The Toad and The Roach

Part 1 (not that its the chronological first part, it just showed up first)

"And then I looked to my left and saw a squirrel with rabbit ears. He looked at me, cocked his head to the side and said, 'Pardon me, kind boy, but would you happen to have the time?' But when I told him, 'I have all the time in the world!,' he laid his ears back in a very unkind fashion, swished his tail, and scurried off in the opposite direction of the moon."

Part Two

It was raining. I sat under a pine tree. The sky was mostly gray, with bits of dark blue here and there. The thunder had passed over and was off to the east. A few drops made it through my roof. There was no breeze.

I thought of nothing. I sat. There was no reason to think. I wasn't waiting either. I sat. I smelled the rain, the tree, the wet dirt. I became a rock.

The rain passed. Sunlight began to warm the boughs of my house. As it warmed up, the smells changed. Birds began to chirp.

(insert Part One)

Part Three

Walking home, watching the dust cloud up and fall down around my feet, I reflected on my day. Calm. Connected. Quiet. The flowers in front of the cabin greeted me with smiles, their faces washed clean by the rain. I picked some mint to hang in the open window. The door opened silently, the room offering a cavelike solidarity. I began to make dinner.

lyrics

I knew I'd reached yet another turning point in life when I caught myself, out of the blue, humming Bruce Springsteen:

"Well there's a girl that lives up the block
back in school she could turn all the boy's heads
Sometimes on a Friday I'll stop by
and have a few drinks after she put her kids to bed"

And then I heard some Tom Petty and connected with:

"You know , sometimes, I dont know why,
But this old town just seems so hopeless
I aint really sure, but it seems I remember the good times
Were just a little bit more in focus"

I feel on the cusp of something new, which is always a good feeling to have.

Drifting

Drifting off to sleep on a Friday afternoon....all the ambition I had to mow the lawn, grill chicken, cut my hair...its passed on. Leached out of my back and into the cushions of the couch, from where it flowed down through the floor, oozed through the foundation, and contributed to the patch of dead grass in the front yard. Its my Sunday night-tomorrow begins a whirlwind weekend of two 12-hour days of work, followed by starting a new job 7 AM Monday.

I bought The Rum Diary this afternoon, by Hunter S Thompson. I rode my deathtrap Harley home from the fashionable nationwide-chain bookstore with this anthemous salute to those who thumb their nose at regular people stuffed between my sweaty back and my Levi's. Falling asleep with it carefully pitching a tent of sweaty discontent on my chest certainly aided and abetted the fleeing of responsible thought from my body. And so here I sit, debating the various ways the evening could progress. I imagine, if I can muster the might to overcome the mental anguish certain to ensue afterward, I will commence with laborious adult duties at some point in the nearish future. However, I happen to know for certain there's a documentary on Lead Belly hidden inside Netflix, cold beer in the fridge, and both the marinating chicken and the growing grass will certainly still be waiting when I get to them.

The moral of the story? There's no moral! There's no story, when you investigate the skeleton of the thing. Its a jumble of words, organized to look like something at quick glance, but with adjusted lenses and red marking pen in hand, it crumbles like Jimi's castle made of sand. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The invention of comfortable furniture was a turning point in the collective productivity of America. That, and junk food. Or television. One's the chicken, one's the egg.

Mr. America. Or, All-American.

One of those will be the title of my autobiography. I decided that today at work. I didn't really decide, actually. It came to me in a flash of inspiration, out of nowhere. I never see them coming, and they pass quickly, but these brief moments of mindgear meshing can be quite interesting. Often they lead to my feeling foolish about not realizing the obvious sooner (many friends can attest to that.) At any rate, that's the news from Lake Webegone.

Objects in mirror may appear less cool than remembered

I just deleted a four-paragraph blog because I decided I didn't want to share it with you. What it said, in a nutshell, was this: sometimes shit happens in a jacked-up order. Sometimes you realize something too late in the game, sometimes you get thrown a curve ball, and sometimes wild shit just pops up out of nowhere. And sometimes you regret not what you did, but what you DIDN'T do. Or say. Express. To someone. And sometimes, people put up a great advertisement, but the product is shit. Other times, you wander into a situation expecting nothing and find something really cool. That's what I was trying to share. The names have been deleted to protect the innocent.

Here? Really?

I like lists. I feel they're a good place to start when considering writing your own history. Here's a list:

Dog farm
Sheep Farm
Dairy Farm

Race car team
Automotive Restoration shop
Home remodeling
groundskeeper
newspaper editor
writing tutor
Carpenter

log home builder
oil field worker
natural gas distribution system manager
warehouse crane builder
Administrative Specialist
generator mechanic

That's where I come from! Here's another list:

Indiana
Virginia
Pennsylvania
Mississippi
Kansas
Arizona
Colorado

That's states I've had an address in. Some of them several addresses.

States I have NOT been to:

Oregon
Everything in New England except Massachusetts. I think I was in Connecticut once on a roadtrip.

Motorcycles:

1982 Honda CM400E
Yamaha XS650 (x2)
1971 Kawasaki F7 (never ran)
1980-something Kawasaki KZ440 (never ran)
Some Yamaha dirtbike
1982 Yamaha Seca
1997 Suzuki TL1000S
1978 Suzuki GT550K-Indy (never ran)
2006 Harley Davidson XL1200C

I think that's a complete list.

Trucks:

1977 Ford F100
1982 Ford F250
1986 Ford Bronco
1985 Ford F150
1989 Ford F150
1977 Ford F250 Highboy
1995 Ford Ranger
1984 Ford F150
2006 Toyota Tacoma X-Runner
1962 Ford F150

Cars:

1989 Volkswagen Fox
1987 Toyota MR2
1970-something Toyota Corolla

I don't remember any more cars.

TV's I paid for, in my life: 1. I paid for it because it was my friend's and I threw it out my front door one night. Things happen.

See how many stories there are right there? A few quick lists, and I could tell you stories for hours.

FOUR YEARS LATER!

Hi kids! Well, that was a bit of a break! My last post came to you from good old Kirkuk, Iraq, home of a lot of things, but not ME anymore!

Recently over beers with a longtime friend that I hadn't seen since directly before my departure to the sandpit, I realized that what seems no big thing to me may be quite an adventure to others. You see, what you're experiencing has a tendency to appear normal when you're in the middle of it. However, although the eye of a tornado is calm, the view from a few miles away reveals quite a different story.

I left Indiana in 2001, and returned only once for a stay longer than a week. To those who graduated high school, moved out, got a job, and began working, what I did and learned seems like quite an adventure. What did I learn? I learned that every town is the same. I learned to not let fear be a negative reaction. I learned its not WHAT you know, but WHO you know-to a point. I learned a bachelor's degree is worth it, but not for the reasons you believe when you attend your first class. And a few other things.

So, there's a few stories. Sometimes I wonder if people believe me. It doesn't matter if they do or not. The stories are real, and the names are real-I've just forgotten most of them. It seems every experience I have reminds me of something else. I can't believe the stories I've forgotten that friends remind me of (that surely has something to do with a fond relationship with PBR and whiskey, but even saints are sinners).

For instance, today I drove past a sign for Haverstick Rd. Big deal right? Well, if you research the history of Arizona's wildfires, there's one named Haverstick. After T**** Haverstick. Terry's a good guy, I suppose, but the most prominent memories I have of him are negative. At any rate, it made me smile, because here I am in Indianapolis, Indiana, riding my motorcycle down the street, and the traffic surrounding me has no idea I'm remembering time spent in a little jerkwater eastern Arizona town that recently got evacuated because of wildfires.

You say "C.W. McCall," I think of that really long hill in Tennessee that he sings the song about, and how I drove down it in a torrential downpour with a window that wouldn't roll up.

You say "beach" and I remember getting caught in a rainstorm on a private beach with two dogs and a couple hippies. We warmed up in the hot tub-and then went to work. It was 10:30 AM.

You say "9/11" and I remember I only had one class on Tuesdays, and its one of the rare times O.C. ever talked to me of his on volition.

I never met anybody really famous, but I did meet a random lady in the Houston airport, noticed her carry-on bag, and asked her if she knew my uncle. She did.

So here's a shout out to my friends and family, the rock and foundation of life itself, from New Hampshire to Washington, from Michigan to Texas, and all points in between. I'll tell you some more stories soon.