THE THAW

Mr. Sunlight peeking in.......

Starbucks on 162nd Avenue, Vancouver Washington. A cold day at 3:47pm, but Mr. Sunlight is beginning the thaw that a rainy tomorrow will complete. If not tomorrow, the next day at least when the rain will pour. Speaking of pouring, I'm back on track with rewriting Ghoul World, and I see ahead after the Ghoul World rewrite several projects that I've mentioned in the past: (1) putting together the chapbook Up Your Ass about the prostate cancer experience [hopefully in the past], (2) putting together the best of my short stories into a book Many Voices One Head for sending to writing contests and (3) gathering a collection of poetry from all the "periods" of my life together for contest entries. And after that (4) I see myself writing some movies and plays. On another hand, getting back to sketching intrigues me. When I'm not doing any of the above, you can find me with mechanical pencil in hand—eraser on the end—working crossword puzzles or Sudoku. Yesterday I watched from a distance a professorial type older gentleman working away at a crossword puzzle with a pen.

ASIDE: Finished Saturday's Sudoku in two tries. The tiny slip ups of concentration can raise hell.

BEATNIK ON HOLD, PURRING

Another rainy day in the Greater Portland Area, i.e. Vancouver, Washington. Monday noon and I'm sitting in an extremely loud and very busy Starbucks on 162nd Avenue in Southeast Vancouver, wishing I wanted to want to get back to work on the umpteenth rewrite of my novel Ghoul World and happily anticipating the February appearance of the 40th Portland International Film Festival. I'm absolutely certain my psyche has been rearranged by my 8 month cancer journey; that and the burden of a lifetime of hoping for financial success of some kind, that is a job as poet in residence or a best selling novel that is turned into a movie. The bucket gets ever closer; the list remains the single wish to find someone other than myself to publish a novel of mine. My state of mind wasn't helped much last night when wife and I were watching the movie Solace. In that movie Anthony Hopkins as a psychic says something like this about cancer, "Eighty percent of the time cancer returns, then it's a bugger to deal with."

Weekly I work the NYTimes crossword [takes all week a little at a time] and the Saturday Sudoku that requires much concentration to do correctly. Took five tries to come out right on Saturday evening. You know? I had great fun writing my scifi movie last year and felt I was better working with dialogue than writing descriptive passages. That may be my next project—another movie script. I think that's enough for this entry. Now what picture ought to accompany it? I know—a photo of self in the loud Starbucks with my Gonzaga Bulldog hat on. Wow! 15-0.