#uncoffeed...

skeletal crow I left in a parking space for no reason Thoughtful questions are the best, and they aren't easy to come by . These Thoughtful Questions came to me via Facebook, proving social media doesn't have to be evil. This interrogator has read The Mechanic in its entirety. He's a friend of my guitar player, and now a friend of mine. All three of us read the short story Exhalation by ****ing Ted Chiang, and you should, too. His book by the same title is exponentially mind-blowing. I have to keep putting it down because I can't take the heavy doses of reality. On the side, I'm editing Mel's amazing story Sum . I've been writing letters to her main character, and sometimes he writes me back. Her character and I discussed similarities between my little story and his. I have yet to meet Melinda Smith face-to-face, but we are friends and team members.  She fires my dopamine and oxytocin, too. This is not an endorsement of Facebook but a pulling-back of the ...

Mussel-eaters ,  debora Ewing Part one is here.        The Shop operated overnight so as not to interrupt the work chain.  M anagers rarely popped in to see what the mechanics were doing.  Thus, these humans didn't take steps to present themselves well. They were shaggy and disheveled; they were loud, and casual about their duties. While being casual was reprehensible from the perspective of work chain, the drone-to-become-mechanic found these humans fascinating to observe. "Yo, get me that hyperstereoscope...no, the other one," bellowed a mechanic who had a cigarette in his mouth and a tiny screwdriver stabbed into the drone's foot. Ashes fell between metal joints. "That can of air, too, heh. Thanks, Yo." Compressed air blew the ashes into the workspace - reprehensible by work chain terms. "Whaddaya think caused the glitch? You think he's trying to get out of work?" The other mechanic laughed at his own joke. "We better watch it or he...

In days long gone, which also could be called days of future yet unseen, a certain robot drone went missing from a local factory. News articles ran briefly on page four; people in coffeeshops and pubs speculated on who could have pulled off such a masterful theft, leaving no shred of evidence. These learned people agreed it must have been an inside job. The bot in question had a short file of maintenance issues: it was prone to falling out of sync, and sometimes Quality Assurance inspections found it to be missing some redundant part. Tech mechanics would either find a replacement for the lost hardware,  or sometimes put the bot back together without the missing piece. Quality Assurance would then place the mechanics on probation and order remedial training (if they were caught.) Eventually the missing drone's space in the work chain was filled with a newer model drone and an insurance claim filed for the missing equipment. Page four went back to reporting power outages and meat-pr...

Good News: One of the side-effects of social distancing is that we're learning internet savvy (hashtag amirite?) It's good for us old dogs to learn new tricks. Thanks to the DanFam™  I'm now visiting Twitch several times a week...     You: But that's a gamer thing... Me: Oh, but that's not all! Last night I watched @glassMoonman blow glass pipes... I've been watching Dan Navarro live-stream from his living room on Saturdays. In an effort to convince myself that this is a gamer thing, I also found @Lauzeta Folk and visit them a few times a week for Garrotíns.  I also regularly leave @GuitarShreda practicing while I work - Twitch is a place where a lot of classical guitarists stream their practice. And then there's @JonComposer , who doesn't sing but composes live with his interactive audience. Right now I'm hanging out with @ThirdFretCapo  and it seems to be a holiday - everyone's gifting subscriptions to each other. I finally got what I wante...

detail - The Typists - poison ivy lower left You take a few in-between moments to check social media,{current news/facebook rants/stats on Medium} to see if you're (still) relevant. It's readily-available dopamine. Over time, those stats equate to oxytocin synthesis if they continue to mount. I check my business email regularly while I seek a paycheck; I'm online to find editing clients, pimp out my illustration skills, work out logistics for another art exhibit. Between moments I tend the yard.  I'd do it anyway, but I'm compensated by a rent reduction and I am grateful. There's a lot of work that needs doing here. We got 2 weeks of rain and the grass got almost calf-high. I had to make several passes of incrementally closer shave to get the lawn back to maintenance level. Some areas of the yard grew tall weeds, and these need to be taken back manually. I know I'll find boulders and stumps in those areas. And bees. I got stung twice this week. The poison iv...

Sticky co-shenanigation by @but_I_tigress on Twitter I'm sinking in Blursday, y'all. I want to make the best use of my unemployed time; at the moment a lot of that is deprogramming from the last day job. I will be fresh and malleable by the time I find a new gig. I'm also trying to re-structure (because o-r-g-a-n-i-z-e is a scary word) the "projects" I hope will segue into respectable work: editing, painting, sculpting, writing poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. I've got a really big plate. Patreon is a great way to support artists if, as Diana Gonzalez says , you don't want or are unprepared to purchase their work. Going forward, my Patreon account will be family-friendly and focus on my creative endeavours. All the bullshit will be here .  Hey, mom! I'm learning to c-o-m-p-a-r-t-m-e-n-t-a-l-i-z-e. At least that's the direction I'm aiming the mower. All this juggling means my toggle is broken again; hence the blur. I know tha...

This picture overshares the state of my worktable. Not sorry. I just had an interesting conversation about oversharing - something I've always been told I do - something everyone seems to be doing as social distancing continues. I do it because I don't understand where the lines are or why truth shouldn't be shared. I always thought I was reporting, and that honesty is supposed to be, well, honorable. How did this get difficult? I think oversharing should be normalized. Maybe we need rules. If someone overshares with you, there is no action required on your part. Acknowledge that you heard them. If you don't understand how the overshare relates to the conversation being had, ASK. Every conversation leaves several people holding things that desperately need to be said, and the things need to be included in a conversation for context. There are thousands of millions of stories out there waiting to be told. You can't know whether they're important (to you.) Get ...

Tantra, San Juan PR, is now closed. Fusion is perhaps the greatest love of my life - right next to Tamarindo and letterpress chapbooks . By fusion I mean the fuzzy area where any two things collide: Asia and Europe, death metal and bluegrass , Latino-Indian cuisine (it is hard to find; you should seek it out.) Intercultural marriages. Family dynamics. Psychology, both ab- and normal. I realized something today which I think is hilarious: I understand the concept of genre as pertains to music (I create for myself a great visual of record store bins) but when it comes to literature I'm flummoxed - or so I just said to my guitar player. She loves playing with my crazy brain. Mötörhead was formerly known as Hawkwind. Based on their name, Hawkwind got filed in the Country & Western section of the record store - I'm told sales were not so great*.  At the local level - local being me - occasionally I'll write something that I know is a country song. It first happened in 198...

Kenajuan remembers me. This is important because I move around a lot; I worked in hotels for decades, so I've met legions of humans and made at least transient connections. It's important because I remember almost everyone I meet, but that's how I'm wired. It's surprising when others remember me, and those who do matter. Health or aging is taking its toll, and honestly I'm not sorry I can't remember which year it was when Buck Dharma accidentally left a penny in the vending machine across from my office. I'm not sorry I can't remember the name of the guy I gave it to ( you want to be a better guitar player? You have to practice - but here, take this magic Buck Dharma penny .) I do remember he said, "Who's Buck Dharma?" and I took it back. Kenajuan and I worked hotel front desk in Kalamazoo - this was around '98. He wanted a suggestion to read for an audition, so I gave him something by Henry Miller from Tropic of Cancer: “At night w...

Kalamazoo now has traffic circles. why does pain so familiar feel so good?  I play the same song over & over opening the same vein over & over recounting the crossroads where the path could have been different mighta been coulda been shoulda been woulda been never matters anyway It's not regret I'm feeling, no I'm playing Physical Graffiti to remember a particular permutation of me. The me who helped break a puppy out of dog jail. ...the one who once took a bunch of the blinky traffic signs and put them in someone's yard like their front door was blocked off...and then another day did the same thing but blocking off Douglas, one of the main streets in Kalamazoo. THERE WASN'T ANYTHING ELSE TO DO. We were kids who didn't want to go home. I was "raised" by old hippies. I'd given up on traditional life entirely, skipped school, and went downtown to hang in basements on the North Side with musicians who had weed and philosophy. They talked to m...

***FRIEND begins here***   This morning, two beefy gray-jumpsuited men are in the break-room, prying a hand-truck under the vending machine. “Good morning…?” I run my fingers through my hair, unsure why I find this development unsettling. The taller man grunts. The other leans the hand-truck forward and sighs. A patch on his jumpsuit reads Jones – his name, or the vending company's. “G’morning, sir. Taking this machine out. Contract expired.” Jones speaks politely. “Contract?” One Baby Ruth bar dangles from the center spiral. “Can I get that?” “Sure. Guess they’ll install sumpin’ else. Willie, plug it back in.” Willie grunts again, forcing the prongs into the outlet; the machine blinks briefly and whirs to life. I fumble in my wallet for two singles to put into the machine, but the candy drops before I manage. “Sorry, sir. We took the change out.” Jones shuffles awkwardly, expecting rebuttal. “I’m fine.” I salute with the candy bar in hand. “Thanks, g...

***FRIEND begins here***    Upstairs, we took turns examining spindles under the stereoscope. Lee became less freaked, more scientific. Sperling kept stroking the stubble on his chin. “We’ll need to shave this down, of course,” Sperling muttered, his face balanced on the eyepieces of the scope. “It’s amazing.” “Terrifying,” rejoined Lee, “a little. Beautiful. Let me see it again.”  We formed an arc facing ProTAI’s tank. Sperling spoke first. “That’s nice work, ProTAI. Wonderful, truly. Why did you decide to make…this…cell?” We looked to the digipanel for response. CALL ME SKYNET. I’M PRETTY. YES? “Um…” Sperling, Lee and I looked at each other peripherally. Lee snorted. “Well, that’s retro. Yes, baby. Very pretty.” THANK YOU. CAN I HAVE IT BACK, PLEASE? “Um…” Sperling muttered again. He cleared his throat. “ProT…Sky…can we call you Sky? We need to keep your very nice sample.” GIVE IT BACK. I MADE IT. ...