Wide awake at 3 ayem...

...can't sleep...can't eat, can't even walk the floor...nothing to drink or do but sit here lamenting life without you. I suppose I should be thanking my lucky stars that I got away basically intact instead of continually going on about this sorry state of affairs, but the heart is a peculiar organ and once smitten quite reluctant to let go...

But let go I do and here I am alone at three a. m. wondering who you are 'dancing' with and where, but soon this self-pitying blast leaves and I am still here with no thoughts of you nor anything else; a blank in the night staring out the dark windows into endless black space.

What matter anything?

I shake loose from the gloom of life and spin one up, put the lucifer to it and toke away...fill the bowl and watch blue smoke dancing on the windflaws...

Dreamy, filled with longing, aching for a break, THE break from dependency on others to the freedom only brought about by liquid assets...in the meantime these 'liquid assets' take the form of a six pack of Guinness dropped off periodically by well-meaning friends inadvertently feeding my fever, for which I am grateful beyond telling, believe me, even though I realize that at this rate I shall probably drink myself to death in a few more short years, but such is life in the breakdown lane...

Notes From The Dump e-mail: nftdnotes@yahoo.com

Something about redheads...

...sets the endorphins rolling and I'm off in a swoon everytime I get near one, especially if they're female, but the one I'm presently smitten (from a great distance) by is several years my junior which EYE could live with but could she? Secondarily she's an activist and I don't mean the kind of activist parading through hostile streets with placards for one cause or another, no, as an activist I mean she likes to DO things, like ride horses, bar-hop, go DANCING for Cris'sakes and take hikes, o spare me!

I on the other hand don't like leaving the kitchen, and as for riding horses? Not this cowboy. An Iron Horse maybe but no Appaloosas. Anatomically speaking, men should ride side-saddle so they don't flatten their turgid member and squash their stones; women did not CHOOSE to ride side-saddle, Daddy (Boy Friend, Hubby) MADE them ride side-saddle because they knew riding with one leg thrown over one side of the horse and one over the other produced moans and groans of pleasure and fulfillment THEY couldn't...

Anyway I don't do horses nor hikes, two beers is more or less my limit so I'd be a cheap date for her in a bar but she'd have to do all her dancing with someone else which would be no problem for her because she's a beauty but then I'd get jealous and...ahhh...what's the sense of any of it? I'll stay right here by the wood stove, alone with the radiant heat, suffused with warmth, not lonely at all really. Ki-yi-yippi-eye-ay...yahoo...

More Random "...NOTES..."

…I’m making my mark as a writer, I have been one all of my life; it’s what I do, good bad or indifferent I always wanted to be a writer and a painter and I am both…for years I’ve blathered and driveled away with puling bombast and idle twaddle only to be eclipsed in the end by a stream of spontaneously combustible consciousness like no other; no one writes like me - in the future, writers will be compared to me but there will be no one attains this peak for quite awhile…now this is what you call confidence!

It does no one any long-term good to be falsely modest about one’s attributes, talents and abilities; I’m no wallflower nor a braggart but I am a smart guy and I know it…or maybe it’s arrogance; whichever, it is semi-based in fact mixed with maximum embellishment, as is the wont of this screed…in the world of art I’ve been fairly prolific, a 1000 paintings in a lifetime is not too shabby, all are good, some are really good and about two dozen or so were really great in every sense of the timeless word…here’s three good ones...I call them Early Primitives.

How is it possible...

…my life is going/has gone by so fast!? How could it be that I - (in my aging, hoary head, looking in the memory mirror, am still a child, then a boy, an adolescent and then a man grown to maturity, now grown old and infirm!?) -how can it be that I have memories which are 60 years old!

How can it be that the thought of dying and of death is something I once rarely gave pause to but now when I think about It, it’s from an at-the-brink-of-the-grave viewpoint; all my life my mantra has been the unending refrain, Think About IT! Now I’m not so sure…there are frightening aspects to it.

'Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week...' - George Bernard Shaw

Random "...NOTES..." From Wrinkled Scraps...

As co-founder of Buzzard Brothers Construction ("Don't Call Us - We'll Call You..."), it was my job to not return calls and I was very good at not doing it, story of my life. In later years, with the passing of Dudley and Dewey Buzzard, an odd couple of birds, I inherited the firm, changed the name, sold off all our inventory and semi-singlehandedly began MY firm.

I take great pleasure in introducing to you: Hermit Construction.

In the 15 years of its laissez-faire existence since then, I am proud and pleased to announce as President-For-Life and Founder Emeritus, that to this day, only twice, think of it only TWO times - has Hermit Construction taken on a job, any job! The remainder of the time I've assiduously ascribed to our carved-in-stone motto, which we proudly display on our company t-shirts:

Hermit Construction
"...Turning Down Work A Specialty..."

"Rest Assured...We'll Be NO Help"

Had to leave town for a couple days...

...a friend of mine wanted to know could he use my pickup while I was gone so he might gather some firewood and I said sure you can only don't go getting drunk and driving my truck like a damned fool..."I won't."

Fast forward two days, I'm coming home a day early and it is after dark on a very snowy night, roads are treacherous, four inches of wet snow has piled up and those few of us on the road are anxious to be home.

As I come slowly down the steep and slippery South Acworth Hill Rd. about fifty yards above Michael and Lillie's house, suddenly from across the intersection my truck comes ripping around the corner streaking toward the store and my friend who is driving like a wildman, tires spinning, engine screaming, fishtailing side to side sending up a rooster tail of snow, is hammeredAND - I can't believe my eyes!- trailed by a flat-bottomed boat tied to the bumper on a long rope like a water skier and in this little pram Danny is sitting facing aft with a bottle in one hand (probably rotgut Schaefer) and holding on to the oarlock with the other, the two of 'em yahooing their way to the store before it closes so they can grab another case of beer they obviously do not need, and in my truck.

I say nothing and go home; they hadn't even seen me and next day when my truck is returned with BIG dents in the rear fender my friend dismisses it with '"Well, sorry, but it was really snowing and icy and I just slid off the road in slow motion..."

I haffta laff. Slow motion? Please...that little boat came around the corner like the last kid in 'crack-the-whip' on ice skates.