What's There?

I recently moved across country, and as I spent two days driving from LA to San Antonio, one question kept worming its way into my head as we passed through every small town.
   What's there?
   I mean, I can see that there's a Wal-Mart (usually), and gas stations, and schools and a police station, all the kinds of things that you need when you have a certain number of people living within proximity to one another. But I couldn't see what keeps those people there, aside from a particular inertia that we human beings have with regards to our homes.
   Why are certain small towns still places on a map? I know that, in days past, small towns sprang up at trail intersections, or at rail heads, or around natural springs, that kind of thing. If you're traveling cross-country by horse, you're going to need to know where to get water. A lot of water. And if you're herding cattle to load them on box cars, it helps to have services around where the train stops. When we tamed the West we needed a lot of little towns strung out along trails and roads and rail lines.
   But now... not so much.
   I understand that a place like, say, Deming, New Mexico once had a reason to be there, but now it seems to me that the jobs in Deming are geared towards the people of Deming. That is, the Denny's, the supermarket, the insurance broker, etc. etc. Businesses that are there because the people are there, rather than the people being there because the businesses are. The difference is important.
   In the last 50 years we've seen a grand shift from rural to urban living in the US, but it seems to me that the reasons we have a lot of small towns no longer make sense. I can see that the steady urbanization of America will become a grand urbanization, with people moving to manufacturing centers and service centers, which are the big, sprawling cities we now have. Which will only get bigger and sprawlier.
   What does this mean for a place like Deming, New Mexico? I don't know for sure but I can guess. Probably the same thing it means for Luling, Texas, or for Emmett, Idaho: a slow decline as their citizens move away, either to big cities for pointless jobs they'll hate, or back to the farms and ranches where they once labored.
   I think the small town is going away. At least until the cycle turns back around.
   Now... if you could harness the labor force in these small towns, and actually start making things in the US of A again... maybe you'd have something. Food for thought.

Anbody Think Of...

I went out to get my truck inspected today - because they have safety inspections for vehicles in Texas, unlike in California - and while I was waiting I had one of those moments. The one where about five different thoughts converge on you all at the same time, flying so fast and furious that you can't hold onto any single one of them. Usually you remember the least worthy of them, while the best one, the million-dollar idea, scatters off into the aether, where Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan' is.
   Ah, but not this time.
   I have a digital voice recorder now, and I take it with me everywhere. So when I have a thought or a notion or when I see something memorable, I can click the recorder and - presto! - instant note. And don't even have to decipher my increasingly-bad handwriting.*
   The one idea I remembered of four or five rolling through my brain was 'call the dude to fix the lights.' The dude in this case is Jack, the infamous missing-digit handyman.
   Normally that would be the one thing I remembered. But... I had my recorder. So I grabbed it and babbled my other ideas. Pure gold. Something pithy enough to be chiseled into stone, no doubt.
   Not quite.
   Here's the text of the last of my notes, which, I believe, I recorded while watching someone try to cross the very busy street by the inspection station, almost getting creamed in the attempt.
   'You should... uh... check to see if... what the hell?... Jesus, what a moron... uh... raffle...'
   I was wrong before. This isn't pure gold. It's platinum. Want another?
   'Couldn't you put cellophane on regular cars like they do on NASCAR racers? Or would that just make more litter on the highway?'
   Wow. Genius. Here's the best:
   'Could you use the steam from a fryer to spin a little turbine? Just enough to power a restaurant?'
   The inspection station is next to a Jack-in-the-Box.

I think the lesson here is not to voice record while you're distracted. I guess you gotta sift through a little manure to find the diamonds.


* which, distressingly, looks more and more like my father's handwriting as time goes on

A Day In Mulletville

Lee yawned and stretched, a half-nude welcome to the morning. His right hand reached over the couch and accidentally hit the lamp - the one missing the shade - knocking it onto the dog bed. Luckily Booger was begging for Spam in the kitchen and missed getting nailed in the noggin with porcelain.
   "You up, baby?" Lee's old lady called from beside the stove as she lit her first cigarette of the morning from the blue propane flame.
   Lee took a moment to admire her curves inside the tube top, and the way her tattoos made it seem like her arm was constantly moving, even when it wasn't.
   "Gettin' there, sweet thing," Lee mumbled, his voice hoarse from cigarettes and SoCo. The trailer's living room spun in front of him as he labored to his feet, and for the thirtieth time in as many mornings Lee swore he'd need to toss the bottle aside.
   He chuckled to himself. There was no way. He liked the buzz too much to give it up. Things were just going to have to work themselves out.
   Lee kicked his way through the pizza boxes and still-rubber-banded newspapers waiting to have their coupons clipped, and shoved his way past the aluminum ducting and copper wire he'd stolen from those abandoned houses, the ones with actual foundations. He'd need to get that stuff to the scrap yard, sooner rather than later if Lisa had her way.
   Ah... maybe tomorrow.
   Lee flicked the bathroom light switch halfway up, so it just caught but didn't go so far that it sparked, and the bare bulb over the mirror flickered to life. He ran a hand across his chin, where two days' worth of beard took attention away from his puffy, bloodshot eyes. He reached for his toothbrush then remembered that Lisa had commandeered it to clean the little holes ringing her Franklin Mint collectible NASCAR plates. She paid special attention to Jeff Gordon's plate, which caused an argument, but they'd made up with lovin' so loud and enthusiastic it woke the retired couple next door. Lee was proud of that.
   Almost as proud as he was of his Trans-Am. And almost as proud as he was of his haircut. He ran a hand from the front, over the top, then down the back. Short, short, long. Classic mullet. Business in the front, party in the back.
   "Spam's on, baby," Lisa called from the kitchen. Lee heard the 'whoof' of the propane stove going off, but he took another moment with the brush. He hadn't cut the sleeves off his Nazareth t-shirt so his hair could look bad.
   "You gonna look for a job today?" Lisa called out.
   Lee shot himself both barrels of his finger pistols in the mirror, just like Isaac from the Love Boat. Lookin' good. Real good. Maybe get-a-job good.
   "We'll see, sweet thing. We'll see."

Family Planning

So I was in the local CVS this morning, looking for toothpaste and sugar cubes,* when I noticed one of the aisles was labeled 'Family Planning.' I had my suspicions and when I walked over to the 'Family Planning' section I found the late-night staple of the drugstore, the condom section. Lots o' rubbers, many more brands than I suspected existed. Which kind of makes me wonder if condom manufacturers are like GM, lots of brands but one big parent company. So if you buy a Chic, are you really buying a cut-rate Trojan? If you go for the Durex could you get one just as good if you went for the Lifestyles?
   Yes, I made note of the brand names.
   But, more to the point, though I was taken aback by the 'Family Planning' label, I think I was actually pleasantly surprised. That is a euphemism I can get behind. So to speak.
   I mean, if you think about it, after-nine rubber runs are the meat and potatoes of a drug store's income stream. Guy races down to the corner, grabs a few rubbers, a sixer of Bud and some chips for after, maybe chocolate for the lady, slaps a twenty on the counter and he's out the door and back home before his spot under the sheets can cool. It's a vital part of the store's bottom line, is what I'm saying. Which means you want the condom-buyer to be able to find them quickly and easily.
   But you don't want to alienate everyone else who comes in the store during the non-panic hours. Old people buying adult diapers don't want to be reminded of what they aren't so able to do any longer, and young mothers towing kids around don't necessarily want to be reminded of what they should have take a moment to purchase.
   'Family Planning' instead of 'Rubbers.' Or 'Condoms.' Or 'Birth Control.' Or 'Contraceptive Devices' which sounds like some kind of sinister, oily, baby-powder-scented machinery.
   Normally I loathe corporate speak and weasel words, but I think - just this once - I approve. Well done, CVS. Now can you do something about a dress code for your patrons? I don't like boob tattoos on even the best pair, and what I saw today was far from the best pair.


* don't ask, I have my reasons

You Want To Start A Riot?

Look at the Middle East right now, a hotbed of rebellion, instigated, carried out, and perpetuated by young people. Sure, it's easy to be a rebel when you're unemployed and have nothing else to do all day, but America was a country founded on rebellion, and these foreigners are putting us to shame.
   There's a strong streak of wimpiness in American kids these days. And by kids I mean anyone from 16 to 25, young people who are working at Starbucks and playing video games when they should be raising their fists or middle fingers to those people in charge. Their attitude of meek acquiescence is brought on, I believe, by too much sensitivity training early in life. I love you, you love me. Bullshit. And by too much hand-holding by parents and authority figures. Their role models are corporate mannequins like Taylor Swift or the well-behaved and antiseptic Jonas Brothers, instead of Johnny Rotten or Chuck D.*
   Where's the youthful rebellion? Where's the 'we don't need no education' of even twenty years ago? It's gone, replaced with bland conformism. Society needs chaos, it needs upheaval, it needs young people who see things as either black or white, not their parents who see nothing but gray.
   I realize that asking kids these days to go from living in a bunker behind the Wall** to full-on confrontation with the Establishment is too much. You just don't have the tools, you've been brainwashed for too long. So here are a few acts of rebellion, call it civil disobedience, that you can use to jump-start your insurrection.

Hide all the Rascals at Wal-Mart.
   Think of the panic it will cause fat, old, and lazy people.

Flash mobs.
   Authorities hate flash mobs. So don't clear it with the mall manager beforehand or you're just ruining the premise.

TP the statue in the center of town.
   Every town has a statue, usually by the courthouse. Let them know what you think of their 'system' with a few dozen rolls of Charmin.

Sit ins.
   Find a cause, there's gotta be one worth sitting in for. Cops these days are kind of wimpy too, less willing to crack skulls than they were 50 years ago, so you'll probably just get detained and then released. Maybe you'll get tased.

Steal all the flags off the municipal golf course.
   A ninja operation in the dead of night seems the best method.

Sounds like small potatoes, doesn't it? Well, even the biggest avalanche started as one snowflake. See if you can't make a difference. And stick it to the Man.***



* the Sex Pistols and Public Enemy, respectively, look them up

** it's a Pink Floyd reference, look it up

*** yes, technically I am the Man, and I'm cool with it. But I'm disturbed that you asked permission first.

Things That Worry Me Which Probably Shouldn't

I'm concerned the garbage man may have it in for me. As far as I know I've done nothing to him to merit his wrath, yet I still feel persecuted.
   Back in the day, when there were three channels on TV plus PBS, there were three men on the garbage truck. One drove, presumably the senior member of the crew, and two clung to the sides of the truck like remoras.* The truck would rumble down the alley, the two guys would leap off and grab what you'd left out, toss it into the gaping maw, leap back on and go to the next pile of bags. They were usually convivial, even joking, and kept one another company as they did what had to be a miserable job.
   Now, though, there's just one garbageman. One loner in his truck, operating a remote-controlled claw. No exercise, no fresh air, no companionship. The lone garbageman is like the lone gunman, except his tower is a five-ton truck and his sniper rifle is the claw.
   We used to leave gifts for the garbagemen at Christmas. Really, just like we did for the paper boy, the postman, and the ritzy homes did for their milk men. Little notes with a couple of bucks inside and a 'thanks for doing a great job!' message. But now, with the garbageman hermetically sealed in his cabin, silently seething, teeth gritted in all-consuming resentment, I don't know how I'd get a gift to him. Maybe carrier pigeon?
   This is why I think he's pissed off - aside from the way he leaves the huge can smack in the middle of my driveway - he knows he's never going to get a Christmas gift.
   I tried to wave to him today, but he refused to acknowledge me. I think one day he's going to drive his truck through my front door, grab me with the big yellow claw, and toss me into the bin.
   Sure, call me crazy, but one day, when there's a garbage-truck sized hole in the front of my house, you'll all feel pretty guilty.


* that kind of simile is probably what pisses off garbagemen...

I Think I Got It Figured Out

I don't think I'm breaking any news when I say that it seems like the world is full of bad guys nowadays. It was once the case, say, after World War II, that we could easily classify the world into good guys and bad guys. We were the good guys, obviously. Even after the collapse of the bad guys - the Soviet Union - we could still find good guys and bad guys.
   But not no more.
   Who is a bigger bad guy, the terrorist who sincerely believes that blowing himself up will make his poverty-stricken world just the slightest bit better, or the corporate fat bastard who knowingly subverts the systems he's supposed to protect just to make another few million dollars he's never going to spend?
   I think you know the answer to that one.
   But I got to thinking... why now? Or, more accurately, why in the last ten years? Why has corporate America gotten so venal, so corrupt, so blatantly self-serving and not at all shy about letting everyone know it? The answer has two words:
   Baby Boomers.
   It's a demographic reality that the incidence of violent crime goes down as a population band gets older, but the incidence of fraud skyrockets. Grandma is not very likely to beat someone up, but the chance that she'll steal a million dollars when she has the opportunity is almost even money. And Baby Boomers are aging.
   But shouldn't the generation of free love and color-blind drug culture be above that? Shouldn't these ex-hippies still tread the path of the greater good?
   Nope.
   Civic responsibility was for their parents, the people who lived the Depression and fought World War II. The Baby Boomers had everything handed to them, literally. They were coddled and pampered and encouraged, and they suffered for it. They sought to tear down the very systems that nurtured them. Look at the education 'reforms' of the late 70's, with Boomers declaring that the approaches used to teach them were defective and lacking and in need of fresh re-thinking. Which didn't work.
   Fast forward about 20 years, and throw in that rat bastard son-of-a-bitch Phil Gramm and his bank deregulation, and you have the exact same thing with finance: foxes in charge of the hen house. Or foxes who designed and built the hen house. Replace 'foxes' with 'disillusioned Boomers who believe the system has failed everyone and is ripe for the plucking' and you'd be right.
   Our grandfathers realized that the only way the banking and finance system was going to survive the Depression was if the people in charge of it acted in a way that restored faith and confidence. Because a banking and finance system is only viable as long as the citizenry believes it's working for the greater good. Replace our grandfathers with their spoiled children, who believe the banking and finance system is only there to be cheated, swindled and pillaged and you have the situation we're in right now. No one trusts the people in charge, for very, very, very good reason.
   The idealists of the '60s turned into the cynics of the '80's turned into the corporate bandits of the 2000's. Not surprisingly, a generation of self-centered egotists turned into AARP-eligible sociopaths who completely abandoned the pretenses of their youth. They were put in charge of a system they didn't create and didn't really believe in, so their only recourse is to abuse their authority. That's not an excuse it's an explanation, and they're still the first against the wall when the revolution comes. And I'm still not joking about that.

Opening Lines

With 20/20 hindsight - and isn't hindsight always 20/20? - Kyle should have known inviting the cobra to the picnic would end badly.

The road wound down from the top of the Rockies like a cracked gray ribbon of ash, leading Willa from her old life as a mountaintop stripper to her new calling as a Bible saleswoman.

Most people didn't believe that Little Dave could hear the Night People's celebration, but then again most people weren't deposed banana republic dictators like Senor Maldonado.

With a snap of his fingers the Russian mob boss tried, convicted and executed Arthur Marx. Arthur had tried in vain to convince the man his last name was just a coincidence.

The lobster bisque was exquisite, the salata alexandra sheer delight, and the lemon sobet a palate-cleansing epiphany. But the real treat came when the chef served Cecile's perfectly-roasted husband as the main course, with a port-pomegranate demiglace and roasted herbed new potatoes.

It wasn't the injustice of his unfortunate demise the very first time he tried autoerotic asphyxiation that made Mike's ghost angry, it was the indignity of his body dangling naked from the fire escape.

The Not-So-Handy Man

First, let me be clear that I'm not talking about myself. I am very handy, I can fix many things, including but not limited to automobiles, bicycles, motorcycles, anything held together with rope, most anything fastened together with screws, and especially anything involving dirt, grass, or greenery of any kind. I just choose not to do those things because I used to make my living doing that kind of stuff and I vowed that when I had a profession I would never again do those things unless it was for pleasure. And they don't please me. But I can do them, and do them well.
   The not-so-handy man is the handyman. The guy who I call when I have problems with the house I'm renting. That's the beauty of renting, any major repairs aren't yours to take care of. Sweet.
   Anyhoo, I had a problem replacing fluorescent lights in my kitchen. For the record, I loathe fluorescent lights in kitchens, they're the bane of civilized existence. If I owned the house those crap-tacular tubes would be the first to go. But I don't own the house so I cant' rip the fixtures out, a downside of renting.
   Turns out you have to remove the molding around the fixture to get the bulbs out, a design flaw in my opinion, but that's where the handyman comes in. As I was helping him out, holding the new tubes and whatnot, I noticed that his right index finger was missing the very last fingerbone,* the pointy part of your pointer finger. Something he did a while back caused it to come off, probably an accident with a bandsaw, that's usually how people lose fingerbones. I tried not to stare, but failed miserably as I wondered how he managed to cut off part of himself, and what he did when he noticed it was gone. Did he scream? Curse? Cry? Run for help? Rage at a God who would let him cut off his own finger? All this was running through my mind, but I didn't say anything. And I couldn't take my eyes off it.
   So the question here is: does his finger-less condition speak to his experience as a handyman or his lack of experience?
   You get good judgement from experience and you get experience from exercising bad judgement. So which side of the equation does cutting off part of your own finger put you?
   I still don't have an answer for this one. Anybody got any ideas?

* the distal phalanx, for you physicians or Latin scholars.

There Oughta Be A Pill...

I don't usually take drugs. And I don't mean just crack, I don't take regular medication of any kind. Aspirin now and then, when I have an ache or my head hurts from giving up soda yet again. But I was sitting in traffic today behind a person who WOULD NOT GO THE SPEED LIMIT -- grrr -- and I thought, 'there should be a pill that person could take to realize that if the sign says 45 she doesn't have to go 30.'
   It's a modern conceit. Just take a pill to solve the problem. Quick and easy, relatively painless unless the pill goes down sideways, and very American in its simplicity. Why work to fix something when you could just take drugs?
   And the floodgates opened. Here's a list of things that could be solved by better application of modern pharmacology.

Notaloneicin - makes you realize that there are, in fact, other people in the world who may not want to be held hostage to your whims. Perfect for people who leave their shopping carts in the center of the aisle.

Quitchabitchin - provides for relief of kids who have always gotten their way when they find out that the world doesn't hand out participation ribbons.

Getalongopril - specifically for elected officials who believe their mandate is to oppose rather than to compromise. We'd need a lot of this one. A LOT.

Compassionalitril - used to allow the self-righteous to walk a mile in the shoes of someone less fortunate. It's easy to be a smug judge when you have no idea of someone else's situation.

Thinkaminit - designed for bureaucrats who blindly adhere to the formula of their job instead of the overall intent. If we made it with an aerosol delivery vector we could gas the DMV and solve everyone's problem overnight.

Dontbeadoucheatall - for CEOs and finance jackasses who imagine their sole purpose is to line their own pockets, not to protect the American financial system. I'm also thinking this might be better used like rat poison, sprinkled on ill-gotten gains so the greedy bastards will just curl up and die.

Brad Nero, Boy Hero

"Well, golly, Skip, sure is lucky the pirates didn't notice us."
   Skip just wagged his tail, on account of his voice machine was broken.
   It was just as well, the volume on Skip's voice box had been stuck on 'YELL' for months, Brad just hadn't had the time to fix it. And just now, swinging onto the pirate ship on a jungle vine from the headhunters' island, Skip's voice box had crashed into a yardarm and now was nothing more than a mass of wires and dented metal around a furry brown neck. It was all for the best, Brad realized, he couldn't chance being discovered by the pirates, and Skip tended to talk too much anyway.
   The clomping tread of heavy boots rattled the deck, and Brad tried to make himself as small as possible as he hid behind barrels. Two pirates clomped by, men twice as big as Brad and four times as strong. Brad didn't dare peek out to look at their faces but they probably had scars too, big ones. Pirates always had dramatic scars on their faces.
   "Yo ho, mateys," came a call from read of the ship, from the wheel.
   Brad stifled a gasp and grabbed Skip's muzzle to keep him from barking. They knew that voice!
   "Aaargh, Cap'n," one of the pirates who had just passed snarled. "We're glad to be off that cannibal island."
   Cap'n? Brad's blood ran cold. So that explained it all...
   "If you don't pull your scurvy weight around here, I'll send you back," the cap'n snarled, "so the cannibals can put ye in their stew pot."
   "And if you do," one of the pirates replied, "who'll be unloadin' yer cargo of Cleveland Cavaliers bobble-heads?"
   "Or the crates of Sham-wows?" the other pirate asked. "You need us, Cap'n Thompson."
   Thompson. Or Old Man Thompson as Brad and his neighborhood gang The Enigma Patrol called him. He always yelled at kids to keep off his lawn and never gave back any balls or Frisbees that ended up in his back yard. Rumor had it that he took the loot to the flea market on weekends to pay for his cat tranquilizer habit.
   "To Blazes with your sass talk," Cap'n Thompson cursed. "But without yer help I'll never get this crap posted on Craigslist and eBay."
   Brad scribbled furiously in his L'il Detectives note pad. So that was Old Man Thompson's game... post all the pirated goods onto terrible, larcenous web sites so unsuspecting dupes would pay top dollar for discount crap. Fiendishly clever. An old man could buy a lot of cat tranquilizer with eBay money.
   "Before ye go below decks for inventory, though," Cap'n Thompson said, "could ye two look behind them barrels. I do believe we got us a stowaway."
   Brad's blood froze as the pirates' shadows fell across him and Skip.

-- to be continued --

Out Of My Element

I like to try new things.
   Not like shooting heroin or anything stupid like that. Dangerous is okay, I bungee jumped for one of my birthdays. From time to time I buy a magazine that I would never otherwise purchase, like Lowrider or O or Paranoia or High Times just because I need to step outside my own narrow experience and discover what it's like to see the world as someone else.
   This is the reason I went to the Bingo parlor on Okinawa when I was there, to expand my horizons. Well, that and because I was bored to tears and really had absolutely nothing better to do. I discovered an entire subculture I knew nothing about. It was a grand sociological experiment.
   Much like my trip to the grocery store today. I decided I needed to buy air fresheners because the house I'm renting is very new and the seals are very tight and I can tell the place is starting to smell like me, and not in a provocative, sexy way like things around me usually do.
   So I found the air freshener aisle easily, but then I came to a bewildered stop. What I had imagined would be a quick in-grab-out operation, much like a convenience store beer run, turned into a ten-minute exercise in soul searching and marketing guesswork.
   I know what apples and cinnamon smell like, but what's Crisp Waters? Dream Garden? Meadows and Rain?
   I mean, seriously, what the f*ck is this? Dream Garden? Every garden I've ever worked in smelled like decaying vegetation and manure. Do I want my kitchen to smell like that?
   Ocean Blue? Relaxing Moments? What the hell are these supposed to smell like? The ocean is a fish's toilet and the most relaxed I've ever been was underneath a stripper in Vegas.* So what's my living room supposed to get from the relaxing 'aromas,' the heady boquet of baby powder, cheap wine, and shame?
   Couldn't the manufacturers have taken pity on me and named the scents something I would know? Like cookies? Or beer? Or sausage. I could totally get behind a sausage aroma.
   Of course, if Relaxing Moments really did smell like a stripper I could probably do with that one too.


* sorry, Mom

Tales From My Past - What's French For Asshole?

There was this guy in my college, I don't want to use his real name but if you want to call him Zach then that would be fine by me. He was rich, privileged, clueless and rude. Plus he thought he was funny but actually wasn't, which in a college full of smarty-pants overachievers isn't something you want to aspire to. He was also loud, and had that young-man's habit of bellowing the first thing that popped into his tiny brain, especially if that thing was unkind or abusive.
   Zach was not well-liked, is what I'm trying to convey here.
   Sure, he had a few people who tolerated him and allowed him to hang out, but as the semester wore on you could see people avoiding him in the lunch room, having somewhere else to be on Friday when he showed up at a party, conveniently remembering missed study opportunities when he wanted to get a hack going.* It almost made me sad for him, but then he was a total dick so I didn't mind him being left out of stuff.
   My friend Ben spent a calendar year in Paris, so when he came back for his last two semesters one of his friends from Paris came to visit. And she was a girl. Yup, a young, attractive, Parisian nurse came to Sherman, Texas to visit Ben. Way to go, man.
   Anyhoo, Zach decided he like Claudette - really her name, I swear - and tried to talk to her. She spoke English better than he did, but he tried to be clever with French-ifying English words, which Claudette did not find endearing in the least. She endured him with a polite nod and pretended not to understand him so he would go away. Which he did.
   My friend Rene asked her 'What's French for redneck?'
   And I asked 'What's French for asshole?'
   Claudette mentioned that he seemed like a very lonely, sad person, an insight that hadn't escaped me, but when she said it I felt like I should at least pretend to care. And Zach continued to be a colossal tool.
   Fast forward to Spring semester. Zach had started binge drinking - as many college students did and still do - but, because he was such a conflicted mess he binged like he was trying to set a record. Even had a minor intervention that did no good.
   One Friday his frat and a sorority started having a water balloon war. This action escalated and moved off the frat house grounds to the local convenience store then to the local highway, 75.
   I was with my roommate in his truck waiting for a stoplight to change when Zach and his buddies pulled up and started lobbing balloons at sorority chicks in another car. The light changed, we drove on, and Mark said, prophetically, 'someone's gonna get creamed if they keep that up.'
   Not five minutes later Mark and I were long gone, he blew the yellow to get away from them and Mark never disobeyed traffic laws, but the water balloon fight continued at the next stop light. Zach, three sheets to the wind, ran out into traffic and got creamed but good. Really. He ran from the left-turn lane into Southbound traffic, where some poor young mother plowed into him at sixty miles an hour. He got busted up bad, his pelvis was crushed, both legs with multiple compound fractures, broken ribs and vertebrae, the whole nine yards. We were guessing that if he hadn't been completely drunk he'd probably have been killed.
   Fast forward to the next semester. Zach had been out of school and recovering for something like seven months. He came back to school with a cane and a limp and a slightly lopsided smile. We were thinking that perhaps his waltz with the Grim Reaper would have taught him some grace and humility.
   He was still a dick, the only difference was the cane.
   The moral of this story? People aren't going to change unless they're good and ready. And an asshole is always going to be an asshole.



* kids, I'm talking about hacky sack, which ranks up there with drum circle on the stoner hit parade of time wasters whilst coming down from the buzz of some righteous bud

Snap, Crackle, Creak

I have to get used to new sounds.
   Back in SoCal I'd been in my place so long - eight years - there were sounds I just didn't hear any more. Like the guy next door leaving for work on his Harley. Or the garbage trucks backing up beeping, or the shower from the apartment downstairs.* Sounds so regular that I knew what they were and ignored them.
   Now I have a whole new set of sounds. Not creaks, this house I'm renting is too new for that, but there are... pops? Something falling? Something outside?
   Every time I hear a new sound my frightened-mammal brain perks up, it wants to know what caused that sound, where it came from, and how to prevent it from making that noise again. It's exhausting paying attention all the time.
   There are some things I recognize. Dogs outside. Training airplanes from the Air Force base flying overhead. Wind chimes from the wind-chime family in the house behind this one. I know what these are but I'm not used to them. And I'm certainly not used to the 'snap' of the refrigerator coming on. Or the clunk the ceiling fan makes when it is just coming up to speed. Or the moan of air being sucked up the chimney flue when the wind blows hard.
   I'll give it time. I really am glad to be home, but this is going to take some getting used to.



* I never got used to the fire trucks at the old folks' home across the street. Whenever I heard an approaching siren I held my breath, because if the sound stopped in front of my apartment that meant emergency workers were responding to a call in the old folks' home. I always hated that.

Stamps?

I spent 45 minutes today looking for my stamps. I know they're around here somewhere, and I was determined to dig them up. I failed in that quest.
   I know, I could have spent half that time just going to the Post Office and buying some. But it's the principle of the thing. I packed my stamps, and I should be able to get my grubby mitts on them. Besides, I used to live within half a mile of two post offices - not counting the independent places - and the big post office was less than two miles away. Now the closest post office is three miles away across a highway.
   Now I gotta re-think things in Texas terms. I don't actually think it takes longer to get to the post office than it did back in Pasadena, but walking isn't an option here. Unless I want to count that as my cardio for the day. I gotta get back into the 'drive to get there' mind set.
   I never thought I'd say this, but sometimes in the past week since I've been back I feel like a foreigner in my own land. I gotta get used to the way things are done here.
   Do they have re-education courses? Like the cultural briefings the State Department gives to its staff when the go abroad? I need me one of those.

Impressions Of A Supermarket

I went to the supermarket for the first time today. I mean by myself, shopping for my own place, I've been to Texas supermarkets many times since I moved to SoCal, with my mother and sister. But today I was all by my big self. Here are some impressions.

   Fat - it's my hometown, but, damn, San Antonio, you've let yourself go. The only people who weren't fat were the guys stocking the shelves. Everyone else was faaaaaaaat. And not solid fat, like the guy operating the jackhammer in Laurel and Hardy movies, floppy fat like they haven't worked out since their last gym class in 1978. It's not healthy and you people need to cut it out. Eat a vegetable for once.

   Rude - I thought people in SoCal were rude and pushy, but somehow, some way the rude and pushy has flowed East. People moving too fast in tight spaces, trying to be first, like it was a contest. Admittedly the NASCAR race had just started so maybe they wanted to get home to catch the action, but still... Bunch of awful people. Fat, awful people.

   Oblivious - in a store that big you'd think people would realize they're not alone. But then you'd be wrong. Evidently there are many people who are the sole occupants in their universe, the rest of us are just figments. Stop in the center of the aisle? Why not, there's no else around at 1 PM on a Sunday, is there? Fat, awful, oblivious people.

   Too big - maybe I'm used to my SoCal stores, smaller and more of them in a geographical area, but this HEB was just too big. You could have fit three of my old Pavilions stores into this one. What's it cost to air condition that behemoth in the summer? And do I really need to be able to buy a barbeque and lawn furniture where I buy my limes?

   No parking lot etiquette - this goes along with rude and oblivious. Evidently people drive their cars in grocery store parking lots like they drive their carts inside, with an undeserved sense of aggressive entitlement. Looks like I'm gonna have to put the smack down sooner rather than later.

   Organic? - okay, this is for sure my SoCal pretensions showing through, but I didn't see any organic options, either in the produce section or the prepared foods. It really is like Field of Dreams, if you offer it, they will buy. Maybe South Texas farmers aren't growing organic? Though I bet if I go to Austin I wouldn't be able to punt a dirty hippy five feet without him hitting something organic. I'll test it out.

   So... all in all a disappointing experience. I spent less per item than I would have in SoCal, but I had to put up with some truly reprehensible behavior from my fellow Texans for the privilege. Be nice, you rat bastards, we're all in this together.

Like Falling Off A Bicycle...

I cut my lawn today.
   BFD, you might say. Who doesn't cut a lawn? And I might have said the same thing with you nine years ago. I made spending cash for a very long time cutting lawns and doing yardwork and generally being an indentured servant to people with more time and money than I. At least once a week from the time I was 8 years old until I was 35 I did some sort of manual labor out in the hot Texas sun. Even when I lived in an apartment I still did work on my grandmother's house, or for my parents, or - less frequently - for friends and friends of friends.
   Then I moved to SoCal.
   People don't do their own yards in California, they get someone else to do the heavy lifting. That someone else used to be me, but I lived in an apartment in the Playhouse District in Pasadena, a place with more concrete than yard, and there just wasn't any reason for me to do any real work. In the past nine years I've grown accustomed to not sweating in that way, to not moving in that way, to not thinking in that way. I got out of the yardwork habit.
   But now that I'm back in Texas and now that I have a yard of my own I've been shoved into the deep end of the manual labor pool. I borrowed my brother-in-law's mower and edger this morning and got to work.
   I gotta say, I did pretty good for being nine years out of practice. I never realized when I was still doing it just how particular I had become about the way I do things. Very picky. And I'm right back there now, finding the rhythm, feeling the beat, getting back into the groove. I'll get this yard into the shape I want it, and then I'll keep it that way. Because that's how I roll. Behind a lawnmower once again.