You don't have to be an alcoholic to be a novelist; Hemingway proved that. The old boy should have got on lithium and went to some twelve step meetings. He would have written a few more books that way. Instead they found him splatted all the entrance to his house in Ketchum. He went out to dinner, came home and pulled two triggers on a single shotgun. His mind had deteriorated to the point where he couldn't think of a few words to compose for Kennedy's inaugeration. That's really not what I'm here to talk about, though; I'm here to talk about me, and you; we are really what matters.

I like to sit on the front porch and watch it rain. It's kind of like going to the movies, for me, only the world in front of me is my screen. The sight of the rain, the sound of the rain; that is the show. I don't have to pay to get in. I don't need popcorn and a coke, though often I do make a nice cup of home brew coffee before I head to the porch. The dogs are my companions. They don't talk during the show. They don't have cell phones waiting to ring. There is some nice thunder happening, now. What a soundtrack it provides.
.......

I took Shitski, uh errr, Jaggar the kitty to the vet, today. Jaggar has added a whole pound to his dinky frame in just two weeks, which had the ladies in the vet's office applauding him like he had just found the solution to our woes in Iraq. Jaggar got two shots, today. What a trooper he was. The vet and the vet tech tried to distract him with food, so that when he grows up, he will not associate shots with pain caused by the vet and try to claw aforementioned vet in the face in lieu of shots. Jaggar won't eat wet cat food, though, so he got his shots straight up. Funny thing is, about this kitten, though, he will eat Morisson's wet dog food.
.......
This lady who works at the vet's office, told me this story of how she has three litter boxes for her three cats, and how one of the cats will use the other two cats' boxes, but not his own. And he won't let either of the other two cats use his box, either. His box has to stay clean!

This lady is the one who cared for Jaggar for the first six weeks of his kitty life. She related to me that Jaggar was found near a Mc Donald's. His mother was out in the road. She had been run over by a car, and was dead. Jaggar had sat in one spot for so long, that they were scared that his little chest might never recover from it.

I'm happy to report that little Jaggar, now ten weeks old, is at my feet playing a weird game of hide and seek with the power cord to my computer. Jaggar is healthy, happy, frisky and fun.

Yeaaaaah.

Whew. I'm glad that Albania has assured President Bush that Albania will not pull its troops out of Iraq, while the US is still there. Albania has 120 troops in Iraq.

Somewhere, there is a lot going on,but not where I sit. I thought this as I drove almost all by myself down a near country road coming home from the grocery store and it is still true as I sit here at this table and type, surrounded by two dogs, and two cats who seem to think that it is time, once again, for a snack; these animals have not figured out that it is I who decides when it is time for a snack, and not them.

June 2, 2007

The finches don't faze him, but a fluttering female cardinal makes a large grey squirrel run up a tree, leaving behind him a large pile of bird seed that he has knocked out of the bird feeder and onto the ground. The red bird strolls up to the pile of food that the squirrel has left behind and starts to eat. My dog, Morisson watches all this, from the front porche of the house, with a look of amusement on his face. Morisson is used to food games. His brother dog, Javi, often tries to steal food from Morisson's bowl.

Can you show me the way to the head?
By Mikel K

I remember when people used to tell me what a great guy Michael Moore was, how he was out for the little man. Bullshit, I thought to

myself, and you know what; Moore has proven me correct. He is a grandstander and a hypocrite. If he "represents" the left, then the left is fucked. The world is in sad, sad shape when it comes to leaders. Bono seems to get a headline with every leadership type thing that he does. I've never liked the music of U2 and I wouldn't follow Bono anywhere. It is the guys and girls who don't want to lead me, who interest me. By minding their own business and doing the next right thing, they wind up doing what is good for me. Leaders are out for themselves, that's why they want to lead. "Leading" fills their ego and lines their wallets and pocketbooks.

Can you show me the way to the head?

Kobain is allowing Jaggar to use his litter box, which is incredible, when you think that we brought Jaggar home only nine days ago to a very hissing Kobain. Jaggar ate with Kobain and the two dogs, this morning. It is quite a site to see the four of them chow down in the am all together!

The sun is going down, and the sun tea is ready; I just spilled a bunch of it all over the kitchen counter. It tastes nice, to me, with stevia, a sweetener that won't give you cancer like they say that the pink, blue and yellow packeted ones will.

It's time for a session of evening poetry creation and toss the new tennis ball. Javi got to the first toss, first, so the game is on hold; he has to chew the yellow ball to death, he can't just drop it on the floor at my feet and let the game continue.

I've kind of decided to devote more time, right now, to poetry than to these journal entries. It seems that my poetry suffers when I spend too much time writing journals. Maybe there is a different head set to the two. Maybe there are only so many hours in the day. Anyway, Love likes the poetry better, and, for now, she is paying the bills, so I have to go with her preference.

Maybe...

Love and I are getting along real well, right now. She has learned to compromise. She has learned to give in. She has learned that I am the boss, that I am The Master and that she is The Slave. Hah. So not, but we are getting along real well, and she has learned how to end a fight way faster than she used to. When we first hooked up, and we would fight, she would sulk, and steal away into silence and not talk to me for days. Communication is key, we have learned. If you let the other person live in their head and imagine things, things just get worse. We have this thing called "pillow talk" where we go lie on the bed, put our head on the pillows and chat. This method has never failed to resolve any conflict between us. A nice side benefit to this method is that here we are, in the bed, all made-up from a fight and...what should we do next??!!!

We are out on the deck. Javi finally decided to give up the brand new tennis ball that he has been chewing on since I brought it out. Their is a problem though, one that Javi barks loudly about when I say, "Where's the ball?" The ball has, somehow, gotten itself lodged underneath the deck. Javi doesn't bark much, but exceptions are when his precious yellow balls roll under a couch or chair in the living room, or underneath the deck, here, outside. I really didn't want to get down in the dirt that surrounds the deck and dig the ball out, but I did. (I guess I'll do most anything for these dogs!) I'm nearly living in the country, I guess it won't hurt to get some dirt on my hands, every once in awhile, now will it?

The sun is red. The sun is to the right of me, trying to hide behind some trees. The sun is getting smaller and smaller. The sun has served us well, today. I thank the sun.

Sexy Within The Daily K
By Mikel K

Most days I don't feel sexy within. I don't feel sexy without, either. I don't much measure up to the media images of what a hot man is supposed to look like. I don't look good in a dress like Ru Paul does. I don't look good in a dress, like Kurt Cobain tried to. I don't feel right in a coat and tie; they choke me, and make me feel like I am playing somebody else's game. I look in the mirror, I see an overweight guy, who needs to shave, who never made the cover of anybody's magazine, was never GQ. The people over at Chippendale's would have laughed, had I ever asked to fill out an application. The guys and girls at Playgirl would have slammed the door in my face.

I'm ugly; inside and out. My dad made this clear to me.

That said, there are things that do make me feel sexy within; my kid, my pets, my writing.

Alcohol used to make me feel sexy, in fact alcohol was responsible for most of the sex that I had for the first thirty-four years of my life. Isn't that awful; your self-image is so low that you have to get drunk to feel good enough about yourself to chat with a lady at the bar. I could blame Dad, again, I could blame the Catholic Church, I could blame it on my genes, or my poor perception of how good I looked in those days in my jeans, but I won't. I'll take full responsibility for it. It was all my fault. I just didn't feel sexy within. Perhaps if I had, all that has happened to me wouldn't have happened to me. Not that things are bad, now. Like I said, my kids, my pets and my writing all make me feel sexy within. And there is this woman, who I met sober, who thinks I'm sexy. She makes me feel sexy within and without. I guess love is the key.

I'll try to show you some love from within this Sexy Within Website. From what I can tell, Lori has noble goals. I'll probably bitch some, though, because that is still my nature, though I strive on a daily basis to overcome it. I don't want to be a bitch; I want to be sexy within, don't you?

I write a near daily column called The Daily K. I post a lot of it at my myspace blog(www.myspace.com/mikelkpoet) Sometimes, in this column, I will be copying and pasting parts of The Daily K that I think that you just can't live without, that will make you feel sexy within. Hmmmmmmmm. Something like that. I'll also throw poems at you; because I'm a poet.

Enjoy.

When I was a kid, my dad let me buy a turtle. I loved that turtle. That turtle was like a turtle to me. I fed it. I changed its water. I petted its shell. I stared at it for hours.

We went to the beach for a week, one summer, and my dad made me let my turtle go. He said that I wasn't taking care of it. I think that he was full of shit. I think that he just started feeling sorry for that turtle stuck there in a bowl in my bedroom.

Anyway, I have always missed my turtle. Today, I saw two cool turtles at this neat little homegrown store, out here in the near-country. My heart fluttered and skipped a beat or two.

Love and I took Javi to the vet, today, for a follow up look at his ears. The Vet said that his ears were looking way better, today, than they had two and four weeks ago, when we first visited her. She gave me a new bottle of medicine to squeeze in his ears, with a slightly different application schedule. She said that we were trying to get the old dog up to a maintenance level, where we would only have to treat his ears once or twice a week.

When we walked into the vet's office, one of the girls who works there came walking up with this precious little black kitten in her arms, and laid that precious black kitten in the arms of Love. The ladies at the office havc been trying to get us to become a good home for this little kitty, for weeks. I could tell, that with this little kitten in her arms, Love was smitten and we would become parents for the first time in our relationship. I had nicknamed the cat, Jaggar, two weeks ago and told the vet girls that if we took the kitten, that Jaggar would be his name.

Jagger is hiding in our house, somewhere, right now. He took a nap with Love, and when Love split to go hang out with her mother, Jaggar hung out with me in the office for about an hour and then went into hiding. He didn't get the warmest hello from Kobain, our other cat. Kobain sniffed Jaggar a bit and then hissed at him and stalked off, like he owned the place. At the vet's office, when we introduced Javi to Jagger, Javi snapped at him, which was cause for alarm for Love.

Morisson stalks the kitty, following him everywhere, when he is visible. Only in this household could a Jaggar and a Morisson get it together.

Every time that I walk past the sprinkler that blocks the small path in our back yard that takes you to the deck, I think of Kevin, because he put the sprinkler there on Saturday and turned it on not knowing, and neither did I, that there was a ban on watering out here in Demorest.

Kevin helped me move on Saturday, from the city(Atlanta) where I have lived for the last twenty five years to the near country(Demorest) where Love wrote on our message board, "Welcome to the rest of your life!"

Helping someone move is a sure sign of friendship. Moving your own things is a pain in the ass, moving someone else's things is being a Saint. Kevin has been a Saint, in my life, for nearly two decades. He was a father to my son for the first three years of my son's life, when I was still "out there," still drinking and trying to be some sort of poet rockstar in the clubs of Atlanta. And when I sobered up, Kevin was still there, a step-father(I hate the word step) to my son, a friend to me. Kevin was there this past Friday night when my son graduated from high school.

What a beautiful man
........

The dogs now know that when I put on my sandals, the ones that I leave by the back door, that we are soon headed out the back door, and down the small path to the deck. The dogs get very excited when I put my sandals on. They love going out the back door and heading towards the deck. They love hanging out on and around the deck. For the greater parts of the past eight years, my two dogs have lived in the city in a very cramped, small apartment. Now, they live very close to the country in a house that has a very nice backyard, a very nice deck. They get to stare at squirrels and listen to birds. They are very happy.

.......

A little dog just walked up, from somewhere down the street. He stopped and looked at my two dogs and I for a minute or so, probably trying to figure out what our dog Morisson was going to do. Morisson didn't seem interested in doing anything.

I was wasting my time telling Morisson "no."

The little dog continued down the street. He seemed to have purpose, seemed to know exactly where he was going. He stayed to the side of the street, much like a human on a bicycle or a person walking down the street alone or with his or her dog might do. I would never let my dogs get out of my sight to do such a thing, and I wondered about the person or persons who would.

The street in front of our house is not a highway, but the few cars that do travel on it, daily, seem to think that they are running in a Nascar race; I mean they haul ass. I wish the little dog well; may he get where he is going safely.

......

It's 8:21am. The birds are really going at it; they seem very happy to be alive, this morning. I'm happy to be alive, and I hope that you are happy to be alive.
......

The first day that I was here, living in sin with Love, in the near country, Love asked me if I was doing ok?

"Yes," I said. "Why do you ask?"

"Well," she said, "I just thought that you might be depressed, having left your old home and all."

I wasn't depressed. I was happy with my new environment. I was in love with a great women, and I was away from all the traffic in the city, the panhandlers, the lousy attitudes. Out here, in what I am calling the "near-country" people smile at you more, the pace is slower, there is almost no traffic. True, there is no Starbucks or Caribou or Java Lords to get cappuccinos at, but I'll live.
.......

I have started timed writing this morning. I will write The Daily K for 45 minutes, each morning, and then I will write poetry for 45 minutes each morning. I will devote an hour to editing "I Am The Female Anne Lammot and I will devote a half hour to re-editing "The Delivery Guy."

Dear Dickhead:

Thanks for all the bad things you have done to our great nation in the last eight years.

I'm going to make no moves until I have had that fifteenth cup of coffee. Old dog Javi is licking his foot, furiously. Young dog Morisson just put his head on my leg. Things are normal, here. Normal. Normal. Normal. We move out in two days, from the city to the country.

The old dog is asleep next to my bed. The young dog is probably asleep on the kid's bed. The cat has been kidnapped; he is at the house of Love, but he is not lonely. He is my only cat. He comes when I rattle this bottle full of cat treats. He actually comes when I start to pull out the pills to feed old dog for his old dog maladies. Who cares? Who cares about me? What cares about you? Who cares about my dogs and cat? It can get lonely in the middle of the night when you feel that you are alone. You are never alone. God is always stoned and about. The angels are high; you'll get by. Why don't you try; why don't you try not to be an imbecile. Don't you love her gladly?

There is no fairness. I am not fair; you are not fair. Things are fatal. All things hurtle us towards the end. The Funeral Industry Personnel are waiting to sell you a plot. They drive cadillacs, while you rot. You would have rotted, anyway; but you bought them a new car, a new house, paid for their supper.

There is a comfort in feeling like shit. Feeling like shit is an old friend of mine. I'm not hear to whine, but if you are here to listen, you might not like what you glisten from the experience. I'm not here to sell you a motivational cd. Jenny the cyber whore just popped onto the screen. She wants me to look at her nude pictures. Jim Morrisson is singing The End. Maybe I should be listening to a song about the beginning.

I'm amazed at the number of persons "associated" with the publishing "industry" who brag about their booze consumption. There are morons everywhere.

Riders on the storm rattle through my brain. There is nothing to eat in the refrigerator, but that is ok, I have acid reflux anyway. What if the publishing world was controlled by gay men and women, and you were straight? Should you put a gun to your head or self-publish? Putting a gun to your head is not an option, because getting "published" is basically a crock of shit. You will attract to you a bunch of morons and bring on a stress that you most likely can't handle.

This apartment now has water. The hot water heater was located across the hall from the furnace, which is what we turned on, last night. The furnace does not heat the water. I am not a very mechanical male. Some people are good at some things, and others are good at other things. I'm still looking for what I am good at; that is the way that I feel on certain days, that I am good at nothing.

Myopic adventures pleasures hidden in the dark it is foresaken for you to partake you are not chosen by you know who and why kill kill kill all thoughts kill all lousy energy kill anything that does not make you feel good living in your own head others will invade your brain driving you insane making you feel lame kill kill kill such imbalanced breathing such being as they would thrust unto you do you know why they do it misery loves company they want to blame you for their problems they have nothing better to do the reason are many.Kill Kill Kill.

There is still no hot water inside this apartment.

Ants crawl on my body as The End by The Doors plays on my laptop: "All the children are insane, waiting for the summer rain..."

I often play this song to feel better. I often play this song to snap me out of melancholic deep funks. Funk. Funk us. Funk us, down by the blues bus. The killer, the killer he pulled out a gun, last night, near where I used to live, near where my kid hangs out with his friends. The killer he shot someone in the face, because the someone had nothing to give, nothing to give; so he shot him.

"Father?"
"Yes, son?"
"I want to kill you."

What kind of a man would shoot another man in the face because he had nothing to give? What's wrong with the human race?

It was only one ant that crawled on my body. He was looking for a cookie. He was looking for a chocolate chip cookie. I didn't have a cookie, so I killed him. I killed the ant.

"This is the..."

There is something about expressing extreme dissatisfaction that makes you not so dissatisfied, anymore. Or is there? There are times that I get so broken that nothing can fix me; not love, not money, not friendship, not sushi. Time takes time and it just takes me time to get through these evil moods. If I could just get up from where I sit and move around a bit, I might feel
better. Sometimes I get stuck in these moods, and I sort of know how to escape from them, but I am paralyzed, as if I am drowning and someone's hand is close by, but somehow out of reach.

I'm bitching really; do you want to hear me bitch? Don't you have bitching of your own to do. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch; we like to, or need to bitch. Bitching makes it somehow better, or, somehow, bearable. Thank God that I don't really have much to bitch about. Now that would be a bitch.

I tune in and turn onto some Green Grass and High Tides Forever by The Outlaws to listen to while I drink coffee, this morning. The dogs have been taken outside; they have been fed; they need water, but it's not an emergency, so I'll work on the coffee for a bit. My sinuses are a bit stuffed up, but I'll live. The quality of my problems is good this morning. Thank you, Lord, for letting me see the new day, breath the air of a new day. Please keep me off of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes. Guide me in thought, word and action, Lord; guide me.

The cat used to be scared of the washing machine. When I first brought him here, he would freak out, and run off into the kitchen or living room, when I turned it on.

Javi, my older dog, has runny poop, today, I see as I am sitting out here in the back yard trying to come up with a poem or two. I have had runny poop all day long myself. I had chicken salad for lunch; Javi had dog food for breakfast. Is there a correlation?

Anyway, Cobain, our cat, no longer runs from the washing machine. We put his food up on the clothes drier, so that the dogs won't get it, and, now, I can have both the washer and the drier running, and Mr. Cat will jump up and happily eat his food. He still hasn't figured out the garage door, though, and why it makes so much noise. He runs from it, when I push the button, to raise or lower it, which is a good thing as we are trying to keep him inside in his new abode, and not let him prowl the neighborhood, as he did back in the city.
.......

Moving can stir memories. I just pulled a baseball out of the newspaper that it was wrapped in, and looking at that baseball took me back eight years, or so, to a time when my son was younger and was playing organized youth baseball. The ball was signed and dated, by my son. I think that it was the first baseball that he ever hit over the fence. It seems like just yesterday that I was sitting in the bleachers watching him run around the bases and field balls and, now, he's going off to college in just weeks.

Time waits for no poet.

The Taco Bell burrito in the cyberspace ad looks like a big fat joint. Perhaps the folks at the advertising agency are potheads; or maybe the folks at Taco Bell are. My son once told me that they only put the worst parts of the cow and chicken into Taco Bell products. I haven't eaten much Taco Bell since then. I'm sure that McDonald's and Burger King and Wendy's are better. I'm sure that the fast food industry cares about you and your family's health, and not just about making every dollar that they can off of you, while paying out as little as possible in wages to the folks who make your food. Anyway, Love just called; it's time to eat some Chinese food; now that's eating healthy from a source that cares about you!

I cut the lawn at Love's place, yesterday; a bit unevenly, I can see, today. The large riding lawn mower that I drove down a busy country road from Betty's house to here was hard for me to handle on the hilly lawn. In certain places, especially as I first got going, it felt like the big brute might turn over on me.

Betty told me, this morning, over waffles, at The Waffle House, that she had heard that sometimes when those tractors turn over on you, that a spark can fly igniting a fire and you can burn to death while being trapped under the tractor. Hell, maybe we ought to pay somebody to cut the grass.

I'd rather let the grass grow than die cutting it; like Betty said, "I wouldn't want to go to hell, before I go to heaven!!"

**Betty is Love's mom.

A month from today I will be 50. Right now, I sit on a front porch watching a blue bird peck at bird seed that has fallen to the ground from a feeder that sits on a pole above the bird. The blue bird chirped at my dog and I when he landed, moments ago; was he saying hello to us, or shooting my dog some sort of warning, like, "hey you, I'm about to eat now, and you better stay back, Jack." When Mr. Blue Bird leaves, I'm going to fill the feeder and add water to the two water baths that are adjacent to the feeder; this way, when I wake up in the morning, I should have plenty of company out front of the house, plenty of birds, and, at least one or two squirrels to look at over am coffee.

I figured that the birds would land on the side of the trees and eat peanut butter, if I smeared it on there for them, but I was wrong. The peanut butter has hardened like cement and no one, not a bird, not a squirrel, is dropping by to have them some. The crackers that I crumbled and scattered are gone, though.

Morisson started chaseing the squirrels, today, who have shown up to eat the bird seed, that we have put in feeders in the front yard, which is good on one hand, because maybe he'll scare the squirrels off, but bad on another hand, in that he will chase the squirrels across the street and into the woods. I don't mind my dog going into the woods, but it is dangerous for him to cross the street that lies between our front yard and the woods, in the manner that he does, when he is chasing a squirrel. He pays traffic no mind; and mind you, cars haul ass down that street, and Morisson could be killed. That would suck beyond all belief; I've become quite attached to the dog, and he to me.

The sun is rising to my right. In front of me the dogs are trying to figure out if I will play ball this early in the morning; it's about 6:30 a.m. The table and chairs on the deck were covered in dew. I had to go get a towel to dry them off and a towel to put on my chair to sit on. Before I sat down, I cut the dead parts off of the flowers in the two flower pots that greet you, at the beginning to the small path, that leads to the deck out here in the backyard. Then I sat down to coffee, a pen and a notebook.

Love said, yesterday, that if I cut the dead parts away from the plants and started watering what appeared to be two empty containers, that, soon, new flowers would appear.

I hear birds chirping. A frog just belched; he made such a loud sound that I thought that he was a cow.

Yesterday, Love and I drove up and down winding mountain roads, mesmerized by the beauty of the foliage that surrounded us. We looked at N. Georgia lakes that were built by angels. I would tell you that this is God's country, but I don't want you to show up here to check it out and ruin the tranquility and beauty that I have found. I want you to think that N. Georgia is as it was portrayed in the movie Deliverance.

Sadly, the most beautiful lake up here is covered with houses that men and women with many extra millions of dollars have built. It is surrealistic to look at these houses and think that these are just lake homes for these people, a place to stay for a week or two in the summer. A friend of mine, now the GM of a restaurant that is near the lake, described much of his clientel as "obnoxious rich republicans." Do you have to be an asshole to be wealthy?

It is cold, this morning, but still the dogs want to play. I am soon covered in their hair, my hand wet from grabbing the saliva soaked tennis ball out of their mouth, before I throw it for them. I try to be fair with my tosses, making sure that the older dog somehow beats the younger dog to the ball around a third of the time; I don't want either dog to get discouraged. The idea is to get exercise and have fun, but if you saw the way that each dog charged after the ball, after I throw it out onto the lawn, you would have trouble thinking that that is what they think about playing ball with me.
.......

I want to see every bird that lands on our new bird feeder, but I can't; there are other things to do today. This house is very pretty, but it is empty without Love; she is at her mother's and I am alone with the dogs and the cat. I will be shacking up with Love, officially in a week. I will see more of her then. She is a very lucky woman. Har. Har.

I imagine the deck that I am sitting on to be the playing field, the trees that surround the dogs and I to be the seats, and the birds who are chirping so loudly, and seemingly happily, to be the audience. The audience has not paid for their seats, but they have earned them simply by being alive, and in the right place at the right time.

Love sometimes describes the knick knacks that I buy for the house, and for the back yard as "tacky." I have learned to smile when she says this. It used to piss me off; I mean, how dare she not recognize the great artistic aesthetic that I possess. The gnome, the mushroom, the ceramic cat and dog and little metal mouse know my talent and that is all that matters.
.......
I peek out the front window at the bird feeders and bird baths before opening the door and walking outside. A blue bird is patrolling the ground underneath the bird feeder, eating fallen seed. A squirrel shows up and joins the blue bird. They eat side by side for awhile and the the squirrel climbs the pole that is attached to the little water bath that we have attached to a pole, and takes long sips of the water. The bluebird jumps up on the real bird bath and starts drinking from it. The squirrel thinks that he is sneaky; he slinks off as I open the door. A finch lands on one of the feeders. My dog, Morisson, watches the bird, fascinated. One bird just went tweet tweet and another bird, far off in the trees that surround Love's house, went tweet, tweet, tweet, and I imagined the two birds to be potential lovers possibly trying to hook up, or, I thought, maybe they are an old married couple arguing about something. It was mesmerizing to stand there and watch the one bird, who was standing on the feeder in front of me, while listening to both birds communicate with each other.

The big and beautiful black bird, a crow, I guess, who I first saw yesterday, flew past me, today, and went down the street headed to who knows where. I hope that he comes back tomorrow. He is beautiuful to look at, and he is beautiful to listen to.

Caw. Caw.

As I may have told you, previously, Love bought a couple of bird feeders and two bird baths, and put them out in front of "our" home; we start living in sin in eight days! We put the feeders and baths amongst some trees in the front yard, so that we can sit on the front patio and watch the birds happily clean themselves and eat bird seeds.

All I've seen, so far, out front is squirrels scurrying from the feeders, as I close the front door behind me. I think that the noise of the door opening alerts the squirrels that it is time to split.
I think that the door opening makes any birds that might be bathing or eating fly off, also.

Last night, Love said that the bird seed was all gone in the feeders, and that she thought that I might like to add more. She was right; I want to feed the birds and keep their bathwater full and clean. After getting panhandled by crack addicts and street drunks, while living in the city for the last twenty seven years, getting a bit away from people and closer to birds, and even squirrels, is refreshing.
.......
Old dog Javi walked way down our hilly front lawn, this morning, almost to the road. I got this strange feeling that he was going to cross the road and go into the woods and die; but he didn't, he came back up the hill with a tennis ball in his mouth that had, somehow, found it's way down
to the bottom of the lawn near the road. What a tennis ball addict; he will go to any lengths to have a tennis ball in his mouth to chew on and chase.
.......

I always thougth that Justin Timberlake was some sort of a light weight. The song "What Goes Around.../...Comes Around" strongly attracted my attention. My daughter listens to it, often, on the radio and downloaded it to her harddrive on her computer, so I hear the song in the house, often. I started to really like the song, and they started to play the Timberlake song "Summer Love/Set The Mood Prelude on the radio. (cont)

"Tears are streaming down my face. I love you with every molecule of my soul. Yours forever."--Your Love

This is what it is like, when things are working with Love and I, which is most of the time. I may elaborate later. She's not my fiance, anymore, though, because she broke up with me two nights ago in an angry email. I'm glad that I practice restraint of tongue and pen; hah, hah, not!!

This day has started with, of course, a walk outside with the dogs and a few moments to feed the two of them. I got an email from Kevin, who is my daughter's biological father, "bio-papa," I sometimes call him with a link to a youtube movie that he shot of our daughter last year when she was in her first dressage competition. Dressage is a horse thing, is basically all I can tell you; the kids involved ride their horse around the corral is it, and they know the rules; I don't. All I know is that it was a beautiful thing to watch our daughter, all dressed up for dressage, ride that majestic animal about. She said yesterday that she is thinking about playing soccer and running track in the fall, but for a number of years now it has been horses, horses, horses.

I hate the word step or half, by the way, so that is why you never hear me refer to this wonderful young lady in my life as half or step of anything to me. She is mine mine mine, all mine!
.......

Scout and I have arranged for me to pick her up everyday from school until the end of school, for this year, which is next Friday. One of her friends turned her onto a double chocolate chip frappuccino, yesterday, with a small sip, and, of course, you know where Ms. Priss wanted to head, today, after school. Isn't this how drug dealers hook you on their product; they give you a small sample to hook you!! Scout gave me a sip, today, but it didn't hook me. I am staying with my venti cappuccino with four or six shots, thank you.

I just handed young girl Scout, old dog Javi's ear medicine, and said, "Here, ten to twelve drops in each ear; you know the routine."

Young Girl Scout whined a bit, "Oh you know that I hate to do this."

I said, "Well, it's not really my favorite thing to do, either, and I have to do it all the time: why do you think I ask for your help?"

She smiled, and slurped the last few sips of her coffee drink. Imagine; my little girl is drinking coffee drinks!!

I think that at this point in the election of a president process, I would pick Phil Spector over John Edwards to run our nation. Like Love just said, "at least you know what you are dealing with."

It doesn't surprise me that Rudy Gulliani made millions of dollars since 911. I would have done the same if I could; wouldn't you? At least Rudy is not using poor people as his platform for trying to lead us. I don't think that John Edwards cares anymore about poor people than Rudy does. I think that they both care about the same about poor people, and their primary concern is probably not to be one of them. It is a concern that I share with both men. I think Rudy is more direct, more honest in his approach to trying to get our vote. Edwards is wishy washy and is trying to tell us what he thinks we might want to hear. Fuck that. Have some balls. Show me who you really are and let me base my decision upon that.

Barak Obama's wife must be a super-talented lady; either that or corporations seek to influence elected officials by giving their wives, children, husbands high paying "jobs."(Go figure.)

Just what does "sitting on the board" mean and how many hours a week do you have to put in to pull down over a hundred grand for doing that; while maintaining a fulltime hospital administrator job at a quarter of a million dollars, for a company that sells most of its wares to Walmart, a company that your husband is making a grandstand against, in public, in order to corral votes.

Obama seemed squeaky clean, at first, but of course nobody knew anything about him; turns out that he is just like any other politician. Mick Jagger once sang, "cheating like I don't know how." I'm not saying that I'm any better than Edwards or Gulliani or Obama; I'm just saying that they are cheating like I don't know how and it pisses me off. It's not fair; we're supposed to be all equal.

When I took the dogs out to relieve themselves, this fine a.m. I was immediately hit in the face by a near dense black smoke. I knew that it was too early for one of the neighbors to be out grilling burgers, so I wondered what was up. I walked the dogs a bit down the street; the smoke grew less dense. One of my neighbors came jogging up with her dog.

"Did you see where the fire came from?" I asked her.

"No," she said, "but it does seem to be hanging quite a bit over downtown."

"That's weird," I said.

"Yes," she said, "I wonder if it is from the wildfires in Florida?"

"Wow," I said, "that is a possibility, I guess." It is very weird to think that Atlanta may be affected by the sad and horrifying event that is destroying so much of Florida. It is also sad and horrifying to think about the huge number of natural disasters that are affecting humanity.

Are we to blame, or is nature just doing what it does?

.....

I told my son that Jerry Falwell died and he said, "Who?"

I told him who I thought that Jerry Falwell was, and my son said, "Well, there will be another one to replace him." I'm trying to bite my tongue on this man's passing. If my bitch is that he was hateful and mean, it doesn't do any good for my to be hateful and mean in regards to his passing.

........
Speaking of being hateful and mean: The neighbor who I haven't spoken to in weeks because he said that he had "done all that he could do" about his dogs being a nuisance passed me by in his car today. I am comfortable with us ignoring each other, instead of carrying on some false, "hey there howdy neighbor how are you, when his dogs have been a gross imposition into my attempt at a tranquil reality in the apartment down below his.

I am capable of meanness and hate. I'm a sinner. I'm bad, evil, terrible.
.......

I had an awful dream, last night. I relapsed.

Today, I am like the hashbrowns at some greasy diner are about to be:I am scattered, tattered, and covered in a neurotic web that leaves me no choice but to soon head for the bed; but, I can't head right to the bed, I am on hold, on the telephone, waiting for the lady at the Gas Company to come back on the line and tell me when and if they are going to turn our gas back on.

All day long, we have been told by the Gas Company that our service has not been cut off; however, I took a cold shower this morning, there is no heat, and we couldn't cook, even if we wanted to. This is really not a crisis. The shower that I took, this morning, was refreshing. We probably won't need heat again until the fall, and by then, we will not have lived in this apartment for months, and as I said, at this point in time, we are not cooking: we eat out.

Older Dog Javi doesn't care about the gas being out. He is sprawled on the carpet, deep in sleep.
Scout just gave me a heads up that Javi "was dreaming." She said that she could tell this because Javi's back feet were moving..."

The lady from the Gas Company now says that yes they did cut off the gas, and not only did they cut off the gas, but they took the meter, also. That is kind of weird; why did they take the meter? Do I have a reputation down there at the Gas Company as a possible gas thief? I've had the service for eight years, and only had the service shut off, due to near poverty, at that time, once. My bet is that the young lady will come back and say that we need to send them some sort of huge deposit in order to start taking hot showers again. My faith is not in The Supervisor who the young lady has put me on hold to go talk to about our gas situation.

Anyway, Scout was saying that Javi was "having a dream about running" because his reat feet were moving, as he slept. I thought that it was funny that he was moving his two back feet in this dream, because they were the two legs that he could hardly walk on, yesterday, after chasing the tennis ball so furiously, for longer than I should have let him. Javi never wants to stop running after the little yellow ball, and it is often hard for me to gauge what amount of exercise is too much for the dog, because he doesn't treat it as exercise, but as sheer fun.

These assholes, errrr fine people at the Gas Company, run the same sales pitch in your ear over and over as you are on hold and I've been on hold for almost 15, now 25 minutes, off and on over two calls that the young lady who is helping me has had to make. You are getting the play by play of a man put on hold by a monopoly that would tell you that it is not a monopoly, "but sir, you have choices when it comes to who you choose to serve you your gas." Yes, and there is such a huge price difference between these companies, isn't there.

I'm not in the mood to bitch. Life is full of little glitches that fuck with your tranquility, and with most of these little glitches, the pain that you suffer as a result of these glitches is self-induced, depending on how you choose to handle them, how you react to them. Well, don't I sound like some sort of a buddhist know it all, or a man who has logged at least ten grand of couch time on a hundred dollar an hour therapist's couch? Soon, I'll have a book out entitled, "How You Can Have A Good Attitude Like Me"(why just buy my book, of course.)

Scout wrote a scene in a play for a play that her and some girls from her school are writing for some class at the school. School is out in a week and a half for young Ms. Scout, and though I believe that she enjoyed writing her scene in the play, I know that she will enjoy summer vacation more. Isn't this a really deep thought? Mind you, I'm still on hooooooooold, waiting for the Gas Company to tell me how much money I will have to give them for what they have taken away from me.

This whole matter is Love's fault!! Ha. Ha. (No details forthcoming...)

I took a cold shower today, not out of choice, but because the gas at our abode had been cut off. The bill has been paid; the gas company says that it is not their fault, that they did not cut the gas off.The gas company said to check with the landlord and see if maybe they had cut it off by accident. The landlord is looking into it. We can't cook; we don't have heat, if it gets cold, and we have cold showers. The landlord just emailed and said that they didn't do it either and would I call the gas company back. It's really not much of an imposition, at this time of year, and this stage of our development, in this apartment, to not have gas. We don't cook. The ac is electric and we most likely won't need to use the heat again until the fall, and by then we won't have lived here for several months, and the cold shower was kind of refreshing.

Love bought a birdbath, yesterday. It was not the ceramic, uncrackable in the cold, kind that she wanted; it is a concrete one that she and her seventy something year old mother carried from the car to the front lawn of her country home. These two ladies are crazy; a concret birdbath is very heavy, and is not something that a woman with a bad back(Love) and a woman in her seventies(her mother) should be lugging around. I was down here in the city, so don't blame me for not helping with the load.

Love's back is bad, because she went over a cliff, in her Corvette, when she was younger. She wasn't driving, but oh don't alcohol and fast cars go together so well together? Instead of bitching, perhaps Paris Hilton should be praising the Lord that she is not crippled or has not crippled or killed someone else while drinking and driving in her quarter of a million dollar valued car. I wonder if her parents have heavy liability coverage on their daughter? They wouldn't want to lose their hotel chain would they? If she runs over my foot, I'm going to sue and take the chain from the Hiltons and rename it the K Hotel; everything will be free. We'll just party up until we run the mother fucker into the ground. I stayed at the downtown Hilton once. They charged you up the ass, and the place was small as shit. Are the Hiltons cheap?

When we are younger, we don't realize the shit that can happen, as a result of our "partying." People can get maimed. People can die. Parents can lose their homes and every penny in their bank accounts, due to the stupid, or is it irresponsible, behavior of their children?

Anyway, that's the rant for now.

I lusted for some Java Lords, this morning, so I called down there and ordered me a Lazarus(six shots of sweet expresso to start my sunny day with) and a bag of BRAG and a bag of MAD POET. I'm set on the caffeine, for a bit. Call down there and get you some of the best coffee that is available anywhere: 404 477 0921. Java Lords is located in Atlanta. Get them to mail you some MAD POET, if you live elsewhere. It's a bad bean, baby.
.......
The kid is going to art school, soon. Classes start August 30. He got a nice financial aid packet, but we're still short on the overall cost. I crunched the numbers this morning. We'll pull it off. He better not fucking drop out or start shooting heroin while there. Dig?
......

Old Dog Javi has come up a bit limp in his backlegs. These drugs that he is on, make him think that he is SpiderDog. He kills himself chasing that tennis ball down. I'll have to keep him inside for a few days, let the legs rest. Would you rather die doing what you love to do, or would you rather gain a few years of life sitting around bored?
.......

I accidentally stepped on my younger dog's foot tonight, after dinner with my gal, and the wench said to me, "why did you do that?" as if I had intentionally stepped on my poor dog's paw. The stupidity of such an accusation hit me like I had been slapped in the face with a glass pitcher full of ice water. It was best to end the evening on that rather sour note. Dinner had been a study in contradictions, the usual male female I say A, she says B discourse. Why do things have to always fall into a pattern of meciocre ludicrousness?

Ha. Is this anyway to further a positive, loving relationship? I'm just a pile of doggy doo doo underneath my daddy's shoe, like he always said. I can't rise above. I can't stay positive. I am wallowing in the quagmire of self-pity and self-loathing. I hate me. I hate you. The sun isn't shining; it is always dark over here in this here part of town.

Dinner was good. The little lady ran her cute little ass up and down and around the kitchen for me, opening a can of corn, twisting the top on a jar of applesauce and using the George Forman Grill to cook up some pork chops. What would PETA think about us eating some pork chops? I think that PETA is such a militant bunch that we should send them all over to Iraq, let them get mean and fascist with the Taliban. Pamela Anderson can lead the charge; take Tommy and Kid Rock with her. She lives in a fucking glass house. Kill animals. Be nice to human beings, mother fuckers.

I discovered that I don't like papaya, tonight. The little lady asked me if I did, before dinner, and I said "yes," figuring that a papaya was much like a mango. It wasn't. I have never wanted to spit mango onto the plate in front of me. I ate the nasty first bite of the putrid orange fruit. Girlfriend said, "I thought you said that you like them?"

"Well, I thought that I did," was all I could think to respond to her. She seemed to think that she had scored some sort of point or points with her question.

Is "love" the the process of accumulating points at the mercy of the one you are in "love" with? Is "love"some sort of weird game whereby you have to prove that the woman is smarter than the man, if you are the woman, and where you have to prove that the man is smarter than the woman, if you are the man?

I hope not.

This lady and I are about to enter into co-habitation, we're about to share one abode, live-in-sin, as Jerry Fuckwell might say. (Or is that Fucksnotsowellatall?) What am I in for? What is she in for? I'm scared that maybe she gets along with my cat, who has already moved in, better than she will get along with me.

Why can't I own half of Manhattan, and five airplanes, like John Travolta does? l could save the planet then.

......

When I got to the flower section of the grocery store, tonight, the shelves were bare. The only flower you could have bought would have looked a lot like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Remember that tree, all ugly and scrawny. You wouldn't want to give that to mom, now would you. It just wouldn't be prudent.

I think that I've been in a pissy mood all day because it was Mother's Day. Mother's Day is a grim reminder that, 30 years ago, either my mother deserted me, or I deserted her. At this late point in the game, it doesn't really matter who dumped who; does it? I wonder if there are other of you out there who don't harbor warm, fuzzy feelings about your mother?

Am I alone?

"Cold turkey got me by the balls," like John Lennon screamed in one song.

And "Moooooooooooooother you had me, but...." as he whined in another.

Fuck it. I'm going to walk the dogs. Have a nice night.

First, let me state for the record that my son is eighteen, which means that he can go die for Dick Cheney in Iraq or Iran or wherever else Cheney wants to make money,which in my heart and soul, means that my son can make pretty much any other adult decision. Second, let me say that I woke up this morning and my son had not come home, when he had last told me, around one am that he would be coming home. Was he dead? Was he in jail? Had he had too many brewskies? I had no idea, so I called him at 6:30am. After several attempts, he finally picked up the phone.

"Where are you?"

Silence.

"Where are you?"

Silence.

"Where are you?"

He then hem and hawed and spewed the name of some older guy, a soon to be burnt out skateboarder. I don't know if my son was telling me the truth about where he was. I do know that he is alive. I guess that is all that matters, though I tell you that when we don't live together for the first time in over 15 years, starting in two weeks, it will be a bit of a relief to me. Sons don't always turn out the way you hoped that they would, and fathers never know exactly how to handle any given situation. When I last talked to my son, I told him that I was going to go to bed and not to call me unless it was an emergency; so maybe I'm fucked on this issue. Maybe I'm the dickhead, the callous mother fucker that doesn't care if someone wakes up and has that sick empty feeling of not knowing where a loved one is, because they didn't follow through on what they said were going to do.

Gosh, this is carrying me back to when I was 18, and I was a callous dickhead.

Scout picked Spider Man 3, tonight, as the movie that we would go see. In all the years that she has been picking movies for us, and that would be about ten years now, Scout has never picked a loser. I didn't want to go see Spider Man 3. I saw the first two and thought that they were awful, but I let my daughter figure do the picking, and she picked what she picked. About half way through the movie, she started asking me if we could leave. I don't leave movies; if I have paid to see it, I'm going to see it, even if I have to suffer through it. The tickets for this one were a buck and a quarter shy of twenty dollars. "Dinner" at the movie theatre, as Scout called it, was another thirty bucks for a couple of hotdogs, a couple of sodas, a medium popcorn, two nearly stale pretzels and a small bag of candy that pulled a temporary cap out of my mouth on the third chew; that means the movie cost me sixty bucks and another visit to the denist.

Ealier in the day, I asked Love if she thought it was going to rain. There wasn't a cloud in sight on the Atlanta skyline and I thought that I would be using the vehicle again, fairly soon, so I left the sunroof open. Later in the day it didn't occur to me that while I was writing about my dog Morisson being scared by lightening outside, that my sun roof was down. Result: the interior of my months old car soaked. I was really trying to not get nuerotic over this. I kept telling myself that my beautiful vehicle was only a material possession. But, FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK; I really wish that I hadn't left the sun roof open, and I'll never do it again.

I hate fucking sun roofs. I don't' like to drive with the sun roof open; I like to have the ac on. A sun roof is just a miserable accident waiting to happen, in my hands. Is there a place or way to have them sealed?

I really love the artistic aesthetic that someone exhibits when they place their mop and their mop bucket on their front porch, here at the apartment complex. The only thing that I can think of that would be more rewarding and more enriching for them to share with their neighbors might be to drag their commode out to the porch, also, and take shits in it, when the urge so hits them. Some people have plants out in front of their home, some have flowers, and some have a dirty mop and a mop bucket full of whatever came up off of their dirty floor. I wonder if Paul MacCartney puts up with this kind of bullshit in his mansion? Stupid question; I don't really care what Paul MacCartney is up to, and we all know that it's been a long time since Paul MacCartney has mopped a floor. Hell, I don't do all that much floor mopping myself; but when I do, I don't hang the mop out front on the porch to dry. I'm not white trash. I'm white, but not white trash.

I'm not positive, but I'm fairly certain that if we looked into it that we would find that the people who most go about screaming about their "fights' are the ones who most step on and care the least about everybody else's rights.

The city birds seemed happy to see us. The dogs, who will soon move to the country, were oblivious to the birds; their sole mission was to smell the earth.

I was wide awake at six am. By six thirty the dogs had been walked, watered and fed. Coffee is brewing. The machine is loud this morning, as if it wants to make its presence known. Perhaps it senses that it will soon go into storage and may not be used for awhile.

Life is change. We will leave this apartment in two weeks. We have lived in it for eight years. I don't know exactly what lays ahead, but no one does. The coffee machine is suddenly silent: time to fill a cup.

Both dogs just had a nice bath; my girlfriend treats them to this, once a month, at this sweet little dog wash down the street. The dynamic duo get the hot oil treatment; they get the oatmeal rinse. They come home smelling like I imagine Zsa Zsa Garbor and her sister do; or at least did, in the day.

Younger Dog Morisson underwent a painful and weird experience, last night. I bought a new candle and when I was done with it for the night, I reached over to grab it and pull it towards me, but, instead, the candle fell off the table, upside down, and just as the candle was falling, Morisson came walking over towards me, and the candle landed on his back. Scout immediately grabbed Morisson and took him into the kitchen, where she doused him with water. His fur was matted with hardened wax and he had a burn mark on him. The whole event didn't really phase Morisson; in minutes he was once again his own starved for attention self, seeking biscuits and love, wherever and whenever possible within the household.

The dog wash place did a great job of getting the wax out of Mr. Morisson's fur and I can no longer see a burn mark. It just goes to show that an accident can happen in the household out of the blue, and it is not always the humans who are home who so at risk.

Better and Better
By Mikel K

I find myself checking out her ass
as she pushes a shopping cart
through Bed Bath and Beyond.

For over a year I have been looking at
that ass,

and the view keeps getting better and
better.

My Eyes Are Closed
By Mikel K

I'm not thirsty. My eyes are closed.
You have filled my cup. Blinded me

to all other carnal possibilities
anyone else simply won't do now that

my days are filled with you.

I really don't know why my girlfriend has a cell phone. Four times out of ten, she doesn't answer it. I am a cell phone freak. I want responses when I call you. Can you dig it?

I open the door to my son's room. He is still bundled underneath his blankets. "Good morning," I say, knowing that he has probably overslept.

"What time is it?" he asks, as he sits up quickly.

"8:20," I say.

He looks confused for a minute, most likely thinking about what, if anything, he has missed, in class, this morning, by oversleeping. "Can you take me to school, in a bit?" he asks me.

"Of course," I say. I smile and shut the door.

A week from today, Friday, high school is over for my son. Now that the end is here, it is amazing how fast that it has come. Missing a class, this morning, will not stop my son from graduating; he knows it and I know it. One hour will not alter what he has worked for for years.

Enjoy the sleep, my son, you have earned it.

I hit the horn Loud, today, as a crack addict wandered, sans shoes, in brand new looking white socks, across a busy street, in front of me, causing me to have to hit the brakes, hard, in order to not flatten her into the pavement and ruin the front of my near brand new vehicle. This person had complete disregard for me, until I hit the horn; then she shot me a fuck you look, and walked out into the next lane of traffic.

There is a sector of the population, many of whom predominate in this particular area ,of this city, where I found myself driving, today, who don't obey traffic signals, who have no regard for others, and a seeming disregard for themselves. Why else would they walk out in front of your vehicle, out of nowhere, and, when you stop for them, slow down and cross the street in front of you like a hemorrhaging turtle with 3 1/2 broken legs and a bad attitude that seems to be aimed at you, though you only met them 60 seconds ago, and have not really been fully introduced?

I wonder if this behavior is specific to Atlanta or if all major American cities are treated to such displays of exactly what I am not sure? Perhaps this is the downtrodden's way of getting back at a society that has left them behind, a society that has complete disregard for them and their drug and alcohol problems; a society that could care less about their abject poverty. The rest of us have places to go, money to make; get the fuck out of our way. The Revolution will not start with you nearly killing yourself in front of my car. The Revolution will never start. It's status quo forever, baby; if you don't have your piece of the rock, well then you don't have your piece of the rock. Go to church a lot on Sundays and put lots of money in the basket. Your reward is waiting for you in the hereafter. I promise; but me, I'm no gambler, I'm going to get mines here.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

I, once or twice, asked this girl who worked at the coffee shop if she would like a banana. She looked at me as if I had tried to poison her. "No, thanks," she said, "I only eat organic. Those bananas are full or formaldehyde."

A little formaldehyde, a little aspartame; it's all good for the AMA.

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

I try to kill the sound of the pounding hammer next door with Green Day. Can "Jesus of Suburbia" knock out the sound of a man pounding a new floor into the ground?

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

Old dog Javi indicated that a visit to the outside was required. On the way to the rear section of the complex, we ran into one of our neighbors. I've had kind of a hot cold relationship with this lady and her husband(or are they living in sin?) This morning, she seemed to be in a good mood, and so was I, so we chatted for a bit about all the cars that had suddenly showed up, once again, in our small parking lot. Complex management had recently wiped out most of the excess cars by sending in a tow truck to haul off the cars who did not demonstrate a small blue sticker in one of their windows. My neighbor seemed to think that the new cars clogging our lot did not belong to college kids showing up to hit the bong and suck brewskies with buddies, but that a movie production team, that was headquartered several blocks down the street had sent some of its troops in for some free parking, for the night. Parking in the neighborhood can be an awful chore. Most of the huge and expensive houses that abound, didn't come with driveways or garages, so all the rich have to fight it out to park on the street. When the movie company shows up to make use of all the fine houses as backdrops in their films, the situation gets worse. My neighbor related how her and her man recently got booted, over in another neighborhood, and had to hand some mean looking stranger fifty bucks to get the boot off of their car. She joked that she was thinking about buying a boot, and booting the cars in the complex that didn't belong here, and then demanding fifty bucks when the owners showed back up. It sounds like a great part-time job opportunity to me. I've learned from past experience with her, that she is a bit of a scrapper, so she ought to do alright in such an endeavor. Trust me, though, that people will not be happy to see her, even though she holds the key to their car's freedom.

The blank page faces me and I think that maybe I should go do something important like clean the toilet or take out the trash. The feeling doesn't last long, though. The younger dog keeps walking up to me with a tennis ball in his mouth. He is trying to get attention. Not so when the older dog carries the ball up to me. The older dog wants to play, he wants to get a game started, not just get petted on the head. The older dog is weird about getting petted on the head. He will turn his rear end to you, when you try to pet him on the head, indicating that he would rather that you scratch his ass. My son came and woke me to give me the daily I'm heading off to school, Dad, hug, but this morning, he asked me to come pick him up from the school early. It is really strange, but I was elated to receive this request, because it meant that my son and I would be doing something together.

May 9, 2007 Dream

In my dream, last night, my old editor Chelli Brown was freaking out because I would not have my column ready for its Monday due date. I told her that I had heard her on the internet or the radio giving a movie review. She was very happy about this, excitedly saying, "Yes, that is on the Playboy Channel, maybe it will lead to a full spread." I said to her, "would you really be happy with that?" She couldn't believe my query. "Of course I would," she said. I expressed sorrow that I didn't understand her elation, saying that I was raised Catholic, and maybe there were some lingering feelings from that experience that related to this issue. She said to write a piece about it, a "community piece." Then, in my dream, I continued to experience intense frustration about not having my column in on time. The dream was overall very tense, very frustrating, and I am surprised that I woke up this morning very refreshed and ready to go.

Perhaps, in this dream, I slept away frustrations that I normally carry into awakedness with me. They say that it is good to write down the dreams that you remember, so this is what I have done. Like the band Aerosmith sings, "Dream on."

I would like to commend Jeff Ruby, the Louisville, Kentucky restaurant owner who refused to serve O.J. Simpson food the night before The Kentucky Derby.

We bought this stuff to spray on the older dog's feet to stop him from licking them. When my dog licks his feet, he really goes at it; you can hear him in Manhattan when he is licking them in a living room in Atlanta. The noises that he makes are a real pain in the ass, whether you are trying to create great works of literature or have dinner or make love.

My gal has been bragging about this product called Waggie Laggy. The vet had some on hand, yesterday, so we bought it. Javi started licking one of his feet ferociously, this morning, so I soaked his paw in the product. He immediately moved his big tongue to another foot; not to be outwitted, I soaked all four of his feet.

After about 10 minutes, the dog was licking one of his front paws, again. I think that he likes the product and enjoys licking it off. Go figure.

Sometimes, Bob Dylan just makes so much sense.
Sometimes, I'd rather be alone than accepting an award for anything.

I had dinner tonight with a beautiful woman.

They say that the same thing that killed our dogs and cats is now in our fish. The Chinese need gasoline more than they used to. Is this their way of getting more than their fair share? I doubt it, but it is a sick world full of awful headlines. Doesn't anything good happen in the world? Is there not any peace and love to report? Peace and love doesn't sell newspapers and magazines, doesn't generate hits to websites, that they can base ad sales on.

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

Poor Paris Hilton; she can't get a dui, blow off dui class, and drive on a suspended license. I want to know how her mother got away with yelling at the judge. If your mommy yelled at the judge, they would lock her up; more money than brains, it appears, in that family.

Let's cleanse the gene pool, by swimming in the pool at another hotel.

One minute, he's curled in the fetal positon begging for the Lord to take him out. The next minute, he's telling people that he is considering running for President. Welcome to the wild
and wacky world of Mikel K.

"Get a second hand guitar. Chances are you'll go far." --Bachman Turner Overdrive

I never could master the guitar, though I haven't given up yet. I'd like to learn a few chords real well and put them to some of my words. There is a music store down the street, out here in the country. When I move in for good, or at least for the summer, I might wander down to the country music store and take me a lesson or two.

According to the scale that my dog Javi stepped on, today, at the vet's office, he has gained 12 pounds in the two weeks since we have last seen the vet, which is pure hallucination on someone's part.

"The two scales don't match," said the vet tech; which makes sense.

I wasn't much worried about it. Old Javi is in pretty darn good shape, today. Old boy is out-running Young Dog Morisson on more than a couple of tennis ball tosses a day. He is, also,
not limping like he used to. Rimadyl has proven to be a miracle drug for my old dog. Funny what money can buy. I'm going to have to head out to a street corner and turn a few tricks to pay for his medicine. I'm such a tired old piece, though, I'm scared that there won't be much of a market for me. Maybe I could get hired at McDonald's and flip your burger. Or maybe I could host your MTV. The possibilities are endless. It all starts with thoughts. Figure out what you want and that is what you could be.

I lied about turning tricks, though. I don't want Pat Robertson to be mad at me. I might need his backing if I decide to run for President.

Bush and The Queen...snooooooooore. What a crock of shit. Isn't the Queen the one that made Paul MCCartney and Mick Jagger queens? Who cares what they were having for dinner? One is outdated and the other is evil. God save us all.

I'm being investigated for extreme use of caffeine. That's what happens when you ask someone to marry you. They get too close, and find out all your secrets. Is there a caffeine anonymous? My name is Mikel and I'm powerless over cappucinnos; and expresso, up to six shots at a time, a couple of times a day. Have you recovered from caffeine? Would you be my sponsor? Call me. I'll pick up a white chip; I promise.

Today is one of those mornings that test a man's will to survive. It would seem easiest and best to somehow curl into the fetal position and never return from it. Momma take me back to the womb. Momma rejected me a long time ago; or did I reject her? The booze was flowing freely back then, so I can't really tell you. All I can tell you is that we are where we are, we land where we land and the best thing that we can do is just dust ourselves off and get on with it. This morning will pass. A million mornings like it have passed already. I'm used to feeling like shit. Like the band Black Flag once sang, "Depression got a hold of me. Depression, man I got to break free."

What sucks about mornings like this is that there is no specific reason for my ailment. Nothing has changed from the night or day before, when things were pretty much normal, except maybe for a day or two of mania. Is mania followed by depression in certain personality types?

Hey, how about Tiger? Another win, another $670,000. I wonder if he gets depressed?

Today is starting off insanely. I woke at 10:30am, for the second time, feeling serene. The first time that I awoke, this morning,was at 5am to let the older dog out to piss. I'm not sure if I was serene at that time or not; I was a bit groggy, as I'm sure that you can well understand.

I knew that I had a pile of shit at the end of the hallway to pick up, because I had seen it on one of my later trips to the bathroom. The pile looked fairly solid, it would be an easy pickup, so I wasn't worried about it. Well, when I got to the end of the hallway, and looked in my son's room, I saw another huge pile of shit, and this one was not put together so well as the one in the hallway. I would need the bucket and brush, the bucket filled with hot water and soap to get that one up off the carpet. Morisson did not come running to me when I woke up this morning and try to stick his nose in my hand. He hid under my desk on his blanket; so who do I suspect is guilty of this defecation infraction? It's really not his fault. Though we got out a lot, yesterday; me and both of the dogs in the vehicle for rides to here and there, we did not take our usually long walk where Morisson gets to relieve himself on neighbor's lawn, in their bushes, and in that long green grass that grow so prevelantly about here. (I mostly pick up his poop, so don't get alarmed. We saw this guy yesterday, the dogs, my daughter and I who let his dog shit all over some grass that didn't belong to him and just walked off leaving the stinky gift for someone else to find. I joked that we should pull up to him and his just relieved dog and hand him one of the blue bags that we use to pick up our dogs shit. Scout said no way, though she did laugh a lot about the thought.) So, where was I? Oh yeah, so I woke up all calm, happy, ready to face the new day, thankful to be breathing the air of a new day and somewhere between where I woke up happy and the point where I sat down at my laptop to start creating great works of literature, something had set in; a mood. A mood can fuck my day, if I let it; and sometimes I can't but let it, no matter how hard I try. Isolation is usually not a good thing to do on such an occaisson, because then I dwell in my head instead of getting involved with what is going on in the outside world instead. I was going to continue with this shit tale, but Scout just called and we have decided to hunt Betty and Cynthia down at one of the antique shops that they are hitting in N. Georgia and give Betty some flowers and coffee, a week early, for Mothers' Day. The Lord works in mysterious ways; I have been given a great opportunity to get out of my head. Bye.

I know someone who sells pot and I wonder how he would feel if I text messaged him from a phone number that he wouldn't recognize that "the DEA is watching you."

I light these candles that are supposed to kill the smell of dog in our apartment. I don't think that the candles work all that well. When you live with dogs, your place is going to smell like dogs. If you don't want your place to smell like dogs, don't l ive with dogs.

It is Saturday, around five p.m. and I'm a bit confused. My son told me that he would be living with a friend, this summer, before he goes off to college, in August, so I put in my notice to vacate this apartment that we have been living in for the last eight years. Now, my son is telling me that his friend and he probably won't be able to get a place because no one will let them live in their house or apartment for just three months. Well, duh, but you can't really blame the kid; he has never shopped for his own place to live in, before. I think that we have decided that he will try to live with his mother for the two and a half months before his freshman year at SAIC in Chicago begins.

I fret things too much. Fretting things does not accomplish anything.
I need to fret less.

I'm in one of those very hip Southern used clothing stores where the people who work there have their head so far up their ass that they can't even say hello to when you walk in the door.

"You have to be cruel to be kind," is what the man is singing in the song that is being piped into the store. There is some greater significance to this, I'm sure, and maybe there isn't; but, either way, I won't be in a hurry to come back and pull out my credit card in this store.

Wow. You have tatoos, a piercing and a psuedo-punk haircut. I'm really impressed.

While we were at the skateboard shop, today, buying some shorts and sneakers for my son, my son introduced me to the young man working behind the counter. I said, "hello, I am Graem's dad, partially."

I kind of surprised myself by saying partially, and Graem immediately caught me on it, and shouted out across the room, "What do you mean partially?"

When we were outside, on the sidewalk, heading to another store to look for the sneakers that my son wanted, I tried to explain to him what I meant, but I really couldn't. What I said, after I had paid $65.00 for his sneakers, and $45.00 for his shorts, was, "look, some guy that really thought that he was just partially your father, wouldn't have just dropped a hundred bucks on you, would he?"

My son smiled.

We are still, or at least I am still having minor fall out about the discovery that my son has been smoking and drinking for the last couple of years. I'm pretty much over it. I mean I can't get rid of him, now can I, just because he doesn't measure up to every high, or rather, not get high expectation that I have for him? I have to love him irregardless, don't I. I am not perfect and neither is he. We have had long talks on the matter, and I think that we understand each other. Of course, I thought that we understood each other all along.

The thought crosses my mind, however: how would I like it if my son thought of me as his partial dad?!

"Ouch. Stopping smoking is damned hard. Repairing trust is even harder." --Ah, one of my My Space friends

When I find myself in times of trouble, I have to remember the what the little piece of paper inside a fortune cookie from the past said, "It is always darkest before the dawn." It's not always easy to see or remember this great bit of advice when you are in the eye of a hurricane. Little reminders often come though, such as in the form of the above comment that a women made in response to something that I wrote in a poem that I posted to my My Space blog about the feelings that I had upon learning that my son had picked up a pack of cigarettes and had started smoking the death and disease that the killers at the cigarette corporations package within.

I heard on the radio, yesterday, that sixty percent of all cancer in this country(the USA)is caused by cigarettes. Smoking is good business for the American Medical Association and its members, as well as good business for the sick and evil people who work within the cigaratte industry. But why my son?

Peer pressure?
Rebellion?
A cigarette goes well with a beer?
It's the thing that skateboarders do? (Should I have then tried to keep him in baseball?)

Wasn't the death of our dear Uncle Dave due to inhaling enough to warn him off? Can't he look at his step dad's thus far losing battle to quit as a sign for him to stay away from the death sticks?

I smoked for almost twenty years. At the end of my habit, I was often coughing blood, I was always full of phlegm, constantly trying to clear my throat of it, and grossly spitting it out. I had bronchitis. I coughed all the time, yet I reached for a cigarette the first thing in the morning, every morning, upon waking up. It took me six long years to quit smoking, after the day that I officially realized that I did not enjoy smoking and was only do it because I had to, i.e. I was hooked.

Shouldn't the example of what cigarettes did to me, what they did to Uncle Dave, and what they are doing to his wonderfual step dad be enough to keep him away from cigarettes?

The answer is no, and I am not sure why.

Since my son hid his smoking from me, lied about it, in fact, my mind wandered. I assumed that he was drinking. I thought that he might be stealing. I realized that I was paying for the cigarettes that he had so far smoked, with money that I had given him for food, with money that I had given to him so that he'd have a dollar or two in his pocket while he finished high school.

My mind wandered so far that he was going to wind up like Jim Carroll, as Jim Carroll chronicled in his book, "The Basketball Diaries," sticking a needle in his arm to get high on heroin and sucking dicks in a bathroom to pay for his addictions; extreme yes, but as Ah almost said, once trust is broken, trust is broken. I have a very vivid imagination, and I have been down paths with cigarettes, alcohol and drugs that I was greatly hoping that my son would be spared from going down.

I always thought that honestly telling my son the truth about my alcoholism and my several decades us of drugs and cigarettes would spare him having to experiment with these things himself. I was wrong.

On I don't know how many of those nights where he asked me to spend the night at Grant's or Lilliana's, he wasn't just skateboarding, he wasn't just playing guitar, he was smoking it up and boozing it. I know the truth now. Will I know the truth this afternoon when he comes home from school? Will I know the truth tomorrow when he is out and about on his weekend?

I am hoping that my son can shoot straight with me, from here on in. I assume that I now know the worst of what was going on behind my back. Why lie to me anymore? I got pissed this time, and I'll get pissed off even more, if I get lied to again.

Stopping smoking is hard.
Repairing trust is even harder.
Thanks Ah.

The vet said, today, that I should feed my dogs carrots and green beans as treats, instead of treats from the box. Javi has lost around 15 pounds, and the vet said that he needs to lose at least ten more. As with humans, the "secret" to this is diet and exercise! I threw Javi a carrot, just a minute ago, and he didn't even try to catch it. It now sits underneath him, between his paws as he rests on the carpet in the living room. To his credit, though, he did get in a fair amount of exercise, today. He followed me some, as Morisson and I walked around the house twenty seven times. I bet that the neighbors think that we are weird. All of a sudden, this guy dressed in black, starts walking around his house, with two dogs following him, one enthusiastically, and the other the best he can, considering that is old and has arthritis. I'm living in sin with Love now, and we have set a wedding date.

I also threw Morisson a carrot. His hit the floor, too, but I guess that he carried it into the living room, because I almost fell over it as I came through there a couple of minutes ago.

Kobain is still adjusting to the new abode. He spent most of his day on one of the couches in the living room. I did get him to jump up, once, onto the washer, which is next to the drier where his food is. He seems to be eating less. I'm sure that he misses the snakes, mice and rats back at the old abode that he used to regularly carry into us.

Kobain, my cat, is adjusting slowly to his new home. He seems to really like the garage. Maybe it is because it is cooler in there. Maybe it is because there are more things to crawl under, more things to hide within, more things to explore. Kobain is sniffing just about everything in the garage, and in the house.

He has little interest, so far, in his food.

What I feed him has to be out of reach of the dogs, so I have put his food up on the clothes drier. Several times, since I have brought him here, I have lifted him up onto the washer, which, of course, is right next to the drier, so that he will see and know where his food is. The washer was running, the last time that I lifted him onto it. He gave the situation one look and immediately jumped to the floor. He is having fun with the dogs, sniffing them and following them about, getting sniffed by them.

I hope that when he finally goes or gets outside that he doesn't run off. I have heard that a cat will sometimes do that; run off from a new home that you have brought them to. Do they run off in search of thier old home?

We are a long way from the old home, King Kobain, please don't run off.

How many of us don't believe in ourselves; and why? Is it because our fathers told us over and over that we were worthless. Is it a hereditary thing that we were born with? How come some people rise above and some don't? What really is success: your kid smiling at you, a million dollars in the bank?

I locked my cat, Kobain, in a cage, yesterday, and drove him an hour and a half from his old home to his new home. I bought him a new kitty litter basket, some new kitty litter and a poop scooper. For the past couple of years, Kobain has been pooping outside; he has also been coming and going as he pleases, in and out of our small apartment . I'm going to try and keep him inside, in his new abode, at least in the short run. I want him to get used to the idea that this is home, before I let him outside and he gets lost.

I'm trying not to go overboard on this. A month or so ago, I found half a pack of cigarettes in the car, that my girlfriend was nice enough to hand the keys to to my son. He lied and told me that they belonged to this other kid. I believed him. Two days ago, my girlfriend was taking out the trash, and she found a cigarette butt, the same kind of cigarette butt as the cigarettes that I had found in my son's car. I asked my son if he was smoking. This time he said yes. I didn't get pissed off at him. I have always told him that he can come to me with things like this. If he starts smoking or drinking and all that, it is his business. Just because I am a recovered cigarette smoker and a recovered drunk doesn't neccessarily mean that he will go down the same path, though there is a chance of it, heredit.arily, on the alcohol thing.

Love's not feeling well, but Love just got up out of bed and cooked us a beautiful dinner. She wanted, so desperately, to go out to eat, tonight, to celebrate; today marks one year since we met in person, and started hanky panking. We met on the internet, and we dated there, at first, for about half a year. I've asked her to marry me on the Saturday after Valentine's day. My friend, Dale W. Miller, said, "wow, but you guys are older!!"

Yes, we have less time, and have to make decisions faster. I know that this is a good one. I have never felt such love before. I want more, more, more, more.

Love found a Camel cigarette butter in the black garbage can in the living room. I asked my son if he was smoking and he said, "yes." I could have fallen to the floor. Of all the horrible, horrifying things for me to have struggled for so long to quit, for him to have started. I'm bummed out, but I still love him. You know what they used to say in jail, when they still let you smoke in jail, "smoke 'em if you got 'em!"

the growth on my face that she says makes me look like a homeless man
by mikel k

It grows back so fast,
but you know
it ain t gonna
last, when my
girlfriend is around.

I have been hugging the commode, all day, wishing that I was dead, because the pain of being sick, has been so intense. This morning, I thought that I had food poisoning, but as I emerged into the afternoon with a slight cough and a bit of a sore throat, I started to think that I might have a bug.

Love has come down with the same symptoms, tonight. Poor thing is laying in bed, in her pretty art opening dress, moaning a bit and trying, I think, to sleep it off, whatever it is.

My son had his first ever art opening, tonight, and I couldn't fully enjoy it. I am proud of the boy though and I do love him.

I was greatly surprised, and at least somewhat put out that my dogs were happier to see my daughter, today, than they were to see me, after I had been away from them for nearly a week. I mean, the dogs reacted like they had missed me, but they went crazy, shaking their tails and all when we picked Scout up from school. How soon they forget. How soon they forget who feeds them. How soon they forget who walks them. How soon they forget who cleans up after them on the living room carpet after they have made a no no. I was gone from Wednesday to Sunday. I picked them up today, Monday. Is that enough time for two animals to have forgotten who I am? I'm feeling a bit insecure here. Morisson is licking my knee, as I write this. That helps a bit.

Picking Up The Story Somewhere Other Than In The Beginning...

I'm stranded at The Newark Airport. My flight that was supposed to leave around four p.m. got delayed , first, to five something and now it has been moved to six fifty three pm. It wouldn't be so bad, but this older lady sat down near me, about fifteen minutes ago, and started calling everyone that she knows. I think how, if it was me that she was calling, I wouldn't pick up the phone. This woman has got all this idle time for all this idle conversation, I'm learning way more about her and her family, her friends, and her business associates than I want to. I'm also learning what kind of benefits she gets at her job, how old several of her aunts are, and how one of her cousins is considering opening a travel business, among many other things.

It is a kind of painful thing that I am enduring. I could move, but face it, where do you find quiet in an airport terminal? I intentionally didn't sit near this two year old kid, in one section of this gate. I picked the spot that I'm sitting in because there was just this black guy asleep in a chair over here. I figured that he could not be too much bother, then this old biddy grabs one of the seats between me and the sleeping guy. He's awake, now, and is chatting on his cell phone, too, but he doesn't have a big mouth like the old lady between us.

I got in trouble for being a big mouth, myself, yesterday at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. My son, Graem, was trying to shush me up. He knew that I was being too loud on the cell phone; then one of the guys in the museum outfits showed up, waving at me.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I'm loud."

"Yes," he said, "Your voice does carry. You can't use a cell phone within the exhibits," he continued, "everywhere else it is ok."

The guy was cool. It is nice when someone can let you know that you are acting out of line without being a prick about it. I mean two wrongs don't make a right, do they? A security guard or an usher yelling at you or dressing you down doesn't make a bad situation good, now does it? Some people are just dickheads and they are constantly on the lookout for an opportunity to exercise their dick-headed-ness.

The loudmouth old biddy is now rooting through her phone book to find her next victim. I'm glad as hell that my number is not in that book. I'm glad as hell that she is not the type of old biddy who tries to strike up a conversation with people in person. That would suck.

Some guy in an airline uniform just showed up and got behind the counter. He keeps getting asked when we are leaving. I'm glad that I have a laptop with me and that the battery was fairly well charged when I arrived. I did a bunch of boring photo transferring, when I first sat down. I probably would never have gotten around to doing this, if I had not wound up stuck in the Newark Airport waiting for an airplane to Atlanta. Many of the photos that I am transfering from one folder to another, are of really famous paintings by really famous painters that I got off the walls of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and MOMA(The Museum of Modern Art.)

At first, I was calling MOMA, MOMO. I had trouble pronouncing the city of Secaucus, also. Yesterday, I asked the conductor of one train if his train went to Sassseeequakus.

He said that he didn t think so, because he had never heard of it.

My son and I hooked up, yesterday, at Washington Square Park(near NYU) and took a cab from near the park to the museum. The cab driver made the ride incredibly pleasant. He was not one of those seemingly angry cab drivers who either doesn't know English or knows it and doesn't care to use it on you. From his feelings on the firing of Don Imus, to tales of the bands that he used to book at the bar that he owned for decades, to polite inquiries about my son's plans once he graduates from high school in June, this man made a long cab ride pass by quickly. I decided to have him drop us at The Dakota, instead of The Met, since he said that we could walk to The Met from The Dakota. We got out and I held my son close to me and said a prayer for John Lennon. We took a couple of pictures and then went over to the Strawberry Fields Memorial that they have built to remember Mr. Lennon by. Somone had spelled out the word "PEACE" within the circular memorial. There was a long haired young man who hadn't bathed in awhile sitting on one of the benches facing the memorial. He was asleep. A guitar case leaned against the bench near his head. My son asked me how long ago was it that John Lennon was killed. I said that I thought it happened in 1981. My son then remarked that it was amazing that there was such a great interest in the man this many years later.

The long walks that I have taken over the last half a week in New York City have brought back the arthritis in my knees that caused me to quit training jiu jitsu with Jakare, several years ago. For awhile, I was on this pill that the Doctor prescribed, but the pill turned out to be poisonous or dangerous somehow, and was removed from the market. Vioxx, I think that it was called.
I would love to live in New York City, sometime. I guess that I would have to have a living situation where I don t have to walk a lot, or maybe this knee pain that I am feeling, today, will be temporary and will go away. Ideally, I m thinking that I'd like to go to grad school in New York, and either pursue a Masters Degree in Creative Writing or an MFA in Poetry. This would all occur in about five years, when my daughter, Scout, has finished high school.

Who knows though? Who really knows what is going to happen from one minute to the next. Many of the people here at Gate A10, at the Newark Airport are grumbling and complaining because their flight has been delayed several times. I am just thankful to be traveling and all I hope for is a safe arrival back in Atlanta, whatever time it turns out to be.

Allegedly, there are snow and wind and water storms that are making history in this area of the nation, today. It is very weird that such weather is hitting the Northeast in mid-April, is it not? Perhaps Al Gore, is right: global warming is going to get us. Of course, then, Mr. Gore needs to turn off more than a few lights in his mansion, to help the cause.

We finally got in the air. At one point, after we had been loaded into the plane, the Captain came on to say that there were 23 planes ahead of us, on the runway, and that it would take another 45 minutes to get in the air. There was a great deal of turbulence during take off, and now, after the Captain has finally turned off the seatbelts must be worn lights, the plane is still shaking a bit. There is a nice sunset going on outside the window across the aisle. I have a window seat, but my view has been of a darkened sky.

As soon as we were allowed to, I ambled back to the bathroom. Somebody must have been shooting up or dieing in the bathroom on the right, because they never came out the whole time that I was waiting to use the pisser, and when I got there, there were two people in front of me in line. Some people are just inconsiderate, or maybe this person was deathly ill, and was puking their guts out in there. In that case, I wouldn't have wanted to follow them into that bathroom.

There are two stewards and one stewardess on this plane today. One of the stewards is an older guy. He looks German. Or Czechoslovakian. The other steward is a black guy, probably from the same country as Idi Amin. This man is mean. He snapped at me to turn off my laptop, as we were about to get ready to get ready to get ready to leave. I then watched him bark orders at other passengers in an unpleasant manner. His temperament would better suit him for a job as a prison guard. Where do the airlines find these people who they hire to bring us one soda and one small bag of pretzels on a flight? The older German-looking man was doing some sort of a weird dance, at the front of the airplane, before liftoff, as the mean man spoke over the pa on such subjects as how to put the oxygen mask on, if it falls down in front of you and how to pull your seat out and use it as a flotation device should the plane crash into water. The German-looking guy looked like he was on LSD, as he did his weird little interpretive dance, he really did. I think that some stewards and some stewardesses feel like they are somehow on stage as they take care of us, as we fly from city to city. And in some ways they are. Can I please have some more peanuts?

There was a bit of a wait, once we landed in Atlanta. I could see airplanes in front of us slowly pulling up to gates. I said goodbye and thank you to the mean man, as I walked off the airplane. He smiled at me and said, "have a good day." Maybe his job stresses him out and causes him to act mean. Maybe he is nice when he is not working. Anyway, he and the other crew members got us safely to Atlanta from Newark and that is really all that matters, now isn't it?

I was looking my love's phone number up on my phone, which now worked, again, as I walked down the hall from the airplane to the baggage claim area, when suddenly this beautiful woman ran up to me, grabbed me, hugged me and kissed me. We had not seen each other in two weeks; it had felt much longer, though, so this embrace felt like I was being smothered by a brand new woman. What a hot piece of ass I am blessed with to call mine. I can't wait to get her in the sack.

My bag never showed up on turnstile no. 2, where the sign said it would be. Love headed to the forms office of the airline to fill out a missing luggage form. While she was doing this, I took a walk over to turnstile 1, where my bag was not supposed to be and there it was. I'm calling the trip officially over here. Special thanks to The Miller Family. Staying with them was more comfy than staying with The Hiltons or The Marriotts or any of them other expensive hotel folks. Plus the fancy hotels don't have the incredible chilli, pasta salad and rice krispie treats that Breigh Miller cooks. Kennedy is a truly lucky child; and I am a truly lucky man. Visit New York sometime soon; you won't be disappointed.










I

The Story of Yesterday May Never Get Fully Written...

I took a train into New York City from Garfield, New Jersey yesterday, no mean feat, really, but I'm kind of pround of my adventure. I stepped off the train at Penn Station and started asking allegedly uptight New Yorkers how to get to NYU. My goal was to meet my son in Washington Square Park, which is surrounded by NYU, and then we would head up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Graem was crashing with a friend in an NYU dorm room, and I was staying with my good friends, The Millers, in New Jersey.

We took a cab from NYU to The Dakota, and said a prayer, and took a few pictures on the spot where John Lennon was shot. We spent a moment at Strawberry Fields, the memorial, to Mr. Lennon. Within the circular memorial, someone had spelled the word "PEACE" with strawberrys. A burnt out fellow with long hair in need of a bath or show was asleep under a blanket on a bench facing the memorial. A guitar case was propped up on the bence near his head. My son asked when Mr. Lennon had been shot and then remarked that it was amazing that there was still such a great level of interest in the man after all these years.

I then followed my son through Central Park; he claimed to know where he was going, in getting us to The Metropolitan. When I, and my arthritic knees who were aching and sore feet started to doubt his direction, I asked a man who was walking through the park with his wife and two small children. He pulled out a map. I think that he was from Germany. There are so many people from around the world; it is so refreshing to be surrounded by such. On 34th Street, when I was looking for a subway entrance to get to NYU, an young man from India walked up to me and asked if I knew how to get to 42nd Street.