my sister-in-law, Dee, sent some photos of my nieces. talking about how damn hard it is to get a good picture of all three of them. Gracie's face in the bottem picture is my favorite.

I'm about to have a nicotine fit but there is no one around to witness it. I would like to say that I am totally angry with Liz and Arzu at this point, for dragging my ass out of North Carolina all those months ago. Adairsville is boring but at least I'd be around my family. The old ones drive me up the wall but the little one coax me back down again. Kiah, my little angel, started kindergarten this year. It's weird to sleep in a 5 years olds room (Kiah always sleeps with her mama or granny) but hell, the have movies on demand.

Ok enough

I'll try to think of something relevant rather that incessant bitching and whining.

Books

I've read three this week.
Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Tim Robbins, Villa Incognito
and
Dorothy Allison, Bastard out of Carolina


The Sun Also Rises was the best. pulled me in... made me like the author. Lady Brett Ashely was an awesome character who fucked all these dudes and got drunk all the time. So did everyone... get drunk.


Villa Incognito, was a fucked up fairy tale about bestiality. It was good but I like 1st person writing more.



Bastard out of Carolina, was depressing as all get out. I've read essays by Dorothy Allison that are more empowering and uplifting. This book made me tear up. It's about this kid who gets kicked (among other things) around by her step dad. She has a great crazy extended family but she's poor, called trash and... it's just fucking sad.

Well, here I am in Oregon. Still flat broke... still no job. I'm staying with Courtney. We are like a married couple. She's cheating on me with a guy with a mustache. Let's call him John Waters. I encourage her with Mr. Waters so I guess it's not cheating. I say, go and get that ass but she likes to think of it in more emotional terms.
I like a man in Brooklyn. I also don't like him and even more I'm apathetic. What kills me is his intelligence, yes, it's right smack dab in the middle of stupid reckless decisions but it's there. I meet so many idiots... l sweet, cute and good-natured idiots but boring due to bland predictability. That one was different, one of those rare good Georgians, like myself. I'll never see him again. That's my assumption.
The way I miss Buffalo is like a slap in the face. I want to come rest my head on Liz Knipe's tittys and sigh. What am I doing with my life? Sitting in a coffee shop locked out of the apartment waiting for my wife to get out of her damn baking class, not that she ever bakes in the apartment. She can't, despite the 650$ a month the oven leaks gas and is therefore scary. What is this real world? Should I have went to engineering school so this job thing would not be such an issue? Who am I kidding, I would have lost patience with that before i'd set my foot in a classroom. Still... I need to work. I want to work. Ok, I'm lying, all I want to do is travel the world and be jolly, is that to much to ask? No, I do want to work. I can't work right now. I'm to worried about finance. I need to labor and that's what really gets to me.

Now that I've finally acquired a job at a fine coffee selling establishment (thanks to Nancy King) I'll be leaving this city of squandered time amidst forced productivity. The Lavatelli sisters are great. I am getting out of their hair before they start beating me with the fly swatter screaming "get off that lazy ass." It looks like Courtney Jean Anne will be my new encounter and temporary benefactor. She's been in Portland for 2 months. I'm fairly certain we will drive each other insane(sleeping in the same bed and all) but where could a better place be to go insane than a place that's thousands of miles from home.
I've never been so far west. Portland is rainy so I'll be ok. I like my health teas. I'm homesick for the old pink and I have to wonder who was that ever elusive Bert? When again will I see Soybean, Sarah Paul, Liz, Julie, Tony, Paul, Matt, Terry, Mike, Meg, Brian, Tom, Steve and so on. Who the fuck am I going to find in Portland? I hope they are chill. I need some mellow pace after walking around this place. Some big bitch yelled at me today because we brushed shoulders while my head was bowed lighting a smoke. I said "excuse me" and kept going. That woman could have kicked my soft ass.
19 Guest. Who are all the God Damn guest on this site? What happened to old elmwoodstrip where there were about 15 of us? Paul did you ever get my message about finding Chris? Zoe needs a place to crash in San Francisco come September. She's been working her ass off for some stodgy painter and he's going to fly her out there for his opening.
I wonder if I should feel excited. I'm about to make a big change of location, to a place I've never been. I know I will need some bologna and pringles but no blow-pops. That hobag will eat it right when it gets to the gum. Never forgets a god damn thing.

My fucking hands hurt. I just read Pauls post about his bathroom floor. I really feel for him because that is what I did this morning. I ripped out old tiles off a floor. It wasn't a bathroom. It was a bedroom. It's about to become the bedroom of a 12 year old girl. The girl wants us to paint the floor 12 year old purple. That is what I get to do in the morning, sand the floors and and paint them purple. It actually sounds allot more fun than ripping out tile again. Paul, you needed a scraper, one of those things you put spackle on with.