Well all of the words you said to me are still vibrating in the air.

My neighbor died this morning, the Jesus one. She had a stroke. I don't know why this is so hard for me, but it is. My other--horrible--neighbor had her house foreclosed on about two weeks ago. So now my little cottage is surrounded by empty houses. Empty houses. There she goes, my beautiful world. My neighbor H. says that the police are going to have to lay off one of their officers now that there won't be problems up here on Nob Hill, where we live.

This has been a year of loss and change and loss and very little gain. And it's been just a bit crap. This week is Thanksgiving and I bought myself a turkey yesterday. I have this stupid idea that I will make myself a lovely Thanksgiving dinner and feel better about things. A righteous pumpkin cheesecake. I suspect, though, that I will stay in bed for the day. I have this electric blanket that H. gave to me on Saturday when I found out about the stroke and couldn't stop crying. He tucked me up in the trailer I've been sleeping in while remodeling my house and then he took away my laptop. He said my online life was kind of doing my head in, and he was right.

The other day, I stole a little Christmas ornament from the hardware store. It's a snowman, about 3 inches tall, and is a snow globe with a light in its base. It changes color from red to green to blue to purple to white. Last year, my Jesus neighbor, previously referred to here as Mags, gave me some Christmas ornaments cos she was sort of done doing that kind of thing. I really enjoyed them, especially this rustic Santa Claus that I hung on my door. Okay, I put the manger scene in a box that I store in the basement. Previously, I have hated the way this country jumps from one fucking holiday to the next in its freakish need to commercialize everything. But maybe Christmas will somehow have a healing effect on me?

(C'mon skinny love.)

My house is torn up. I've been insulating. I like it this way. I've hung two more pieces of sheetrock today. I've got the floor half sanded--I'm using a belt sander this time around and taking them down to beautiful clean oak. Everything's going to be okay, right? Lie to me, if you have to. Yeah, just like that.

Sometimes I lay in bed and bits of songs go through my mind. I don't even know the words at times. I like that about music. It gets into your head and runs around like a hamster at times. Of course that only happens if your mind works that way. I hope for your sake it doesn't. I wish I had one of those big hamster balls. I could throw my head in it and run it down the alley like a bowling ball for a bit. That might give me a lickle relief. ("Gonna wash my bones in the Atlantic shore...")

I've been reading through this blog today. I have misplaced or had stolen my Passport external hard drive on which I saved all the blog posts from that other, dirty place. It's a bit sad. Partially cos I have a bunch of torrented episodes of Hung on there and that sucks. The thing about a blog is you can go back and see how things were for you at a given moment. Like a diary, only less gay. I had a chance to go through and see what it was like to first meet Mags, and to get through some crap times with her as well. It makes me less sentimental, and I look prettier that way.

I've been chatting around with some folks from around the world. "No one wastes time quite like I do; I can waste time like nobody else." Me and The Duke Spirit. I don't know if that's a good thing. I suspect it's very bad. Particularly when the some folks are married. I don't think that can be good. I guess if it makes me more fucked up, that's good for my psychological evaluation tomorrow. Maybe after that gets over with, I will start being more sensible. Make a turkey and so forth. Either that or hide under the new electric blanket until the new year. I'm pretty certain 2010 is going to be the year I stop being a masochist.

Cheers, Mags! I hope you're right and are sitting near Jesus. I hear he can turn water into wine and that's one hell of a thing.

And nah, that's not me. That's Nick Cave. And a couple of other people from the playlist. Thanks, mate.