Overthunk

This man crafts literary crack. This is John Updike. He writes books that I cannot put down. They cause me to neglect the myriad obligations of life. I simply can't be arsed. I'm reading. I must finish the next part (cruelly he doesn't write in chapters much, just puts three-dot divisional markings between sections). Right now I'm battling my addiction to his Rabbit series. It's not polite. It's not politically correct. It's chock full of sex. It's dated (published in the 60's and 70's). It makes me laugh, cry, and agape with wonder at the power of its images. Still, like all junkies, I think you should try it. If you have any appreciation at all for how difficult writing is, it will make you bow before it. You might even see God in some of its shadowed corners. But I warn you: you will have to apologize to people for the things you did not do.

Don't get me wrong. Mostly I exist in a fog where exhaustion, anxiety, cynicism or paranoia spin a wheel to see who's watch it is, b ut sometimes... I drift into this cozy, mellow headspace where I am really present, living in the moment, and just revel in the beauty of life as it is right then, some kinda hippie-ass universal warmth lighting and radiating through my being. It's happened a couple of times on sunny days driving home with the windows open, but it also happened today while eating Hamburger Helper cheeseburger macaroni -- a reverence and appreciation for what is, a genuine humility. No Xanax, no wine, no cannabis. Just the Symphony of it all or somethin'. ---------------------------- "Just let your love flow." - The Bellamy Brothers

Listen to a marginally interesting tale of gas station cooperation!

(Or, Why I Should've Had a Blog in 2002) And NOW! FORGOTTEN CRAP FICTION THEATRE PRESENTS: Couch The notice came in the mail about 24 days after it first began sitting on the curb. It was once my Grandma’s couch. Hell, people who weren’t even alive anymore had spent nights nestled among its vaguely comfortable splattering of brown flora. Eventually it had made its way to my house, after the dividing up of the stuff. I needed a couch, and it had served well. But then, a jobless person had come to visit. For weeks and weeks. A fellow who, while he was likable enough, was a world-class sofa spud. And through a steady diet of time-devouring video games and TV westerns, his stationary ass had dented the poor old thing beyond hope or repair. Thus, it was kicked to the proverbial curb. One afternoon, my friend and I were nearly to the car when a couple of power walking neighbors happened by. “You know, you can call for pickup on bulk trash,” they told her. “Yeah, Thursdays before 5:00 p...

It is a fate that one day befalls us all. Water in the bowl, rising like a tide in tandem with the alarm and dread in our hearts and the black realization: it's going to overflow. In the crazed scramble that replays itself in sluggish motion now in my mind, I first went for this lucite-handled excuse for a tool: The Cutesy Blue Plunger. You may affirm that it matches my shower curtain, but nary has it cleared a clog. In a panic, I leapt for Bucket and Bailer. They remained my true friends throughout the ordeal, keeping pisswater from lapping at the soles of my feet. Over and over I went into the breach (seriously, like 110 times) with this trusty, borrowed black steed until my palm was bruised. Yet still, there was battle to be fought. In mounting desperation, I fled to the nearby fortress of Wal-Mart, where I amassed a new arsenal. The Master Plunger sucked up a gallon of water within its accordioned innards, and made impressive burbling sounds which inspired a fleeting optimism. ...