walking around a town in west virginia at dusk the skies were purple mostly and cloudy not entirely just across the bottom band looking for dinner with some lad much younger maybe in his early twenties with curly hair a native and the traffic wasn't bad driving around what seemed to be a small town what also seemed to be san diego a large bridge a highway overpass hung over most of our walk down from the parking spot which took a while to find and then to the base of an urban hill i asked him what there was to eat around there and said i don't know the closest street with restaurants was up there and we started walking up and on the way i saw two people both sitting at restaurant tables one was wearing a cowboy hat the other was an old man both looked like they lived there and all of a sudden i'm in the shower still light out trying to get the soap out of my eyes feel a nudge from the front and a jump back saying what the hell there's the kid who was trying to show me dinner smirking curly hair and all i woke myself up after that

got stung by a bee today i was like ow i was like swearing and junk i was holding a long pole with a paintbrush taped to the end of it and felt good for a few odd seconds as i wielded this primitive tool like some kind of martial artist and then the bee came and earlier i had set down my blueberry soda and picked it up to take a glug when right at the bottom i guess but right in my mouth the bee swam as i was finishing the soda and i spit it out like some kind of cartoon comic strip spew all over the ground and threw the bottle down where the be was still alive and inside the bottle minus the soda and i came back later that day to find the bottle empty i thought that much soda would have done him in or her but i guess not and maybe must maybe it was the same bee that had stung me right on my big paw i sat on a rock and cried like a baby actually not i kept painting because there was a just a little bit left and usually normally i'm allergic to bees but it has been purteneer um ah ten years or so since i was stung last if i write a book about this time i'll call it in between bee stings and this will be the last paragraph

the sky is after putting my glasses on purple on a sunday evening by my computers watch the time is seven o seven and no change pm it says and i have no reason not to believe it after dinner mysterious chef no names allowed here due to personal liability reasons privacy concerns shishkabob pork and peppers garbonzo beans or something like them white buttery nuggets in a well developed bowl and a bowl of salad no spinach some bread and something else that escapes me at the moment afterwards eating chocolate while looking at mystery number twos pictures from a far away and foreign land slight breeze temperatures in the middle sixties those noises coming from the kitchen clinking dishes have done nothing toward preparation or clean up do you still like me or today was the first day that i've had nothing to do for about a month and a half or maybe longer than that and by nothing to do i mean at a home base like location and having the luxury to stay put or go or play music or dote on my sweetheart but nothing or neither read the paper and ate breakfast sat down to work on a manuscript for submission season but quickly got back up and took a walk through the grave yard to the music store where i browsed without a purpose and came back the skies were threatening all afternoon but held off as long as they needed to for this one sometimes sentences are meaning not what i wanted to say but in the rush of themselves spill out in premeditated chunks of habit and i have to admit that the last line and a half i didn't write straight through but slowed down so that i could say exactly what i wanted to say and thought about it because it was important

late night thursday got back from the office my mothers office where there is a printer and a copier machine where i sent of an application for the macdowell colony that may or may not be on time plus the recommendation that i asked for from a mentor like persona was asked for about three hours ago so maybe all this is too much too late but we'll see speaking at least i tried if nothing else i'll be early for the january deadline and speaking of which i need to write a check for twenty dollars for the processing fee which would probably bother me if i was addicted to heroin and had no job but as it stands right now i have work temporary as it is and am not addicted to heroin so twenty dollars to take a chance a fancy month long residency where i will finally have some concentrated writing time seems like a reasonable thing to do on a thursday in wisconsin where the clouds have cleared up and i can open the windows a bit and hear the insects and airplanes and breath a little bit better than i could while working at elizabeths house with the paint fumes and angry dog and all that and more one more day over there unless something goes wrong and then a big fat weekend to do nothing with my nothing and that will be nice maybe i'll eat ice cream in the hot sun and let it drip all over my tshirt with a big smile last a little while i have nothing really to say right now i'll keep you posted

the dog came back inside today with burrs all over her back and i got mad i said goddamn it violet i just picked a bunch of burrs out of your beard yesterday and then here you are again and commenced pulling little green fresh burrs out of the hair on her back which is much easier than the fur on her face i say fur not hair because that's a better word for it and i apologize for the personification like word i used to describe her fur ie the hair on her back which makes her sound like a hairy human like so many of us with hair on our backs in varying degrees but the point is i got mad and then got to picking burrs out of the fur on her back and the back yard is clear the sun finally came back today just in the last couple hours as i sat eating dinner and reading the paper in this two bedroom and mostly empty of people house in wisconsin i ate dinner and read the paper while watching the cnn news show the situation room which showed lots of bad news and one light hearted story about condi rice that lasted a couple minutes but other than that it was bad news across the board in iraq afganistan and our politicians ragging on each other and on the news services of course i would occasionally flip to fox news just to see what was going on there and it was all car crashes in ohio and not the war which cnn was broadcasting pictures and stories from it was depressing and mind numbing and how much bad news can one person actually take and maybe now i get it when people say i don't watch the news because it depresses me and others who ask if you actually watch or read the news and its all bad including the education report and makes me wonder how it could get better and it could warning political comment really they should cut loose rumsfeld and really the bush administration but that won't happen but rumsfeld seems like a possibility and its freaking crazy how much worse the war is going and the entire middle east but you don't need me to tell you this but what are we going to do about this but anyway whoever works at cnn must be some kind of robot or incredibly tough to stomach so much suffering detail on a daily basis or maybe one gets used to it seemingly not a solution just to endure but a survival technique corporate media to disband the united states somewhere in between exit ramps on the highway frightened midwesterner signing off

i think i just bought a printer that won't actually print the things i would like it to print but will see the man's name was clement as in clement i know no other reference points but i bought the printer for twenty dollars so i would have printing capabilities from here in wisconsin because since i'm earth bound right now i can work on sending out work which may or may not work but at least i will have been able to print it out or so i thought so hard about all of this before hand each piece should fit and when it does i can move on to the next one this piece the printer may only print photos but i don't know why that would be the case hopefully it isn't and hopefully the ink isn't ridiculously expensive the dog is shaking and rubbing against the bed because of what we do not know perhaps a glandular problem oily skin and fur that kind of thing helps ward off evil spirits the dog keeps shaking its collar which signifies something i'm supposed to understand maybe let me out or feed me or hello or maybe something more complicated but how could i know i mean i'm not a mind reader today it was raining all day all day inside no fun but painting busy young mother's house and young daughter must be aware of leaving toxic chemicals out and clean up right nice i will for the young family trying to make lasagna for dinner its almost ready as my mother will be away for the week she prepared me some lasagna to heat up i am twenty seven years old i think the dog is throwing up

also, found this on a website pointed to by the nytimes (watchingtheworldchange.com)

people ask me why i left new york...

dang it louise i just wrote a big long entry and then it all disappeared when i tried to spell check it o who care go dawgs yells the foot ball fan boy howdy its been a while but i wont make excuses instead i'll say after massachusets was a brief trip to kentucky to visit family then back to new york to finish packing my belongings into my brothers apartment and if you feel like you started reading in the middle of a story you probably did but you've done nothing wrong i'm the one who hasn't been keeping up on things or this thing here this program i say with a disdainful expression on my face to symbolize my contempt for technology but really i'm just sad because it rained all day so anyway after packing off to oregon for the bachelor party back to portland to get reacquainted then to oakland to do laundry and walk up a hill short lived to san francisco where i saw them all it was nice went to the beach serpentine bob dylan electric car morning flew to wisconsin for the wedding main even found everybody else even you also working painting back in it then to virginia for one more wedding and now i'm back here for the next month and a half before i go meet california in a formal way universal health care failed nor will i have a car but we might not care see movies get a job that kind of thing i'm happy to be back where the ground is not moving beneath me and will see you soon monday through friday five days a week