Three Pennies and Two Nickels

I wake up early twice.

I don't remember the time now, I didn't care to look at the clock. I got up, piss in a bottle, and then crawl right back into bed both times. The sun is not up. Again, I wake up, but this time it is around Five or Six O'clock. I have a Nine O'clock appointment to go see Dr. A. so I better get up and do something. I make coffee and jump online to do email since the connection is still up. Midway though sending out emails and writing poetry, I start to nod off. I am tired as Hell. I look at the clock. It is getting close to Seven.

I have to leave at Eight O'clock to get to Dr. A by Nine. Well, Eight Thirty to be exact. I work on blogging. I want to get this new post up before I start getting ready. It tick tocks to Eight O'clock. I'm still blogging furiously. I shift to low gear. The Doc will be alright if I'm a few minutes late. Didn't he himself said to come when I can? Eight Thirty, my chin crash lands on my chest. I shake my head, clear out the haze, get back on the nod. My head drops and touches the KEYBOARD. Whoa. I need to catch up on a few winks.

I crawl my ass back into bed and nap for another hour. Just a damn hour before my eyes open like saucers. What the fuck is going on here? Nine Thirty, I get back to blogging, wrapping this shit up. I work online until Eleven Thirty when, BLINK. Just like that. The Internet dies again. What the Hell? I check the cable modem. She's doing fine, just not receiving signal. I do a diagnostic on it and get back a no signal reading. Outage again?

I pack my gear up, using my frustration and need to get online as impetus to get dressed. Then I find out that my belt is too loose. Yeah, the furthest hole in the belt no longer keeps my pants up. I wonder how much weight I've lost. I don't want to know. I get weighed by the doc ever third week of the month. I'll wait till then. I take a knife and punch another hole in the belt further back and it works. My pants are saved from hanging down around my ass. I pack up my gear and get the fuck out of the room.

I stalk across New York City angrily, and make it to Dr. A's office around Eleven Forty. Dr. A. and I talk for quite some time and then he examines me. Clean bill of health. Everything appears to be fine. Nice. With the external things in my life flying apart, it's good to hear that the internal stuff is working fine. Hey, maybe I bitchslapped life right back, by losing weight and getting healthy. We're not fucking around anymore. We be bit-slappin' each udder. It's a good motherfucking feeling for a change.

I leave to head for the library. Somewhere that seems foreign to me now. Electra is still there. She's more like a stranger now. We're not as close as we used to be. When we depended greatly on each other we were close. But now, that that dependency is all but gone, so is our friendship. I don't speak to her like I used to. I wonder if this chill is my fault. I wonder if it's my inner Hobo that has placed this distance between us. I sit down next to her in my usual seat, she says hello back. That's about all she wrote folks. The next I speak to her I'm saying goodbye.

I surf. I do what I do best. And then I wonder about my very uncertain future. As a writer that is. I'm dedicated, but is dedication enough? I don't have the best schooling in the world, and I'm certain that when it comes to grammar, I suck. But I'm not crying, nor pouting. I was told by a guy in the business that many of the great writers were poor grammaticians, and that's what editors and proofreaders are for. I read in a book about a writer's style. Many of the learned styles are hackneyed and trite because they are landlocked in the rules of grammar. Some writers break the restraints so as to make their writing more like conversation. But I'm told that they 'know' that they are breaking rules. There's a difference between someone that knows and someone that doesn't. Maybe so, but it certainly reads the same.

I realize that I have a certain style of writing that does not conform to many of the standards of proper grammar, but maybe that's just the way that I am. Maybe I like my writing to flow as if I'm talking to my reader. There has to be a venue for it. The reason why I'm in this mood is because I would one day like to make money writing. I know it's a hard field to break into but nothing good was ever achieved by not trying. Effort for something accounts for something. I'm free to make the effort right now. I don't know what F.E.G.S. WECare has up their sleeves, but it's nothing good. It's constant monitoring, as if you are some kind on Illegal alien or an Al'Qada operative or something. I hate being under scrutiny. But that's what it's like. Reporting to a probation officer once a month, giving them a list of your doctors and analyses of your 'progress'. Whenever you become MI/CA they expect progress. Especially if you're on meds.

Well, if I could make a living doing writing, I could get out of the system. I can't doubt the outcome of my effort. I can't take my eyes off the goal. I can't stop now. I am committed to this course and I've taken all the bumps and dings to get here. Crawling, starving and dying of thirst, I'll continue on until there is not a breath in me. And if I fail, what the fuck. I"ve failed before. It didn't kill me, and if it does, then I really won't give a shit.

I remember a poem that I loved by Bukowski, and tried to memorize it, but that was when I was drinking heavily, so nothing stuck. But he complained about being forced to work in a civil servant job just to keep an apartment, and how he chose to live in flop houses so that he could live within his means as a writer. OR something like that. Fuck, it's been so long that I could be wrong with some of this, but that's my sentiments exactly. Maybe I should stop trying to quote and live Bukowski's life and blaze a trail of my own? I have sentiments too. I say now, my greatest sentiment is that I'm going to succeed as a writer or I'm willing to die trying. That's right, die trying. I'll repeat it, DIE trying. If it means freezing to death out in the streets next winter (or the way things are going now, this winter) I'm ready.

Homeless bluster. Maybe. All talk, my life is not on the line right now. Maybe two years ago, but not now. But lets face it. I'm not in the same predicament that I was in two years ago, or even a year ago. If every year changes with me moving up, that's progress. Who knows where this road goes?

But I'm walking it.

Hobobob