On Choosing a Japanese Jackass

I finally came to the end of a long process that in some ways isn’t much more enjoyable than eating sand in a smoked meat competition – buying a used car.

I had a five thousand dollar budget and sought to acquire a reliable and solid automobile capable of jettisoning my high-geared rump from place to place mainly in the pursuit of sales. Being effective in the field means that beyond the necessary sales techniques and splendid people skills, one must have dependable ‘wheels’.

Being sold on both Honda and Toyota’s stupendous track records, I’ve always put my chips in the Japanese auto ring. Supernatural stories abound of these auto-gems mounting up hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of miles and even when the dash looks like a Floridian retiree’s face and the body shows signs that it may have been used in an Israeli combat facility as target practice, they still zip along the pavement showing no signs that they are slowing. And so, I found a 1999 Honda Civic DX and stayed within my budget.

I truly dread this entire process. It feels like I’m in a strange version of ‘To Tell the Truth’ meets ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ where Monty Hall and Mark Goodson are trying to convince me to buy what’s behind door number three and I just know that I’m going to end up with a year’s supply of Rice-A-Roni. Inevitably, I become racked with the fear of having paid far too much for a jackass from Toledo that won’t carry me an inch.

Well, I didn’t get the San Francisco treat, but part of my fear became reality when last night at 12:03 am the Honda’s headlights began to dim and then the dash and then the dome and then the panel went out completely as I found myself coasting to a halt on I-12 in my beast of burden. She’s at the shop now getting fixed up since she’s under a warranty watch for the next thirty days; however, I could have sworn that I saw Goodson lurking in the bushes just east of Lacombe.

I sure hope this is only a bridle problem.

The Doctor With No Eyeball

It seems as though an Emersonian rally cry continues to be heard in the valleys and precipices of dialogue and debate as one listens to the American echo singing, “ Oh where, oh where has my transcendental eyeball gone? Oh where, oh where can it be?”

Truth has lost its capital ‘T’ and has been replaced by a morphing dessert that only Bill Cosby could hawk. This jello-esque reality is so tightly woven around the spool of nothing that its flavor seems to escape even the most delicate palate. What’s right for you and what’s right for me do not necessarily have to be married to the Law of Non-Contradiction, they only need be passing lovers who once held a vested interest in each other but who have now found nothing more than redundancy and repulsion – it’s that looking in the mirror and seeing what is and what isn’t that causes the butterflies to subside.

I find it all too curious to simply turn my head in dismay, and yet I find it all too nauseous to meditate too fully on the death of Dr. Absolute. He was always a loner and a rightfully autonomous proposition that never needed approval. His existence was always self-evident as even the Great Founding Fathers eloquently Declared in our rooted Independence. Divinely true was He and necessarily moving in His prime. Absolute is immortally residing in uber-space for even though the plebeians have executed Him and the Nietzcheronians have continued to celebrate with hypocritical dirge, the doctor will always be in.

One cannot kill or destroy or mutilate what is intrinsically true and right and beyond the bounds of a mortal blade. Certain realities are merely ignored at a high cost. My refusal to admit the explosive rigging of my front door by hostile enemies does not negate the fact that my faulty cognition will lead to seeing myself in Technicolor as tiny self-fragments spatter my splintered walls in high-speed definition. Certain things are, indeed, independent of one’s opinion.

Egghead

I have nothing to do and everybody to do it with.

My list of to-do's is long and my want-to is short.

Ever get so overwhelmed thinking about your Sisyphus days that your head melds into an apathetic pancake, poured out entirely too thin with too many bubbles?

I have noticed recently that in order for me to take advantage of my organizational tools I have to be more disciplined, which, of course, means that I have to be more organized. I don't like attempting to progress by chasing my who's-on-first tail.

Discombobulated scrambled egghead meets Ungerland.

I think I'll take a nap.

Carpenters, Congestion, and Carrying On

Rainy days and mondays always get me down... Remember that one? The cathartic and semi-catatonic super-thin mellow babe crooning in retro-memories. That's what today is.

My head feels like a yellow blob and when I speak, I can hear myself resonate. My cranium is a cave. It's raining outside and the coolness is starting to creep back in. It's that icky chill that even makes healthy stallions feel like gazelles on vacation in Rio de Ja-tundra. It's not a stark cold, just one that brittles your constitution.

I'm still hunting for a car to purchase and a laptop to buy and as the reality of seeing multiple money signs stream before me settles in, I find out just how waterproof my wallet can be. Maleness is running amuk. That's not a bad thing. Just how my wires have been harnessed.

So it's Suda-fed land and careful planning and rest that shall win the day, even when talking to myself and feeling old, sometimes I’d like to quit and nothing ever seems to fit and even when I'm hangin’ around and there's nothing to do but frown, I'll not submit to the retro-babe's call. Whining is not a virtue.

Yankee Winter Excursion

I was invited to attend a two-day business conference and training in Minnesota. The only catch was that it would be in January. When I read that tidbit the Northeastern quadrant of my frontal lobe twitched. Minnesota? January?!

Suddenly, my southerninity knew I was in for a deep chill.

I’ve seen snow maybe four times in my life and I don’t even own a coat. I have a jacket that can protect me from a five mph wind in a rainstorm but below zero wind chills and ice and a real winter? Not even close. As a result of my pathetic winter wear condition a gracious friend volunteered to lend me his sub-zero parka. Besides the fact that it fit me, him being from Minnesota certainly synched the deal.

You have to realize that I’ve been made to fear the cold by my Yankee friends who love to tease me about living in a tropical world. While they drool over my sixty-five degree-ness as they skip to work in five degrees I have been taunted by visions of frozen mucus membranes, nasal hairs cracking like peppermint canes and lungs filled with brittle bronchi as I gasp for my final breath. The thought of becoming a chubby Cajun frozen speed bump in an industrial parkway haunts my solstice dreams.

Well, I made it home alive. It was ten degrees when I arrived with single digit and below zero wind chills but my nightmares never came to fruition partly because we mostly shuffled between buildings, rarely heading into the winter evening unguarded. I did, however, manage to discover hidden ice as I slid across and down grass and walkways in fine penguin style. Next time I shall bring my cane. Though I enjoyed the newness of winter, the true northern winter, it was good to be home.

Warm. Foggy. Humid. Yes, home.