Everything I love cannot fit in a bag.

There are so many things going on in my life right now it feels like when you're at Sears and you're watching the huge display of big screens and they're all on different channels, but you still feel like you know what's going on in every single show.

**

I'm gonna go 700 Club on ya' ass!

That really doesn't mean anything, I guess. Isn't the 700 Club a Evangelical TV show? I think that guitarist from Korn was on there. Awww, too bad that 'K' isn't backwards, writing Korn without it just doesn't seem authentic.

Wikipedia might clear that up, but I'm too lazy to do that kind of research right now.

**

I'm thinking about people right now. I want to visit Muncie and my family in Chicago. I want to go to a Cubs game and make a beer last all afternoon. I want the sun to set while I'm on the beach with people I love and not care that my shorts are getting wet or my sandals are floating away because you can buy another pair at Old Navy for three dollars.

Just forget that was your favorite pair of sandals, okay?

I do things that make the man on the moon blush.

I had a story festering for weeks. It was like that dead animal you pass on the road everyday on the work commute. Nobody comes and cleans it. It just becomes less and less. On Tuesday, it's minus some lungs then the next day half a face and less and less flies because there's nothing else for scavengers to eat. Birds swoop in to peck at fur and pebbles.

That was my story, roadkill. Now it's something. A draft, 600-ish words. It's the bear in the cave, head parallel to a skid of flint. Just resting. It's about a man who transports livestock and poultry to slaughterhouses across the country. 

Exciting isn't the word to describe the narrative, but it is the word to describe how I feel to be writing a piece of fiction again. I feel like that widow who's giving sex another chance.

**

There are times when you just need to sit there. Maybe you're brushing your cat, maybe you're at working pushing buttons or tuning a guitar or reading the Bible. I don't know. But you need to just stop and think.

I did this today and realized that I'm happy right now. At this very moment, I'm happy. You need to remind yourself of this because math and talking and shaking hands are just going to muddle things. 

**

I'm thinking about growing a fu manchu. Should I?

I wanted answers everywhere I went

Therefore,

somebody sat in a cubicle

and punched numbers.

They crunched, used equations

and slide rules,

took dozens of coffee breaks.

Finally,

everything they thought 

for weeks

was shoved into the box

and wireless internet was born.

**

That was a poem. I like looking at it and being able to identify it as such. 

You can tell a lot about a person just by knowing what kind of porn they watch. Are they the kind of dude/lady who just scours those free websites and watches the minute clips? Or does that person totally buy the subscriptions? 

We need more of the second person, mainly because sooner or later, they're going to share some of those full-length vids with you. It's called generosity. This is the era of high definition, folks! Leach those people. Get their 1080p anal scenes or whatever other crazy shit they're into. Bananas-in-the-snatch dominatrix fellatio or whatever else.

I read Sam Pink's blog today and was completely satisfied. While reading it, I felt like I was watching a mother breast-feed in public for my personal arousal.

There are several things I'm working on right now. Poems and songs and resumes and everything else that fits neatly in other categories. I can't wait for you to see the end result and go, "That'll do."

Because it will do. Do a lot. You're going to regret a lot of things. So now, I'm gonna go all NOFX on you and say, "So long and thanks for all the shoes."

Some potential voicemails plus other things.

Hi, thanks for calling Joey's phone. Sorry I can't answer it. I'm busy trying to jump up and touch the ceiling in every room in my house with varying results. I either need another growth spurt, lower ceilings, or madder hops. Leave a message after the beep.

**

This is Joey's phone. Next time you get pulled over for speeding and the officer asks you how fast you were going, pull your sunglasses to the tip of your nose, equip your best Cockney accent, and say, "That really depends... how fast were YOU going?" Chances are he'll freak the fuck out and just run back to his car, arms flailing and just cry in the seat and wave his cars at passing traffic. Leave a message.

**

Music is going to make you feel better. I promise. If you have a rash or a swollen prostate or whatever, it's like a handful of pills the doctor puts in your roast beef sandwich when you're not looking. 

Moving to a house soon. Maybe sometime in May. Maybe sooner, probably later. I'd say May or June. I'll be living with my two favorite people in the entire world. Two people who I'd donate organs to or sponge bathe them if they were incapacitated. I would split atoms or drink from a dirty glass filled with day-old coffee for these two people.

I bought two collections of Raymond Carver stories last week while I was on a break at work. I walked over to the Boarders on Fourth Street and rummaged. I hate they way their collection is organized. Poetry and fiction are intertwined. Poets and fiction writers were living all over each other. Their words were touching and it was just impossible to make decisions. Well, until I saw Raymond Carver's cache. When I get paid on Friday, Annie Proulx will make a few charitable donations to my bookshelf.

Oh no. I was just wowed with sleepiness and I have work in an hour and a half. Shittttt.

I'm going to make this tile floor spotless

Alright, so there's this burning inside of me. It's not a rash or an STD or other illness. Not appendicitis or cancer or something else. I really don't know what it is or what it pertains to. I think it's a good thing but have spent the last few days trying to discover what is it or where it's coming from.

I should know my body well enough. Obviously, I don't. There needs to be some sort of map or diagram to help me figure this out.

**

I told a customer at work that I was a writer and they asked enough questions to fill up those buckets maidens took to the well each morning. Three times. I enjoyed that. She asked who my favorite writers were and I gave her a few. Then she asked if I had noticed that Actor's Theatre, the place that my work shares a large, living all over you building with, was sponsoring a play about Wendell Berry's life. I said yes. I plan on seeing it sometime soon. It's based on his poems.

This got me thinking about somebody getting a hold of all the poems I've ever written and turned them into a play about me. Immediately after that, I called a few people and picked their brains. I needed to know if this had any substance. Could it turn into anything special or something that would woo ladies or win me a large trophy or a broach or lapel pin in the shape of a quill or ANYTHING exciting. 

Everyone writes for fanfare and if you're sitting there telling yourself otherwise, you're just full of clam dip.

Supplement. The essential ingredient of clam dip:

No MSG? Madison Square Garden?

**

Everyone who reads this blog knowsssssss that it's National Poetry Month, and if you're a good lil' writer, you're scrounging up words from other poems and your online thesaurus and churning out a poem a day. 

Me? Not so much. Maybe 7 poems this month. Although, I have been thinking about poetry a lot more this month. I bought some collections, some chapbooks. I've written poems for people and thought about writing exchanges.

**

Speaking of "those things".... Dan Bailey has a book coming out later this year. I mean, seriously? I love Dan Bailey the way somebody loves their meticulously maintained lawn or the couch downstairs with a body print in the cushions.

**

This blog is over, I'm going to go hug my girlfriend.

Falling asleep in the cul-de-sac

Last night, you crawled into bed, 

kissed my forehead and asked how I felt

about falling asleep next to you while it rained.

A car rolled through the cul-de-sac

a handful of times. Water from catch drains

sloshed dirty onto the lawns right before

automatic sprinklers turned on. 

You whispered it again and I told you

Give me like, five minutes to think about that.

I was hoping you'd fall asleep or turn on the TV

and forget about asking. All four corners of the room

were lit from the revolving door cul-de-sac car.

It's tires drowned out rain against the window

or the stray cat batting at low branches on a bush.

I guess it's good and bad, you know?

You pushed your head into my shoulder and 

took a long breath.

"I don't know what you mean."

The newscasters talk about a grand opening,

I know this from a montage of pictures.

I watch their mouths move with no words coming out,

just showing teeth and smiling.

There are nights when I have to sleep alone

and I ball up t-shirts and shove them in my pillowcases

so they feel more like a body. I'll wake up three or four times

and use the bathroom or get a drink. Then,

I'll lie awake and listen to music just loud enough to hear

over breathing and hope somebody walks into the room

to watch dusk and dawn say hi.

Well,

you fell asleep. That's alright with me,

as long as your promise to be awake

around 6.

The bottoms of my feet are itching.

I had to work late today. I had a feeling that would happen.

Now, I'm listening to Outkast. The days is getting better right before it's about to end. I'm not looking at the monitor while I type this, so if there are typos, I'm sorry. My face is buried in a pillow, the cold side of a pillow.

It's the best feeling in the entire world.

I want to tell you, whoever is reading this blog right now, exactly what I'm feeling and what I'm thinking about and who I'm thinking about, but it doesn't seem possible. I've actually typed a few paragraphs that just aren't making sense.

I have somebody in my life that gives me the bungee cord is stretched all the way and everyone on the bridge is gasping because their eyes are making them believe the cord will snap but their heart knows that the cord is going to just flex and contract until everything around them stops moving feeling.

A girl can do this to you.

My eyes feel like that little triangle piece that floats around in the blue water of an 8-Ball and tells you how many women you'll sleep with. It's time to close them so the triangle stops spinning.

This post will be long, guaranteed.

It's going to go on and sweep, like something Kerouac wrote. I never liked him, but wrote two papers on his work. I had a 'phase' where I was interested in Beats. Not anymore. I don't think I could finish a Ginsberg poem. Every male poet has a hard-on for his sincerity at least once during their life. I had a birth as a senior in high school. It died. Then another kid as a freshman in college. I read Howl like fifty times. I always hated how he edited the word 'crazy, from the poem, in reference to his mother.

Whatever, Ginsberg. Go scratch.

**

So, I heard somebody shit talk Yo la Tengo and that upset me greatly. It was while I was in Starbucks getting a latte' for myself and something with chai for a co-worker. I don't remember what this person said, but it was definitely total bull shit. My stomach tied itself in a knot and begged to die. It was limping like a gruff hound whose stomach sags and gets nicked by rocks. It was awful, almost like somebody was bad mouthing your folks.

**

Today I finally listened to Heartattack and Vine from beginning to end, which means I've now listened to every single Tom Waits album. Ever. I'm not sure what this says about me. I've never seen him in concert. I'd probably pay upwards of $500 if I got the chance to see him perform.

**

Opening Day is Sunday. It doesn't seem probable for me to put how this makes me feel into words. All I know is it's baseball season again, and I get to think of fantastic hypothetical situations, such as: would I rather face 1984 Dwight Gooden, 1999 Pedro Martinez, 1968 Bob Gibson or 1966 Sandy Koufax? That's like choosing between acquiring AIDS, heart disease, brain cancer or some virus that eats your face from the inside-out. You know all are inevitable death, it's more of a question of which one is going to be the most fun to die from.

Knowing that I actually saw 1999 Pedro Martinez, I'd probably give him the nod. Back then, hitting 98 with a chest-high fastball was a frequent occurrence, and when he'd pull the string on that curveball, the best hitters alive would look like toddlers trying to hit a wiffle ball off a wobbly tee. Oh yeah, he had a slider, too. And two change-ups. A two-seamer? Sure. It'd stiffle righties.

I think the scariest part about 1999 Pedro Martinez was his strikeout-to-walk ratio. 8.46 to 1. Yes. Not a typo. 313 wiffs compared to 37 free passes. Are you kidding me? And he only gave up 9 long balls. I need to dig up some vintage videos of Pedro dropping hammers on professionals. I mean, there was a time in Pedro's career (1997-2004) where he could've probably told each batter, "Okay, here's the sequence: Belt high, wheelhouse fastball, a circle change, down and away slider, and we'll try out another barn burner and see if you can catch up to hit.

There could be video game shit going on: people could slow down time, Matrix-style, and he still would've collected 300 strikeouts. The man can throw a baseball through a Froot Loop. He was that cerebral. It's a shame that in the twilight of his career, the man can't even get signed to a minor league contract.

**

One of my favorite things in the entire world is using the bathroom RIGHT after somebody cleans it. Not to be a dick, but it's like: it's comforting, you know? The toilet water is kool-aid blue and the soap is full and nothing else really matters, you can just piss or shit in a clean bathroom. It's weird whenever you use a bathroom at somebody's house, and you know it hasn't been cleaned in a few weeks.

**

The American Analog Set is a great band.

**

Let's curl up on the couch
so you can whisper something useful
or lovely.
It's your chance to stop using
the thumb-sized Post-Its
and the soft talk over the phone
while I press concrete at work.

We can just sit here
with my arms across yours,
and you can talk
talk until my ears get warm
from everything you say.
Then, sooner or later
we can fall asleep
to have time to think about
what we both said.

**

I like the prospect of us waking up together every morning. With bad breath and bad hair. Almost naked, cold feet, runny noses, the small bacteria strings that float around our eyes and whatever else. I've said that about other people before, but I never looked at them when I said it. Those other times I said it they were insincere. But so were those people.

**

I got that promotion at work. Kind of exciting.

**

I told you this blog would keep going. It's almost painful to keep writing. None of this seems pertinant.

**

I'd like to eat something with Tabasco sauce on it for dinner. Don't even care what it is.

**

This blog is over. For now.

I don't watch many movies 'cuz I can't sit that long.

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