The Hunchback of Atlantic Avenue

the hunch backed man was out in full force today even in the pouring rain. I took my doggie out for a walk, held her most of the time, and there he stood on the stoop of the funeral parlor sweeping up wet leaves. he has a slight spanish accent when he says, hi doggie you looking good today even in the rain. i slept in and when i woke to the sound of rain falling through the silver linden tree outside my bedroom window. its an effort to keep the negative thoughts at bay but I am trying a new strategy. I ignore them, say to myself, they are just thoughts, they do not represent you, thoughts come and go, no need to hold onto the ones that are hurting you. something tells me I'm not going to go to the gym today AGAIN. I want to smoke some weed and read three newspapers and write some more. i'm alittle drunk on this little blog and alittle drunk on the short story i started yesterday. its a great set up, the theme is peep show. so i've got this paternalistic testosterone infused professor, an agnostic, a disbeliever in god, who turns cultural icons into a religion, as a substitute. he's single and his vice is pornography, that's his deep dark secret. he finds himself at pleasure palace one night, asks for a dancing girl, he can watch her but he can't touch her. he longs to touch her though, her flesh, her slightly slutty hair, her sloppily made up mouth, he knows she is not his eurydice but he can try and remake her in his image. but it all goes horribly wrong. I am rewriting fairy tales, myths from a distinctly feminist point of view. we see how this man suffers trapped in the patriarchal chains of manhood, and how it keeps him distant from his own sexuality, his own humanity, which I think is true of many men. this all sounds like academic gobbledy gook but it works. i'm trying for a style that channels and revisions The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter but digital.