Leroy's Before 7:00 a.m.

I left the house after a 3 hour nap. Double O called at 9 p.m., right before my nap, and told me he needed a ride to a dr's appointment at 3:00 p.m. tomorrow (now today) because Julie had a conflicting 3:00 p.m. baby appointment and they only have the one vehicle. We never quite figured out how to do it because Julie didn't want me to give her a ride, she didn't want to take Lizzy, and I'm NOT LENDING HER MY CAR, and she didn't want me to baby sit while they were out. What a woman. So I went to sleep and had my nap. At midnight I got up, checked some bloggies, there are now 4 SMF Blog members (ST, MeMungo, Tommy, and Caridad [in S.Korea]), and left the house with my backpack.

At Leroy's, in a booth, were Jen, Mary, Roxy (another Leroy's waitress) and Jeano, the regular. I said hello to everyone and chatted for 30 seconds before I took my stool at the far left end of the counter. I wrote the 9th chapter in Highway 9 tonight, "The Imperial Highway, pt 2," where we leave Osage. I skipped chapters 6, 7, and 8, because I forgot to bring my other notebook where those chapters have already been drafted out. But my keen foresight in making an outline equipped with notebook numbers and page numbers allowed me to make a note that these chapters had been unsequenced and could be found later with a quick glance.

There's a new girl working at Leroy's. Her name is Liz, and this is her second job. She also works at the Denny's on Dimond and we talked, a lot. She's 19 and drives a Pepsi-Can blue 2000 Saturn SL1, complete with front bumper problems. The only differences between her car and my car is that she's got bumper stickers (The President is Lying, monkey skeletons, and punk band stickers... all that came with the car when she bought it in Wasilla), and her car is a stick shift. Mine also has about twice the amount of miles. 102,000 now, and tacking.

The cook, tonight it was Roy, gave me three free eggs: overeasy. I was grateful, I guess, but I only had ice water and coffee in my stomach, and after eating them with nothing else, I couldn't think of anything more disgusting. Except for sauteed (sp?) mushrooms. (I'll never forget our Welcome Home dinner with Double O at Outback and you guys ate that HUGE plate of those nasties, making me eat one, and me trying to vomit as candidly as possible buried deep in the booth next to Julie.

It's taking me a lot longer than I thought to write this thing. I think it's because I'm thinking, way a lot, about the times I had with Jill. And everyone else too. I'm bringing all my friends into these chapters and they're all so amazing and I think about them quite a lot in between inky sentences. It's hard to make much progress when I reminisce so heavily, but I think the book will be better, at least "true-er" to life, because of it. I'm about to start Chapter 6, now that I'm home. It's the chapter where I go to school the first week after I meet Jill and all that... I said before that it's the one where I get to lie and make myself cool.

DO YOU HEAR THAT WORLD?!

Peace and Love,
Mungo

PS, it's -4 out there. I'm much happier when Degrees are social and throw these huge keggers where 72 of them are together and everything is warm.

Song of the day: "Of A Girl" - Pearl Jam