I guess somebody noticed yesterday because headphones are banned today.
To be honest, though, it was because reporters weren't listening to the scanner. Unobservant losers.
Now I have to actually work. I feel like I'm in "Footloose" or something.
...
At least I've got my voice back. So, ... Such, Is, Life!

I wonder how long I can sit at my desk and do the robot to this song before anyone notices?
...
The song ended. How bout rockin' to this?
...
That one ended, too. Oh, you won't believe what's coming up!
...
God I'm a nerd. Maybe I need to change radio stations.

Dreams have grown weirder. Last night, I dreamt of walking into what used to be Lakota. It'd been sold. The insides were gutted. My old friends had packed suitcases and were leaving. I started crying like crazy. And when I woke up I kept crying.
I really miss that place.

Did I tell you about the headline I wrote the other day? Here it is again, if I didn't already tell you.
"Beer: it's what's for dinner"
Slightly clever, aye.
"Ha! P-bone, don't you see? It's funny because it's sometimes true."
"You mean, like tonight?"
"Well, whatta you think?"

Whenever the newsroom meets in the composing room to talk of the paper's successes for the month, like yesterday, I always feel worthless. My function is so nonessential, it seems. I'm getting no useful experience, work, contacts, anything, it seems. Additionally, the skills I do have're becoming dulled, it seems. Se-la-Vi?

I'll never get the last four hours back. They were used building the Movie Guide for tomorrow's publication. 'Twas extremely tedious. 'Twas more than five months old. If nobody uses the thing practically, it will break my heart into several popcorn-sized pieces. ... Maybe I'll use it, just to be sure.

Here're 50 more perfectly fine words on a fellow blogger now relocated in the crisp air of the highlands. I remember once starting a drunken road trip that ended sober & flat broke in a town just before the mountains. All that we could sell was sperm...
Anyway, happy blogging B!

A close friend of mine might be changing scenery. It would be a drag, a major drag.
Of course, if he wanted to live like a hippie, he could always crash on my couch. Granted it's made for short people, but since when has that stopped any hippie from squatting?

Here's some hippie humor for you on this fine Earth Day.
"How do you know if a hippie has crashed on your couch?"
"Gee P-bone, how?"
"The hippie is still there and has started a drum circle."
"Ha! It's funny because it's true!"
True credit for the joke goes to ...

50-word story

She licked a finger and touched it to her eyebrow, smoothing down a parade of unruly strands.
"Are the hairs too blond?" she asked him.
He smiled in the mirror behind her.
"Yes," he said. "I wish you were a brunette."
"And another thing," he said. "You drink too much."


Blythe

---

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"He smacked his chest it was such a great morning. Sun shining, birds singing, and newspaper waiting on the fresh-cut grass.
A neighbor walks by, walking for fitness.
'Howdy,' he shouts with a wave. The neighbor ignored him. 'Geez...' He still doesn't fit in around here.
He types it later."

There's a great big pile of fresh strawberries on my desk to my right. There's chocolate to my right. I spent some time today playing in inDesign and playing with some short fiction. If I didn't know better, then I'd say —wait! Better not say it. ... se la vi.

The second disk of the television series "Twin Peaks" arrived via Netflix.com. Since, I've twice watched the first three episodes on the disk with every intention of staying awake for the fourth and final.
... typical Lynch frustration. Linear progression curtailed by my own biological needs. So tonight, pot of coffee.

After such a profoundly fun weekend, now I'm back at work. It's surreal: I can't believe I had that much fun. I got to record somea my music. I met a great new friend. Things seem like a dream now. In many ways, the last four days were quite perfect.

It has been quite a while since I put the machine in neutral and pushed off into the street, keeping quiet on a misty 5 a.m. morning so as not to awaken anyone who may be sleeping, or may think I'm sleeping, in the next room. Nostalgia is good sometimes.

This night marks a year since my slide into paranoia and depression. Things are different now: out of lockdown, single, diseaseless, fam's OK, nobody's stalking me, money coming in ... I'm still alone. And if I were to become troubled, there's no one to bail me out another time around.
...selavi.

As I write, Mr. Life is participating in a discussion that could lead him out of the state of North Carolina. And at this time, I lament not traveling down to see him more in the months that've transpired. Nevertheless, a literal "vaya con dios" is in order, as usual.

One simple extensionalization that gets me through the day is the radio. Back in CoMo, it was in my car; in K-town it's on my work computer. I feel a little dumb having only just realized this tool. Nevertheless, my radio is back in my life, which produces some contentment.

Sentimental Sunday

Hello all again.
It's been a good deal of days since 50 word stories has been active. A good deal has transpired since the last transmission. And a good deal of nothing has transpired as well. As is natural, I've arranged paragraphs of reports with subheads.

Sand in my pockets
K-town is becoming more complex with the passing days. Certain friends have appeared, which will be outlined in coming sentences, that could be described as bizarre. The warranted analytical reports have concluded: Life has become a deeper departure forked with a clear dichotomy between that which is so absolutely expected and that which could never have been predicted.

Banana Girls' separated
I ran into Ms. Banana Girl and singular company at the market last night while looking for a water filter. I'd tried to reach her by cell phone a few times, but her subscription is temporarily canceled for lack of funding. Last night, I asked her "What's new?" and she said she and the other Banana Girls were moving out of their Banana House. It seem she's moving back into K-town; she promised to give me a call. I guess (a common phrase I'm using these days) that's really the end of the story.

Run for the border
Mr. Tone has moved to Georgia. One weeknight some time ago, he knocked on my door, extended a Bud Light, which I declined, and told me that, due to legal trouble, he'd decided to abandon North Carolina, never to return. He explained that if he were captured by the authorities he would spend a year in a correctional facility.
Now that he's gone, next door is quiet. There's no dog running around. And Mr. Tone no longer takes my newspaper from the far end of my yard and places it by my doorstep. My feelings on these absences remain neutral.

The SlappHappy Chefs
One great place to swill a little scotch and, on a good night, not be bothered is downtown here in K-town. The entire restaurant is lavish, proud, strangely out of place due to its (for lack of better words at the moment) high-class nature. The kids in the kitchen are nearly just as similar as any restaurant kitchen in the country: laid back, highly informal, SlappHappy, and connoisseurs of beverages of the masses.
They are, though, well versed in the pleasures of the upper crust.
Working in this establishment as a cook means that these kids know their way around expensive food. The following this establishment has garnered spans several hundred miles. Checks for a group of patrons typically run upward of $300, I'm told. I believe this assessment.
However, these details are neither here nor there. The kids are crazy like me, probably more. So, with not much else in this town to point my attentions, I'm becoming SlappHappy.

Clear my throat
Some kind of sickness has taken simple roots in my throat. My voice has been compromised for the moment. While frustrating, I've discovered that inability to sing has focused my ear's palate. More than ever, I can assimilate the music heard with frightening accuracy. I had no idea this kind of level could be attained. And all I had to do was shut up!

Lost
It appears that I'll be staying in K-town for quite a spell. My ear is to the ground for other opportunities, though my action will only be taken when the opportunity is closer to the ideal. While life in this present tense does not provide the entertainment, distraction, or social appeal that I would like, it has its moments. I have a life, though I have to work twice as hard to have it. And with time, I forecast, none of these decisions I've made will mean all that much. And by extension, nothing I do will mean a whole lot.
I've wrapped my mind around this "business as usual," this present tense. It's OK for now; I've found a brittle peace with this place.

More business as usual tomorrow!

Sentimental Sunday

There is a bottle and a fountain.

The fountain is a dark tan rectangle about 3-feet tall by 1-foot wide by 1-foot across. It has a shiny metal top with two right triangle-shaped depressions formed with their largest side facing each other. At the bottom of both, three slits roughly a half an inch across allow water to fall through. On one corner, a spout stands topped with an off-white circular dial with one rounded point etched with the letters "OASIS." A gray plastic faceguard follows. If you turn the dial either way a graceful arc of water is released.

The bottle is clear plastic with a bright blue plastic cap covering a small aperture at the bottle's top. It has four sides and a top that narrows the sides toward the cap. When twisted one direction, the cap makes a rather tight seal; when twisted the other direction, the aperture is exposed. The paper label on one side describes how "Silica," which apparently the store-bought water is endowed with, " ... may help maintain your body by strengthening bones, connective tissue, teeth, ... " and etcetera. The plastic label on the other side shows a pink Bird-of-Paradise flower in the lower right-hand corner and the large, all-capital-letters word: "FIGI," in a rather boxy font. The plastic label also states that the bottle can hold 500 milliliters of liquid, which is probably inaccurate now because the bottle was left in a hot car for a rather long time and feels bowed out on its four sides, a deformity resulting from the trapped pressure from the condensate of the store-bought water formerly inside.

These objects exist in reality. On average of about 12 times a day, five days a week, I take the bottle to the fountain and fill it. This act occurs without difficulty, and lasts about 30 seconds. I drink the water and repeat the process.

In my mind, however, it never happens. I cannot seem to picture turning the dial and allowing the graceful arc of water to fall into the bottle.

I imagine holding the bottle. I imagine that I'm at the fountain. I imagine turning the dial to loose the water. I imagine holding the bottle under the arc. And just when the arc is falling through the small apeture of the bottle, the arc moves or my hand moves — despite keeping my arm as stone in reality. The arc falls on either side, over my hand holding the bottle, sometimes missing the metal top of the fountain altogether. Mustering all concentration to imagine filling the bottle the same way I do in reality does not help.

I do not understand this.