Today I ran out to the closest mini mart by my building to get a snack on my break from work. I try to get out of the building at least twice a day so I don’t get the Office Madness. There is a mini mart half a block closer than the one I usually go to but I hate going there because it smells fucking horrible. Most of the stock there looks like it has been sitting on the shelf for around fifteen years. Luckily there is another, slightly more reputable mini mart right around the corner from it. How they both survive I couldn’t tell you. From state worker patronage I guess. I call them Sketch Marts because, well, they are sketchy and usually look like someone’s dirty apartment. I think I stole that term from my friend Vanessa, but it works so I’m keeping it. Anyway, the point of this post is:

Sometimes I write stupid little songs about what I’m doing while I’m doing it. I don’t know why, it’s just what I do. Sometimes I get a song idea out of it, like this. Cue 15 tracked power pop guitars (in G) complete with vocal harmonies and five beat snare flam/bass pedal hit start:

I’m goin to a Sketch Mart

Around the corner from a Sketch Mart

That’s where I’m goin for a Pop Tart

I’m gonna get it for me

There’s a Sketch Mart

Around the corner from the Sketch Mart

I like this one and here’s the best part

It doesn’t smell like pee

That where they sell all of the

Jolts, gummi bears and oreos

Ketchup squirt bottles and panty hose

Cookies and juice and snacks to grab

While the clerk is dispatching taxicabs

They got pills and nuts and candy bars

Empty salt shakers and tall Rockstars

Hookah pipes and packs of smokes

Do you need anything because I’m gonna go

Out to the Sketch mart

Around the corner from a Sketch Mart

Next to the Subway and the hotdog cart

It’s the closest one

Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Sketch Mart

I’m gonna run out to the Sketch Mart

Around the corner from the Sketch Mart

Cuz I don’t like the other Sketch Mart

Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah

SKETCH MART!

(two signature end notes with snare/tom bomb drop)

Yeah, so I’ve been listening to the Copyrights a leeeetle too much today, no?

So Long, Stink-year!

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It’s been a long year, and a good year, and a bad year. 2009 started out crappy. I was still going batshit crazy over the May 2008 death of my younger sister. My craziness, and hackneyed attempts to deal with the grief almost ended in losing my girlfriend and my band. The girl was actually lost, and regained, and married. The band, well, I managed to barely avert my destruction of that, but only by mere inches and a lot of tongue biting. Don’t even ask me about 2008 because I really don’t want to think about it ever again. 2009, I might discuss, but I’m not eager to start right now. Best to let time slide by for a better long distance look. I’m ready to move on to different things and ways of thinking.

2009 was weird. I lost my job. Actually I didn’t really lose it, I mean I knew where it was, but they weren’t calling to give me any hours and actually told me to go on unemployment, which I did. It was weird, getting paid what amounted to minimum wage and not actually have to work a crappy job. You would think I got a lot done and accomplished many great things. Nope. I pretty much wasted all of that time. Apparently I need to be oppressed by at least 20 hours of work a week in order to get anything done. Sad, but true. I’ve written some of my best songs at work, when I’m supposed to be working.

In November, after applying for 120 state jobs, I finally got one. Now I work 40 hours a week, have all kinds of crazy medical benefits and many paid holidays. We shall see how long this lasts. I’m at the point where I need to make it last a good long while because I am no longer 23 and I am rapidly running out of teeth. I have to actually start taking care of myself and repairing the self destruction I wrought in the past. Fun. I know I can make it work, it just kinda sucks that I have to. Childhood, after 40 years, is finally over. Time to be responsible for myself. Ah well, couldn’t last forever.