From the journals:

11-9-07 (sort of)

The dull red glow of my ancient alarm clock threatens to say 1 am. Only a few hours until I open up the bakery. It isn't my bakery. It belongs to a gentleman named Lewis. I glimpsed him once, but we were not formally introduced. I doubt we could pick each other out of a police lineup.

Opening the bakery requires no baking on my part. The complex chemical reactions that turn ground wheat and live yeast into proud golden loaves of bread has taken place while I've slept. I pull out rows and rows of pastries and muffins on segregated metal pans and arrange them in a manner that a laminated piece of paper assures me is aesthetically pleasing.

I work with a girl named Jamie. I meant to speak of only Jamie.

Her voice and manner, while wholly her own, stir in me memories of Kendall. I believe Kendall no longer cares for me.

Jamie's voice on the phone sounds like Kendall's. It is a wool blanket, rough and warm. Her uneven tones strike more than my ears. A long way away, there is a time and place where I have never caused Kendall pain. Wherever that place is, that distant Guillermo hears Kendall's voice tries to call out across the possibilities that have set like concrete.

That distant Guillermo has injured hands from scrabbling against the dual barrier of time and regret.

Perhaps this, too, shall pass. I hope it is soon. Memory is vulnerable and I wish to keep some untainted. I have need of them yet.

This is my motorcycle.




I am pleased.

Sorry. Been working a lot. Days of the week have lost their traditional names and become BakeryDay, RestaurantDay, BakerestaurantDay, or WashWorkClothesDay. The weekend is a long day that starts on Friday morning and ends Monday afternoon, with a bit of sleep and more laundry sprinkled throughout.

I'm not enjoying it per se, but I'm glad I'm doing it. I'm growing closer to my independence. I am rebuilding my work ethic like a Frankenstein's monster, sewn together from dead lazy sleeping old parts of me to be shocked into life by the threat of financial ruin and the desire to understand what I am.

Calling upon friends has slowed from an already reclusive trickle to a water-torture drip. These days I spend time with people who don't know I exist and some which aren't any more lively themselves: Tolstoy, Raymond Chandler, Phillip Pullman, The Beatles, Frank Miller.

I travel the world and meet new people through my books, but not in the literal way that Gumby did. No, I mean in a metaphorical sense.

It reminds me of my youth.

I still ponder love, but not as often. It seems a distant thing and grand romantic thoughts do not stick well to a brow beaded with sweat and bread crumbs.

Akin to Kafka's hunger artist, I am learning that being alone is easy, so easy. Co-workers ask me why I'm always in such a good mood. I think I know. When I'm at work, I'm with people. All kinds of people, and they all come to me. Only for a short time, but there are lifetimes nestled in those moments. It's not enough to keep me strong, but I won't starve. I don't think I will.

I'm a voluntary pauper at the moment. I pay my bills and dump the rest into paying back my four credit cards. The two cards with the highest interest met their demise at my hands. They are almost paid off. The other two are coming along nicely.

A little under a hundred bucks in my main bank account and the rest hidden in savings fools me into frugality.

Respective to the average American, I don't have very much debt. Around 2000 smackers or so. If this nose stays pressed to the grindstone for a couple more months, even that will be gone.

I am afraid of that day.

Even now, when I make well above my minimum payments and throw some more money towards the next payment, I feel unsettled. A bill is a concrete motivation, both a carrot and a stick. When it's not dangling in front of me or striking behind me, the path blurs. Like some farmer who has been long bent over a plow and suddenly looks up to find himself far from his field in an alien land.

What next?

How can I know which way is up without something trying to push me down? Without that weight, I might just float off, and up, and away into the frozen ink of space.

I guess we'll see.

I agree with most of this.

Secret Shame time again. This song snagged my ear from a mouthwash ad on television that shows bottles swinging on vines through a jungle.

Where would mouthwash go in such a hurry?

This guy is amazing, though. I don't know who he is, but I consider him the poor man's David Bowie, or possibly the straight man's Freddie Mercury.

Meet my monkey! The daemon dealie allows people who know me (or, I guess, don't) answer a few questions. If I answered a question dishonestly, such as "Guillermo loves licorice and I responded "Strongly agree", someone else could see it and say, "Oi, Guillermo hates licorice." Their new answers may change the appearance of the daemon.

So now it's a monkey. I like the chimp. She is strong and has opposable thumbs. We're made for each other.

Meet my raccoon! She's my spirit daemon and her name is Brienne. In daemon language that translates to "furry groper." I find it appropriate.

I found it on my link hunting. It's for the movie "The Golden Compass." What's so keen is that after you get one you can ask other friends to rate you and make sure it's accurate. I like that because as the King said in The Little Prince, judging oneself is the hardest thing to do.