up at four a.m. 'cause I'm a mostly-worthless drunk who shouldn't go to bed at a reasonable hour 'cause it screws everything up.

i think about how much i hate myself and my life sometimes while rocking rhythmically back and forth on my old wooden horse as Rob sets up the Brio train set of my abandoned youth. a nice lunch and serious talk with mi madre today, i hope things went as well as I thought they did but only time can tell that.

Attempt to watch the first two games of the World Series with Rob and Padre at the brew pub across from my pop's shop but I'm too scattered to stare at some screen and gift it my attention for too awful long. Stress and the bottled-up masks of internalized emotions ask me to take a shot of whiskey and I don't refuse. the nights get black if you stop thinking about sunshine, and I'm not very careful sometimes.

entertaining to say the least to dig through my father's back rooms, hunting treasure we don't know by sight, smell, dust or dream. a signed robert anton wilson over here in a box of junk books, my father's delta tau delta memorabilia box from whitman college, some old batiks, an enormous h.r. giger book, assorted records, a shotglass, twenty-seven pairs of sunglasses in a safeway bag, a little box of old silver dollars, weird sex books too strange to sell (at least here in Walla Walla). These are a few of my favorite things. But oh, the dust! Oh my aching lungs! Oh cigarettes and beer to ease this ache (at least temporarily).

I miss my girls and Steph is pissed off at our lack of co-parenting. I think everything's going great for the most part and actually prefer that we keep things short, sweet and simple, especially when dropping off the girls. Curious what other single parents, divorcees, used-to-be-nuclear parents, etc. have to say about these matters. Obviously we need to spend some time together to talk about details, work out kinks, be a family (however disfunctional) but I really don't think that more is necessarily better.

Oh brave new forgiveness, wrap me in your robes and let the people that I love love me back full and real and honest with no strings attached. Oh brave new heart and sick old lungs, drag yourselves out from behind the bar, from behind your masks, from behind your relentless egos and shape yourselves into some other lumps of clay that hold up a bit better to the storms of other folks' emotions. Stuck on my own established automatic monotonous patterns, my groove, rote, rut, approach, manner, method, madness, strat, style, tack, scheme, tradition, all of these and my policies need dusting. Do routines still increase skill if you loathe them?

Strange trip this time, spent almost entirely in either my father's bookstore or the brew pub across the street. no cabin, no mom's house (banned for a bit), no leaving the limited downtown arena. I have time for those hearts who make time for me and it drives me insane not being able to share my being to its utmost. I pick out books, add them to the pile of 25 boxes we will drag across the state later today, walk a few paces on this old tired track. Worry about my parents too much.

Come to Walla Walla to work for my father but there's not much to do in so little time other than just haul a bunch of shit out of his way. What a gold mine this old store is. I dig and dig and dig and never make a dent. I remember coming here over the years with all the different crews, women, drunks, poets, students, dragging them all back to see the place of my birth, the cabin, the books, the insides of my mind. What does any of it mean to them I wonder? Do they still smile and count their blessings when they think of me or have I shuffled off that mental coil, should I give it more pause?

Five twenty now and fuck all but I want a cup of coffee and a new identity in South America and several hand guns. Goddamn Walla Walla. I hate Beatrix Potter right now. This pencil needs sharpening. I am a bitter, jaded, cynical human being who should mostly just be left alone to stew in his own juices and try not to hurt the people he pretends to love. I don't want to drive across the stupid state today. Maybe I'll make Rob drive since he actually evidently knows how to sleep. Wish I was better at talking to the people who matter. Too many feet in this old mouth to make room for words. Alas, lackadaisical existence, tense heart-strings, impersonal audience with whom I share personal secrets and stories on this stage of our own making. What say you to my shifting sands? Am I still desert? Am I not dry? Would not a rain of tears quench this thirst?