Two Sheets and Books From a Bin

I’m reading a book I bought at the Dollar Store. Everything’s a dollar…can you imagine? Do you suppose the Real Housewives Of Any County shop at Dollar Stores?

I’ve scored really good books at Dollar Stores and I feel bad every time I buy them. Someone put a lot of sweat, time, and probably (PROLLY as they say on Facebook and Twitter) they paid with their own money to get published.

Writers don’t get much credit for working hard. But it’s not easy to research and write for hours…even badly.

I bought a book by an author named Paula K.Grover. White Boys and River Girls was a surprisingly good read. I’ve kept it for years. There it was under a pile of books in a bin at the dollar store. Art, even bad art, hangs in places with better street cred, and probably [prolly] didn’t take as much work and time to create. Even if no one buys it before it’s marked down … it’s visible. At least visible. And it prolly fetches more than a dollar.

Now books can be high-jacked like music. Books will be like the old eight tracks someday, if they aren‘t already. They will be totally irrelevant. Only authors on best seller lists will make money. It’s very depressing. You can’t heist works of art online. Art is still tangibly displayed in homes, offices, and wherever. But books? Not so much. You have a Kindle or a Nook? You have an I-Pad? Read the book for ninety nine cents then delete it.

So I got a book last week, being the thrifty sonofabitch that I am. When I started reading it, it was about two old Portuguese men from around the 1950s who are gay. One finds the other hung in a tree and holds him like a baby after cutting him down. He reminisces about when they first met. It’s kind of a Portuguese Brokeback Mountain, if you will.

Tonight I began to read where I left off and it is about a guy who drinks too much, in present day, and lives in a poverty-stricken village in Portugal. The characters are straight out of a Tom Waits song. The guy has writer’s block so he drinks and hangs with ner-do-wells. It’s the same country, but a totally different story.

What?? Did I miss something? Did I black out? I’ve been too afraid to go back to the beginning of the book. Because if it’s NOT about two old gay men I am totally fucked. What an irony, eh? The universe is playing games with me.

So here I am, drunk with writer’s block, reading about, well…I don’t have to be repetitive here for you to get the picture.
I’ve been passing the time trying my hand at poetry. I will completely freak out if I open the above mentioned book and it’s about a drunken woman who writes poetry and lives in a strange little Portuguese town.
This whole thing seems like one of my complicated dreams. Indeed…maybe I’m not reading anything at all in real life.

I have to get stuff done. I’m going to San Francisco with flowers in my hair. I’ve never been West of West Virginia. Time goes way too fast and four overdrafts don’t help one do Christmas-type things in a shortened amount of time. Most people would never admit to such mistakes in bookkeeping. Truth is, I’m excellent at my job, but as soon as I clock out my brain shuts down. There just isn’t anything left. I’m more comfortable talking about being broke than I would be telling people that I bought a pair of shoes for a thousand dollars. Not that I ever would, even if I were rich. That's just stupid.

Yet there are people on "reality shows" who tell the whole world that they’ve spent 35,000 on a watch.  I’d be highly mortified just to climb out of a limo in public. Just sayin. The whole time I was on a cruise [that my brother paid for] a few years ago I told anyone who would listen that there was NO way I would have ever been able to go on a cruise had someone not paid for it. I didn’t want the cabin boy to think I was another rich American. I even apologized to him for getting sand on the floor and offered to help him sweep. I apologized to everyone I encountered who worked on the ship and on the islands.

Dear Lord, I’m thankful for my twelve dollar shoes and four overdrafts. I’m thankful that I can write. There. I’m thankful for six things tonight.