textfiles/magazines/ATI/sisyphus.txt

a day in a life (one of many) of a pot-smoker    by sisyphus   previously
                                      published in a recent hygienic fixx.
   I woke this morning at 5:30. I rose at 8:15. No aches or pains, no 
hangovers, nothing left over, just early morning bemusement. Pee'd, washed,
drank fruit juice and started coffee heating. (Coffee IS addictive, I've 
recently found out. I hadn't had to go without coffee in years. At least. I
found myself getting downright cranky. Not to mention not shitting right. 
Which, I suppose, would make ANYbody cranky.) Looked outside. Everything was
still frozen. but the cold was moderating. The car was where I left it in
the backyardparkinglot. There was squirrels in the trees, thinking on 
heading for the ground. J.A.C.S. was still sleeping. I let him lie and waited 
on the coffee. Put sugar and cream in the coffeecup. The squirrels got 
bolder. The coffee steamed and the squirrels got bolder still. I poured the
coffee, stirred it and opened the upstairs back door. JACS was there before
I had the back hall light on, but as he'd just got up, he wasn't bounding
up and down the stairs at his usual wont. "Well, this works just fine," I 
thought. I opened the door at the bottom of the stairs and he was off like
a shot. So were the squirrels. JACS sailed over the fence at the back of
the parking lot and sailed back. Then down along the fence and up the other
side. Over again at least once and then HE went and pee'd. I figured my 
coffee had cooled enough so I whistled him in and went and drank it. I 
suppose I should say my head was full of thoughts on the coming day, or that 
I got some sort of moral from JACS's early morning jaunt, but I didn't. I 
just went in and called my favorite BBS (Gemstone) to get my morning 
TradeWars turns in. The line was busy. So I called the MindPort dial-up and 
checked on my e-mail. 17. About half-and-half from the Ohmies echo and from 
the Fantasy-L writers newsletter. And one message to me from Mark-O Frucht.
  (ed. note: who the hell is that???) It wasn't about Steven Vincent Benet
& James Merrill. Only commentary on his most recent cross-country hop 
(Connecticut to Wisconsin) and that it'd cost him $800 to repair the car 
enroute. (Well, Mark's more responsible than Cassady & Kerouac) I answered
his letter, looked throught the alt.herbs, alt.native, and rec.backcountry 
newsgroups and remembered that I had to move the car before 9. 
(TO BE CONTINUED NEXT ISSUE...)


And now we continue with Sisyphus continuing saga 
about continuing in cyberspace. 
"A Day In a Life (One of Many) Of a Pot-Smoker"
Sigenos...  (CON'T From Last Issue.) (due to word-
processor incompatibilities, this saga was faithfully 
hand-typed by Candi Grrl.
     Shut the computer down, got dressed and went outside (again.)
The cold WAS moderating. The car started on the THIRD try!
(Minor miracle.) Went to the local vending box for a paper. None there.
Went upstairs and finished off the coffee. Went back out & me and the
dog got in the car. Picked up a paper at a corner vendor and headed for
the Lyman-Allyn museum. When we got there, I opened the passengers
door, (off like a shot again) closed it and sat in the sun with the motor 
running, warming up and reading the newspaper. Called the dog back
after about 15 minutes and went back home, carefully parking in the
Greek Church parking lot a half-block away to avoid getting a ticket.
Went in the back way, rapped on the roommate's door to get him to move
HIS car and made another cup of coffee. Read the paper. The other
roommate got up and we started scheduling our day. (we had to move
some items from his old apartment to this one.) Ate a tuna sandwich.
Got high. Then my short-term memory went to hell. To hell with 
Kerouac anyway. As you can see so far the day was utterly normal and
banal. Hey waddaya want? Besides, do you really WANT me describing
chopping onions and peppers, garlic, eggs, doling out mayo, mustard,
measuring vinegar, opening tuna cans, etc. and going on about it for the
next page and a half? Hell the operation took two hours. But now I got 
midday sammitches for a week. Played Bob Dylan's new CD. Dutch
got it for Christmas. He left a copy here. I like the music and the selections.
"Series of Dreams", I gotta get the lyrics to. After 10 am the telephone calls
started. First Ken Stroebel from the Bulletin. I forget what  it was, but we
fixed it. He got his picture/poster/graphic. We chatted about Live Nude Art. 
I hung up the phone and went after another cuppa coffee. Then I said, I'll
call first and called Kathy Cohen from the Westerly Sun. She was all set, 
had everything she needed. Of course, Scott Timberg was next. but I was 
able to logon to BBS and play a bunch of TradeWars turns first. Made 600M.
Every three days now. Scott was collecting quotes for his article and 
wanted to update the Hygienic Schedule. It was hard making perfect sense,
keeping track of exactly who'd said what the night before at the last 
organizing committee (group?) meeting at the DutchTavern. I'd heard
Vinnie say for the last couple of days that there was a group of dancers from
Connecticut College that wantedto do a show at the show. I mean what 
else is a Show for? And Billy had said something of the same sort. So it
seemed that there indeed was something up. They'd told me about 
Albert Kausch's poetry reading at the Keep, but I'd forgotten the time
it was to start. OK, so Scott and I talk 15-minutes and I know there's
things I gotta find out. I can call him back. I call Vinnie and leave a 
message on the machine. "Everything's not set in stone yet. What's
this about dancers? I need info ASAP!! It's 12:21. PLEASE call back
soonest." Call Bingham. He's not making any sense. Putting his two-
year-old up for a nap. Neither of them make sense at that time. (Maybe it's
ME and THEY'RE making the sense.
        No. I don't take naps in the afternoon.
(CONTINUED NEXT TIME. (Tune in next week when, Sisyphus drinks kool-aid,
gives a book review, and zonks on pot.))



And now we continue with Sisyphus continuing saga 
about continuing in cyberspace. 
"A Day In a Life (One of Many) Of a Pot-Smoker"
(CON'T From Last Issue.) 
Call Stidfole. No answer. Call the other  number leave a futile message asking if I can
exhibit a bomb at the Hygienic. (OK so the pot got the best of me.) Can't think of
anyone else to call. Call information and get the number for the Keep. There's gotta
be a way to recoup these little bills I incur on the part of the Hygienic. That cost 75  cents.
Call The Keep. L e a v e  a    m e s s a g e   o n  t h e   a n s w e r i n g   m a c h i n e .
Gahhhhhh!!! No. NOT another cup of coffee. I'm coffee'd out now. 
    Look I gotta lotta calls out and I should really leave the line free for incoming calls.
I go get a drink of Kool-Aid. Fruit juice and sugar water, but it's soothing. While in the
kitchen I look outside. A miracle! I can see through the window. It's warm enough
outside to evaporate water! How nice on a late January day. I feel instant guilt that I'm 
not outside in it with the dog. The lawyer's cars half fill the backyard parking lot and
there are no squirrels, no dogs or cats or raccoons, moose, elephants, nor any other
critters around. (See? Works good, dont it? )  no people either. The sunlight is
rather harsh due to a high haze in the sky. There are a few fleecy cumulus around,
about scattered I'd say. The colors are all brown and gray, with a thin film of salt
washing even these colors almost into a black-and-white world. It's winter, that's
for sure. I pick up my book (Haggard's "King Solomon's Mines") and head 
back into the bed/computer/telephone room. There's no one I can call now. Time's
passing. I know Scott's typing away, but there's nothing I can do at this point.
Well, I'll read about Alan Quartermain as Macumazahn and Bougwhan (Good)
killing Scragga to stop him from massacree-ing some beautiful maiden in some
sort of put-up job by Twala the King and Gagool the evil witch-crone who'd 
lived forever. Haggard took 5 pages to describe the scene in the book but this
will have to do for us because Vinnie called. Ah! The time for Albert's poetry
reading is 7pm but Vinnie doesn't know if he's got dancers. He does know 
that there's supposed to be someone else who'd like to do a dance piece, but he's
rather vague about the fringes of that, too. At least I got one hard fact. Vinnie
says he'll call Bill, then Scott. I tell him I'll call Scott in the meantime. We hang 
up. I do so. I tell him the time for Abert's poetry reading and that he is to expect
a call from Vinnie and/or Bill with any further information they might have.
He's happy with that. I hang up and wait. Nothing happens so I go find
the roommate and tell him it's time to move. He's lying across the kitchen table -
spread quite like an omoeba absolutely zonked on pot. He sort of effervesces
with amoeba-like colors of chartreuse, whit-orange and pink with narrow
bands of blue forlining. It's pitiful. I scrape him into a glass jar, and 
abjure JACS quite strenuously that he is to STAY! Dog cringes. I tuck the
glass jar containing my roommate into a coat pocket and head out to the car.
When I got outside, my roommate came to life again, the car started on the
first try and it was almost spring for a mini-microsecond. But it's still winter
so we threaded our way through traffic to his old apartment.