Hell.
Is anyone still out there reading me? I don't think so. I don't even read myself. If I'm not going to write, then how in the Hell do I expect someone to read me? I've been on and off like a light in a disco. I have to admit. I am addicted now to movies and television. One would think that my addiction was due to the fact that I am living vicariously through the visual media, but that could not be farthest from the truth. I am running story-lines, plots, characterizations, twists, believability and so forth in my mind. I'm calculating the work of fiction and channeling what I am learning into my writing.
I am also moving forward to work on publishing something. I've finally knuckled under and purchased the 2011 Writer's Digest to do just that. I'm getting back on my workhorse and actually delve into the business of publishing. Authors don't just write, I've come to learn, they market themselves. That's what I have not been doing. I was under the mistaken impression that all a writer did in this day and age was write a manuscript and mail it to a book publisher who publishes it or not. Sorrily this is not reality. Real writers work to get their manuscripts into the hands of agents and publishers, join conferences and seminars, shake hands...actually become their own cheerleaders.
Here is my fucking problem with this. I've lost any ability that I ever had in marketing myself. I can't even sit in a room full of people without trembling like a leaf. My cool has evaporated and left me with this near panic state every time I find myself in a room full of strangers. SHIT, a room full of fucking people period...they could be everyone that I know and love and I'll worry about an anxiety attack in front of them. Damn pills. Screwed with my head, now I think my mind is broken...or maybe it's something else.
Today I went to my court case in Brooklyn. Yeah, that's right. Hopped on the Way and went downtown and out into the blaring New York summer. Shit it was hot, and the women were hotter. Damn. Made me glad to be a MAN. Well, that was until I walked into the ancient building that they use to try court cases for Social Services. It looked like it was built in the Sixties, with a complete lack of imagination. Just a drab square box with windows. Inside...tired security guards, all Black men and women, metal detectors everywhere, lines of people and waiting rooms. I work my way up to the fifteenth floor, hand over my paperwork to the clerk behind a desk under the watchful eye of several security guards and find a seat in the waiting room.
Here, I am thinking that I'm going to be sitting there for hours, but surprisingly ...NO, I mean surprisingly -I almost shit my pants...a well dressed Black woman in a suit marches past the waiting area and calls out my name. I rise and follow behind her and we travel through a maze of corridors. Presently she opens the door to a room and motions me in. "Take a seat," she says. I see a long table with three chairs on each side. The chair on the left is pulled out from under the table. Hey, maybe that chair belongs to someone. I go to the right of the table. "Hey!" The woman calls. "Where are you going?" I turn to her, what? Over there? I point to the chair that is pulled away. "Yeah, over there," she is already pissed at me. I stroll around and sit down in the seat.
"Take off your hat please," she says walking past me to the head of the table and taking a seat. I remove my hat. "I am Judge 'Can't-Wait-to-Kick-Yo-Ass' and I have been empowered by the City of New York to sit in judgment of this case, 'The Human Resources Division versus Hobobob'." As she goes through a litany of legalese an elderly Black woman walks in with her arms filled with folders and papers, rounds the table and sits opposite from me. "Defendant, please state your name," the Judge says. I tell her, Hobobob. She asks the woman to state her name and official title and she does so.
The Judge goes back into legalese for a moment, like a seizure from someone with Tourette's Syndrome. Translation: Social Services wants to take your benefits from your lazy ass because you didn't attend a mandatory Alcohol and Substance abuse appointment. "What paperwork can you present?" She asks, her harsh eyes turning to me, saying: Now what? I flip through the lean stack of papers that I had brought with me, found my confirmation letter from the therapist at the Substance Abuse meeting, which clearly states that I was in compliance and that I attended on the date in question. I handed it over to the Judge who scanned it bitterly.
From there the mood changed from 'Can't-Wait-to-Kick-Yo-Ass, to Get-The-Fuck-Out-of-Here. I go with the flow, take my paperwork back, listen to more legalese and then ask if I can leave now. The Judge nods and I walk. Simple. That shit's over with. All these fucking meetings and all this traveling, twice up into the Bronx, once to Brooklyn, all to present a piece of paper to a Judge. This is what these people are being paid for. Wow. I guess that they have to come up with these trumped up charges and this massive run-around to protect their phony-baloney jobs. I head home.
I do my thing. I go online, read a book, read the news, then make lunch and watch movies. My water pills are driving me crazy and I head to the bathroom and take a leak. Looking down at the commode seat I notice piss sprinkles upon it. It wasn't from me though. I aim directly, although at the close of my leak, lately I've found that I can't stop my flow like I used to. I mean, when I was younger it flew out like a hydrant and when I was done, it stopped just as abruptly. Now that I am getting older, it kinda falls to a dribble that doesn't stop. I mean it. It doesn't stop.
Sooner or later, I get tired of it petering down to a drop here, a drop there. Fuck this. I put my dick back in my slacks and there you go, I can still feel it dripping. Fuck! Pissed myself even a little. We used to joke in High School - "No matter how much you shake and dance, you'll always get a few drops in your pants." I've also drawn more piss sprinkles on the edge of the toilet seat. FLASHBACK! To my ex-wife complaining while I watch TV in my living room, feet cocked up on the coffee table. Why can't you get your piss IN THE BOWL? I did. NO, you didn't. You've left piss all around the seat. I sigh. If it's not pissing on the seat it's leaving the toilet seat up. Hey, to keep the toilet seat down, I piss through the damn thing, you know, just in case I forget to put the seat back down. "What's up with men that they can't get it right?" I shrug. We don't sit down and have automatic aim like women. That's just the way we are.
I return to my room, the bitching of my ex-wife still ringing out in my ears from long ago. It seems like an entirely different life now, some one else's memories. They are not mine. They are not for me. That was a different man altogether. Maybe one with a little more pride and self-esteem.
I'm no longer that man.Well...at least I blog.
Hobobob
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