Yesterday, I let out a Texas sized whoop as I saw the last vestiges of the god forsaken state vanish in my rear view mirror. Around noon, I guess. The boring tedious monotony eased up a bit as I neared one of my childhood homes, El Paso and the nearbye mountains started showing tone, sculpture and definition. Had a hideous stop in Deming, N.M. which I will not recount at this time but which involved a stranger's offering at a Kentucky Fried Chicken of speckled brown trout and yellow capped porcelain and then blew through New Mexico and a chunk of Arizona like a couple of old dominos falling down.
Landed at Steve and Sue's porch in Phoenix at exactly 7:00, our agreed upon hour. Had an incredible home cooked meal of Tom Yum Gai, vietnamese spring rolls and lemon cheesecake. Six more hours and I'm home. I have developed a pretty gruesome looking sinus infection, probably from a two day diet of Gulf/Texas air. Just had a nice petting session with their akita, Tasha, and I realize how much I miss my own dogs and cats. And partner.
The trip was a mixture of good and bad. A large investment of time, money and energy, with modest returns. I did spend two weeks with a person whose social and political views are inimical to my own with no threat of violence or discord. And it was also nice to be by myself this week and recapture some mostly forgotten parts of my being. Your phone calls kept me going in my most bored times. Most of my electronic devices managed to break down during the trip including my sirius radio and the computer modem.
It looks like they can't schedule my operation until April now. Thankfully, the pain in my side has pretty much entirely dissappeared, maybe my body just got acclimated to it. I will be peeing a lot in the foreseeable future. Guess I will try to do Hillsborough in San Francisco in two weeks - apparently the economy is not getting any better or people don't yet feel comfortable enough to spend.
Leslie had a sleepover last night and missed her late night phone call to me. I look forward to talking to her this morning. The whole country will be tuning in to the Super Bowl today, football the true american religion on its most holy day, but I am largely uninterested. I can pretend that I care if necessary.
I was thinking about my assorted wounds and battered psyche as I awoke this morning. As a kid whose stepfather regularly beat me, sometimes drunk, sometimes not - you go through life flinching, always waiting for the shoe to drop. Like a dog who's been kicked. Every phone call to the bank means someone has maybe just cleared all the money out, every next conversation might mean she's leaving. The sky is always potentially falling. Live my life like a bad country music record. I wonder how many generations of my stepfather's pain I am sharing? Fortunate that I never bred as I would hate to pass this shit on. Probably one of the reasons I get so anally obsessive compulsive about a lot of things including time and control. There isn't enough therapy around for some of these hard cases.
Time to hit the road. Last pull.
2 comments:
Tom Yum Gai, Vietnamese spring rolls and lemon cheescake??? When you could of ate a can of Spam and some leftovers. What is NYSTAN going to say about this??? Wine and dining while the oppresed minorities who have had their lives destroyed by art collectors like you are begging for their last meal on cold and lonely streets, the nerve of you, you arrogant elitist.
i drove by the gallery this afternoon, thinking you might be back and i could help you unpack, but didn't see your van out front...Fallbrook was a bit of a ghost town, as SuperBowl, our national holiday/religion, was in progress; Major and Albertsons and FreshnEasy were all at least 50% depleted of their cold beer inventory; i spoke to the Dominos delivery driver and she confirmed they were doing landoffice business; i spent the afternoon hitting tennis balls, then watching the Aussie Open mens singles finals, delayed of course, as much as i could bear; it kills me to see Federer lose, then weep at the awards ceremony; i'm glad he has feelings and is not a machine, but at the same time i wish i could tell him to be glad for all he's got, that the race doesn't always go to the swift...thanks for sharing about your stepfather...
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