written 20 November 2006, but still quite true, lord knows, today.

a reasonably good day. the lingering headache i’ve had for several days is fading, and the weather, if a tinge warm for november, is still very fall-like. the air smells slightly spicy, like a world of dead leaves, and, despite the best efforts of the local bourgeoisie, it’s very much a world of dead leaves.

dead leaves, cats, raccoons, squirrels, and possums. the raccoons, so far as i know, are not in our yard, but the others are. fat, small possums, neat and petite, with long slender tails and small pink feet.

wildlife. the wildlife in the picture above i drew while at dave’s stagecoach. the stagecoach and i go way back. thursday night music on the jukebox, pitcher after pitcher of beer. gin rickies. the best bloody mary in kansas city. (oh, yeah. have john make it for you.)

but i am so tired of drinking. we went out with some friends, and i cheerfully advised the bartender that i was the designated driver, which some of you will find funny. so i sat there and drank cokes for four hours while i was steadily ignored by one friend, who got drunker and drunker and less coherent until at the evening’s uneasy peak, informed me that they did not own me, and that i smelled like onions.

“what the fuck?” says the cat. and i can’t blame him. mortimer easter, eternal cynic, wise guy, indifferent to man and beast alike.

“what the fuck?”

so i say, again, that: many long and weary years i hung out at the stagecoach, and now i know, from the vantage of someone still quite sober at midnight: i looked like a jackass during every minute of every hour i spent there.