Friday ends with a...

...bigger, fatter thud.

I was going to say "with a crash," but don't want you to get the wrong idea. I went for a drive, but it was relatively short, as Photographer D. called just before I bugged out and said he had stuff for a couple of stories I stupidly agreed to do. Yeah, at this point I'll write anything, in the pathetic hope I'll see money. Someday.

PARENTHETICAL WHY-EDITORS-LIKE-ME, ASIDE-FROM-THE-FACT-THEY-SEEM-TO-THINK-I-DON'T-NEED-MONEY THOUGHT: Let it be said the "information" D. gave me was less than useless. Sometimes, I wonder if he can actually read or understand what it takes to write a good piece, research-wise....

And I was roped into going to lunch with D. and his girlfriend. That's hell, let me tell you. When it comes to her, he is the most inconsiderate bastard on the planet. He puts her down, they bicker, and she takes it. Any woman I treated that way would kick me in the nougats, speedy-speedy. Just like a few whom I treated with love and respect. There were many moments at the restaurant when I wanted to crawl under my chair and hide.

The food was awful and overpriced, too.

And when I came home there was, of course, nothing in the mail. Jesus, have I been writing articles or hallucinating that I wrote and sent them? It has been 48 days since anyone paid me. I'd love to believe this is some hideous practical joke, that tomorrow's mail will have enough money in it to straighten me out completely. Fat chance.

The bright spot was coming home to a FedEx box full of 10 CDs, made for me by a friend in Minnesota. I'm listening now, and will no doubt be listening tomorrow. My closest friends are fanatics like me about our strange taste in music, and I'm sending him a few recordings tomorrow that are equally obscure and weird. This is great, great stuff, some of which takes me back many years. Most people would turn up their noses at it; I don't care, frankly.

And R. called, as he always does (without knowing it) when things are going to shit here. It's nice to have friends who give a damn, who understand what's really important in this ugly world. We talked about the Minnesota guy -- whom we both like -- and about the Real Stuff: music and, well, shall we say interaction with the opposite sex.

I'm absolutely certain some of you think I'm making it all up, that I like to p*ss and moan about life to cover up the fact that I'm livin' large here.

Would that it were so, grizzly dudes. Would that it were so.

R. will probably call again soon after he gets off work, to find out if any of the CDs are worth listening to. They are. I've copied a few he'll like already.

I just hope I can be coherent when he calls. I'm playing "Star Trek" here: "(Jim) Beam me up, Scotty!"

Sorry if this bugs you. Life is awful here, and I can only write about what I know.

All my loves are too far away. And none of them care.