while in michigan city, i sat in the hotel room and smoked and thought about getting a bottle and thought about the houses and the icicles that hung from their gutters like long fingernails.

i got a very clear image of myself: attic studio, mattress, desk, writing paper and typewriter, no heat, old refrigerator, nothing to consume in the entire place except cheap bottles of white wine lined up in the refrigerator like bowling pins.  i, 30, white t-shirt, decrepit, wine, still the same bad writing, trying very hard to drink myself to death and not succeeding.

fuck youthful ideals.  i am no longer youthful.  i will be twenty-five in nine days.  i have achieved nothing, feel nothing, write nothing, despite all the words.  as henry miller would say: museum stuff.  i will end up a has-been except i am not being anything.