Cherries, Vodka and Pasta

The SHOUT OUT was amazing as usual. I find that we move through them with more ease than before. I have to admit, that I'm easing off the perfection tip and am beginning to enjoy myself a little more than just having the efficient and clean execution of a two hour variety show. I skipped reading today to the consternation of many. I am surprised. There was a little of an uproar because I didn't. I really didn't believe that any cared much, but I am surprised. I wanted to read too, but there is always a little voice in me that supersedes, stating that I shouldn't bother. That if there is a chance of slipping by without reading, then I should do it.

Fear. Fear of the stage still, pure and simple. Where as OBSIDIAN can't wait to get up there, I can't wait to get down. The SHOUT OUT goes on until it ends, whereupon D2theL and a small clique of us hang out in front of the establishment and spark up a tree. OBSIDIAN and I head over and pick up a few drinks before going to Starbucks and finish the grant proposal. It rolls to it's finish and we put the wraps on it. Now it's in OBSIDIAN's hands as to what is to be done with the thing now. He has been checking his email from his financier friend and has not heard from him yet. I believe he is beginning to give up hope on him, but I caution him against that, largely because these people are very busy and have plenty of irons in the fire. Sometimes it takes them awhile to get back to these OTHER projects that aren't generating income for them

I head home. I'm tired. I'm heavy, I'm disgruntled. I'm not losing weight, neither am I firming up with all of the exercise that I have been doing. But then thinking back, I'm not DOING all that much exercise. I just started, but it feels as if I have been exercising for months, which I should have. Now I just feel achy and cantankerous. I can't seem to find rest, no matter what it is that I'm doing. There is nothing that is pleasing to me. I can't even take a break from myself. I'm turned way up to HIGH, all of my meters are jumping.

Last night I could not sleep. My feet hurt, the room was hot, I was achy, my thoughts would not grow still. I could not rest. I hated being still, but I hated moving. I got up, got behind the computer, only to grow tired and turn everything off to crawl back into bed. After tossing and turning I rose to do it again. I bought two bags of cherries on the way into the apartment and I sat and ate one, feeling my stomach begin to churn. I'm a glutton for punishment. What can I say.

I finally went to sleep after drinking half a bottle of vodka and had a crazy set of dreams, none of them with a red head in a bikini. This dream, as many of my contentious dreams do, pits me against a number of 'enemies' where at the end, I am forced into a physical confrontation. I dive into a phalanx of my enemies and I'm swinging punches and kicks. I wake swinging, my single sheet wound around my fist and foot. No...no beautiful red head...nope, that would just be asking for too much.

I am still tired. Tired, and there seems to be so much to do around my room. It seems to be hard to keep everything clean. I want to get my room spotless in the coming few weeks. The holiday is fast approaching. Today, KC and Betty invited OBSIDIAN and myself and a few others to a big BBQ in Madison Square Park today at 1:30. Time now is 10:30AM. It's too late for me to go downstairs and get breakfast. That's shot. I had finished defrosting my refrigerator so everything went into the garbage. I have nothing in my cupboards. But I do have....cherries, vodka and pasta. That should be the name for my book. Cherries, Vodka and Pasta.

I got ready, putting on my clothes painfully. I am disgusted still, with myself and my beard. It's all crazy looking. I'm looking like Malcolm X here, but not so groomed. More like Malcolm after coming out of prison. My face has grown wider. How in the fuck did that happen?? I'm getting overly critical of myself. I'm not liking me for some reason. I'm unusually hard on myself.

I hop the way downtown and get to the spot that we all met two years ago at twenty after one and wait. I grow hungry watching all of these people walking by with something BBQ in papertrays. There are thousands of people. I am standing, watching in amazement just how many people show up to a cook out, and a cook out it was. Packed around the periphery of the park was score upon score of BBQ joints, with their open grills blazing and pork on the burn. Brushes were dabbing sauces onto bone and meat, and coals were turning it all charcoal black. Dollars were being passed in one direction, while cooked pig was being returned in the other.

I split from my waiting post at about ten to two and head around to the side of the park, getting on a line of people and inching my way up to a vendor, Two Hills Barbecue and order some lean pork loin. Stupid me, thinking the little tray of meat would cost five dollars, I was completely amazed that it was eight, and that it had burned down my ten dollars better than the flick of a Bic. But with hot and special sauce, it was quite tasty and tender. I return to my waiting perch and finish up on the BBQ and then after Two I decide that there are some issues that need to be faced.

OBSIDIAN, Ando, Betty and KC all had cell phones, and it would not take them long to employ them in meeting up in the maddening crowds. This I did not. My only chance would be to run into them before they jelled, where they would be spread out and I may be able to snag into one of them. Once they gathered together into a tight knot, I would never find them in the crowds. This proved to be true, because as time continued, and I made circuit after circuit of the park I realized that the odds of running into them would be like the odds of my copulating by bumping into the first attractive woman that I came across.

This was growing into a waste of time. I went to an icecream truck for one last hurrah and got a tall cherry dipped. With it in hand, I headed back to the Way and home. Fortunately for me, I did, because my stomach had turned and it was time for the cherries to be given wide room. When my elevator opened on my floor sitting in front of the door, like some Star Wars R2D2 was a floor A/C. I looked at it as if it was talking to me, not leaving the elevator, casting it a sidelong glance. Then I dragged the bitch home. Hey, after I used the bathroom I would plug it in and see how it worked.

After a healthy shit, I returned to the room and turned on the device, and like a dream it came up and worked flawlessly. I fucked with it's controls and found no fault in the device, it was even largely soundless in its execution. I curled up in front on it and drifted right off to sleep. My sleep patterns being fucked up painfully anyway.

I drift off. What do you think I will dream about today?

Hobobob