bull sluice or unlikely friends

finnie came over after work yesterday and we ate pizza and drank a couple of those hard mountain dews that you can't even get in georgia yet. we sat on the porch for almost five hours listening to boba's towhee buddy out sing every bird in the neighborhood and we talked about masquerades, vulture babies, after parties, james island growhouses, graffiti based identity theft,and other shenanigans. it was a good day

i spent more time than usual telling her stories about the ancestors, including several she had somehow never heard before. this morning she is on her way up to the birth place of mountain dew. she is going to eat a chili dog at pal's. then she is going to say goodbye to her sweet auntie whose pancreatic cancer has passed the point of no return. i don't know what else to say about that

reverse graffiti or saving the world one couch nap at a time

after a long, tediously uncomfortable weekend, i finally realized that basement brain had decided the correct response to current circumstances was to activate the physical and emotional symptoms of early acute withdrawal. on reflection, this is a pretty funny callback, and reveals a witty side of basement brain that i had never noticed before. after i recognized what was going on, it all went away like nothing ever happened and i fell much better now

i would say that i gave basement brain the idea, having developed a week long mania for a playlist named "retro prom." a list full of songs that i would first heard a few decades ago. songs that i would have only listened to ambiently and never deliberately. songs perfectly placed to push long dormant buttons of personality. then i realized that retro prom was probably his doing too, and he had been setting me up for a bit of misery for a while

saving the world one couch nap at a time

the lizard or the grape was undrinkable but punch blast has the nostalgic flavor of adolescent dextromethorphan abuse

the citgo dollar bucket giveth, and the citgo dollar bucket taketh away

the citgo dollar bucket holds nothing but bad decisions. the fun is discovering just how bad a decision it can be. this was the worst decision yet

it's three o'clock somewhere or happy tuesday imaginary constructs

i remembered a nice thing that happened after charles simic died. i have never been able to read ebooks in that immersive way that makes reading compelling. i wish i could. i am jealous of people who can, but i just can't.

after he died, there was one of his books of poetry that i wanted to read and remember. the only way i could get it was from the library was an ebook. i started to read it and i was mesmerized. it was better than reading poetry on a page. i would read a poem over and over, whenever i opened my phone, until i was ready to move on. i didn't feel the compulsive, forward pull of a book.

now, i am reading some of the poems of catullus that i read and translated (badly) in high school. i love it. i have the feeling of discovering a secret room in a house where i have lived for years

saving the world one couch nap at a time meets, manifestations of my familiar, and she is well pleased

i traded a friend two birdman stories and directions to a secret place for a bag of mushrooms and a few hours reprieve from the narrator's incessant jabbering

male pattern bobness

lately, if i need supplementary caffeine, i've been drinking irish breakfast tea cut with store brand oatmilk. the oatmilk tastes like finishing the end of a bowl of cheerios then walking to school on a cold day

fallie has a big birthday on saturday. we're going to get robot sushi to celebrate. i'm looking forward to seeing him

it's the time of year that the midmorning sun hits the light catchers in the kitchen window. i caught boba chasing the rainbows floating on the wall but she won't let me take a picture

writing about the calendar helped me realize that all the talk about nuclear weapons being used in the war has been getting to me. memories of being a kid and listening to adults talk about where the first wave of missiles will strike

i need a haircut, but not in a shop. i need a haircut on someone's back porch, an old towel draped over my shoulders, the wind blowing the hair out over the yard

it's three o'clock somewhere

a coldie from the gas station and some cheese fries or happy tuesday imaginary constructs

i woke up too early this morning in the middle of a conversation with a girl i thought i knew thirty years ago and i couldn't get back to sleep and i ate an egg sandwich and drank way too much coffee and a day happened and i rarely drink alcohol anymore but finishing this beer is the first time all day that my brain hasn't felt like it was dipped in battery acid or sometimes self medication works i guess

a can of numbskull and two tickets to the outer colonies