MQM

Oh, my God, the part of Simon's story I'm working on, right now, is so flat and boring it's putting me to sleep. Not that it takes so much for that to happen, these days. But still...

It's the beginning of the story but I feel like I'm serving up plain, non-fat yoghurt. With as much consistency. I think I'm going to dump what I have and start over, completely.

I mean, it sort of starts out okay. But so very A-B-C...

-----

Simon did not want to go. 

He had been asked to catalogue a small book collection, which he had done many times in the past for dealers and clients, but on this occasion something inside him said, Refuse the job. Do not do it. Stay home and deal with the myriad other things you have to do. So many...things. List of things. To do. Make a list to...to prove you have a list of things to do. On top of that, do not forget that every time you’ve ignored this feeling, you’ve regretted it. So do not go. 

But reality has this cold manner of dragging you, kicking and screaming, into a simple understanding...the money was needed. Simon was living on his Social Security check, and he had just repaired the brakes on his Honda CRV. That had depleted his savings below a level he was comfortable with. Of top of it, when one reaches an age where you’re considered elderly, decent employment is not easy to come by. Payment for this job would provide enough to ease his concerns. 

So he shrugged that voice off...and by the time he realized he should have listened to it, he was way past too late. 

His phone rang as he was working on a new painting...a commission for a client who'd bought two of his works. Both stark black and white acrylics on canvas, of single male figures partially dressed. The man had sent him a photograph of himself and his lover, and wanted this piece to make to join with the others in a triptych. Which Sion did...and it had turned out well enough.

Two men in an embrace, from the hips up, front three-quarter angle. One with his back to the wall. Left arm dropped to his side. His shirt open to reveal a full chest with hair. His face turned away from the other...

Whose shirt was buttoned and who was trying to kiss him. His right hand was around the man’s waist with his face lost in darkness. The shadows were sharp against the white of their shirts and bodies.

To Simon, the pose offered up an interesting tension. Want on the part of the one kissing; rejection on the part of the other. Lovely and only awaiting his signature...a dash of blood red. Like on all of his paintings.

But nowhere seemed right for it. 

If he put it on the man who was looking away, at the base of his jawline, it could look like the kissing man’s nose was bleeding. Not what he wanted. 

If he put it along his lip, it would seem as if they’d had a fight and were trying to make up. Also not his preference. 

The man against the wall had his eyes focused away from the other...and they were sad. The dash of red there would offer the same impression. Which Simon didn't think was really wanted or needed or demanded by the work.

So on his chest? No. That would be seen as a stabbing wound, and he did not want it to be linked solely to violence. 

So the call was a welcome distraction. Didn’t hurt it was Olivier Deskin, an antiquarian book dealer in London he’d known since his first year in this aspect of the book business. He had done jobs for Olivier before so it seemed an opportune way to cushion his financial situation.

But still that voice was howling, No, no, no...

The Vanishing of Owen Taylor...

 I love how this book came together. Taking a secondary character from Rape in Holding Cell 6 and making him a badass investigating the disappearance of his gay uncle. What's even more fun to me about it is...I got the name, Owen Taylor, from The Big Sleep. Because he vanished from the story.

This scene is the closest we get to seeing or knowing Owen, in the movie. He kills a man who's misusing a girl he's got a crush on, and this is his way of protecting her...but it gets him killed immediately after. We never see his body; just his feet running down some stairs.

I felt that was a disservice to him. Just a crazy kid in love with the wrong woman. So when I started thinking about my book and making it into a murder mystery, his name fit it so perfectly it's like he was calling to me. And it made the title almost evocative. 

I did not know what the story was going to be when I began writing, aside from Jake having to travel to Palm Springs to find his missing uncle. It just...it fell together in ways I'm still very proud of. And what's even better, the politics and legal aspects of the book...where a shadowy anti-gay group called PSALMS is undermining the gay community...still fit today.

I use this to remind me that if I trust the story it will come together. I'm fighting to keep from falling into my old habit of thinking what I'm doing is stupid and makes no sense, with MQM. But VoT is a very complicated mystery that does everything right and I had not planned it out the way it went.

I threw out lots of pages that went nowhere...and just need to remember that's going to happen, again, with MQM until it all falls into place. Just trust the process...

Even as you whine.,

MQM moves forward in bits...

The last of this chapter....

-------

Kenneth screamed like a little girl and danced away. His pack swirled around, shocked and confused and bleating like startled sheep. The monitors roared over to find blood spewing and the pencil wiggling in Kenneth’s bicep and saw Leon pointing at Simon, crying, “He did it! He did it!” 

Simon made himself look as shocked as he could and said, “He pushed me and my arm jerked.” 

Which carried no weight with anyone. He was hustled off to the principal as Kenneth was gently guided to the nurse, crying and wailing and certain that he was going to die. 

The principal berated Simon, viciously. Obviously, this was attempted murder and that was simply not acceptable. His parents were called in. Kenneth’s parents were called in. The police were called in. All of them milling about in the man’s already tight and tiny office, snarling and smoking and threatening a life of misery on the boy. 

Who sat impassively in the middle of it all, saying over and over, “He pushed me and my arm jerked.” 

Kenneth’s mother finally took him to a nearby hospital to be tended to as his father continued to threaten Simon with assault charges. He was close to being hauled off to juvenile detention...

Until Leon finally yelled at him, “Shut up, dumbell, he didn’t push you that hard!” 

In front of the cops. 

Who looked at him, warily, then began to question not only him but the rest of Kenneth’s pack... 

Who stupidly acknowledged they’d been ganging up on Simon by sneering about how he had refused to fight back. 

One officer rode over to the ER and questioned Kenneth. Who whined that he’d only given the little bastard (his very words) a light nudge. Effectively verifying Leon’s claim. 

And Simon’s. 

The policemen now viewed Simon’s actions as more like an accident...though one sent a sly thumbs-up to him, as if acknowledging he had acted in self-defense. Now boys being boys was giving him cover. So no charges were filed. 

Kenneth’s father howled at that decision and unbuckled his thick belt, snarling he was going to teach this little queer not to attack his son. Both cops put a harsh, loud end to that. The principal mollified the man by agreeing to suspend Simon for another two weeks. That was the most they could do. 

Again, that was not a punishment. Simon had already elected to attend an inner city school, next year, where he knew no one. So let them do their worst. 

What was even better? While he was gone, Kenneth came back with his arm bandaged like a war wound. Still king of his beasts. And he led them into taking their frustrations out on little Charles. Right under the noses of the monitors, who continued on with their boys will be boys nonsense. 

Until the kid was driven into hysterics and ran off the school grounds, headed for a nearby junkyard. 

The monitors tried to catch him but couldn’t. Nor could they find him. They had to call in the police and his parents. Everyone searched for hours. It was only his mother’s voice that made Charles come out of hiding, then he was taken home by her. 

His father stayed behind, tall, cool and well-contained as he took the principal aside. He was a lawyer and knew exactly what legal threats to make...and all very quietly.

Kenneth and his pack were shifted to a school for juvenile offenders. Problem kids. Where the teachers kept a sharp eye on them and did not hesitate to whip out a nice thick paddle to emphasize their orders. 

Including on Lorraine. 

So Simon received his first real lesson in life –- that no matter how big and strong and mean they think they are, if you sit quietly and let them yammer on they will give you a way to stop them. 

As had happened with Dillon. He thought he was the big boy. Cajoling with his pathetic deal offers and backing up his demands with threats of imprisonment. Simon remaining calm and cool and gentle with his words, refusing to let himself lose control, drove the man crazy. And gave him his counter-attack.

That Dillon had managed to talk the judge into a continuance to give him time to review the situation only proved him to be weak. And gave Simon another avenue to attack them both.

Let them spin and hiss and spit all they wanted. Simon was not willing to be bullied. 

Question was, how long would they keep going before they realized he would never back down? And to what degree would it escalate?

Quiet response, maximum damage...

More of Simon's memory...

------

Unfortunately, his time away also gave Kenneth and Leon the chance to expand their pack, which now included a girl who was on Simon’s school bus. Lorraine Ryan. Well-developed, already, and showing it off under carefully teased brown hair and carefully made up brown eyes. 

In the mornings, she got on the bus before he did and always sat in the back, but the Monday he returned, on the bus home, she made sure to get on after him. 

He’d already dealt with Kenneth and his pack during recess, twice. But he’d been smart enough to stay near the monitors so they couldn’t get too wild and crazy. And he’d refused to respond to them, in any way. Just locked eyes on Kenneth as he howled and spit words Simon didn’t really understand. 

Calling him homo...which, at the time, he thought meant homogenized milk, like it was a reference to how pale his skin was. And queer, which meant odd and he acknowledged he was not what was considered normal for a kid. It wasn’t till high school that he understood what was really being said. 

But Lorraine never said a word to him. Even after she got on the bus...and turned a ring with a large stone in it around under her right fingers...and smacked him in the head with it. 

He told her not to do that, but she just snickered and continued to the back seat where her friends held her place. 

This went on through the week, only on the ride home. The driver yelled at him, once, for snapping at her after she smacked him, but never interfered. 

Then on Friday, when she did it, he punched her in the stomach. It was actually a backhanded smack, but it was quick and hard. In response, she hit him, again, with that ring. 

He smacked her, again. 

She hit him, again. 

He didn’t get up. Didn’t say a word. Just smacked her in the stomach, again. 

By this point, there was a line of students behind her, watching, doing nothing as she hit him, again. 

He smacked her, again. 

She hit him, yet again. Harder. 

And this time, blood trailed down his face and startled the other kids. He felt it. Tasted it. Didn’t try to stop it. But he also did not move, in the slightest. So she continued to the back of the bus. 

He was let off at his stop, blood still coming down, as the driver just glared at him and shook his head. When he arrived home, his mother freaked and screamed, “What happened?” He shrugged and went to the bathroom to clean himself off. 

He stayed in his room. Sketched scenes of monsters tearing Kenneth and Leon and Lorraine apart. Limb from limb as cities burned around them. Worked up a couple dozen over the entire weekend. Kept his door locked...not that he needed to. No one ever really bothered him. Even when he came out for meals, no one ever asked him why he’d been bleeding. It’s like it had never happened.

Then came Monday morning...

He got on the bus. Saw Lorraine at the back in her usual seat. Ignoring him. He felt a smirk cross his lips. 

During first recess, he deliberately wandered away from the monitors. Waited for Kenneth and his pack to come roaring up. He stood stock still as they surrounded him. Said not a word as Kenneth and Leon both berated him in language he’d only heard his father use when he’d slammed his thumb with a hammer. 

Simon simply looked at them, unmoved...

Until Kenneth shoved him.

He hadn’t noticed Simon was holding a pencil in his hand.

A new Dixon Ticonderoga #2.

Freshly sharpened to a serious point. 

Simon jolted his hand up and rammed it into the underside of Kenneth’s arm. Hard. 

And it stuck in the muscle.

Memories grow...

I'm not sure where this will fit into Simon's story...but it's about some of his life as a teenage boy. I may have posted something about this, before, but it's now updated...

-------

When he was in eighth grade Simon found he could make a little money by sketching naked women and selling them to the boys at his school, for a dime. In the mid-Sixties, ten cents could buy a soda and candy bar. Couple packets of baseball player bubble gum with cards of players, inside, to trade. Another comic book. 

He used DC comics of Wonder Woman and Supergirl to copy from, and had an Encyclopedia Britannica to use for reference. He’d also found his father’s collection of Playboys and Penthouses in a ratty box up in the crawl space over the back of the garage. They provided pretty photos of nude females to verify how they looked without clothing. 

He didn’t remember what started him doing it, and he never broadcast his offerings, but word got around and he began to make some money off it. His best seller was of a woman standing, holding her hair up. He’d copied her off a Wonder Woman comic. She was full-bodied, legs spread, completely naked...and he had added big round breasts and a dark muff. He sold five copies in one week.

Then a boy he’d always tried to avoid bought one. His name was Kenneth Welchel, who was dark of hair and tan of skin to the point he looked Latino. But his eyes were clear blue, and at a school picnic Simon had overheard his parents talk about being English or Welsh or something, as he was wandering by. Some grandparent had been researching the family tree. They were adamant about not being Mexican. He'd paid little attention because he was more interested in another helping of potato salad and a third RC Cola, on ice. 

Kenneth already looked more adult than the other boys, with hair on his chest and legs, and he had this way of half-smiling that was more of a smirk but surprisingly attractive. He was also something of a rabid brat and had a pack of mongrels who followed him all over the grounds and neighborhood. 

His closest buddy was Leon Smith, who was long, lean, smooth and jokey. Brown hair. A goofy grin that made him the better-looking of the two. But he was nothing unto himself. Whatever Kenneth did, Leon shadowed him.

He’d seen those two harass kids to the point of hysteria as the yard monitors merely looked on. He’d even heard one say to another, “Well...boys will be boys.” That was why he’d avoided them and they had pretty much ignored him. 

Until Kenneth bought that sketch. 

Then he told Simon if he didn’t give him half the money he made, he would turn him into the principal. 

Simon shrugged and told him to go ahead.

He'd laughed and told him to think about it. The next day he repeated the threat, backed up by Leon.

Simon shrugged them off. So...they told the principal and gave him the sketch Kenneth had bought.

Simon was hauled before the man and berated as a pornographer. His parents were called. Everyone was horrified and could not understand how he had turned out so wicked. On and on they went.

Even then, all he did was listen, and would only shrug whenever they stopped wailing long enough to ask him a question. 

He was suspended for two weeks and told if he was ever caught selling sketches like that, again, he’d be expelled. This was supposed to be a punishment, but in truth Simon hated that school. Hated the kids in their packs and the teachers who let the favored ones get away with anything they did. Hated that his art instructor criticized his work in class by sniping it's not on the level of a professional artist. Picking it apart and giving him Bs and B-minuses for any imperfection. Staying home gave him a respite. 

It also gave him time to focus on tearing Kenneth apart, in pencil and pen in a sketchbook he hid under his bed. Drawings of the little bastard being beaten or hanged or beheaded or sacrificed on an Aztec altar. Usually naked. 

Simon made the sketches look as much like Kenneth as possible. He had seen his full body in the showers after gym class. The dent in his left side from having his appendix removed. No foreskin. Light scars on his back from what were probably belts. His parents weren’t known for their even tempers. Not that such knowledge concerned Simon. It only made him happier to torture him, even more.

And sense that he was, possibly, falling in love with him. Which made no sense. Only girls fell in love with boys...

Didn't they?

A sort of cleansing...

This bit reads more like an outline for a chapter...but may also refer to another chapter that is in more detail. Or might just be a slight memory during a point in the trial where Simon flashes back to it, for a moment...

-----

Those sketches and poems saved him from despair. Selling the pamphlets under a pseudonym made him feel wickedly dangerous. Willing to gamble with his new life. And that led to him doing art work for the cover of a fellow clerk's graphic novel. Which helped him regained his destiny and center. Thanks to this, he could face the world at large.

Then Demian had found him in the mall, seven years later, and thought he could start things up, again. Simon had refused to even acknowledge him, which angered the man. He'd grabbed at Simon in the store. Tried to force him to talk with him right then and there, but the only response he had received was a ballpoint pen jabbed into his cheek. 

Well...and a warning that the next one would go into his eye, if he was seen, again. 

Demian had been with two young men, both vaguely similar to Simon in look, and they had led him away, casting hateful glares back at him.

He’d even heard one say, “Was that the asshole you told us about?” 

“Yeah,” Demian had growled. 

“What a dick.” 

“He always was.” 

The poem and sketch Simon did that night were his most violent and cruel. Under the image of a finely built young man half lying off a bed in a pose of death, boldly colored markers making the blood streaming from a wound in his chest bright and terrifying. And under it he'd written... 

Blood is coming.

Hear it flow

Close and cruel.

Unstoppable.

As furies laugh

And beg me cry.

I cannot.

It was long ago.

No midnight shrouds it

In false love.

No careful step

To soften echoes.

No prayer nor dream

To stay its spread.

The pool of crimson

Will be met

By life of one

So filled with dread.

The silence

Deep with screams

Lies where it fell

And all one knows

Is three cold words

That softly echoes

In your head...

It is done.

 

He burned it for being far too intense. Even for his anger. But at least that’s when he knew he was on the road to recovery. 

Two years later, Demian was dying. AIDs. Probably spread it to those guys, because they were no longer around and nothing was said about them. They may have already been dead, for all Simon knew. 

Or cared. 

That was something else he had to acknowledge about himself. That he was no longer willing to compromise with anyone, or care, now he had control, again. He didn’t blame people for getting AIDs, but did think it was more through abject stupidity on their part than anything else. 

Which was a harsh, unforgiving attitude, and he now was rather ashamed of it. But once it was known about that disease...to keep going out and doing what you’d always done...which not only got men infected but also helped them spread it to others...that was unconscionable.

He’d heard from one caregiver, after Demian had grown ill, that he had brought a young man who looked like Simon home, and she’d found them in bed, the next morning. And when she told the guy Demian was positive, he’d shrugged and replied, “We’re all gonna get it.” Then left. 

That may have been why Simon made certain he was there to watch Demian die. To make certain he couldn’t spread the disease any further. He don’t know. He'd just known that when the day came that Demian was no longer of this world, he would feel relief.

And he had.

Peace...maybe...

This section of MQM I've been writing got a bit scrambled as I went along. I need to go through it a few times to work on the flow of Simon's thoughts and memories. What he might want to do with himself now that he's in Houston.

He's suggested he wants to make pamphlets with his wicked poems and put them up for sale in shops and adult bookstores around the Montrose area. Do some line drawings to illustrate them. Print them on 8.5x14" paper, fold them in half and staple them. Just $1 each. Almost like a newsletter.

He may be getting the idea from TWIT...This Week In Texas...a gay weekly in that covered the gay scene in Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas. Gossip. Info. Horoscope. Semi-naked lads. The works. I seem to recall it was a freebie paid for by the ads in it. Maybe a couple of his less intense poems are printed in it...

So him wanting the ability to do it himself led me to locate a tutorial for Photoshop 1.0.7, which got going in 1990. He's been in Houston a couple years, by then, and could have seen how TWIT was pulled together. Meaning he'd need to buy a Mac II with a color monitor and a scanner. That would establish his abilities and start to build him a bit of a reputation for his work.

This all gets muddled when Demian shows up with KS, thanks to HIV, and Simon is sidetracked in caring for him. Not because he loves the man or feels sorry for him, but because he wants to watch him die. Make sure he's dead.

Once that happens, he'll leave Houston. I'm not sure why he'll wind up in the Northeastern part of the US, but once there he settles in till he retires.

Sort of like me...though I came up here for work. And have myself set up so it's hard for me to go anywhere else.

Sigh.

MQM emergence...

(Kelly Boesch)

This is coming out slowly...which is good, I guess. I had a segue into a memory that really did not belong in this part so cut it. 250 words. As a side note: Simon has severe scarring from his childhood, hidden by clothing.

And this is continuing from yesterday.

--------

It hadn’t been a slow decision. Nor contemplative. No weighing the pros and cons, or taking weeks or days to consider all the ramifications. It was simply a case of...one day Simon could not leave; the next day, he could not stay. As if a switch had been flicked in his brain from off to on, turning on a light to show him just how much he had been tolerating. 

How he’d been allowing Demian the right to use his scars as a tool of control. 

 The hit was so deep and sudden, he almost vomited from it. In the middle of the newsstand. Just froze as he was adding copies of A Hundred Years of Solitude to the rack. He honestly believed the only reason he was able to hold back was he would never let something so crass ruin a book. 

Of course, he couldn’t depart too fast or sudden. Leave by just walking away without a plan. That was not Simon’s way. He did require a bit of time to let this new belief permeate through him to the point where no matter what he did, he knew he would be all right. 

So he took Sunday through Tuesday off from the newsstand, rented a car and drove to Houston. He knew he needed a larger world in which to disappear so he could find a new path for his life. Though one still familiar enough that he wouldn’t have to learn a whole new way of dealing with the world. 

It was a massive city, Houston. Exploding skyward. Not only downtown but at a medical center and sections along freeways and around a high-end mall called the Galleria. Malls always had book stores, back then, so that was his first stop. 

He didn’t have much money, and since he was going to abandon his lease he wanted a job and living space already arranged. He found a position, straight off. Not well-paid but enough to live on. To start the following Monday. 

Now came finding a new apartment. He drove down Westheimer to the Montrose area, since he’d heard it was the gay part of town and wanted to be amongst his own kind. Not to become as one with them, but have them as a de facto buffer against the hatefulness of the world. 

Of course, he knew nothing could really keep that away from him, but being surrounded by other gay men and women was better than being out on your own with no backup. 

He found one close to a Kroger, and saw the bus was right there. He could move in straightaway. So on Tuesday he set up his utilities and phone and drove home. It was only a four hour journey.

He had to tolerate Demian using him as his whore, one more time. Doing what the man wanted and receiving nothing in return. This time it was not easy keeping his composure. This time he noticed how Demian thought it was funny that Simon did not like having friends join them in bed. This time he did not stay the night but went home after everyone was finished.

He quit his job on Friday. Gave half his furniture away to people in the complex. Put what he could in a small U-Haul truck, and mid-afternoon, Saturday, left his key on the kitchen counter and drove away. 

He told no one where he was going. Put in no forwarding address at the post office, since he had never received much mail. He did have to change banks, since this was before Texas allowed branch banking, but kept that to as minimal as possible. Made sure he emphasized no one was to know what he had done. 

He could smile at how today's word for what he had done was ghosting. Back then, it was just escaping. 

He also went celibate. Masturbating to his fantasies was more that satisfying enough. He made a few acquaintances. Neighbors. People at work. Around the mall. Found a couple of movie theaters to attend and an amazing video store from which to rent. Decided empanadas were just as good as enchiladas. And settled into an easy, simple existence. He also started drawing, again.

Just for himself, at first, but it kept him occupied...and he started to write, again.

Character detente...

Simon has held off on leaving so as to give me some background...

----------

How long had it taken Simon to get to the point where he was brave enough to publish the sketches he had done as Demian lay dying? It was more than thirty years after his death. And even then he self-published the book rather than submit it for consideration by a publisher of any kind.

He made certain everyone knew it was a very adult coloring book, not meant for children, to give it an even safer veneer. Toned down the images...making them cartoonish, almost. Not on the level of Manga or Bara or Yaoi but plain and simple and easy to color in. 

He knew he was merely a practiced artist, not a talented one. But also knew no one else would have faced the true horror of dying from AIDs in a way that was meant to denigrate the disease into something ludicrous. And approachable. And a bit obscene. 

Had he succeeded? He had no idea. He just knew that finally...finally he had been freed from the horror of that time. 

And from the hate he’d felt for Demian. 

He would say that he had a true talent for composition, setting the images into a simplicity that could indicate far more. That even extended to his paintings. Black and white images in acrylic, using a Koda-lithic style. Very stark and shadow-riven, with no mid-tones. Just a drop of deep rich red to contrast. 

He’d done a series of them...a total of thirteen that a collector in North Carolina loved and bought, which made him a bit of a name. He made more. Of course, none were as blunt or raw as those, or even the sketches in the coloring book. 

But he still built a small catalogue of prints for purchase, which gave him the ability to buy a car and pay for insurance. Granted, it was a ten year old Honda CRV, yet it had carried his canvasses to various art festivals. Got him to Barrington and back to Afton Springs, twice. 

It was twenty years old, now, and cranky. Like him. And he knew he’d drive it until it fell apart. But that was how he was. He hated to make changes unless absolutely necessary. 

That is what had made it so hard to leave Demian. Because for all the horrible things the man had done do to him, he’d continued to feel that he was important to the son-of-a-bitch. Needed. Necessary. A part of him. 

Simon had honestly believed treating him like a king would show him how much he meant. And let him stay near him. How easy it was to fall into that delusion and hand control of himself to a man whose only importance was his own comfort and joy. 

But that was the reality of his life, at that time. Simon wasn’t afraid of what Demian would do to him. He knew he’d never take him to the point of death. Demian was too selfish for that. And too stupid to do it in a way that couldn’t be traced back to him. 

Nor would the pain he caused be extreme enough to be considered anything more than an acceptable punishment. On a symbolic level. For having turned out wrong. As so many in Simon’s family had let him know more than once. 

No, he finally left because a cold, clear understanding forced its way into his mind...that he was nothing but a toy, to Demian. Not human. Just something to use. For fun. Bring in a little cash, even. On the same level as a blow-up doll. It had always been Simon there for him, never the other way around. And, eventually, he would move on to someone new and exciting, and Simon would be left adrift.

Scramble brains...

Not a great flight home. Packed plane. Sketchy WiFi. Running late so barely made my connection. But made it home, dropped off my paperwork to the office and slept for 6 hours in my bed...and loved it.

That said, I've had zero focus all day, since I woke. Managed to get some paperwork done. Expenses. That sort of stuff. Found that Avis pulled a fast one and charged me for gas when I'd filled the car up...and decided i wasn't in the mood to fight with them over $20. I may change my mind, tomorrow, but we'll see.

Did some things online...but mostly just wandered through Facebook and Xitter and Instagram, with no real direction. I tried to get back to MQM, but it just wasn't happening.

I feel like Simon is walking away from me. Like he doesn't think I'll do right by him. And he may be correct. I'm not sure I even want to write, anymore. It's become something of a job...almost a chore that I have to do out of obligation, not desire.

That may be due to my usual emotional blue period when coming down off a job...even one as quick and dirty as this. But seeing those archives of a major writer like this guy...and looking at what I've done...I feel like waste.

I'm not very creative. Little of my work is original. None of it is of any importance in the world of literature or meaning, and my vision of the world is more than a little warped. 

So...let's see how this emotional downturn plays out over the next couple days. No telling where I'll wind up...if anywhere.