Recovery from last week's shifts means I've been given more to watching DVDs and drooling on myself. Not very condusive to blogging. Dunno, it's more than that. I feel like my focus is swinging so hard back and forth, like a pendulum with the palsy. My Pilates instructor called me like he letting me down after the second date, to tell me that I'm too unfocused and call him in a month when I might be more. Oy. Have to readjust to my late hours. I hate it when the signs are coming in neon. bright pink neon. I'm still focused so intently on the end of the road, I'm not paying enough attention to my driving.

I did get to talk to my friend, Mat, the Ghetto Rennaisance Man of the Inland Empire. He, and Jim from Las Vegas, are probably my closest friends. No, no mushy stuff about them being my real family, the brothers I wanted but never had. I know those two are both my brothers, because sometimes they do the damnedest things and I want to throttle them as only a sibling can. Hell, I'm so stressed I miss San Bernardino, and I spent several years fighting to get out of that hellhole of an urban wasteland. I've always said that San Bernardino only really produces three things: Concrete, Oranges, and Disaffected Youth. But still, I had the best social life I've ever had there, and I miss the whole gang. The pointless drives to nowhere, or just to LA for coffee. I'm really tired of doing all the things I wanted to do in San Bernardino, that I couldn't, by myself. This is going to be a grand mystery for me when I leave. How did I leave a craphole with tons of friends who call just to drag me out when I wanted to hermit... to living in one of the coolest cities on Earth where I handed my number out like confetti strips and I can count the ones that called back on one hand. And how much is my own natural talent, and how much was it the City? Hell with it. I've still had fun here. I've had my picture taken at the grave of Joshua Norton the First.

I don't know why, but the other thing that I keep remembering is the first time that I refused to go to High Holy Services with my dad. It was the second time I ever ducked out of being in shul on the pinnacle of Jewish holidays, the year after I was asked to leave UC: Santa Cruz. I was in my "agnostic" period, which means that if I had met the Jewish God, I would have gladly kicked him in his more holy and celestial nads, because he was a symbol of authority. Later, I would stay non-observant because, I felt ethically wrong to go do worship in a way I don't believe in, for a higher power I'm not sure I believe in, but I don't know.. I might still nut God on the first meeting. I do have bitterness issues. Anyway, err.. I told my Dad to smeg off, and I never remember seeing him more livid in my life. He didn't yell at me.. well, to start with, but he spoke in that trembling regular voice like he wanted to make me believe he wasn't going to get angry enough to lose control. The thing was, he was upset, not primarily for not observing my duties to God as a Jew, but because if he showed up to services without me, he'd be very embarrassed. That's my experience of religion condensed into a single event.

I've been really lax in my "Just Finished" section too.. so I'm going to catch up for the last week.
When The Cat's Away by Kinky Friedman
Singer of Strange Songs: A Celebration of Brian Lumley by Brian Lumley and Others.
The Return of Nathan Brazil by Jack L. Chalker
Hell, I read two of those through just about in the one twelve hour shift.

"Good books, Good friends, and a sleepy conscience - this is the ideal life." - Mark Twain