this morning, i let my crew go early. and then i left work early. and then i had nothing to do.

so i started strategizing. or at least, started developing strategies.

because this winter ; (this winter), i am going to steal linus back. (it’ll be like kidnapping, except, like, back).

i have been looking all over effing ebay for one of those three-prong hooks that you tie ropes to, and throw and attach to very high walls, so that we might repel. but no dice.

there are no three-prong hook things with ropes. what the hell do you call those?

anyway, i may not need a three-prong hook with rope in order to kidnap linus.

(linus is my cat. i have not seen him in four-and-one-half-months. he is probably a big bastard by now. lots of b’s, including ‘bite’, because he did a lot of that, too.

i forgot to close-parantheses.

fuck.

)

okay, so for the last four and a half months, linus has more been my parents’ cat. they have kept him.

safe and happy, they say. but i will be putting an end to that, this holiday season. it won’t be in theatres, though, you suckers.

you’d better see ‘return of the king’ twice, instead.

even though my rescue willl pack more punches and excitement, i will not be able to film even a lick of it, and that’s unfortunate, but it’s not nearly as unfortunate as a dude in his twenties who is missing his soulmate cat.

i cannot carry a camera AND a three-pronged hook with a rope tied to it, so just get over it.

i really wish i knew what to call the three-pronged hook.

vocabulary slips from me, sometimes. especially when i need it the most.

i will call it a “grapple-hook”, for lack of something better.

i will not require a grapple-hook to infiltrate my parents’ house.

my parents’ house is quite accessible via the front door.

i am the son. i need only knock.

(it will be a deception and espionage type deal, rather than sneak and stay hidden.)

still, carrying a camera would be very suspicious. don’t even ask.

true, i’ve had five yuenglings by now, and that’s kind of depressing, but the fact is, i just can’t entertain myself without alcohol like i used to.

so we’ll play the weaknesses.

i need to get back to my capture strategies.

you’re not thinking of telling, are you?

good. i knew it. you’re my best friend and i always knew it.

so, they will open the front door, because i am their son and it will be damn near christmas. i might even come with gifts to place under the tree. (they will be empty boxes).

i will smile and laugh and spot linus lapping water out of the fish bowl.

i will catch my parents with their backs turned. i will run and grab linus very quickly, as if i had cat-like reflexes except maybe a little bit faster, being as i’ll be handling a startled cat.

i shall run with my cat, the cat being re-claimed by me, to the car which i have strategically left running in the driveway with no one noticing.

i will place the linus in the passenger seat of the running car and press my foot heavily into the accelerator While i am shifting into reverse (R), which will cause the wheels to spin and smoke in a very movie-like fashion (although as i said earlier, no cameras will be rolling [at all]).

this may or may not startle linus, but he will most likely settle into the foot compartment of the passenger seat, where i have placed the grapple-hook which i did not end up needing at all, but had it there just in case.

linus will be okay. i will speed down the 390 and then 15 and then 495 and i will get stuck in traffic and linus might pee on the floor of the vehicle but i will clean it up later because i have pet enzyme cleaning fluids, which i bought in bulk at petsmart.

i will get back to my apartment and linus will be shaken but will quickly adapt to his new-old surroundings. my mom will call and ask “what in THEE fuck was all that about?” and yes she’d even say fuck, and i would just say ‘a man’s gotta due what a man’s gotta due’, because i am very into cliches and she would say merry christmas and i would say merry christmas and then me and linus would make out for awhile but i would get burnt out on his catfood breath and i would ask if we could just be friends and he’d say okay i’d like that and he’d sit on the windowsill and wait for the squirrels to come out and i would play a record on the record player and everything in the world would be purrfect (haha! did you catch that Pun?)

oh woah, i guess i will go to bed.

maybe tonight will be the last one.

last night we made a kaleidoscope, but it ended up burnt out, too.

i miss denmark. the thousands of miles on foot, aarhus and copenhagen. passing by everyone and everyone by me. i was nothing, and at least there was no reason not to be. we were completely irrelevant together. just a little boy who had explored a little too far.

i miss the weeds. out back of my house was not exactly a forest. we called it “the weeds”. full of stunted trees, but most divine were the caverns of vines, they would cascade from tree to tree and they made perfect castles, wilderness castles, although after a few years they would pull the trees down to the ground and be completely rent asunder. asunder, again. i always knew the vines were parasites, but such great caverns and castles.

lands of pretend.

mom and dad could go back there and see what new vine castles there are, now. they are probably only a few hundred feet away at this very moment, but they probably never go back there, or pretend either. oh well. why should we, anyway?

i’m sorry i’m never cohesive. i guess that’s just the way it goes.

time to go to work.

dearest journal,

it’s 7:30 in the morning, but i’m off work and goddamn it, am i going to drink. sierra nevadas. never enough.

the dayshift people were only half here, this morning. they all went clubbing last night. melissa and ryan did not show up this morning, ryan hinted at it last night, they knew each other for twelve hours, sometimes the world is so slutty i just can’t stand it something’s wrong with me, sure. i’m always sure.

i have yet to run into a guy in my line of work who is actually faithfull to their wife. so, why be married, for heaven’s sake? screw around, by all means, my darling jackasses. but why kid ourselves like that? (stay together for the kids? even blink know better.)

faith is a collapsing ingredient.

with this deadend job, i have at least learned a lot about the real world. this is what the Real World Is Like. You Take A Block From The Middle And You Put It On Top.

another boss showed up yesterday, he said he was going to thank everyone for working working still working even 13 hours on thanksgiving, and all the days before thanksgiving, and for many days after thanksgiving, selling out their families. but instead he found menial things to bitch and complain and light people up about, this place is a mess and this person left ten minutes early that’s why business is grinding to a halt (fuck business) i will put people like this in their places, someday. i am my destiny and nothing is emptying into the palms of my hands. with any luck, the exodus will run the ignorant sonsabitches over, very shortly.

there are some men who i will never do a favor for, ever again.

if i can do anything! anything at all, i can burn bridges, and that’s for goddamn sure.

there is a bullseye on my hotel bed and i’ll hit it the hard way, this morning. you just never could relate with george thorogood until he was dead and gone, could you ? jesus.

this is what teenagers who listened to the classic rock stations turned out like.

i am a curse word and i shall vent.

now that i have acquired the ability to stumble, i shall sleep. at least i don’t fake-misspell like all the other drunk fuckers like to do.

at least i don’t think so.

your acquaintance,
-tim.

i would have posted something meek before i went to sleep last night, but for the thought of all these reallife people reeling around here, now. fuck, i’m doomed to get a stiff upper lip now, i guess.

‘sides, i was part drunk.

yeah, me and got on our feminine sides and saw lurve, actually. it was good. heart-sweltering warmly. everyone gets what they’re looking for in the UK, in the end. damned saps. bastards and sods, the lot of ‘em.

goddamn, i feel like a widower. the romance in tim is cold rock. like, i may have meant a kiss fifty years ago, with my first wife, but it’s all so foreign and far away these days. i don’t remember and i don’t even know if i should care. i have zero romantic notions, and haven’t in a long long time. maybe that’s a problem, for a dude who ain’t but twennysix. twenty-seven? .. .no, twenty-six. shit, i’m old.

ah, screw it, it’ll come out in the psychological wash, one day or another. maybe.

today i’m going back to chesapeake for the home stretch. it is very possible (very much a possibility!) that the next seven days will be my last of the season for work, and seeing how this season has gone, possibly even my last days ever! we’ll see next time i talk with the boss! (who’s the boss? fucking tony danza, that’s who! but he’s got no pull in this scenario.)

i will find a drug store at which to deliver prescriptions. that was my high school job, and the only job i’ve had where i was truly happy, but that probably went more along with breezing with zero responsibilities and putting up with no shit and having a car (wait.. i have a car now… awesome!) and a hott girlfriend and i had a babyface and was in great physical condition and could crush boulders with my thighs and had a shit-hot mullet and nobody at school knew who i was despite the fact that there were only like a hundred of us and we’d been together for eighteen years GodDamn those were the days! i would pull in $5.25 an hour just for connecting the dots between various sickly old people, all night long.

and i did it so well!

i feel bad for my parents. they are spending thanksgiving alone this year, for the first time ever, i guess. none of their ungrateful children are chartering flights or scheduling their oil changes. two of their sons are spending thanksgiving with their wives’ families, and i am working twelve hours with my fellow rednecks. the plus side is, they each get half a turkey! woo!

i must go. y’all dig?

at approximately 2:56am friday, i received a call from adam on my mobular phone. (It’s Mobular! [tm])

apparently, he was attending a Dead C concert.

that was a joke. (it was noisy and completely indiscernable. HAHA.)

incidentally, if i weren’t already up due to my night-shift sort of schedule, i would promptly be jumping an aeroplane to kick his ass for calling at very nearly three a.m.

i was in the midst of brushing the cobwebs off of my ICQ. remember that thing? with the green flower? yeah, that! i haven’t used ICQ in at least two or three or four years. not very well since like 1999, at least.

i even remembered my number! am i a loser?

so instead of being bored and lonely without ICQ running, i am bored and lonely WITH ICQ Running.

and mIRC too.

tonight, i am insufferable. i’d forgotten what the internet was all about. for the last three years, it’s been pitchfork, livejournal, occassionally cnn.com, and that’s about freakin it.

but tonight, Tonight that snake-can is broke wide-ass open.

yeah, that’s right. i said it. snake can.

SLITHER AND BITE WATCHOUTOUCH!

okay.

earlier in the evening, i drove back from chesapeake again (meaning Again, for the second time in twenty-four hours) and lisa and matt took me to mojo’s and they even let me pay.

i’m probably the best third wheel they’ve ever had, except that they don’t know it but i’m planning on stealing their brains for a robot i’m working on. i’m not the sort of guy that can build a robot with a computer brain. call it lack of skills, if you want.

no, on second thought, screw off. i can build robots with human brains if i want.

my hair is too long. some lucky passerby is going to get handed a pair of scissors tomorrow, and their inner hairstylist will be summoned.

they have given us time off!

so, i am going to drive back to richmond in the pouring rain. there’s no telling what i could do. (anything i want!)

laundry!

umm…

i could go to plan9! i haven’t been to plan9 in months!

i will crash in the inclement weather long before i ever even get to richmond!

that sucks!

exclamation point!

i will drive more slower. i will not crash in the inclement weather or any other kind of weather. wind and rain be damned.

back to what i could do in my free time!

umm…

laundry! or..

i guess i want to get a usb 2.0 pcmcia card for my revamped laptop…

why must it always involve buying things?

life is so free! i could do so many things!

umm. bowling?

no. not goddamn bowling.

umm.

i think it’s settled that i’ll do the laundry, because it just needs to get done, but i could do some things whiile the laundry is going. things like…

oh, i could see the new matrix movie! maybe i will be disappointed too! i can’t wait!

hey, shows! i forgot about shows! there might be shows!

… i’m going to richmond! there are no shows, ever! goddamn!

i could ride my bicycle in the inclement weather. but that doesn’t even deserve an exclamation point. it doesn’t even sound like a halfway goodtime, which is surprising, because i haven’t used my bicycle since my post-hurricane survey, and i thoroughly enjoy my bicycle!

maybe i could use an upside-down exclamation point.

i could ride my bicycle in the inclement weather ¡

that conveys a confused excitement. excellent.

i could eat up all of my time off writing this livejournal post, but i will not ¡

i will drive!

lovely,

isnt christmas coming soon, and shouldn’t this be a question. i can almost see
myself now, wearing my warm coat, proudly, being quiet on the yard being hit by
a round of flurries. waiting for mom or dad and the car.

i would start with cigarettes, and work my way to fingernails. i would breach
the subject in the middle of a night.

i would stand-by while another someone else floated a way.

photographs of girlfriends sleeping with the television on.

i am 2:03. it stops getting colder and it stops getting darker and starts
staying the same for just a few hours. maybe the car never comes again.

when a fragmented voice will sit itself down. bites of peppermint candies could
alternate with sips of spiced coffee. we are getting happy.

this way foreverrever.

i am tilted against the ocean, lovely. the tide’s down and it stinks from the exposed drenched muds.

we would have bumperstickers that say “we used to be explorers and adventurers” and our breaths would be alighting to the north, with speed on either side.

eh, more exercise.

-tim.

1. telephone line plugs are not for licking.

i never get headaches.

i have had a headache since october.

strands are breaking loose.

i have been up. i am practicing my back-shift. i went to the office at 2am. i went to walgreen’s at 3am. i got prescriptions and a greeting card. i wanted to get a watch battery, because my watch has been dead for a month, but they couldn’t pry that back off either. my watch is still dead. maybe that is why i’ve had a headache. i don’t know. maybe i should get a new watch.

there is little to no traffic at 3am.

i was supposed to be in tennessee this week. i went to tennessee. i did. i started driving at 1am monday, got to the office there at 7am, worked til 4:30pm, and then they told me they wanted me on a job in norfolk at 6pm wednesday, so i drove back home. i took a break in roanoke because i was exhausted. you have to give me some freaking slack, eh? i got back home at noon tuesday, then i fell asleep again.

that gets me up until here. i hope you’re still interested in me.

i guess thanksgiving is a holiday i will be working through, this year. that’s probably alright. i have nothing to be thankful for, anyways.

haha. um.

i got a new computer last week. it has rocket engines and a soft voice, and people can’t hack all over it like the last one. but i guess that’s more a software thing. regardless, i dropkicked the hell out of my old computer, and it fake-hurt my foot but made my head feel better, even though it still aches since october.

people in my building are starting to get up and take showers and get ready for work and i know this because i can hear the plumbing. i don’t have superpowers, it’s readily apparent.

when i get old my heart is going to pour and it won’t be too late, i will still be virile and energetic and my sense of purpose will shine lights in question mark places, if you’re still around you just might see, it won’t be too late there’ll still be plenty of time to live it up before i’m dead and after some sort of spark. just wait and see you should wait and see, amazing will be our favorite adjective again someday.

i will fall asleep, time will update itself automatically, like it always does, so that it doesn’t need me. it will be okay by itself for just a few hours.

good morning,
-tim.

lordy, give me the strength to quit the job, forget the degree, and be just the pizza delivery boy i am destined for.

also: new jersey is the most traffically confused i have ever been.

yes, this song still breathes airs of lonely friday nights from my only ninth grade.

good night, bastard somerset.