samoyeddogs

March 7, 2013.  Mad journal.  For those that are really mad, by someone who’s really mad. Look out, he’s really mad.  That’s right.  It’s not contagious.  It comes from within, like insanity.  Rise at noon after twelve hours in bed.  Second night in a row.  The plan is to sleep the shingles to death, with the help of an ass-kicking drug cocktail and several Löwenbräus.  And perhaps a sprinkling of Glenmorangie.  And I may be on to something.  The affliction may perhaps have peaked.  I soothe my spirit with some vacuuming around the suite then break for lunch.  Then procrastinate a few hours.

Around four we drive to the booze store.  I’m holding down a part time job there in these mad times and, as there’s been no work for a month, feel a need to show the flag. The security guards, who for some reason love me, want to shake my hand. It could be they have been impressed with my consummate talents as an actor. I pretend I’m not affected by the travesty of me working here, and they enjoy the performance every time out. I’m here to look at the sheet to see if there’s any shifts coming up.  There are none.  Zeros are easy to keep track of and, on second thought, I do exit with a six pack of Löwenbräu for safety. You know how it is when you can’t stand the thought of running out.

You can get away from pretty much anybody you want except maybe yourself, I was thinking, as we come down Cambie Street.  As usual, driving our twenty year old hulk, I’m also preoccupied with all the flash cars in this town.  Next to us for half a minute is an example of the brand new Lexus ES350.  Tail lights reminiscent of some recent Beamers, I’m thinking, craning my neck to see the driver and sole occupant.  Wow. It’s a mature white guy. Why the heck didn’t you get a better colour than this stone gray? I  want to ask him. I wonder if he’s happy with his magnificent piece of tin.  I’ll never know.  Heads off in the right lane.

Black Dog Video and we labour long and hard.  Half the movie titles sound the same and most of them have the same actors and actresses in them.  I think there’s some kind of thing to lose the word “actress” for something else, “actor” like the guys, or something.  It’s just something I’ve noticed.  But “actress” and “actresses” are beautiful words and they’re usually about beautiful people.  Why would you want to get rid of that out of some ape-induced sense of gender equality or whatever is going on there?  They’re actresses, apes.  Actresses.

It’s funny how when someone dies before they’ve even quit work it upsets their retirement plans.  Okay, forget that.  Enjoy your retirement, ape!  It’s maddening all right. R.I.P. G.W.

The Pie Queen is here tonight and we are looking forward to a magnificent hoedown.  It’s been too long.  I head downstairs sure that she has made great progress in the making a pie idea, probably has the flour out of the jar by now, and when I get there see that the pie has not only got itself together but is already in the oven baking.  Sheesh yeah, exclamation point!  Fastest Pie Queen in the west.  Watch yourself around her.

We watch “Skyfall” or “Downfall” or “Upswing” or whatever it’s called. It’s a bad cartoon. Why are you the spic in every damn movie now, Javier? I’m still looking for a copy of “Iron Sky” though. That is a brilliant piece of work.

Mad Journal.  March 5, 2013.  Tuesday.  We had a couple of days of a bit of the sun, but now that’s all over and we’re rolling in the gray.  Or is it grey?  Despondency intermixed with depression with the usual salt and pepper of bitterness and anger re my writing  “career”.  Oh wait, I’ve already talked about puke-inducing material.  This life is an effing bastard and yes, it makes me angry.  It’s male anger, apes.  Scratch your chin and yawn.

Seems this gammy leg and bit of rash turned out to be “Shingles”.  Got to the doc yesterday and it was funny.  The interview was forty-five minutes after the time it was supposed to start, but one thing I had done while waiting is pick up and look at a brochure on shingles put out by makers of a vaccine for it.  And there was an image of what looked very much like what was on my body.  I mentioned to the doctor (not my regular, as he’s on holidays) that I’d just looked at this brochure.  He took one look at the conflagration around my left knee and said, “Yes, it does look like shingles.”  Caused by a virus.  The virus has hung around your body for decades, since you were a child with chickenpox, in fact, and now that you are older your immune system isn’t what it used to be and this virus manages to break out of where it’s holed up in some of your nerve cells.  It’s too diabolical.  Remember how when you were younger you were convinced of your invincibility?  It’s a bloody miracle you made it this far, apes, considering the threat level.  You are a minor, possibly insignificant entity in a vast and highly toxic conspiracy.  In its essence it is the war between death and life.  And you’re losing it.

I’m not sure what to do next, so, standard procedure, do nothing.  This always leads to something but you can’t say you really have a plan.  Plans were given up on long ago.  Plans are just that—plans.  They have no relation to reality as it inevitably unfolds.  Years ago you never made plans then, for a change, you made a plan.  You followed it like a good ape.  It was text book follow-through and after a lot of hard work you were left with nothing.  A big fat zero, my apes.  So you moved away from planning again, which is where you are today.

There goes a silver balloon, northward, at about five hundred feet.  There’s a pissed off child somewhere around here.  I can feel it.  Then the rains came.

Turns out those were the Olympic Mountains.  You know, due south of Saturna Island down there in the Olympic Peninsula and all that.  Due south of the San Juans.  Fine looking, snow-cappers in the sun.  Distant prospect of.  Do you guys know where I can get a novel published?