The conversation I just excised from the script:

MICKEY
...Jassie. Jassie? Was it JAssie or JEssie?

BEN
Jassie. Jassie Jones.

MICKEY
Yeah. That’s a shame. That woulda been fun. I was circling that piece man...I was gonna eat.her.up.

BEN
(laughs)
Shit! You so much as blew a kiss in her direction her daddy’d a shot you in the fucking face.

MICKEY
No!

BEN
What!?

MICKEY
Really?

BEN
Man Mickey you’re so- you’re oblivious man. You only see what you wanna see... the rich bitch in the short shorts curling her fingers in the outfield fence. I see-

MICKEY
-Oh you don’t see that?

BEN
I see- that’s what I’m saying, of course I see that. Shit I still see it. Right now-

He clamps his eyes shut.

BEN (CONT'D)
-I can count the little blonde hairs ‘tween her belly button and her shorts band-

They laugh.

BEN (CONT'D)
-but what I also see, is fuckin lawyer daddy, lurkin in the stands watchin who’s watching her more than he’s watching the game. You ask anybody who played on the Cape before and they’d tell ya: Ain’t no fuckin Jassie fuckin Jones. Everybody knew that. ‘Cept you.

MICKEY
Well. Mighta been worth a bullet. I miss pussy, man. More than... baseball, and pizza, my family even. Shit, I can be kissing my grandma on the cheek and pussy pops in my head, but it ain’t ever the other way around.

BEN
I fuckin hope not.

MICKEY
(screaming)
I miss it! I MISS PUSSY!


To be replaced by...

BEN
Movies, I miss movies. And ice cubes. Pizza maybe...

MICKEY
I miss pussy. PUSSY. I MISS PUSSY!

And you thought crashing into the fence was bad. One year to the day now after I drove the old teal Saturn up I-95 to here, she is dead. Fucking dead my car is. And it had nothing to do with the fence. Apparently, although I had a full tank of oil, it wasn't filtering through the engine, something busted and broke a rod off in the engine. Or something. Something like that. Bottom line: Junk it or get a new E N G I N E ! ! ! !

A fucking engine.

It's so insane that the word Engine seems made up, for this specific craziness. New engine Shmew Shmengine.

So, if you're keeping tabs at home that's 1 crashed Jaguar, 1 busted fence, and 1 fucked
E N G I N E ! ! ! !

I'm fucked.

I got a cell phone the other day. Just in time to call Kelly the next day and tell her I couldn't pick her up for work. I had lost control in the snow and crashed into a fence. Somebody's fence. Cracked the shit out of my front end; buried myself in a snowbank.

Kelly and Nicole had to pick me up. AAA had to pull me out. I've got to fix the dude's fence.

I watched Raging Bull for the first time ever today.

It's so hard for me to write in this thing anymore.

It was after months and weeks and days and with a complicated series of pulleys and nets that I finally trapped the Butterfly in the dark of a movie theater. It was countless bars and beers and finally she was watching a movie with me. And it was Alexander Payne's pitch-perfect Sideways, what flickered in her big eyes.

A mix of that a) she was actually there, and b) I had already seen the film, made it hard to pay attention. Just like a couch, just like lounging and being high, I wanted to touch her the whole time. Did in fact. And in a moment of life imitating art imitating life, just as Paul Giamatti's Miles makes a dating dud of himself --"Uh, I've been getting into Rieslings, rieslings...you like riesling."-- I old-school slung my arm around her shoulders. But before it got around her shoulders, its elbow stopped off at her eye. CRACK! And before I could kiss it and apologize I just wanted to laugh.

It was so cliche. My cracking her in the eye on our first trip to the cinema. It was so perfectly real.

Just like Sideways.

Bob sat me down today to tell me about his livelihood, how the Brewhouse was it and that I wasn't taking his livelihood seriously. With my giving away shifts and having a bleach spot on my apron. Everytime they have to tell me to shave its like my saying "Fuck You" to them, a flick of my fingers under my chin. That way is the way I'm saying "Fuck You." Steak sauce, hot sauce, ketchup, mustard, salt, pepper, advertising tents, candle globes, beer books, silverware; all soaked and scrubbed and emaculate. Napkins folded perfect, no overlapping edges. He shouldn't have to chase people down to tell them to fill ketchup bottles.

I shouldn't have to work at the Brewhouse.

Gosh man, why hasn't --insert any one of countless genius directors here-- knocked on my door yet?

Last night, in the middle of white pizza with broccoli, greek salad and "serious conversation," Kelly with her cute new haircut, called and signed Ryan up to play open mic at the Acoustic Cafe in Fairfield. His first extra-Florida performance. The place was cool and cozy and the drinks went down smooth. A kid with the shaggiest head said: "This next song is an instrumental... it's called 'Knob'."
Kelly met three Steves in three minutes.
We talked about Duperglop, Maryland.
And sandwiches made For By elves.
Ryan was loud and crisp and good.

It was one of my New Year's resolutions to write in this thing more. Again even. I'm not so good with resolutions. I even started a list of resolutions and didn't finish it. One of them was: Finish Things. See I'm not so good with resolutions. But here I am, and the Year is still New. And I have no idea how to start this thing again.

It's 2005. Old news I know but... It's 2005.