Friday in the Florida Flatwoods

It's 65 F and raining.  And I'm drinking to outlaw country: singers with a distinct twang, depressed drawl, dig?  Leaves turned a while ago.  I'm about to turn from sedated to sedation, there's a difference, believe me.  Finish a drink, go out for a smoke.  Play with the rabbit.  Check on the snakes - heat lamps working, nice and cozy, super duper.  Roof on the homestead is tin so the raindrops ting and bling and snap and sing as Willie Nelson sings, as Merle Haggard sings and I try my damndest to put together this book lamp that sissy sent me for Christmas.  Damn it, sissy.  A gift I gotta construct?  Anyway . . . wrote on my dry-erase board to take out mice to thaw for feeding the snakes.  Can't rely on my memory.  The other night I evidently (according to my bank account) had Chinese food delivered, but I don't remember ordering it or eating it.  Checked the trash can and, sure enough, container of Chinese food delivery.  I'd ordreed it, eaten it, trashed the container, roger that.  Remember it . . . .ne guh tiv.  Absolutely random sidenote:  avoiding a neighbor.  She likes to hug me.  I don't mind hugs.  But it's damn hard getting her to either let go or refrain from giving another one.  She's a good girl, a mama.  Son lives in CA.  Couldn't pay me to live in CA, nor anywhere on the west coast.  Sissy's been calling and calling and texting and texting and calling some more an texting more than calling and then calling some more, humma humma, damn, don't make me be a blasphemer, but . . . . ain't you got a husband?  She grieves to me like she would/SHOULD her husband and what does she expect me to do?  For hell's sake, she's in VA.  Beautiful state, well, not a state, it's the Commonwealth of Virginia and I'm n the State of Florida.  Sissy, whatcha want from me?  I ain't gonna drive so fast that I beat fire to get to you so that I can comfort you.  I guess she just wants to bullshit and have a familiar voice on the other end.  I indulge her.  Same as I indulge mama.  Something about women.  I indulge them.  Random segway: my 2nd job ends in mid-February.  Haven't decided if I'm gonna seek another one.  This one is part-time and temporary so the imminent end isn't a surprise.  Work on the docks, unloading cargo 40 hours a week on the St. Johns River and operate a forklift for a lumber company 20 hours a week:  I work with my body.  Because I don't trust my brain.  Body has always been more reliable than my brain.  My brain is what fucked me up.  Know what?  I want to cook dinner for a lady.  Have casual conversation over the meal.  Not fuck her.  Just kiss her goodnight.  Instead I am going to have another drink and listen to more drawl and twang.  Which reminds me:  maybe people think I sound stupid on account of how I talk.  Maybe I am stupid.  I've read everything DH Lawrence and Thomas Hardy have written.  I adore the Bronte sisters.  Twain is a God.  Enlist him with Maughm, Fitzgerald, Dreiser, Hemingway, Pynchon, Forester, Conrad, Kipling, Hawthorne, Walter Scott, Eliot . . . nevermind . . . just nevermind.  Never mind my mind.  If you won't have a drink with me at least let me pour you one and I'll drink them both, one for me and the other on your behalf, you kind smiling woman or you kind laughing man.  I prefer male company lately.  Zero expectations.  Just casual bullshtting, no one to impress.  Females, why must I impress you?  Win you over?  Gonna have a smoke now.  A vice of mine.  Smoke.  Play with the rabbit (actual rabbit, not a perverted euphemism), check the snakes.  I'm a gentle sleep, if that makes any difference.  Gotta clean the fridge tomorrow.  Catch up on household chores.  Can't be a slobby sonnenbitch.  I don't know how to end this except to end it.