Today Is A 9

Congratulations!

This may be the best day of your life!

If you look like me, there'll be nowhere to go but UP!

It doesn't take a million to feel like a million!

i'm stuck i'm trapped in a cycle that i never chose or wanted to be in or ever even visualized i'm working and what for where does the money go for clothes and shampoo and drugs and gas for the car to get to the job to pay for the car to drive to the job.........

Why don't you try THIS toothpaste, you know you'll feel less alone!

Your hair needs coloring, your clothes are drab but golly there's hope!

Buy a lottery ticket, this is your day!

why don't things ever change or nothing happens to me bored remember when exciting events  used to just occur out of the blue and you could look forward to the day or at least you felt there were possibilities, the good old days when....

Uh oh! You have to wear a diaper.  Never fear, if you use OUR brand!

Hurry you need life insurance! Don't just stick your loved ones with the bill, pay it off yourself! Again and Again!

Become a nudist! Play golf! Join a club!

and now it's almost over and i have a list, see right here a list of all the things i wanted to accomplish and now they'll never well maybe i mean i just got botox so i still look young and i go to the gym 5 days a week and i never miss yoga and i'm vegan and i'm handsome and i eat organic----

                                                      Silence. Silence. Silence.

****************************************************

I'm Right Here

You never know I'm there.

Do you?
That's ok, I'm not mad!

I think sometimes you might sense me, if I 

(accidentally or maybe on purpose) 

brush to close to you.

 You have the greatest little habit of looking quickly to the side as if you'd seen something.

I love watching you do that.

But I don't think you know it's me.





We've been together for years now!  I know you so well!
But you never know it's me.



I don't want to scare you -

Occasionally, I have to admit,  I get this overwhelming desire to reach out and touch your arm as you're stepping into the shower, just throw you the tiniest bit off balance, just to see how you'll react.
Wouldn't that be funny!


No don't worry, I won't do that.  Mostly because I'm not allowed to!

(I don't like trouble.)

We live in different worlds you and I

Let me tell you there are a lot of rules where I live.

Here are some:

No Touching

 No Speaking Unless Thru Electronic Devices

 No Frequent Moving of Objects

Some ghosts are luckier, they get to make as much noise as they want.
But I don't want to just haunt, I want to....
....have coffee or a drink with you, share a napkin,
 go to a museum and look at the pictures and ooo and ahhh and complain and admire.
I know that you do these things, I've seen you.
And I was there, but....not really.

I remember the difference!

Oh well, I still enjoy being with you.
Maybe you can see me, a little to the side.

LOOK!



I'm right here.








******************************************************

Our Home

I

remember having lunch out on the porch when it was summertime and so hot

you

could barely breathe in the stuffy rooms of our childhood home.

Mother would be waiting at home to make lunch, remember? 

Sometimes she even managed to greet us with a smile, posing prettily by the marble fireplace in the basement.

I think I hated school even then:  a holding pen for the maladjusted and the unlearnables.

At least our school was.

Mr. Marston used to throw his baton at our heads when he was angry, remember that??

What an asshole.  

I learned a lot from him.

I was always so sure that it would be ME 

that got out, I would be the one who made it far and 

wide and only looked back

with a crooked grin,

what a sick joke to be the one left to 

tend this pitiful hearth.

Yes I used to stand by my chair for hours!

Uncle Rog never let us sit before him.

I made the best whiskey and soda, he said!

I liked sitting on his lap by the fire.

I wonder if Aunt M. ever sat on Uncle Rog?  Everyone said she loved herself best.

She "never had a chance", I never knew what that meant.

In life? In love?

      

And the legends surrounding that bear skin rug! Outrageous weren't they?

I had  to give that thing a wide berth when I went nightly to the wood shed, let me tell you!

Did you ever look into it's eyes?

Some days Auntie M. never left the davenport at all.
 Just sat and stared.  In her prettiest dresses.
 Listening

to the sound of the ivy attaching itself to the chimney.













**********************************************************************************

My little caged bird sings so sweetly for me.
He whistles while I sharpen my knives.
I keep him inside, sometimes his cage hangs in the sun.
The sun moves across the room, it is brightest at 3:05.

It falls across his cage.
He doesn't like the sun.
He prefers the shade.

I cover him at night, he doesn't need to see out into the dark anyway.
Bad things out there.

I found him in the forest, poked him with a stick.
I brought him home and locked him up.
I had the cage!
He likes it better here with me.  I know.
Sing for me! Sing! Sing!

Of places I'll never go.
Of those faces I'll never see.
So sweetly.
Ahhhhh.

I'll never let him go.


Thanks T.S. for the parakeet story

Night after Night

Night after night I sit here and watch her dance.

Sometimes the air gets so hot I can't breathe but I don't care.  I don't come down.
 Not anymore.

The girls, they come up and bring me whiskey.  Plenty of it.

There's my friend Lucky.  He always leans, even when he's drunk.

I can't stand the way some of these girl's are dressin'!

But I love to see her sitting and looking in the mirror.

To be invited up.....that is a big deal.  Means she likes you.

You could just bust in but.... I don't like to treat her that way.

Some nights I just prefer to watch.  From afar. Especially so she can't tell I'm watchin'.

If she knows you're interested, she'll take you for all you've got.

Stay back!  You want her to see me?

You dog!

 Well when I die, they'll be takin' me to the graveyard in Doc Sweeny's Black Moriah!

Believe it or don't.

I still feel a little funny having buried Old Chuck yesterday.

Was that his wife dancing tonight?

Lord, it's hot up here.

I won't go upstairs tonight.

Ever since that bad night/day and night with Apache May, I really haven't been the same.  

The same person I mean.

Who would be?

Christ.

I guess I feel better sleeping outside.

Good night.

a New Adventure! part 1

It was thursday and the gang was antsy.  
What haven't we done yet?  We've seen it all.
ho hum.
Yeah, life was starting to feel predictable and grey.
That's why when the Mystery of the Cave came up,everyone got really excited.
"Whaddya mean mystery?"


It turns out that you know that cave down by the river? Its kind of a hollow that the river carved in the clay bank.

                                                                                             Ok so it's not even a cave, its a hollow                                                     allright, call it a "hollow".  

Well the other day, a boat showed up there. 

 Stay with me.  A boat showed up there and there were some...things in it. 

 Strange random, antique-y kind of things.  Mrs. Jonesy stepped out of the  crowd first and tugged it up onto shore, trying to investigate it and almost broke her back doing it.  She started handling everything that was in that boat, kind of cringing while she did but still grabbing things almost like she had to.
The boat?  a painted rowboat, that's all.  Let me finish about Mrs. Jonesy!
So she was touching stuff like crazy, picking it up and throwing it down practically, leaning so far into the boat that we could barely see her as she dipped.  It was creeeepy.  Some of us kind of yelled out "stop" and "settle down Mrs." but no one stepped forward to help her.  No one wanted to touch her.  Finally her little boy ran out to her and got her away, sobbing.  She was sobbing and sobbing.
So we got a branch out of the forest and pushed the boat back over the bank into the "hollow".  Wanna see it? It's probably still there.

no one moved.
"scary stuff in a painted boat?"

end of part 1