AS OF DEC. 20, 2009

The Book Of Love
By Mikel K


"It's always hard to break in, but talent will find a home."--The Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency


In this book, the author comes across as a cross between David Sedaris,
Donald Miller, and Augusten Burroughs…that's what the author thinks, anyway.

“We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.”
—Fredrick Koeing



I lay down to nap, just now, but couldn't sleep, so I set my cell phone for a fifteen minute meditation period. I had mixed luck with that, because my cat, Kobain, parked his body on my chest, and his head in my hand, demanding to be scratched, and rubbed. Then I did something new: I set the alarm for a seven minute pray. I prayed for everyone who I could think of, and about all the things that I could think of that might need praying for: this went better than the meditation. Kobain, I guess, doesn't mind me praying because he got off my chest and lay down next to me while I prayed.


There are certain songs that I can listen to over, and over, and not get tired of them. "Green Grass and High Tides," by The Outlaws is one of those songs, and so is, "American Girl," by Tom Petty. The lyrics in both songs make a great deal of sense to me, and the music drives me into a very enjoyable manic frenzy. A great song can make it seem as if life is treating you well, even if it isn't. A great song, for me, is better than taking a hit of anything, or a drink.
Nobody has heard of me, but you will soon come to love me, at least that is my hope: my name is Mikel K, and I hope that you enjoy my stories.


"Though seeing, they do not see though hearing, they do not hear or understand."
--Matthew 13:30

The fact that you don't have cable means you don't really care.
And frankly, I can't blame you.
--Mary Franklin


This is the beginning, but I will tell you, right now, that this book ends with, "The End…" How very clever.

Senorita: I read your poetry in notes, last night; printed it, and I think I enjoy it so much I am going to add it into my journal. You've got a groupie! You love words, don't you?

Mikel K: I love where I have landed. I come from drunk tanks, and mental institutions, bar room brawls, and the back seat of police cars.

Senorita: And you are where you should be.

Mikel K: Yup, yup.




"Lately it occurs to me what a long strange trip it's been."
--The Grateful Dead



This book is mostly the truth, as I remember it. There are a few places where I stretch the truth, or out right lie, to cover someone's buttocks, often mine, or because I simply can't remember what really happened.
Some of the characters

Morisson:

The runaway dog who ran to me, and, finally, stayed: part lab, part we have never been able to figure out what; all love.

I have had people tell me that their dog is, "the best dog in the world," but, trust me, Morisson would give any dog on the planet a run for their money, and then run off with their money, and bring it to me. He is that good of a dog.

Morisson is ALWAYS there with a hug for me or you. The only flaw that Morisson has, if it is a flaw, is that he lives in complete fear of storms: thunder and lightening make him shake, and beg for entrance into my bed, where he is not allowed.

To see if I violate my own policy for him, in a storm, read on.




Jaggar:

Jaggar is my black cat. Someone found Jaggar in a fast food restaurant parking lot, when he was a very small kitten, with his chest caved in. His mother was lying near him, dead: she had been run over by the same car that caved in Jaggar's chest. I guess that getting that burger, and French fries, had been very important to someone.

Jaggar was rushed to the vet, where I was taking my dogs, and cats, at the time. Different members of the staff, who were nursing Jaggar back to health, would bring him out, and show him to me. Sometimes, he would be licking a syringe, as if it were his mothers breast.

I started to fall in love with Jaggar, and anticipated visiting with him, when I would be going in with one of my dogs or cats. I didn't realize it, at the time, but I think that the vet staff was grooming me to be Jaggar's daddy, because when he became well enough to leave the vet's office, it was in my hands.

Jaggar was the cutest little kitty, but he was always an aloof kitten. He didn't play like normal kittens did, and he grew up to be an aloof cat who doesn't play like other cats play. Jaggar has his own set of rules and regulations for how you can interact with him. He will rub up against your leg to show you love, but don't even try petting him because he won't let you. I think that the way that he was raised made him a little anti-social, a little bit detached. I don't care about all of that; I love him anyway.



Bundy:

Was a hand me down, who was handed down, again, to me. He was the worse behaved dog that I had ever seen. He jumped on furniture, he barked all the time, he tried to make your love and affection exclusively his, pushing Morisson out of the way to get to your hand. He acted like he thought that he was the Alpha dog, and that his existence was the only one that mattered. He stole food from Morisson. Walking him was murder on the arm because he would pull you like you were being lead by a cement mixing truck.

I thought about finding "a good home" for Bundy a bunch of times, but I never actually tried to. Instead I kept working with him, working on him, teaching him how to walk on a leash, telling him to stay off furniture, barking at him so he wouldn't bark all the time, and you know what: Bundy turned out to be a great dog, not perfect, but great. He is half Rotweiller, half lab and the rottie half makes him a good guard dog. I am not sure, but I would bet that Bundy would attack someone who broke into this place while I am gone, and I think that that is a good thing.



Prynce and RuPaul:

My turtles Prynce the man, and Rue Paul the girl (of course). They don't say much, but they speak to me in volumes. I have watched them for endless hours, as they kiss, bite, lay on each other, fight for food, get along side by side eating food, swimming, and sunning themselves on their rock underneath their heat lamp. I cracked the glass to their tank today as I was cleaning it; ouch!

Kobain:

Kobain is this big, and beautiful, long haired, grey cat that was dropped off by somebody on my veterinarian's porch. People do that fairly often with animals: just drop them off at the vet's house, when he isn't looking, because they don't want them anymore, or can't take care of them.

My precious cat, Madonna, had been run over, and killed, in the parking lot in front of my apartment. She had gotten angry that my son had brought home another cat, and was staying out more and more. I was really close to Madonna, and it hurt me that she was killed, so I stayed away from cats until I was emotionally ready to enter into a relationship with another one.

There were two cats in cages at my vet's office that they were trying to find homes for: one was this killer calico with orange and white spots, who was my choice, and the other was Kobain, who my daughter chose. I had told my daughter that she could pick the cat that we would bring home, and boy did she pick correctly.

At first, Kobain was very anti-social, staying to himself like you might imagine that a cat who had been dumped onto somebody's porch in the middle of the night might do. I don't remember when he started to open up to me, but I do know that now, today, the minute that I lay down in the bed, Kobain crawls onto my chest, and digs his head into my hand, demanding to be scratched, and rubbed.



Scout: my daughter.

Kevin: my daughter's biological father.

I hate the words, "step, or half;" they have such evil connotations, and, besides, I am not stepping anywhere, and I certainly am not a half-ass father figure. I love Scout,
and I treat her just like the one bio boy that I have.

Graem: Bio Boy

William: "Mine," since I bought him a six pack of sprite when he was five; he is now 28. My joke with William is that I am still buying him sprite. It's not true, though. William is married to a wonderful lady and has a boy of his own now.

G2: The Boss. Even though we never married, we have had a 22 year love affair, which has included many, many moments of discord. Overall, we were great co-parents, even though we didn't do it the way that The Pope tells people to; it's not all, "Leave it to Beaver," baby.



Mikel,

What a lovely gift you give to one from your heart, with words that find meaning in all that is mundane; or, is it all that is surreal, and tainted, with moments of glory?

You are a poet of the highest standard.

It flows from you like lava from the ancient mountain that waits its turn to rise, and rejuvenate. It is frightening, exhilarating, and reminds us of our ultimate pettiness, lowliness and the creatures that we are.

Though I do not know this man for whom you dedicate your time and talent, however, I am touched by your generosity of spirit and the words that wrap your gifts with golden ribbon.

--Cathy J.

Dear Face Book:

I've learned that I don't have to be in the clean plate club, that I can scrape the food that I don't want onto the floor, and the dogs will be happy to have it. Javi, who has been a part of our family for 12 plus years now, may be at the end of his journey. This will be the first dog that I've been a part of who I will see die. I'm not any good at death.

--Mikel K Poet


I am reading your poem--Snezana, from Serbia








Did You Write The Book Of Love
by Mikel K






1. The day the music died

I like pie, but I especially like American Pie.

I wrote the book of love, but no one bought it, so, now, I am going to write quite a different book. I will tell you all about this book, but first there are more important things to cover, like the fact that I am still single at age 52.

I'm not very good looking, and I have never been very good looking. I don't know why I am telling you this. I guess that it is, somehow important to the story. I must not be ugly to all people, though, I do have children, and, I guess, if that woman, who I had the kids with, had thought that I was ugly, she wouldn't have had kids with me, although we both were drinking a lot at the time she got pregnant.

If it wasn't for booze, I might not be a father. It's sad to think that this woman maybe had to get drunk to have sex with me, but that is just how it goes, sometimes. You have got to take things as they come, and find gratitude where you can, is what I have come to learn. You might not always get what you want, but you will usually get what you need. Who said that before I did?

In Jr. High School, I got a couple of votes for most winning smile in the school year book. I didn't win. I may have had the best smile, but I wasn't the most popular kid. In Jr. High School you have to be popular to win any of those things in the yearbook. I've always had a good smile, though I haven't always had a lot to smile about.


"A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile."


Up north, where we lived at the time, on Sunday nights, my parents thought that I was asleep, getting rested up for school in the morning, but, really, I was hiding under the covers, and I had the dial turned up on this ten dollar radio, that I had bought from a department store, to "Casey Kasem's American Top 40."

I heard some incredible songs on that show; some of my favorites went all the way to number one, which, being the competitive kind of kid that I was, at that time, made me happy. I'm a big music freak, till this day, and Casey was my gateway drug to getting high just listening to bands play.

Maggie May," by Rod Stewart. "Joy To The World," by Three Dog Night, were two of the great number ones, that Kasey played for me, but there was one number one that blew them all away.


"Here we go with the Top 40 hits of the nation this week on American Top 40, the best-selling and most-played songs from the Atlantic to the Pacific from Canada to Mexico. This is Casey Kasem in Hollywood, and in the next three hours, we'll count down the 40 most popular hits in the United States this week, hot off the record charts of Billboard magazine for the week ending July 11, 1970. In this hour at #32 in the countdown, a song that's been a hit 4 different times in 19 years! And we're just one tune away from the singer with the $10,000 gold hubcaps on his car! Now, on with the countdown!"

— Casey Kasem at the beginning of the inaugural AT40 broadcast
Source: Wikipedia


"And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And, maybe, they'd be happy for a while."


It must be nice to write a song like that, to say that you are going to make people dance, and to then go out and do it. They danced in 1971 to "American Pie," by Don McLean, and they are still dancing to it, now. What is the significance of the lyrics, McLean, was asked(many times actually.)

"The significance is that I'll never have to have a job, again," said McLean, with a big smile on his face.

That is a hell of a song, don't you think?!!"

"But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn't take one more step."

I delivered newspapers, when I was a kid, also, but I never learned to play guitar. My parents put me in piano lessons, with a kid who could play, who lived down the street from where we lived at the time, but I talked my way out of the lessons, preferring, instead, to play Cowboys and Indians in the front yard.

I really wish that my parents had not let me talk them out of piano lessons. Every time that I hear the introduction to the song, "Imagine," by John Lennon, I cringe, nearly crying, wishing that I could play piano.

What good did playing Cowboys and Indians do for me?

"I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride,
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died."

The first two lines have to be about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; don't they? Friday, November 22, 1963. I was six years old. I can barely remember that day. It lives forever in this song, though.

"The day the music died?"

Buddy Holly went down to his death in a small plane, and he didn't go down alone. With him went Ritchie Valens, J.P. "Big Bopper" Richardson and the pilot of the plane, Roger Peterson. That is what Mr. McLean was supposedly writing about, in this part of the song. Mr. McClean is a wise man, though. He calls the song, "poetry" and refuses to speak for it, saying that it should, and does, speak for itself. You can burn an audience out by thinking for them.

That's enough of that, really. I was going to present the whole, "American Pie," song to you, in the manner that I just presented what I presented, but I don't see the purpose to it, really. Don McLean wrote a great song. He wrote a song so great that it took care of him for the rest of his life. The trouble about writing such a great song, I would think, is that it is impossible to ever again write such a great song. That song represents the pinnacle in his career. It is, basically, the only song of his that we are familiar with. And oh how familiar with it we are: most of us can sing it line for line; most of us that is that came of age in 1971.

“I have never said a bad thing about the song, I was poor when I wrote it, and it made me a millionaire overnight. Believe me, I’m not upset about this song.” –Don McLean, 2000

2.


My favorite food is probably sushi; then, I like eggs best. I'm really fond of onions, and chocolate, but not together, of course. I'm big on coffee with Stevia and half n half, and hot tea with milk. I don't know why I'm telling you this. Maybe, one day, you will take me out to dinner, or lunch, and you will know what I like.


3.


She said that you kiss funny


Dear God:

I have destroyed another day. It was an immaculate day. I enjoyed every breath that I inhaled in this day. What a gift to be alive, and breathing. I feel more alive than when I was young. I think that I have learned a thing or two in this existence. I walk down bright paths, these days, not cloudy ones.


I was in ninth grade when that song that I just said that I was going to quit talking about came out. I was a skinny kid; my teachers thought that I was smart, and the basketball coach thought I was pure. He was wrong, he soon found out. I was pure as long as I was getting what I wanted, as long as things were going my way, as long as they were giving me the ball, and letting me shoot, shoot, shoot.

I was a gunner. I thought that I was Pete Maravich, but I wasn't. I wound up being the leading scorer on a Jr. High School Basketball Team that won one game all season. That really sucked. The aim of scoring points, I later learned, is so that your team wins. My goal was for me to win, i.e. score more points than anyone else. What would have been nice would have been for us to have won our games, with me leading in the scoring dept. I learned, later, that that is how it is supposed to be done. I was a very me, me, me person in those days.

4.

Dear God:

I am alive to see another new day; what a blessing. All things are possible while I have the gift of life. I may scale a skyscraper. I may write a poem, or two, recognized as good as one by Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, or Charles Bukowski. Wouldn't that not be nice? I will be kind to a stray cat. I will smile at the homeless the same as I do the regular folk, for are we not all equal, do we not all deserve a smile?


The next year, in high school, the year after American Pie, came into our consciousness, I made the tennis team.

Wake up Maggie
I think I got something to say to you;
it's late September and I really should be back at school.
I know I keep you amused
but I feel I'm being used

"Maggie May," by Rod Stewart was another song that electrified me; though I was careful to not let my parents catch me listening to music on Sunday nights beneath my covers, as I have told you, but I am sure that I had to turn the volume knob up at least a little bit when this song came on as number one on Casey's Countdown.

Who doesn't relate to being used? I was in Jr. High School then, and I felt used by my parents, and by most all of the other kids who surrounded me in school. Nobody understood me, and it seemed like nobody could stand me. My parents were constantly berating me about grades, and behavior. The other kids either ignored me, or made fun of me for how I dressed, or how I played basketball. The song, "Maggie Mae," helped me rebel a little bit. It was kind of an angry song, and I was kind of an angry kid.

When I got to high school, like I told you, I made the tennis team. I was really happy about this, and proud of it, also. I did so well on the team, that by eleventh grade, the coach was saying that I was going to be tapped as one of the Captains of the team in my senior year, and from the way I was playing the game, it looked as if I would either be the number one or the number two player.

And then…my first high school dance.

I had started drinking beer, a bit, with some kids who I loosely hung around with, on the weekends, and me and this group were running late for our first high school dance, and this one kid told me that I should buy blackberry brandy, instead of beer, that it got you drunk faster, tasted sweet, and went down easy. So I begged some older guy who was going into the liquor store to buy me a pint of it, and, when we got to the woods leading to the school, I chugged it.

The next thing I knew I was in the bathroom at the high school, puking my life out into the toilet. Someone pushed at the door, and I'm sure that I pushed it back. The story came out, later, that I hit the principal. I can't imagine that; I think that this is an exaggeration by a fellow, or two, who was and were not operating in my best interest.

oh
Maggie
I couldn't have tried anymore.
You lured me away from home
just to save you from being alone.
You stole my heart and that's what really hurts.
The morning sun
when it's in your face
really shows your age

The whole blackberry brandy incident went down because I was a shy kid. I wanted to fortify myself with some liquid courage for the dance, but I went over the line; way over the line. I got thrown off the tennis team. I would not be a Co-Captain, I would not be a number one or number two player. All that I had worked so hard for for years had gone up in smoke in the time that it took me to chug that lousy bottle of booze. I went from an unknown in The Principal's Office to public enemy number one. I sat in that office for weeks.

but that don't worry me none
in my eyes you're everything.
I laughed at all of your jokes
my love you didn't need to coax

oh
Maggie
I couldn't have tried anymore.
You lured me away from home
just to save you from being alone.
You stole my soul
that's a pain I can do without.
All I needed was a friend to lend a guiding hand

I was really wanting to get to know girls, at this point in my studies, but I didn't know how to. My tongue tied itself whenever I got around a woman who I was interested in. I could relate, somehow, to what Rod Stewart was singing about in Maggie Mae. I was frustrated with a woman, too, only I didn't know who she was. I was frustrated because she had not appeared, and entered into my life.

but you turned into a lover
and
Mother
what a lover !
You wore me out.
All you did was wreck my bed
and in the morning kick me in the head

There was no Maggie Mae in my life, wrecking my bed, or kicking me in the head. I might have welcomed this. I probably would have been happy with just about any female interaction. Maybe I would have met a girl at the school dance, but instead I puked in the bathroom, and got thrown off the tennis team. Life throws you, or, at least, life has thrown me some strange curve balls from time to time. Most of those times have been when I have been drinking. (Fastballs to the forehead, is more like it, now that I think about it.)

*******


The tea is hot. It hits the back of my throat with a feel good mentality. I haven't had a liquor drink in seventeen years, which is a sign of how old I am. I quit drinking when I was 34. I had to. I hit my bottom, as "they" say. I can't tell you who "they" are because at the level of press, radio and film, you are supposed to be quiet about your involvement in it, so that you don't ruin it for someone else, if you relapse. I wouldn't want to ruin it for someone else; the thing saved my life, it changed my life.

I had a kid around that time, which also contributed to my being able to quit. I loved that kid, and I knew that I wasn't doing him much good as I ran around being a Poet Rock Star Wanna Be stoned on booze all the time.

I wanted to be on the cover of The Stoned Roller, with millions of people loving me, and buying my books, and spoken word cds, but it wasn't happening, and the kid was growing up fast, so I traded in my place as a Drunk Poet for a spot as a Sober Father in the Little League Bleachers watching my son grow up as he ran the bases.


My song then became Cat's In The Cradle by Harry Chapin:

"My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talkin' 'fore I knew it, and as he grew
He'd say "I'm gonna be like you dad
You know I'm gonna be like you."

I did not want to be the man in the song. I wanted to be there for my son. For the first three years of his life, though I had been mostly physically present, I had been mentally absent from his life. My time was spent with the bottle. The bottle is a vicious thief: it steals time from you, it steals precious time that should be spent with your child.

"I'm gonna be like you dad, you know I'm gonna be like you."

I did not want my son to be like me, so I had to change. And the change that I had to effect was to get rid of the bottle; and I did. I did get ride of the bottle. I went from being a boozer in the music clubs to a hands-on, fully present father. I can not tell you how good that that made me feel about me. I did not feel good being a drunk. It was not something that I was proud of. I was proud of being a father.

"And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home dad?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then."


I'm home son, and I am staying home son. I am here for you, and I will always be here for you. Let someone else get the cover of, "The Stoned Roller." I have found something more important than money, and fame. I have found a love for my son.


"My son turned ten just the other day
He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play
Can you teach me to throw", I said "Not today
I got a lot to do", he said, "That's ok"
And he walked away but his smile never dimmed
And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah
You know I'm gonna be like him."


I threw the ball with my son. And I hit him grounders; endless grounders. I hit my son so many grounders that, at age 12 he wound up being part of a baseball team that won a State Championship. Man those kids were good.

Man, my son was good; and I played a part in that: endless hours at the baseball field hitting pop ups to my son, endless pop ups, and you know what? I enjoyed every minute of it. I was a musician, a spoken word poet, and I thought that I would never return to the baseball field that I had spent a couple seasons on as a kid, but there I was, back on the baseball field, and all because of the love that I had for my son. I was doing it for him. I would do anything for him. Having a son was the first time in my life that I became selfless, that I actually cared about something more than I did myself. It was an exhilarating feeling, to get out of me, and to get into him.

"And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home dad?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then."

I had given up the bottle. I had come home to be with my son. I did have a good time in doing such. I had a great time; I had the time of my life. There is nothing as rewarding, there is nothing that is as much fun as being a father; nothing. I love my son, and I love being a father.



Well, he came home from college just the other day
So much like a man I just had to say
"Son, I'm proud of you, can you sit for a while?"
He shook his head and said with a smile
"What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys
See you later, can I have them please?"

My son got into college; he got into two of the best Art Schools in the country, but he didn't want to owe Two Hundred Thousand Dollars for an Art Degree, which I thought was pretty dang smart of him. I don't have a car, so he can't borrow the car keys. I am proud of him, very proud of him. He has turned out to be a brilliant young man. He works as a mechanic, which I think is a great thing to be, because a trade such as being an auto mechanic is something that they can't take away from you. As long as there are cars, my son will have a job. As long as I can breath the air, I will love my son. If I had a car, I might well let my son borrow it.

I might not also.

"Riders On The Storm," is my favorite song by The Doors, and The Doors are either my number one, or number two favorite band, depending on how I am feeling at the time that I am listening to music. I'll tell you, later, who the other act is that occupies my one-or-two slot.

Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house were born
Into this world were thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm

"Into this world we were thrown": most definitely. "Like a dog without a bone…" what a great way to put it. We come into this existence with nothing, completely dependent on whoever happens to be around us, like "an actor out on loan."

We have nothing, we are nothing. We may wind up being nothing, having nothing. Who knows what fate has in store for us. Some of us are born into great wealth, and will not much have to worry about paying rent, or buying groceries. We will drive nice cars, and go to good colleges simply by the luck of the draw, and some of us will struggle, financially, all our life.

And who picks who will wind up where and why: an omnipotent supreme being, a roll of the dice? Who knows? We may never know, even when we have passed. Such a great mystery: who controls our destiny, who controls whether we will be born into opulence, or poverty.

Theres a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin like a toad
Take a long holiday
Let your children play
If ya give this man a ride
Sweet memory will die
Killer on the road, yeah

Ted Bundy killed a friend of mine, when I was in college. I was the second to last person to see her alive. I was the second door knocked on in the Police Investigation into her death, the morning after she was killed. Her name was Margaret Bowman. She was a Chi Omega. I knew her from Student Government. The night before she was killed, she had a date with a guy who lived across the hall from me in the frat house that he and I lived in. He didn't have a car, so I dropped him at the front of the Chi O house so that Margaret could drive him and her to this wine and cheese party that us frat boys were having. Then I went and got my date. The four of us sat around and got stupid on wine, mostly ignoring, I'm sure, the cheese. When the party was over, my frat bro tried to get Margaret to come back to his water bed, but she said no, and went back to the Chi O house, and got killed by Ted Bundy instead.

Tallahassee, Florida was one weird; and scared place after that asshole killed Margaret and her sorority sisters that night. I had a guy sleep on my floor for like a month because he was scared shitless; nobody knew what had hit us, nobody knew if it was going to hit us again.

I saw Bundy on tv, year later, and he looked into the camera and said, "I was unable to stop myself. Society has to stop people like me." No shit. I was glad when they fried that bastard, all arguments about the fairness of the death penalty aside.

Girl ya gotta love your man
Girl ya gotta love your man
Take him by the hand
Make him understand
The world on you depends
Our life will never end
Gotta love your man, yeah

I fell in "love" with a girl the summer after I graduated from high school. She wound up breaking my heart. I have had my heart broken a bunch of times; in fact it seems like I am always getting my heart broken. Do you see a pattern here?


Flyin' me back to Memphis
Gotta find my Daisy Jane
well the summer's gone
and I hope she's feelin' the same
Well I left her just to raom the city
Thinkin' it would ease the pain
I'm a crazy man and I'm playin' my crazy game, game

Daisy Jane by America was my favorite song my Freshman year of college, right after that little lady so unceremoniously dropped me as a love interest, I was listening to it a lot. There was a pain in the song that I could relate to. I played the song over and over so many times, that the guys who lived in the dorm room next to mine put a note on my door that said,

"Dear Daisy Jane Lover, PLEASE quit playing the same song over and over. Thank You."

I was embarrassed, and I acquiesced to their request. Maybe it was when I quit playing that song, that I got over that woman. Maybe. It's been so long now that I can't remember. Time is a great healer.


Do you really love me?
I hope you do
Like the stars above me
how I love you
When it's cold at night
everything's all right

She didn't love me. She never loved me. I was just a convenient place to place her lips for awhile. I made her laugh, I made her smile, and then someone else came along who could make her laugh and smile. Oh well, it was a lesson learned that would come in handy over the next 30 years of my life, one that I'm not sure that I learned as well as I should have. Love is a bitch baby. Love is a mean as hell dog from hell. I have never been in love more than three years. What does that make me: a serial monogamist?

I'm 52 years old, and I've never married. What's up with that? My parents were Irish Catholic: they came over on a boat, he from County Cork, and she from Dublin. He lived in the garage, and she lived in the kitchen; they stayed married for The Pope. Isn't that sick: live a life of non-communication because some guy is telling you that you can't get into heaven if you get a divorce?

Anyway, I watched that weird marriage charade that my parents played, and, I think, that, at some level, it affected me, it told me that marriage was a trap, that marriage was evil, and I've never gotten very close to it.



Well she was an American girl
Raised on promises
She couldn't help thinking that there
Was a little more to life
Somewhere else
After all it was a great big world
With lots of places to run to
Yeah, an d if she had to die
Trying she had one little promise
She was going to keep



Well, Tom Petty, I am an American Boy, and I was raised on promises, also. I'm not sure if the promises turned out to be lies, or the path I chose simply put me way outside the majority of promises made to a young whooper snapper in this great nation.

Being a poet carries its own set of rules and regulations. Unless you have a degree in it, there is nowhere to apply for a job in it. There is not much money in it. But, you know something: I love it. I love being A Poet. I would not want to be anything else. I have never been happier in my life, than in the period of my life where I sat down and did what I always wanted to do. I didn't want to be a Lawyer. I didn't want to be a Doctor, an Accountant, a Pilot. I wanted to be A Poet, and, dang it, that is what I am, in richer and in poorer!

Dang. I didn't tell you that I am A Poet. I'm sorry. I forgot. When I was going away to college, I told my dear old dad that I wanted to be a writer. He looked me in the eye and said, "One in a million make it at that game, and I don't think that you have it."

He never thought that I "had it" for anything. But, I listened to the bastard. I didn't pursue my dream; I didn't listen to the voice in my heart that had been saying to me, since second grade that, "You are going to be a writer." I joined a Frat and I studied business like all the other frat boys were doing, and I slowly died inside, from the loss of my dream, and from the booze.

It wasn't until I was 27, and was hanging around punk rock clubs in Atlanta, Ga. that I bought a notebook, and some pens, and started living my dream. I started scribbling poems while the bands played on. I became a music columnist. I got a gig, for a bout a year, with the biggest paper in the Southeast.

I started living the dream, pal…!!
(But…I still had that darn problem with booze.)



Oh yeah, all right
Take it easy baby
Make it last all night
She was an American girl

Mostly, in my life, it lasted all night when I had been drinking. Maybe it is something about Catholic Guilt that makes it hard for me to take my clothes off with a stranger, unless I have had a fifth of Jack Daniels, or 8 or 10 beers. Even now, at seventeen years sober, I find that I am a bit of a shy guy. The only way that I meet the ladies is on the internet, where I can type my way into their hearts and minds. The old stand up face to face is still, somewhat, nerve-racking to me. It looks as if The Pope may have had some effect on my relationships, also, even though I left the church when I was eighteen. Take it easy baby, make it last all night…and you wake up in the morning and wonder who she is, and where she came from, and what, if anything, the two of you did last night.

"Well, hello. What's your name? And then the two of you just go at it from there, you trying to figure out if she remembers as little of the night before as you do.



Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk,
I'm a woman's man: no time to talk.
Music loud and women warm, I've been kicked around
since I was born.
And now it's all right. It's OK.
And you may look the other way.
We can try to understand
the New York Time's effect on man.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I can't much tell what this song, "Staying Alive," by the Bee Gees has to do with this story, except that for about a year and a half, Disco enveloped my life. I bought The Platform Shoes. I bought The Funky Silk Pants. I bought the Funky Silk Shirts, and I asked The Ladies to dance; and you know what, while disco was alive, the ladies would say yes to me.

Yeeeeees, and Yippee for Disco.

The Ladies no longer looked down upon you, as if you were an urchin from the bar room floor who was trying to get into their pants by asking them to dance. Noooooooooope, now The Ladies wanted to get down, too. John Travolta and The Bee Gees had us up andd off our bar stool, and moving on the dance floor. It was a great time. Gin and Tonics had not yet reared their ugly head as a drink that I could not drink, because it make me violent. It was a cool drink to sip, lime and all, that gave me a quick buzz, cuz though the ladies were saying, "yes," I was still that shy little Catholic kid who I told you about earlier. Just like I had tried to put a buzz on to go to my first high school dance, in order to be comfortable around the ladies, I was still putting on the the chill my nerves buzz in college. Some things never change. Momma I'll never be coming home, and she knows it.


Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother,
you're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin',
and we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive.

At this point in my life, and this point in my drinking, which had become my life, I was doing well. I was "partying" every night in college. One night, it would be a Beat The Clock Night, at a club, the next it would be a Two For One Night, at a club, then there were The Fraternity, and The Sorority parties…kegs, dude, and I was always there when they would tap the mother, and I was always there when the last beer was drained from it. It didn't occur to me that you could be an alcoholic in a Fraternity at College. I thought that alkies were down and out losers, who hung out in The Bowery, and didn't have Platform Shoes, and Silk Pants, and Shirts.

Boy was I wrong.

This seems like a suitable place for a break. Go get you a glass of water, or a cup of coffee. That's what I drink, mostly, filtered water with lime, and coffee.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope that that little break did you some good. I find, when I am reading that it is often a good idea to put the book down in various places, and just breath in and breath out for awhile.


The worlds got some plans for me
Courthouse, jails and factories
Black and whites on the street
For me for me

I see my place in American waste
Faced with choices I cant take
American waste American waste
On my own I see my fate

There are two things significant about my life that are found in this Black Flag song called, "American Waste." The first is that I became a Punk Rocker, when I moved to Atlanta, Georgia around 1983. The transition from Frat Boy with a strong Disco Edge was an easy one for me, because on both scenes extreme drinking was a major part of the gig, and, I am a Gemini, so maybe that helps me fit in just about anywhere. I hung out at Punk Clubs, and, if you looked at me, by the way I dressed, and the way I cut my hair, you would say that I was a Punk.

I even had a Mohawk for a little bit. I had this job that I hated; it was killing me. It was as a banquet waiter; I was carrying these heavy ass trays, and my back was starting to hurt a lot. I wanted out. Sitting on the front porch of some friends' house, the conversation between me and this one guy turned to Mohawks.

"I can give you one if you want," he said. "I have done it before, and I am rather good at it."

I knew that this was my ticket out of the job that sucked. "Hell, yes," I said, "Lay it on me."

I called my boss the next morning, extremely hung over and told him what I had done. "Well, that was rather stupid," was about all that he said. He didn't know that I didn't think that it was stupid, that I thought that it was a brilliant move to get me out of the not so wonderful world of banquet waiting.

Also, the Black Flag song refers to, "Courthouse and jails." These two places, due to my drinking, were becoming more, and more, a part of my life. I was often drinking into blackout, and would wake up in the drunk tank, often covered in my own blood, and puke. What a sad existence. How especially sad to think that I would continue to drink, I would continue to drink into blackouts. I would continue to get arrested, and then scramble in my brain in the courthouse, when I would find out what I was charged with, and try to figure out a way to get the charges dropped.



On my own on the way out
Small enough its all spelled out
I know what I see what I want
The doors are closed in this maze

It seemed to me that there was no way out. It seemed to me that I would keep getting drunk, until I finally got in so much trouble that I got some real jail time,
instead of the 2 to 3 day drunk tank sentences that I was getting. I knew that I was in trouble, but I didn't know my way out. A, once, top of his class kid, was now a common criminal, a drunken common criminal. I remember, once, that I had seen this chart about the progression of an alcoholic with jail, and mental institution visits marking the chart right before death. I was hovering above death. I could easily wind up dead, stabbed or shot, for doing something violent or stupid in one of my blackouts. I had no control of myself: I was out of control.

In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American dream
At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on highway 9,
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected and steppin' out over the line
Baby this town rips the bones from your back
Its a death trap, its a suicide rap
We gotta get out while were young
'cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run

I was born to run. I had run from my father's house, almost the moment that I could. He had come into my room to give me a new curfew, to give me more shit, shit like he had been giving me for eighteen years. He said that he knew that I was drinking and driving, and that he wanted me to be in the house by nine o'clock. I didn't even think about it. I had been scared of this man for eighteen years, but I wasn't scared of him anymore. I had priced a room in an old hotel by the beach that we lived near, and I knew that I could afford it, that I could afford to move out from under his fascist fist.

I pointed a finger at him. "You're an asshole. You've always been an asshole. I'll be out of this house on Saturday. Don't mess with me until then."

He looked stunned. I don't think that he saw this one coming. I think that he thought that I was going to keep on doing what he said for the whole summer, after high school, until it was time for me to head off to college. But, he was wrong.

I was gone, baby. A tramp like me, baby, I was born to run.


Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs round these velvet rims
And strap your hands across my engines
Together we could break this trap
Well run till we drop, baby well never go back
Will you walk with me out on the wire
`cause baby Im just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta find out how it feels
I want to know if love is wild, girl I want to know if love is real

Immediately, I called the girl who I told you about earlier, the girl who wound up breaking my heart; but she didn't break it right away. We had a good summer, a very good summer. I was a Catholic virgin going into that summer, but that didn't last long once I got out of my parents Catholic household and hooked up with this girl.

Making love with her was pure. She was so lovely, and I was so innocent.
I thought that she and I would never go back. She showed me the wild side of love, and I thought that our love was real. I was on top of the world; nothing could stop me. My dad was right: I was drinking and driving. I would put a six pack in the car and drive up the beautiful, and endless beaches, that populated the small Florida town that I lived in. There was nothing as pure as catching a buzz, and looking at the sand, and listening to the surf while driving up and down the beach.

Like I said, I was on top of the world. I was out of my dad's house, and I was getting laid, thinking that she and I were in love. Well, maybe I was, but once the summer was over, and I went off to college, she, somehow, quit being in love.

Looking for another place
Somewhere else to be
Looking for another chance
To ride into the sun

Ride into the sun
Ride into the sun
Ride into the sun
Ride into the sun

When this girl broke my heart I had to look for another place to be, just like in this Velvet Underground song called, "Ride Into The Sun." This is where I made one of the hugest tactical errors of my life, and joined The Fraternity. I would probably have become a drunk, if I had not joined The Frat, but The Frat certainly, as I told you earlier, accelerated things.

Ride into the sun. Ride into the oblivion of the every night buzz. Lose your mind right around the time that you are supposed to graduate, and stumble away from college one class short of a degree: a business degree…you didn't want a business degree, you wanted an English Degree or a Journalism Degree, but they didn't offer journalism at the school were you were drinking at, and, at this point in time, you have no idea if they offered an English degree. You did what all the other Frat Boys were doing: you studied business, so that you could get some sort of a job that you did not want. That Real Estate Finance class kicked your ass; you couldn't pass that class. What a bummer dude; bummer. Nobody but you put a dime into those four years of schooling, and you had just failed yourself.

Where everything seems so pretty
When you're lonely and tired of the city
Remember it's a flower made out of clay

To the city
Where everything seems so ugly
When your sitting at home in self pitty
Remember you're just one more person
Who's living there

It's hard to live in the city
It's hard to live in the city
It's hard to live in the city

It is hard to live anywhere, when you are self-destructing. The buzz was not fun anymore. The buzz had just ruined what was supposed to be one of the biggest accomplishments of my life: four years and nothing to show for it. No degree. No degree. No degree.


Coffee in the morning is good medication. Some mornings I wash the pills down with the coffee: mmmm mmmm good.

It turns out that there was a little thing about me that I didn't know all the years that I was drinking. It turns out that I was self-medicating for a condition that they call bi-polar. When Jimi Hendrix had it, it was called Manic-depression, but I guess that they wanted to mellow the name a bit, so they changed it to bi-polar.

I googled manic depression versus bi-polar, and a lot of listings came up, but none that answered my question as to why they changed the name. Oh well, the name is not what matters; what matters is that, on medication, and with therapy, I no longer have the wide mood swings that I used to have. I am not curled in the fetal position, at times, thoroughly depressed.

I am not wildly manic, running about my home like I am Mick Jaggar on speed.

I remember one night, about 25 years ago, when I was thoroughly depressed. I drank a large bottle of wine, and headed out to The Punk Rock club. I woke up on the floor of the dump that I lived in, hung over as hell, but you know what, I had beaten the depression that was nagging me the night before. If that is not self-medication, I certainly don't know what is. I bet that I did this many, many times over my drinking career; drank to alter depressed or otherwise foul moods.

I haven't had a drink in almost 18 years. I am really proud of this fact, and this fact has probably kept me alive. I had two guns pulled on me, while I was drinking, one by a police officer who I screamed at, "Shoot me, you mother fucker…shoot me."

Hell, if I had been that cop, I would have shot my punk ass, my big mouthed ass.


What are the Symptoms of Bipolar Disorder?

Bipolar disorder is associated with severe and extreme symptoms. However, bipolar disorder symptoms are often not recognized or are confused with other illnesses, which can unfortunately lead to unnecessary long-term suffering. Bipolar disorder distorts mood and thought patterns.
People with bipolar disorder experience dramatic mood swings, altering from extreme highs to extreme lows. These highs are called "mania" and these lows are called "depression". If you are experiencing frequent periods of mania altering with depression, with periods of normalcy in between, you may have bipolar disorder.
http://www.epigee.org/mental_health/bipolar.html



Should someone who is bi-polar be forgiven for all the lousy behavior that he has exhibited, once he has gone on lithium, and is no longer exhibiting all that lousy behavior?


I was forgiven by the family that adopted me: my son's mother, her new husband, and my kids.


Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train
And I's feeling nearly as faded as my jeans.
Bobby thumbed a diesel down just before it rained,
It rode us all the way to New Orleans.

Me and Bobby McGee
--Written by Kris Kristofferson
--Immortalized by Janis

I went "On The Road," for a summer. I'm not sure if I was influenced by The Kerouac Book, if I was trying to find myself, or if I was running away from myself: probably a little bit of all three. After reading the book, going on the road seemed like something that I had to do. It seemed like a wild, wide-open adventure that every young man should take. In retrospect, now that I am a father, I don't like the conclusion to the book, where Kerouac seems to be saying that you should blow off your wife and kid, and head out on the road with your buddy or buddies looking for some high jazz induced times. I don't think that you should blow off your kids. I think that you should be there for your kids, no matter what the situation is between you and their mother.

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose,
Nothing don't mean nothing honey if it ain't free, now now.
And feeling good was easy, Lord, when he sang the blues,
You know feeling good was good enough for me,
Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee.

I've always related to the line, "Freedom's just another world for nothing left to lose." I mean when nothing is tying you down, when nothing is holding you, then you are free man…aren't you? Or does freedom lie in having so much money, that you don't ever have to work again?

I think that freedom is basically a state of mind. Meditation can lead to freedom. When you free your mind, you free the rest of you. When your mind is calm, when your mind is free from stress, you are free. Maybe there are different kinds of freedom, just like there are different truths.

Lordy Lordy Lordy Lordy Lordy Lordy Lordy Lord
Hey, hey, hey, Bobby McGee.

Janis has lost Bobby, up by Salinas. She seems to be calling out to the Lord. Is calling out to the Lord a path to freedom? Is being in touch with The Lord a way to set yourself free? Do you have to go to church on Sunday to do this? Can you have your own special relationship with The Lord, outside of the conduit that a Priest or Preacher provides for you?

I quit going to church when I was 19. I was sitting in the pew at The Catholic Church, at a Sunday evening service, I believe it was, and I looked over and saw a Fraternity Brother of mine in another one of the pews. I said to myself, what the hell is he doing here: he was drunk last night, and trying to get laid.

And then, I looked at myself, and I said…hell, what am I doing here; I was drunk last night, also, and I did get laid.

I quit going to church after that.


People look upon me as a great father. I receive compliments all the time about how good I am with my kids. I think it interesting to realize that the man who stands in front of those people who are complimenting me used to go in and out of drunk tank regularly, and used to go in and out of state mental institutions regularly.

I don't know if you believe in miracles, but, really, my life is a miracle. I slid about as low down on the drunk down and out scale as you can go, and, then, I have climbed back up to a place near the top of the happy and successful life scale.

I do not have lots of money, but because of the kids, and my place in their life, I have lots of happiness.


Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Bob Dylan nailed it with this song, "The Times They Are A Changing." My life has been a long series of growth spurts. I grew when I left my parents house. I grew when I learned to dance disco. I grew when I went punk rock in dress and attitude, but most of all, I grew when I sobered up and became a father.

I could have stayed where I was, an LSD soaked, beer and bourbon driven Poet aspiring to the cover of The Stone Roller, but I didn't and I'm damn glad that I didn't.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'

Yes Bob, "the loser now will be later to win." That is the story of my life. I am a writer who prophesizes with his pen. Early in my life, I wrote The Book of Misery. I thought that I was having a good time, but I wasn't. I didn't start having a good time until I wrote The Book Of Love, which is the story about my children and I.

Have you read it, yet?

PART 2

I was going to end it there. I was going to end The Book of Love with and acknowledgment of my children, but I have decided that would not be fair. It would not be fair to you, it would not be fair to me. There is more to my life than just the tale of liquor, and the tale of love for my children. There are 14 pre-liquor years to talk about, and there are 17 plus post liquor years to talk about.

All that happened leading up to me taking my first drink was not bad. There were some good times, also, and I will try to recount some of them for you, thought my desire, my tendency is to want to try to write about the bad things that happened in these years, perhaps to make you feel sorry for me.

I went to a regular kindergarten, and as far as I can remember, I was just a regular kid. I did not stand out any in either the capacity of having great traits, or in the capacity of having bad traits. I was just an average, normal, regular kindergartener. I bet that if you went and found my kindergarten teacher, she would tell you that she did not remember me because I was such a blasé, run of the mill, average kid.

I remember that I liked eating crackers during break. This was my favorite part of my kindergarten day. I am sure that they must have had peanut butter, and jam, to put on those crackers, or else I would not be remembering having crackers at all.


We don't need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

Roger Waters of the band Pink Floyd must have had a very different schooling experience than I did. I went to Catholic School from the 1st through 5th grade, and don't remember the nuns being overly oppressive. I had one if the second grade who, I guess, thought that I was brilliant, because she wanted to transfer me from the second grade into the third. This matter was seriously looked into by the school, and by my parents, but a decision was made to keep me where I was. Had I been transferred in such a manner, my life would have been very different in grades 6 through 11. In these grades, I had a bully dogging me out, making my life very miserable. In retrospect, I often think that if I had known how to fight, my life would not have been so bad. If I had known how to fight, I could have walked up to this bully, and kicked his ass, and all the problems that he was causing me would have gone away.


We don't need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

So, with me, it wasn't the teachers that needed to leave me alone, but another student. The teachers mostly liked me. I was a good student. I did my homework on time. I made good grades. The dark sarcasm being projected at me was from a kid who eventually wound up being the Captain of the football team in High School. What an asshole. What a loser. Leave me alone, you dickhead, before I put a brick in your head.

More on this later, but, right now, I want to talk about what my father taught me in the second grade. He taught me that back in Ireland, where he came from, "real men," circled up to settle their differences, which means that the two guys who have a fight to pick with each other get in the middle of a circle of their friends or acquaintances, and neither one can leave the circle until the fight is over.

Second grade…this is when he taught me this. My father taught me that you should fight, but he didn't teach me how to fight, so, consequently, I was coming home, regularly with my white Catholic school shirt covered in blood. I would come home to my mother, and, to this day, I can not understand why she would stand for her son being part of a situation. It makes no sense to me.

I taught my kids not to fight. I taught them to get a teacher, get a cop, get whatever authority figure was available to stop the fight, and I, also, took them to Jiu Jitsu training, so that, if there was a fight, they would know what to do. I mean come on; why would you send a kid out to fight in the second grade, and why would you send him out to fight without teaching him how to fight. Just how stupid were those guys who circle up back in Ireland?



"Wrong, Do it again!"
"If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you
have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?"


When we were young, we had to eat fish on Friday's in my father's home, as he called it…he would say that it was his, his home, his house…his, his, his, implying that it was not mine, mine, mine at all. Anyway, whatever fish that my mother got at the grocery store was NASTY. It nearly made me sick. It made me gag. It was awful, and, you know what, if I did not eat every last bit of it, my father would slap me across the face. He did this at other meals besides The Catholic Fish Dinner. Spaghetti, steak, salad…it didn't matter; if I didn't wipe my plate clean he would backhand me. I got to where I would pile the food that I couldn't stand, lima beans come strongly to mind, across the sides of my mouth, and then ask to be excused.
When the old man gave his ok, I would hurry up the stairs to the bathroom and spit the nasty stuff that was in my mouth out.

What an ordeal. Did you grow up like that? Were meal times a fun time for you and your family, or was it like some sort of concentration camp punishment ritual for you?


Slow ride, take it easy - Slow ride, take it easy,
Slow ride, take it easy - Slow ride, take it easy.

I'm in the mood, the rhythm is right,
Move to the music, we can roll all night.
Oooh, oooh, slow ride - oooh, oooh...

My love life has been what I would call sporadic. You might say that I am a serial monogamist. The longest that I have made it with any one woman is three years. She and I were "party" buddies. That means that we both liked to get drunk, get high, and do LSD together. One night, we were at an Art Opening in Downtown Atlanta, and, as we we leaving The Opening, my love said to me, "Hey, will you drive?"

Without even thinking about it, without even thinking about my inebriated condition, I said, "Sure."

Within three minutes, I had hit something, and the car refused to move. We got out and saw that I had landed the car onto a median in the road. We looked at each other, giggled, and just walked away from the vehicle, not too concerned about it.

The next morning, my Love made some phone calls, and found out where the car had been towed to. She went and picked it up.

This incident is emblematic of a whole large portion of my using life where I did not get into trouble for something that I did under the influence, that I easily could have. This incident could have resulted in arrest. It really should have resulted in arrest: what incredible dangerous, and stupid, behavior I was engaging in.

The car was not even damaged, when we got it back. We just got back into it, and continued with our dangerous, stupid lifestyle. God, I did love that woman, though.

Slow ride, take it easy
Slow ride, take it easy

Slow ride, take it easy - Slow ride, take it easy

Slow down, go down, got to get your lovin' one more time
Hold me, roll me, slow ridin' woman you're so fine


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.

I have escaped the grip of the demon alcohol. I sit here this morning, nurturing a nice cup of coffee, the sweetener Stevia, and some nice Soy Creamer added. I don't know how many times in my life, around 6 a.m. that I was being woken by jailers to go face the judge, many times covered in my own puke and blood. What a shit existence, but I lived it for so long. I kept doing the same thing over and over. Someone told me, once I sobered up, that "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over, and over, and expecting different results." In that case I was certainly insane.

One, two boys by the river
Down by the water
Tellin' riddles in the dark
With fireflies under the moonlight
Carvin' the insides of a tree with a knife
Ever hear the one about the boy's big sister
His best friend come along
He tried to kiss her

[Chorus:]
The only difference
That I see
Is you are exactly the same
As you used to be

It was Sixth Ave. Heartache that won me over to The Wallflowers, but this song, "The Difference," always made a great deal of sense to me. I heard the songs several times on the Local FM Rock N Roll Radio Station, and I was hooked. I went to see the band at a small local club, I bought the cd.

The only difference
That I see
Is you are exactly the same
As you used to be

This is exactly what was always said about me. People were pointing out that I hadn't changed, though I was trying to present myself to them as a new person. It takes a lot to change, and I wasn't, for the longest, time willing to take those steps to change.

I wasn't yet ready to shut up, to shut up the internal voices that were always running in my head saying, "me, me, me," and listen to "the experience, hope, and strength of others."

People look at me now, and say, "Man, you have really changed." I smile in appreciation, but I smile knowing that I had a lot of help. There were many willing to share their, "experience, strength, and hope with me," many who shared freely with me what they had done to get sober, how they had gone "to any length," to get and stay sober.

For this, I thank them profusely.

------------------------------------------

When I was about nine, I remember my father pointing a finger at me, and screaming at me, "You are going to be a drunk, I know that you are going to be a drunk." It seemed really weird to me at the time. I barely knew what alcohol was was. It was that nasty smelling beer, and nasty smelling bottle of whatever it was that my father got plastered on from time to time, and then started yelling at everyone, like he was now. How could he think that I was going to associate with that fouls smelling stuff that made one act so weird?

But associate with it, I did. At age 14 some kids that I hung out with discovered that an old man, who lived down the street from us all, kept cases of Schlitz in his garage, and started lifting a case from the old man on Fridays.

At first, the beer tasted like shit. It made me gag, but I kept drinking it, and soon I found the neatest feeling behind the lousy taste. A beautiful, happy haze engulfed me. I felt whole, and protected for the first time in my life: I was drunk. Yes, father, if this is what being drunk is all about then I am going to be a drunk.

And I set off on that path, a path that I plowed from the ages of 14 through 34.
Alcohol became my friend. It made me a jovial extrovert, it helped me talk to the ladies. It made me feel good, oh yes, in the beginning, it made me feel so, so good.

One boy lives in a tower
With bow and arrow
And the artificial heart
With his girl
Maid of dishonor
He loaded the cannon
With a jealous appetite
They say that children now
They come in all ages
And maybe sometimes old men die
With little boy faces

[chorus]
[repeat]

You always said that you needed some
But you always had more, more than anyone

I used to stash beers in the produce container of refrigerators at parties, when I was in my 20's. I would stash two or three beers there, so that when the beers ran out, at the party, I would still have some to drink.

I wasn't going to run out, no not me. I always had more, more than anyone.

I don't know if I will die with a little boy face. I do know that, if things remain the same in my life, as they are now, I will not die with the smell of liquor on my breath, and that is a miracle.

Do you believe in miracles?



If only you believe like I believe, baby
We'd get by
If only you believe in miracles, baby
So would I
If only you believe like I believe, baby
Wed get by
If only you believe in miracles, baby
So would I.
-------------------------------------------

Another miracle in my life are the animals that have, somehow, showed up to join me in this journey. I have two dogs, two cats, and two turtles. The cats are named
Kobain, and Jaggar, the dogs are Morisson, and Bundy, and the turtles are named Prynce and Rue Paul. I will talk more about them, later, but let me first talk about one of my brushes with one of the famous people who I named my turtle after.


Ru Paul is red hot…




ELABORATE HERE DEAR…

This is turning out to be something other than it was intended, but, then, isn't that how life is. Life is change. Life never turns out the way that you intended it to be, now does it? "Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans," said John Lennon before he was prematurely struck down. Mr. Lennon certainly didn't plan on that ending for himself, now did he? He thought that he was coming out with a new album, and maybe might be touring, again; singing his songs to the folks, once more.

Moving from Catholic School in the 5th grade to Public School in the 6th grade, was, at first a big change for me. In the Catholic School, we were taught to stand,
after raising our hand and getting the attention of the teacher. The Public School Kids were not taught to stand, and they thought it very funny, and stupid, that I
was standing when I addressed The Teacher.

They laughed at me and threw things at me, until I learned not to stand in such a situation. Looking at this, as I type it, it seems so trivial, but, at the time, the whole thing had a great power over me. I was nervous to be in a new school as it was, and would have preferred to just fit in, but here I was, the class clown of sorts, being picked on, and laughed at by a majority of my class mates. In the year 2009, you might turn on the television, or pick up the newspaper to see where a frustrated 6th grade student had come to class with a gun, and had shot several of his classmates. That method of dealing with your frustration wasn't in vogue, yet.

The kid who sat directly behind me was especially annoying. Not only did he throw things at me, and laugh at me when I stood up to speak to the teacher, but he had a bad habit of slapping me on the head. I can't remember specifically what caused him to slap me on the head, but I am pretty sure that he did not need much of a reason to do this: he derived a great pleasure from doing so, I am sure.

One day, I turned around and told him that if he slapped me again, I was going to hit him. I guess that he did not believe me, because he soon slapped me. I turned around crawled over his desk, and hauled off and smacked him on the chin. A fight ensued which had my classmates in an uproar. The teacher, for whatever reason, took awhile to recognize what was going on, but when she did she sent both of us to the office.

After telling my side of the story to The Principal, which is exactly what I just told you, I was sent back to the classroom. We didn't see the other fellow for several days, and when he returned, it was in a very subdued mood.

It turned out that this guy was kind of the class bully, and that he was not much liked by the other kids, so the fact that I had engaged him in a fight, and had won, suddenly endeared my classmates to me. I find it a strange way to go from being laughed at for standing up to suddenly having kids gather around me and want me to hang out with them.


Truckin' got my chips cashed in. Keep truckin', like the do-dah man
Together, more or less in line, just keep truckin' on.

Arrows of neon and flashing marquees out on Main Street.
Chicago, New York, Detroit and it's all on the same street.
Your typical city involved in a typical daydream
Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings.

Dallas, got a soft machine; Houston, too close to New Orleans;
New York, got the ways and means; but just won't let you be,

Most of the cats that you meet on the street speak of true love,
Most of the time they're sittin' and cryin' at home.
One of these days they know they gotta get goin'
Out of the door and down on the street all alone.

I am not sure of the significance of this song, "Truckin'," by The Grateful Dead, to this part of the story. I am pretty sure that I have mentioned to you earlier, that I went on the road, for a summer or so. I started in Florida, and first wound up at The World's Fair in Louisville, Kentucky. Low paying work was easy to find, but the whole scene was a grind; it was boring as all get up. I left The World's Fair with eleven cents in my pocket, not even wanting to wait until my paltry paychecks showed up.
------------------------

I almost got a call that I've been dreading for a couple of years now. On my son's 8th birthday, his mother brought home the most delightful dog, who immediately fit into our family. He was fun, he was fluffy, he liked to eat, and he liked to chase tennis balls. In fact, in time, we learned that he was a tennis ball addict. We also learned that he was a food addict.

Anyway, we have had this dog, Javi, for over twelve years, now, and the poor thing is getting old, and that was what I was worried about; that the kids' mom is going to call me and tell me that she had to have Javi put down.

Javi has arthritis; he can't chase tennis balls anymore. He can still eat, though, and we have to keep his weight down. If you don't watch him, he will eat all the food on his plate, and then he will eat all the food on your plate; greedy dog.

Inspite of the fact that he steal food from us, we love him so. I don't see how these people can leave the family dog in the basement of their house, and just move on. I understand that money is tight because they have been foreclosed on, but, have a heart honey, where is your soul?

Can you imagine buying a house, and on the first day that you move into it, one of the kids is screaming at you, "Mom, mom, come here…" What a thing to find. Fido is expendable. Some folks, due to the recession, are driving their kids to the streets,
because they can't afford them; there are twelve year old girls out there in the our parks, after dark, giving blowjobs to dirty old men, so that they can survive as a twelve year old on their own.

It's a sick fucking existence, sometimes. when you get right down to it. And God gave us all free will.

--------------------------------
I've learned that I don't have to be in the clean plate club, that I can scrape the food that I don't want onto the floor, and the dogs will be happy to have it. Javi, who has been a part of our family for 12 plus years now, may be at the end of this journey. This will be the first dog that I've been a part of who I will see pass on. I'm not any good at death.

----------------------------------------------------------------

I'm having trouble finding songs to post here. I'm not sure why you should be interested in my life. Blah blah.

---------------------------------

It's hard to fool a cat. In the mornings, I like to give my cats a little snack of wet cat food. Occasionally, I run out of the wet cat food, and you have never seen two Misses Prisses so offended. They hover about their bowls, meowing, for hours, just not getting it; just not getting that I have let them down for the second day in a row. I have made a note, today. For me notes are good. For me, notes are essential, or I do not come away from the store with what I want, with what I need.

What I need is to lose weight. I have lost 35 pounds, but it is not enough. I still have another 40 pounds to go to be at the weight that is normal for my height. Normal is something that I may have always had trouble being. What is normal, anyway?

I know that normal is not blacking out, and waking up, regularly, inside
drunk tanks covered in your own blood, and puke. I know that normal is not, being taken to the loony bin for three, and five day visits, and having them ask you if you know who you are, and if you know who the President is.

Gosh, who was The President during those crazy times of mine?

I would say that my life now is normal, in my own special way. I am blessed to have a lot of time on my hands for writing. I think that as a bi-polar human being I just don't fit into most of the work schemes that men and women have devised to make a buck. There is too much stress in those worlds. People don't care about each other, as far as I can see, because they are not allowed to. People are pressured to do whatever it is that will make the most money for the people in charge of the corporation, or business.

I was a waiter for a long time. I enjoyed the lifestyle. Most everybody in the business "partied," i.e. got drunk, got high. There was always access to a bar, and there were various ways to work a deal with a bartender to get a drink, and I got paid every day, i.e. tips found their way into my pocket, and I had the cash to buy me some cocktails every night.

There was this one manager, who I worked for that was a real asshole. He thought that because he was the manager, that he had the right to be rude to people, to insult them. He thought that because he was the manager that he owned people, and that the minute that they put on their uniform, that he owned them.

He was a major prick, and, one morning, he was being particularly harsh to a female friend of mine, an artist, who really wasn't good at putting up with the
type of tongue lashing that he was giving her over cleaning the forks, or making sure that the ketchup, and the mustard were full.

I flipped, and started giving him a worse chewing out than he was giving my friend. I yelled at him, and told him what a low life piece of dog dung that he was,
how he didn't deserve to be breathing the same air as the rest of us.

Then, I left his "lineup," and headed out of the restaurant. The dining room was full, already. I knocked over the "Specials" sign, and I started yelling at the folks eatig their lunch how they shouldn't eat here, because the manager treats his employees worse than slaves anywhere on the planet were ever treated.

A security guard in a golf cart followed me off the property. I never regretted quitting that job, or the way that I quit it. I think that there is a standard of decency that should be followed in dealing with each other on this planet, and that jerk was not following it. He was following his own little fascist, sadistic trip, and I wasn't down with it. He, I'm sure, got his bonus, and I am glad I got the hell out of there.

Am I normal?

Maybe I should get all the weird stuff that happened to me off my chest right here, and then I can see if there is any normal stuff left after that.

I hitchhiked to Atlanta from Tallahassee, Florida in 1982. Though I was very much not a Fraternity type anymore, I needed a place to sleep, so I showed up at the Georgia Tech Chapter of Phi Delta Theta. I showed the guys the Phi handshake, smiled at them the right way, I guess, and they gave me the room of one of the guys gone for the summer. The room was scary. There were pictures of Ronald Reagan, on the wall, and right wing, conservative Republican books scattered through the room.

I knew that I was in the den of the enemy, and I would have to lay low, and keep my mouth shut, until it was time to move on. I had not yet spent any nights out with mother nature, and I did not want to start then.

At that age, and at that point in time, the kind of jobs that I was after were easy to get. I had two jobs within a few days; one as a lunch waiter at a place that sold chicken wings, and the other as a busboy at a fancy fish restaurant in downtown Atlanta.

I was not lazy back then, and physically I could handle the demands of being a waiter. I always say, that a waiter, or a waitress, or a "server" as they are called now earns every penny of the supposedly large amount of money that they earn. It is a very taxing job; stressful on the mind, and on the body. You must be a diplomat, and, sometimes summon the ability within you not to kill somebody, one of your customers specifically.

Some people will intentionally goad you like the woman in Tallahassee, Florida who came into a steak restaurant that I was working at.

The menu said that we offered a, "Man's Size Steak," and this ugly, moron wanted, repeatedly, to know why we didn't offer a "Woman's Size Steak."

And she was persistent about it. I tried telling her that I didn't know, I tried telling her that I didn't write the menu, and I tried telling her that I didn't own the restaurant. The awful lady never asked for a manager; she was content to give me the hard time. She was a mean sadist and I was her punching bag for the evening, but I was making some of that easy waiter money so I hung in there. Someone told me, later, that I should have spit in her steak, as I brought it to her, that that would have made me feel better.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.


---------------
The cats have settled down. They have finally forgotten about being screwed out of their morning snack. I have made a note to buy them some wet food for the morning. Often, if I do not write things down, I forget to do them. Did I tell you that already?
--------------------------
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I'm starting to see a pattern within all these old incidences in my life that I am telling you about: I am always whining about being the victim. It is funny, and strange, because in my life now, I am never the victim. I guess that it must boil down to the way you approach things, and handle yourself in this existence.

The worse incident in my drinking career might well have been the night that I got the only dui. that I ever got. I had been drinking Vodka with my girlfriend, at our apartment, and when she fell asleep, or passed out, I decided that I had to have more to drink, that I had to go out, so I grabbed the keys to her car, and headed to a club that I hung out at quite a bit.

A fellow who I knew through my music column, he managed a really good band, bought me some Irish Coffees; my they went down well on top of the vodka. I left the club on fire full of the buzz that I had sought. As I got near to home, I decided to stop at this other club that was ahit or miss in regards to whether it was any fun to hang out at. Sometimes it was cool; sometimes it sucked.

Then, I did something that I've never done in my life: I spun donuts with my girlfriend's car in the gravel parking lot across from the club. When I got to the door there was a police officer standing there who was not too happy to see me.

"I don't like the way you are dressed, boy," was the first thing that he said to me.

I was wearing pink jeans with fashionable punk rock holes in them, a black sleeveless shirt, torn(I thought that that was fashionable at the time,) and my hair was bleached white and cut like Billy Idol's(not intentionally, on my part, mind you.)

What the fuck, I thought, thinking about how the cop had approached me, and then, knowing I was already in trouble, I said to the officer, "I don't really like the way that you are dressed, either!"


From there, all hell broke lose, that resulted in seven charges being levied against me, two of them being counts of simple battery on a police officer. But the stupidest thing that I did was to light my sock on fire once, they got me in the jailed van, so that I could come out and take another swing at the arresting officer.
-------------------------------

I'm not a fan of poetry that is inaccessible. Make that: I am not a fan of writing that is inaccessible. What makes it accessible? I can read it!
-------------------------------

I'm working as a Barista in a coffee shop that is located in a large corporate bookstore. First, I was amazed that I got the gig, and second I am surprised that after almost a year doing it, that I still dig it. I must be getting old.
------------------------------

I wonder if dogs ever get aggravated when you throw them something, and they fail to catch it? I am forever throwing my dogs snacks; their percentage rate of catches is good, but, sometimes, the snack will hit them on the mouth, or teeth, and fall to the floor. Does this ever aggravate a dog, as it might you or I if we dropped the ball while playing catch with our kid, or a friend?
-----------------------------
At about five years sober, I decided to go back to College and get the degree that I had messed up on twice before. Twice? Yes, I told you about drinking my way out of college the first time, once class short of a degree. Well, at the height of my LSD use, I got the grand idea to return to college, and get a Journalism degree, because surely I was the next Hunter Thompson, and the fact that I was severely soaked in alcohol, and drugs would suit me to pursuits of the academic type with
a primary emphasis in journalism.

Well, I failed my the journalism class that I took, and I failed the biology class that I took, and I staggered away, once again, from school, figuring that I would have to come up with some other way to be the next Hunter Thompson. I had not yet figured out that I should be trying to be me, and not anyone else.


Anyway, at five years sober, I, once again applied, and was accepted to college.
The Journalism Professor who had had to flunk me years before, because I sat in the back row, imagining my the literary greatness that was certainly to soon befall me, instead of paying attention to what he was saying, told me about a program called, "Retroactive Hardship Withdrawal," whereby by filling out some paperwork, and getting signatures from the persons who had taught the classe, you could be withdrawn from the class, all these years later.

My F's in Journalism, and Biology were removed. I was thankful, and relieved. I was not going to have the GPA to go to Havard Law School, or UCLA Medical school, but those were not my goals, anyway. For now, I just wanted to get the degree that I had failed to get because of my drug, and alcohol use. I really did not see myself ever using the degree, which this time out, would be in English, with a minor in Journalism. It was a writing degree, and I was already a writer, and I was mostly happy with the arena in which I was writing. I called myself a
"Live to the Internet Writer."
-----------------------------------

I was sitting on a bench in the hallway when she came up. She seemed tense.
She took my hand, and said that she was the prosecuter, and that, with a guilty plea, on my part, I would get 2 1/2 years in jail. I gulped but said what I had been coached by a friend to say, "In that case, I'm pleading innocent, and I want a jury trial."

She gulped, and said that she would be back in a bit.

When she returned she offered me 30 days in jail, saying that I would only do 15 because the jail was overcrowded, 45 days community service, a $300 fine, and that I would have to give the arresting officer $100 for his destroyed clipboard, and torn shirt.

I smiled at her, and said, "Guilty."

But what if I had not had a friend who was an attorney coaching me? I could not afford an attorney. I would have spent 2 1/2 years in jail instead of 15 days. There seems something really amiss going on here.

My friend said that the prosecutor's interest was to win cases, so that she could then get hired at a high salary by a criminal defense attorney's office. If she went to a jury trial, she might lose my case, plus it would take up a lot more of her time than getting a plea from me would.

Moral of story: don't drink and drive.
---------------------------------------------------

I always liked school lunches, and I almost liked jail food. That should tell you that I am not much of a Gourmand. It doesn't tell you that I am a heavy eater.
I am part of what I have heard called, "The Clean Plate Club." What this means, to me, was that if I did not eat all the food on my plate, my father would backhand me, and scream, "Your mother, and I worked hard to put that food on your plate."

Now, I understand his point, but Daddy, really, was the backhand necessary? Don't you realize that you were teaching me that violence was the way to solve things? Don't you know that you were heading me down a lonely road, full of behaviors that carried jail time with them, if you were turned in or otherwise caught?

Do you realize, my deceased father, that to this day, I eat every crumb on my plate, no matter how much food has been put on it, and that that has lead to obesity that has lead to diabetes?

It's all your fault, father.
----------------------------------

Sleeping late on the weekends was not something that my father was going to let me do. He wanted me, "to get up and make something of my life." This got harder to do in High School, when I was starting to wake up with hangovers from the alcohol that I had consumed the night before.

My father was a tyrant; a dictator. Things were going to be done his way, or you were going to hit the highway. He had come here from Ireland with specific goals
in mind, and one of them was to have a perfect kid. I really let him down on that one. I turned out to have a real bad attitude, and a real bad drinking problem. And like I told you before, I told him to fuck off when I decided to move out of "his." house.

My parents bought a new house, up North; brand new, so new that I had to take off my shoes at the door, so as to not get any dirt in their new house. Then I had to stop walking on the carpet that covered the stairway that lead to my bedroom My father said that I was wearing out his carpet. The problem was, to me anyway, that my bedroom was at the top of those stairs, so he was saying that I could only visit my bedroom, once a day, at night when I slept there.

Man, I thought that sucked, but I was powerless to do anything about it, just like I was powerless to do anything about anything that my father did or said.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!

My therapist recently told me that I was, "abused by my father."
I told her that I figured that he did the best that he could with what had been given to him. It had taken a long time for me to get to this space with regards to my Dad. For years, decades, actually, I had blamed him for most everything bad
that occurred to me.

My joke was that when some people's father's died they get a hotel chain; me I got a bad temper, a drinking problem, psoriasis, diabetes, and a bi polar situation.

It is easy to blame someone or some ones else for your condition. It is easy to blame your problems on someone else, especially when they were such strong figure in you life for so long. But, somewhere along the line, you have to grow up and accept responsibility for your own messes. For me that point came shortly after the birth of my second son.
-------------------------------------

I have figured out a way to get out of the clean plate club. I eat until I am full, and then I give the dogs what is left on the plate. The problem with this, as you might well can tell, is that the dogs are going to get fat. They are going to get fat with a big smile on their faces, though.
---------------------------------------
It was 4:oo a.m. when the phone rang. I was living in the basement of a rooming house; the first of a long number of dumps that I would live in in Atlanta. I like dumps. I feel comfortable there. I don't have to take my shoes off at the door. I can spill things on the carpet, and no one cares, no one notices because there wear already an abundance of stains on the carpet when I moved in. Some landlords, though, will try to keep your deposit based on old stains, based on stains that somebody else put there. Some landlords, of course, are assholes.

Anyway, the phone rings; I sit up, and I say to myself, my father is dead. I answer the phone, it is a friend of my mother's and she says, "Mikel, your father is dead."
------------------------------


Before I moved out of my father's house, I told my father that I was planning on studying writing in college that I was planning on being a writer. He looked straight at me, and without even thinking about what he was saying, he said, "One in a million make it at that game, and I don't think that you have it.?

I winced. Had he been following my high school writing career? I was the Sports Editor of the School Newspaper. I had won the Speech Writing Contest that the school had every year. I was recognized by my teachers as a top tier writer: and my father says that he didn't think that I have it.

--------------------------

I discovered Punk rock in Atlanta, or should I say that Punk Rock discovered me? I was, to say the least, a bit socially unacceptable when I was drunk, but that didn't seem to matter to the motley bunch of friendly human beings who
I encountered at the bars 688, The Bistro and Margaritaville.

At one show, I was crumpling my spent beer cans, and flinging them at the singer, figuring that a fight would somehow ensue, but instead the guy came out and shook my hand. Weird, I thought. Several weeks later, at a club called Margaritaville I was sitting at a table with a notebook, and a pen, having decided, almost nine years later to not listen to what my father had said to me about being a writer.

----------------------
The other day, in the bookstore, a little girl looked up at me and told me,
that I, "looked like Santa." I have a white beard, so I can see where she was coming from. I am surprised that I don't hear that more. Maybe most little kids just keep what they are thinking to themselves.

"Don't talk to strangers…" Isn't that what most of us were taught?

I decided to have fun with the little girl, so I smiled at her, and said, "Well, yes I am Santa, but it is August, and since it is August and not December, you have to give me a present."

She squealed, and said, "No waaaaaaaaaaaay"

Her father, she, and I all laughed. I'm glad that this white beard can come in handy for something other than just growing old with!
--------------------------------------------------

I try to treat all people equal, I really do, but sometimes, this is hard, like in the case of a woman who walks into the coffee shop who I think is attractive. Stuttering, and stammering is not treating her equal.

I get a lot of requests at the coffee counter for water, especially in the summer. I suppose that I could give attitude to these people or even say no because they are putting no money in the register and no money in my tip jar. But why? I often ask for what when I'm out and isn't it that what goes around comes around. Frazzled homeless guys, with huge backpacks, and weary looks in their eyes should receive the same love that georgeous woman who I would like to date receives, in my humble opinion.

It is when someone starts acting out, or acting up that I change my all people are equal behavior to them, and, sometimes, the homeless guy turns out to be way more polite than the gal that caught my eye.

-----------------------------------------
I learned from the last kid, how little time a kid will spend with me, once they become a teenager. It seemed almost instantaneous that when my son became a teenager that he disappeared from my life, other than for momentary pitstops,
and the necessary sleep overs, that is him sleeping over at the house where he allegedly lived.

Scout is doing the same thing, now; she called me when she got out of school to say that she was going to the grocery store with some friends, and then she was stopping by my house, and then they were going to the park to have a picnic. She was here long enough to change clothes.

The thing is

provide a happy environment
reinvent yourself

---------------------------------------------

I like drugs I don't like the consequences of using them, though

If one pill makes you feel good, then two pills ought to make you feel twice as good. I know that that this is twisted logic, but I find myself thinking it, often,
now that I have arthritis, and take medicine for it.

I am not good with pain, and this arthritis thing that I have been inflicted with has brought a great deal of pain to my table, or to my left hip specifically, and mostly. The doctor said that hip replacement surgery "was imminent," the last time that I was in his office. "You need to lose weight," he also said. I don't know how it happened, but since I quit drinking, I ballooned up to almost 300 pounds.
My weight is responsible for my arthritis, and for my diabetes. Being a large man is not good for the quality of your existence, and it robs you of years that you could have been hugging, and hanging out with the great-grandkids.
-------------------------------

I was having a chat with a friend about the old days. He was saying how booze just warmed him up for drugs, which is where he felt most happy, high, and I was telling him how I had done all the drugs, or most of them, but that booze was my drug of choice. I like pot, speed, LSD, cocaine, mescaline and mushrooms.

Can I feel my dog's pain?

A wasp somehow found its way into this home. I thought about letting it live, you know a karma-like action where all living things have an equal right to life, but then I thought about the wasp stinging me in the middle of the night, in my bed, and that was it: I nailed the wasp with a fly swatter, and sent it hurling into the wall, where it then fell onto the floor near where my dog Bundy hangs out all the time, and I wondered if the thing lived if it would sting Bundy, and then I started thinking about the pain that Bundy would be in, and realized that no matter how much I might want to, I could not feel Bundy's pain if he was unfortunate enough to get stung by wasp, if he had had lived.

This is probably stupid thinking to have going on in my brain. I mean, certainly, such thought is not going to pay any rent, nor put any groceries in the refrigerator for me. Such thought is not going to create even a penny towards the expensive dog food that I feed my dogs. I am tired though; that is my excuse. My faculties are not fully functioning, and I am susceptible to some lower level thinking.
---------------------------------------
Your dog pissed on my shoe

Somehow, five of the little soft cat treats that I reward my cats my cats with for doing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, came out of the bottle, onto my hand, and then onto the floor. I looked down at them, and thought for a second if the cat would be ok eating three more treats than he is usually allotted. Sure, I said to myself, he will not eat more than he is capable of.

Well, a minute ago I heard that cat making alien noises, and I looked over to see the cat puking on the kitchen floor. No more than two treats, I have learned the hard way, for I am going to have to clean that cat puke off the floor.

I had another sill to clean up, earlier in the evening. Bundy was so excited to see a friend of mine, who had dropped by to share some pizza with me, that he peed not only on the carpet, but he peed on one of my friend's shoes.

"I can't believe it," she kept saying, "I really can't believe it. Your dog pissed on my shoe."

Morisson gets to the cat puke before I do. He eats most of it, while I am in the bathroom, but doesn't get to lick it all off the floor because he is scared of getting caught. Morisson knows that I don't like my dogs eating cat puke, any more than I like them eating cat poop, but he is a dog, and it is hard for him to resist a little snack like regurgitated soft cat treats. I don't bother scolding him. The secret lies with me: don't overfeed cat treats to the cat. It produces a weird chain reaction
that is not acceptable. It is simple not acceptable.


Morisson has some weird behaviors, for one he is very needy, and will attach himself to anyone who comes to visit. I really think that if someone broke into the house while Morisson was home that he would fix them a cup of coffee, and help carry out the television to the crook's car. I really do. Morisson is also very scared of storms. When thunder and lightening arrive, Morrisson starts breathing very intensely like he is having a panic attack. If I am puttering about the abode, Morisson will glue himself to me, and walk every inch of the way that I walk about the house. If I am sleeping, Morisson will stand next to the bed and pant so intently, and loudly that I will let him up on the bed. Once on the bed he rolls over to me, getting as close as he can. I think that it is funny how he sees me as his savior from the storm.

(The skies are making noise, and Morisson is scared; he follows me everywhere I go, and when I sit down, he curls in the fetal position at my feet. Morisson does not like storms, they give him severe panic attacks. Morisson, baby, it's going to be o.k. Daddy loves you, and, yes, you can sleep on the bed tonight, but only tonight.)


Morisson came to me as a runaway. Some folks who lived in the same apartment complex as I had run across him, as he had been running about a neighborhood not too far from mine. They were looking for a home for him, and a guy who I knew, knew that I would take Morisson. At the time, I had two dogs. I said no, and then I looked at the dog, again. He so incredibly beautiful that I could not turn him down. Morisson ran away from me around fifteen times, one time even jumping out of the car as we were nearing home.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I don't much remember my dreams. I have them, fairly often, but when I wake up in the morning, they are not with me. When I was a little kid, I didn't want to be
a fireman, or a cop. I think, briefly, I thought that I wanted to be a professional basketball player, but I never really believed that I would be good enough. I never believed that I would be good enough for anything, and yet I had this supreme confidence that I had it all going on, that it would all work out.
------------------------------------

I don't remember my first boner; am I supposed to? I do remember my mother finding my collection of pictures of women with no clothes on, that I had stashed in a bottom drawer of one of the bureaus in my bedroom. Now what the hell was my mother looking around for naked girl pictures?

Gosh, she was pissed.

Here she and my father had paid for Catholic school for five years, with no immoral incidents, and I get to public school, and within months, I have degenerated into the type of child who finds it necessary to bring pictures of unclothed women into her home.

I remember thinking that I couldn't see the big deal. Other kids that I hung around with had such collections, also. I was twelve, and was curious about the opposite sex. Put me on a cross and crucify me; please.
------------------------------------
------------------------------------

PART 3


There was a time in my life when I was as destructive as I was creative. I can see the roots of this, and if I was still into blaming other people and things outside of myself for things that I do, and things that I have done


I could see the roots of this, and point to these roots and say, yes, this is why I did what I did. But, I did what I did because of who I am, and I accept full responsibility for it, all of it; it is a part of who I am, and was. I am lucky not to have died during that period of my life, or worse, have killed someone else.
---------------------------------------------

These are times when we especially have to be happy for what we have. So many people are living with so much less than they have lived with. Less jobs, less houses, less cars.

-----------------------------------------

Elongated boxes that commissioned sales people sold to your crying loved one playing on their guilt: the deceased was really into Van Halen, weren't they? Don't you think that you should put a radio in their casket, and tune it to an FM Classic Rock Station? That will keep the deceased happy… supplied with Dave and Sammy for life.

It seems kind of stupid to you, and a waste of money, but the salesperson is convincing, talking about the spirit world, and how our soul carries on, as if our soul is going to carry on in that little box that he has just sold your wife or husband, or gay lover, whatever the situation may be, because we should all realize by now that there are a lot of situations outside of, "The Leave It To Beaver" set up.

Ted Kennedy just got caught sneaking out of Purgatory. He told the angel who caught him that Kennedys have a deal with God where they go straight to heaven no matter what they did on Earth.

-----------------------------------------------
Dude; Quaalude?

Many of us who survived the '70's have Quaalude stories to tell. Someone just told me that it took nine of them to kill Jimi Hendrix. Some people would take half of one and pass out. I only took one in my life. I had met this girl the sunny Southern town of Orlando, where I had wandered with my tails between my legs from Tallahassee, the non-graduate looking for a job, fully willing to represent to potential employers that he had the degree. This girl and I were in her hotel room, doing the wild thing. I woke up the next morning, and the young lady was giving me the evil eye, she was giving me dirty looks, she was looking at me like I was a piece of dog turd on the bottom of her high heels.

"What?" I said.

"You fell asleep on top of me while we were making love."

Oops.

I didn't know what to say. I was over six feet tall, and she was about four eleven.
"Sorry," was what I tried.

That mellowed her a bit.

I was never around Quaaludes again, and I can't say that I regret that. I have always taken my love making very seriously.


------------------------------

Man of excesses

You stop one thing, among other reasons, because you know that it is going to kill you, and then another thing shows up that you have to get control of, or it is going to kill you. I got tired of waking up covered in blood, and puke, in jail cells. I knew that such a path was leading to some serious trouble; one of the real possibilities of which was my death. I also wanted to be a father to my second son, not some sort of ludicrous drunken figure waltzing in every once in awhile when he wasn't in Club Land trying to be some sort of a combination of Axl Rose, Mick Jaggar, and Jim Morrisson.

So, I had like five years sober, no booze no drugs, and I realized that I was coughing a lot, and that I was reaching for a cigarette the first thing in the morning, no matter what time morning came, and no matter whether I wanted a cigarette or not.

It was a habit, and it was a habit that I realized was killing me. I hacked the nasty bronchitis cough all the time. phlegm in my throat my constant companion. I knew that emphysema was next. I had to quit. I just had to fucking quit. I had tried before and had failed, but I had never quit while I was sober. Since I had quit drinking, I knew that I was capable of quitting something that was bad for me, and that meant that I could quit cigarettes.

I wish that I could say that I made it the first time I tried with all this new resolve, but I didn't. I think I tried five or six times before I made it, but each time I tried I learned something that was contributed to the final victory.

-----------------------------------------

"We want the world, and we want it now…"--James Douglass Morrison
From the Door's song, "When the music's over."

------------------------------------------

I wonder if ants have the right to life. I feed a cat named Monkey, who lives outside my house, and around the neighborhood, and I was just passing by his bowl, and it was full of ants. My first thought was to get some water, and wipe
the ants out of existence; how dare they foul Monkey's bowl, and then I thought, are they really hurting anything, running about in the bowl feeding on the microscopic left overs that Monkey didn't have for breakfast. I am not sure of
the answer to this question, but I went through the same frame of mind when it came to the carpenter bees that the dogs, and I, found ourselves cohabiting our front porch with in the spring. I thought of calling the landlord, and asking him to call the terminator man, but then I realized that that the bees, the dogs, and I had been successfully sharing the porch for weeks, so why should I get greedy, or act on some weir fear that had no basis. The carpenter ants were doing nothing bad to either me or my dogs; in fact I had gotten used to their constant buzzing, and had come to find it therapeutic to some extent. One of the bees always hovered by the front door entrance to the patio; I referred to him as Ed, and told people who stopped by that he was our doorman. I look forward to seeing the bees, next spring, but I am not sure what I am going to do about the ants if they are lurking
in Monkey's bowl in the morning when I come out to deposit her morning meal in the bowl.

-------------------------------------



Mikel K Poet August 4 at 10:18am

The pain on the side where Dr. Koch said that a, "hip replacement was imminent," is near constant: in bed, at my desk, walking, on my bike. The pill that I am taking is naproxen 500 MG twice a day. Is there something more effective for the pain?

Also, what were the names of the drugs that you said could replace the risperdal and not be so fat inducing? I take 0.5 one tablet in the morning and two of those at night.

Thank you for you help.

K
-------------------------------------------------

My parents wanted me to be a straight A kid, but I didn't have it in me. I was just a bit lazy, and couldn't close the deal so my grades hovered in the middle of B's and A's, for the most part. I try to do the best that I can, in most everything that I do. There have been things that I have been slack at, like some jobs where I thought that the boss man thought I was his slave. I spent a lot of time at the water fountain, and in the bathroom at those kind of jobs.

Is it a good thing to put pressure on your kid to succeed, to be top of his class?

------------------------------------------
Hey!

I'm sorry we missed each other today. I went from the "big house" home and then to Caribou! I missed our time together today, I will have to come by for a visit sometime soon, maybe do some "porch sittin'".

I really appreciate all the listening and sharing that you did, you can't imagine all the good I have gotten from knowing you.

lulu,
Jeff
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POST INTERNET CHATS


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Some mornings I have hot tea with milk instead of coffee.

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what i have been thru the past two weeks would kill anyone. and i just might be dead.
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"That which doesn't kill us only makes us grow stronger," and "It is always darkest before the dawn," and, "Something good always comes out of something bad; often you have to look for it." These little sayings have helped me through very troubling times in my life. I wish they could do the same for you.

Also," Lord, thy will be done not mine, thy will be not mine, guide me in thought, word, and action, Lord," help me, also
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Me: I think that the devil is a concept meant to keep men and women in order.
I believe more in free choice, than some sort of inherent evil, or evil being lurking in us

Her: Ha. Do you have a girlfriend? I'm nosy.

Me: Speaking of The Devil…no, I don't, will you be my girlfriend?
--------------------------------------------------
serial killers smile at you to get you in the car…

Ted Bundy killed a friend of mine. I was one of the last people to see her alive.

--------------------------------

I'm a poet. Did I tell you that. Right now, I'm writing about 300 poems a month.
I've written 10,000 poems in the last three years. Do you like poetry? There isn't much money it. When you tell the parents of a girl that you are dating, or who you want to date that you are a poet, they look at you as if you had just told them that you have aids. When you are out of earshot they get sarcastic with the young lady who you are seeing, their daughter, and say things like, "Does he make a lot of money doing that?" and, "How much money did he get for the last poem that he wrote?"

I'm really not bitter about this. Parents want what is best for their daughters for the most part. Of course they are, sometimes, misguided too. Whose to say that a broke poet won't treat their daughter better than a millionaire?!

I used to be bitter about it though, and I developed a policy of not interacting with the young lady's parents. It's probably a good policy until I sell as many poetry books as Billy Collins and Charles Bukowski.
---------------------------------------------

I opened the drawer where I keep the cat treats, and Kobain came running. I also keep my silverware in that drawer, so Kobain knows that when the silverware rattles the he might be able to get a treat. The cat is sitting under the drawer, and next to the trashcan. I have just emptied a cake packet into a bowl to mix. I have the supposedly empty package in my hands. I throw it in the trashcan, and a cloud of fine chocolate dust rains down on Kobain. He didn't expect that, and neither did I. He runs off. I'll have to give him two treats next time.

-------------------------------------------------
A cake with a sugar substitute in it, does not taste as good as a cake with sugar, and eggs, and milk or water. It really doesn't. It is dry and tasteless, but as a diabetic, I try every little trick in the book that I can come up with to keep from going over the edge.

One toke over the line, sweet Jesus, one toke over the line
Sittin' downtown in a railway station, one toke over the line
Waitin' for the train that goes home, sweet Mary
Hoping that the train is on time
Sittin' downtown in a railway station, one toke over the line

They didn't say one "token" over the line, but when I was a kid and this song came out, I didn't yet know what a "toke" was. I thought that Brewer and Shipley in their song, "One Toke Over the Line," were talking about stress, and I related to the song for that reason. I was stressed in school. I was stressed in sports. My parents were stressing me out about nearly everything.

I also like the harmonies in this song. I like the way the two men sang together. It was cool. It created an infectious groove that I dug.



Who do you love, I hope it's me
I've been changing, as you can plainly see
I felt the joy and I learned about the pain that my mama said
If I should choose to make it part of me
Would surely strike me dead, and now I'm


Love? Did I know anything about love when this song came out? I was beginning to be aware of the girls in my school in a different way than I had before. I was relating to them differently, but "Love?" I think not.

In second grade there was a cute little blonde girl who sat in front of me. Somehow, we started playing footsies. She would read her feet back, and I would reach my feet forward and there we were. One day I rode my bike over to her house, and we hung out. I guess that was my first date. It would be seven years before I went on my next one, in the ninth grade, and that would not go as well as the one I had with the cute little blonde girl in the second grade; funny how that goes.
----------------------------------------

I'm not sure where I am with this book. Are you following me. Am I running around too much, going backwards, and forwards, and then sideways without meaning? I hope not.
-----------------------------------------

George Harrison lives through You Tube. "Here comes the sun," he sings at 3 a.m. to me, here in Atlanta, Georgia. I feel lucky to be alive; to be alive and listening to Mr. Harrison sing about the sun is a good thing. George Harrison always calms me. George Harrison always makes me feel good about living. George Harrison always makes me feel good about life.



"Here Comes the Sun" was written at the time when Apple was getting like school, where we had to go and be businessmen: 'Sign this' and 'sign that'. Anyway, it seems as if winter in England goes on forever, by the time spring comes you really deserve it. So one day I decided I was going to sag off Apple and I went over to Eric Clapton's house. The relief of not having to go see all those dopey accountants was wonderful, and I walked around the garden with one of Eric's acoustic guitars and wrote "Here Comes The Sun".
--Wikipedia

I think that it is beautiful that Harrison was able to reach inside of himself and come up with such a beautiful song, one that is inspiring and full of light, when his life was a bit dark at the time. I think that we all have this ability. It is like when someone asks me how I am doing.

If I say that I am not doing well, then that sets up a vicious cycle whereby I will not feel good. I will, in effect, "not be doing well," because I set myself up to feel that way, and act in such a manner.

But, if I say that I am doing good, I set up a positive cycle. "Here Comes The Sun," sets up a positive cycle, and I really admire that. I admire Harrison's ability to write about the good in life, even when he is not feeling all that good.


Here comes the sun (du dn du du)
Here comes the sun
And I say
Its alright

Little darling
Its been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling
It seems like years since its been here

Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun
And I say
Its alright
----------------------------------
In my search for love as a person, and in my search for inspiration as a poet, I opened a chat room on AOL called, "Poet Seeks Muse." I met some really wonderful people through this room, and I found love, and I found inspiration.

Poet Seeks Muse…

OnlineHost: *** You are in "Romance - Poet Seeks Muse". ***
SweetOne has entered the room.
SweetOne: hello Mikel
SweetOne: I do hope you find your Muse...have a good evening
SweetOne: most times our Muse is Life...and sometimes the heart of a perfect stranger
SweetOne: take care
OnlineHost: SweetOne has left the room.



WindnWater: can you hear the stars shine tonight?
WindnWater: you have a way of sharing yourself forever ;)
WindnWater: keep smiling love


Have you ever noticed that although email providers on the internet provide a button that you can push that says, "Spam," that your Spam Mail never goes away; it keeps coming back, and back. What's up with that?






I have this circular fan that I keep by my desk in the summer. It blows cool air that keeps me comfortable in the heat. A few minutes ago, I turned the fan off the first time in months; it was making me cold. Summer is leaving us; soon her heat will be replaced by cold.

As soon as I sat down in my chair at my desk, this morning, my dog Morisson stuck his nose in my hand. He was trying to pull my hand off of the chair, and get me to show him affection. I toyed with him, this morning, fighting his nose with my hand, refusing to give into his wants. It is a game we play, and he likes it, almost as much as he likes my hand rubbing his head, and body.

Without the fan, I don't have the white noise that I have had for months, and I can hear just about everything that my neighbors are doing. I will turn the fan back on, just point it in a different direction. It is not my desire to know what my neighbors are up to.

It is a Sunday morning, and it is raining outside. Whenever it rains, I want to play the song, "Riders On The Storm," by The Doors. The introduction to the song, seems, somehow, appropriate to the weather. There are a lot of people in church this morning. I have not gone to church since I was nineteen. I had the thought, that God sent this Sunday morning rain to cleanse the world. This rain would be a start over rain. We would all have a fresh slate, without having to go in a booth, kneel down, and tell someone what we have done that that man and his religion would find inappropriate.

Do all religions have confessor mechanisms? I will have to Google it, and find out.

---------------------------------------------




Brothers

The dogs are not interested in ice cubes, today,
Morisson because there is a storm outside,
and Bundy because I don't know why.

The dogs usually love ice cubes, they catch them
in mid air and treat them as if they were any other
snack.

They bite them, they chew chem, they finish them
and come back for another one; normally.

Maybe Bundy is not interested in ice this morning
because Morisson is not interested in ice this morning.

Sometimes, two dogs act as one, somewhat, I have learned.
-------------------------------------------------------------
This guy sent me a video. In it he took a sip from a glass of something, and grimaced, "Bourbon," he said. And, then, he said something to the extent of, "We're back together after five months sober, a period of irreparable harm." I have never heard a drunk call a period of sobriety something like that. I have heard drunks say that it was hard as hell to stay sober for that long. I have heard a drunk say he was thankful for staying sober that long. I have heard a drunk say that he relapsed after a period that long, but I have never heard of any length of sobriety referred to as a "period of irreparable harm."

The "irreparable harm," usually comes after the relapse, after the period of sobriety, when the drunk has started drinking, again. Maybe this guy is blazing new trails, and will come out with The Bigger Book.

Go figure; you run into something new, just about every day.
-----------------------------------------------
In a comment to this young lady's Face Book, this guy said that he could really us some more bikini pictures. I almost wrote on there that I could use some bikini pictures, myself, but really that would do me no good. Like Bruce Springsteen said in one of his songs, " I just want someone to talk to. And a little of that Human Touch." I don't want pictures of you in a bikini.


You and me we were the pretenders
We let it all slip away
In the end what you don't surrender
Well the world just strips away

Girl, ain't no kindness in the face of strangers
Ain't gonna find no miracles here
Well you can wait on your blesses my darlin'
But I got a deal for you right here

I ain't lookin' for praise or pity
I ain't comin' 'round searchin' for a crutch
I just want someone to talk to
And a little of that Human Touch
Just a little of that Human Touch

Ain't no mercy on the streets of this town
Ain't no bread from heavenly skies
Ain't nobody drawin' wine from this blood
It's just you and me tonight

Tell me, in a world without pity
Do you think what I'm askin's too much
I just want something to hold on to
And a little of that Human Touch
Just a little of that Human Touch

We get less and less human touch these days. We have email, instant messages, cell phones, text messages on our phones, all kinds of communication devices that don't really bring us closer together. How many times have you seen people in a bookstore, or a coffee shop, or a grocery store standing right next to each other, and both of them are on a cell phone? It is a weird statement about the status of interpersonal communication in our world, today. Now excuse me, I have to check my email.

---------------------
I busted out a sweater, a pair of sweat pants, and a pair of full length socks, this morning. It has gotten cold, here in Atlanta, Ga. Last year I turned on the heater, when it got cold, and the bill was unbearable. This year I'm going to go with warm clothing, and space heaters, and see how that suits the animals and I.

I opened one of the twenty nine cent wet cat food cans, this morning. The cats did not miss a beat in chowing down, once I placed their bowls on the floor, so I feel safe to say that they see no difference between the cheap kind, and the expensive kind of canned cat food. It is not their main meal, the little scoop of wet cat food in the morning is just a treat. I keep a bowl of high quality dry cat food on top of the drier at the end of the hall that leads to the bathroom. It is hidden behind a big jug of liquid clothes detergent, the kind that is supposed to be better for the environment. I had to put the jug in front of the cats' dry food because, of course, Bundy was getting up on his front legs and helping himself to hefty portions of it.

Bundy, and Morisson, were also both helping themselves to ample amounts of cat poop, when we first moved into this apartment. I wasn't particulary concerned about it, besides feeling rather grossed out, until someone told me that the dogs could get really sick from eating cat poop, and that it would lead to expensive operations for me. I really want to stay away from all of that, my dogs getting sick, and my dogs costing me big money.

I put a storage container over the cat litter box, and cut a hole in it small enough for the cats to get in and out of, but too small for the dogs to stick their nose in. I also put the fear of God in the dogs anytime that they wandered near the bathroom. I think that the combination of the two methods has worked. I don't need no cat poop eating dogs in my house.

When you have duo animals, as I do, two dogs, two cats, and two turtles, you sometimes worry if one animal is eating more than the other, if one animal is getting starved out any. Sometimes, I will find Bundy in Morisson's bowl, and I will yell over at him, "Hey, Bundy get out of there, that's not yours."

On the other hand, Morisson will, sometimes, sneak in the closet where Bundy's food is kept,
and eat Bundy's leftovers. The same goes for my cats, Kobain, and Jaggar. These two will go back and forth from each other's bowl in the morning, freely eating from both bowls. I guess that the dogs and cats know what they are doing, as do the turtles, who I particularly worry about, sometimes, because one turtle, Rue Paul, the female, is way larger than the other, Prynce, the male.

I guess that the process is like humans eating together. A male and a femlel living in happy matrimony, or a couple gleefully living in sin, figure out how to eat together don't they? I have never heard of a reason for divorce to be he or she ate more than me!!

-----------------------------------
I woke up hungry this morning, but first I wanted to check my blood. Most mornings I prick my finger with this device that looks like a small pen, and then I drop some blood onto a little strip of paper, that I have already placed inside this meter that will give me a reading.

This morning, my reading was 105, which is good, especially realizing that I have not been doing any exercise, recently. I have not been swimming. I have not been to Yoga. I have not walked the dogs, or ridden my bicycle outside of the short distance that it takes to get to work. I ride the bike to work, when I work, because it is far easier on my body to ride a bike, these days, due to my arthritis, than it is to walk.

Arthritis and diabetes are the two gifts that God, and my parents gave me. I really don't say this cynically; I am trying to reach out and have an attitude of gratitude in the face of adversity. The diabetes should cause me to eat right, and exercise because I know that if I don't I could lose my legs, and die.

The arthritis is a bitch though.
--------------------------------------
Another poem

I give you a poem
in lieu of a mortgage payment.
I give you a poem
instead of a new car.
I give you a poem
instead of vacations
to lands near and far.
I give you a poem
instead of fancy dinners.
I can not promise
that my poem will feed you.
I can not promise that
I will need you more than
I need my poems.
I cannot promise you anything
but another poem.

--Mikel K

That's the thing about being a poet, at least at my level of the game. You don't have a lot besides the poem to offer.
------------------------------------------

There are two chores in this home that I particularly procrastinate on: changing the kitty litter, and changing the turtles' water, and neither one of them is that much of a chore, once you get down to it. With the turtles' water, I have to get the water our, clean out the aquarium and the stones that line its bottom, and then fill the aquarium with clean water. Changing the kitty litter is, usually, just a matter of dumping out the old litter, and adding new litter, if I have done my jog right in lining the kitty container with newspaper.
------------------------------------------

Some thoughts become ideas, and some ideas become poems.

-----------------------------------------------------------
I'm sittin' in my room, I'm starin' out my window
And I wonder where you've gone
Thinking back on the happy hours just before the dawn
Outside the wind is blowin
It seems to call your name again
Where have you gone

City streets and lonely highways
I travel down
My car is empty and the radio just seems to bring me down
Im just tryin to find me
A pretty smile that I can get into
Its true, Im lost without you



I used to love The Doobie Brothers, and this was my favorite song by them.
"Another Park Another Sunday," is one of those great broken heart songs, that I didn't immediately recognize as a broken heart song, because it seems to me to have bits of optimism in it.



I'm just trying to find me
A pretty smile that I can get into

Tom Johnston hasn't been kicked in the balls. He is down, but he is not out.



I'm not in love, so don't forget it
It's just a silly phase I'm going through
And just because I call you up
Don't get me wrong, don't think you've got it made
I'm not in love, no-no
(It's because...)

I like to see you, but then again
That doesn't mean you mean that much to me
So if I call you, don't make a fuss
Don't tell your friends about the two of us
I'm not in love, no-no
(It's because...)

(Be quiet, big boys don't cry)
(Big boys don't cry)
(Big boys don't cry)
(Big boys don't cry)
(Big boys don't cry)
(Big boys don't cry)
(Big boys don't cry)

-------------------------------------------------

I found a picture of you, oh oh oh oh
What hijacked my world that night
To a place in the past
We've been cast out of? oh oh oh oh
Now were back in the fight
Were back on the train
Oh, back on the chain gang

I never made it to the chain gang; thankfully.

------------------------------------------------------

I love it, in the morning, when the cats are sitting dutifully next to each other, sitting at attention next to their empty food bowls, waiting for me to scoop the bows up, and put some morning wet food snack in the bowls for them. There is
something beautiful in this, something that makes me feel wanted, and loved.

The dogs always gather around the hand of mine that seems to be dangling off of the bed, when I wake in the morning. They expect to be petted, and played with while I am still semi-asleep. Most mornings, I honor their request. I make one hand pet two dog heads, and it makes them happy. This morning, though I woke with one foot dangling off of the bed. The dogs did not care that my foot was not a hand. They rubbed their heads into it anyway. I found this weird.

I learned a new thing about Monkey, the basically straw cat, who I feed breakfast every morning, and snacks every evening. Monkey does not come get his food when I blow kisses, as I had thought; Monkey comes running to our door the minute that I come out of our inner door. She hears that door open, and that is her cue that something good is about to be put in her bowl.
--------------------------------------

Don't leave eggs boiling while you go off to take a nap. The smell of the burning eggs, and the cracking of their shells in the bowl thankfully woke me before the oven caught on fire. Besides that, burnt eggs are not tasty.

------------------------------------------------------


Wordmanmikelk : How are you today?
RedHiHeels: Good
Wordmanmikelk: That is good
RedHiHeels: What are u looking for
Wordmanmikelk: Love
Wordmanmikelk : What have you got?
RedHiHeels: Oh thought u wanted something else
RedHiHeels: my body online
Wordmanmikelk: You're a porn site?
RedHiHeels: What do u mean
Wordmanmikelk: You said your body online.
Wordmanmikelk: What do you mean?
RedHiHeels: Oh well I thought that you were using your imagination
Wordmanmikelk: I am
RedHiHeels: Well I am good with words
Wordmanmikelk: I can tell
RedHiHeels: Now how can you be so certain
Wordmanmikelk: You just know certain things
BlackHiHeels34 [5:54 P.M.]: Yes I'm sure that's true; why did you IM me?
Wordmanmikelk [5:54 P.M.]: Because you IM'd me, yesterday
BlackHiHeels34 [5:54 P.M.]: I don't recall the room
Wordmanmikelk [5:54 P.M.]: Literary Endeavors
BlackHiHeels34 [5:54 P.M.]: oh yeah
Wordmanmikelk [5:56 P.M.]: Well, have a nice afternoon
RedHiHeels signed off at 5:59 P.M

What was she after. Did she find it. People exist in a parallel universe when they are in cyberspace, when they are in chat rooms, when they ar in instant message conversations. For some, reality stops, and I don' t just mean for those who are into role playing.

Perhaps, I am not much different. When I firt
-------------------------

It is a very good cup of coffee that I take a sip of, this morning, at 4:14 a.m. I can't sleep, and have been unable to sleep for the past couple of hours. My left leg has been bothering me, and the pain of it, in combination, I believe with this new pill that I am on have served to send me into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, and have sent me to this desk to write. The leg doesn't hurt, now that I have gotten it in a different position. My arthritis is like that. I have to baby it. I have to pamper it, at times to get the least pain out of it.

The new pill that I am on…

--------------------------------

Moving to another box

They have until the fifth of the month
to remove the things that you called yours
from the little box that you called home.
That gives those who loved you seventeen days
to remove your material things.
What will they keep what will they throw away?


You are in a new box, now, they slowly
descended it into the ground, yesterday,
and you are on your way to wherever it
is that you are going, most likely no worries,
about the people and things you left behind.

--Mikel K

One of my dearest friends, one of the men who I respect the most on thsi planet, both as a human being, and as an artist, is going to die. His wife broke the news to me yesterday, after reading the above poem that I wrote. I cannot remember what motivated me to write the poem, but I see now the reason for it. It was a conduit to my great friend, Clark Vreeland, and I, via his wife Beth. If I had not written this poem, I might not have found out about Clark's cancer until a much later stage of it. Clark is a private person. We do not see each other a lot. I do not know if I will start seeing him a lot, now. I am unsure how to react to this news. I feel helpless. I love this man, and I am losing him. The earth is losing him.


I went to visit my grandson, last night, and a neat side benefit of seeing young Elliot is that I get to see most of the rest of my family also.

Elliot's grandmother, G2, was there full of love, not only for her grandson, but also for me her ex,-live in sin, and Kevin her ex-husband. She sounded very happy, and optimistic when she said that she was going to find a cure for my arthritis, and for Kevin's cluster headaches.

Cluster headaches require miracles that have not yet been sent from Heaven to be abated when one is unemployed and does not have insurance. The matter is further complicated because now that he has lost his job, when he gets a new one and gets new insurance, his headaches will be looked upon as a pre-existing
condition.

Ain't life unkind.

I don't know if there is a cure for my arthritis. Hip replacement surgery would help the pain in that are of my body, but I don't know if my insurance would cove it.

Little Elliot was not worried about any of this, though. He was very happy to pull on my white beard, when he was handed to me for my time with him. I tickled his feet, made him laugh , and he made me laugh just by being with me bouncing on my lap.

There are amazing gifts that enter into your life, that you neither ask for, nor expect. Becoming a grandfather was one of those gifts.

------------------------------------------

My left hip is giving me a great deal of pain, this morning. Though I try to ignore it, the pain overrides everything. It overrides the writing that I am trying to do. It overrides the hot tea that I am thinking about making. It overrides the pleasant thoughts that I am having about a visit that my family and I had to see my grandson, last night. The pain overrides everything.

The new pill, abilify, makes me hyper, where the old pill, risperidone, calmed me down. I changed pills because abilify is supposed to make me retain less weight than risperidone, and I am concerned about every pound that I carry due to my arthritis, and diabetes. It is funny how a pill can affect your mood. Several weeks ago, when I was on the risperidone, I ran out of it for several days and my old angry, depressed mood returned to me, right away. These were moods that I had lived with for years, before I got help.

------------------------
I had the worst dream, last night. In it someone had called the police and was going to have me arrested. I had not been arrested in almost 20 years.


I hit someone in a dream last night, and they called the police. For most of the dream, I waited for the police, knowing that I had done wrong, but trying to talk
the guy who I hit out of having me arrested. He wasn't having it. I had done wrong, and he loved having the power over me that he now had. It took me a long time to learn that you can't hit people, that you will be locked up for doing such.

As a kid, I was taught by my father to hit people, to settle differences between them and me. Garbage in. Gargage out.
------------------------------------------------

Sometimes I wish I could get high and just slide into another head seat for a couple hours and write there. Sometimes what I am doing straight up just seems so boring. Come to think of it, though, when I was getting high, I never produced
even one poem. Getting high was getting high, and writing is writing. For me, the two don't mingle. I was told by "them" that getting high would send me back to my drug of choice, which is alcohol, and I believe this. I would not be happy just getting high; I would have to get fucked up and ruin my life, once again. I am sure that this would happen, like I am sure that if I stepped off a very high cliff that I would fall to my death.

A very good friend of mine is dieing. He has inoperable liver cancer. It is funny how you feel sorry for yourself when someone you love is dieing. You think about all the pain that you are going through, and all the pain that you will go through, as the person goes through what they must go through to leave this earth. You don't much think about the pain that they are going through, and the pain that they will be going through. Their impending death is all about you, or, at least all about me, in the case of my good friend, and musical partner Clark Vreeland.

It is Labor Day Weekend. I just posted this headline to my Face Book page:

We're not as good looking as our Face Book Head Shots; at least I'm not: take that out to your Labor Day Weekend with you. Someone asked me what I'm doing this weekend...nothing, absolutely nothing, like I always do, and I like it that way. I hate having something to do. Billy Fields aka Rev Reb will be glad to know that I just cleaned the turtles's tank. The turtles are glad, also.

NYCbabe929228 [5:31 P.M.]: Want to meet someone online? Don't sit around on the computer! Get laid this weekend @ http://lnk.bz/1dc

I spend too much time on Face Book, just like I used to spend too much time on My Space until Rupert kicked me off. I was one of those kids who liked to get his name in the school paper, one of those kids who liked to get other kids to sign his year book. Face Book is perfect for social net workers like me. It also works for me as a poet, because it gives me a place to post my poems, and people to read them. I'm writing about between 200 and 300 poems a month, and I attribute that to the "live" audience that I know that I am writing to on Face Book. I enjoy the comments that I get from people, some of them halfway around the world. Their comments are not my reason to write, but certainly the fact that I know that they are reading them gives the whole process a kick in the butt. Writing can be a lonely occupation. People reaching out to you, and saying, yes, this is good stuff, makes it less lonely, though it is still just the laptop and I alone in a room cranking it out.

With God On Our Side," is a Bob Dylan that makes a great deal of sense to me.


And the land that I live in
Has God on its side.

I love The United States of America. I was born here, and I will most likely die here,
but there are some inconsistencies in the truths that we were taught, that Dylan was especially good at pointing out in the 1960's.


And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns on their hands
And God on their side.



I was chatting with a woman online, and we were talking about Jim Morrison but I had moved to Dylan on the player.I can listen to some Dylan and it makes me high like The Doors can, take me to some place that drugs and alcohol were supposed to.

Dylan can make me sick, too.

I guess when you kick the songs out as long as he has been kicking him out
that a few along the way are not going please everybody. For my money, The Stones have a much better track record in keeping the hits rolling, though I know that some people will say that it is only the early work of The Stones that matters.
That's how I feel about The Boss. I feel like his creativity basically came to a roaring halt with the song, "Born To Run." The music he made after this might have made him a Superstar, and made him millions, but for me, it is the songs before, and including Born To Run, that made him A Poet. Anyway, who cares what I think, right?

I was unable to keep up with two credit cards, recently. Soon after I missed several payments, I started receiving five to ten phone calls a day from these fine, fine institutions, and, or the fine fine collection agencies who they had sold my debt to. At first, I got pissed off, but then I realized that getting pissed off was useless, and was not going to make these people go away, and neither would talking to them because I did not have a dime to give them.

Most of their numbers started with 888 or 1-8oo, and I decided that the best thing that I could do was to change all their numbers to say, "patience." I did that, and, now, I just smile when they call, and think to myself, "Oh, yes…patience."
By the way, I am up to Patience 15, meaning that I have received calls from 15 different numbers trying to collect on 2 credit cards.


Like I've told you, I'm a poet, so, I guess, that I should share some of my poems with you. These are a couple of my favorites, that I find work well together, both
on the page, and when I read them out.


I Need A Rich Girl

I need a rich girl
to drive my deceased car
to the unemployment line,
so that I can get food stamps,
and avoid a job.

I need a pill that will fill me up,
not with envy.
I need a pill that will make me
feel friendly, not want to kill

I need a friend
in these united states of isolation,
where even hell's angels are afraid
to hitchhike,

where thinking outside the norm
could land you in jail.

I need a reason to go on living,
and I think that my children will do.










We Are The Children

We are the children of the sun
and the stars.

We are the children of the hippies,
who were strung out on peace and love,
and heroin when they conceived us.

We are the children of alcoholics,
conceived in blackouts.

We are the children of the punk rockers,
screwed into this world on beer and anger.

We are the children of the poor,
raised on welfare and food stamps,
and government housing.

We are the children of the middle class,
borrowing from the government to get a college degree,
to get a job with a pension from corporate amerika,
who has already fired our fathers and mothers,
before they could retire.

We are the children of the rich,
who, like our fathers and mothers before us,
care only about obtaining more wealth.

We are the children of the doctors, dentists,
and lawyers, who care more about their Porsches
and Mercedes than they do their patients.

We are the children of the American dream,
roaming the streets with a blanket,
and a garbage bag full of aluminum cans.

We are the children, who now have the children,
and we hope they won't learn racism from us,
like we learned it from our moms and dads.

We are the children who can change the inevitable,
alter our destiny, change the future from futile to
fruitful.

Amen.


PART 4

I hate getting junk mail, and, recently, that is all that I have gotten. I guess that I am a loser. And I mean that I am a loser in The U.S. Mail and I am a loser in my email. All I get in my email are sex propositions from porn sites, and dating services, both of which are looking for money from me. In The U.S. Mail, I only receive ominous looking envelopes filled with threatening correspondence from collection agencies. What a drag. I wish there were some babes in Europe dropping me a line, saying what a great poet I was, how if they lived closer they would like to drop by and meet me.

The Landlady's brother came by the abode today, and cut every spare limb from around the house. He cleared out the three windows in the back of our apartment, and now it is very well lit back there, which is rather nice. I like to see.
--------------------------
I often won't listen to the band Black Sabbath because Ozzie Osbourne was in the group. What a loser, who so many of you have taken on as a Hero. A hero who did not write, "War Pigs," or any of the other Black Sabbath songs: the bass player, Geezer Butler, did.

A hero would not have married Sharon. A hero would not have let Sharon re-record the music on albums that Ozzie had recorded with other men, because those men would not agree to the lower royalty rate that the former Ms. Arden demanded.

I guess Sharon, and Ozzie, are short a buck out there in Beverly Hills…

"Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne are one of the UK's richest couples, according to the Sunday Times Rich List. They ranked at number 458 in 2005, with an estimated £100 million earned from recording, touring and TV shows. They ranked above most British music stars, such as Rod Stewart, George Michael, Robbie Williams, the Rolling Stones' Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood, and Pink Floyd, Queen, and Dire Straits members."

--Wikipedia

Sharon makes me sick. She was responsible for charging the unknown bands $75,000 to be on The Drooling Idiot Fest.

Who are my rock heroes? I like Tom Petty, Rollins, and Rue Paul.

A woman from Brasil just said hello to me on Face Book. That is a thing that amazes me about the internet: you can just be sitting in your room, at your desk, and be talking to someone a sea, or so, away. It is mind boggling that world leaders can't get it together to bring us world peace when communication among the masses is now so easy.

-------------------
"I Want To Hold Your Hand," by The Beatles is kind of a violent song, don't you think, or at least a fairly aggressive one? I mean these guys are not trying to sweet talk the ladies by the time this song is over: they are practically demanding that the women hand over their hand.

The song starts off innocently, with a nice instrumental introduction, and sweet harmonies by The Fab Four, but as it progresses the boys seem to get anxious, at first, and then aggressive. Maybe they were the first Punk Rock Band out of England, and not The Sex Pistols.

They might be developing drinking problems but I wouldn't know about it, and if I did there is nothing that I can do to stop them any more than there was anything anyone could do to stop me. I'm talking about my kids; I mean what can you do? You try to teach them what is up, give them some good morals, and then they head out there, usually before you are ready to release them.

I remember the day that my son asked me if he could go out, and I know that he meant out without me for the first time in our lives. I said, "yes," and then when the door shut behind him, I curled into the fetal position and cried for an hour. The game had changed. My son didn't need me in the same manner that he had needed me for fourteen years. He was no longer going to be my constant companion. I had bought him a skate board, and he was now on it,
and was out there, meeting new people, hanging out with people who he already knew.

At the end of my cry, my conclusion was that I was going to have to reinvent myself. I had done it before. The move from Drunk Poet to Sober Dad had been a major invention. What would I come up with this time?

------------------------------------------
There is a guy who was just arrested for keeping a girl that he, and or his wife, kidnapped when she was eleven, eleven years, or so, ago. It is coming to light that besides doing seven years in jail for kidnapping and rape, that charges were dropped against him in a similar case, years ago.

How the fuck is this guy out here breathing the same air as the rest of us? They will keep a closer eye on Bernie Madoff because his crime was a crime of money, than they will on some evil deviant.

What the fuck. What the fuck. If you're not going to kill the bastard, because, suddenly, we are some sort of moral society, then please, please, please do not let him out to have access to our children.

Thank you.
-------------------------------

People say I'm crazy doing what I'm doing
Well they give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin
When I say that I'm o.k. well they look at me kind of strange
Surely you're not happy now you no longer play the game
--John Lennon


People used to say I was crazy, now, like John Lennon did until he was murdered, I watch the wheels turn round and round. They don't say that I'm crazy anymore. Of course, I don't much circulate myself among "them," anymore, and when I do I'm not full of wine, beer, bourbon, and LSD.

Funny how times change; funny how people change; funny how I've changed:
thank God that I did.


People say I'm lazy dreaming my life away
Well they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me
When I tell them that I'm doing fine watching shadows on the wall
Don't you miss the big time boy you're no longer on the ball

-------------------------------------
I was never any good at rolling a joint.


For a very brief time, back when I was using, I was buying rolled joints from someone. I forget, now, who they were, or where I was going to get them, but it was a great convenience for me, because I was never able to roll a joint. This also means that I could never roll a cigarette, out of a bag of tobacco, which a lot of folks do to save money. I don't think that this makes me a bad person.

I don't regret my past.
(elaborate…)
------------------------------------------------

And they called it Turtle Love…

One of my turtles, the girl, Rue Paul, is sunning herself on the floating fake rock that sits under a heat lamp in the turtles' aquarium. The other turtle, the male, Prynce, is hanging out on a large rock at the other end of their aquarium. They both look quite satisfied, this morning, having had breakfast, and all.

I am amazed how these two turtles have come to know me, and not be scared of me. Often, they are waiting for me at the end of their aquarium, when I pull back the top to their home to feed them. When anyone else opens the aquarium to feed them, they hide in the back of the rectangle.

Rue just jumped off her rock, and headed over to see what Prynce was up to. I am also amazed with how much time the two turtles spend together. If I could find a love like theirs, I would be a lucky man.

-----------------------------

Someone told me that Porn Stars don't have sex when they are not working…



----------------------------


"It's not a job, it's something that you have to do."--Tom Petty

I don't spend hours every day with my writing because I have to to make a living. I do it because I love it, I do it because it is in my blood. Kris Kristofferson said something in an interview about how it is the high of creating, and not the money that keeps him at it. I know what he is talking about. There is nothing, and there was nothing, when I was using drugs, and alcohol, that gets me as high as sitting down to the laptop and putting words together.

Nothing.

My brain feels at home when I do this. Everything is comfortable in my existence. I haven't a care in the world, when I am creating.
---------------------------------

Shawtie, our Labor Day weekend guest dog, and Bundy, love to play. I awoke, and got up to write, at 4:30 am, this morning, and the two of them are at it, already, rolling on the floor and growling at each other. I think that having Shawtie here, for a visit, is good for Bundy, because Morisson does not like to play like Shawtie does. Since I got hit with arthritis, in my hips and legs, about two months ago, I have not been able to take the dogs on the three to five mile walks that we were taking. I think that I am at the point in living with my arthritis, though, that I will soon be able to start taking the dogs on shorter walks. I know that they will love that.

The dogs love to walk. Bundy used to mercilessly pull me on the leash,when I first got him, and we first started walking, but, after a great deal of work with him, he became a very decent on leash dog. I'm not sure how he will be when we return to walking. He might need some retraining, just as I have, and will need retraining because of this arthritis.

Morisson has always been good on a leash. Come to think of it, Morisson has almost always been good, in all ways, except for a run away problem that he had when he first became my dog; and by that I mean that Morisson ran away about fifteen times when he first became my dog. Morisson came to me as a runaway, and continued the behavior for quite awhile. He liked to get out there in the neighborhood, and see what was going on. He even jumped out of my car, one day, as we were returning home. My greatest fear about all of that was that one of his runaway away excursions that he would get hit by a car. Fortunately, these days, Morisson knows where home is at, and he stays here with us.

Morisson dreams
My dogs are near veg like me
they eat fish dog food
I eat some fish
no meat
no meat for them
they don t fart!!!!

It's my black cat, Jaggar, who usually alerts me to the fact that I need to fill the animals' water dish. Jaggar pushes the empty bowl about the kitchen floor, making a noise that is distinctive and clues me into what I need to do. Jaggar and Bundy are then the first to step up to the bowl and drink them some water. Morisson always goes last. I don't know if that is a spiritual thing on his part, or just a result of the fact that he is meek. The meek shall inherit the earth, Morisson. Yeah, and the rich are going to have to fit through the eye of a needle to get into heaven…
-----------------------
Can I practice yoga even if I am relatively sedentary and inflexible?
Absolutely. In fact, individuals with limited range of motion or poor flexibility, due to arthritis or otherwise, may benefit the most from yoga practice, as it can increase flexibility, strength, and balance. Even if you are unable to kneel or have difficulty getting up and down, modifications are available. There are some "chair yoga" classes that are taught entirely in a seated position! It may feel a bit disheartening at first when challenges arise, but overcoming such judgments and accepting where you are is an important part of yoga.
A core concept of yoga is to always honor what will allow you to benefit most from the practice. Your yoga teacher will emphasize the importance of always listening to your body, recognizing your current limitations, and approaching your yoga practice from there. Yoga is not competitive, and the focus should not be on how the pose looks (aside from ensuring safe anatomical alignment). It is about experiencing a connection of the body and mind through the breath. While there are some yoga poses that do require a great deal of flexibility, strength, and balance, those poses should only be attempted by very experienced yogis and are NOT for beginners or persons with activity limitations. Again, a good yoga teacher will provide alternatives and modifications to all activities so that students can work within their levels of comfort.
Are there any poses people with arthritis should avoid?
The general rule for arthritis patient (and people in general) is that if it hurts, stop. The old adage of "no pain, no gain" does not apply to yoga, particularly if you have activity limitations. When doing backbends, arthritis patients should keep them relatively small and be aware not to hyper-extend the neck, keeping the head in line with the rest of the spine. For those with arthritis of the hip, be cautious when doing "hip openers" or poses with extreme external rotation of the hips. Generally, you will notice pain if you are going too far with the pose, but sometimes the effects are not felt until the next day. It is important to be gentle with your practice, especially at first. If you do not experience any pain after a few days, you can decide to gradually increase the intensity of the poses.

http://www.hopkins-arthritis.org/patient-corner/disease-management/yoga.html#poses

------------------------------------------
Nobody Knows God

Nobody knows God until after The End, until after you have Knocked On Heaven's Door, and been let in. You can read The Bible, you can go to Church, you can pray, and pray for days at a time, but you still won't know God.

Is a little prayer as good as a big prayer? Does God count you more "in" if you pray all day, than if you just give him a quick hello in the morning, and a tired goodbye at night?

Buddhist monks who pray a lot, probably don't have a greater inner track to heaven than the busy mother, who also works twelve hour shifts as a nurse, to support her babies. Just because a Church says that they are the only Church who can get into heaven does not mean that that is true.

How does God view Bernard Madoff versus Phillip Garrido? We don't know, because you can't know God until you are near to being lowered into the earth in your box, or are near being torched.

Nobody knows God. Nobody knows God, while they are alive; I am telling you.
--------------------------------------------------


Mikel K Poet
Belief is fake then; call it faith, and the monks are delusional, perhaps, trying to separate themselves, and their beliefs, and religion from everyone else. I love Buddhism, but found it painful to learn that Buddha blew off a wife and kid, like John Lennon, to go On The Road, like Kerouac said you should.
--------------------------------------

Come on baby light my fire…

Around 1984, I was sitting at my desk in this apartment that my live in lover and I lived in writing poetry. I don't know what was wrong with me, but I reached out
with my cigarette lighter, and lit the piece of paper with my poem on it, that was in the typewriter on fire, and sat there as the flames jumped onto the curtains that were on the window in front of my desk. I next remember going into a zombie/non-communicative state. My poor girlfriend didn't know what to do. She made a bunch of phone calls, and the answer seemed to be to take me to the loony bin, something that she didn't want to do, but she didn't know what else to do. Somehow, she got me out of the apartment, into her car, and drove me to a state mental institution, where they checked me in. I realize now that I was on the worst ward, what I call, "The Failed Suicide Ward," because that was what many of the people in that ward were. You had people who had jumped off buildings, and bridges, and lived; you had people who had shot themselves in the head and lived; you had people who had swallowed what they had thought would be enough pills to kill themselves, but they had lived.

Everybody would mill about the day room randomly often bumping into each other and saying, "Hey, have you got a cigarette?" A cigarette seemed to be the only thing that most of us on that ward cared about.

I was really out of it. That was the reason that I was on that ward. I was unable to communicate to the staff who I was. After several days, it all started to come back to me. The person, who interviewed me, asked me if I knew what day it was, and they asked me who The President was. I think that I had trouble with the day, as I sometimes do during even normal times, but I was able to tell the person who The President was.

After about five days, they released me.

At this point, I had gone from an honors high school, and college student to a zombie at The State Mental Ward. It is not the kind of thing that you put a certificate on your wall about. I just kind of blocked it out of my memory, and went back to life as usual: lots of booze, a fair amount of pot, and LSD here and there.

They say that the definition of insanity is, "Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Well, I had just spent five days in the Loony Bin, and I was going back to business as usual in my using life: was I not crazy, even though they had let me out?

-----------------------------------------
"People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”
--Jim Morrison

I wonder if the Dead Door was talking about arthritic pain. I don't think so. I up wide awake at 3:30 am because arthritic pain in my left hip, and my left leg, has awoken me, and driven me out of the bed.

Someone reacting to one of my internet posts said that, "arthritis was my friend, because it is always with you." When I read that, I thought that she was high, that she was hitting the crack pipe, or something.
My friend?
Arthritis is with me constantly, and I am in near constant pain because it is with me. How can pain be my friend; I'm not involved with BDSM.
-----------------------------------

Dear Face Book: Life is change; we must embrace change. Have you got any spare change?!


"Show me how you do that trick
The one that makes me scream" she said
"The one that makes me laugh" she said
And threw her arms around my neck
"Show me how you do it
And I promise you I promise that
I'll run away with you
I'll run away with you"
--The Cure


Searching

Searching for my one and only
I went down to the sea and looked for sea shells
I only only
I only only
came back with sea weed.

No one gave their love to me.
No one even smiled at me.
I looked up to the heavens
and asked
how can this be?

Lonely
lonely
I want to be in love with you
in love with you.

--Mikel K

-------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------

In a place you only dream of
Where your soul is always free
Silver stages, golden curtains
Filled my head, plain as can be
As a rainbow grew around the sun
All my stars above who died
Came from somewhere beyond the scene you see
These lovely people played just for me
--The Outlaws

I'm drinking decaf tonight, some really nasty decaf that has sat around, unopened, in my cabinets for almost two years. I don't want to drink a cup of full strength, because I will be staring at the ceiling until the sun comes up.

I love the first two lines of the song, "Green Grass and High Tides Forever."
What a beautiful place it must be, "where your soul is always free."


-----------------------------------

Dear Facebook: Be all they want you to be.


-----------------------------------


"Wait until the war is over,
and we're both a little older."

--The Doors

The Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force scam you just like a vacuum cleaner sales person can, and often does, going door to door. It's all in the sizzle, baby, not the steak.

"You want to make something of your life, don't you? the recruiter says to the young man, or woman with a so sincere smile. You'd like to go to college, wouldn't you? You want to become a real man, a real woman, don't you?" You want to make your parents proud of you, don't you; your God, your Government, your friends, and neighbors?

And the next thing the kid knows, he or she are laying in the sand, or dirt, in a far off land with their arms and their legs gone.

I am blessed to have never had to participate as a soldier in all the wars that have occurred while I have been alive, and looking back, now, I realize that there were quite a few of them, i.e. we are mostly at war, or so it seems. Something saved me from having my life, and limbs challenged, and has let me come to the point where I can sit here at this desk, listening to music, and drinking coffee while bitching about war, man.

I know that there will never be peace on earth; humans are not built for such. There will always be money to be made from sending out kids to fight old men's' battles.

I feel sad about this; I really do.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"Breakfast where the news is read
Television children fed
Bullet strikes the helmet's head"
--The Doors

You grow up eating their cereal, then you have to go out and fight their war. The cereal did nothing healthy for your body; maybe it was designed to make the consumer not think. Your whole existence boiled down to fighting a war so that McDonald's could be served in places where men ride camels, and women hide their face away. These people don't want a Big Mac, but the people who sell Big Macs have to expand their "markets." So, your son, and daughter, die so that French fries can be sold.

-------------------------------

Take him by the hand
Make him understand
The world on you depends
Our life will never end

--The Doors
---------------------------------

One day, about ten years ago, I was typing a term paper for a class in school, in my bedroom, and a little box popped up on my screen. Inside it was a woman's name and she was saying, 'Hello," to me. It was a very weird experience. I thought, at first, that aliens were contacting me! I said hello back, and asked her about her box. She then explained, "Instant Messaging," to me, and I was almost immediately hooked.

When my kids were younger, I had no desire to go out. I loved to stay at home, and hang out with them. Sitting at home with my kids, I learned to expand on the instant message thing: I discovered chat rooms.

What a great way to find a date without leaving the house.

The regular chat rooms grew tiresome, though; fast. Women were hit on so often by so many men in those rooms, that when I said hello, I was treated as if I was a piece of dog dung, for the most part, so I decided to set up my own room. I called it, "Poet Seeks Muse." I have met many, many fine, fine women in this room over the years, and have even dated several of them.

Recently, I found this person in my room. I certainly do not want to date them, or even talk to them.

OnlineHost: *** You are in "Romance - Poet Seeks Muse". ***
OnlineHost: u enema has entered the room.
u enema: diarrhea splat
OnlineHost: u enema has left the room.

But, then there were relationships like this forged in The Muse Room:

Stranger: Hey you...I forgot about you for a while, but not yours words.
I miss our random chats
Stranger: thanks for your words
Stranger: always good things
Stranger: you can call me
Stranger: whenever
Stranger: but no text
Stranger: I don't do text
******


When I first got sober, I was scared of the beer and wine aisle at the grocery store, and I wouldn't walk down it because I was so scared of it. I remember being very angry at the grocery store powers that be for putting bottled water on the same aisle as the beer and wine. Just what were they thinking, I thought, how dare they do such a thing to me? And I did without my water, on that particular occasion.

I think that one of the things that "they," say is that, "It takes what it takes," meaning that it takes what it takes to get sober. For me, one of the things that it took, was getting mad at the beer and wine aisle. It is ok to get mad, it is not ok to get drunk over your anger.

The rule is that, "even if your pants fall off, do not pick up." I have followed this rule for almost 18 years. Under no circumstances is using an option, if you are an alcoholic or drug addict in recovery. Hear, hear!



I was chatting online with a young lady last night and she said that she remembered me from the day. "I remember you being a semi-celebrity back in the day…" is what she said.

The day is when I was a music writer, a very drunk music writer "on the scene." When you have ink, you have high visibility, and I had a weekly music column for a couple of years. I met a lot of great people, but my drinking problem pretty much fucked that gig up, like it fucked up all other gigs that I had.

This is taken from my journal:

June 23 2004

Today was a great day, and tonight is and exceptional evening. This woman who I was chatting with, online, asked me if there were any great things happening with me and I told her, “no,” that things were blissfully normal.

I always thought that I had to be huge, that the whole world had to know that I was here. What’s up with that? Is it the rampantly huge, and unstable ego, of a first born male? Is it the result of an insecurity complex a mile wild and a million miles deep?

They tell me that what is really important with the time that you have on this earth is what you do for someone else. If there is a heaven, they tell me, you won t get into it just becoming rich and famous, if you aren't looking out for anyone but yourself.

I sound like some sort of expert, but I’m not. What I learned, I learned the hard way. I’m one of those graduates of that School of Hard Knocks that you are always hearing about. Come to think of it, I am wrong, I am not a graduate. You can never graduate from the School of Hard Knocks. Classes are always being held. The teacher is always waiting for you in that school.

I saw this guy on TV, the other night, bragging about how he had like five hundred pair of underwear. It was weird because the underwear, which he held up for the camera, were the exact same type of underwear that I wear. I only have four pair, but I don’t feel left out, lonely, or like a loser, you know, because I only have four pair; four pair works for me just fine.

I wear the underpants once, or twice, and then I wash them. It’s no big deal, really. I don’t think that I would be any happier if I had five hundred pair. Doing laundry would be even more of a pain in the ass than it is now.




Don't take it off, baby…

I have never been comfortable around naked women who I wasn't sleeping with.
And by this, I am referring to strip clubs. I have only been inside a strip club a few times in my life. I always felt very uncomfortable in there. I think that even though I left The Catholic Church, that there are things ingrained in me from the time I spent there. There are certain morals, or beliefs that I can not, or have not shaken. Perhaps being in a strip club is one of them, or perhaps the problem is that I don t want to look, I want to touch!!



"God, it's such a drag when you re living in the past"--Tom Petty

My past used to haunt me. Images of my father telling me that I was no good, and that I would always be no good, plagued me. I was ruining my today with my yesterday because I couldn’t let the past go. I was still living in yesterday, and yesterday hadn't been all that pleasant.

Because I was living in yesterday, I couldn't enjoy today. I'm not sure how or when I let go. I think it was when I wrote the conclusion to my book, “The Delivery Guy.” There I came to the realization that my father loved me. His love did not feel good to me, but it was the only love he had to offer. It was the best love that he had to offer, the only love that he had to give me.

The type of love that he gave me is not the type of love that I would have chosen, but it was the only love that he was capable of giving me. He did his best. Things could have been way worse.

I had to learn to let go. You have to learn to let go. I have to learn that no matter how much I could have tried, I could not change my father. He was what he was. I thank him for doing what he did.

I did not turn out all that bad. I am the great father that I am, because I know what it feels like to be a child under the type of love that my father gave me. I am capable of a greater love for my children, and for this I am very thankful.



An old friend came over, recently, very saddened because she had just had an abortion. She was saying that God hated her for having it. I told her that God did not hate her, because I truly believe that God did not hate my friend for what had just occurred in her life.

I was taught, as a child, that God is very tit for tat, and very judgmental. This is not the God that I believe in today. The God that I believe in, today, loves me, and he, or she, loves you, too, and he, or she, love my friend, maybe the most.


I cooked macaroni and cheese for my daughter figure, just a few minutes ago. I am blessed to have this beautiful young lady in my life. She stays with me after school, each day, until her mother or “real” father get out of work. She thanked me like ten times for the macaroni and cheese, and told me over and over how good it was.

I am amazed by how the generation below me, i.e. my kids love me and think I'm great, and by how the generation above me, i.e. my parents thought that I was no good.

It s all about perceptions, isn’t it, the way that I, and you, feel things? Something, or some situation, that might make me feel terrible, might make you feel wonderful, and vice versa.

You might have a better attitude about life than me, see the glass as half full to the half empty that I see it, and that makes you feel better about life, in general, and better able to see obstacles, or “bad” things as challenges rather than as a reason to get angry, or depressed.

I commend you for this attitude that you have, and I am, now, constantly working to improve on my attitude. Attitude is where it is at; I am certain of that.



She said to me, “You are a walking act of constant common decency; you are
poetry in motion, polite, and pleasant to everybody, whether it be the checkout person at the grocery store, or somebody that everybody perceives to be important."

We all want to be treated decently. Unfortunately, this often doesn’t occur. Do we then take our pain, and try to transfer it to someone else? I think that I have been guilty of this. I have taken my bad moods out on my children. I have taken my bad moods out on my lovers. I have taken my bad moods out on friends, I have taken my bad moods out on complete strangers, and I have taken my bad moods out on my dogs, and on myself.

I don’t know that taking my mood out on you was a conscious thing, like ”I feel like shit, so i am going to make you feel like shit." But, does it matter what my intent is in a situation like this: the result is still the same: I take my mood out on you.

It was a very nice surprise to hear a new friend say that I was a, "walking act of constant common decency." This observation came after she had hung out with me for several days. I wonder if she will think the same thing if she hangs out with me for several weeks or months or years. Would this not be the true test to see if I was truly a commonly decent person?

If I am, then I wonder where the behavior came from? I know that it has not been a consistent behavior, true of me during all periods of my life. I hope that it is consistent from now on.



I am up, as I so often am, these days, in the middle of the night with arthritis pain. I'm not complaining, I am getting used to living with arthritis, though it is not a pleasant thing to do. The hardest part of this arthritis thing, for me, is not being able to walk my dogs, and not being able to fully participate in Yoga. I don't much like limping around at work, either.

The doctor said that, "Hip replacement surgery was imminent." He also said to, "lose weight." Extra weight is an evil thing. I have diabetes primarily because of it, and I have the arthritis at least in part because of it.

People, don't eat a lot.



There is some nasty goo stuck on the inside of my back teeth on the left side of my mouth. I can't dislodge it with my tongue; I can't get at it with my finger. I suppose that I should get up from this desk and go at it with my toothbrush, but, often, once I sit down at this desk, I am glued here.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

--------------------------
He was my Walter Cronkite
By Mikel K Poet

Jim Carroll died, today. I liked Jim Carroll, and I respected his work. If I was one to cry, when people died, I would cry, today. People lament the loss of Ted Kennedy: Ted Kennedy was a piss-ant compared to Jim Carroll.

Jim Carroll was a junkie; and I trusted him. Make that he was a recovered junky, as far as I know, and I trusted him. Jim Carroll told the truth in his book, "The Basketball Diaries," that he wrote, I believe, when he was still a teenager. Jim Carroll laid it out for you, and me, what it was like to be addicted to smack. He removed any glamour that might have existed in my, then practicing alcoholic mind, about moving to what would have been, for me, the next level of addiction.
It takes a lot of balls to tell people, in print, or otherwise, that you used to suck dick in New York City bathrooms to get money for your drug of choice.

Teddy sniffing glue, he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

-- Jim Carroll - People Who Died Song Lyrics


I saw Jim Carroll read his poetry twice. The first time, I made sure that I stole a copy of, "The Basketball Diaries," before I got in line to shake his hand, along with a lot of other folks, at the now long defunct Metroplex punk rock club in Atlanta, Ga. I don't remember that meeting. I was wrapped in my own addiction, drunk most of the time, in those days, but I do remember that I had just started dating my son's mother at that time, and she wanted to meet Carroll, also, and she didn't have a book for him to sign, so I gave her mine, and she came up with the idea of having it signed on page 69, which he did, so there are two signatures in that book from Jim.

I just went and kissed that book. That is my kiss to Jim, a kiss of thanks for what he gave me: a hero that I could believe in outside of all the sports heroes, actresses and actress, politicians, and major label musicians that I am force fed to believe in.


G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan
Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby OD'd on Drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

I worked with some great musicians for a couple of years, and we put out a couple of spoken word/improve punk/jazz/rock cd's, the first one was called, "Sober," and when Jim Carroll came to Atlanta to do a reading, around the time, that we put out that cd, I felt that it was important that Jim Carroll have a copy.

Having been a music writer, for a number of years, I knew my way around The Cotton Club, where he was reading, and I knew my way around doormen, and music club security types, and I talked my way passed them into Mr. Carroll's dressing room.

"Hey Mr. Carroll, how are you?" I said, "My name is Mikel K."
"Hey, there how are you, said Jim Carroll, almost as if I belonged there. The guy was not like hey you scrub get the fuck out of my dressing room; I'm a Superstar."

I chitt chatted for a bit, gave him the cd, and cruised. It's always nice when you meet a famous person, and they are not a dickhead. Jim Carroll was not a dickhead to me.

Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
Judy jumped in front of a subway train
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others
And I salute you brother

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died


I turned on the tv, just now, hoping to see an obit of some sort on CNN about Jim Carroll. The President was giving a speech, and then the talking heads tried to take up my time telling me what The President had just said. I turned the tv off. I don't need anyone to remember Jim Carroll for me. I wasn't best friends with the guy, but he wrote a book that I rank up there with, "The Catcher in the Rye," and, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," books, all three, that I will always have a copy of on my shelf.

Herbie pushed Tony from the Boys' Club roof
Tony thought that his rage was just some goof
But Herbie sure gave Tony some bitchen proof
"Hey," Herbie said, "Tony, can you fly?"
But Tony couldn't fly, Tony died

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

I'm a Word Man, Jim Carroll was a Word Man; and I respect him and his words, words that may never die, die.

Brian got busted on a narco rap
He beat the rap by rattin' on some bikers
He said, "Hey, I know it's dangerous, but it sure beats Riker's"
But the next day he got offed by the very same bikers

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

RIP Jim Carroll, you were one of the good ones, and I will remember
you until it is my turn to die, die.


Teddy sniffing glue, he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan
Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby OD'd on Drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
Judy jumped in front of a subway train
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others
And I salute you brother

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
---------------------------------------------


There is some nice You Tube video of Carroll doing readings
at these links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBEkjFZ4XdA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsm9e4KDFFI

-------------------------------------------------------------
This very drunk man was asked to leave The Bookstore where I work, last night. The very drunk man will not even remember being at the bookstore. I wonder if he will wind up in jail, like I so often did when, almost twenty years ago, when I, frequently, got as drunk as he was, last night? They said that he often patrols the bookstore parking lot, going from person to person, and car to car, and spare changing people. I only spare changed one person in my life; it was a mailman, it was early in the morning, and he gave me five bucks. I have never busked, either; I'm to shy to sit our there on the sidewalk, either alone, or with a musician friend, and read poems to the people. I'd rather have a job, or a millionaire girlfriend, than mooch off of people on the sidewalk.
-------------------------------------------------------------

I'm hungry, but I haven't written much, yet, this morning. Eating steals my desire, in the short term, to write. I was working at a Gun Club, briefly, in Santa Monica, Ca. called, "The Beverly Hills Gun Club," and we got a phone call from Sylvester Stallone saying that he was coming in to shoot off a few rounds.

When Mr. Stallone arrived, I tested his sense of humor, by doing my best Rocky imitation, and saying, "Wha's Adrian."

Stallone made a gun out of his hand, and blew air at it, as if it was a real gun that had just been shot, and said, "I shot her!"

I was the greeter at the club, so I chatted with Stallone for a minute, or two before the owner came out to shake his hand, and give him the tour that I usually gave folks who are new to the club. In our short chat, Stallone revealed to me that he could not write after eating, that the blood going to his stomach to digest his food somehow robbed him of his will to write. Many years later, I fully understand what he was talking about.

It is nice to meet someone super famous, and have them treat you nice. Kudos to
Rocky!

I lost that job, about a week later, because I decided to skip a day of work, and get really drunk. The owners could tell what was up, that I had a drinking problem. One of them didn't much care, he got angry with me, and said something to the extent of, "No one is going to fuck up my business."

The other guy, a Beverly Hills Cop, was decent about it, saying that a lot of cops had drinking problems, and that he could tell that I had one, and that I should seek help.

Help?

Fuck it; I didn't have a job, what a great excuse to go get drunk again!
-----------------------------------------
Amazingly, my cat Jaggar, the black one with the piercing yellow eyes, now lets me pet him. It has taken us over two years to get to this point. Jaggar does not appear to love being petted, like my other cat, Kobain, does, but, least, he puts up with it, these days.

Jaggar was found in the parking lot of a McDonald's chest caved in, lying near the body of his dead mother. The person who found him took him to the vet that I was going to for my dogs, and Kobain. I watched Jaggar's progress, as the people at the vet's office nurtured him back to health, and I became very interested in him, interested to the point that they entrusted me with him, once he got to the point where he could be entrusted to someone.

Jaggar grew up fast, he didn't stay small long. He was always very anti-social; very anti-social. Then, one day, he started rubbing himself on my legs, which I thought was weird, but I went with it. Now, I often find him sitting near my feet when I am sitting at my desk, and he will come to me when I shake the container that contains the small, moist treats that he loves so much.

Cats are precious animals, each one of them with their own unique personalities.
I am thankful for the two of them that I have in my life; they bring an added richness to it.
----------------------------------------------
Mama, take this badge off of me
I can't use it anymore.
It's gettin' dark, too dark for me to see
I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door.
I like The Guns and Roses version of, "Knocking on Heaven's Door," the best. I am snapping my fingers to the intro as I listen to the band do the song live in Argentina, via You Tube, when my dog, Morisson, starts beating his tail on the floor. Efffin A, I think…we have a band!

Both of my dogs, Morisson, and Bundy, soon come to me at my desk. I have forgotten that when we are outside I often snap my fingers to bring the dogs to me, and to guide them home. They probably think that it is time to go out and play, though they also probably know that when I am this desk typing, I am mostly glued to it. Play time has to wait until my time as a Poet is done for the day.
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
From the minute we are born, we start to knock on heaven's door. I don't know if I believe in the concept of heaven that organized religion wants me to buy into. I don't know if there is a heaven or a hell; I sort of doubt it. I think that these concepts were created to make men behave good, scare them with hell, dangle the carrot of heaven out in front of them on a string.
Mama, put my guns in the ground
I can't shoot them anymore.
That long black cloud is comin' down
I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door.
Wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have, or need guns. Guns are like abortion, though, though you might think them bad, they are never going to go away.
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Copyright ©1973 Ram's Horn Music


They Shot Bob Marley Outside The Dakota

They shot Bob Marley outside The Dakota the day that John Lennon rose from the dead.

Jimi Hendrix sat at the head of the table while Jim Morrison read the prayer.

When they finished the final supper, Janis Joplin began to sing. Kurt Cobain started to cry, while he walked on water.

Charles Bukowski looked up from a game of poker that he was playing with angels, lit his cigar and smiled.

--Mikel K
From the book, "The Shot Bob Marley Outside The Dakota"



Life is bigger than you…


Oh, life is bigger
It's bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no, I've said too much
I set it up

I remember where I was the first time that I heard this song, "Losing My Religion," by rem. I was on the patio of a bar, guzzling beer from pitchers on cheap pitcher night. I was half way into my buzz, and hearing this song
almost sobered me up. It was like I had been hit in the jaw, but in a shiny, happy way.

This is one of those songs that I can listen to ten thousand times in a row, and be ready to listen to it ten thousand more times.


That's me in the corner
That's me in the spotlight, I'm
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no, I've said too much
I haven't said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try

That was me in the corner. That was me in the spotlight. I had lost my religion. Michael Stipe and the band had hit it on the nose. They had written a song about me, and if not about me, then they had, at least, written a song that I could relate to. "I've said too much, I haven't said enough was how I often felt." REM had expressed the ambiguity in my existence.

Every whisper
Of every waking hour I'm
Choosing my confessions
Trying to keep an eye on you
Like a hurt lost and blinded fool, fool
Oh no, I've said too much
I set it up
Consider this
Consider this
The hint of the century
Consider this
The slip that brought me
To my knees failed
What if all these fantasies
Come flailing around
Now I've said too much
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try

But that was just a dream
That was just a dream

Confession? I hadn't been to confession in over a decade at that time. Who spoke of confessions, in my existence, outside of The Catholic Church. I'm listening to the song, as I write this, and it is difficult to write, because, as many times as I have heard the song, it still grabs me, pulls me in, makes me want to concentrate on the lyrics, makes me want to groove to the mandolin.


But that was just a dream
Try, cry, why try?
That was just a dream
Just a dream, just a dream
Dream

Sometimes a song stays with you for a day or so. Sometimes it stays with you for weeks, and, sometimes, when you're lucky, a song stays with you for a lifetime, life this one has me; no dream here, baby.

*******
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX P 100


It rained cats and dogs, yesterday evening. I was at work, standing at the front of the store, saying hello to everyone who entered, as was my job for that hour. Many of the people who came in were soaking wet. The primary area where people were soaked was their feet; shoes and socks were wet to the core just from the little walk it took to get to the store from the parking lot..

This one lady came into the store, said hello to me, took her shoes off, dumped the water from them onto our carpet, and then started wiping her feet on the carpet, right in front of me. It was weird to watch her do this. I felt grossed out, violated somehow, like I was privy to something that I was not supposed to see. And I felt sorry for our poor carpet; how dare she wipe her stinky feet on it.

It is the store's policy to be polite to the customer under most any circumstance, so when the lady was done I smiled at her, and said, "Have a nice day. Like Hunter Thompson said, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

*******

Does it matter how you die? Is there any difference between putting a bullet in your head in the kitchen, and expiring there, after years of battling cancer or dieing in the hospital, your family owing doctors money for you care that they will never be able to pay?

I think that the main difference between those two situations exists in the minds of those that you leave behind. Killing yourself will probably have a greater effect on your loved ones than it does on you.

Hunter killed himself in the kitchen while talking to his wife. His son found him. To me, there is something fucked up about this. I mean, really, Hunter, get a hotel room.

*******

When I got to Atlanta, a quarter of a century ago, the Afican-American on the streets would call me, "White boy."

"Hey, white boy, you got a cigarette? Hey, white boy you got a quarter?"

Now, on the streets, and else where, I get called, "Big Man."

A couple of years in the gym, and a couple more at the buffet, and here I am, in my fifties: Big Man.

I was a skinny little kid: very skinny. I ran track, played tennis, and was a thin guard in basketball. To now be "Big Man," is quite a stretch for me, because, even though, I don't look that way when I look in the mirror, inside I still feel like that skinny little kid.

It is funny how certain inner voices stay with us. I find that, mostly, that it is the negative voices that stick with me. I still hear my father telling me that I am, "worthless."

I remember my mother telling me, one day, in the kitchen, that I would "be fat." I was about the skinniest kid in my high school. I laughed at her, and told her that she was crazy. She wasn't crazy; she knew what my eating patterns were, and what time was going to do to me.

Now, I'm fat; overweight fighting to lose the weight, because I am diabetic,
and have arthritis, and both conditions are both caused, and aggravated by
extra pounds.

It is a lot easier to put the weight on, than to take it off; trust me, I've had a vasectomy.

*******

I have had a vasectomy. They laughed at me when I told them what I was going to do; they said that I wasn't having sex with anyone, well, duh, that didn't mean that I wasn't going to not have sex with anyone for the rest of my life.

I had read an article that said that the pattern with most American males was to dump his wife, and kids, and start over with a younger woman, creating more kids with her, and that didn't seem like a very nice thing to maybe do to my kids, so I made sure that I couldn't do it. So there.

*******

Most times that I drink one, a cup of coffee makes me feel warm, and fuzzy. I come away from the experience feeling better than I did when I went into it. But, on occasion, drinking a cup of coffee will make me feel jittery.

I used to drink too much coffee; I would start with a pot in the morning,
and then I would continue through most of the day with a cup of coffee near me. One morning, when my friend Dave was visiting with me, I started screaming at him, extremely about something that he had done. Now, I had a right to be irritated with Dave, but there was no reason to be going ballistic on him.

"Mikel," said my friend, calmly, "I think that you need to do something about your caffeine."

It was as if he had slapped me upside the head, which I wouldn't have been surprised if he had done. No, Dave, no, I said to myself, I have given up everything else; you can't expect me to give up my coffee.

I just glared at him, and walked away. I had given up my alcohol. I had given up my cigarettes. I was trying to eat in moderation, and here was someone saying that I should give up my precious coffee.

No. No. No.

Several days later, I started making my coffee by the cup instead of by the pot, and, gradually, I cut back to just a cup in the morning, and, maybe, one later in the day.

I have not yelled at Dave, or anyone else, including the dogs, cats, and turtles since I have made this change. Life is about moderation, and I was not born a moderate person; it is something that I have had to come to learn in many areas of my life.

The cat has gotten very good at getting the inner door open. No matter how hard I push it, I still hearing it creaking open, and look up to see him sneaking out it. The only problem that he has, is that there is another door, outside the one that he has just opened, and he will not be able to get that one open. And if by some miracle he does, he has only let himself out onto the porch, which has another door, and not out into the great beyond that he is trying to let himself out into.

At the last place that we lived, I let my cats be indoor/outdoor cats. We lived on a quiet street; there was an empty lot across the street; I felt good about the situation for letting my cats wander around outside. Where we live, now, I do not feel good about letting my cats wander; there are too many cars, too close to the house, and too many cats prowling about in the immediate vicinity.

I love my cats. I do not want to have to pick one of them up off the pavement. That was the fate that befell the cat that I had before I had the two cats that I have now, Kobain, and Jaggar. Her name was Madonna, and when my son brought home another kitty, who badly needed a home, Madonna got very angry, and would not stay in the house much. One day, a neighbor came to my door, and asked me if I had "seen" Madonna. I knew what he meant immediately. Poor Madonna had gotten run over by a car at the end of the parking lot in front of the apartments that we live in. I felt so blessed to hear him say that someone else had cleaned her up. It would have broken my heart to have had to scrape her up off the asphalt. If Madonna had just been a little bit more willing to share, she might still be alive. It just goes to show you that anger can be bad for cats, like it is for human.

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It's often an hour to go until I've got to get somewhere, leaving me an hour until I am where I am supposed to be. Time is an incredible thing; no matter how much of it I have of it, it is always slipping away on me. It seems like it only has taken me several minutes to get where I am, but actually it has been 52 years. I can't believe it; I feel like I am still young, but I am looked upon by the young as if I am old. Oh well, I guess I hurtling, fast, towards finding out what is after, what the forever after is all about. It is sure to be consciousness expanding, if my consciousness is still with me, a topic which there is great debate about.

------------------------------------------------------------

About two months ago, I was stricken with severe arthritis. I went from walking my dogs three to five miles a day to not being able to walk them at all. I went from a pain free existence to an existence full of pain. The Doctor who took the x-rays, and told me that I had arthritis, and had not pulled a groin muscle like I thought, also told me that "hip replacement surgery was, "imminent." At the time I thought that I could fix the hip with something natural like yoga, or maybe I could drink dandelion juice, or take some herbs. For the last two months the pain has gotten worse, and worse, and my ability to get around has gotten less, and less. I have an appointment, tomorrow, to see a Doctor who can perform the hip replacement surgery. I can't wait to get under the scalpel.



cfeni: so can i be more obnoxious
cfeni: its fun
mikel k: you can be pretty fucking obnoxious
mikel k: but then you are a spoiled litte rich kid without the money
mikel k: i d be pissed off, too
cfeni: ah, money is overrated
cfeni: i want love
cfeni: and that ain't gonna happen
mikel k: i want money money can buy me love
cfeni: really?
mikel k: yes
cfeni: not in my world
mikel k: how do you get love when you don t have money to ask someone out
mikel k: hey would you like to go to the soup line with me?
cfeni: i guess if they had no money either then it woudn't be a problem
cfeni: you like the rich bitches
mikel k: i do?
mikel k: what the hell was i doing hanging around you then?
cfeni: good question
-----------------------------------
Sometimes, you enter into relationships that force you to grow up. Growth is still possible when you are two hundred years old. Often you do not realizing that you are growing, because growth can feel like a sharp slap in the face. Once you have survived the slap, though, a refreshing feeling engulfs you, for you have done something that you did not think it possible for you to do: you have grown. Mostly, I think that I know it all and that there is not much I can learn. This is a stupid attitude. I am not stupid, but I have a multiplicity of stupid attitudes. I want to grow; I want to cast off my stupid attitudes. I know that this is possible.
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There was a time when I would snort anything. If you crunched it up, and it fit through a straw, I would try to get it in my nose. Today, this seems like really weird behavior, but at the time it made sense.
-------------------------------
I start my day off by listening to the song, "Don't Cry," by Guns N Roses, because I feel like crying. Sometimes little things seem so insurmountable. Sometimes, I feel like I can't put one foot in front of the other and move on. I get stuck where I am.
Not to whine; the day will get better, and, soon, I will not remember how I feel now. I will feel different; sometimes better, sometimes strong, sometimes worse, weak.
I am not the cup of coffee that I pour. I am not the person that the person who I work with is mad at. I am the smile that I have on my face.
-----------------------------
"Love" is something that you can abuse, because you own it. It's yours, you can yell at it, insult it, make it cry, hurt its feelings, and on, and on, and on, because it is "yours." Mary me, my lady, marry me.
--------------------------------
Kobain just coughed up a hairball that looked like poop, and the worst thing about it is that he coughed it up, not on the filthy carpet, but on my bed. I had to remove the sheet(I don't use a top sheet) and put it in the washer right away. My animals are constantly presenting me challenges.
---------------------------------
I hate when my computer turns itself off: it goes to black, but the blue on and off button is still on; what's up with that? When I get a call from my oldest kid, early in the morning, like I did, this morning, it means that my job has called him, wanting something, usually for me to show up early, because someone else decided to take the day off, and because they did not reach me on my phone(I was asleep with the phone turned off, as it always is when I sleep.)

I'm a cynic; I think that it's rare that someone is sick enough to miss work(I think that that was programmed into me by my Irish immigrant working class parents.) I mean I don't mind if you are sick, or if you want to take a day off to lay up with your boyfriend, or look for a new job, as long as it doesn't affect me. Me, me, me...we are talking me, here, dear. I try to help out at work, whenever possible, by working to fill in when they need me, but I just don't have it in me, this morning. My head feels very groggy, and my hip is giving me a lot of pain. Should I feel guilty for just being able to work the shift that I was assigned?

I am in a piss poor mood, this morning. I like to wake up slow, sipping caffeine, typing words onto a computer screen, not be rushed into existence with harried phone calls. Dig?

The dogs pretty much chose to ignore me, this morning, when we were on our morning expedition to the front yard, and places not too far beyond, not heeding my, "Go home, Bundy; Go home, Morrison, when I thought that it was time to go home, preferring, instead, to languish in the, now, cool, and, still, wet grass, sniffing; enjoying one of the first cool mornings of the new autumn.

Monkey, the sort of stray cat, was hanging out front when the dogs and I arrived there, this morning. Monkey likes to say good morning to the dogs, rubbing up against the dogs like they are lovers preparing for a kiss. My only hope is that her loving manner doesn't give the dogs AIDS. I'm kidding, and I'm talking fleas kids, not acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.

Another cat showed up, wanting I'm not sure what; perhaps to share in Monkey's breakfast that I had just put out, but the dogs chased that cat off. I was glad that one, or both of the dogs, did not run off into the distance chasing the cat. Morrison, especially, used to have a problem coming back to the house after he ran off for any reason, and chasing a cat off was an especially good reason to head out into the hood for several hours.

Writing this has been good for me. I don't feel so stressed out anymore. People get sick, people call in when they are not sick. I should be glad that I have a job that thinks enough of me to want to bring me in early: there, the good attitude is back.
--------------------------------------------------
I don't know about this Face Book crap; I got home from work, tired, grabbed a bag of peanuts, and a bowl to put the shells in, sat down to the puter, and found that I had 11 messages on FB. This should be fun I thought...11 messages is good. Not one was good, they were all responses that someone had made on a string where I had made a comment, or comments to a string that I had not requested to be on. I hate when people include me in their strings. Anyway, I'm tired and pissy; work was a pain in the ass, again, today... under staffing becomes stressful when you get busy, and there is no one to cover your back: the man saves money on labor costs, but you grow older with stress as you constant companion at near minimum wage per hour. I know, I know there are options, you have choices, blah, blah...
Dear Facebook: Work sucks, Face Book sucks, Everything sucks...ha ha!

Dear Facebook: I've napped, and, now, I'm so happy, happy, happy...comfortably numb, perhaps, as "they" say. The dogs love the cold; they can't wait to go out, and then they don't want to come in. What is Monkey, the outdoor cat, going to do when it gets really cold?
-------------------------------------
Bundy, the dog, will snap at Jaggar, the cat, when Jaggar dares to stick his nose in or near Bundy's food dish, in the morning. Yet, the first thing that Bundy does, when he returns from his a.m. outdoor visit, is to run to Jaggar's breakfast bowl, and try to wolf down whatever kitty food that is in it before I scream, "No," at him. He then runs off, and hides beneath my desk. It is a game we play, a morning ritual, with Bundy usually emerging the victor, the animal with the most food in his gut.

Monkey, the stray cat**, has taken to rubbing up against my legs when I take the dogs outside to use the facility. I don't think that he is wanting to be held, and petted, because Jaggar does the same foot, and leg, rubbing thing, but resists being held or petted at all costs. I say, "stray cat," in regards to Monkey, but, really, these days, Monkey doesn't stray very far from the bowl that I fill with food every morning for her.
-------------------------------------------------------
Bundy, the dog, will snap at Jaggar, the cat, when Jaggar dares to stick his nose in or near Bundy's food dish, in the morning. Yet, the first thing that Bundy does, when he returns from his a.m. outdoor visit, is to run to Jaggar's breakfast bowl, and try to wolf down whatever kitty food that is in it before I scream, "No," at him. He then runs off, and hides beneath my desk. It is a game we play, a morning ritual, with Bundy usually emerging the victor, the animal with the most food in his gut.

Monkey, the stray cat**, has taken to rubbing up against my legs when I take the dogs outside to use the facility. I don't think that he is wanting to be held, and petted, because Jaggar does the same foot, and leg, rubbing thing, but resists being held or petted at all costs. I say, "stray cat," in regards to Monkey, but, really, these days, Monkey doesn't stray very far from the bowl that I fill with food every morning for her.
-------------------------------------
Lynne Ferrigno
You'll do great... I have half a dozen friends who've had the surgery. All are practically tap dancing.
The Doctor spoke fast, the whole time that he was speaking to me about my leg, hip, and back x-rays. I sat there the whole time wondering if I could trust him. He wanted to put a series of three shots in each of my knees. He was talking about the possibility of a shot, or shots, in my back after I got an MRI.
I decided to not be in a pissed off mood about it all. The Doctor also wanted to do hip replacement surgery, which, to me, meant that relief was on its way from the intense hip pain that I had been experiencing for the past several months.
I wasn't sure what the shots to my knees and possibly to my back were, or were about, but I decide to try and have some faith in something that I had never had much faith in: Doctors.
I got on the bus in a good mood. My eyes were mostly hidden behind my hair as I got on the bus and said cheerio to the bus driver. Because my eyes were hidden, I did not see that the bus driver was in a bad mood, until I walked away from him. When he spoke to me, though, as I walked away, he gave me a cheery mellow, proving that a good mood, like a yawn, can be infectious.
---------------------------------------
In the seat across from me, on the bus, this older pot-bellied man is fiddling with the ear piece that is attached to his mp3 player. I'm not an expert at this type of thing, but I'm pretty sure that his player is not an IPOD, but rather might be

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I once swallowed about half a bottle of aspirin in a sort of half ass attempt to kill myself. I realized at the halfway point in the bottle that as depressed as I was that I did not really want to die, so I quit swallowing the little white pills. I don't know if aspirin can kill you, but I do know that if you swallow enough of it, you will wish that you are dead. I can't remember the specific symptoms, but I do know that I felt awful, and that if I should ever try to meet my make ahead of his or her scheduled time, that it won't be aspirin that I take as my ticket over to the other side.
--------------------------------------
"Love is when you are as concerned about someone else's situation as you about your own..."--"Tuesdays With Morrie," by Mitch Albom
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In this world, as it is, sometimes, unfortunately, you don't have time for love. They work you to the bone, so that they can make the big bucks, and then you come home, too exhausted to even pet your dog; at least I do. What if I had a wife here; what kind of attention would I have to show her? My mood is foul because I am so exhausted. I am too tired to even write. I remember the foul moods that my father was in after putting in a long day in a factory, the type of factory where he lost half of one of his fingers, once. At the time, it just seemed like he didn't love me, that his angry mood meant that I was bad, and unwanted. As I come home from work, now, and ignore my dog's pleas for pats on the head, I can see where my father was coming from. I have to forgive my father for being, "bad."
--------------------------------------
Remember when you were young, as I remember when I was young; how did this older age come upon me/us so fast? When I was young, I thought that I was young forever, and, now that I am old, I know that my life is not unlimited. I am wiser now, but my body does not cooperate like it used to. I need a new hip, and my knees, and back need rejuvenating. Once, I thought that I was invincible, now I see the limits to what I can do.
----------------------------
Dear FB: I get nervous when a cool opportunity comes my way; my heart starts to beat, I sweat a bit. I think of myself as a choke artist, I get so consumed by the stress of the gig, that all I can do is scream: yell and scream at the audience, harshly sending out to them words that need some tenderness. I hear the voice of my father in the background saying, "You're no fucking good," and that doesn't help at all.
---------------------------------------------
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared
-----------------------
I hope that today was a good day for you. I enjoyed my bus/train/bike ride to the MRI place. The MRI, itself was a bit claustrophobic, but the folks there were nice. When I got home, Bundy had raided the cats' food container, trying to bit into it. He is on my poop list.
---------
I stopped telling people that I was going to kick their ass, either jokingly, or seriously, awhile ago. I don't want to kick anyone's ass, and ass yee say, they say, so shall yee possible reap. When guys want to play around, play fight, I back off from the situation. And I am a guy who used to get in fights in bars, fairly regularly, and even was stupid, and drunk, enough to get in a fight with a cop one, night who was trying to arrest him for dui.
---------------------------------
FB Lady: Where do you work? I will come in and get a coffee sometime.
I can't have people drop by; they have cut us to one person, where there used to be two. I am not my usual smiling self, often, now, when I am grinding out coffee drinks; you would probably hate me.
---------------------------------

I started reading this book, today, Oct. 2, 2009. It is a really good book, so far, and I am almost 40 pages into it. P. 39

"We've been there and come back. When you fall in the pit, people are supposedly to help you up. But you have to get up on your own. We'll take your arms, but you'll have to get your legs underneath you and stand again."
-------------------

The dogs will stay out of the cat's food while I am here, but the minute that I turn my back they are on the cat food like flies on poop. I trust my dogs, but only in certain arenas, and food is not one of them.
------------------
I had this part time job where I was helping a friend clean a house, every other week. The money that I made went towards groceries. Because of the worsening of the arthritis in my hip, and knees, my friend had to let me go because I could not do the job as it needed to be done, and because I was a risk to him: what if I fell and hurt myself in that house that we were cleaning.

I knew that I would feel the pinch financially, and I have. Groceries have been cut back to a minimum. There is really no need to whine, here, though I feel in somewhat of a whining mood. I need to take steps.
------------------------

It is fall, now, the weather has gotten cool, the sun is mostly bright; the days are beautiful, an incredibly welcome respite from the hot, humid summer that preceded it. My dogs love this weather, they beg to go out in it, and they want to stay out longer, whereas, when it was hot, they were in no hurry to go out, and in a hurry to come back in to the air conditioning, once they had done what they went out there to do.
-------------------
"Unless you know what you're looking for, you won't know it when you see it."-- B. Sinister
------------------------------
candy: you treat your pets better than most people
candy: they are your primary companions

I treat most people better than most people treat people,
perhaps, or maybe I'm just another Capitalist Pig in waiting,
to pay you low, sell my goods high; I used to get high, my, my.
---The weird way that I am sometimes awoken----------------------------
My black cat, Jaggar, loves to lay on my black book bag. It is his favorite place in the abode to hang out on. I leave it at the foot of the bed for him; sometimes he scratches or bites at my foot when it gets too near him in the middle of the night, which is strange payback, don't you think, for being so nice in setting him up with a bed that he loves.
It's Monday, and I don't really have the money for half and half for my coffee, and I milk for my cream until Thursday night at midnight, when the paycheck from the Corporate Bookstore that I work at is deposited. I don't really feel bad about this. I have been wanted to try to become a black coffee drinker, and a person who does not pour milk in his tea, for a long time, and why not make this the opportunity to do that?
I learned, somewhere, along the way that there is always good in a bad situation; often, though, you have to look for the good to find it. In this situation, perhaps the good is getting to do something that you have wanted to do all along, but have not had the motivation to do, because the situation was not right.
Well, maybe it is right now?
-----------------------
I just posted a You Tube video of Bob Dylan performing, "Mr. Tamborine Man," at The Newport Jazz Festival in 1964. I dedicated it to Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson pissed my off when he shot himself in the head, in the family kitchen, and his home in Woody Creek, Col. If he wanted to end it all, fine; but couldn't he have gone out in the woods and done it, and not left his corpse in the kitchen for his son to find?
Suicide can be such an inconsiderate act.
-------------------------------
The sound of a cat licking water, sounds much like the sound of something frying on the oven. Often, I look over my shoulder, from my desk, to look for a frying pan that I think that I must have forgotten about, full of things frying, to find one of my two cats licking away at the water bowl that they share with my dogs.

-----------------------------
I've gone bananas: my dogs like bananas, and I like bananas. I like to freeze ripe, and over-ripe bananas, and thaw them out in the microwave oven to add to my oatmeal. The dogs love it when I cut the tips off of the bananas and throw them to them, as part of the banana peel removal process that leads to freezing the bananas. I love the consistency, and taste of a banana that has been frozen, and thawed, and then added to my oatmeal.
I was in line at the store, yesterday, and I put a large bunch of green bananas on the conveyor belt. The man in front of me said, "You like green bananas, eh? I like them when they are just ripe."
I guess he didn't know that if you take green bananas home, they will ripen in your house. Also, he didn't know that I mostly buy organic bananas, and, in my experience, organic bananas are mostly green when you find them on your grocer's shelf.
I like ripe bananas, too; I mean, who among us that likes bananas, doesn't. You run into some weird folks at the grocery store, from time to time.
--------------------------------------------------------------

I look over from my desk, and see that one of my turtles is biting on a rock, in his aquarium, that is not chewable. I wonder what he is thinking? Do I need to feed him, I wonder, or is he just playing? I chew on the top of pens, at times, and other objects foreign to my healthy diet; maybe he is doing the same. I go on with what I am doing, and I let him go on with what he is doing. Several minutes later, I look back over at him. He is swimming up and down the length of the aquarium, seeming to want out. I would want out, wouldn't you?
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Most religions warn against war, yet more wars have been fought over religion than perhaps anything else. Christians have killed Jews. Jews have killed Muslims. Muslims have killed Hindus. Hindus have killed Buddhists. Catholics have killed Protestants. Orthodox have killed pagans, and you could run that list backward and sideways and it would still be true. War never stops; it only pauses.

--Mitch Albom, p.90, "Have A Little Faith."
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"What profits a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?"--Name That Singer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you have a soul? This question is unanswerable until you die. Is there a God? This question is, also, unanswerable until you die. Those are my thoughts on those two questions. I am sure that there are many people who would argue with me. I am sure that there are many people who would agree with me. Your soul, my soul, and God, like politics are great things to argue, because there are no real answers. I have to go to the Doctor, today. I hope that I don't have cancer or some other terminal condition. I'm not ready to die.

------------------------------------------------------------


My vehicle died, and I found myself unable to pick my daughter up after school. She had to ride the bus home to her mother's house, which was a bit of a long trip.

My daughter's school, and my Yoga studio, are near each other, and one night, as I was coming home from Yoga, I saw a for rent sign in front of a house very near to my daughter's school for a one bedroom apt. I wrote the number down, and when I got home, I called the landlord.

I was unable to afford the one bedroom apt., but the landlord also had a studio apt. for rent in the same building that was in my price range. I made an appointment to look at it. It wasn't all that, the years having not been kind to it, and the landlord not having much kept it up, but location, location, location; if I rented it, I would live eight houses away from my daughter's school; I would not need a car to pick her up after school, she could just walk home, and I would be near my Yoga studio, and a nice grocery store; I wouldn't need a car, for the most part.

I put a deposit on the space, and agreed to move in the following month. The space has proved to be a God-send; it is funny how the things you need often materialize when you need them.
---------------------------------------------------

This older pot-bellied man, across the aisle from me on the bus, is fiddling with the ear piece to his mp3 player; I'm not an expert at things such as these, but I am mostly sure that his player is not an IPOD. This guy doesn't
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(It's raining again.) There were lots of problems in my past, and sometimes my mind wants to wander to a place where it thinks that there are problems, today, in my existence but there are not.
Like John Lennon said, "there are no problems, only solutions."
I wish that I had said that. Do you think that if I had said that that people would quote me as often as they do John Lennon?
I doubt it. I wasn't a Beatle.
-----------------------------------------------
Morisson has pulled up to my feet, which means that it is raining outside, and that, most likely, we will experience some thunder and lightening. Storms are what Morisson fears the most in this world. When I am awake, he glues himself to me for the length of the storm, pulling up at my feet, as I have just indicated, when I am at my desk, and following me around the apartment, nearly glued to me for the length of the storm.

If the thunder and lightening occurs when I am asleep, he wakes me, and then begs, and begs until I let him jump up onto the bed, and crawl next to me. My rule is no dogs in the bed, but I make an exception for Morisson during storms.

Cat's are allowed anytime, and Kobain and Jaggar both make the most of this allowance. Kobain will jump up on the bed, almost the minute that I lay down on it, crawl up onto my chest, stick his head in my hand, and demand that he be rubbed and scratched. When he gets his fill of this he crawls to my side for awhile, and then heads to the foot of the bed to spend the night, where Jaggar is already asleep.
-------------------------------
The remote control to my oscillating fan, that sits near, and blows pleasant air at my desk, is missing, and, this morning, I figured out what must have happened to it: I'm betting that my cat, Jaggar, turned it into a toy, pushed it from my desk , and onto the floor, where he chased it around until it disappeared into a place where he couldn't play with it anymore, a place where I can't see it.
The fan still works without the remote, but it isn't as convenient, and I must have convenience in my world whenever possible. Jaggar, honey, bring home the remote.
-------------------------------------------
An old friend of mine came over to visit, last night. I had not seen her in almost 20 years. It was good to see her. She was able to track me down on the internet; Google sure comes in handy for staying in touch. I fixed her a coffee, and she drank it black.

Last night, the day after her visit, I came across her coffee cup, on a table on my front porch; there was still coffee in it. I was amazed by this. I am the type of person who drinks every last sip of whatever is in my cup. I am the type of person who eats every last bite that is on his plate. I was trained to be that way by my father. If I didn't eat what was on my plate, or complained about what was on my plate, my father would backhand me to the face, while we were sitting next to each other at the dinner table.

I guess I learned the hard way what my father's desires were. Being a part of the clean plate club is a good thing, if you are trying to avoid getting hit by your father, but it is not a good thing with regards to eating what you need, and not over-eating.

I was old-school trained, brought up the Irish way by a mean, angry old man. He fucked up a lot with regards to me, made me a little rough around the edges, but he also bred in me some might fine traits, and when I take full credit for myself, I need to stop and share the glory:

father, thank you for doing the best that you could.
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Jesus was a Jew, and yet the Christians and the Jews don't believe in each other. Can you explain that to me? No, wait, I have it figured out, I don't need your thoughts about this swirling through my head.
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My house is dirty; I need a good woman to clean up after me. Har, har.
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Mikel K Poet I'm having cat food for dinner; it tastes like tuna, sort. Sometimes it makes me gag, a bit, but you got to eat.
Yesterday at 6:41pm • Comment • Like

Cassandra Gilldo you need food?
Yesterday at 7:07pm • Delete

Stephen Bekersky???
Yesterday at 7:29pm • Delete

Jeff RackleySeriously?
Yesterday at 7:45pm • Delete

Edie Miller AngeloNo, is really that bad?? I used to eat dog biscuits when I was little..if it's really that bad, go get food stamps...they are easy to qualify for....and they give you a voter registration card to boot....
Yesterday at 8:27pm • Delete

Mikel K PoetFood stamps sent me a cut off notice, several days after my job told me that I would lose it due to hip surgery. I hate to ask for help, but heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!!
Yesterday at 8:53pm • Delete

Cassandra GillMikel this is definitely one of those times you need to get in touch with your church and let them know you need help. If you don't have a church or yours doesn't do charity (what kind of church doesn't do charity at least for its own members?) then please call the Atlanta Friends Meetinghouse.
Yesterday at 8:59pm • Delete

Cassandra GillAlso, sign up for AngelFood Ministries http://www.angelfoodministries.com/hosts.asp put your zip code in and look for the closest address. You can order online and have someone pick it up for you. It is worth it.
Yesterday at 9:01pm • Delete

Mikel K PoetI feel weird about believing in Churches in a time of need, when I don't believe in them normally.
Yesterday at 9:01pm • Delete

Mikel K PoetI know that beggars are not supposed to be choosers, but in order to get produce and or vegetables from angel food ministeries, you have to buy their meat first, and I haven't had any meat for over a year, now, and plan to stick with such. Thank you for the suggestion, though; they are a wonderful organization, if you eat meat!!
Yesterday at 9:05pm • Delete

Cassandra Gilllol that's part of why they do it, Mikel. If you don't believe in churches, believe in people's christian charity which is easiest to organize through a church. most church charities are really just a group of people doing something good while using the church's resources. But if it makes you nervous, contact the Atlanta Friends Meeting House - ... Read More
Yesterday at 9:05pm • Delete

Cassandra GillAngelfood has a fruit/veggies special box. http://www.angelfoodministries.com/menu_0910en3.asp bottom of page
Yesterday at 9:07pm • Delete

Mikel K PoetYou know, I hate to be cynical, but I was down and out at least one time before, and I found Christian churches, for the most part, to be stingy, and wanting to shove their Christ up my butt...you know...if you're going to eat our food, you've got to believe in our Jesus. Well, I don't believe in their Jesus, and I won't grovel to eat their food. Thanks for the suggestion, though; I know that your heart is in the right place, Cassandra.
Yesterday at 9:10pm • Delete

Cassandra GillQuakers don't do that, trust me, not all Quakers are christians anyway; plenty of jewish atheist and pagan quakers. The central belief is that everyone must have their own personal relationship with the creator and no one can dictate that. They don't even proseltyze. I'm not a christian and I never will be. Sometimes I'm not even sure I am a deist, but Quakers welcome everyone and they don't preach at all. They don't have any preachers!
Yesterday at 9:14pm • Delete

Edie Miller AngeloJust call the food stamp people and tell them the situation has changed because of the surgery and isn't it against the law to fire someone for being sick????? If I wasn't so screwed myself I would send you a check...I just ate 2 month out of date sour cream because it smelled and tasted ok and now I am sick as a dog....Dunkin Donuts gives donuts ... Read More
Yesterday at 10:06pm • Delete

Harmony Kerrick LanzMikel, if you need help ... you have to take it, no arguing ;) catfood for dinner is NOT a way to stay out of the hospital..especially considering your other health factors.. my 2 cents..for what it's worth, i'm sorry the employers these days are short on decency and that your not working right now..30 more people were laid off at my job on thursday too..it's bare bones out there..everything does work out though..promise
Yesterday at 10:22pm • Delete

Mikel K PoetIn the cases that I was talking about, they weren't offering "help" they were offering lectures. I need to clarify that I am not eating cat food, that was just a cynical thing that I came up with, a projection that will never occur. Thank you all for your concern.
Yesterday at 10:37pm • Delete

Yvonne CherieI agree w/ HKL..Lets see what we can do..If everyone is able to bring you a dish..One of us day...We as a unit should be able to help you..
Yesterday at 10:41pm • Delete

Yvonne CherieYou have a lot of friends...( :
Yesterday at 10:43pm • Delete

Vivan Grecolove you brother, let me help in some way, not far from there myself, but we help freinds, call and let me know what you need, even if its just a loaf of bread and some pb&j. i will drop it off tommorow.
-----------------------------------------

How we deal with our dogs during a Recession
Maybe I'll find a cheaper apartment, but they won't take Bundy because he barks, so I'll just leave him here, in this apartment, when I move out, and he won't let the landlord in, so the landlord shoots him.
I could feel sorry for myself, having been hit as I was with a hard one two punch, but feeling sorry for myself is not an option, these days, it does no good at all.

My black cat was reclining on top of the black book shelf that he always reclines on, and my daughter came by to quickly drop off the large book bag that she often drops off in the morning, when she is going to be staying with me in the afternoon. My daughter always drops it off on the black shelf that the cat was reclining on, and she made the cat move so that she could place it on top of the shelf. When she left, I went and got her bag and moved it to a chair in another part of the room, so that the cat could continue reclining. There is a lesson in here somewhere, but I am too tired this morning to find it.
--------------------------------------------
I am going to the Doctor's office today, my Primary Care Physician, as she is called to get approval from her to have my hip replacement operation. She needs to tell the Doctor who is doing the hip replacement operation that I am physically fit to undergo the operation. My doctor is out of the office, today, so another Doctor, will do the exam. As I age, it seems that there are more and more Doctors involved in my life. I am blessed to have insurance.
----------------------------------
"And any information given will be used to collect this debt…" says the recording on the phone that has been left to my voice message system. Well, I probably won't give you any information, I think to myself, and even if I wanted to, you are a recording, so what good would that do you?
I heard the other day that one of the jobs that there are a lot of is that of debt collections. If you want to get on the phone, and harass people for money that they don't have, have at it. I'd feel like a pig signing on for such a job, myself. I think that anyone working for the credit card companies is cruel and evil; just my thought on the matter.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Today was a day where I really wished that I had a cane. I looked at one, last week, at The Pharmacy, but couldn't swing The Twenty that they wanted for it. It was raining, today, and cold, the perfect combo to make my hip act up, and act out.
I had an EKG done on my loving heart today. The nurse said that my heart was fine, but the Doctor is sending me to a Cardiologist.
-----------------------------
Thanks- you guys are sweet. Found out some little brat has been bullying my kid all day and punched him in the stomach... this WILL be dealt with properly, as it doesn't sound like it has been yet. COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE
--A Pissed Off Mother
------------------------------------
cherishlouise [1:26 A.M.]: write me sometHing
cherishlouise [1:26 A.M.]: a pome on heartach
cherishlouise [1:26 A.M.]: and moving on
cherishlouise [1:26 A.M.]: :)
cherishlouise signed off at 1:52 A.M.
cherishlouise signed on at 5:23 A.M.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Life in the little box (USE THIS AS INTOR TO IM SECTION)

I could have loved you
but you were so far away
and I wasn't free to travel;
kids, and dogs, n cats, n turtles,
and all,

but I'm glad that you found someone
who treats you right,
and I'm so happy that you are having
a baby next month.

I have lived through so much with you
in this little box, and all of it has
been fun.
----------------------------------------
I have complained, at times, about how hot it is in this abode, but this morning, after stepping back into my home, after stepping out into the cold to feed Monkey, the formerly stray cat, I am thankful that this old apartment retains heat. It has gotten cold fast, here in this southern city; yesterday, at work, as a barista in a coffee cafe, I fixed a lot of hot chocolates and hot chai teas for cold folks.

Corporations mostly suck, don't they; their soul motive is to maximize profits for those greedy assholes sitting at the top of the corporate heap. Life is grand, though; my days with the current corp. that I am doing time with, are limited. They are kicking me to the curb, when I have to leave to get my hip replaced. It feels dismal to have such support, much like a soldier must feel, who lost a leg or two, and then found out that nobody cared about him, or her, past using them to wage war for much the same reason that corporations exist: the acquisition of as much money as is possible.

I have spoken, before, of how peaceful it is for me to watch my cats eat their breakfast in the morning. Watching them eat still gives me the calms. When I got home, last night, Jaggar's dish lay broken on the floor. I was bummed, but not pissed. Dogs and cats left alone while one is at work sometimes "play."

It is a great day to be alive.

---------------------------------------------------
It has gotten cold here in my Southern City, I woke up late, such a blessing, and went out to feed


Poet's Corner K Page
http://www.alternativereel.com/includes/poets-corner/display_review.php?id=00049

David Herrle Subtle Tea K Interview
http://www.subtletea.com/mikelkinterview.htm
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The male bus driver pushes a button somewhere at the front of the bus. A female voice comes through the speakers, telling us that there will be a fare increase, tomorrow. The recorded woman says this several times, and then she thanks us for riding with her, which I find at least somewhat oxymoronic, given that she has just raised the cost of admission to public transportation on us.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm not sure what it says about me that I am 52 years old, and there is no one to help me get to the Orthopedic Doctor's office for this appointment, this morning, concerning my castrated hip.
I hop on my bike, pedal a bit, and then my bike and I hope on the bus, then off the bus onto the train, and then off the train, and then we ride and walk up and down the hills that take us to the doctor's office.
The last time that I was in this office, the doctor showed me an x ray of my hip, then looked at me, and said, "Bone to bone."
I was feeling super sorry for myself when I got off the train today. I was in pain. I was limping. I was thinking that nobody loved me, because nobody was available to give me a ride. Then I saw a man in a walker, fighting to get off the train. It seemed like he was using his upper body, and arm strength to propel himself along. He was certainly in worse shape than I was, and when you see something like this, when you see that there are others out there suffering worse than you, it makes you pause, or at least, it makes me pause, and realize that it could always be worse, and that you should quit feeling sorry for your sorry ass self.
---------------------------------------
I'm at the train station, waiting for the train. There is a lovely girl, here, waiting for the train also. She has great hair. Her hair is really spectacular. I found myself wondering how long she spends with that great hair before she comes out into the world; then I realize that it doesn't matter, that it is stupid for me to be spending any time thinking about how much time she spends with her hair. The train comes; and I will never see her, or her hair, again.
-----------------------------------------------
It has gotten cold here in my Southern City, I woke up late, such a blessing and went out to feed Monkey, the stray cat, who lives in and about my abode, and he was not waiting for his food, this morning, like he usually is. Maybe I was too late in bringing his bowl of dry and wet cat food to him, and he found breakfast elsewhere. They tell me that Monkey finds his hot spots, during the cold weather. Once he fell through the roof of one of the downstairs apartments onto someone's bed. He was curled up in a warm spot in the roof.

As I came in the door, my cat Jaggar, was peeking out at me from the bookshelf that sits against the wall by the window. I moved fast, and started petting him. Jaggar is so silly, he hates to have my hands upon him, the hands that feed him; he doesn't like to be petted at all. I love him, anyway.

When I got home from taking what they were giving, last night, there was a condom on the floor. I don't have roommates, and nobody had broken into the apartment to steal one, and I wondered just what the heck the dogs were doing with an unopened condom. Perhaps it was a flavored rubber?
-----------------------------------------------------------
Bundy pulled some Alpha Male dog crap, this morning; he headed for Morisson's food bowl, first, ate all that, and then marched over to his bowl, and ate most of that. Morisson cowered like the submissive loving wimp that he is, and just watched Bundy do it. I watched him do it, also, not really believing what I was seeing. Sometimes, the dogs trade bowls, but that was not what was happening, today. I will have to supervise their feeding more closely, keep a tighter eye on Mr. Bundy.
Sometimes, I am the most impatient man on the planet, and this impatience often occurs first thing in the morning, when my goal is to be most calm. The computer takes too long to boot up. The coffee takes too long to brew. The dogs won't come inside fast enough from doing their thing. I need to take a chill pill, and enjoy a slow day; fast days will kill you!
If I start to pet Morisson, Bundy will come up and weasel in on the action, but it is not enough for Bundy that he has one had petting, and scratching his head; he looks over at Morisson and wants the hand that is petting and scratching Morisson to be on his head. What a jealous dog.
-----------------------------------------

KTV
Oct. 20, 2009
I'll love you in Heaven

I love you now.
I loved you then.
I loved you when we fought.
I loved you when you were my friend.
I loved you when I was young.
I love you now that I'm old.
And if I might be so bold,
as to predict: I'll love you in Heaven.

----------------------------------------------

God didn't get up, this morning…

The internet that I had been stealing from one of my neighbors was taken from me, shortly after noon, today. Bummer…I was hoping to stay on the lamb until I found a new job, but the powers that be have figured me out. They get every penny due them, make sure of that, but leave you scraping.

My apologies to my neighbor: Bro, they are cutting my left hip out in a week or two, and I was trying to save a dime or two, by cutting in on you, and put the spare change towards food in the soon to arrive six week rehab time that my doctors tell me that I will have to go through to make my new metal hip become one with what remains of the old one; so I pulled the plug on my high speed internet service and cable TV, and cut into your bandwidth.

The cable company won't give you a deal on the internet, unless you "bundle it" with their other "services," either cable TV, and, or their telephone service. Whatever happened to competition being good for the consumer? Everybody offers the same services for the same high price.

I think I'm going to go take a crap. I'm the wrong one here, so I'm going to sweat like hell, and start blaming everybody else.


I click on the song, "I Don't Care," by Black Flag.
This song seems appropriate at this time.

(The idea of living on some sort of an artist commune where the cost of the internet is split between Rainbow, Sunshine and me seems like a good one, right this second, as I look around my small apartment, having just struck a deal with the phone company to put the internet back in here, legitimately, sometime on or before Friday. The bastards advertise a less than twenty dollar plan, but then hit you with a hundred buck charge for the modem that you have to have; of course the modem is free if you sign up for the high priced just less than fifty dollar plan.

If Hunter Thompson was alive, he would have something to say about these bastards, but it's hard to lead a revolution when you have put a bullet in your own head. Didn't Abbie Hoffman suffer a similar fate.

There will be no revolution, and your cult heroes are not going to help you start one: they have money for high speed internet, the cable TV, and the phone service, if they want it. Henry Rollins can leave the air conditioning turned on at this place for the whole time that he is out speaking to you, and it would be very small change to him. Sometimes, life just isn't fair.

The Art Commune would be populated by wanna be hippies, the kids and grandkids of the hippies who grew up reading Thompson,
and left home because Abbie Hoffman told them to. The only thing that they might have in common with their parents and grandparents is that they would love smoking dope, and dropping tabs of LSSSSSSSSSSSD onto their tongues, and guzzling mushroom tea, and this might not be good for a recovering black out drunk who was trying to stay sober seventeen years into his recovery plan as, so I'm going to have to figure out a way to continue paying the internet by myself even with my job telling me that I don't have a job when I get back from rehabbing my hip, because "they don't hold part time jobs for 4 to 6 weeks." Hell, ninety percent of the staff is "part time." Do you think they work you right up to the edge of full time hours and then throw you off the clock so that they don't have to pay you decent wages, and give you benefits?

Fuck if I know.
I just know that this old hip of mine is bone on bone, and it keeps getting harder and harder, day by day, to walk on it, and I just want
it out so that I can get back to Yoga, get back to walking my dogs,
get back to walking anywhere without a cane, and extreme pain.
Oh yeah, and I want to find a job, another shitty part time corporate job where they work your ass off, and infuse their corporate fear into you, cuz you wanna be a good slave masser.
What I really want to do is write; and sell that writing so that would and could be all that I do. Now, wouldn't that be Nirvana; and did not Kurt Cobain shoot himself in the head?

----------------------------------------------------

Eating an olive makes me seek water

The moon laughed at me
sleeping, and then slept
when I smiled.
---------------------------------------------

A job makes a man feel powerful,
not having a job makes a man
feel weak.
---------------------------------------------

Come

Blowing kisses to the air,
makes my cat, Jaggar, come
to attention. He focuses
his gaze at where my hand
should be holding treats to
toss at him.


--------------------------------------
High Tide on The 45

More and more people kept getting
on the crowded bus in front of me.
Two women stood in front of me.

My hip was hurting me, I could not
give up my seat, today. I might fall.

A young man, about 12, stood up
and gave his seat to one of the women.
I smiled to myself, and thought,
see there is still good in this world.

------------------------------------------
To someone else

When someone is nice to me
it makes me feel nice
and it makes me want to be nice.

(For Jeff Waller)
------------------------------------------

The Internet Kissed You Goodbye

The only place that I read magazines
is in The Lobby of Doctors' Offices.

---------------------------------------------

Cold Turkey

I'll love you in Heaven
but on Earth I turned
the TVs off,

withdrawal was awful
I kept reaching for the
remote
wanting to gaze at
my favorite talking heads

it might have been easier
to kick heroin
-------------------------------

Simplicity

Enough isn't enough
I want more.

-------------------------------
Untitled

I don't know if you can
feel me, I know that
I can't feel you, so,
I just tell you how I'm
feeling, and then after
you've listened, maybe
we can figure out something
to do.
----------------------------------

At times it seems as if Mnemosyne has forsaken me

I scratch my head, still in the bed, in the morning
without warning it comes over me where I am I don't know
at work I smile at someone and say hello and then
a few minutes later I ask them the same questions again
you are my friend I look you in the eye and say why are you following me
too much liquor when I was young I often say that I am
on the run from Alzheimer's whatever the explanation you must excuse my octogenarian behavior when I am but barely fifty.

------------------------------------------------------------

My Muse is Erato

She's a punk rock chick
a glamour girl
a lady working hard
for the money
she loves my beard
she feels my need
and responds to it
love love love
I get so giddy when
my girl comes to me.

---------------------------

Splinters

I spoke at a tree;
It didn't talk back to me.

-----------------------------
"Poets must be willing to take criticism and suggestion
with a smile…"--The Complete Idiot's Guide To Poetry

------------------------------

The Televisions Are Dead

Someone pulled the plug on them,
as good as throwing them out of a hotel window,
as good as Elvis shooting them.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

There is this girl who semi-regularly comes into the bookstore; and she keeps looking hotter, and hotter, every time that she comes in. Normally, she has this wimpy guy with her, and I figured out tonight that she must be a dominatrix and wimpy boy is her sub.
The Dom had on a tight black top tonight, revealing her ample assets, and high heels that clicked on the floor like they were in charge, making me want to be her dog.
-----------------------------------------------------

It s like: why do I live here, if there is no internet.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm moving to India, cuz that's where all the jobs went.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is a point in your night where you have a though that is either the last part of a dream before you wake up, or is the first thought that you have upon waking from that dream. It's a weird time; fuzzy, and your primary interest lies in making it to the bathroom on time.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

KTV OCTOBER 21, 2009
The Daily K
(Part 1 of a Questionable No. of Parts)

i m still the same i m like a turnip i never change

I'm going to be out in San Fran from the fifth of November,
until the tenth, visiting my old pal Earth Mama. We were
chatting a little bit, last night, on the internet, after
I came home from being on the internet at The Bookstore, to
find that the internet of my neighbor's was once againing
supplying me with the free.


Earth Mama:
hey I have like 5 min.
Can you come or should I try to change the ticket?
I really want you to come!
Hola???
Mikel K Poet:
hold on
my computer is freaking out
there
calm now
i think
I don t see why I couldn't post pone my surgery a week
and come out and limp around with you

Earth Mama:
We could rent a wheel chair!

Mikel K Poet:
You'll be my tour guide, just don't try to give me
any of those crackers from the sixties…
--------------------------------------------------------------

Back on Face Book:

I asked SexKittenRocker, "Where's The Party?"
expecting no reply: these high class gals
just don't want to have anything to do with me.


Who She'd like to meet:
Artistic types who inspire me to keep working
on my own dreams! I'll be your muse, if you'll be mine!
No mention of Poets. Oh, well.

She, actually, turned out to be pretty nice.
Like they say in The Mortgage Business, "Never assume
anything!"

--------------------------------------------------------

"Financial security is sexy lol,"--A young lady responding
to why women might find Rapstar Lil Wayne attractive.

----------------------------------------------------

I'm going to see a Cardiologist tomorrow.
I've never been to one. It's all part of this
process that I'm part of to get approval
from my Primary Care Physician for the man
to go ahead and cut my left hip out, and
put some metal in there.

They think that I might be anemic.
The kid's mom says that means that I'm
lacking in Iron. I bet that they give me another
pill to take. This one will be full of iron,
and I'll never have to eat spinach. I don't
mind spinach, but I wouldn't much miss it
if I could take a pill instead.

I take a lot of pills. I got more pills to take
than The Pope has got Priests who have
fondled little boys.

-------------------------------------

There is a point in your night where you have a thought that is either the last part of a dream before you wake up, or is the first thought that you have upon waking from that dream. It's a weird time; fuzzy, and your primary interest lies in making it to the bathroom on time.

------------------------------------------------
My beard is itchy this morning. The closer that it gets to Christmas, the more people tell me that I look like Santa. My beard is white; almost pure white like the evil oppressive white devil who is responsible for all evil on the planet. I won't have a job at Christmas. The man is kicking me to the curb. Dear Santa, please pay my utility bills, and phone bill; I have the rent covered. Thank you, Sir.

I got out of the house, last night, which is rare; especially with this painful hip, that I will have until they cut it out. I find myself staying close to the dogs, cats, and turtles, close to my desk.

I have work to do. I have to "be," a writer. It is not enough just to write, I have to find ways to make that writing pay my utility, and phone bill. I am trying, again, to find an agent for my book, "The Delivery Guy." I have vowed to send a query letter to at least one Literary Agent a day, and I am going to submit poems to three different publications a day. This is the business of writing. I am good at the writing part of the game, but I have been, historically, lazy, or not interested in the business end of the game. I love to create, but I hate to beg. Please, please publish my book, and my poems. There, I did; I begged!

My hip keeps getting worse, and worse. Normally it is much easier to ride my bike about the planet, than to walk, even with the cane that I now have in my possession, but, yesterday, the hip caused me a great deal of pain while riding my bike. I am still working; they are going to let me work right up until the operation, but it is getting harder, and harder to get about. They say that you don't appreciate some things until you lose them: I have lost my mobility and I surely miss it. I can't take Yoga, I can't walk my dogs, I can't swim, I can't walk down to the grocery store and buy some flowers to make me smile.
---------------------------------------------------------

The Roman Catholic Church is down on gays. Pedophile priests are ok.

---------------------------------------------------------
Notes from http://open.salon.com/blog/mikelkpoet

Damn, Mikel, this causes me shivers. I hate that you have the hip pain. I love your poetry. Internet should be a given.
--Scupper


It's like: why do I live here, if there is no internet?
--mikelkpoet


You sure do have a lot going on inside of you, Mikel.
Thank you so much for sharing it with me.
--lovinfeelin



fuckin fuck, mikel.

yes, he did. but he had an inherent sadness that didnt allow him to see beauty. or maybe, he could see the beauty, but let the ugly be bigger. and he wasnt sober. i wish you could just write too. and i wish your douchebag neighbor didnt steal your stolen internet - i leave my internet open, and currently have two families that use it whenever they can get it to connect, which is fine with me.

i cant wait for your hip to be better, and when it is, a job you like more than the one you have now is going to happen for you. i just feel it. and i find more often than not those feelings count for something.

but i still would like to kick your boss's ass. sorry. that's how i am.

jane smithie redux

-----------------------------------------------------------



Thanks Lovin' I read your first poem, you're on your waaaaaaaay!!
-mikelkpoet


Holly, your letters are getting more and more genius; it's as if you finally don't give a fuck, and are just letting it all hang out; I like that, if there were more people like you around, there would be less shit heads allowed to fuck us, hiding behind their weasel corporations...ha, time to take my meds!
--mikelkpoet


No words I just love how there is so much feeling, so much of you in what you write!
--Lunchlady 2


Thanks Lunch Lady, when your children are grown you will have to reinvent yourself, or at least I did, to fight the impression that you are no longer needed!

Mikel K Poet
OCTOBER 20, 2009 09:57 AM
----------------------------
"I tell you we must die."--Jim Morrison
Boy, this one really came true for ole Jimbo. I guess that if you program into
-----------------------------
So, I was walking the dogs 3 to 5 miles a day, at a decent pace, and I was swimming laps in the pool for about twenty minutes three or four days a week, when I started developing this pain in my inner thigh. I figured that I had pulled a groin muscle, so I started taking it easy, figuring that rest would cure my ailment. It didn't; it kept getting worse, and worse, so I called a Doctor who specializes in that type of thing. He asked me some questions, and then had this hot young thing take some x rays of the affected area.
"You're facing imminent hip replacement surgery in your left hip," he said to me, and then, looking at my mid-section, he said, "Losing some weight would help."
I felt screwed. I felt as if he had told me that I had cancer or aids. The outlook was grim. He gave me a prescription for an anti-inflammatory called.
--------------------------------------
Mostly, I get email from me; copies of things that I send to myself. I don't feel lonely; it's beyond that. I exist in a place that they never told you existed, and I am comfortable here, mostly. Sometimes, though, I long to touch her hand; whoever she is, and wake up to see her smiling in the morning.
------------------------------------------
Mostly, I get email from me; copies of things that I send to myself. I don't feel lonely; it's beyond that. I exist in a place that they never told you existed, and I am comfortable here, mostly. Sometimes, though, I long to touch her hand; whoever she is, and wake up to see her smiling in the morning.
-------------------------------------------
My Primary Care Physician has scheduled an appointment for me, tomorrow, with a cardiologist; they want to see if I have a heart.
------------------------------------------
I went to the heart doctor today; he said that I had a heart, but that he wanted to test it. This is the first time that my heart has been tested outside of love. by anyone who is not a woman
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXP 133

I made my coffee perfect, this morning. I added just the right amount of Stevia, and half and half. It has been cool in this apartment, and I haven't needed the fan that I aim at me, when it is hot, while I sit at my desk; but I miss the noise that it makes, that seems to drown out all the other little noises in the apartment, so I turned the fan back on, this morning, but turned it sideways, so that I get the benefit of the noise, but don't have the cool breeze blowing on me.

The water rushing out of the filter in the turtles' tank sometimes sounds like Niagara Falls. I need to clean the turtles' water, again. It seems like it is always time to clean the turtles' water; dirty little boogers!

Today is Sunday, and I don't work again until Friday. The boss seems to have developed this Friday/Saturday routine for my schedule, which is perfect for me right now, as it is getting harder and harder for me to limp around with this ailing hip, especially on the job, with all that it entails.

One of my immediate bosses is leaving on Thursday. She got a job that is going to pay her double what she is getting from this corporation, that cares not about me. I'm not feeling sorry for myself, this morning, just stating the facts, mam. This boss is leaving apolozizing for how mean she was; she says that the stress got to her. I can, mostly, understand that, if I am in a good mood.

Bundy keeps trying to eat out of Morisson's bowl. Morisson is still a bit skittish about eating around Bundy, right now. Bundy can be a bully. Jaggar keeps approaching Morisson's bowl, also. Even the cat can scare Morisson away from his food. Morisson is a wimp, but I love him with all my heart and soul.

Jaggar is actually eating some of Morisson's dog food, right now. Have you ever seen a cat eat dog food?
*******
It is simply awful when you get to work and you realize that your shirt smells like cat pee. I hang my shirts high in the closet, so I don't see how Jaggar, or Kobain, could have gotten to my shirt, but there are times when I come home from work and I throw my shirt on the bed, or on the seat of a chair; that must be when they found their opportunity.
My Animals Are Not Angels

As I have told you, it is normally my dog, Morisson, who is a wimpy dog, when it comes to stepping up to his dog bowl, and claiming what is his. Tonight, though, Mr. Alpha Dog Bundy, who is usually the one getting Morisson to back down from his food, let a cat, Jaggar the Black Cat put him off from his dinner. Because Jaggar was eating his food, Bundy slithered away like a wimp to the underside of my desk, which is usually where he hangs out, and is always where he hangs out when I say to him, "Go Home."

Jaggar seems to have developed a taste for dog food, and he doesn't care whose dog bowl that he eats it out of. Now, I have an Alpha Cat on my hands, or so it seems.
*******
Leah was the ancestral mother of Jesus.

Bombings, and killings, are mostly the headlines that I run across reading the news on the internet, these days; never peace and love, never one man helped another man out; just that one man killed another man in war.

Having to call American Corporations, in the morning, ruins my serenity.
Press One if you are English, it begins, and then you talk to a computer for five minutes before being allowed to wait ten minutes to finally reach a real person, to talk to about your problems, who often doesn't speak very good English.
You wish that you could press one to get someone that you understand, but you understand that these big corporations have outsourced American jobs to foreign countries, because they are patriotic as hell, and support the war effort.
Now there's a job that is opening up for more kids today: Soldier. We need more, and more.
*******
Dear Facebook: So, after looking in my reflection in her high school window, while waiting for her, I asked Scout if I looked, "Artistic, or like a homeless man," and she said, "Like a homeless man..." Her mom has been wanting me to shave, but I have said to myself that I am not shaving until I get a book deal. Hmmmmmmm.
I think that Scout makes an art out of not doing her homework when she decides that hanging out with her pals, or catching up on some sleep, is more important.
One week, she will be knee deep in her books, obviously on her way to college, and the next week it is, "No, no, no," when I ask her if she has any homework; headed for a job in the school cafeteria, making pizza for the six graders, i.e. working long, hard hours for little money.
*******
Jesus is going to forgive me for my sins, but most of his followers won't. Am I wrong to assume that? Yes, I am. I have no idea what most of his followers would do, and I will never be in the position to find out. Hopefully.
---------------------------------------------
Do I have a heart?

I fed the animals immediately, this morning, mingling in the making of my morning cup of coffee, and, right as I was about to take my first sip of the divine nectar, I remembered that the people from the Heart Doctor's office had said, "No Caffeine."
Bummer I thought to myself, glad that I had remembered what they had said sooner than later.
Can you imagine me on the Cardiologist's treadmill soaked in caffeine, "Why your heart rate is very high, Mr. K, you can't have this new hip."
Morrison is trying to pry my arm away from the laptop. I pet him a little bit, and feel guilty that I am not giving him more attention, that this laptop is often my priority.
One day Morisson will pass, and I may regret all the opportunities that I let go to scratch his head, or to rub his butt because I was ruthlessly pursuing the word.
*******
Cyndi Craven: What will you do with your old hip? Maybe you can sell it on eBay?


Mikel K Poet: Well, I thought that since I am going to be cremated that I should save it, because my new metal one will, most likely, not burn; do you have a freezer in your garage that I could store it in until I die?
*******
Bundy likes to lay down on the floor next to me, when I sleep, in the spot that Morisson occupied for so very long. I would rather have Morisson in that spot for several reasons: one reason is that Morisson is being semi-bullied out of the spot by Bundy, and I don't like to see Morisson bullied, and, two, Bundy does not get up and move when I get up out of the bed; he makes me step over him, in the middle of the night, and when I am groggy, first thing in the morning.
Morisson always moves at the first hint that I am getting up out of bed, when he is in that spot. I am scared that I am going to get hurt stepping over Bundy, but he doesn't seem to care. He thinks that the spot on the floor next to my bed is his spot, and that he can do whatever he likes there. I should probably work on changing his thinking about this.

I love it, in the morning, when the cats are sitting dutifully next to each other, sitting at attention next to their empty food bowls, waiting for me to scoop the bowls up, and put some morning wet food snack in the bowls for them. There is something beautiful in this, something that makes me feel wanted, and loved.
The dogs always gather around the hand of mine that seems to be dangling off of the bed, when I wake in the morning. They expect to be petted, and played with while I am still semi-asleep.
Most mornings, I honor their request. I make one hand pet two dog heads, and it makes them happy. This morning, though I woke with one foot dangling off of the bed. The dogs did not care that my foot was not a hand. They rubbed their heads into it anyway. I found this weird.
I learned a new thing about Monkey, the basically stray cat, who I feed breakfast every morning, and snacks every evening. Monkey does not come get his food when I blow kisses, as I had thought; Monkey comes running to our door the minute that I come out of our inner door. She hears that door open, and that is her cue that something good is about to be put in her bowl. Cats will outwit you, that is for certain, and I am pretty sure that Monkey is smarter than I am.
*******
Since I have spent much of my time in the last two years, saying, "No Bundy. Yes Bundy. Bundy do this. Bundy don't do that," I often find myself calling my dog Morisson, "Bundy." He doesn't seem to mind, unlike a girlfriend would if you called her someone else's name; but it kind of irritates me. Bundy has taken up so much of my time, and efforts that I, sometimes, feel like Morisson has gotten ignored, has become a second class citizen of sorts.
The same thing happened to my dog Javi, when Morisson showed up, so I guess there is a natural pecking order that must be followed when dogs are joining your existence at their whim, or the whim of the great dog God, when you already have another or other dogs.
You have to spend time with the dog that needs the most time. It's not really a matter of ignoring anybody. Morisson knows that he is loved, just as Javi knew that he was loved when Morisson showed up and needed to be trained, and showered with lots of love. I am not expecting another dog to join us, but if he, or she, does, Bundy would have to understand that he no longer gets the most time from me. Wow, that would be an interesting thing to see: Bundy sharing time!
*******
The cats are peeing in the bathtub, which means that they are telling me that their kitty litter needs to be changed. Cat pee is not the nicest smell to have hit you in the face, when you are naked, and anticipating the comfort of having hot water cover your stinky body. Soaping up just isn't as pleasant when your cats are using your bath tub as their litter box.
-------------------------------------------
Fall Back

The bookstore had me be, "The Greeter," tonight, for my first hour on the clock, which means that I stand at the front of the store, smile at people, and say hello when they enter, and try to get them to sign up for book raffles, or get them to sign up for books in advance of their arrival in the store. I also hand them coupons, or fliers when we have them. Most people who work at the bookstore hate this job. I don't mind being the greeter; it gives me a break from the Cafe, where I normally work, making coffee drinks for the mass of man, and woman, and, usually, as the greeter, I wind up running into someone I know, and I talk to them for most of the hour that I am up there.

Tonight, the store had provided a small amount of candy to give to kids. I scarfed on a couple of packages of malt balls to start my shift. Since my kids no longer live with me, I have to go elsewhere to steal Halloween candy from children. Candy is candy, and a man with a sweet tooth like I have, doesn't care which kids he is stealing candy from. Csndy is candy and that sweet tooth has to be satisfied.

I got some weird responses, tonight, when I asked the parents of small children if their kids would like some candy:

"No thanks; he doesn't need any, he'll get more than he needs later."

"He doesn't like candy..."

"She doesn't GET candy."

Since these folks would not let their kids have any candy, I kept going into the box that contained the candy and getting me some. I usually don't like gum, but these two pieces of Double Bubble that I nabbed, and popped in my mouth were especially tasty.

When I was a small child, I remember my mother telling me that, "The stolen fruit was always the sweetest." Though I didn't, and don't, really get much else about her, in this case, I think that I know what she was talking about.
--------------------------------------------------
I'm never quite sure who has the last few swallows of the wet cat food that I set out for my cats, each morning, the cats for whom it was intended, or the dogs who are so adept at sneaking up and quickly downing those last few bites that the cats often leave in the bowl. The dogs know that if they get caught in the cat bowls that they will get hollered at, but they are willing to take the risk; such is a dog's lust for cat food, most any food, actually. A cat will leave food in their bowl, where a dog almost never will, and I can tell who finished off the cat food by how clean the bowls are.

My dogs will eat olives. They will eat pickles, and most unique of all, I think, they will eat ice. My dogs love ice. They catch it in the air like it was a baseball tossed to a professional in The World Series, and then they run off with it, to the other side of this small apartment. I can then hear them crunching it, crunching it, crunching it. My dogs love ice, and I am not sure why. I do know that it is a very cheap snack, and that I have an endless supply of it to give them; all I have to do is keep filling up the ice cube containers with water from the sink.
--------------------------
Jaggar has gotten up on my desk and is laying down on the papers that have accumulated in front of my laptop over the last few day: phone numbers, email address, parts of poems and stories that I have written while at work. Jaggar lays in these papers, as if they are comfortable bed. I smile and think of all the comfortable places that I have set up for him and Kobain to lay on around the apartment; the pillow at the foot of my bed, the comforter in the window sill, and here he is laying around on the email address to a woman who I found quite attractive the other night at work, and who seemed receptive to me, receptive enough, anyway, to give me her email address.
At one point, Jaggar sits up and starts staring at Prynce, and Rue Paul. The turtles don't seem to amaze him, as much as kick in some sort of I'd like to have turtle soup instinct. The turtles are well protected in their home; I know, I have closely watched Kobain try to get in the aquarium with them. If Kobain can't do it, the turtles are safe from all cats.
-------------------------------

Jaggar is an addict. He spends a lot of his time sitting on the kitchen floor underneath the silverware drawer, looking up at the drawer, because that is where I keep the tuna flavored moist treats that he is addicted to. I try to make a game of giving him his fix, throwing the treats in different directions on the kitchen floor, but Jaggar doesn't think of it as a game, I really believe, that he sees it as running down something that he has to have.

Kobain likes the treats, but he is not strung out on them, like Jaggar. He, mostly, only shows interest in them if you place the treat at his feet, and make it easy for him to eat.


It was wintrily cold outside, this early November morning, I discovered, when I opened the door to go outside with the dogs. Bundy took care of business, right away, and then headed immediately back to the house without even being asked to.

No, "Bundy let's go home, Bundy let's go home," was said, this morning. Morisson got right in line behind Bundy, and went home right away, also. On nice days, the dogs will linger outside, acting like they don't hear me asking, or pleading with them, to go home, but when it is near icicle weather, or wet out, they do their thing and then head back for the warmth of the abode, almost immediately.

Bundy, as usual, was waiting to the side of my bed, when I got up this morning. Basically, he demands a head rub, or a head scratch before I am allowed to leave the bed, after a night's sleep. Morisson spends the day next to me, at my feet to the side of my chair. Each dog has their own special way of getting my love.

I am full of that huge feeling of accomplishment that comes to me when I finish reading a book. Some men take pride in making another million dollars, I am happy that I just finished reading Augusten Burrough's most recent book.

There is a new dog in the hood, a loud one, and Bundy's instinct is to growl at the new dog, and bark back; you know show that dog who is boss. What a pretty day.

I'm having a salad, tonight for dinner, a spinach salad, specifically, because my doctor says that I am anemic, and my daughter's biological father, Kevin, says that if I eat a big spinach salad three times a week, I should have the remedy to my situation that needs to be remedied.

I wish that I had all the fixings to go with the salad like onions, and mushrooms, and bell peppers, but I don't have the money for all that right now. I'm not complaining; I feel blessed to have the leaves and the salad dressing, though whoever manufactures salad dressing pisses me off because no matter how slow you try to pour the dressing out of the bottle, half the bottle still comes rushing out, which is good for salad dressing sales, but bad for my diabetes.

The factory, i.e. the coffee shop that I take what they give in, called, last night, and asked if I could come in, today. I never answer the phone when the factory calls: I always let the voice mail see what they want; that gives me time to mull over my decision, and to formulate a reply to whatever it is that they have called about, which is usually can I come in and cover a shift because someone has called in and said that they can't make it.

In this instance, I decided to call them back and tell them that I would come in to work today, one of my days off, mainly because I have five days off this week, and the hours that they were looking for me to fill were decent. My hip is in such a situation that I can't work 90 hours a week, but the extra money that I will get will help defray this exorbitant utility bill that just came to stalk me in the mail.

This job has never scheduled me for more than 12-15 hours, which is perfect for my current my hip is about to be replaced lifestyle. A perfect situation is always what I seek in life.

Morisson just put both paws on my left knee, lifted himself up, and tried to kiss me. I guess that my dog is feeling especially lovey dovey this morning. I know that he doesn't have to go outside to use the facility, because we were just out there.

It looks like a nice sun-shiney day outside. I am happy to be alive. Thank you, Lord, for letting me see the new day, breath the air of another day. Guide me in thought, word, and action, Lord; please keep me off drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.
Amen.

Jaggar has discovered the papers on my desk. Right now he is luxuriating on top of the rough draft of a poem that I wrote several days ago, that has been waiting for me to finish it, and transcribe it onto this computer. I will have to be careful what I leave on my desk. Some papers do not need to have my cat sit on the and crinkle them.

I think that it is awful, pitiful even, that there is mercury in our fish, and that you have to be careful how many cans of tuna that you eat, so that your tuna consumption does not poison you. Man is supposed to be intelligent, but greed overcomes his intelligence, and he does stupid things like pour waste materials into our beautiful ocean that poison our fish. I am not eating meat, these days, and I am trying to not eat fish, but still…

Last night, a person driving a very yuppie car leaned on the horn when I rode my bike in front of them, when they they I shouldn't have, but I know full well that I was well within all my bicycle rights to do what I did. I didn't shoot them a bird, or yell at them(I'm almost fully in control of my emotions, now,) but I did get in the middle of the lane in front of them, and ride my bicycle very slowly, so that they could not get around me.
I have risen very early this morning, 4:30 a.m., have barely had time to make a cup of coffee, and Jaggar has already pointed out to me that he would like something placed in his wet food cat food bowl, and that I need to put water in the bowl that serves all the animals. I am amazed that Jaggar is a male cat, for it is usually a female that points out all my shortcomings, and tells me what I need to do.
I have decided to quit being angry about the fact that my job will not be there for me when I get back from my four to six week recovery from hip surgery period. I have decided that I am going to write my boss a letter, and thank her for all she has done for me, even though she has been mean to me, at times, during my stay on this job. Anger, and resentment, are two things that I have fought for years, and I do not want them to creep back into my existence, whatever the reason, whatever the excuse. I have learned that there is always something good to come out of something back, that as one of my fortune cookies, once told me that, "it is always darkest before the dawn." Last night, a co-worker and I joked about hurting the evil corporation where it is most vulnerable, that is damaging its profits. We joked about destroying the espresso machine, and disabling the copier. We laughed about giving away everything, instead of taking money from people. Ha, ha.
It's five a.m. and Morisson is dutifully at his position by my side. You think that he would be laying on the floor, or still sleeping, but no…he is next to me, waiting for me to slide my hand onto this head and start petting him, and scratching him. What a loyal dog. I love him so.

Jaggar is an addict. He spends a lot of his time sitting on the kitchen floor underneath the silverware drawer, looking up at the drawer, because that is where I keep the tuna flavored moist treats that he is addicted to. I try to make a game of giving him his fix, throwing the treats in different directions on the kitchen floor, but Jaggar doesn't think of it as a game, I really believe, that he sees it as running down something that he has to have.

Kobain likes the treats, but he is not strung out on them, like Jaggar. He, mostly, only shows interest in them if you place the treat at his feet, and make it easy for him to eat.


It was wintrily cold outside, this early November morning, I discovered, when I opened the door to go outside with the dogs. Bundy took care of business, right away, and then headed immediately back to the house without even being asked to.

No, "Bundy let's go home, Bundy let's go home," was said, this morning. Morisson got right in line behind Bundy, and went home right away, also. On nice days, the dogs will linger outside, acting like they don't hear me asking, or pleading with them, to go home, but when it is near icicle weather, or wet out, they do their thing and then head back for the warmth of the abode, almost immediately.

Bundy, as usual, was waiting to the side of my bed, when I got up this morning. Basically, he demands a head rub, or a head scratch before I am allowed to leave the bed, after a night's sleep. Morisson spends the day next to me, at my feet to the side of my chair. Each dog has their own special way of getting my love.

I am full of that huge feeling of accomplishment that comes to me when I finish reading a book. Some men take pride in making another million dollars, I am happy that I just finished reading Augusten Burrough's most recent book.

There is a new dog in the hood, a loud one, and Bundy's instinct is to growl at the new dog, and bark back; you know show that dog who is boss. What a pretty day.

I'm having a salad, tonight for dinner, a spinach salad, specifically, because my doctor says that I am anemic, and my daughter's biological father, Kevin, says that if I eat a big spinach salad three times a week, I should have the remedy to my situation that needs to be remedied.

I wish that I had all the fixings to go with the salad like onions, and mushrooms, and bell peppers, but I don't have the money for all that right now. I'm not complaining; I feel blessed to have the leaves and the salad dressing, though whoever manufactures salad dressing pisses me off because no matter how slow you try to pour the dressing out of the bottle, half the bottle still comes rushing out, which is good for salad dressing sales, but bad for my diabetes.

The factory, i.e. the coffee shop that I take what they give in, called, last night, and asked if I could come in, today. I never answer the phone when the factory calls: I always let the voice mail see what they want; that gives me time to mull over my decision, and to formulate a reply to whatever it is that they have called about, which is usually can I come in and cover a shift because someone has called in and said that they can't make it.

In this instance, I decided to call them back and tell them that I would come in to work today, one of my days off, mainly because I have five days off this week, and the hours that they were looking for me to fill were decent. My hip is in such a situation that I can't work 90 hours a week, but the extra money that I will get will help defray this exorbitant utility bill that just came to stalk me in the mail.

This job has never scheduled me for more than 12-15 hours, which is perfect for my current my hip is about to be replaced lifestyle. A perfect situation is always what I seek in life.

Morisson just put both paws on my left knee, lifted himself up, and tried to kiss me. I guess that my dog is feeling especially lovey dovey this morning. I know that he doesn't have to go outside to use the facility, because we were just out there.

It looks like a nice sun-shiney day outside. I am happy to be alive. Thank you, Lord, for letting me see the new day, breath the air of another day. Guide me in thought, word, and action, Lord; please keep me off drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. Amen.

They are mean women working for a vicious corporation. Karma is catching up to them, and they will all soon be on the sidewalk. Yeah, right; unfortunately people like them never get what they deserve. I take that back. That is the angry me speaking. The corporation takes nice people and instills fear in them, and makes nice people do things that they would never ever do: like be mean to other people in the name of a buck, in the name of that almighty buck that the corporation worships more than it worships God. There is no God to The Corporation, there is only the buck. The Corporation already has excess bucks, but it can never be satisfied; it always wants more, more, more, and it will do anything, manipulate anyone, step on anyone to get them. The Corporation is evil, but people worship it. People have been taught that making the almighty buck in any way, shape, or fashion is o.k.

It's not.


The cats gather by the front door
looking out at a world that they
used to be a part of. They are not
allowed to be outside cats, anymore;
the new abode is situated too close
to traffic, and their owner doesn't
want the to get splatted by a car.

I figure that her phone must be like everyone else's, that it sees my phone number when I call, and that she will have that number to call me back if she wants to. Of course, she may not want to; that is one of the big risks that you take when you call a woman: rejection. Nobody wants to be rejected, but if you don't face rejection in the face, if you don't stare it down, and tell it that you not scared of it, or at least, that you are willing to transcend that fear for as long as a phone call takes, you will never get anywhere with women, or, at least, you will never get anywhere calling them on the phone. I hate voicemail, or, at the least, I hate talking to voice mail, but I did pretty good, this morning. I probably came off as a little nervous, which I was, but I also demonstrated a strong degree of humor. I know that she likes my sense of humor; that is one reason that I called her. Another is that we have become friends. We work together, and I have told her, truthfully, that she is probably the best person that I have ever worked with. She's too young for me. She's got kids, and a family, and all that ahead of her. I have already done all that, and have tied the tubes. Thirty years is a big difference. I'm old enough to be her father, scratch that; I'm old enough to be her grandfather. I can't even imagine being in bed with her. It would be like incest. I doubt that she will call back. She'll use the excuse that she didn't have my number, but really she'll be thinking why is this dirty old man calling me. He must want to go to bed with me.
One Sunday morning my dad got angry, as he was often wont to do, and decided to teach me a lesson. "Come here," he said, and he lead me into the bathroom. "Do you see this? he said, and grabbed me by the back of my head and pushed my face inside the toilet boil, "Do you see what I have to clean up after you? I am tired of having to clean up after you." I didn't know what to say, and didn't have much of a chance to say it. My father thrust a toilet bowl cleaning brush in my hands, and stalked out of the room. I don't think I cried. I did tremble, though. The good thing about this is that it felt so bad that I never did it to my kids. That lousy thing ended in our family history right there, as it should have, and I am glad that it did.
Her picture looks good. Her picture looks really good, but she is diseased. She is diseased of the mind, and she is diseased of the body. You can't really blame her for having the disease of the body. Someone who she loved gave it to her. He went out and got it somewhere else, and then brought it home to her, without telling her, and now it is hers for life. She cries about it. She has to tell everyone that she has it before she makes love to them. She does not want to lie to them like the one she loved lied to her by saying nothing. It is possible for the disease of her mind to be eradicated, but it won't be any time soon. She is not in what they call denial. She does not deny that her mind is diseased, but she wants no part of the solution, at least right now, so she will stay diseased. Enjoy her picture, but be wary, she is diseased.

She is tired of collecting things; men specifically. She can go through her photo album, and it is full of happy, handsome, smiling faces; faces that didn't make it in her life. There is no happy, handsome, smiling face in her life, now, but only because she has chosen to take a break. She could go to the grocery store, or a coffee shop, or a gas station and, almost immediately see a handsome, seemingly happy, smiling face, smiling at her, and all she would have to do is to say hello, and soon he would be a picture in her photo album.
Mary Anne told me, yesterday, that she had just gotten Sylvia Plath's autograph. She showed it to me even, and me not knowing what Sylvia Plath's autograph looked like, just smiled at Mary Anne. Whenever Mary Anne comes to me with an authograph from someone, usually a poet, usually a female and always dead, I know that she is not taking her medication.
I need more friends. I need more money. I need more food in the refrigerator. I need more toilet paper. I am out of meds. I need more toothpaste. I need razor blades. I need a new computer. I need more computer paper. I need batteries for my camera. I need a new camera. I need a girl friend. I need a car. I need new clothes. I need socks. I need new underwear. I'm not making any of this up.
I sent a heartfelt letter to the DSL company telling them how great this guy was who they sent out to the house, last week to fix my high speed internet, that, before he arrived, was moving very slowly. The guy that they sent was friendly, he was knowledgeable, and professional, I mean he practically walked on water, and I sent an email to his bosses telling them so, and within seconds I got an email back from them saying, "thank you;" a form letter, a letter that everybody who writes to them gets. What's wrong with this county? Whatever happened to the human touch?
I hate leaf blowers, and lawn edgers passionately, and anyone that turns one on, and uses it in my ear range at 8:02 a.m. like they are doing now, should be taken out, and shot, or at least arrested, and kept in jail for several years. Who invented these obnoxious machines? When I walk by a lawn edger, I live in perpetual fear that the thing is going to blow a hard object into my eye, and blind me, or my brain and kill me. It looks like a very dangerous thing, and I know it is. I know that if I Google, "death by lawn edger," that the numbers that I will find of dead, or seriously maimed people, will be long. And where do these guys(I never see girls using leaf blowers, or lawn edgers; they are much too smart)actually blow the leaves to that they are blowing. As far as I can tell they either blow them into a neighbor's house, or down the street. How politically correct is that. Again, I say death to these people, and or hefty prison sentences. How dare they mess with my early morning piece of mind.
I've learned that giving your CD to famous people does nothing for your musical career. Dale W. Miller, and I, gave a copy of our Mikel K Band, "Sober," CD to just about everybody famous who came to town, during that era when we were pushing that CD, or at least we gave it to Henry Rollins, and Jim Carrol, and they didn't hook us up with anything, like the fame, and success, that they had, which proves, somehow, that you have to go out there and get your own fame, and success, and you can't depend on some famous and successful person to get it for you.
Dear Facebook:
I have the luxury of eating three eggs in a burrito topped with mayo and hot chili sauce, and not, possibly, get my leg blown off while walking down a road in Iraq, or Afghanistan. I get to sip on hot tea with milk, safely, in my warm apartment. I am blessed, and I pray for those who are not, for whatever good it will do. Does prayer ever stop war?

Dear Facebook:

I've told you that I LOVE days off, and I do LOVE days off: nowhere to be at any particular time, no shower to rush into, no frantic bike ride fighting the pain in my hip. I'm going to San Fran, next week, to see my ole gal Darbi, and her new, well new to me, daughter Charli, and I'll visit with Penny and her family. It is funny how I get along better/best with woman as ex's!!!

Did I tell you that I had a drinking problem. Well, I guess that I still have it, if I pick up a drink, but I haven't picked up a drink in almost eighteen years. It's a miracle really. I spent almost twenty years drunk, going in and out of drunk tanks, and mental institutions fairly frequently towards the end of my boozing,
and, now, I have spent almost twenty years sober.

Three of those drunk years I spent with a lady named Penny. She was drunk, also. We were a perfect match for each other in those days.

MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH: Jaggar, my anti-social cat slept on top of my feet, last night, laying on the comforter that was warming my feet. This is major news.
Jaggar hardly ever comes within touching distance of anything human, including me, his loving master, the one who feeds him, whispers to him, and whistles at him, all the time, even though he always ignores me.

(Dear Facebook: Jaggar, my anti-social cat, slept between my feet. last night, laying on top of the comforter that was laying on top of my feet. This is BIG NEWS; Jagger never comes near anything human, including me, his humble master who feeds him, whispers to him, and whistles at him, knowing that I will get no response in return. I am very happy.)

I found it oxymoronic that the girl on the poster on the back of the bus telling people that they, too, can lead smoke free lives was getting covered in smoke from the bus's exhaust pipe.

It is a whole new experience in many ways walking with a cane. When I got on the bus, this morning, a young girl moved, fast, out of her seat in the handicapped section making room for me to sit down. Peope often hold the door for me, as I leave the bus, when I am holding the cane.

I love crunching crisp leaves with my foot, or with the front wheel of my bicyle.


"I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee."
--Carly Simon
You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner, and...
--Carly Simon
In my living space, I am not the cleanest guy in the world. I grew up in what I call a "Better Homes and Garden" house, a place where I had to leave my shoes at the door before I walked in the house, a place where it got so that I couldn't go upstairs to my room but once in a day, that being when it was bedtime, because my father said that I was putting, "wear and tear," on his carpet, that being the carpet that covered the stairs that lead to my bedroom. I also could only take a shower once a week, because my father said that I "dirtied up" his shower. Coming from an environment like that, you'll have to excuse me if I rebel just a bit against having a spotlessly clean house. Oh yeah, I wasn't allowed to go in the living room, either, yes, again because my presence there would make it somehow unclean.
A woman who came to visit me recently called my place a "dump." That was it for her, really, because even if the place is "a dump," she should have more tact than that. Just because she can eat toast off her toilet seat doesn't mean that we all want to. The funny thing about this is the next woman who came over here found the place "comfortable," and would visit quite often, until it became quite obvious that neither one of us was suited for the other. She was looking to have more babies; she already had a daughter, and I was done having babies; mine were mostly grown, and I was looking forward to pursuing poetry full time, perhaps even getting an MFA in it. I had changed my last diaper, was the way that I was looking at it.
I am not the kind of guy, however, who leaves dirty socks and unclean underwear on his floor. My socks and underwear have always found their way into a hamper of some sort, that is, until now. Now, my hip is bone on bone, and I am going through a lot of pain with that, and will continue to go through pain with that until I go through the hip replacement surgery that is looming in my immediate future. So, if you come over to my place before I have had my hip replacement surgery, let me apologize in advance for the fact that you may well have to step over stinky socks and sweat stained underwear, as you walk about my apartment. It just has to be that way for now.
People ask me how did I wear out my hip: arthritis is the answer, and arthritis is mostly a hereditary thing. My dad who wouldn't much let me shower, seems to have handed me down arthritis, as well as alcoholism, dandruff, and psoriasis, all of which I will get into later. Also, I have a weight problem. I am about fifty pounds overweight, the funny thing about that being that I did not put on all this excess weight until I gave up drinking. You think that one would be healthy as hell, having put down the bottle, but I guess poor eating habits added up to a fat tummy. Fast food may be convenient for a singles life style, but for me it lead to far more weight than is healthy, which resulted in diabetes, which my dad may have also given me. I am being easy on my mother for her role in all this hereditary crap, because, right now, I am not thinking about how mean and lousy she was to me. My father far surpassed her in this category. Looking back on it, I have to think that my father was undiagnosed bi-polar, which, by the way, is something else that he gave to me.
"You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner, and..."
--Carly Simon
I'm so vain, some people have complained, especially when it comes to the written word, and my existence on the internet. I am quite a social net worker; I was addicted to My Space, before they kicked me off, and I am addicted to Face Book, which they may be in the process of kicking me off of. I am not vain when it comes to my writing, but I am superbly confident of it. Hell, I have been at it for almost 30 years; I would hope that I have gained some proficiency in it.
My Space gave me the boot because of a poem that I wrote that one person complained about. I was up to 5,000 friends on My Space, most of them women in Europe. When it came to My Space, I was using Van Halen Theory, in that if you get the women to show up, the men will follow. Also, there seems to me to be something stupid about asking a man to read your poem, that there isn't in asking a woman. I hope that I am not being sexist here, or discriminatory or whatever. The thing that pissed me off about being booted by My Space was that there was no recourse. Four thousand and ninety nine people did not complain about that poem; one did, and I got thrown out. To me, it seems like the same type of weird fascism that permeates The Fox Network, and most of us know what My Space and The Fox Network have in common.
Anyway, I really love the song, "You're So Vain," and I really love Carly Simon. There is something about her that is just so cool. I was reading, the other day, about how she wrote, "Your So Vain," how she took a bit from her notebook, and then added it to bits and pieces that came to her from other places. I understand this process for it is how I have written much of my poetry.
You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't You?

Sigh, I wish the song was about me, but I was a day late, at least, and many dollars short to have gotten that one written about me!

Major Breakthrough: Jaggar slept next to me, on the bed last night, and even let me pet him a bit, without him trying to bite and claw me, or running off. I don't know what is getting into this cat, but bit by bit, he is getting a little bit friendlier. My animals never cease to amaze me; just when you think that they are fully developed, and set in their ways, they prove you wrong and do something that amazes you.
I haven't eaten meat in a little over a year, now; which is quite amazing in that I ate it for fifty years. I don't like the way the corporations raise and kill the animals. I think that it is disgusting; anything for a buck is their deal, and any sign of humanity is lost in the process of bringing us food. Sometimes I crave ribs, or a fast food burger, layered with onions, cheese, and mayonnaise, but the craving passes. An animal does not have to die so that I can eat, and I am happy about this.

The guy living next door got foreclosed on. One day he brings me a small bag of cat food, and a single can of wet cat food and he asks me to feed this cat that he says mainly lives outside, but that he's been feeding for nine years. "It's gotten to where she will sleep at the foot of my bed," he says, and he takes off. About a month later, he comes back for a few, says hey and hands me five dollars. The guy is a nice guy; I like him, but I'm thinking man he is not paying me enough to feed his cat. I've got two cats already; I don't need another mouth to feed. Keep in mind that there is a recession that maybe Bush started, and that Obama, maybe, can't do anything about; I'm on food stamps, working a part time job, anywhere from 8 to 15 hours a week, depending on the mood of the boss, and I get a check for being crazy, make that bi-polar. So this cat, whose name is Monkey starts rubbing up on my leg. She won't let me pet her, or hold her, but she likes to rub up on my leg, and I start thinking hey this cat is alright. Next thing I know, a year has almost gone by and I'm still feeding Monkey; she gets a bowl of food every morning right after I feed my cats.
This morning Monkey seemed jittery. She kept looking over her shoulder. I saw the black cat hiding in a bush. Monkey ran off, and the black cat jumped up to where Monkey's bowl was. The cat didn't look like a street cat. I wasn't sure what to do. Should I scare the cat off, or should I let it eat. Should I try to interfere or should I let the two cats work out any differences between them. When it comes to human, I have learned that I am not God, so I decided to take that approach with the cats. I sat there and watched the black cat eat for awhile. He must have been hungry, because he, or she, didn't run off when I got up from my chair; the cat kept eating. I went inside to clean out my turtles' tank. I was headed to San Francisco for five days, and I wanted their water clean while I was gone. I checked back on the cat's food bowl after I had dumped the turtles' water. The black cat had not ate it all. Monkey showed up while I was there, and started meowing. I didn't know if she was pissed that the other cat had eaten out of her bowl, or if she was begging for more food. My new rule that I had just made up was that no matter how many cats showed up and ate out of that small bowl that was all they were getting, Monkey included, once a day.
When I clean the turtles' water, I carry the aquarium into the bathtub so that I can rinse out the little brown pebbles that sit at the bottom of the tank. Today, I almost hurt myself because my leg from my knee up through my hip on my left side is almost useless because of my shot out hip. I cracked the glass at one end of the tank, which was quite aggravating. I didn't know if I had cracked it enough for it to leak or not, and here I was leaving for five days.
The older that your kids get, the less that you see of them; at least that is the way that it is for me.
A lady from the Doctor's office called, yesterday, and said that my hip replacement surgery will take place in three weeks. I have never had surgery before, but I am really looking forward to this two hour session. I will be knocked out for the length of the surgery, and I have no idea how I will feel once I am brought back around by the anesthesiologist. I probably won't feel great; I will be groggy, and in a bit of pain, I would think.

Right now, I am in constant pain. My left leg is, basically, useless. I kind of drag it along with me, wherever I go, leaning on a cane, or depending on my bike to get me places because it is less painful to ride the bike than it is to walk.

This whole bum hip thing has been a very humiliating experience. I have learned a lot about myself, and I have learned a lot about living with pain. I have, also, learned to notice people around me who are in the same, or worse shape than myself: people on canes, people in wheelchairs, and people limping get a lot more attention from me than they ever did. Seeing them usually makes me feel less sorry for myself, and my situation.

Knowing that others are suffering the same as I, or worse, is a very humbling experience. I don't know that I feel sorry for myself, but I do know that I have gotten angry over the situation, at times, kind of a, "Why me? Why me? type of thing.

I am sure that I will have many more challenges placed in front of me, as I further age. I am glad that the challenge of having a bad hip is coming to an end. I have heard marvelous things about hip replacement surgery, and what it has done for folks in pain with bad hips.

It is weird to thing that my hip is going to be cut out of me. I want to be cremated, when I die; should I get my old hip from my Doctor, after the operation, and stick it in the refrigerator until I pass away so that it can be added to the rest of me and burned also?
The Grocery Store was full of well-dressed, good looking folks, today; and me. I haven't showered in a couple of days, my hair is long and scraggy, and unwashed, in the aforementioned two days, and my beard belies the fact that I don't have much of a job.

There was no one in the grocery store who looked like a musician, or artist. There was a gathering of unfriendly men and women getting the jump on buying things for Thanksgiving: the holiday was three weeks out, and these folks were, already, stocking their freezers, loading their refrigerators, and padding their pantries in anticipation of, um, giving thanks.

Isn't it weirdly, and awfully, funny, to beat nearly beat someone over the head with a turkey drumstick, in a fight for the primmest whole turkey, or the last box of stuffing, that will be eaten on a day where, allegedly, gratitude is the driving motivation?

If I was still prone to trust my first opinion, I would have to say that they were a mean, and mercenary bunch, but I don't know them all that well, and I have learned in my five decades plus two years on the planet, that you can't tell how a person is, by the way that they look.

I somehow feel more comfortable around lower income people, though; at least they will smile at you, say hello, and move their cart when you want to pass them as they stand in front of a particular product for a half hour trying to make that all important purchase decision.

My ailing hip, the one that will be replaced on December 7 at one p.m. has put me in some strange places, and this was one of them. Had I been able to run, or even walk, I would have walked, or ran, away from this place, and these people, and done my shopping at another place and time; besides I don't eat turkey any more.
This woman from the internet called me, and when I told her that I had no friends, she said, "Well us folks from the internet is real, too,"
I laughed and said, "Ha…no you're not, you just exist inside of my computer!"
She knew from reading my blog that I was going to have my hip replacement surgery in several weeks, and I asked her if she had an extra freezer at her place so that she could store my old hip until it was time to have me cremated i.e. upon my death.
She said, "No," and told me about the time that she had come home, and found one of her cats dead, and had put the cat in the freezer until her husband got home from work. She said that that was the last thing of that nature that she would ever put in a freezer, and that there was no way in hell, even if it wasn't bio hazard material, that she would hold my hip for me until I died.

An Internet Moment:
Mikel K Poet: It sucks to be independent when you need somebody, because they are not around.


David Herrle: I've been there, Mikel. It's a blessing sometimes, but also a desolation. We're all "here," though!


Mikel K Poet: It is weird because the above statement that I made was a momentary reflection on the fact that I couldn't much get myself to the grocery store, and back, because of this hip; these days I travel on a cane…and, then, Danielle appeared out of nowhere, and came through for me with a ride.

I have nice food to eat tonight because of Danielle. You have to be thankful for what you have, and, sometimes, seek help for what you don't have. I have been conditioned to be an island, and on my island I must stay; sometimes, this is not the best way.


After I walked through the fire, nothing else mattered. Refuse to feed on the fear they give you so freely. When nothing else matters, it's about the way you feel inside…

Bundy went ballistic, this morning as someone was lightly tapping on our front door. "Go home, Bundy, Go home," I said to the dog in a loud voice, but he wasn't going anywhere but where he was at barking viciously at the unshaven man who stood at the door holding a fast food breakfast sandwich in his hand.

"Hey, can I use your outlet," he said. "The guy across the street wants me to clean up the house next to yours."

The house next to mine, had been foreclosed on by one of our marvelous banks, but they hadn't, as they never do, seen fit to maintain the property that they had repossessed. It was a nice house, an expensive house in an expensive neighborhood with a scattering of lower rent apartments throughout it, like the one that I was living in; but, right now, in the hands of the bank, it looked like a crack house.

Someone had put a plywood board over the front door, and the lawn was a unsightly mess, Medusa's hair coming to mind as then nearest metaphor. The neighbor across the street was obviously worried about the expensive dump's affect on his property value. It might be hard to sell a house across the street from a pigsty that the bank cared nothing about, except for the money that it could get out of it, and, also, it was an eyesore: I'm sure that the guy across the street was tired of gazing out his window and across his nicely manicured lawn at such a disappointment.

For a moment, I thought that I should say no, "No, you can't use my electricity to clean up that house. The bank should clean up that house, and at the least, the bank should write me a check for an hour or so use of my electricity."
The bank is in the business of collecting checks; they don't write checks, so I knew that I would never see a dime from the bank. The unshaved bastard holding half a fast food sandwich needed, I'm sure, the money that the man across the street was going to pay him. He was either going to buy a bottle with it, or head to one of his early on 12 step meetings, and wanted a dollar to put in the basket.

I didn't even hesitate as I told the guy, "Yes, you can use my outlet."
Just because the banks suck, doesn't mean that I have to.

OpenSalon.com has these things called Open Call. I never pay much attention to them, because unless someone is paying to direct the nature of my writing, I prefer to blaze my own path. They have one going on now called, Sexiest Man on OS - open call."

Someone nominated me; or mentioned me:
i would pick mikel k, because his poems so often move me, and speak such truth. he could make up love poems all day long. real love poems, not passionate shepherd nonsense (which i also love, btw).
Me sexy? No, she said the poems are sexy! Either way, thanks. As I sit here overweight, unshaven, un-showered, about to have a hip removed in three weeks, I suddenly feel...well, sexy because of you!! And you are sexy, too!

Morrison did not touch his breakfast, this morning, and I am, now, figuring out why: he has gas; he has gas real bad. He is laying next to me on the floor, as I sit at my desk and type, and it sounds as if his stomach is about to erupt; volcano is the word that comes to mind: a volcano churning, and getting ready to explode in his stomach.
Morrison was a guest at someone else's house for the five days that I was recently California dreaming, and who knows what he got into over there. There are four dogs in that house to badly influence him.
"Here, Morisson, try some of this…it tastes good."
Disruptions in normalcy are mostly felt by the cats, dogs, and turtles when I take a trip, but that will certainly not limit me from taking trips. I love to travel, and I love to come home from my travels. strung out on homesickness. There is great peace in normalcy.

When I eat a bagel, I almost always want another bagel. Most times I do not give in to this sugar craving, because I know that it is bad for me to eat multiple bagels: it is bad for the size of my tummy, and it is bad for my diabetes: bad, bad, bad. I like eating bagels at home more than I like eating bagels out. At home I can control the amount of butter, or peanut butter that I put on my bagel. I really like peanut butter on my bagel, and, if I have it, which I don't, right now, I like to put raspberry jam on top of the peanut butter: yum, yum. I also love chocolate, but I will tell you about that at another time.
I have a very bad case of psoriasis, another thing that my father bequeathed to me, along with dandruff, a drinking problem, a bi-polar issue, skinny legs, and blue eyes. Some people inherit hotel chains, I got all of the above.
Several months ago, I grew beard, the best bear that I can grow, not a very thick beard, mind you, but a beard that has a distinct personality of its own. I was riding my bike to work one day, recently, and this young kind of hippy chick girl hollered, "Nice beard," at me. My son's mother, on the other hand told me that I looked like a homeless guy.
Anyway, over the last week to ten days, my beard has started to itch. I need a remedy, so I went on the internet. Basically, the only advice that I could find was to scratch it, which I have been doing. I really want some quick fix, in the form of a lotion; something that I can rub on the skin below my beard that will take the irritation away. I 'll keep looking.

OnlineHost: *** You are in "Romance - Poet Seeks Muse". ***
OnlineHost: Windkist01 has entered the room.
Windkist01: Muse seeks poet ; )
OnlineHost: Windkist01 has left the room.

Sometimes, I'm not sure if I'm being greedy, or rational. I was laying in bed, thinking about Christmas, which is in about a month, and thinking about my surgery date for the hip replacement surgery, Dec. 7, that is, hopefully, going to take me from being a man living in great pain to a man who can, after the surgery, go back to where he once was, when it comes to taking Yoga, walking his dogs, and moving about this world not in a limp, not in pain with every step that he takes.
Anyway, my rehab time, after the operation is four to six weeks, and my job has said that they won't hold my job for that long because I am a part timer. Hell, 87% of the folks that work for the same corporation are part timers. The corporation doesn't want to pay you full time wages: the corporation doesn't want to give you full time benefits, so they call you part time, and work you 39 1/2 hours. Do you realize that "the corporation" is men and women sitting in a nice office somewhere, getting into nice cars when they are done spending their day trying to figure out how to pay the 87%'s less, and then heading to their nice homes, and they don't really care if you or I eat.
Back to my greed: should I bank every penny that I have, since I won't be working for awhile, won't know when I will be working again, or should I buy some Christmas presents for my kids and immediate family? This is what I was thinking while I was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, having had too much caffeine, too close to bedtime. Am I being greedy trying to fill the pantry with food, or is it a rational move to hoard food, and worry about playing Santa next year?
I wish that there really was a Rudolph, and that he could help me decide.

Sometimes, all the things that I have thought of to write, disappear before I get to my computer to type them down. If I am lucky, I have made little notes, as these thoughts appear, if I am top of my game, I have jotted the thoughts that occur to me, between sittings at the laptop, down in this small notebook that I carry in my back pocket, before I lose them. Rarely do I sit down at the computer, and not have something to write.
I get high when I write; I get higher than I ever did on LSD, marijuana, mushrooms, ecstasy, speed, cocaine, or liquor; and the high doesn't get me in trouble: emotionally, or with the law.
What a blessing.

This lady came into the bookstore when I soon won't be working because they are terminating me because I have to take medical leave, and she said, "Please get rid of that Sarah Palin book." There was a display of Palin's book, "Going Rogue," near the front door.
I smiled at her, and said, "If I had my way, we would!"
I hear that the book is selling well, but not in my part of town. Us blue state types are not down with Sarah.
When the lady left the store, I said to her, "Since you don't like the Sarah book, I could guide you to a book by Sean Hannity, or Newt Gingrich, or Rush Limbaugh." She said, "Argh," and ran out of the store.
A couple soon came into the bookstore, and the man said, "Do you have the new Sarah Palin book?"
I said, "Why, yes sir, it is right over, and I pointed to the display of Palin's books.
The man laughed out loud, and said, "No, no, no…I was only kidding."
I smiled at him and said, "Well, you better get you one, fast, I'm about to light that display on fire."

Sometimes, people ask me what I do besides write, and I look at them as if they are crazy. Perhaps the best way to explain this is to tell you a story that my good friend, Dale W. Miller.com told me about a drummer in a famous band. The drummer was giving a seminar, and someone in the audience raised their hand and asked him what he did when he wasn't drumming?
"Not drumming? Man, this is it. This is what I do: I drum."

I haven't played you a song in awhile. The waiting is the hardest part. "The Waiting," is a Tom Petty, and The Heartbreakers song that I didn't understand when it first came out. I think that I was living in L.A. at the time, and drinking heavily. The drinking heavily part had nothing to do with it. I was, and would have been, drinking heavy, at that time, no matter where I was living.
Oh baby don't it feel like heaven right now
Don't it feel like something from a dream
Yeah I've never known nothing quite like this
Don't it feel like tonight might never be again
We know better than to try and pretend
Baby no one could'a ever told me 'bout this
I said yeah yeah
The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part
"The Waiting," seemed like a departure for Tom Petty, and I wasn't sure that I wanted him to depart. I didn't want him to challenge me. I wanted him to be the same comfortable Tom Petty that I had come to love over the last seven years, ever since I had discovered him on the cover of The Rolling Stone, and soon put together that fact that this guy on the cover with the sardonic look on his face was the guy singing the song on the radio that I loved so much: "Refugee."

"It don't really matter to me, baby,
Everybody's had to fight to be free."
I wish that I had a hundred dollars a week for groceries, but I don't. Right now, I am living on $117 worth of food stamps a month. The first week to ten days are full of good eating, but the rest of the month is full of some dismal scraping by. Do you think less of me because I have told you that I am getting food stamps? Does that make me some sort of leech; an evil parasite sucking your blood, stealing your tax money? Am I a lousy member of society; a failed capitalist? Am I sucking, unfairly, off of the communal tit?
I read somewhere that something like twenty percent of Americans are getting food stamps right now. Corporations have so fucked us that the government has to feed us? I don’t want to suck your tit, so buy my books, will you?

Isn't it funny how sleep can have a taste to it: I just had a delicious nap. Naps are an essential ingredient of my day: I usually take two, one early in the morning, and one in the afternoon, and each one lasts about two hours. My early morning nap follows my morning writing session which should start around five a.m. and end around ten. I never eat before or while I write, because I get sleepy once I write, and I can not write while I am tired. My afternoon nap does not necessarily last two hours. Sometimes an hour is good, and naps are a great thing for me to have as part of my day. They make me more productive, and they make me feel better about life.

I have sleep apnea, which I'm not sure contributes to my daytime sleepiness, except maybe in the case of the afternoon nap. Sleep apnea means that you have sleep exam, and start wearing a mask on you face, attached to a hose, that is attached to a machine that shoots out air, you are tired all the time, and you snore all the time.XXXXXXX

David Sedaris looks like a writer. I wonder if I look like a writer. A young lady, who was sitting on an airplane seat in front of me, recently, told me that she thought that I was probably a writer, when she saw me. Of course, she said that after I had already told her that I was a poet.

"You look like a poet," she said, which made me start to wonder what poets look like, because there are, and have been an awful lot of us, throughout time, and we can not all have looked the same.

Take Bukowski; he doesn't look like Billy Collins, or Ezra Pound. Bukowski looks like himself, and so do Collins, and Pound. It's rather stupid to lump all poets into one fashion or facial pile. People like to stereotype, though; it makes things easier for them.

"Oh yes, he looks like a poet, he certainly can't be a serial killer."

I spent time on the internet, this morning, and my coffee got cold so I guzzled it. I like guzzling coffee, but this morning I now feel, somehow, like I have missed out on something: that slow sipping process that I am used to. I am debating having another cup: part of me says yes, that it will be an enjoyable experience and part of me is saying no, that second cup will make you jittery. I think, since I will have no human interaction, today, that I will say yes, and slowly sip on a nice hot cup of joe. I'll let you know if I get jittery.

You will never guess who gave me my first hit of LSD…it wasn't Timothy O'Leary or Jim Morrison: it was Ru Paul. Aren't you amazed by that? I am. More on this later.

I once went to Los Angeles from Orlando, trying to get away from me, but when I got to California I found that I was still there. I once went from one side of the nation to the other trying to get away from me

The good thing about when Bundy pukes on the carpet is that he licks it up when he is done puking. I don't think that I have ever seen Morisson puke, so I don't know if he would clean up after himself. I think that it is Bundy who cleans up after one of the cats upchuck. Bundy is the upchuck cleaner upper, and I am glad for this. I will have to remember to give the dog some brownie points when he does soemthing that aggravates me; saving me from cleaning up dog and cat puke on the carpet is a truly magnificent thing: yeah Bundy!
The Wrong Rebekah…
Mikel
Are you a rich and famous actress yet?
Rebecca
none of the above... you??
Mikel
Ha yes I m a famous actress
Rebecca
should we start calling you Michelle?
Mikel
Michella K
As long as you all are calling me



I couldn't understand why Rebekah blew me off so soon in the instant message session that I had initiated with her. I mean we had never been the absolute best offriends, but we had sat together over coffee, and chatted, quite a few times many, many years ago before she had moved to L.A. to practice her craft, which was to look lovely, and act.

I was sure that big things were going to happen for Rebekah in Los Angeles. At the least, I figured that if we didn't see her immediately lighting up the silver screen, that she would be smiling at us from our televisions, a regular on the hottest new show that Hollywood had to offer.

In our instant message conversation, Rebekah seemed a bit jaded, a bit standoffish; maybe I had used the wrong approach in saying hello to her, or maybe the years out there in Los Angeles, knocking on doors, had been hard on her, and had made her a tad cynical, a little bit angry.

Afte we spoke, I looked back at the conversation, and realized that I had made a terrible mistake: I had been talking to the wrong Rebeka. The girl who I was talking to was Rebeccah, not Rebekah.


Mikel K Poet: I've got to have some sex...I think I'm going to go buy a hooker.


Andy K: isn't it rent a hooker? to buy one would cost a fortune right?


Mikel K Poet: A man needs a maid.


Mikel K Poet: Maybe I'll just get a blow up doll, and return it when I'm done; that seems more affordable.


Mikel K Poet: I am kidding; I am really thinking about becoming a priest, or a nun. They have male nuns, now, like they have male nurses.


Mikel K Poet: A tramp, like me, was born to run: baby are you out there?


Mikel K Poet: I would make brownies, but I won't have any mix until tomorrow. The definition of insanity is wanting to make brownies today, when you won't have the mix until tomorrow. My name is Mikel, and I am a brownie addict.


Christy D: Oh honey, I did not know it was so serious. Maybe you should take a trip down to the Angle. You know you could go 13 stepping there!

Mikel K Poet: I KNEW that you (Christy) would check in on this one!! I don't do the angle, and I was never a 13th stepper; in fact, I am almost perfect in every way...except for a raging brownie addiction...can you help me?


Christy D: Got no brownies, but E and I are going to make choc chip cookies after dinner, and Harry Potter. You know the mom thing!


Mikel K Poet: You are a great mom,, and a great lady...I admire your sense of humor. You wouldn't happen to have an extra blow up doll laying around the house, would you?


Christy D: No, me apologizes: never had use for a blow up! What about your right hand lady?


Mikel K Poet: "One is the loneliest number; it s the loneliest number since the number two.."--Three Dog Night


Mikel K Poet: This was an experiment.(I was joking about buying a hooker, in case you couldn't tell) and, except for Christy, it failed, which means that it was a success, because it is always nice to chat with Christy, on here, and in the "real" world...!!
Keep coming back.
PS Christy D: Two can be quite as bad ....!
A thought on the initial interaction with the woman…If you are all over her. like may I say, a fly on shit, then she will not be interested in you. If you salivate like a Pavlov's dog at her existence, she will blow you off like you run from cockroaches in your supper plate. This is my experience, anyway. The ladies that I "score" like to be ignored, in the beginning; they like the chase, they like to feel as if they are running me down, and throwing the net on me, not the opposite. Love, as they say, is a strange game.

Jesus was a Capricorn--Kris Kristofferson
Jesus wasn't a Gemini like me.
Jesus was a Capricorn, he ate organic foods.
He believed in love and peace and never wore no shoes.
Long hair, beard and sandals and a funky bunch of friends.
Reckon they'd just nail him up if He come down again.

'Cos everybody's got to have somebody to look down on.
Who they can feel better than at anytime they please.
Someone doin' somethin' dirty, decent folks can frown on.
If you can't find nobody else, then help yourself to me.

Egg Head's cousin Red Neck's cussin' hippies for their hair.
Others laugh at straights who laugh at freaks who laugh at squares.
Some folks hate the whites who hate the blacks who hate the clan.
Most of us hate anything that we don't understand.

'Cos everybody's got to have somebody to look down on.
Who they can feel better than at anytime they please.
Someone doin' somethin' dirty, decent folks can frown on.
If you can't find nobody else, then help yourself to me.

Help yourself, brother.
Help yourself, Gentlemen.
Help yourself Reverend.
Money Don't Matter 2 Night--Prince
Wouldn't it be nice if money didn't matter? (But it does.) Try to pay your landlord with your dreams, your aspirations, your good will. It just won't happen.
Money don't matter 2night
It sure didn't matter yesterday
Just when U think U've got more than enough
That's when it all up and flies away
That's when U find out that U're better off
Makin' sure your soul's alright
Cuz money didn't matter yesterday
And it sure don't matter 2night
It is a nice concept to say make sure that your soul's alright, to imply that your soul is more important than money, but how many of us really feel that way. Does God hang out at the bank?
Hey now, maybe we can find a good reason 2 send a child off 2 war
So what if we're controllin' all the oil
Is it worth a child dying 4? (Is it worth it?)
If long life is what we all live 4 then long life will come 2 pass
Anything is better than the picture of the child in a cloud of gas
And U think U got it bad
Prince is getting serious in this verse, but how many of us heard him, how many of us understand what he is saying, how many of us know what he is saying but just let it roll over us. What can we do about war? What can we do about that child soldier who is not our own? What can we do, even, about our own child soldier. We are powerless, and there is no white chip to pick up for the situation.
Money don't matter 2night
It sure didn't matter yesterday (Yesterday, yesterday)
Just when U think U've got more than enough
That's when it all up and flies away (Flies away, flies away)
That's when U find out that U're better off
Makin' sure your soul's alright
Money didn't matter yesterday
And it sure don't matter 2night


In Paris, they read the obituaries to hunt for apartments!

I had to microwave my coffee, this morning, because I let the coffee get cold. It's five a.m. and I am, pretty much, wide awake. Thanks Lord for letting me see this new day: it has so much potential. It is raw, unlike any other day that I have ever lived. The gift of life is the most precious thing that the creator has given us. While alive, all things are possible. Do you want a new car? Go out and get it. Do you want to shower your children with love? Do it. I fed the dogs, and cats before I made my coffee, this morning, as I usually do. I think that the animals should go first; that is at least in part why I don't eat them anymore: respect. We should have respect for all living things. If we don't need to eat them to survive, why should we force feed them, inject them with growth hormones, and then cruelly kill them to eat? I see no reason why.

You probably can't tell someone that you love them too much. In my case, I am thinking about my kids. I just sent them an email at 5:46 a.m. that says that I love them. They will wake up to find it, and I would think that it might be a great way for them to start their day. I mean it's not like finding a new Mercedes, that belongs to them, now, parked out in front of their living space, but heck it's the best that I can do give my current circumstances. Do you think that handing out Mercedes to family members is a good way to show your love?
I failed to tell you that several days after I returned from Oakland, Monkey, the cat, returned to my front porch, and has been eating the food that I put there for him. It is funny how things can get disrupted between you, and your animals, when you are gone for even a short period of time. Monkey probably wondered what the heck happened to me, even though I left food for my next door neighbor to feed her. Maybe the bond between an animal and a man or woman is stronger than food.
Scout got suspended from school, last week, for two days because she got caught, again, texting in her math. class. Now, if there is a class to be texting in, in my opinion, its got to be math. class so I think that they should have given her extra points, or an extra grade on the report card, for not picking an interesting class like English.
I was always good in math., when I was a kid: they had me in honors math. through tenth grade, the grade that Scout is now in, until I talk them, the school and my parents, out of it. I can't remember what my argument was, but I must have been very smooth to get out of it. Honors math was no fun. It was hard, and most of the kids in the class were geeks. The sad thing that I soon leaned was that regular math was hard, also, and just as boring, and the "cool" kids ignored me, like I was a leper. I guess that I was kind of a geek, also.
If there had been cell phones, back then, and I had had one, I bet that I would have been texting during math., also.
Some of us had bad experiences in the family that we were born into. Maybe it is because the attitudes toward parenting that were held by our parents were harsh(how many times did your father tell you that he loved you?) or maybe it was for some other reason, but, as adults, we find ourselves in atypical(for back then)family situation.


I have nothing against people who eat turkey for Thanksgiving, though I do have something against the folks who killed The Indians, though there is not much that I can do about it, and I fully realize that I am a beneficiary of the brutal, evil killing of The Native Peoples. I ate turkey for most of 52 years that I have been on this planet: this will be my second year that I have not eaten the bird.
The first year, last year, I didn't think that I could do it; I had this idea about how awful it was going to be to just eat vegetables for the holidays (Christmas was looming near by.) My oldest boys' wife brought the neatest non-turkey dishes, though, to add to the wonderful vegetable dishes that my son's mother had cooked. I enjoyed my meal tremendously, and got as full, and happy as I ever had gotten eating the full range of the Thanksgiving meal offerings.
I Googled, "Thanksgiving turkey raising and killing," and I found this post by, "Uppity Person," which pretty much says what I was going to say(except that I think it would have been better for he, or she, to keep the turkey as a pet!:
"I know my bird, because I raised it, was raised in decent conditions, know what it ate, know it wasn't stuffed in a tiny cage with no room to move and nothing to do but eat the hormone/antibiotic ridden food put in front of it, know it didn't have its beak chopped off to prevent it pecking at other birds, know that it was treated respectfully and butchered without a lot of trauma (like being hung by its feet while proceeding down an assembly line with other terrified birds).

I agree that being more actively involved with obtaining your food is a good thing even though my ancestors were not involved with "genocide against the Native Americans , enslaved the African People , and murdered millions across the world in the 20th century".
Wow, Uppity Person really got some mileage out of the evil way that your turkey is raised and killed, rallying against the whole, or much of, the American way of life!!
Have a nice day.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7068135&mesg_id=7068403

My friend, Laura Miller, is going to the Doctor, today. Prayers are in order, but I still feel powerless. I'm not always sure that my prayers work, but I'm not sure that they don't, so I keep saying them, but in more harsh situations like the one that Laura finds herself in, it is harder to keep the faith. Laura seems to have a good attitude about it though, here is what she posted in her Face Book:
Laura Miller has to go get a mammogram in the morning. Would somebody else go as my stunt double and get their boobie smushed for me?
Faith, for me, is a crucial thing. Without it, life would be dismal. Right before she went off to the Doctor's office, Laura Miller posted this:
I have a mass in my right breast. I am headed out the door as we speak. Thanks for all the well wishes!
And all I could think to reply to her with was:
Love=sending, I mean what else can you do, in this situation, and in most situations in life but have faith, and send love.
If you pray, will you please pray like Hell for my friend Laura Miller.
"...you can't prove life and love and death are anything more than random happenings."
"...we are all poems coming out of the mud."
And I will let my people know that I am looking forward to meeting a great legend as you.
I was just just taking a nap: Bundy woke me. He doesn't like it when the mailwoman puts bills in our box.

I don't remember feeling loved as a child. I was fed, clothed, housed, and often reminded by my father that it was he was feeding, clothing, and housing me, and that I lived in "his house."
I could only take a shower once a week in his house, and I couldn't walk back upstairs to my bedroom, but once a day, when it was time, at night, to go to bed. But worse, than that was my father often telling me, that, "it was your mother who wanted you, I was too old." I mean what a thing to tell a kid. I lived in fear of my father. I remember running away from his foot, on many occaisions. I can't remember if he actually landed his boot, or his hand on me, ever, but I bet that he did. He took great pride in saying that he, "only spanked me to a certain age."
There is no handbook to fatherhood, and I assiduously avoided doing to my kids, the things that my father did to me that felt bad. By having a lousy father, I became a great one, and you can ask my kids for proof of that.
***
I have to admit that not every cup of coffee that I make is a good one. I make my coffee malita style, and sometimes I leave the water in the micorowave too long while I type away, or I leave the coffee in the cup, after I have poured it through the grounds, while I type away. Malita style is a trick that was taught to me by Matt Bowen, when he was first training me to be a barisita.
In malita style

I was outside with my dogs, today, Thanksgiving, and, suddenly, Bundy made a beeline for the side of the house. Morisson followed him in rapid succession. I heard barking, like a dog fight, and the screaming of my downstairs neighbor, a nice lady, who I'll call Barbara. I limped on cane to see what was going on, and I could see Barbara beating on Morisson, trying, I guess, to get him away from her dog. I don't know if my dogs were just being nosy, and inquisitive, like they most always are, or if there was a fight going on amongst the three dogs. It didn't matter: Barbara was unhappy with whatever was going on, and it was my job to end it.
I started barking commands at my dogs, "Go home," I screamed at them, and thankfully they went home.
"Are you o.k.?" I said to Barbara. My heart was pounding.
"Yes," she said, and I was reassured.
"Is your dog o.k.?" I asked her.
Silence.
I could see vet visits, and hug bills, coming at me now, but I decided to not freak out, and just put some time between the incident, and myself, and Barbara. As Art Linton sings in one of his songs, "Time Heals All."
Hopefully, the next time that I see Barbara, she will have a smile on her face, and I will have my dogs on leashes, like I should have.
"That kid sure has a lot of grandfathers," said one of my grandson Elliot's many grandfathers, and he was right: Elliot, has Grandpa Andy, Grandpa Kevin, Grandpa Mikel, and Grandpa Gary, who was the Grandpa commenting on all the Grandpas that his grandson had.
Grandpa Gary, is the only Grandpa related to Elliot by blood, which is probably what he was talking about. His daughter, Tomi, is Elliot's mommy, and from there the situation might get confusing to anyone who doesn't understand that, to many of us, a family is as much about love, as blood, and I am not saying that Grandpa Gary doesn't know that. Grandpa Gary is a loving person, whose chats on Karma helped me to quit eating meat. Grandpa Gary has, possibly, just not experienced anything like our side of the family; a fairly weird, and very un-Leave It To Beaver like type of family. His daughter's husband had two father figures, as I like to call them, (I hate the word step or half--Kevin and I stepped nowhere, we are still here)and his mom has the greatest lives in sin with her boyfriend, Andy, who loves Elliot like…
I never had a grandfather, so I am happy for Elliot that he has an abundance of them. Maybe one will live longer than the others, so Elliot will have a granddaddy way past the time that some other kid might have had a granddaddy. Maybe one or more granddaddy's will be too busy to spend much time with Elliot; then having an excess of grandfathers might, again, come in handy.
It was a sad day, today, for millions of turkeys.
Yuck. I'm about to start drinking store brand tea. This wouldn't matter so much if it was iced tea that I was talking about: I could put some sweetener in it, add lemon; it wouldn't much matter what kind of tea that I was brewing, but I am talking about hot tea here, hot tea with milk, my second favorite drink in the world behind a nice cup of hot coffee.
Facebook Pop Up: Something's gone wrong. We're working to get it fixed as soon as we can.
Clark: How did your Thanksgiving go?
Mikel: I ate like a pig. Thanks, Lord, for the extra pounds of fat.
Clark: You may need it to get thru the lean months ahead -
Mikel: What lean months? Do you know something I don t? Or do you mean the no job months?
Clark: Uh... just a figure of speech.
Mikel: It s weird to have just a couple hundred bucks and no job. Faith, Clark, faith...
Clark: Sometimes I just can't wait to get off this RIDICULOUS planet.
Mikel: (: I type a smile, but really I'm silent. Clark has been a friend of mine for years. We have made music together; good music. Clark is one of the most talent artists on the planet. He is a painter. He is a poet. He plays a number of instrument well. He is a recovered drunk, who has nineteen years clean, and he has just been diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer.
Clark: I know that's not cool to say but....
Mikel: I understand, or at least I think I do. I have never been in your shoes but, I expect, I will be one day, one way, or another. I have my hip surgery on Dec. 7
Clark: I'm okay now, but when the anger kicks in....
Mikel: That I do understand.
Clark: Are you nervous about it?
Mikel: I gave away a lot of coffee in the week after my boss told me that they weren't going to hold my coffee shop job for me. No I m anxious to have the surgery. I m in a great deal of pain, and discomfort I'm getting old Clark. (I feel stupid whining to Clark about my hip replacement ills, when he is dieing, but I figure maybe I can keep his mind off his business at hand for a moment.)
Clark: Do you have pain medicine ?

Mikel: I met this guy who owns several small market
radio stations and we might could do llke 30 sec bit for that
I have naproxen, the prescription form of Aleve.
I guess i m about to get the good stuff after surgery

Clark: Don't let program stuff get in the way of treating the pain -

Mikel: Folks have already been asking me for my "extras!!"

Clark: I know. You find out what ails everyone.

Mikel: And I said I won t to your program comment
I'll use them as instructed and then shoot the leftovers haven t had a drink all day, no white chip necessary

Clark: It's not as much fun when you're actually in pain.

Mikel: Bummer. Well it will all work out as it is supposed to.

Clark: In fact, it's kind of a drag. Night night K.

Mikel: Night Clark; hug the wife for me.

You spend all year waiting for the holiday, and then, BAM, they are over. We have blazed through Halloween, and Thanksgiving, already this year, and Christmas will soon be upon us. The stores want us to think that Christmas is tomorrow, and are doing everything they can to encourage us to buy. The corporations start lining their shelves with Christmas items, as soon as the last boo is said on Halloween, these days, and, by Thanksgiving, you would think that Santa had already arrived.


Riding my bike home from work the other night, probably my last night ever
at that job, I came across a Honda Passport parked on the side of the street that had been in an accident; it was a beautiful car, except for its front end, which was quite a mess.

I have a friend who is an auto body repair man, and I was thinking how he would like to buy this SUV for cheap, and then he could easily fix, and paint it,
because that is what he does for a living: fix cars, and paint them, if there is no painter in the shop that he is working in. Then, my friend would either drive the car that he had fixed as his own, or he would sell it for a nice profit, for how many among us are able to fix cars that have been in an accident?

As I got past the vehicle's front end, I looked in the passenger side window, and for the first time in my life, I saw discharged air bags. A feeling of fear came over me, and I found myself hoping that those air bags had worked, that the passengers in this Honda had not gotten hurt when they had hit something.

All my life, I have read the sticker on the steering wheel, and on the dashboard in front of the passenger seat that warn you about air bags being within. It was weird, and ominous to see two fully charged sets.

I said a prayer for the people who had been inside, and then I continued riding my bike home. You never know when an accident is going to hit you.

Normally, I ration my avocados, spread them out over salad, or include them sparingly in burritos that I make at home, but, tonight, I decided to treat myself to a whole, ripe avocado, and just eat the moist, delicious bites of yellow and green avocado out of it's rough skin with a spoon; like the avocado skin was a soup bowl, and the avocado was the soup: what a treat!

Then, I fixed my self a hot tea with milk. This was a bit of an experiment because I had bought two boxes of the store brand tea. Normally I buy a nice name brand tea, and I love it, but since I am going to be out of work, with my
upcoming hip replacement surgery, and the rehab time of 4 to 6 weeks that the good Doctor says that I will need after the operation, I am trying both to cut back on what I spend on individual items, and to stock up on as many things as I can.

I make my coffee melitta style; this means that I boil my water fo 5:45 seconds in the microwave oven, and then pour it through the coffee grounds that I have placed in a paper funnel, which I have place in the melitta cone.
Often, during my day, I have a hot tea with milk. The way that I make this beverage, is to fill a cup with water, add two tea bags(it's a large cup,) and then put the cup in the microwave oven for 2:41. I don't know how I came up with these times, but they work for me. Sometimes, however, I forget what I am doing, and I set the tea for 5 minutes and 45 seconds. I usually catch myself, but not before the tea is way too hot for me. The only solution then is to add extra milk. Waiting around until the tea cools down is not an option; I am a far too impatient tea drinker for this.
Jaggar, who has long been unaffectionate, has, recently, taken to sleeping next to my left leg. He put his paw on my shin, scratching it a bit, causing it to itch a great deal, and wake me up. I love that he is finally feeling comfortable enough around me to sleep near me, but that part of my leg is plagued by psoriasis and I can't have Jaggar aggravating it. I may have to start wearing sweat pants to block his affection.
My cats get the cheap stuff, in the mornings, now, as their wet snack. Kobain doesn't mind it, at all. In fact, he often eats the food off of both his bowl, and Jaggar's plate, because Jaggar often doesn't eat his. If I buy the more expensive wet cat food, Jaggar takes more of an interest in it. I guess that he is a wet cat food connoisseur, or a wet cat food snob, one or the other, or both.
Jaggar has this new habit of scratching his paws on the back of my chair. For some stupid reason, when this first occurred, I thought that it was Bundy doing this, because it just seemed like something Bundy would do, although Bundy is not doing things that he is not supposed to with the great regularity that he used to.
The name brand Cola, the Cola whose name you see everywhere, did not last three days in a two liter bottle that I brought home on Thursday: I am drinking flat cola, flat name brand cola. Do you think that they do it intentionally: make it go flat fast, so that you will drink it fast, so that you will drink it before it goes flat, and then go out and buy another bottle of it?
I wouldn't put it past them.

Among other things, my children's mother has pogonophobia, a fear of beards.
When I went out to feed Monkey, this morning, he was nowhere in insight. Instead there was a large monster picking up bags of leaves, and other trash, with its huge claws. I had never seen such a department of sanitation vehicle. It was quite impressive, and for Monkey, I am assuming, quite scary.
I am in quite a bit of pain this morning, which leads me to wonder what next week will be like, when I am not allowed to take the anti-inflammatory pill, naproxen, that I have been taking for the last several months. Often, when you predict pain, or hard times, they do not turn out to be as bad as you have predicted. Let's hope that that is the case with my hip, and leg pain.
My hip replacement surgery is going to take place a week from today. I do not know, fully, what to expect; I just have bits, and pieces, in my mind of what is going to occur on that day, and what to expect afterwards. I don't know how big my scar is going to be, or how long that I am going to be in the hospital, after the operation. I have a pre-op appointment scheduled for the morning of the surgery. I will learn a lot there, and have many of my questions answered I am sure.
I have never had surgery before in my life. I am looking forward to this one, because I understand that after a rehab period of four to six weeks that my life will go back to where it was before my hip went out on me. I will be able to walk my dogs, take the yoga class that I so love, and not limp around the house, and the world, in intense pain.
You can't beat that, now can you?

I was sitting at my desk, reading a book, writing some poems…the usual, when a friend of mine sent me a message on Facebook.
Her: Do you drive? Like as in a 24 ft moving truck?
Me: I thought about it, and replied: Is that the really big truck? If so I would be scared to, but I would try if you really, really needed me to.
The rest of the conversation went like this:
Her: Well, I gotta move it...kind of scared to do it too...but got to be done so~I think I'm gonna give it a try...your help would be appreciated, but if you don't think you can...don't worry...wouldn't want to injure you so close to surgery time!!!


Me: I'll try.


Her: Really? Are you sure? Leaving work in about 30 mins...can I come pick you up? Are you really sure?


Me: I'll try! See you in 30.


Her: Cool!!!

It is weird: yesterday my hip was giving me great pain, and I woke up, this morning, and my hip was acting as if it was almost brand new. The weather seems to affect how my hip will act, what level of pain it will give me, and I think that it is also whimsical, deciding arbitrarily, each day, whether or not to plague me.
So, as I was driving the massive rental truck down Moreland Ave., yesterday, my friend calls from the car behind me, and says, "We need to put gas in the truck; why don't you pull over somewhere easy."
I pulled into "somewhere easy," a gas station that I have been buying gas at for years. I pulled up to a pump, and my friend walks up, and points out that the little hole for putting gas in is on the wrong side of the pump, and that I will have to move the truck.
As I am driving around the corner, at the other end of the gas station, I run the massive rental van up against a police prison van, that the police have just put a prisoner in.
Fun, fun.

I used to bring a date under one arm, and a fifth of jack under the other arm, to FSU football games, and when I'd wake up in the morning they'd often both be gone! At the time, I thought that this was fun, but the Jack Daniels consumption, then, was indicative of a huge problem that I would have with booze in general later, and, of course, I have yet to figure women out, and why they do, or don't, show up in my life, and then disappear from it.

A week from today, I am going to have hip replacement surgery. For the next week, I can not take Naproxen, which is the only thing, I believe, that has been keeping me from intense pain in the hip to knee areas of my body.
I don't know what to expect from this surgery, and I don't know what to expect from the removal of this anti-inflammatory pill, except for even more pain than I have been experiencing while taking it, and that has been quite a bit.
I've been wondering, tonight, if there are any illegal pain pills, that wouldn't thin my blood out.
Pain sucks.
Facebook headline: I've got to have some sex...I think I'm going to go buy a hooker.

I was kidding here; trying to get reactions from my FB readers. Sometimes, I'll do anything for a laugh. I think that buying sex from a hooker is a lonely, depressing,
degrading experience, both for you, and for her, or for you , and him, if you are engaging in homosexual prostitution. Sex should be loving; it just should, and I am not basing this on any religious preaching, I am just basing this on the way that I feel about it.

There was this prostitute who used to hang out on the street corner near this coffee shop that I worked at. She was a major babe, and stayed busy, all the time. She told us that she had kids, and a husband, and was just doing this for extra money. I felt sorry for her. I guess that she had the advantage that she was not strung out on heroin, or crack like so many other women who walk the streets looking to trade their body for dollars.

I guess, though, that this world is about choice, and if two grown adults want to have sex for money, that might be their business. I think that there are too many laws, and that most laws benefit the men and women who made them, or the men and women who made the men and women who are making the laws.

It's a crazy world out there, and I don't really have all the answers, although on some mornings, when that first cup of coffee has kicked in, I think that I do.

Beware of a coffee drinking man, who, sometimes thinks that he knows it all: he doesn't!

Facebook Heading: Jaggar has a strange attraction to my feet. He often rubs up against them during the day, indicating that he wants something. He sits near them, when I am at my desk, and, now, at night, he sleeps near them on my bed, sometimes biting, and or scratching them, if they get too close to him, while he is dreaming: weird cat, really. Good morning, world!


Tanila, Jagga But sounds like a pretty cool cat! (even if he does have a foot fetish).

r was found in a fast food parking lot, chest caved in, his mother dead next to him, run over by someone in a hurry to get a Big Mac. He was nursed, and nurtured, back to life by a concerned staff at a vet's office, and they turned him over to me, when he was ready for the "real world." Jaggar has always been anti-social, but I still love him. Love will bring you around, yeah yeah!


A woman who I can't put down

Books bore me,
women bore me.

Ok,

most books bore me,
most women bore me.

I'm looking for a book
that I have to read
from cover to cover.

I'm looking for a woman
who I can t put down.

--Mikel K


Tue, December 1, 2009 5:36:35 PM
From: nastymom Subject: Let's meet up today
To: mikelkpoet@yahoo.com
Let's meet up; send me a message below, and let me know.

NastyMom?

Send her a message? What kind of message?

I bet she would move on fast, if she is a she, when I
sent her the message that I don't have a credit card.

How dare they call a, "Mom," nasty?
Aren't most moms practically virgins, at least since
they have had the last kid?

She wants to meet up. Ha ha. You really got to love
the creativity of these online hustlers, and the beauty
of the false characters that they create to get you
interested in their porn, or phone sex. What losers.

I hope that they all go broke.
Go away, and quit spamming me.


I just had a dream, while taking a nap, that I was about to be given the keys to a city. What city, and why I was being given them, I'm not sure: I woke up before I found out why they were giving me the key. I woke up because I had itchy eye so bad, that I had to get up, and go to the bathroom, and put some drops in my eye. I wonder how many people have failed to get their key to the city because they had itchy key; not a lot I would imagine. I wonder how many people were about to receive a key to a city, and did not know what they had done to receive such an honor.
I have some wack dreams. Mostly I can't remember my dreams. I can only remember them if they come close to when I wake up, and even then, I forget a lot of them. I know that you are supposed to analyze your dreams, some people even say that you should write you dreams down, but how can you do any of that if you don't remember them?
Maybe in my dream, I knew the reason why I was receiving the key to a city. Maybe I just didn't know what city it was, but I will never know. Dreams don't come back to me later. Once I wake, what I know is what I know. What I remember about my dreams, is what I remember. It kind of sucks to be getting a key to a city, and not know why, and to not know what the city is.
Oh well. Maybe I'll take up tennis, again, once my hip is replaced, and I will win a trophy, or two. It won't be the same as winning a key to a city, but what can you do. Dream until your dreams come true.*

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." - Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

This gives me hope, as an author. Although, I don't "submit" very often, I will have to always remember that someone said, "NO," to The Beatles!!!


Mikel K Poet: Thanks, Art Linton, for posting this in your wall.
about an hour ago.

Billy Fields: Yep. That is a good one.


LeeAnne Leslie: Someone also said no to Sylvia Plath, and to Eva Cassidy...now, years after their deaths they are legendary..

Mikel K Poet: I want to be a living legend, getting paid in the here, and now.

LeeAnne Leslie: Of course... just saying, that recognition is not an establishment of talent...Look at Britney Spears.


Mikel K PoetI'm a recognizable talent: if you have your eyes open, your ears tuned, your brain turned on!
I didn't feel like getting out of bed, this morning. It wasn't one of those lousy mornings, that I had lived with for so long, where depression had got a hold of me by the neck, was strangling me, and was not allowing me to get up; it was one of those great mornings where I was happy to be alive, and I just wanted to lay there, on my comfortable bed, enjoying the new day, without jumping right into it. And besides, Bundy was at the side of the bed, panting, and puffing, demanding to be petted and loved, and I just wasn't ready to start all that with this dog quite yet.

Bundy has calmed down a lot, from when I first inherited him, but he can still be high maintenance. He especially gets excited first thing in the morning, when he sees me about to get out of bed, and also when he realizes that he is about to be fed, and when he sees me grabbing my coat and cane, figuring that that means that he is going to get to go outside.

Love is not always given to you the way you want it, but if you are wise you can figure out ways to accept it. Donald Miller says that we have to stop looking at our lover as if they were Jesus. I'm not a Christian, but I understand what Mr. Miller is saying: none of us are perfect, and if we go about looking for perfection in our loved ones, we will never have love at all.

The crack that I put in my turtles' tank, several weeks ago, changing their filthy water, does not seem to be deep enough to expel water. I am happy for this, because it means that I will not have to buy a new turtle tank with money that I don't have. The turtles seem happy in their new cracked home; maybe they are thinking that their digs are now bohemian, man, though I doubt it: doesn't an unfixed broken window usually denote poverty, and not hip-coolness?

I probably look forward to my first cup of coffee in the morning more than I look forward to sex. My first cup of coffee in the morning does not lead to bickering, and misunderstanding. It does not lead to breaking up, and emptiness. My first cup of coffee in the morning is always there for me; it is like one of my dogs wagging their tail saying that I am loved, and not a lover who has seen through me, and realizes that I am not, "the great poet," but I am a flawed man, with many imperfections, including one that claims that I have no imperfections.

Morisson is much less forceful than Bundy in his search for my love, his search for my affection. Morisson uses a submissive approach, sneaking up quite often and trying to remove my hand from the keys on the laptop. Morisson loves love, and he knows that he is loved, while I think that Bundy is still trying to figure that out, and, once he has, once he fully knows that he is loved, like Morisson does, he will calm down.

At least that is my hope.
My holiday bonus check
Your holiday bonus check
Wed, December 2, 2009 10:19:31 AM
From: EddieA
To: mikelkpoet@yahoo.com
mikelkpoet@yahoo.com $500 holiday bonus check

Yo, EddieA, you sending a bonus check my way,
and all I have to do is click on the handy link
that you provide. I never heard of you, I never
worked for you. Are you pushing porn, or, maybe,
a virus?

Shoo, EddieA, shoo.
Kobain comes back to his dish, about an hour after eating his breakfast snack, which is about a tablespoon of the store brand wet cat food. He looks in it, and then sniffs it, and then he walks over to Jaggar's bowl, looks in it, and sniffs it. Looking a little bit disappointed, Kobain then walks over the water bowl in the kitchen that he shares with Jaggar, and the two dogs, Morisson and Bundy. There is water in it; he walks away looking satisfied.

Our dating service is for you. We have lots of registered women who are interested in older men. How dare they categorize me as an older man. At 52, I figure that I am just getting started. How old are these women that are supposedly interested in me? Some people will stick their noses in anywhere to make a buck. I'm not even looking for a woman right now. I'm too old for all that.
As I get closer to next Monday, when the old left hip that I have, will be replaced by a new metal one, I'm getting all kind of great offers. My friend, LeeAnne has offered to manage my drag career, a career that I didn't even know was available to me. Is there a market for a hefty 52 year old man, who was never considered GQ, to run around in a blonde wig and mini-dress? Gag me with a spoon.


It occurred to me, tonight, as I was making coffee, that when I am talking to myself, as I go about this small apartment, that I might not always be talking to the dogs, cats, or turtles.

What if one of the dogs or cats calls the loony bin, and says, "Look here, this fellow that feeds us, has been talking to himself. Of course, that would be biting the hand that feeds you, and my dogs like to eat, so they will probably let me go on going crazy, if that is what I am doing, as long as I feed them. The people from the mental institution will show up, eventually, to find some very well adjusted, and very well fell animals, and an aging man who has long gone crazy. Well, he isn't hurting anyone, they might say, and who is going to feed these animals, if we take him away? They leave us alone, and the dogs, cats, and turtles, and I breath a collective sigh.

Cats are very intuitive. I'm convinced that my cats talk to themselves, also, but I am so busy talking to myself, that I mostly can't hear them. I think that dogs are more likely to go crazy thank cats; in fact for the longest time I was convinced that Bundy needed lithium, and I am not completely sure, now, that he doesn't. That dog is just a little bit crazy.


Does anyone have doggie umbrellas that I could borrow for my dogs?

It turns out that at least two sources sell doggie umbrellas. They looked pretty much alike, but there was a five dollar difference in price. You can find out just about anything on Google, now can't you? Rupert Murdoch doesn't like this. The fat old billionaire is lusting for another billion. What a pig.

Some people I have respect for and some I don't, and the older I get the more I am learning that we are all just human. I used to worship John Lennon…


I'm going to have to take a shower, today. When I was younger, I used to love taking showers, now I look upon them as a chore that must be undertaken to keep people from running away from me. My first morning coffee has been delightful. I am thankful to see this new day. Rain rain...




Jazz is not going to come back on our schedule, he is going to come back on his schedule. This pearl of wisdom just hit me, as I was contemplating baking banana bread for the very first time. Can someone make the bananas ripen up for me?

still talking to yourself? hehhehe
I always talk to myself, even at work,
in front of customers, on the register.
I m crazy.
You didn t know that
You must be crazy, if you didn't notice;
you've know me long enough.
Isn't it crazy how the crazy don't notice
when someone else is crazy?



My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard!

From: mymilkshake
To: mikelkpoet@yahoo.com

Cum check me out!
I'll let you have a taste!
I'm going to bake banana bread from scratch, for the first time in my life. The young girl at the grocery store where I bought the ingredients, today, asked me if I was a, "Senior Citizen," and I said that, "I sure was," and she knocked three bucks off the bill.



Hey Sugar, are you being neglected?
From: Get Down To Business
To: Mikel K Poet
Why don't you let me take care of that?
I know how to please a man and get down 2 bidness!

Send me a hello if you like!

Oh yes, I would like to send you a hello. Can I give you my credit card number, and, maybe, my social security number, while I'm at it. Why don't I just open my wallet to you, and let you eat a deep hole in it. I bet that you are never satisfied when it comes to money. You would just swallow it all wouldn't you?

Somewhere around that point where sleep ends, and being awake takes over, I experienced this fear about my upcoming hip operation, which is now four days away. This is the first time that I have had any concern about the operation, and the fear lasted for only seconds.
Everybody can't be a poet, just like everybody can't be a doctor, a lawyer, or a mailman or woman.
I need to go to the Eye Doctor. I am supposed to go once a year, and, right now, I am several months behind. I wear reading glasses. Glasses can be a pain in the rear, but they help you see. Everything is blurry on my computer, and in the books that I read, if I don't wear reading glasses. I thought that that was important for you to know.
I can pretty much tell if a woman and I are going to make it by her interest in music. If she thinks that the band, "Fear," is a bunch of noise, then she has a music interest much like my parents did. See ya.

Jaggar is getting better about not scratching, and biting me, in the middle of the night, unless that was Kobain that I rubbed my feet up against, last night, while sleeping. One of the cats left a small pile of poo in the hallway that leads to the bathroom. I didn't step in it, which you have to be thankful for, as I headed for that first sleepy pee of the day.
It is Thursday; my hip replacement surgery is getting closer and closer. I really don't know what to expect; what it will be like to be put under by an anesthesiologist , what it will feel like to wake, and have a new hip. Will there be intense pain? How much trouble will I have walking? How much help will I need?

I think that I am a fairly independent person. It will be weird to have to depend on others for basic needs. I'm not exactly sure who the people are who will help me with these needs, but my son's mother seems to be offering her assistance, and, strangely, enough, maybe, many of my friends on Facebook have said that they want to help me out. I think that I am better at make friends in cyberspace, than I am at making them in the real world. Maybe I'm a better writer than I am a human being, Maybe I look better in pictures, than I do in real life. Maybe, in cyberspace, I put out a hello, how are you, nice to meet you attitude, and in real life I have conditioned myself to say stay away from me.
They are going to put a tube in my penis, so that I can pee through it into a bag. It is weird to think that someone(s) will be all up in your penis, and you won't even feel it. Isn't having your penis touched mostly a thing of feel? I am fucking with you here.
Also, I am pretty sure that I am going to be staying in the hospital for two or three days. Room service? I like hospital food, just like I used to like cafeteria food in high school, and many of you didn't. I didn't like the food in jail, though, back when I was getting locked up drunk. Even hung over, jail food wasn't palatable to me. We all have our standards?
At age 52, I am going to, finally, have to face the fact that I am a slob. I can't keep up with a living space, pay for it, and keep it clean. I think that if I had a cleaning service in here, once a day, that it would still not be enough. I don't really mind living messy, because it's my mess, but you know that when a love interest shows up, if she ever does, again, that she is not going to like it; most women like to live clean.
Part of the reason that I am a slob, I think, is because my parents were so fastidiously clean. Living in their house was like living in a bottle of bleach. I think that living spaces should be lived in, and not preserved like some sort of a museum, or art gallery. That's it, I'm rebelling against my parents.
Isn't there a point where you have to give up rebelling against your parents. Would not that point might be when you have children of your own?
Scout will be home from school in about ten minutes. I have a plate of food waiting for her, if she is hungry. I fixed my special fried rice dish, but I made it with peppers and salmon, which is different than the corn, peas, and onions that I usually make it with. It's rather tasty, if I might say so myself, and if Scout doesn't want it, I'll be glad to eat it.
There is also a nice sized piece of the first banana bread that I have ever baked from scratch. I got a recipe from a friend on Facebook. It was easy to make, and turned out really well. I want to learn more and more about cooking. Home cooking is where it's at, as far as I am concerned. Eating out is cool, too, but who can afford all that?

Someone told me that if you put bananas in paper bag, that they would ripen fast. Have you ever heard that? I now have some bananas in a bag. I am going to check on them soon. Sometimes, when I want to bake banana bread, the bananas take their own sweet time ripening, and then, other times, when I don't want them to ripen for any reason, they ripen fast. Do you think that bananas have a mind of their own, and that that mind is put here to irritate and outwit you, kind of like computers? I don't think so, but it sure seems like it at times.

My youngest son brought over a chair that he had found, while helping his older brother move. The chair was perfect for my needs: a recliner that I can put a light by, and read for hours. It is my chair, except for one thing: Jaggar has already moved in on it. He has been sitting in it almost the whole time that it has been here. I bet that he thinks that he has squatters' rights. Well, he is wrong. What sucks is that he is going to get his beautiful black hair all over my chair, and then I will be wearing his beautiful black hair when I get up from my chair. Sharing space with animals is a very interesting, and often amusing experience. I don't find it amusing, though, that Jaggar has taken over my chair. He needs to move on.

I'm living on a prayer; I woke this morning somewhat like I used to wake for decades of my life: depressed. The utility company was putting me in a serious hole, and I had just left my job due to medical needs. I am frugal with lights. I am frugal with heat, and still the bastards are able to hit me up for more than I can really pay. What the F?

Instead of swirling deeper into the depression, I put my hands together and prayed. I prayed like hell. I kept saying, "God guide me in though word and action. God guide me in thought word and action." I must have said it thirty times. And then I added in a bunch of, "Thank you, Lord, for letting me see the new day, breath the air of a new day."

And then I got my ass out of bed, fed the animals, made me some coffee, and I have beat the bad vibe. Shoo bad vibe; go away bad vibe!
Why do I need to be an asshole if someone else is an asshole? I don't, but I woke up near depressed, this morning, as close I have come to being depressed in years, and the lady who answered the phone at the pharmacy, when I called to find out about one of my pills, was kind of a bitch. I either wanted to hang up on her, or ream her a new asshole, but, I didn't: I said a little prayer, and the next voice I heard was the friendly one of the Pharmacist. I guess it's easier to be friendly when you are making far more money than minimum wage, but some people are dick heads no matter how much money they are making.
Using a speaker phone, when dealing with corporate Amerika on the phone can save you from much anguish. Instead of being held captive by the phone, you are free to do what you need to do, while these corporations making millions of dollars off of us put us through their push one for spanish, two to speak to another robot routine.

How would David Sedaris handle this? Or Augusten Burroughs? Or Donald Miller? They probably have personal secretaries to handle small business such as I was handling this morning. What I really need, though, is someone to come vacuum and clean my carpet. These damn dogs, and cats, are pigs.

How are you feeling today? Has my bitch made any sense to you? Can you relate brother and sister?

Someone is cutting a neighbor's lawn with a lawnmower that is make that most nauseating sound. No one should be allowed to cut their lawn when I am nursing a headache. I can't take any aspirin, this week, because of my upcoming hip operations, something to do with thinning of the blood. The lawnmower sounds like it is having a real bad day, like it is about to have a heart attack, and soon explode into oblivion.

I'm not Christmas shopping this year, I am Christmas baking. None of my family members are getting pounds of coffee beans, or gift certificates to useful stores; they are getting brownies, and banana bread, and, maybe, cookies.
My hip is getting harder, and harder to get around on. It is somewhat like a baby ready to be born: it wants to come out! I can't walk much, and I can't much walk without my cane. It feels weird to be so feeble. It is true that often we don't realize how good we have it, until our health is affected. The good news is that on Monday, this old hip comes out, and a new metal hip goes in. I wonder what it will be like to be put under. I wonder what I will feel like when I come back to see the light of day? I think that I am going to be laying in a hospital bed for a few days after the operation.

Room service!

The day started out dismal, but it is ending on a happy note. I baked a banana cake, today, and some half sugar brownies. Both were very yum, yum. I'm sipping on a coffee, right now. It doesn't get any better than this.
I have been told that you can start your day over, at any time that you choose to, and I am learning how to do this. A day that starts lousy, doesn't have to end lousy: we control much of our attitude.
For years I let my attitude control me.Now, I am a nearly perfect human being, in every respect.

Hah!
FB Headline: My hip is getting harder, and harder to get around on. It is somewhat like a baby ready to be born: it wants to come out! I can't walk much, and I can't much walk without my cain. It feels weird to be so feeble. It is true that often we don't realize how good we have it, until our health is affected. The good news is that on Monday, this old hip comes out, and a new metal hip goes in.


FB Headline:. This day has come to a close. What have I done, today, what will I do tomorrow? I had smiles for my fellow man and woman, all day, and, sometimes, that is all I have to offer. I put up some Christmas lights: they make me smile, and I hope that they make someone else smile. Smiling is an art form that we should all master. I am, mostly, the master of my own universe. I leave you with a smile as I head to sleep.



hey daddy
22:27Mikel
we re just a couple of old men, sitting around on Facebook every night
22:28Greg
yes sir i think i feel 42 tonight.
22:29Mikel
and that s alright
22:29Greg
thank you sir
22:31Greg
by the way my mental sabbatical is going well
22:33Mikel
good i am glad
i want good things for you
we've both seen enough doo doo poo poo
22:33Greg
ty sir
22:36Greg
and how
22:39Mikel
yup yup
22:40Greg
live well is what i say
22:57Greg
people are like air
every where
22:57Mikel
do you ever have to piss real bad, but you don t want to get up from the puter?
22:57Greg
no
22:59Greg
daddy why dosent no body call me?
23:02Mikel
don t go back to rockdale
they don t call me either
I guess you have to call them
23:02Greg
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
23:03Greg
by the way your run in with the van is my back ground on comp
23:03Mikel
ha
cool
that happened at the bp in little five
still getting involved with the cops in little five, only sober this time...!!
23:04Greg
ok
23:07Greg
at least you let them know yer still around
23:08Mikel
ha ha
23:08Greg
well
23:08Mikel
yes I was asking them about MacFarland
23:08Greg
is he still around?
23:08Mikel
they said no
but
i bet he is
23:09Greg
yea underground .. ha i almost forgot that name
23:09Mikel
rock and roll never forgets
23:09Greg
tooo true sir too true
23:11Greg
what happens when you....
23:19Greg
eat cake
23:20Mikel
i baked a banana cake today and brownies and when i eat them i feel happy
23:20Greg
as you are supposed to feel good , you did good
23:21Mikel
I am good you are good life is good
getting head is good
good good good
23:21Greg
hahhahahha
head is good
23:22Mikel
good head is better
great head is the best
23:22Greg
yes
master word smith you
23:22Mikel
word up
23:23Greg
daddy yer kind
23:24Mikel
my kind was blind for many decades
23:25Greg
watch the blind thing.. remember my eye? lololol
loveing the word smith
23:28Mikel
):
23:28Greg
awwwwwwwwwww daddy i love you
23:29Mikel
(:
23:30Greg
weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
at least i feel like you are a freind of mine
23:32Greg
guess i was wrong...
yer my daddy
23:34Mikel
what s up with all this daddy crap
23:35Greg
its part of my respect people older than you project
23:36Greg
dig it?
23:36Mikel
aint your daddy
boy
Mikel will do just fine,and would be a beautiful sign of respect
23:37Greg
whats up with the name callen sir?
23:37Mikel
what name calling
23:38Greg
lolololol
yer funn good
i can almost hear your voice
i shall call you mk
23:40Greg
fuck who am i?ust some dip shit with an attitude
yep dorkie willard
23:43Mikel
I m going to read a book for the last hour of this beautiful day
have a great night greg
23:44Greg
thank you good night sir

P 188 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Monkey wasn't waiting out front, this morning, when I came out with her food. I like it when she is waiting there for me, one because it is nice to see her, and say good morning to her, and two because I know that she is getting her food, and not some other neighborhood cat.
The well fed cat from next door has a habit of eating Monkey's breakfast, when he can, and I am not particularly thrilled about this. I am sure that this cat is getting fed next door, but he just likes our vittles better. It is around 30 degrees out there, this morning, and I am sure that Monkey is holed up somewhere warm.
Sometimes, in the afternoon, she will stand over her bowl, and start meowing. I take it then that she is hungry, and that someone else got her food in the morning. I love cats, but I can't feed every cat on the planet.
It is two days until my old hip is replaced with a new metal one. Once this procedure is complete, I will make the metal detectors at airports go off. "No, I m not a terrorist," I will tell the security guard, as I pull out a card from my Doctor's office stating that I have a metal hip.
Someone asked me if Lee Majors, the bionic man, was going to "Be with me," during the operation. I said, "Yes," and that once the surgery was over that I would be able to leap tall buildings with a single bound.
Rue Paul has just climbed onto the rock, where Prynce had already been laying, soaking up the heat from the lamp. It is cold out, this morning, and the turtles can feel it, and they seek heat, both from the lamp and from each other.
This morning, Prynce allowed Rue to climb up on his back, which he does not always do. I hope that in, keeping my heat turned down to 70 degrees, this winter, as opposed to the 80 degrees that I kept it at, last year, that I do not kill my turtles. The bill is unaffordable, either way. I wish that I was a millionaire so that I could make all the turtles' dreams come true.
Jaggar has completely taken over my new chair. He sits in it for most of the day, and night. He used to often hide under the bed, now he sits in the open in this chair instead.
Someone laughed the other night, in cyberspace, when I was telling my Facebook world that I was looking at my turtles.
"Don't you know," she said, "that The President is on the t.v. talking about sending more troops to war."
I had turned my cable off, trying to lower bills, because I would be out of work due to my hip surgery, so I didn't know that The President was giving a speech about war; all I knew was that my turtles were fascinating to watch. There is a lesson in here, somewhere, if we look.
I don't care about being on The New York Times best selling list; I care about having food for my dogs, cats, and turtles. I care about not going stark raving mad trying to satisfy the insatiable desires of the utility company. I like free time, I like to be free to write, and think, and mingle with my kids, and Elliot, my new grandkid, when they will all let me.
Have I told you about my grandson.? He is small. He smiles, and he is wary. He is not sure what to make of this large, loud man with the beard, who his momma, or daddy, have handed him to. Sometimes he laughs and has fun in the man's hands. Sometime, he pitches a fit, often immediately, to get back in the hands of mommy or daddy.
He is soft, and as he grows, he will know that his granddaddy loves him, and that his granddaddy is fun to be around. Granddaddy is glad that he doesn't have to change Elliot's diapers. Grandchildren are much less work than children, at least in my case, with, maybe, more of the benefits. I feel privileged that I lived long enough to be a grandfather.
Elliot, I love you.
Have you ever noticed that some Christmas music has the same feel to it, as music that you would expect to hear at a mental institution: kind of soft, kind of loving. Would that make Santa a patient, or part of the staff?
"We'll love you until you can love yourself." Have you ever had that said to you? I had it said to me a lot, when I first got sober, and, though I didn't fully understand what it meant, I liked the ring of it. I didn't feel loved as a kid, and I still didn't feel loved. Love is important. Let love ring.
FB Headline: Someone stole Monkey's food, this morning, and I just had to feed her, again; she was hovering over her food bowl, and pitching a fit. I mean what good is a food bowl, if there is no food in it?
Monkey knows that I will feed her, and, I guess, she now knows that I will feed her, again, if someone rips her food off. I guess that I have been feeding Monkey well, because people are saying that she has gotten fat. I may not be the only one feeding her. That cat may be a food con-artist.. From now on, if Monkey is not there, I am not putting her food bowl down for her. She will have to be there to get fed.
*******
I so appreciate your posts-- humorous and uplifting. Glad to know you, and, of course, I will be praying for you.--Merritt Serio
Smiles; happiness is a great gift!!! YOU have the talent/gift to make em laugh!! Smiles help us heal(maybe live longer) that is a great "offering"
--Sandy Roxanne Moore
Morisson has soft paws; Bundy doesn't. Dogs are like people, each one has a different feel. Sometimes, I feel more comfortable around my dogs than I do people. Everybody wants to be a Rock Star, but not everyone can have a ruthless manager, and an evil record label. Some of us have to be unemployed poets. It's cold out today; I'm not joking.
I just canceled a deal. I don't think he understood the material, and I didn't understand him. I'm in no hurry on the project. If it never gets done, it won't ruffle my feathers. My hand should fit your glove; in this case it didn't.
My dogs are weird about coming back into the house, when we have been outside for a visit. If it is a nice day, it is hard to get them to come back in; like today: there were a billion birds sifting through the trees. Is this weird for December? Is nature out of kilter. Is Al Gore out to make a buck by leading us to Global Sanity. Is anybody pure?


Morisson loves olives, while Bundy spits them out, and they both hate onions, and won't eat spinach or lettuce unless there is some dressing on them.
I baked a farewell banana bread tonight, It is the forth banana bread, from scratch, that I have ever baked in my life. I'm going to give half of it to Kevin, tomorrow, as he takes me to the Doctor's office for my pre-op visit, and then to the hospital to have my hip replacement surgery.
So far, I am not nervous. People have been asking me this. People in cyberspace have been so nice. They seem to be the only ones who care about me, besides Kevin, and he is getting half of this banana bread that I just cooked because I can't give him a million dollars, like I would like to: he is worth that much to me.
Twenty years ago he showed up, and became my sons' other father. For twentry years, he has been there for all of us. Sometimes you get lucky with the people that God puts in your life, and sometimes you get screwed. The kids and I got lucky with Kevin.
I just packed my suitcase. I think that I am going to have to stay in the hospital for a few days, and then I think I may have to stay at the kid's mom's house with her and her wonderful live in sin boyfriend, Andy. I packed for six days; I think that should cover it.
I also packed bags for Morisson and Bundy. Bundy will stay with Kevin, and Morisson will stay with Gigi and Andy, and the four dogs that they already have: Javi, Mojo, Shawtie, and Shanghai. I felt sadder about packing the dogs bags than I did my own. I wonder if Jaggar will bite me when I return home, like he did the last time that I went away? I was gone five days that time.
I can't wait to have this surgery. I am told that I will be able to return to my Yoga, and return to walking my dogs, and return to a life of normal mobility, where every anaesthetist step is not a painful one to take. I used to complain about doctors, moan and groan that they were only after our money. I'm thankful for the Doctor who is removing my hip. As I age I bitch less, and less. I realize more and more what a beautiful gift life is and how lucky I am to be living it. I don't point the finger so much anymore. I worry about me, and not you.
The part of tomorrow's hip replacement journey that I am most curious about is how it will feel when I am brought back around by the anaesthetihiologist after have been out for two hours. It is weird that they can knock you out like that and then bring you back.
I'm sure that I will be happy to be back.
Facebook Heading at Noon Today by Mikel K Poet: This is so embarrassing, after all the wonderful thoughts you all have sent out to me, but the surgery will not take place until Jan. 11, due to a mix up in scheduling. I am very bummed out about this, but have decided to start my day over, and look for the positive in it. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!



Facebook Headline at 5pm today by K: I just dumped the dogs a go a visiting food back in the big bag of stay at home dog food; their visit was cut short, like mine, due to a scheduling mishap regarding my hip replacement surgery, today. I just unpacked my suitcase, put my toothpaste back on the shelve, my clothes back on hangers, and in drawers. They won't be cutting this hip that is giving me so much pain out of my body for another month(Jan. 11) Things happen for a reason; tis the season for love, and I will try not to bitch.


Excerpt from, "Did You Write The Book Of Love? by Mikel K (Forthcoming)

So, I get to the Doctor's office, today, ready for my hip replacement surgery at one p.m., and the scheduling lady tells me that I never called back to confirm, so here I am with a packed suitcase, and a good I'm going to have my hip operated on attitude and no operation is going to happen.

The lady was kind of surly, at first, so I yelled at her. I'm sure that that is not an appropriate thing to do in a doctor's office. There were tears forming in my eyes. I have left my job. I am in great pain, and now I have another month and four days to wait until I get to give this old hip that I've got away, and get another one, a metal one.

I apologized to the lady when she came around from her desk to hand me the pink slip with my new surgery appointment time. She seemed to accept my apology; we hugged. I really don't want to point the finger at her, and I really don't want to accept any blame. What's done is done.

I told Kevin, on the way home, that I was going to try very hard to start my day over, and have a good attitude about this whole thing. I'm sure that no one was out to get me, or out to ruin my day: or month.

Sometimes things just happen. Things don't always go your way all the time.(Or mine!)

--Mikel K

PS My black cat Jaggar seems to be happy that I am home; he was just rubbing up against my ankle in the hallway, as I put clothes in the washer. When I left the house for five days, recently, Jaggar bit me on the ankle when I got home.
My dogs have begun to scratch themselves, and it was my thought that they couldn't have fleas in the cold. I have no money for flea control medicine, so they will have to keep scratching, and I will have to keep being irritated by their itching. There is no universal flea control care for poor dogs.
I'm tired, but I think that my last cup of coffee is going to give me at least another hour in this day. "No one's awake. No one's loving me," are the lines that come to mind, but I don't start that poem because it seems sappy; self-indulgent.
We are where we are for a reason. If we are alone, it must be meant to be. Most marriages, most relationships end in failure: all mine have. That's not quite true. I am still "involved" with most every woman who I have ever been involved with, from the one who gave me three children, to several one to two or three night stands.
This pain that I feel is because I am alone tonight, and I don't want to be alone tonight: I don't know what is the matter with me, I usually like being alone.
My ass is fat, and it is going to get fatter in this in limbo month of waiting that I have been cast into. I can't exercise, I can't hardly walk, so I sit at this desk all day and write, and socially network. The social networking helps the writing, It keeps me fresh. It gives me ideas. The people who I network with make me smile. They give me advice. One gave me a recipe for banana bread, and that has kicked in my new hobby: baking.
My next baking project will be a carrot cake. I found a nice recipe for one on the internet. It's weird that I am interested in baking. It's even weirder that I am writing about it, and sharing the info. to my social network. I used to be a badass. I was voted the "best" spoken word performer by the local rag two years in a row. I was a music writer who people read. I had a bad ass band; and now I bake banana bread, and carrot cakes.
What happened?
Morisson knocked over my heater, last night, the one that I place on a stool by my bed, so that I can keep the central heat turned on low, to try to keep the bill down, which is not really working. I think that the utility company is out to get me, that it is out to get us all!

There was a storm outside, and Morisson got up on his hind legs, put his paws on the bed, and kept trying to get his head underneath my no longer sleeping hand. Finally, he jumped up on the bed, where his goal was the same thing as it was when he had been on the floor: to get his head under my hand. He wanted the security that my hand provides him.

I hope that he didn't break my heater. It didn't work the first time that I tried it, last night, but then it appeared to work later. Poor Morisson, he is such a freak when it comes to storms, especially to thunder, and lightening. Bundy isn't bothered by it at all. It is funny how each dog has their particular pet peeves.

I'm tired, but I think that my last cup of coffee is going to give me at least another hour in this day.
"No one's awake. No one's loving me," are the lines that come to mind, for a poem, but I don't start that poem because it seems sappy, self-indulgent.
We are where we are for a reason. If we are alone, it must be meant to be. Most marriages, most relationships end in failure: all mine have. That's not quite true. I am still "involved" with most every woman who I have ever been involved with, from the one who gave me three children, to several one to two or three night stands. This pain that I feel is because I am alone tonight, and I don't want to be alone tonight. I don't know what is the matter with me; I usually like being alone.
I just woke; again. Usually I wake up early, like around five a.m. and then put in two or three hours on the laptop: typing, writing, then I go back to bed for a couple of hours. I am groggy, this afternoon, after my nap, as I often a.m. I have my trusty cup of coffee at my elbow. It should help the grogginess; it often does.
"Oh God, yes," I say, when my mouth touches that cup of coffee for the first time. I have made yet another perfect cup; just right in taste, just right in temperature. I am in for five minutes of pleasure.
I'm going to the unemployment office, today. I don't know what to expect. I had to leave my job because I'm getting that new hip. My supervisor checked, "Left for personal reasons," on my separation notice, and that I was, "rehirable," which is not what my general manager said.
She said that it was policy not to take an employee back after a four to six weeks rehab period, which is what the doctor told me that I would need, after the surgery.; but there was a girl in the bookstore, just the other day, who had left for several months, and was working again, so I don't know if my main boss was quoting official corporate policy, or was just making it clear to me that she didn't want me back. Such ambiguity is not comforting. Not having a job to come back to after getting a new hip, and rehabbing it is not comforting. Life in the work force is often not comforting. Why do they have to jack you around so?

I realized, today, that as my hip gets worse and worse that less and less gets done around this apartment. I don't, mostly, feel like cooking. The laundry is piled up. The dishes in the sink are piled up. I am using a cane to get around the apartment, now. I really can't wait to have this hip replacement surgery. Kevin, and I, are going to what they call a Pre-Op Appointment, tomorrow morning. I called the Doctor's Office to verify that our appointment was still at 8 a.m. and the lady came back on the phone and said, "Your appointment is at 10;30." She didn't seem real happy about living.
I took a nap, and a lady woke me, mostly wanting my insurance info. When she was done getting the info. out of me that she wanted, I asked her what time my appointment was. She put me on hold, and when she came back, she said, "11:00 a.m."
I told her that someone else had said, "10:30," and she said, "Well, come in at 10:30 then."
Kevin called, a little later, to verify the time, and the woman who he spoke to said, "10:15 a.m."
What the fuck. I wonder how these folks would be treating someone getting a new heart?
At the instruction of my Doctor, the nurse took my blood, the other day, and gave me a red arm bracelet, which, if I don't bring it on the day of the operation, will mean that I have to have the blood drawn all over, again, on the day of the operation, and they really frown upon that, so I better not forget it.

I have it taped to the ceramic turtle on my desk that holds all my day to day stuff, like my wallet, my keys, my pens, and the apparatuses that I use to prick blood from my finger and measure my sugar count.

The day draws closer where they will cut the old hip out of me. I met with an anesthesiologist, the other day; either he, or another anesthesiologist will put me under, a legal black out of sorts, where I will reek no terror upon myself, or anyone else, and will not wind up in a drunk tank covered in blood and puke.

I am ready for this surgery. I have never had surgery before in my life, but I have been told over and over by people who either have had the surgery, or have known people who have had the surgery that I will practically be able to walk on water once I have undergone the surgery, and have gone through the rehab process.

Another day ends as I grab Monkey's silver bowl, and bring it in the house, as the dog's come running in with me. "Go home, go home," I have said to them. I feed the turtles' and turn their light out. It is good to have a home; it is certainly good to have a home.
Things get complicated, when I can't just write. Selling books, and checking for money in Pay Pal accounts are not what I am gifted at, but, in order to one day pay the rent with my words, I guess that this is the path that I have to embark on. I am not complaining. Someone was good to me, today. They made sure that I will have High Speed DSL for the next month, and with High Speed Internet, I would certainly whither away, and no longer be in your existence.
On Monday, they cut my old, ailing left hip out.
*******
As I am standing in the kitchen, cane under my arm, this morning, struggling to cover a couple of just toasted pieces of wheat toast with peanut butter and marmalade, I think of how I will spend four days in a hospital room, next week, after my hip replacement surgery, and that someone will be cooking my food, and bringing it to me for those four days.
I am reminded of that scene in the move, "Clockwork Orange," where the lead character, Alex, finds himself in the enviable position of laying in a bed with people bringing him whatever he wants, because they want him to join a cause that they have created, for his rehabilitation. The look on his face, and the way that he smacks his lips, and looks totally pleased that HE is in charge have always cracked me up.
Anyway, I won't be in charge, and I won't be able to get whatever I want, but I won't be struggling to make a peanut butter sandwich, in my kitchen, with a can under my arm, either.

This time, tomorrow, I will be signing in to have my hip replacement surgery. I am not nervous, like some people have been asking me, I am ready to go; ready to go into this next phase of my hip story, which I see as having four parts.
The first part has been this pre-surgery part, where I have learned to live with pain, immobility, and a cane. The second part is the surgery, and all that goes with that including the anesthesiology, and the four day hospital stay related to the surgery. The third is the rehab period, where I will have folks working with me to teach me how to walk with a metal hip inside my body, and the fourth is the rest of my life, where I and my new hip are one, taking Yoga together, walking the dogs together, sounding the alarm at airport security check points together, living a full, active pain free life, together.
No, I am not nervous about the surgery that I am going to have tomorrow; I embrace it and look forward to it as part of this path that I am on.

My coffee, this morning was very satisfying. As I drank it, I realized that I would be unable to drink one tomorrow morning, as I can have no food, or liquids after midnight tonight, because my hip replacement surgery is at ten a.m. tomorrow morning. I do not know what to expect of the surgery. I have never undergone surgery before, unless having your tonsils out as a kid qualifies.
To my way of thinking, surgeons and anesthesiologist, and the rest of the team, are God-like in what they do. The anesthesiologist can take life, and give life back, in a sense, by putting you under, and then bringing you back to consciousness, and the doctor can give you a new body part, which makes your quality of life better, and all the folks that assist the doctor and the anesthesiologist, help make that miracle happen.
I have long whined, in person, and in poems, that all doctors care about are Porsches and swimming pools. I now see what a great, great service they can provide to humanity. Perhaps they deserve those Porsches and swimming pools.
I am not here to debate all that, today, I m just thankful for where I am at and where I am going to be, tomorrow, during surgery. I have lived with great pain for the last several months, and my mobility has gotten more and more impaired. The people who are going to help change that deserver props.
The Landlady came to the door, and said that the water was cut off to The House, because some pipes had burst. I'm not showering much because of this painful hip, so I wasn't too worried about it, and then I went in to fix a cup of coffee: GAG!! I dashed off a quick email to G2, and asked her if she could grab me a gallon of water, when she stopped by The Pharmacy to pick up my pills for me. She brought two gallons of water, with the pills, and...there was a copy of one of The Leading Music Rags in the bag, and two crossword magazines. This woman gave me three kids, but couldn't live with me because alcohol and mental illness had my ass, never stopped loving me, even through
all the hard times, and I told her tonight that, "as mad as I ever was at her, I always loved
her."
It has been a week since my surgery. It has been a long, and strange week, full of pain, and disorientation. I have met many people on this path, that I am on called rehabilitation; most of them have had a smile on their faces while I have been grimacing out at them in pain. They seem to understand what I am going through, they seem to have been down this road before. I hope that I don't have to go down this road ever again.

I like the sound of grandchildren or a grandchild playing more than I do the moronic sounds emitted into my existence by a tv that someone else controls. When I control a tv, it doesn't much get turned on.




No wheelchair push ups on the weekends: There is no physical therapy up here on the second floor of the rehab unit, on the weekends, so we mostly sleep, and eat





There are no cameras on The Rehab Unit(except for mine;) no one is worried about being a huge superstar, (except for me,) and it is, usually, more important, to me, that I make it back to my room on time to get my dinner tray, than it is to stop and have a photo op!!



In December, this 91 year old lady, was doing really well rehabbing her new hip, according to her niece, and then, one day, while she was using the bathroom, the little old lady had a stroke, which left her paralyzed on one side of her body.

Since then, the little old lady, has refused to go to Physical Therapy, or to leave her room. A couple of days ago, she quit eating. Her niece was just in here, where I am sitting on the internet, getting ice with tears in her eyes.

"She didn't have any children," said the women as she headed off to, once again, care take her now dieing aunt. "We will have to find another place for her to stay," she said, as she walked away.
My roommate Dave, a 68 year old man, prays over his food, without fail, every time they feed him, no matter how bad, or good, that he is feeling. I am impressed by this; I usually gobble down my food without thanking anybody.

About a week ago, Dave asked me to cut up his food for him; he has partial paralysis in his arms. Every day since then I have been snooping over to his side of the room to see what he got to eat, and if I might be able to help him out by cutting it up for him.

This morning, Dave had pancakes, sausage, and pears...I chopped them up for him, and then went back to my side of the room. A few minutes later, the nurse came into our room. She looked at Dave, and she looked at me, and she said, "You cut up his food," like I was in trouble. (They try to make us do as much for ourselves as we can up here.)

"Yes, Mam," I said. "Do you want another tray?" she asked me.
"Why, yes," I replied. (I'm almost always in the mood for more food!)

The Nurse was rewarding me for helping Dave out. There is a lesson here, and I have learned it. I expected nothing for helping Dave. I like the guy, and just wanted to make his life easier, because I could.
What goes around comes around.

-----------------------------------------
I read a sad story today about the lingering repercussions of losing one's job. So many people are hurting out there. What can we do? Pray...? I believe in prayer, but sometimes the problems in the world seem that they are insurmountable by mere prayer; do you know what I am saying?

------------------------------------------

I touched my hip for the first time today since the operation, nearly a month ago. I think that I have been scared to put my hand on my hip until now. I can feel where the sutures were. I can feel the swollenness of my hip. It is weird to think that a metal hip is now in there.
This is the end