gimme money

Waiting on my paycheck to go through. Waiting on my paycheck to go through. It must be an alternate Thursday, because I'm singing the Waiting on My Damn Paycheck song.

Why do I toil here in the salt mines, waking up at the ungodly hour of 7 am to support the unlucky and unstable of Florida? It ain't so I'll develop state worker ass. It ain't for the chance to rise in my field and shine like the brilliant star that I am. It ain't even for unlimited office supplies.

Okay, it's partially for the unlimited office supplies. I do love 'em. (See above picture.)

No, it's for the paycheck, of course! It ain't much, but it's steady. I've been skin broke all week, and now I've got visions of cold beer and a fully gassed car, a meal that doesn't involve soup and a new pair of cargo pants from the army/navy store. Next week is my vacation, and I'll spend it locally, sleeping in my own bed, having adventures where I can. And what little is left after rent and updating my car insurance will make for a good time indeed.

When you make small change, it's good to recognize simple blessings.

put it on paper

I am a man of appetites. I hunger for good food and good words. Stepping away from the music-based publications I've been writing for the past few years, I recently finished a small zine about grub. It's got recipes. It's got a personal story or two. It's even got a poem, and I just don't write too many of those these days.

Want a copy?

When I go out to play with my friends...

...this is what it looks like. This is why mainstream pop/rock concerts make no sense to me.

the tropics in spring

I've got murder on my mind. Premeditated - I went to Publix in a thunderstorm to buy a 4 pound box of Mule Team Borax and a one pound sack of icing sugar. Came home and mixed them together in a big jar that used to have pretzels in it. Sprinkled that shit all over my kitchen, down every crack, in the sink drains, around the back of the stove and fridge and water heater, along the door jamb.

You can call them palmetto bugs, I call them the enemy. This apartment is trying to return to the soil, but I'll fight the roaches any time they rise against me.

let's go to the movies

The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind

and another

his mother called him WILD THING and Max said

I'LL EAT YOU UP

and he was sent to bed without eating anything.

That night, in Max's room, a forest grew.

will you be there this year?

A krewe "is an organization that puts on a parade and or a ball for the Carnival season." The Krewe of the Fives? We're the float that doesn't move. The only ongoing, family-friendly, breakfast beer bash of Springtime Tallahassee. 5th Annual this year. A few more babies, a few more friends, a few more beads to catch. This year I can't afford to set us all up with a keg, but I'll throw hot dogs on the grill after the parade wraps up while everyone wanders in and out and downtown and back again and people nap on the couch.

If you and yours are downtown this Saturday, come on by and say howdy. You can't miss us.

the end

I found out yesterday that a guy I've known for maybe 13, 14 years killed himself this week. He and I were never that close, but he and one of my best friends were all but brothers.

Isn't it funny how that works? You've got these people who are so tightly tied to you, so much a part of your daily life. You feel like you know everything about them and they know everything about you. But, the whole time, you both have story lines going that have nothing to do with each other. We all carry little chapters of our friends, memories only shared by the two of you or more important to you both than to others. How you met. Trips you took. When you helped each other through or over some pain and trouble.

That's what we did last night, of course. As soon as we, a handful of us, found out what happened, we rallied around the deepest wounded. We huddled close to him and listened, put on hands on his shoulders when he cried. "Okay," he said, later in the evening, as the shock wore off, "I'm ready to wake up now." But he didn't, because you don't, because death fucking sucks like that.

So he's riding up today with another might-as-well-be-brother to the wake in North Carolina. Those of us left in town will worry about them, because grief makes people drive badly, but I guess they'll make it fine. They'll come back with an ending to the story of their lives with Demetri. He was 29, an artist, and a traveler, and he shot himself in the head Sunday.