"The Waiting Is The Hardest Part."

As quoted by Tom Petty, the waiting is the hardest part.  Especially if waiting is not, nor ever has been, my forte'.  Or, "The Waiting Is Almost Over," by, uh, me.  It is and it isn't.  I mostly do not like to wait in line.  A line that doesn't move is more than aggravating, it is practically intolerable.  Some people are darn good at it, though. For me, waiting is a unpracticed virtue.

Today, as it opened out for me, was one of polarizations.  I was not feeling too sure of myself but it seemed as if every body I ran into was sure of me.  I was asked for, and gave, advice to an old friend who has been having the same problem for a couple of years.  An ex-girlfriend's daughter keeps asking him for money.  I pointed out to him that he just went through this a few months back and my advice to him now is the same as it was then: don't do it.  He asked me because I have children and he doesn't, except for the ex-girlfriend's daughter, who is not his child.  I explained my own dealings with my daughter and how I refused to pay her lawyer bill.  He wrote me back saying how much he appreciated my advice then went on to say how wise I am.  Me?  Goddam!  Wise? WTF? I appreciate it.  I want to believe it.

My co-teacher in the Night Program and I talked for a bit today also.  That is difficult because we both are constantly running across the parking lot at school to the photocopier or running to get something a student needs or just trying to keep up with the academic activity in the classroom.  I ran into him in the lobby of the main building and stopped to remind him I was going to be gone Tuesday due to being in court for the divorce finale'.  We talked about it for a minute then moved on to books and what we are reading.  Then, later, for the first time in 18 years, we ended up having dinner together.  It wasn't planned, I just decided to eat in the staff room, away from my desk and those pesky students who will ask you a question even if they see your mouth is full.  He happened to come in to eat his dinner while I was there.  He and I have a similar viewpoint on life.  He was raised in a Fundamentalist household, went to a Free Methodist university, where he met his wife.  He eventually grew away from the church which caused a huge dilemma for him as his wife and her family were devout FM's.  In addition, they have a disabled daughter who needs constant care.  I'm not sure if they put her in a home or not.  I know they were thinking about it.

As we chowed down, I was having a black bean curry soup I made and he was having a salad, we talked and shared our passions.  He has discovered skate skiing which, as far as I can tell, is like cross country skiing but more like rollerblading.  He says it makes him be totally in the moment.  He also mentioned the incredible endorphin rush he gets from the activity.  I talked about my reduced passion for clay and wondered to him if it would come back or ir I was done with it.  I also told him I liked playing drums but didn't want to be in a band.  I had decided that I enjoyed the workout of playing and the aspects of coordination that I dealt with while playing.  Keeping two arms and two legs moving in a rhythm isn't easy but for me, playing for 51 years, it is really a subconscious movement.  Still, even though the most joy or satisfaction I have had has been playing with a band, it had become much like other creative activities for me lately.  It had fallen off.  I went on to say that I had started writing again.  He asked when I stopped.  About the time I got married, I replied.  He nodded.  I told him that of my three creative endeavors, "hobbies," none could be sustained while partaking in the other.  When I started the band Not Dead Yet, my clay work suffered.  Sales went down.  Yet, when the band broke up, I didn't get back into clay as hard as I thought I would.  So now, I told him, I was writing.  I don't know if I have anything to say but if I do, I want to work on saying correctly.  I told him the thesaurus was my best friend while writing (although I do not have one with me now.)  We finished eating and went back to work.  I feel for him as he teaches math and science.

Earlier, I passed through the lobby on my way out the back door and passed by another teacher's classroom who hailed me as I passed.  Her father, whom I had met, had passed away peacefully in his easy chair watching tv, alone.  Her sister had taken photographs of him sitting there, dead. Did I want to see him?  What do you say?  I looked at the photos.  Yes, he looked dead, not asleep, in his chair.  Maybe he looked dead and not asleep because I knew he was dead when the photos were taken.  She knew I was in court Tuesday and asked how I was doing.  I admitted I wasn't feeling too keen on myself at that particular moment.  She encouraged me by telling me she knew I was a good person the minute she met me.  Fucking psychics.  How do you know that about a person right away?  I mean, can't we all put on a good act now and then?  So how do you know I'm a good person right away?  I didn't say any of this out loud.  Really, though, I cannot pretend very well.  It is too confusing to my mind.  I have trouble enough remembering faces and names let alone keep track of which lies I have told to who.  It never works.  Not for me, anyway.  I have met two vacuum cleaner sales people in the last couple of weeks that are good liars.  I think to be a good liar, you have to believe your lie.  Of course that is a conundrum because why believe a lie?  I would say that you believe in a lie for, in the case of the sales people, the possibility of monetary gain outweighs the fact that your product is no different than anyone else's.  Or you believe a lie because either you know no better or to not believe is too painful.  Maybe that's where faith comes from.  It's just a fact that I don't lie well enough to make anyone believe me.  My daughter is the same way.

Which segues us into the divorce hearing Tuesday.  I would be lying if I said it doesn't bother me to be getting divorced (again) but it bothers me because I was blamed for it.  If I was just easier to live with, maybe things would have been ok.  See, that's where the rub is for me.  It just happened and I knew it was going to happen almost from the get go.  I was lulled by antidepressants six months after getting married.  I wonder now what would have happened if I had not gone to the doctor or that particular doctor.  Would the marriage have ended sooner?  Does it matter?  My ex-wife is devoutly religious.  Her family is devoutly religious.  I am not and could never pretend to be.  It became a point of contention and alienation between us all.  I was a sour puss because I would not go to visit the family for holidays or anytime.  It was just too artificial for me.  A waste of time.  I was not of the faith and therefore somehow inferior although every effort was made to appear otherwise.  It was a lie I could not pretend to believe.  I was living according to someone else's script.  I have a very hard time with that sort of thing.  Yes, I can be good, nice, and polite. I usually am.  I cannot, though, subscribe to a particular, narrow-minded belief system, though for my ex-wife and her family, it is a way of life.  They believe.  I don't.  Simple.  Outcome inevitable.  It's ok with me.  The kids are ok with it, too.  It's all good.  I don't like going to court for any reason, though.

Ok, let's go sideways here and I'll talk about my dog who ate rat poison and almost died.  Two Sundays ago I was inside all day working on my floors.  My Border Collie, Banjo, was outside.  Lately, he has been wandering off and I have had to chase him down from the orchard.  That Sunday I left him outside.  Monday, I took him to work.  He was listless.  When we came home, he would not get out of the car.  I had to grab his collar and drag him out.  He couldn't stand.  He flopped over like a fish on a dock.  His eyes looked at me.  This was not good.  I picked him up.  I was crying.  I brought him in the house and took him downstairs.  I put him down and he lay still.  He couldn't move.  I went to bed.  In the morning I let him out to go pee.  He was walking but slowly and unsteadily.  He peed dark brown urine.  It stunk.  He didn't eat.  I took him to work where he lay in one spot until time to go home.  He got up, shaky but walking.  The next two days I left him in the studio so if he had an accident, it would be easier to clean.  By Friday he was peeing blood and I had to take him to the vet.  The vet took a blood sample and the verdict was wafarin poisoning:  rat poison.  It thins the blood.  He was running a fever and his body organs were shutting down.  The vet shot him up with meds and said we would know by the next day if he was going to make it.  Make what?  You mean he might die?  Oh, fuck, what have I done?  I should have brought him in right away when he couldn't walk.  Since he walked the day after he collapsed, I figured he would be ok.  Now I was being told he might die.  Shit fuck hell.  I felt like a mean, horrible person.

He was complacent the next day and I gave him his meds as directed.  A week after ingesting the poison, he was still complacent but wagged his tail once.  I knew that was a good sign.  Today, he ate solid food.  He wagged his whole body.  He will be alright but I think recovery will be prolonged.  He is a very tired dog.  As bad as it has been for him, it has brought us closer.  I cradled him in my arms and pet him, telling him what a good boy he was and how sorry I was for neglecting him.  I'm sure, as a dog, he doesn't think there is anything to forgive.  I like that.

The time is now.  It will always be now.  I am in love.  Solid in love.  With a person who's inner beauty emanates from a center just above her belly button.  Her hair flows like a prairie breeze, brown and wavy.  Her heart is guarded but she has given it to me.  I have never been in this place before but I want to be here until my life is gone.  So, forces of the universe, may I keep this?  I want to be there when she needs me.  It would be lovely for her to be with me when I need her.  Wait!  I do need her!  Not when I need her but when we can?  This feeling of peace I get when thinking of her, will you please let it be?  It is a force, an energy, a life.  It is something to be grateful for.  I am grateful and humbled that she loves me.  That is all I will ever need.  Thank you.

My Inamorata

My inamorata,
Long legs,
Skinny toes,
Nails painted
Red, fingers
Fitting fine
With mine,
A smile
That cracks
The sky,
Eyes glow
As the
Fire in My heart
Burns for
Her, Hair
Like a
Waterfall, brown,
Wavy, flawless,
With a
Nice ass.
My inamorata
Wit candor
Concern non
Conciliatory consciousness
Flexible work
It out.
So good.

Yet One More Thing...

My daughter turned 21 today.  She has been living with her aunt, uncle, grandmother, and cousin.  She works in a library and attends community college.  She will be returning to her mother's house soon, in March, I hear.  I fear she feels as if she can't make her way in the world.  When I was her age, I had been gone from home for three years.  It was my intent to get out and keep moving.  I don't think I thought too much about making my way.  I was living one second at a time.  I worked in a crab cannery with people who's names I can still remember:  Obie, Tim Berg, Seth Thiessen, Tom Thiessen, their absolutely drop dead gorgeous sister Patty, Danny...and more.  Abby has friends but still there is an energy in her that burns without form.  She is creative, quick-witted and everyone loves her.  I love her.  I think having access to my personal support will help but I dare not force anything upon her.  Pressure is poison to her.  She is like me.  I'm not religious and I think she is only due to peer pressure among her family.  She does not like to disappoint her mother.  She can never disappoint me.  A few months after I was ignominiously moved from the house to the apartment, the house was empty. No one was home and wouldn't be for a while.  I had a key.  In a moment of madness or despair, either works, I wanted to smell the house, to be in it and smell the old house aroma that used to pummel my nostrils when I returned from work each evening.  I happened into the room my ex-wife had chosen to sleep in.  On the headboard was a card with drawing on I recognized as Abby's.  The card had on the cover a drawing of a woman in a cape.  The card said "Congratulations Super Mom!"  I opened it.  On the inside was the same woman with the cape.  This time she was standing over a man who was lying on the ground, evidently stomped by the woman in the cape.  The caption read, "Congratulations for beating the bad man."  I obviously took the defeated man to be me.  I was stunned.

Still, I understand Abby and what she was trying to do for her mother.  The sting of betrayal hung onto me for too long.  I knew for certain I was alone.  I turned another corner that day and continued my slow walk away from the detritus of many years.  Sometimes things click slowly for me but once clicked, it is crystal clear.  Time to move on.

So, what about my daughter?  She will be fine.  It took me a while to discover my wings and use them to fly.  I had to move around, town to town, so to speak.  I feel she will, too.  If she is like me, she can't stay in one place too long without a heavy anchor.  Mine was marriage and a job for 20 years. At the time it was a good enough reason.  Both my parents were alive and living in town.  I thought it important my children have access to their grandparents.  My dad would gladly watch his two beautiful granddaughters and when I came to pick them up he would always say, "I hope you don't mind but I let them eat cookies and chocolate ice cream.  It's a grandfather's prerogative."  Yes, they were wired.

That era has ended and a new, grander era has begun.  This, the last era of my life, will be filled with wonder and love, completeness and caring, giving and sharing, laughing and crying.  I won't be alone.  I am not tied to this place I now call home.  Yes, the albatross of a house hangs about my neck and the bills accrued from too many accidents are being paid but the duty of living in Wenatchee for the rest of my life has been shaken.  I traded emails with one of the bigwigs in the administration the other day.  We are friends and coworkers.  We have shared a friendship of openness and philosophy.  He runs the tech side of things.  I was on the phone to him one day as we were trying to figure out a bug on my computer.  Whenever you troubleshoot computers, there is always lag time.  Usually there isn't much conversation but during one of the silent moments he asked me if I believed in God.  Whoa!  I was afraid to answer.  That is the relationship we have.  He knows about my personal situation.  During our email exchange over getting an authorization code for an application on my computer, he asked if the dust had settled in my life.  I told him when the divorce was final and that I had met someone.  Small world, he replied.  It turns out his high school sweetheart was from the same city as my sweetheart.  Sadly, according to him, she had committed suicide.  The point is he is ready to move on.  We are both retiring at the same time.  Computer geek that he is, he has set up a calendar to count down the days.  Then he says he is selling his house and living in an RV.

That's what I mean about a grander era beginning.  Anything can happen and is possible.  I look forward to the days ahead and hope they turn into years and even decades.  It could happen and I will be spending them with an intelligent, warm hearted, luscious being that feels the same about me.  It is about goddam time.

John Cassavetes

I'm watching a movie by John Cassavetes called "A Woman Under The Influence."  It stars Gena Rowlands and Peter Faulk.  The premise is the insanity of the wife.  Faulk is the husband who seems to be only minutely more rational than his wife.  She ends up waco and institutionalized.  He ends up with the kids.  At best, Cassavetes is sort of a loose cannon.  His improvisational style was pioneering and you could say influenced other improv type movies by Christopher Guest, although Guest used comedy as his way of telling the story.  Cassavettes toys with madness.  To me he brilliantly portrays the inherent insanity thickly woven throughout our culture and lives brought about by the pressure society puts on us to conform.  I don't think most people understand.  Maybe I don't understand.  Nobody wants to think they don't have a handle on their life.  We look at other people and judge them as to their degree of sanity.

Last night I watched a pirated copy of "Silver Lining Playbook."  I didn't get to see the ending as the pirated version was not complete.  But I could see where it was going.  It romanticized mental illness.  I sort of took umbrage until remembering it was a movie and movies are made to sell tickets.  I'm sure it ends up with the protagonist gaining a sense of self and reality.  Maybe that happens in the unfilm world but I haven't seen it yet.  Too many of us walk around with the silent demons rolling around, pretending we have it handled.  We make our worlds comfortable, decorating our houses to make us feel comfortable.  I do, anyway.  When it isn't right, neither am I and I suspect that holds true for most.  Comfortable house, comfortable car, comfortable clothes.  Comfortable with who we are?  Sometimes.  Getting there.  Sunshine is manna.

No Access

This is going out cold.  I have no access to this blog at work so posting from work is impossible, if not a blessing.  Imagine if I could blog from work.  What would get done?  Even so, I won't be publishing until I return home.  Yes, I am blogging at work.  I pulled up the blog at home, started a page, then closed the lid and brought it to work.

I don't know what will happen with this episode.  I am physically shaking like a leaf.  At first I thought I was cold.  I was.  Once I got inside, though, I kept shaking.  Withdrawals?  From what?  Most of the meds I had been taking I'm done with.  Oh!  Wait!  I remember...I ordered some medicinal herbs online and took some before work.  Yohimbe, L-Argentine, and one other.  They are meant to help with prostate problems and sexual health.  Except for the shakes, which are slowly receding, it's goood...I'm walking with wood.  It works.  In a couple of months, I'll be able to find out how well.  In the meantime, well, in the meantime...I'll stay busy.

The loved one is away and won't be back for two months.  It was a deal in the making before we met so has to be fulfilled so as to not lose a huge sum of dinero.  Still, for me, as anxious and fraught as I can get, I am having difficulty not having daily contact.  I was told to expect this but it is still very difficult to me.  I'll be ok and I will be monogamous.  It's much better that way.  I am in love and love makes fools of us all.  Not this time.  I'd be a certified fool to fuck this up.

I am overwhelmed.  Along with it comes the anxiety of thinking too far ahead.  I see in my mind's eye what all needs to be done.  What I don't see is the compartmentalizing of it, putting it into controllable pieces, and then completing it.  The most perplexing part is starting one project only to have it turn into another, much larger and more demanding project.

For example, I was to paint the walls in the house.  I had completed most of one room, put the lid back on the gallon of paint, and went away.  When I came back, what was left in the gallon was in a puddle spaning two carpets; the once white carpet in the bedroom onto the carpet in the hallway.  What to do, what to do?  Tear up the carpet.  That wasn't on the list.  See? I tear up the carpet.  Eureka!  There are oak floors underneath everything!  The whole frikkin' house!  Even the kitchen floor, which was wood laminate, had oak underneath it.

The painting job has turned into a small remodel.  It includes sanding the wood, then putting Varathane down.  As an aside, a few years ago, I decided that I was going to make guitars.  I ordered parts off of ebay.  I got a couple of guitars working but the bulk of the work was spent sanding and finishing the guitar bodies.  I have finally figured out why I did that.  It was training for doing the floors.  It's the same thing; sand, vacuum, run the tack cloth across it, put down the varathane.  Easy, right?  Laborious, right?  YES!  A labor of love.

I discovered sawdust on every flat surface in the tv room.  Well, why not?  I've been sanding floors.  I thought I had the door shut.  Evidently not.  Spent some ten second tidy time getting it cleaned up before work.

My heart is on fire.  The keeper of the flame is too far away.  I thought half way across the country was doable but Mexico seem half the world away.  Skype is fine but you half to hold still and wifi can be sketchy.  Still, there is but one extinguisher for the flames that devour mi corazon.  And she is on vacation.  I will wait.

Force Is Too Strong of a Moniker

Let's talk about The Force.  Only, let's not call it The Force.  It's too, uh, forceful.  I am forcing you to do this. No, that's not it.  There is a connective ethereal tissue that winds through each and every one of us.  It seems to be the same in each of us.  Fine.  The difference is in how each of us sees it.  I think we all, even the most removed of us, feel the cord, the tissue, the juice that flows throughout.  It covers several channels.  That's how we relate to the differences between us.  We discover the channel it takes to communicate or make ourselves known to someone else. Or something else.  Through this life we learn, if we are able, to recognize the channels.  If we follow the channels, they begin to thin out.  There are fewer and fewer channels the older we become.  Soon, we are operating through very few channels. Life stabilizes? No, that's not it. either.

I'm looking forward to some time at Lake Chelan this summer.  I can of if I'm around.  I am probably going to the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes.  The particular lake is called Detroit.  It's in Minnesota so try not to get confused.  I don't think there is anything named Detroit around here.  I don't get out much, though.  Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels came through Wenatchee in about 1969 0r 70.  I had a girlfriend, Leanne, and I remember it being in the Cascade Hotel Ballroom.  1000 could easily fit in there, and we did.  He rocked the place.  Remember how Eric Clapton looked during his heroin days?  All fuzz faced and hairy?  That's what Mitch Ryder looked like.  To this day, i wonder if that really was Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels?  Doesn't matter.  I didn't even think about getting laid.  It never crossed my mind.

The next band we saw at the ballroom was a band from Seattle called Chrome Syrcus.  They were the loudest band I have ever heard.  But then, I was about ten feet in front of the guitar player and his Fender Twin Reverb Amp.  Goddam!  I don't blame the totality of my hearing loss on those guys, but, sheeeeiiitt...they were wall busting loud.  Clean, though.  Like a knife.

I may have already been playing in a high school rock band, I can't remember.  I remember the feeling of physical response to the force of the music.  It came at me like a wind, the guitar player scanning the audience to see who he was mowing down with his slicing rhythm.  (Oh man, those heart shaped cookies are good but rich.  It's a good thing I have self restraint.  I only ate three.)

After that, high school ended but my social life had expanded beyond that slim realm.  I was hanging with dorm rats from the college.  After high school I went to Wenatchee
Valley College for three months.  I withdrew on the last day possible without academic penalty.  I ended up in Seattle, living with two gay guys on Capitol Hill, working for my girlfriend's father's janitorial company.  I was out of Wenatchee, at least.  Fred, the guy that owned the house on Capitol Hill, was a mentor, a spiritual guide for me.  We took very pure LSD one night and slipped through the "hole in the fence," Fred's secret way of entering the Seattle Historical Cemetery.  Fred had been an experienced guide and had helped me breathe as I peaked on the acid.  I still her him say, "Breathe, Tim, breathe."  And I did.  Slowly, in and then out again.  Still, he gave me a valium, which I took.  In a bit, I was quite calm but effervescence was the color theme now.  I watched from the tomb of Chief Sealth, for whom the city was named, as the sun rose over the Olympic Mountains.  A more magnificent site I had never seen and as I sat there I began to feel the connecting thread. It flowed through me through the tomb through Fred through the sun and the morning clouds. It flowed on and on and so did I.

Eventually, after the sun had awoken the rest of the city, we made our way back to the house.  We sat on the couch for a while.  Fred wanted to make sure I was ok.  I went to bed and slept for a long, long time.

I woke up in Alaska.

It All Started When I...

I have been electrified the last few days as the reality of changing this house into a home has brought a certain sense of ownership.  Maybe even a sense of stewardship.  It is a good lot, on a corner, most of which is set back from the street.  A windstorm came through in January of 2007 and blew down three spruce trees, the smallest 75 feet in height and the largest 100 feet in height. It ended up being a lot of wood.  I did not burn wood for heat and did not need the wood.  My neighbor did so he took it all.  Thank you.  Eventually, I planted bamboo to replace the spruce.  I wanted it to fill a large area.  It is yet a work in progress.  The bamboo is having a mild winter.  There is still plenty of time for a hard freeze lasting a number of days.  That would take out the bamboo but only to the ground.  In the Spring, the shoots of bamboo pop up a little further than the year before.  If the bamboo can make it through the winter without significant frost damage, they will be about twelve to fifteen feet tall.  All that vibrant almost electric green mixed with a bit of yellow always produces a smile when I watch the wind blow through.

Yes, stewardship, I think.  I'm not nailed to it.  Or am I?  For the time being?  For a while? For...? Stewardship in a minimalist way.  Get it in shape, keep it in shape.  I have until April to execute this task.  I did well this weekend, a three-day weekend. Martin Luther Gandhi Day or something...either way, I was rested by the third day and, as mentioned in the first paragraph`, "electrified." I started the weekend by working on a guitar project I had going for longer than I remember.  I put tuning keys on the newest neck I was putting on this Telecaster styled guitar.  I will be the first to admit I am a cocky dumb ass sometimes but I was stupid enough to drill holes through the original neck.  Long story short (too late) I put the other neck on, soldered the volume, tone, and three-way control switch connections, crammed all the little teeny weeny wires into the cutout in the guitar body, drilled and screwed little, teeny weeny screws in the holes to hold everything together.  The big question was:  will it make sound?  I didn't string it up just yet.  I wired the output plug and plugged a guitar cord plug into it and turned on the amp.  It buzzed a bit.  Good sign.  Then I tapped the bridge pickup.  Click click click.  Good sign.  I switched the pickup control to the neck pickup.  Click click click.  Goood sign...put the switch in the middle.  Click click click.  Not a good sign.  Only the neck pickup is working with the switch in that position.  I strung up, tuned it, adjusted the neck rod, let it sit overnight to work its way into the adjustment and tension put on the guitar and the neck from the strings.

Got up the next morning at 6AM.  BAM! I was awake.  I felt as if a force were bombarding me with granules of energy.  I sat up in bed, swung my legs down to the floor, went out, tuned that guitar, plugged it in and played it.  Still needs work.

I then switched to Tim, the Fastidious Painter.  I painted the room I sleep in, everything except the trim.  I did very well in not getting any paint on the carpet or the bed.  Ok, that's not true.  In fact, it is a blatant falsehood.  I did do well in containing the paint.  I brought the vacuum in, snaking the electrical cord through the room to get toward the window.  I vacuumed the debris left from my scraping loose paint from the sill.  I finished and saw that some of the wood was wet.  That has to dry.  I'm still waiting.  Almost all of the gallon of blue paint was used.  I placed the lid on it, tapping it with the butt of the paintbrush.  Time to let the paint dry.  I went to the room with the big tv and started to move the love seat from in front of the tv in the room with the big tv to the wall just inside the entry way.  That way you can sit in that seat, listen to music or the radio, and watch the sun go down, or up, for that matter.  That opened up a big space and made it feel open.

Before planting the love seat, I wanted to vacuum.  I had moved my drums to the basement which left a space with sawdust on the floor.  I grabbed the vacuum and the cord and dragged the cord across the floor.  Although I don't see any paint on the cord of the vacuum, dragging the cord under the paint can tipped it over so that the remaining blue paint pooled on the white close knit carpet of the bedroom and onto the rustic colored wool carpet.  If that doesn't fly then it was the cat.  I want to blame the cat.  Ok?  Here's why:  because that's what cats do.  They have built into their feline DNA a little twisty gene that makes them jump up and knock things over, like what's left of the paint in a can.  To me, the cat is guilty.  The lack of evidence is cause for concern.  There are no paw prints leaving the scene, no sign of anything being dragged through the pooled paint.  Just a kidney shaped puddle of Waterfront blue looking like the island of Hispañola, with the blue paint on the white carpet being Haiti and the blue paint on the rustic wool being the Dominican Republic.

How long had it been laying there?  I just got off the phone with the person who makes my heart flutter.  That was at least an hour, maybe two.  The door from the room with the big tv to the hall that ends at the bathroom (can't miss it) was closed.  I opened the door and looked down into a pool of latex congealing on my carpet.  The can of paint had been knocked over.  Yes, it was on the drop sheet but when it tipped, the lid fell off and it flowed onto the carpet.  What to do?  I went to the towel closet, grabbed a porous towel and began to sop it up.  That wasn't working.  I would eventually run out of towels.  I broke out the carpet shampooer and tried to suck the paint up that way.  Big mess.  It was out to the studio to get the shop vac.  I pulled that in the house.  I grabbed a 2 quart pitcher and filled it with hot water.  I then turned on the shop vac and, as I poured water on the carpet, would suck it up before the paint settled.  Pitcher after pitcher, taking the shop vac outside to empty, spilling painted water, finally deciding enough had been done and to let it dry and assess the damage.

That's where I'm at now.  I watched a movie called "Super 8."  That's the third time I've watched it.  In the middle of writing all this, I received a text message from a colleague.  This colleague was instrumental, in my mind anyway, in getting me get my shit together as an online dater which ended when I met that someone.  This friend insisted I rewrite my profile and get new photos posted.  Ok, ok, I will.  I did.  In her text she told me her father had passed away this morning.  She said it was ironic that he passed away on MLK Day as he was quite the racist.  I have personal experience with his racism and I'm afraid I might have egged him on.  Wentachee had terrible fires last summer and all locals looked for relief.  The colleague and I drove to Kirkland, WA., to meet up with her friend who was escaping the smoke from Yakima.  This smoke was killer.  Thick as dust sometimes.  We drove to Kirkland to her dad's house.  He was supposed to be gone but showed up the day we were leaving.  It was just he and I in the breakfast nook.  I saw he was reading the sports page.  I didn't know he was racist until I thought I would be funny and mention my cousin, Marshawn Lynch, of the Seattle Seahawks.  A very black man with some good dreads. Yeah, I'm kidding...whoa, dude...and off he goes on the reasons, all black, that he CAN'T watch basketball anymore.  No more white people in the game.  Now, he's dead, just like that.  He died in his sleep.  I got to meet him.  I hope people can say that about me.

We were just wondering what is under the carpet in this house.  I guess I will have a chance to see if I can't get the paint out of the carpet.  I'm a wood floor kind of guy anyway.