Hi

hi

today i woke up early and went fishing with James and Bug

We went to Mosquito Lake on the causeway

there were few clouds in the sky and the sun shone

James fell between the rocks when he tried to sit down and cut his shins. It cut down so far, it looked blue. I asked him if he wanted me to flick it.

he went in the car and cried for five minutes and came out

he took it like a man

Bug acted normal. He kept scavenging through the litter left by past fishers. He found a lot of hooks. He kept showing me the shit he found.

James sat peacefully on a rock. Once and awhile he would complain about his shins.

It got very hot.

All the other fishers left.

We were alone, it was very quiet.

The sun shined strongly.

It almost seemed like the heat, humidity and intense brightness was making noise, but it wasn't.

Bug caught a good sized bluegill. I was able to pull the hook out of it after several minutes of trying.

James caught a small bluegill. The fish swallowed the hook and I couldn't get that one out. We threw it back. It is probably dead now.

We found a snail dead in its shell.

I shook it and green shit fell out.

It smelled horribly.

We went to Burger King.

Bug tried stealing all of the fries. I punched his hand and said, "The day you turn 18. I'm gonna kick your ass."

He laughed, I was serious.

We went back to grandma's house.

Bug and James mother told me about a deal at Staples involving notebooks.

I sat on the porch sweating with no shirt on smoking a cigarette.

Eventually I went home and laid on my couch listening to Chicken Fried by Zac Brown and reading Montaigne.

I went to sleep.

My friend Nicky called from New Mexico.

He told me he might go to Iraq and teach English and save the world. We talked about 'a happy life' and the 'fortunate death' discussed in Herodotus."

(There is strange thing I remember in late summer. It was an August a long time ago, 92 maybe. No even before that. Because it was for my brother Michael and not me, so around 85 or 86. I was at Neal middle school in Fowler. The thing about Neal Middle School is that it's in the country, surrounded by forest, farm fields, churches and a general store. The school was over a 100 years old. The whole area has always creeped me out. For some reason I was around six and waiting for my brother Michael to finish football practice. I was standing outside the doors with some older kids. It was a nice day, a good temperature. We heard something hit a window. We ran over and saw that a bird was lying there, dying. One of the kids yelled, "The bird hit the window." I looked down at the bird. I didn't touch it. The memory ends there.)

Did the dishes while listening to Pink's 'don't leave me'

I like when she says, "I could be so mean when I wanna be"

I like how Pink uses common vernacular in her songs.

I like when she says, "how did I become so obnoxious"

I said to her, "What if I married your sister and became the father of those children? What if I sat on the porch, listened to Froggy drinking rum and coke doing the right thing? What if I taught those boys to be men? What if I worked 40 hours a week? What if I had a working car with heat? What if I paid all my bills? What if one day I had good credit again? What if I became a man?"

My parents at my age already had two kids. They had the jobs they would work for 30 years. My father worked at Cicero's Market. He didn't even have to look for a job. The job was already there. My mother worked at the Delphi Plant for 33 years. They already had Phillip and Michael. They had a house and were 3 years into their thirty year mortage.

I keep thinking if I read enough of Plato's Socratic Dialogues I'll be able to stand in one place and become one with the universe. I will somehow just become the flow or whatever causes or is the eternal recurrence, I will not have to die. I will be able to just 'become.' But then my boss tells me I need to sweep the floor. Someone notifies me of my skin problems.