I revisited the University of Delaware, working this time, not just training. Eric picked me up from a Philadelphia hotel at 5 am to make our 7 o’clock schedule. My flight had arrived at midnight the night before due to delays but it didn’t bother me because not a lot bothers me at this point.

We pulled up in dense fog to a construction trailer that couldn’t be seen from twenty yards away. Inside we’re greeted by a jovial and bespectacled construction foreman who gives us the usual safety talk, but goes on to explain the “sexual sensitivity course.” The documentation goes on to explain sexual harassment in legal jargon and what it is and I just took the whole thing as don’t even think about the opposite sex because I can be sued for it. It made sense though. A bunch of dirty construction workers working on a college campus with possibly attractive twenty somethings. Then I realized that I’m balled into the same group as the dirty construction workers.

I walked around the jobsite in my business casual clothes. There was an orange safety vest on my torso and a yellow hardhat on my head. I was thinking about my travel arrangements, or flashing an ESN, or creating a database, or updating the processor firmware, or testing occupancy sensors in the locker rooms, or that QS wall station that wasn’t working. At points in the day I would see those college students and feel such a disconnect. I would think about what they were thinking about me. Probably nothing at all, or just some contractor, or some thirty year old doing his job, or some IT guy, or something, or something. They were thinking about a literature class, or a party, or maybe a boy/girl that they wanted to hook up with or already did, or something menial and unimportant. I thought of my great position, of money and opportunity and experience and travel.

And I looked at them, yearning only to be able to think of simple things, of menial things, of literature tests and finals.

Instead, I am thinking of qsprogramdevicefirmware,0,KEYPAD-DOM,keypad.s19.

I am thinking of my life as a thirty year old, as a twenty year old.

The weekend puts me in Philadelphia for my company Christmas party. I spend Friday night walking the streets of Philadelphia in places I probably shouldn’t have, enjoying the cold and the solace. I found the liberty bell at night and Independence Hall. I sat and looked at the sky without stars and watched my breath become vapor. What am I doing with my life? Great things. So many great things and great heights but how? What a strange turn of events but some strange fate in which I will see such scenes, so many things to behold. I do not deserve any of this, these grand adventures and prosperous outcomes, financially and emotionally and mentally. It’s obscene in its absurdity. And how is it that I can adapt so well? My peers are ten years older than me. I have spent maybe fourteen days in my apartment total. I feel like I’m falling apart in some ways, but those same thoughts become nullified by my apparent fortitude. It’s so hard for me to absorb anything, like I am numb to experiences, or rather I absorb them without realizing it. I have aged exponentially, all as a matter of fact and without realizing it.

Alison joins me the next day for the party. We spend the afternoon shopping and exploring. I purchase a blue velvet coat and a bowtie. I told Tim that I would outdress him and plan on succeeding. It’s comforting to see Alison becomes it’s nice to see a familiar face in an unfamiliar town but it’s odd because the town doesn’t feel too unfamiliar.

Alison looks wonderful and so do I and in the hotel lobby we meet our fellow partiers. I see Steve and his wife Jessica, who I have not seen since I stayed in their home. I see Joe, who I shared some deep moments with in Stamford. And I see Tim looking dapper, but not quite dapper enough. He looks at my bowtie and coat and lets out a whisper of impression. I realize that we are a company of beautiful people, and our beautiful convoy makes the walk to the restaurant.

Alison says she’s never felt so young. The funny thing is I haven’t felt more comfortable in weeks.

The night is food, and drinks, and bowling, and fun. It ends late and the night is well and I’m happy and Alison is happy. We do more exploring the next day and leave in the afternoon. Alison back to Texas and myself off to Ohio.

The clouds must have followed me to Dayton. It’s 27 or so degrees when I get there and a slight drizzle. Dayton isn’t foreign to me. I’d spent two weeks previously here.  I told my cab driver where the hotel was without using my GPS. It hit me that I know Dayton, Ohio better than I know Austin, Texas, where I supposedly live. It was a darkly comedic and sad feeling. This was followed by the realization that I have almost spent more days there than I have in Austin, Texas. There was no alcohol in my possession, but it was a thought worth drinking to.

Tim gave me a call, and we checked up on ourselves as we often do. I related to him my frustrations I faced in Delaware, of feeling so disconnected from my age group. I told him my frustrations of what little time I’ve spent in Texas, and other frustrations of my personal life. He listened in his Tim way and responded in his Tim way. “You sound bitter,” he says. He asks if I think I should be a student with those kids at the U of D. I hesitate and eventually say yes and I tell him I didn’t want to say it but it’s true. He said that we talk on the phone not because of business but because we’re friends and it’s ok for me to tell him that.

He relates to me anecdotes and quotes from classic literature and philosophy. He seems to reveal secrets as to why I was hired in the first place, even though this isn’t some grand secret or experiment or plot. He again touches on darker times that he had, and says to look where he is now with a woman that loves him unconditionally and a beautiful new baby. He tells me that I will come out on the other side and it will be amazing. He talks again of his faith. As I listen, I almost tear up because I start to feel so okay, and there’s that certain fraternal bond that I get with Tim. In response, he also tells me of his frustrations and I give him some my advice, as if that means anything but he listens all the same. In the end he says I was hired because I’m a young man of great ability and talent. He says that he only hopes for me to get from point A to point B, and thinks that point B might not be with this company because I can be greater than this company. As I’ve told him before, I think he gives me too much credit. He says that he doesn’t think so.

We talk more on the subject of me comparing myself to those students. I know that I have a unique and incredible opportunity doing what I’m doing, but there are those moments where for just a week, maybe I wish I could be twenty and live the normal life that comes with that. To this he says:

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

I went to bed completely content.

An aside: Thursday is my last day of work before I get my own little holiday vacation. Soon I will be riding a floating castle into Val Halla. Thursday can’t come soon enough.

This is a recursion or a relapse into something I don’t want. I always hated the way my mind would move, too many thoughts in a short span and they’re all bad. It takes a single moment. I feel no magic in travel right now. I feel no magic in my job right now. I feel no magic in writing. Just frustration. Life took a strange series of turns. I don’t deserve where I am right now. I got very lucky. I am sorry. I will feel better tomorrow.

I spent the week in the desert. Arizona. Maybe a kilometer from the border. It was a far cry from the gold and burgundy trees of the northeast, instead surrounded by reddish brown dirt, unnamed mountains off in the distance, dotted with desert shrubs like a pox, cacti, Spanish. The temperature was never below sixty or above seventy. The sky stayed blue. At times I would be fifty yards from the border fence, stretched across the hills and cutting the sky like the rusted plates of a stegosaurus back. I felt the southwest again. It reminded me of Big Bend and earlier in the year. I forgot about those times. I don’t even feel like that was me.

My initial flight to Arizona was something pleasant. I met a girl named Paige. She was a golfer. She talked about it with a confidence that wasn’t cockiness, but with an acknowledgement of ability. She was a journalism major, so we talked about that. And then we talked about psychology. And then religion. And then gender roles. And our upbringings. She said she wanted to be a sideline reporter for college football. I told her that would work, she has a face for TV. She smiled and said thanks. It was true. And I will never see her again.

Upon landing, I was greeted by LaMarr and by cacti. LaMarr and I have worked together on numerous occasions, and he’s nothing short of one of my favorite people. He’s somewhat quiet, but not out of shyness or necessity. He’s simply not loud because it’s not needed. He’s incredibly good at what he does. He thinks with his engineer logic. On the jobsite, he challenges any of my actions even if they’re correct, just to check my assuredness. I see this right away and I don’t give him the pleasure of catching me off guard. He keeps me on my toes and he teaches me. He’s the man that after working a busy day, we went to a machine gun range in Oklahoma City to let off some steam. We often talk about growing up in the South and the silly things northerners do. We laugh about many things.

Nogales, AZ had the desolate beauty that makes the southwest what it is. Grass doesn’t exist in this part of the country. Looking in any direction, you see mountains. At night, you see stars. The sunsets. Those desert sunsets that turn the sky to a purple I’ve never seen. The sun makes its retreat behind those desert titans, and the gold and purple sky is its last goodbye for the day. I remember feeling disappointed when it finished.

The jobsite itself was by far the most unique site I’ve visited. The country’s largest port of entry into the country from Mexico. A massive fifty acre project right on the border. We worked in strange areas. At one point I was climbing over and under pipes in tight underground tunnels that could hardly fit me and in other places that allowed LaMarr and myself to stand freely. Parts of the facility were operational while we were there. During the day, the air was heavy with the sound in smell of eighteen wheelers coming from Mexico. As the days would grow late, we would hear concerts and smell barbecue from over the border. LaMarr and I would joke of adventures we could have. Maybe next time, we would joke. I wore a hardhat and boots and a safety vest and I felt that importance that sometimes comes with this job, even if I’m not that important. One day, a Border Patrol official will reach for a light switch that I programmed. I have done my patriotic duty.

I feel bitter again. I’m not sure why. I have that familiar chip on my shoulder. Mad at the world and nothing at all. It’s a recession and regression to something I don’t want to be. Things have been so good lately. I had a wonderful week at home last week. There wasn’t a day that I didn’t love. My job continues to get better and better. In my social aspects, I’ve had good times. And I still don’t know what it is. Maybe I’m letting myself settle into an uncomfortable groove. I need something new. Isn’t that a shame? I’m in a new city every week and doing new things and yet I still feel unfulfilled. Give it a few days and I’ll feel fine, as is the usual par for this course. I keep thinking about things I thought I was done with. Dwelling on things I shouldn’t. About how I wouldn’t mind seeing Paige again. Ihop and Big Bend. I don’t write enough. I don’t workout enough. Challenging my self worth. And then I stop and I breathe and I think and I grow up all over again. One of my many faux inspirational phrases. It makes me think of you (and I’ve been thinking of you often.)

“I’m ok. Everything is ok. Everything will be ok.”

I have been busy.

And all over the place.

And there is so much to write.

I actually have a long vacation for the holidays. So here are a few things to look forward to:

Infiltrating a charity dinner at my hotel in Stamford last week, The night/morning that follows, Black Bear Trivia night with Joe, The origins of Joe, my Dallas road trip with Tim L. which includes learning much more about him and myself.

There’s a lot more to this, and there will be a lot more, so expect either several long posts or one very long post. Until then.

Maybe it was the very attractive waitress, or the three dollar shots, or the three dollar domestics, but I am in a state.
What is this state? That’s a dumb question. It’s a foreign and familiar drunkenness. It’s that strange feeling, that novelty I get while watching the Stamford gloom. While watching those idle ships of vanity sitting in the dead harbor.
I’m listening to those same songs again. While the songs remain the same, the feelings are different. What are those memories, those bygone and unfortunate beings, traveling in a world that never existed at all, a world I declare in prose that no one can redeem. It’s all lost and a lie and a poor and pathetic thing.
At the moment of you reading this, someone loves you, and that’s reason enough to live. As you read this, stop and take every single thing around you, breathe it in, absorb it, take every sense that you have and try to evaluate every stimuli received. These are the most important things. These are the things we can’t make even though we make it all. These are those small significant moments that make up the better part of our life. Those sweet moments of solace that we misplace for loneliness are the most important moments. Introspection is the most valuable currency because we make it ourselves.
Do not worry about mortality. It’s a waste. We are all mortal, get over it. Your life is everything and nothing and simply what you make it. If you love it, life will love you, and your blessings will be numerous. Hate it and you will receive as such.
“I take you more as a philosopher,” she said. Her voice was nothing but whiney drivel, during the day she would tell me to cut my hair. I would sit next to Sara. Did these moments happen at all, as I slept through these classes of oxygen and hydrogen and reaction? What philosophy can I produce? So many thoughts in such little time? Am I put here to do amazing things? Are you here to do the same? We and only we can decide such matters, no higher beings control it, there is no destiny, our actions are our own, and they interact with others with complications that can’t be predicted in theory or math. There is no science for the science of people.
There is a story here and I will tell it, but for now it’s a stream of consciousness. I exist to capture this moment. I once wrote in my journal, “I know why Hemingway drank.” It’s a stupid statement. I don’t know why Hemingway drank, but I know why we all drink. And here I feel like Hemingway for reasons I want to believe are true. I want that adventure and that romance and those experiences that can only be documented in the style of American post modernist prose. As I read “The Sun Also Rises,” I feel so close to him but yet distanced through ink and papers and those years. But why does it speak to me and why do I try to speak to this dead man that killed himself? Can I put myself in his shoes? With half a head due to my own actions? A morbid thought that none of you wish to read but I read it myself always. I will never be Hemingway, but I am always.
This music is not loud but it’s at full blast. The Pixies, and the Strokes, and Kid Cudi.
Asides, and goodnight world.

I do not like Stamford, Connecticut.

The people are assholes. The sun never shines. It hasn’t been cold enough for me to enjoy the change in climate. The Hyatt denied me service. Where I’m at, nothing has that pretty northeastern aspect. The project I’m working on is a mess. This is where I whine and rage and be frustrated. This is where I let myself pretend to be a young man again for a second.

—

I had my first full weekdays at home last week. I spent them doing what I wanted to do. I tried to sleep in, but couldn’t. I stayed in my underwear until the afternoon. I gave myself a private marathon of Breaking Bad. I browsed the internet for too long. I contemplated going for a bike ride (never did.) I stood at the door of the open fridge while scratching myself. When I finally went outside, I squinted more than I should have. I ate dinner with an old friend on Monday. I ate dinner with a new friend on Tuesday. I felt happy and the lack of stress was welcoming and I didn’t think about work until I got a phone call at six in the evening on Tuesday.

“Do you know that you’re going to New York tomorrow?” (To get to Stamford, CT.)

No. I did not know.

—

3:30 AM: Wake Up.

4:00 AM: Cab Arrives.

4:17 AM: Arrive at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

5:35 AM: Board Plane to Memphis.

8:35 AM: Change Planes to NYC (La Guardia)

12:15 PM: Land at La Guardia.

12:17 PM: Find out my pick up can no longer pick me up. (Gery)

12:18 PM: Think about one thousand thoughts, plans, and possibilities.

1:30 PM: Take shuttle to Penn Station.

2:00 PM: Arrive at Penn Station.

2:01 PM: Buy Ticket for train to Newark Penn Station. It leaves in 4 minutes. I’m not really sure where it’s leaving from.

2:06 PM: Depart Penn Station. I don’t really know if this is the right train. I’m simply a dumb Texan.

2:40 PM: Arrive at Newark Penn Station. Locate new pick up (Eric V.)

4:00 PM: Arrive at the Stamford, CT Hilton. Meet Gery. Proceed afterhours work.

7:00 PM: Finish working. Get ride to my hotel. (The Hyatt)

7:08 PM: Arrive at Hyatt. They deny me a hotel room because I’m not 21. This has never happened before. The room is already paid for. I speak with multiple managers. I tell them I’ve stayed in two Hyatts previous to this one. I reason with them. I batter them with calmly spoken rhetoric. I watch sweat form on their brow. I tell them of my disbelief of their atrocious service. They deny me still.

And for a moment, I feel like a child.

Recently, I have felt like a lot of things. During the week I feel older than I should, or wiser than I should, or more weary than I should. I feel like the road warrior, the business traveler, a master of ground and air and lights. On the weekends I feel 20. I feel youth and vigor and recklessness. I decide not to care and I have no reason to care and all is well. But at that moment, I felt like a child. I felt wildly frustrated. I wanted to cry. Not out of sadness, but frustration and contempt for a hotel manager named Spence, who wore too many pounds and too much cologne. It was hopelessness. I felt too small for the chair I was in and too young for the life I live all at once. I wanted to forget myself, just for a second, curse up a storm, maybe just slug him in his sweaty jowls. It didn’t take long to snap out of that thought. I am better than this sweaty fat man in front of me. He may deny me a hotel room, but life has denied him much more, like fitness.

After fighting with the Hyatt to no gain, I ended up sharing a room with Eric. Eric is a fantastic guy. Wholesome is a wonderful word to describe him. He’s great at his job, he doesn’t swear, he loves his wife, he’s expecting a child, he could talk your head off about cars, he’s conservative to the bone, he’s from the Midwest.

And he snores like a cannon.

We ended up going to bed at around 10. We said our goodnights and the whole scene was something fraternal. And so it began. I have never heard such unholy sounds escape the human head before. Now, I was far too tired to really let it bother me. In fact, I was impressed. This was truly a feat of the natural human engineering. I actually found myself waking up in the middle of the night to laugh. I could have applauded him, but I don’t think he would have heard me over that cacophony that sounded like a lawnmower making love to a jet engine. He snored so loud, that he would even wake himself up.

We were both up at seven. I felt like a new man.

This particular jobsite is stressful to the point where I’m skipping the details so it doesn’t come back to haunt me like a Vietnam flashback.

On Friday, Gery gives me the ride I wasn’t able to get before. We exchange words. He’s Dominican and his accent is flavored with Spanish and the strange English of New Jersey. He’s loud and funny and we get along right away. We speak our backgrounds and of home and of our mothers’ cooking. His mom’s cooking sounded fantastic. I missed home for a small moment.

My flight is scheduled to depart at 5:05 PM.

It leaves at 6:35 PM, well delayed. To quote someone: “Satan’s busy.” I almost miss my connecting flight in Charlotte. I get back to my apartment at 10:45 PM. I’m greeted by a cat and two bottles of Sailor Jerry sitting on counter. The note on one says “HAPPY HOMECOMING ❤ LIZ”

The other: “JOKES ON YOU, THIS ONE’S MINE :)”

Home sweet home.

I meet the boss that I’ve heard so much about. John stands a little taller than myself and exudes energy. He speaks with a degree of magnetism. His eyes and mind are bright and I know what this company came from and why it is what it is. He laughs at my jokes. I meet several others I’ve yet to meet. Guys who are now newer than me in the company. Evan, Scott, Maurice, David. All of varies shapes and sizes. Ages and ethnicities. I exert my faux seniority as a joke.

It’s the first week ever of in-house training for the company. The first class to run through the new training center. The first actual brick and mortar location the company’s had. Tim L. is here too as is Eric and we exchange our words. John speaks and the first day moves quickly.

We all go to dinner at a local joint. I make sure to sit across from John. I enjoy hearing his stories and I can tell he enjoys hearing mine. Tim L. sits diagonally, wearing Armani jeans and a leather jacket. John says that I could be Tim L.’s brother. The comparisons continue. The group rags on me for my age as usual. I don’t mind. I know what I am in this company and what I will be and I know the company knows the same. Later Tim L. asks me if it bothers me and I tell him the same. He replies with “We wouldn’t do it if we didn’t like having you around.”

—

Evan and I walk through the University of Delaware campus, following trails of red cups to fruitless doors. Evan carries himself with a youthful demeanor that lets me feel my own age again. We walk those dead streets with rum in our blood and our heads up and hopeful. We try a bar to no success. I say I don’t have my ID and Evan can’t seem to find his. When we leave I ask him if he actually forgot his and he says “No, I have it.” Solidarity.

I knew right away that Evan and I would get along. We sat in his room drinking wonderful Nicaraguan rum and swapping stories. His of volunteer work across the world and engineering school. Mine of Pro Automated and girls. We talk of hiking and nature. Life and universe. Austin, Texas. Ambition. Our talk contains substance and substances. The rum is like liquid ruby, blood red in the light. The mouth feel is cleansing. The finish doesn’t burn one bit. Floral hints. Sweet sugar cane. The bitterness and clarity that comes with liquor on the rocks. We talk and drink and when a suitable buzz is reached, we make our way to the heart of the college. To adventure and nothing at all.

We run into two moderately attractive girls at a street corner. I ask what there is to do around here and their only response is bars. We chat them for a while. 18 and 19. Freshman and Sophomore. One of them is still wearing her science lab eye protection. I make fun of it thoroughly and they both laugh. ”Where are you two going?””To a candy store.” Now, I could have responded with “Well uh…I have candy back at my hotel room,” but this would have come off as highly creepy and inappropriate. We flirt some more and all is well. Meanwhile, a pack of girls with shoes too high and skirts too short catch our attention. I ask them the same question and the response is the same. They’re remarkably less fun to talk to and they continue their way somewhere. Around this time, we part our ways with Candy shop and science goggles. To continue our fruitless search.

Through small and terrible college student housing. Through the alleys of two buildings. Through dormitory sidewalks. We smell skunk in the air and we laugh because we know it’s not a mammal. Back to the car. We didn’t get drunk. We didn’t go find some college party or easy college girls. But we were content. A night more rewarding than it could have been.

Solidarity.

—

An aside: For a spilt second, I knew what I wanted. But I won’t worry about what is or what isn’t because as it goes things just is what they is and nothing else. I can have no qualms and give no shits about the state of affairs because as it stands life is beautiful and life is great and like nothing else. But I will give this qualm and I will give this shit. For that same spilt second. Be bored and be tired of ease and no ease at all, of inaction, of honesty without being honest. Say sweetness in a silent scream and I won’t say much. I have nothing to say because there isn’t a ground to say anything. If I say something, I’m the same as the norm and I will never let myself be the norm or what you or anyone is used to. Carry on in molasses. Sweet and slow. 

Frustrated and perfect and beautiful all at once. A weekend of ghosts and zombies, but the good kind and the best kind. In weeks I feel old in the heart and old in the soul, but that becomes easy to forget and I’m glad. Absorb all that you can, the punch and poison, black lights and dry ice, names said only to be forgotten and words remembered you can’t forget. Not a syllable, not a sentence.

Drew and Victoria get to my place in the late evening. I hadn’t seen Drew in too long. I give him a hearty hug. His beard is thick and I tell him it must be the rugby. Soccer is a game for gentlemen played by hooligans, he tells me. Rugby is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen.

Inside, Liz and Andrea prepare for their usual night of debauchery and booze on the 6^th. Liz starts her transformation as a cat, but reverts back to last night’s zombie stripper ensemble. Andrea dons something that hardly covers herself. She’s a maid. The strip of fabric and lace defies thresholds.  I start my addition of the latex and paper towel contusions that work better than they should. They weep blood and display a visceral sheen. My arm festers. My neck and chest look fatal. My contorted cheek begs for medical attention. Drew is a lumberjack, sleeveless flannel, chest hair, and axe. Victoria mimics the style of La Dia de los Muertos to wonderful effect. Onwards south to San Marcos.

Joey greets us with his interpretation of Justin Beiber. It’s mostly just a hoodie and jeans, but the wig and headset sells it. I missed him also. Inside, we meet all new faces hazed in black light and masks. Names exchanged with the premise that they will be forgotten. Drinks are found quickly, a toxic punch that tastes more of liquor than fruit juice. Kaybee is there and it’s been so long. I greet him with a hug and I drink and he drinks and we talk of Bailey’s shots and Thanksgiving and travel. The punch manages to disappear and reappear in my cup quite rapidly and my buzz comes quickly and for this I am thankful. Jello shots. Shiner Bock.

An Aside: Jon Benet.

The party fills with new faces and I make it a point to know them all. Superficial friendships that satisfy my need for sociability. People my age long forgotten. They praise my zombie makeup and I greet them with the lowest effort zombie noise ever created. It might have been my current imbuement, but the noise that escapes my zombified mouth resembles an old Jewish man suddenly surprised. The Count from Sesame Street. Someone who is a drunk zombie. This is coupled with my arms being raised in a dinosaur motion. I am the best zombie, I assure myself.

An Aside: That’s hardly a costume you have. But I talk and I say things that have been on my mind that I would have said otherwise, as a zombie or not.

The back door of this apartment leads to a clearing that leads to other apartments and therefore other parties. I stumble towards the new masses of people. My walk from a distance probably appeared authentic as a zombie. I achieve this without effort. The next party is like the shady underground of our previous one. The light is a caustic green and the girls are dressed more provocatively than the last. Joey makes his way as Justin Bieber. His picture will find its way onto many phones and cameras that night. I move in and out. Kaybee and Victoria bring up the rear. Victoria steals the final shots of a Jack Daniels bottle. We enjoy them in that clearing.

I see faces long lost. Old high school friends that were more names if anything. They lead me to another party hidden behind a rare closed door. More unexpected faces. At this point the night moves fluidly, without much thought, acting on instinct and impulse. Outside again. Joey flaunts himself as the Biebs and doesn’t seem to suffer the curse of diminishing returns.

Back in the original apartment. The punch and poison begins to catch up with me.

An Aside: You listened to all those words that could be and were interpreted as drunk nothings, but in reality were all something to be heard. I said things I shouldn’t have and opened up stories that I haven’t told, all so fast and so easy. It probably means nothing in the end but the end is unimportant right now. It’s the during and the doing. The acknowledgement and the happening. Take it all in and don’t forget it. Through the booze and the muddled thoughts I remember it all. I don’t forget the motions. Not here or now. It seems like forever in that corner.

Something prompts me to stand and I know by the spinning room that it’s time to take our leave. We say our goodbyes to the new friends we’ll never see again. I give Kaybee one more hug. I rip the fake wound from my face and chest. It takes some chest hair with it. The three of us pile into the car. We blast the Strokes and sing our hearts out all the way to Austin. At the apartment we make our way to bed without much fanfare. I wake with fake blood on my pillow and my head pounds. In the mirror, I look like a zombie and I don’t think it’s the makeup.

I feel twenty again.

The ground is crackled into a thousand small canyons, like a thousand city blocks, like dust canyon roads for spiders or ants, so hard packed and dry that it rejects the tracks of a bike tire. A squirrel red as rust stands attentive at the bank of gravel, the trail carved by rubber and sweat. I pump and I plead to those pedals to move me and they do.

Rock gardens prove prosperous to their bounty of dust and cacti, of dry as bone grit. A downhill, apprehension and acceptance. Bumps and speed and rocks rather than roots. Up the other side with a familiar burn in the legs and accomplishment so slight. Tap water through a blue tube on my shoulder. Eyes front and center. Legs cranking once more, flat ground as rebuttal and riposte.

The fork leads to something new and obscene in its unfamiliarity. In this world of flammability a creek bed lies with a trickle, faint and alien and unbelievable. I careen through it and my legs are showered with the brackish warmth of something like water. It mixes with sweat and dirt and makes a sheen of mud. Each action must have its opposite. That downhill so fast is coupled with its uphill brother, its face pock marked with stones smoothed by past days water. It’s been too long. That climb defeats me and I take that walk of shame with my bike slung over my shoulder. Next time, next time.

It’s easy to be both sound of mind and sound of body when there is nothing else. The trail is friend and foe. It takes and receives. To get just as much as you give and nothing more or nothing less. Is there profit? The profit is conversion. Conversion of physical effort to mental gains. Conquering the hill.

Sections of the trail have endearing names. Powerline hill. The Log Loop. The one that sticks to my mind was Endo Valley, an “endo” being where one’s back wheel lifts off the ground, usually leaving the rider to fall over the front of their handle bars. It’s a series of long drops smattered with jutting ledges of rocks. I rode Endo Valley timidly. I avoided the namesake calamity.

My lack of riding begins to catch up with me. The burn in my legs becomes more persistent. A dull ache in my back. Soreness near my loins. My breaths become heavier. My cranks come with less vigor. Groans at the middle of a hill. Panting, panting. Slow motion movement. Side hurts. Hands are numb. Have I been here before? Washed out maze of brambles and dust. How long have I been here?  Second wind. More speed. Follow the signs.

Parking lot. The labor of each revolution comes as a revolution itself. At my car, I stop with a force that surprises me. I’m off the bike. My helmet comes off. I inhale water. My legs tremble. My hands follow. Nausea. Dizziness. This is it. Get the bike on the rack. A burp. I fumble with the straps. Sit. Sit down. The motion makes me spin. Or the world spins. I gag. What did I eat? Nothing. This is it just let it be. Clear liquid that was bile or water. A sour taste. I close my eyes and the spinning stops. The nausea leaves.

I sleep for the rest of the day.

I guess we all got that moment. Where you sit down and gather in every little breath a’ life and you wonder where you are and you look at where you been and you suck it all in and you suck it all out. Nothin ever feels quite right even if everythings quite right and if anythings wrong it feels like everythings wrong. It’s easy to forget about the things you have and just think about the things you want but if you’rn alive theres a lot more right then y’think. The fact of th’matter is that it all just is what it is. Things in life ain’t never as bad or as good as you think they is. Things just is what they is and nothing else.

 –

Bill might have had an anger problem. We chat and he happily opens any locked door for me and asks about my life in Texas and he tells me about his son in college and he goes off to sweep the next room. And then I hear the clatter of chairs. I hear the sound of curses and a trash can kicked. I peak my head in. Crumbled paper balls and Bill sweeping up the trash he just scattered. Sorry Jason he says. Just had one of my tantrums. He’s the night janitor at a high school and looks exactly how you think he does.

It’s more first job solo, in a Dayton, Ohio high school at midnight sitting in an electrical room by myself typing away on a laptop and walking out and looking at lights and coming back and trying again and going out and checking the lights, rinse, repeat. Occasionally I recruit the help of one the electricians onsite. And then it’s me again. I rejoice and revel in a button turning on a light. In the lights turning off eight minutes after I leave the room. No more and no less. I forget about eating and take late “lunch” breaks.  I finish at about 1:30 AM and take the twenty minute drive to my hotel. I usually fall asleep immediately.

Dayton was described to me as “the armpit of Ohio”  but really it’s like any other place.  Subways and Starbucks. The roadside foliage turns burgundy and gold.  Unlike Texas, the drivers follow the speed limit which is no greater than sixty on the freeways. I speed my rented Jetta along empty highways. I didn’t see a cop in my whole time there.

It’s jarring to think that it’s all become business as usual. The traveling, the continental breakfasts, the airport to airport starts and ends of my weeks. None of it shocks me or makes me weary. Austin begins to feel like home and I enjoy being greeted by a cat named Nigel and my roommate Liz. I play the guitar that I missed through the week and I lay in the bed that’ll beat any hotel bed and the stomps of our neighbors upstairs and the vibrating cacophony of the a/c doesn’t bother me.

I take a drive to San Antonio with Joey and friends. It’s a night like any other and the riverwalk is nice, filled with families and couples and generally happy folk. After eating we find a nice little jazz bar with a one drink minimum, and since they insisted, I enjoy the alcohol of the ten dollar old fashioned. I had a much better one at the hotel bar of the Akron, Ohio Holiday Inn for half the price. For a while it’s just Jawoine and myself, drinking our cocktails and listening to jazz on a San Antonio night and all is well in the world.

After gaining a buzz, we regroup and begin to explore once more. To the Alamo I say. In the process we run into a congregation of three bachelorette parties that I take the liberty of infiltrating. I high five them and sneak into their pictures and try my best to be one with the drunk thirty somethings  flaunting their abundance of penis motif’d items. They insult Joey’s haircut. They stumble drunk through San Antonio streets. Soon I grow bored and my Alamo senses are tingling and I somehow manage to lead us to the Alamo without any navigation tools. We stand in its night lit glory, yelling profanities in merriment while the night guard of the Alamo stares at us. The great defenders of the Alamo died there. We stand there half drunk. Our tribute.

An aside: She’s pretty. Very much so. Stop thinking, you son-of a bitch. Stop. Look ahead and stop all your thoughts and forget everything. The silence of that backseat kills you doesn’t it. It is what it is and ain’t never gonna be nothing else. And don’t get so surly, you beautiful bastard. Go live your life and quit thinking about tail you’ll never get. But you won’t stop thinking and you’ll never stop thinkin’ because that’s just what you do. It is what it is.

Weekends feel too long and too short. I’m conflicted by my love of work and my love of my new home and new friends and old friends. I’m in Dayton again next week. And I look forward to the solitude of that electrical room, the hum and buzz of the equipment around me. I don’t look forward to the loneliness of that electrical room, the annoying hum and that god awful buzz of the equipment around me.

But. Business as usual.