The End

The Rum Death Orgy Show is being retired. I'm still offering rants, gripes, curses and general observations at Grand Elitist Superior Knowing.

My failed NaNoWriMo 2008

Five days into the exercise I am only now beginning the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge. Five days behind. I should be completing 8000 words by today, November 5th, 2008, but so far have only one paragraph.

The difficulty is coming up with something in the first place. I don’t really need a plot (in fact one of the mottos is No Plot? No Problem!) but still I’d like to have something cohesive, something more than random words. The point, after all, isn’t just to get 50,000 words typed in a month’s time, but to actually complete a novel.

You would think following an historic election where the Republicans had their asses handed to them I’d be inspired – no such luck.

I’ve been given some advice from the NaNoWriMo folks – the main one probably being No Formatting, to wait until December for that. Format what? Even if I copped out and had my entry be a daily journal I know 1600+ words-per-day is not easy. Most of my longest blogs aren’t even that large. Tammy’s gargantuan blog where she told the world about that dickhead Andras Jones barely broke 30,000.

Obama has won the Presidency. Dino Rossi has conceded defeat to Christine Gregoire. Sam Reed won (see, I’m not automatically Anti-Republican.) Course I-1000 passed so I didn’t win everything – and the folks down in California got fucked by homophobic Blacks and Mexicans. Certain people should be wiped out by plague to make this a better planet.


I used to be a prolific blogger. First with Satanosphere – I might’ve only posted a paragraph or two at a time, but they were consistent, and they were often. Even after the ‘Sphere’s demise I kept Blogspot fed. Sometimes Myspace or the Borg-site that calls itself OlyBlog had posts. But they’ve become few and sparse.

I used to write fiction. I can’t tell you if any of it was good – I was a teenager, and I don’t think any of it’s survived. My mom insists my writings are safely packed somewheres but I know how my Dad loved to burn what he considered crap – and the main criteria for what he considers crap is that it’s not anything that belongs to him.

I wrote one my Freshman year which made me popular with some of the guys. They liked it because I cussed a lot and threw a few insults at some of our teachers. I wrote it the weekend after Andre the Giant, with the help of Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase, his bodyguard Virgil, and referee Earl Hebner (evil twin to authorized official Dave), ended Hulk Hogan’s four year reign as Heavyweight Champion of the World Wrestling Federation. The match had taken place on live television and major news venues covered the title change.

In my story Hogan and the other Faces of the WWF enlisted my help to regain the title for the good guys. Somehow or other I ended up wearing spiked shoes and jumping up and down on Andre’s crotch until he was bleeding gunk.

A couple years later I wrote a larger story, using real names, where I became public enemy to the Olympia Police Department after going public with my thoughts on Danny Spencer (who had died in police custody a few weeks prior.) The OPD, various teachers that I didn’t like much, and the George Herbert Walker Bush Administration had it in for me. After the Secret Service informed Bush that I had returned to the country – and that they had reason to believe Pope John Paul II was with me – the story ended unfinished.

After that came a story which, if I had written and shared it in a post-Columbine world, could’ve gotten me expelled, sent to court-ordered counseling, and might even have caused my parents to be investigated. Again using real names I wrote about Merwyn Haskett being fed up once and for all with various people and completely wiping them out. I wrote about how my bus driver – an overweight warthog who I had no respect for and only have a smidge of with 20/20 hindsight – crashed the schoolbus and was too globular to release herself from behind the wheel. (Some of us would joke that when she parked the bus at night an attendant needed to remove the wheel – after which she’d apply burn ointment to her abdomen.) I wrote about how Portable 6 – full of Freshmen – was torched with everyone inside and how word of the tragedy – which took place during 1st period – didn’t reach the office until the end of the day due to administrative disorganization.

Some victims were generic – such as panhandlers who I dissolved like slugs by throwing detergent on. Even friends weren’t immune – I wrote about drowning one of my better friends for mildly insulting me, and then apologizing to his Dad who dismissed it as not a big deal.

Today, at age 36, I can’t quite endorse that kind of a fantasy when real names are being used.

After my Senior Year I started a story which I had real ambition for. I wrote more pages for that one than any other – nearly 40 double-sided single-spaced. Working with what I knew it was a group of friends immediately after school let out – some graduated, others had a year or two to go. They were aimless and driftless – hanging around downtown Olympia as a hot July cooked the town and hanging out at parties at night. Sometimes the parties would focus on Truth or Dare, Spin the Bottle, but then one day they started fucking around with a Ouija Board – the protagonist (and you get one guess who he was patterned after) started sensing someone watching him, especially at night when he was alone. I ended the first section with him and the obligatory woman being covered in a fiery web which disappeared – taking them with it.

I’m not sure which direction I was going to take it next – and I never worked on it again.


I’ve had story ideas. Not complete ones. The longest lasting fragment of an idea involves a Lotto winner who opted for the yearly payments. (25 years now, but only 20 when I first conceived it.) Every year he took his payment (which for a “measly” one million would’ve been $36,000 or $28,800 per year depending on division) and blew it playing Blackjack in Vegas. The story takes place in Vegas on his final year.


November 6

Instead of writing I’m downloading unknown WFMU MP3s on a phoneline.


The Olympia Film Festival starts tomorrow. We’ll be attending the Opening Night Gala: the 1928 Buster Keaton silent film Steamboat Bill, Jr. along with a 12 minute Man Ray short from the same year. Both movies will have live musical accompaniment. A replica of the Capitol Theater’s original marquee will be unveiled. The night is supposed to have a 1920’s theme to it: Dancers and Singers.

We didn’t go last year since we have no interest in anything Bollywood. We went the year before to watch C.R.A.Z.Y.

We’re going to All Freakin’ Night again and I fear I’ll have to miss some of it. Tammy has promised and promised that she’d ask the gentleman who’s often substituted for the Think Tank, but she’s continued to put it off. Now, I realize I could’ve just asked him myself; I realize I could’ve asked any number of other KAOS programmers; I realize that even if she asked him weeks ago he might’ve said “no” – but still I wouldn’t have been hanging on to hope if she wouldn’t have offered to ask him for me in the first place.

The first time we went to All Freakin’ Night we voluntarily called it quits after the third (or was it fourth?) movie. Two years ago we made it all the way through and even finished with an 11am breakfast at The Reef before going home (although to be honest I dozed through parts of one of the movies.)

Last year we had to leave early (even though I wouldn’t have wanted to) because we didn’t have a sub for the Think Tank. That’s what I wanted to avoid this year – I especially haven’t wanted to buy the tickets at a time when money’s a bit tight and then not even attend the entire event.

Tammy’s promised that one way or the other there’s some options to make it up if things don’t go my way. One is that she would take the bus to Evergreen herself to do the show and then I could pick her up when we’re both done. The other option – which I fear is the one she’ll ultimately offer – is that she’d give me 5 bucks back to reimburse the last couple movies that I would miss for doing the show myself.

If I do the show that morning I am going to live up to my reputation as KAOS’ crankiest programmer.


It has rained hard all day long. A continuous gray sheet of water has fallen – there’s been warnings of standing water on the roadways. People would park at work and already be soaked through when they reached the front door.

It was already dark when I left at 5:00 to buy the tickets. Driving at night in the rain is my least favorite activity. For all intensive porpoises I’m blind then. I can barely see the lines that divide the road – not the biggest deal when I’m on familiar ground but enough to cripple me in an unknown location.

I had to park two blocks and around the corner from the theater but the rain started to slow down and left me not-so-wet.


I made myself some Scottish Breakfast loose-leaf tea, splashed some milk in it (which is often a rare treat for me), and added honey. I don’t know why I chose to do that because, while I love the taste of honey, I’ve never been satisfied with honey-sweetened tea.

When different kinds of tea are brewed, black or green, flavoured, plain or herbal, I can usually smell the different scents they create but can’t taste anything at all unless it’s been sweetened with sugar. Unsweetened tea of any kind tastes the same to me – as slightly off-flavoured hot water. The two exceptions are mint and lemon but even that means they each have a different off-flavour.

I suspect the same is true for flavoured coffees. I’m not talking about when baristas add syrup to lattes and mochas, I’m talking about ground coffee that’s already flavoured with caramel or hazelnut or Irish Cream. The aroma of it brewing fills the entire house and makes me salivate in anticipation – but then a cup of it tastes no different from any other cup of coffee. Sugar might bring it out, but I can’t stand the taste of sweetened coffee.


November 8

At this rate I’m not going to reach 50,000 words by the 30th. Wouldn’t be the first time I left a project half-finished.

We went to the Opening Gala last night – it was fun. It was barely sprinkling when we walked to the theater, and we didn’t need to wait in line. The new $25,000 sign was up but not lit.

After some modern dance that wasn’t anything to write about (the dancers were out of synch, plus the choreography was boring – they’d probably get buzzered on America’s Got Talent) we saw the Man Ray short. There’s a reason I’m not into French Surrealism. For twelve minutes we saw out of focus people mixed with jars of starfish.

The main movie was awesome. It’s the famous one with a hurricane at the end and the front of a house falling around Buster Keaton (he stood in the right spot to be where the window was and avoided being squashed.)

It’s the third time we saw a silent movie with live musical accompaniment. We also saw a 1924 version of Peter Pan and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari a few years ago.

There were one or two people who looked like they were dressed for the 20’s but most were like us: anywheres from “kind of” to “not at all”

Tammy left her ID at home so we couldn’t go upstairs to where Fish Tail Brewery was making money. I was sent upstairs to see what it looked like and grumbled that I was 36 when asked for my ID.


November 10, 2008

Jesus Christ. There’s no fucking way I’m going to complete this. Just another unfinished challenge or project in a long-life’s worth of them. But then again, If I’m actually letting you read this on Blogger or Myspace or LiveJournal then I actually completed it somehow.

Unless I’m copping out and considering 30,000 words an achievement.


Approximately 2100 words so far. I’m supposed to have almost 17,000 by now.


Tammy scored the use of OFS Film Festival Full Passes for the weekend. We saw a documentary filmed in Seattle called …well, damned if I remember…and a movie that Mary Stuart Masterson directed called The Cake Eaters.

The documentary was on homeless people in Seattle: one of the individuals featured was a likeable fellow named Tomey who has AIDS and has been fighting drug-demons. At various times in the movie he looked so thin as to almost be a skeleton. Midway the footage showed him unconscious in a hospital bed – he had suffered a heart attack. I expected at some point in the film to learn that he had died.

So when the documentary ended and I learned that Tomey and the director (Linas) were now going to answer questions from the audience I was pleasantly surprised. Not only that but we learned that Tomey’s been clean for two years.

I got to talk to both of them a little bit. Originally I hadn’t even cared if I’d seen the documentary – I went more out of agreement that it got us out of the apartment. I was glad to have gone.


2300 words. Shit.


I should be doing laundry. I should be finishing the dishes and starting dinner. Instead I’m fucking around at the keyboard. No Plot, No Problem, right?


We don’t ever have meat. I’m not a vegetarian, I’d prefer to be a carnivore. But meat’s not in our budget. I get to have canned tuna, an occasional can of chicken, and cocktail shrimp.

Even if I could afford to buy any damn thing in the store Tammy’s cut red meat out of her diet. She could care less what I ate, but while I don’t mind cooking I’m not big on cooking two separate meals at once.

I try to make enough dinner each night that there’s leftovers for lunch. Otherwise I’m stuck buying fast food, providing frozens beforehand, or trying to make something during my lunch hour.

All we ever have is pasta or rice – once in a blue moon I get to make a pot of soup or throw things like cottage cheese and store-bought potato salad on lettuce leaves.

Those lotto numbers just haven’t been cooperating with me. And still Safeway sends me advertisements in the mail showing juicy cuts of bloody steak.


I have also fallen way behind on reading. Once upon a time I could be working on 3, even 4, books at a time. I love reading. But I’ve had the same library books here for a month – only one’s been touched, and I’ve been stalled about 50 pages into it.


Maybe I used so much energy in my early 20s, and then drank so much coffee and Red Bull that I’ve completely blown my system out.


I’m listening to an hour-long MP3 that I downloaded off of WFMU’s blog. It’s a mix – in spots a complete mash-up – and I think that’s what this entire project is going to be like.


Okay, you have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents etc. At that rate the doubled numbers of ancestors continue at sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four. If we go at three generations per century then at the beginning of the 18th we’d have five hundred twelve ancestors, a century prior four thousand ninety-six. Before we even reach the time of Christ we’d have more ancestors than there were ever people who existed. We’re all inbred somewhere in our tree.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles are not only Mother and Son, they’re also Third Cousins. King Christian IX of Denmark is both the Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather (6) and Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather (7) to Prince William.

Still, the British royal family isn’t at genetically fucked-up as the Hapsburgs were.


If I were to cut and paste all of my old blogs that would be cheating. However, anything I’ve written from November 1st on would be fair game, seeing as how this is just a rambling rant. Question is, do I have anything?

From Olyforums.net on Sunday the 2nd.

So, I'm looking for the means to make a little extra money - just enough to bump my bank account back up into my comfort level instead of the critical danger depths it's been at since we took our trip back in September (yeah - my fault - I splurged a few Ben Franklins more than I should have.)The only reason I'm not applying for a Part Time job to moonlight is because I'll feel like a heel quitting it after the first few paychecks put me where I need to be. (Although I'll consider it for places needing Holiday Help.)I don't have any crap to sell on Craigslist or Ebay, I'm not in such desperate circumstances as to become a lab rat, sperm donor, - to pawn my stuff, sell my soul to the payday loan folks, go to the casino, etc.So, seeking odd jobs looks to be what my option is. I'm not picky (though I don't have the know-how for most standard home DIY projects)If anyone happens to hear of someone needing something done on early weeknight evenings or on the weekends I'll be eternally grateful to be given a heads up.Thanks All

All I ever heard back on that was a friend saying he’d give me $50 to dive into Budd Bay and retrieve a gun he dropped in the water. Needless to say, I haven’t done any diving.

From Olyforums.net on Friday the 7th.

The Not-A-Bomb-Scare Post

This morning at work we witnessed a person walking in the rain. They were wearing shorts which was why they first caught our attention, but then they shuffled underneath their parka and left an object next to a tree before crossing the street and heading toward Heritage Park.We sent one of the guys to see what it was - it was a radio. The office was divided between people like me who merely thought the guy was littering (or perhaps dropping a hot item) and those who thought that perhaps it might be booby-trapped with an anthrax bomb.Who would sabotage us? We're on the isthmus, that's about the only thing I could imagine a loony having a problem with us about. One of the guys had me locate the number for OPD dispatch, and just as he called them he was able to flag down a cop. The poor guy had to get out of his warm car into the rain to check it out. Nothing blew up.The End[Just as I finished typing this, the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile drove past. That, along with the giant spider a co-worker set up under a cup for me to find and shriek over this morning, has me wondering what kind of day this is going to be]

And then today I posted this:

I voted against I-1000 and was happy to read that Providence Health will not be participating at all and was relieved to read that the law wouldn't force any health care professional to participate.Yet I would be all for requiring doctors to prescribe Emergency Contraception if the patient needed it.If I bake enough cake can I have it and eat it too?

Well, that’s it for Olyforums so far in the month of November.

Oh look, I’m wasting time formatting after all.


700 Words. That’s what I added from Olyforums. That’s just too fucking pathetic.


November 11

Veterans Day is on the actual 11th day this year.

Work was slow today. Good thing since we ended up being two people short in Inside Sales.


I bought an armload of cheap-ass Public Domain DVDs at the Dollar Store – and they were only fifty cents each. I got:

The Three Stooges featuring Disorder in the Court, Brideless Groom and Malice in the Palace.
Flash Gordon Vol. 1 featuring Deadline at Noon, Flash Gordon and the Planet of Death and Flash Gordon and the Brain Machine.
Flash Gordon Vol. 2 featuring Akim the Terrible, The Lure of Light, Saboteurs From Space, Subworld Revenge, Struggle to the End and Return of the Androids.
Jungle Book (the 1942 Sabu version directed by Zoltan Korda)
Who Killed Doc Robbin (directed by Hal Roach)
Hercules Against the Moon Men
Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla
Million Dollar Kid (an East Side Kids movie)
The Iron Mask (silent Douglas Fairbanks version)
The Phantom Empire (starring Gene Autry)
Double Feature (The Beatniks, and Wild Guitar)

Hmm…lists are an easy and cheap way of filling out pages.


I have been promised that I won’t be forced to leave All Freakin’ Night early.


My latest addition on my Facebook friend’s list, a former highschool classmate, has no memory whatsoever of who I am. This is humbling since I convinced myself back then that everyone knew who I was. I saw to it, at any rate, that I got plenty of attention.

I’ve actually reconnected with tons of classmates, most who until recently I haven’t given a thought to in almost twenty years. Some of them I didn’t get along with at all back then and now we’re shooting friendly messages to each other all the time.

Meanwhile some of those who I considered my best friends are still invisible – whether they’re luddites or incognito while in the online world.


If William S. Burroughs could make money off of that piece-of-crap book Naked Lunch then maybe there’s hope for this project after all.


Here are all the jobs I’ve had:

Caucasian Migrant at Lawler Nursery – quit after one day, made less than $35 for 9 hours of work.
1-Day Temp organizing inventory at Cammarano Bros. Distributors – made extra money since they were kind enough not to deduct for benefits they knew I wouldn’t get.
Dishwasher through two incarnations of that restaurant in the Tumwater Valley.
Peon Grunt for SuperStructures, Inc. – a General Contractor, my worst-fit job ever.
Slave – for Sam Walton in his Shelton Gulag, the only job I was fired from.
Plebean – McDonalds (How sad a McDonalds job in my mid-20s was ten times better than my Wal-Mart job.)
Midnite Baker – Bagel Brothers (horrible hours but decent pay, free food and nice owners.)
Temp – After graduating from that joke of a school BCTI a Tacoma-based temp agency placed me in Gates-McDonald-Gibbons (an L&I joint) for five weeks.
Temp – Through Express Personnel, spent months at Memorial Clinic doing data entry before being moved to Head Start’s admin offices in the ESD 113 building for what was to have been a one-day temp, but then it was extended to the week, then to the end of the month, then to the following month.
Operations Secretary – Sound to Harbor Head Start/ECEAP who decided to just hire me and be done with it.
Temp – Returned to Express Personnel, only instead of being sent to office clerical jobs was sent to industrial warehouses. Often wondered what in God’s Name I was thinking during this time period.
Operator – TicketWindow Inc. in Seattle and Bellevue. If you went to a theatrical show in King County and called a number to buy tickets you might’ve talked to me.
Cutco Knife Salesman – I sold just enough knives to earn just enough commission to pay Tammy back for having funded my starter kit. I at least got a Cutco vegetable peeler, Ice Cream Scoop and Pizza Cutter out of my time there but I gave the Peeler to Paul Pearson as a birthday gift and the other two items were lost last year when we moved. I hope Tammy’s sister somehow ended up with them as opposed to them being tossed in the dumpster.
Temp – One more time with Express Personnel who once again gave me plenty of decent work in decent locations including Olympia Master Builders (where I pretended to be a tree-hating Republican to fit in), Thurston County Auditors during the 2004 election (a soul-crushing night) and my current company.
Secretary/Office Manager – my current company who I’m not identifying on the off-chance I post this online.


Halloween Costumes I can remember:

1977 – Clown (store-bought)
1978 – Clown (old clothes thrown together and make-up)
1979 – Ghost (got tired of not being able to see while Trick-or-Treating, tore the holes in the face to let my head through and probably looked like a KKK kid with the hood off.
1980 – Perot the French Clown (my Aunt made the costume based on a porcelain mime in the Sears Christmas catalogue.)
1981 – a bat (another costume made by my Aunt)
1982 – Scarface (unflavoured gelatin, corn starch and red food coloring applied to my face and allowed to harden. Looked cool but was irritating on the skin and impossible to peel off.)
1983 – Roman Gladiator (but with a cardboard sword which didn’t survive the wooden swords of pirates on the school bus.)
1984 – Cowboy (back when we could still bring guns to school.)
1986 – Flasher (Various girls at Reeves Middle School thought I was disgusting for dressing up that way. Years later some classmates at Oly asked me if I had had anything on under my trench coat.)
1990 – Cowboy (Just threw stuff on that I found in my closet.)
1991 – Cowboy (Same as year before – was sneered at by Drew Lehnis who would later get his worthless ass shot dead.)
1993 – Cowboy (Hey, it worked before, and this time it got me into Old Thekla with a dollar shaved off the cover charge.)
1994 – Drag (leather cap, glitter make-up, eyeliner, dangly earrings, hair untied, tank-top, shaved arms and armpits and perky-sized socks stuffing me. I was popular with the co-workers. The next day they asked me where my titties were, I answered they were on my feet.)
1997 – Some sort’ve Dungeons and Dragon warrior thing my ex-wife made.
2002 – Catholic Priest (my cousin fixed me up with the outfit – it led to me drunk-singing a Catholic Priest version of Bruce Springsteen’s I’m on Fire at New Thekla’s karaoke and having people throw things at me out of disgust.)
2008 – A rubber Frankenstein mask, two sizes too small, bought at the Dollar Store for the sole purpose of saving a buck at Night of the Living Tribute Bands.


November 12

I’ve just been listening to the experimental album version of Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium is the Massage. It is one of the most cut-up scattered things I’ve listened to in a long time. Kinda makes good inspiration for what I’ve been doing here.


I was born 9 years to the day after JFK’s parade was abruptly ended. It was the same day as my Aunt’s 22nd birthday. The next day was my first Thanksgiving.


I want to have my cake and eat it too. If I bake enough of it myself will that be possible?


I’ve lived in Lacey, Olympia, Spokane, Otis Orchards, Aberdeen, Hogans Corner (Hoquiam), Shelton, Littlerock and Seattle.


11/22/73

I don’t remember this day.

11/22/74

I don’t remember this day but an audiotape of me yelling was recorded.

11/22/75

I don’t remember this day.

11/22/76

I don’t remember this day.

11/22/77

My mom made chocolate cupcakes inside plain cones. When the teacher at daycare was passing them out one of the other kids got excited and shouted “ICE CREAM CONES!”

Of course I couldn’t let him be wrong:

Nuh-Uh!

Uh-Huh!

Nuh-Uh!

11/22/78

My Kindergarten teacher made me a crown out of cardboard.

11/22/79

Thanksgiving Day. I was at my Aunt and Uncles.

11/22/80

I had a birthday party at our apartment in Aberdeen. My sister was one month and one day old. My Grandparents brought a Baskin-Robbins chocolate cake shaped like a train engine and with strawberry ice cream inside.

11/22/81

The entire neighborhood came and brought me presents.

11/22/82

I was stubborn and insisted it could only be celebrated that day. Being a school/work night nobody came.

11/22/83

A classmate named April wrote “Happy Birthday Fish” on the chalkboard.

11/22/84

Thanksgiving at an Aunt and Uncle’s in Beaverton.

11/22/85

Agreed that Birthday’s could be low-key in lieu of Christmas. Scored a boombox on Xmas so it worked out alright. Got a box of almonds.

11/22/86

I’m sure someone said Happy Birthday at school.

11/22/87

This day must’ve happened but damned if I remember.

11/22/88

Kelly Erickson and I said Happy Birthday to each other. Those who overheard us went ahead and said it to me. I was only three years and some odd months away from getting my license at this point.

11/22/89

Some Senior girl that I’d eat lunch with gave me a cupcake with a candle.

11/22/90

Thanksgiving. I turned 18. My Aunt turned 40. I’m sure she’s happy I’m pointing this out.

11/22/91

Various girls at school made it worth my while.

11/22/92

My best friend at the time, who would later break up with her boyfriend and get a girlfriend instead, gave me one of Jim Morrison’s poetry books. Coincidentally a girlfriend I would have for a couple weeks that same year also went on to have girlfriends instead.

11/22/93

I worked the night of my 21st washing dishes. When my shift was done the restaurant I worked at gave me a Long Island Iced Tea. I then drove to the Reef – showed my ID – and had some Tequila Sunrises.

11/22/94

I had just broken up with a girlfriend the month before. She had planned to fill a plastic swimming pool up with Jell-O. Maybe if it was a different girlfriend I would’ve waited until after to break up.

11/22/95

I don’t remember. I was working for a construction company that Autumn. Maybe I was just dead tired.

11/22/96

Didn’t care about the Birthday cuz I was going to the Caribean the following week.

11/22/97

Probably skipped out of class that day. Was attending BCTI. I could’ve thrown $9000 in a bonfire for all the good this school did.

11/22/98

Had missed a call that could’ve continued my recently ended temp work at Memorial Clinic. Was stressing about employment. Within a couple days would be called for a one-day temp at Head Start, which was extended to the rest of the week, which was extended to the rest of the month, which was eventually made permanent.

(didn’t I just say that?)

11/22/99

I got a giant coffee-cup at work. Unfortunately the coffee would get cold long before I could finish – I had to take it home where I had the freedom to sit and do nothing but drink.

11/22/00

I got a regular sized coffee-cup at work.

11/22/01

Thanksgiving. Should’ve been able to have it with my family, what with it being my Birthday and all – but the rotten witch I had the misfortune of being married to insisted doing everything her Mother told her which included having every Goddamn Thanksgiving and Christmas at her fucking house.

Within two months we’d be in the process of divorcing – I retrieved my balls from the back of the dresser drawer where she was hiding them – and after dusting them off they slowly but surely started working again.

11/22/02

New friends threw me a wild party. I drank a whole bottle of Jim Beam, caroused with a bevy of naked and nekked women in a hottub, and somehow had my head shaved.

11/22/03

Tammy and I went to some friends’ house and watched Mystery Science Theater.

11/22/04

Was still stewing and fuming over 50 million stupid Americans keeping Bush elected.

11/22/05

Was still a temp at the place I work now, so didn’t get anything from them.

11/22/06

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving – most people at work weren’t there. About five of us split two pumpkin pies.

11/22/07

Thanksgiving. Was thankful Tammy was on the verge of being done with chemo.

11/22/08

I expect to win the Lotto. I’ll return to this on that day.


When I was a kid I thought God was an adult who looked exactly like me (including babyface features) but was the same three-foot whatever size as me. He spent His days up in Heaven laying flat on the ground where He could watch me through a hole in His ground. If I did anything wrong He’d look up, shake His head, and sigh my name.


In daycare we’d sing that Jesus Loves Me song. Every morning we’d sing that song, where the third line goes “For the Bible Tells Me So.” I always wondered who this boy Miso was, and if I’d ever have a talking Bible that told me things too.


I expected that some morning I’d wake up, look in the mirror and notice I was about three feet taller – shout “I’m Big” in exultation – be congratulated by the folks who would then probably give me a car and send me on my way.


My Mom tried telling me about Hell. I asked what it was and she said it was this Big Fire where God throws people for being bad.

I imagined we could get in the car, drive down River Road, and probably somewheres North of the Spokane Falls in Riverfront Park we’d go down the hill and around the corner and find this vast plain of flames twenty feet high and extending to the horizon.

Once I told my mom if I was there I’d just walk out. She warned me that once you’re in Hell you’re stuck. I visualized people frozen stiff as a statue stuck in the flames.


I was warned that if I grew up to be a bad guy I’d go to jail. I threatened that I’d break out. My Mom warned that if I did that they might just hang me instead.

I visualized that they would hoist me up on a coat hook, like in the cartoons, and leave me hanging there. I threatened that I’d just break out of that too.

“No you wouldn’t because you’d be dead”

That didn’t make sense – I had to come up with something that made it so. I ended up visualizing that what she meant by them hanging me was by spindling the back of my head on a meat hook and leaving me hanging that way. I could see someone being dead because of that.


When I was playing Cops and Robbers with some of the older kids at daycare one of them mentioned that “Bad Guys kill people.”

Some days later when driving home at night a car went barreling down the highway with its lights off. I asked my Mom why he had no lights.

“Because he’s a bad guy.”

“I don’t like bad guys.”

“I don’t either.”

“Bad guys kill people.”

“Yes they do.”

From that point on if I heard of someone being a Bad Guy I thought they’d be liable to just start killing people left and right.

Later I was at a family function of an Aunt and Uncle. His grandmother was one of those mean crotchety old ladies and she was harping on every little thing I did. In my four years I hadn’t yet had to deal with anyone like her. At one point we were going at it and I had to quickly think of the most threatening, evil thing I could think of.

“When I grow up I’m going to be a Bad Guy.”

Later when my Aunt was talking to her I walked right up, pointed to my Aunt’s husband’s grandmother, and matter-of-factly said “I don’t like her!”

Later, when going home, my Aunt asked me if I’d try to like her, explaining that she’s just a little grouchy. I took her request into consideration but there was one important fact I was going to need to be clear on.

“Is she ever going to be a Bad Guy?”


November 12

I’m listening to a bunch of Christian and/or Cold War Propaganda MP3s. Some guy bemoaning the fact that all the heros are gone, and lists some of the few left such as Charles Lindburgh…the fucking Nazi.


Choke – Choke – Choke – Choke

TUSK!


I’m in the middle of doing laundry. Not typing as much as I should.


Tammy’s gotten me watching 90210. I’ll never forgive her for that.


How the Hell do real writers do it?


I’ve been to Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennesee, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. Puerto Rico too.


I’m counting on having some hours with this computer to myself on Saturday, and then on Tuesday. I don’t know if I can catch up on 30,000 words but I’ve got an idea. We’ll see.


November 15

This sucks. When I opened this up just now the display on the bottom said 28,107 characters. For a split-second I wondered how I had caught up so quickly.


…so this is what writer’s block is. It’s understandable when you’re actually trying to glue something together, but this is more like rambler’s block.


The Secret Service says that Obama’s had more threats against his life than any other president-elect in history. The fucking Mormons are blaming the Gay Mafia for mailing them some white powder. Los Angeles is on fire (forget about the water let the motherfucker burn.)

Okay – I’m not sixteen anymore, I tend to curse and show my displeasure in ways other than the F Bomb though you probably couldn’t tell from the examples in these first 18 pages.

Gone are the days of “Winston, if you were my husband I’d put arsenic in your tea.” – “Nancy, if I were your husband I’d drink it.”


We’re going to see All Freakin’ Night tonight. I don’t remember what’s playing except for the 80s remake of Invaders From Mars.


Yesterday at work I witnessed a small parade of hippies walking on the sidewalk past our building waving No War signs and banging on a bongo drum. It was an organized walk-out.

Now, I’m all for people chanting that this war is stupid and that Bush is a moron – I appreciate that, at least while I saw them, they weren’t blocking the street – but what does a minor walkout of work or school accomplish?

“Kiss my ass boss, I’m going into town with my friends – It’s a Revolution!”

In fact, the community’s going to forget about this within the week, posterity will never know that it happened or you existed, however you have a mark on your student record – who knows, perhaps you might even be fired.

When I was still a temp a fellow-temp told our supervisor he wouldn’t be in the next day. The Neo-Nazis were coming to Olympia and he wanted to be in the Counter-Protest Party. He went to that, he wasn’t allowed back to work. Stupid fool – there was plenty of advance notice they were coming so that he could’ve asked for time the week before, probably wouldn’t even have had to give more than a vague reason. He also could’ve just faked calling in sick, most of the time these things aren’t investigated.


If I just type One, Two, Three, Four….Forty-Nine Thousand Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine, Fifty Thousand would I have reached 50,000 words?


Why is this project, at 19 pages, currently less than 100 kilobytes in size while writings of only a couple pages are in the hundreds?


I’m so tempted to just cheat and cut ‘n’ paste old posts. I’ve even tried to reason that if I physically re-typed instead of cutting ‘n’ pasting that it wouldn’t be cheatin’. But I’m still holding strong.


I should be sleeping right now. It’s three in the afternoon, Tammy’s working at MIXX, and we’ve got some long hours soon. All Freakin’ Night is supposed to start at Midnite but we know from experience the first movie isn’t actually going to start until closer to 1:00. The one time we actually stayed for the entire event we didn’t get out until after 11:00am. We even went to the Reef for breakfast before going home to die.

Can’t do that this year – even if Tammy wasn’t leaving early to do The Think Tank (and needing to be picked up afterwards) The Reef’s been burnt to a crisp.

No Reef. No Old Thekla. No Brown Derby. No Spar (what’s currently using that name doesn’t count.) The new Oyster House is more like a homogenized Red Robin.

No Oly stubby. No Mother’s Cookies Circus Animals.


The economy’s even bitten my work in the ass. The big Christmas party we’ve always had before has been cancelled. We’re having a smaller shindig instead.

If any employee hadn’t seen the writing on the wall before the email was sent out then they weren’t very observant. It had already been two weeks past when we normally would’ve gotten the emailed invite and rsvp. We’ve been getting emails and hearing discussions on frugality. We’re supposed to shut down and unplug our computers and printers every Friday (though I doubt anyone’s remembered that.)

I had proofread the email the day before it went out, and something I read which would end up being removed from the official announcement was exactly how much money the company spent for the previous parties. Let’s just say It’s more than I make in two years – I’d much rather they cancel a once-a-year blowout instead of cancelling me.

I believe the powers that be when they say they didn’t make the decision lightly. They’ve always been good to us and if an employee were judging them based on Christmas then they’d have their priorities out of order.


What are the odds I can type 23,000 words in the next three hours? That’s around 7700 words per hour. About 21 pages per hour.

Yeah, I didn’t think so either. So much for confidence.


Do I have Mono or something? Why am I just staring listless at the screen? Can’t I think of anything? Aren’t I pissed off about something enough to rant and rave? Isn’t there any individual I can’t stand who I’d like to crucify? Can’t I come up with some stupid fiction? Or throw words and ideas together to describe something that happened in my life?


I’ve gone back and read what I’ve done so far. I’ve noticed I’m sometimes copying myself. That’s an easy way to inflate the word count, I guess.


Back in September Tammy and I went on an awesome trip. We flew to Albuquerque, rented a car, drove it to Salt Lake City, then took a train to Sacramento, and finally got another train back home.

We were driven to Seatac where we stayed at the Doubletree. My mom had found a bargain to get us in that hotel – it was a shame we were spending such a short time there (we were expecting a 3:00am wake-up call.) They gave us fresh-baked cookies for checking in (or at least they had been kept under a heating lamp.)

We had to walk a long ways to our room – the Pentagon’s probably not as long. Once we got there our key wouldn’t work. The first employee we saw didn’t speak English well, but somehow or other he got security there who brought us a working key.

We had dinner, said goodbye to the folks, and tried to fall asleep which of course was easier said than done.

It was a good thing we weren’t heavy sleepers because Tammy checked the clock out of curiousity 5 minutes after we were supposed to have been woken up. This expensive luxery hotel had keys that didn’t work and failed to make a wake-up call – pretty grievous offense for an airport hotel. I guess they can tell who searched the internet for a low-price. Assholes.

Being five minutes late didn’t make a difference – we caught the shuttle with no problem, only had to wait a little bit to get our boarding passes, and had plenty of time to kill after. Being early in the morning nothing was open – we read, slept or listened to our MP3 players.

At 5:00 am Starbucks opened. The long line that had been waiting for hours actually moved fast, I got us some coffees and not long after it was time to board.


There’s now tv screens on the back of the seat in front of you on a plane. It’s like watching a PPV channel – the same old previews keep showing over and over. It got annoying soon and the only way to change it would’ve been to swipe my card and watch something which I wasn’t gonna do.


We landed in Denver and had to wait a couple hours for our next flight. We walked around to see what’d be good for breakfast – After this trip, and the one to San Francisco we had made a year and a half before, I now realize that SeaTac’s options for food are better than many other airports. I think we ended up getting MacDonalds – whether that’s what we really did or not it’s obviously not worth remembering.


We finally landed in Albuquerque early that afternoon. I had thought it was going to be my first time in New Mexico but learned from Mom the night before I had actually ridden through there (and had already been to see Shiprock) when I was eight months old.

We had to ride a shuttle to the car rental place and then wait in a long slow-moving line. Finally all the papers were signed and we were sent to our car – a 2008 Toyota Prius. The guy at the counter had asked me if I knew about how Prius’ worked and I didn’t know that there was anything different about them so I said yeah.

We got in the car and I put the key in and pushed the start button – nothing happened. I had to ask an attendant what I was doing wrong. Turned out I had it mostly right – Prius’ are so quiet and efficient that I didn’t realize it was actually started. Over the next three days that car would spoil me.


After finding our hotel we decided we’d spend our day in Old Albuquerque. Most of the buildings were built in the 18th century – it was shops, galleries, museums and restaurants. It was just this small section alone which convinced us we’d like to return someday.

We ate at a Mexican restaurant. Down there when you order food they ask you Red or Green? We had to have it explained they meant red or green chili sauce. We asked which was hotter – they said green was hotter. That’s the kind we’d get.

Also, along with the chips and salsa, they also serve sopapilas and honey.

Besides shopping and snapping pictures we visited a rattlesnake museum – among the various things we saw a Diamondback was in the middle of slithering out of its skin.


After we were finally finished with Old Albuquerque we tried to find our way to the Botanical Gardens but I kept missing the turn. After missing and re-missing it over and over we gave up and went to K-Mart to stock up for the next two days. We didn’t really grab snacks – just water, iced tea, 7-up and orange juice.

We drove along the strip near our hotel just to see a little bit more. We finally stopped at a Sonic (we’d always see the commercials at home even home the nearest one’s hundreds of miles away) – We also…um…”browsed” at a red-light toy store. Just like we did in Oakland. That’s starting to become a vacation tradition too.


We left first thing in the morning. After crossing the Rio Grande we were on our way. We got to go 70 on the Interstate and weren’t slowed down by too many slow-poke trucks.

We grabbed coffee in a watering hole called Laguna, then around 9:00am stopped in Grants to visit the New Mexico Museum of Mining. It only cost $3 to get in and took about an hour to see everything. The front room just had various gems, Indian artifacts and dinosaur bones. We went in an elevator down below and entered a mining replica.

It was dusty, and it was fun.


We stopped for breakfast where we were again asked Red or Green. As we were leaving I was accosted by an Indian. Or maybe he was Mexican. Perhaps both.

He looked hungover and wasn’t coherent. From slurring, or from an accent, I couldn’t tell you. At first I thought he was saying “I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”

Finally I concluded what should’ve been obvious. He was hungry and asking for money. I had a hundred in cash on hand but was holding onto it in case my card was useless in spots. I offered him something from our drink stash. He took an orange juice and God Blessed us.


After another hour of driving we made it to Gallup. We only stopped for a little bit there. We didn’t leave the road we were on – just peeked in to the Information Center and walked into a couple different stores. All of them were leather goods and turquoise.

We got onto US Highway 451, the whole point of us having taken the trip in the first place. What’s so special about 451? Well, nothing really…except that it’s the former 666. The Devil’s Highway.

I was using it as an excuse to take a road trip and see some navajo country.

Turned out going to Arizona would’ve been a better option for seeing Navajo country. But we were still having a blast driving on what some say is the deadliest highway in America.


There really wasn’t much to see other than landscape. And it was perfect. I was surprised not to see hardly any sheep but there were farms and shacks – but hardly any place to stop. It was while driving this stretch that I realized I was getting over 50 miles to the gallon.


Far against the horizon it looked like two giant sails of a ship floating in the air.

Eventually it morphed into the hunk of rock called Shiprock.


At the town of Shiprock itself we took a detour to visit Four Corners. This portion of the trip put us into Arizona afterall, and into both Colorado and Utah hours before originally planned.

The road went on and on so long that we thought we might’ve missed a turn. But that wasn’t the case.

We made it to Four Corners and stood in four states at the same time. We looked at jewelry, turquoise, pottery and ate some Fry Bread.


We could’ve saved some time if we’d continued on the Trail of the Ancients and returned to 666 that way, but our original point was to follow the entire road so we backtracked to Shiprock. School was letting out and traffic was horrible. We finally escaped and were back in Colorado before too long. We stopped in Cortez long enough to check out Sonic again. We were a day too early to take part in a beer festival.

Colorado had more green in it than New Mexico did. Course, most of that was due to all the irrigated farms we saw. The only place to stop between Cortez and Monticello, Utah was Dove Creek which proclaims itself the Pinto-Bean Capitol of the World. I assume some of those farms we saw were growing pinto beans. Everything was closed except the gas station when we got there.


We crossed into Utah and finally hit the end of the road. Along the entire stretch of Highway 451 the only spot where an old 666 road sign still stood was in Mormon Country.

We stopped at a place which on the outside looked like a country stop, but once we were seated realized we were in a fancy restaurant. I was too tired and hungry to want to put the menu down, walk out and find a different place.

Even though we were finished with 666 we still had an hour to go before reaching Moab where we were spending the night. Along the way, driving up and down, in and out of valleys, I saw that in comparison to sun-bleached New Mexico, Utah’s rocks had color to them.


It was dark when we finally arrived at our motel. I was ready to crash but Tammy wanted to hit the town. I grumbled and complained – she said she was just going to walk. That was enough to make me put my boots back on while I grumbled some more – but once we parked and walked around I had to concede that I would’ve missed out if I stayed stubborn. Moab became another place we’d like to see again someday.


(Ooh! I’m only 1200 words away from hitting 10,000!)


Our motel in Albuquerque advertised a Continental Breakfast but didn’t have one. Our motel in Moab claimed to be bare bones but had coffee, tea and danishes available.

We left early, and five minutes out of Moab entered Arches National Park.

We knew that we only had an hour, and that we’d actually hardly see anything. All the more reason to want to come back to Moab sometime.

We drove, and drove, and drove, up onto the plateau and then drove some more. We stopped at a couple scenic spots and then drove some more. Finally we reached the spot where we’d see our only arches. We snapped some pics, and when we show it to people we have to actually point out the pinpricks that represent the holes in the arch.

Thinking we didn’t have anymore time we turned around (later I’d find out we could’ve gone just a bit farther and gotten better shots of the arches.)

We stopped at the information center and spent more time there than we did driving in the park.


Utah was a fun drive. We crossed a lot of rivers but then ended up in one of the most desolate spots in the country. A sign warned us that there would be no facilities for the next 120+ miles. Fortunately we could drive 70 which sped up how long we’d be alone in God’s Country.


Finally the inevitable happened: we reached civilization. Where once there was nothing stretching to the horizons in all directions, we were now in a city. Through Provo, and into Salt Lake City.


I have an Aunt and Uncle who live in SLC. I don’t get to see them often, and everytime they’ve come up to Olympia everyone else is visiting with them too.

In all the weeks before the trip I kept putting off or forgetting to let them know we were coming. Finally, with one week to go, I emailed them to let them know we’d be in town. My cousin was to be married in a week and I knew they’d be busy – but of course they looked forward to seeing us. I was to call them that day.

We were hoping they’d want to show us around the city. We were hoping they’d be willing to help me drop the car off and then later drop us off at the train station. (That would’ve saved us a cab trip.) I never got around to asking for either of those favors, and of course at the last minute I wasn’t to spring it on them.

But they came through for us anyways. They asked if we wanted to hit the city on our own or if we’d mind them coming along. That was perfect! I hate driving in unfamiliar cities and wouldn’t have known where to go or how to get there.

We went to the Salt Lake – went into the city (where they were able to point things out and give some history of the area) – we stopped at one cousin’s apartment (his building actually has a thirteenth floor and he lives on it.)

My Uncle and I have something in common: we can both spend all day in a library. We only spent about twenty minutes this time.

We had dinner at their place – two of the cousins were able to join us. My Aunt must’ve been able to read my mind – perhaps being my Mom’s sister gives her some access to that maternal gift: she offered to follow us to the airport and then take us to the station!

It was more fun hanging out with them than it would’ve been dropping the car off at 10:00pm, paying for a cab and then having to wait outside the train station until it opened at 11:30.

We mentioned how this was the first time we all got to visit without having to share time with others. Salt Lake City became another spot to visit again.


Our midnite train was delayed until 2:30. My Aunt and Uncle stuck it out until just before 1:00. They had already done so much for us, I hadn’t expected them to stay with us deep into the morning.

I had originally hoped to be able to catch a glimpse of the salt flats from the train before falling asleep. Being two hours late didn’t help.

I stayed awake as long as I could but it was hard to see anything out the window. Whether we were crossing the flats or not while I was still awake I’ll never know.


I woke up about 6:00. Two old women sitting up front were awake and talking loud to each other. I wake up early myself and wasn’t put out but I could imagine how other people would be pissed off at the loudmouths.

It was my first time on a train since 1980. I had a blast.

I tried to read, but didn’t feel like it. I tried to listen to my player but didn’t feel like it. Instead, I spent most of both train rides looking out the window, snapping pictures, eating, and once in awhile dozing.

They had cheap-ass microwaved shit in the snack car. We splurged on getting lunch in the dining car. Wasn’t bad (but wasn’t worth the price either – it was more for the experience than anything else. We’d end up getting breakfast and lunch on the next train too.)

The train was slo-o-o-o-ow climbing up the Sierra Nevadas. We were passing through Donner Country and a guide would announce over the PA system where we were passing and what had happened there way back in history.


Well look at that, I totally skipped the part about the train stopping in Reno. Tammy might’ve stepped off for all I remember, but the train tracks were down in a trench so that we couldn’t see anything of it.


After crossing the mountains and riding through orange groves we reached Sacramento about 5:00 in the evening. It was impossible for both of us to explore together – we just had way too many bags to carry around. I waited at the station while Tammy explored first.

When it was my turn I had less than an hour before darkness. I lost my way at first but then found myself in Old Sacremento. All the shops were closed but once again we found a spot we’d have to check out again.

On my way back I tried to find a place to grab some dinner to have in the station. The very few choices in walking distance were all closed, including the damn Quizno’s. Who the Hell closes at 8:00?

The only place open was a Starbucks on the same block as the station, and even that was closing in 10 minutes. We had to make do with Starbuck sandwiches, parfaits and coffee.


We sat and waited and sat and waited. Kids ran around and were annoying. These same kids would end up on our train and continue to be annoying while running around the rest of the trip.


November 17

I’m going to leave us in Sacramento for awhile.

That’s because this weekend was All Freakin’ Night (like you couldn’t have figured it out from reading this project.)

The films were Invaders from Mars, House by the Cemetery, Tokyo Gore Police, Nightmare in a Damaged Brain, and Screamers.

Tammy and I brought cushions, pillows and a big blanket that had been bought in Mexico. When we got in line we were further back than we had ever been before. Fortunately the line moved fairly fluidly, and we found some seats just in time for the hosts to be finished and the first movie to start.

All Freakin’ Night is a loud, obnoxious event. Many patrons, especially those sitting up in the balcony, are already three sheets to the wind when they arrive – A Rocky Horror crowd has nothing on these guys. They don’t start to pass out until around 5:00am and even then those who can handle their speed and coke keep their mouths running the entire event.

Invaders from Mars was cheesy in an awesome 80s movie way. House by the Cemetery was a poorly dubbed Italian flick with an annoying 5-year-old kid named Bob who we all wished would’ve died in the movie. I can’t stand any male saying “mommy” once they’re old enough to pee standing up.

Tokyo Gore Police is one of those messed-up movies where I give it four stars and Tammy gives it one-half if even that. But it brings up a sociology question: Why is it that women who are otherwise militant feminists are more than happy to be even more crude and raunchy than the men in a theater when a horror movie has gratuitous and even over-the-top titty scenes?

I mean, even my ex-wife, one of the most jealous judgmental shrewish bitches in all history loved her horror flicks regardless of unnecessary 36Cs.

The Nightmares movie probably could’ve been decent if I wasn’t already hallucinating from lack of sleep. This would’ve been somewheres between 6 and 8am meaning that, minus an intermittent cat-nap I had been awake over 24 hours.

The final movie, Screamers, was in the style of Hammer Films meet Troy McLure.

Tammy had to leave to do the Think Tank after Screamers started. The final movie ended at 9:40, I went home to pick up Katie, and then continued on to the station. The Think Tank ended at Noon, after grabbing lunch we made it back home, and I stayed awake just long enough to eat before crashing until around 6:30.


Returning to Sacramento: the train ride home was nice but otherwise uneventful except some guy in Southern Oregon mooned the train, and we barely missed being delayed by over three hours when a factory caught on fire in Portland covering the tracks with smoke.


I have less than a week to go before turning 36. Damn, I’m that much closer to 40. Sometimes people die in their early 40s, and it’s called Natural Causes, and nobody thinks anything odd about it outside of “man, he was young.”


My books from the library have probably been overdue for a couple weeks now. I haven’t logged in to check the account and see for sure.


I wonder if there’s any websites on “How to Write a Novel in 30 Days”

Well I’ll be damned, there are some out there.


When all else has failed, I can start answering a 5000 word survey. Course, I can’t just cut ‘n’ paste the questions, that wouldn’t count as MY wordcount.

I am Merwyn Douglas Haskett.
The three most important things people should know about me is I’m right, I’ve always been right, and I’ll always be right.

When I’m not filling out surveys I usually sit around watching paint dry.
My favorite classes in High School were PE, Film Ed, Human Biology, Drama and US History. I hated World History (not because of the subject but because the teachers bit the big one.), Geometry and Economics.
My biggest goal this year is to complete this Nanowrimo.
In five years I want to be better off than I was five years ago.
I have currently passed Dante’s idea of Life’s midway.
Even though I watch cartoons on DVD I’d say I’m more childlike than childish.
I’m usually silent while home alone typing away but I have spoken outloud to my little yorkie.
If I had to choose a song to represent my current feeling about life it’d be David & David’s Welcome to the Boomtown.
When I was in seventh grade I took Tae Kwon Do and earned my Orange Belt.
My life gets better and better every day, even though I’m getting older and falling apart.
Time heals most wounds except for demolished tooth enamel.
Living in the Pacific Northwest, I handle rainy days by forgetting my umbrella and then suggesting that those who remembered their’s aren’t PNW Natives.
I would much rather sort out tangled Christmas lights – something which should be considered part of the fun and tradition – than lose my luggage or have the TSA put their mitts in my stuff.
I get along better with my parents now that I don’t live with them anymore.
I am so aware of what’s going on around me that I’m oblivious to what’s actually happening to me.
The truest thing I know is that life’s one damn thing after another.
I had delusions of grandeur for someday working under Vincent Kennedy McMahon. I moved away from that around the time I was eighteen.
In life I have been given second, third, even fourth and fifth chances.
I give, the rest of you take.
I used to be open minded but everyone moved in and claimed squatter’s rights – so I had to kick them out and close up shop.
A few years ago I tore a back muscle – was in the worst pain of my life until the ER injected some magic juice in my IV.
I still suffer deep psychological emotional scars from Hulk Hogan defeating Randy Savage at Wrestlemania V.
I hugged Tammy and Katie today.
Katie wagged her tail when I got home from work.
I hope to be learning something everyday until I die.
If I could acquire the ability to do three things by wishing instead of practicing and learning, it’d be guitar, calculus and knitting.
I remember what people say better than what they do.
The key ingredient for a good relationship is money.
Before I die I want to see the Northern Lights, experience being bitten by a cobra, and piss on some graves.
I would rather die than vote a Republican into the White House, be forced to find out whether I’d crack under torture, or get an Answer wrong on Jeopardy.
I believe in some causes, but I’m rarely militant or gung-ho about any of them.
The 1920s make me think of jazz and flappers.
The 1930s make me think of trains and farms.
The 1940s make me think of private investigators
The 1950s make me think of Joseph McCarthy and repressed sexualism.
The 1960s make me think of New York and California for some reason.
The 1970s make me think of GLAM.
The 1980s make me think of Old Thekla. (RIP)
The 1990s make me nostalgiac.
The 2000s make me think of 8 horribly fucked up years for our country.
The 2010s have me wondering if I’ll ever get those rocket packs I was promised back in the 80s
The 90s were the first time I wasn’t completely behind on things.
I can never tell you my favorite song and have it be the same answer week after week or even day after day.
I live in the United States of America, which finally elected someone who might not be The Messiah, but at least isn’t the Evil Incarnate we’ve been under.
A sentence I’d like to say to the current leader is “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. Go choke on a pretzel for me.”
When I’m just looking for anything on TV I usually watch true crime cold case forensic shows.
The Disney villain who best represents me is Gaston (except I don’t have his physique.)
I was a Cub Scout, Webelos, and Boy Scout until I was 12.
If money and time weren’t an issue I would prefer to take a boat overseas instead of a plane.
I was just asked why the sky’s blue during the day while black at night. I know the answer, I think it’s a stupid question for a “who are you” questionaire.
My name means Friend of the Sea on the Heath where the Hazel Trees Grow
I’m more curious about the bottom of the sea than the far reaches of outer space.
A girl in my Sophomore English class threatened to hurt me if I didn’t stop calling her an airhead.
When I was four I told my Mom that if I were on TV I wouldn’t want to be on All In The Family because Archie might yell at me. Funny thing is, I’m right about that.
We have Season One of Different Strokes on DVD.
The first time I heard Nick Drake’s song Pink Moon I thought “eh…” but then it slowly but surely became one of my favorite songs ever.
I read somewhere that Gene Hackman’s done making movies.
I wonder if I can get my hands on some White Lightning for my birthday. We can’t get Everclear in this state.
Elvis doesn’t suck, but he wasn’t the King. That was Buddy Holly.
So sue me, I wouldn’t mind getting with a Dungeons & Dragons group.
I’ll probably follow my genetic predestination and die of a heart attack.
I remember watching Sting wrestle Ric Flair to a time-limit draw on the first Clash of the Champions back in the 80s.
I’m currently listening to Pulp sing Common People on my MP3 player.
If I could meet someone who’s dead it would be Steve Irwin.
If I had the chance to seriously meet anyone I would like for it to be someone tired of being rich who’d like to do a little redistribution.
My favorite movie for the longest time was Casablanca, but it’s since been overtaken by Roman Holiday.
I can’t imagine being stuck in an elevator for a week. I don’t think I would’ve brought enough food for one thing.I once babysat a toddler who was so pudgy she couldn’t roll herself over even though she was already one years old. Anyways, I went to check on her when she was crying in bed, she threw-up just as I got in while she was lying on her back; it all sucked back into her throat and she started choking. I flipped her over and that was good enough.


I’m already getting tired of doing this. Oh well, it could’ve been an easy 15,000. I can always fall back on this again if I get desperate.


November 25

12,000 words.

I am not going to make it. Unless I start mainlining speed or something.


I’m staring at the computer it’s what I do everyday whether at work, home, or at a house we’re sitting at while the owners are away.


My earliest memories are of the first house we lived in in Spokane. I wasn’t even two years old yet. I’ve described things and my Mom’s confirmed them. We lived upstairs – I thought the walls were orange though they were probably something closer to peach. There were three bedrooms. The extra bedroom had my old crib – I have no memories old enough to be in the crib. My bed had a red blanket – right now I consider it to have been an old, thin, threadbare blanket but that’s only because of how I noticed it in later years.

Originally our downstairs neighbors were Dawn and Dave who had two kids, Jason and Melissa. When they moved away my Mom and I visited them a few times. Sometimes we’d go to a swimming pool – at a gym or club, at Dawn and Dave’s apartment, I can’t tell. But Jason was in the pool once. I screamed and cried because I didn’t like being in the pool. I don’t know if it was because I couldn’t touch bottom – didn’t like the crowd or noise – didn’t have much freedom while being held.

The new downstairs neighbors were Dean and I think her name was Sharon (or something similar.) They had a cat that always hissed. Occasionally he would get into our home and Mom would chase him downstairs. Dean apparently was a jerk. He’d come home drunk, yelling, thumping – one time he was out in the yard screaming bloody murder. I don’t remember anything specific about that.

Our part of the yard had a little path – might’ve been paved for all I remember – that sloped down into theirs. I’d ride one of my little carts or trikes down all the time. One time I remember hopping off and leaving the cart behind – only for Dean to return it to the top with one shove and tell me not to leave my toys behind. Another time when I did that he told me to take it back home. I said “No” – he started walking slowly towards me and I rushed it back up after all.

Sometimes my folks’ friends Norma and Steve would visit. I didn’t realize until decades later that Dad and Steve actually went to school together. Unless I’m remembering it all wrong – but so what? I’m not publishing this – I’m not swearing before a court of law that the information is 100% accurate – it’s just a NaNoWriMo.

Phil Giles would visit also. He was a policeman (or deputy, or trooper – they were all the same to me for many years.) I was fascinated by the uniform, the badge, the car with the lights. Once I remember his family coming over for dinner. His wife was Carol, one of the kids was named Michael. Another time I remember going to their house. The kids had a rocking horse just like mine. I kept calling Carol “Phil” (or more likely “Bill”)

When I was four or five I asked about them and was told that Carol died. She died young of a heart condition. Phil was remarried. And then again, not too much longer later, I was told that Phil died of a heart attack.

After moving back to Olympia, and then later to Ocean Shores, my dad would still run into people who knew Phil Giles of Spokane.

Occasionally my Mom and I would visit a woman and her kids. I don’t remember her name. I don’t know if all the kids were hers or if she was a babysitter. One of the boys was named Miles and I know he attended my 2nd birthday party because an audio cassette tape was made of the event.

The house next door was lived in by Terry and Carla, who had Cory and Gussie (a toddler when I lived there.) She was my babysitter – Mom would drop me off, I’d be told to sit in a chair in the livingroom. When Gussie would wake up she’d call for her Mother – after she was brought down the day would begin and I could move around.

At some point I started going to a daycare. I still remember the first day. According to my Mother I was barely two years old. I was told I’d be going to a school – that there would be kids and I’d have fun. For some reason I thought Mickey Mouse was going to be there – that all of us would be standing in a circle in the grass watching Mickey skip around.

I was actually excited – Mom had me hand my lunch (I didn’t know what “lunch” was, but I was carrying a paper bag) to Miss Debbie, there was a little black and white tv being watched by the kids (and it was actually The Mickey Mouse Club, so Mickey was there after all) – everything was going just great except…my Mother left. And I screamed – I had to be carried away from the door while Debbie said “My Goodness”

I remember a couple other teachers – and maybe even one or two of the kids – trying to convince me everything was going to be cool. Eventually I decided I’d rather watch Mickey than carry on any further. Another kid named Christopher was brought in that day and he cried also.

We moved to a duplex. I remember riding with the movers in their truck. Maybe they were people we knew. Steve and Norma helped us – there was fried chicken with dinner that night.The duplex had a shared stairway with doors to the basements on opposite sides.

I don’t remember if I was still going to the daycare or had already switched over to Mrs. Fuller’s house. She had been one of the teachers, her two youngest boys, Brant and Ryan, had gone also. They lived only a few blocks from us.

There was another duplex next to ours, a kid named Lewie who went to the daycare lived in one of them. (That’s right, I hadn’t switched to Mrs. Fuller’s until after we were in the duplexes. That’s fine, it pads the word count.)

Other houses on the block included an older couple who knew my name, a toddler named Stephanie, and the house on the corner had a girl named Becky. Her teenaged sister was Tanya. Across the street, where I couldn’t go, were two other girls who went to the daycare. I don’t remember the name of the one closest in age to me but her little sister, who was still chewing on a pacifier, was Kathleen Jones. She was always referred to with her full name. Sometimes they’d be in Becky’s yard playing.

Sometimes Mom and Dad would go out and I’d be babysat by two teens named Donna and Valerie. I have few memories of what they may or may not have actually done other than some incidents of yelling – and one where I remember Valerie raising her hand like she was going to slap me. But I remember fearing them so much that if I heard they were coming over I’d immediately jump into bed, even if it was still light outside.

That never worked, because once Mom and Dad left they’d come in the room and make me wake up.

They may have been related to Carla – at any rate they all knew each other.

Sometimes I’d be at their house instead. Everyone called their Mother Grandma. She was always nice to me, I was never afraid of her, but I knew her name was not supposed to be Grandma. I knew who Grandma was, and it wasn’t her.

One time Donna and Valerie walked with me to one of their friends’ house in the neighborhood. I was given an ice cream cone – it was pink so it must’ve been Strawberry or Peppermint.

I don’t remember feeling sick – I don’t remember feeling full – I probably wouldn’t have understood the feelings yet anyways. But suddenly without warning a pink puddle had shot out of me all over my feet and the floor.

I had been warned to be good when we had gone there and I knew that whatever I just did was going to get me killed. But nobody yelled at me. The woman cleaned up her floor and Valerie asked me if I was all right.

One time when Donna was watching me by herself she spent the night on the couch. While she was sleeping Mom came in to check on me and I must’ve been awake. She took me into the kitchen for some water and asked if I wanted to see a fire. I was hearing a rumbling noise – and when we got to the kitchen there were fire trucks in the road and flames shooting out of the roof of a house across the street.

I remember seeing workers in days after knocking debris off the upper story.


One time – I guess probably for a week – Mrs. Fuller took all the kids to Vacation Bible School. I don’t remember anything about the classes. I don’t remember the toys, the cookies, anything except for the playground. There was a slide, I would try to climb the ladder. There’d be a line covering the ladder – and once I was stuck in the middle I’d start hollering. I must’ve been panicky when I realized I coldn’t move.

One of the adults – a black woman (or perhaps a black teenager for all I can accurately tell) pulled me off the ladder and said I was too little. She had it all wrong because I had my own slide at home.


Sometimes a kid named Wayne would visit us at Mrs. Fuller’s. When the Fuller’s went on vacation Wayne’s mom, Mrs. Lew (or Lou, Liu, Lu, Loo) watched me. It wasn’t bad, nobody yelled at me or scared me or anything, but it just wasn’t right. I was already starting to develop a comfort and security in Routine – in having everything Ordered in their Proper Place.

How close I could’ve come to being OCC. Or Autistic.

Who says I’m not?


The time came to move again – this time to E. 25421 River Rd, Otis Orchards. Right on the Idaho border, up on a hill looking at the Spokane River and I-90 on the other side.

I was going to go to a new daycare and I challenged myself not to cry like a little kid when I got there. I didn’t. Instead, some kid invited me to help him play with the plastic train set.

Miss Mary got me oriented that first day. They had a lot of the same toys Mrs. Fuller and the first daycare had. They even knew who Cookie Monster was.

You know what happens when I stop and pick this up again the next night? The momentum goes right out the window.


A great time waster on the internet is the various variations (there’s a redundancy if ever there was one) of Falling Sand. There’s the original version, the pyro versions, the soil and seeds version, and zombies. Can’t go wrong with zombies.


The Series finale of The Shield was last night. Shane Vendrell pulled a Chris Benoit and took his wife and son out with him. Selfish, weak-minded bastard.


I wonder if the reader will ever learn what happened to me after moving to Otis Orchards.


If I ctrl-A this, then ctrl-c, and then ctrl-v a few times for the word count am I cheating?


I have to think of something for dinner tonight. All we have is pasta and red sauce; I’m not in any big hurry to cook it, and no big desire to eat it.


Rambling. Rambling is a possible method for completing this project. That, and repeating words. Over and over. Such as “rambling”.


Otis Orchards actually had four seasons – colored falling leaves, snow, wind and rain and triple-digit temperatures. It was rural, redneck, and white trashy. There were empty lots, pastures, cows – and a racetrack just across the border in Stateline, Idaho.

Sometimes there would be a wreck on I-90; the entire neighborhood would gather at the edge of the hill and everyone would gawk and pass the binoculars around. People would throw the family in the pickup and drive over to the crowd and join in the gawking.

One time there was a wreck where a car went into the river, sinking with the occupants.

Another time a bankrobber sped down the Interstate from Idaho with a shitload of troopers chasing after him.

Sometimes there’d be wildfires in the hills across the way.


I’m at less than 15,000 words still. Tammy’s Radio8Ball Chronicle that got her taken to court by that dickhead Andras Jones was over 30,000. How’d she do it? Not only “how’d she do it” but keep it moving forward and on topic? Course, she spent over four months working on it. But still…


Chipping away. Wearing it down. Erosion. Corrosion. Sand blast it. Acidic dissolution. Melting it down. Call the Crest Team, here come the Cavity Creeps.


Christmas 1980: Santa brought me a remote-control R2D2.

Christmas 1981: Santa not only brought an electric racetrack but set it up.

Christmas 1982: Santa brought specific Star Wars figures even though they were already out of stock in most stores.

Christmas 1983: Santa brought some kind of baseball game from Radio Shack.

Christmas 1984: Santa brought a tape recorder.

Christmas 1985: Santa brought a boombox and even hung some headphones on the tree.

Christmas 1986: Santa brought a bigger radio.

Christmas 1987: Santa stopped taking credit.


That diversion was good for a hundred and ten words.


I was told today that I’d have to use my Annual Leave or lose it. I have 98 hours and change. Over twelve days. I’m kinda digging the idea of taking more than half of December off and being paid for it. I was already getting paid for taking Christmas off.

But what to do in all that time? Sit around and watch Judge Alex on tv?


November 28

This is the time where I start praying to St. Jude.


I wonder how many words are in Molly’s Soliloquy. Christ – how do you even spell that?

I wonder how inflated the word count might be if I don’t use punctuation or paragraph breaks; or at least don’t use periods or exclamation points or question marks to definitively end the sentences; Actually, screw the punctuation part – it makes more sense to just wonder about the paragraph breaks. Today is Black Friday or whatever they call the stupid post-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy; the crowds that get into line before midnight when the store opens at 6:00am, and push and surge through the doors and then rush in and knock each other down over some stupid fucking goddamn Wiis and X-Boxes and other shit should be rounded up, herded and corralled and then mowed down with machine guns – their bodies should be smelted in a blast furnace. That is just bullshit. Due to circumstances beyond my control I found myself at Target and then the Mall today. Target was crowded but at least I was able to pull into an empty parking space. The Mall, on the other hand, saw me driving up and down and up and down each stinking parking aisle until I had gone more than halfway around the damn building before I finally pulled in, and then could barely move inside because of the large number of people. I don’t like those kinds of crowds – and I don’t like the stupidity behind the crush. I mean, I couldn’t even easily take the Cooper Point exit off of 101, the line was backed up all the way onto the highway. I’m not an anti-Capitalist, anti-Consumerism sort of Marxist activist student and I appreciate the value of a decent sale but I also understand that it is neither a civil right nor a life necessity to have the latest electronic gizmo or specific pair of shoes endorsed by the current overpaid athlete. Thank God I don’t have kids – with my luck they’d think the complete opposite of how I do. And then I’d turn into my own Father, resentful at times that the kids aren’t carbon copies of me. My kids will probably turn into hippies or protesters who think the World owes them – that they’re entitled to whatever money and possessions I may have earned and scraped for myself. They’ll probably be fans of hip-hop, or whatever new sucky music might be invented by then. They’ll probably be homophobic, probably join the military if this Country’s unfortunate enough to let another inbred alcoholic bigot Republican get into the White House – and damn, but it’s hard, nearly impossible, to just ramble and ramble and ramble – That’s why I don’t get it when people get on the phone and just blab and blab and blab, I try to pay attention to what’s being said and have no idea what they’re talking about. My ex-wife would literally spend hours at her Mother’s house, they’d talk and talk about God knows what, both of them barely taking a split-second to catch their breath, and then we’d leave after having been there all day – and thirty minutes later get home only for her to pick up the phone and call her Mother – and then early the next day they’d get on the phone again and tie up the next few hours. I’d say it was a woman thing but I know some men who can’t stop once they get their motor-mouths started – some of these people don’t even notice that I don’t say word-one during their oration – No “mmm-hmm” or “I see” – and it’s not so bad if they’re actually interesting and I had nowheres better to be but every now and then I’d rather be watching paint dry in the other room – or at least sniffing the wet paint so that I can be think I’m not so bored out of my skull as to want to crush my teeth with a pair of pliers just for the pure pleasure of it – speaking of bad teeth I was worried about Katie this morning. The past few days I had noticed that her breath was especially putrid – for a dog she’s usually not all that bad but what we were getting was enough to make me want to retch. Anyways, I had her at the clinic today when Tammy was getting her CAT Scan and when she yawned I could see what the problem was. Her gums were swollen so badly a lot of her lower teeth were hidden

(770 words for that page! Not bad!)

there was a big abscess behind one of her canines, and the tissue was already a pale-grey – no wonder she stunk like a bad infection. Of course I was worried for her – I didn’t know if any vet would be open, nor did I know if I’d have the money to help her. If it was only the matter of an examination and a prescription for some K I could probably swing it but if she needed IV therapy or surgery to remove necrotic tissue that was most likely going to be out of our range – plus I worried that I might’ve waited too long (not knowing how long she might’ve been infected) and feared her whole body could be going septic soon. It took me all day to finally get home so I could dink around online hoping I could find some sort of home remedy or something before calling a vet in the morning – and she was sitting on my lap, and actually crying (though it was just as likely she was crying over Tammy, her Mama, not being home) – and I pulled her lips back to see if I could notice anything else specific that I could Google – and not only did it look like it spread in a short time, but the gums also looked kinda fuzzy. Too fuzzy. I gently touched the area where the abscess was and she didn’t pull back or flinch or anything. I couldn’t find my old tweezers so I grabbed a toothpick and gently brushed it along some fuzz, and the whole thing started lifting – so I held her still and just started gently tugging and this entire gungy mass of rancid matted fur pulled out – there was her supposed gangrenous gums – she was just fine, her teeth were all there – and an hour or so after this she climbed up and started kissing me with her normal non-stinky breath. Anyways, to say I was relieved is an understatement – she is my little baby girl, we do almost everything together. She’s barely ten years old and I’m not ready to lose her yet. But there’s no worries now – she’s just as active and happy as ever. Kinda funny that she and I are so close – when I first met her she bit me hard enough to leave a scar that lasted a year and a half. She’s very protective of her Mama and won’t let anyone get near her unless they’ve earned her trust (even then we have to watch it.) I stayed with her day after day and eventually we bonded to the point where she’s just as much my little girl as she’s Tammy’s. If either one of us comes home she does the little yorkie dance – running all around the room, flipping in the air – she does this thing where her back legs go out and she drags herself around the room like a seal – she’ll sit with either one of us just to be with someone (she prefers to be scrunched in the middle of Tammy and I sitting together.) The main difference which shows how she’s still Tammy’s dog originally, besides the protection she provides her, is that when I’m at work she doesn’t get depressed, but when Tammy’s gone she mopes, and cries, and will sometimes sit at the door waiting. If we drop Tammy off somewheres Katie will stand up and stare out the window and start crying like a little kid who hasn’t cut their umbilical cord yet. When we pick Tammy up from work Katie will stand up in the passenger seat with her paws on the window looking out in all directions (sometimes she’ll do that from my lap in the Driver’s Side) and I often have to hold her still when the door opens so that she won’t go shooting out to do the Yorkie Dance in the parking lot. Even though we keep her on a leash anyways there’d be no fear of her getting away from us on a walk – UNLESS a cat or a squirrel comes by. She wants to chase them each and every time – especially the squirrels. I wonder if she even knows what she would do if she caught one. (I just guestimated that I have to type another 40 pages – give or take – in this complete block unparagraphed style to hit 50,000 words. That is a lot of talking. And we’ve already covered how I don’t do “talking” too well. Give up – give it up – this isn’t going to happen – You are a fluke of the Universe, you have no right to be hear, and whether you can hear it or not, The Universe, is laughing behind your back – alright, yeah, that’s not an original, I just repeated someone else’s work – but I physically typed it. All these words and sentences packed together like sardines are going to end up spilling over and trampling somebody like that poor sap at Wal-Mart. If I just randomly type words- not even care about sentence structure or spelling just have random words – and I type at the 100 words per minute I’m capable of reaching, it’ll still take me almost six hours to finish time is running out and I’m not sure I’ll even make the 30,000 I told myself would be a good compromise (though I’d hardly call it a compromise – it’s just an unfinished project.) There was a kid in the daycare named David Crewson (or Kruson or however the Hell it’s supposed to be spelled) who was a year ahead of me and sometimes a bit of a troublemaker. He would get in trouble, and if he had to sit at one of the tables for a time-out he’d pound his fists on the table, one after the other, like King Kong thumping his chest. One time during lunch he got upset when Miss Debbie had to tell him to quit something or other and he started verbally expressing his opinion. I was sitting next to him, and at age four thought my question made perfect sense: Are you going to get a knife and chop everyone’s houses down? (Not an ax – but a knife, and I was visualizing a plane old kitchen steak knife) He probably wouldn’t have imagined it in such a manner but he was quick to jump onto it – he confirmed that, Yes, he’s going to get a knife and chop everyone’s house down. A girl walked up to Miss Debbie and told her what he just said – and when she looked at David he added And I’m going to SAW everyone’s house too! The daycare was a fun place for the most part but one of the teachers, Mrs. Jean, who was actually in charge of the kitchen, would’ve run the place like a strict military bootcamp if she had her way. One time she was going to read to us and she grabbed Bedknobs and Broomsticks. She hadn’t gotten past the first page when she stopped and told us she was going to ask Miss Mary to throw it in the garbage: She continued that there were no such thing as good witches. She asked us if we thought witches were real; we all so No in unison; she responded that actually there were in fact such a thing as witches – none of them are good – and they have real powers that can hurt people. I told my mom who brought the matter up with Miss Mary. Mary confirmed that Jean had gone too far. But that’s what happens when you throw Christians together in a Christian daycare – there’s always one that wants to preach the Judgment on us all and swing her yardstick while she’s at it. Which reminds me, The Blues Brothers was one of the first R-rated movies I got to watch with my dad. Alien, The Shining, and Private Benjamin also made the cut before I was ten. They’d let me watch these movies, but then not others such as Quest For Fire especially if it was true that “everyone else” in my classroom had already seen it. My mom sometimes must’ve been crazy – I think she’s better grounded now but sometimes back in the day… She had seen An Officer and a Gentleman and thought it was so great that she insisted I would want to see it too. When it was finally announced that it would be on HBO in a month not a day went by where she wouldn’t say how excited she was and how I would love the movie. So then the day came and HBO started with: The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for Mature Audiences. Parents may wish to consider whether it should be viewed by children under 17. Home Box Office will show this feature only at night. My mom said “I didn’t realize this was R. Maybe you shouldn’t watch it.” Yeah – she didn’t realize that the movie she had seen with plenty of nudity and bedroom scenes and “motherfuckers” was R. And now that I think about it, what was it about the movie where people fake being pregnant, and people hang themselves, did she think was going to be so great for a Fourth Grader? Maybe all she was thinking was “Officers train to be Navy Aviators and it was filmed in Ft. Warden” and everything else was forgotten. They encouraged me reading since before I could remember – all my life there was books everywhere and I started reading them from an early age. Around 2nd or 3rd grade I started little by little getting into older books: I was reading Stephen King and even Anne Rule (when she was Andy Stack) by 4th Grade. So when 6th Grade rolled around and we moved to Olympia my Mother made a desperate attempt to keep me from growing up and declared that certain books were going to be off limits. She wanted me to content myself with Beverly Cleary and Walter Farley. That just made me want to read even more, if that was possible, and gave me a love for the forbidden – That’s why I have my own copy of de Sade when most other people who’ve heard of him haven’t ever actually read anything. That’s why I have Anais Nin – and why I had an original “anonymous” copy of Story of O (before someone borrowed it without ever returning) – and why I have an MP3 of Body Count’s Copkiller – not because I think it’s an awesome song but because they succeeded in getting it banned. Erotic literature aren’t the only banned books I like to read, I got the Harry Potters and the Stephen Kings and I wouldn’t mind having my hands on The Anarchist Cookbook which I haven’t seen since I was a Senior in High School – I never did get around to making that recipe they had with the Morning Glory seeds. I just watched my little girl jump around a little bit and it made me think of my first dog. It was a Friday night my Kindergarten year – my Dad was working that night, Mom and I were home alone – Fridays were my favorite: The Incredible Hulk and then Dukes of Hazzards would be on – plus I was allowed to stay up as late as I wanted. I always intended to stay up completely overnight, but usually somewhere in the middle of Dallas I’d fall asleep (not surprising that Dallas didn’t interest a 6 year old, the only early episode I ever stayed awake for was when whats-her-name had her Mastectomy (and even then I didn’t understand what the surgery had been, or why she was crying when her clothes didn’t fit her) – but anyways, back to the story: Mom and I were home alone when Dad and one of his friends came in (once in awhile he would pop in while working) and he was carrying this little dog under his arm. He told my Mom they had found a rat. She was a little black dog – probably a chihuahua/terrier mix – named Ruby. Some woman in one of those backwoods town on the Washington/Idaho border was trying to find a home for her since her kids were mistreating her. She was afraid of kids and would nip at them, I was warned to be careful. Mom was pissed that he brought that dog home; she put a rug down in the livingroom and said she had to stay on it. I sat by the rug the entire night, petting her. Next thing I remember I’m waking up in my own room – I went out into the livingroom that Saturday morning, Ruby had moved herself onto one of the couches, and when she saw me she jumped up and did the little happy dog dance. Again, on Sunday morning, I woke up and this time she was waiting outside my bedroom and did her dance in the hallway. (Let me pause and repeat what I’ve heard said before: If dogs are not allowed into Heaven, then I do not want to go there when I die. I want to be where the dogs are.) Bear with me, I’m only going to do this for one page: one – two – three – four – five – six – seven – eight – nine – ten – eleven – twelve – thirteen – fourteen – fifteen – sixteen – seventeen – eighteen – nineteen – twenty – twenty-one – twenty-two – twenty-three – twenty-four – twenty-five – twenty-six – twenty-seven – twenty-eight – twenty-nine – thirty – thirty-one – thirty-two – thirty-three – thirty-four – thirty-five – thirty-six – thirty-seven – thirty-eight – thirty-nine – forty – forty-one – forty-two – forty-three – forty-four – forty-five – forty-six – forty-seven – forty-eight – forty-nine – fifty – fifty-one – fifty-two – fifty-three – fifty-four – fifty-five – fifty-six – fifty-seven – fifty-eight – fifty-nine – sixty – sixty-one – sixty-two – sixty-three – sixty-four – sixty-five – sixty-six – sixty-seven – sixty-eight – sixty-nine – seventy – seventy-one – seventy-two – seventy-three – seventy-four – seventy-five – seventy-six – seventy-seven – seventy-eight – seventy-nine – eighty – eighty-one – eighty-two – eighty-three – eighty-four – eighty-five – eighty-six – eighty-seven – eighty-eight – eighty-nine – ninety – ninety-one – ninety-two – ninety-three – ninety-four – ninety-five – ninety-six – ninety-seven – ninety-eight – ninety-nine – one hundred – one hundred one – one hundred two – one hundred three – one hundred four – one hundred five – one hundred six – one hundred seven – one hundred eight – one hundred nine – one hundred ten – one hundred eleven – one hundred twelve – one hundred thirteen – one hundred fourteen – one hundred fifteen – one hundred sixteen – one hundred seventeen –one hundred eighteen – one hundred nineteen – one hundred twenty oh bullshit my wrists are starting to hurt; No, I don’t think I’ll start up any Eins – Zwei – Drei either.

Mountain Meadows Massacre 2008

To petition the IRS to repeal The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints' tax exempt status, click here.

Think Tank Setlist 10-26-2008

Ian McFeron Band - Sunday Afternoon (I Came Alive) - Fistfight with Father Time

Josh Rouse - His Majesty Rides - Subtitulo
John Gorka - Thorny Patch - After Yesterday
The Innocence Mission - Walking Around - Befriended

Rickie Lee Jones - It Takes You There - The Evening of My Best Day
Freakwater - Out of This World - Old Paint
Vertigo Butterfly - Small Pleasures - 1932

Phil Ochs - Canons of Christianity - Phil Ochs in Concert
The Paperboys - Waste Some Time - Molinos
Sixteen Horsepower - Black Soul Choir - Sackcloth 'n' Ashes

Johnny Cash - Redemption - American Recordings
Mostly Dylan - Boots of Spanish Leather - Mostly Dylan
The Urban Hillbilly Quartet - Blood on the Door - Beautiful Lazy

The Yarrows - Lie Awake - Plum
Nils Lofgren - Frankie Hang On - Sacred Weapon
The Austin Lounge Lizards - Leonard Cohen's Day Job - Employee of the Month

Luka Bloom - Delirious - Amsterdam
The Zachary Jones Band - The Ballad of Rachel Corrie - [single]
Robin and Linda Williams - Buena Vista - Buena Vista

Naked Blue - Fear of Flight - Five by Five
Mark Heard - All She Wanted Was Love - Dry Bones Dance

Hank Thompson - The Night Miss Nancy Ann's Hotel for Single Girls Burned Down - Seven Decades

Tonio K - Hey Lady - Olé

Think Tank Setlist 10/19/2008

Daniel Amos - Sanctuary - Vox Humana

Things Outside the Skin - Spice Up Your World [Spice Girls cover] - Teen Feeding Frenzy! A Tribute to the Music Teens Love
Donovan - Atlantis - The Essential Donovan
Donavon Frankenreiter - Someone's Something - Pass it Around

The Hard Way - I Like Elephants - Only if...and Even Then
Kaiser Chiefs - Tomato in the Rain - Off With Their Heads
Bart Davenport - Lil' Bunny - Palaces

The Choir - Cherry Bomb - Flap Your Wings
Terry Scott Taylor - (Out of) The Wild Wood - Glimpses of Grace: The Best of Terry Scott Taylor
Sandy Denny - One More Chance - The Best of Sandy Denny: The Millenium Collection

Randy Stonehill - Charlie the Weatherman - Stories
Damien Jurado - Go First - Caught in the Trees
Brian Wilson - Southern California - That Lucky Old Sun

The Mona Reels - Are We Breaking Up Tonight? - You've Fallen in Love
Mercury Rev - Runaway Raindrop - Snowflake Midnight
Randy Newman - Feels Like Home - Harps and Angels

Calexico - Inspiración - Carried to Dust
Dressy Bessy - Ease Me Down - Holler and Stomp
All Girl Summer Fun Band - Trajectory - Looking Into It
Ani DiFranco - Smiling Underneath - Red Letter Year

The Magnetic Fields - I Think I Need a New Heart - 69 Love Songs
Mary Lou Lord - Baby Blue - Baby Blue
The Mountain Goats - Early Spring - Bitter Melon Farm

Gary Reynolds & The Brides of Obscurity - I Think I Love You [Partridge Family cover] - Teen Feeding Frenzy

Think Tank Setlist - 10/12/2008

Handsome Family - Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down - Nothing Left to Lose: A Tribute to Kris Kristofferson

Randy Newman - Harps and Angels - Harps and Angels
Soundtrack - Day By Day - Godspell [2001 National Touring Cast]
Inda Eaton - Hard to Hold the Light - Never Too Late to Fly

Iron & Wine - Woman King - Woman King
Brian Wilson - Mexican Girl - That Lucky Old Sun
Destroyer - Notorious Lightning - Your Blues

Calexico - Sarabande in Pencil Form / Writer's Minor Holiday - Carried to Dust
Vic Chestnut, Elf Power and the Amorphous Strums - Phil the Fiddler - Dark Developments
Bart Davenport - Jon Jon - Palaces

Low - Monkey - The Great Destroyer
Spoon - Small Stakes - Kill the Moonlight
Waco Brothers - Fast Train Down - Cowboy in Flames

During this song I killed the rabid hornet that was flying around my head.

764-HERO - You Were a Party - Nobody Knows This is Everywhere
Holly Golightly - I Can't Be Trusted - Holly Golightly's Singles Round-Up
The Hard Way - Free - Only if...and Even Then

Donavon Frankenreiter - Life, Love & Laughter - Pass it Around
Ani DiFranco - Emancipated Minor - Red Letter Year
Dressy Bessy - Left to the Right - Holler and Stomp

Stereophonics - Lying in the Sun - Just Enough Education to Perform
Ken Stringfellow - Any Love (Cassandra Et Lune) - Soft Commands
Death in Vegas - Killing Smile - Scorpio Rising

3-Mile Pilot - Eastern Wave - Another Desert Another Sea
Wisely - Go! - Go!

Think Tank Playlist 9-21-2008

All Girl Summer Fun Band - Grass Skirt

Silver Jews - How to Rent a Room
The Apples in Stereo - Please
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - ain't you wealthy, ain't you wise
Stephen Malkmus - I've Hardly Been

Ray's Vast Basement - Fountain Pen
Over the Rhine - Everyman's Daughter
Lost Dogs - Broken Like Brooklyn

Calexico - Gypsy's Curse
Belle and Sebastian - The State I Am In
Belle and Sebastian - Like Dylan in the Movies

Wilco - I'm the Man who Loves You
Squirrel Nut Zippers - It All Depends
The Walkabouts - Train to Mercy

Brendan Benson - The Pledge
Mission of Burma - Academy Fight Song
Some Velvet Sidewalk - Valley of the Clock

Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride
The Mountain Goats - Going to Georgia

Magnolia Electric Co. - Leave the City
Mercury Rev - Dream of a Young Girl as a Flower
Xiu Xiu - Bog People

The Del McCoury Band - 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
The Clean - E Motel

Sparks - There's No Such Thing As Aliens