Our Dumb Blog

I’m here… safe and sound. Heh.. more or less…

It rained almost all the way to the Georgia line. Downpour most of it. I’m
glad I didn’t wash my car beforehand. Even though I don’t believe in air
conditioning (just a conspiracy of freon manufacturers), I used it on
Stalin’s behalf. But while it rained, I didn’t have to use it, so that was
nice.

I stopped four times. Twice to fill up the car and twice to empty me. Got
here in Charlotte, NC in about nine hours.

The car seems to have held up quite well. But then if it wasn’t doing well,
I suppose I wouldn’t have a clue till it went out on me anyway. I’ve been
pumped with questions here at the Tablers about my major and where I live.
Good thing too. I can’t seem to hold up one end of a conversation even if
it has a handle on it.

I’ll leave tomorrow morning sometime for Virginia. Craig showed me a back
way he goes to Richmond. I’m going to take it.

In the interest of making this form letter more personal, I’ve included
several personal messages. Find yours and feel yourself being held in
remembrance.

Mom: EVERYTHING’S FINE!
Nathan: Thanks for checking my fluid.
Bishop: Your stupid
Berck: I am now convinced that oldies are inherantly evil.
Paul: I don’t have anything to tell you but thought I’d include you anyway.

I did something exceedingly stupid today. And because the parties who
forbade this excercise from taking place already know about it, there’s
really no use in keeping it a secret anymore.

Alabama Power is putting up a row of huge towers to support some power line
going to Mississippi. Or something like that. There’s a substation just to
the north of us, so power poles go from all directions from it. Especially
now. They bought some land from us near the back corner of our property to
make way for this monstrosity. If we hadn’t have sold, they would have taken
us to court and then bought it for whatever price THEY thought was fair. We
didn’t think it would be too bad, because we have woods back there to
separate us from the lines. But one of the main power towers is so tall that
it sticks out above everything else around it. There’s a nice reflection of
it in our lake.

They’re just starting to put the wires up for the electricity. The cables
are still attached to the spools they were wound from lying on the ground, so
they’re not juiced up. Yet. I know this because I went back there this
afternoon. I had on my BDU pants and was carrying my blackberry picking
bucket and club, but that was only for show. My main purpose in taking a
walk back behind our house was to climb the tower.

Dad expressly forbade us to do anything of the sort a week ago. I decided
Sunday would be the best time to do it because there would be no Alabama
Power people up on there yelling to each other as they worked on the wires.
And it was empty when I reached it. But that particular tower is in plain
sight of our house, and I really didn’t want to give my dad, who was cutting
down even more privet bushes, a heart attack. So I cut through the woods to
get to the next tower, not quite as visible from our house, but there just
the same. As soon as I entered the forest, I was accosted by several flies.
They tailed me, and something even nailed me right on the forehead, till I
emerged from the woods. There it was. The tower.

I went up to one of its four legs. Bolts were screwed into hole of the metal
all the way up, just like a ladder. I gripped one of them and hoisted myself
up, then on up to the next bolt, testing each one to make sure it was screwed
in well. The thing about climbing is that it’s fine to look downward, just
not focus on the ground. I had to look to see where to put my feet every
step I took, but the ground simply looked the same distance away each time.

Finally, where the four legs and the connecting struts stopped converging and
then spread out again to send out horizontal beams to hold the cables, the
bolts ran out. I could have shimmied up around on the struts to wear they
started up again, but by then I’d looked down to see just how far I’d come.
It was a long way down. Nice view of the surrounding woods too. I thought
about what someone had told me about not dying any time soon and decided
against continuing upward.

The flies tormented me all the way home.

I climbed the near tower tonight with someone else. Bolts ran out again near
the top. Fireflies flickered in the distance. A sattelite passed overhead.
And the ground was invisibly far below.

I’m going to Virginia. My sister is heading out for Colorado. Ben is
leaving for Singapore. It will be a long time till our family is together
again.

Hmm.. mom is talking to dad on the phone about Ben’s flight to Singapore.
He’s going to have to find his way through LAX, the Los Angeles airport.
Reality check.

Ken Myers called me today. I was supposed to call him this week, but we
hadn’t decided exactly where I was going to stay on the way up to VA. He
told me that I’ll be staying with a family in Powatan, VA, about 20 miles
from Richmond and 60 from Charlottesville. His studio is evidently in his
house in Powatan and the office in Charlottesville. They’re going to move
the studio up to Charlotteville sometime at the end of the summer after I’m
gone, I think. I’ll be living with a couple who has grown children. I asked
about my mouse. He said that they have a cat, but said that since I’ll be
working with him, my rodent could stay at his house. “The kids will love
it,” he said, “We have dogs and cats and rabbits and whatever turtles wander
up. What’s your mouse’s name?”

I also asked if the couple I’d be staying with have a piano. He said he
didn’t know but his house had one. “And,” he added, “I want you to know that
I consider members of the staff to part of the family, so it’s not unusual
for them to stay for supper or watch movies afterward with us.”

I’ll be working with him and driving to Charlottesville once a week or so, he
said. “I might get you to do some audio editting.” He asked what kind of
comptuer I had. Macintoshes, I told him. They use Macs too. “There’s a
tutorial on ours, but I suppose you won’t need it.”

If this is all the case, I have no idea what sort of modem access I’ll have.
It may be only once a week, and I may not have time even then.

In the meantime, I need to get my glasses, which lost a piece, fixed, my car
tuned up and get my watch fixed if possible.
ugh.

For some reason I thought today was Thursday. I’m not really sure why. I
mean, I’m not in school anymore, so the days do tend to blur together. But I
woke up this morning convinced it was Thursday. Which brought up the
question in my mind of what happened to Wednesday (or Tuesday) because I
seemed to have missed a day. But Thursday it was, or so I thought, and
nothing could be done about my memory.

Actually, I woke up this morning at 6 am with a splitting headache. Well, to
say I woke up would imply that I had been asleep. And although consciousness
had not been a part of my existence up until that point, I had not been
sleeping well at all. I thought when I’d gone to bed with a headache that
all I really needed was some rest, but the pain evidently prohibited me from
getting anything like that. So at 6, I was in way more pain than would allow
slumber.

Finally, I got up and, repeating “I feel fine” to myself to keep the contents
of my stomach where they were, stumbled to the bathroom, where I fished out
the bottle of prescription painkillers from my dopkit and downed one with
some water from the sink. Then it was back to my bed and what seemed like an
hour of writhing in pain, waiting for the drug to take effect. Repeating my
matra once again and hoping very hard that whatever was in my stomach would
not end up on the floor, I went over to my dresser and pulled out a black
sock. Then returning to my bed and laying it over my eyes, I finally found
release in sleep.

When my alarm went off, I turned it off and continued to sleep. Perhaps this
is what made me lose track of what day it was.

In any case, I showed up at Lens Crafters for my appointment at 2 pm on
Thursday. Even though it was actually Wednesday. They didn’t seem to mind.
The doctor saw me fairly quickly. and told me to quit complaining about
things being blurry in my right eye at a large distance. She could give me a
stronger prescription, but that would make my eyes have to work harder up
close. “Oh, if you put it that way,” I answered. She even put up the 20/15
line of the chart up, and although it was blurry, I could still read it fine.
“See?” she said, “You see better than I do. Are you an engineer?” she
asked, “Engineers always come back complaining because they’re so precise.”

I suppose I should call them tomorrow and tell them, “Hey, listen. I was
supposed to come in today, but I came in yesterday instead.”

“You wanna go see Mo?” he asked me while talking on the phone. “What? Mo?
Sure!” I hadn’t seen Mo in forever, ever since he moved up to Detroit.
“You know Mo, right?” Dick asked when he got off the phone. Did I know him?
I would have become his 11th wife, had I agreed. “Well, don’t mention that.
He’s married now,” Dick laughed.

I’d coached Moteb (the Saudi Arabian otherwise known as H-T on the boards) on
history in return for breadsticks purchased from the snack shop until he left
to get married and transfer to another college. Before that I’d had several
midnight chat sessions with him on the Neutral Zone.

Driving down in Dick’s new car he got for $200, we peered through the foggy
windshield and belted out the lyrics to tunes playing on the radio. Every so
often, he’d hit the horn, which was in perfect tune with certain songs. We
walked into the Clarion Hotel and spotted them. Sting and his other were
seated at a table with Mo and his diminuative wife wrapped in a traditional
Arab head scarf. Mo has always been big, but he’s gotten bigger since I’ve
seen him last. His wife could understand English, and evidently speak it,
but instead she told jokes in Ababic and had Mo translate them.

Deciding to head to Darryl’s, we piled into Mo’s rental (this huge sedan he
somehow talked his way into renting for $26 a day). It was parked out in
front of the hotel. “See this red line?” asked Sting, “It means fire. Only
fire trucks can park here.” “It’s not my car. This is a rental,” responded
Mo. “Have you ever driven with a Saudi?” Sting tried to prepare us. I had,
once. He offered to take me over to my car parked in the far lot at UM.
There was a tape of voices howling in Arabic playing when he cranked up his
Amiga. This time, the radio was set to the alternative station. “Hey, we
were just listening to that,” Dick and I exclaimed as Mo turned it off.

He pulled east onto Airport, performed a Uie, and weaved in and out of the
lanes into the left hand turn lane on Airport, coming THIS CLOSE to a truck’s
bumper. “Crap!” came Sting’s voice from the back. “Hey, we had PLENTY of
room,” I observed from the front seat. “Yeah,” agreed Mo, “Jonah knows what
she’s talking about. You obviously know how to drive. Besides, it’s a
rental,” as we came THIS CLOSE to another car turning into the parking lot.
“Plenty of room,” I repeated.

Inside, a waitress said it would be a 20 minute wait for a non smoking table.
We opted for first available instead and went to sit down at the lounge.
The discussion turned to how Mo has this innate ability to get people to
give him stuff for free. A girl came over to take our drink orders while she
handed out cocktail napkins. “These are my friends from Bulgaria,” Mo said
to her, “Seriously!” “Okay,” she muttered. “And so you need to give them
something complementary since they’re visiting from overseas.” I don’t think
she caught that but just took our orders. Sting’s other ordered a virgin
strawberry daquiri, so I pointed to her and nodded that I’d have the same
when it came my turn.

As she returned to the bar, the buzzer they’d given to Mo went off. We
tromped back upstairs and followed the seater to a very cramped booth. They
agreed to push another couple of tables together while we waited. A waiter
came up to spread out cocktail napkins before we told him that we weren’t
REALLY sitting there, just waiting till they got us a better table. He
picked up the napkins and left. As we returned back downstairs, we wondered
if the lady with our drink orders would ever be able to find us.

For the third time, someone came up and asked what we wanted to drink. “Uh,
I think this girl was getting stuff for us,” Sting conjectured. The waiter
asked what she looked like. “Red shirt,” said Mo, “and glasses!” “Blonde
hair,” I added. He went off to search for her, then came back a bit later
with all the drinks except for the daquiris. “And who had coke?” he asked.
We all looked around. “I had a sprite,” said Mo, “but you can leave that
here. And could you bring us a pitcher of sprite? We’ll be drinking a lot.”
He reappeared with the sprite and the pitcher and then our daquiris. I
sucked on mine and mused to Dick, “I should have got a real one.” “Get one,”
he said, “I’ll drink that one.” When the waiter came back, I asked him for a
real strawberry daquiri. He asked for my ID.

At one point, the waiter asked Sting if he still went to University of
Mobile. “My name is Marty,” he said, “I just graduated.” Sting had
graduated, Mo had transferred, and Dick and I still went. Sting’s other is a
Spring Hiller. When he left, I asked Dick, “What do you think his major
was?” “Hmm? Business. Maybe nursing. But he looks like a business major.”
I asked Marty when he came back what his major was. “Business and finance.”
“Ha! You were right!” I exulted to Dick. Marty looked surprised but asked
us what we majored in. “Music,” answered Dick. “Political Science,” added
I.

Mo picked up on the conversation, asking Marty where he was from and his
major. Then he asked, “You married?” “No.” “You’re single then? This is
Jonah. (What’s your major?)” “Political Science,” I said. “Her major is
political science. She is single, and she’s gorgeous in this black dress…”
A few days before my 20th birthday, I went through a rebellious stage as a
result of the realization that there were only a few days left of being a
teenager. One of those days, I went to class in goth/stoner regailia,
wearing heavy eye makeup and “dressed” in a black t-shirt, black gloves,
black stockings and shoes. I walked into the computer lab after English
class to find Mo staring open mouthed. He mentions this “black dress” every
time I’ve seen him since.

A bit later, a pack of waiters laid seige to the table next to us singing
happy birthday and presenting the victim with pie ala mode. Mo caught
Marty’s attention and gestured toward Sting and his other. Marty disappeared
again to get some pie for the birthday girl. It is Sting’s other’s
birthday… but not for another couple of weeks. The pie accompanied by the
army of waiters arrived a few minutes later. Sting his other shoved the pie
into the box with their partially consumed cake as soon as Marty left, and we
all watched the al amode melt alone on the plate. I mixed some sprite from
the pitcher into the rest of Dick’s daquiri so Marty wouldn’t have brought
the extra beverage in vain.

Back in the car, Mo pulled out onto Airport with a semi truck blocking the
view of who was coming as Sting shouted “Oh crap!” from the backseat. It was
just down the road to the hotel. “Do you want to go somewhere else?” Mo
asked. “Sammy’s,” laughed Dick. “Sammy’s? is that a restaurant?” Mo passed
the hotel and turned toward the strip joint. “It is NOT a restaurant,”
insisted Sting, “Two words. Kenny Rogers. Roasters? Hooters?” Mo suddenly
accelerated past the intended target. He turned back onto Airport
announcing, “I’m pulling in front of a red Mustang.”

We made it back to the hotel safely anyway. Parking in a real parking spot
this time, we got out next to a car phone lying on the ground. “You want a
phone?” asked Mo, “take it.” I picked it up to turn it into the front desk
(not the first time I’ve done that at that hotel) but handed it over to a
couple of elderly rent-a-cops sitting on the tailgate of a nearby truck.

Then exchanging goodbyes, we left and listened to the radio all the way home.