Unsettled Conditions

I ain’t been posting lately because—well, partly because I haven’t felt so hypnotized by any subject that I just had to write about it, and partly because I’ve been on the funky side of things of late, and I was tired of putting up those damn stop-gap picture posts and so on. About ten days ago I ran into a guy I used to know from The Expansion (the bar I used to shoot pool in, and a place I spent way too much time and money in for about five years) and while kicking around those days Rick mentioned how “ratty-ass” I was back then—talking about my anger-level and how just kind of temporized and jimmy-rigged my life was in general. When I’m feeling good about things I tend to think I’ve left Mr. Ratty-Ass well behind me, back in Houston or in North Beach or wherever, but really, he’ll probably always be lying just below the surface like the big stinky catfish that he is. There’s also been a vexing health issue (nothing super dire but a drag nevertheless) at the same time that a couple of friendships have been mutating in unfamiliar directions, and all of it’s been just enough to give me a nice case of the blues. (Some things are eternal, though. Pap’s newest thing is riding me to find him a place where he can buy discount cigarettes even though his emphysema is worsening by the month. When I mentioned the conflict this created for  me, he came right back with, “Uh-huh, now listen: I need to be able to do this with a credit card or debit card. Don’t make me do this by check.”)

Anyway, this is all by way of saying that I haven’t ditched this place—Stella’s just searching for her groove, is all. I’m heading for Austin next week for a few days of R&R with some old friends, and movement usually acts like smelling salts on me. ’sides, who knows what’s going to happen before then…