I wake up in the new apartment.  It's hot.  80 out.  I turn to my iPhone screen, looking at my email, then I look at Facebook.  I turn on the window unit in the living room.  This is how I wake up.

The day seems pointless, to begin with, and I'll be glad to get back to work tomorrow, but first must deal with today.

Bigelow green tea, 3 tea bags to a pot.  Call mom.  Don't get through.  And then I do, FaceTime.

After two I've begun to wake up a bit better.  I get some dishes done.

Of course, the interest in Buddhism.  As a writer, one who never really has a day off from it, whether I show up or not, of course you'd take an interest in how the mind works.

But the mind can be an awfully tedious thing to be dealing with.  You're never going to be done with writing, and in a sense you'll always miss the target.

You need to take the blood pressure down a bit.

Here you are in the apartment.  The best part of it is getting outside.  Go for a walk.  And it turns out to be nice out.  I walk down under the reservoirs.  Rather than down to the river and the canal, I venture up to Black Coffee, the independent coffee house, just to sit outside on the boulevard, writing in my notebook, like old time's sake.  Coffee seems to help the notebook practice, the memory, the access.

I make it to the Palisades Library.  Books jump out at me.  Nick Hornby, he's clever.  I see Dharma Bums, can't resist.  Over in the biographies, Karl Ove Knausgaard's Spring.  Nothing in particular over at the spirituality section, nor in the DVD video section, and I have books out already.  It just feels good.  

Back near the coffee shop with my books in my backpack, I call mom to tell her the good news.  My books got all quite jostled in the move.  No book shelves here and still in boxes.  Mom sounds good.  We're both crazy.  But we get each other.

By the time I get back to the apartment, it being very nice out, I feel the need to get out for a ride along the canal.



They were intuitive, back then in college, calling me "Farmer Ted."  That's what I look like as I look at my thickened middle-aged face before getting into the shower, starting off the work week at 2:30 PM on a Sunday afternoon.  I make a small Bialletti cup of coffee.  There's some Chinese to polish off.  There's an ache within, a groan, a go-moan-for-man kind of a thing, as I ponder in the back of my mind how I've always been drawn to outdoor gear and durable clothing and hiking trails.   There is a sense of that in Kerouac, the homeless wanderer, who then must face the authoritarian attitude of the Fifties, where the police are not about to let you be just anywhere for no good economic reason.

Showered, I begin to gather my work things.  Courier bag or  back pack?  A bartender is not all that different from a farmer...

I don't want to listen to the news anymore, my thoughts on NPR at 3:03 PM.  I don't feel that hungry, but reheated Hunan beef from the small place down the street tastes pretty good.  I need to fuel up anyway.  The staff meal omelette...

It makes me feel rather sad that I respect Dharma Bums and poor old bound-to-be-broke Kerouac.

It is hard to get ready for work.  There will be a forty minute walk, I might as well get there earlier.   I'm fifty four.  I'm not doing anywhere near well-enough.  There are always a few extra minutes you need, getting ready.   Feeling like a bum...