Bieres pour l'anniversaire d'un homme francais, et otres choses.

I made my usual payday pilgrimage to Poison Girl earlier this evening, and I met two folks who'd lived in Caracas, three Frenchmen, and some dude who'd traveled enough to have visited Caracas. Most importantly, as I was on my way to the bar, the woman who served as my physical model for Eris in Axis Mundi Sum and is someone I still care deeply about, AKA the beloved tall redhead Kara, called me after a week of phone tag.

Life's good, man! Payday, weird foreign company, and phone calls from old friends aside, I'll probably get to see several people I love this weekend. A dude can't ask for much more than that.

Oh, and I know who I'm dedicating Unheimlich to.

I'm not talking about any of y'all. Or real people, for that matter.

It's about time you started getting your shit together, woman. Now hurry up and get the fuck out of my life. I've got other shit to do than hold your hand.

Quotidia Davae.

Not much to report, really. Been writing a fair amount, reading a lot, buying lots of albums (six in the past week), saw my pops and uncle this past weekend. Ideas for the next book are already simmering in my brainpan; I hope they don't materialize too early on paper/on the screen and get in the way of finishing the complete first draft of Unheimlich by December fifth. I've chosen that date because it's when Thomas Pynchon's new novel, Against the Day, comes out. I thoroughly enjoy the idea of waking up, doing an hour's final work on my novel, and then walking to the bookstore to pick up 992 pages of Pynchonian gold.

I turn twenty-seven in less than three weeks. I took the Monday in question (the fourteenth of August) off so I can recover from any excesses the night before and go have a few quiet beers at Valhalla with anyone who wants to join me. I also plan on treating myself to dinner, because I cook 90% of my own chow and I'll be damned if I'm gonna stir-fry my own birthday meal.

Smith out.

Well done, Smith.

Instead of driving drunk to House of Guys for huevos rancheros, I opted to stay home and fill my WWI canteen cup with soymilk and eat toast with Marmite and margarine (which isn't as good as butter, but the butter in the fridge is notoriously hard and therefore difficult to spread on toast; plus, as far as I can tell, margarine is vegan, which is a bonus- if I read the ingredients list incorrectly, blame my intoxication). And man, do I love bread, milk (soy or dairy), and Marmite. They beat eggs with half-assed salsa hands down.

Sorry, Elspeth, I can't explain why the British love Marmite, other than to say it really is an acquired taste. I'm glad I acquired it, though.

Advice to children from a future old man who probably won't have kids.

"Pops, why do both of us have weird names?"

Pops sighed and reached for a cigarette. Son and daughter, sallow in the lamplight, knew that their old man was going to do a lot of thinking and talking, mostly talking, in the next few minutes. He never smoked inside anymore, unless someone got him going and he was too wrapped up to move to the porch.

"First," Pops said, looking at the boy, "what's weird about being named after possibly the greatest American writer ever?" He screwed the cigarette into the corner of his mouth and turned to the girl. "Or about one of the only decent concepts left to mankind?"

"Well-"

"I-"

"The answer," pops said, "is nothing at all. Five to one some idiot classmate of yours said something, and you were embarrassed. Right?"

"Yeah."

"No. Mel just brought it up and I got to thinking."

"Thanks, Libby." The boy blushed, and his father winced. He hadn't meant to make him feel bad for getting embarrassed; the kid's emotions were his own, and yes, Pops knew he'd taken a risk when he'd christened his kids what he had, barely overcoming the objections of their mother, who'd picked good names herself, but found them swept aside by the hand of disuse.

"I'm only going to say this once," Pops said slowly, tapping ashes into an empty glass. "Whoever the miserable little creatures were that thought Melville was a poor, mockable, ridiculous name- and the same goes for your name too, Liberty- aren't worth worrying about.

"Fuck 'em, kids. Fuck 'em all."

Soviet spawn.

I cannot forget to bring my rifles with me to Holly Springs this weekend, nor can I afford to not buy ammunition. Sixty rounds won't be enough to sate several months' worth of delayed 7.62x39mm violence against pine trees and empty cans, and I refuse to return home with empty magazines.

Speaking of weapons and the use thereof, I'm still trying to formulate a personal interpretation of what's going on in Israel and Lebanon right now, without resorting to demagoguery. It's rather repellent that in order to pass something resembling a fair ruling that I pretty much have to wait a little longer, while people die in droves. Far more repellent than the fact that my thoughts on the matter amount to nothing in the greater scheme of things.

Bearing down.

I'm pretty confident that I'll have the first draft of my current novel done in the next two months. It'll close at least two chapters of my life, I think, and Lord knows they need to be closed.

I'm gonna spend a lot of money on 7.62x39 mm next weekend, just so I can expend mucho brass via AK and SKS.

Wheel left, advance! Front on old acquaintance!

I finally got to talk to someone about this week's monumental change in my approach to the Spring years and all that came from them, and man, I was nowhere as misunderstood as I thought I'd be. In some ways, this whole scenario is bad news, but in other, more important ways, it's exactly what I needed, even if it's a thorn in the paw of the writing I've been doing for the past two years.

I also ran into Leslie tonight while bouncing from bar to bar. She is as rad as she ever was.

None of this stops me from grinning like a motherfucker when I hear Avril's "Sk8r Boi" and wonder what life would be like if I'd been a teenager when this song came out. I used to think my appreciation of Avril was purely a retroactive sentimental thing, a yearning for the years sans responsibility, but hey! I still love that beautiful Canadian and the things she writes. (And she ain't the only one who classifies as such.)

Ich liebe Dich Leben! Danke!

Strike that.

Despite last night's maudlin post and the Avril Lavigne song title header, I realized today that there is a happy ending. Since Sunday I've noticed that what seems to have been a fixation on the past, nostalgia at its worst sometimes, has diminished. Slowly, the thing I didn't know was responsible for keeping me back (from what? I don't know that either) is readjusting itself and its relationship to my way of thinking, and now it's like all kinds of new things are opening up for me, mentally speaking. I'm too lazy to say much more than that, but man, this seems promising.

"So much for my happy ending"

A subdivision in front of a subdivision?

Oh, sweet Jesus and all the records I listened to and all the cigarettes I smoked in the driveway and all the Monstervision and X-Files I watched and all the coffee I drank and all the other life-affirming memories I have, no. No. NO!

Why, Spring? Why?

I know why, but- oh Christ, can't I have something, no matter how meager? Is a stretch of open field that fucking much to ask for?

Sunday's disgust was a product of shock; today's... Jaysus, I don't know. Oh, God.

Why can't I have this much?

Please?

Please?

"Nothing is silent except the dream of man..."

The chemicaltaintedbloodfedmeanskinned demiurge that rules Houston has seen fit to piss upon his bayouveined creation for what seems to have been all summer proper thus far. And I defended this place to my western kin only a week ago, steps away from the unfilled grave of my grandmother.

Something awful happened the other day when I was hanging out with Andy and Dave. I was telling Andy about not having written much lately- not this diarist prattle, but the stuff that really matters- and I realized that I'd forgotten what I was supposed to be writing. The name of my novel in progress didn't simply escape me; it wasn't there. It took a few moments for it to come back to me, which shouldn't have happened.

I could fret about this, but instead I'll feel vaguely disgusted and go stare at the last sentences I wrote of Unheimlich, maybe add some more, then read either Melville or Lovecraft. Probably Melville, because he probably turned to drink to take his mind from things, whereas Lovecraft opted for teetotaling. How he got through the rough periods, I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect I couldn't do it the same way.

A hat*: remind me to tell any potential biographers that along with Cathedral's Supernatural Birth Machine, Bruce Dickinson's The Chemical Wedding was one of the records responsible for getting me through my sophomore year of college, and, like SBM, still remains one of my favorite albums.

*Ask Vanessa.

Ahab had it made- he had something to chase, which is more than I can say for myself.

There's nothing else I want to say now.