A moment of your time, sir.

Now I am going to ask you a question
& I would appreciate a serious answer – or AN answer, @ least – because I really want to know:

What do you do w/ 20 years? I mean, what do you put inside it? Looking @ it from out here… What the hell is inside that thing?

Sure, I know, some people squeeze a lot more stuff into theirs. Some a great deal less. But it seems like I’ve simply forgotten. Or maybe I was looking the other way when all those years got fill dup w/… whatever.

I’m not complaining. I’m not trying to return or exchange anything, sir. No, I don’t want my money back, sir.

I’m just askin’.

I just wanna know eff you’d be so very kind as to maybe allow me to watch the tapes, sir.
To see what it was climbed in.
The blow by blow & the frame by frame, sir. Playback from the security cam.

Cos from the smell of it – judging by the stench of it – something has crawled into those years and died, sir.

Something rancid like a ghost.

A suggestion for bp & others like them.

I have a suggestion for BP & all the others like them.

By now, it has become obvious to every one of us who is paying even a modicum of attention that you hate your children.

That you hate your family.

That you hate yourself.

That you wish to stamp out every semblance of life from everything that you see around you.

That you will not rest until you’ve sold the world’s last black ashen remains to the last charred & choking consumer in exchange for the last black penny to be found anywhere.

& that is all good & that is fine & that is capitalism, baby, which is a thing that God & America LOVE LOVE LOVE. But you’re working so hard at it & I’d like to make things easier on you, so here’s a little suggestion – offered to you completely free of charge – from which I believe you might profit:

Why don’t you go kill your own kids & leave ours alone?

Why don’t you – right here & now – stop reading this blog, shut off your computer, go on upstairs & murder the fruit of your own fucking loins?

Go pour benzene into the ground around your own oak tree? Shoot arsenic & asbestos into your own wife's veins?

Why don't you get back @ your own your momma by shooting HER in the forehead? It wasn’t MY momma who whipped you when you was a boy.

I know what you’re thinking, but I am confident you can get away with these killings. You’ve successfully lobbied for the right to kill MY family for years. You’ve dumped mercury into my drinking water & weird hormones into my beef, & no one’s gone to jail for THAT! No, you’ve made sure THAT was perfectly legal.

Surely you can get the police & politicians to look the other way now for a couple lousy strangulations in your own home!

You can kill the kiddos quickly, you can kill them mercifully, & not at all in the slow, cruel, drawn-out manner in which you’re killing the rest of us.

In fact, I really wanna know why you haven’t already walked into their rooms just upstairs & killed them while they slept?

What the hell are you waiting for?

Is it because there’s no money in it?

Cos I’m confident that we could come to some sort of an arrangement, you & I...

The boomarang kids.

The ladies are sitting next to the pool. They wear housedresses & sit upon cheap lawn chairs. They are not old ladies – not yet – but they’re old enough to be sitting next to the pool in housedresses instead of swim suits.

So they’re getting there.

& Helen uses her pinky finger to move the tiny umbrella in her glass so she can drink, & she slurs on about her Junior, who has moved back into her mobile home. AGAIN.

//Ha!\\ bursts Margaret. //That’s nothing!\\

All eyes on Margaret.

//My Trey is 32, & he’s moved back in the house w/ Henry & me & brought his girlfriend this time, too!\\

There is all-around agreement that this is worse than Helen’s pickle. Agreement that poor Margaret has it bad indeed.

There is silence as they think about Margaret & Henry’s predicament.

Finally, my Aunt Maxine clears her throat. Swallows another Nembutal. Picks at a particularly scary mole on her arm.

//3 weeks ago Thursday\\ Maxine begins, //Jason comes over w/ his wife, Ann, their 3 little kids, their Rottweiler, boxer, & their parrot, Captain Beakers.\\

//He tells me they’ve talked it over & they have decided they’re moving into my uterus, because it’s warm & it’s comfortable in there & from what he remembers, there’s a lot of easy floating around doing nothing all day involved.\\

//& while I’m stuttering, trying to find words to say, it’s FOOMP! & up into my uterus they go.\\

Maxine looks around. //It’s a momma’s worst nightmare.\\

Everyone by the pool agrees that Maxine’s story just about takes the cake.

But Maxine says, //But that’s not all!\\

//Because after that, I get nervous about my OTHER kids, so I decide to stop the vicious cycle. I swallow my youngest right down. Eat him up. Well, HE takes up residence in my stomach & demands cable TV, complete with premium channels!\\

//Jason & my youngest talk through my meaty walls to each other, & they’re complaining about me, mostly.\\

//That night, I dream of the perfect son, & I dream of what he’d be like. Come next morning, I find that Dream Child still in my head, & he’s taking online classes & demanding piano lessons!\\

& all the ladies just sit there in their house dresses, sipping their drinks, staring @ the sun reflected on the water, while their husbands stay out too late boning overpaid nubile secretaries.

& all the housedress ladies sit there, growing old & dreaming of death.

Lullaby.

Now then, child: Pull up the covers & close your eyes & I’ll sing you a sweet little sleep song. Lie back – relax – breathe in – breathe out, and it goes like this, you see.

Lie back… Relax… Breathe in… Breathe out… And it goes… Like this… You’ll see:

You see, it’s not The End when the lights go out, when the Darkness comes, you see? Tho to all the world your breath has fled, YOU do not cease to be. Tho you do not speak & you do not smile & you miss that planned appointment. Still you hear their voices, share their cries, as the priest soaks you in ointment.

Hehe… Shh! No no, child. No, no. It’s okay. It’s alright. Don’t stir, don’t fuss. Now we’re nearly to the crux of my tale!

Now then, where was I? Ah yes, that’s right, & it goes like this, you see… Lie back… Relax… Breathe in… Breathe out… And it goes… Like this… You see:

& you’re still just you when they bury you & they cover you in mud. & you see it! hear it! smell it all! tho they drained you of your blood.

& your soft parts harden & your hards get soft & you take on purplish hue. But you hear the drums & the stone man comes & he steals what’s best of you. Yes you hear the drums & the stone man comes & he steals what’s best of you.

Your skin sloughs off, your bones break down, & the worms come in to chew. Then the roots grow up, come out your eyes so they block out most your view. What’s left to see’s so bad by then, you’re thankful when they do!

Putrescence! Putrescence! That trusty state that comes & claims us all. Turns all what was your brains to pus, then bugs swarm in to crawl. 4 years of Latin that you took when you were but a boy? It’s in some maggot’s stomach - Now, who’ll eat all your Tolstoy?

& doodlebugs hurry down thru the parts that did hold all your fears. & flowers grow up thru your ribs & beetles lap your tears. & then someday, your mind will fade, but that will still take years. Cos YOU stay there when out of air, your Mind just clicks & clears.

& um, well... The song goes on like this for quite a while, child, w/ corporeal breakdown & generalized rot. But then it gets kinda ugly in the verse comes next, so I’m skipping to the end, you see.

& it's ugly 'round the middle of the verse comes next, so I’m skipping to the end, you see.

To where the girls skip double dutch on top the grave where the flowers grow that ate ya. & they sing a song ‘bout what went wrong & what it was unmade ya.

They go:

Time will tell
If your ratty old Hell
Is the hole where the gal’s
Gonna send you

But you’d better not cry
Cos you’re sure to die
& the gal w/ the mask’s
Gonna end you!

(& faster:)

Time goes tick-tock
Bones rap knock knock
Late to call the doc-doc
The Grok! It’s the Grok!

Time goes tick-tock
Bones rap knock knock
Late to call the doc-doc
The Grok! It’s the Grok!

The Grok! It's the Grok! It's the Grok!

Alright, child, that’s it for now. Nighty night.

Sweet dreams & kisses…

The harvest.

Good news.

This kid shows up on my doorstep the other day, fingertipping the doorbell pathologically like he’s just discovered the clitoris or something. & what the clitoris is is… Well, we’ll go into that later, maybe. I tend to go off track & we’re pressed for time. Go ask your mum about it.

But this kid on my doorstep… Yeah.

He looks like a good kid: white teeth, shined shoes, cuff links, no visible tattoos, the whole nine yards. Daddy would approve, you know? & sure it’s like 8:30 on a Sunday morning, but this is 1 wholesome, all-American kid, I'm telling ya, & I’m the 1 who stays out too late on Saturday nights.

Unless… Maybe the kid is another one of those crackheads I keep hearing about. Could be he hasn’t even been to bed yet!

But then again, I keep seeing those shoes. Those shoes have not been out all night, no ways.

So I look @ him expectantly, waiting for whatever happens next. Surprise me, baby.

//Good morning!\\ he inaccurately snorts, just alluva sudden. & I gotta tell you, he’s really not off to a winning start. & //have you heard about Jesus Christ?\\

Have I what?

//Jesus Christ, you say?\\ I say, //No, what is that? Never heard of that. Must be new, or else someone’s keeping a tight lid on it. Low profile kinda thing.\\

I look around all conspirator-like & I say, //Thanks for the heads up. Don’t worry: I’ll keep my eyes peeled, & I’ll make a full report if I hear anything.\\

Then I close the door & go back to bed.

Just another ranting crackhead waking me up on a Sunday morning? Or is it something more?

There's just no way to know for certain. So if you hear any more about this whole //Jesus Christ\\ thingamabob, you should probably contact the Sunday doorbell kid right away. It might allow him to sleep in for a change.

Fear.

Hang on Saint Christopher.

Mumsa, what can I say?

After all this time, what good could it possibly do?

I am a sorry one – this much is by now beyond all dispute.

But more than the rest,

the thing that makes me most sorry

is that I didn’t just let you have

your old Saint Christopher…

Mumsa was an excellent Catholic.

Very excellent, very Catholic.

Carried rosary beads around with her like folks today’ll carry cell phones

(& praying while driving is as dangerous as drunken wheelies)

That woman went to church constantly, for all of the appropriate

Holy Days of Obligation.

She believed in the power of the holy and unbroken hymen of the Blesséd Mother.

& most of all, Mumsa believed in the power that came

from prayer

especially when those prayers were directed

at or around one Saint Christopher

who would intercede on her behalf

any ole time of day or night.

She kept a relic around her neck

purporting to be the toe of Saint Christopher hisself-

the big toe of his left foot, to be precise.

There was even a little snag of nail on there.

& she’d wear this thing on a string

around her neck

& rub it furiously while she’d pray

when she was having any one of the daily problems that come along in life…

Oh! How Mumsa swore by that toe!

You remember when Aunt Maxine got her skin cancer that summer

& then somehow seemed to get over it overnight?

That was Christopher!

When Cousin Audrey got knocked up by that Negro kid

but lo & behold the half-breed was born dead,

thus saving Audrey (& the whole family) from a life of pain & shame?

Christopher again, obviously!

But me? Moi’?

Ungrateful & blasphemous cur that I am

- or was, at any rate –

I couldn’t just let it be

I had to kill what meant the most

to those who loved me

I was 16,

& I felt slighted @ some petty trifle

Could be that Mumsa wouldn’t let me go to a party,

Who knows what it was?

(& what could it possibly matter now?)

But I struck back with all that I had
I said, //Saint Chris never was!
Even the Pope says so!\\
Then I went to the shelf
& took out the World Book Encyclopedia
which knew everything there was to know

I showed her:

since 1969:

No Chris.

Ergo, no Chris’ toe.

Why,

Mumsa’s eyes…

they faded right then & there.

She took that toe

which had gotten a little green, frankly

& a little worn out from all

that rubbing & all that praying & so forth

She took that toe & gave it

one last,

long stare,

and she

- //EWWWW!\\ -

dropped it.

Oh Mumsa,

why couldn’t I just have let you

have your dear Saint Christopher?

Who's afraid of the sun?

& few people realize how the Moon is made of pure dry ice. & those in the know by & large choose not to talk about it, for all the obvious occultic reasons, I suppose. But you, you’re one of my friends & I know you are not the sort to just… run out willy nilly & do something stupid w/ your inside information, like… You wouldn’t, say, post it up on a roadside billboard for all to see, or announce it in the new Christina Aguilera pop video clip you’re directing… You wouldn’t go mine the Moon to fill 4th of July beer cooler orders for a quick buck…

I trust you, you see, & I want those I trust always to be in the know.

So… the Moon is made of pure dry ice & few people realize that, you dig? Except now we’ve come ‘round to the May portion of our program & the Sun is winning & it punishes the Moon for January. & it punishes all those of us who worshipped the Moon back then when it was running the show & all those of us who made blood sacrifices to what we now know is an enormous chunk of ice careening @ potentially catastrophic speeds across the surface of this flat & hollow earth we cling to, you & I.

& the Sun, it beats the shit out of us in a sort of divine solar retribution, lashes us until we’re all just simmering in our own excretions. & then Aunt Maxine goes out to move the garden hose & starts melting @ her edges.

Only the garden hose is melting too, so the edges of what is Aunt Maxine & the edges of the aforementioned & now legendary garden hose get kind of blended together like a stir fry where even the noodles wind up tasting like onions so it’s no use whatever to pick the damn things out before eating. It’s just too late.

Aunt Maxine returns inside the house as an Aunt Maxine/garden hose hybrid & her feet look like the doormat so we can almost make out //God Bless This Mess\\ across the tops of her toes. & her hands look like the electric bill she was attempting to retrieve from the mail box when the Sun got her, so we’re going to have to pull off her perforated ring finger to send in with the check so the power doesn’t get cut.

& now we have to remind her not to sit on the chaise lounge because she’s watering the entire living room w/ these 12 rotating streams of water that the neighbor kids are screeching & leaping through with glee in their brightly colored bathing suits.

& Uncle Irwin, he’s fed up w/ the shenanigans so he’s loading his shot gun & he’ll take pot shots @ the arrogant & unrepentant Helios up in his tower, because we’re not going to be able to wait it out ‘til October to venture outside for more whiskey & tampons.

Ah... nothing more than May in Texas. Again.

Fetuses! Stillborns! Cast-Offs!

In the old days,
my sisters & I
(& there were many of us) (more than you could count on all your clubbed fingers & all your hammer toes) (tho the # varied some w/ the season & sometimes I believe there to have been a fake an interloper a cuckoo - or maybe 3 - amongst us at any given time)

my sisters & I,
we would wait
& we’d be very quiet
w/ our ears peeled for the clop-clop-clop
& for the call we’d come to know so well.

The man in the black carriage
coming on down the alley.

Shouting,
//Fetuses! Stillborns! Cast-offs!
$5 per! $5 per!\\

In the old days,
$5 was a lot of money, you see
& it would have been maybe a week & a ½
since any of us had ate a full meal
or been able to afford fresh porn
or Windex.

But even a cockroach can live for months just on the glue on the back of a postage stamp.

So we’d eat our glue
& we’d bide our time
& we’d wait for Amnio Baba to return
coming on down the alley.
In the old days.

//Fetuses! Stillborns! Cast-offs!\\
//Fetuses! Stillborns! Cast-offs!\\

In the old days,
my sisters & I
we’d squeal & we’d run,
our hearts all a’pitter patter,
dreaming of what we’d buy w/ that $5
or if it had been an exceptionally
hella strange quarter
maybe $10.

Selling to Amnio Baba
our latest abortions
maybe still twitching
or maybe already drifting
in formaldehyde.

It varied a lot.

Sometimes a sister
would get impatient
would get greedy,
jump the gun,
& try to pawn off an embryo
hardly more than a blastocyst, really.

But Amnio Baba was no fool.
Amnio Baba, he knew.
He’d been at this game for years by then.

& even his horse would turn up its nose at such fare.

& Amnio Baba would take a gander
@ this simple collection of cells
posing as a fetus
& then Amnio Baba would shout:

//What is it that you take me for, you thieving pre-teen fraud?
& how dare you run out here
& try to pass off this…
this zygotic monstrosity
as a fetus!!
Why, I have ½ a mind to skip this house entirely
next go-round!\\

//& then you & all your bloody sisters
can go & try
to sell off your oozing miscarriages
to some hackneyed carnie somewhere
@ maybe ½ the price & twice the bother.
I warn you, girl: I have done it before.\\

Then he’d spit
& give the errant (maybe) sister in question 50 cents for the embryo anyway.

But still…

That night we’d eat well
& go to sleep w/ our bellies full
of potato salad instead of babies
for a change.

In the old days,
it never occurred to us
while pocketing all those $5 bills
to ever even wonder
let alone to ask
Amnio Baba
where it was he rolled off to
in his black horse-drawn carriage
w/ all those withered abortions.

Swastika girl.

& I have this friend, you see.
She’s a good friend & an overall fine gal,
makes a good bloody mary,
washes behind her ears,
& never picks her nose in public.

What else could you ask for in a friend,
really?

But there’s this & here’s the thing…
She’s got this tattoo…
& the tattoo goes all the way around her arm
& it’s red and it’s black and it’s white,
& it’s like a Nazi armband.

Complete with Swastika.

Perfectly nice girl,
but I do wonder about her judgment.

I mean, she’s never so much as hinted
that she & I should go
running through town on a Saturday night
& break storefront windows
of Jewish shop owners

or invade Poland.

& maybe she’s into Nazi imagery
the same way the next guy is into Star Wars
or Twilight.

But is it still too soon?

& I mean, even me…
I have this damn John Edwards ’08 tat
to remind me of my own embarrassing past.

But a Swastika?

Let me lay it down –
if it were me?
I’d get the thing retouched
into something less horrific.
Like maybe an image of Kevin Costner
being sodomized by the Bee Gees.

But the tat is there
& from the looks of it
it’s not going anywhere
for as long as she still has the arm.

& I remain her friend
despite my doubts.

But we never talk politics
& I never use her shower
or her oven.

December 21, 2012.

Reading the spackle.

I knocked a hole through my ceiling the other night. Several holes, actually. The other night, I beat the hell out of my ceiling with an old black & orange hammer from Sears.

I beat holes in my ceiling – over there in the corner by the window – & then I climbed up into my attic & I poured water down the holes.

It was the best I could come up with at short notice.

I had to see him.

Once I created the water damage, then I called my landlord & I screamed

about how the water had run down
& destroyed 5 of my very best paintings
& stained the wall
& given my cat (Bike) pneumonia.

So then the landlord, he sent the guys.
He sent the guy who finds the phantom leaks.
He sent the guy who puts up new drywall
& he sent the guy who paints.

& most of all, he sent the guy who spackles.
A little guy – Mexican – English-less – wearing a flannel shirt over an old //vote Dukakis ‘88\\ T.

I doubt this little guy has a 3rd grade education
or papers letting him work this side of the border.
But he’s the guy who spackles, so I knock holes in my ceiling & then I crouch in the corner in my mask with my arms around my knees & I watch him.

In the ridges of his spackling there is magic, you see. This spackle guy, he is an artist & a prophet & he doesn’t even know it. He thinks he’s just covering up seams in the drywall, but he’s Nostradamus & he’s Michelangelo squeezed into one body.

& when he leaves, I lie on my back under the fresh spackling
& I see it.

I see how you are going to die
& who killed Kennedy
& what the Year 5321 will look like.
I see a picture of Forever.

Who needs tea leaves?
Who needs clouds?
Who needs the Sistine Chapel?

I relax my mind
& I’m reading the spackle
& it’s almost time for some new water damage.

Your typical crackhead.

The City came to tear down the trees. Not ALL of the trees, but rather, ONE of the trees. The one which used to grow by the curb outside my bedroom window.

It was a very old tree - older than me, I suppose - but the City came to tear it down because crackheads stored their pipes & their lighters & their cheap rock cocaine inside a hollow place in the tree trunk.

It wasn't the tree's fault.

I went outside to watch them tear down the tree. Some police officers came to watch, too. They parked at weird angles all over & turned on their lights & red & white & blue flashed on all the houses.

While we were waiting, the police told me some things about crackheads.

//Your typical crackhead can smell an officer on the beat from a mile & a 1/2 away.\\

//Your typical crackhead can take 3 bullets at 20 paces & still lift up a car.\\

//Your typical female addict can give birth to baby crackheads 5 times a year.\\

//Crackheads cannot perceive the color blue & when pursued or scared, have been known to dead leap a 15 ft. fence.\\

//The eyes of longterm addicts will gradually migrate to the sides of their heads like rabbits or other hunted animals.\\

After hearing these things, I think I might want to do crack.

I've never lifted a whole car before!

The funny little man.

I met a little man on the street yesterday. A funny little man with a lip ring & I'm pretty sure two too many fingers. He counted clouds in Base 12.

The funny little man with the lip ring & I'm pretty sure two too many fingers, he tried to hire me as his lawyer.

I said I'm not a lawyer & don't know a thing about the law.

//Aren't you?\\ he asked me. //Aren't you that arrogant chick? Roundabout 32 years old? Red-haired attorney? Stands about 5'7" & gets a lot of speeding tickets?\\

I looked at him like he was speaking Chinese, which is a language I do not know. //No.\\ I said. //I am a 39-year old hermit saint. Heresiarch extraordinaire. Dark hair. 5'1". Masked.\\

How is it a body comes to make a mistake such as that, with me standing right there & all?

Maybe on top of the dozen-or-so fingers, maybe he was blind, too. Some guys have all the luck.

I met a little man on the street yesterday who mistook me - ME! - for a young urban professional. He wasn't all that funny, actually, when you get right down to it. I don't know quite why I ever said he was.

After I met him, I went home & painted what I figured the mythical red-haired lawyer probably looked like. Some redheads are witches.

Watch the skies for their brooms!

The Grok.

Please let me introduce myself, on the off-chance I have not previously done so or circumstances have been such that we have not crossed paths some other way before now.

It is really so very thoughtless of me. I know you deserve better.

Me, I’m Amnesia Grok. That’s A-M-N-E-S-I-A & G-R-O-K, & not Lady Gaga nor Baba Yaga, not Adri Anna nor Our Lady of Fatima, & I’m not Saint Teresa nor the Queen of Siam.

I’m just Amnesia Grok & it's a pleasure to finally meet you & how do you do?

& this is where I live & this is where I stay most all the time. I don’t go out much, you know. It’s just easier this way, now that I am so unwelcome in so very many places.

I have thought of even closing up the door with cement & with bricks. Once & for all. To keep the inside in. To keep the outside out.

Simile: I am like an Anchoress.
Metaphor: I am an Anchoress.
Future Perfect: I shall have become an Anchoress.

I am not sure which one it is right now.

When I am an Anchoress, then my people will come & they will shove little things between the bars on the window. They will push in foods & fresh paintbrushes, shampoo & strings, fabrics & some little scraps of paper.

...for me to use...

& in exchange, through the bars, I will push out colorful gloves I have sewn that week & paintings of delightfully disfigured monsters, some new poems I have written & always more puppets of rags.

...for them to sell for some money... So that my people can bring me more foods & more fresh paintbrushes & more all of the rest.

What? Well, fine, but admit it: It’s no more or less of a vicious cycle than your intolerable life, now is it? & besides, I know what it is they say about me out there. I listen through my headphones to what it is that the neighbors say, & my headphones are quite crisp & quite clear, so I hear every word.

I hear the neighbors telling their children – little boys & little girls – telling them to be good & to behave & to do what it is little boys & little girls are supposed to always do.

They say //Wash your hands before you come to the table. Eat your peas before you leave.\\

They say //Brush your teeth up & down & back & forth, even those places where it's very hard to reach. Go to bed when you are told. Say your prayers before you sleep.\\

They say //If you don’t, then the Grok's gonna come & the Grok's gonna get you!! The Grok! The Grok!\\

I hear them through my headphones. I hear the children shriek & squeal. Out of fear of the Grok, the children do as they are told.

But I’m still Amnesia Grok & it's a pleasure to finally meet you & how do you do?

The thinking 'bout Saint Peter blues.

I am told
by people I trust reasonably well
that they crucified him
upside down.

I am told
he requested it that way
so they did him up special.

Personally,
I am not convinced
that it could work
like that or in that way.

With nail(s) through the feet, I mean.

Cos it seems like skin 'tween the tarsals
just wouldn’t hold
not with the weight of
a fully grown apostle on it
& with nothing like the ulna/radius combo
to compensate.

They’d probably have to tie him up there with a rope.

He’d still die.
Eventually.

Maybe I was simply told wrong.
Maybe he tripped & hit his head
in a dark Roman alley
or fell out a window,
drowned crossing the Tiber,
or caught the latest bug goin’ round.

After all,
there are so many ways to die
& it was all so cheap & easy
back then.

Or so I’m told.

Latecomer.

To whom it may concern.

I carry a letter around with me at all times just like they told me to. It is from my doctor. When I need to show it to somebody, like when I am for instance about to get thrown out of Kroger, I reach into my pocket & I take it out & unfold it. Then I show it to the person who is mad.

The letter always says this when they read it:

//To Whom it May Concern:

//Please be advised that [------ ----] is under my psychiatric care. As part of her ongoing treatment, she wears a therapeutic mask in public. The mask enables her to interact with others to the extent necessary to purchase food, medicine, & other life essentials.

//I ask that appropriate accommodation be made for her appearance. Should you have additional questions or concerns, feel free to call me at [(---) -------].

//This letter complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Section blah blah blah.

//Sincerely, Dr. [--- ------].\\

But the lady at Kroger did not care about the letter I carry. She told me to leave the store & to not come back.

I left the store & walked across the store's parking lot. I sat down on tree legs.

Tree pants.

Afterwards, I rested on the tree legs. Barky knees poked my privates where I sat.

I think it's a boy tree.

I ought to stitch a pair of pants for the poor thing. It's so cold out & anyway, sitting around out in the public open air without benefit of pants is indecent!

Banned.

It finally happened.

Last night. I knew it was going to happen but I did not know that it was going to happen last night.

What happened is that I got banned from Kroger. Kroger is the big grocery chain where I buy all the food I eat. But last night I got banned & now I am unable to go back & buy more food.

This is bad, & it's bad because not eating any more food is not what you might call a viable option for me.

Maybe I can start growing my own food right here in my apartment. That would show those Kroger bastards.

Probably not, though. I can't see me managing to grow grapes & bananas & spinach & potatoes all inside this tiny apartment.

Besides, for that I'd need to go buy soil & seeds & maybe some heat lamps, & getting banned from the nursery down the street is the last thing I need right now.

Maybe I can order all my food online & have it delivered. There's got to be somebody in the greater Temixoch area who offers this service.

All this talk of food has made me hungry, which is unfortunate because what is in the fridge right this minute has got to last me for the foreseeable future.

Things To Do, Updated.

The Sanitarium has fallen. Ahead of schedule. It was almost TOO easy.

Two down, three to go:

Restrain myself from making resolutions or taking vows. 1.

Mark the new year with a fresh tattooing. 2.

Actively begin a writing journal. 3.

Keep track of the moon. 4.

Tear down Adri’s Sanitarium. 5.

Urban Navigation.

Urban navigation is a genetic talent. A recessive gene. Either both biological parents have it or they do not.

Mine did not.

Because of this, I have found myself trapped within the city of Temixoch, Texas now for many years. Lost. Utterly unable to find my way out. I have heard stories in passing of London. Of Cairo. Of Paris. There is supposedly even a place they call //Rio de Janeiro\\, although I am not certain I believe them.

Can you imagine such a thing?

//Rio de Janeiro\\?

When I checked the mailbox, I had received an invitation to an art gallery opening somewhere in the city. It came with a map so people would know how to get there to see the art. People with the navigation gene anyway.

I looked at the map. Only a jumble of lines & arrows & street names. It might as well have been in Braille.

I took the map & I showed it to a friend. I said //Can you help me get to this place?\\ I was a little bit desperate. It was like I was asking her to translate the Dead Sea Scrolls.

At night, I have dreams & the dreams are uniformly bad. I dream that dragons are attacking the city. I’d be safe if I were out in the country, only I can’t leave because I’m trapped & I’m trapped because I’m lost & I’m lost because I do not possess the urban navigation gene.

So if you need me, you know where to find me.

Things to Do.

By now it is generally accepted that the Year 2010 is not going away. I must therefore find something to do with it.

It is good to find things to do.

Things to do:

Restrain myself from making resolutions or taking vows. 1.
2. Mark the new year with a fresh tattooing. 2.
3. Actively begin a writing journal. 3.
4. Keep track of the moon. 4.
5. Tear down Adri’s Sanitarium. 5.

This is a good list. These are good things to do.

I should get started doing them.