Excerpt from Chapter 6 of "The Quitter"

     I used to love to look at myself in the mirror.  If you stare long enough, you start to look like a stranger to yourself.  You start to see the person that others see and not the person you think you are.  In my youth, I liked the result.  No, I wasn't ever some good looking actor but I was a person who was filled with purpose.

     I look in the mirror now.  I see the start of a double chin. I see the puffy, fat pockets that surround my eyes.  I see the gray strands of hair that twist in odd directions notifying anyone they see that the cells that live inside are breaking down.  The little cell walls are deteriorating.  I have grown old before my time.  I see a deep sadness in me.  I am a beaten man.  I walk away from the mirror and go lay back on the bed.

     I return to looking at the popcorn ceiling.  I really thought I was going to make something with my life.  I thought that I would have some sort of accomplishment that I would be proud of.  What do I have? No real occupation, no wife, no children.  Hell, I haven't even had a girl that I have dated for more than three months.  My only friend that I still speak to seems to still talk to me more out of obligation than anything else.  I'm lucky if I talk to Rick five times a year.  I am suddenly hit with a strange thought.  What if I died right now?  What if I had a fucking heart attack right now?  How long would it be before anyone would even notice?  This spurred on another macabre thought.  Who would even attend my funeral?  The only definite people I could come up with was Rick and my mother and I'm not sure either would even shed a tear.  Wow!!!!!

    I feel myself spiraling down into darkness.  I stare some more at the little white globs of ceiling material above my head.  After a while I can see shapes.  There's a woman's face, a little doggy with a long tail, a smiling turtle, and a dancing devil.

    I wake up sometime later.  It's nighttime and I am shocked that I have slept the day away.  I immediately notice that the bad, acidic feeling in my stomach is still permeating.  I imagine a frothy liquid flowing through me, eating at my insides.  I look up at the ceiling and look for the shapes I had been staring at before I drifted off.  I can find them but really they don't look like anything anymore.  They are just little globs of white goo, frozen in mid drop.

Excerpt from Chapter 5 of "The Quitter"

I wake up in a state of confusion. I look at the red digital numbered alarm clock but it is blank. I can see some light through the curtains so I know it's daytime. I reach over to turn on a light. Nothing. Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!!!!! They cut off the power!

Sure enough, I jump out of bed and all the power is off. I would like to say this is the first time this has happened but it's not and not by a long shot. I immediately go to the front door. I see a little pink slip from the power company. I also notice that I can see a T.V. set on in the apartment across the way. Yep, they turned the power off.

I take off the pink slip and go back into my apartment. I head to the bathroom to grab my watch. 1:48 P.M. Now I am stuck in a dilemma. I need to get to the temp agency but I need to take care of the power first. Since my phones are all cordless they are out because of the power. I go to my cell phone. My cell phone is one of those phones that you buy in a department store with a pay-as-you-go plan. I had been planning to buy a card to add minutes to the phone. My best guess is that I have about twenty minutes of talk time before I run out. After I get the power problem taken care of I will have to go and buy another phone card.

I call the power company and I sit on hold for seventeen minutes listening to the best of Celene Dion and Michael Bolton before I am connected to a live person. I know I only have a couple of minutes before the cell phone cuts me off. The phone gave me a sinister, five minute warning beep a couple of minutes ago.

"Hello this is Rika please give me your account number?"

"Hi Rika my phone is about to cut off. I need to make a payment on the account before that happens."

"Yes sir, I will be glad to help you but I need to know your account number."

"Shit, sorry, I don't have that."

"That's fine sir. Can I have your social security number?"

I give Rika my social security number.

"Okay.  I show this as being for a residence located at 22 Twain Avenue with Orlando address 32828 is that correct?"

"Yes ma'am. I just need to make a payment before my phone cuts off."

"That's fine sir. I must tell you that there will be a thirty five dollar connection fee for having the power turned back on."

"Yes, yes that's fine."  I say, agitated.  "Can I go ahead and give you my card number before the phone cuts off?"

"Yes sir. I am ready when you are."

I give Rika my debit card number, my expiration date, and my security code from the back. As soon as I finish, I get the one minute warning. I'm going to make it. I'm going to make it! Finally something today is going to go right.

"I'm sorry sir but that card was declined. Do you have another card?"

"What? No, that's not right. I made a deposit yesterday."

"I'm sorry sir but the card number you have given me has come back decl-"

I hear the click and realize that the phone has died. Fuck fuck and double fuck!!!!!!!

Excerpt from Opening Chapter of "Reflections of Colette Street"

"I stare out the window of the airplane. The city, my city, is coming into focus. It's the city that cradled me from birth and swaddled me in its loving, smothering arms. That is up until eight years ago when I, like a prisoner who finally finds the door to the jail cell suddenly wide open, bolted almost literally in the middle of the night.
The last eight years have been spent in mostly glorious, self imposed exile and not coincidentally in pretty much the furthrest reaches of the world from this place that I used to call home. This city. This city is coming closer and closer to me through my little plexi-glass airplane window. It welcomes me with its glimmering orange-yellow lights and the streaming headlights of the cars below that move like ants on the interstate. I adjust my perspective, I can see my face reflected in the little window. When did I get so old?"

It's been a while

A long while. Apparently five years. It took a little bit to remember how to even log in but surprisingly I logged in and I am back. So what has happened in five years? Well a lot of course but for the purposes of this blog I will keep it short and sweet. I started and finished the first draft of my manuscript "Reflections of Colette Street." I am now trying to figure out how to get it published. Like every amateur writer, I thought that if I wrote it, the hard work will be done but of course, in classic cliche' like fashion, and to quote The Carpenters, "It's only just begun."

Mad Ramblings on Electric Juice

In the Spring of '94, I sat in my little apartment in Tuscaloosa contemplating life. The electric juice was still coursing through my veins though most of the better effects had long since faded away hours before. I was in that twilight period when the feeling of total empathy for one's fellow man and a deep sense of melancholy married each other to create my strange mood.
It was sometime around three in the morning and I began to type on my brother word processor, (a true friend during my collegiate years). Strange thoughts ran through my head. Cobain had recently taken his life. The Graduate Assistant who taught my British Lit class had just had a miscarriage.
Tori Amos' Under The Pink was somewhat quietly playing in the background. The only lights that illuminated my little Alabama haven came from a couple of candles and the yellowish orange glow of the Brother screen that dimly reflected my face. Unlike now, the words simply flowed from me. Random thoughts and strange writings flowed from my finger tips and magically appeared on the screen. Eventually the writing climaxed and I sat there spent, reflecting on my work. During that time, the random Gods of a six disc Onkyo cd player changed Tori Amos to James; to Grant Lee Buffalo; to Peter Gabriel; to Blind Melon ; to Jude Cole and back to Tori Amos again.
As the Sun began to break through the nighttime cracks I crawled in my bed hoping that the rat poison had faded enough to let me get some sleep, the effects of the Electric Juice all but gone. Sleep came fitfully but thankfully. My dreams were non-existant as I had spent my REM time wrestling with a chemical only a short time before.

Taoist Surfers

In a perfect world we would all be Taoist surfers. This is far from a perfect world but imperfection creates a beauty all its own. Once again the Revolution of youth has failed and the ground lies fallow waiting for the next twenty something seed of rebellion to take. For a while, we had a sense of purpose. Teenage Angst was the battle cry but without direction our Revolution fell flat just like the Hippie Counterculture Revolution did before us. The difference, our Revolution was fueled in Apathy. The irony is that when our Revolution died we simply didn't give a fuck.