A few people have asked, so here’s the answer.
The quote at the front of my journal comes from a Tom Waits song, “An Invitation to the Blues.”
You can listen to it here
Invitation To The Blues
Well, she’s up against the register with an apron and a spatula
With yesterday’s deliveries, and the tickets for the bachelors
She’s a movin’ violation from her conk down to her shoes
But it’s just an invitation to the blues
And you feel just like Cagney, she looks like Rita Hayworth
At the counter of the Schwab’s Drugstore
You wonder if she might be single, she’s a loner, likes to mingle
Got to be patient, try and pick up a clue
She said: How you gonna like ’em, over medium or scrambled?
You say: Anyway’s the only way, be careful not to gamble
on a guy with a suitcase and a ticket gettin’ out of here
in a tired bus station, in an old pair of shoes
cause it ain’t nothin’ but an invitation to the blues
But you can’t take your eyes off her, get another cup of Java
It’s just the way she pours it for you, jokin’ with the customers
Mercy mercy, Mr. Percy, there ain’t nothin’ back in Jersey
but a broken down jalopy of a man I left behind
and a dream that I was chasin’, and a battle with the booze
and an open invitation to the blues
But she used to have a sugar daddy and a candyapple Caddy
And a bank account and everything, accustomed to the finer things
He probably left her for a socialite, and he didn’t love her ‘cept at night
And then he’s drunk and never even told her that he cared
So they took the registration, and the car keys and his shoes
and left her with an invitation to the blues
But there’s a Continental Trailways leavin’ Local bus tonight, good evenin’
You can have my seat, I’m stickin’ round here for a while
Get me a room at the Squire, and the fillin’ station’s hirin’
Now I can eat here every night, what the hell have I got to lose?
Got a crazy sensation, go or stay, and I gotta choose
And I’ll accept your invitation to the blues