��Okay. A cinch. Nothing to it. Nothing could be easier. Why do I always forget what I was going to say as soon as I start BITCHIN. Cool, man. Its bitching. My brother was responsible for telling me: When did you learn what a question mark was? You look funny if you dont wear any underwear. A situation isnt really enough to write a story on. Bitchin is an exclamation for something positive, something cool, not for expressing frustration or anger. And many other things. I could mention. If I was a dolphin. Which I was. Once. Anyway. I was thinking about Pot, and how it led to my little crisis of self-consciousness, and a subsequent reassurance about the way writing works. About how all the shit I thought was shit really was shit, but thats okay, because its the typing that counted with those things. What was left on the page was just an empty husk; I had already taken out the seeds and chewed them up and swallowed them, and been taken where I needed to go. Which is what Im doing now. Which is why itll be fine when, tonight or later, I throw this right into the shit box, which is not exactly the same as a trash can, because what Im doing right now is typing. Thats all, just typing. Because it helps me put a close on my day. It helps balance me out. I dont know why it works, but it works. Kind of like karate. I went back tonight for the first time since the Y class broke up in late august. It is mid September. I went to UWM and worked out with strangers. Although first Steve Holter exchanged a few kicks with me, which helped me get out some of the nervous kinks. Which was cool. And then, for the rest of the class I didnt think about anything but what I was doing. And when I got out I realized I had had so much fucking fun its a wonder I even considered for a moment not going back. Now I just have to figure out a way not to pay $50 a month!!! There are still parts of me that dont buy the Ritual thing, the Just Doing It is Good For You Thing, and these parts are constantly looking back at ANYTHING I write or do, saying, if someone looks at this will they think its interesting? Will they think Im a quiet genius, nobly working and living and becoming a man, not asking for any special favors, no sir not me? And those parts are parts of me. Just like the parts that realize I did learn something by smoking pot the other night. I dont know if that was the only way I could have learned those things, but then what difference does that make? It could make a difference, if I could find a way that didnt necessarily make me feel like so much shit. But all learning comes with a price, right? The part of the price of potsmoking as a learning tool that worries me the most is: My tendency to binge on it. Which weakens its effect as a learning tool and turns up the feeling like shit parts something awful. And then I get all remorseful and rant and rave and swear I dont need it and Ill never do it again and I burn Billy and Robins number and then in a few months I drop by their house unnanounced, saying, I lost your number while their little redheaded kid pulls on my pants leg and I smile a forced smile and talk with Billy about the house. Its looking good, its looking good. I see you got that sewer fixed. Did I mention That when I read in Anne Lamotts book I made the mistake of thinking everything that happened to me was interesting, I just smiled and thought, ah yes how amusing her stories about how bad that realization crushed her but she still managed to come through it still working, still struggling. And then it happened to me, and I realized how much that realization really can hurt, when you were clinging to your shit and needing it to be beautiful art that would redeem you, earn you the love you so desperately know you dont deserve. Until somehow you accept that some of it maybe even most of it, well okay definitely most of it, really is shit, and you just got to squeeze it on out, grunt, and live to eat another day. And hopefully theres some nutrition that you get from all this eating and shitting. And yes, I do dare still hope that not ALL the energy gets turned into shit, that maybe a small portion of it each month, each year, each lifetime will turn into some kind of energy that can come out as something beautiful. All I know is you got to move your hips. Let them slide. And whip that energy out through your trunk, through your limbs, right on out your fingertips and toetips. So anyway, the whole moral of the story is that drugs do sometimes help you see things in a different light. From a different perspective. With other parts than the usual parts highlighted. Yeah, I like that one. Neither way is true or false, they both just exist. Right? Howcome every time I try to explain this stuff I feel a little like I just hit a drum head and it went Splat instead of ringing out clear and true? Home Home Home Moon Oblong River Sharp Fishes Wavelets Drum Mud He covers all the typos up, digitally, like they never even happened. But they did, dont you see? They did AND I LOVE YOU ANYWAY Katy katy katy katy smiling skin round butt warm pulse plump smile yet you are a real person, I got to remember that. Okay, thats fine for now. I feel a little weird about not having written a story or a poem or anything brilliant, but at least I did my typing, and tomorrow I will type some more. There is a spot in the middle where the water goes, and in that spot you can feel the truth pulling at you like a current, yet it laughs in your belly. Come Live There With Me. One of the things that jumped out at me when I was stoned and going, Oh my god this is all shit! was my tendency to state the obvious, to overexplain my metaphors. Like as in, The ground that thumps underneath us like a heart, instead of just The ground that thumps underneath us. By the context of what else I was saying they (WHO THE FUCK ARE THEY) would have figured out the part about the heart, or actually not figured it out at all, but had a chance to just feel it. WHATEVER maybe I need a teacher Maybe I have some