GIVING UP

Okay, I give. My effort to forego technology for 2 weeks was a total failure. But it's not like I didn't try! On my fifth day, that little fucker, Esteban, upped his rates to 20 bucks per typed post. Can you believe it? I know, he'll probably make a great corporate guy some day. But on this day I wasn't taking any of his shit, so I pulled the plug on the whole project and told him to piss off. Then he threatened to strong-arm me and hack into my site and crash it. I had no choice but to let the air out of his bicycle tires and tell his girlfriend (who just happened to be parking her car in the street) that Esteban had left for the free clinic to get some treatment for his social disease. 

So on to bigger and better things.  Tonight I started a new book: Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon. Amazing book, if you haven't already had the pleasure. Here's a random line from the 4th page: 

"Although I had the vague impression that my oldest friend was speaking to me in tones of anger and remonstrance, his words just blew by me, like curling scraps of excelsior and fish wrap, and I waved at them as they passed."   

I don't know about you, but I've never before heard of "fish wrap." What the hell is it? And what's excelsior? I read about it in Cannery Row where Frankie, the messed up kid who hangs out at Doc's lab, used to climb in the excelsior box when he was scared. But I still don't know what it is. If I had the energy, I'd probably look it up. But I don't really care about the meaning. What I care about is how Chabon can use language and crazy words that I don't know and will never know  so beautifully. Words blowing by me like curling scraps of excelsior and fish wrap. It's pretty cool, isn't it? Come on. Admit it! So read something good tonight. Pick up a book by someone who really knows what he or she is doing. Absorb yourself in that person's characters' world. Open a bottle of something you've been saving. Eat something totally fattening and unhealthy that tastes really good. Open the doors to the woods stove and bask in the heat! Because that's what I'm doing tonight. See ya.

Frank