Sore in the Mouth

That's been my status for the past two days. It makes people giggle.

I've got a pair of wisdom teeth busting through, a cold sore, and swollen gums, in addition to what I feel pretty sure is a cavity. I spit more blood than toothpaste now. I'm eating soft things today. Making a dentist appointment soon.

I've also been extraordinarily thirsty thus far today. Weird.

*jump*

In good work news, one of the books I edited received an outstanding review in the Irish Times. Over the course of working on this book, the author and I have become really good friends. We did have a fight, where he called and said some pretty mean things, which I took, calmly. He called back later and apologized, and then took me to dinner at a fancy Indian restaurant. We've been there a couple times, and had AMAZING baby lamb chops. Which, okay, I feel a little guilty for eating. But they're so so tasty.

In addition, this particular book is also going to be reviewed in...wait for it...the New York Times Book Review! That's a big deal, man.

More later...at work, and distracted.

Motivated

Normally on Wednesdays, I figure out a reason to stay at work until around 7ish, and then I head to Lenora's Way, where Boston tends the bar. He pulls me about 3 pints, I chat with him and the general manager and the owner, along with various regulars. It's a pretty sweet ritual.

About 4 weeks back, I was drinking and reading Exiles, which is the only play that James Joyce ever published. It's solid, but sort of strange; I owe it another read. Anyway, I was talking to this guy Paul (i think paul...we drank a lot) about it. His son had just been married, and he was in a celebratory mood, buying beers and shooting the breeze.

I had swiveled back around to read further, take more cryptic notes that I hoped would come clear as the night went on, and I felt someone approach me.

"Excuse me, what are you reading?"
I showed him.
"But I'm also reading Joyce! I've just finished Portrait and I'm starting Ulysses soon."

I asked him if he'd thought of tackling Finnegans Wake when he finished, and he said he hadn't. I was a little ways into my cups for the evening, so I started telling him about Ireland and my Joyce class, and my love of the Wake. How I want a Joycean tattoo. What the Wake is really about. Why it should be read drunk and out loud. Why it isn't nonsense. It was delightful to make that connection with someone in the city.

So since then, we've brushed against each other in the bar a couple times, always discussing Joyce and drinking. It's excellent. We've been emailing this week about the opening of Ulysses, and Bloom's introduction phase. The gloriousness they incite in us, the joy. He's inspired me to re-read Ulysses. It's sort of beautiful to read that kind of a book in the city.

But since work has been slow this week, I've not really got a reason to stay in the city late enough to swing by the bar on my way home. And I have a lot of reasons to go home:

-the third roommate is moving out of my two bedroom apartment, which means things will slowly start to trend back to being organized
-the weather's started to turn, so I need to move my clothes around. Put the summer things in storage and get all my sweaters out.
-I was out last night pretty late. Was up super late Monday night as well.
-I have delicious beers in my fridge.
-I need to watch my Netflix movie. And update my queue.
-I need to spend some time on my WoW priest. My friends I'm leveling with are about 10-12 levels ahead of me.
-I need to do some work on my resume. Looking to bust out of here sooner rather than later.
-I need to make some phone calls and appointments. One for the girly doctor, one for the dentist, and one for the vet to do some altering on my kitties. Getting a little too frisky, and it was part of the adoption deal.
-Call the landlord to see if we can get a walk-through of our apartment, and sign a new lease for next year.

So maybe I'll do some of that, and then make a to-do list for real, because L'abri just called and wants to get drinks.

*wink*

Keeping my promise

Another day, another post.

Things are painfully slow at work for me right now, as Bossman is out observing the holiday. We didn't have much to do before he left, and all my manuscripts are in production, so I've got nothing to edit. Besides posting here, I'm looking at transferring the company emails from dreamhost to gmail, and reading a couple mediocre proposals. One on traveling, one on mixed martial arts. Neither things I'm going to recommend we publish.

I guess I'll spend tomorrow writing some copy. Sigh. My glamorous life.

I went to a poetry reading last night at the KGB Bar. Listened to Nicole Cooley and Kimiko Hahn, who were both pretty wonderful.

Nicole's done a lot of poems about flooding. Her last collection, Breach, was about Hurricane Katrina, and she's been working on a project called The Flood Notebooks about the flooding that happened in the Midwest this summer. I like wet poems, but sometimes listening to a person who keeps building on one thing over and over, it feels a little like they're capitalizing on disaster. And I know that's not what she was doing...she was born and raised in New Orleans, her parents stayed there while the storm hit. I can't imagine the choking terror she must have felt the whole time, not knowing if they were okay. Of course there's a lot running through her, a lot she feels the need to expel in her writing. Maybe it was just the sheer force of the pieces, the number of them that sort of overwhelmed me. I felt that way the first time I read Nick Flynn's Some Ether as well. It's a book of poems about his mother's drug problem and suicide, and after a while, I didn't feel like there was punch left in his poems. I didn't care about the subject and I wasn't interested, even though I recognized that it was horrible.

Kimiko, however, totally pushed my pleasure buttons. She's been drawing materials from the New York Times science section, really paying attention to language and exotic-sounding words. She read some poems about bugs and fungus and stars and family, and they were sweet and funny and digging. I felt good after listening to her. The final poem she read was called "Maude" and I cannot find it online. It was about teaching her daughter to go into astronomy, so she could name a planet after her mother.

Listening to them read really made me feel good about writing. I've been working on a poem of my own today, which I'll put in at the end of this post. Sometimes, when you read words on a page, you forget that poetry is aural and oral, that's somewhere in its past, poetry was song. And so when I heard those women sing out last night, I forgot all the hard parts of poetry, the struggling with syllables and line breaks, the worry of form and punctuation, and just focused on the sounds, the meaning, the big picture.

So. Here's what I've been working on:

Cycle

There are no mockingbirds in Maine,
nothing in the green to squat above and judge this scene.

The baby is slung over the cliff of my hip, his heels
digging spur-sharp into my back and belly.
My belly pitches and rolls like a seastorm
under his soft foot.

He is a weight against my bones, pulling me down
into screaming, into terror,
into love too fierce for words.
Into gasping.

I want to fold him into me.

His heat against me is like a light
an unexpected illumination. He makes me sore.
He burns like a sun. A son.

When I put him down, the storm slows,
but I can feel that plates have shifted.
The landscape doesn't look the same.

This is version 3 of this poem, and it's still in the works, but this is my poem for Sean, Tom's nephew who will be 2 in December.

There's still a lot of disconnect, a lot that I cannot put into words right now. Holding him was the sweetest thing in the world. He was heavy, sleepy, silent. He was desperate to be held, close and tight. I sang to him, and he buried his head against my throat, felt the words humming up. I swing him, hard and wild, was rewarded with laughing like bells. When he laid against me, he curled his sticky fist in my hair. He sighed and snorted like a piglet. Furrowed his eyebrows as I talked to him about all kinds of secret things. Grinned when I flipped him upside down and blew raspberries on his belly.

I didn't know, not really, that I wanted kids. I've always had fun with them, always been popular with the under 6 set. Over 6, and we get a little wary of one another, but once they hit 12 or so, we're back in sync.

That day, though, holding Sean while playing with about 9 other kids, keeping them calm in a somewhat crazy situation...I'm good with them. And maybe I have some crazy ideas about how and where I want my own kids raised, but I know now that I want them to exist. And I want to raise them myself, teach them, read to them, let them paint and sing. I want to revel in them.

Back Again

I told you I was bad at this.

Keeping up with the posting, I mean. It slipped into the back of my mind one day, and I just left it there. I need to make an effort to post daily. New goal.

It's good to have new goals during changes, I think, like this change, the change from hot to cold, from dry to wet, from summer to winter.

Other Changes In My Life:
Roommate: The Barry changed to Chris and L'abri, who then became Chris and Deb, who will soon just be Deb.
Pets: no pets at all became Lowell and Halifax
Fella: The Texan left, and then Boston strolled into my life. Well, I strolled into his. More on that in a bit.

There have been other changes...haircuts, trips home and not home, new bars, new routines. Nothing is stagnant.

When the Texan and I split up, my world focus sort of shifted. Around that time, I'd been spending time with him, AK, and her roommate, who was my beer brewing partner. We'll call him Robot, just because the picture that shows up on my phone when he calls is him in a robot head. We split up around the time his ex-girlfriend, and AK's best friend moved to the city. This wasn't officially the reason for our discontinuation, but based on events that happened afterwards, I can't believe it was completely unrelated.

Still, we've both made peace with it, and moved on to other folks, so it was for the best, whyever it happened.

But the aftermath. I had some of the whiskey poets living with me, and I spent a lot of time with them. I flew home for my brother's wedding, and spent some time with an old friend who helped me see several different lights. We spent a lot of time drunk together, laughing, reminiscing. Watching each other. We're both exceedingly skilled at eye contact.

The week before I left for the wedding, I was nosing around on this great site: beermenus.com and saw that Whole Foods was doing a Smuttynose tasting. I remembered really enjoying their spring seasonal ale, Hanami Ale, and the Shoal's Pale Ale had long since become my go-to six pack at the bodega, plus it was free. I had nothing to lose.

So a coworker and I headed up there. We had a pint in a pub, met her boyfriend, and then ducked into the grocery. That's where I met Boston.

He was standing behind a high table, higher even than his high hips, looking exceedingly distressed. His hair was too long, and curled, and tangled over his eyes, his hands like birds from bottles to tasting cups to waiting hands and back. He answered questions steadily, well rehearsed. We took our first beers, going light to dark. Letting him guide us. We were just faces in the crowd, a number to countdown until he could bolt.

Until my coworker mentioned that I brewed beer. His eyes lit up, he engaged me. He leaned, he ignored other people. We sparked.

He poured samples out to me for three hours, grinned and indulged me when I got a little tipsy and started instructing his customers, pushing his beer on them. I ducked away from him when L'Abri showed up, whispered about him with my head pushed to hers while I bought a growler of his beer, and bottles of others. He was busy when we started to leave, and in a move brought on by the boldness of alcohol and the way he trained those eyes on me, I asked if we could get a drink some time. He flipped me his card. I tucked it in my pocket, touched it like a talisman all the way home.

Home for the wedding the next week, and while I didn't forget about him, I definitely wasn't thinking about him. I was thinking about handsome my brother looked, how much like a grownup, how I wasn't going to cry (but cry I did) when my new sister-in-law walked down the aisle. Drinking and dancing and playing with my little sister took up all my time.

Back in the city though, and my coworker asked if I'd contacted him. So once again, in an uncharacteristic move, I emailed him. Scuffed my feet, said I wasn't sure he'd remember me, asked him to go out for a drink on Wednesday night to a hip little beer bar I'd never been to. He responded, cool, put me off a night because he had to work. Asked if he could pick the place. Said his friend owned it.

So Wednesday night was spent planning with Chris. He picked out my outfit, advised me on date behaviors. Told me not to put out on the first night. Told me I was in charge of what happened. Told me to put on more eyeshadow, and then smudged it properly for me.

So Thursday he sent me out the door dressed in orange snakeskin high heels, tight jeans and a skimpy tee shirt. It was hot and my hair was down, sticking to the back of my neck. The Spanish boys catcalled, tried to pick me up. I smiled and kept walking.

We met at the train station, and he apologized for being late, brought me a peace offering in the form of this. He was impressed by my shoes.

On the train, we talked (he talked) about Vermont and skiing and college. Confessed that he wasn't completely sober. We wandered the streets of Brooklyn, wound up at this little place. I let him order my beer, we snagged a table in the front of the place, and started talking.

There was some of that bullshit talking, and this man made me work. I leaned, I lingered, I watched him through half-lidded eyes. I laid my hand on his leg. He was taken aback. Shocked. Uncertain. We talked about his dad being sick, and my brother dying, where life was taking us. Our resistance to the city. Our mutual need for green and open spaces.

He went off on a tangent about something, and I was laughing, teasing him for lecturing me. He put on a serious face, and said, "Okay, Erin, one more lecture. Life's too short not to try." And then, finally, his mouth was on mine, and his hand was on my cheek, my neck, and my fingers were in his hair, and I was lost.

And found.

After that, it was like a wall fell between us. We became self-aware, aware of each other. He said he didn't know it was a date, didn't even know that I liked men. I insisted.

We stayed until the bar closed. And took a car to his place. And sat up, talked all night. He walked me home in the morning, and I didn't wear my shoes. The sun was coming up, and the glass on the sidewalk glinted like diamonds.

Home Alone

I am tonight, waiting for the Texan to get home from work. Not until close to midnight tonight. To occupy my time, I'm doing some freelance stuff for work, and watching Fellowship of the Ring for the one hundredth time. It's a movie I find comforting. I often switch it on to fall asleep.

I calculated my finances today, and realized that I actually make $30 LESS a month than I have to pay out in rent, student loans, credit card bill, and metro card, all of which I listed as priority expenses. Unfortunately, I also have to eat and do laundry, so the biggest chunk of that (student loans) doesn't get paid off in full each month. I'm going to have to do a combination of the following:
1. Go to the old boss and grovel for my part-time job back
2. Pick up at least 60 hours of freelance work a month (impossible)
3. Find a bank to refinance my loans, so I'm not trying to pay Sallie Mae $700 a month

The best part about being late on my Sallie Mae loan is that they call. all. the. time. In the past two days, I've had 16 phone calls (only 2 with messages) and an email. I've given up answering the calls. Here's the thing I wonder...why don't they just make a note when I tell them that I'm completely broke? I've even given them the day of my next paycheck, so they'll know when to expect more money. I'm sure they don't get paid 8 times a day...if I have no money to give you at 9 am, what on earth makes you think I'll have money at noon? or 2? or 4? Nothing logical points to that.

Student loans basically equate to highway robbery. In this day, it's very rare that I could get a good job without going to college. And because I'm a middle class white girl, there aren't a whole lot of scholarships targeted at me. And believe me, my senior year in high school, I did everything I could to get money for school. There was just no way I was going to come up with enough to pay for four years at a university, even though I did go in-state. And I had a part-time job all through school, lived in reasonably priced housing. My only real splurge was my semester abroad (which, granted, probably accounts for close to half of what I'm paying) but I don't regret that semester for a second. But man...how many kids right out of school make enough cash to pay this kind of loan back? And it's rough especially, since my folks told me they'd help me out, but aren't actually in the position to.

I'm going to do my best to stick it out here in the city, but man. I can't be behind in my student loans forever. At least my tax return should help with that somewhat.

In the past two days, however, I've only spent 4 dollars on food, which is astounding. I bought a sun-dried tomato sandwich at the deli next to work and ate half of it yesterday, half today. I had a bag of chips in my desk, and I drink water. For supper, I've been lucky. The Texan made delicious sloppy joes last night, and there was an extra left for me tonight. He's also bringing home hummus and pita bread on his way here from work, so I'll go to bed full and happy.

Tomorrow though, looks like I'll have to spend again.

/stressed

Sloping, Part 2, and a Saint

So, after Bierkraft and some minor distractions as we walked down the street (like coat hooks in the shape of robots), we made it to our next stop: The Gate. We ordered our first beers sort of randomly. Unfortunately, I did not have my notebook, so I cannot make a full report of these beers.

Round one saw T with a Scottish Ale, AK with a German bock, and me with this beauty. The best part about the Hop Devil is the nose on it. It's not the overwhelming hops scent that comes off a lot of the American "strong" IPAs, but instead, it's got that slight tang to it, that smells a little bit like fresh grass and a little bit like pot. I opted for the cask conditioned version of this, which meant the beer was outstandingly fresh and clean across the palate, but not quite the blistering cold I like my IPAs to be. An enjoyable experience.

We played gin for hours, it seemed, on a back patio full of splintered wooden tables and benches. There was a little dog called Zeus wandering around, sticking his tongue into discarded glasses, nosing into a pizza box.

To one side of us were a group of bicycle racers, still in their tight shirts and pants, splitting big plates of fries and pitchers, swapping races stories and taking inventory of injuries collected.

On the other side were a group of 20somethings wearing sunglasses and great hats, playing dominoes for cash. When my friends excused themselves for a smoke, I dug into my bag to start reading that awful book I picked up at the coffee shop. While I was reading, one of the domino guys had a Budweiser backwash explosion, and I shook my head at him, sort of laughing to myself. The ringleader called me out on it, and we started chatting.

Domino King: What're you reading?
Me: Some shitty book (show him the cover).
Domino King: Where'd you get it?
Me: Um, some coffee shop up the street (wave, point, flail).
Domino King: Ozzie's? You're new here.
Me: It's true.
Domino King: Where you from? How long you been here?
Me: Indiana...and about 6 months.
Domino King: You live here? Only one more question, I promise.
Me: Nope, I live out in Bushwick (I notice my voice gets hard and little defensive when I say this, as though daring him to belittle my burned out apartments and midnight street fights).
Domino King: (winces). Ouch. And what's your situation?
Me: Um, I'm not really sure what that mean.
Domino King: (while his friends laugh) Perfect answer. Enjoy your beer.

We cheers, and my friends come back, and we get into rounds two and three and four. The beers were light and dry and perfect for the setting sun kind of afternoon we were having.

Afterwards, I left T and AK, who were heading to a show to see Deer tick. I headed into the city to spend time with the Texan and some friends, celebrating a new job, which we did at Rudy's, with $7 pitchers and too many free hot dogs.

The Texan and I were a little tipsy, so we sang songs on the train on the way home. Some Irish songs, and some Motley Cru, and some Magnetic Fields.

Yesterday, we spent time around St. Mark's. Lunch was had at the delicious, and mostly affordable S'mac. We split a medium order of cheeseburger macaroni (think Hamburger Helper, only fresh and with a layer of crunchy cheese on top) which ran us $9 and we were full for the rest of the day. The only problem with that place are the damn chairs. They're just too bulky for the tiny space of the restaurant and the close proximity of the tables to one another. Beyond that, a delightful place for lunch.

A second hand shop yielded a great yellow cardigan sweater for $10, and a smoke shop down St. Mark's place took another $20 from us. The Texan had a bubble tea (he's enamored with Asian culture) and we just walked and chatted and soaked in the city until it got too cold. Then we headed to Beacon's Closet off the Bedford stop, where I got a Beerland, Texas teeshirt, and the Texan bought one that has Santa eating a hamburger. He calls it Santabuns.

After we made it back to Bushwick, we hit up the grocery for chili fixins and chocolate chip cookies, all for the reasonable price of $8, and spent the rest of the night in my room, trying out our smoke shop purchase and giggling and eating cookies and watching Frasier.

A perfect Brooklyn weekend.

Coming posts to discuss:

National Poetry Month
A tasting of the 8 beers I have in the apartment
Why I feel awkward dressing for summer
How to be a good assistant (am I, Bossman? I think so!)

Sloping

Friday was a little bit dark and rainy, so post-work I hosted a GRATED gathering at my place. All group activities are referred to by the initials of those that partake.

We finished off most of the homebrew, so my brewpartner and I have plans to start batches 5 and 6 this week. We're doing an Ultimate Pale Ale and a German Mai Bock.

Yesterday, the weather perked up again, so I spent time with my new favorite couple wandering around the wonders of Brooklyn. We walked through Williamsburg to Taco Chulo, a long time delivery favorite of AK and myself. The house margaritas are a little pricey ($7) for the size, but the chorizo nachos are worth every penny.

From there, we continued our walk until we reached the Bedford stop and had to that crazy thing that is the bane of every Brooklynite's existence: in order to reach another neighborhood in Brooklyn, we're forced to take the train into Manhattan, and then back out into Brooklyn. Come on, MTA! Don't waste time and money on another Manhattan line, give us some more inter-Brooklyn travel.

When we reached Park Slope, I made a beeline for our first destination. Bierkraft. When I was done squealing like a little girl, I got down to business. Here's what I ended up with:
Well's Banana Bread Beer
Haymaker Honey Wheat (ouch. Looks like I should have checked the forums before purchasing)
Smuttynose Hanami Ale
Dogfish Head Midas Touch
Lakefront Organic E.S.B.
Kelpie Seaweed Ale

Four regular sized bottles, two oversized, for the easy price of $22 and change. I'll definitely be back to take advantage of the Growler situation they've got going on. It's always fun to bring fresh tap beer to parties or. You know. Home for dinner.

Our little trio continued our walk, hitting up Ozzie's coffee shop, where T picked up a tiny tiny coffee, and I picked up a free book that's pretty awful. The Abstract. And don't believe that Amazon review. From what I can tell, it's full of shit.

I've much more to say, which I will do tonight, but right now, I'm getting an evil look from my Texan, who's ready for lunch and Shiner bock.

It's Spring!

My boss mentioned the other day that I should start a blog, so here I am.

I've done the blogging thing before, but always just sort of thrown myself into as more of a journaling, with no real purpose. I got bored (or distracted), and it sort of quit happening. I'm going to try to keep that from happening this time.

I've been in Brooklyn for about 6 months now. My move to the city (which I still call it, in my small-town, rural way) was somewhat serendipitous and more than a little rocky (a breakup, no job prospects, a WoW habit that reawakened my sleeping disorder, a few too many nights polishing off bottles of beer or whiskey alone).

It wound up being great, though. I met this girl and these fellows, who essentially scooped me up, set me on my feet, and helped me get into the swing of life here. On the same day I moved out of my ex's apartment, I got an email for a job interview. Two fancy-dressed interviews and a stellar resume later, I was happily ensconced in a little half-cubicle as an editorial assistant at an up-and-coming indie publishing house.

[The Puerto Rican teenagers outside my window have suddenly started screaming at each other...I can't tell if it's joyful or angry. Definitely angry. The girls are shouting in Spanish and English, talking over each other like blue jays screeching, and their voices are peppered with the sounds of slaps. They're below my window and I can't see them, but the boys across the street are standing so still, wide-eyed and just watching. I wonder if it's some kind of reversed mating ritual, the females puffing up their voices in a kind of vocal strutting.]

For the first couple of weeks, I was nervous and felt out of place, as I always do in new situations. I'm a listener, an observer, so it's hard to fold myself into a new group of people.

[The fight outside is escalating...there are names and threats being thrown down as challenges, carhorns beeping as drivers try to push through the scrum, boys egging the girls on with things like "Sucker punch her!" and "That a way, girl!" An increase in volume and a sound of skin on skin is not good. If this were Indiana, things would have been solved by now, a quick couple punches to the face, a handshake, a shot of whiskey. Or the cops would've been called. This seems all about the build up...and now their voices are fading, as though they're moving down the street.]

Fortunately, though, after a couple of weeks, I was officially assigned to a senior editor, a real boss so I had consistent things to do. Bossman is busy and after working for 6 months, I have edited as many books. He also, it seems, takes his job as a mentor seriously. He is forever explaining to me how things in "the industry" work, or offering gruff congratulations when I do something right.

The workplace is relaxed (Big Boss, the man in charge of the whole shebang, wore secondhand jeans with holes in them to work today) which is good. I can happily wear old jeans and my Chucks, which is good, since I'm sitting at a desk for hours and hours a day.

Even though I hate sitting, my desk is a pretty cheerful place. It's haphazardly organized, so nobody else could find anything, but I can lay my hands on any book, manuscript, or contract in the pile. I am a constant target of disapproving looks and unsubtle hints from the office neat freak, who insists that I use file folders and alphabetization. Little does he realize, my filing technique is unstoppable. I also have postcards, my brothers wedding engagement picture, poems from my friends, and pictures from the Super Dictionary tacked up with thumbtacks shaped like wasps and ladybugs, and also some that have words from some mysterious book pasted on them. Oh yeah, and this calendar.

Enough about work. I just wanted to lay the groundwork so that when I tell stories later, you'll understand a little bit about what I do.

The whole reason I started this blogging project today, other than Bossman's prompting, was because it's spring, and it finally feels like spring in the city. I walked down 8th Avenue today and almost kept walking past my building. I felt like I'd been freed from some wintery purgatory. I shed my heavy coat, put on some sassy earrings, and felt a little bit like Marlo Thomas. New York shook off her dead skin and shone today, ladies in dresses, men in bright colors, all of us with wistful looks on our faces, remembering our college days in the Midwest where days like today would be a cause for blowing off class and sitting in the front yard with friends and cold beers. Maybe we'd get the grill out and send the soberest kid off to the grocery store for cheap burger patties and hot dogs, and more beer and maybe fireworks, if we could find enough money under the couch cushions.

Instead, we bring the spring to the office with us, in our clothes and our smiles, our plans whispered over the phone to skip out half an hour early for drinks at an outdoor bar.

Poem for the day: One of the gorgeous Bucolics by Maurice Manning. These don't have titles, they're just numbered. This book is exquisite, and a perfect way to start the spring. This particular poem is one of my favorites to read just as I'm dropping off to sleep, a good way to start the dreaming portion of my evening. A caveat: no punctuation mean this can be a little tricky to read, but trust me, the tiny perfection is worth the tinier frustration.

III

the night is trotting toward me Boss
as if you tapped it with a switch
or clicked your tongue against your teeth
it's coming down the pasture soon
I'll hear the leather tackle squeak
I'll see your ankle swinging in
the stirrup Boss you ride the night
but you don't need to hurry no
you've been this way a time or two
before you've hauled your wagon full
of stars it's all old hat for you
you get here when you get here O
I guess you like the same old thing
it's funny but I like it too
I like it when you ride the night
across the sky as if it were
a nag a worn-out horse you don't
mind riding O you get along
your horse is made of silver Boss
it clips like sleep it clops like you

Beer of the day: Homebrewed Schwarzbier "Mr. Black"

Song of the day: No music today, just "This American Life" on NPR