Another Slack Romantic Chasing His Heart Like an Unleashed Dog Chasing a Pickup Truck

That's not the gif and this is not the post I accidentally published then erased last night. That post was started while I was in a good mood and will (or not) be finished and published (or not) when I'm in a good mood, which isn't going to be today, one of the three or four times a year I go to sleep happy and at peace and wake up dark and seething, angry that I went to sleep happy and at peace, angrier at the impotence of my darkness and seething. Let's see if this helps:

Yup but nope. Last Thursday's pints were postponed until last night. After everyone described the current stage of their obamapostasies and demdisgust, I was asked for the gigagillionth time why the fuck I'm burning my peat on a motherfucking blog. Because, I said, adding now, where better to seethe darkly and impotently?

• Serendipitously, heh.
• Chalmers Johnson versus the Empire.
• American exceptionalism.
• Government by people who hate you.
• Fucker.
• The truth about the Confederacy. 
• UPDATE! On the above. 
• UPDATE! Adding, for exactly one of you, yes, Duane Ellison.
• On liberal-political commentary.
  
• Boatload of good links.
• Not enough attention has been given to how the District was reamed - and what it signifies on multiple levels - by the budget deal. I'll add that how the District was reamed is how Corporate would like to ream you.
• Maryland pigs and crackers.
• Is the 4-4-2 dead?
• Feral cats. Napoleon is great, thanks for asking!
  
• Do you really have an interest in novels? I am, at the moment, completely incapable of reading anything but poetry.
• Creative stupidity.
• The end is nigh.
• UPDATE! I have no idea what it signifies that this song just started playing in my head, because I don't like the song and I didn't like Crack the Sky.
  
• Six songs that were decades ahead. 
• Trucker's atlas. 
• Glenn Tipton.

DAY JOB AND NIGHT JOB

Andrew Hudgins

After my night job, I sat in class
and ate, every thirteen minutes,
an orange peanut—butter cracker.
Bright grease adorned my notes.

At noon I rushed to my day job
and pushed a broom enough
to keep the boss calm if not happy.
In a hiding place, walled off

by bolts of calico and serge,
I read my masters and copied
Donne, Marlowe, Dickinson, and Frost,
scrawling the words I envied,

so my hand could move as theirs had moved
and learn outside of logic
how the masters wrote.  But why?  Words
would never heal the sick,

feed the hungry, clothe the naked,
blah, blah, blah.
Why couldn't I be practical,
Dad asked, and study law—

or take a single business class?
I stewed on what and why
till driving into work one day,
a burger on my thigh

and a sweating Coke between my knees,
I yelled, "Because I want to!"—
pained—thrilled!—as I looked down
from somewhere in the blue

and saw beneath my chastened gaze
another slack romantic
chasing his heart like an unleashed dog
chasing a pickup truck.

And then I spilled my Coke. In sugar
I sat and fought a smirk.
I could see my new life clear before me. 
It looked the same.  Like work.