LTDL--I Hope This Has Been Helpful

If you are flying internationally, avoid using an American-based arlines. They are getting too firm on their policies, all of which continually involve cutting back on service and adding more and more fees. European airlines tend to be more human. You have been warned.
I’m going to be spending a lot of money on flying I guess. If I want to see r at Christmas and pick him up and fly him back for the summer, that’s three tickets a year. I would like to even visit him in the spring if I could. My first tickets here were not paid for by me, as someone had a fanciful interest in my going.
That person has no idea of the economics that were involved in its impetus. I spent a lot of my own money is the short version, but also I didn’t want to come here to Arizona and leave Ricky.
I built a home with V in the first nine or so years of our marriage. The apartment itself and the damned furniture for it that took any excess money we had. I never had money in my pocket, and had to ask for any or steal from her purse. It seemed like everything was always breaking, too.
My struggle with our finances was on two points: one to pay legal taxes; two to tithe—give 10% of my income to a local church. Paying legal taxes in Poland was my first goal. I didn’t see how we could expect to be prosperous and have a totally clear conscience. There is a lot of tax corruption in Poland, probably more per capita than in the US. When I insisted to V several times that we pay legal taxes on our business, she became so bothered and adamant about it that I had to give in and let her do it her way. The marriage was more important. Her reasoning was that everyone cheats and that the amounts of taxes are unjustly high, that all politicians are corrupt, etc. My previous employers in Poland didn’t pay proper tax.
Tithing was the second battle. She was more upset by that idea. Walked around the city crying about the prospect of it, she claimed. I gave in on that one, too. I got around it by letting people of my church attend free. When I did that it seemed like things stopped breaking. But I wanted to tithe, thinking it would make things even better.
When I took the money onto my own, I began to give what I wanted to the thing I supported, church. My church was not a rich church and out of what little they had, they gave some to ministries in poorer countries. God’s kingdom costs money to run. I helped fund it.
I also spent on myself for once. A coffee roaster, the steel guitar, books, CDs, subscriptions to a newspaper, a beer keg, etc. Four things were long on my prayer list: cheddar cheese (hard to find and expensive in Poland—they have about a million types of cheese there, but they are all white and mild and similar—I don’t know why they give them different names.), maple syrup (maple syrup is actually cheaper in Poland), good coffee and beer. If I could get those and a newspaper, I was happy.
My business took a nose dive. You find me in Arizona, where those things are easy to get. A friend who helped encouraged me in writing asked me whether I gave up on the idea of tithing. I guess the jury is still out on that idea. But I can tell you I don’t feel as much faith in the idea as I once did (without saying whether I actually did tithe.)
Tomorrow I go to Poland and I guess I haven’t said yet that I have mixed feelings about it. I look forward to seeing r in the biggest way, of course—in fact I’m afraid I may want to stay. The other problem is I will be staying in my old apartment. I think you can imagine why that won’t be easy.
Happy reading. I’ll post from there if I can.

I did. You just read it.

SGFE--Appendecies, index, afteword

That would be a great way to end my blog altogether, but here is why I write, according to notes I made to myself after I read that. I write to/for:

Get read by people.
Help others w/ the same sort of stuff I’m going through.
Work through my problems.
Break into writing as a profession, at least part-time.
I like writing.

But maybe I’m done. Nobody has read this except people to whom I referred it. And they didn’t follow or ask for more. No one was helped that I know of. I worked through my problems. But what can I write? I have abt 45 min. per day and don’t want to read and don’t need to prepare lessons. I studied English in college so I could become a writer. I knew I could also do teaching as a back up, knowing writing is difficult to get into as a profession. And I like writing even if you never read it. You know what my first writing idea was? Learning and Teaching Dead Languages. I think I’ll start that next.

SGFE--It's Beautiful, Man

This is eleven. There’s a new steel guitar book on the Market! It’s called Hal Leonard’s Lap Steel Guitar Method. I’m sinking all my hopes into it, even tho I ain’t seen it yet. That way I’d be off the hook of trying to provide you a substitute. I asked my mom to order it when she goes to Barnes and Noble next.
My legs and arms sometimes feel numb, like now. I have high cholesterol and wonder if that has anything to do with it. I get my healthcare through the VA hospital, and they have recently sent me cholesterol-lowering medicine. Mine is almost always around 250. I love fast food, cheese and everthing that is on that level of cuisine. I been eating a lot of Mexican fast food at Filiberto’s ‘cause I have so little time to eat and want to have eaten by the time I get home so I can have one beer before I go to bed. Also McDonald’s breakfasts have been being had by me.
Now I’m going to end this, pick it up next week and find some way to tie in this with that. I always do that.
I still get those pangs of not being w/ r.
There, I have already started the finish of this entry.

Last weekend I apartment sat for Steve, while he took his roommate to San Diego for a regatta. It was a nice weekend except for Saturday. That day I spent abt six hours looking at things I shouldn’t have. Oh well.
I’m terribly busy. But that’s good, I guess. I’m making money.
Everything I see reminds me of r. Maybe seeing parents w/ kids is the worst thing. But seeing any kid—even a teenager—makes me think of Ricky and being with him and fathering him. I miss teaching him things and explaining things and sharing things. The only picture I display of him is one of him sleeping. After a long half day of playing and just being a kid and fighting for his candy or whatever it is he wants, he sometimes—hopefully—conks out. That’s why I like that picture—it represents a day with him, not just a moment—even though it may just be of a spoiled kid sleeping.

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to stay here w/o r. The Phoenix area—which I feel is my hometown, even though I was born in San Jose, CA—is great to live in. I like the relatively clean air. Most days in Poland are one big cloud. I like the food in the supermarkets and restaurants. The big ones are open all night and have almost every foodstuff or ingredient I could ever want and could not get in Poland. Did I tell you I’d discovered Thai food? And I love the dirty little taco shops which make me spend too much money, get late home from work and raise my cholesterol. I like the book stores. I like the New York Times. I like how everything here is carpeted, air conditioned, spacious, clean and well-lit. I like the prices, availability and service. I like being w/ my family and if it weren’t for their support of me splitting from V, I have no idea what I would do or where I would be. I like spending time w/ Steve, whether watching questionable TV at his apartment or hanging out in restaurants talking and sometimes reading, where they have a dollar menu, free drink refills and lots of free tables. I love the warm weather here: all of my minor ailments are doing better—my gastritis, my right foot arch problem, my tennis elbow, my arthritic wrist. I like my job. I love learning abt Hispanic culture, which most of my students represent. I like people watching on the train. In Poland people are regular and predictable and less outstanding. A grandma is a grandma. A college kid is a college kid. You know who she is and what she does in her free time. The Poles would say that’s unfair thing to say, because they are all different. True, but I am talking abt general tendencies here. I like the public transportation, which is where I people watch—it’s clean and the drivers are usually friendly talkative and helpful. I like everything here. I like the TV. I like NPR and listen a couple of hours per day.
But I am going back to Poland in Dec. for two weeks. I ain’t sure it’ll be enough, though. I wrote above abt the things I miss connected w/ r and fathering him. Those bite me several times a day. I hain’t bought my return ticket yet and Mom says I should. I have a ticket to Poland, which is the return part of my journey here, but I am just now getting ahead on money.
I don’t know if I want to be a high school teacher either; I don’t feel it in my bones. That don’t mean it is not the right thing to do, and I am going ahead w/ it. I just don’t know if I want to do it.

Now that I have written you abt how I feel and time has passed, I may be able to accept not moving back to Poland. What the fuck? Can I leave my kid alone? I mean can I leave him alone until he’s twelve, when we (or is it just I?) plan to move him to the States to live w/ me?
I just listened to some recordings of him on my phone. Here is a transcript:

Me: Say it.
R: Eh, A eye on your head!
Me: Can you say anything else for Uncle Steve?
R: Yeah
M: What?
R: You tell something him.
Me: Uh, mustard all over your face!
R: He didn’t hear you.
Me: (laughing) Well he’s gonna when I play it. Anything else? Say bye bye Uncle Steve.
R: Bye bye.
Me: See you next year maybe.
R: Unintelligible
Me: (as he grabs at the phone) Oh no no no.

Me: Go.
R: Ok.
Me: Say it.
R: A refridgerator on your head! He didn’t hear me.
Me: Well, I have to play it for him later.


Me: Ok say sth
R: Wheels
Me: What else you gonna say?
R: eh…
Me: How about Now I lay me…
R: Now I lay me…
Me: down to sleep…
R: down to sleep house…
Me: I pray the Lord…
R: I pray the Lord house…
Me: My soul to keep.
R: My soul to keep house.
Me: Jesus watch me through the night.
R: Jesus watch me through the night balcony.
Me: And wake me with the morning light.
R: And wake me with the morning light house.

I used to pray w/ r every night that I could. Most nights it was a joke w/ him, like above when he would add a word, usually “house” to every line. But every third or fourth night, he would pray sth serious. That was beautiful.

SGFE---Beer o' clock

Julia and Julia made me miss cooking, too. There in Poland I had a well-set up kitchen. I brewed beer and rootbeer, made cheese, bread, pancakes and homemade sausage, and over the years made things like fig newtons, mustard, chocolate peanut butter cups, “Snickers,” salsa, guacamole, flour toritialls, corn tortillas, “Cinnabons,” orange marmalade, etc. I also made fruitcake yearly, and I made a bouche de Noel each year and put a picture of it in my journal. Oh, those long winter nights when I’d put on Jim Lauderdale or Songs in the Key of Springfield or A Charlie Brown Christmas and whip something fun up. The whole kitchen would be a mess by the time I finished, because I use the time when things are cooking to prepare the next steps of a recipe, not to mention interruptions. But by the time I would go to bed, it was clean and in order. Ricky recently requested muffins, so I had to email V my recipe.
I don’t know what else I can write about that I miss in Poland, unless it is connected with Ricky. We had a nice apartment. And, of course I miss my friends Luke Newrok and Andy Tchibo. I had a good church there, too, conservative in theology but liberal in practice, where the people really cared about me. R would go there with me. V didn’t go but stayed home and did Christian Yoga and watched breakfast shows. She went to Catholic church once every couple of months. On cold days I took him to church by sled, pulling him behind me. There was no Sunday school, so we would go upstairs and play with toys. When the weather was warm enough, we’d go outside. We’d fellowship and the happy throng—Andy and his crew and us and whoever else—would wander back home, where I’d usually make waffles.

Right now I want nothing more than to have several hours of rest and drink several beers, followed up by a lazy morning. I don’t want sleep so much, though I suppose I am not getting enough; I want rest. I have been subbing for sick teachers at my school, and consequently have to come right home and go right to bed and get a minimum of sleep starting at an hour that is much earlier than normal for me. I take naps, which helps. Now I have a cold myself.
That sort of routine of the evening and morning make life for me. After a day of teaching, I get off the bus at abt ten o seven and shop if I need sth, or I just go straight home. When I get home and start preparing my dinner, the theme of Family Guy starts playing in my head. I eat or take my dinner to the living room for two episodes of the show. At midnight I have beer—at this time black and tans: Guiness on top of Bass. (A barkeep in London once warned me not to order one if in Ireland.) Also at that time the good tv is pretty much over and I should turn it off and blog and play guitar instead of waste my time watching news about celebrities’ bikinis and the like.
If I really get into the blog, I’ll have a third beer, but I usually will have played steel by then. I now know all of Cold, Cold Heart.
I hit the shower at abt one a.m. and get in bed at abt two or two-thirty. I would go later if I was in my own place. Right before bed I read for abt five or ten minutes.
A writer once said that a successful day depends on a leisurely breakfast. I agree. Coffee—four cups—and a good newspaper with an international view (NY Times, Gauridian, etc. are ideal.
I don’t really turn on until the afternoon, which is when I’m ready to operate at full tilt.
Even when I worked as a machinist and got up at 4:45 every day for years, I still operated like a night owl who was trying to go to bed early and never really got into a good habit. Early to bed, early to rise saps life if you ax me. Some of the most self-righteous people I have ever met regarding jobs and sleep hours are farmers.
But it’s really nice to have money again, for the first time in three or four months. Steve no longer has to buy all my meals when we go out. I can drink better beer (I still want to homebrew—waiting for my own place. I just wish I had time to enjoy life. But the three-day weekend is coming—I only work Monday thru Thursday.
Thursday five o five. Beer: 30 is almost here.

SGFE--Table of Contents

Steel Guitar for Regular People Installments

1 Why buy this book, introduction, preface and thanks
2 Selecting a guitar and other necessary equipment
3 From Hawaii to Nashville: History of the steel guitar
4 Some simple licks to encourage you and some warm-ups you should practice every day (or so)
5 A bunch of tabulature songs
6 How to read music for the steel guitarist
7 A bunch a real songs
8 Faking it
9 Sharing it
10 The greats
11 Resources

SGFE--Shrink This

Now I have said what this blog is all about. Here’s what’s going on now. Everything is good here in my new station in life except being away from Ricky. Background: I lived in Poland with my wife for ten years before coming here. That ain’t really what I wants to write abt. What I want to write abt is Chuck, the stepdad. You may have read the letter I sent to him, as copied into my blog a few entries back. He never wrote me back. Can you believe it? I guess I’ll have to ask him abt it when I get a chance. He doesn’t want me around, I know. I am very well-received here by my family, except by him. My mom is very helpful and understanding in my international breakup situation, but he ain’t. The rest of my family and my friends are very good too. Except him. I just want to have a good relationship with him, that’s all. It could be jealousy—I don’t know. When my mom’s sister was breaking up with her husband, she came to live with them, too, and he resented it. He dotes on my mom. She doesn’t like it.

I’m listening to Chris Wall’s Just Another Place. It’s difficult to listen to that album, because it’s the one I used to listen to when I took Ricky out to the playground. That’s another painful memory. I miss fathering as much as I miss him. He told me on Skype that he wants to play with me. When he asked me why I can’t meet him at our church in Poland, I said that it’s because I have to work in Arizona and it’s easier to find doctors here. Those are good reasons, but not the whole truth. I can’t tell him that his mom doesn’t like me or love me and was becoming violent.
I was turning over and over in my sleep today how I didn’t feel like getting out of bed to catch the bus to catch my flight on the day I left. But I was already packed, and she would become hysterical if I didn’t. She becomes hysterical over small things too—it’s just worse when it’s a big thing.
R received the package I sent him today: two books (a Spongebob one and a tractor one), Starburst candies, Popcorn flavored jelly beans (which he didn’t like), some brown sugar, a cup and kids’ meals Yo Gabba Gabba! toys (from another show he watched while here with me).
He says he wants to talk to me when he gets home from school, which is 6 a.m. my time. He doesn’t talk or even stay at the computer when I call him at 8-9 p.m. his time. But I don’t know if that’s just what he’s saying now, I’ll have to see.
I’m reluctant to make comma splices like the one above, but I guess it is acceptable since it’s short. I don’t give a rip about she don’t though. Weird. Because I know it’s she doesn’t. A preposition is something you should never end a sentence with. Hey, my machine didn’t correct that sentence. Just checking. It corrected me on façade a few installments back though. But I recorrected it to facade. Sentence fragments? No problem for me. By the way, in British English titles of books, shows, songs, etc. are not underlined or italicized, so I shan’t be doing either henceforth, and certainly not both.
Blogging is better than journaling, which I also do, but I can’t tell you why. Maybe because there is the outside chance that I’ll get a reader. I used to say that journaling was almost like seeing a psychologist. Blogging is like seeing a couple of them. I need them right now.

SGFE--Devil in the Details

I talked to Ricky on Skype today. I axed him if he still had the Fisher-Price toy called Warren Waters. Before we went to Az together, he was axing me for “a robot on a motorcycle,” and I really had no idea what it meant. Sth like The Terminator cop? A new toy I ain’t seen yet?
Well, when we got to Az, “Uncle” Steve had a gift waiting for him—Warren Waters, who looks like the Terminator in something like a space suit, on a quad. And it magically fit the bill--Steve had more or less bought it over another on a whim, uncertain that Ricky would like it and if he had made a good choice. Steve presented it and axed Ricky if he wanted it or if he should give it to sbdy else. He didn’t say anything, just pointed to his chest. That was his first communication w/ Steve; as he’s shy and kind of slow to warm up to and talk to new people. You couldn’t get that toy away from Ricky, and I was in a real panic when I started packing a month later and couldn’t find it immediately.
I been watching the show Hoarders on TV on Saturdays, my TV day. It’s about people with OCD who hoard things obsessively—food, animals, trash, whatever. The rooms in their homes are essentially inaccessible, not to mention unsafe and unsanitary. My own anxiety is high, even though talking to r on Skype helps. Maybe it has sth to do w/ being in a new sitchiashken. My first anxiety attack occurred in Midland, Tx, on the evening when my family had just moved there. I was fifteen. I was high as a kite on some pot my brother-in-law had shared with me and went out for a walk and got lost. Ever since then I have suffered with anxiety.
My anxiety takes different forms over the years. It started in sleeplessness due to thinking if I relaxed my heart would stop. When I was in the Navy it briefly morphed into thinking I had to say things I didn’t want to say to people; when I got out of the Navy I went thru a hand-washing phase. After I dropped out of grad school, I went through a long period of struggling with wanting to (or thinking I wanted to) give my life to Satan. Now my anxiety tends toward the bizarre impulses. I can’t really go into what my thoughts are like but look up the site bizarrethoughts.psych.org 2 see the kinds of bizarre kinds of things people can get completely obsessed on thinking they want to do.
Vie is now suing me for child support, and maybe I’m having more anxiety because of that, too. I been married ten years and I can tell you my marriage is the one area of my life where I have had the most difficulty finding coping tools. When she talks to me or writes to me and starts in abt my fault and her necessary reaction, I instinctively start fighting back but really have always felt that none of my words are the right thing to say. Abt half the time I mange to keep my mouth shut and reply later if sth sticks with me. On more than one occasion V threw things (sometimes at me) and pushed me and yelled at me or beat on me and backed me into a corner. I knew I could floor her with one punch and when I noticed myself making a fist involuntarily, I knew that was not good.

//////////////

If you have your guitar now, the best thing to get started playing a few licks is to go online—you tube, etc.—and look for some vids of steel guitar. Practice them and you will immediately get some satisfaction. Also practice dampening the notes after you have played them--with the edge of your hand is best. Buying a book to help you is a whole other story—the reason you are reading this is because there aren’t any good generally-available instructional books out there on your instrument of choice.

SGFE--Remove All Jewelry

I took my wedding band off three weeks ago and still miss it, like my finger is naked, though that feeling is diminishing. I guess I took it off to hasten the process of divorce. If a woman sees me ringless and is interested, and I am interested, I would more quickly finalize the process, or so I think. But in Poland they wear their wedding rings on the right hand. So IF I wore it here, chicks might not even know that I was married. Maybe I should get dressed.
I was planning on going square dancing, too. That was one of the things I really wanted to do when I couldn’t do it overseas. I also watched Star Trek, the original series while overseas, sth I would never do while Stateside. I don’t know what kind of people I’d meet at a square dance, and maybe it would be awkward. When my dad was going through his first divorce, from my mom, he went to live with his parents too, and so did my mom with her parents. My dad’s parents, Church of Christ people, told him he couldn’t stay there if he was going to dance. But when he was on his own, he took it up w/ his new wife and they enjoyed it for a few years. In the Church of Christ, smoking and drinking weren’t allowed at all, but three of my grandparents’ four kids were alcoholics and all four were smokers. It didn’t take.
I been thinking abt how much I drink—usually two or three beers, exactly, every night. When I say two or three, I really mean that. It is not a phrase I use to hide a larger number. I guess I’m telling on myself. I used to homebrew, so I could produce great low-alcohol ales, but now I can’t do that and am consequently consuming more alcohol. I think even if I drink low alc stuff it affects my memory, but I can’t say no to it.
I will eventually get set up to homebrew again, as I suppose it is better for me and my growing waistline.
But I guess I didn’t tell you that as far as getting my own place goes, I only have abt one month to do it, and right now I have zero means of doing that.
Here’s a poem I wrote a couple of months ago about the frustrating search for a job.

The Psalm

Does he really care
When you got no job or
Income, have been giving
Everything to him?

Does he give two hoots
And a holler
Abt anything more’n
Food & clothing, with
With which we must be content?

What abt ale?
A good dark French roast?
The decadent snack?

WWJD? It’s a hypothetical
Question and has no real answer

He had no fierce wife
But had his Judas,
The pilfering prick.
Imagine what a satisfying
Relationship that was

It’s enough just to
Be like him—that’s
The answer to every
Situation he’s never been
in but you are.

I guess I have to pull
This psalm out of
Its similar tailspin and say
It’ll all work out.

After all they wasted nard,
Didn’t they?

Steve, who has a published essay and takes poetry writing classes says it needs tightening up. I wasn’t thinking abt jobs when I quoted me, but rather a place to stay.
Job-wise, I went to a public-school teacher certification orientation meeting today, and it looks good to go for that. Because I am fifty, I have my own personal counselor and can apply for a scholarship. Because I have expertise in two areas—teaching ESL and literature—I can sell myself as a teacher in residence and get work soon, as I am getting my ed. reqs out of the way. So that psalm may have to now be used to think abt a place to live.
I picked up my wedding band and put it on briefly and took it off again. I’m feeling less and less naked.

SGFE--Stepdad Voice

I got a wireless router and now can go online and talk to and look at my son. It’s almost like meeting with him, really helps w/ the feelings of anxiety and the vague desire to hop on a plane to Poland. He just sits in front of the camera and plays mostly, and we talk too. The first time was 90 min. He was building things with scrubber sponges and asking me to count the sponges. Everything he built he subsequently proclaimed to have exploded. Three sponges made a car; two made a bridge, etc.

His mom—Vie—is furious that I sent her some links to computer games for r:

Thank you for ruining my weekend because of those games. We were doing fine without your suggestions for the time being. Ricky was watching dvds and I could work on computer with my promotion paperwork which I ve got only a week to finish and during the week days I can do hardly anything. There is no peace at home: crying, screaming and frustration at home even being overseas you can ruin everything and don't talk to ricky about you coming for Christmas if you are not sure for 100% because the kid doesn't hear the word "maybe" this way you do harm to him and yourself if it appears that you can't come and at the end somehow everything will be my fault.Please first ask me without Ricky hearing about things...

Stepdad brought me up short again. He is going to Poland himself for two weeks to help a local church with its addiction recovery program. I wished him a safe trip and told him to say hello to Poland for me.

“You don’t miss anything from there, do you?” “Sure, I do,” I replied. “Like what?” “A place of my own.” “You can get that anywhere,” he wished. “I miss my son.” “Of course. That’s to be expected.” “But you never really got into the people and the culture there.”

I don’t know what I said but fumed on the bus and couldn’t get anything written to you. So I had to send him this email:

Chuck, That kind of hurt my feelings when you said that I never really got into the people and culture of Poland. I feel that you think I must have arranged to leave there because I was fed up with the place. It needs to be said over and over that I tried to stay. It also needs to be said that I do speak Polish. It is a difficult language to acquire (category 4 of 5 in difficulty for English speakers), but I regularly did and my Polish wife, despite her early promise, would not usually help me at doctors’ or dentists’ offices, stores, businesses, etc., and I got by. As far as integrating fully into Polish culture goes—no, I chose to retain my Americanness. I was an ambassador of my culture and language there, and think I did pretty well at it. Viola’s final complaint was my lack of use of Polish in the classroom—which really went against my training as a teacher.

I also feel that it’s not quite right to say that I don’t miss anything from there. I miss my great students, my great friends, long winter nights inside a warm home, a change of seasons, my church family, and some things that Europe just does better than America. There’s no place like home (here) though and it’s good to be here, except for being away from Ricky.

I feel like there is a lot unsaid between us and I don’t like that. I’m sorry that I’m not finding the job you want me to and will try to listen to any suggestions you have and hope that you will communicate that to me. I am still applying for jobs as I become aware of them, and in the mean time I am trying to get subbing going. I pray that you have a fruitful time in a place I wish I could visit with you.

Your stepson, Rick

Well, dear reader, at least you can see that I said what needed to be said. In personal encounters, I never seem to say all I want in any attempt at communication. I read in Psychology Today once that that is the way it is w/ everyone. But at least I did say those things. I had the huevos. Thank you, O Communicator. One down, a lifetime’s worth of relationships to go.

SGFE--Getting Started and Experimenting

Word. It has been a while since I talked to you.

I’ve been playing a lot more steel guitar. By now, since you may have started reading this blog because you are learning steel guitar, you may be wondering how to get started. That would really be funny, because anyone who was looking for such information here would probably have given up long ago. But here is some advice for starters.

I would buy a simple instrument to get started if I were you. I bought mine on Amazon for a mere $79, including shipping. It’s a Rogue EA-9. It has six strings and it’s a lovely deep metallic blue. But you will need a slide and fingerpicks too, the kind that you put onto your fingers. Metal ones are best—a steel guitar is an electrified instrument which depends on amplification and definite plucking. I have a plastic thumb pick, metal on my index and middle fingers, which do most of the plucking; and for some songs I have to put a plastic one on my ring finger.

You must have a slide, though you could use your fingernails instead of the finger (and thumb) picks, but again it’s back to the noise you need to produce and whether you could stand having long fingernails.

You’ll also need a small amplifier—a 12”x12” one can be had for as little as $20.

More on the would-be-subject of this book later.

The train is really full today. I can’t even get to my backpack in order to check my notes abt what to write. I gave the address of this blog only for the second time—I’m so nervous abt what would happen if Chas or Vie seen it.

The other day I wrote some things in ink on toilet paper then flushed it. Those things had to do with what I needed prayer for: relationships and my bizarre obsessive compulsive disorder impulses. I suppose my anxiety is flaring up due to my being away from Ricky. That is the one thing in my life that cannot be easily amended. The other day—I talk to r on Mondays and Fridays—he said to me, “I’m tired of being by myself, Daddy.” That’s his way of saying he misses me. That hurt. I regularly wonder if I should just change my December return ticket to Poland to tomorrow and just get on a plane.

Being away from r is like OCD. Throughout my day, I regularly remember that I’m not with my son. It is a continually alarming thought, which asks for action but doesn't specify one. Anxiety is that way because if you have a compulsion, say, to mentally keep your heart rate up in order to ensure that it don’t slow down ‘n’ stop, you regularly catch yourself as “not working on it” and panic abt it.

I can’t give my blog address out because there is swearing (most of my friends and family are Christians) and personal names are mentioned. So no one might ever read this. Also, too, I feel like I rely on gimmickry instead of just good writing. I did the same kind o’ writin’ on one cover letter I submitted for a post as a “creative” teacher. Hell, in this job market, no one is going to read your resume seriously unless it stands out from the din:

Subj.: Job-winning cover letter?
Please consider my smoking/ resume as a radical, some times goofy English teacher. I have had to prepare all my own lit. materials and go balls to the wall in teaching (no, I would never talk like that in class.). I often die in class and demand nothing less of my students. I done ( I listen to too much country music—but don’t teach THAT kind of English) gobs of ESL teaching. In proper ESL teaching the teacher must make the students the star of the show: the teacher don’t (Co. music) have the answers—the students do. The jump from teaching ESL grammar to native-speaker grammar is easily achieved. Thanks for reading this. May I direct your eyes below?

I didn’t get that job. Screw ‘em if they can’t take a joke. May I direct your eyes above?

SGFE--All the World's a Stage

Boy am I tired. But the show must go on. Not used to working, I guess. The Arizona heat don’t help.

I have been away from here for abt 13 years, except for “vacations,” and it seems like I see more and more wierdos. The guy across from me on the train is wearing a rosary around his neck. Are those things necklaces? On the way here, I seen this 55 or so year old sun-scorched woman wearing a pink tube top on a bmx bike. I can really people watch on the train. Arizona around here is such a mix of glitz and crap. We really want to show the world that we’ve got sth, but it’s all facade. The buildings are mostly throw-away. Having said that, there is plenty of southwestern culture that needs no spaghetti. I saw another girl who was dressed in a long dress that was some sort of flower print on a black background, the upper part of the dress ending in an orangeish tube top. It was too nice looking a dress for the out of place frisbee she was carrying, but it didn't bother me. I sometimes wear cowboy boots with shorts. It's a fashion statement. The leg of a cowboy boot is decorative and therefore should be seen. I don't need earrings and studs and tatoos--if I feel I need to stand out, I just wear my standard jeans shorts and don the boots. One woman spotted it at a movie theater--I was seeing Monsters vs. Aliens w/ r. "Gross," she said.

I can’t decide on a voice, and you are not helping. I guess if I had sth good to write, I wouldn’t need gimmicks like abbreviations and contractions and ain’ts and she-don’ts, etc. My grandma, from Mississippi, talks like that, and she don’t even know she’s doing it.

The new job is ok. It’s only part-time, and I’m trying to get into public school sub teaching too. My step-father thinks I ought to be looking into other work too. So, yesterday, as HE was leaving to substitute teach, he asked me if I was done job searching for the day. I didn’t plan on searching that day, I said. I can’t really write what I feel about that. Not true. If I said, “screw him,” it wouldn’t really capture how I feel. I guess I WANT to say the worst that I could say, but it ain’t always true. I’m watching A Love Song for Bobby Long, and in that movie, people say things the way they want to say them. I guess I can’t do that, tho it’s soitenly a goal to shoot for.

Those two ¶s are all abt me finding my voice, I now see.

I finished A Love Song. I still don’t talk like Dr. House and say whatever the fuck is on my mind (laugh, as if one movie would change me). Shame. This morning, Chas (step-dad) was bringing in a computer which had been in the shop for repair. “Did they fix it,” I axed. “That’s why I was bringing it in,” he said. “Duh,” he implied, “you’re stupid, and I have other issues, some of which center around you.”

I’m supposed to be writing abt Ricky and what those wonderful days of the month with him were like. I’d better get started on ‘em. We—Steve, me and r stayed up every night until 2 am. R and I were sleeping on the fold-out couch. I would wake up first, feeling proud to be the “early bird,” at abt 10:30 am. You may think it’s criminal keeping a kid up that late, and I would not disagree. I tried to put him to bed earlier a couple of nights and he just lay there for 1 ½ hrs., requesting endless drinks, snacks and trips to the bathroom. So from then on he would stay up w/ us watching Adult Swim, me trying to edit content by changing the channel or asking him a question or commenting on sth he was doing at the controversial moments to distract him.

It was hard getting Rick to eat American food. I had this wild idea that Apple Jacks would be a no brainer for a kid’s breakfast. Wrong. Kraft Macaroni and Cheese? Try again. Coke and endless ice-cream from the well-stocked freezer? Sure!

After breakfast, it was time to go swimming, the last thing in the world I wanted to do. Swim in the direct heat of the day in Tempe, Arizona, in the hottest part of the day, 115 degrees? Not. But what are you going to do if you have no real reason not to say no? I kept it to a 20 minute minimum, though. When we started swimming, he couldn’t. While here, people kept supplying him w/ pool toys, all of which helped him. When he had a squirt gun in his hand, he would swim to me, first 10 feet, then the breadth of the pool. He would not let go of the gun, tho, and he would not swim to me w/o it. Eventually he could swim like a frog the length of the pool. When I told my step-dad abt it, he didn’t think it was much of an achievement, but I thought it was great. We often swam in the eves, too.

I prayed in that water too. I don't know why it is that when I get in water I start praying.

Aftns we would do whatever our hands or butts found to do. The first day we went to the local park and he ran around through the sprinklers—first time in his life. We watched a ton of Spongebob and Yo Gabba Gabba! We also went to Del Taco. R liked to sit on the rides even though I didn't have a quarter to operate them.

I’m not sure there is anything else to describe abt the month. Maybe I’ll think abt sth else for the next entry.

SGFE--Pleasures of the Hearth

Do you know how bored I am now? Every night it’s the same thing. I come home from being with my best friend, Steve, and get bored. Shows like King of the Hill, Family Guy, Futurama, American Dad, etc., don’t help much. I’m also trying to read The Iliad. I even played steel for about an hour. I’m working on "Cold, Cold Heart." But it would be so great to do something I’m not supposed to do. Naaaaaaa. It would be great to have Ricky here. Of course, even if I did have him here, I might want to do something naughty. Going through a divorce is like becoming single again. Remember what it was like to be single? Your time is your own. You can listen to sermons fully and unfettered. You can watch what you want on TV. You can stroll through stores without having to make snap decisions and avoid the things you don’t want your son to see so he won’t cry to have them. But being a parent is not boring, that’s for sure. You may want to drown your kids but you are not bored. And maybe that’s why my life feels boring now.

Why the flip ain’t I writing like I done in the 1st entry? Dunno. Do you like plain English better? Let me know. I am a frustrated writer, so your reading this relieves that, but you’ve got to let me know what style you like. Someone once said that everyone is either a frustrated actor, writer, dancer, or whatever. I studied literature in college because I wanted to be a writer, and the best examples of writing are to be found in literature. But I knew I would have to fall back on teaching if I wasn’t writing for money. The truth is, I write. I journal, but now only when I am on a plane somewhere—when sth is either starting or finishing. But I used to journal every day or so. I used to write a letter to a pen pal almost every day, too.

But I am starting a new job tomorrow. Exclamation point? No. I am teaching. ESL in downtown Phoenix. I will be enthusiastic enough while there, though. But the important thing is to be thankful to God for the job. When they axed me there if I was enthusiastic, I said yes, but that's not what I felt.

But I told you I was going to tell you abt the month with Ricky here. If you have never had a child, here is what that can be like.

First I have to tell you abt the flight. He is four and long out of diapers but pooped his pants on the plane. I kept smelling sth like a fart and finally pulled his waistband away from his back and saw it. To the bathroom we went. But he didn’t want the door closed--I think he can be claustrophobic--and started screaming. I left the door open, and the screaming continued, to the point of passengers complaining. So I got his pants off and his butt cleaned, and through the ordeal, we started praying and I kept telling him it was ok to be afraid and that God and Jesus were there. “I afraid,” he kept saying, “I afraid.” I hadn’t brought him any clean underwear, and he wanted his underwear back on. I had to wash them in the sink and put them back on him. When all this was done, he had begun to calm down. “See,” I said, “now it’s ok. God helped us.” “Thank you, Jesus,” he said. It beat the hell out of any quiet night I’ve had at home, that’s for sure.

More later.

Steel Guitar for Everyone--Introduction

Why buy this book? ‘Cause they ain’t nuttin’ else out there like it. I recently seen the movie Julie & Julia, ‘cause I love cookin’ and respect Julia Child as a cook and a teacher. When I saw Amy Adams as Julie Powell doing a one-year experiment to cook thru Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blog abt it, I thought, “Why the fuck can’t I do a one year experiment of some sort and write abt it?” I didn’t really think the f word; that’s just to spice this up. Then I seen a book abt another guy who wanted sth to write about and so read every word of the O flippin’ ED—21, 000 or some pages and wrote abt that, and I thought….

So I had this steel guitar what I bought on Amazon, right? I started out trying to learn it abt 1 hr/day, but it quickly degenerated down to 15 min. every few days. Every time I hear good steel guitar or read or see sbdy doing sth great on celluloid or in print, I get encouraged to pull my otherwise channel-surfing-trying-to-avoid-staring-at-the-porno/cheesecake-shows butt up to my already-set-up-and-ready-to play-got-no-real-excuse-not-to-play steel guitar. I don’t really use the lame-ass excuse that there aren’t any good materials for learning nonpedal C6 steel guitar, ‘cause I know I could do it without good materials if I really wanted to. Still, I saw a niche for a book.

Why do I have so much time to channel surf, you ask? Thanks for axing. I’m unemployed. And I have sth else in my life that there ain’t nuttin’ else like: I’m in the middle of an international divorce. My life is too flippin’ easy right now ‘cause I don’t have to parent my four-year old, Ricky. My borderline personality disorder Polish wife kicked me out, and I had to come back home to Arizona. Is she really BPD? I don’t know. Guess I have to read (or write) a book abt that. The things in life that are not described between the leaves of books are where most of us live.

By this time, this introduction has taken a decidedly undecided turn, n’est pas? I really did start out to write the unwritten bk abt learning steel guitar. But here is a third bk I ken write abt, just having stumbled onto the idea for one. Like learning steel guitar, there aren’t any books out there on international divorce. Lots o’ books on divorce, true, but none of the intl. variety. Too big a subject, I guess. Unhelped by International Divorce for Dummies, every night when I head to the shower, I start to pray ‘cause a whole day has passed and I have nothing to show for it. I’m still here and he’s back in Poland and all I can do is talk to him on the phone, though I’m trying to get a voice chat messenger thing up.

Ricky was here too. Man,was that a miracle! Let my people go, Pharaoh!—and the bitch did. See, my business in Poland crashed last year. And Vie—I’ll nickname my wife Violet that ‘cause she’s so fucking contentious—borrowed money for me to leave, tho she wouldn’t lend me money to stay. But I wasn’t going to come here to Arizona unless it was with r—lower-case letter R/r now stands for Ricky. It’s too long to describe how I wouldn’t let her buy me a ticket and her violent freak-out sessions. I’ll describe it if’n ye ax fer it. But finally she agreed for him to come w/ me for a month; then I would fly back to Pol. w/ him—he’s too young to fly alone.

We did come here, and we stayed w/ my best friend. I’ll tell you abt it next entry. Now I gotta go either surf or play steel guitar.