Instead of writing about writing in my writing blog, while separately writing every day, I'm going to combine the two.  This from now on will just be my writing blog, which is fine considering no one reads it anyway.  Instead of framing my own life with negative comments and the translucently palpable disillusionment of a 90s kid, I'm going to allow itself to weave into my admittedly shitty prose exercises.  Maybe I'll do some parentheses stuff on occasions.  Two thousand words for the next five years.  Then, this shouldn't be mechanical anymore.  No more using paltry qualifiers like "so", "many", "very", or "anymore" after this point!  Writing, like any other job, is like figuring out the rules and learning what you can get away with.  I guess.  It's pretty obvious the best writers are good at it from practicing and enjoying themselves from an early age.  Ever notice how obvious it is whether or not someone had fun when they were doing something?  Which is why B-movies are more fun than A-movies.  To an extent.  Don't know if that would hold up in a court of people who are nerdier than me.  But, I communicate better than you nerds.  You're just spiteful and cliquey in that weird last frontier internet sort of way.

*puts self out there*

Oh another disclaimer.  I don't care whether or not anything happens in these stories.  There's nothing like a good shaggy dog story to accurately reflect the way that nothing happens in real life.


            Inner City Travelin'

            It’s as simple as this.  If you have to ride the bus, stay on the routes that pass through neighborhoods you wouldn’t be afraid to walk in.  The bus is like an inner doldrums of the side streets, it’s home to those people who have simplified their lives to the point that they think movement is productive.  Simply being in constant motion makes their lives worthwhile, and what’s even worse they feel at home in these things.

            Jimmy’s car has been out for a couple of weeks.  A coolant leak resulted in an embarassing engine fire in a fast food parking lot, a situation which would have been easily rectified by cellphone possession.  The little dog in the back of the car ahead of us in the drive through window yapped incessantly at the smoke rising from the hood and disintegreating into the sky. 

            The buses doors mechanically fix themselves shut.  Arthur, an overweight out of work alcoholic subsisting on a subsidy from the city, shakes his pockets in an attempt to locate change.  The front right pocket of his smelly homeless guy coat produces enough shillings to appease the bus driver.  Although they see each other every day, they do not make eye contact.  Gary, the driver, knows better than to make the acquantance of any of his riders. 

            They are all potentially crazy.  You never know what’s in that wheely backpack thing the guy with the patchy beard and librarian style bifocles is carrying.  The only thing clear is that it smells like urine.  People who live in their own urine are one step closer to being animals than us well adjusted folks.  Part of believing you are more civilized than other creatures is being as clean as possible.  Cleanliness is godliness, and although most of us heathens assume as tacit distance has been established between themselves and their unfortunate brainwashed brothers, we never become as godless as we’d hope. 

            As Arthur saunters by, the bus tires reinflate and a general shakiness takes over.  The tires might as well be square, turning over with loud street destroying thumps ever few inches of progress reached. 

            People you have never seen in your life, who may as well be from a different planet, wave frantically and attempt to call you over when you’re on the streets.  Those unfortunate wayward souls, so easily dejected, run waving their arms and explaining their latest night of debauchery and chemical abuse.  This is not so different from the self-depreciating masochistic behaviour Jimmy has been partaking in whenever there is a free moment, but he prefers staying busy to being bored.

            Keep the blinders on.  Avoid any unnecessarily long interactions.  Two of the least aware and self conscious people babble excitedly over a grocery flier.  Their faces, so obscured with age and grime, make them part of a society which no longer needs familial or kindred bonds.  They look the same, they live on the bus.  Now they will go hassle the attendant at the grocery store.  He is never going to get that Yoohoo put away. 

            Each set of headphones occupying the riders on this bus serves as an informal incubation system.  As long as the music keeps playing, everything is going alright.  The catchy chorus on that familiar tune is a dredging machine.  It clears out each starchy layer of low self esteem, a pristine filament avoiding corrosion while also careful not to become contaminated itself.  Nothing more than elevator music on this endless crusade.  When the music stops, these people become active again.  We hope that the music doesn’t stop.

            Pulling the chord for his stop, Jimmy decides it best to turn his baseball cap around into the forward position.  The long-reaching arm of consumer based spectator sports provides protection for those who recognize each other as fans.  The local sports team is having a great year.   Sure enough, a gang of vagrants across the street wore antiquated jerseys of players from long ago.  There was that relief pitcher who got signed to the giant contract after having one decent year.  A relief pitcher on a small market team of perennial losers is almost guaranteed to be traded at the allstar break.  But when he’s gone, there’s thousands of jerseys flooding the market.

            Life isn’t fair when you let other people make the rules.  I’m on foot today, Jimmy thinks to himself.  The treeless blocks and decadent buildings support the frivolous, manic depressive lifestyle of the creatures living on these streets.  Why not get some malt liquor. 

            With his jug of King Cobra, Jimmy used his newfound confidence to set his sights on getting his old job back.  There were worse things than working for the telephone company, Jimmy thought.  With people comes pressure.  I should be satisfied with whatever work I’m doing, as long as it covers the bills.  We should all stive to be mindless enough to become content with our unrealized dreams.  Our dreams become hobbies, work becomes the be all end all.

            Marching into the office, old memories wafted through his glands and into his senses.  The sound of fax machines whirring and bleeping, coffee machines perpetually gurgling.  The newsroom.  Yellowed clippings paperclipped haphazardly to every inch of bulletin board.  The secretary, Sally, recognized Jimmy immediately.

            “Back already, hun?  Your big job search didn’t pan out, huh?”  She laughed to herself. 

            “My car broke down.  I can’t find another.  This is the only thing I know how to do.”

            “Well, you’re too late.  Jerry already replaced you.”  Jimmy knew they had given the job to Harold, his arch nemesis.  Harold was envious of Jimmy’s position, just as anyone who is lower on the totem pole always is.

            Jimmy insisted on waiting for Jerry, although he anticipated being lowballed, and at best ending up in the mailroom at a lower wage.  Mailroom isn’t so bad though, he thought.  I get my tunes.  It’s pretty well ventilated, never warm enough to break a sweat. 

            Working in the mailroom felt like living undeground.  Jimmy had to slap himself around when he noticed he was becoming fascinated with the different designs on stamps, the different fontheadings on return addresses, the unique smell each persons home which transfixed itself onto their envelopes. 

            Most days, he’d simply have to sort and classify the mail.  Distribution was Ernie’s job.  An eighty year old man with a healthy walk, Ernie treated each mission delivering mail around the building as an exciting jaunt into the unknown.  Being the bearer of mostly innocuous news, Ernie was able to truthfully represent himself: a man completely contented with lifes doings.

            Shitty, right?  I think I may have one or two good lines in there.  Quantity over quality.  Now, for a first real day of writing for writings sake (Work Relaxation Don't Think), it could be shittier.  And I should anticipate an improvement.  Gotta stop feeling mechanical and the only way to do that is practice.