I got tossed into the shit tonight at work. I could go into it, tell you everything that went wrong, but I don't want to re-live it. I mean I'll tell it to you in person but to write it out is exhausting. The one thing that was funny I will share.

I told Emily that I wanted to be a lot of things for Halloween. One was to have a different walk. The other was to go as a person, just wear what I want. The last was to have a different face - basically make a face all day. (The one I like is my mouth up to the right and my nose flared with eyes sort-of cocked) Anyway, I didn't go out and get any costume materials so I had to use what I had in my closet. I came up with jeans, brown chuck taylors, and a blue plaid button down shirt. More or less what I might wear on any occasion. Except that I rarely wear the shirt, but it is mine and I can do what I want - when I want. More on that later, I mean real late (elbow nudge)* Anyway, I went to work with the idea that I could tell those who asked that I was intending to be a cowboy, or cowhand, or westerner, or, like, a rancher. But I had not the cowboy shoes, nor the cowboy hat. My manager, by the way, went all out and was Wilma Flinstone, with a bright orange wig and a big white faux-stone necklace. The works, really. Enough on her, Jesus. So here's what people said about my costume: i) are you supposed to be a college student? ii) no, he's a high school student. (I got real swool about that and so I thought about making her swool, but didn't) And lastly, my dream come true, iii) are you supposed to be a person?

HURRAY!



* I don't even know what I'm talking about, do you? (It's a footnote Jesus, don't cry)

You've done your best (da-na-nanannaaa)

This post marks a leap year, being my 366th post. And it also marks Halloween, a holiday invented by Satanist in order to foil God and his Men. Last night Em and I watched the Freaks and Geeks episode "Trick and Treat." The funniest part is when Lindsay and Sam's Mom sings "Monster Mash." How hard is that to watch? In honor of that, Em and I recorded songs on my phone, though we only got through one without laughing. We sang: "What have you got to give? TIP!" And: "We're d' berds a' Bodega Bay." And also: "Too bad Aladdin, Jafar's the greatest. He's an evil sorcerer, and I think he will go far. (Repeat first part)." We did not sing, because we were all teary-eyed and laugh-exhausted, "Green Goblin smile (guitar part) you've done your best (guitar part) too bad you died (guitar part) may your soul rest."

Allow me to explain, if only for archiving reasons. What have you got to give - easy, that's from All the Real Girls. Enough said, really. The birds of Bodega Bay is the result of watching Hitchcock's "The Birds" one night with Em and Mike. I think it was those two who made it up and yet they have different versions, and mine is trying to be like Emily's and she says its all wrong. The Aladdin song is meant to come at the end of the movie so-named. Done to the melody of R Kelly's "The World's Greatest". And the funny part, if you've seen "Aladdin" is obvious: Jafar is not the greatest; I think he dies. The Green Goblin song comes at the end of Spiderman and is funny because of how earnest it is. The thought of that song ending Spiderman, instead of some make-out song by Dashboard, when everyone wanted the Goblin to die, is hilarious. All the sudden there's this sympathy for a Green FREAK! Anyway, that song is done to the tune of Creed's "Higher". Correct me if I'm wrong.

And speaking of Green FREAKS - HAPPY HALLOWEEN ya'll! That MINE!

See it AGAIN then!

When I said 'Please let me go!" I did not mean anything in reference to Emily and I being married. I should have made a new paragraph. I'm just so sorry. It looks like I really messed up.

I've decided to end my blog because of it. Me and my blog just aren't singing from the same hymn book anymore. We've come to the pitch fork in the road as it were.

I've started a new blog though. You can find it here. Wow. My blog won't even allow me to do hyperlinks anymore. Anyway my new blog is called pisspissychips.blogspot.com.

I ain't got no cash 'cos I spent it way too fast. I used pretty much all of my saved up money to buy clothes. I got two dress shirts, a new pair of shoes, three pair of socks, a blue flannel shirt, a pair of pants, a bottle of Jameson. So far I have decided to return the pants (the back pockets are weird) and I've had a glass of Ginger Ale and James, which I think is called a Presbyterian. If it isnt, then it is now: by me. I still haven't finished Ford's sleepy book.

Please jot this down: Emily and I have been together, as in 'going out', for 8 years and 1 day! We will be married 4 years in May. (22 days in). Please let me go!

I wanted to apologize for this recent post. I don't want anyone imagining me having one of those you know whats. Besides, to tell you the truth, it wasn't me who wrote any of that. (It was Douche Baggins) And I think someone put him up to it.

I changed my name today to Douche Baggins.

just be nice.

I know you are all busy building me a present but I just wanted to interrupt your wood working and cookie making and painting and welding to inform you that I have written a poem. And I'm in love with it. You can see it on the web. Your mouse and my title should get together and find it.

Fratello dove sei?

I'm about to drink white tea out of a cup that reads Sanka. I am caught up on my daily journal. I do not work today, nor do I work tomorrow morning. Life is perfect. Also: Lost is coming via the post; I have two checks to cash; on Friday I am born again for the 27th time (BAPTISM!); Emily is making cinnamon rolls - She's my cinnamon girl, which is a song by Neil Young about Emily this morning; and it is Fall, my favorite season of all.

Last night we watched "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". It was pretty good. The logic of the story really tried my patience. And I fell asleep at some point, but that's just what I do. All in all, it was good.

I am almost done with Richard Ford's Independence Day. The Sportswriter was the first part of Ford's Bascombe-trilogy, The Lay of the Land being the last, published a year ago. I read Sportswriter after reading an interview in The Believer on Philip Seymour Hoffman, where he praised Ford like a teenie-bopper (sorry I just said that). I had plans to read Twain and all the classic-classics. Instead I read a more modern classic. I got some Yates, also because of Hoffman and Adam Haslett. I figured he's an actor I respect, I want to read the books by the authors he respects. I hope my logic isn't trying your patience.

Sportswriter was good, but it didn't really grab me. I read it very passively, but finished nonetheless and wanted to read Independence Day, for which Ford won the Pulitzer. This book too does not grab me, but I'm going to finish it very soon and will most likely read his latest. I think that it is a book I will really appreciate and relate to when I'm older, as it is about Frank Bascombe, who is in his 30s and going through a 30 year old crisis in the first book. The other books each add on ten years, thus furthering the distance by 10, 20, 30 years from my vantage point.

I have a stack of books sitting next to my chair. I am very proud of most of them and want to tell my blog about them. You can read about them too, I guess - but they're really just for my blog.

AHEM!

From top to bottom, these are the books to my right:

i) Independence Day, Ford.
ii) Civilwarland in Bad Decline, Saunders.
iii) Pastoralia, ibid.
iv) In Persuasion Nation, ibid.
[i just ran to 'the iggle' for a missing ingredient, listening to 'bodysnatchers' by Radiohead the whole way]
v) The Fuck Up, Nersesian.
vi) You Are Not a Stranger Here, Haslett.
vii) The Rabbit Novels, Volume One, Updike.
viii) Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, Yates.
ix) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain.
x) Underworld, Delillo.
xi) Lord Vishnu's Love Handles, Clarke.

Having them there produces such a complete feeling of fulfillment that I can't really explain but will try. It's like the moment after you have an orgasm, not the second after, when you are not in control yet, but the moment you gain your control back. The moment you are thinking of nothing else besides how satisfied you are. That feeling. Precisely. The analogy works really well because a good orgasm is never obtained without patience, a constant 'towing of the line'. So too, with these books there's a part of me that wants nothing more than to read everyone of them in a way similar to chugging beer after beer followed by a Tarzan-like beating of the chest. Picture me smashing each book into my face and smearing them as if they were first dipped in lemon pie. But then I would have read them and that would be sad.

Now, on my left side I have some reference books, and others that are further down on my list, or are simply there, for no real reason:

i) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Blackburn.
ii) Oxford American Dictionary.
iii) The Fortress of Solitude, Lethem.
iv) A Model World and Other Stories, Chabon.
v) The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Alexie.
vi) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Dumbledore.
vii) Consumer Reports Buying Guide 2006.
viii) The Filmmaker's Handbook, Ascher & Pincus.

Some of these just need reshelved. And now for my day. Adieu!

I am a patient boy. I wait, I wait, I wait: for Beth and Emily to take me away. There will be karaoke tonight. By that I mean I will see friends do karaoke. If I do karaoke, there will be blood.

Is anyone excited, or, if you are the type of person who works at EEFC - are you stoked? - to see the new P.T. Anderson movie, or flick if you are some other kind of person.

I am. Also other movies: Into the Wild, The Darjeeling Limited, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Baby Robert Ford, Michael Clayton, other things too but I don't want to tell you anything.

There are a lot of things I do not understand. Some I do not want to understand because I either don't care enough to find out or prefer the mystery. But there is one thing I do not understand and the not knowing is really getting my goat.

My car's defrost.

The other day it was 40 degrees out, obviously cold. The windshield was getting a little foggy so I put on the defrost. I chose the hot side as opposed to the cold, the one that is red. And my car got even more fogged up, spreading to other windows. If I wore glasses they too would have been fogged. Even though I was cold, I pushed the lever to the left, towards the blue side which is cold. The windshield started to un-fog. Then I pressed the a/c button, which I did not want to do because I was a cold boy, and the windows un-fogged in seconds. WTF.

My car must have pushed the LOL button because I just about busted a cold gut laughing about this mysterious situation. I actually pulled over and un-zipped my pants just because I was so happy. Then I cut all of my right arm hair off and threw it at a tree. "Life is so LOL," I yelled. What is lawl?" the tree said. "What are you doing out of Fangorn, you buckleberry prickbeard?" I asked.

And I don't need explaining about the talking Ent, that is a mystery I am ok with. But the defrost? Please advise.

I had inventory today. The DM, Dirty Mustache, caught me with my pants down. I didn't think he'd walk in on me while I was going to the bathroom. He didn't know the bathroom was the middle of the store, near aisle 13. I felt bad pooping on that old man's head too, but he shouldn't have been in the store on off hours.

Ok, you caught me - I'm lying. I would never poop on an old man's head. That's gross. But I did lose my job. I'm working for The Weekend now, a 7th Day Adventist's newspaper about clip art and pseudonyms. It's really enjoyable. I haven't started yet but an old man who works there told me. He's always getting shit faced, this old man.

You probably pretended to shoot your brains all over the monitor about 5 times by now.

Here's the truth: Inventory went incredibly well. Zounds!

It is hecka early. Still dark outside. I don't remember it being dark when I got up in previous years. At least not for this long. It's been like 3 months of dark mornings. All that will change November 4th. That's national bright mornings day. Or, Bromo. Actually that is when we turn the clocks ahead, but it is called Bromo by someone, I'm sure.

I'm sitting here because I am still tired and do not want to go to work just yet. I'm not officially due until like 7 or 7:30. But our inventory is tomorrow so I want to make sure we do well. When I think of Inventory I think of an old-fashioned scale. On one side you've got all the merchandise and prescriptions we've sold; all the merchandise we still have in our store but were billed for - or should have been. On the other side you've got merchandise that should be in the store but isn't. This could be the result of people stealing[...]

All of the above was written this morning and I would have kept typing, ending at an eye-opening conclusion if the power had not gone out unexpectedly. "When does the power ever go out expectedly?" you ask. In the middle of a storm. Not in the middle of a quiet and dark morning. "How do you know it was the middle and not the end of morning?" you ask. You ass, I say. You are about to get swool.

I believe my blog was bored with me and had dagger eyes for me and had to make all the power go out and had to get swool.

Today was not horrible, but very tiring and trying. Today tried very hard to get my goat and failed. Thank Christ. Tonight I will have a love affair with relax and book and eat and dvd. Emily and Beth will have an affair with Yo La Tengo, which translates I Have It. At least I know it does.

en-trance

Everybody listen up and get this.

Lost is a show about a group of renegade teenagers who sneak into their highschool with their over night bags, and sleep in the music room. Please watch it! It's on Saturdays at 3:30/perfect time.

Armands is a bar that serves majors. G & T. Benders.

Tsing Tao is a Green bottle. It is wild, as in non-domestic, as in: it's an Important brew.

Blackberries are brought to you by Research in Motion, a company out of St. Louis. They use UPS. And USB.

The dictionary is from A to Z. The authority is the OED and the OAD.

I'm not going to explain any of that except I will say that in 12th grade, me and a friend of mine, a friend who had a serious problem getting up, snuck into Gateway Senior High School late one night and attempted to sleep in the music storage room. I set up my nest under a marimba. The idea, quite simple, was that we'd wake up and be in the exact place we had to be. It didn't work, we packed it up, packed it up, let me begin. We slept somewhere else that night. A bed of roses I'm sure. And he got his diploma in the end. All's well...

Lincoln, Or the Past

I was in Oregon. For three and a half months. We stayed in cabins, although I stayed in a 'bunk house', which was like a big cabin with 5 or 6 cabin-apartments. There were two all-guy cabins. The one I was not in had their own language they called 'soggidy'.

My cabin, on 'open house' night, played "Where is my Mind?" by the Pixies. I played guitar and sang it. Andrew - Mennonite, engaged to be married, highly opionionated, soon to be doctor - played lead guitar. McG - long pube-like hair, speed reader, romantic - played a bongo drum, which I'm sure had some specific name. Zerch - mumbling dread-head to whom I was the closest - played something, or nothing. Not sure. After that night everyone thought I was different. Every girl wanted me in her. In her life, is what I mean. And I just played it cool. Taught everyone a lesson in humility. A kind of "So you know I'm the best, well, I'm not so sure" take on life that ultimately made them pray to me.

So none of the last 5 sentences are true, in any way. But they did think I was different after that night. Something like, I thought he was shy, but he just yelled a song at us and so he can't be shy. But then I was. And am. So you decide.

As for you blog, now it's personal. I have to teach drums to starving hunters in Africa tonight.

Andrew Bird. What can I say? If you don't like him or think what he is doing is amazing than you are shit because you are a piece of it. I'm serious, now, I ain't kiddin. Take a hard look at what you are sowing and I'll just about tell you what you are reaping.

Anyway, I got an email back from the Square Cafe. Here it is, id est, of course, you sillys:

Dear Jason, or whatever your name is,

You don't know anything about what it takes to run a piece of shit restaurant. You're off your dick.

Sincerely,
Gay

See, if I owned a restaurant, and I received an erudite and respectful email like the one I would send to myself, then I wouldn't respond to myself like that. At least not in earnest.

I'm lost tonight. Don't call or knock or write or think or peak.

TONIGHT!