The Daily Wiper-Diper Show

I just woke up from a dream where Jon Stewart had been hired as the new Technical Director for the theater where I work. In the dream, he was a germ- and insectophobe, so we spent the first day cleaning the hell out of the shop. He also asked if I could pick up "4 or 5 cases of those wiper-dipers" (or maybe wiper-diapers?). I wasn't 100% sure in the dream what he was talking about, so I verified with him that he meant boxes of rags.

Last Train to Kirksville

Recurring dream: looking for housing in Kirksville, MO. Sometimes I am looking for a house/apt for me and my family, sometimes I'm looking for just me. Sometimes it involves me showing up in Kirksville for classes or a job and not having anyplace to live, sometimes it involves me looking through classifieds searching for apts or houses. Rent prices usually reflect the 1995 market, I think. K-torr and/or E. L. Elz are often featured in these dreams.

Japhy/Psychology/Booze/Fish

Having trouble getting to sleep. Thinking about Gary Snyder. He's pretty much the last one left of those original Beat folks. I'm finishing up a reread of The Dharma Bums, and also reading a fabulous nonfiction book called Poets on the Peaks that I stumbled across a few years ago. I'll be sad when he passes. I guess I'm sad already, in anticipation of his passing. Maybe there being one left is just as sad as there being none left. I'm also thinking about being fucked up regarding social situations. I have a pre-placed thought in my head that I am Not Wanted Around. This applies to social situations, it applies to my marriage, it applies to work -- pretty much everywhere I find myself. I'm trying to figure out where this thought comes from, and as far as I can tell, it comes from being the youngest kid always trying to hang out with older kids and never quite being able to fit in well with whatever they happened to be doing, and it comes from being a child nerd. It manifests as me feeling uncomfortable doing anything or going anywhere that I am not specifically invited to do/go to.

Semi-related: I passed the 3 year mark with no booze the other day. I don't know how long I can go. My brain and body definitely feel like they're missing a vital piece. It's all so strange. 

 Not related, or maybe only very slightly related: I've started catching fish when I go fishing. For over a year, when the kids and I would go fishing, we would catch absolulutely nothing. Not even a nibble. Then I started using a lure that we found along the river one day and my luck has changed, proving that maybe it really has nothing to do with luck.

My PR Strategy

 This is what I wrote to some music company that commented on an Instagram post: 

"Hello, responding to a comment about my PR strategy. My PR strategy is this: I write a song and then record it. Then, I throw it up in the air, where the wind catches it and tumbles it over and around. It eventually lands amidst a small pile of rocks, or underneath one of those guardrails next to the highway, where it is found by a curious possum who picks it up and carries it back to its house in the base of a dead sycamore. After an hour, the possum eats it, and it makes the possum very, very sick. The possum starts throwing up and having diarrhea for the following 3 days. Then the possum is fine and goes back to its normal life, but the weird thing is that everywhere the possum puke and the possum shit touched - in three springs beautiful young saplings sprout and begin to grow and they end up having leaves that are the same color as my first car: a beautiful, burgandy 1992 Dodge Spirit. And everybody that walks by those trees and sees them is overwhelmed by (to be cont'd)

(cont'd from previous message) an urge to visit my Spotify page and become one of my followers. And let me tell you something: this fucking WORKS. Every time. Also, I have no money. But I have two beautiful children. And the other day, my six year old called me "Pop," right out of the blue, so I consider myself pretty lucky."

I wonder if they'll write back?

Correspondence

 From an email to Eric:

"Life here is going along nicely.  I'm balls deep in HVAC repair and replacement at the theater.  We joined a neighborhood pool which has been lovely (although I might have broken their diving board).  We are planning a trip to the Lou (and Denver) in mid-August.  We have some baby chickens in a cage in our yard.  We have blackberry and raspberry bushes in the yard, and when I cut the grass I always stop for a few minutes and try to find some ripe berries to eat right off the fuckin' vine.   The kids are wonderful and terrible.   It's been hot and humid and some of my shirts have a stink that laundering doesn't seem to take away, and because most of my shirts are some shade of blue I can never tell which ones are gonna have the pre-loaded stink that activates as soon as I start sweating (I'm wearing one of them now, which is what makes me think of it).   I just lost a $5 bet with a co-worker who seems to be taking advantage of my terrible memory.   I'm rewatching Arrested Development.  I just finished a 3rd or 4th reread of One Hundred Years of Solitude.   I've been not running because it's been too hot but I need to get back into it."

The End of the Strange Times?

 Well, it was seeming like this whole pandemic thing was receding in the rear-view mirror -- we opened a show last Friday, we've basically stopped wearing masks except when we're indoors someplace that's not home (which is rare), we joined a pool and we've been mingling outdoors with maskless greasy people -- but then I just read something about the Delta Variant that will apparently overrun the world now.  Hmmm.  

I have mixed emotions about things going back to normal, but I definitely don't feel like doing the whole lockdown thing again.  I want my kids to be out of this damned house.  I want to not be wearing a mask all the time.  

I discovered the other day while cussing at people in traffic that I can do a not-too-shabby Al Pacino impression.  So far, my favorite thing to say in his voice is, "Step on the gas, you fucking cocksucker."  Which is offensive, I know, but ever since I watched DEADWOOD, "cocksucker" has been a cussword of choice for me.  I apologize for my use of the word.  

Deep thoughts

 Samuel turns 9 today.  

My phone fell in a river so I'm pooping with a laptop on my lap.  

I was carrying it (my phone) in my shirt pocket.  Nothing good ever happens to my phone when I carry it in my shirt pocket.  Shirt pockets are just for cigarettes, silly.  

Jabbed and rubbed

 Vaccine shot #1 complete as of an hour ago.  Hair has started growing from my palms.  I'm sure that's normal.  

Also, I've discovered (or rediscovered, maybe) that the key to my happiness lies in running at the beginning of the day and having my head rubbed at the end of the day.  Everything that happens in between then does not seem to matter very much.  

life rolls on

Well, we're pretty close to a year into this coronavirus thing.  Still doing virtual school, still working part time, trying to get some spontaneity into our routine.  

In the last week I've come to realize how important running is to maintaining my happiness.  Gotta do it, even though I never want to.  Gotta do it. 

I took out a Facebook ad to try and get people to my Spotify page.  To early to tell if the results will actually be useful.  

The most boring post in the world.