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“what do you call a man that doesn’t want to die, yet has no will to live…

without name, feeling bereft… lost, with seemingly no more love to give

the depth of his cut beyond reach of soft vowels and sharp consonants

distant and low, the lull of their words destined to fall short of their mark.

what does one say to that very him… he half a we, never to be again…

rare and without intent, some eyes know through their own knowing

some breath trembles in the quiver of its own experience

cold, bare feet and darkened heart once blooming in rays of heavenly sunshine

collapse within reach of drug and paramour… never satisfied with less or more

numb to shallow pleasure, love gifted, or new pain

how does one speak to this once man… standing alone, in his rain”

The week coming to an end is a welcomed milestone in my survival. The last 5 days have been, for lack of a better descriptor, hectic. My brutha-from-a-different-mutha (a.k.a. best friend), Sean, was to fly into Bush Intercontinental tonight around 11:30-ish. Like most fucked up things in L.A., LAX was full flowing amidst a security menstrual cycle and he was not authorized to check in for his flight despite being on premise and on time. Long story short, this simple trip has now become midnight standby crapshoot that puts wheels down in H-town sometime around six tomorrow morning. I don’t care about the difference in pick-up time… I care about the inconvenience he is having to go through just to get to me. I had dinner with Ted and Jenny tonight at the newly opened Dosey Doe. Everything has been done before, but this is basically a redux of finding historic architecture destine for demolition and saving it in the name of capitalism. The owner had a 150-year-old barn in Kentucky disassembled, transported to The Woodlands, TX, and put back together with enough structural integrity to roast his own green coffee beans, present gourmet entrees and desert, and all the while managing to find live music Thursday through Sunday nights to shimmy in the door (Thursday is jazz by the way). The meal was fantastic. The music act over dinner wasn’t bad either… man plus woman plus guitar times two in a pseudo-acoustic presentation of country and classics. After the meal, we found our way back to my house for wine and some BluRay movie action. Somewhere around this stage of the evening is when I received the Californication call. Now, here nearing bedtime, I am reflecting in my wine buzz. On a side note… I like to eat and drink. With regard to drink, I can drink it all… but at the end of the day, it’s a delicious, sexy glass of wine that is most satisfying when leaving sobriety. Looking back at the over-five years of blogging here, I don’t dare speculate the percentage of posts that were made under the influence of some sort of distilled spirit or fermented fruit. I would wager the number to be north of my wildest guess. Should my sister ever have children, they can read the archives and laugh over how silly old Uncle Clayton was… is… whatever. Grape juice. Anyhoo, the most controversial part of my day was losing my DVD writer in my new PC. [begin rant] Windows Vista hotpatch a booboo without saying shit to me about it. Said hotpatch placed filters (high and low) in the registry that blocked access from the OS to the device controller for the CD/DVD drive… ie. the OS was preventing itself from loading drivers to initialize the device as a security precaution. Bottom line - Vista is a hypochondriac… just like the commercials. I had to find the secret sauce on TechNet, find the appropriate registry key, delete it with RegEdit, and reload the system. Viola! DVD drive is back. I hate you Microsoft. [end rant] I bought Nero 7 to try out my new Lightscribe drive. It’s nifty, but that’s about it. I can count the number of DVD’s I burn a year on one hand and have enough fingers left over to pick my nose in stereo. Ironically, I have a spindle of blanks sitting here as a dust catcher. Mmmmkay… I think that about does it for me. I’m fading fast. Bon nuit, mes amis.