Tag: North Market

Out of all my Columbus living years, 2006 likely ranks as the most insane of all – which is really saying a mouthful. As a result, it’s probably my favorite, too. Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t necessarily the “best” or “most fun” among these years; it just happens to be the most absurd. Some of the things that happened this year I still can’t quite believe. But I was proud of myself too, for the most part, in the moment, with how I was handling everything, thinking even at the time, man, you’ve still got it! Regarding things like the bicycle odysseys and the nutso work schedule and a whole lot of other stuff. It felt like a nice return to form, and rivaling years like 1998 or 2001 on the personal accomplishment front. To this day some of what I pulled off in 2006 feels surreal. Most of all, my daughter Emma Lucille was born, which on its own is reason enough to consider this the all-time highlight.

Incidentally, I did initially fret when posting the first of these yearly online journals that maybe this was a step too far, that nobody would care about this junk. To my suprise, though, they consistently pull in way more traffic than the non-personal, events-calendar page I also create for every year. I don’t exactly believe these entries are incredibly remarkable or anything. It’s more like how they always say people want some kind of story, to draw them in. And I think maybe the daily journal entries help connect a reader with the era and certain people and places better than some static events calendar does – even when they might have no idea what/who the hell I’m talking about.

As previously noted in umpteen places elsewhere, I’m already fearful that, as is the case with my other more chaotic eras, insanity on the level of 2006 typically means the documentation itself will be somewhat lacking. Most of this stuff I haven’t looked at in about 19 years, so I have no idea, but would place money on that being the case. So having said that, let’s rip with the latest one, and see what I managed to jot down…

January 9

time is not our friend. The year is already about 2 percent over. I work Target from 4:30am-1pm today (every little bit sleeping in certainly helps.) Come home and crash out from about 2 till 6, wake up, stagger over to library, manage a pretty encouraging hour playing chess (there’s a wait for the computers.) About two months ago, I was playing the best chess of my life, but then went through this godawful streak and bottomed out after returning home from N.C., but I think I’m on the upswing again. I don’t know what it is, but concentration is a major issue, obviously, and being well rested helps. Home to write, listen to radio, make a dinner of chicken broccoli alfredo pasta. With a few extra minutes online, not enough to get in another game of chess, I had goofed around at an online bookstore browsing around, and was amused to discover that somehow there’s a used copy of my Night Driving novel for sale at a bookstore in Santa Clara, CA, and another at a bookstore in Frederick, MD. O, the power of ye internet! That book is garbage, but I feel like someday the few existing copies could be worth a lot of money.

Battling a cold last week, coffee just sounded terrible to me, and I’ve only had two cups in the past week. Went through withdrawals of some sort already, but at this point I feel fine.

January 10

my latest goal has been to knock out 2 pages of the Virgins rewrite on my days off, which I manage today. Otherwise stick to the page a day, on the days that I’m working. Also, screw around recording ‘73 Ludwig kick drum, just brought in from garage, it takes me about ten different techniques to find one that seems to work alright – the drum, which has no back head, a few feet away from mike, and wrap the cheap computer mike I have in a sock, and wrap this hammer in two socks to soften the blow, as I pound the drum with medium force. I say this seems to work okay, because it’s the only thing that sounds good on playback, but given the cheap equipment I’m using to listen to it – computer speakers – I won’t know for sure until I can burn this off onto disc and play it on a really good stereo. Of course now that the DVD player bit the dust last week I have no way of listening to discs, either. Oh wait! Not true! Still have the battery operated portable disc player, forgot all about it….

On a somewhat related theme, I’m stoked because I also found my brown corduroy pants in a basket, having concluded months ago that Jill must have thrown them out. My favorite pair, ever, and it turns out I do still have them after all.

At ten I leave house for Café Bourbon Street.

After the show, I head across town to afterhours at the “Glass House.” Well, but first, we plan on hitting Marshall’s for last call. On the way there, I am mentally turning over the paragraph I’d stopped at in Virgins, came up with a great next line. And then when I stop outside Marshall’s I scribble the line down on the cover of my notebook so as not to forget it. You can’t take this stuff for granted. As for the bar, its doors are locked, I have to hop the fence and stand outside w/ locked out people on the smoker’s patio, draw someone’s attention, who lets me in, only to discover those guys have already checked out the bar and left themselves.

So I drive around the corner to the house, and now somehow it’s just Chris and Norman. I ring the doorbell, but Keith’s sleeping, Norman nervously giggles, “don’t ring the doorbell!” as he answers. He and I sit around and have a couple beers. Chris, whose idea this had been in the first place, talks their band up a storm, how they’re on the verge of being signed, says Travis will not move if that happens, has one beer, makes himself a burrito, then heads upstairs to bed. Wasted. Of course, he did have about 4-5 shots of Cuervo, and if the one I saw him drink on stage is any indication – it looked more like a wine goblet – they were quite generous behind the bar tonight when it came to quantity.

February 2

The pages come so easily now, I get spooked and try to slow myself down. Seriously. Nearing the end with the Virgins rewrite and for the past three days I’ve been able to crank out 2,3,4 pages a day instead of my customary one, but, fearing the quality might be wack, instead of printing them off and saving them as “final,” I keep slowing down, stalling, printing off one and going back to the project the next day. The last thing I want is to blow it now by rushing. I think this an amazing book, I really do, but the hard part will soon begin – marketing, getting it out there into people’s hands. I didn’t even bother with my other book, but this time I’m going all out. Lately, I’ve been able to knock these pages out so fast, that I’m wandering around the house lost afterwards, restless, thinking okay, what now, how do I fill my time.

Sunny and fifty out right now, I’ve got the windows open to blow out this stale air in here. Gotta go into the Oats in about an hour which, regardless how cake it is, I’m beginning to grow extremely bored with. Can’t wait to get out of this town.

February 16

the past 3 weeks, I’ve had the same schedule at Target – off Sun & Tues, work only till 10 on Thu, till 12:30 other four days. The only vagaries are at Wild Oats, though even here it’s always 1pm to close shifts on Sat and Sun, though maybe a Thu or Fri or both depending on who’s on vacation or whatever.

After my shift at Target this morning, it’s already almost 60 degrees, albeit cloudy. Throw Royal Tenenbaums on for 3^rd time since I bought it, what, less than two weeks ago, and fall asleep. Wake up at noon, near end of movie, drink some coffee and head over to library to play some online (free) poker (chess site crashed.) Awesome day more than doubling my limit hold em stake – I think that might be my game, at least online, and the way they do it at this site (fulltiltpoker) the play is more realistic than usual play money sites.

Determined to grill out today, now that it’s over 60 degrees (almost a record), even if cloudy and occasionally spitting a short rain. After much effort, light grill, walk over to Kroger, grill’s out, throw on some twigs and light again, takes off on about 4^th effort. Cheeseburgers, corn on the cob, and Michael Shea’s beer – never had before; good dark beer taste, but then the aftertaste is vaguely like Budweiser-esque junk, which knocks it down a peg or two. Cranking CD101 and writing at the kitchen table while food cooks, couple beers, then crash out again briefly after I eat, watching Floyd video from ‘94 tour.

Later, hop in car and just drive toward Columbus aimlessly, decide maybe I’ll try and catch a movie at the Drexel Grandview – I know The Squid and the Whale is booked there – and as it turns out I show up at precisely the right moment, just as previews are beginning. But tickets are $8 here, a medium popcorn $3.50, a small pop $2.75 – not cheap – and the popcorn is absolutely terrible. Totally bland yet at the same time gross, I don’t even know how that’s possible.

Home to write my daily Virgins page, and as it turns out I’m right at the part where Alan and I are battling lighting this same red charcoal grill I fought with today, which was his but somehow I inherited along the line. Then my 80 pushups, now it’s 9:30 and CD101 on, as I like to have it while I write, and I think I’ll knock back a couple more beers and have a salad, crash in front of a movie. It would be really nice to rustle up just one more brand new chick around here, to close out this debacle, these wasted 10 years I’ve spent in this town. Started out so promising and there’s been some hot stretches, a ton of great moments, some worthwhile accomplishments…but it will always feel somewhat of a failure.

I don’t know. It all looks very good on paper, these Columbus years. And if you had told me back in 1996, living in Mansfield, “hey, these are exactly the things you will experience down there,” I’m sure I would have slapped the buzzer and said, fuck yeah, let’s do it. But at the same time, I know things could have been POSITIVELY INSANE down here, and to a great extent, we blew it. We were perpetually like a tweak or two off from owning this city. I’m kind of wondering what guys like Damon or Paul or Dan Bandman and many of my other closest friends would say about this phenomenon. It’s been awesome but could have been so much more, and, I must admit, I feel like kind of a joke as a result.

In reality, having Emma is my most significant accomplishment, as it should be for pretty much anyone. That alone makes the entire experience worth it. I owned a house for a few years and sold it for a nice profit. It looks like I will have published two books during this time – that fact is also easy to forget, would have seemed possibly impossible ten years ago, and is a good example maybe of how the goal posts are always moving and you never really believe you “made it” with anything, no matter the topic. So it’s easy to forget the triumphs. I’ve made a lot of great friends and had some fun with the ladies, et cetera, et cetera. But even so…I don’t know, it still feels like a decade of things that almost happened.

But, on the flipside…at least I have an extremely likely candidate for that “brand new chick” now in Elissa (and hot, too, and only just turned 21), who, as I was lying in bed thinking last night, the next time I’m closing with, all I’ll have to say is let’s grab a drink and I’m sure we would wind up screwing. It really is just that simple sometimes.

March 1

Kurt Vonnegut speaking appearance. He says it’s his last. Dan, Nathan, Shannon, and I attend it together. I have this theory about his being in this sweet “middlebrow” zone where critics mostly like him but it’s also light enough that the general public reads it. This Miriam chick from Mansfield is somehow the one doing the sign language up front.

March 3

“Glass House” reunion party at Cara Bar. Also Ancie and Dan’s 20^th anniversary.

March 6

Frustrating day in online poker. Playing the limit hold em play money tables still, couldn’t get anything together yesterday, nobody would ever fold for any reason and none of my cards were hitting, I went at least 50 hands (play history only goes back that far) w/o winning a single one – bluff, semibluff, whatever, even those wouldn’t work.

March 7

Weirdness prevails. In at 4 but scraping off the windshield for the first time in – what, over a month.

After my Target shift, I’m shopping for Madison, her 5^th birthday tomorrow: a Strawberry Shortcake card that mentions it being her 5^th; a book coauthored by actress Jamie Lee Curtis titled It’s Hard to be 5, which I’ve been looking at for months in my travels stocking this stuff, and a Dora the Explorer backpack w/ some kind of magnetic game attached. That book in particular I have made a point of getting her, thinking about it for weeks: something about the cover I liked. I remember what it was like to feel every birthday was so big and important and special, you’d sit and daydream about how cool it felt, being older, you’d look forward to it for weeks.

And though I don’t have anything to complain about my childhood, there’s always this feeling like it could have been made to feel a little more special, which I’m sure is how everyone feels, is always something we’re working toward addressing in one way or another by these endless diversions, travel, plans for retiring early and loafing and living the easy life, I think it all stems from that. I want to make Madison’s the best I can in these limited circumstances, and the same applies to Emma. I don’t know why, but something about that picture w/ the kid smiling and holding five fingers up, it casts me back and reminds me what it felt like being that young. And anytime I see these cartoon characters Madison loves – Strawberry Shortcake, Dora, etc, I just start grinning and/or cracking up, because it reminds me of her. And I see this stuff every day, obviously, because every day I’m stocking those shelves.

Anyway: they had one Straw. Short. card for $1.99 but I decide to upgrade to the one that specifically ties in w/ the 5^th birthday. Doing so messes up everything: I have 30 dollars on me in cash, because the employee 10 percent discount only works w/ cash, but crunching the numbers in my head I figured up everything was cool earlier, but then when I decided to switch these cards forgot all about it. Up at the checkout line, then, the total comes to $30.62 and I explain I’ll give the cashier $30 (“that’s a great book!” she says, by the way, some new girl w/ curly blonde hair and thin face, says she works in some kind of children’s literary program in addition to here) and will have to put the other .62 on my bank card (idiot!) Ok, she says, rings up the cash, then when I go to debit card the rest, it rejects – not because of my balance, because there’s plenty in there, but because the employee discount voids on everything now. A pretty dumb system they’ve got set up, if you ask me. I tell her to subtract off the birthday card, then, and ring it up as a separate transaction and forget about the goddamn employee discount for that particular item, but she’s confused, and there’s a line backing up (only 3 lanes are open) and she calls the front end supervisor over, who says, “you don’t have sixty two cents anywhere? Not even in your car?” sighs, pulls sixty two cents out of her own pocket and drops it in. I’d feel embarrassed if I were to blame somehow, but this whole setup is ridiculous and I’m just grinning. “Cool,” I nod.

Out to my car, I realize I’ve left my keys in the ignition (and of course all four doors are unlocked, as they always are) all day.

Home, proof/edit last night’s Virgins page, then knock out the next – only 3 left to go, writing wise. I’m feeling ambitious as hell, like I could do two more tonight, and one more tomorrow, and that’s it! Just in the nick of time, right before I leave for my trip…..

No sooner finish this and Julie calls. She left a message Sunday, called again yesterday (no message), now again this afternoon – yeah, she wants it bad. We talk 10-15 minutes. After a lousy week last week in chess, I played ok yesterday and pretty damn good today, walking to the library as I always do. An hour of that, and an hour of poker.

Today I started to figure out some things ($10/20 play money tables, same as yesterday), i.e. you have to stick around and see almost every flop; no reason to raise before flop if you were one of the blinds, because by the time it’s gotten around to you everyone has already either folded or called at least once, you’re not going to scare them off; everyone sticks around to see the turn, too, because the bets don’t go up to $20 until then, you still get out cheap. I also made a mistake one time folding on the river w/ a healthy pot and $20 to me to call, sitting on 4 spades w/ A, 8, 3, 2 of spades on the board. My thinking was that of the two guys left beside me, one of them had to have a better spade. Would seem to make sense. I failed to consider the pot odds, however. Such as 8/45 cards can beat me, and since it wasn’t costing me $8 for every $45 in the pot, I should have called. I’m usually better at spotting this, but flubbed it. Common sense just seems so strong there, I chucked the cards w/o even thinking about it. A lousy pair of twos won that hand.

Though this is play money, I think what I’m learning about limit hold em applies, generally, and I should be able to use most of these strategies when I feel confident enough (and have the spare $ lying around) to attack the real money tables again. Last time I did, in December, I came out $30 ahead for my troubles, not bad for a couple days’ work, a handful of hours all told. For now, I believe limit hold em will be my game.

Home to make a sandwich, then walk up to this Sport Clips place on Cemetery. They’re showing a rerun of 1981 Bucks/Sixers playoff game 7 while I get my hair cut, featuring the notorious Sidney Moncrief, a name so hilarious I once used it for one of my bands. Moncrief, that is. Never been here before, but at $15 a little steep; a nice day, sunny mid 40s, though, and good for a walk, and lord knows I need this haircut badly.

March 8

This may be the most amazing period of my life so far. I finished the novel tonight! Done. I’ve got a baby on the way! And I’m leaving for my Florida trip tomorrow, with Julie waiting on the other side!

I did actually manage to talk to Jill earlier. She says they may take Emma by C section this week, they may take her next week. Jill has no idea. Emma actually isn’t due till the first week of April, though, so who knows. The baby could come any minute for the next month, and if I’m not right by a phone, my whereabouts known at all times, within 30 seconds of the Batmobile and right there at the hospital the instant she is, I know Jill (and her mom) will never shut up about it.

I’m fucked. I don’t know what to do. Do I call off my trip to Florida entirely? Even if I drive down there and call back for constant updates, it’s an 18 hour drive. I’ve spent $500 on hotel rooms and $77 on a ticket, and Paul’s counting on me for a ride to Miami. Maybe it was stupid to coordinate in the first place, but this is seriously a month before Emma is due. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to even find an available week between two jobs that you can schedule your vacation, let alone deal with management if you did possibly try to change it down the road.

Maybe I could have taken the week’s vacation anyway, but planned absolutely nothing, then sat around town twiddling my thumbs and hoping Emma was born this week. I mean…that does feel kind of idiotic. Not to mention: Jill backed me into this corner with her antics. Bailing without warning a few months into this more expensive apartment, at which point I basically had to take on the second job. This is before the child support even kicks in, and who knows what I’ll do then.

One other consideration is that I feel justified, for the most part, with my responses to things that other people do. But often as though I’m not allowed to initiate any actions myself. So this is definitely a mindset to work on. Am I not allowed to say I feel like I need this vacation? Does that make me horrible?

It’s not exactly life or death for me – Jill and Emma are really ones on the line – but I want to be there. Even if Jill tells me all she needs me there for is to sign the birth certificate. I get so angry thinking about Jill’s mom and how she lies to get things back to the way she wants it and Jill knows she lies, but when it’s convenient for her she takes her mom’s side. Everything has to be 100 percent their way and I’m this big asshole etc for not foreseeing every potential trick in the book. Even when they’re mostly not speaking to me, won’t return my calls, and so on. You can’t just do whatever the fuck you feel like, then expect everyone to feel sorry for you anyway, because you’re so emotional or whatever and easily manipulated by your puppetmaster mom at the age of almost 30, and so on, and yet click your fingers on a whim and have everyone you just dissed dance to your commands anyway and if not, then they’re the dickheads. Sorry. It doesn’t work like that.

March 14

My daughter Emma Lucille is born today! This makes me one of the proudest yet unlikely papas ever, I think, if you really look into these matters. The doctors told Jill she would “never” get pregnant and now she’s had two kids. Cliched or not, it really is a life changing event – before this even technically happens, you’re already switching into this total mental mode of wanting to do whatever you possibly can for your kid. It’s really weird. A complete mindset flip, intensified so much more now that she’s here, into total survival, doing what you can to keep things afloat mode. And not caring so much about a ton else.

March 20

well believe it or not I finally got around to resuming the short story Denial, which stalled out just past 9000 words years ago. This was my strategy, of course, after finishing the book, is to take my time and dick around, putter around with a number of projects and see what takes off. It feels great to not have any deadlines. My goal now is to read my old journals from the summer of ‘98 all the way up to now, which I haven’t done, some of that stuff has just sat there literally unlooked at from the moment I laid it down onto the page. Which I find fascinating -who knows what I’ve forgotten, what I’ll find? Who knows what this will spark. But for now, the short story I hope to have knocked out in time for the writer’s group on Wednesday, because nobody else ever brings anything and I sense it will dry up soon. Heck, I can bring something every time, no problem, if it means keeping the group afloat. Today I typed a handful of paragraphs on Denial, which aren’t as good as all the stuff that came before, but help me get back in the swing of things – reading what I have of the story so far, it holds up amazingly well to this point.

April 1

Delete the Cabin in the Woods project at last – been 5 years since I started it. I still have all the master tracks burned onto disc if I ever care to use them, but I doubt it. It was one of the first songs started for our Lions album, and one of the first ones dropped. Every time I go back to listen to the work in progress, I gradually delete something else, until today when I realized there’s no way I’ll use any of these parts we’ve recorded for this song, if ever we even work on this tune again.

April 4

Work a rare Tuesday night at Oats. To Half Price Books afterwards, pick up a few 25 cent vinyl albums – Mirage, Tea for the Tillerman, Born in the USA – and a book of art history of the 70s and 80s for $1.

April 5

Pulled over a block away from Target at 3:55 am for having expired plates. $80 fine. Although he also noted my muffler was excessively loud, and I happened to not have my wallet with me – never have any reason to bring it to work, so I don’t – so I suppose it could have been worse. What a dick, though. He even asked me where I was headed, and I told him I was on my way to work. Is this such a pressing crisis, for a guy to be out cruising on a license plate that’s five days old? And they wonder that people have such negative attitudes toward cops. He asked me why, and I said I didn’t get paid until Friday – true. What, does he think I drive this piece of junk car and get up at this ungodly hour for some shitty job at a department store because I’m flush with all this spare cash? And if he’s really so concerned that I get the tags renewed and muffler repaired, how is this $80 fine going to help me achieve those ends – what other reason would a guy have for cruising around w/ deafening muffler and expired license, if not monetary?

Chuck warned us at the huddle one day last week that Hilliard just hired 25 new officers and they’re going to be writing tickets left and right. I guess he knew his stuff. So bravo, o boys in blue, bravo, way to rake in that revenue. But you piss off even so little as three or four people in a town like this, though – which is disproportionately thick with cops for such a small town – who consider it a factor in moving elsewhere, and how many $80 tickets do you have to write to make up for lost property taxes, lost sales taxes, lost payroll taxes, not to mention money spent at all the local merchants that will subsequently be spent elsewhere? From just three or four individuals. I don’t like it here that much, and would certainly consider this incident alone sufficient motivation to leave.

Writing club tonight, Shannon and Brad both attend for only the second time ever, in addition to Nathan and me. We really accomplish nothing at these meetings anymore. But the social interaction I suppose is important enough reason to continue.

Stop by Half Price Books again, second night in a row. Stock up on a whole pile of 10 cent vinyl albums, a smaller stack of 25 cent ones and Jackson Browne’s For Everyman at a still reasonable fifty cents. Had a few coffees at Victorian’s, know I’ll be up late late late – sifting through journal pages from 2002, sorting them out of late, clarifying some obscure notes that need blanks filled in.

April 6

Sunny early, but cloudy and eventually misting over. Sounds crazy, but I get on a very, very mild cleaning kick after lighting up the grill a 2^nd day in a row. Decide I am going to give this living room rug away to Goodwill (in addition to placemats for table), and as soon as I load it into my car, I realize how much, in a feng shui manner, that rug must have been bumming out this room, making me not like this room subconsciously without ever realizing I didn’t. Or why. Every time I walk past now, I can’t believe how much better I like the living room now, how better I feel being in it. And here I always thought that stuff was a load of bunk.

Clippers opening day, for which I received two tickets in the mail (they send me tickets 3-4 times a year. I’ve never figured out why) and a coupon for up to four more at $2 apiece. Kyle meets me down at the front gate, along with a guy he works with named Jim. Everyone else backed out for an assortment of lame reasons, all of which boil down to their being too lazy to leave the house. Chris and I were talking just the other day about how boring everyone is, and it’s true. Norm has a day off and it’s 70 and sunny out recently, sits inside all day watching cable; Keith declines to meet Chris for a beer after work, even though he has the next day off. Travis says he “doesn’t like baseball,” which may be true, but basically he too would rather sit home and watch tv than do most anything; Spain was going to go, but then said “why don’t we do it Monday night?” even though I suspect he doesn’t have anything going on tonight, and even if we did switch to Monday night, it probably wouldn’t happen then, either. I don’t understand people’s lameness.

An enjoyable ass whooping against the Scranton Red Barons, a Phillies affiliate, soon follows. Sean Henn starts for the Clippers; their only other notables that I’ve heard of before are first baseman Eric Duncan, and Melky Cabrera. They pour it on all night, though – 2 in the first, 3 in second, 2 in fourth, 3 in fifth – and it’s an enjoyable game, for a rout, because the offense is evenly distributed. A 13-1 blowout, in the end, but we have plenty to talk about. They have this bizarre segment between innings with three hot dog shaped mascots racing each other to this finish line, where two chicks, dressed up as a mustard and ketchup bottle respectively, are holding the tape. Kyle makes a joke about how he’d like to get with one of those girls.

“If I was one of those hot dogs, I’d be working on either ketchup or mustard, one of the two.”

“Both!” I said, “I’d have ketchup on one side, and mustard on the other!” Everyone cracks up.

“You have to leave your costumes on, though,” Jim elaborates with a laugh, “that’s my fetish.”

“You can take your spouts off, that’s it,” I suggest, to another hearty round of laughter.

Kyle had three hot dogs and a small Bud draft before the game began, Jim and I both a small Amber Bock draft (which we both agree tasted funny) and a dog. I went back later for a large Amber Bock, but those two never left their seats again. We receive small inferior cowbells to ring, at the gate (and they show the infamous Walken-Ferrell SNL clip now while playing the standard Ring Your Bell theme song), and refrigerator magnets of the schedule.

Something about this Amber Bock draft must not sit right w/ me. Although come to think of it I don’t have this problem at Studio 35, just here. Last time, when I came w/ Matt and Catherine and Jen two summers ago, it was the same story, albeit worse (true, I drank much more then) but coming home, I feel as Miles would say “a little bit off to the side.” Semi queasy stomach, just from two drafts.

April 7

Now that I’ve finished the novel, I feel out of sorts and lost again – the common malaise when trying to figure out what the next project will be. I always dabble in a bazillion things, and something, one of those, eventually takes off; I’ve never been able to consciously plot it with a hundred degree certainty. My plan right now is to write a first draft of The Straw, although I’m struggling with finding my footing on that at the moment despite a plethora of ideas. It’s going to be a challenge, but I’ll come out of it a much better writer – a difficult book to write, I believe. After the first draft of The Straw I’d like to do the second draft of Flirtation Device – although the first is so horrible and mangled at this point I’m not even sure I should count it – though what the third novel I actually publish will be I can’t say. Ideally, I’d like to do Straw, then Device, but we’ll see.

April 8

One of the most hilarious nights I’ve had in awhile, but good, too, one of those nights that reminds you why you ever bother going out in the first place – right at a time when I most needed it, as always seems the case. Literally, I almost didn’t even go out to the show at all tonight, thinking aw hell, nothing exciting happens anymore anyway, and I feel an inconsequential joke half the time driving home from these occasions.

-first, closing shift at the Oats

-Suddenly hungry, fly over to the Wendy’s on Olentangy and go inside, inhale a quick cheap dinner (jr bacon c-burger, fries, caesar salad, water like always), then, having brought a change of clothes, do so in my car: shiny blue short sleeved collared shirt, tan dress slacks, black loafers, change also my nasty socks and stick them in this rectangular cookie tin I’ve used all winter as a windshield scraper, to minimize the smell. Stick smelly shoes in a plastic bag and wing them back into the hatch. Keep my ballcap on from work, though, because I’m tired of this chronic bedhead/hathead – I either have one or the other, at all times, and it’s driving me crazy. Nothing works. Of course I’m going bald too and I swore I’d never be the Mike Love character wearing a baseball hat around for the next 40 years as if everybody doesn’t already know anyway. But my hair always looks so ridiculous anymore – I just got it cut a month ago and it’s already a shaggy mess. What else is there to do? I guess I’ll have to start shaving it myself or something, but until then, tonight, I think I inadvertently stumbled onto a look that works – maybe that was the one missing component.

-Early Empire CD release show at Andyman’s

-after hours back at the Glass House. Keith from Vena Cava is here with this Doug guy who is the drummer from X-Rated Cowboys. This Doug guy is a complete tool, completely annoying. He walks around with this stapler all night saying “hey! I’ve got a stapler!” – literally – which someone explains to me later is a line from Office Space but I don’t care, it’s still annoying. Matt Hubbard just broke up w/ his girlfriend earlier tonight and looks like he’s on the brink of kicking this Doug guy’s ass. I have a seat in the “sliding” chair (it’s not a rocking chair, it slides back and forth on this track; what do you call these?) by the fireplace. I notice with considerable amusement that to my immediate left the Lions of March CD is sitting on their end table, beneath the lamp, out of its case – obviously been listened to recently. Ah, this life, it’s so fucking strange I tell you….

Jeremy sitting beside me in a chair he’s pulled from “dining room.” He asks me, “so when do I get to meet this girlfriend?”

“Never,” I joke. In reality, they may have already met, but I have no idea. Mostly I’m just riffing on the fact that it’s highly unlikely I will ever bring her around “the guys” in a situation like this.

“How about this,” Jeremy says, pulling pictures out of his wallet, “My girlfriend has three kids – seven, eight, and ten.”

“Wow,” I offer, “wait, don’t you live with Jack and his girlfriend?”

“No,” Jeremy corrects with a grin, “my girlfriend and me live with Jack.”

“How’s that working out?”

“It’s working out alright,” he says.

This Doug guy is on some kick now, after puffing on the weed a few people in the living room are smoking, of throwing this coconut shell around the living room. He’s inclined, more often than not, to stand like a football center, and “hike” it across the room, in fact. One such hike topples the piano shaped/designed ashtray, perched on the coffee table on a bed of empty beer bottles. Hostetler has had it, and takes the coconut, tucks it behind the swinging door of this end table between us. Hubbard still looks like he might kick that dude’s ass at any moment. Sensing a bad vibe, Keith from Vena Cava wisely whisks this Doug character out of here. He understands it’s nothing to do with him, just the jackass he brought here with him.

April 9

Though operating on one hour of sleep, I agree to meet Miles at Andyman’s for a beer. They have a DJ here on Sundays, mixing up beats near the western wall, between the end table w/ the Elvis lamp and the mounted glass case w/ the Kiss figurines w/ giant hands. No cover. The bartender I’ve not seen before and the chick sitting at the bar is named Tracy, a brunette, nice face, nice figure, lives on Gerrard she says. The two of them are talking to Miles and me; Tracy says her man’s out of town, seems flirty, though probably digging the bartender in fact it appears she isn’t even paying for her drinks. After 3 or 4 here, talking up Johnny’s Glenn Avenue – Tracy and bartender rave about the place as well – I have Miles follow me over there, as he’s never been. Right in the door this huge black guy w/ manufactured curly hair named Jamie – talkative, but acts very white – shanghais us w/ talk about the Buckeyes, but Miles has nothing to say outside of “dig it,” and I hardly do much better. His woman, a white chick w/ straight long black hair, is named Brandy. Miles and I manage to get away from them & scoot over to the other side, but then she comes over, asks if I care to play her in a game of pool, disappears for awhile, now she’s back over here, now Jamie is, he wants to play partners, Miles isn’t into it, so some other vaguely hillbilly guy, the only other person around (a number of regulars sit on the other side, around the bar) becomes my partner. And Jamie bugging the hell out of me, a very annoying individual overall, do I have any weed, won’t shut up, but of course I don’t smoke weed, tell him Miles might just to get him off my back, so now he’s pestering Miles. Miles sucks down two beers to my one. Those two are a very peculiar couple, in fact I alternately suspect they might even be undercover, or that she’s the type who gets off on seducing other guys just to piss him off and raise a ruckus. Either is equally believable. Standing outside talking about the place, I ask Miles his impression.

“It’s corny,” he says.

June 5

Daniel doesn’t wake up until 1:30 in the afternoon. I wanted to take him to Starliner Diner for breakfast – and he was stoked about it – but I let him sleep. When he wakes, I play for him the comp CD of all the guitar parts he’s ever recorded, from 2001 onward, for these Lions of March projects. Had him tell me which ones he absolutely wanted to scrap, though not necessarily committing to the others, the ones he may or may not wish to keep. Also, had him sort through my ideas for drums/bass tracks to add to his various songs – he only liked about two of the seventeen ideas, but that’s fine – we make progress. Interestingly, though I grouped his guitar parts on the CD by song, they were in no special order sequentially, yet without exception the parts he told me to delete happened to all have been the oldest ones, from ‘01 and ‘02. There’s no way he could have known this, it’s proof positive the improvement he continues to make as a guitar player. There are now just two wave files left from 2001 that have remained on my hard drive all along, which means they’ve never been deleted nor were used on the songs from our first Lions of March CD – the small chiming guitar part I had Daniel play for my still unfinished Neighborhood No More song, and Matt’s short bass part for this one small segment I still currently refer to as Song #2. And only four unused parts from ‘02 remain.

June 9

This apartment is actually quite charming here in the summertime. Just enough sun but not too much, and flanked by green, as well as the giant bush beside my front living room window, it has personality plenty this time of year – far removed from the gloomy pit of this past dreadful winter, almost too depressing to bear.

Here in my early evening writing session, Ghetto Perfect is officially wiped out as I split its pieces into a # of different projects. Time goes by, and I get better at figuring out what I want to do w/ material, more original ways of approaching it, arranging it. Ghetto Perfect was ultimately a project without a point, but I can use chunks of it in mostly brand new projects such as Drama House and Room, ones I’ve just recently come up with.

June 12

The most annoying bird in the history of the planet is perched in the shrubbery outside my apartment, singing all night – loudly, and in an admittedly impressively exhausting repertoire of voices. I think it had every bird voice ever ready on command, the Olivier of singing. Oddly, he was the only bird singing, anywhere. Full moon out may have had something to do with its bizarre behavior, but whatever the case, I couldn’t sleep. Driving to work and with the donut tire on driver’s side front, tires squeal hotfooting it and this too sounds exactly like that bird. I can’t escape his grasp.

June 15

It is just after 5am at the moment. I woke up for no reason basically at 5am on the dot, having slept very soundly last night from about the moment my head hit the pillow at midnight. Didn’t wake up once. But when my eyes popped open at 5, I thought it would be hilarious to get up and do some writing, just to say I did – it’s important to bust out of routines, after all. At the moment I am working on Room. It’s amazing how simply reconfiguring the furniture in your head can get you 100x more excited about the same material that you’ve been mulling over sometimes for years. Simply coming up w/ this new project has gotten me inspired and working fairly heavily on it – I’m in one of those envious phases the past week, not just with this project but also some others, as well as musically, where I have more ideas and inspiration than I do hours in the day. Which always makes the days seem action packed and rewarding, because you crash every night having been mighty productive, but at the same time having a lot left in front of you and knowing exactly what’s in front of you, what comes next. I started a pot of coffee, and here I sit.

June 16

It is now about 2:30am. I have to be in at Target at 4 but have been unable to sleep. Just took a shower and am now drinking coffee, having given up on sleep. What the hell, who wants an ordinary life anyway – anyone can have an ordinary life, you can fall into an ordinary life at any moment you choose, you might even fall into it by accident; it’s certainly nothing to shoot for intentionally. I like whoever it was that said “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Lunatics like me, these euphemisms are all we have to cling to. I think I’ll go get some breakfast.

June 17

Maria calls me at work hysterical – she found her dad dead this morning, sitting on the toilet back home. She and Tommy went back home for the weekend; she took her dad to the doctor’s office yesterday for a checkup and they were told everything looked fine. Obviously not, but it’s still too early to tell what exactly happened to him. Maria has already gone off on Tommy once today, she says, because the stress Tommy has created with this outrageous drug problem of his is (so Maria says, and it’s probably true) a huge factor in Mr. Yanik’s health decline.

“Is Tommy keeping it together?” I ask.

“Fuck no! He’s still all fucked up on drugs!” she shouts into the phone.

I’m left in charge of calling Clif and Miles, breaking the news to them. Clif is at work and can’t really discuss the situation properly, though we try to cobble together a plan to drive out there Tuesday and be with the family. Clif also tells me he and Andrea are getting married on the 22^nd of July.

“Damn, dude, y’all don’t play around,” I joke.

“We don’t have time to play around,” he says. I take this to mean they have to get married because of her pregnancy, because her family (not happy about her dating a black guy to begin with) will flip out otherwise.

Miles has considerably more to say about Mr. Yanik’s death, and Tommy and Maria and Lisa, etc. He got off at 10, went straight over to his mom’s house “to plant some flowers, I figured that’d take an hour, I’d be outta there,” but then he mowed the yard as well, puttered around some more, just now getting home (4pm) and says “I’m already on my second double deuce.”

“You know Tommy’s gonna get drunk and start running his mouth, I can already see it now,” Miles says, “mmm mmm mmn….”

“Maria said she already had to go off on him once.”

“I’ll bet. You know how he is. Man, that ain’t gonna be nothin but stress, that brings up bad memories just thinkin about it, when my mom died, my family, man, that’s all we did, everybody gettin fucked up after the funeral. Why is that? Man, I guess that’s just the way it is when you’re an American – after a wedding, e-body wanna get fucked up, after a funeral, e-body wanna get fucked up. But you know, you gotta keep a clear head until all that shit’s over with cause man, people come in there and steal shit offa ya. They will!”

“I can believe it.”

“That’s why I didn’t really get too fucked up until after my mom’s funeral and I got all that shit dealt with. My uncle Harold man when his wife died you go over there and he’s a mess, the place is tore up he’s got a trash can full of empty whiskey bottles…..I was just a teenager, man, but I remember thinkin, hmmm……and see he had these safety bonds he kept in his bedroom, man he had those things for yeeeeeeeeeeearrrrrrrsssssss, and sure enough, wouldn’t you know it, somebody stolt them. He didn’t keep his shit together. But see when my mom was at the hospital, I didn’t get fucked up, man, I didn’t! She was at the hospital I was there every day, I might slide down to the Ravari Room afterwards and have a few, but I was cool, I was cool, you know, I didn’t get too fucked up, cause I wanted to keep a clear head, there was too much shit, I didn’t wanna be rollin up to the hospital hungover the next day and my mom could smell it on my breath, too….”

“You had business to take care of.”

“Yeah, I had business to take care of, I waited until after my business was taken care of, after I got the funeral dealt with and all that shit to get fucked up. But Tommy, shoo, I can already see it, it makes me not even wanna call Maria, although she probably…..she probably handle it the coolest out of the three of them…….although Lisa, I can see Lisa, Lisa probably don’t get too crazy, since it’s her dad…….but the three of them get together, shit, you know they arguin from the minute they wake up, I don’t know what it is about Lisa and Tommy and Maria but you know they gotta be screamin at each other all the time. All the time! Shit, they the nicest people in the world, but I wonder what happened to those kids. They the nicest people in the world but for some reason you get em together and that’s all it is, screamin and yellin, I ain’t never seen anything like it.”

Miles if off Tuesday, which is looking like our day.

“I was thinking I’d really like it if we didn’t spend the night there, though, if we just drove out there and paid our respects and came back that night,” I admit, “I think that would be best.”

“I think so too,” Miles agrees, “you know that place ain’t gonna be nothin but a mess, man, chaos. Tommy’s gonna be drunk and runnin his mouth, they gonna have that house full of people and e-body’s gonna be stressin at each other.”

June 20

Clif, Miles, and I meet up to drive out for the calling hours for Lisa and Maria’s dad. Andrea is not going. I meet Miles at his house at 5 – he’s dressed to the nines – after parking, trying to gain entry (could not), walking to Kroger, buying a 22 ounce Heineken to get change for payphone, calling Miles, he finally answers on my third attempt (says, “Pockets!” instead of hello, asks me if I have any “sodas.”), by the time I emerge he’s already waving to me from other side of the fence. We kill brew, get some more at gas station, kill these on the way to Clif’s for the most part.

“Now, how could anyone not get along whiff Matt?” Miles is saying, talking old days, about Libby, “or you (to me)? Y’all are both cool, I mean you’re different, you gotcha own personalities, but ya both are real cool…….”

“Clif’s a nice guy,” I remark a little further down the road.

“Yeah he is,” Miles says, as we’re discussing the wedding, “good for him.”

He and Andrea are kicking it around their pad on campus when we arrive down there. She’s tanned something fierce, looks good – and I still have to wonder: how in the hell did Clif pull this off?

Then the three of us are on the road, Clif drives.

On the way back, Miles and I pass out just a few moments after reaching I-70, about as soon as his jokes about this girl working at the gas station run dry. I don’t know about him, but riding up front, I don’t stir again until we pull up in Clif’s apartment complex. He made kickass time getting home, it’s only 1am.

“Damn……,” Miles marvels, as he and I walk to my car, “it’s quiet down here tonight….I ain’t never seen campus this quiet. Someone musta called in a bomb threat hmm hmm hmm.”

And he’s right, it’s preternaturally silent down here, kind of creepy. So much for this grand revival that idiotic Gateway project was supposed to bring, not even a block away from here. Serves them right.

June 27

Madison excited when I show up at the front door toting a brown box; deflated when I tell her it’s something for Emma; jumping through the roof w/ excitement to find a sticker book about Jesus and bible scenes for her inside the box, then all over again to find a talking Dora bubble maker and bubbles further down. These are gifts Mom and Mona bought – two outfits for Emma as well – and sent to me, which I didn’t open until I got over here. Jill’s babysitting some bratty, slightly older girl as well, the daughter of some chick she works with, but at least the two of them pal around and keep themselves entertained. “Gives me a break, I don’t mind,” Jill smiles, “it’s better than having Madison in my face all the time.” Poor Madison – she just doesn’t have any friends, that’s all, so I’m happy to see she has someone to hang out with. They’re goofing around in the pool, until it gets too cold, then chilling out with popcorn (Jill makes me a bowl as well) and a Harry Potter movie. Emma sleeps contentedly in my arms. “She likes it that you’re holding her,” Jill speculates. “I think she’s going to be my normal child, the sane one,” Jill adds, later.

June 30

Return 9 o’clock this morning from ridiculously short trip to N.C. Sunny morning. I was supposed to work at Target this morning, but just didn’t have the energy to drive through the night on no sleep, so oh well. I’m still exhausted, actually. And wouldn’t you know it these fuckers are working on my roof today, right beside my bedroom window. Amazingly enough, though, and despite the heat as well, I’m able to instantly collapse into bed and sleep till noon. You toss and turn a ton sleeping in the car, for the most part, it isn’t like sleeping here. And funny, as long as I’ve been working at Target I still don’t know the phone #, so I don’t even bother calling off, and anyway my phone is out of minutes (prepay like this you can’t use it, period, when it has no minutes), so whatever.

Close at Oats, in at 1:30.

July 1

-ridiculous night catching The Sun at Little Brothers.

July 3

I’m reduced to listening to the Indians on headphones now, both at Wild Oats and around the house. As I am now, sitting here in front of the word processor. There was only one radio of mine that picked up AM well, and even then only when I set it on the kitchen counter between the sink and the stove. But of late, even that hasn’t worked – instead, it would fade in and out, alternating between this 70s rock station, the two stations would take turn getting louder and softer. Very strange.

July 9

party at Dan’s for Travis & Martha going away. Work both jobs, change, then straight over there. Run into Norman on sidewalk, then around back and Shauna introduces me to her new roommate (Liz) who is the sister of her old roommate (Becky), looks similar but better, and seems oddly transfixed by me as we’re shaking hands. “New roommate, meet old roommate,” Shauna says to us. Miriam sitting with Jeremy on a bench style car seat in the backyard, shakes my hand, says, “I haven’t seen you in forever!” even though I protest to her that it’s only been a couple months (if that.) Funny how after the Vonnegut thing she just started showing up everywhere somehow. Kasper still here even though he swore he was only staying from about “four to six.” Sitting beside twelve pack of Miller Lt cans, Vanessa too, Matt in town for Jen and Carlos’s wedding since Friday, he’s back w/ them in corner of small yard. Kasper tries handing me a Miller Lt but I refuse. “I can’t drink that shit anymore.” Matt says he woke up with a hangover one of these mornings and realized it was because he drank Budweiser the night before – the older I’m getting, the higher my quality cutoff seems to be on these beers. Bud has been a no no for years now, I can’t stand the stuff, and I realized at Tiffany’s party having those two Miller Lights that I don’t really like this junk now, either. Yet the Rolling Rock still goes down like water, it’s still often the only thing that ever sounds good, for some reason. A much commented upon curiosity, I can tell you, as I’m walking around with these bottles. Sarah: “what’s up, J-Mac!” in Dan’s kitchen, is wearing a jean jacket. “Isn’t it too hot to be wearing that thing?” I question, Dan laughs. “It’s to cover up my breasts,” she explains, as she’s wearing a provocative low cut black top, “I don’t want Keith to get mad.”

“I always associate you with Kenny Baumberger,” Dan tells me.

“Really?” I grin, “that’s awesome. Kenny was cool.”

“Yeah,” Dan nods.

We were talking about the one night I remember Dan and I (Heather was there too) were on his parents’ basketball court (driveway) talking about how much we liked the song Mayonnaise.

“Smashing Pumpkins?” Jeremy cheers, walking into this conversation just now, “yes! I love that song!”

Jeremy says he always uses SYD whenever he gets high score on a video game, and I tell him I do too – we both crack up and give high fives at this one. Then we’re playing poker and I win $55, from Matt (three $5 buy ins), Travis (one) and Jeremy (seven). Jeremy was playing really bad cards tonight, the worst I’ve seen; on tilt, after awhile, beating himself. One play there was a flop of AAK and I have a K buried, I bet a reasonable amount, he goes all in. My initial reaction is to fold, but he makes such an elaborate display of counting out his money – and as I stare stoically, motionless, at the flop, I catch him out of the corner of his eye once glance over, halfway through the count, to gauge my reaction – that I decided he didn’t have an ace. “I don’t think you have an ace,” I declare, meet his all in. “Hell no I don’t have an ace! I don’t even have a king! I don’t have anything!” he declares, flipping over a Q and a 10 in disgust. I too only have to buy in once. This format, by the way, we may stick with, of allowing, for the first time since we’ve gone to tournament style play, people to buy back in: sure, you can buy back in again with $5 after busting out, but you get the same starting amount every time, but the blinds are going up every 15 minutes so you have to contend with them, and it’s worse, obviously, each time, to try and get your head above water.

July 14

bored around 10, after a couple hours of writing, I figure I’ll slide over to Leap N’ Lizards for a couple beers, watch tail end of Tribe game. Ends up being 8 beers, in addition to these two shots (pink; called Chicken something) that some guy buys a bunch of us: extra inning game (Indians lose 3-2 to the Twins), yes, but there were some actual girls I was talking to, including one promising future prospect named Dawn: short blonde, pretty face, nice body. Maybe a touch older than me and has a couple kids, but I don’t care. Seems an easy place to get hooked up in, I need to frequent more often. Hot tall brunette, well dressed, named Kara, and she’s with this guy named Rick w/ shaved head and goatee, friendly and talkative, looks familiar to me and it turns out he hangs out with John Maul, although it’s doubtful that’s where I know him from. Later, talking to two other girls and some preppy guy along with Dawn, she and I standing beside their table. Unfortunately, it’s about 2:30 by the time I drag myself into bed, and though I set the alarm (and it’s still set in the morning; unfortunately, as I later discover, the volume is turned all the way down for whatever reason- I know I didn’t do this even half asleep, it must have been bumped by accident) and I don’t stir until 8 in the morning, way late for work.

July 15

I don’t wake up until 8: fuck! Take the car up the street and drop it off, walk back (hot already), get dressed, walk to work. Don’t get there until 9:15. Matt seems mildly pissed at first, but oh well. Off at 12:30 (he asks me about staying over, but I can’t), walk home. Flip on Game of the Week (Yankees-White Sox), and dip out during commercial break for a walk over to the library to check emails and print off a couple “galley letters” to send out w/ my latest batch of review copy mailings (which I forget to mail today anyway.) Change, trim my hair some (hilarious note: ever since I gave myself that 1^st haircut, the crazy bedhead I’d had ever since starting at Target, for whatever reason, disappeared, and has not come back since), walk to get car. Mechanic cracking me up talking about everything wrong with my car, says it’s unsafe to drive. “There’s all kinds of cars in the paper for two or three hundred dollars that’d be better than that one,” he says. I’d dropped it off for an oil change and tire rotation (had coupon) but he did neither, said there was no point because this car wasn’t going to last a whole lot longer. Damn – it’s hard to find an honest mechanic, I really appreciate this.

July 17

brakes completely give out on me this morning. There’s a car in front of me pulling out of our complex onto Leap (even at 3:52am, yes) and I have to swerve to the left, onto this grassy knob, to come to a stop. I’m sure she thought I was driving like a complete lunatic. Then coasting out into the middle of Cemetery, off of Brown Park, the next time I have to stop. By down shifting and laying off the gas, etc, with no traffic to speak of, I figure out what I’m doing from here however. I know I can make it to work okay, which I do.

Debate all day, decide to drive home: it’s more than 90 degrees out, muggy, I’d have to walk home in this heat and this getup to get title, then walk back here to wait on tow truck: I think not. And anyway, as I discover testing them out in the parking lot, the brakes are working passably better now, for whatever reason. I take the long way home, for the 1^st time, just to be safe: Trueman out to Davidson over to Leap, much less driven upon at this hour. Everything works out just fine, in what is surely my last drive in this vehicle.

July 22

sitting on the Glass House porch, 4am:

Hostetler – man these last two months I’m not lying, I’ve been drunk every night. Ever since Travis announced he was moving, I’m serious, it’s been nonstop. I’ve been drunk every night.

Me – and how is this different from every night before these past two months

Spain – (giggles) thanks for saying that Jay

Hostetler – yeah fuck you guys

July 29

I clock out at 8:34 and make it from there to the clock beside the post office at Leap (across the street from my apartment complex) in 32 minutes tonight – four minutes better than my best time. I’m on fire. The 21 speed has three settings on the left handle and seven on the right, in increasing order of difficulty. I started out thinking 2-5 was the best setting, but my legs have progressively gotten stronger, and I’m already up to the highest setting now, 3-7, except when climbing the steep hill (west up Fishinger, beginning at Riverside) at which time I kick it down to 3-6. Of course, there is some soreness involved: last night dirty dancing with Michelle, when we’d bend low the front of my thighs were screaming.

A word on my morning routines: for months upon months working at Target, I set the alarm for 3:30, hit the snooze once, actually crawled out of bed at 3:39. But then – and I’m surprised it took me this long – I thought, why not make my sandwich the night before (I have almost always taken a sandwich, a piece of fruit, and my coffee thermos to work), brew the coffee the night before and put it in my thermos. So for a month or so there I was able to set my alarm for 3:35 and climb out of bed at 3:44 – funny how precious these moments seem so goddamn early in the morning. But now that I’m on my bicycle, even when getting that stuff taken care of the night before, I’m setting my alarm for 3:23, hitting the snooze twice, and climbing out of bed at 3:41. At least so far. I’ve got it dialed into a science, which is about the only way I can tolerate work/work related activities at all – to get to where I don’t even think about it.

July 31

that guy Michael (“New Gedroe”) who used to work mornings with us has been spotted by numerous individuals out and about the town of Hilliard still attired in his Target uniform. For months now. Troy (Planogram team, or, as I like to think of them, “The Reset Squad”) spotted him just last week crossing the street dressed thusly, and Amy has reported a handful of sightings alone. Today I’m sitting in the Starbucks on break and here comes New Gedroe pulling up on his bicycle in tan dress slacks, black belt holding them up, and the familiar heavy cotton blood red collared shirt…yes, the Target uniform!. Racks the bike, enters the building, lips moving on the other side of the glass as he clearly mumbles to himself. Did I mention it was 96 degrees today?

August 4

-off at Target at 12:30 bicycle to bike rack at OSU building far west on Waltham. Walk to car rental place on Northwest, go pick Miles up, pick up beers and ice at gas station near my house, then load my things, then subs at Jersey Mike’s and we’re on the road. Miles has Philly, I have an Italian. It’s 2:30 by the time we’re out of town.

August 7

Miles says, “me and Maria were talkin one day….what Clif do with all his money? He don’t drink, he don’t do drugs….he don’t even leave the house really….so what he do with all his money!” (Last sentence in squeaky voice)

“I don’t know…..he’s got that car payment but it couldn’t be that much…,” I mumble, “it always seemed to me like he had all these old bills from the past he was still trying to get caught up on.”

August 9

productive day. Home to crash out after Target – broke the news to Bridget about part time status – and up at 4:30 to the tune of Floyd’s Time playing downstairs on classic rock station I left on (lyrics still the kind of sad, and music too I guess, that makes you feel lazy and should do more w/ your time. Which is the point.) Over to library, submit piece to this Alive contest to try and determine their next sports writer: the readers (supposedly) get to vote on the pieces, and there are 16 finalists who will submit a piece each over the next 15 weeks. The entry must pertain to the Buckeye football squad’s chances this upcoming fall, and since I don’t know anything about Buckeye football, that is precisely what I run with: that I don’t know, and don’t care, but will risk a guess anyway. This little item might look funny in a collection someday, who knows; it’s funny how these little projects twist and turn your portfolio in directions you never dreamed. Home and I get the two songs Matt has finished mixed down onto my hard drive – he recorded them on his own 4 track, and thank God I kept that one I bought for Dad, which we couldn’t get to work down there for whatever reason, but works fine here: it’s exactly what I needed to separate the tracks, get them recorded. Then, once upon the hard drive I realign by syncing them to the guide track, which is just the song recorded here w/ all parts playing at once.

August 10

Lisa and Maria in to visit me at the Oats – obviously out of the ordinary. Pat flipped out and moved in w/ some other girl; Maria has bruises on her arms from fighting with the guy. “He’ll be back in about three weeks,” I speculate. Lisa’s over the top flirting, but I’m playing ignorant – not sure if I’d even sleep with her again. They’re in to see if I’m coming out for Michelle’s birthday tomorrow. “Since you don’t answer your phone,” Maria explains.

“I haven’t been out single in five years,” Lisa says.

“Gonna pick up a dude?” I question.

“No. All I’ve had is a guy for the past five years – first you and then Pat – that’s all I need,” Lisa jokes.

On to more important news, Elissa isn’t even working today, but also swings through, with Amy. Elissa’s leaving tomorrow for some hoedown in the mountains of West Virginia, which is simply titled “The Rendezvous,” where everybody supposedly throws down like it’s 1840. I ask her what people even drank in 1840, but she doesn’t know.

“Mead?” she guesses, and laughs.

“I’ll bet you’ll find some corn in the jar there, though,” I speculate, and she nods and winks in response – a mannerism she picked up from me? I think so. She and Amy leave with a pint of Shut Down Ale apiece.

“Have you heard the story behind it?” I ask.

“Yeah, we just heard it,” Elissa says.

“Awesome,” I nod approvingly.

“Awesome,” she giggles, and they disappear down an aisle.

I don’t know what it is about that girl. It isn’t even sexual (or at least not for the most part.) She seems to even have some of our customers’ heads spinning. The past couple of times Jason has been in shopping he’s asked about her, and we’re both talking about what an amazing chick she is, and it’s true – just something about her personality I really jibed with from the word go. And apparently he is quite smitten with her.

August 11

my first day at Bob the Fish Guy, 1:30-7. I’ll be working exclusively 11-7 shifts from now on, though. Legs feel like jello now, after a full shift at Target, then there. Stopped at Oats to grab a Red Stripe 24 oz, killed that in the park on Northam reading Updike short stories and listening to Indians game. Didn’t do much to make the rest of the ride any less excruciating – more so than usual. Some nights it doesn’t seem like any trouble at all. But the wind was blowing in my face the whole way down this afternoon, and by tonight – sunnier, calmer than it had been all day – I was just exhausted. Reds game on the radio now (I put the radio at the top of the stairs about a month ago and it picks up the Tribe just fine; but around 9, it fades out for some reason, same as with my headphones). Michelle’s birthday tonight, she and a bunch of her girly friends are going out, but there’s just no way I can swing it. Wrote up last week at Target and they’re basically saying if I miss or show up significantly late one more day, I’m toast. Which I can’t afford at this late stage in the game, plotting my exit. Once again life compromised by these goddamn jobs.

Bob the Fish Guy I can already tell I’ll love – easier and better paying, more laid back than Oats. Clientele not the least bit condescending, not to mention even more girlies crawling out of the woodwork: yeah…….

August 21

Clippers game with Dad M, Laura, her boyfriend Eric, and Robin. Perfect weather, the last dime-a-dog night of the season. We get there right in time. The girls and Eric are gone about 4 innings retrieving the hot dogs – I sprung for ten. Dad had purchased the tickets for all of us, six dollar seats in the second section up on the first base line. They’re playing the Mud Hens and crack a home run, then load the bases in the second, while the hot dog posse is away. Almost a grand slam – a Clipper blasts one straightaway center, but Toledo’s center fielder made a sweet basket catch. It would’ve been a bases clearing double at least. From here on out, a tight game – the only Clippers I recognize are Bubba Crosby and Terrence Long (bald headed now), and I vaguely remember seeing Kevin Thompson play for these guys before. On the Mud Hens side, former Indians Ryan Ludwick and Dustan Mohr. The Clippers eke it out 3-2. It’s amazing these guys can throw 93-94 and some of them will never even make the majors. All in all, a perfect night.

August 24

My bike tire comes off riding home from the North Market. I’d made the decision to ride all the way home and use the tip $ from today on beer instead of the bus. It flies off along that dirt track connecting west campus to North Star Road, through that marshy farm land slash field OSU also owns and maintains. I dick around with it awhile, but either lack the tools or the know-how or am missing a part, because this tire will not stay on. I end up chucking it aside onto a pile of woodchips and walking the rest of the way home. Capping it off, my headphones, which have worked spottily the past few days – dropped on their head one too many times, they only work if I plug in the headphones ever so slightly – are working fine today up to this point, but from the moment I start walking I can’t get them to operate again, and I chuck the unit into the first trash can I encounter, at a gas station the next block up. Why didn’t I wheel the bicycle a scant two blocks to Wild Oats and chain it up there? It occurred to me, but the bike repair shop is in the opposite direction, whenever I find the time to take it there, and really I’m just tired of fucking with it period. I think I’ll just buy a new one instead.

August 25

unexpectedly given $415 in cash today by Bob for the week I’ve worked thus far – he’s a good guy, he was worried about me having to wait till two weeks from today till I got any dough. Jason (W.O. customer) in shopping, bumps into me, we talk too long, Bob yells, Jason feels bad buys two pounds of sole. “Talk to him all you want, now,” Bob jokes. Pat smacked me a couple of times earlier today. “How ya like working with Pat?” Dan came over and asked me, “she’s a maniac, isn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you two get along?”

“I think she’s funny,” I admit.

Bought a new bike this morning, lighter, faster, after the debacle last night – only because I couldn’t walk and catch the bus in time, I knew. In the end I’m glad I did it though, the right move. Ride bus down to 12^th & High, bike to work, off at 7 (got to know Stephanie chick works at the pizza place quite well today), bike down to Neil and Goodale, catch bus in front of the BP there, then dinner at the Chipotle at Tremont shopping center, bike home. Wine and ice cream to cap the night off, in light of my unexpected payday.

The Reds station always came in clear as a bell, now it seemingly does not exist anymore – seriously, I haven’t been able to pull it in for days now. Indians station just faintly comes in, but too staticky and annoying to listen to. Yet, strangely enough, tonight I somehow manage to pull in the Phillies station. Their announcers are really slick and professional thus cheesy. I hear Rollins and Victorino bat for them, then Endy Chavez for the Mets while in the shower (radio in hall nearby), but as soon as Julio Franco’s due up to bat, the station completely blanks out to a wall of static itself, never to return. Very mysterious.

August 26

Jacqueline brings me a pair of ear buds because I told her (factual) that I ripped mine accidentally – last Saturday we had this conversation. She listens to her iPod at work, I’ve got my headphones for surreptitious rocking until recently. Bringing them over, she tells me about this local zombie movie she’s acting in, dramatically showcases some of her parts for me now. She’s 22, lives with her grandpa. Has dyed her hair black. Makes an elaborate show of pulling her shirt down for me as she wires up ear buds to her iPod and up to ear.

August 28

ride my bike in the rain directly from Target out to Jill’s. Surprisingly takes much less time than I expected – I was planning on cutting across Hayden Run to Bethel and up Sawmill, but only while talking to Jill on the phone and she’s giving me directions does it occur to me, for whatever reason, to take Dublin to 161 and across that way: don’t ask me how or why, but this seems much shorter in my head, and I’m convinced it is. The first couple minutes in the rain I’m irritated, this seems completely ridiculous, but after that you don’t even notice. I remind myself being soaked now is no different than swimming, since this is summer and it is warm out and all. I wipe out bigtime on Dublin Road between Frantz and 161, though, having slid off the shoulder onto a grassy slope, yet with this car bearing down on me, unable to jerk back onto the road until he passed, tried to halt my progress before I went all the way down this hill and ended up flipping over the handlebars, off the bike. Surprisingly, a cut on my left palm and that’s all (rough day in that dept: slice hell out left ring finger with box cutter, too, just a few minutes before leaving work). But other than that, no problems; a change of dry clothes in my backpack, lunch and switch out of the wet ones at the 161/Sawmill Burger King. Then over to Jill’s. As soon as I walk into the door Madison, sitting in easy chair eating a bowl of pasta w/o sauce, with cheese and butter on it only, says, “I went to school today!”

“I know!” I chuckle.

Emma’s fussy when I hold her, but after a diaper change and slipping into these cozy looking full bodied pink pajamas, she’s in a great mood. I feed her one jar of pea flavored baby food (she likes these and carrots, but not broccoli.) As I’m feeding her, I sing that old song we had to endure (torture!) in 5^th grade choir, that Southern standard about “peas peas peas peas eating goober peas….goodness how delicious, eating goober peas,” except I change “goober” to Gerber, because this is the brand. Every time I sing, Emma lights up, smiling broadly – and of course her blues eyes are everywhere these days, taking in everything, they focus upon me as I sing. Mom says she’s a happy baby, like me and Daniel, which is true. Jill says she loves the Baby Mozart series of videos. It’s so amazing to think I created this – a living breathing being, already almost six months old, smiling, folding her tiny fingers to grasp just one of mine. Having already changed hair color once – it’s much lighter now, peach fuzzier, and getting teeth. A discernible personality, but so vulnerable, dependent upon you to take care of them. Likes and dislikes, and falling asleep instantly in my arms on the couch after she’s eaten, stretching out cozily in these pink pajamas. Now, I want to have a million kids, I see no reason not to. Each a separate, amazing miracle in its own unique right.

Emma rolls over on her own on this blanket on the floor, now; I wonder how long before she crawls. It’s a shame all this stuff passes by so fast, and I get angry, too, to think that this family is busted up for basically no reason, or at the very least for reasons Jill’s not adult enough to admit, she’d rather make up dumb excuses and blame me, instead of admitting this was all her choice and I had nothing to do about it. I get angry thinking about how much I’m missing, what an idiotic situation this is. Riding my bike away from their house I feel like I might start crying: I really am in an impossible dilemma, whichever way I lean it’s completely wrong, I’m completely fucked. I know I’ll regret the rest of my life not moving down and being closer to Mom while she’s still healthy and alive, I know I’ll regret the rest of my life moving down and being closer to Mom and missing out on so much of Emma’s growing up – and Madison’s too, although it seems Jill and her delightful goddamn mother are determined to distance themselves from any notion that Madison used to call me Daddy, too, or call my parents her grandparents, it’s being discouraged bigtime. So whatever. This is so stupid.

August 30

hookup bonanza. Pete and Dan give me a bison burger they had on display, bun and all, as well as this cabbage (which I don’t eat) stuffed w/ rice (which I do), then Dan brings over these brownie type sponge things, not sure what they’re called, that Shea had donated to the cause from Omega Bakery. Dan also gives me a healthy dose of this coffee like beverage called toddy (not the alcoholic drink, but not sure how this one is spelled) which is potent as hell, I don’t even finish.

August 31

Bob: “I sell 50 pounds of tilapia a week, it’s farm raised and nobody says a word about it, nobody asks. You know what they do to farm raised tilapia? They give it a gene to make it automatically change sexes at some point to become a male so it grows faster. But you feed your salmon some carotene, and all of the sudden you’re Hitler. Back before all this shit started I was selling 150 pounds a WEEK of the farm raised salmon, 120, 120 to 150, I sold a little less when the wild was in season but still….since then, I’m lucky to sell fifty.”

-I’m making tuna patties out of ground up scraps. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” he questions, barks, “would you buy these?”

“Uh…..yeah, actually, I probably would….(he slides over to show me proper method) but that doesn’t mean it’s what you’re looking for….”

September 1

-2^nd rainy day in a row, making my way to work, though I’m smart enough this morning to put on some rain resistant gear over top of my normal clothes, and pack a change of clothes, socks, shoes.

-banana nut bread from Benevolence this morning good flavor but a touch too dry

-black coffee from Touch of Earth Bob springs for late is great

Bob closing with me, as he did last Friday, because his sons are in Italy. Near the end of the night, screaming over at the guy from North Market Poultry who always leaves cooked ears of corn on the eating counter for me: “What did I tell you! Don’t give this guy anything!”

-home, the plan is to meet up w/ Miles and Maria to celebrate her b-day. They’re on the way to Gallo’s, and I say the only way I’m coming out is if someone comes to get me. So Maria calls Lisa, who’s supposed to be on her way, but Lisa’s being difficult, so now the plan is after they kill their beer they’re meeting me over here at Mill Run Tavern. “Call Bill Flory,” Miles says in the background, which Maria relates to me.

“I don’t know Bill Flory’s number,” I laugh.

“Oh,” says Miles.

So in the end, in addition to Maria, it ends up just being Michelle and me and Miles meeting at Mill Run Tavern for her birthday. A much more subdued affair than years past, you might say.

September 8

Another burst where everything seems to be coming together….loving this three job setup, not only for financial sake and the sake of a more sane sleep schedule but also for variety’s sake….speaking of the financial end, I am 100 percent in the driver’s seat now – even with shelling out an extra $580 a month now in child support! Everyone says that’s a crazy amount, but the way I look at it, since Madison’s dad is such a deadbeat it’s like I’m supporting her, too, so in that light I guess it’s perfectly reasonable. All I have to do now is save money for my planned Key West trip with Julie, and get this novel out, within the next month or so – and to that end, two weeks from now, my next paycheck, will be over $1000 free and clear (I get paid on the same day from all three jobs, coincidentally) to do whatever I want with – or should I say, to do those two things with. Crank out the novel, and buy my plane ticket, boo ya. Then the big move south.

Kyle is still the only person who knows about all this. I actually told him my masterplan clear back in April, down to the day. Because I knew he could keep a lid on it but also because it seemed more hilarious to me that way, which will eventually come out, and the two of us can laugh about it with everyone. That I seriously had much of this plotted out to the day, months in advance, and told Kyle about it. Which he can confirm. Until then, I’m 100% confident he’s kept this all under wraps, the various pieces of the time line – like how I plan on walking out of Wild Oats in the middle of my shift during the Michigan game. It’s a Saturday, of course, and I will be closing alone. I’m just going to disappear right in the middle of that one without a word said to anybody – serves them right.

Dan brought over this shredded barbecue chicken left over for me to take home. I took one bite and thought wow, this is great….but then this second wave of flavor hits you and it’s like HOLY SHIT, this is the best barbecue I’ve ever tasted. Unreal. Of course, everything I’ve tried from that place, virtually, has been unreal. Two days ago, instead of eating my daily meal I’m granted at Bob’s, I traded it (Dan came over and approached me, his idea) for two barbecued chicken legs – “we do a dry rub under the skin beforehand, then we baste it throughout as it’s baking,” Dan explains, “that way the skin doesn’t just taste good, which it should, but the meat does too” – and this is nothing short of phenomenal, plus some mashed potatoes (very good) and these garlic parmesan wings. “These are kinda played out, but I’m proud of em,” Dan says, meaning they’re a bit past their prime, and dry, which they are, but have great flavor. “I’m not gonna hook Devon up,” Dan curses, “that guy’s a tool.” But ends up adding a few extra wings, anyway, tells me Devon can try them if he wants. Then later on that night, Pete brings me over even more mashed potatoes (a different batch) – “very creamy” he says – and these are absolutely ASTOUNDING, the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever had. Then last night, the guy who’s always bringing me the corn on the cob (which I can’t even keep up on, so jammed with it is my fridge) has a container for me to take home of mashed potatoes on top and this rabbit goulash (rabbit, mushrooms, pasta, in some kind of sauce) which is just fantastic.

Even the writing is looking up. I have a sports article making it into Alive on September 21^st. Our writing group, which has basically sorted itself out to Nathan, Joe, and me (Dan, Brad, and Shannon have not attended in months; Alison made it to exactly one meeting) is determined to have a short story finished apiece and submit them all to McSweeney’s by October 1^st. And Joe came up with the idea that we should all be reading the same novel, too, to give us something to talk about – I suggested Scott Smith’s finally released 2^nd novel The Ruins, while Joe suggested Tom Robbins’s latest. So we’re going to run w/ either one of these, whichever he can find three copies of cheap at the Half Price Books where he works.

September 12

These two old guys order 8oz clam chowders each. This burly black guy walks past with his toddler son, and one of the older men darts over, on a mission, begins wailing away on this harmonica right in the kid’s face. The black guy smiles politely.

“What’s the deal with the harmonica?” I ask Devon, after they leave.

He rolls his eyes and says, “they do that every time they’re here, especially if there’s a child around. It’s so ridiculous.”

For the next few minutes, I’m laughing so hard my eyes tear up and I can’t see straight.

Lunch is China Market. These places are interchangeable in name, menu, taste, you name it. Lady seems suspicious, too, when I ask for employee discount, and even then only knocks 50 cents off an order of $6.75 – broccoli chicken and fried rice (75 cents extra for that instead of the steamed). I only order the egg roll after she’s given me the 50 cent discount, and it’s 75 cents more, no discount. Food average, egg roll maybe less so but somehow the fried rice is awesome – not sure how, as it’s pretty much always the same everywhere else. Still, I doubt I’ll be back. Rainy day thus far.

September 13

Meeting at Nathan’s apartment at the corner of King and Belmont. He was originally up on the top floor – or rather, originally in this apartment – but the only time I visited, he was in the one upstairs, and now he’s back down here. His sweet “command post” desk takes up about half the living room, then he’s got a futon and the futon mattress on the floor. His dad’s playing guitar, not bad. Some medieval video game’s opening legend keeps scrolling out over and over again on the television. I spot a die on the desk and cheer “ah! Twenty sided!” despite having not played Dungeons and Dragons in twenty years – the dimensions stick in your head, you can spot such things a mile away. The whole point of having our meeting here this week was to drive over to the bookstore and check out possible magazines to submit our short stories to, but it’s pretty obvious we’re not going anywhere. Just as it’s pretty obvious these guys have written nothing in the past week, just as it’s obvious Joe did nothing about trying to pick up one of the books we decided upon.

“The house doesn’t even have electricity right now,” he says, of his home on the west side, which he almost has paid off but is trying to sell.

“Hey, I would just like to say that I am the guy who officially took Pluto out of the textbooks today,” Nathan announces – his job at McGraw Hill is to edit textbooks, a process much simpler than it used to be.

“What, downgrading it from a planet to a dwarf planet?” I surmise.

“Yeah,” he nods.

“So there will always be only those eight planets now…..,” I note.

“Right. They’ve found something like a hundred and fifty dwarf planets but….”

“Just in our solar system?” I exclaim.

“Yeah, just in our solar system. There’s like a hundred and fifty dwarf planets, you have Pluto and Xena and Ceres, which they’ve known about forever, and a whole slew of others – and they’ll keep finding more – but yeah, just the eight planet planets. That’s all there’ll ever be.”

“Man,” I shake my head, “they just don’t make em like that anymore.”

“That’s right, they don’t make em like that anymore,” he laughs.

A pretty pointless meeting, as they all tend to be anymore. A couple of flyers he hands out for upcoming parties, but that’s it. Still, if they accomplish nothing, I at least continue to take these arbitrary deadlines serious, and intend to have a story ready by Oct 1 – which I suppose is reason enough alone to continue attending these “writer’s club” meetings, continue thinking of them as such.

But it also happens to be an interesting chat session, as far as philosophy, religion, science, travel, and girls is concerned, so I suppose this has its value, too. Though I would prefer to meet in the coffee shop, which at least holds the promise of interacting with other individuals, and a much more interesting atmosphere, to boot.

And for the first time tonight, it occurs to me to try and ride my bike out King to where it ends into Cambridge, which meanders out of Arlington and crosses Riverside becoming Trabue, then up Dublin to Scioto Darby which enters Hilliard and becomes Leap and shortly thereafter leads to my complex. Takes about the same amount of time, I guess, but was much more boring – and harder to see, with no headlight – and has much less of a shoulder for me to ride on (tail light broke) to escape these lunatic drivers. So I don’t much care for it.

September 16

coming home from Oats making awesome time for once, got out early and cruising, and wouldn’t you know it I suffer a back tire blowout. Barely 1/4 of the way home at this point. Have to walk the bike to the school on Eastcleft, then lock it up against a tree there and continue the rest of the way on foot – nothing I can do about the bike at this hour.

September 17

and so walking to Target, then walking to Oats (considerably late getting here, of course); tonight I must walk the bike home, but the reason I decided to split it up was a) well, to split it up and b) because Sundays I get off an hour earlier at Oats, thus work an hour less, as well as theoretically get home an hour earlier and an hour more of sleep. So the ordeal of walking home the bike tonight, yes.

September 20

I am indestructible.

Alarm clock starts ringing at 5:35am, I roll out of bed at 6:02. Leave house around 6:30, half hour bike ride to Oats. Work 3 plus hours there, half hour bike ride to Bob’s. Work 8 hours there, ride to library on High, then to Skully’s. Drink 7 Rolling Rocks there work slide show while watching the Handshake. Start riding bike home suffer blowout park bike at bike shop a block away, handily, it is 1:01am UDF closing right as I walk up continue to Speedway on 5^th get coffee walk the rest of the way home in starry patchwork fluffy clouded night glimpse post office clock at 3:15am, as I expected I would now I sit composing these lines as well as some song lyrics I thought of on the way. Centered around this phrase “the decade of things that almost happened.”

(And now, hungry, I will make peanut butter sandwich, collapse and wake up somewhere around 8:30am to do it all over again)

September 21

Actually out of bed at 7:35 – too excited about day. Brilliant weather. Walk to catch bus, and it turns out I made the absolute correct call, time wise, getting up an hour early. Take 84 down to Kenny and Henderson, unlock bike in front of store, wheel it inside and they say they can have it ready by tomorrow morning. Then walk up to Bob’s – somehow it only takes me a half hour from the time I left the bus to get here (city blocks take up much less space than you think) and standing outside on eating patio, scan the surrounding neighborhood, spot what appear to be a stack of either Alive or The Other Paper over in front of this bar, on the sidewalk, and walking over there I confirm it is indeed Alive. Kickass! I grab five copies – my first ever published article in even a semi-noteworthy magazine/newspaper/whatever.

September 23

I wake up just after 3am and it’s raining and I lay around in bed till the time I should get up for work, decide fuck it, I’m calling off at Target – only a ten minute ride in the rain, maybe, but I really don’t feel like getting soaked in this hour: 3:51am when I make the phone call.

And I absolutely believe I made the right call. Anyone else but me would’ve cracked a long time ago under all this madness, but it barely fazes me. I stay up and watch The Crow and half of Election while flipping through a book on baseball stats, doze off on couch, wake up feeling positively energized. Ride my bike into Oats for 1:30pm shift.

One of Matt Montanya’s left field calls – reaches me at Oats – where he’s pumped up again for whatever reason about recording music. Says he just went out and dropped $200 for cymbals to go w/ that red Coda set “so it doesn’t sound like we’re playing cardboard anymore.” I ask him about dropping off our CDs at Reckless Records, though, and he says he hasn’t gotten around to it because, “the boss is out of town” and he’s “worked nine days in a row.” Though it was the first weekend in August when I made those arrangements, and he said he’d take them down there on Monday. I expected as much, however, only find it amusing; and will send out the CDs myself, though listing him as the contact should we actually sell out of them.

The plan was to go down to Frog, Bear, and Wild Boar with Maria, Michelle, and (Tony’s ex) Stephanie, but owing to some alleged shadiness, Maria is pissed off at them at the last minute and backs out. I could have gone down but was feeling like I needed to absolutely make it into Target tomorrow, thus couldn’t risk staying out till all hours – especially not even knowing if I’d even run into those two girls down there, or how it would be received.

September 25

For some reason everyone is being insanely nice to me today at work. I mean, literally, people I haven’t spoken to any more than once or twice in my year working there. Totally bizarre. I wonder if it’s because I’m leaving? But then again I would guarantee none of these people are aware of it. Or am I acting different? The closest comparison, the way everything in my life is falling into complete focus and place, is like may last days in Mansfield at the tail end of ‘96, when I rallied and got my act together again and had this insanely bubbly demeanor about me, so happy I was w/ the rebound, and Jessica, and what was at the time a wild new adventure for me – waiting tables – and the lease I had just signed with Damon and Alan to live in Columbus, and I knew I was leaving in a couple of months, and had a month plus in North Carolina before the move to look forward to. This feels about the same.

Emma smiles when I tickle her chin. Madison shows me some cow she drew and superglued onto a green sheet of construction paper at school (though peeling away already)(though I sit on it accidentally for much of the afternoon while holding Emma in rocking chair). Clowning around I take off my glasses, put them on again, take off my glasses, put them on again and Emma’s eyes follow me; eventually I hesitate, holding the glasses in one hand, and her eyes dart from them back to my face again and again, she’s clearly expecting me to return them to their rightful resting place. In purple outfit with some kind of cartoon kitty kat on it; fussy only momentarily – though she keeps spitting out pacifier and sticking fingers into mouth, probing, I ask “you think her teeth are bothering her (hasn’t gotten many in yet) or she likes chewing on her fingers?” and Jill says, “probably both” – but, given bottle, she slurps down most of it, then conks out like a light switch w/ just a little milk left, her head – thunk – flopping against my belly. Awakened rudely maybe fifteen minutes later when Madison starts rattling this toy. Madison trying to catch this balloon from Chuck E. Cheese – they went yesterday – that I’m hitting, then retrieving on its string, then she accidentally lets the air out and spends the rest of the time I’m here trying to refill it. Has one temper tantrum earlier herself – because Jill won’t let her play with this mat from the crib, she’s trying to build a fort with it – and is sent briefly up to her room. Jill reading magazine in easy chair, seems relieved someone’s holding Emma. Later, Emma bouncing in her mobile little chair w/ toys on a ring around it (not sure what called) and seems pretty stoked by this development. I snap two pictures of her in it, w/ Madison clutching her. Jill gives me the latest Emma pictures, at 6 months, she had professionally done.

Madison returns from her trip to her room with Teddy, excited: “do Teddy’s voice!” she requests, handing him to me – ah, a good memory. My Teddy voice is really the same voice I’d use to mimic Mr. Hanky from South Park, even down to “hi-dee-hi!” salutation.

Home from work, after visiting Emma: start sifting through Daniel’s umpteen vocal takes for the song Dirty Laundry, get them sorted out somewhat.

September 26

An unspeakably cheerful morning: riding bicycle down to Kingsdale in the sunny late morning, listening to R.E.M.’s Fables of the Reconstruction on cassette.

Edit all the different takes of one verse of Daniel’s Dirty Laundry, the one that starts, “shouldn’t have this time….” and delete all the duds, dump the keepers down onto two tracks to free up memory.

September 28

a ridiculous morning. Raining out and I keep looking at alarm clock, crawl out of bed late because I no longer give two whits about this place (Oats); though due in to open at 7, it’s past that before I leave home by bicycle, listening to cassette player, getting soaked. Shift at Wild Oats.

October 6

I drop the bike off at the Kingsdale Giant Eagle, after work, after getting off the #3 bus there. The plan is obviously to retrieve it on Tuesday morning, take it to the bike store on 5^th to have the flat fixed. But meanwhile, a brutal stretch.

Walking up Fishinger listening to Come on Feel the Lemonheads. Dart over to the Arby’s on Riverside for some grub, carry it w/ me up the hill the rest of the way up Fishinger. Money in pocket and baseball games to watch and feeling that I’ve certainly earned it with this maniacal nonsense, I pop into Run of the Mill Tavern, for two Heinekens, w/ Yankees-Tigers game 3 on. Randy Johnson pitching with considerable mediocrity. I don’t get a second look, but believe Amber is sitting at the bar w/ some other dude, hair short and blonde and cloudlike curly. A couple chicks sit by me (“is this seat taken, honey?” the one asks, she works at Friday’s across the street) but I’m having one of those nights of just drinking the beer and pretending to ignore them and paying attention to nothing but the baseball game, and for this reason, even though dressed crazily in filthy hooded sweatshirt, hair sticking up all over the place, grubby work pants and beard, they – large chested flirtatious barmaid including – seem to find you more interesting, because you’re not paying attention to them. But then I’m out. And home to change, and then over to Leap N’ Lizard’s to watch the rest of the game. No girls here to speak of. Tigers win 6-0.

October 7

only been to Ci’Ao once before, and wasn’t impressed; only swung through here on my way home through desperation, though, and am so won over by the owner I think this will be a regular pit stop for me in the future….

Walking as I am, the only things keeping me going are the thoughts of beer and baseball, telling myself I’ll stop here if I can force myself forward to the next outpost. And this is the only one between work and Hilliard, really, more than an hour’s walk. I stop hoping to catch Mets-Dodgers playoff game, but even though there’s some meaningless college football spectacle on, I stay. Not really too many girls to speak of, for all the ones here are coupled off, either at the table beside me or at the small bar. But such a warm atmosphere here, and the owner – never seen before – is this middle aged nut, totally hilarious.

“I need beer,” he declares, knocks back a slug from this cup that looks like a toothbrush holder, the statement more an overall assessment of his life in general than merely talking about this specific moment. Then tells me he’s bringing out a pizza from the oven, says, “it’s the best, you’ll love it, I’m gonna get you a piece” – and by the minute updates, though I haven’t asked – and then he brings it out and it’s more like cheese bread, so light on the sauce, and really nothing exceptional but he sure is proud of it. I’m cracking up. He brings me a second piece, also on the house. And the regulars here are equally hilarious, mild mannered guys, good guys, one of them gets up from the bar every time I need another Heineken, tells the barmaid I need one, and drops it off at my table. Another pours himself gargantuan shots of vodka, two seats down.

“Can you believe this guy?” the owner says with a disbelieving smirk, jerks a thumb in his direction, “he’s tryin to kill himself.”

They close a couple hours earlier than most bars, though, even on a Saturday, and I’m out the door. The owner shouts out a thanks from this booth he’s reclining in, watching the game. I wave and tell him I’ll be back. Hysterical.

October 9

-almost 80 degrees, sunny, a beautiful day. So tired and sore from all the work and walking this weekend I don’t feel like I can make it, but after each break I’m revived enough to make it through to the next, and then I’m home w/ a 24oz Heineken and a frozen pizza, a movie I’ve rented (Lucky Number Slevin) but don’t come anywhere near making it through. Fall asleep for a few hours

-up and I walk over to the library, submit my manuscript and cover design online: a much faster process than it used to be! Email Damon, then play some chess for the first time in at least a month (I just haven’t had any time.) An hour all against this one guy, 4/0 time, and he always opens w/ queen gambit, which I almost always accept. After taking 4 of 5 I’m one win away from putting him away – by this I mean passing him in points, at which point I won’t play him anymore – but my concentration falters and I “tilt”, drop the last 5. No big deal.

-home, record a couple bass parts while listening to Daniel’s song Dirty that I think might work. If not there, then certainly somewhere else. Now writing, trying to go through this pile of stray papers and make some sense of it.

October 17

Alex cracking me up – talking about how for dinner last night his grandma (Pat) made pork chops: no seasoning whatsoever, she just threw them in a pan; and then they weren’t even cooked all the way through; and then she collected them all in a pile and poured water on them, called this “gravy.” He had one bite, told her he wasn’t really all that into pork. That woman is a complete lunatic.

No money I have to ride bike all the way down to Bob’s today. Friday is all mad money – almost $1000, with my only expense a $33 electric bill. I’m telling you, it is so amazing what I’ve been able to accomplish in the past couple of months, I’ve just really put it all together again. Well, almost. The world class hottie who is really smart and has her act totally together eludes me, heh heh. Perhaps this shall always be the case. But at least I have a complete change of scenery on the books very soon And Julie left another message, saying she’s booked the room in Key West, too.

Listening to it rain all night and this morning, dreading the ride, threw on my rain gear but it stopped right as I left the house. Still wet, but not as bad as expected. Listening to Guided By Voices (Bee Thousand) and I’m making much better time than I thought, stop and have a coffee at Oats, rocking away in cozy rocking chair by the plate glass front wall. Then on my way again, now a Beach Boys mix tape. Bizarre day in that no lunch business, but for some reason insanely bombarded at 1:30, just Rich and me – and he’s got food poisoning, leaves as soon as it’s over. And in another amazing coincidence – I don’t know how it always happens like this – but it is only when I’m at my brokest for some reason that the customers leave tips. Seriously; a rare occurrence, and yet today they drop $3 and some coin in there. I decide to pedal home instead of taking the bus, using the money on a double deuce of Heineken while I watch game 5 of the NLCS. Money well spent, I tell ya. And I finally got this here computer up and running, the Pentium 4 I bought off Kyle for $100. The old Pentium I still use for everything it runs like a champ and I’ve accomplished so much with it, I always consider it the best investment I ever made in my life, by far…..but I have a feeling this here machine (66 GB compared to a whopping 3) will easily eclipse that one, someday. If nothing else for the amazing memory we’re going to have now for our music tracks.

October 18

these days are completely uneventful, often meaningless. But a stretch I must endure, this next month, as the past couple have been – seen overhead, in relief, there is a strategy here, a game plan, and I need all three of these jobs for the time being, I need all of this. It’s just that taken day to day this stretch seems so lifeless at times, so dull. I don’t mind because it’s short term.

October 24

Or I can say the days are completely uneventful, when in reality sometimes I would kill to have one “normal” week. Nobody else has any idea how insane my days are. It’s a wonder I get anything done at all….although other times, I find myself completely in awe of how many hours there are in a day to get things done. Time seems limitless, unless you’re being lazy. Working 4-9:45 this morning at Target, to make up the hours I lost Saturday (unloading truck for the first time in weeks; me and Ricky), then ride bike down to Kingsdale shopping center to catch bus, work 11-7 at Bob but of course my back tire blows out between getting off the bus at campus and getting there. This latest tube lasted, what, a month? I swear. So then all day is spent, off and on, deciding what to do about it. I decide I really don’t feel like walking, will ride in exceedingly annoying fashion w/ back tire blown out….#5 bus caught on High then after work, deposits me off at McKinley out in the boondocks and surprisingly, annoying or not, it really doesn’t take but a few minutes longer to ride into Hilliard w/ blown out tire than it does w/ fully functioning tire. Then at library, checking emails at 8:15, printing off one cover lever to send w/ one of the two remaining galley copies I have left (out of 20) to the Other Paper for (I hope) a book review. Then home to knock off ½ of a beer, call Mom – she’s home from the hospital today – talk to Daniel some, then up to grocery store and now home to watch game 3 of the Series. See what I mean? And I’ve got notes I’ve written throughout the day on papers in my pockets, come to think of it that might ultimately be a more fitting explanation behind the nickname I acquired years ago. Always w/ these notes, everywhere. House in chaos, papers and clothes everywhere – can’t imagine how I’ll pull all this together in time for the big move. But mentally, I am certainly ready to make that change.

October 28

Though saying to myself for awhile that I would really like to start hooking up with one completely brand new chick before leaving town, to establish that beachhead of sorts for my eventual returns, I haven’t really done a ton about the matter in who knows how long. And yet even so, I swear, I seem to consistently get better results doing absolutely nothing anyway.

With this though in mind, for example, I had decided there were three different girls at Wild Oats that I wanted to invite to tonight’s show: Erin, Jen, and Tricia. Well, I managed to ask the first two if they felt like coming out to the Cara Bar tonight. Neither of them took me up on that. Meanwhile, I never quite had an opportunity to ask Tricia…and yet she does materialize out here tonight. It’s completely bizarre.

Between Tricia and Carrie Ann and a handful of Lexington girls who look much better than they did a decade ago or whatever, it’s a very encouraging evening. Who knew all these geeky chicks from high school would turn out so hot? Like Jenny Mundy! Holy smokes! Not to mention the assorted hilarities from these clowns I hang out w/ that such developments are cushioned with.

Dan says of Laura’s playing: “I thought she did a good job…..usually a chick looks gangly playing the bass, but I thought she did alright. You know, it’s hard not to be Michael Anthony (laughs) but I thought she came up with some cool ideas.”

Dan says of Zaun’s playing: “I was really looking forward to see him because, you know, he was the wunderkind of every instrument growing up, so I just assumed he’d be better than me on drums. But I don’t know, man, I think I got him! I mean, he pretty much played along with the songs, and it fit, but to me the mark of a great drummer is you’re not just playing along with the songs, but it still sounds cool.”

-there’s an afterparty following the show. I invite the Wackerly brothers but they both just kind of nod and smirk and I can tell they have no interest in such. A sizeable mob of us do end up back at Chris and Norman’s new apartment afterwards, however.

October 29

“Jeremy! Open the door!” I hear Norman call – apparently, the door is cracked enough that he can see inside. But he’s either lost his keys or something, rattles the hell out of the door but it won’t open. “Jay-hay Mac,” I hear him giggle after a groggy Jeremy wakes up – having moved to the floor sometime in the past few hours – and lets him in. Norman starts firing up a breakfast of sausage links, eggs, and tater tots, makes a pot of coffee. “Man, I really don’t feel like breaking up with my girlfriend today,” I hear Jeremy groan to Norman, pacing around the kitchen. I can’t help but climb off the living room floor myself now, with conversation this interesting floating about.

“Got any water in the fridge?” I ask.

“No, but there’s orange juice,” Norman informs me. Grabbing that, I reach into the cupboards and I’m delighted to find an old McDonald’s glass w/ Mickey Mouse on it – it’s square shaped, but with rounded out corners – that I also too used to have.

“Man, I remember I used to have a bunch of those plastic cups from the Dream Team Olympic Basketball team from ‘92,” I recall, though in fact I actually brought these home from work and gave them all to Daniel – they were actually his collection. Norman and Jeremy affirm they too once possessed such a collection; Norman notes Jose had every single Happy Meal toy they came out w/ during his stint there at our McDonald’s.

In the living room, I’m checking out an array of model cars and planes Norman has lining the window sill. “Ooh, is that a Mustang!” Jeremy enthuses, picks it up, promptly drops the thing – a front wheel and other various pieces bust off. I start cracking up, but Norman doesn’t hear a thing. He does enter the living room now, however, bandying some piece of conversation, and Jeremy pretends to be examining the Mustang, cradled in his hands, crouched on the floor. Norman turns his back and Jeremy shoots me the finger, mouths, “fuck you!”

Norman drifts back into the room and discovers Jeremy’s broken the plastic black ‘66, but seems unconcerned. “That’s okay,” he shrugs. Now Jeremy tells some longwinded tale about his grandfather’s amazing model collection, that took up one entire bedroom, but then his grandfather died and his dad gave every last one of them w/o consulting anybody – the rest of the family was pissed. Oh, but his dad did keep one piece, “except he broke that just like I broke this.”

Stories like these I never tell, though I’ve got a million of them. I guess it’s because I’m all too aware that people forget these kind of family stories five minutes after you tell them, so I get discouraged, I find no reason to. Except it occurs to me now that telling such stories at least paint your outline in fuzzy detail, even if people don’t remember particulars; people remember outlines, they form a general picture of you. Whereas I often get the sense I never seem real to anyone, because I just float along and listen to everyone else’s stories – I mean, I discuss what we hold in common, as far as past experiences or people we know or music or girls or what have you, but never stories like this one he’s just told.

Or even general observations like the one we sit down to at the breakfast table: “Hines Ketchup!” he declares, pouring some on his plate, “believe it or not, that’s one of the few things I take a stand on, it’s my ketchup! I don’t want Hunt’s Catsup, I don’t want that Kroger brand shit….”

And then repeats the above sentences verbatim once more.

“Need a lift?” Norman’s asking me, as I pace around the apartment in my jacket, after breakfast. It’s a sunny day outside, and the first day I’ve had completely off of work in almost three months; half by accident, as I took a personal day at Target but was scheduled off completely by chance at Oats. And I like this apartment quite a bit here in the daylight, it’s very cheerful, with a view of the football field across the street, it’s very 1970s – heavy on and favorable to the oranges, browns, greens, and yellows; light colored woodwork.

“Just up to the Oats.”

“Who brought this fuckin guy heh heh heh,” Jeremy cracks, but agrees to drive me there. Norman is in at 2 but I don’t feel like waiting – it’s just now noon. “Eh, what the hell, I’m not in any hurry.”

He does live clear down in Grove City now, though, and admits as we walk out to his truck, “I don’t know what’s gonna happen when I get home.” The rest of the short drive over is eaten up by a very enlightening dissertation on his second job, which he’s just taken up again, at the same Subway he worked at on campus 9 years ago.

I thank him and pop into the store to pick up my backpack. Kyle is cooking bacon, but it’s not quite done yet. He’s shocked to hear, from me, that Eric Voss’s wife has kicked him out of the house.

A pleasant ride home by bicycle, and though I’m tired, I’m not hung over. And crazy as it sounds, just by knowing what to stay away from – mostly, this means cheap beer, and liquor that doesn’t agree with you – is three quarters if not more of the battle to not feeling like crap the next morning, on the rare nights anymore that I do go out. The fog lifts in this respect, too, because no matter how late it gets or how much I’ve had, there’s just certain things I won’t do anymore – Heineken all night at the bar, then we get back to Chris and Norman’s place and there’s five cans of Yuengling, which are quickly cashed, but even when Travis and Chris arrive w/ PBR, I refuse to touch it. Jeremy has a bottle of Southern Comfort, which everyone including me cringes at and makes him put away, unopened; but then Chris produces some Crown Royal, which I’m all for. And I feel fine today.

November 1

-it seems the secret to me is knowing when to wait, and knowing when to pounce; you can’t do one or the other all the time, it doesn’t work.

-thinking this as Michelle’s in the shower and I’m lugging stuff by hand from her old apartment (in the same complex) to the new. Sipping a beer, taking my time. I used my patented jury rigged method to at least net her three channels on the tv earlier – she was complaining she couldn’t pull in any, and won’t have cable until the 9^th (?). All you need, I discovered years earlier, is a coaxial cable connected to nothing. I’ve used this myself, am currently using it to pull in 6 or 7 stations at home. You have the cable just touch the side of where you’d screw it into the tv, but you have to curve it just right so it sits there, doesn’t come dislodged every time somebody stomps his foot. Here is just pulls in three stations, but as she says, “better than nothing.”

-and then she’s driving us over to Maria’s. We pick her up, then the three of us head out to Polo’s. 17th Floor is playing, a band I haven’t seen in forever. At some point tonight Maria says she knows the whole reason for the apartment switch was so there was no chance of Tommy getting in, and Michelle doesn’t deny it. Meanwhile I can’t decide if Tommy would knock my block off if he ever bumped into me out somewhere with Michelle, or shrug and say he doesn’t give a fuck. It’s probably playing with fire. But I think she’s hot and pretty cool and basically don’t care anymore.

-then there’s Kim, an unexpected bonus. It helps to have multiple plates spinning at once, I think, and she certainly qualifies. We talk for an eternity. She’s more the type that I always seem to vibe with a lot, at least from Jill onward – short and soft, a nice body, but not too ridiculously skinny. “I like your body,” I tell her at one point, which should be fairly obvious by now. “What, fat?” she jokes. But she has lost some weight, is going to the gym, and is in this nice middle zone that I believe works to my advantage – she’s feeling confident about her current appearance, but at the same time defensive and uncertain enough. Well, at any rate, when I say “we should continue this conversation later,” she instantly writes down her number, at warp speed, and hands it to me.

-the only song I distinctly remember 17th Floor playing is Bubba Sparxxx’s Miss New Booty, which does seem apt, I suppose. And as previously noted in countless similar occasions before, do we suppose the unexpected presence of one girl makes some other girl behave better or worse? Heh? You might be surprised at the answer to that. Except not really.

November 2

Michelle gives me a ride into the Oats this morning. She says John was trying to pick her up last night, kept touching her (John and Molly both still work at Polo’s, which blows my mind.)

“You liked it,” I tell her.

“I’m not saying I didn’t…I’m just saying he kept touching me all night.”

She plays the radio the whole time, except throws on a Buck Cherry CD for just one track, Crazy Bitch. Then it’s back to the radio.

wind so fierce during my bike ride home I swear it gave me whiplash in the struggle to keep my head aloft. Came home and showered just to try and thaw out my noggin.

November 3

A pair of visits, both unexpected: Tall (non-freakout) Matt from Target, during a break in his classes, came in to say howdy, and we chatted awhile. But then not too long after that

November 8

2^nd day of no work in a row, it feels great. Figures a cold threatened to overtake me yesterday, but I’m a master at fighting it off: just lay around a lot, eat a lot, drink tea and ramen noodles too, take 3-4 showers, watch movies, sleep a ton. That was yesterday. Today I feel almost 100 percent again, like that. And I suppose there are two ways of looking at these things: instead of saying “figures it would ruin my days off” I should be saying, “well, at least I had the days off instead of working.”

Today I called Heather for the first time in 4 yrs. I mean I returned one of her phone calls in the summer of ‘02, but haven’t spoken to her since. I just feel like I’m leaving town in two weeks, man, why put off what I really feel like doing?

I’ve spent today alternately writing and cleaning out this place, and I put that old bookcase Alan gave me out by the trash. It was gone within a couple of hours, which I’m happy to see. I don’t mind giving things away, but I hate throwing them in the trash for no reason. It used to always bother me when Jill would constantly pitch things for no reason, because she’d just bought something new (also for no reason.)

November 10

I go in on my day off and work four hours at Target, come home, crash, then upon rising around noon I start cleaning house. Call Kim, who’s off today, about going out tonight, then call Kyle about happy hour. Change and shower and then I’m off on my bicycle. I try to rent a car at the place here at Mill Run, and am unable to, but it doesn’t matter: would’ve been nice, that’s it. Continue ahead into Upper Arlington, and then onward to Wild Oats.

-after that, move ahead to Kyle’s, where I arrive fifteen minutes early, at a quarter till 5. Sean’s on his way. We sit around drinking cold sake that he’s purchased for 99 cents at our store, which really has no flavor at all.

-park at North Market, walk in to have our ticket stamped. Tim is behind the counter at Bob’s, replacing me, where I replaced him. “What’s it like to be back?” I ask.

“Like crawling though hell,” he says. I thought he got his teeth fixed, but no, he hasn’t, he’s just found a way to talk around having the top two front ones busted in half.

Move ahead and say howdy to Dan. The cassoulet got a great writeup in Columbus Alive this week and I ask him if he made it that day, but he says he did not. “So close to immortality!”I lament. I’ve never had it, but he gives me some, as well as a flyer for later tonight – he’s playing drums for Kyle Sowash’s CD release party down at the Cara Bar. That other guy, the chubby kid who was always giving me free grub, too, comes over to say hi – I wish I would’ve learned his name at some point.

-at Barley’s, I have the Pale Ale, which is phenomenal, Kyle the Oatmeal Stout and Sean, who doesn’t know anything about these high end beers, drinks a pilsner at Kyle’s recommendation. Apparently liked it okay, because like us, he has a second – and at happy hour prices, these are unbelievably cheap.

-I go for an appetizer of mushrooms stuffed w/ spinach, feta, and panko breadcrumbs, drizzled w/ some kind of garlic sauce: phenomenal. Kyle has calamari (one thing cool here, you get a mix of tentacles and tubes, which most places don’t offer), though this is pretty average, flavor wise, and some wings that were supposed to be the hottest this place has to offer; I don’t try them, but neither Kyle nor Sean is impressed. Finally, our main courses, which for me is a croissant stuffed with shredded beef and cheddar and a side of green beans – once again, absolutely killer. Kyle has pierogies, Sean a turkey club.

-while waiting for our food, though, I step outside to call Kim, and tell her where we’re at. Checking my messages, I see that Heather has called – on her way to work.

-Kim eventually meets us at Brothers. Kyle is somewhat smirking to see who my date is for the evening, but my attitude is I’m leaving town soon, and no longer give a fuck who sees me with who.

-Kyle and Sean, after having a Guinness, switched to Bud or Bud Lt, and Kyle seems about half hit. Both definitely sluggish. We try playing pool at this one lopsided table – the middle one of three – but all the balls roll downhill. Never a good sight when you see paper towels wadded underneath two of the legs: seriously, what the hell is that going to accomplish? And there’s no chalk, either, because (I ask the bartender) “they’ve been stolen already, all of em, and it’s not even weekend yet.” I somehow manage to own this mockery of a pool table, though, against these two. And Sean defeats Kyle at air hockey, barely, while I wax Sean, so I guess I own this as well. Those two move on to either Sugar or Spice, one of the two bars (along with Gas Werks, and Park Street Tavern) on this same side of the street, in this same block.

-Kim and I continue to chill here at Brothers. She’s wearing heels, a black blouse, and jeans. She starts off drinking water, which is never a good sign, but says she had a few vodka & red bulls before even leaving the house. She’s a Hello Kitty nut and was in that section of the store at Meijer when we spoke earlier in the afternoon, our first conversation of the day. Now she tells me about being engaged to this guy, then moving to Indiana because she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, then he asked her to go to his grandma’s funeral and she went and it was awful because all of his relatives were asking about the wedding, if they were going to go through with it. And then she wound up back here, single.

-Kyle and Sean return, sit at a table. We’re at the bar. Kim suggests we join them, which we do, though I think she kind of digs Sean, at least initially. He’s got close cropped hair and a handsome face, wears this giant flashy diamond earring and dresses very “urban.” All the usual stuff chicks find alluring. Says nothing, though, which for some reason works if you’re a “bad” boy but not if you’re a nice guy, which Sean is. You’d think he’d be this real ladykiller but he doesn’t seem to be.

-we move onto the Lodge Bar. $5 cover. Packed to the gills, and now the interior is like a hunting lodge, and the stage is at the back end of the bar. A really bad band doing “college rock” versions of familiar songs. I was trying to pin down what exactly it is that makes all these college jam cover bands sound the same – I mean, you know that sound, but what is that sound? I think part of it is that the singer quickly establishes he’s going to “sing” every song in a conversational tone of voice, which if nothing else also keeps him, technically, from ever being out of tune. But there’s this horrible dumbing down of the music, too, which is hard to pinpoint, exactly what these elements are that always come together in the same way, to sound exactly the same. I think they definitely must be playing a bare minimum of chords, and at that always barre chords, like the shorthand version of cribbing songs, and the rhythms are always slightly slower than they’re supposed to be. Bad “shoutout” backing vocals, too, and way to many audience participation moments.

-Kim gets really animated talking about tv shows at the bar. She was knocking back Diet Cokes and Captain at Brothers, switches to a Blue Moon w/ orange slice here. We all have only one beer each.

-she’s trying to talk me into taking a more lucrative job.

-Kyle and Sean split, then we do.

-she gets a teriyaki chicken gyro w/ extra onions from this sidewalk vendor. Has trouble walking on heels, takes them off when we reach the gravel lot where she’s parked. “This is way more car than you need,” I joke, of the giant silver SUV she’s driving.

-all night, I wonder: why? What is the point of any of this? Having another one of my moments….it’s like on one hand I’m horny, which is why I called her, but on the other I don’t really care, it always seems completely ridiculous to put any effort at all into any of this. Particularly a chick you’re not even that into.

-but anyway, we make out for a minute in her car. It’s still only about 11:30, somehow, which seems borderline impossible.

-unseasonably warm for the second day in a row! 60 degrees out even at this hour…and I’m filing away every bit I can of this ride home, because for all I know, this could be my last ever, along these routes I feel I’ve known all my life. Cruising through west campus, the furthest fringe, and I’m tickled for some reason to see a bus creeping through this lot at 11:45, with somewhere between five and seven students on there – awesome.

November 14

After my shift at Target, finally get around to calling Heather back, but wake her up from sleeping. Very groggy, she groans, “cool……” but says she’ll call back.

November 15

another day off. Turns out to have been a definite blessing to have scaled back my working hours these last couple of weeks. There isn’t a whole lot to do, just tedious sorting of various rooms, boxes, etc, but it’s nice to have a leisurely pace to do this in rather than rushing around.

Up at about 8:30 today, and I ride my bike to the Starliner Diner – who knows when I’ll have another chance to eat there. Such a crazy place! I have a breakfast burrito, which comes w/ hash browns, both incredible and incredibly filling. Meanwhile, I check out the always changing room – some would call it Americana, but that’s just laziness. If anything, it reminds me of someone’s house you’d see in a British movie from the 60s, except w/ a bunch of crazy American and Mexican decorations thrown in, and a space exploration mural painted on the top half of one wall, a paper mache (I’m guessing?) spaceship dangling from the ceiling, lime green, with a bunch of crazy futuristic designs painted on it in purple. Hanging in one line down the middle of the ceiling, stretching from the front, plate glass window wall back to a small counter with a refrigerator behind it, there’s lamps, discoballs, and giant Xmas decorations of varying sizes and styles dangling; one on wall, an enormous assortment of clocks, except not a normal one in the bunch – ten and twenty point stars, or branching off other weird shaped tentacles, with one giant Elvis painting hanging there among them, breaking up the monotony. And when my check is presented, it’s on this plastic tray with a picture of the Las Vegas skyline at night, poker chips superimposed upon one of the corners. One giant, thin, striped rug covers the entire floor – mostly a dull grey color. And this is just one half – the other side, with the bar, I’ve never been in. But the food is incredibly awesome, all hilarities aside, and that’s really all that matters.

Spend a few hours in the library – now that I have the free time, this is what I’ve been doing again – and then cleaning, of course, writing (I can never seem to help myself, I run over to this word processor all the time, whenever an idea strikes me), dinner at Great China. All these strip mall Chinese places look the same, but I swear this is the best of them. Fantastic portion sizes, and everything tastes good, reasonably priced: even the vegetables are kept perfectly crispy. The menu is cracking me up, though, the way every item that has a kick to it, the first two words in the description are Hot Spicy!

November 17

Updike-ian details – drank the last can of orange pop in the fridge, been here since Jill and Madison moved out last year (there were 5 or 6 to begin with). Jill came over today and got the last of the stuff she could fit into her SUV – Madison’s play kitchen, that cedar chest, some toys. She asked about having left any dresses behind, but I confessed to having thrown a black skirt and that red dress out already. I’m pleased to note someone took the rocker, and that end table from my original ‘98 haul, the donation her parents gave to my and Alan’s apartment we had back then. The lamps, however, hit the dumpster today. I took the green recliner out last night, today the four antique kitchen chairs, the leather (or faux leather) couch, the hutch, the swinging wooden crib. Hopefully someone claims these items. I’ve got some leftover boxes and may condense, rearrange, continue going through and throwing out stuff, anything to reduce the freight.

November 18

As planned clear back in April, I walk out of Wild Oats today at about a quarter ’til 4.

-Ride my bike to Maria’s, stopping only at formerly Rock N’ Roll Sunoco for a six pack of Heineken. It’s 7-7 by the time I make it there: I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t actually fairly interested, for a change. Jamie sitting there with Maria, in OSU sweatshirt, it’s just the three of us.

“You’re sweating?” Maria marvels.

“Hell yeah, it’s warm out there,” I tell her, “once you get moving, anyway.”

“You better plan on jumping in the shower before we go out,” she says.

“Nah. Girls like the funk.”

Jamie laughs and starts singing this, to the tune of We Want the Funk.

-Miles keeps calling/we keep calling him. He says him and Sarah are on their way, then that they’ll be here at halftime, then that they’re leaving at halftime, then that they’re not coming at all. “I’m already pretty buzzed,” he concludes. Plus, he did not take tomorrow off as he had said all along he was going to.

-I figured it would prove mighty hilarious once word got out via Kyle and/or me that I told him I was doing this months ago, and he kept a lid on it the entire time. However, the comedy has burst forth much sooner than expected. Like I’m already aware that by some fluke, Mom just so happens to have called Wild Oats this afternoon, shortly after I walked out. She knows this is the best method for reaching me. It’s around 5 and they’ve already figured out I bolted, have pulled Dan Gold back there from grocery to work the department alone in my place. So he’s the one answering the phone, and tells them I just disappeared about an hour and a half ago. They think this is hysterical.

-I call Jody’s house, looking for Harold. No dice.

-Clif had his baby on Tuesday, says he can’t come.

-Maria first has to make a trip down to pick up Ryan from Hineygate, after the game. By this time (6:30), Jamie is sawing logs, having pounded a number of Bud Lt cans (he doesn’t drink much anymore) and smoking a ton of weed. I’ve killed my six pack, am drinking nothing: “I’d rather not drink anything than drink that cheap shit,” I tell Maria, when she offers Mich Amber Ultra or whatever the hell it’s called.

-Ryan has put on quite a potbelly. Is making something like $16/hr back home, though, he’s in the carpenter’s union. And that’s a huge chunk of change for that tiny hillbilly town.

-Next Tommy calls. They’d been partying this room Roy rented at the Holiday Inn on Lane, but even though there’s something like 11 people in the room with them, he says he’s bored. Maria swore all day she wasn’t going to get him, but she does. By now I’ve found a bottle of peach schnapps, am drinking that on the rocks but also watered down. Two mugs of that and I’ve killed it – was only about 1/4 full. We sit watching other college football games, Ryan and I. It’s like he never left, in a way.

-Maria has no sooner rolled in w/ Tommy that both phones start ringing off the hook: Lisa on line screaming about something so loud we can hear her across the room; Tommy answers the other – “Maria’s answering service, I’m sorry, she can’t take your call right now,” and hangs up.

December 1

Official release date for my 2nd book, One Hundred Virgins. I was furiously scrambling to submit this while still in town, and just barely managed to squeak it out.