Editing books...I fucking hate it.

I'd much prefer to hand it to someone else and let them correct all the nasty spellings and awkward turns of phrase. Editing is like ceaseless masturbation with no foreseeable climax. What the fuck am I talking about? I'm not sure, but I do know what I'm avoiding. Hours spent at a computer screen, hitting backspace and staring at the ceiling.

Hey! You wanna hear a story? How about several that I copied and pasted from recent correspondence with people I may or may not know? With absolutely no context provided because I'm too lazy? I don't care if you want to or not, that's not stopping me. I've got book editing to avoid and dishes that I don't wanna wash AND black bean tacos I promised to make for dinner, and I'd much rather sit here on the couch, typing nonsense and wishing I wasn't too lazy to walk to my sorry excuse for a porch and smoke a cigarette.

Context-less story #1...Abolish food stamps
I think it's at the health dept., but I cain't say for certain. My mama
used to spend $40 worth of food stamps on ingredients for a single
salad, with big ol' t-bones for Puger (my 2nd step-dad), and Little
Debbie snacks. We wouldn't drink nothin' but Dr. Pepper for days. When
we ran out of Dr. Pepper, we switched to Tropical Punch Kool-Aid
(possibly smuggled outside of David's Food Store in the purse of my
sticky-fingered mama). By the end of the month, we didn't eat nothin'
but shit-on-a-shingle.

Then mama found out that her heroin dealer (my aunt) would buy her
foodstamps for fifty cents on the dollar, so we stopped gettin' Dr.
Pepper and started eatin' expired snack cakes pulled out of the trash
at the Hostess factory. My teeth hummed.

That's why I'm a firm believer that food stamps should be abolished and
replaced with a smoother WIC program. Give hungry folks vouchers for
fruit juice, cheese, and vegetables. This country's gonna hafta slide
pretty gawd-damn far before a dealer will trade you smack equal to half
the value of a box of generic corn flakes and a hunk of cheddar cheese.
Not to mention promoting nutrition among the poor working class, taking
burden from the taxpayer, and discouraging greedy motherfucks.

When I opened the front door this morning, I felt like Snow White. The sun was just breaking over the pines, and a pair of cardinals were playing in the front yard. A blue jay buzzed by, and the fat gray squirrel that lives in my oak tree puffed himself up and barked at me. A smaller pair of squirrels was stealing pecans from my side yard. A moth landed on my arm. Then the retarded guy with the stomach tumor that walks in my neighborhood walked past and ruined the scene.

Context-less story #2...Jeff the Real Live Cowboy

Those boots belong to a real live cowboy named Jeff. Not only is
Jeff one of the best people I've ever met, he's movie star handsome.
He's kinda like Josh Brolin's character in "No Country For Old Men",
except instead of dry-ass SW Texas, he's in the majestic piney woods of
east Texas. Jeff likes to buy $3000 Sauer rifles (engineered and
manufactured in Germany...fine hunting rifles...Sham-WOW beware of
imitators) and he straps them to the back of his ATV as he patrols the
wooded edges of his cow pasture. He shoots the coyotes that kill the
calves. He said he vaporized one and it made him very happy. That
doesn't make him sound like a nice guy.
Okay, here's another story...recently, Jeff had a cow birth the first set of twin calves he's ever had. Forty-five minutes later, a Mexican vulture (no code, an
actual vulture from Mexico) swooped from the sky and stole one of the
twins. In the excitement, the heifer trampled the other twin to death,
and Jeff cried like a baby. The next day, he heard about another
rancher that lost his heifer and had a baby cow and no time to bottle
feed it. Jeff bought the calf and bottle fed it himself in the living
room. When baby Jake was two weeks old, Jeff loaded him into a big dog
carrier and took him visit a pre-school. Then, he brought Jake to see
me at work, and he let me hug the baby cow, and didn't laugh at me
while I did it. And that's why I think Jeff is one of the greatest guys
ever.

I've got a gawd-damned zoo under my house. There's the big fat feral cat that I call Hitler because of his vile nature and kitty mustache. Hitler lived alone for almost two years, but now he's been joined by Siamese Bitch. Last week Sophie knocked on the door to be let in, and I didn't answer immediately. My delay resulted in Siamese Bitch delivering an ass-whooping of epic proportions, and Sophie wouldn't talk to me for three days. Then, sometime early Saturday morning, a bitch climbed under the house and birthed her litter under my fireplace, and I can hear the puppies under the floorboards. Papa shoved a bowl of dog food under the house with a broom, in an effort to keep her from dying under there. I really hope she doesn't die under there. I tried to coax her out by wildly waving a chicken biscuit in her direction, but she was not swayed. I wish those puppies would shut up, I'm trying to think.

Context-less story #3...I really like gorditas
HOLY SHIT! You know how to make gorditas? When I was in high school my
best friend's mom used to make them for our after school snack. When
Taco Bell announced gorditas, I was halfway excited, but we know what a
fucking travesty that turned out to be. And I think the lady that sells
me fresh cheese and jalapeno tamales every Friday is considering taking
a restraining order against me because I will not stop harassing her
about making me gorditas. But now! But now I know that my awesome
brother-in-law can make them.
So, what do I have to do to get in on this gordita action? Perhaps
after dad helps me build my backyard pizza oven, I can trade you my
famous pesto chicken pizza w/ red bell pepper and purple onion sauteed
in balsamic vinegar, feta, sun-dried tomatoes, and smoked mozzarella?
Do I sound psychotic? Am I scaring you?

I've got a powerful hunger. Gonna fill my hunger hole with toast. Delicious toast.