Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

In what feels like the passing of a few years of yesterdays sunsets and roadways of Left Coast Greyhound rides and trains through the mountains have turned into the fading colors and brightly hued sunsets of an East Coast fall with sunflowers between sun's rays and around the corner of protruding Halloween decorations.  If we pause to blink we will surely miss it as Christmas will erupt upon our collective souls before Thanksgiving has come or even settled in our bulging stomachs.   After six weeks of living from a suitcase, a carry on, and one large backpack the need and desire to roll around in piles of clothes has fallen to the wayside.  More like, the accruements of a capsule wardrobe are still enveloping me and the resting of ideals of using less, writing more, and finding a greater balance and return on take home pay threaten to become dethroned with the pressings of life and need to pay rent.  There's probably a deeper analogy embedded in those bags;...

It's been two weeks now, I think.  Today I'm sitting at the Eastern Iowa Airport, situated in the middle of a veritable corn field, heading on the next leg of my late summer journey.  Farther left, farther west.  Farther removed from the city I've long called home, that's no longer feeling like home, and yet within the same proximity to those I chatted away that night with . . . a coup, a message, a saving stream of wifi. Sitting at my computer, working on a fellowship app I was about two minutes from pushing back for a break of coffee and idle work around my apartment, but like any red blooded western soul I opted to divert my eyes and head with a couple seconds of Facebook scrolling.   That’s when the messages from friends in Turkey popped up about low flying jets, and then someone saw a tank . . . 3pm turned into a protracted timeline of messages, chats, and a game of holding our collective breaths.   Ironically, or perhaps poetically, the app is to spend fi...

It's been awhile.  Too long.  Too short.  In all reality, probably more of just what I needed. Since 1 May I spent around 22 nights in my bed, and not consecutively.  Oiy vey, I know. So, in light of that . . . here's a momentary catch up on how I found a way past the long and painful writer's block.  I have to say, when you write as much as I do and the words refuse to come . . . it is a painful stagnation, like being suspended in mid flight with the awestruck wonder of starring at an expansive world and a gut wrenching fear as the tension isn't meant to be stationary . . . too long and you'll snap, to never return from the motley flight of dreams, death, and a sliver of deafening reality filled with angst and self loathing. So, I finally wrote again.  Passionate, funny, and filled from my core.  Damn.  Damn, what a sweet release. Along the way there, I meandered Turkey for two glorious weeks in May.  My presentation was stellar, as ...