Hey there, Wait a minute Mr. Postman!

"Ah, what a face he had, all hate and wildness!
Galloping so, with his great wings outspread
He seemed the embodiment of all bitterness."

Dante's Inferno
Canto XXI, circle 8, Bolgia 5
---------------------------------------------------------

I'm stewing today. A carrot in a very large, confusing batch of gumbo somewhere out in the marshy, sponge-like swamps of the bayou, wishing to be back in my mother's crockpot. A simple recipe, what she makes, only a few ingredients and everything turns out perfect. But I'm not there, instead I am in what I have created for myself, too much stuff thrown into the mix so that every day you need a bigger pot to fit it all in as I keep adding more. Thus, my comparison to my life as that of one of those stadium-size pots with a large, round woman stirring and singing some ironic tune of what's been lost along the way and how a broken heart is left with four pieces of silver on the pillow. Keep stirring, my darling, maybe things will start to blend together in time. The worst part is that though it may start to taste good, no one ever knows what the hell went into it and no one will ever know.

--------------------------



JBiggy (one of my roommates) and I spent two hours in Borders on Saturday. I wandered around from shelf to shelf trying to find the market on Poetry during this age and if there is one at all. Result...inconclusive. I could only find the children's section and I probably have each book of Shel Silverstein memorized from my grade school years. Another field trip for this express purpose is already planned for tonight.

I bought "Heartbreaker" by Ryan Addams (circ. 2000) and it's been turning over in my car and my bedroom for the past day and a half. JBiggy and I have already brought to mind attempting to cover the song "When you're young, you get sad (you get high)"...we'll see what happens. I am also stunned with the extreme amount of sheet music and anthologies available at Borders but disappointed with the selections. I couldn't find a musician's biography I was looking for, but I somehow ran across "Let Her Cry" by Hootie and the Blowfish with a full vocal/guitar/piano arrangement in a book of 90's sheet music on some top shelf. I felt like I was drawn into an alternate dimension. It was placed right next to "Trainwreck", that god-awful thing Anna Nicole Smith's inbred cousin/sister/mom/brother/dog wrote. Hootie and gossip bullshit should not be placed on the same shelf without a thin coating of latex between them.

So, I bought about $50 worth of things but didn't find a single thing that I had set out to buy or investigate. I am disappointed with the rhyming dictionary I walked out of there with...yeah sure, it's a pocket rhyming disctionary, but "truck" is not the only thing that rhymes with "duck." the only reason why I haven't taken it back is that I bought it for someone who is attempting to write lyrics for the first time. it's just a nudge in the right direction, and hopefully they'll know that there are more words that end with "ruck" "uck" etc.

-------------

It has been confirmed, everyone that I know is under the same self-critical assumption that they are "losing [their] mind." I'm pretty sure that with the onslaught of fall, most of us (solely depending upon financial and social circumstances) are just nervous about the winter cold and are digging deep into themselves to keep warm and gain perspective. I know I am. I successfully avoided having my name drawn to work overtime on Christmas day. I normally don't wait for the lottery to come around or even happen at all and just assume I'm going to be fucked over...and sign up for the only tolerable shift. But considering I am going to be house-sitting during christmas and new years, I will have absolutely no time to spend with my family if I am stuck working overtime and feeding someone else's horses and saving their cats each night from the coyotes prowling through the snow.

Can you see them prowling? I know I can. my imagination has been running wild with made-up responsibilities that I will have to perform. I figure I can either underestimate the amount of work I will have to do and be completely fucked for two weeks out in the middle of nowhere...or I can act like it's going to be an all-consuming project in which I will have no energy or fingers remaining following the two weeks at the house.

------------------------blah.