Piles Of Thought

You’re so vain… you probly think this post is about you!

At 53 years old one would think that I wouldn’t care what anybody thinks about me!

Oh, I say that (To myself) all the time and yet when slap comes to tickle “I just want to be cool” like anybody else. Sure that voice in my head is real tough - “I have been around since the creation of fire and the Ford Pinto (Sometimes one and the same), so take me the way I am or LUMP IT!!!

Yeah, I still listen to the Beatles and think they are the greatest band ever and I’m not embarrassed to say it! And nobody has ever been cooler on Tv than “Jim Rockford”… So why am I afraid to wear shorts?

What the heck am I talking about right?!

Here’s the deal, I work outside in the desert and summer time is quickly approaching, and here, it is hotter than a wife who’s been forgotten on Valentines day (Sorry honey)! Now the whole crew, including some oldtimers like me have already started sportin the shorts, while I have begun the act of slow cookin like a Thanksgiving turkey in my jeans for yet another sweaty season!

Oh right, the point, get to the point… Well, as a lifetime lanky “Howdy Doody” lookin freckle-faced ginger (My hair now white), I stumble around like a baby giraffe on a pair of bleached white, spotted spindles that some would say couldn’t hold up a bar stool much less a man-child.

I mean, honestly, these freeky appendiges even startle me when undressing for bed and prompts my wife to give me flannel pj’s every year for Christmas.

Even my baby, my darling daughter, who I’ve put myself in the poorhouse for calls me “Big-Daddy-Chicken-Legs”….

So what is a guy to do? Forget any semblance of dignity and sport the shorts and be comfortable or be the only moog out there wearing pants in 115 degree heat?

I have yet to decide my fate for this summer but can’t get my sons voice out of my head as he advised - “Well Daddy-o looks like you’re gonna have to… SUFFER!!!

So,what is the point?

As I see from the date of this post as compared to the last… I must not really want to write all that bad!

Oh, I tell myself I do. I have a twitter account and a self hosted Blog and now this tumbler thing…but I just don’t write. During my day i come up with all kinds of great topic ideas like “How to solve the worlds problems in 3 easy steps” or “Why are idiots given drivers licenses?” and “Does the stuff in everyones belly button smell like that?”

And then I get home, turn on the ballgame and immediately turn into some sort of green leafy substance that might actually be good for you but I would never eat!

Or I actually turn on the computer and set out to regale the masses with my wit and insight… then 2 hours later find that I have been scrolling through google images of wart clusters or making personnel fashion choices with the help of peopleofwalmart.com (If you’ve never seen that site it will changer your view of human kind).

By that time of course I have lost all motivation to write anything and even if I did it would end up being the throw away pages from those monkey’s trying to rewrite Hamlet. Add to that the fact that I have just witnessed another embarassing Padres loss!!! So then it is time to either begin drinking heavily, throw my computer through the tv screen or… go to bed… which I gladly do right after kicking the dog and yelling out my front door to anyone that might be out there to “GET OFF MY LAWN!” (Which, by the way, I haven’t watered or mowed since the Bush administration).

So, someone, anyone, what’s the deal? I have obnoxious world views, struggles with my faith, a cast of characters at work and at home and enough electronic devices to host my own ebay page. And yet, no will to write…….. Ahhhh, to heck with it, I’m off the bed……

……. Now where is that dog……..?

When’s the right time?

So, just 37 years old and he’s gone!

I didn’t really know him all that well, more a friend of a friend though we did seem to have a connection. When I did see him he would always share what was going on in his life… and he wasn’t happy.

A very intense person, I think a bit depressed. A tough divorce, no kids thank goodness. He hated living in this small town.

The last time I saw him, a few weeks back, he seemed really down. I told him I was thingking about him and hoped things got better.

Then, Saturday night, he rolled his Jeep while driving around town, not wearing a seat belt, and died!

Now I can’t help feeling that I really let him down in the biggest way! I don’t know if he was a believer or not… and now its too late! It would have been so easy to just say ” Yeah, I know what you mean, I don’t know what I would do without my faith” or “I’ll pray for you, I know it helps me”…

But no, I let it slip away….

Now I must hope that just before he passed he was able to say “Jesus forgive me”!

I’m saying that right now…

Makes all the difference…

Saturday morning. The back yard has numerous mounds of mastiff…… stuff, the dryer needs to be fixed, weeds have made a trip to the mailbox a jungle adventure replete with strange/exotic bird calls and meat tearing thorns, the gutter in front of the house has been clogged with bog smelling mud, trash, malaria and I’m pretty sure I saw the eyes of a gator breaking the surface of the water. Oh, then my bride asked if I would please get two dozen donuts for her dance studio… in fifteen minutes!

AND I DIDN’T WIN THE MEGA-MILLIONS LOTTO…!

So, donuts delivered and new dryer parts in hand it is off to the garage to perform surgery on the diseased dryer (The third operation on said machine… yet I REFUSE to have it put down). Now apparently my lovely family thought THIS weekend was Easter as they have sent me on a hunt for my tools! The same tools that I’m pretty sure I said could be used by anyone as long as they were put back…………

That job complete (Including the defunkification of the top of the dryer which is covered with single socks, various colors of lint and pennies all stuck in a glaze of partially congealed laundry soap) it is on to the defoliation of the mailbox area utilizing the services of the weed-whacker which could not be used until the extension cord was found in the continuation of the Great Pre-Easter tool hunt! Done.

Now time to take on the swamp that forms in the gutter out front. The formation of which is due to the fact that the lowest spot on my street is of course… RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE! This swamp is a fairly new addition to my home as the city has decided that the one thing they could do to save money was to cut the street sweeping service (One truck, one guy… small town). This, of course to help fund the new city swimming pool to replace the old one that still seems to hold water!!!

This task requiring a straight edged shovel which is amazingly found right where I expected to find it… rotting in the sun in the middle of the “Mastiff… stuff” filled yard (Note to self: Have son pick up “Mastiff… stuff”). As I scrap this nostril-offending sludge out of the now permanently stained gutter I begin an argument with myself as to where I should put the collection of goo. I don’t want to put it in the trash can (It smells bad enough!) and the city offices are closed… so I decide to pile it in the street…

… as usual, I have made a short story long, so let me wrap this mess up. The pressure in my head continued to rise as the morning progressed, then a voice reminded me to stop, take a look at the beautiful day and most importantly, that the Creator of the heavens and the earth LOVES ME! YEAH, I KNOW, GOD LOVES ME!?!?!

So, I went inside, hid my tools and turned on a baseball game, content… very content!