The Worm Has Turned

I hold ten cards in my hand: four sixes; a two, three, and four of spades; two queens and a ten of hearts. The old man sits across from me, looking over his spectacles, endearingly smug as he ponders the queen of diamonds laying face up to the left of the draw stack. The T.V. emits a gregarious furry glow into the brown-baked caramel colored living room where we have planted ourselves for this perennial evening battle of gin; it continues its play of light on the half-inch thick bifocals perched on the old man's nose.

"Mmm. What do we have here?" he says.

"A queen of diamonds," I say, tucking my legs underneath me.

He fans the cards in his hands, and folds them back into a neat stack as if closing a crafty business deal. Turning to the T.V. he ignores me for a handful of seconds. Though he can't see the padded men in uniform launching themselves at each on the screen, he begins to comment widely on what is happening on the screen. His beloved Packers are winning, the announcer on the T.V. says while tittering and chattering like a cricket with his colleagues. And now I see the old man is smirking. I know what is coming.

He picks up the cards and fans them again. The free hand reaches down and gently lifts the queen. My stomach tightens. The T.V. loses its glare for a second and cuts to a black imageless screen. The old man's eyes survey the fan and he takes a card from it and places it face down on the discard pile. The queen of diamonds is his. The cards come down like hammer strokes on an anvil: a nine, ten, jack, and queen of diamonds; three sevens; and three kings. The game is over, the official edict proclaimed.

"My boy," he says, "the worm has turned."

Late Night

It's late for me. 12:25 am. Usually I'm asleep by now but I've just returned from a few days in California where I was with my girl friend and I think my body clock is still adjusting.

My girlfriend and I drove across the country last week. Starting in Asheville North Carolina we first drove to Nashville Tennessee to stay at my Mom's house; then Shawnee Oklahoma; then Albuquerque where she had family friends; then all the way to the Pacific coast to stay at my Dad's. After a night in Southern California and a slow morning at the beach we headed up PCH or Highway 1 to people from Northern California.

I'm sitting up now experiencing some withdrawals. Maybe from not being around her all the time and maybe from not being suspended anymore in a time where all I'm doing is looking forward to the next day of doing something out of the ordinary.

Today was slow, a string of events connected mostly by the moments in between in which I thought about how my girlfriend must feel about being back in New York. My guess throughout the entire day was that she was fine.

I told her a while ago that my MO was to get heavy about this kind of shit -- relationships, love, finding purpose, LIFE. But if I step back a little I begin to observe the cantankerous shift from heavy to light thoughts like there's a tempest inside my head half the time and there's incomparable placidity in the other half. I'm a god damn schizo. Where would I be if I wasn't like this? Not in New York City to be sure.

So I'll thank many times over whatever is out there that I am here where I am, lying prone in a bed tapping on keys and nudging my knee caps as a fan blasts air over my legs. I am here where I am, and the girl I long for is somewhere in the city, staring up at the same sky I can see out the window, the same distance from the few stars we can see, or if not, she's at home sleeping, resting her eyes like I am going to do too.

Four Shorts For Tuesday

Vapid shit talk.

I is the word and letter to describe a person who lies deeply buried under the things you see every day. I is the word and letter that a mind keeps to describe feeling in direct terms: I am hungry; I am sad; I am lonely; I am in love; I am happy. You are I when you lose the power to describe what you see.

TGIF

Most of the writing on this blog, with the exception of a few entries, is shite. I've reread the entries. Some are half-thoughts; others are complete thoughts. I'm going to keep most those entries short now. A paragraph each morning. How about that?

Maybe I can figure out how to post links in this thing too. I want this piece of crap to shine, you know?

I got high last night. This morning I could barely open my eyes. Today at work I'm useless.

Beer all of a sudden made a comeback in my life.

My roommate smells like the combination of moist scabs and human feces. I smell him every time I walk down to my basement apartment. I notice too that he can go through an entire bar of soap in less than five days. A friend of mine called his smell, "the boo-boo poo" smell. You're damn right I laughed like hell after she said it too.

Have a good weekend.
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mm hmm

When our President approaches Iran with a gesture of peace, I do not blame the politicians or the people of that country for continuing to hate us. There is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary if a country respond in such a way towards the United States, especially one, if you've read your recent history, that has been watching the flip flopping exhibition of American diplomacy in the Middle East region. Man, the Iranian people aren't stupid; in fact, they're smarter than us. They're smarter because they have an older civilization to hark back upon, and that's why they lie in wait -- the Islamic fascists that run the country, AND the young population who have no connection to a religious revolution at all.

Also, extending a peace offering isn't going to do anything when our biggest ally in the region happens to be just as concerted militarily in their efforts to maintain power and capitalism as us.

We come in pea-- Ah! What the hell did you throw in my eye man?! I was just going to apologize for beating you up in the first gra--Ah! Jesus man. C'mon. I was only trying to be coo-- Ow! dude... that's it. Now I'm just going to have to kick your ass again.

The U.S. will get agressive again, no doubt. But that's what living in a militarized country is all about. Learn to watch it function and you might get a new sense of how people suffer around the world due to its effects.