I’m overwhelmed and a bit lost at the moment, which has left me out of words until at least March 1st.  A month ago I would have thought that a long time to go without writing, or even thinking about writing, but right now it doesn’t seem long at all.  Maybe not even long enough.  I don’t know.  I do know that it’s quieter, to not be constantly thinking about the words.  To let my head clear.  To think about really nothing at all.

So I’ll shoot for March 1st and see where that gets me, and hopefully, I’ll see some of you then.

I won’t lie to you and tell you that I haven’t been giving it all a good hard think.  No sir, not with those bones showing up like they did on the back step, and me taking so long to realize just what they were, who they were, I should say.  That’s the thing that really knocked it out of me, realizing who it was that was showing up, piece by piece, a bone at a time, at my back door.  Damn fool dog!  As if I didn’t have enough to think about without him dragging all that up.  Maybe if I’d picked up that first one—a nice hefty human fibia, it turns out, although at the time I was thinking maybe an ostrich leg or something—and given that mutt a good thump on the head the whole business might have ended up on someone else’s back step.  Hell knows I didn’t need it, but then, once a guy starts thinking about something like that, he realizes, who does?  No one I knew of, that’s for sure, so I guess it might just as well been me as the next guy.  Besides, I’m not much for thumping dogs.  I’m not much for thumping anything, truth be known, which is maybe why the whole damn business landed at my feet.  Turns out, some fights just need a guy to step in and take the punches.

Sundays I treat myself to some heat.  It’s one of the new rituals of my day to day living that’s come along with running out of money.  There was a time, not so long ago, when I’d treat myself to things other than heat.  There was that electronic period, where I’d wander around in stores and find something interesting to buy just because I could.  I even bought a car like that.  But somewhere along the line those days slipped away, becoming too expensive to continue, but found themselves replaced by another passion, another Sunday treat - eating breakfast out. 

I love breakfast.  I love it even more when someone else does the cooking.  So for awhile, Sunday breakfast at one of the greasy little diners was my ritual, and I gobbled down fried potatoes and omelets of just about every kind imaginable until one day I could see there just wasn’t enough money left for eating out.  Now I know what you’re going to say.  A person should see this sort of thing coming.  I mean, running out money is a big deal, like a train barreling down the tracks, heading straight for you.  But passion has a way of blinding everyone to the truth, you’ve got to give me that one, and I’m telling you, I was passionate about breakfast.  I still think running out of breakfast money is a shame because, frankly, having a big ‘ol breakfast cooked up for you might just be life’s most under-appreciated luxury.

But it’s been a bleak couple of years, and from the looks of things, not getting much better anytime soon.  Here’s a question you might not have asked yourself lately: do you know why dead people don’t crawl out of their graves?  You might think it’s because they’re dead, or that they just don’t want to, or that it has something to do with things being better on the other side.  You’d think that, but the truth of the thing is, it’s just not that easy to crawl up out of a hole, and that’s what keeps people in them.  It has nothing to do with being dead.  That’s right, you don’t even have to be dead these days to find yourself at the bottom of one of these holes, wondering what to do next as you stare up at your small patch of sky, realizing just how small your world’s become.

So Sunday mornings I treat myself to some heat.  I sit in my chair and type and watch the thermostat slowly rise away from 50 degrees, which is where it sits most of the time these days.  It’s cold, sure, but not too bad.  I mean, I still have to keep the milk in the refrigerator.  I’ve endured worse.  I’m lucky enough to live in a place where the winters are generally mild, and I still have a little electric heater that I can retreat into the back room with when the mercury dips too low.  The body adjusts to change better than the mind.  I think that might be another reason that dead people stay in their graves.  While the mind is racing, trying desperately to keep passion alive, the body just finds a way to get comfortable.