Back From The Bleak & Into The Black

I'm listening to Eartha Kitt circa 1954, not Willy Nelson or Johnny Cash, so you all have to know I'm doing better. I even lifted my free weights tonight. I went to the chiropractor this morning and did what most men my age really want, for a woman to beat the holy hell out of them. My vertebrae sounded like xylophones in a subway and my neck cracked so good I was dizzy and disoriented, and had a nosebleed when I arrived home. Trust me, that's a good thing.

Phil Dick would have loved my current situation. I cannot comment on my own blog. And even though I can reply to anyone on Twitter at regular speed, if I type on my own "What are you doing?" entry, the keyboard jumps and starts my letters in the entry. I'm certain there are other elements that have subtly conspired against me and I've yet to find out. Phil would have written a novel about such happenings in about six hours and after gulping 140 amphetamines. Me, I just go to the chiropractor and give them 1/3 of my unemployment check, just so I can type again with only a modicum of grimacing. I'm not wearing pads or chewing on my shirt collar, so I'm cool.

I seem to be involved in clandestine activities. Writing projects I cannot talk about. And tonight, a focus survey where I went up north, just past the Allerton and the Tip-Top-Tap and watched a pilot for a reality show where you give responses by twirling a dial on an EmotionDetector, something I would have loved to palm and then point at people on a crowded el train. The show was a dating show and it reminded me exactly how idiotic the entire human race is, and how shallow most people are in general. I got $75.00 for the ordeal, and I left, walking to cash the check at the currency exchange that will cash ANY check, no questions asked, at the corner of Chicago & Clark Street. I know where to cash checks and where there's a working pay phone, I'm kind of like a modern day version of Roger Miller's King Of The Road. I had to pass a stretch of building of odd shapes, five steps up to one business, five down to another, in the middle of it all Streeter's Tavern. I listened to the last three outs of the White Sox game even though I'm a Cubs fan. I just enjoyed the manner of which I listened to the game, the door open in the mild October night, a sliver of moon above the Cass Hotel behind me.

Once before, I watched a show for a focus group, Allysa Milano said vagina a lot and moved from Atlanta to Savannah to work for the family law firm. The show never aired on TV, and I drove the control group off by turning my dial to 100 every single moment James Brolin was on the screen. I only liked him in Marcus Welby, but thought it neater than turning it to 100 every time Milano screamed vagina (to be fair, she was giving birth to a child before the opening credits).

I took my plunder and bought a belt at Old Navy on State Street. This is the first belt I've purchased in eight years, except for the one I wear with my graveyard suit. I don't think to buy clothes until they are a few days away from molecular decomposition. I took the old belt and tossed it on the subway tracks, not to really litter, just to monitor how long it will be there. I make my own fun. Before that, though, I went into the Borders (I know, like buying something from Lex Luthor) and purchased THE GIVEN DAY by Dennis Lehane, the author of one of my three favorite books, MYSTIC RIVER. Almost 700 pages about the 1918 Boston riots. I trust him enough that I know I'll enjoy this new direction he has taken with his writing. It'll be a bastard to carry around, though.

Well, enough for me. Back to my writing. Then I'll watch HEROES before my usual five hours of sleep. And look, I even segmented my blog entry with paragraphs. I'll be a writer yet, a chronicler of deeds both good and bad...Wayne