans ever and we played girl talk at my house. They left at one am and I drank an entire bottle of wine alone and sat in a chair texting Cory. Or rather, writing out drafts of texts and then deleting them. I cannot deny that this a true low point in my life. I was up until 6 am when I finally just passed out. But not before I hit the glorious paranoia plateau of intoxication. During which I paced around the house with my cell phone (for emergencies) and some mace tucked into the waistband of my shorts, turning the heat up and down and locking and unlocking doors . It was really cold and I don't know why I was wearing shorts. But this is America and if we can't walk around our houses in shorts even when its 26 degrees outside, what the fuck are we living for?
-


2 suicides in my family since September. The first of my family members I know to die. My mother switched gears into hard drugs and refused to see me when I was in Mass. My husband (ish) drank too much on New Years and pushed me and knocked all the glasses off the counter, screaming at me, threatening suicide. I don't really think of these things. They happened (or I found out they happened) almost 2 weeks ago. I can't even comprehend. Instead, I focus on tight jeans, bad movies, moving the furniture and trying to break up Cory and his gf. Superficiality is a delicious drug.

Personal Days

I went hiking this afternoon and fell in love with the mutt I hate most of the time-- I woke up early and got a job doing something I've never done before--I smoked a joint with the guys who made my lunch and one of them threw up-- Cooked a dinner that was more than satisfactory--I faked sick at work for the second day in a row-- I dressed up in a suit and looked like a million bucks-- I talked real estate over dinner with a fellow co-worker I bartended with once-- I listened to Howard in despair about the O.J trial for hours-- I sang to Lee "Scratch" Perry's "I'm A Psychiatrist" again today!-- I heard a close friend broke his hand today, but I haven't called yet--

some new writing rools...

i am imploring you, Bartles! to find the original writing rools. if indeed those still exist. until then, here are some new ones...

• Inflatable Hearts

If you want to write creamed corn, write it. I want to write like that Everwood show, heartwarming stories about morality and forgiveness, never as edgy as those Gilmore Girls...

• Too Little

Pick up where Hemingway's spent shotgun shells left off. Eliminate any and all useless words. Spend a lifetime trying to "write one true sentence..."

• Too Much

Write with nothing but unnecessary words. Like McClanahan, use three or more pages to describe a pubic itch.

• Grammar School

Learn about punctuation, capitol letters, and the very fundamentals of grammar and it's use within the english language. Just learn it, you do not have to use it.

• Beauty in Bank Heists

"Sans haine, Sans violence, et Sans arme"

You can borrow here and there from your friends stories, but it is advised that you tell them first. You never know when your lotto numbers will hit, and then you'll have a lot of explaining to do. If you are going to steal you should do so w/o hatred, violence, weapons. elevate everyone always... Do not end up like our Bonnie and Clyde.

• Avoid Senseless Destruction

Treat all your writing like the library of fucking congress. DO NOT burn all yr. notebooks. DO NOT leave all your writing in the apartment you are being evicted from. You will only have to write it all over again, and you will, taking away energy from the NEW writing you should always be doing.

• There Is No Original Thought

Everything has been written before. In every form. It has been written much more effectively and ever so beautifully. What matters most is how you respond to this threat.

god bless us.

up all night with the Permanent War. what has been accomplished this week. we bombed some dudes in somalia. we sent 21,000 or so more men and women to iraq in an attempt to "win the war". manhattan smelled for a couple hours? and i was just watching a news update about an explosion at the us embassy in athens.(12.41 am). i just want to watch conan and try to get to sleep... republicans against bush? i'm beginning to actually write a novel? well it will be words on paper in a pile, we'll call it something when we're done. the world's not supposed to end till 2012. it's gonna be a long hard time. god bless us.
(i'll update in the morning if i ever get to sleep...)

***

when i woke up (2.20 pm) fox news was still talking about "Donald and Rosie"- so i guess the world is still right where it was when i went to sleep. (7.30 am) i was up all night, probably due to high hypericin doses mega b- complex doses and dr. pepper(mmmmm.phosphoric acid)- you have no idea how great it feels to be filling up notebooks again. front and back. I've spent years trying to get myself back into writing/ writing anything at all/ and all of the sudden it's flooding back. scribbling in the dark because every thought may be vital.critical. never forget a thing. keeping pen and paper at the edge of the bed, fuck! it feels good. baby steps sure, but not when it comes to this. after years of dead weight depression it feels great to be a bit manic. i just need to move the desk over by the back window and set some guidelines down for myself. it needs to be disciplined writing. silent writing. a schedule for weeks and weeks. I've got time. it's the discipline thing that gets me. i just need to get into it and then it wont seem so impossible. impossible is something, indeed, but not today... horaccordian.

rough ideas part1

i've been trying today to read about nathaniel rochester but my focus keeps shifting back to sam patch. i'm not sure when this obsession began with me, but it certainly does persist. and that ridiculous bear cub he was dragging around from bar to bar while he was drumming up interest and drinking whisky in the hours leading up to his fateful jump.
sam patch wasn't even a rochesterian.
i think i'd have much more fun if i place nathaniel rochester in a spaceship that crashes in a field just off the banks of the genesee. he also needs something like a talking duck that he carries around beneath his left arm. i have no intent on writing any factual history, by the way, just the history that makes sense to me.
there is only so much i can read about grist mills and rope and nail factories.
...maybe a talking duck that only tells hackney jokes about someone walking into a bar with a talking duck...
...a spaceship which was repaired by seneca indians and later used to transport escaped slaves on the underground railroad...

who cares?

before i decided to drink my weight in high potency malt liquor Tuesday i truly did have an epiphany. there are those moments where things really do align and i am able to see something so fucking clearly, especially something that's so fucking obvious. i finally had a way to tie up a lot of loose ends and give myself a creative outlet while still being incredibly negative and incredibly true at the same time. sometimes I'm glad i take such copious notes on my own life. even up to the point that found me in a snowstorm making phone calls, some of which got through and some where i just mumbled something and hung up. who knows. i wont let it ruin my better intentions. the last 11 or 12 days have found me in much better spirits with something approaching hope for my future. that's where three thousand different ideas all kind of ran into each other. yesterday was a good old fashioned hangover, another reminder. but i will push forward. with a good idea this time and with research to do and really just SOMETHING to do besides thinking about sobriety- which is what leads to relapses anyways- i have no will power. i need this new direction. we've all got to start somewhere, pick a point and just go!!!
Bartles was right. It's about baby steps.
so i think i am going to change my focus on this blog. i will use it as a kind of journal on the writing process as i attempt to write my history ,the history of alcoholism, and the history of a city that I'll never escape from. this is where i embrace them all. ha!!!

relapse.woops...

shithouse mouse

the parking lot boys were at it again today at Sunnie's. they always pull me aside and ask me to buy them ridiculous amounts of alcohol, at three in the afternoon no less. but i'm only going in for USA Gold cigarettes, which are Sunnie's cheapest brand, it really doesn't matter anyways, when you are inhaling burning tobacco leaves I don't believe taste has anything to do with it. it's a lot to pay for your death no matter which way it tastes. the parking lot boys give me dirty looks when I leave, but I never have a change of heart. these boys used to be us, but after the pizza place closed it was much easier to go closer to the city and "pimp" the 7-11 parking lot. go and get drunk in Turning Point Park and throw the empties in the river. stumble back across the tracks and the trail that would end me up right in my backyard. it was a secret road for drunk and high kids. it was our inebriation railroad... i'm so glad I wasn't raised on one of the many track house cul-de-sac bullshits that the people with money in this town have invented. i think i probably would've went to college and would never be here writing this now. Better, worse, or just preference??? there were plans dependent on that ill-fated ferry to resurrect the old trolley line. it would have been so splendid to see a trolley whistling through my backyard. but it is all just dreams and there was no way it would have ever worked. but dreams/ yes dreams/ are even better most of the time. it is finally time that I sit and write MY history of Rochester and all these canal towns and low bridge evrybody down and how this all related to the Iroquois and the creation myths and sam patch and susan b. anthony and my broken ipod and everything else...

Antietam Mattress Massacre

In the two years I lived on Belmont St. I never once slept on a proper mattress. Right across the street was Dixie Mattress. I would watch but never once saw a single soul go in. Two years I spent mostly on the floor. I had a futon given to me by my sister but It ruined my back something wicked. It was here I realized that no matter how much love a human can hold inside or believe to hold inside - destruction will always come first. There are always those strange angels waiting on your rooftop to knock once or twice during the night to remind you. And now I'm on the other Belmont crying out: "I'm too old for this, I should be farting in the morning on my way for coffee and my job working for the town department driving a snowplow!!!"

But we all know it doesn't snow anymore. And just like that all of my childhood memories become ancient dreams. All of the storms and snow days. I'd pray for any snowfall above an inch. It's always springtime now. The world won't end. We'll pass through a black hole first, and none of us will be any wiser. just gone. destruction is inevitable...love is an invention.

Hang in there, indeed!!!

Get Pumped

I am working on a great sports article about championship trophies, it will be really long.

congradualtaions!

I've seen so many things that made me wonder But sometimes it's hard to tell I said "Take your time" But no one was listening I walk a thin line They told me that I never would recover Still some say they knew me well I said "Stay by my side" But no one said nothin' I walk a thin line I said "Please toe the line" But no one was listening I walk a thin line I said "Fate takes time" But no one was listening I walk a thin line.

fleetwood mac/ Walk A Thin Line

***

I was just asleep. Getting asleep and this song woke me up. And the round about route I've taken to get to Fleetwood Mac appreciation. Tusk haunts me, it truly does. Even more so the Camper Van Beethoven version, which is my favorite. Anyways, today I saw a picture of someone I was absolutely crazy in love with when I was a younger man (boy). I thought it was strange how sometimes I forget people exist in their own universe, not just in my memory. There are a lot of people caged up in there from the late nineties. The picture brought back a lot of feeling which is strange in it's own right. It feels like my brain is waking up from a coma, like it's some big bubbling stew of neurotransmitters beginning to live again. It's not the most comfortable sensation. I've passed the 7 day mark on the calendar, but I've also passed it in my heart and through my guts. I need it This Time, and it will work. And this girl was fucking great and way beyond me. I drove her as far away as I possibly could. In the past I've blamed it on my drug use when it was just my utter and complete lack of understanding of women.(is it understanding or fear?) But that was almost ten years ago. And today was a human day. My fear is that I become too manic. That I over do it. I mean I just woke up like a rocket and immediately started searching for my headphones so I could listen to one Fleetwood Mac song, and now I'm writing this. But it's always got to be truth from now on. Every last fucking drop will be bled and I'll be free. which is kind of how it's always been. Now how the hell am I going to get back to sleep?

James Who?

Cash Only

I wake up every day to the sound of a barking dog. Then I roll over and snuggle...until my alarm goes off. Stephanie gets up and shuts off the alarm (which is a phone) and snuggles. We listen to the dog bark and then after a few minutes I lunge over her and look at the clock, if the time is close enough I get up and put on snowboard pants and jacket and walk to the car. "I love you," I mumble. "OK, have a good day," whatever that means.

The steering wheel is always freezing cold ( I eventually bought gloves).

The windshield is usually frozen but rarely covered with snow, I start the car and put it in reverse (though I cannot see where I am backing to, I just know instinctively) then I use windshield washer to defrost the ice so I can see ahead of me. This works approximately half the time, the other half I just drive straight and follow my gut.

I sing loudly to songs on the radio, "I'm A Pyschiatrist!" Just to wake myself up.

By the time I'm on the freeway I can barely see because the car is so fogged up. I gun the engine to eighty for about 20 minutes and then I'm in the sleepy ski village that employs me. There are people walking their dogs in the twilight. They gaze at my car as it blasts reggae through it's cracks. I stop for coffee and sometimes a warm muffin. "Thank You," I say in a crabby voice. I am coldest by far to the lady who runs the coffee shop, like she cares about me and my immediate needs? They don't take credit cards.

I park in a car garage. And then I walk through the lodge that is filled with foreign employees who have already started their day. They are Mexicans who work the lifts, they look tired. They are the Jamaicans who work in the kitchen, they always return my hello. I go past the gondola and down a flight of frozen metal stairways and unlock my office door. I turn on all the electronic stuff and turn up the heat and wait for the day to unfold.

This happens everyday, even on the days it doesn't.

in this dream i was decapitated/ almost decapitated by overhead power lines. i fell to the ground but rather softly i was surprised. i asked the mailman if there was anyway he could avoid putting muddy bootprints on the driveway. all he said was that it really wasn't that high to fall it happens all the time. after that i was in a rage and i ordered a beer off the back of a truck. i woke up with such an awful feeling of guilt and disgust. i got the mail. i made some coffee. now i feel quite all right after a day of reading and time on the exercise bike. a huge glass of green tea just like i used to and i burned my tongue. i can't have dreams like this. they feel too real and the guilt of breaking a promise i've made to myself is unbearable...it's all right i can stay up and away from dreams. i have a lot of books that i couldn't read when i was drinking. more later...

variation on: The Shortest Days of the Year

Some of my best jobs have been in gas stations/corner stores. My first legitimate job was at the one and only Sunnie’s. I can remember sitting on an overturned milk crate in the walk in cooler about half an hour before closing. I was reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead at the time, or maybe I was just looking at it. In my walkman was The Best of Cream. It wasn’t an actual walkman, I don’t think I ever owned one of those, I always owned these GPX personal cassette players that Caldor sold for 9.99 or thereabouts. In the empty cassette case I had a bunch of "mushrooms." From inside the cooler I could peer out in between the beer bottles toward the front of the store and keep tabs on Sunnie’s location. Sunnie always ran the register, he still does, he just hires kids to stock the shelves and mop the floor. I was just waiting for the right time to eat the "mushrooms" and get my mop water ready for my final task of the night. I remember grabbing a snapple and munching at those "mushrooms" as quick as I could. Then I got my mop bucket out and went to the front of the store before Sunnie came looking for me, as he often did, I was usually in the back scribbling in notebooks and smoking cigarettes, thinking of better ways to steal beer without any chance of getting caught. I was a master thief. The only chance of ever getting caught was in my head. So I checked the clock and knew just how much time I had, I began to mop as O.M.C’s "How Bizarre" began playing on the store’s overhead speaker. "How Bizarre" was always playing and at that point in my life it always seemed to fit. I mopped up with my head down, and when I finished I went to the back and poured out the water in the slop sink, put on my hoodie and went to the front door to wait for Sunnie to finish closing out. It was the longest wait of my life. I had misjudged just how long it would take for the mushrooms to take effect. I should have eaten something first. Finally Sunnie went to the back and I could hear that clicking sound of switching breakers as the store lights went out in sync.
After what felt like an eternity, Sunnie came back up front and opened the door and I was free. After that it was just "She walks like a bearded rainbow" and having hands ten times their normal size that somehow managed to hold up the sky. Anyway, the rest doesn’t have to do with a gas station/ corner store at all. This was just the first one. The second store has many more stories, a full chapter of a book perhaps. I remember getting drunk and saying to myself "I’ll call it my gas station symphony." God Bless Sunnie’s. And now that he has satellite televison and radio it’s always aljazeera and bollywood movies and that great screaming nonsense that he plays on the overhead speaker nowadays. How bizarre, indeed. To be continued, endlessly.

just a few quick points about today

-today i ate vegetables. they are a good thing

-my new iced water with cranberry splosh drink is also a good thing

-there is a full moon out. it is very accusatory. like a searchlight that's got you caught. left me with the feeling of "you've got to be kidding me..." if you don't believe me go out and see for yourself

-a city crew came by today and dug a huge hole in the front lawn. then they filled it in and went away. and no one knows just why

-i need to buy an ottoman. my legs get cramped sitting cross legged. the last ottoman i owned disappeared shortly after i tripped over it

-heartbeeps is a movie

The Shortest Days of The Year

Been hanging around a gas station these days, talking to the cashiers Herb and Donald. Pretty soon me and Herb got into discussing money and politics. "It's no good," I say.

The store always smells like photocopies and plastic burning. Donald burns cardboard and old reciepts in the morning.

"A bunch of us get together on National Holidays and take over government buildings," Herb says one morning over coffee and the morning fire ritual. "It's kind of like a sleepover... only we do their paperwork for them...and we get drunk and tell stories of old times."

I nod and sip my morning coffee, things have sure gotten stranger lately. Herb colored his hair. Donald has started playing opera in the store, they keep asking me if I want a job here.

I keep all the chewing tobacco advertisements I want, but my grandma is starting to complain about the clutter in the garage. In the afternoon I take a marker and write on the calender in the kitchen. In purple writing I claim my independence from the house, "President's Week Vacation". In the evening I grab a twelve pack of my favorite beer in a can and a large bag of chips.

Sitting on the counter I proceed to get drunk and wait for the evening drunks to come in. One by one these days get shorter. I watch the front of the store while Donald makes phone calls and Herb heats up steak sandwiches looking at his roots in the black glass reflection.

2oo7

The floor's been swept and mopped. I'm on cold water with a splosh of cranberry. Meditating on forward momentum and a year that will be nothing less than the endless rearrangement of 26 simple letters. I like the look of 2007. I have a feeling that old accounts can be settled. For once, for all, and I will be able to move much freer. In space and in time. All I need is paper , pen, and some chewing gum... It is possible to take REGRET and call it EXPERIENCE. My education of those outer territories. Empty spaces in the mind and in the heart, those loose frontiers. Now it's time to describe it all. And better descriptions are needed. As I've always felt:Better/Brighter/Faster.

and a note to self...