Don't blame Jolene.

[KB.]

I feel like changing my name to Don, as in Quixote. Did you know that story was written in two parts, a decade between them? The man from La Mancha went crazy from lack of sleep and not eating. He was too busy reading books about chivalry and heroes. I have zero problems with the food thing; I slept an hour and 12 minutes or so yesterday, and it looks like I am working up to about the same tonite. ****ing windmills. I really need to quit smoking too; I mean seriously. Someone punch me in the face every time they see me with one. I'd probably like that though. Gluttony, punishment, and all of that; you know, whatnot. It's four in the morning; think I'll go sneak a smoke while everyone is asleep.



I don't feel like writing a story tonight with me in old Don's place. So I am just going to talk about Don instead.



His real name was Alonso, but he read so many of those books, and they drove him so damned crazy that he changed it to Don Quixote. He found some old armor, and looked at a girl that lived on a nearby farm and decided that she was his "lady love", he even renamed her. She knew nothing about the whole thing. They usually don't. He set out on a journey leaving his home and arriving at an inn that he imagined was a castle. He gets in a couple of fights, asks the innkeeper to dub him a knight; he thought the innkeeper was a king. One of his neighbors finds him and returns him home. Don, ever loony bird crazy, starts to plan his escape. The people he lived with burn most of his books, and seal off his library. Intervention if you will. Don then meets Sancho Panza and convinces the short little guy that he will make him a lord of an island if he will accompany him. They sneak off at dawn. That is where their adventures begin, tilting at windmills because Don thinks they are giants.



Okay so I lied; or just changed my mind. Whichever makes you sleep better at night.



I've read a lot of damn fine books, a lot of them about people saving their world from tangible evil, and about men walking through hell into paradise. I would change my name to Ishmael if my Mom wouldn't kick my ass for doing so. I'll just have to settle for a tattoo eventually. I have also written a lot of damn sorry stories. I don't sleep much because of them; the writing and the re-reading; the wondering. A lot of those stories were me tilting at imaginary windmills. Sometimes a man, and a woman, needs something to fight or to love. If you ain't got the one then the other will suffice for a while.



The first story I ever put up for public view was 855 words long. It changed my life; in a lot of different ways. I burned the windmill in that story to the ground. Some two hundred thousand or more words later every other windmill is still standing and taunting me like some school yard bully. I never had a problem with those; the bullies. A punch in the face settles most things, and then you walk on. That last line isn't original it is something, paraphrased by me; that was said by the father of a man that I saw in a sepia toned photograph. It is also a very true saying. Those bullies you can punch are far less dangerous than the ones that you call windmills. Tilt at them a little too much and you fall flat on your ass.



The first part of Don Quixote is almost a complete farce in nature, funny and light hearted at times. The second part is a total opposite end of the spectrum. It is about deception, and even his steady little buddy, Sancho, is unintentionally forced to deceive him. Quixote's imaginings are made the butt of cruel practical jokes. The poor bastard should have just stopped reading and went and had himself a crispy chicken sandwich then took a nap.



The novel ends with Don becoming Alonso again, becoming completely disillusioned, with his downhearted return to sanity, and finally his death.



Alonso gave up far too easy; the sissy should have just stayed crazy and kept looking for more windmills to tilt. One of them will fall in eventually. Love another neighbor girl if the one that doesn't even know you have been trying to kill giants for her never shows up. Disillusionment is a silly word, how can you lose something that never existed in the first place?



Looks like I ain't getting anymore than a couple hours of sleep today, but I have a turkey sandwich in the fridge that weighs at least a pound.



I'm wore out, tired, and my head hurts. I come home to rest after I have been out somewhere looking for windmills. Sometimes I am gone just a few days, a week, three months, a couple times for nine months and this last time for thirteen months to the day. I always come back home with new stories; some that I don't tell for years; some that I will never tell. Some of those stories people won't believe and some they shouldn't. All of them pure fiction extrapolated into sullied truth. I always come back home; decompress, relax, drink a little too much and find a Jolene to chase around till I get her just interested enough to make me want to run off again. Why leave when they get interested you ask? Well you got to leave the back way home, the escape route, open and safe.



I'll explain "Jolene" again. I'm talking about the White Stripes version this time, not Dolly Parton's or Mr. Lamontagne.



"Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

I'm begging of you please don't take my man

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

Please don't take him just because you can"



Now Dolly wrote that song about a woman who worked at the bank, her line was, "I noticed my husband was spending more time at the bank than we had money". Like all good songs and stories there are as many different interpretations as there are people who will read or listen to it. When I say I'll go chase a Jolene I mean just that; Jolene will be too many Vodka tonics, or I'll let my favorite bartender make me a Crown and Diet Coke like he wants to make it. Jolene will also be some too young, sweet little thing who couldn't buy a clue. Those are the safe ones; it's the ones with an original thought in their heads that get you in trouble chasing windmills. Call me what you want, but windmills ****ing suck; of course Jolene does too. Paranoia, doubt, worry and that look on my face are Jolenes as well. Forgive me for chasing after those red headed metaphors, and I know you tried your best, but I got to find a Jolene so eventually they will get too interested and I can get gone again. If I don't I'll hang around here for one damn day too long. Every time I leave a place it's because of one of them, the leaving was almost always the right thing to do. Almost.



Rejection letters from magazines, free lance writing gigs, and Home are Jolenes.



I am as exhausted as the next person, but I keep on pushing Sisyphus' damn rock back up that hill. It's all I know how to do. Maybe eventually it will roll over something important and I won't get back up again. Relax, they say; I forgot how. The safe harbor of home got a little stormy. Don't blame Jolene, it's all my fault. Jolene can't take away what don't want to be taken. Eventually I'll burn all of those windmills down. I just don't have anyone to keep the wind from blowing out the match right now.



KB



"Facts are the enemy of truth."

~Don Quixote



Jolene - White Stripes live

[weeder]

Did you ever see the movie... Don Juan DeMarco?

Johnny Depp

Marlon Brando

Faye Dunaway

One of my all time favorites,

You will love it

Johnny Depp Believes he is Don Juan

[KB.]

weeder;658008 wrote: Did you ever see the movie... Don Juan DeMarco?

Johnny Depp

Marlon Brando

Faye Dunaway

One of my all time favorites,

You will love it

Johnny Depp Believes he is Don Juan


Great movie; someone used Demarco is reference to "some" of me the other day.

"Even when he’s got the devil in his eyes

The juice in veins and the Demarco in his heart

Every woman can get to the core of his world

With enough coyness, lipstick and fight."

I saw it when it was in theaters.

[KB.]

Meet a Jolene, and they are always so very pert and nubile, and then buying a Quixote helmet; I'd call that surreal. Come visit more often sir. I enjoy your comments so very much.