Tao of Pauly

Lighter

By Pauly
New York City

I woke up early due to a weird dream. I could not fall back asleep and woke up. For some reason, the first thing I did today was that I weighed myself. It had been almost a week since I did that last. I was shocked to discover that I lost over ten pounds since my return to NYC. And that was after a holiday weekend where I didn't run much and stuffed my face. Instead of binging on bagels, I ate sludge again. Grape nuts and skim milk. Delicious. But I devoured a chicken parm for dinner and even ordered a Caesar's Salad. I ate about half of it. Vegetables disgust me.

I didn't start writing until 1pm. It was a slow start to the day, especially since I was up by 7am. No explanations. I just wasn't feeling it. And I chose not to rush myself so I dicked around for six hours. I ran. I went to the Korean grocery store to buy bananas. I sat around and read a book about poker strategy. Then I wrote a post for my poker blog. I gave myself a timed amount to write it. Like most of my posts, I open up blogger and start typing.

In a post titled Milestones, I wrote about my daily routine during late July of 2005 when I lived in Las Vegas and hung out with Grubby everyday. He didn't have a job... aside from gambling. And I had just finished an assignment and had tons of free time. We would hang out at buffets for several hours before playing poker then hit up strip clubs late at night before returning to the casinos to play poker or heading out somewhere to eat breakfast at 5 or 6am. Then it was time to crash and repeat the process, where I'd wake up around noon and write for a few hours while I waited for Grubby to call me.

I finally found motivation to get my ass in gear and got to work on the project. When I finally sat down, I cranked out 6,000 words in about four hours. The project is now over 23,300. I'd say about half of the material represents some of my better material. The rest of it is mediocre or just below average. I might hold up at 30,000 and go back and refine the weaker parts before I continue. Part of me wants to get as much down as possible, while my goal for this project was to write slower and pay more attention to editing every day. Of course editing is not as much fun as writing and letting the mind wander on the pages. In the end, I only have a couple of more days to write before I fly to Hollyweird next week.

I got an email from the Swedes and they gave me a few suggestions for my last three assignments of the year. They had a couple of good ideas, which I needed because I was stuck. Perhaps I can crank out two (even three) sometime this weekend to fulfill my obligation to them for the rest of the year. That way, I'll have the entire month of December free to relax and work on the main project when I get back from LA/Vegas.

Tuesday was afro-cuban and latin jazz day and I listened to a slew of Cuban music with a heavy emphasis on the Buena Vista Social Club. I even lost my shit during Oye Como Va by Tito Puenta. Then for some reason I dug up an old Johnny Cash CD and played that for an hour or so. Two totally opposite moods. The BVSC was upbeat and passionate and reminded of breezy tropical days in Jamaica. But the Johnny Cash spun me into a somber mood, like those depressing hot and humid days in Atlanta when I was a lost 19-year old adrift with mean eyes courtesy of all of the whiskey and scornful women in my life at the time. Powerful flashbacks and vivid sort of like pages from a Tennessee Williams play. I felt like I wanted to put my fist through a wall. So I stopped Johnny Cash. Instead I turned it off and listened to the radio. WFUV played a ccouple of Paul Simon songs from One Trick Pony. All I wanted to do was chill out and smoke pot. God bless Paul Simon.

I always wondered what the fuck Art Garfunkel was up to these days?

Last 5 Flicks I Watched on Cable...
1. Star Wars Episode II
2. Dazed and Confused
3. Galaxy Quest
4. 10 Things I Hate About You...
5. Inside Man