sharply.  suddenly.  it has turned bitterly cold.  this reminds me of the friends i made working at the rehab because it was just this kind of cold that drove them indoors and into often temporary sobriety of one form or another.

addiction is not so much a leering leviathan to be slain as it is daily skirmishes that wear you down until the pit you’ve crawled out of looks better than anything else you can think of at that moment or at any moment that you can currently remember.

i miss brooksie, whose death left me reeling, physically lacking his voice beside me on the box truck’s bench seat as i sang alone to the radio.  work without him was always much too quiet.

i tied the monkey to a string around my neck,

that’s the only way i knew to get him off of my back.

he and that little tin drum beating on and on and always

                                                                     rat-a-tat tat     rat-a-tat tat

imagine that