Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

When summer began, it came in with a series of blows destroying the crops in their wake.  Looking back it paints like a series of farm stands, succulent and fruitful from afar but upon closer examination, the wells of fruit have wilted and rotted under the sun's eye waiting for the next unsuspecting onlooker.  Well, technically that was the end of spring and beginning of the upcoming season.  A couple of months later I'm waking up front the jolts, gasping for air, and--as usual--looking at the changes, carnage, and circus of it all. The summer began with learning a cousin died . . . Another one this year.  This one, one I was fairly close to for years and years died at 49 . . . On his bathroom floor, I hear.  Lessons of the past I don't have it in me to go into, he and I parted angry ways half a decade ago.  Addictions and misgivings left a lot of the be said.  A lot to be desired.  Damage was done, to everyone and especially me, and with h...

As life goes, last summer I found myself looking at the heartland's horizon, and this summer I'll be duplicating and extending some of these travels.  And with that, I have thoughts.   Yes, I was in the American Midwest, rolling my economical car forward, with iTunes blaring, and some flavored water at my side.   In a poetic manner of speaking, I woke up and found myself on the road.   Though, as we all know, the realities of life don't afford for that.   Instead, I had spent weeks planning, crafting ideas in the wee hours of insomnia on my Pinterest boards, and I had prepped my car.   I had ample data for my GPS, I had a cooler with bottled water and a couple of sandwiches, I had carrot sticks, and I had a somewhat curated playlist.   What that came down to was my asking friends for road trip songs and adding their suggestions to my questionable music library.   I planned to stop and see some old friends, from college and before, but as...

I'm late in posting, as well . . . I've got a handful of things to blather about.  Like the ending of summer, which turned (as usual) into an Indian Summer, the settling of fall, my beignot skirt that I've only worn once on account of that Indian Summer, another pencil, the new jeans I made, and other items.  Yet, work and life played games with me this past week, and then yesterday there was a passing.  Uncle Harry, technically a cousin, passed expectantly.  Yet, a passing is still a passing.  Grief and loss still creep up and embrace you like an unwanted in a snow storm who drinks your last beer and hogs the fire warmth.  In a day or so I'll release the post I had ready.  Right now . . . it just doesn't seem fitting.   So instead of talking about how layers of fabric hide the curves of my ass that shouldn't be there, I'm wrapped in a series of emotions.  Many of those emotions I am not entirely comfortable with them lurking around.  ...

So I've been away for the past month  . . . well not away, but I have treated my blog like an ugly red-headed stepchild.  Eh, I've been busy.  And by busy, I mean busy and then on the world's longest road trip. And, yes, me made made the trip.  My second set of Amy Butler travel bags (The Weekender and the August Fields), as the first set . . . I'm not posting photos of the dead orange bag.  Here's a link to remind you of her in her pretty and new days. In short, I had promised my Mom a week of my face this summer, but in the meantime a family member is in the end stages of cancer.  Since my Dad doesn't fly, and my trip to Chicago in July got cancelled postponed, I went with him.  Not so bad . . . until you get to Ohio and Indiana.  Shit, I lived in Indiana for three years of my youth.  Yet, I managed to forget some of the billows of the middle states.  Middle America . . . Corn, bitches. Dad eating a Pennsylvania...