Deep In the Heart

So here I am.

Smack dab in the middle of Texas.

Watching buzzards eat roadkill and storm clouds rise up out of a clear blue sky.

Finding out that “y’all” is a pretty useful word and grits taste better with sugar.

Learning that grilling outside is not the same as BBQ and hatch chile season is something to look forward to.

Discovering that queso is its own food group and Buc-ees has the cleanest restrooms in the world.

Okay, maybe those last two shouldn’t go together, but y’all know what I mean.

Pass the BBQ.

Carrion On

So buzzards are beautiful. Well, not in the face. I mean, they’ve got that nostril that kind of goes all the way through, but otherwise, beautiful. Because they are perfect at what they do. The scavenging part. The flying part might need a little work.

The Sweet Hell of Caregiving

There’s nothing like it really, taking care of someone who is dying. Because every day is a crisis and a miracle, maybe the end, maybe squeaking through to see another day. And there’s no one to tell you how to do it, because how could there be? Every day is different and numbingly the same.

Carter’s Blue

Best stuff on the street, they said. Just ask the old man, he’s got it. Orleans Reinette rubbed her hands over her arms and looked both ways down Melrose. But there was no sign of the old man.

Maybe she should keep moving. It wasn’t like she had to stay in this place. But this place was just as good as the rest of them. She glanced at the shops around her. Maybe a tad more trendy than she was used to, but that didn’t matter. It was the Blue she was after.

It was always the Blue.

California Browns and Blues

So we’re having a drought here in California. A serious dry-up-and-blow-away-in-the-wind kind of drought. Lawn watering is strictly rationed. No watering before 7pm and you can’t use sprinklers except on your designated days (Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday if you’re even. Monday, Wednesday, Saturday if you’re odd.) The lawns are mostly dead, bare patches of dirt with a little oasis of oat grass or a solitary dandelion adding a splash of color, but I water for the sake of the trees. The jacaranda has cut out the middleman and pried its way into the sewer line so it’s nice and green and stopping up the plumbing now and then, but the citrus trees out back need some help. Laden with green lemons and oranges, halfway to being edible fruit, they need a drink now and then.

Death of a Dorm

So there I was, wandering the Internet for a work project on dorm essentials, when I started to wonder if anyone had posted a photo of my old dorm online. It would be kind of cool to take a look at the old place, maybe inspire me to write a fantastic post, so I typed in A. Richards Hall and hit Enter.

Up popped a Wikipedia article with a tree-shrouded photo and everything. It was just as I remembered it. A two story building made of pale red brick, shaped like a shallow U. Each side held six apartments with a large common area in the center. Each apartment had three bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. A sort of perilous bathroom, meant for multiple occupancy. Sink in the middle, then on the left, a shower and a toilet, on the right, a bathtub. Each of the amenities had a flimsy shower curtain to shield you from the prying eyes of whoever else was in the bathroom at the time. What the designers did not figure into their plan was my crazy roommate who found it hilarious to take a Polaroid of us in the shower or on the pot. She would snap a photo and run through the apartment holding it over her head while the injured party chased after, sometimes wet and dripping, trying to get the picture from her before it could develop.

Drainage of the Stars

So when I was a kid, we lived down the block from Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios. I was too young to know for sure, but I think maybe it was my mom’s idea. She used to tell me all sorts of stories about the movie stars she saw coming in and out of the gates and how she would check every day to see what the weather was like on the huge wooden sky backdrop they would paint with puffy white clouds or beautiful sunsets depending on the movie being shot. On top of the main building was a huge glass sign with the roaring lion logo on it which you could see for miles around. She was so excited about being near that studio, but she could only see the bits of movie making visible over the fence. She never once got to go inside.

I feel a little guilty that I did.

Purple Haze

So this year, instead of breaking my foot for the holidays, I decided to tear my retina. Well, actually gravity decided for me. Apparently sometimes the jelly stuff in your eye (the vitreous) decides to part company with the retina. If it comes away cleanly, no problem. If it takes the retina with it, all hell breaks loose. There are spiraling stringy floaters and huge flashes of light.

A little like Fourth of July inside your head.

Dungeons and Day Trips

San Juan Capistrano. The mission the swallows come back to. Built by Father Junipero Serra three centuries ago. Real California history.

And I have a piece of it.

One Less Set of Footsteps

Calvin and Hobbes

So Calvin just asked to go outside to pee on the tires and sit in the doghouse like he always does about this time, but today Hobby will not be going with him.

Or tomorrow either.