It's a Tom Waits kind of evening: low and grey and hanging heavy on the floor like smoke from an arson fire. Seventeen ghosts lie on the floor and one more hangs from a bare light bulb in the ceiling. A mattress in the corner rests on a makeshift box-spring of paperback novels with the covers torn off. This town is the opposite of other towns; all the bars and clubs are open in the middle of the day and no other time. All our work is done in darkness and our celebrations are in light. Been here less than a year and I can't convince myself it should be any other way.

The town tucks in at sunrise for about 4 hours. Those that wish rise in the afternoon to cavort and laugh and frolic. The length of the festivities is not the measure, but the ferocity. These hours pass quickly and it is time again to rest. When the sun sets the town arises to industry. There are not many jobs here that a person cannot perform in low light.

Not all choose revel for their midday waking hours. Those that don't gather in crowds instead gather their thoughts. The people here are unlike any I've met before. Those who share my age have lived twice as many days; two mornings for each of my mornings and two nights for each of my nights. Mistakes are made, from minor to grave, the better part in daylight. The harm done overall is less, as I've observed, but truer, as there is no darkness to muddle the focus of passions and the intent of each flung emotion.

Poor Don Quixote. He keeps getting his ass handed to him. After a particularly sound thrashing he finds himself unable to get up and begins to recite dialogue from the books that inspired him to become a wandering knight.

I can relate to this.

I used to drink a lot. And often. It was the first year of college, after all. Not my first year of college, but someone's first year surely. There were many times where I drank too much. There were also several times when I drank waaaay too much. That I cheated death and came away with only the mildest of brain damage, I believe, was no accident.

In everyone's brain is a tiny little glass case containing a single brain cell. Etched into the glass case is "In Case of Emergency Break Glass". There is also a tiny bone hammer hanging next to it. The anatomists teach us that the smallest bones in the human body are the anvil, the hammer, and the stirrup located in the inner ear, but this tiny bone hammer is actually the smallest.

In my brain, that little bone hammer has long been worn down to the handle and tiny shards of glass are everywhere.

When I was drunk beyond all reasoning there was still this lone brain cell running around desperately trying to keep me alive. This brain cell was smart, though. It didn't try to run to the part of the brain that controls my heart, or my lungs, or tells my blood which way to flow.

It ran to my memory of the book Night by Elie Weisel. While my body was failing and I just wanted to curl up where I was and fall asleep, the emergency brain cell would send me the image of a starving Elie being forced to march through the snow while those who could not keep up were shot. I don't imagine my experience can compare to that nightmare, but it was enough to keep me from passing out long enough to make sure I was done being sick and had been able to at least keep down some water.

It is my hope that someday I will be able to draw inspiration from the suffering endured by others for something more honorable than staving off alcohol poisoning.

A boy can dream.

And then his friends burned Don Quixote's books! Jerks!


* * * * *

Google reminds me that is the birthday of Jorge Luis Borges. Love that guy. And he was a fan of Don Quixote. So there's that connection. That is cool. Books are cool.

Goodnight.

Twenty-nine years after I was born it took to finally pick up Don Quixote. Poor book has been waiting for quite a while.

I elected to read the translation by Thomas Shelton. This was a pragmatic, i.e., lazy decision as it is the only translation I have in my possession. As translations go, it is supposed to capture the spirit and energy the Spanish text despite being "less accurate."

It puzzles me that there are critics for translations. I imagine there are probably only a very few and they are very loud. These people would have to go around reading a book in the language of the author, then read a translation (probably several translations) and deem one superior. Then we all hem and haw and nod and peer at each other through our monocles.

Or I'd just say, shit, I can't read German or French or Sanskrit so even if this is the worst of all the translations it's still better than the fuck-all I would come away with if I tried to read the original text.

And that's when they took my monocle away and threw me out into the night.

In the case of Don Quixote I am at an advantage since I know Spanish. And I do like this translation because it sounds more like Spanish, even if it is in English. More to do with the phrasing and the rhythm, I suppose. Spanish is a much more fluid language than English; each sentence flows right into the next. It's not.so.damn.halt.ing.with.stop.sounds.as.English.

And it feels more natural when the characters speak, even in Don Quixote's elevated Romance language. So I'm calling this translation: good.

Now I just sit back and endure the wrath of the linguists.

I call this one "Laziest Comic Ever". The protagonist, upon finding that someone has pooped in his rock tumbler, is shouting his question to the world while gesturing off-panel at the presumably operating rock tumbler.

To be fair, I am not truly lazy. I simply can't draw a rock tumbler. No idea whatsoever. I haven't seen one or even thought of one in years. There are probably different kinds of rock tumblers, what with the natural abundance of rocks and other small hard materials that might presumably benefit from a good tumble now and again.

I'll leave that mystery to the botanists.

I am already at work on a physics-themed Laziest Comic Ever. It's that same guy again, only this time someone has pooped in his Large Hadron Collider. It's almost done but I'm having a hell of a time translating it from Swiss to English.

Maybe someone will yell "Are you sure it isn't a Higgs boson?" This yelling person will also be off-panel.

Routine again. Crippled by the glut of information again. I spent the last 15 minutes looking for a picture that matched my mood and by the time I found it I didn't even remember what my mood was. Probably had something to do with Bartleby the Scrivener.

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, Humanity!

Walking right up to the edge of the world and peering over.

When I was but a lad my family visited the Grand Canyon. It was snowing and I was wearing a red and blue jacket. One of my parents told me to be careful not to fall in. I said it would be okay; if I fell in they could just pull me out. They said they didn't have any rope. I assured them that they wouldn't need rope; all the people around could just link hands until they could reach me.

I've always been more creative than practical. Yet I do not despair. All these things that are practical now were merely creative once.

Well, maybe not, but it sounds good.

Ritual plays a painful part in this writing game. Painful to me because I abhor routine. At least I abhor being aware of routine. Maybe I don't abhor it; probably I just wanted to say "abhor". Either possibility is acceptable to me at this time.

The bath is vital. Er, the shower is vital. I'm far too big to properly relax in these Western-style bathtubs. And there's hardly any room for my Transformers toys. Oh yes, there are water-based Transformers. They just don't get seen much because they're usually float along staring wistfully at the coast or channel or fjord hoping some Decepticons come by with some evil plan involving sunbathing. (I know this feeling exquisitely well.)

The Japanese tradition would look in horror upon our toilets nestled snugly in the same room as our baths and showers. Might as well put the dining room table and the microwave in there while you're at it. Look at us; we're crazy Americans! Let's just do everything where we poop!

This reasoning makes sense, but I don't ascribe to it. Architecture that allows me to take off my pants and leave them off has my full support.

So to the shower I go. I get clean. Scrub away the lingering doubts. Try to, anyway. Then I'm ready.

It is imperative that I remain in my towel as I sit down at the computer. If I put on my nighty-time clothes there is the real and present danger of me simply walking past the computer and falling onto the bed. Being in a towel fills me with a feeling I can only assume is confidence. Also, the dampness of the towel imparts a sense of urgency; the origin of which I am hesitant to explore further.

Thus clean and clad, I can begin. Or in this case, end. It's my bedtime. Another night of dreaming and another 6 hours before I have to put on pants.

As I read over this I must apologize for the disjointedness. In my defense, I've spent the last 2 hours alternating reading the short stories of Herman Melville and watching episodes of the new season of Futurama.

Goodnight kermit!

If there was a time when I wasn't fascinated with labyrinths I do not remember it. Perhaps it began in the flimsy metal shelves of the library at my elementary school when I read all the Greek myths I could reach, or the subtle lines traced through the lives of men in the tales of Borges, or in the mazes of the children's menu at Smitty's that I traced in crayon while I waited for my breakfast of eggs. toast, and bacon carefully laid out to look like a kitty cat.

The art of the labyrinth was in the way that while moving forward, moving inward, the traveler must continue to pass very close to the path he or she had previously traversed, the obstacles they had overcome.

This was not the cathartic path of letting go. This was the constant reminder of where you've been and who you are becoming. Yes, there is a boon at the center but each step now determines what that boon will be.

Now I lie on the floor with my dogs. I scratch their backs with my toes and their tails wag sleepily. I will read a bit and then go to sleep myself. When my eyes close I can almost see the walls of my own labyrinth and in my dreams I hear the echoes of footsteps and laughter from that me not so very long ago, that self I was and still am now, just more so and more so with every fall of my foot.