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The Jasmine in my Mind

 Let’s take a trip back in time… I kept a journal when I was working as a pool monitor over the summer of 2017, as you may know. To my amazement, that was almost ten years ago now. I started the entries as letters to my mother, even though I never mailed them. I’d like to share one such letter. Dear Mom, It is Friday June 9, 2017. I am here at Cypress Head pool. No one is here except for two young guys cleaning the pool. They come in a white truck. The landscaping guys were here earlier, with their leaf blowers and weed wackers. A man named Tim McDaniel introduced himself to me. Nice gentleman — did Navy Reserves. Told me to dip my feet in the pool. Good idea. One of these days I’m going to take a quick dip. Sometimes I wear my bathing suit under my clothes, just for the hell of it.  I packed a lunch today in the Rubbermaid lunchbox nana gave me: peanut butter sandwich, apple, banana, pretzels, Brisk iced tea. It’s noon; in an hour I go to Dunlawton. Yesterday there was no toi...
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It’s a Beautiful Morning

  A morning cigarette is still legal and honestly one of the best pick me ups. Hours of sleep create a short withdrawal which makes the nicotine go straight to your head. Ask anyone: it’s a rush. But it’s not for me anymore. Sometimes I choke and gag on the thing. It starts a wet cough which turns into gagging. I don’t know why this is occurring. Ive enjoyed one too many morning drags without repercussions. It’s time to face the music I guess.  It seems worse with regulars. I prefer a menthol in the morning. In my opinion, Newports are the best morning smokes. They’re clean and smooth, and the menthol relaxes the throat (I sound like an old doctor). As unhealthy as it is, it can be a slice of bliss. Take my word for it.  The morning puff is hardly unique, out of the 40 cigarettes I smoke a day (now where’s an old doctor when I need one?). I’m accustomed to waking up and lighting up once the coffee is brewing. However with the ill effects of this, I like to wait til I’...
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My Faith Experience

  Why am I so sure that life goes on after we die?  For one, I listen to a lot of near death experiences on you tube (Although I don’t think getting your learning from you tube can make you a master of anything, unless it’s makeup. It’s not a reputable source). I used to listen to them daily. It fascinated me. Most were positive experiences, resulting of course from tragic circumstances. I was hooked, of course, because they gave me hope that “all is not lost” and there is a realm called heaven, and no, it is not all in your head. It’s very much real. This much I can believe. There’s people that like to say that when you die your brain releases this DMT stuff that gives you funky visions. Why chalk it up to chemicals? Why wouldn’t people want to think it’s real? Do they want to be dead when they die? Or are they so stubbornly realistic? What is so bad about heaven?…is it that its existence would also prove the very real existence of hell? (As my friend likes to say, he’ll c...
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Birds and Other Things

 Tonight Ray and I watched The Birds , the old movie about rabid birds attacking the citizens of the California town Bodega Bay (somehow I always thought the movie took place in New England. Maybe because it’s another fishing town). It did not disappoint and we stayed glued to the plot line the whole time, ingesting all the dialogue. It gave me a break from the blog (yet here I am again…). I ate a piece of vanilla cake with blue icing, snacked on a bowl of popcorn, and drank a sweet red fruit punch, the powered kind from a packet. We paused the movie twice to go outside for a smoke. We made it three quarters through the movie. You could call it a perfect night. I’ve got a soft spot for old movies and snacks and cigarettes. Call me old fashioned.  You may not believe this, but this morning I actually found a dead bird on our porch. The blackbird variety, with a shiny purple, green sheen on its tail. I got John to come retrieve it. He placed it in the river. What are the odds of...
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Reading Dillard Again

 I thought if I read Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life it would give me inspiration to write, or I could write about it, or so hopefully, write better. I may be onto something.  This book is a boulder of a metaphor. It is barely about writing at all. Although this may be my lack of understanding, failure to read between the lines, see the overall picture. She does claim to be an intellectual (it’s obvious) writing for intellectuals. She’s a machine.  Yet, I like it, the way you might like a symphony which yourself could never compose.  I did however underline five sentences, which I’d like to share and comment on.  1) “This writing that you do, that so thrills you, that so rocks and exhilarates you, as if you were dancing next to the band, is barely audible to anyone else.” p. 559 It is personal. And it is a passion. It’s a muffled scream— who will read it and understand? Who will taste your soup, and who will know the love you put into it? It is tapping away on...
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Turn That Thing Off

  It’s football season again.   Somebody shoot me (I’m only kidding. I don’t want to be baker acted again).  Which shouldn’t bother me, since I don’t watch that much tv, besides my beloved  jeopardy and whatever you tube video craze John is into (I could live the rest of my life without ever seeing Anatoly ever again). Sometimes it’s bloopers or fails or cute animals or police chases. This is the modern lineup. And there’s an endless amount of it.  I don’t hate football; actually I find the background noise to be comforting. My parents watched football. Yeah, my mom digs it. My brain has never been able to understand it (yet I can grasp concepts like the nonexistence of time. But that sport and all its numbers?). Perhaps that’s why I can’t get into it.   But John loves it, so it will be on all Fall. Why do the games have to be so long? Why can’t we watch Mad Men all over again?…why can’t I get another hobby, one besides one where I let everyone know what I...
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Labor Day in St Augustine

 I wrote a post about Labor Day in St Augustine, but it remains in my drafts because obviously I didn’t think I had a very good time. That’s mostly due to a generous sunburn. The truth is, it was all it was supposed to be. I’ll write it now the way it happened (although I really have a soft spot for that first draft. I may be repurposing jokes).  I know it’s hot as hell in Florida and yet I will not wear sunblock except at the beach. My nicotine addled brain can’t adhere to any good advice, hence the hamster wheel of smoking and delusions. I’ll just crack it up to being in my stubborn thirties; young enough not to care, but about to fall off a cliff just over the hill. I can’t pick up the knack of flossing either. People like me should not be allowed to have health insurance.  Anyways, it did happen to be another bright and beautiful day in historic St Augustine. Google says it takes about an hour from Daytona Beach to there. I wasn’t driving. I was sipping a fresh pumpki...
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