Low Tide in Happytown

  We sat in the front window of the restaurant on the pier, my back to the bay and the boats and the water, facing her and the decrepit buildings of the pier itself, the old train tracks, the houses clinging to the sides of the hill beyond.   We were planning a future together, or so it seemed.  We had looked at a house earlier in the day here, we were moving in together.   After looking at, and liking this house, we drove around for an hour or two all over the seaside town, writing down phone numbers, searching for “FOR RENT” and “FOR SALE” signs, listening to the radio, singing along to what we heard.  I should have been very happy or having a lot of fun. I had been in love with her.   This was one of my greatest fantasies ever, becoming real before my very eyes.

   "So.   If we get this house,"  I began "do you know what room you want?  What will go in the living room?   My couch?   Your couch?   What about the piano?  I like the room with the - "

  "OH!!!!" She shouted, interrupting me  "Look at that bird!  He is VERY HANDSOME, that bird!  That is a...   a....   I forgot the name.   It looks like he's wearing a tuxedo though, doesn't it?"

   I had to turn around in my chair to see the bird swimming somewhere  behind me, somewhere far away on the other side of the floor-to-ceiling double pane windows.     I looked for the bird for a moment, but there were about forty or so out there bobbing up and down in the water,  all looking the same, all black and white, all doing something or other.

    " Oh yeah, a tuxedo, yes"  I said, turning back around to face her.   I wondered if she would remember what I just asked her, or would I have to repeat myself?   I waited a moment.  She was still looking beyond me, through me, watching the birds floating around out in the bay.   Then, suddenly, she was back.

   "Oh, I know you just HATE BIRDS" she said to me apologetically, incorrectly, and then she directed her attention to the loaf of bread in the basket between us.  She began to tear the end off of it with her bare hands, exactly the way a person would remove the head from a chicken.   With a strenuous effort, a twist, and a final pull,  the heel of the loaf was liberated from the rest.   She thrust this end of the bread into the cube of butter which had been artfully displayed on another tiny plate.  "You should know I LOVE BIRDS though!   They are VERY IMPORTANT to me.  Nature is VERY IMPORTANT to me. "   She then bit a sizable piece of the buttered bread and began to chew, watching me, waiting for a reaction.

    "Oh, I know THAT alright!"  I answered, trying to sound as happy as possible.    I DID know that animals were important to her.  I had no idea if I was important or not to her though, and this was beginning to become a problem for me.

   We had known each other for almost exactly a year at this point,  I had hired her to be my 'Personal Assistant' or 'General Manager' or something like that, and I had a crush on her right from the get-go.  The two of us were the entirety of my online business, and so we were alone all of the time together.  Over the course of the year we had discovered we got along well, had similar goals for the future,  and seemed to like each other pretty well.  We became BFFs.   Everyone knew it.   Including her boyfriend.

   Yes, she had a boyfriend that she didn't seem to be crazy about, although she didn't say anything too awful about to me, either.   She actually never mentioned him to me at all until about a month or two before the decision to live together (she and I) came to pass.   I had a feeling she was sneaky in a bi-directional manner, which is a fashion of sneaky in which there are no losers or winners, not in a clearly defined way.   I felt she thought she was being loyal to him by not letting me touch her much more than resting my hand on her upper thigh every now and then while we ate lunch together,  but planning to move in with another guy in order to break up with him did not strike me as an exceptionally gallant or  loyal gesture either.   I began to think the real reason we never made out when we were on the couch or in my bed watching movies together was because she really did not like me at all like that.  We never really talked about these sorts of things very often, usually it would get weird or someone would get quiet or begin to explain something and then rescind with a series of 'Oh Nothing's.    I was left to wonder and ponder and calculate, and the conclusions I came up with were never flattering to myself.  SURE, she said she wanted to live with me, but the reasons offered never included anything about ME,  but were a few simple sentences regarding a clean sink and a desire for a fireplace.    I was into that sort of stuff too, but I also had a crush on her and wanted to live with her to see how things would go.   She really never shared that thought or want with me, not that I could remember anyway.    So, now two weeks into the quest for mutual living space, I was beginning to get frustrated with her. She was not being as nice in general. She was not looking as good to me anymore these days either , she had stopped plucking her eyebrows altogether and she wore the same pair of shabby  black pants all the time.  I felt I had gotten a good hard look behind the curtain, and I was starting to get worried.    The future did not look so warm or pleasant anymore.    Especially so for about one week out of every month.   I'll circle back  around to this later.  In the meantime,  I was trying to keep her happy and not rock the boat too much with my feelings, and it was not so easy for me anymore, but I would try hard in the interest of achieving the goal, seeing this through to the end, planting this flagpole into the top of the mountain, so to speak.    I would do everything in my power.    So, I said to her:

   " I know animals are very important to you Darling. ME TOO.    That's why I want this house with you.  We can come on down here and look at those birds anytime you want to.   Where is that tuxedoed rascal, anyway? "  and with that humiliation uttered, I turned back around towards the windows to pretend to look for the bird again.   It was right then that  I started to wish I was dead a little bit.

Titles of Things I Want to Type:

1) Go and Tell your crippled friend I eat meat.
2)  It was dark outside and there was a smell.
3) I'm not so bad.   REALLY.
4) The harmonica lay there, forgotten, under the sock.
5) One Beer?  REALLY?
6) When do We get to wear the Blue Suit?
7) Egypt: Give us our free!
8) Movies are snack vehicles.
9) My Helper:  God bless her!
10) People I hate:
11) I'll pump my own gas if I want to!
12) I hate it when:
13) Steve 4000
14) Voice of the Night
15) I'm stronger than you, and probably smarter, too:
16) Japanese People = Horrifying.
17) My heart hurts.
18) Mother? It's Me!
19) I hate this fucking car
20) I'm not getting any younger:
21) I'm human and I want to be loved.
22) Jesus?  Really?
23) Politics are Boring
24) He is Watching Us
25) Ancients Grains :  Good for you?
26) Ever think about dreams? REALLY?
27) I actually have a GOOD attitude!
28) My keys: Where are they?
29) I used to be Young
30) Girls with names that start with the letter 'A' :
31) I have secrets too
32) Pete Lark creeps me out
33) Love ME
34) I know where Gobo Goes:
35) I got Worms!
36) Take me to the Heaven of your bed
37) Renaud's Syndrome:   REALLY?
38) I Want You to Want Me.
39) Feelin' for Reelin'
40) I'll turn it down.   I will.

Losing is the new Winning!

  He wanted a drink, and he wanted one badly.

   He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, there was a pain he detected there as well, and he just KNEW with one drink, maybe one beer(?!), it would go away.   The anxiety?   He could vanish that shit lickety-split.   He recognized the signals his body was sending him:   Please Add Alcohol.

  It had been a few months already though, and a promise IS a promise, at least as long as you are still speaking to the person you made the promise to, as far as he was concerned.   As bad as he wanted that drink, he was also a little worried about what it could do to him.   This last year was a good example of what a drink or two could lead to, and it was not a pretty year, not as it unfolded, and was not likely to ever become pretty, even in hindsight.  It wasn't all the fault of a failure of willpower, but it seems most of the times he got in trouble he had been imbibing.

   He needed to do SOMETHING though, that was the problem.  He couldn't keep pacing around the building from room to room worrying about the pain in his chest, he needed a release,  and he couldn't buy anymore doors or sheetrock.   The cops confiscated and destroyed his gun this last summer, so he couldn't cut the tension with a few sharp satisfying muzzle flashes into the night either.    He had no extra cars to skid around in and wreck, none that were his, anyway.

   He promised not to drink, he thought,  he promised he would not drink...  and there was an implied promise of not ruining future plans, there was no extra money now for violation fees or bail,  but there had been no discussion of a little fight.    If he was careful?   He knew if he could engage out in the street, outside of an established business, the police would probably not be called.

   It had been almost a year since his knuckles had greeted whiskered cheeks, or his own cheeks suffered the knuckles of another stumbling, slurring man.   It was true he had been drinking every other time he had engaged in such activity, but that did not mean he HAD to drink in order to fight, did it?   In fact, he wanted to hit people quite often when perfectly sober.    He was now puzzled as to why this idea did not occur to him sooner - Why did he have to drink in order to get in a fight?

   There was a time when he would avoid fights.   When he was younger and softer, afraid of pain and scars and manly behavior and bearded baseball-hat wearing men, men who just-got-off-work and were manly men, men who did not look away first,  men who would mutter insults at him when drinking beer,  he feared these men and their confidence.    They must be sure of themselves for a reason, he reckoned.

  Well, this man, the man in our story here,  he grew up eventually, and learned that these bearded men with their Carharts and plaid shirts and motorcycle boots and tattoos were mainly a lot of hot air.  Our Man, the man we are discussing here in our story, he learned that if he kept looking, these other men would look away first.   Those rare times the other man did not look away first?   Words may be exchanged, and if push came to shove, he learned not to stand and box, but to tackle instead, momentum became his friend, and he would quickly be on top of the offending party and force them to do or say something humiliating  in order to be released.    If they would not, or if resistance was maintained,  he would be forced to resort to punching.   He also learned to be aware of his blind spots and not mount the offensive party in such a way as to expose his back to any portion of the patronage or potential cohorts of the party in question.  The Real Deal here boiled down to a couple simple questions: Can you punch someone in the face real hard?   Are you willing to be punched in the face real hard?  It looks easy in movies, but gathering the nerve to hit someone in the face, hard, is no simple effort.   If you are a civilized person (and this man certainly was one), the idea may cause you worry at first.  But. Once you do it the first time though?   You never go back.   Like buying good socks.   There was an evolution.

   He enjoyed these times.   Even when he 'lost', he felt he still won.   His confidence in such matters soared, and he learned a new trick or two every now and then.    These were good times!   The police were rarely scrambled into duty, and he displayed a certain charm that kept him out of serious trouble, even when confronted by the law.

   So, on this certain evening that this particular man we are talking about here wanted a drink real bad,  he decided that maybe he did not have to have a drink, but maybe he could just get into a fight with some poor bastard out there in the real world?  SUUUUUuuuuuure.     Even if he were to get knocked out, he enjoyed pain, did not fear it, (but did not enjoy the humiliation so much) and would still consider himself 'ahead' of this chest-pain-thing and the pacing.

   He made up his mind.   It was seven o'clock in the evening on a weekday.   Prime Mantime out in Barworld. He went to his room and put on a pair of not-favorite-jeans,  some steel-toed boots (if it came to kicking, he wanted to be prepared), his 'Obama Rocks!' t-shirt and did some stretches,  popped his knuckles a few times,  smoothed his hair over to one side, and  got into the medicine cabinet in the bathroom  and applied some of Her mascara to his eyelashes until he looked like Amy Winehouse. The he got into his car and headed  out to a bar NOT in the immediate area, but instead a bar where  he would not be recognized, in case the police were called.   He could not risk any more fines this year.   He had plans in the upcoming months and he had to be careful.  He had things to look forward to.

Well, THAT passed. Now I'm hungry again.

  It is true:  I was beginning to feel unhappy or depressed or something of that nature again today.  Is it just the money thing?   I don't think so.   I experience a bit of frustration about other things,  but I am able to remind myself just how shitty things can feel, how unlucky a person can become, and anything bothering me shrivels in comparison.

   So: The Safeway Walk.   It has become a much-abbreviated-yet-similar-excursion to the Bridge Walk.   I can do a loop to Safeway in about ten minutes, including checkout.   My mind still drifts and pponders about the thoughts of the day and problems if any, or can frolic in a happy thought if one exists.  ..  ?  What was my point?    I don't remember exactly, but I returned from Safeway in a good mood.    An excellent mood?     I became aware of a sensation I was having, I felt like this ship was just about to set sail, and I am on board.   I think you are going to be here with me, or I will run into you out there somewhere.    I don't know if these are crazy thoughts or not.    Are they?    I think you are going with me.    In my mind you are with me, going with me. 

  This shit here is good shit.    This is the good shit.    This is going to be a particularly productive month, and if it is not, forget about everything, because I know for myself,   I am not going to feel more optimistic  and industrious again as I do now, and short of winning the lottery this is not going to get any closer by itself.    So, do your part and then pack your shit.

   I have other more interesting things to type.   I am going to go do that soon, now I have other things I have to attend to out in that fucking big room full of cars.

The World is Our Motherfucking Oyster

   I am very pleased right now.

   Need I remind you of the Sudoku of Emotions the world can prove to be sometimes?   Sometimes a bitter harvest, and then all of a sudden - BOOM!-  a generous bounty spills forth.    Jackpot! Eureka!  Jesus!

  I am tired, I should not be typing, and I am certainly in no condition to type and post, but I probably will, because I enjoy the satisfaction I experience by thinking you may read this.   It is the same feeling I have for the six hours after I buy a lottery ticket, before I check it and find out it whether or not it is a winner.   During that time?    The feeling I have?   I am ENTITLED to feel good and optimistic.   It is worth the three dollars.  (This feeling now is worth MORE than three dollars, by the way.  PRICEFUCKINGLESS, this)    Well, that is how I feel when I slap my shit up here for you to hopefully read.  I feel like this may be an action I can perform which will initiate  some fantastical series of events culminating in an incredible and oh-so-cozy conclusion which will warm the hearts of the Viewers at Home.

    The point is, I feel very good.   Walking back from Safeway, and avoiding the pile of Rotel by the Post Office altogether, my mind felt especially clear and my heart especially light.   No more thick suffocating black.   The change so pronounced from what it has felt like for months and months I thought I must be dreaming.   Or very tired.   Or possibly under medicated.   I prefer to think I am just happy though.   This will be a great year.    You know this, right?  You know.   You can tell.  There is no need to worry, there is nothing to be helped or avoided or denied.    This world is to be enjoyed when the opportunity presents itself, because very quickly things change and everything is different, and it seems that only things not enjoyed or not taken advantage of are the things which are later regretted.  This seems to be the rule, this seems to be  the way in which things play out, these are the patterns.

    This is good.    I am going to go to sleep soon unburdened and calm, and even happy.

This is the end...

   Or at least it feels like it.       Wait.   I take that back.   Just as I typed that, it suddenly did NOT feel like the end anymore.   I think I was just experiencing some sort of blood sugar spike or deficit, maybe something to do with that Ritter Gold Edition bar I just polished off.   I'm coming back.   My vision has distilled to one clear image again and the palpitations have stopped.    Does this mean I have to go back out in the shop and tinker again with these machines?  Please God, NO.

  So, the dating world at 40!    What a bitter harvest it is.    I suppose I can not rightly lay claim to any firsthand knowledge of this business, I have not actually gone on a date since I turned 40.   I've had my head tucked in.   I haven't even given it any real thought until just now.    Today has been a time of rediscovery.   Learning.    There was a little panic about fifteen minutes ago, but that has passed.   Isn't it the first or the end of the month?   I think I have things to be panicked about.    Surely I do.   What was I just saying about dating, though?    Bitter Harvest?   NOOOOO....  It is 2011!   This is the happy time!  I am not dying!   It is time to wrestle the truth out of some people though.

   For example, do you ever sit there while I am talking and watch me, or think about me when you are away and wonder for just a moment :   Is THIS it?   In a good way?   This could be the thing, the time and place you have been waiting for?  I am that guy?    Your Guy?    Like, 'Hello FUTURE!'?   Like, 'Let's go buy a house together and breed!' ?   Like,  'This isn't so bad!' - ?   Do you?  Like, 'I can do this.  I've done worse!'  ? 

   I think things like that sometimes, but I am especially impulsive and romantic and sensitive and unrealistic and optimistic.   I think I can do anything.    I think I can fix anything.    I feel like most problems are just a matter of perspective and minor adjustments.  I feel that with a tiny bit of skewing,  'dialing in',  we would be on the exact same frequency and thus able to understand each other.   I think anything is possible.  

   I am trading days in for something else.     Cells are dying, DNA strands breaking - BOTH helixes - and this is not good in the long run.   Or, the lung Ron.   Enron.   Bon-Bon. 

   Today is my Tuesday.   Sundays are my Tuesdays.    ... Don't you HATE IT when people say things like that?   Like, "Today is my Friday", and they are saying it on a day that is NOT Friday?   What does that mean?   Am I too critical?    Mean-spirited?  Just Jealous?      I don't think so.   Charlie Don't Surf.

   My only friend, the end.

   

   

Caveat RE: THESE POSTS & my special-lovely-gifted helper

Hi everyone, and thank you for joining me. This is my new place to self-indulgently post and hopefully share my every private thought. In an effort to bring YOU, my readers, even more useless and perhaps offensive thoughts and reflections of mine, I now have in my employ .... MY OWN PERSONAL ASSISTANT! Yes, for once, the rumors ARE true. Beautiful, mysterious, hungry, and fertile as the Nile delta. She is all of that and much much more. I have asked her to go through all of my treasured notebooks and type those entries here, for you all, to enjoy. I have asked her very nicely (as well as reminding her that I pay her) to type as much, and as quickly as possible, and don't bother with the proofreading - time IS money - I'll get to that and do the 'Smart Stuff' myself later. What is important now is to get this material out there to my readers, my reasons for living, YOU. What I'm saying is: If there is a misspelled word, or incomplete sentence, or dangling participle, or something just seems off or wrong, please don't blame ME, but blame HER instead. (SHE DIDN'T GO TO COLLEGE, but we love her anyway) When I get some free time after work, and on the days when I'm not volunteering at the Big Brother center, I'll edit these myself. If you want something done right...It's just that she...Well, you know what I mean. Thank goodness I am a very patient person! But here I am rambling again. I'll stop right now and let you go get what you came for - I can berate my helper on my own time. And don't you worry - I will.

I welcome and cherish your thoughts and suggestions. Ideas. Comments. PLEASE GOD, WILL SOMEONE JUST SEND ME AN EMAIL ALREADY?? Do not make me fling myself off of the bridge in desperation. I'll do it.

   RIGHT. 



Thank you for your interest and patience, yours,  Unclezak

Mad As A Hornet

  AS far as I am concerned, she took everything away from me, and it does not matter that I did not actually possess any of these things already, they were as good as mine anyway.    The house that felt like a home, warm meals, the kids,  a garden,  a comforting sense of fitting in somewhere and feeling needed... She saw it was within my grasp and she snatched the rug out from under me.    She couldn't stand for me to be happy.  Maybe she was afraid of being happy too?   I don't know, and I don't care one whit any longer what she is or is not afraid of.   She took my life!    My future!   It had a gleam and shine and it was as promising as the word 'tomorrow', and she  flushed it down the toilet.    She destroyed tomorrow for me, forever.

    I am living now within a 'tomorrow', yes, but a different tomorrow.   In this tomorrow I don't get to come home and take off my shoes and pick up my little junior whoosits and tickle it and make it laugh or toss it up into the air again and again as it squeals.    There WILL be squealing in this tomorrow though,  don't you worry about THAT.    There's going to be squealing all right.    And nylon restraints.   And a video camera.   That's what kind of tomorrow I'm talking about right now.   I am going to rise up high and stretch myself out tall so I can fall that much further when the time comes to gett'er done.   This is an inertial thing now, and I am in motion, SO CLEAR A PATH!  Part of me has been neutralized, and this has narrowed my focus all the more.  One less thing to distract me before I pull out my riding crop and give these subjects as well as this life a good hard series of whacks on the ass.  Satisfying contact. The good wood.  I am picking up the reigns.  I am standing tall.   I have goals.   The glass will rattle in the windowpanes when I am near!

    Things happen fast around here when minds are made up.   I've done it before.   The odd-numbered years, remember?  This one has started with as much determination and action as I have ever seen.   I pull my head in to gather energy, like when you pull in close to the center of a merry-go-round to make it spin faster, before sliding out to the edge to leap off or hurl some object forth?  Well, regardless of your knowledge about the laws of physics, know this:   When I get quiet, things are about to start happening.  I have to get quiet to collect my thoughts and energies.  I have to focus.    When I tear out of this thing in my new suit and draw down on my target,  I will have momentum, people!  It will be hard to stop me.    That is, until the liquor kicks in eventually.   Or the law.    There will be contingency plans this time though, even if I go, my business will be completed.   This is done before the bottle is ever cracked open.     I have been learning new tricks.

  Ask me about my book.

   It was the middle of the day but gray mist still hung over everything like it was early morning still.  The traffic passing by emerged forth out of the fog slowly like prehistoric fish rising up out from some cold depth, headlights like pale eyes visible for a moment first before the dark forms took shape behind them.   I was walking beside the street against the flow of traffic, the money wadded up in my front pocket reminding me that everything was going to turn out okay, that the hard part was already over.   I tried to look through the windshields at the people inside the cars passing me just feet away from me, but I could make out none through the foggy glass, or I was not trying hard enough.   I had other things on my mind.

 

Wet Blanket :

  Leave it to a woman to rain on your parade.   No kidding.    It seems as if a man comes up with some idea, it is a woman's job to point out every possible flaw with that idea.    Will they come up with their OWN IDEA?   Well, NOOOooooo.....   but leave it to the man to come up with some crazy idea like : "Hey, let's build a bridge across that river there", and his woman will be the first one to stand up and tell him all the reasons why it won't work, the 'what if's,  the potential problems, how it may effect her adversely in the long run, so on and so forth until that man just ups and gets all quiet on her and has to go make that bridge in secret with some other man.     The woman would be perfectly happy telling you she doesn't mind the way it is now, going the long way up around the mountain yonder and crossing where it is shallow,  or 'Can't some OTHER man build that bridge? Why does it have to be you?' She'll ask.     She may even try to tell you she doesn't want to cross the river at all.

   But I promise you this:   Once that bridge is up, she'll be putting on her Sunday Best and doing her hair and painting her face to get in line and go cross that bridge on the way to town now that it's there. She won't apologize for all the belly-aching she did while you were building that bridge neither.   All those days she was whining about how you spend all your time at that bridge, that crazy project playing around all day in the river with those other bums.   All the nights arguing about how you would rather be working on that bridge than being here in your own home where God wants you to be, with your family to look after.    She'll just up and forget about all that  and not mention it at all as she sits tall in your wagon and rides to town to do some trading, it taking only one hour now as opposed to the five it used to take going the long way around the mountain.    She'll even brag to anyone who'll pretend to listen to her about how it was you, her husband, that done built that bridge.    She'll sound proud when she talks to other folks, but she will refuse to share that enthusiasm with you for some reason that is impossible to reckon.      The only comment you're likely to get about the result of your labor is to be told you painted the thing the wrong color. 

  Ladies are just like that, at least when they're your'n.    If a lady is someone else's though, it is a different matter altogether.   You can tell them the sky is blue and they get to giggling behind their hand and calling you a rascal and such, making you feel like you're the most charming dandy in town, and they'll do it right in front of their own husband to whom they have not said a kind word or flattered since who-knows-when.     It's just how they are.    And they call US the sneaky ones.

Lester's Tomorrow:

  Lester was awake for several seconds before he deliberately opened his eyes.   He was having a dream just before, and something happened to wake him up, and it was something he did not enjoy.  It was the dream.  It was coming back to him now after he pulled the blanket up to his chin then stuffed his hands back down between his legs to keep them warm. 

  She was present in his dream as she so often was these days.  They were at his parents' old house, a house he had not set foot in in over twenty years save for during his sleep, and during those times it felt just as familiar as it did when he used to call it Home.  She was there in the kitchen and it was night or morning and he could not remember what had happened, but he felt humiliated by her again.  Several of his friends were there too, he now remembered, and one was twirling her bra around on the end of  his index finger in the air above her head while she giggled and tried to grab it from him.  No one seemed to notice or care that Lester was standing right there in the room with them.  He felt jealous about this bold flirting activity and wanted to say something,  tell them to just stop it, or call her some nasty name, but he didn't want to spoil the gathering with his moodiness.   When she tackled the other friend and straddled him laughing, fighting for her underclothes he knew that they had just slept together.   He began to become more upset and started to say something to them, he began to make his protests known and as soon as he began to speak up they were all gone and he became aware that he was now conscious and staring at the insides of his eyelids.

   He was furious now that to the insult of being cuckolded while he slept could be added the injury of waking up before he was good and ready.   He didn't have to open his eyes and look at a clock to be able to tell it was early still.   He could feel it in the cold air against his face, he could tell by the lack of traffic noises in the street outside.   He kept his eyes closed and tried with all the powers he knew of to get back to sleep and get back inside that dream so he could give everyone a good shaking.   In just a few seconds he knew he would not be able to do it, and in fact was quickly forgetting the plot to this newest episode of somnambulic degradation.      By the time he had opened his eyes,  he entirely disrememberd why he was feeling so humiliated in the first place.    He lay there for a moment, and then pulled the blanket up to his chin before stuffing his hands back down between his legs to keep them warm.    Blinking at the white textured ceiling, he began to recollect, and thereby relive the dream again in tiny fragments, his face wincing now and again involuntarily.

  It was really cold outside of the blankets, and Lester felt really warm and comfortable mantled under them there on the couch like he was, but he didn't want to revisit this dream any longer.  His mind had a way of torturing him with ugly unpleasant visions no matter how much he tried to think about other things, so he thought he would break that cycle this morning by getting up early and giving his tireless brain a rewarding task to perform by ordering it to make him some coffee.   It worked.

   In retrospect, and only after he had risen for very different reasons, did Lester remember that it was New Years Day.    He would subsequently later tell people he had begun performing his new duties of resolution, of which rising earlier was one, but it would be a lie, if even only technically so.   He knew that he was lying, but he really was going to start waking up at 6 anyway soon,  go ahead and watch him and see if he doesn't do it again tomorrow!

    Standing in his kitchen wearing a green sweatshirt over a black t-shirt over a white thermal top, some red boxer shorts and a disintegrating pair of flip-flops,  every breath he exhaled made a little white cloud that floated away from his face and disappeared before the next one was released to chase after it.

  'NOW!' he yelled out loud into the cold, and as if conjured by a magician's trick this word itself turned into one of those little white floating clouds looking not much different than all the rest.  He tucked his hands into his armpits birdlike to keep them warm while he stood there like a fool watching the pot of water and waiting for it to boil.