The Chocolate Dog

Earth. North West America. 5:45 am Pacific Standard Time. Friday, April 22, 2005. Washington State, Grays Harbor, just west of Hells asshole (Aberdeen). Light showers and partly cloudy, local temperature 7 Celsius / 47 Fahrenheit. Wind out the North West at 5Kph.
The partly cloudy skies came as welcome change from the daily rain that I have typically come to expect since I moved here six months ago from Athens, Georgia. The local forecast even goes so far as to predict an unfiltered view of the Sun, this might include a glance of blue sky as well. If our metrological luck holds out we might have a few more days like this before the rainy season gives way too the drizzly season. It is fortunate that I have developed an ambivalent attitude to living in temperate rainforest ecology.



This is Hoquiam, a port town buried in the crotch of Grays Harbor Washington. Hoquiam is a small town. The population of this community, according to a google search, is estimated to be roughly 8,500. It is my opinion this statistic must include the occupants of The Sunset Hillside Cemetery. Hoquiam is not a small town it’s Lilliputian. The population in my adopted home of Athens is 100,266. I am perplexed by the fact that both settlements are classified as "small towns". Surely, this is some kind of clerical error. No rational system of classification could possibly be this broad. It is evidence of either villainous apathy or unchecked insanity at work someplace, somewhere. I blame the Republicans. Why not? Fuck’em.



Ultimately it’s irrelevant to me what label is used. Shit pie, is shit pie. Call it chocolate cake if that makes it easier for you to swallow.



I am not a small town personality. I loath the suburbs. I am an urbanite. Deliver me into the Babylon of glass steel and stone of the city. That is where I will call Home. Athens may have been called a small town by some standards but I found it wasn’t. Athens is not like San Francisco, where I lived after the college experience or Atlanta where I went school. Athens is different. It has a unique personality, maybe it is due to its Music scene and coffee culture. It might be the University or maybe the diversity of ideas and people you find there. I miss the times when frustrated and bored at 3am, I would wonder down town to fume over a cup of unsophisticated coffee. Whatever factors give it the unique personality it has I find its flavor suited me. I miss even in the times I have been in more worldly and exciting places. Even so it as small a town as I ever care to live in.



Comforts and conveniences I have become accustomed to are unavailable in this place. The overall impression I get is that of a retirement community. There are no bookstores, coffee houses, theaters, nightclubs or any equivalent places. I used to curse corporate mega stores like Borders but these days I would sell a testicle for such a luxury.



Here in Hoquiam they shut off the traffic lights at 10pm for fucks sake. Friday night bingo is a huge event on the local calendar. The local papers motto should be "Yesterdays News Tomorrow". It is an isolated town in an isolated region of an increasingly isolated nation.
The culture and comforts of this place is not the only thing I find lacking. The more significant arena of the economy is of concern. I do not make enough money from my creative efforts to make a living. I still need to work a "traditional" job to get by so the job market where I live is as important a consideration to me as the coffee culture and nightlife. One has too eat after all. With that in mind consider this; the economy of this region is not well. In fact, it seems to have crawled off some time ago to die. If one is not a lumberjack, fisherman or land baron/slum lord, you’re fucked.



Look to the anemic heart of downtown Hoquiam and that’s where you will find me as I open this narrative.



It was the ill-defined hour between midnight and the time when drunks crawl home. Officially, morning but light hasn’t show up for work yet. The world was quietly awaiting the transition from dark to day. Folks were getting ready for work, school, watching television all day and whatever things normal people get up too in their daily routines. Our household made its preparation for the morning in its own way.



I lay mindlessly in the bedroom that my fiancée, Shanzi, and I share taking in my surroundings. The soft glow from the two star shaped luminary lamps are the exclusive source of illumination at the moment. Their amber light crept about the room like a nervous burglar trying not to disturb the occupant. The efforts of the luminaries were gentle but effective enough to reveal the features of the room. One should keep in mind however that there is not a lot to see in there. The room is decorated in a very Spartan manor that blends well with the lack of furnishings that account for its inventory. A futon bed, my reading chair, several stacks of books and a low table comprise the wealth of accommodations that the bedroom provides.



Most people are just waking up about now but this terminology did not apply to me, I had never gone to sleep. Even so, the term "awake" would not apply to me, not as most people would define it. I was in a state of barbarous non-sleep. My eyes were wide and vacant as they looked out into the world. I had not slept for a number of days at that time and it was beginning to show.



My mental state was not unlike Shamans who would use sleep depravation to induce visions. These mystic men would stay awake for days or even weeks until their state of mind became delusional and hallucinogenic. I had gone through many levels of activity over the past seventy-two or so odd hours. I was now in a more docile condition, a near comatose condition. I had stopped moving a few hours prior as I explored some of the more exotic aspects of my psyche. As the hours advanced I began to be aware of the world around me in a more tangible way than that of ancient mystics. Laying motionless in cerebral "stand by" had at this point lost its appeal to me. Shaman ways or no, I felt it might be prudent to keep with the traditional nine-five activity, as I needed to conduct business with the outside world today. The business community keeps absurd daytime hours so regardless of my questionable mental clarity it was time to rise and shine.



I looked to the clock for its wisdom. It provided no new information for me. I could not make out what the display read. My lack of sleep over the past few days and the poor eyesight my developing glaucoma provides rendered me practically blind. There were other factors affecting my perceptions inability to deliver usable information as well. I had also made a heroic contribution to my hazy state. Caffeine, apprehension, various chemicals and a bedeviled mind that simply refuses to ever shut down had all been factors as well. I had been taking various chemicals of questionable nature for several days at this point and my assumptions had become selectively accurate. Not having slept for several days, reality had taken on a surreal flavor. Despite this, I felt an update on what time it might be was in order. "Why not? Could be fun." I thought, besides it might provide me with the anchor to the world at large I most likely needed.
Looking to the table across the room once again in an attempt see what the clock had to say about status of the current hour I instead found myself engaged in a staring contest with an enormous squat toad with terrifying red eyes. The huge amphibian horror, which for reasons unclear to my mind was where my alarm radio should be, refused to tell me the time.



"Stubborn cold blooded bastard, fuck you I have a watch!" I said aloud to the monster. "I don’t need you or your attitude" Realizing I was addressing a beast that could not possibly be there and also realizing I had no clue where my watch might be either. I took a deep un-refreshing breath and put on my glasses. The lumpy red-eyed abomination then slowly morphed into the more sensible shape of an Emerson timepiece.



5:45 flashed on analog screen that a moment before had been demonic eyes. I cataloged the information but it didn’t really mean much to me. My prolonged wakefulness had left me with a diminished ability to accurately gage the time but fortunately, it had also left me with a diminished capacity to give a damn as well. Cosmic dept is always paid in full one way or another.



I rose to a standing position in a triumph of millions of years of selective evolution but the subtle glory of the moment was lost on me. Some banshee of worry was beginning an assault on the condition of chemically educed and questionable pleasure I had established. There is always some killjoy at even the best parties and this specter of anxiety looked to be troublesome. Though vague now it obviously would not be ignored for long. Before I felt that I could deal with whatever trouble it might bring I had to prepare my psyche. In this, I would have to answer the call of a few of the addictions that provide me with what I require to get from sunrise to sunset, or as is more often the case in my life, sunset to sunrise.



The use of mood altering substances seemed a prudent method to develop a proper perspective. Tapping into my data bank of modern and ancient wisdom it suddenly became clear that perhaps a combination of stimulants and alcohol would be worth examining. Call this attitude a personal philosophical outlook my version of yoga. I do. "First drugs first" I always say and that means nicotine. Looking around the bedroom, I made an appraisal of everything immediately at hand. Not seeing my cigarettes my ambition then turned to what I should do next. My "stash" was under the table that hand been the home of the nonexistent toad earlier and I had noted its presence in my previous evaluation. Should I try to find my smokes or indulge in a handier stimulant before working on increasing my odds at developing cancer? This was the question before me. The drugs were right there before me but they were an extreme choice for the first indulgence of the day, even by my questionable standards. Tossing caution aside, I prepared a "bump" of cocaine to kick off the day. A deep inhale, numerous curses, and many odd dance gestures later the deed was done.



As the calming effects dangerous drugs bring took effect, my thoughts returned to the ghostly worry I mentioned earlier. This vexation looked to be problematic and could trigger one of my more serious mood swings. I should warn Shanzi of the possibly treacherous waters ahead. I have found that it is simply good business to give those that I love and care about warning when I realize that I’m about to take one of my turns. This helps head off any emotional wreckage before it happens. My failure in the past to do this has been the source of an endless parade of difficulties, broken friendships, arrest, hurt feeling and more burned bridges to count. Unfortunately, I do not always see them ahead of time or fail to anticipate their strength in time. In order to warn my beautiful fiancé I had to locate her first. Shanzi was probably downstairs on the computer. The kitchen where we keep the coffee supplies is also downstairs. My cigarettes might downstairs as well. Fate seemed to be calling me to the first floor. Answering fates call, I left the bedroom to find Shanzi and the other supplies necessary to my routine breakfast of multiple cups of coffee and cigarettes. (Popularly called "The beatnik breakfast")



Once downstairs I found Shanzi was indeed on the computer. She was feverishly collecting images of various vividly colored South American frogs off of Google for some sort of ill defined photo collage. There seemed to be an amphibian theme developing and I was concerned as to what that might mean.



Ribit.



Ignoring the recurrent amphibian imagery, I asked Shanzi if she had seen my Camels (My brand of choice in lung carcinogens). She had not. In my growing frustration, I forgot my intention to discuss the mood I felt approaching. Indeed the mood itself had stepped into the background. My nic-fit was tacking center stage and a smoking habit is a jealous mistress, she suffers no competition.



Leaving her to her entertainments, I engaged in a search for my pack of Camels I had clearly left…somewhere. A precursory glance about the den reveals nothing more than the fact that our local star was beginning to make its presence known.



Daybreak around here rarely falters in its efforts to depress the soul. I can think of few things that do not inspire the nobler aspects of man than the kind of lugubrious solar radiance we get around these parts. I know there must be locations on the globe more oppressive than the southern Washington Coast but as I am not there at this time I find their existence irrelevant. I am not in the right emotional location to count my blessings. I hope this sentiment will not affect my overall grade on my metaphysical karma scorecard.



I simply loathed the shifty glow of that fucked up morning. Its jaundice hue only served to accentuate the ugly nature of my scars and underscores of the abuse this body of mine has had to endure from my poor lifestyle choices. It is at this moment that I realize that insidious forces truly are aligning against me today. With a shrug, I decide to close the blinds and use the slightly more flattering radiance of household lighting to guide my steps for now.



After a brief and irritable discourse with one of the cats that cohabitate with us, I continue with my endeavors trying to remember where the Hell I left my cigarettes. I find myself in this routine often. Often enough to convince me that something is going on past simple absent-mindedness. Over the years that I have lent my support to the struggling American farmer by handing over a respectable cache of cash to the tobacco cartel a thought has formed itself to me. I am convinced that cigarettes have some concealed property engineered into their basic design that the general public is unaware of. I think that some kind of mechanism is integrated into cigarette packaging that causes them to spontaneously relocate when no one is watching. I know this sounds a bit far fetched but the clever boys slaving away in the research labs of the tobacco industry have come up with more than a few clever schemes to increase sales.



Yes, my speculation does have the flavor of a conspiracy theory but it’s certainly more reasonable than the alternatives. It is a near statistical impossibility that I have done something as mundane as to have misplaced or lost that many packs in my lifetime. My current theory is much more likely than any of my earlier pontifications on the phenomena, which include:





My search yields no results. An intense search of the den, living room, and kitchen yields nothing. It is hard not to believe that fate has it in for you at times like this. I fear I am becoming paranoid. As I cast my eye across the many places my smokes could be hiding my heart sinks. An overwhelming sensation that even the contents of our home are against me is almost unshakeable. I can almost hear the jeering of the clutter slowly claiming this property as its own. I spend the next ten minutes in a frantic renewed search while coming up with new ways to use some of the more vulgar words in my lexicon.



Despite finding about a dollar in change, a mysterious key, several cat toys and what looks suspiciously like the carburetor of a 1955 Chevrolet Bellair however the pack of Camels remained elusive. Accepting that no clear progress was being made I revaluated the order of my goals. It was about that time I also realized I was searching the same places over and over again. Clearly, this method was not going to get me anywhere.



Temporarily, I abandon my quest and redirect my actions to the easier job of making coffee. There too I am faced with defeat. It seems that we are out of the beloved bean. As it turns out this was untrue, the coffee can had simply been relocated to another location. Knowing this now does not affect that at that moment, in my mind, I believed the household was devoid of coffee. Not all was lost however. I noticed that there was still a substantial amount of liquid still in the pot and the maker was still on. "Ye Gods I am saved!" I exclaim to my audience in the kitchen. An audience that is made up of one cat who was more concerned about what I planned to do about the empty food bowl than about my personal needs. This discovery of the prepared coffee is a god send but also a mixed blessing. The batch had been made somewhere around 8pm the night before and was now old enough to vote. One can not allow things like this to get in the way of your objectives and things being as they are I will take my victories where I can, especially the small ones. I pour a steaming cup of dark, lugubrious bean juice and grab a partially smoked cigarette from an ashtray I left there just for this kind of emergency. It will have to do for now.



I do some of my best thinking when I smoke but I also have a bad tendency to dwell on the negative. I also have a notorious reputation for not being able to let shit go. Today was an excellent example. It wasn’t looking good for me and I could feel my attitude slowly becoming increasingly nihilistic. I can’t shake the worry that is growing, unaddressed, in the back of my chemically addled mind.



Returning from my smoke break, I head for the bathroom where I discover my pack of missing cigarettes.



In this brief moment of ecstasy, I start thinking that during this strenuous time I am just taking every thing a little to bit too much to heart. Could it be time to lighten up on myself? I wonder if I should stop beating up on my already fragile emotional health and be a nicer to me for a little while. This kind of positive affirmation is not a natural pattern for my neural processes to follow. Thoughts like the previous ones have about the same chance as taking root in the architecture of my being as would sunflowers on the Moon. I was well aware that feeling would not be long lived but that did not prevent my ailing emotional self from trying to cling to the ghost of my moment in the Sun.



I never cease to do stupid, dumb ass shit like this. As I exit the bathroom, I continue with this behavior and say a whispered "thank you" to Heaven. See, I am helpless to stop the deluge of this breed of idiocy. My obliviousness to these infractions begins to transform into realization as I digest the events of the past fifteen minutes. My cerebral machinery, now in motion and fueled by the type of concentration you only get from drugs or when faced with a life threatening crisis, hits upon the revelation that I frequently seem to find God during one of two types of situations. It’s either when I seem to be the victim of a personal apocalypse, "Please God don’t let this happen to me, I’ll change…I promise", you know… the good old "no atheist in foxholes" principle. If not that, then it seems to occur during some embarrassingly trivial event like finding your lost keys or in this case lost cigarettes. If you were a Missionary would you really want either of those spiritual awakenings as the meat of you testimonial?



I could envision it a bit like this," You see I was lost, aimless and with out hope. I was in the darkest hour of my despair when I had nowhere left to turn for help. Then without warning, a miracle happened. A vision appeared before my weary and troubled eyes. It was an angel of the Lord and this he spoke on to me ‘Fear not oh, ye child of God. Know that your Father in Heaven loves you. You are special and esteemed in his holy eyes. Therefore, he has sent me, his divine servant, to deliver this messenger onto you so that you might believe. Look now in the dyer, for there in you will find the missing wallet for which you have sought these many long minutes. There too you will find $ 0.63 in lose change. Now go forth into the World and spread the word, Amen’. Therefore, you see dear sir/madam that is why I have come to you today. Open your heart and you will be saved." Yup, I just have to say, truly moving. Sarcasm aside it is at least better than what the Jehovah's witness's have to say.



Obviously, the chemical additive I had supplemented my motivations with earlier was still working and stepping up into in high gear as my somewhat erratic mind continued with this sudden deviation into theology. Why the fuck not? This could be a hoot. I decided to roll with it.
I continued laughing at my self for having said a prayer of thanks for locating my cigarettes. Although it’s pretty megalomaniacal thinking to believe that divine forces are so concerned with you contentment that they will manipulate the fabric of existence just to support your bad habits, this sort of subconscious belief is not uncommon. I know for a fact that I couldn’t be the only house-ape on this planet with such quirky, ascertains. I do try to be aware of these little dichotomies. I keep as accurate an inventory of this crap as possible. I believe it is a personal duty to be continually vigilant and cruelly honest with the all the ugly, silly and uncomfortable things inherent to my character. Some however tend to see this as just another manifestation of obsessive behavior. Well, they can go fuck themselves. Besides keeping track of my faults has the added benefit of beating anyone to the punch on any criticisms they might try to level at me.
Having located the AWOL Camels I decide to indulge in a now unnecessary but coveted second cigarette. Grabbing my coffee, I head back outside.



Once there they are sick insane birds making a symphony of noise. It's a delightful collection of dinosaur descendents consisting of a crow, two pigeons and numerous seagulls…bird trash. We live next door to a bird sanctuary but here in Grays Harbor that is the equivalent of an avian trailer park. They sling their insults at me from the safety of the surrounding nature. I decide to ignore their pointless cackles for the moment and turn my attention to the mild distractions at hand. Although my coffee greets me with a taste as bitter as rejection, it is better than having none at all.





Hurrah.



I take a deep drag off my cigarette that to me is as refreshing as the vision of a Swiss Maid in push-up lederhosen with a glass of whiskey. I finally start to address the worry nagging my soul.
I had taken a drug test earlier in the week and I simply had to pass. Most of the time this it not the sort of thing I would give a flying pile of rabbit turds about. Any other time in my life a drug test would be a non-issue for me. I would have simply refused to subject my self to such a thing. In my view, these things are a personal violation of our basic rights in this land. I quit a job because of one a few years back despite the fact I had nothing harder than Beringer’s Merlot polluting my veins. What people do behind closed doors remains the business of those who do them and not that of anyone else. If it doesn’t happen at work it is not the business of employers to regulate. Period. The self righteous Nazi S.O.B’s who want to stick their nosy frigging heads up private citizens ass’s and take a look around so that they can take inventory and make condemnations are either trying to live their lives vicariously or they have too much energy and time on their hands.



Perhaps they should spend less time goose-stepping about their neighborhoods peeking in folk’s windows and more time masturbating. It’s seems to do the trick for me.



This time I had a huge stake in the outcome of said test. I have been unemployed here for over four months now and my situation has reached critical mass. Financial resources are low and basic needs (Food booze, cigarettes, girly magazines etc…) are beginning to run low. This is like life during wartime (Yes, I know that technically we are at war, give me some room for creative license, jeeze.)



I was desperate. Having so much riding on this job opportunity, I had no real choice but to submit to this indignity. Since graduation from college, I have worked in the service industry. I, like so many others, choose a line of study I liked over options that are more utilitarian. My degree is in Art History. My education has never been a breadwinner for me. I have always had to look outside the world of art for the practical needs of life. My best friend Mike, a philosophy major who now works as a bookstore manager, observed we had chosen majors in unemployment. That is a funny sentiment over a few beers at Hooters, sad in maturities 20/20 retro-vision.



That said, I am a professional chef with experience in all aspects of this field of work. Among the many things I have done to earn money, this type of labor is the most rewarding I have found. Trust me on this. I have tried many professions over the years. I have found employment in warehouses, customer service slots and even in construction work. I have also earned a living as a librarian, caricaturist (A truly degrading trade by the way), and as a private tutor. Once, I was even employed in the corporate world as an unlicensed accountant for a few years! In the end, it was a hospitality career that I chose to follow in earnest. It allows me the opportunity of actively chasing after my dreams. Well, sort of.



Being a Chef feels a creative enough pursuit to satisfy the artist urges that rule me. The fact that my mother considered it a respectable job also is a bonus. Moreover, I just like the class of people you meet in this line of work. They are my people. Every actor and artist or writer I have ever known has actually been a waiter/waitress, cook or the like if your assessment of them is based on what is written on their tax forms. Besides, I like my Chefs Hat.



More to the point, I needed work. I have never had a problem finding it before moving here. True, I have had to take many a crap job just to pay the bills. I am not above doing that. This was no piece of crap job however, but a damn good opportunity. It was a professional position with a beach side resort. The Resort is the ironic sort of establishment run by a Native American Indian tribe that derives its profit from the same imperialist minded crackers that once raped same said tribe. America is a weird place.



The job offered excellent pay, a title and respectable benefits (Rare in the service industry). I was offered the job and was looking forward to my first day when I was informed of the Urine Analysis (U.A.) test requirement. It took me by surprise. I was trapped. I had spent months trying to find work of any kind much less good work. I essentially had nothing to lose. The die was cast.



Keep in mind I am not a drug fiend. I do indulge in illegal activities from time to time. That is a topic for another time.



I had to take the drug test and I had good cause to be concerned about my results. Doing shit loads of cocaine plus a very small amount of weed is not the most strategically brilliant tactic for passing a U.A. test.



I did what damage control as was possible under the tight time line I had to work with. I had a little less than 72 hours to drink as much water as the human body can tolerate without becoming declared an official reservoir. I subjected my system to all the traditional "grass" roots remedies from drinking vinegar to vitamin B intake. I suspect that vinegar would not be actually so terrible mixed with low grade vodka but I have no experimental data to base this on. I also tried some other stranger ones. Niacin for example. Did you know large amounts of niacin will give you the sensation of being on fire? It will also make you itch like a Claremont Lounge strippers genitals. In the end there is only so much one can accomplish with limited resources. You can brush the meat off your teeth but the smell of the blood and rot is still going to be creeping out of your gullet for some time after all the visible evidence has been dealt with. I had done all I could, short of not actually taking any illegal drugs. It was too late for that option anyway.



On the other hand, I do my best work in the 11th hour and I have always managed to come out smelling like a rose when I should have in fact had my ass handed to me on a platter. Hope was not lost. Yeah, I know that sort of attitude is akin to taking a knife to a gunfight under the belief that because no ones ever shot you before they will fail to do so presently. Story of my life…besides it’s a shitty metaphor anyway. I am incompetent with knives and I hate guns.






I took the test. That was two days before this sorry morning. Waiting, worrying, and not sleeping, not to mention, "Tweaking" as it is termed here on the counter culture side of the fence. The trauma of the drug test had not affected my indulgent ways. It had actually encouraged and accelerated my habitual curiosities.



Hey, you take your medicines and I’ll take mine. You can say what you will about the negative side of illegal drugs but the ones I have indulged in from time to time were nowhere as bad as the terrifying affects of the medications my doctors put me on after an attempted suicide years prior.



My day was not panning out in a good way for me. No news as far as the drug test results was concerned. I was viciously awake, uncomfortably sober, and extremely stressed. So far finding my cigarettes was my only success.



I had a headache that while not yet operating at gothic proportions was showing the potential for impressive exponential growth in the future. My self-esteem was under siege from some shadowy demon from my superego and causing some serious problems with my belief system. This all culminated in a real bitch of mode. Let me make it clear that I can conjure up some very complex and nasty moods from the depths of my metaphorical Hell. They refuse to be categorized by terms such as bad, good, introspective or any other broadly descriptive labels. They are a highly evolved, intensively cultivated, resourceful, unrelenting and a merciless breed of monster. My moods will not subject themselves to any form of cure they simply must be allowed to run there course. Given time, they will eventually become bored and lose interest. The best policy when dealing with them is to batten down the hatches, trim the sails, and prepare to ride out the storm. In short, they are motherfuckers. The one that had raised its diabolic head was particularly malodorous.



Hang on to your nuts boys this one a doozie.



I took another drag off my cigarette. I then turned my gaze skyward in an exaggerated theatrical move and decided to turn my fear into the more productive emotion of loathing for my environment and circumstances. It’s what my beloved Granny called a pity party. I have them all the time and they are the egos equivalent of The Governors Ball. I really do feel sorry for myself in a truly elegant way. I can think of no one I know who wear this sort of moron martyrdom as well as I do.



Not really wanting to turn an eye to my own faults just yet I continue with my ongoing criticism of the dreary town I now dwell in. Deserved or not it’s my black hearted rant and I will direct it where I please.



Hoquiam’s citizens are now rising to go to their meaningless jobs (Lucky bastards). In cars ravaged either by moist salty air or in a Thorazine shuffle along the sidewalks of the neighborhoods. They annoy me regardless of their transportation choices.






I find the noxious belching of the automobile as grating as the dopy glare of the pedestrians who pass by our tiny (5’ x 10’) unadorned and unattended lawn to deposit their litter upon our property. Perhaps it was a little early for such slick cynicism but it kept my mind off the problem at had. Well at least for a few minutes anyway.



I sigh and finish my smoke. I just can’t out run my worry today. The feeling my anxiety stirs in me is allegorically like the smell of boiled urine and the fact that I brewed this obscene soup myself makes it all the worse. Shouting the rudest words I know at the heavens I turn and retreat inside to see what can be done about this fortress of shit I built for my self.



From the kitchen where I have found the missing coffee I hear the phone ring. It's now almost seven o'clock and I am wondering what kind of sick bastard would call at this hour. A sick bastard with the results of my drug test that's who! With speed that even Jesse Owens would find difficult to match I rush to answer the telephone.



Beyond all reasonable possibility I have passed and they want to know when I can start! It's a miracle! Grant you a sort of twisted, deviant miracle but one none the less. There is no way I should have passed that test, I certainly never studied (sorry). This event goes well beyond the recovery of my delinquent smokes or the left over and miss placed coffee. This smacks of the divine and gives me pause for thought in my profane ways. I remain firmly atheistic but despite this I say a genuine and sincere prayer of thanks just in case. I also decide that perhaps giving up the illegal drugs might be a good idea and not just for sissies so I decide to give it a go, at least for the time present. That might be a way to say thanks to the universe at large/god (?) and method to avoid this kind of stress in the future.



I inform the caller that "Monday next would be ideal" and she expresses to me that Monday would be just fine.



Woo Hoo! As Homer Simpson might say.



In celebration of the good news and my elevated mood, not to mention the absence of any fiendish toads, I brew up a fresh pot of coffee (Seattle's Best), relent to the chorus of mews from my cats and fill their bowls. The amazingly beautiful smell of coffee fills the room. Right now the world and even Hoquiam do not seem so overwhelming and intolerable. I pour up my first cup add my steamed milk and reach for my camels I tossed onto the counter when I came in, I'm gonna smoke INSIDE!



My life has a pattern however and as I said earlier the karmic balance will be maintained. You see while my lighter was just where it should be according to the rules of orthodox physics, the camels however were not.

Labels: Drugs, Hoquiam, Humor, Rant Ramble and Repeat, Washington State

Posted by Saint Tuesday on Saturday, March 24, 2007 at 12:37 AM | Permalink