"Reaching for the sun leave Atlantis escape the sea."

Saturday. No job yet, and after seeing what my unemployment benefits will be like, I hate to say that getting one may actually be a better idea than trying to eke out an existence without working. Even if I do absolutely nothing, literally, the money unemployment will pay out isn't enough to get by. I don't know why I thought the government would be even remotely generous.

I'm paranoid about my mail service, or the seeming lack thereof. I should start sending everything through W.A.S.T.E., despite the insidiousness of such a system.

The coolness, and I don't only mean that in the modern vernacular sense, of William Gibson's prose- especially his last few books- amazes me every time I read it. Even his blog posts read amazingly well. I think that once I'm finished with James Blaylock's The Paper Grail, which is quite good by the way, I'm going to reread some Gibson.

Now it's back to writing.

Cool air, Turks, uneasiness, promise of beer, gruesome night, phone calls from the bewildered, thick throat, sore arm, intense listlessness, thrum of fans, fifty-cent Galaga, leaden stomachs, Hunter S. Thompson's middle finger, James Joyce's failing eyes, stretched tendons, spiral notebooks, staggering Franciscans, erudition, geography dreams, lungs, advance checks, mailboxes, wrenched neck, night's not even fucking over.

AC is finally getting fixed today, after almost a damned week without it. I'll believe it when I feel it, though, since this isn't the first time that the problem was supposed to be corrected. The proof copy of my novel should be in my hands very soon, along with my advance check, which will provide some brief economic respite. Once I approve the proof, my publisher tells me that Amazon.com, and hopefully other online retailers (including, of course, Invisible College Press themselves, will be good to go then as well.

Not having a job is, as expected, excellent. I'm slowly building up steam in terms of working on the new novel, and my pointless posts to this so-called "blog" are becoming more regular, which should provide some pitifully small amusement for my three readers.

Everyone should read Lord Kinross' The Ottoman Centuries, especially if you consider yourself interested in history. 150 pages in, I can barely put the damn book down.

AC: dead.
Car: dead.
Energy: virtually nil.
Ferret: struggling with heat.
Beer: none.

Aside from this small checklist of complaints, things are tolerable. Got my last paycheck from work, which should hold me over until unemployment benefits appear. High on Fire was as good as expected. Working on the book, but haven't gotten up the steam to crank out the usual high page count that comes with unemployment. Not much else to report, really, but what do you expect from a chump like me?

What the fuck is with every air-conditioning system I spend time enjoying? Do they all hate me? Is it a conspiracy by the beer industry to force me to drink more crisp, refreshing Lone Star and Shiner Summer Stock? Am I cursed? Whatever the case is, this is the third time in about a month that the AC has gone belly-up in my vicinity, and I'm sick of it.

Speaking of belly up, my car's followed the route of the AC. It's either the battery, the alternator, or the starter; I hope it's the battery, which would be the cheapest to fix. Naturally I found out about my car's (hopefully temporary) demise when I was going to head up and get my final paycheck from the Shutterbug. Thankfully Sara is picking it up for me, so I really don't need the car for a while. Nevertheless, it's a pain in the ass, because it's tapping cash that I don't have in order to take care of the problem.

June has been a shitty month across the board. The only redeeming thing- and this hasn't even occurred yet, so it might not even qualify as such- is that High on Fire is playing tomorrow night. Oh yeah, and my book might be available for purchase by the end of the month. To be honest, I don't expect the shit to stop hitting the fan anytime soon: God, or the City of Houston, or the Freemasons, or some other dodgy collection of suspicious bastards will inevitably intervene against me. That's always how it works.

Happy birthday to both Matthew and Leslie. Since all the relevant crooked parties already know your DOB, I'm not worried about posting it here.

Yesterday was Bloomsday. On top of being the 99th anniversary of the day that James Joyce's Ulysses took place, it was also the day that I got laid off from my job. I knew it was coming, but it came two weeks earlier than I expected, and frankly, that's fine by me. I'm getting my final paycheck and three weeks of severance pay, which should hold me over until I start getting unemployment checks and/or find another job. Not that I want another job, really. I'd rather stay home and write than work, but I'm sure everyone knows that already.

But I can't stay home and write, because I literally fried my computer the other night. My hard drive, and the writing thereupon, seems to have survived, but right now I'm without a computer to write on. I could sit here and use my brother's, but a) I don't have my new novel available, and b) it's highly uncomfortable. My only option is to write by hand, which I hate to do, so I won't, unless it's something minor.

Jim Knipfel's novel The Buzzing is an enjoyable read, by the way. So is Umberto Eco's newest, Baudolino, especially if you're into all the weird shit that Christians believed circa 1200. I've started Samuel Delany's Dhalgren, but I'm not far enough into it to make much of a judgment yet.

Oh yeah- Invisible College Press has put up a not-quite-complete website for my novel. Check it out here.

Once I get a computer back, transmissions from the Corpse-Satellite will become more regular, I hope.

Boredom, the greatest of all evils, has spawned a notion that probably won't go anywhere, but is nevertheless interesting. Since removing various advertising/industry-related things from beneath the glass countertops, Matt and I have been replacing them with bizarre drawings and captions, and it's only a matter of time until we have dozens. I'm going to take them all and work them into some piece of fiction. It'll suck, naturally, given who's doing the work, but hey, it's a laugh.

The sooner that I'm not surrounded by customers too stupid or heedless to read giant signs saying "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS," the better. If I thought people were idiots before, the fact that they fail to see a 3' by 4' sign right by the front door only reinforces my disdain. That and their almost total lack of sympathy for the half-dozen chumps here who are going to find themselves without income in a matter of weeks.

Fuck 'em all. I'll be happy to collect unemployment and give them all the finger from my porch, where I'll be working on a new novel and drinking cold beer. Fuck customers, and fuck jobs.

Days later, I've moved everything I own to my new apartment in Houston and withdrawn my person to Conroe, where I await the impending demise of the company I work for. It's been a long, brutish week, studded with bruises, mechanical failures, depressed animals, and very little time alone. I can't even enjoy my new apartment since I'm working at a fucking store that should just call it a day right now.

At least it's all out of the way, and once June expires, it's off on a new course of strangeness.


np: Ulver, Perdition City