Non-fiction

Cheat Day

1 Comment

I have the proclivity to wake up and not want to get out of bed at five in the morning, but I also don’t want to stay in bed either. It’s a tug-of-war with myself on a Monday, but I made it to the coffee shop. Everything is well and good. The baristas are loading boxes of materials onto a dolly and carrying them back as I sit by the window and watch the sun rise.

I ate a lot yesterday. I started in the morning with a bacon, egg, and gouda sandwich and an iced espresso with cream and olive oil. It’s my favorite drink. Then I went for a two-hour walk after I finished reading and writing. It was 116 degrees, and I traveled by foot for almost six miles, sweating all over. When I got back to my apartment, I saw in the mirror that my shorts were drenched from heat. It looked like I had pissed myself when in reality the sweat was on the backside. I had to wash them in the evening. I drank a Big Gulp of Coca-Cola through the walk, and then I went back to the coffee shop to continue writing. I drank a berry juice to hydrate myself and another iced espresso with cream and olive oil.

I walked back home and ordered Five Guys to be delivered. Five Guys might be the best fast food burger out there, although I can’t overlook In-N-Out Burger. It has been so long since I’ve eaten a Double-Double. Their menu is so simple: a hamburger, cheeseburger, French fries, milkshake, and soda. They have a secret menu as well, and sometimes I have ordered from it. It includes animal-style fries and an animal-style burger that I believe is made with Thousand Island dressing and grilled onions, but don’t quote me on that. I’ll still go with Five Guys because of recency bias.

Anyway, I ended the night with a treat of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Sundays are my cheat day. Everyone needs to have one before they continue their week on a strict diet of limiting carbohydrates as much as they can because carbs are what make them gain weight, and no one wants that.

Today, I have to walk to the dentist to have a filling replaced, and I believe that’s it. I could spend several hours there like I did last time. I had to wait for ninety minutes just to see her. It was a nightmare, sitting in the waiting room. I had to watch daytime television, which is torture with low-budget soap operas and depressing commercials about smoking and lung cancer. They do that on purpose so people will desperately look for jobs because no one wants to see that.

But anyway, I hope the appointment goes well and hope the heat doesn’t bring me down to hell. I’ll have to finish editing my manuscript before I send it off to my editor. It’s not altogether perfect. I keep coming across loose ends in the stories because it’s a collection of shorts that all take place in the same town, and I’m just looking for inconsistencies. It helps when I’ve been editing and rewriting a gazillion times. I’m getting sick of it. Whenever a writer asks me when their stories are ready for an editor or publication, I say it’s when they’re sick of it. That always seems to ring true.

Anyway, I’m waiting for the summer to end, so it can get cool again. I keep having dreams like the one last night, where my aunt laid the ground rules for throwing a party: no alcohol, no smoking, no ESPN either. I had an argument with her about it until I woke up and was thankful it was just a dream. I run across that situation a lot after a dream. I guess that makes it a nightmare because I’m glad it was over or that it wasn’t real, but I don’t know if I should label it a nightmare, just a bad dream because Frankenstein’s monster wasn’t chasing me with scissors like he has in the past.

Non-fiction

124 Degrees

Leave a comment

The Coachella valley reached a record high this week of 124 degrees. I sweated all over when I went for a walk, and it stung my eyes. I couldn’t see where I was going along the sidewalk on my way back home. Supposedly the heat will last for weeks. July is meant to be that way. How will I make it to September when it will cool down? At least that’s what I expect. My parents said it’s usually the case.

Another Sunday has me feeling bored. I don’t know what to do with time. Perhaps I’ll wash my clothes. It doesn’t matter what I do. I still must see the dentist in the afternoon tomorrow, but at least I’ll miss work, the last place I want to be. My boss joked about me preferring to get my teeth pulled over having to go back to work. I didn’t laugh with him. I took his words seriously. So yes, I would rather have a root canal than go to work any day this week, or any week it seems because my job is torture. Angry people on the phone are constantly complaining, cursing, too, as if the problem must be me, not them.

I miss vacation time. I won’t go on another one until September since I like to break it up into every three months to keep my sanity. Imagine if I didn’t take those days off. I would be a wreck come Thanksgiving. Who am I fooling? I’m already a wreck. Work has kicked and slapped me. It’s hard to focus on anything else. I carry work with me after my shift when I take my walks. Does that make me a workaholic? I guess so.

Anyway, the summer is too long these days. It used to be short when I was a kid who played in the backyard. Now I don’t even have a backyard, just a pool that I share with all the other tenants.

I’m at the coffee shop, and a guy keeps turning around and looking back at me from his table. He’s watching horseracing on his iPad. I know because I peeked at it. He’s getting on my nerves. Thank God he just left.

A lot of tourists have entered today. It’s 10:30 a.m. The busy crowd has left the store. Now it’s just us regulars and a family of tourists at a long table.

I stare out the window and see the different shops across the street: Sinfulicious Body Care, Balboa Candy, Crazy Shirts. I’ve been inside the candy store before but never bought anything.

It has been quiet in downtown Palm Springs because of the heat. No one wants to go outside except for me. I can handle the heat.

I’m going through a crisis with this writer’s block. We all go through it as writers. No one is immune to it. We run out of important things to say. Otherwise we’re just repeating stories or ideas. Richard Hugo said to write about our obsessions. I’m obsessed over several things. He also said to focus on the subject that isn’t the subject. For instance, if I was writing about knives, the real subject wouldn’t be the knives but something else. I don’t know what that something else is. I guess it comes to me naturally after I’ve been writing for a while. I don’t know a single writer right now.

I knew a few screenwriters when I lived in Hollywood. Some of them were moderately successful. One of them moved to Texas a long long time ago. I wonder whatever happened to Michael. He was a sweet man. I also met screenwriters who never wrote. They called themselves screenwriters I guess to adapt. Michael was working with several producers at the time I knew him. I was in my late twenties or early thirties. I can’t quite remember. He always sat outside of the coffee shop and stared off into space when he wasn’t waving at people. He would tip his fedora at the ladies. His mouth was crooked. Something awful had happened to him, but I never asked him what or why. We would smoke cigarettes together in the coffee shop patio back when that was allowed. Now I don’t think people can even sit and hang out at that coffee shop anymore. I never thought it would come to that, but it’s here. I hope Michael is doing okay for himself in Texas. He belongs in a better place. Anyway, I’m wishing for the best this Sunday, but I don’t have high hopes, and I’m wishing for the best this week. I hope it doesn’t kick my ass too much.

Non-fiction

What Got Me Through Those Years?

Leave a comment

A lot of reading got me through those years. I read Bukowski, Fante, Hemingway when I was in my later twenties. Those times were rough, but not as rough as when my friends would move when I was thirty-two. I turned to drinking vodka every day, and smoking weed all by myself sometimes.

I knew a twenty-one-year-old who turned me onto marijuana at that age. I smoked religiously and bought a card. He talked me into it so long ago. I still remember the dispensaries resembling places that were selling crack. I never smoked the crack. Imagine though. I pictured how a crack house looked and thought, My God, don’t ever let me smoke the pipe. Dispensaries don’t look the way they look today. Today they’re more like Apple stores. They’re bright and white with smiles and tablets, too.

I never would’ve thought it would be legalized. But here I am. I’m stuck inside this state of California, which has ended up completely bonkers, having quit all drugs.

My brain can’t function like it used to do. I wish it would. I can’t remember what I’ve read. It’s like I’m reading gibberish. I think the drugs destroyed my brain. What can I do?

But anyway, I work from home. A lot has changed in six egregious years, with Trump as president. My job has gone remote, and marijuana is now sold as if it’s beer or medicine. You choose.

I can’t recall a sober day when I believed it was a good idea for the plant to be a legal drug. It makes me wonder what insanity is coming next. Not like I want to know. I see dispensaries throughout this town and think how many people have been walking high or working high.

I’m just a dude who lives alone and doesn’t bother anyone. Whatever. Do your thing and I’ll do mine. Reality has fallen short. I cringe at what I was a while ago. Those days were dark. I lost myself inside the gap. And now I sit and ponder, staring off in coffee shops while others drink their teas and socialize. I’ve got nobody else to talk to but myself. This loneliness perpetuates. I’m sure some people can relate to what I mean.

It’s getting worse out there. You can’t go browsing at the store for records anymore. They’ve closed them down. That used to be my favorite thing to do was stay in record stores for hours and peruse the rows of compact discs and tapes. Now everything is sold on Amazon. Don’t get me wrong. I love convenience, but the record store was once a place to go to get away from home, to dwell outside. Not anymore. No wonder I was stuck with drugs and alcohol though all those years. I miss the friends I had, the times we shared together. All of it has passed me by. They’ve since moved on from me. It isn’t what it was. I hope someday I’ll look upon today and think it was a phase.

Non-fiction

How I Spent My Fourth of July

Leave a comment

I slept until the sun came out and felt as if my head was going to explode. The independence coincided with a feeling that my day was at its best. I needed such a holiday to sleep.

The coffee house was packed with customers and mostly regulars I see each time. I wrote for several hours, watching as she would feed banana pieces to her dog. When I was done, I walked back home and did the do before I went to write some more. It was a total like a day of work.

My mother texted me and asked if I could visit her and Dad to eat some steak and lobster at their house to celebrate. I drove there at a half past five o’clock, and they were watching Wimbledon as they were cooking steaks outside. The grill was hot in triple-digit heat. We ate when it was close to time for me to leave. The steak was flavorful, delicious, but the lobster wasn’t soft but hard. I’ll say I’ve never eaten lobster when it’s cooked that way. I dipped the tail in butter sauce, and it was huge. It would’ve been okay if it was tender, but it wasn’t quite the case. I don’t eat lobster every day, so it was disappointing. Anyway, we ate my favorite ice cream afterward as a dessert. The peanut butter chunks with chocolate tasted awesome at a time when heat was such a factor.

When I drove back home, I saw the fireworks explode at eight o’clock at night. It was a time I will remember as the years go on. Today is just a normal day in which I have to work. They should’ve given us another holiday. Oh well. Perhaps someday they will.

Non-fiction

My Smartphone

Leave a comment

Do people even use smartphones for their intended purposes, or are these things just toys that we play with to call other people at rare times? We text another person, whether it’s a friend, a relative, or a family friend, rather than call them and listen to their voices. I, who is guilty of the same epidemic, prefer to text people. This newest form of communication I prefer over having to call someone and hear them babble for minutes, potentially even hours, or worse, to hear myself babble. I remember the days before cell phones and never thought we would reach this point. Those were times when I would have to be home for a friend or a parent to get a hold of me.

Otherwise, I would need to use a payphone, which was always a bummer. They were dirty, sometimes with gum on the receiver and always with graffiti etched on the phones themselves and on the windows at a phone booth. You used to have to wait for someone else before you got to use it. Payphones ain’t around no more. When was the last time I saw one on the sidewalk? Way over ten years ago? There was something romantic about payphones. A lover in a thunderstorm missed his lover so much that he would call her with one, soaking wet, and plead to have her back.

“Please, I have nowhere to stay tonight.”

You don’t feel that same type of romance with a smartphone. Aside from it being broken, it’s too convenient. If you’re in a quarrel with your mate, all you have to do is pick up that thing that has mesmerized you for several hours in a day, and not even dial the number that you’ve remembered for so long. All you have to do is press the name of the person you’ve saved in your list of contacts. How is that passionate? The smartphone holds no passion. You would’ve known the phone number by heart if you cared enough about the person. I can barely remember my mom’s number without looking it up on my smartphone, which if I lost it, say if I dropped it in the sewer, which I’ve almost done on several occasions, there would be no payphone nearby to save me. I would be screwed, without even knowing what numbers to call let alone having a quarter.

The smartphone is a computer we can fit in our pockets. You can argue that a phone call is a last resort when using one. It holds almost infinite possibilities.

A typical text I send would be, “Are you there?”

Their reply would be, “Yup.”

That would be the end of the conversation. It saves so much time and energy over a windy phone call.

I still say bring back payphones because we might need them in the case of a disaster, such as a dying smartphone, which is one of our worst worries. We fall into panic mode when it happens and look for the nearest smartphone store to rescue us. When we get there, there’s a line that nearly goes outside the door, and we have to set an appointment for a few days later. Who can wait that long? Those are agonizing days.

I remember I spent a whole afternoon at an Apple store. The geek at the mall set my appointment using his iPad for about 1:30 p.m., but I never got to see him until about two hours later, so I had to hang out and wait in there until he was available. Something was wrong with the hardware. They had to replace it with a new smartphone, and it took another two hours for it to load all of my apps. It was a nightmare of a day. I wish a disaster such as that only on my worst enemies.

Technology blows my mind. We live in the age of gadgets. A male fantasy to become James Bond has surfaced a little because of it. The smartphone is a piece of gadgetry, and so are all the small components in a car these days.

You can now hook your smartphone up to the car and have them communicate with each other. Again, where’s the romance? There’s nothing romantic about a Tesla compared to a classic Mustang. Yes, the Tesla has a digital dashboard and the ability for Apple Carplay, but externally it looks like an egg on wheels, and internally it comforts you at the sake of visual aesthetics. Who can argue against the leather interior of a classic automobile or even the steering wheel compared to today’s cars? I’m falling off course, or am I? You can argue that today’s vehicle is just a larger smartphone. I connect my phone to the car and call someone just by pressing a button on the steering wheel. Who needs a drive-in theater when I can just watch a movie on the dashboard with my lover when the phone is integrated? Things just ain’t the same.

Non-fiction

Writer’s Block

Leave a comment

Somewhere, someone is laughing because I can’t think of a word to write outside of the fact that I’m writing about not knowing what to write. Does that make any sense? I thought not. But let’s go.

Writer’s block is real. Some people claim it isn’t. It’s fine if they can give it another name. How about constipation? Does that make it sound better? I didn’t come up with writer’s block, so I’m fine with whatever someone calls it. It’s real. I think the muse is real, too. Some writers deny it. They say hard work and determination are what produce words and paragraphs and pages and chapters and whole works. I say that’s part of it. A writer has to sit his ass in the chair and stay there until the work is done for sure, but there are outside influences that can determine the writer’s success.

I’m staring out the window, watching a barista take a break from work. It isn’t distracting in the least, but he intrigues me enough to stop and watch him. He’s sitting on a park bench on the sidewalk in front of a Sunglass Hut, reading from his smartphone and vaping next to a star of Harry Lee Coffman, M.D., on the Walk of Fame in Palm Springs. He’s drinking iced tea out of a plastic cup. He has walked back in. Now I go back to writing. My Adderall can only help so much.

When I was younger, I used to run into a man at the coffee shop whom I was convinced was the devil. He was short, skinny, had a bald head, and wore all black with black sunglasses in which I couldn’t see his eyes. His appearance didn’t make him the devil, although his pale complexion and skinhead jacket did make him look sinister. It was his behavior. I tried to get work done there, but he would walk up to my table and start talking. I forget whether I wore headphones in those days. I was only in my twenties when dude entered the frame of my life.

“There he is,” he would say.

When I looked up, I saw him approaching me with a grin, and I thought, “Oh shit. Here we go. He’ll waste my time for about twenty minutes. There goes my muse.”

What fascinates me is how no one bothers someone who’s reading, and nine times out of ten, no one will bother someone who’s writing. Except this guy. Yep, the muse is real, and it’s delicate. He would elucidate to me random facts such as the difference between yellow mucus and clear mucus, as mucus was forming on his lips. And I would just stare at the mucus in morbid fascination.

He was a cokehead who would bump lines in the bathroom. I never had clear evidence, except he would come out sniffling after a long time while other people waited for their turns.

He also claimed that he was the ex-drummer for a famous 1980s hair band. I recognized the hair band but couldn’t think of one of their songs. For some reason, I believed him.

Anyway, he was the devil to my muse. My muse would crumble and die when he was near. He sent telepathic messages to me that I was doing something unimportant or at least not as important as what he wanted to say to me.

I never found out whatever happened to him. He’s probably at some other coffee shop in the universe, chatting it up with someone by himself who’s trying to focus on something, telling him about his days as the ex-drummer and how much coke he did. The man was a vampire. He was writer’s block personified. I never found out his name, but who needs a name to identify him when he served only one purpose, which was to kill someone else’s muse?

Non-fiction

Insomnia

Leave a comment

I went to bed at nine o’clock last night, woke up at one o’clock this morning for no reason, and couldn’t go back to sleep. It was time to give up, crawl out of bed, and take a walk outside. The temperature was easily over eighty degrees, but the heat wasn’t what bothered me because it was cool in my apartment. What made me lose sleep were thoughts I couldn’t control–thoughts about the past and future, regrets over what I did and what I never did.

I was never a good sleeper. Some people sleep just fine, from the minute they go to bed to the second their alarm goes off. I can’t relate to those people. They usually snore, keeping everyone else awake.

My college roommate used to snore, and it drove me insane. Sometimes I thought about that scene in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when the patient smothered the Jack Nicholson character with a pillow. Now I would never do that, but man, there were thoughts.

When I have insomnia, I want the rest of the world to have it so I won’t feel alone. It’s so quiet outside that I believe everyone is sleeping except for me, which is untrue. A lot of people lose sleep. I read that one out of three adults suffers from it, and it can lead to obesity and diabetes, not to mention anxiety and depressive disorders.

There had to be a way to combat the insomnia. I watched YouTube videos while I was up until three o’clock before I tried to go back to sleep. My brain just wouldn’t shut off. Then my alarm sounded at five o’clock in the morning, when I usually get up. I hate the song that plays on my iPhone. The piano is too haunting, like a ghost is going to crawl out from under the bed. It vaguely sounds like the theme to The Exorcist. I turn it off right away and jump out of bed. Sometimes my hand, with a mind of its own, hits the snooze accidentally so the song repeats. But all of the other songs are just as bad. I can’t win with the alarm because it sucks to be awakened by anything, such as a chainsaw outside of my window when someone is chopping up a tree, or a bunch of cackling crows that make me want to throw a coffee can at them and watch them fly away.

Now I’m at the coffee shop, half dead, and I have to work today. It’s going to be another long week. I just hope that tonight I can sleep the whole night through.

Non-fiction

The First Monday Back

Leave a comment

I’m sitting in the corner of the coffee shop observing everyone. There are one, two, three, four, five other customers sitting at their tables. Every one one of them is absorbed in their smartphones. We have come to this point. I used to predict how the future would look and got some of it right. One of those things was something like Youtube. I believed every person would have his/her/their own channel. For the most part, it ended up being correct. Except I don’t have a channel and I doubt I ever will.

Another prediction was that the cars would be rounder than before. They were too boxy in the eighties and nineties. The manufacturers decided, “Hey, it’s the future. Let’s make everything round.” Lo and behold, I saw them on the streets, these older models, round and futuristic. Some of them came out ugly, others improved.

Anyway, it’s a growing concern to me how everyone is stuck to their phones. I’m guilty as well except for now. The phone will distract me from emptiness later today. I’ll keep checking for new emails without a clue of what I’m looking for.

How will this Monday unfold? There’s a lot of anxiety about going back to work. I don’t know what emails I’ll have to deal with or how much work is in front of me.

My birthday was yesterday. Mom and Dad showed up to my door in the middle of the afternoon after a long drive back in town, anxious to see how my air conditioner was working. It impressed them how cold it was in my apartment.

After a few hours of chatting, we went to a restaurant called Lulu’s for dinner. The heat was one-hundred-and-eleven degrees. It was a slow, painful walk there, as if we were walking in mud, hot mud. Lulu’s was cool inside. The manager sat us in the middle of the dining area. Mom asked if the patio was comfortable enough to sit in. I thought she’d gone insane. We whined at the fact that they served Pepsi, not Coke. I ordered a Pepsi anyway, even if it’s far too inferior.

Our waiter didn’t have much of a personality. My father commented on that when she wasn’t around. She was more of a Flo from Flo’s diner, the type of waiter who would carry a pencil on her ear to take down our orders on a small pad.

Dad ordered the strawberry salad with shrimp. Not only did I wonder what the hell a strawberry salad would be, but who would eat shrimp with strawberries?

I ordered the swiss and mushroom burger, medium rare, while my mother ordered the chicken sandwich. The burger was charbroiled, which I don’t prefer, with romaine as its lettuce when it’s usually iceberg. It took up over thirty percent of the burger. I deleafed most of the lettuce to where there was only one slice. The cheeseburger wasn’t as much as a job as it was before.

My mother became fascinated by the tables because some of them had hooks on the underside of them, not all of them. Ours didn’t. She could’ve hung her purse on the hook. I could’ve hung my hat there since I wasn’t wearing it indoors.

We left Lulu’s and came back to my apartment for carrot cake and red velvet cake to celebrate my birthday. I ate only a few bites because I had eaten too much. They left after eating the cake to drive home and unpack. I still had to go grocery shopping to my chagrin.

Now it’s Monday. I’ll face the music at work. At least Thursday will be July Fourth. Only a four-day work week is ahead of me.

Non-fiction

My Birthday

Leave a comment

My birthday is today. It doesn’t carry the same weight as it used to. I kept forgetting that today was the day, and as I get older, I find that birthdays lose their importance over time. I don’t know what to do to celebrate since I live alone in this small town. I think the trip to Avila Beach was enough. I don’t need any more of it.

I have to go back to work tomorrow. It’s a four-day week because of July Fourth on Thursday, so I’ll only have to work Monday through Wednesday and Friday. It’s always a half-day on Fridays. And then I’ll go to the dentist on the following Monday, so that would be two weeks in a row of a four-day week.

I think I’ll spend my last day on vacation doing nothing special. I’m not happy that it’s my birthday, but I’m not that sad either, just sort of numb.

The regular people on social media will wish me a happy birthday, people whom I don’t even know, whom I’ve never even met. It’s weird like that. Every year, this one man sends me a happy birthday GIF with a synthetic voice that sings the happy birthday song. In a way it’s haunting. It makes me not want to know the person. There are people I was once close to who don’t wish me a happy birthday, and it stings. In response I don’t wish them one either. I don’t know what I ever did to those friends, but that’s the way it is. But like I said, birthdays aren’t as important as they used to be.

I remember my twenty-first birthday. My cousins drove me to Las Vegas to get me drunk. I was of the legal drinking age. That was a big deal. I don’t remember anything about the trip. I was still in college at the time. It’s too bad that there are no memories.

I ate a whole bag of Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies in bed last night for a celebration. That’s about as festive as it gets for me. I’ll treat myself to a burrito tonight from my favorite Mexican restaurant. Other than that, I dread tomorrow and this whole week in fact. It’s going to be over a hundred degrees again in the desert, and I’ll have to walk in this crap to get some exercise.

I really should join the gym. But I won’t have the motivation to go every day. I don’t know. I stopped going to the gym when I was living in Culver City because I was sick of the elliptical machine. All I did was paddle my feet for a half hour and sweat. I wasn’t going anywhere. I have to be going somewhere if I’m going to exercise. Otherwise it gets monotonous. Maybe I’ll go there to lift weights. People get addicted to that sort of stuff. I never did. I always looked at it as a rough hour to get through before I was done. Then I could go home and rest. Some people love the high that it brings. They’re talking about the lightheadedness from working out too hard. I look at it as the feeling before one is about to pass out, which is never good for me.

Anyway, rent is due tomorrow, and I have to finish editing my book this week before the next stage of development. Enough about my birthday.

Non-fiction

Almost Over

Leave a comment

It saddens me to see this vacation come to a close. I’ll be back at work this Monday, and I dread that day when it comes. Until then, I guess I’ll just sit here and enjoy the two days I have left. Isn’t that what everyone thinks when they’ve been away from their jobs? It must depend on how much someone enjoys doing what they’re doing.

I drove back to Palm Springs on Thursday, and I must admit I miss the beach, even though I was never at the beach. I’m not a beach person, although I can lie on my back in the sand on any sunny day. What kind of person am I? I’m not a forest person, nor a desert person. Maybe I’m a lake person. I could sit at the lake and stare at the blue water for hours if it’s, in fact, blue water. Sometimes it’s brown water, which doesn’t much appeal to me. But who does it appeal to?

I checked out of my room in Goleta on Thursday and sat in the coffee shop for several hours before I hit the laundromat to wash my pants and socks. While they were in the washer, I went back to the coffee shop and waited.

When I came back, I saw my wet clothes on the counter and a woman standing near them. She didn’t speak English, but she gestured towards my clothes and asked if they were mine. She’d removed my clothes from the washer. It pissed me off. What kind of rude person does that?

I said, “Thanks,” and I don’t know why I said “Thanks.” She didn’t deserve it. She deserved her clothes to be thrown out of the laundromat.

I grabbed my clothes and hastily threw them in the dryer. I lost one of my socks in the process, always losing socks. What is it about socks where I always lose them? They just get away from me. I constantly need to buy new ones. That lady had put me in a bad mood.

While the clothes were in the dryer, I went back to my room and packed my belongings. I checked out with the concierge, and he asked if I enjoyed my stay. I couldn’t say that I did. It was a funky shower with a detachable showerhead that hung against the wall. The only way for me to wash myself was to hold the showerhead while I applied the soap. And I find it to be a challenge to wash my hair with one hand. So I had to attach the showerhead back onto the thing that holds it so I could rub the shampoo on my head.

But I didn’t complain to the concierge. I didn’t have time.

“Do you need gas?” he asked.

“Not immediately,” I said.

“Well, if you do, there’s a Valero across the street. We have cheaper prices than Santa Barbara. I highly recommend you use that one.”

I wanted to repeat to him that I didn’t need gas. Did he not get the message? I handed him my keycards. They’d charged me fifteen dollars just to park in their precious parking lot. I at least could park right in front of my room. It was a small room with about a seventy-inch flatscreen TV on a wooden drawer. The only way to find the mini fridge was to open the drawer, and it was inside there. I’d stashed my iced espresso and a couple of cookies in it.

And then, I hit the road from Goleta back to Palm Springs. It was a four-hour drive. The traffic slowed down in many parts during the trip, mostly on the 60 freeway heading towards Indio. I didn’t know what the holdup was or if there was anything to hold up for, but there was nowhere to be. I could afford to waste a whole day on the road.

I got home after 6 p.m., unpacked, and decided to take a walk. The street fair on Palm Canyon Road had already begun. They do it every Thursday in Palm Springs. I walked past the vendors, having never bought a thing from them, but I would like to try the food someday.

And now it’s Saturday. I’ll do much of the same thing. It’s routine for me at this point. I write and edit for several hours in the morning, go for a two-hour walk, maybe swim, come back, write and edit some more before I come home, take a shower, make dinner, and go to sleep. I can’t sit still, can’t watch TV. It depresses me too much.

Last night, I watched a movie that was eerily similar to the book I’m putting out next year. It wasn’t exactly like my book. I’d conceived the idea during COVID, four years ago, before this movie was probably even thought about. I won’t get into the movie and what it was, but I will say how strange the collective unconscious is if this has anything to do with it. It’s like our brains are connected, or every idea has been taken. I can write anything, and rest assured, somebody has already done it.