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I'm with Merle Haggard on this one. "I don't mean to hate December"... and I don't ,really. It just seems to be more "ordeal" than how it's billed.

Then, again... there are plenty of people who are denied any Yellow Brick Roads.
In comparison, I've got it pretty "cushy". I have walls around me. Charity from the State. The bills are paid up.

That wasn't much comfort as the night ground on. Every time the furnace fired up, I'd wake up... wondering how many more gallons were going through the chimney as the tank level lowers, incrementally. When I awoke for good, I found out why the thermostat was being overactive: 12 degrees, outside.

Ordinarily, that wouldn't be so much of an issue. But, partially due to my penny-pinching, I've waited on get the oil company to refill the tank: a few hundred dollars, right now, is crucial. But, with the blizzard that dumped, last week, they can't get anyone out here until sometime next week... and I've got about a hundred feet of snow to shovel before a truck could even approach. So, on Christmas Eve, I might be on a ladder, pouring kerosene into the abyss.

I like Christmas, and always have. I love the lights. The camaraderie. The warmth. The serenity, when the time comes.

Serenity is hard to come by, this year. Almost everyone I know is in dire straits. I'm back to passing out unnoticed résumés. The car (the one that moves) needs a new radiator hose, like, today. I bought a total of three presents for those that deserve them. Foisting off some of my artwork, not knowing whether they'd be appreciated, is another option.

And, according to the weather report, there's supposed to be freezing rain, overnight. That puts into jeopardy my two-show stint on the radio, on Christmas.
I thought that keeping myself busy, taking my mind off of myself, and doing something as minimal as that would do good for those who'd listen.

Like everything else, there's a "but" to go along with it.

This IS supposed to be the "happy time of year"... though this one, to be sure, hasn't been much to write home about. I look in the mirror, in the morning, and see the decline on my face... and my fattening ass. Even the cat is listless, refusing to go outside... though I wonder if my attitude is contagious to animals, as it's turned out to be to humans.

Here's another "but": I refuse to give up. Nothing ever stays the same, good or bad.
That's my mantra for the day.

I don't know who reads this, anymore... or, if anyone does, or wants to.
Therefore, this is my Memory Hole for venting.

For those who do... I wish you all the best in this season, and all of them.

"Everything's gonna be alright, I know."

(8AM)

It has well and truly hit the fan, outside these windows... if "it" means white and powdery, over a foot deep, and coming down sideways. It's so thickly descending, it's impossible to see a hundred feet down the driveway. That constitutes a "blizzard", in my book. Positively arctic... yet immensely beautiful, in a "Holy Fuck, I'll be stuck here for days" kinda way.

A Marshmallow World. A White Christmas, assured...  because this stuff isn't going anywhere for ages.

In reality, this couldn't have come at a better time. With school done, my next radio contribution not until Friday, there's no particular urgency or obligation to move... which would suit my monkish tendencies, so well cultivated for over a year.

(Many hours pass. And the tense changes)

When the ants in my pants started getting restless, and the worst seemed to have abated, I slung some fleecy shovels of snow, so I could at least get out of my front door, and see where the car was. I was wearing sunglasses, but I'll swear that I saw teh same color of cerulean blue that you see in glaciers, when I dug down, deep.

There are going to be some interesting photos. The Volvo is two feet taller than it usually is. The boxwoods are all flattened under the weight. The birdbath looks like a cake on a pedestal. Not a creature is stirring... except for the cat, who only recently remembered that there's a litter box in here.

My feet are warm. I care not.

Nevasca

I almost succumbed to that previous prophesy, the last time I wrote... the dark descent into atrophy, in less than twenty-four hours. It was like that first weekend when I got laid off... when I was driving into town in the truck, stuck at a stop light on a dreary, rainy day.

My arm felt numb. I was convinced that it was the Big One (Thanks, Fred Sanford)...until I realized that my layering was too tight to be driving in, and came to the conclusion that it was a panic attack. Couldn't very well crap out at the stoplight, could I?

So, since last week, I balled up and threw away two attempts at writing... that is, as much as one can ball up text files.

From maximum acceleration to idle in less than two weeks... well, it's arresting. It was making me see the upcoming Holidays as barren. Nary a decoration in the house, except for three thoughtful cards... not many more sent out, either. But, I'm not going to proclaim a bust, just yet. I've turned out to be a pretty sucky mind-reader and prognosticator.

So, preferring the Sly and the Family Soul version, "Que Sera, Sera".

Two incidences in the past seven days have upset the inertia, anyway.

I love all kinds of music.

Being a reggae DJ at a college station for almost as long as some of my listeners have been alive, you get pigeonholed after a while. A one-hit wonder. Well, growing up to Billie Holiday, Kay Starr, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington... and the Beatles starts you out all over the map, to begin with.

There was Soul music on that path, too. Early infection.

So, I made my Christmas present to myself be a ticket to see Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. She's from the same town, Augusta, GA, that James Brown came from. The performance, in a 20s-era movie theater, recently restored. Classic soul, with real musicians, and self-written songs. It almost felt like Memphis must have.

At one point, she mentioned that she "lent her boys to Amy Winehouse for that album", hand on hip. She let them atone themselves. Fat guitars and bass, trumpet, Alto and Baritone saxes, drums and congas... and she brought it all home.

Yesterday, after the last exam was over (four classes, Four Aces), I met the lady whose portrait I did a couple of months ago at a pub, decorated with my drawing instructor's canvases. Born in the British Virgin islands, years spent in Zimbabwe. Singing jazz in Prague and all over. Now, owner of that portrait, deservedly.

So, yeah... it's soul searching.

Considering there's a monster winter storm just brewing, outside, hopefully, being confined won't compound that mess. If it turns out to be over a foot, as has been forecast, it's going to be "confinement", that's for sure. But, arctic-cold air makes for really good radio reception... and there's a ton of drawing to do, on my time.

Two six-packs. A two-day old pot full of gumbo in the fridge. Two new drawing pads. Enough heating oil to keep me warm.

That'll do.

Thursday looms as the last day of classes. Back to passing out applications as if some ray of employment sunshine would beam down on me during the Christmas holidays.

It could happen. Flavor Flav came back.

Periods of inactivity unnerve me. Perhaps "apprehensive" is a better word for such.
And, since words mean so much to me,  "apprender", a root latin word for "learning" maybe gets closer to the bedrock of the whole thing.

I'm gonna "learn" if I can get the lead out of my ass.

Sherlock Holmes had a problem with down time. I can't afford his predilections, nor much beer, at this stage.  But, with a few weeks to decompress from studying, it's in my best interest to dig into this folder of extra images I've been wanting to draw while the time is right.

Last weekend, I cleaned out a room in my Grandmother's house, and re-assembled a humongous old-school drafting table in the room with the best northern light. It was her bedroom. Now, it's my "studio". This will be my first time getting comfortable in the place that might well become my last stand, if it gets down to the "roots-and-berries phase of existing. There are LOTS of berries in those woods... in the Springtime. Roots, however... I'm a little sketchy on them.

I'm gonna need to fill up these hours... because the Holiday season is a bugger to get through. Hell, even monks get to do some chanting and wassailing.

That's the clever name I've given to the evenings before weekly Spanish tests. Every room in the house had either an open textbook, workbook, or dictionary exposed for consultation... and the whiff of failure.
 
But, in two more weeks, that's over. I don't think I'll be going for SPA 201, either... not that Virginia would fund another four-course semester. The discipline for study was good for one to whom backsliding seemed inevitable, though.

Hell, when I was attending four-year college, I was only scheduled to do three courses at a time... and I didn't have to commute, then. Or cook for myself. Or pay bills.

I was a little bit crazy when I got started, see?

Not that I'm much more "sane", now. How sane is it to narrowly focus on the one "career" path that promises the least results?

So, now, it's "Thanksgiving Break". That means, I scurry to the employment commission to see if they'll let me go on to Round Two of the Graphic Communications game. It also means that I find some place to cut mats for the 18 X 24 frames that I've invested in... take my instructor's advice, and carry them all to this wine shop that he's indicated would be a good start to expose them (that sounds dirty, kinda). And, by Sunday night, I'm to have finished a Final Spanish Writing Assignment, a series of three drawings as a final assignment, a poster proposal, and the loose ends in Design Class, aka Fingerpainting 101.

Thursday, I probably collapse... which is all for the better, since Thanksgiving is just another day for one at the end of his family tree. Not that I won't give thanks in some way or another: I still consider myself lucky to be here... largely intact.

But, some things have alerted me to the fact that I've crawled just as far into the nautilus shell that is my life as I care to go: Spending every off-day with my broken cars and limited means. Every attractive female that gives me a second look having parents younger than I am (and, at my age, "cradle-robbing" is a term I've been stuck with, before, and seems an inevitability). This blog, here, repelling those that might actually want to say "Hi".

So, if I want to keep writing, I might have to go somewhere else, logistically... since I am still tied down, mentally and physically, with battleship chains until Providence shines.

Which means, of course, getting off of my ass and start gathering... before gravity gets me.

So... I'm not starving. After two very long weeks, I got my unemployment check back. One thing you forget, when you're not caught in the cogs of the State's "charitable" endeavors, is that nothing is ever spelled out for you. Nobody tells you what forms you need, if you need them, when you need to send them, or when the gate comes crashing down.

I will be SO GLAD to get past this soupy quagmire of a safety net.

While I'm feeling demonstrative, A big "Fuck You" to the ones who placed me here... you corporate high-finance c**nts, chess-players of other person's lives.
And, may the gods deign that magazines flutter off like the obsolete, lifeless birds that they are.

That's what I used to work on. Magazines. Tweaking files for tantrum-prone customers, first with film, then, with the network. I've been gone for eight months, now, and I've hardly looked at one... and, the few I still subscribe to are so thin you'd be done reading in an hour, once you got past the ads. I guess that means that they're soon to be history. They can't compete with the IMMEDIATE.

Hissy fit, complete.

This afternoon, I smelled anti-freeze when I returned from the dreaded Spanish Class...
 
...the one that has me conjugate verbs in the preterite tense in my sleep, knowing that humiliation awaits in the dreaded oral Lightning Round. The class where the Cossack made one girl cry, made another seethe for la profesora's jugular vein, and another doubt her sanity.

One should never feel more stupid after taking a language class.

 It makes your pressure rise.

Therefore, the car must be sympathetic. Somewhere, it's ejecting its coolant, too, in its own low boil.

But, relief is nigh. Two days of classes, next week, when I can tie all of the loose ends together, and make the next step. In that time, I'm going to frame up everything of worth that drawing class has spawned, and see if I can get someone to hang them. Maybe not an "opening", but a shot at some income. Some practical inspiration, perhaps. To defray my prodigious materials expenses, anyway.

It's when I'm drawing that my internal temperature gauge lowers. If I've learned nothing else, that's been worth the effort.

Ironically, drawings are on paper. Just like magazines.

Just, lots more exclusive. Challenging (after all, It's All On You).

And, de-pressurizing.

A funny thing that comes to mind on certain days: that, when I woke up that morning, I couldn't have predicted that I would be in that particular spot.

I was thinking that with the late afternoon sun lasering through the passenger window on the way back from Culpeper... on a half-tank of gas that the lady at the employment agency made possible. Nope, couldn't predict that conclusion.

My plans were to sell some furniture from the home place (in case I need to set up a studio/live there) and come home to put a rear axle seal in my rejected-state-inspection truck, and get it legal, again. High Five for the furniture: now I have space to re-assemble an OldSchool drafting table and leave an easel in the middle of the room, bathed in northern light.

The truck... got waylaid, kinda. The axle is out, the concrete smells like cat pee as only gear oil can, but things got different...

...beginning with finding out that my unemployment benefits have ceased. Not my bills. Or gas for my 500+ miles a week, in my school commute. Or the art supplies I'm required to have, every week. And beer, cigarettes, and maybe a little food, on occasion.

I will say right here that Conservatives can kiss my big, smelly white ass. Our Delegate thinks we're only entitled to 26 weeks, and you're outta here. Probably intended, literally. "Get rid of the ne'er-do-wells. Leave the county for Good, Upstanding White Folk, whose family settled here, 300 years ago. Oh, you rich bastards from northern Virginia can stay here, too... you'll just never be part of our 'Club'."

Pardon. I had to let that go.

After several phone conversations, it wound up that there might be three weeks before I see any cash. Not that I'm not grateful for a safety net for The Unwanted. Or wish I had a real job.

This is going to be tight.

There's an up side to all of this, though.

After the few pieces of furniture went for a relative pittance, I decided to stop by the little mercado at the edge of town...

...and sold five pounds of peppers to a grocery store, for the first time, ever. En español.
Of course, I spent five dollars more for groceries, there, than I earned. But, I earned a friend in la Reyna, the first auburn-haired, green-eyed latina I'd ever met... and found a way to never have to go to FoodLoin, again. Oh, and they have real Pepsi. With sugar, and not high-fructose corn syrup. My tastebuds remember that flavor.

And, there's a huge pot of collard greens simmering on the stove, from my own garden.
It smells like Soul Heaven in here.

If I'd doubted this going-back-to-school-at-my-age thing, I've now gotten over it. Something I learned, a language that I knew little of, three months ago, put food in my house. Only spoken in present-tense, mind you. Spanish 101 doesn't do Past and Future, so I probably still sounded like an idiot. And, my instructor is a SheWolf of the SS. But, she can't make me un-learn.

I've learned to love making images, again. The drawing teacher is giving me advice on selling artwork. My "major" studies are right on top. I want to do it, again, next term.

Three Weeks. That'll be the end of my first semester. No money for Thanksgiving. But, I'm thankful, already, for losing my job, if this begins something anew.

Inspiration don't come easy, that's for Damned sure.

Can I leave without snark?

No.

 I still hate Conservatives. This breed, anyway.

DareToDip0001

Perhaps the most egregious serving suggestion on record... considering the salt and funk content of these OnionGarlicWise chips.

But, Oh... I have dared.

First thing in the morning... with day-old spinach dip.
With a Dr.Pepper on the side.

Junk Food Nirvana, I tells ya.