7/19/04 6:45 PM: The title for today's rant comes from "Streetwise" by "underground rapper" LMNO, who said, "a tall tale for the short term/ I must be a germ 'cause I heard my rhymes are sick/ quick to see my faults and fix it ..."

As I pulled 'Bane (my car's named Wolfsbane, don't you remember?) into the garage downstairs, I was in a very good mood. After waking up just before 2PM, I went out and ran some errands, cashing checks and checking prices. I had a really good, productive day that sounded well within my budget. Which is cool.

'Bane's radiator is shot to hell, leaking like a beltway insider. I looked up common problems with my model of Lumina online, and the heating system is a common one. The car had two head gaskets replaced a few years ago, and runs hot. So, on a whim, I pull into Chin's Auto Repair on Homeland, just west of Crenshaw and spitting distance from Leimert Park. I'd already gone to Radiators.com and priced it, expecting the total to run close to $400. Mr. Chin says, "$225," and I'm out the door, new radiator. Add twenty bucks for an oil change, and I'm San Diego bound. I am very happy with that, and leave a deposit for the part, with the work to be done Thursday at 3PM. He says it'll take maybe an hour and a half. Very cool.

After finding an upscale car wash on Slauson closed down, I went to my old favorite, Sunshine Car Wash on Vernon, near Gramercy. I was told $80 would forever rid me of the smell of dog, but it'll take three hours. I'm to return tomorrow at 1PM and get that nailed down. Also fine. This pleases me immensely.

After weeks of scrimping and rationing, I'm in a much better mood (despite my boss Jonah forgetting to mail me my check, despite a reminder last week and a promise he wouldn't forget) because my mutual fund check came, and they took no taxes from it. That's a problem for another day -- for now that gave me a thousand dollar check in a time I could use it, with San Diego coming up. Now I can get the car tightened up and road ready, and not risk any of my finances on it. Bills will even (finally) get paid this week (Kanye, "I got a couple of past due bills, I won't get specific ...").

So with a grand on Saturday (which has already cleared my credit union, a big shock to me, but a pleasant surprise), $300 today and $275 due Thursday from Jonah, I'm looking good to get things all locked down in a manner that's almost pleasant. I'm not planning on doing a lot of spending in SD -- no space for more toys, and no back issues I "must" have. It's a networking trip, and a work weekend, whereas Jonah agreed to pay $25/story for anything I turn in from the 'con, plus covering my admission. Which is very cool.

The only weird bit (as it seems there always has to be a problem somewhere ...) is how much I've been thinking about my ex-wife recently. Not good things, at all. My romantic life isn't moving at warp speed right now, but I'm comfortable with it and not feeling any stress, which is a lot of what I want. I was working and somehow thought about how the African cloth cover on my couch goes with the purple hanging curtains that separate my junky office area from my relatively tidy living room. I spend most of my time here in the living room, only going into the bedroom for clothes or sleep mostly. I don't know why I wondered what the ex-wife would think (I don't type or say or even think her name, I've noticed) about the color match. She's never seen my living room, because she doesn't know where I live, on purpose.

During the initial stages of our divorce (which seems, now, like it happened a million years ago), she completely withdrew from communicating with me, despite the advice of common friends and a therapist. I originally didn't want her to know where I lived for reasons of legal manuevering -- can't seize what you can't find, can't serve someone you can't find either -- but realized it was a partial response to that kind of sudden vacuum (well, not so sudden, she'd emotionally left me more than a year prior, but I deluded myself into thinking she hadn't). Not real mature. Not like I'm gonna go invite her over -- I can't stand to see her, most of the time, and avoid her religiously. But worth noting.

Preparations are beginning, coincidentally, for the third annual Virgo Birthday Bash, an event started by my ex-wife (to celebrate all of my money she spent on a wall and other things for her house). The event has been co-opted and shanghaied by my good friends Daniel and Inpu, also Virgos. I am in charge of invites and graphics. I mentioned I would, under no circumstances, invite her. Last year, someone I'm romantically involved with was at the party, and when someone else started flirting with me, it got weird for me. I wouldn't jam a stick in my own eye by inviting someone whose very presence makes me itch. Inpu (who has a host of dangerous and self-serving motivations) might invite her anyway, as he never lets a door go completely closed (regardless of how his foot gets pounded by it trying to shut) if a woman has a nice ass (I saw her at the Juneteenth Poetry Slam, she's lost what little weight she used to complain about, and I'll admit she looks amazing). I'd probably leave is she showed up. I'm not the sort to stay anywhere and be uncomfortable anymore.

What I don't understand is why this is sticking in my craw now, more than a year since the divorce. Part of it, I theorize, is shedding myself of a lot of things from that era -- she bought my first karaoke CDs, which are now gone. She held on to the title for my Monte Carlo, which is now gone. Her father bought the couch I'm sitting on right now, her Ikea credit got my recliner and my office chair, and the mattresses in the bedroom, and the VCR, and the karaoke machine, et cetera. Divesting myself of her could get expensive, and I've had a lot of expensive lessons this year already. My therapist told me that I'd spend a long, long time getting over this, that it would come in waves and even cloud good times, poisoning what dreams may come. I suppose this should be considered par for a rather irritating course, as irritations seem to be the order of the day for this year.

But that's a shadow on the edge of my mind. Up front is the new analog input for my iPod that'll let me ride with good music, or my better-than-before karaoke CD collection, now more than two hundred songs stronger than its predecessor. I think about a beautiful woman thinking pleasant thoughts about me, miles away. I think about bean pie and laughing with my dawg Malik when he came to town this weekend. About helping my co-worker Dana get her new business off the ground, a karaoke empire away from the one she brought me to. Or how much extra cash I'll make, driving my boss Nigel around while his DUI keeps him off the roads. With my money woes clear (for the foreseeable future), my car on the way to being road ready and scent free, and boundless opportunity in front of me, largely because I have no misconceptions about who I really am -- someone who takes pleasure in the suffering of others, someone who is going to take care of his own business before even considering anybody else (i.e. the Vader shot above), someone who likes to see heroes (see photos here, cribbed from a French-language anti-AIDS campaign) toppled and broken, someone who accepts that everybody doesn't have to choose "good" to be all right. I let my ex-wife convince me that being who I am is wrong, that I was not inherently beautiful despite it. I know better now, proven by hard empirical evidence. I have a lot of real glory going on in my life, and I'm terribly happy about it.

Despite whatever shadows may linger on the periphery.