September The Daily (W)Rite 2o15 WK o1

A balloon. Adrift. Not knowing its direction it just floats along on any little breeze that happens by. And those gusty, autumn winds? Hell, they also have no sense of direction, they just blow, and anything in their way is forced to come along. People too can be trouble when you're a balloon. They kick at you, send you bobbing up into the air, out across the busy street where any car can hit and send you flying into a Ford Bronco or SUV that's traveling in the opposite direction. And the fool who kicked that poor balloon into street? He stands with his friends safe on the curb and laughs. Yeah, laughing! Not one of them runs out to save that poor ball of condensed air . . . I mean, would you? Risk your life for a balloon? Pretty sure I wouldn't.

Wednesday, September o2, 2o15 2:28am

3:21pm

Now is the winter of our discontent-Richard the Third



It starts off slow. Petty annoyances, like that punk-ass assistant manager at the Moore Walmart. He gets all grumpy at me for going behind the "sacred" cigarette counter. "That's a flagrant customer violation," he mutters to me as his shaky hand shows me the little gate at the end of the counter. "Do I go through there?" I know the answer. I just want to hear him say it. He shakes his head instead of saying "yes," shakes it at the same quivering rate of speed as his nervous hand that pulls the tiny gate open.  And last night all my assholes friends on Facebook posting stupid ass memes: "I Believe Police Lives Matter," "7 Rules of Life." I made my own meme to fight back against the idiocy of that last one (see above). And then today I go to get my bike tuned up and the bike shop dude gets all in my face with, "Man, it's the beginning of the school year (at OU)! I can't work on your bike for TWO WEEKS!" AND my good friend, my only friend these days, David: "No, you said you wanted to go to the Yogurt store. Me? NO, I didn't say anything about Zoe's Kitchen." And Later at Hasting's Books, "Are you going to read that book you just bought? I bought you some books to read and you haven't read any of THEM . . .! " AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!! A Tsunami of rage washes over my whole body. I feel the fists inside my head tightening up! "Who are all these fucking fuckers fucking with my fucking life?!"

Yeah, it happens to me all the time. My own personal Winter of FUCKING Discontent! Well, not all the time. Maybe every four months or so. And of course it's all in my head and has nothing to do with what other people say or do. It's all on me. Manic depression. What to do? Lock the doors and wait. Cut off as much as I can all contact with the outside world because I know that this too will pass, in a day or so, a week or more. Suffer through it without making others suffer through it too. I should probably be on some kind of medication. But no. Not me. I can get through this on my own. Coffee and nicotine gum. That's enough drugs for me!


 1o:31pm

Leveling off a bit. Sleep crawls up onto the eyeballs forces them to close . . . ten minutes . . . open, stare at the TV . . . close . . . twenty minutes . . . open. Soon the heavens begin to clear, the rain, the thunder fading . . . no, no sun. It's dark. It must be night. or maybe I went blind sometime during the last forced fed nap. I can't see the world. But that doesn't stop me from remembering in thick butcher knife slices everything that ever happened to me. Good, bad, all mixed up, wadded up in each other. I can't tell a dream from a nightmare.

Thursday, September o3, 2015

The weather is still summery, ninety degrees and above when the sun is up and dropping to about eighty when it goes down, but it still feels like autumn is coming. I don't know what it is exactly. I do know that September is a transitional month when it comes to time of year, neither summer or fall. I guess September is a special month, a renegade, a rebel being itself, like no other month. The raging weather inside my head is today very much like September. It's not totally over, but it's not as angry or volatile as it was in dear ol' August.

Coffee this morning, or actually afternoon, with David at Second Wind Coffee House. We talked about all the hullabaloo going on about the county clerk in Kentucky who refused to give gay couples marriage licenses. I sort of admired her tenacity going against the court order and all. But David wasn't having any of it.   "She's breaking the law!" Yeah, okay, she is. But I can't help but think-even though I don't at all agree with her point of view-that she's doing what an American citizen is suppose to do . . . stand up for what you believe in. Stand up and be counted even if it means you go to jail, lose your job and have a hell of a lot of people bad mouth you on Facebook.

1o:30pm
Showered, shaved the way I've been told to execute proper hygiene. Do I feel closer to God? In some subconscious, clean way I suppose I do. Getting close to God for a moment isn't too difficult: Pray, ask forgiveness and really mean it. it's the long term friendly relationship with Him that's troublesome. Maintaining a proper "holy" state is often too much for a sinner like me. I hope God gives points for trying. Not sure he does, though.

Friday, September o4, 2o215
Nux: [In the midst of a massive, violent sandstorm, after witnessing his fellow WarBoys sucked off the War Rig into a vortex] Oh, what a day... what a lovely day!

In Norman-town that's exactly what we got . . . one hell of a beautiful day! Big smile mushrooming onto my face while I watched the herd of gigantic clouds grazing on one of the bluest skies I have ever seen. Walking turned into skipping, yeah, like an eight year old kid, nodding hello to passerby, sometimes a bright hello would float out of my mouth . . . yeah, a really strange day too when I'm this . . . gleeful! But that's how we manic folk do act on the emotional up swing. But I ain't counting nature out. She be gifting  me with a very special loveliness today.   And I am appreciating it.

1o:30am
A lot of scrounging for drugs this afternoon. No, not like that! Medications prescribed by a doctor. You know, the older you get the more drugs you need to just keep the motor running. A pill everyday to keep my cholesterol low, a "senior" vitamin, A memory pill! Yeah. A pill to help me remember . . . I don't remember what. Inhaler for my COPD (yeah, you know me!) and a chewable fiber thing that also helps with my weight (well, it doesn't really ) and a chewable baby aspirin for the heart. A lot of shit to take just to stay alive for a few more years.

Saturday, September o5, 2o15 3:30am
There's this poem I discovered stored away on Facebook that I hadn't completed. Just in the shaping stages of it. But I thought I'd put it on here and see if that helps me "see" it, where I need to go with it.

Almost Cut My Hair

 

. . . my long hair bothers me . . .

a dirty red symbol of rebellion . . . of youth.
Worn-out now, thinned to grayish strings now,
slowly becoming winter, a winter it will
never recover from.

 

What’s left of it

spends far too much time this morning
tickling my nose, my ears and high diving
off my head into my coffee cup . . .

 

. . . I must be getting old, older.

The last thing to go?
That childish addiction for coolness . . .

 

These days I favor comfort over fashion,

sweat pants feel more at home
around my expanding waste than blue jeans.
Beards are out, a goatee remains
but merely as a cover-up
for the saggy skin below my chin.

 

No causes to march for anymore,

to fight and scream for . . . anymore.
Black Lives Matter! White Lives Matter!
It’s all just vacant noise ‘cause
matter doesn’t matter anymore.

 

The news  . . .  stories mouthed by canaries

melting one into another . . . short clips
of weeping widows and  angry fathers
and politicians banging their impotent fists
against the podium . . .
as long as the cameras continue to stare.

Everyone’s raging these days, everyone shouts

so loud that the world has gone deaf . . .
finger wagging in a stranger’s face
like a babysitter scolding an unruly dog . . .

 

Kent State

not even a bloody memory anymore.
The stains wiped clean . . .time . . .
a diligent, thorough  housekeeper.

 

Janis, Jimmy, David C,

faint echoes whimpering
from  iPods . . . CDs
or whatever  the hell
they call those damn things.

 

My past . . . vague glimpses of acid trips

and drunkenness and cigarettes
and girls with flowers in their eyes . . .

 

I’ll keep my hair long for as long

as it cares to stick around.
Maybe some years from now
I’ll notice it

 

. . . tickling my nose, my ears

and high diving off my head
into my coffee cup . . .

 

I’ll wonder then why
I never got it cut?

Did some work on this poem a bit. You can see it with art work at:
http://evenmorepoetrybyrobertrwoods.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2015-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2016-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=23

Sunday, o6, 2o15
Sunday. A day to breathe. That's what my dad told me, back when we, the family, lived in that big scary house my aunt and uncle owned. What dad meant by "Sunday. A day to breathe" was more like Sunday a day to lay on the couch (in his sleeveless undershirt, dress jeans and socks! My dad always wore big wooly socks even when it was 90 degrees out.) and drink beer and watch the stock races or the demolition derby or the figure 8 car races until he fell sleep. I liked the sounds my father made when he slept. It was funny to us kids. He's start off with a very quiet intake of breath (like a baby breathing) and then out of nowhere this huge roar would come out that woke him up with a start. And we kids would laugh because he'd look around trying to figure out where that roar came from. My dad was a good dad most days. I don't have a picture of my dad. I wonder why? I'll see if my sister does. I'd like to post one of him. But sense I don't, a may as well celebrate the thought of him this Sunday by taking a nice long breath and relaxing the rest of the day.

Monday, September o7, 2o15

Here it is the last day of the first week in September and I've written something on this blog every day! Some days I wrote a hell of a lot. Other days I barely got a paragraph out. And today has been rough. All this week I've felt physically . . . damn good! Got out and about during the day and writing at night on this blog and the poetry blog. Also created a few "pseudo" cartoons of myself and my friends. The memes look kind of cool. I did a few hand drawings last year. I really need to get back to it even though it's HAAAARD to hand draw.

We had Game Day this past Saturday, which if you don't live in a collage town you might not understand how frustrating and exciting it get around Norman-town on Game day. Tons of folks all dressed in the OU red and white, drinking lots of beer and . . . well, it's like a human damn broke and flooded the streets of Norman-town with people. Beautiful girls and guys, ugly folk, skinny and . . . not so skinny people . . . lots of noise from street venders, local DJs and bands! A really great time. And every Game Day I get out in this flood of humanity and take pics with my camera. My friends warn me about doing the paparazzi thing 'cause people don't like to have their pictures taken on the fly, but so far nobody has said anything. However, on examining the hundreds of pics I take on an average Game Day ( and yeah, I mean hundreds) I always find at least one person who is glaring at me! Checkout the big guy in the pic on the left! Man,  pretty sure he didn't enjoy being "PICed off" by a runty old man and his Cannon!

Like I said, pretty much all week I've been filled with energy! But tonight? Wow. Feeling pretty run down, I just flattened out after me and David got back from Walmart. My head thumping with a troll size headache just drained me. I wound up laying on the couch closing my eyes and hurting so bad that I couldn't even take a nap. It scares me a bit, this lethargic achy feeling. Oh, well, I'm better now.

So maybe I'll end the week here, my friends. I really appreciate you taking the time to read this mess. I hope you'll continue cause I think I might be getting better at it! Also, checkout my poetry at:

http://evenmorepoetrybyrobertrwoods.blogspot.com/

A new poem going up either tonight or tomorrow . . .but there is still a LOT of poetry already on it if you are interested in that sort of thing. {smiles}