I write the blog because the fantasy is that one day I write for a living and stop punching a clock for a living.
When was the fantasy's seed planted? A long time ago. I was wandering about an old bookstore that didn't survive downtown Nashville's resurgence as a tourist destination. I couldn't have been but nineteen or twenty years old and already I was dealing with more than I was ready for in life. At the front end of one aisle of that old bookstore was a title of a book that caught my eye. It was called Women. I had never heard of its author, Charles Bukowski, but I liked the title and I liked what I read from skimming a few pages.
I bought that book that day, and from that night to this day Bukowski has been the man I always go to when I need to read the best. In Waffle House diners and in workplace locker rooms, I have settled myself down by reading his poems and his novels and his short stories.
Tonight, the kids are sleeping well and my wife has turned in for the night. It is only me and my bulldog occupying the main room and I am finally watching a wonderful documentary on the man called Bukowski: Born Into This. The bulldog is chewing on a blanket. I'll have to get after her for that, but I'll give her a minute or so of fun first.
I've got mine.
2 comments:
We share the same fantasy. I think maybe a lot of bloggers do.
I do think it's funny that Bukowski took his epitaph from Yoda.
I had forgotten about the "Don't try" on his gravestone. That's great.
Of course, it can be interpreted so many ways.
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