records

October
the trees are stripped bare
from all they wear
what do I care

October
kingdoms rise
and kingdoms fall
but you go on
-U2


This is the most blogged month ever. If i don't write about it, did that day really happen? I think not.

Madrid is like the island in LOST. I think it actually wants me to stay here forever and ever. Eeek!

I am digging having the flat to myself. I enjoy wallowing in my own crapulence.

Okay - i'm going to be working at 8 or 9 am every morning - even Friday - ugh! Oh well. It's money. I like money.

It's cool in the morning and very mild in the afternoon and at night, which is just gorgeous.

Weird Scenes Inside the Noodle Factory

Every picture tells a story, don't it?
-Rod Stewart

I suppose i can never run for office now, thanks to Lisa Sheridan. The Republican right will say it means i'd be to soft on terrorism. Oh well. At least this way i can continue to inhale and be seen with whores.

Thank you Lisa Sheridan, thank you truly from the bottom of my heart!

Any opportunity for a new year

You see it's all clear
you were meant to be here
from the beginning
-ELP


The Mets choked. Atleti lost 1- o to Sevilla. And then it was Monday. Sometimes life is a bitch.

I went to a Rosh Hashanah dinner tonight after work. How cool! My buddy Beau's girlfriend Cynthia is Jewish.

We really don't have too many Jews here. Must have been that Inquisition thing.

Supposedly VH1 in the USA was supposed to show 24 hours of Rush today. I'm freaking serious!

HAPPY ROSH HASHANAH CHARLIE BRAUNSTEIN!

It's 2:10. Must be up at 6:30. Oy!

FROM AFAR

HAN: How we doing?
LUKE: Same as always.
HAN: That bad, huh?
- Return of the Jedi


2:11 Sept 27th

Watching the Mets, down 2 - 0 in the 3rd. Ugh! This is going to end with a playoff game at Shea on Monday with the Brewers.

I'm also predicting the Seahawks will not lose this week.

Presidential debate will be on CNN International on TV in 48 minutes. I'm predicting that McCain will rip a monster 'old people' fart during one of his answers.

The gravitational pull of the USA still has its hooks in me. I am just a moon.

Joe Satriani's Professor Satchifunkalis and the Musterion of Rock is my favorite new studio album of 2008. The song Revelation makes me want to dance barefoot.

Tomorrow i am having a little afternoon BBQ. It's been very cool here. Maybe a little rain. We'll live. But I may have to wear pants. I f@#king hate pants!

Long ago I heard a tale I never will forget
The time was in the telling on the bank the scene was set
The sky was rolling blindly on, the daylight had not gone
She washed her hair among the stones and saw what was to come
-Big Country

Innappropriately Bizarre

We must not allow the burden of the boundless greed of a few to be shouldered by all,
- President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, addressing the UN about the US Financial crisis


"This place is like the Hotel California. We can never leave!"
- American Laura, about returning to Madrid

The world around me is bizarre and innappropriate . Bizarrely innappropriate.





True Tales from inside the Metro:

• A saw a dude with crazy white person fro. But he had male pattern baldness. He looked like bozo the clown in a suit jacket with a reverse mohawk
• There were 2 girls, not a day over 15 at the most. One a had red shirt on with white lettering, that read in English; THEY'RE REAL

What do you say to that? Duh, you're fifteen. Or I should fucking hope so! Both seem appropriate responses for an innappropriately bizarre planet.

News of the World, part 2

We watched the tragedy unfold
we bought and sold
it was the greatest show on earth!
and then it was over
-Roger Waters

• Laura landed back in Madrid today

• Chema and Anita left so i am alone in the flat for 2 weeks

• They went to Iran: vacationland. Why not just go to hell? The airfare is less. But Anita was born there

• My Spanish is improving

• I only got 1.5 hours of sleep last night due to time-shift insomnia. I am trying to shift my schedule to an earlier phase

• Sheri still IM's me regularly. She still seems hot but this getting to know someone without meeting them is like buying a car without test driving it. But if the car's a Porsche...

• Possible warning signs: she seems pretty Catholic. She goes to Church every Sunday. She also goes to bed very early. What???? In Spain, nobody does either of these things unless they are 70!

• I'm going to Dublin Nov 7 – 9 to see the Martian

• It rained yesterday. We need it. But the sun was still shining for a while

• It's officially Autumn....

• ....and the Mets are nosediving again

• Not sleeping is like being drugged

So here's the new album cover
for the Cerebral LapDance compilation. Minimalist but interesting, i hope.

Curse of the Bambino?

Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while,
I think I see my brother coming, riding many a mile.
Brother, you get me some silver? Did you get a little gold?
What did you bring me, my brother,
to keep me from the Gallows Pole
-Led Zeppelin

What if the the ghost of the Babe doesn't want a new stadium? What if he doesn't give a shit about luxury boxes and enough bathrooms for 45,000 people all drinking $12 beers at the same time?

What if the Yankees go a long time without winning a championship? Will they become the new Red Sox? The new Cubs? I'd say even a decade would be enough to have Hal Steinbrenner soiling his silk shorts.

What if Billy Crystal is 90 and as frail as Kermit Frog and goes to his grave cursing the New Yankee Stadium for this new championship drought? What then?

What if the Babe, this necromancer of baseball lore, curses the new stadium from the Great Beyond? What if it has nothing to do with the Ortiz jersey they dug out of the concrete? What if buried somewhere there are Youkolis shoe inserts? A Manny jockstrap? Already been chewed Jason Varitek chewing gum? Used Theo Epstein condoms?

And we haven't even explored the possibility of Met Fan terrorism!

What if Yankeee fans? What if?

Freak out in a moonage daydream
-David Bowie

Lost in Migration, part 3

I have become comfortably numb
-Pink Floyd

• The book is 60,000 words. Who's your daddy???!!! I'm digging writing it. I am mouth agape at the level of its dementia. But i feel like it means something and isn't just for shock.
  
• Ruben's friends are great. i insisted on speaking Spanish the whole time and did pretty well. This is opening new doors for me.
  
• The seats were sick! 10th row behind the north goal!
• Atleti won 4 - 0 for the third time in a row at home. They crushed Recreativo Huelva until they were mush.
• Tomorrow is all about reading out on the terrace a bit, writing and then football.
• My room is pretty clean. Laura left some stuff here so it's a might crowded, but she'll get her stuff when she comes back this week.
  
• It's warm tonight. It was a warm sunny day. I have the fan on.
  
• Pedro is getting bitch-slapped by the Braves. Nowadays i could take Pedro deep. Luckily the Brewer's are imploding, so the Wild Card is there to be had even if the Mets blow the East.2
• 2:00 and time for bed, dum-dee-dum, dee-dum-dum
  

The plot thickens

Like a pair of vagabonds who wave between two passing trains
Or the glimpse of a woman's smile through a window in the rain
I can smell her perfume,
I can taste her lips
I can feel the voltage from her fingertips
-Rush



Well, here's a picture of Sheri. We chatted again today. She likes football! She's an Arsenal fan! This is all too bizarre, seems too good to be true, but fun. So i really don't care if she turns out to be a Gila Monster, like that hot chick in that TV show V who ate people. I can live with that. How long did I really expect to live anyway?

The weather is beautiful for a 20:00 start for Atleti vs. Huelva.

Chema just cooked lunch and as usual, it smells like ass. I have to move to a country where the food is better.

But that can wait a while.

It's getting stranger all the time.....

He'd love to spend the night in Zion
He's been a long while in Babylon
He'd like a lover's wings to fly on
To a tropic isle of Avalon

He's got a force field and a flexible plan
He's got a date with fate in a black sedan
He plays fast forward just as long as he can
But he won't need a bed
He's a digital man
-Rush



Okay...so i did the Internet Dating Site thing. It was free. One profile I liked. It seemed sincere. There was no picture, which can be trouble! You ALWAYS hope it's some hot chick who wants to be judged on who she is, not just her hot bod, but normally it's a horribly obese alien with green skin, acne, tentacles and a Yonkers accent (see: El Dude's first blind date in Dec of '06. She ordered waffles for dinner and was the size of a horse trailer).

But we can always hope. You never even know if their profile is active or not

So, this gal Sheri writes me. We exchange an email or two. That was a week ago. She designs clothes and just left for Lagos, Nigeria on wed. for a few weeks to work on a project. Otherwise she lives in Madrid.

She sends me a pic and she's a babe! She looks like Jessica Alba. Turns out she is a former model but she got out of it because all of the folks who get you modeling gigs wanted to bang her first. Looks like her hooters are enhanced or God was just feeling really Saucy on the day he made her, cause her boobs are twice as big as her waist.

Of course, we haven't met yet, because the timing was way off. She's 30, which is at the low end of my spectrum. But she's really funny and cute when we chat. We talked for two hours this morning with her in Lagos, Nigeria.I get the impression she's not exactly going to get offered a job with NASA, but i can live with that. It could be the language. Her English isn't great, but she says her Spanish isn't either. Que?

It seems she lived in Australia for 12 years. So if she doesn't speak Spanish and her English isn't great, what does she speak? It's like she's French Canadian! I don't know. We'll see.

So that's the latest scoop on Sheri Melon, my new hot Internet girlfriend of the day!

If I read about my life in a book I would throw it down after 50 pages and say - "this is the most ridiculous load of steaming dog crap i have ever heard!"

But no, that's my life.

Stranger than Fiction

The sidewinder sleep, sleep, sleeps in a coil
-REM

• I just set a shot glass of vodka on fire. Had to make sure it would work. Research for the new novel. Praise Jah, or i'd be up to my ass in rewrites.
• I went back to the Mural Bar tonight. My students were going to dinner in Madrid, so they drove me from the burbs to Nuevos Ministerios, 2 stops from the old neighborhood. I won 4 games of pool in a row and only left to catch the Metro. None of my good buddies were there, but i chewed the fat with some of the regulars. I can chew the fat in espanol! Que bien!
• I'm going to the Atletico game on Saturday, so i'll meet my new Atleti season ticket friends. Hooray!

Surreal

• The novel is 59,000 words

• The stock market is a wreck. I taught a class yesterday on the bank crisis and the subprime crisis for Barclay's - how surreal is that?
• Atletico thrashed PSV Eindenhoven, in Holland, 3 - 0. Also surreal.
• Beau and I watched the Champions League games at an Irish bar and then went to this little Sangria bar, in a cellar, with an old time piano player. This guy was 107 if he was a day and the hot girls were all over him. Ditto.
• The Mets are out of 1st but now have the wild card thanks to the Phils sweeping the Brewers last weekend. The Mets can't collapse again - can they?

I don't have any answers. I'm just a spectator in this mad passion play. Same as I ever was.

Can't happen here
-Rainbow

Counting out time

From life alone to life as one,
Think not now your journey's done
For though your ship be sturdy, no
Mercy has the sea,
Will you survive on the ocean of being?
-Genesis

• Wrinkle free pants are a miracle. Thank you Haggar. I don't think you're horrible at all.
• Atletico's Champion's League run starts tonight vs. PSV of the Netherlands. They're in Holland.
  
• I got my Champions League Tickets thru a friend of a student (3 games here vs. PSV, Marseille and Liverpool). And a bunch of league games if i want - Yeah! Me gusta futbol!
  
• I have clean clothes!
• I work ten hours this week!
• Alphonso and i are going to jam tomorrow with my friend Juan, another guitarist. Perchance, another piece to the puzzle of getting a band together.
  

That's it. That's all i got. I think i'm starting to run out of steam here.

Madness

Sept 16

Well, I can shine like you shine
It doesn't make me brighter
But if I think like you think
It dont make my load much lighter
-Rush

i sent Darth (i just can't drop the moniker – it's soooooo classic!) an email asking how Fripp and Kid A were. Fripp had been on my mind. She said he's fine, and then said that Fripp has been ill behaved since he returned from his visit with me. The email clearly hinted that it was somehow my fault. We are divorced and i live on another land mass and still i get blamed! She says he always wants to cuddle and she doesn't have time. How is either of these things anything new?

It's madness I tells ya. Mad.

I can see the email from Mum, who wanted to catnap Fripp back in August! “I told you, I told you, I told you!”

I only have two exes (of the past 15 years) and they are both driving me insane. I need to move to Asia. I'm fucking running out of continents!

This too shall pass.

Nothing really matters,
Anyone can see,
Nothing really matters -
nothing really matters to me
-Queen

Turn the Page

Free at last.

I got my clothes and paints back from Rebound Girl. My sanity wasn't in the bag though. Such a shame. I thought she had it.

We had lunch and that was fine. Long enough to make me understand that the feelings i have left for her are some imagined ideal and not really her, at least not anymore. She looked horrifically skinny. All her curves are gone. She is anorexic, i really think. It makes me sad. But... not my problem.

She gave me a big hug when we said goodbye. I was afraid she would break in half. We both knew it was a "I'll never see you again," hug.

Amen. Turn the page.

Famous last words.

Hey! I actually have to prepare a lesson for tonight. Work? You mean i have to work?
I'm down with that. And life goes on.

It's just the age
It's just a stage
We disengage
We turn the page.
-Rush

The Seahawks lost a heartbreaker. They are 0 -2. Not good. Arizona is atop the division at 2 -0. What was that last bit I said about sanity? The world has gone mad.

Mad I say.

Date with Destiny

If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door,
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four.

-The Beatles


55,000 words for the new novel.

55,....55... do i hear 56. 56 to the man in white shirt with the flappy ears! 57, do I hear 57? Going once..going ... 57! to the lady with the nose piercings! 58..do I hear 58? Gimme 58, 58?

Happy Birthday to the Mum, who turns a milestone birthday today. Kick ass!

I am meeting Rebound Girl (fka: la Wackadoo) at 14:00 to get my stuff back. Yeah!!!! Then i never have to see her again if i don't want to.

Ex- lovers are such a weird thing. And I seem to be racking them up at quite a rate lately. So it goes.

Seahawks play at 10pm. Let's hope they gain 300 yards on the ground or someone learns how to catch the ball.

Atletico came crashing back to earth with a horrible 2-1 loss to 10 man Valloladid last night. Same as it ever was.

Last night was Noche Blanco all throughout Europe. They have street performers and stay out all night, but Madrilenos do that every weekend. And there were no performers, just a million people on the street. But it was fun. I went to a party with some teacher friends and then we hit the street.

Okay – time to clean up for my date with destiny! It's very cool here, and you always want to look hot when you see an ex-lover, so I'm going to wear my black zoot suit. Oh yeah!

Another Tricky Day....

I looked over Jordan and what did I see
Saw a U.S. Marine in a pile of debris
I swam in your pools
And lay under your palm trees
I looked in the eyes of the Indian
Who lay on the Federal Building steps

And through the range finder over the hill
I saw the front line boys popping their pills
Sick of the mess they find
On their desert stage...
-Roger Waters

Jueves

Starting to get more of my own clients. Actually put in 2 real days this week. I'm excited to be doing more and more of my own stuff. Took two days off from writing to air out my brain. I'll get back to it this weekend. Four day weekend! I don't work until 19:30 on Lunes.

Fuck a duck! Do I ever work? I didn't get in from work til 10:30 tonite, but the answer is no. Not really

My Uncle Kurt Vonnegut once told me (and everyone else in the auditorium) that life was made for farting around. Who am I to argue?

There's a lot of bodily fluids in this new book. I wonder if that's a selling point? Semen goes in, blood comes out. Blood goes in, semen comes out. Yeah, what the hell. That will make a good inside cover!

Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be
- The Beatles

Good post apocalyptic fun:
The Ice People by Maggie Gee. I'm half way through it. It's about a distant future where global warming has triggered an ice age, but men and women grew cold to each other long before that because it got harder and harder to have children. It's not a shits and giggles book, but very good. I just can't get away from reading these Brits (she's English).

Viernes
Had lunch with Cara today at her place with her and Itor. It was at 14:00 and we finished at 16:00. It was so Spanish! But her husband, Itor, who is a photgrapher, came home for lunch. Again, how Spanish!

Now I am cleaning and chilling. All is well. It was lovely to sleep late this morning. My body is still adjusting to waking up early. It was a long lazy summer. I basically ran a half day late my whole time in the States.

Que buenisimo!

Albums of the week:
Sticky Fingers - Rolling Stones
Caress of Steel - Rush

Random Shrapnel

I stuck around St. Petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain

I rode a tank, Held a generals rank
When the blitzkrieg raged And the bodies stank
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
-TheRolling Stones

NEEDED:

• Anyone with hands and at least nine fingers. Please contact the Seattle Seahawks immediately.

• A conscience for anyone even remotely affiliated with the Republican Party marketing team. You said Palin was a pig, not Obama. Maybe you're right. So her grandson, ..er.. , I mean her son would be Trigg the Pig, no?

• An EU visa, because if McCain wins, i will be gone another 4 years.

• A few more body shops for all of the cars that probably got demolished in that hailstorm.

• 35 year old female. Hottie, likes football (both types), progressive rock, plastic explosives, reading, red leather pants, French maids outfits and beer.

Chair full of hail

They're breakin' beams and crosses with a spastic's reelin' perfection
nuns run bald through Vatican halls pregnant, pleadin' immaculate conception
And everybody's wrecked on Main Street from drinking unholy blood
Sticker smiles sweet as gunner breathes deep, his ankles caked in mud
And I said "Hey, gunner man, that's quicksand, that's quicksand that ain't mud
Have you thrown your senses to the war or did you lose them in the flood?"
-Bruce Springsteen




The Story is now 54,000 words.

Back to work at 8 this morning and man was it a shock for my body. You have no idea! More talking ass. I think i am still adjusting back to the food.

And sometimes I get pain in the top of one of my legs, like it's out of the socket, so I was limping through the Metro. It's recovered now. I wonder what the fudge that is!

Then a teacher's meeting with one school and another class at 2:30. But happy to be back to work!

This pic and the one below show some of the holes punched in the table and all the dirt the storm kicked up from somewhere. Time for me to go clean that shit up.

Then Spain plays Armenia at 22:00. I should have bet Mitchell, our favorite Armenian Weasel.

Then sweet sweet sleep.

It'll be nice to get my schedule from Alex tomorrow and get back into a routine. I've been a rolling stone for so long now.

And I think my boss, Celia, was hitting on me today. She's really hot, but I try not to poop where I eat. "Call me! Let's go out and celebrate our divorces being final!" That came out of nowhere.

These young girls won't let me be
Woe is me!
-Warren Zevon

Bad Night to be a Table

The Damage Done

What the hail?

Gonna do just what I please
Gonna wear no socks and shoes
With nothing to do but feed
All the kangaroos
When Black Friday comes I'll be on that hill
You know I will
- Steely Dan


This is my foot on our terrace, after the craziest hail storm i have ever seen. The sky fell.

There are hail stones the size of Goldie Hawn's eyeballs!!

And Shruby says global warming is just a myth? Lick my frozen toes you hijo de puta!

back on the Home Front

Time to move on
Time to get going
what lies ahead
i have no way of knowing
-Tom Petty

Albums i've been grooving to:

Wildflowers - Tom Petty
Tales from Topographic Oceans - Yes
Aqualung - Aqualung
Aladdin Sane - David Bowi
Pork Soda - Primus
Marbles by the Sea - Marillion
Essential Rarities - The Doors

The Seahawks play the Bills tomorrow, so I'm barbecuing Buffalo steaks. Ha ha! They are from Germany. I did not know Germany raised buffalo.

Buying new soul is over 46K words now. Ha ha ha! Must keep writing. I need to get as much as can done before work starts firing on all cylinders. It has really been a lot of fun. You just get lost in the characters and let them take you over. Perfect for a Gemini.

DOMINGO

Last night was Kristen's good-bye party. Difficult to say goodbye, but we'll be in touch. I gave her a Marillion CD and a knife from Toldeo. She was all geeked up about the knife. “Every young woman should have one,” I told her. This is what surrogate dad's do (i guess). Toledo is known for their steel work and has been crafting blades since the days of El Cid. "You could gut a pig with this.... if you had to."

"Nice to know," she replied.

But the party was great. I talked in Spanish a lot. And understood people. Yeah!

PS> that Rosetta Stone Spanish Software that K and H Sent me is getting hard!

Seahawks in 2 hours (7pm start). Woo hoo!

After all it is Sunday, the day we worship the Internet. La liga is on hiatus as this weekend is all international games for world cup qualifying. Spain beat Bosnia 1 – 0. The USA beat Cuba 1 – 0. The Reaggae Boys of Jamaica got HAMMERED by Mexico 3 – 0. It's going to be a uphill battle for Jamaica just to get to the final round of qualifying.

Prediction: Seahawks 17 Bills 14

Thank you for playing.

Woke up this morning.... Full moon in your eyes

Run away, go find a lover
Run away, let your heart be your guide
You deserve the deepest of covers
You belong in that home by and by
-Tom Petty

I wrote a bunch today. But i may have broken my brain.

Then i went out with Chema and Anita and Anita's Italian friend. No one can remember her name (not just Chema and me). She was kinda hot, like a young Lorraine Bracco, and - get this - she's a psychologist. I could be her Tony Soprano! But she leaves on Sunday. Oh well.

(Below: Police sketch of El Dude Neked)

The long weekend begins

if you were in my movie

-Suzanne Vega

You can't believe the streaming NFL HD! I am watching the Giants and it is terrific. I adore the Internet. All that faith i put religion, family, philanthropy, my fellow man – WRONG!!! I now place all of my hopes firmly on the back of Internet. The Internet will tell us all what to do. It has the power to shrink the planet until it's no bigger than Fairfield County, CT.

We saw Wall-E tonight. It was cute. I need to see Clone Wars. I need exploding robots. We all need exploding robots. And the Internet.

It's only 66 degrees out! I wore pants to the movies. Autumn is coming, Hooray!!!! Autumnin Madrid rocks.

I can't believe Jim Zorn coaches the Redskins. Love Jim Zorn – despise the Redskins. I wish i was at a bar in DC right now so I could lick the tears of Redskin fans when they lose. Ummmmmm – tastes like Crackers.

Okay- I need to meet women my age who are not crazy. I did a search and signed up for some Metrodate thing. I'll let u know how this turns out. Man, it's 2008 and dating still blows chunks!

Buying New Soul broke 40K words today. Now i just hope it doesn't break me!”

I am working more on the old lady's diary. You just try to imagine a time and a place. I invoke the memories of Todedo. I invoke the ghosts of the Guerra Civil. I invoke the horrors we subject each other to for the sake of greed, anger and vengeance. Fun, fun, fun!

Am I going to become some kind of nutso Civil War author?

Sleeping thru the Apocalypse is about the American Civil War. Buying New Soul is the Spanish Civil War. My my next novel will be called Vietnamese Fingers – about their Civil War. But that's a long ways off.

War sucks. I get disgusted just writing these novels. Those poor hick soldiers who are dying in Iraq because they believe in ideals their government forsook decades ago.

Whoa. I need to lighten up. Something about writing about people getting their toes shot off just makes your attitude dark. I need to go dance or something. Put on some reggae.

41,000 words. Joder! This takes forever. I am not a patient man. Why did I ever want to become a writer?

Because i see stories in my head. That's right. I'm crazy. (Arms straight up in the air, eyes vacant) - “Bleh, Bleh, Bleh! - I am scary!”

Deep breathes. Think of gumdrop houses, chocolate rivers and Twizzler trees.

42,500 words. Boo Yeah! Just a little further...

Writing is like riding a bull: the longer you can stay at it, the better. It's a marathon, even if that marathon is only 8 seconds.

...garbage out

You belong among the wildflowers
You belong in a boat out at sea
Sail away, kill off the hours
You belong somewhere you feel free
-Tom Petty

The weather is gorgeous. It was only 26 today! It's nice and cool in the house and I actually slept thru the night! Cara and i went to the pool. The work week is over. My lunes class was canceled because it is the day before a holiday. Any excuse not not work...

But I have some work coming with a former student. A good guy. I spoke with him today.

- - -

Chema was cleaning last night, so i ran to help him. Limpieza - hooray!!!!

So it's a five day weekend. My life is ridiculous. My life has no meaning.

I can live with that.

Saturday is Kristen's going away party. She leaves on lunes or something. It is the breaking of the Fellowship. We begin to scatter away from Madrid. Permanently.

Heavy man, heavy.

- - -

Garbage in...

Corporal Clegg had a wooden leg
He won it in the war In nineteen forty four.

Corporal Clegg had a medal too
In orange, red, and blue
He found it in the zoo.

Dear, dear were they really sad for me?
Dear, dear will they really laugh at me?

Mrs. Clegg, you must be proud of him.
Mrs. Clegg, another drop of gin.
Corporal Clegg umbrella in the rain
He's never been the same
No one is to blame
-Pink Floyd

I was watching the Mets on the terrace when the garbage trucks came at 2:30 am. It was noisy as hell, and then i was descended on by the rot and stench of garbage. Ugh! If i had been a sleep it would have woken me up!

My nose wants to take it's own life! That smell was coming out of me for the last seven days! But this is like King Kong just dropped a deuce!

Mets are up 5 – 1. But it's Niese pitching and it's his first MLB game.

Insomnia sucks. I woke up again at 4:00. But i saw the Mets win in extra innings.

What country am i in? Why don't i work? Where are all my bleeding socks?

Well, my first week of work is over. No more work til Lunes. And the 9^th is a holiday here. Damn, that was easy. Luckily, the dysentery gave me back my girlish figure – so i'm back to turning tricks for cash. I needed to get laid anyway.

Mum always said i was 'resourceful.'

Chema is watching VH1. 'Born in the USA' is playing.' It's all too surreal. Which way is up?

Oh well. Fuck it. Off to the pool tomorrow with Cara and Molly!

Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years down the road
Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go
-Bruce Springsteen

Circus

And you let go, let go, let go, 'cause you know you're getting tired.
Can you feel it getting down to the wire?
- Neil Young

I have no idea what the hell is happening anywhere!

So let's stick to things i do now:

I had my first class today and that was nice. 3 hours this week - whoa! But it's always nice to ramp up slow for both students and teachers.

It's nice out here on the terrace. My roommate finally left the house today; only because he had to work. He never goes out. He never leaves. He and Anita are always here. He has that goddamned infernal TV on from morning to night. All he does is watch TV and go on the computer. He actually plays Parchese on the computer!!! Are you kidding me? Call it Sorry or Ludo, it's stili so lame. The poor guy. He's an Elven Nerd. He's such a nerd that he'll be one eternally and never die, but never stop nerding.

Okay - Mets are on in 10 minutes. My friend Bo and i watched the game here on the terrace last night as it was day game in Milwaukee. They are 2 up on the Phils.

Joe Lieberman is speaking support for McCain!

Joey Leebs! What the fuck? You broke my heart Joey. You broke my heart.

And Palin's daughter is pregnant! Sweet mother of pearl! McCain's VP candidate is a woman from Alaska with a 5 month old son (runored to be her grandson) and a knocked up 17 year old daughter! Who could have seen that coming! Dan Quayle just got erased from the record books as the craziest candidate ever. The McCain campaign is a train wreck. They can't possibly win! If they do it will prove that the majority of Americans are cretins or its all fixed. Or, gods forbid, it's both!


I learn my name
I write with a number two pencil
I work up to my potential
I earn my name
I come when called
I jump when you circle the cherry
I sing like a good canary
I come when called
I come, that's all

Send it up on fire
Death before dawn
Send it up on fire
Death before dawn

I clean the house
I put all your books in an order
I make up a colorful border
I clean my mouth
'Cause froth comes out
-Liz Phair