#1 COVID 19 BUDDY OF THE DAY

I had a weird one yesterday. I left the Dollar Store and a girl came up to my car window and wanted to buy my mask.
Really?
I told her they would give her one in the Dollar Store. So I watched while she went in because, well, she looked kinda nice if you know what I mean.
Then she came right back out with a mask and went to the Liquor Store next door.
Friggen' East Side. This town is a trip.

Image stolen from Peteski @ https://thisisnthappiness.com/archive

ON THE "N" WORD

When I was Garde Manger at the Hyatt I had four little black ladies that worked for me. Panola, Geraldine, Georgia, and Pearl. The Salad Ladies. They loved me and we had a blast. I found if I could get them talking in the morning they would work their ass off for me. They used to use that n-word all the time, threw it around like peanuts at the circus. No, they didn’t use it that much. This was 1985. It was not quite like today where you hear and see it a lot. One day I decided I would try to use it. Panola, she was like the leader, she put her knife down, and the other three stopped jabbering. The look on their faces was surprise and hurt. Panola said you are crazy white boy if you think you can use that word. But it was too late. I already figured it out just by the looks on their faces. That's not my word to be able to weigh in on. they went back to working like nothing ever happened but I never tried that again..

I see the question come up now and then. “Why can’t white folks use that word? Black folks use it plenty.” My first reaction is that any white person using that word is going nowhere in a hurry. Its an ugly word with a horrible past. My second reaction is that black folks own that word, bought and paid for. It was inflicted upon them in the most hateful ways imaginable and often accomanied by physical violence. Its called “appropriation” I think, and probably by making it a term of endearment among themselves, they took its power away.

I think the last time I used it was a couple years ago. I had just seen this Denzel movie "Fences", and its full of the n word. It just kind of slipped out, me mimicking Denzel. Denzel Washington. He can say the shit out of nigger, I tell you what. Luckily I was just with a good friend, who looked at me kinda like Panola did that day. It felt...awkward. I got enough racist history without taking that on.

Way back in HS for a Psyche Class I picked a book off a list to read. The title was “Nigger”, by the political activist and comedian Dick Gregory. Written in 1963. It was basically his autobiography. After I read that I read his other two books. Both had a great effect on me. A few months later when I was 17 I heard that Gregory was speaking at UT Arlington. I talked a buddy of mine into going with me.
I may not have been the most enlightened person in the auditorium that night, but I’ll bet I was the only 17 year old.
And thinking about it, it may be that what we see these days with blacks having taken ownership of the word Nigger is due in large part to Dick Gregory.
He said things like if he ever opened a restaurant he would name it Nigger for all the free advertising he would get.
A few times over the years, on Facebook, I have done a series of posts during Black History Month. Historical informative type pieces.
It was mostly in reaction to friends who would say “Why do we have a Black History Month”.
One year I titled all the posts as “Educate Your Ignorant White Ass On Some Black History Month”.
I had more than one person take exception to my title.
I wonder how they would be trying to handle being called something as inflammatory as Nigger?

TURN IT UP

When I was in the sixth grade the big kid across the street had a reel to reel. He said “Pick out what you want to hear” and handed me a list of songs on the reel. I looked it over. He had Grass Roots, Marty Robbins, Steppenwolf, Jimi Hendrix, Tommy Roe.
About halfway down there was the "Theme to the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". That’s what I picked.
He said “You’re a weird little kid aren’t you?” and handed me the headphones.
Ennio Morricone, Composer extraordinaire, dead at 91.

The Manly Task

I had some drains installed in my backyard a few weeks ago. A big pile of dirt left over to back fill around the house and spread over the yard. I started out with a Home Depot bucket. After about 20 buckets I determined I was going to have about 450 to go so I went on down to Home Depot and got a manly wheelbarrow. It helped considerably.
So with all the dirt spread nicely over the clay in my backyard I turned my attention to my gutter. The one with the low spot. The one that spills tons of water over the edge every time it rains. And every time it rains more of my beautiful topsoil I have spread goes down the drains.
I sent a text to my handyman pal to come over and fix my low spot in the gutter. Low spots in gutters are way too technical for me. I had a low spot in a gutter years ago that I spent a decade trying to correct and all I ever did, all I ever succeeded in doing, was to punch holes in the gutter and the fascia of the house.
But my handyman pal never texted me back. With storm clouds on the horizon and my beautiful topsoil at risk I stopped at Home Depot and bought the big long nails and ferrules that are supposed to correct a sagging gutter. Once more, into the fray. .I watched several YouTube's. I got on the ladder and installed two ferrules. No appreciable difference. I installed another. My God, is my gutter sagging even lower? We are heading the wrong direction here.
So I determined that instead of trying to correct a sagging gutter I would just install a downspout at the low spot. Genius!
But could I actually pull it off? Do I have the manly skills necessary? Of course not. But I was fucking desperate. Back to Home Depot I went. I got the little downspout thing, some pookie (that's like a sealer), and a 2 inch hole saw.
Let me tell you my friend, it's been a long time since I was so determined. A long time since I was so focused. I was either going to succeed or completely ruin my gutter. My gutter that spilled water every time it rained. What did I have to lose really?
And I found myself strangely aroused. I was hard for it. A manly household task. Performed from the top of an 8 ft ladder!
I drilled a 2-inch hole. I took my hacksaw blade and made some slits. I took my needle nose pliers and bent the gutterslits in order to Fashion the oval shape necessary for the downspout thingy. I was into it big time . I didn't even take a break . I applied the pookie and a couple set screws and I think I'm in business! I'll find out tomorrow when I screw up the downspout.

MISSISSIPPI BURNING

"The rest of those who have gone before us will not steady the unrest of those who are to follow"

Mississippi, the last state to ratify the 13th Amendment, will also be the last state to rid itself of Confederate Insignia on its state flag.

BAD ASS SITE OF THE DAY

A friend posted an interesting link last year. I took the first test “How Rational Are You?”
I figured myself to be pretty rational. I was surprised to only score 28% rational. 
That means that 72% of you are more rational than I am!

I told one of my workmates about this. With my arms waving I screeched my complaint:
“They said I was only 28% Rational!”
He looked at me calmly and said “And this surprises you how?”
So I went over three of the questions with him, which he answered perfectly. This guy is so rational I cant believe I even LIKE him. But I do.
With so many people with so much time to kill I’ll provide the link to a pretty cool site. I’ve taken several of their tests, and a couple of their courses.
I just finished the one “How to spot a strong vs weak argument.” I did pretty well overall, and scored low on letting preconceived notions affect my ability to rank an argument.
Again, it’s a great site, not the usual “ What color Teddy Bear are you” kind of thing.

Here is the (click here) How Rational Are You Test. Let me know what you think.

CLEARER THINKING
Clearer Thinking’s mission is to close the gap between insights from research about human behavior and actions in the real world. We start with the best research we can find and perform our own original studies in order to build best-in-class, interactive tools and mini-courses that you can use to change your habits, make better decisions, and achieve your goals.

FEELING GOOD WAS GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME

On his way to teach at the United States Military Academy at West Point, Kris Kristoferson stopped in Nashville and decided to stay and become a big ol’ country star. He pushed a broom at Columbia Record Studio and tried to write some songs. He had some success with “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and “Help Me Make It Through The Night” covered by Johnny Cash and someone else, cant quite recall.
A producer, Fred Foster noticed him and said “Ok, I’ll let you write some songs for me, but first I want to produce an album of you singing.”
Kristoferson said “But I caint sing, I sound like a Bullfrog” and Fred says “Do you want in this business or what?”
The record was a flop.
But Fred Called Kris up one day.

“I got a great idea for a song” he said.
“OK, what is it?” Kris asks.
“Me and Bobby Mcghee” says Fred.
“What?” says Kris.
“Me and Bobby Mcghee” says Fred.
“That’s it? Gee thanks” says Kris, and hangs up the phone.

A few months later Kris writes “Me and Bobby Mcghee”. He and Roger Miller record it, but it goes unnoticed.
Then Janis Joplin records it. The release comes after her death.
Fred Foster calls Kris one night.
“Man, have you heard Janis Joplins version of “Me and Bobby Mcgee”?
“No”
“You better be sitting down when you do”.
The rest is history. Janis made it her own, and Kris gave equal writing credit to Fred Foster, who had supplied the title.

YOU NEVER KNOW

My son just got to Alaska to work in the fishing industry. I have a cousin in Costa Rica that has worked a Sports Fishing boat for years.
He said “That’s the great thing about being on the water. You never know what the day will bring”

THE SHOPPING CART LITMUS TEST

Do you return the cart? What kind of person are you?
It's a pretty good indicator of my spiritual condition. When I'm feeling slovenly, and it's a dark November in my soul  I leave the cart. Wherever. I don't even look back. Just drag my sorry ass to the drivers seat and go.
But when I'm in tune with the universe, birds are chirping and the sun shining brightly, and people everywhere seem to shine, then it is my delight to return the shopping cart, whistling "Rhinestone Cowboy as I go. You should see the spring in my step as I do so.

THE LEAST RACIST PERSON I KNOW

Back about 1999 I was living off Lancaster Ave. Largely colored community. I had my kids for the weekend and I was taking them to the Children's Museum downtown. We were going to ride the bus. I’d never ridden the city bus before. It pulled up and we got on. Nothing but black people on this bus. I’m ushering the kids down the aisle. Looking for a seat and I see a Fort Worth cop sitting there, an empty seat in front of him. I ushered the kids into the empty seat and announced “Here we go kids, we’ll be safe here”.
I’m not sure if anyone other than the cop heard me, but I’m not known for being soft spoken. I didn’t even realize until later what I’d said and how it must have sounded. Any one that heard me must have thought “What kind of cracker we got here?”.
I like to think I’m one of the least racist people I know.
Race in America.  Its like a Greek Tragedy. The more you try to run from it, the more you run into it.

Somewhere there is an upside

I've learned two things:
1) I have got to stop touching everything all the time. Everywhere I go, everything I see, I have a need to touch it. I walked in a restaurant for an order pick up a few days ago and started to run my hand 50 feet down the counter to the register. No, Bulletholes! Stop!
2) I got to stop crowding people. When I step in line somewhere, I'm usually right on top of whoever is in line with me. When this is over I need to try to give them at least 18 inches.

MONTHLY DEATH COUNTS

I keep hearing about how the number of cOVID-19 deaths is way overstated. Then some anecdote about how someone committed suicide or was killed in a car crash then listed as a COVID death.
But these statistics people are sharp as shit. They cross reference these numbers every which way but loose. In New York City for instance, they usually have about 8000 people die between 3/15 and 5/1. Its somewhat predictable. This year 32,000 died. And it just so happened that 24,000 deaths were attributed to COVID in that time period.

So it kinda all checks out for NYC. They do that for all the regions around the country. When they find discrepancies, they will be looking for problems in the data. These guys are smart...
Here is a chart from Michigan that you can compare deaths for April 2019 and April of 2020. Deaths from all causes and by cause. Interesting how closely balanced the variance is accounting for COVID deaths.

Click HERE

AUNT LOUISE

Years ago I found my grandmother about to set fire to a suitcase full of old family pics. It took a while, but I talked her out of it, and saved the suitcase. I finally started framing some of these pics last week. Most are 100 years old.
One was my Aunt Louise. I never liked Louise much. She seemed all stuffy, like some kind of fuddy-duddy.
Then I found this pic of her this weekend. Look how adorable she is! Those glasses! That mischievous look! Never mind that she kept plastic on the furniture and whenever we went to visit I had to sit on the sofa with my hands in my lap.
Look at her!
If she was to walk into Boomer Jacks tonight they wouldn’t be able to leave her alone.

TUESDAY MORNING

I bought the cutest little lamp at Tuesday Morning 7 years ago. My first lamp I ever bought. Susan helped me carry it in. She dropped it at the doorstep. It shattered into a million pieces. I still tease her about it to this day every chance I get. I know, I'm horrible.
Its like I love Susan even more for it.

The lamp had a fabric shade with a lavender floral design in it that was invisible until you turned the light on. I kept it in the closet for a while hoping to get another lamp to put it on. I was in the closet one day rearranging stuff and the shade fell off the shelf and an avalanche of boxes came down and crushed it. Some things just aren’t to be.

LATE FOR WORK FROM HOME DAY

Between work from home and half furlough days I'm all screwed up. Woke up this morning thinking it was Sunday. Turned on the TV, no Sunday shows. It must be Saturday. Nope. It took 5 full minutes of total disorientation to figure out it was Tuesday.
Tuesday? Oh no! I'm late for work from home day!
What did they put in that burrito last night?

AND LOCK UP YOUR ADDERAL

I've been saying for some time that our politicians are fair game, but we should not take shots at their supporters. I try to live by that. This toe's the line a bit.
I've heard it said "Sure he's crass and vulgar and I wouldn't want him at my BBQ but he gets things done." And that is a valid point.

"Me, I wouldn't want him at my BBQ because he'd take up a dump in the pool and blame it on democrats, boast about grabbing my wife's pussy, take one look at my Latino attorney and contact INS, call the guys in white hoods who crashed the party good people, encourage everyone at the party to drink Drano, put a tariff on the egg rolls and lie about how the Chinese are paying for it, brag about his IQ and then tell my kid the Continental Army took out airports during the revolutionary war, lecture me about how the weather vane at the top of my house kills birds, tell my African-American pal he comes from a shithole country, cheat at miniature golf, call any woman who dare ask him a simple question rude and disrespectful, brag about how his house is better than my house and refuse to shut up about it, kick my transqender friend out of the party, eat all my hot dogs and swear Barack Obama did it even though Barack Obama isn't at the party, screw my pooch and blame it on the pooch, then tell me to get away from the grill because the grill is a big, beautiful grill and it was his idea I buy it in the first place. And when he finally left I'd discovered my cuff links were missing."

THEY SHOULD WEAR CAPES

"Just got moved off of the COVID19 floor to a regular room where staff aren't wearing space suits! I can eat with silverware, real dishes & see the faces of the people caring for me! Hospital's aren't fun for anyone but the absolute worst part of the small quarantine floor I was on was hearing the screams of real COVID19 patients. The nurses were tense, sad & clearly stressed by the number of things going on. I hated to ask for things because others needed them more. I heard at least 3 code blue calls, saw nurses comfort each other & saw chaos from staff running to other rooms, from the little window in my room where a nurse sat & watched 2 patients for 12 hours. She'd come out of one room & changed gear, disinfected her helmet, hands, etc. Then suit back up to enter my room. I asked my last quarantine nurse if they were having a lot of new people this morning, as she was frantically getting me ready for the room transfer...she apologized for rushing me & said "you have no idea"....I felt so bad for her, she couldn't even wipe her own tears through the spacesuit helmet she was wearing. I have a serious new respect for all our healthcare heroes. They should wear capes, have time to eat, have bathroom breaks & definitely make more money. But for now every one I see, is 'wearing a cape', because they are the real Super Heroes of this pandemic."

A friend of mine, quarantined for COVID 19 for several days and eventually tested negative.

Detailed further..."...EVERY LOSS IS PERSONAL...""I was brought in by ambulance to a special entrance specifically for probable COVID19 patients. Nurses in full protective gear met the ambulance & paramedics to transfer me to triage. I had to stay in triage for several hours before a room in the COVID19 unit freed up. Never thought to ask why it freed up...
But anyway, they put me in that part of the hospital where the rooms were set up with 1 nurse in a spacesuit & helmet, watched 2 rooms on either side of a split window. I was too sick when I went in to notice how many rooms where on the floor but when I left, there appeared to be about 5 stations on each side of the central nursing desk. That would be around 20 patients with 10 nurses, sitting outside the rooms. This was in tower 4. I was told each tower had a COVID19 unit. I got meds through a double sided closet door/window. Techs put it in outside & my nurse would take it out on my side of the room to give me. Techs were walking around helping but they only wore black plastic "trash bag" looking gowns & masks. I did ask one of them if they were really medical grade gowns or if the hospital was improvising. She laughed & said they were actually medical gowns.
I had to wear a mask whenever any staff entered my room too. The doctors had the most protective gear. Full spacesuits, helmet's, masks, gloves & shoe coverings. Nurses had the second best level of protection & techs had the least. All my meals were delivered through the double-sided door. Everything was in disposable Styrofoam. Once I asked if they would re-microwave my coffee. They said that once something had entered a contaminated room, it couldn't leave except as trash.
Even though I couldn't see any other patients, I could hear them. Lots of PA announcements, codes, (code blue), coughing, crying & staff running down the hallways. Sometimes I'd see nurses appear to be breaking down, from exhaustion or sadness...I don't know which, but they were clearly stressed.
This morning, very suddenly, all heck broke loose & a tech & nurse started getting me ready to transfer. It was confusing but I'd guessed more patients were needing a bed in the unit. The nurse apologized for rushing me. I asked if everything was okay & she said "No!" I asked what was happening & she started crying & said "You'd never understand". She couldn't hide her tears under the space helmet.
I was only quarantined for 4 days & had 3 COVID19 tests before being sent to a less restrictive area. So I'm on a regular floor now. No one should doubt that this is a very serious infection or that people aren't dying from it. I'm very grateful to merely have septicemia which is easily treated with antibiotics. I've got only prayers for those still left in the quarantined areas.They are completely alone when they need their families the most. The staff was great but they aren't family. (Although you can see it in their eyes, that every loss is personal.) Yes, there are lots of very sick people who are quarantined here at this hospital. Please pray they get to go home & that you are well enough to stay in yours! I know I will."

I got to tell you she's probably the prettiest girl I ever dated!

BACK TO WORK

And what a wonderful thing that artifice can be. Now that we are all working from home, amid the children, the toast crumbs and the laundry, we are realising that the pretence of an orderly life at the office is also a liberation. It allows each day to have its own architecture, its rhythms of departure and arrival. Putting on a perfectly ironed silk shirt or a crisp suit and leaving the house may be contrived but it is also, says Kellaway, “one of the beauties of working life…It allows us to be a different person. And we’re all so fed up with who we are, the opportunity to be someone else, someone a little bit more impressive, is just so tempting.” When such an escape is denied us, that allure may only grow.

— Catherine Nixey, from “Death of the Office” in The Economist

MONKEY WARDS

I was sharing at an NA meeting a few weeks ago. Recounted that in 1972 I got busted for a little pot. I had to go to counseling. They didn’t have NA around here back then. So my parents and I attended Montgomery Wards Family Counseling Services. I could sense that hardly anyone in the group had any idea what Montgomery Wards was.
“It was a department store y’all, like Sears or Pennys”
“Ohhhh” you could hear them all sigh.
Probably paid on a Monkey Wards CC.

Couple more years and it will be "Sears who?"

FOR THE PEOPLE

"So you talk about mobs and the working classes as if they were the question. You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists."
 - G. K. Chesterton
The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

A GIFT

As they were leaving the garden
one of the angels bent down to them and whispered

I am to give you this
as you are leaving the garden

I do not know what it is
or what it is for
what you will do with it

you will not be able to keep it
but you will not be able

to keep anything
yet they both reached at once

for the present
and when their hands met

they laughed

–W.S. Merwin from Garden Time
source: beautywelove

HOT AUGUST NIGHT

The last round of my ten favorite albums, Part Two.
I hate to admit it but I love Neil Diamond. Some albums will get you laid, Breads “Baby I’ma Want You” and that’s reason enough to like Bread.
No one would ever accuse Neil Diamond of doing an album that would get you laid.
But I gotta tell you “Hot August Night” is so easy to listen to.
And I had a friend when I was a good little church boy named James Packard who did a rousing rendition of “Brother Loves Travelling Salvation Show”.
He did it so good that it might have gotten HIM laid a time or two, and I’m not sure if its OK to say that here or not, but there it is.
Me? That last side with “Holly Holy”, “I Am I said” and “Soolaiman” really does it for me.
Do you want to know how dumb I am?
When I was in the 6th Grade there was a kid at school named Mike Wright. He was like the Burt Reynolds of the sixth grade with a full beard and everything.
“I Am I Said” was a big hit, they played it every hour on the radio.
When It got to the chorus:
“I am I cried
I am said I”
I thought they were talking about Mike Wright.
“I am I cried”…get it?

A TALE OF TWO TESTS

Last month it was "Everybody will get a test, OK? We got beautiful tests, the best tests. We're number one in testing."
Now its like "Not my tests".

BULLETHOLES HAS A DONUT

The doctor has had me track my blood sugar on a spreadsheet the last month. I went in yesterday with the results. He glanced at it for a moment.
“This doesn’t look too bad “ he said “A lot of 100’s and 120”s”
“Thank you sir”
Then he looked a little more deeply.
‘What’s this day… 220, 247 and 298? “
“That’s the day I had a coupla few donuts”
“Coupla few? What’s that?”

“Its like two or three. Maybe four. Ok, it was five donuts.”
“You ate five donuts?”
“Uh-huh. And maybe an apple fritter”

MY SUPERPOWER

“And so I remind myself: my real challenge right now is a spiritual one. In the midst of an evolving, unprecedented crisis, can I truly practice living moment to moment? Can I take on this strange new life day by day, from a place of tender awareness rather than fear? Can I let go of the ways I thought life would unfold and save my strength to swim with the tide? Can I stay focused on what’s good, right now?” ~ Katrina Kenison, from “The gift of an ordinary day”

*******

That is the challenge isnt it? I was just at the grocery. I see all the people. They are worried. Nervous. I want to reach out, but we have to keep our distance. So I find myself sauntering along with a stupid smile on my face waiting for someone to look up so I can give them my best “How do you do?”.
But people these days are so afraid to look up.
Twice, maybe three times I choked up a little over this distance that has had to be imposed. Its like a vaccuum. I just want to fill it.
A couple years ago I came into possession of a big Rudolph head. You put it over your head, and its got the big screen eyes you can see through. Suddenly you are a disney character. Ive had so much fun wearing that thing during Christmas; meetings, parties, even wore it to an art show.
An idea came over me two weeks ago. I should wear it to the grocery, with a little mask! So I posted a pic on FB and asked should I or should I not do this?
Of course everyone says yes. I could do it, it is my Superpower, doing stuff like that.
But SHOULD I?
So I made a dry run to the store. No mask, just trying to get a feel for people.
Two weeks ago was just like today. Every body is too nervous, too on edge. I don't want to appear to make light of this serious situation we are in. I don't want to disrespect anyone's dignity, or mess with their serenity. That’s the challenge.
But here one day, when things aren't so tight, maybe I wear my mask in.

''There are no easy answers, no clear path through any of this, other than caution, kindness, and care for ourselves and others.
That is the challenge...""

Until then I’ll just have to stick to a big smile and “How do you do?”

COUNTING TO ZERO BY JEFFREY LITTLE

1
I’m sitting inside a circle of duct tape, counting tissues. Everything’s either boned-up, ghosting, or it’s Gone. It takes me about an hour to work my way to zero. Nothing yet has plummeted from the sky, not even a turkey. I’m beginning to think that it’s all a practical joke of some kind, or a new way of counting to zero. I go on-line and buy myself a metric socket-wrench for seventeen bucks. You never know. It’s true. Just today I found out why they put the Do Not Remove tag on a mattress. It’s complicated and involves the French, the Dreyfus Affair. When you see a picture of him, it looks like he’s counting. No matter what you may think of the length of the baseball season, we still must respect the primacy of the numbers. The tallying appears to have no end. Another siren, another false alarm. Or a real alarm, but lacking context, and context is what we’re all struggling with here. If you stop and really think about it, has any of us ever seen the inside of an egg? It could be like a palace in there. Roll top desks and weird green lamps. Like in France. I walk up the stairs and I wash my hands.











2
I walk down the stairs and I wash my hands. The things we do in front of a mirror. Everyone is sort of sick. Maybe if a trellis of smoke filled the sky, or I saw someone moved on a gurney into a black sedan. But this, this is a television show. Outside it’s just a little empty, and nice. A neighbor kid on her bicycle and a breeze. A breeze! Have you ever tried to count a breeze? It’s tricky. Someone’s always coming in from the cold. When I think back and try to picture the way things were it looks a lot like today, only now through a buffer of glass. In the right light a pane of glass can be a mirror. I see a version of myself looking back into the house watching me watch the neighbor kid riding a bike. This reminds me of the obscure dread evoked in old movies of staring down into a winding staircase, a splash of dissonant piano with a single cymbal and the eyes, tied as they are to the stomach, the eyes go wide, then bottom. I realize I’m looking out the glass screen door with what could only charitably be called a slack-jawed gape. The neighbor kid’s seen worse. She brakes, and counts on her fingers the number of cats.











3
Everyone is waiting inside except the cats, the ferals and the nearly so. They think themselves responsible for this change in the situation, they patrol like lions, and at night settle upon the empty porches. Beyond hammerfall and doomcrack this is, for now, what’s left us. I would’ve imagined something a bit more gothic. Not zombies, these days they seem a little too stylized, but sewer beasts, or wendingos, or a bomb, something with a gravitas to its wake, like that silent cortege of stumps in Siberia, in the Taiga, what was Tunguska in 1908. That, I could wrap my head around. No school, no work, no beach to scurry to away from, I see a lot of people just staring at the sky. Walking around town in my six foot bubble of separation I see a lot of things, but nothing desperate, at least not today, or at least not yet anyway, that’ll come with the flies, or when the liquor stores are locked and shuttered, and the dry it comes in hard. The last, last straw. Windows are made for one purpose, really, push come to shove, windows are made to break, to shower a sidewalk with the shards of the new transactions, now that it’s been rearranged.











4
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about our curtains. I want to open them, then I want to close them, I settle on open but I am unconvinced, I walk to the kitchen and I wash my hands. Today the number I need to know is 106, which is a larger number than yesterday, which was larger than the day before. The digits are twisted like balloons, as the nightly news broadcasts its warnings and careens from side to side. Six months from now we’ll have been returned to a semblance of normality or else we’ll be scratching at the earth with sharpened sticks, eyes peeled for a tuber or roots. I busy myself eying up the better branches. Our house, now, is always full. Wife, kids, cat, and work, cat, kids, wife. The steps lead somewhere, but where? I wake up and walk down the stairs and wash my hands, feed our cat and the cat plopped on the porch outside. This is my new commute. Someone has closed the curtains, which are deep, deep red. I feel like I’m inside of a vein. Coursing. The word for today is absentia. I heat up a cup of coffee, make a sour face like I’m working, then look out a window to see the sun, all the parked cars and the cats.











5
Still, it seems inevitable. No matter how many times I wash my hands the virus is somewhere waiting. It’s patient. Obsessively precise. Like an accountant or an actuary, as much as for exactly what the virus does as for what waiting on it makes of us. I need to anthropomorphize. I need to give it a face. Anthony Perkins. Nothing personal. I just woke up and I thought, Anthony Perkins, the coronavirus is Anthony Perkins. Now I can go about my day in peace. When I hear the mail jeep outside I feel just like a dog. And when I count I count to one hundred, but still to me it’s like counting to zero. Tomorrow they’ll have me count more. My failure is that I can’t not watch the news. I wouldn’t say that I pay it too much attention but I need to have it on, or available. It’s like being a methadone junkie, no kick but the kick of empty addiction. Usually, I don’t even turn up the sound. Our cat, in the window, looks at the near feral outside on the stoop, an entente is being agreed to. Our place, my family’s, in this informal arrangement, has yet to be determined. Bets, I can hear them being hedged. On the big board the odds keep changing.











6
We wipe down every surface here, only to wipe them all down again. I’m eating a sandwich and I bite my tongue. This is what it boils down to. Everyone is looking for someone to blame. Blame biology, blame life. If I had an electron microscope I could at least start to look inside of the envelope and satisfy some vague imperative. It’s a perfect day and the cats have moved from their porches out onto the lawns. I do a push-up and I count to zero, I wash my hands and I count to twenty, I walk outside and tomorrow moves another step closer, or away. At this magnification it’s impossible to tell. I feel quantum. Birds do bird things. I have no idea what the number is today so I just stroll across the grass to feel it give a little bit beneath me, then I go further down, to where the creek straightens before making a run for it underneath the cul de sac, and out the other side. I want to follow it as it moves through the dark. But there are surfaces that we need to wipe down first before we can wipe them down again. Nothing has prepared me for the next step, whatever the next step is. We eat dinner, we begin.




Jeffrey Little: “All things considered, I would rather be in Philadelphia, watching the Phillies swamp the Mets, eating a soft pretzel and drinking some ale. Heck, down the road in Wilmington watching the Blue Rocks, thinking of ale. Everybody’s missing something these days, or someone. This poem is thinking of them. For what it’s worth, I have three issues of Mudlark you could glance at, along with all the other fine issues housed there, now that you have the time. Also a poster; this poem makes it a Gordie Howe Hat Trick. I’ve always wanted to say that. I have two books of poetry from Spout Press (The Hotel Sterno and The Book of Arcana) and one from Rank Stranger Press (Five and Dime). I am supposed to thank the great, small State of Delaware for an established professional poetry grant. Thanks. Also, poems scampering here and there. Be well.”

Other Mudlarks by Jeffrey Little: The Secret Life of Nouns, Poster No. 154 (2018); Is Nature is as a Sound is as Zero is as the Hook Dog Blues, Issue No. 47 (2012); Biography As In Syntax: The Babble Poems, Issue No. 22 (2003); and crayola in arcana, Issue No. 15 (2000).




Copyright © Mudlark 2019

BULLETHOLES TAKES A WALK

I've lived in my house 4 months now. I finally did something my doctor has been begging me to do for years. I took a walk. He has BEGGED me, but I HATE walking. I drove around the block, its three quarters of a mile. Parked that car and set out afoot, hating every step. I got over to the next block. One of the houses had three younger guys in the front yard. As I approached they waved and gave me a hearty "Hello". They were smiling. I said hello back and a gave little wave.
"How are you doing?" one asked me.The other two looked at me expectantly, waiting for my answer.
That is when I realized these guys were starved for company. They were excited to see a stranger. Like they had been on a deserted island or something. I dont believe their reaction to my presence would have been as visceral any other time. Only now in this forced sequestration because of the COVID 19.
I gave them my best smile and friendliest voice.
"I'm doing great" I said, "How about you all?"
" We are great!" all three in unison, smiles just beaming at me. waiting for my reply.
I slowed down just a step, turned toward them, let a moment pass and said
"Just keepin' my distance, man" and they all three just laughed ..."Right, right, right." they said.
As I walked away I went into one of these little daydreams. I wish I had stopped and talked a little longer. Three complete strangers were so delighted to see me, and as the weeks go by as they have, suddenly I experienced a sense of hope. A sense of that maybe after all this isolation and separation, that maybe we will all fall in love with each other again. That is what we surely do need.
But there is more. I got home and I was getting a glass of water and kind of smiling to myself, thinking about this hope & love. And I thought "I need to go back out tomorrow, walking, and see who I can find". Me, who hates walking. In fact I CANT WAIT to get home tomorrow from work so I can go walking and I'm going to walk until I find somebody.
I just cant hardly wait!

BULLETHOLES STAYS HOME

I bought a piece of art for my house. It needs to be framed, and I have a friend that works at Hobby Lobby. She does frames! I've had it for two weeks, but I thought Hobby Lobby was closed for this COVID 19 crisis until I saw the news yesterday. Hobby Lobby has stayed open, deeming itself "essential".
I sent her a text and yes she was working.
I wanted to take my art and get it framed so I can hang it up. And then I caught myself.
Having Millet's "The Gleaners" framed and on my wall is important to me, I can't wait to put it up, but its hardly essential.
The last ten years I've finally learned to play by the rules. I lived most of my life irresponsible, and in complete disregard for the rules.
"Rules" I said "are for suckers"
Thanks to NA and sober living I've learned to play by the rules. To live life on its own terms. Thats how I came to be able to buy this house.

My work is basically paying me to stay home 2 days a week. They are paying me to stay home, shelter in place, stay healthy. I'm really proud I didnt take a self serving self centered non essential trip to Hobby Lobby. Stay home Bulletholes. You could go to Hobby Lobby and come home dead.

A THANKLESS JOB

SHELTER IN PLACE

All of my 12 step meetings have gone online. I'm having to work from home today. I like to say I don't like people, but its just not true. People who need people are the luckiest people.
I'll never make it till Monday.
Can't Trump pass a law where we go to a Buddy System?
Where can I get Shelter In Place Buddy?

CORONAVIRUS AND 12 STEP GROUPS

Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous Groups have had to suspend in person meetings all around the world. But spreading like wildfire are online meetings through video conferencing apps like ZOOM. I've peered into several the last two days, and virtual attendance at my home group is high. 
Addicts are natural isolator's. We like to say that "an addict alone is an addict in poor company" and one of the many truths we have found is that the most powerful weapon for a recovering addict is another recovering addict.

Here, Ronnie Woods shares his experience strength and hope with the Rolling Stone magazine. Ronnie has 10 plus years clean and sober.
“I will share my hope for the future with myself, my higher power, and my friends. I will also share this with someone who has lost hope. Now, if anything, we have tended to be people who have wanted it all now. To hope is not to demand. Maybe we were a bit demanding. Maybe we were a bit impatient. Maybe that’s why we had such little hope. Hope is believing good will come, even in bad times; hope is knowing that ‘this too shall pass.’ Hope is knowing that no matter how afraid we are, our higher power will be with us. Hope is knowing we never have to be alone again. It is knowing that time is on our side. Hope is giving up control. Hope is knowing we never had control in the first place. I hope this helps you get through another day.”

MY FIRST BLACK SABBATH CONCERT

It was Sunday August 4, 1975. Me and a buddy were driving down Pipeline going to pick up my girlfriend Pam and go to a Black Sabbath concert.

Suddenly there was cop right on my tail. It was like he had a rope attached to my bumper. He followed me quite a ways and I decided to hang a left just before we got to Precinct Line.
I was a little nervous because we had about 40 joints rolled up in the glove compartment, and my buddy had another ounce stuck in his pants.

I hung that left and so did the cop, and that’s when he hit the lights I pulled over. He came to my door. I nearly fainted. It was Officer Thorn, who a few months prior had found a small quantity of marijuana on my person and let me slide. He asked for my license and went back to his car. I looked in my rear view mirror and was surprised to see a girl named Miller and a guy named Bill that were schoolmates. Apparently, being model citizens and interested in a possible career in law enforcement,  they had been riding along as interns. Now Officer Thorn had them strategically placed on my flanks to make sure I didn’t try to pull a fast one.
But what can you do with 40 pre-rolled joints?
I was stuck like a fly on sticky paper.

When he came back to the door with my license he said “Mr. Renfro, would you please step out of the car?”
I said “Can you tell me what this is about? I have places to go and people to meet”.

He didn’t say a word. Just opened the door, took me by the arm and escorted me to the hood of the car.

Later, when they were putting the cuffs on me, I looked over at Miller. She had turned kind of green and mouthed a silent
“I’m sorry” to me.

And that is how it came to pass that I had waited  years to see Black Sabbath and would have to wait two more before I actually made it to a show.

KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF

You know what I've discovered? I touch everything all the time. If I sit down in a chair and there's a chair next to me I have to reach over and touch it and see what it feels like. If there's a chair in front of me I have to reach up and run my fingers across the top of the chair just to see how it feels. I ask myself "Are my hands sensitive enough to feel that bit of chipped paint?"
The round trash can next to the door I just came through? How can I not rub the top of it. Its got gravity. Its like the curve of the moon.
That pillow, the loaf of bread, the coin return on the vending machine, these and a million other things waiting to be poked.
All those buttons that need mashin’.
If I'm in line at the grocery store and they got the magazines there I have to reach over and touch one of them to see how glossy the cover really is. Today its Scarlett Johanesson on the cover. Simply irrestible. Then I have to touch the metal rail at the cashier's stand to check out the texture and the temperature.
Will it feel cool to the touch?
Man I got to know.
I friggin touch everything.
Here I am, touching the whale. As our reknown Captain Ahab says “He tasks me; he heaps me.”
Do I ever touch my face? Man I don't even want to know.

NOT WANTING TO BE SAVED

"“You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don’t bother remembering
any of it. Let’s stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.”

–Dorianne Laux

VOTER FRAUD

Early voting? Online voting?

Its too much fun to go in person.

It took a while for them to get me set up. I had an address change. The computer was fighting them, like it didnt want me to vote.

"Am going to get to exercise my franchise here today?" I asked.

"Yes sir Mr. Renfro, just bear with us."

After much wrangling and a few more minutes I asked "Could this have something to do with me having already voted twice at other locations with my fake ID's?"

You should have seen the look on the two ladies faces! One of them was a Judge. She just laughed.

They finally got me all set and the Judge Lady says "You are completely legitimate now"

I said "So does this mean I'ma start having to pay taxes?"

I had that room in tears.

Note: 

I went to vote by my house in Handley. Low rent district. The line stretched out the door. The man said it was about an hour wait. He said four of their ten machines weren’t working.

I thought to myself I ought to go to ritzy Upper Middle Class  Bedford, where presumably there are fewer Democratic voters. So I trekked to Bedford, where I was able to waltz right in. It may have had less to do with fewer Democratic voters, and more to do with the fact there were 15 machines, all working beautifully.

A suspicious person might think that the practice of suppressing the vote in poorer districts is alive and well.

Read that again.

A suspicious person might think that the practice of suppressing the vote in poorer districts is alive and well.

GETTING LUCKY

If you find yourself at Kohl’s looking for a new vaccumm cleaner, and you are really disturbed that they do not have one for less than $129.99 because the last time you bought a vaccuum cleaner it cost $39.00, do not despair.
Just head over to the Lingerie Department and browse around until you find a nice middle aged lady, someone with that Christine Baranski look, and ask her where one should go to find a reasonably priced vaccuum cleaner.
If you are lucky she will diect you to Big Lots, where you will find the latest edition to the Renfro Domestic Science Repetoire for 52.00.

ROAD RAGE

I was pulling out of the convenience store parking lot last night. There is a MacDonalds attached to it, and as I swung around a car came bolting out of the drive through. I nearly hit them. I pulled up to exit the parking lot, and I heard an engine race, a horn honk and someone shouting. They had pulled up beside me, and the passenger of the car had his window rolled down. He was shouting at me. Against better judgement and the possibility of getting shot in the face I rolled my window down.

“YOU NEED TO WATCH WHERE YOU ARE GOING!” he shouted at me. I figure he was about 24, with just a moderate amount of acne and a pubic looking beard.
“Yes, you are right. I didn’t see you. It was my mistake” I replied, and gave him my best grin.
He seemed to deflate a little.
“You need to drive more careful” he tried to shout, but it was half-hearted.
“Yes, I will, thank you. It was my mistake”
He looked kind of embarrassed now. “Okay then” was all he could muster.
This wasn’t going the way he planned.
And now we were two cars plugging up the parking lot exit.
“Why don’t y’all go ahead and go first here” I said.
“Thank you” he said, and they pulled out, hopefully never to be seen again.

BUFFALO CHEST

There is a scene in “Dancing With Wolves” that made me wonder about what it was like to have to rely upon a bow and arrow as a weapon.
It’s the scene where the band of Indians kills Timmons, the wagon driver. It’s a brutal scene and requires half a dozen arrows into his abdomen and several minutes of agony before he expires. The scene demonstrates that unless an arrow pierces the heart, it could take quite some time to die.
It made me wonder how many arrows it would take to kill a buffalo. And I found my answer yesterday in a TYWKIWDBI post.
Unlike most mammals a buffalo doesn’t have a right and left lung; the lung of a buffalo is a single unit and once pierced, death comes fairly quickly.
Another reason to read TYWKIWDBI.
http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/…/buffalo-chest-and-american-…

MAKE LIKE A CORK ON THE WATER

Every now and then you think that you learned something. And it makes you laugh. Today I learned that you can't always put everything in perspective, and having accepted that, everything just falls into place. If you can't be consistent, then you better be be flexible.
Simple as that.

It kinda went like this. The boss calls.
Boss "What happens when the PO doesn't match the Invoice?"
Me "Nothing"
Boss "How do you approve the invoice if it doesn't match the PO?"
Me "Just approve it"
Boss "What about the PO"
Me "Forget the PO."
Boss "Really?"
Me "Yes. see the PO doesn't have to match the invoice. The invoice just has to match the PO"
Boss "That makes no sense"
Me "I know. That's what we do here."

MY FIRST VALENTINE

For Valentine’s Day I could talk about all the girls I’ve fallen in love with, or repost the poem about how I fall in love just about every day . With the whole human race. Or I could talk about the month long Tour Of Duty I did with Online Dating, that ended when I asked a girl if she really wanted to be Number Seven this month and she said “YES!”.
I’m just not built for that.
I could talk about Valley’s Day in general, how it started back in Roman days, when Caesar or somebody decided to outlaw marriage. There was a Cardinal that continued to pair people up in an underground ceremony, breaking the law and the Emperor's rule. The Cardinal was eventually found out, imprisoned and when he would not confess, bow down and promise not to do any more marriage ceremonies, Caesar had him crucified.
The Cardinals name was Valentine.

But I guess I’d rather talk about my first love.
We were only four years old, and we took swim lessons and tap dancing lessons together and she was in my Sunday School Class too.
She was the daughter of a Preacherman. Her name was Teddy, she had short and curly
Chestnut hair, just long enough to put into cute little Pigtails. Her eyes were blue, like her swimsuit, which also had little flowers on it. She wore black leotards to our tap dancing class, and I hate to say it but I wore them too.
Sometimes when Mom and I went to the store we would see her and her Mom.
Every time we went anywhere, I would always hope that we would see Teddy.
I always looked forward to seeing Teddy at the pool for swim lessons.

Had it not been for Teddy being at tap dance lessons, which I cried all the way to and from, I would have cried the whole way through those classes, in front of all those little girls.
The only boy in the class, crying like a baby in his black leotard and tap shoes
I kept it together for Teddy in particular.

Maybe that is what love is on some simple level...always hoping to see someone and keeping it together for them when you do.

Painting by Jay Wilkinson.
That’s not me and Teddy, its my daughter, Jay’s sister, and my son who liked his tap dancing costume better than I did.

GREAT POETS OF THE 20th CENTURY

GREAT POETS OF THE 20^th CENTURY

“Ain’t no money in Poetry, that’s what sets the poet free”
And probably why poet Lew Welch turned to advertising to make some clams. Lew made up the slogan “Raid Kills Bugs Dead”, which sold a lot of Raid. He studied Philosophy and took a job with Montgomery Wards writing copy for the lingerie and sporting goods department, and asked for a transfer to San Francisco in order to be closer to Kerouac and the Beat poetry scene. Once there he started driving a cab, as all Beat poets do, living with Gary Snyder and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
He married a nice Polish lady named Maria, and became stepfather to her son Hugh Anthony Cregg, III, better known by his stage-name Huey Lewis.


On May 23, 1971, Welch walked out of poet Gary Snyder's house in the mountains of California, leaving behind a suicide note faintly reminiscent of the terse meter of his Raid ad that read only “HEADING SOUTH-SOUTHWEST. GOODBYE”. His body was never found.

LESSON NUMBER ONE

The bigger the rake you buy for raking leaves, the more quickly it will wear your ass flat out.