Cake on the Table

Today was a good day for grinding. It was still early in the week and the sun was high in the sky. So I got on the bike with a loaded and back and started hitting bookstores and vendors a few weeks early in hopes of giving Cake a good starting buzz before it drops. For those of you who live in NYC that want to check it out early you can cop it from one of the street book vendors in the Fulton Mall or on 12th between St. Nick and Lenox. In my mind those are the two centers of literary commerce in the city.

Some faces remembered me while others gave me that cold "you ain't gonna hustle me" New York grill. I found this funny as I was giving them product for free. No strings. No promises. Just a number to call in case they wanted to re-up. But in the middle of a near recession everyone's cautious. Everyone's skeptical. Even me. So as I go all in on another literary endeavor I'm trying to be as Zen as I can about it, working hard not to focus on the disappointments of projects past. There's a freedom that comes with that.

I was reading a zodiac website last night that said that those of us who are born as Scorpios tend to be people who were selfish and wasteful in a former life, people who only saw things on the surface. If that's true then perhaps the neverending waiting game that has logjammed so many of my ambitions makes sense in a weird sort of way. I'm having to work so hard in this life because I didn't have to in the last one. I'm blazing trails because I used to bring up the rear. It's not a concept I have any particular amount of faith in but it's interesting. There's a similar soul who uses "interesting" about as much as I do. And that's really...interesting.

There's going to be a launch party for Cake on July 8th from 6pm to 10pm (I may move it from 7 to eleven though) It will be held at the Frank White lounge at 936 Atlantic Avenue (bet St. James and Washington) in Clinton-Hill Brooklyn, right off the Clinton Washington stop. Both D and I will be reading along with music, drinks and good times. I'd love to meet as many of my blog readers who have been hiding in the New York shadows these last few years. So I do hope that you come through. All are welcome.

Now it's off to push-ups and writing curriculum guides and job searching. As I cruise through Brooklyn's streets on two wheels, I will take in the rustling of women's tennis skirts that offer big hints of the goodies that lie underneath, heaving cleavage the color of blue mountain coffee, the dilligent efforts of the people up at the prayer station trying to bring all the heathens to God, and the little boys and girls riding out the last days of their school sentence before a long summer.

I had this dream last year that I was reminded of last night. I was in a car with a few other guys and we'd just committed a robbery. Our car pulled up to a house in the middle of nowhere, a place that seemed like a sanctuary. I got out of the car just as the cops showed up and chased the rest of thieves away, leaving me alone in front of an empty house with nothing but sun and desert in both directions. The house didn't seem safe so I started walking down a straight and narrow road towards the sun, alone but tranquil, a long journey ahead of me and all of the drama going the other way.

If I had remembered that dream and what I took from it I shouldn't have been surprised by all the things that happened not long after. It was the jump-off point for the emptying of the box. It was a warning about the often excruciating solitude that was to come. My bones would ache and would be soaked in sweat, but I would get to the next town intact. I would make it when others would not. I got out of the car because I didn't belong with "them" anymore. Then I went my own way, trying to get back on the path that had been set for me long before. Had I not tried to force things I might have been there by now. But when it comes to the lessons that matter I'm determined to learn things the hard way. But I'm learning. Ever so slowly I'm learning. Out.