Lament of the Morning

Sweeping brush strokes.

Colors sweep and drag across a sky blue canvas. The Master painter is at work here. I awake to the sunrise of a new day, but something is wrong. The colors are warmer than a morning, orange, burnt sienna, a gloom is rising. This is not a sunrise, but a sunset. I look at the clock. It's after five. I slept away the afternoon. All about me is near silence. Save for the construction-like banging of the steam pipe in my room, all is silent. There are no voices in the halls, nothing stirs outside. The Kid isn't playing his guitar, the Old Man isn't singing out of the window, with his drunk ass.

There is an odd lifelessness about me.

I slide my legs from the bed and kick my chair by accident. The only sound in the room. I slept all day, or at least all afternoon. I must have been tired. The last thing I remember is trying to blog. Nodding off in the chair, and then calling it quits. Throwing in the towel. I was still tired after all of that. I yawn deeply. It feels good. I wake with a full stomach, my dinner being large an satisfying.

I then, do what I do best, I surf the web, and dig out infor- mation. I go through Craigslist, in search of a gig. There seems to be alot for writers, but mainly it is for article writers. I would choose one of those, but I don't know what to write about half the time. I'm stuck like a pig on a spit. I lumber from one article to another, that's why I like to write series. I guess I'll just have to move about this week and see what I can get myself into. That's the real trick of being a reporter. Knowing where to be at the right time. Many of my fellow reporters in the news magazine report on nightclubs and movies, because they are the most easiest to report on.

I find nothing. I write sonnets. I crank out two in one night. I couldn't sleep, so what the fuck? I'll read them at some of the circuit. Night turns to morning and I call it quits. Tomorrow, or more accurately today, I have the Herbert Hunke birthday bash. It's supposed to be a slam dunk. The first big party of the city, with readers the likes of Tatum O'neil, and songs by Patti Smith. Fucking far out. And I'm a fucking key grip. Backstage and in the mix baby. I even know the producers of the show, they asking me and my brother to be there. What a fucking head rush. As you can tell, I'm hyper, and pounding down coffee on top of it.

When I wake the next morning I also realize that I have my doctor's appoint- ment today. All I want to do actually is stay in my room, on the Internet. That seems to be the length and breadth of my life all of a sudden. I write emails as usual and get ready to take my shower. I get all of my shower shit together. Now let me tell you about the showers on my floor. The two to the West, behind me, one to the North, one South, are the physically challenged showers and have a peculiar water valve. The one to the North is just cold water, and just a little lukewarm water at it's fullest hot setting. I usually use this one. I'm used to lukewarm, and I mean very lukewarm, water. The one to the South has regular heated water. The two to the East...I have no fucking clue about those.

Well, descriptions now aside, I want a hot shower today, so I head to the Southwest shower. That makes sense to me, go to where the heat is. I take all my shit in and set up. Standing naked, which is not a pretty picture, I turn on the shower and set the valve to the hottest setting. And it is lukewarm. In fact, it's cold. Yeah, I do a doubletake. What in the Susquehanna Hat Company-the fuck is this? I turn it to the hottest setting and wait awhile, but the shit is still cold.

Oh Hell No Ho! I'll use the sink before I take a cold shower. So I head there and crank up the hot water valve, and guess what? THAT SHIT IS COLD TOO! Awwww c'mon! I could use that shower today. I wash up in the sink and head to my room to wash my hair in my sink, because although I can wash my body in cold water, I cannot run cold water over my head. I KNOW that my sink has hot water.

But I realize that I spoke too fucking soon. THAT SHIT IS COLD TOO! Awwww c'mon! This is torture. How is a person supposed to get ready and get the Hell out of here if he can't even get that damned shower that he needs. I give up and wash my hair under the cold water. Brrrrrr. I'm not a happy camper. I email Doc A. to see what time he can see me and...yes that's right. I get my ass back on the Internet. Time to spend more time on my baby.

Feeling the paternal urge, I check ZAPRANOTH to see how many users have latched onto his signal since last I checked. It was interesting to find that myself, MacBookPro, SpecialEd-PC, and User-PC, have now been joined by two more signal riders, IBMlaptop and D90VGFC1. Five users in the building now connected to the Internet. Have at it, boys! My throughput has taken a hit from the users though. It fell to 48Mbps from 54Mbps. Not a bad degradation in the overall throughput. I'm willing to fall below 40Mbps before I start to set up restrictions. I'll make room in my IP addressing for only a certain number of connections, and then give myself reserved access. That would only be fair to me. Give until it hurts. Till then, I will let all of my users suck freely from the tit of plenty.

Which brings me back to the reason that I do this. I may seem mad to many of you. To be paying for something that I'm handing out freely. It's just that there is such an abundant supply of it. I'm taking throughput from the cable modem of 54Mbps, tops. When I have my best hard connection in the business library, my top throughput is 11Mbps. Can you imagine the difference? The difference is 43Mbps. That's over and above many times what I need to surf the web. Since the cable company is providing me so much, and I need so little, why not share? That's why I call the cretins here, from NAVARRE to @home, and the rest of these locked servers, stingy bastards. Hard hearted fucks. This is a goddamned SRO, not a condo. Many of these people here can't afford luxuries. An Internet connection is a real hit in the pocket, take it from me. If one can afford it, then why not share? Why not?

Well, that's my bitchin' for this morning. I'm going to get ready to either go see Doctor A. or straight to the show. Oh, the show. I almost forgot about that. How could I? I know why. I'm growing anxious about it. My hyper-ness, my anxiousness is building. I've got to get ahold of myself, because this nervousness can trigger all sorts of bad things. Soon, I'll take my LYRICA and calm down a taste. Ease my foot back off the accelerator. Take the 'rev' out of the engine.

I just need to get to the show and let it happen.

Then I'll calm down some.

Hobobob