Confessions of a Fuck-Up Artist!

Minor tribulations plague this house and the stars glitter inconvenient omens down upon even the simplest efforts. Got my first ticket in the mail. Caught off the robo-cam and that's a good chunk of change I'm going to miss.Followed this news by spending the better part of two hours unclogging a drain with nothing but a plunger that was clearly designed for a hobbit. For awhile there it looked like I was going to have to blow another wad of cash on a plumber but luckily what I lack in luck I make up for in tenacity.

Well, what can you do?

Shit happens.

At least I have a job to cover the ticket and at the end of the night I'm not pissing in the bushes with the coyote or the prostitutes.

So as Jesus said to Judas - "It's nothing to get hung about."

Or maybe that's the Beatles I'm thinking of?

The Princess is the last of my remaining friends from the old days. The secret Jeremiah Sinn night club days. The sacred Johnny Law wild ride days. The now long gone Bud roaring defiant days. Days of drugs and guns, with nights spent drifting across the city in a series of bunker visits to refuel our buzzes, to disappear into a video game, to talk shit or spread drama, to get paid, to get a little piece of love where no one was looking, to get a moment away from the reality howling starved off the streets.

If not for the Princess to verify that these men did indeed walk the earth with us once, counting us as blood by trials and glory shared, then I would forget that they and the days they ruled were once our everyday reality. Nowadays the Princess and I meet up every other week or so for Operation Reload, the details of which are best left unsaid for reasons of this not being Cool-orado. But afterwards we meet up at the Yacht. She likes it there, I do too, as there are some pleasant ghosts here for me to look at and of course the Yacht has the best drink to dollar ratio in all Vampire Country. I never go over three Jamie's, as I've finally come to accept I'm not very pleasant beyond that, and she riding the wagon true sticks to her Sugar Free Red Bulls. From there we talk the tribulations of our lives, geek out over pop culture, rant a little politics (okay that's mainly me), and eventually we come to reminiscing about the old days.

Around us there's the other lives I've intersected with over the years. The Magpie's friend Contemptula and she's holding court around the Yacht's backroom round table with her Posse Riot. There's Helga the Stage Cowboy with some Cafe Perilous regulars over at the Yacht's front corner window wide table and talking some Grief Theatre business no doubt. At the bar is Tupelo Strummer who plays one of the meanest mandolins in Terminus and he's chatting up some young fellah in a beard. Even the Sex Hobbit drops by for a pick-up order from the kitchen.

"You know so many people, Mr. Celebrity." The Princess likes to tease me after I make introductions, ("This is the Princess... she's the Veronica to my Jughead.") .

"I've been a Chewbacca to many a Han Solo in this town over the years." I shrug nonchalantly, "As such there's a few folks who can put a name to my face even long after they're gone. Plus, you know, the whole Internet mask thing. "How I met your Mother'. 'The Continuing Crisis'. All that fun shit."

"You think that's all you are to them?" She looks at me with a little bit of confusion, a little bit of worry. I don't know why. Back when I hung around Sinn or the Magpie I could barely stand myself. Nowadays, I like myself just fine even if I'm aware I'm a presence best served in small doses around friends of friends.

Plus, the truth is one day I'll have the money to talk to somebody professionally and I'll ditch the black market buzz for some sort of personality adjusting meds. Walk this earth free of mood swings and black thoughts that pop up. Until then, I'm a flake yes, but one lost in a blizzard of his own brain chemicals. The slightest offense sets me deep in gloom, the slightest victory has me riding all superhero utopian. For what it's worth there's always a tiny me in there trying hard to balance shit out. But what can you do? Some people wear the soul wounds and the psych damage sexy. They command attention with it and make you want to burn with them. Yeah, you know who you are. Some of us though, we're astronauts trying to escape a black hole in our heads and some days that black hole sucks more than others.

Guess which days these last few days have been?

But what I tell the Princess is what I've told folks a dozen times over. "I'm learning to be like Bat-Man. Bat-Man doesn't need friends. Friends need Bat-Man. When everyone you love is gone or far away, the best you can do is be there for those who need you."

She laughs and then I remember what my Virtue Victoria would always tell me when I say that.

"But Baby, Bat-Man's an asshole!" She protests. "You're Nightwing if anyone."

"A sidekick?"

"An ex-sidekick, he quit remember? Because his boss was an ASSHOLE. Now you're doing your own thing in Bludhaven and dating Bat-Girl, may I remind you."

"Fair enough." I smile and so goes our many phone conversations. Long distance relationship or not, things have been so much better with her back in my life. Every full moon I thank Eris for second chances, true story.

Anyway, the Rage Fever is subsiding now. The temper dwindles, the grudges hushed. Friday tomorrow. I'm reloaded and the first smoke of the day is hitting smooth. Ambient soundscapes off the laptop. Payday tomorrow followed by the weekend. Maybe I'll go out and find a place to dance. Maybe I'll hole up and work on the Life Unreadable's second draft.

Back in the old days when I wrote it was here and there between the madness. Bad poetry and LSD fueled observations. I couldn't imagine writing a page much less a novel that would get published. Heh... wanker. Those men I knew are gone to death, difference, and distance. But so was the man they once knew and like it or not he's gonna be here for awhile.

Well that's that I guess. Signing off then from one more shot at another tomorrow... 10-4, over and out.

The Lawn Work Months have come early this year, five days shy of Spring official and the backyard's got weeds hitting knee high already. It's 84 degrees after work and the day has plenty more light to offer. The backyard lawn is the size of a modest playground, wide and empty. The first mow of the year is always the toughest. The mower's been hibernating in the basement for the last few months and will need some arduous if not patient coaxing before waking. Conversely the muscles, even as half-assed gym flexed as mine are, have to learn to remember the unique strain the lawn demands of them.

I remember last year when I took on a similar task. It cost me a good thirty minutes of yanking and screaming before I got the Toro roaring. In fact I hadn't yanked and screamed that hard since my last six month cruise in the Navy. *snare & high-hat roll* Anyway, once I had the beast rumbling, I'd start to get three, four yards in before she'd sputter to a stop. I kept having to prop her up, pull wads of pureed green by the fistful from her blades before having to fire her back up again with a rip of the cord.

Three hours later of sweat and shouted curses I zombie staggered back into the house. Feet throbbing, brain frazzled and reeking of gasoline I sat at this computer to update the Shit List files, moving Mother Nature up a few notches.

Standing on the deck of the backyard earlier I did not look forward to repeating the experience.

Still, if not today, when? If not me, who?

So I get to it.

First thing I did when I pulled her out from beneath the basement was clean the blades. Then I adjusted the wheels to compensate for the initial height of the weeds and patches of feral grass. I checked her oil and fed the beast some oil along with capping her off gas wise. Between attempts on firing up, I let her rest so as not flood the engine. Doing this had her up and running in under five minutes. Along with that I have a phone that plays music now and I blast Death In Vegas and the Gorillaz to keep my brain from chewing on fresh grudges. It also doesn't hurt that I borrowed the bosses weed- eater this time and was able to trim down some trouble spots beforehand. This allowed me to knock out the lawn twice - once horizontal, once vertical - in an hour, ten minutes.

Finished I survey my work from the elevated back deck, leaning against the railing, cigarette smoke keeping the bees away and for a minute I'm back on the fantail of my ship. We're docked in a land surrounded by grass green waters, smooth and impenetrable. The sun's still bright and there's time enough for a shit, shower, and a shave before hitting shore leave as hard as a drunk hits a bottle.

"You should write that down." My friend's astral-hologram beams out from the area between memory and imagination where the real magick happens. He's standing behind me. I don't need to turn around and see him. I can feel the Midwestern wide smile and the gun-fighter gray eyes on my back as sure as I can feel the sunlight on my face.

"What would you know?" I laugh. "You were too smart for the Navy. Remember?"

"I do indeed, brother... just not quite as uniquely as you seem to."

"You'd be surprised how often I get that."

"Hey, I'm just what you think I'd say." His Midwestern smile broadens... I can just feel it as sure as he's lighting a cigarette up even though he's practically quit, "Can't shoot the messenger without putting one in your own head."

"Karma hostage." I grunt to myself and then to him ask. "So what do I need to tell myself this time that I'm not hearing otherwise?"

"You're pissed off."

"Hadn't noticed." I smirk.

"Yeah, well it's nice you're not slitting your wrists online about it or bitching like a..."

"... a bitch?"

"Hey you're the writer, but yeah, a 'bitch'. So congratulations on that but something's eating at you and you need to say something to someone before you explode in someone's face. Which knowing you will be your own."

"What do you want me to say? I'm pissed at the situation not the circumstances." I shrug, partially distracted. Facing westward, the sun hangs lower and the light through the trees slices down to the earth in long shafts of orange and gold. Down below shadows have grown along the lines mowed into a slightly wavy chessboard where every square is a shifting tone of green.

For a moment I almost forget I'm not alone and continue. "And being pissed at the circumstances don't do anything but piss off other people. Only thing for it is to ride it out. Sweat out the mood poison. Spit out the bad blood. Walk it off or man up or whatever it is I'm supposed to do in lieu of meds before I can offer a modicum of pleasant company. Until then I just, I dunno I guess I just don't want to be around anyone. I don't want to talk to them. I don't want to hear anyone tell me what to do or what not to do. Just for once I want to be left alone on my terms, not theirs."

"In that case, Mister I-Want-To-Be-Left-Alone... maybe you can tell me why I'm here then?" My friend chuckles and I turn around as if just slapped but of course he's not there.

Hnh. That Batman shit never gets old as far as my psyche's concerned.

I gaze back down at the lawn.

This time I see what I see when I step away from the page. The lines now patterns carved from the unappeasable chaos of life. In their shadows what all of us who are artists do - to carve a little truth and beauty out of the wild. I dunno. Maybe. Maybe not. But they're nice to look at it in the right light and the process does untangle the nerves better than jerking off or staying stoned 24-7. So I got that going for me.

Now if only I could learn to write as well as I mow lawns.

Meantime dinner's been long ready inside. Meantime I still got to run up to the store to get more smokes. Meantime this cigarette's gone long out and the insects are buzzing around my face in droves now.

But I don't move away from the railing or my view of the lawn. Not yet. Instead I pull up something I saw the night before on my smartphone before bed. Dostoyevsky. A letter to his brother that he wrote when he got a last second reprieve from the wrong end of a firing squad. I read it out loud to no one at all.

"I did not whimper, complain and lose courage. Life, life is everywhere, life is inside us… There will be people beside me, and to be a man among people is to remain a man forever… that is life, that is the task of life…"

Nothing left to be said, I make my way back inside and back to all that life goes on bullshit.