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So Brian and Shannon are just crazy kids, hangin’ out in their trailer, trying to make ends meet, right?

So cute you just want to squeeze ’em and hug ’em like little puppies, right?.

Except, whoa, wait just one fucking minute- this cute as all git out couple- have caged their daughter, feeding her one mother-fucking pop-tart a day. She’s maybe six and maybe weighs all of 15 pounds.

Oh, and there’s another kid buried under their trailer.

Whoops. Mistakes abound.

Whoa. WTF?

But, hey, now that they’re happily married and have ANOTHER kid that they’re happily parading around as legit, or whatever, we’re supposed to like them?

Not a chance.

I can’t tell you how fucking pissed off I am what these little fuckers did to two little kids. My teeth grind.

As adults, do what you will to each other, cursing and hating one another, and being pricks back and forth, but leave the little kids out of it.

OK?

I mean, really.

O-FUCKING-K???

I’m not bitchin’ or pissin’ or moanin’ or anything, ’cause, gosh, not THIS time, too?

But. ya’ know what? maybe I am.

‘Cause, baby, I’m tired.

I’d wanted to

And I really tried to

But I swore I’d never

And then I did.

Dude, I’ve been working seven days a week for months now. My eyeballs have started to vacillate and I’m making crappy decisions and I’m not sleeping and, ooh, poor little baby, whatever, stop your pussy-boy whining, right?

Right-e-o, neighbor. Check and double check that, babe.

But the effort’s changing shit.

Ya know?

I first heard of Michael Cunningham when I listened to one of his books on CD.

Yup.

I’m one of those nerds who listen to books while I drive. Goofily, flailing, whatever, dude.

I listened to the reading of his A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD and was hooked. I’d have his child if Miss Carol would let me.

I bought the book so Miss Carol could read it ’cause she’s not as nerdy or needy as me and while I was Amazoning shit I picked up THE HOURS.

Big breath. In and out, slowly.

Maybe I’m straining my credibility just a tad, like I have anything remotely resembling anything like credibility, but still, hang with me. OK?

‘Cause I’ll tell ya, I think this is the best book I’ve ever read. Papa Hemingway, Mister Steinbeck, Cormac McCarthy? you boys need to sit on the couch.

And it torches my soul to say that.

But. SHIT.

THE HOURS is so beautifully written you can literally open it at random, to any page, and start reading and wonder why you never opened it earlier, and maybe wonder when you’re gonna pick it up and read it’s little parts again.

And just when you’re thinking the tickling is fun, the ending is so searingly amazing that it not only makes you realize just how small and meaningless your life is but makes you wanna stop letting your life be so small and meaningless.

It’s that fucking good.

I went into a bookstore the other day. (I know, who goes into THOSE anymore? what IS the matter with me?)

Books, baby.

Let’s us touch the crucible. Let’s us look longingly into the gilt.

‘Cause ya know that’s what we all of us really want and need and yearn for with fibers of our being we’re not even sure we have and would stake the heads of our enemies on. Right?

Books.

The lovely pages.

We, the blogger nation,  somehow yearn for pages of print, how weird is that?

We write our singular treatises expunging nothing but angst into the ether of the internet- pounding out the pithy- and then we curl up around a dog-eared sun-warmed shitty paperback.

And looooooong for it.

Why is that?

How is it that the whole world’s digital onslaught of ones and zeros hasn’t somehow coldly killed the lowly book? Why is it that  a books’ clean and newly printed pages beckon us like cigarettes in a freshly opened pack?

Hmmmmmm.

Fuck if I know, ’cause, well, shit, honestly, I’m not that smart?

But I think of these things and they make me wonder.

Maybe we clutch.