The captain is out to lunch and the sailors have taken over the ship by Charles Bukowski

 This is a short book. It is non-fiction as it is taken from Bukowski's journal that he wrote on his new Macintosh IIfx.  Entries are taken from mid 1991 to February 1993, and as we all know, he dies of leukemia March 1994.  These are the last few years of his life.  Did he know they were the last? He writes in several entries about his own death, as if he felt it creeping in.  He is surprised that he is still alive, after all the things he has done to his body in his life.  He wonders how it would be when the milkman comes, and he cannot greet him because he's dead, or he cannot pick up the newspaper from his porch because he has died.  He finds the thought "Impossible!" 

Imagining our own death and how things would go on after we die, but without us, is such a waste of time and emotion.  It cannot be helped.  And, when the time comes, you'd be dead, so you won't be able to imagine or feel anything anyway.  It is a waste of good, given alive time.  Death will come to everyone.  No matter who.  Nobody has ever escaped death and nobody ever will.  Everything that has been born has to die.  It is the only immutable law.  Being afraid of it, freaking out about the inevitability of it, is just a waste of good, given alive time.  Being dead is like being stupid - it is only difficult for those around you (I stole that). 

Again this book contains way too many pages about horse racing.  I like his novels because they contain next to nothing about horse racing.  And the humor.  He writes in his journal entries about how much he detests people, finds them appalling, violent, stupid, basic, crazy, but also he admits that he needs them as otherwise who would change his car tires, pull out his tooth, or operate on him when he needs it.  I find his honesty refreshing.  My wife believes in reincarnation.  But why would we even reincarnate here on this tiny little speck of dust, in a side street of our galaxy, which is among trillions of other galaxies that we know about?  One Buddhist said that being incarnated as a human is so rare and such a great reward that it is like having a life saver (ring buoy) being thrown around on a surface of a stormy ocean and a turtle coming up for air once in a 100 years and the chance of the turtle having its head through the life saver.  Maybe it is true.  But also, maybe there is a joke in there.  

The people across from my apartment are fucking on the window.  Good for them.  It is dark in their apartment so I can see only shadows.  The woman is pressed against the windows with her arms up and the man is taking her from behind.  Now he threw her on the bed.  Good for them.