A celebration is in order. I must get a cork screw

The phones were ringing off the hooks today and my phone was being discussed and various other bits of craziness were going on and why is it that when I believe in something and chase it down it never seems as grand as it was from afar?

Oh I don't mean to sound bitter, good heavens no. I'm still as in love with life as I was the day I was born (well, after that unfortunate rump smacking and dragged away from my mother for all manner of tests and nonsense bit that seems to be the style nowadays) Well I woke up a few times because some people kept calling on the phone aand so I dozed away the day until about four oclock when Lisa called and we talked and she accused me of being quiet and I accused her of being quiet and the line sounded as though little gremlins were popping bubble wrap all around because the pay phone she was on was of poor quality.

And so finally my need to urinate over ruled my need to talk to Lisa and we parted, lamenting that we couldn't see eachother online more often and had to instead rely on hurried phone calls and closet internet appearances until Lisa got her computer fixed. So as soon as I was done in the bathroom I saw my father coming down the driveway and went out to greet him. He seemed to be of the mind that I wanted to go shopping with my foodstamp card, which was in his posession at the time. So I told him that I didn't need to go shopping at the very moment, I'd just need to buy a few things on the way to New York. (Let me point out that that trip occurs this saturday). He then informed me that he needed to go shopping so I decided to come along.

It was positively dreadful during the car ride hearing what him and Lauren have been reduced to. Making spicy pots of chile and eating that chile for days. Drinking Kool ade, a sweet and goodly drink to me but to them it must be bitter for that its drinking is required by poverty. And he says he thought he was having a heart attack yesterday and that he won't live very much longer. (He says that every time we meet... and every time we meet it does grow truer.) And so he bought bread and cookies and kool ade mix and other such things and I railed against it in my mind though I dared not shame him by pointing out how dreadful his circumstances were and how I intended to alter them when my own circumstances are altered. And of course he said that Lauren is doing no better than he is and seems to be lost in this world without any real goal, just drifting from interest to interest as I once did. And of course there were other dreadful stories that I won't relate herein.

And so I got myself a disposable camera and took my foodstamp card and got out of the car at home. I scarcely remember saying fair well to my father though every time I see him I know it may be the last. Once upon parting with him I remembered one of the things I'd wanted to say and so almost at random I thanked him profusely for having always created interesting drawings and caligraphy when he wrote my name on my bagged lunch before I went off to school. I don't think he ever did know I appreciated that. It's good to be friends with ones father I think.

And when I got home I had to almost immediately get online but Lisa didn't appear and there was absolutely nothing fun happening, unlike in the old days I so yearn for when early evening was the highlight of my day and Lisa and Shannon and Alex and everyone would be around to play with. So instead I went about taking care of two chrisis that have occured. One is something which Charlie made a rather larger scene about, or at least it seemed so to me. He popped up to my room and started talking about a bill from Sprint for my new phone line which costs about four dollars more than it should and he began rustling through the bill and pointing at words that had no baring on my bill and trying to figure out what the devil was going on with it while tried to be calm and intelligible about the matter. And so today I called them and worked it out in about a minute and that's much better now. The other thing that also came up yesterday was that I discovered that my agent at one time was considered to be a fraud as she attached her agenting services to editing services.

And so today I immediately began looking for a new agent or a publisher or, or someone! And I sent out frantic emails all night last night as well. I had a discussion with Chris and we agreed that monday after the protest we must get together and do some writing. Also, my pictures came in again from Wal Mart but they still suck and so now I must take more pictures and get them developed again and hopefully these will turn out properly. I think I shall steal them to avoid the dreadfully high payments for photography development. Now once I had talked with Chris a bit I became disenchanted with the internet and went to do some reading and hopefully, some writing. I'd already finished Aesop's fables (read the tale of the wolf and the lamb and see if the middle east dosn't collectively make a "bahhhhh" sound) and I'm in the middle of The Jungle Book and so I decided to polish of what's left of "This side of Paradise"

I finished the book in remarkable time and found terribly little meaning in any of it although I was touched and moved by it and I suppose that's meaning if there ever was such a thing. And so then I began writing and I did a poem and then wrote about three pages of my third novel. That brought me to the third section of the book and I now have about eighteen pages to go before I'm finished. And just as I was celebrating that small victory Lisa called. I was terribly worried something was wrong because she normally never calls during the early morning. But no, something was right. Her computer had returned well ahead of schedule so I hurried back onto the internet and we happily passed what seemed like no time at all before she had to go to bed. And so I talked with Chris a bit more afterwards.

I told him that I thought saw a lot of him in Amory Blaine, the protagonist of This Side of Paradise, and encouraged him to read the book and he actually did. I'm surprised that people are sometimes willing to take my advice, it seems strange that I have some importance. I often think of myself as being unlearned or unwise or other such things that basically make me not cynical. I suppose I've always thought my place in society was to be seen and not heard, though I certainly did scream happily and often. So it always makes me feel good when I manage to make a decent statement and help someone. So I then went and made a dinner of baked potato and I passed Blake's door on the way down. It hangs open or closed however people set it. I looked underneath for the light that suggested that my best friend was within. No such luck. I looked to the hole in the wall he had made at about waist level with a misdirected knee one day in a fight with charles. All I could think was "Look, Blake has been here. He has made an impact... and some day, it may be covered up..."