Another year has passed me by
Still I look a myself and cry
What kind of man have I become?
All of the years Ive spent in search of myself
And Im still in the dark
cause I cant seem to find the light alone

Sometimes I feel like a man in the wilderness
Im a lonely soldier off to war
Sent away to die - never quite knowing why
Sometimes it makes no sense at all

Ten thousand people look my way
But they cant see the way that I feel
Nobody even cares to try
I spend my life and sell my soul on the road
And Im still in the dark
cause I cant seem to find the light alone




for some reason that song popped into my head and wont go away.

but its cool, I always dug those lyrics, ever since I first come across 'em back in '77. they're from Styx' Grand Illusion*** album (yes, I said 'album'...and what a cool gatefold that 12" record had) which was for the longest time my most fave recording (until I found tommy bolin's music a year or two later, that is), I played that mutherfucker to death.

then of course styx went in a direction I didnt care for. pieces of eight was mostly lame in my opinion; was, to my young and homophobic mentality, a kind of gayish album, truth be known. then paradise hotel and kilroy was here and yech and moreover and yech and furthermore...

when tommy shaw left to do the Damn Yankee stuff, I was happy as a pig in shit again---I think/thought shaw is/was one of the best guitarists to ever lay a finger on a fretboard and the later styx stuff seemed to be holding him back. he tore it up on the first DY disc, then, like every other band at that time, he and ted and company tried to sound like someone else. I think they were trying for a motley crue/iron maiden [ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together and give a warm welcome to Motley Maiden...giggle] mix that simply didnt work. the first disc blew my mind; the second became a frisbee...

so enough about classic rock. I didnt come here to sing, I came here to tell you about winter in ahia.

its really not bad so far. last week, cept for monday I think, was wearing a teeshirt working outside. course, the mornings were cool, so Id strip off my hoodie 'round ninish, then lose the sweatshirt by lunchtime.

as for my wood heat here in the house, its simply not cold enough for it. that damn thing is designed for 30 and below---the front door has been hanging open a lot lately, letting some of the stiflingness out. a kind of thermostat, that door is. at night, its so hot I have a hard time sleeping, then--if I happen to go snoozing w/the door open, its a frigging icebox in here at 3 in the morning. wood heat is a wonderful thang, but it does have a drawback or two.

this winter season, so far, is much different than the last several... it just got a wee bit cooler slowly every day instead of a massive crazy drop and/or temps way up & way down. was like one morning I needed a light flannel over my tee...then moving along, another morning I needed a sweatshirt hoodie combo. and soon, there'll be a coat of some kind involved in my daily routine.

and I like that--a chance for the body to adjust. I think it was in '05, working outside on NYE in a teeshirt, but it was a weird warmish day in the middle of a bunch of cold-ass stuff. when the temps are travelling all over the place, seems like colds are easier to catch. I think I was way sick that year, come to think of it.

oh well, I didnt come here to talk about ahia weather, Im here to update everyone on my writing career.

one word: un-fucking-finished.

I just cant find it in me to take a story all the way to the end. take Seer for instance, althought I have the ending in my head (mostly), I open the document, stare at it, maybe clean-up something, reword something else, add a tiny chunk that doesnt really need any addition or delete a tiny chunk that might have been okay to leave, then save & close it for the day (week, whatever).

then, more often than not, I start something new. I have 13 stories in my folder [I just counted them--that number is not a guess) in various stages of development [early stages of development...lol], plus, theres 6 false starts (three for The Living End, two for Seer; the first try was called Bain's Thoughts, just over 1000 words, and I took some of it into Seer) for a total of 19 beginnings--not counting a few almoststories that got an hour or so of work only to be deleted completely when I saw there was no hope for making anything out of them.

cept for Seer, not one other story is what could be called 'close.' theres like a scene or two or three, a ragged plotline and some character development, then we come to the edge of the cliff. ohoh, looks like trouble lassie!

but [and this is a huge but--kinda like the one on a really fat woman, complete with chunks of toilet paper hanging in strips and panties [prolly wore-out-white with blue polkadots and a brown beavertrack and the elastic streached to infinity] sucked half-way up her colon, if you get the picture][plus, if the breeze is just so, you can get a whiff of something dead--now do you get the picture?] its coming cold weather and Ill be bored more often and from my current perspective, I believe I might brush the dust off some of those 'idears' and run with 'em. piss on the cliffs is what Ill say. gonna tie-up the loose ends and finish the bugger is what Ill say. gonna polish this mofo and ship it off to some editor who'll love me is what Ill say. gonna post links to it everywhere is what Ill say....if I do say so myself.

I cannot for the life of me recall the last time I submitted a story for publication. mighta been to Stacy's HG a long long time ago. I got records of all that but I dont feel like looking right now--would prolly depress me further than I am now. here's the hitch, the monkey wrench, if you will: even tho I wanna see my byline online [or print, makes no nevermind to me], Im more content to wait for the spirit [muse] to grab me and lead me by the hand--or more correctly, lead me by my two typing fingers. I write much better---I believe--when I aint sitting here forcing every word out.

so the way I see it, its cold out there, Ive read damn near every book ever released (on page 227 of The Picture of Dorian Gray--it'll be finished within the next day or so. then Ill start Grisham's A Time to Kill, then James Patterson's The 6th Target--thanks Shadyside Library for giving me cool books to read, and please dont forget to hold me a copy of King's Just Past Sunset when it comes out---thank you very much) so I figger cuz I dont do TV cept for a few 90 minute DVDs a few times a week and its dark outside pretty much right after lunch, Ill "have" to write something to keep myself from going crazy.

either that or Ill do a fucking sudoku..........

okay, I didnt come here to tell you that, I just wanted to pop in and say hi

so: hi

:)













*** styx' 7th album, released to the general public july of that year. 7/7/77 to be exact--you can win a beer at a bar with that information