Okay, let’s get this clear from the beginning, “I am inebriated.” I have had a double shot of Laphroiag single malt Scotch liquor (it’s one of Prince Charles’ favorite Scotch single malts), an Estrella Jalisco cervesca, two Harvey’s hot buttered rums, a Dos Equis draught, and two double shots of Cazadores Añejo tequila. In the process of becoming inebriated I had a chicken enchilada, a chicken tostada, and a third of a Chicken Milenesa (deep fried chicken breast).

I have had, as usual on weekend visits to our favorite Mexican-American restaurant, the Ixtapa in Sultan, WA, a deep conversation with my son about our recently departed wife (on my part) and mother (on my son’s part). She was a very disturbed person who never admitted her insanity to others. It was never her fault that she was not quite the good mother or good wife. She, as most neurotics would admit, was a perfect person. She is gone now, at least from the letter I received from the VA that said a check they had sent to her had been returned indicating that the addressee was “deceased”.

I sit here writing this entry to my blog on GA while my son supposedly has crashed onto his bed for the night after too much alcohol (he had two double Cazadores margaritas), two hot buttered rums, a Negra Modelo, and two double shots of Don Julio Añejo tequila).

Nana, our nine-month-old German Shepherd is lying on the sofa looking at me as I write this. In the past two weeks since we have had our X-mas tree, she has been a very naughty puppy. So far, she has partially eaten one very special handmade ornament.

(If you will excuse me, but I’ve been away for twenty minutes while Nana was outside supposedly to take care off a physiological need, but didn’t seem to need to do anything other than to run around and chase her tail.)

Nana has a problem. She chases her tail and captures it on occasion. She has a definite curl in the end of it due to chewing on said object. I looked online and discovered that some German Shepherds have a predilection for chasing their tails. It seems that inbreeding has produced a fault in some genetic lines that causes some German Shepherds to chase their tails to the point where it is similar to the human condition known as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and, is some instances, can be treated with medications that treat human OCD patients. We have, as yet, not gone expense of treating Nana’s OCD. Hey, she’s an altered bitch, so why should we go to the expense. We’ve got a whirling Dervish German Shepherd; what more could one ask for?

I’ve been reading a Penguin Classic collection of the New York stories of John O’Hara. Why is he important, you ask? Well, he is acknowledged as being one of the few writers of fiction to be able to write dialog as it is spoken by real people and, at the time of his death, was the most published author of short stories in The New Yorker magazine, which I consider to be quite an accomplishment. (Have you ever listened to Stephen Bishop singing, “On and On”? It’s playing right now; it’s one of my favorite songs and I thought you might enjoy it. If you want to listen to it, go to:

While I was reading John O’Hara’s collections of short stories I couldn’t stop thinking of all the missed opportunities I had in my own life of writing the kind of stories that are published in The New Yorker. You see, I consider myself to be a failed fiction writer. I don’t know how many stories I have left to write for GA, but I don’t think there are very many. Creativity wains and there are not enough hormones to keep producing the kind of stories I want to create.

Tonight at the Ixtapa, I saw a young boy, probably in his late teens, who I thought I’d seen somewhere online. He was across the restaurant so I couldn’t get a good look him, but from a distance I could tell his was slender, but not skinny. His brown hair hung over his forehead, but not into his eyes. His slender, boney fingers handled his smartphone with the expertise you would expect from a boy of his age. In many ways, I saw in him the beauty only a teenage boy can exude to those who look for that in a boy. To my regret, I couldn’t keep my eyes off him to the point where my son looked to where I was looking to see what was catching my eye. I don’t think he appreciated the beauty I saw.

I suspect there won’t be an update to 319 until after Christmas because I can’t write while I’m watching Nana, who has her attention focused on the X-mas tree. (Did you know X-mas is a valid abbreviation for Christmas? Well, it is. It’s in the Greek.)

In my playlist, which delves back many decades, “Fernando” by ABBA just came up. If you’re interested, try: