Name That Tune

Well, walking down the block to the Box and there is a congre- gation of skeks in front of the shelter doors. I walk through them, nodding to the few that I recognized, scowling to another few that I recognized but detested, and ignored the fucking rest.

I enter in and Jor-el is walking out. "Hey Hobobob, I need something from you upstairs." I don't stop walking. I head up to my bed area, set up my laptop and greet Igor, who is packing his stuff into another back pack. He's been buying backpacks for a few days now, stuffing what little shit that he has in them, but forgetting somehow that he has only one back.

I head upstairs to get my med and upon returning, Jor-el is at his bed, waiting patiently for me. "Hobobob, could you do me a big favor?" Depends on what it is, Jor-el. "Could you download music from the Internet into my MP3?" And here we go again. People still buying hardware that they don't have the rest of the hardware to make work. MP3 = computer. Simple math. They are mutually exclusive. No. Jor-el I don't have the harddrive space to download music from the Internet.

"You don't have the harddrive space?" Retardo Igor pipes up. "Harddrives are so cheap now. You can get ninety gigs for like forty dollars." That's good to know Igor. "How much harddrive space do you have on your computer?" It came with ninety gigs. "And you filled up ninety gigs?" Yeah. "With what?" Pictures. "Ninety gigs worth of pictures? What are the size of the pictures?" I turn to Jor-el. I'm not downloading music onto my computer boss. I think Igor got the message. "Can YOU download music on my MP3 player?" Jor-el asks Igor. "I don't know. Let me see." It's so refreshing to watch other people struggle with the problems of others. I get to work blogging. After awhile, Igor is handed a fist full of music CDs to load onto his computer to put into the MP3 player. But the problem that my friend is beginning to realize is that you have to install the MP3 player's software to manage the CDs, and then record all of the CDs on your harddrive.

Only then can you go ahead an load them on your MP3 Player.

"Oh no, it won't allow me to do the install," Igor lies. Jor-el is flabbergasted. Wha? "I'm sorry," Igor continues. "It just won't work." Jor-el goes back to his bed area and sulks. I call it a night. Wrapping it up before the Techs walk in and tell me to turn the show off. I drift off into a deep sleep, only waking up once to take a leak and to find John, sitting upright in his bed, with his overhead light on in the dark. He is rolling cigarettes upon his dresser. At Four in the morning.

I go back to sleep, only to wake up very late. Something to Eight. I rise, too late to get ready to go to Starbucks, so I set up my computer right there and start working. I'm busy, in seconds, and before I know it, Jor-el wakes, he rolls over, and asks: "You have an MP3 player, how do you put music on it." Hmmmm, obviously he's been watching me closely, and his dull witted mind has been churning all night long. I have my own music already on my laptop. Jor-el's dark features brighten. "What kind of music do you have?" Punk rock, new wave, shit like that. "Oh Great!! Could you put your music on my MP3 player?" I have a feeling you won't like it. "No...I will. I'll go get it." I'm busy right now, Jor-el, maybe tonight. "Oh, okay. I have to leave anyway." He throws his gear on his back and heads out.

Alright, here we go again. People will be lining up with their brand new MP3 players soon. Trust me, because they are so cheap, and these people are so uniformed, they'll be back in droves. I held them off, but here we go. To act as a restraint I'm going to start to charge them. That should slow them down a little. I know that they are willing to pay five dollars for my aggravation, so I'll just raise it to fifteen, because I don't want to be bothered.

I pack it up and head out, zooming to Dr. A. I get my check up, and everything is up. My pressure, my weight. Everything. That's funny Doc, I feel lighter. He shakes his head. "I wouldn't worry about fluctuation in your weight," he says. "Just keep doing what you're doing. And keep taking your medication." Medication, medication, medication. Enough with the medication here. It's enough to drive you nuts. I leave my Doctor's cool office and head to Madison Starbucks but stop short.

Just like that. That's how my mind works. It follows no rhyme or reason, it basically does what it wants. I have the money in my pocket, it's time to treat my baby. I need a new harddrive. The one that I have inside the laptop is getting way too full. I head over to the computer store, head downstairs to their hardware department and take apart my baby. I find the empty harddrive bay and point out the harddrive that I need. The salesman gives me an IDE drive and I install it myself. Then I carefully reassemble everything and head to Starbucks to partition the drive. The minute that turn my baby on she has a heart attack. She rejects the drive. FUCK. These things are like fish. Once you take them out of the package you can't return them. I should have turned it on in the store. Maybe I could have gotten a consolation. Something. Now...I'm fucked. A perfectly new IDE drive and the computer doesn't like it. I open her up again and I think I see what the problem is. The harddrive rack that holds the drive in place is missing. It in turn holds down a pair of pins that no doubt engages the bus interface. In other words: I'm fucked. I remove the drive and normalize my baby. That's alright. I am the god of computers. I have an external drive case in the shelter. I'll make the new drive an external one, which will solve the problem nicely and elegantly. I'll see if I can get my hands on a rack at a later date.

I look up and see the sleeping Electra. I get online while she sleeps. I like it here in the Starbucks more than the library now, because the Internet connection is more stable, stronger.

Later, I go to my favorite therapist, Dr. L and crank and complain about my life. I complain about my other doctors, I complain about my poetry, I tell her about the new job as staff reporter. I just give her so much of the crap that is going on inside that I wonder why I blog at all. I get it all out of me. Or so I thought that I did. I thought blogging was a purging of my soul. If it is, then what the fuck am I doing with my therapist? Mental masturbation?

Maybe my blog is a form of self expression, but you could have fooled me. For me, it's an assignment in opening my skull and being honest somewhere. I mean, I keep some things to myself. Some. But most end up here. Many persons don't want me to blog about them, so I don't. Other's don't want me to use their pictures or real names. So I don't. That's why I'm so personal about myself. Because I give myself the autonomy to at least be me.

Well, I go the to library, and watch Spiderman 3 again, because I was so drunk when I first saw it that I recollect absolutely nothing about the movie. Then I went to Starbucks to work on my blog. And lastly I went to the Box after buying a good dinner for a change. A plate of rice and fried onions, with chicken and fish. I ate it standing, waiting and then riding the number 6 train. I had it all finished about the time that I got to the Box.

The Box would be an altogether different story.

Hobobob