Alive...For Now.

So Stephanie drops me a note, telling me that I’ve lulled off into Recluseville again.

How many weeks has it been?

I’m glad some one pays attention. Thanks Steph. 

I’d love to say that I’ve been very busy. But mostly I’ve just been cleaning up the paranormal amount of dog hair in my house and writing more shit.

It’s crazy. Hair is just falling off of Dog. Individual hairs, but lots of them. Most of them.

 Underneath, he’s more skin than hair now.

He looks like a chimp, only with more boobs.

It’s this heat wave we are having… which, I’ve been told is the result of Liberals and homos and abortion clinics and Satan and stuff.

Not the su… uh… unnnn, bu… dee. That’s ah… natch… a… rel.

Anyway, I was thinking about dying too, and how crazy that is.

I mean, you're running around and 

BOOM!

you’re gone.

That’s crazy.

Sometimes…

okay, all the time…

when I hear on the radio that so-and-so croaked

 at such-and-such an age.

I do the math.

Like if the person was eighty, I think, “Man, that gives me like thirty-five years.”

I can do a lot in thirty-five years.

But if the person died at, fifty say… I think,

 “Boy, I better get busy, I’ve got a lot of stuff to do and no time to do it.”

Talk about crazy.

Of Course They Do

"In Indian mythology, Ganesha, the rotund god regarded as the remover of all obstacles, sports the head of an elephant. It wasn't always like this.

According to the story he was born a regular boy with a regular head. Something he did annoyed his father, Shiva, so much that he chopped his son's head off. Later when it came out that it wasn't the poor boy's fault, the father had the head replaced with that of an elephant.

It's unclear why an all-knowing god couldn't figure out the truth in the first place without needing to decapitate someone. It's also not clear why an all-powerful god couldn't reinstate the original head instead of having to sacrifice a pachyderm. But gods are like that. They fall apart as you begin to consider things logically, no matter what the religion."

Written by Anu Garg, A Word A Day.

Anu is great. If you're interested in having a new word, sent to you every day, for free, complete with etymology and a quote for the day... AWAD, as it is called, is a wonderful site. Join...donate. I did. Life is too short to have an inadequate vocabulary.

52 Near Clearwater

Jesus returned in a Chevy C10. Not exactly what we’d been expecting, but a pretty sweet truck. A ’69 model, single owner, twenty-two thousand original miles. Garage kept and on blocks since ‘71. Talk about a damn miracle.

     He’d blown a radiator hose out on 52, near Clearwater. Dry rot. Parker Stillman stopped and gave him a ride into town. Dropped him off over at Andy’s, my ex brother-in-law’s shop.

     Andy had the hose in stock. He figured he could fix it out on the road. But just in case, he drove it and Jesus back out to the C10 in his wrecker. That’s where I met up with them.

     I knew it was Andy’s wrecker from half a mile away. Andy painted the damn cab neon green—you couldn’t miss it in the dark. I pulled in behind.

     The Chevy’s hood was up and Andy was standing on the bumper trying to get the bottom end of the hose loose. Jesus was handing him wrenches.

     Andy was on a roll. I could hear him the moment I opened my door.

     “I told him—sure as shit—there ain’t no way in hell you’re gonna eat that whole damn thing,” Andy said. “Nine-sixteenths.”

     Jesus handed him a wrench.

     Andy’s only got one story to tell. He won’t clean it up either. Not for your Mama. Not for Jesus. Andy is what Andy is. I can only stand so much of it, but you got to respect a man who can be himself in the face of God.

     We went down to Cabo with Less Hargreaves, after graduation. That'd be about thirteen years now. Less was a big ol’ boy: three hundred pounds if he was an ounce. He got pretty tore up and entered himself into an eating contest.

     “I mean, this burrito was the size of a Jack Russell Terrier,” Andy says. “Damn if he didn’t eat it though. In a minute and a half too. ‘Bout made me puke just watchin’ him. But you can bet your white ass they give him that three hundred dollars.”

     “Hey,” I said to Jesus.

     Jesus smiled.

     Andy looks up. “Hey Brother-in-Law! I was just tellin’ Jesus here about our trip to Cabo. Jesus this is my brother-in-law Pete…Pete, Jesus.”

     I said ‘Hey’, again.

     Jesus smiled.

It Is Finished

From the balcony...

I did the tile a while back, with Bret.

Here is a little video... 

Sweet Irony

We are about done...

Just a little trim and electrical left to do.

This was the first time we've seen it assembled.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

Watching

     the Johnson grass and Queen Anne’s Lace: long, overgrown, and wind-blown. Chin palmed, I feel my pulse, strong in my neck, and can’t help but marvel how we are all from seed, how we all strive only to cover the Earth, to be remembered.