. Spinning .

…before the storm of customers who want their work completed and want it now.  Working Saturday and Sunday, Monday, Tuesday but two out of four must be for something more than money. Learning, yes, and writing some, and reading and the reaching into hollow places where ribbons and cables and plugs and drives magically bring people together who want to communicate, now.

Last night Thursday night dinner normally but not cooked by me this Thursday night.  Three men and a woman in a restaurant bar with peanut shells on the floor.  I will not do it, cannot, build instead a growing pile on the placemat on the table.  Prime rib here and here, swordfish there and all mine–twin softshell crab.

Always, ever, long as I remember back, there have been men beyond my man of the time and place I owned with him.  Our home, a home for wayward men.  New Year’s Eve I wear black velvet long and sleek and serve them stuffed shrimp and wine.  Always, ever they are welcome in my home, our home.  A lady in the company of men; one of the guys but not.

Tonight we’re out again, two couples now, and I fall for, must have the oysters for my meal.  We talk across, diagonal and parallel, but the lady and I share something more and attached to the sterling bracelets that we wear.  She has one, I wear two. I think someday she’ll wear all three together on her arm.  Dainty slim and boldly lettered friends forever.

Always, ever, lovingly.  Four friends and food.

Big mistake, listening to Waylon when the mood is right.  Feeling him deep in my gut, getting all of me involved in blue sound.

I can’t claim to know anything about poetry, but one line from a poem we heard last night at the writers meeting has stuck in my head and become a mantra for the immediate future.  It’s not particularly poetic, I suppose, but then much passes these days, and I find a mountain of meaning in the simple words:  "I don’t want to."

Real, relative, concise.  No fantasy or b.s.  It carries the easy decision of a moment; it carries the weighted soul of a lifetime.  It reveals character, or a temporary character flaw.  It can also reveal just the opposite of it’s normal connotation by the deed it is dealing with.  It shows reluctance to carry through at all, yet it does not foretell the future–for how often do we do what we must, rather than what we want.

But "I don’t want to" is above all, honest.

Well Al, the bad little dog, has been taken from its wicked stepmother and now is romping happily in the home of a loving elderly gent who looks like Santa with a bad hangover.  Santa’s eyes are sparkling happy blue.  Al is now named Rusty.

Two terrific story ideas this morning.  But missed all May 31st deadlines for submissions of what already was written.  I suspect sabotage.

Signed on in my online course last night.  Pressure’s off since the grade doesn’t mean anything to me anyway.  Don’t really care to do any more than pass it.

Gotta read, gotta write, gotta figure out a motherboard.

I have little problem with coming up with something to write about here, but I’m having my troubles lately with titles.  Odd, since that is how many of my stories start.

But I feel like devil and angel today, which is quite typical of my personality though not usually a simultaneous event. 

On the right hand, I’m trying to save a poor little bad doggie’s life by finding a better home than the one next door where the lady has "had it up to here!"

On the left (please, no offense meant to left-handed people here), I’m finally getting around to framing four old high school portraits of an elderly customer’s husband’s children, and I know that two of them have since "passed on" and I need to put their names and dates in little windows on those two. 

Problem is, I forgot which ones they were.

Really, you’d have to have my own morbid sense of humor to find this funny.

Truly magic, the powers of concentration turn piles of pictures into finished framed pieces.  Closer now to my normal two-week waiting time.  And then, to get the shop cleaned up and cardboard cut for corners.

What next to focus my attention on?

Just had a thought circulating for a post, set my fingers on the keys, and a spider dropped down in front of me, cut his line and scurried beneath the keys. Wonder if Dell covers that?  (I didn’t get the super-duper throw-it-at-your-spouse and it’s still covered insurance policy.)

I’m working today.  Strange way to take advantage of my new single status, but it just seems to be the thing to do.