"I was driving down a West Texas highway
when I seen a hitchhiker with his thumb pointed my way
Didn't look suspicious, didn't look any too clean
So I put on the brakes and I opened up the door
could tell he was a bum from the boots that he wore
He said I'm goin' down to Haskell, got a woman back in Abilene"
-Michael Martin Murphy and Boomer Castleman
I was having one of those days where I was feeling low enough to the ground that I could kick myself easily - a self-generated bad day that I could only make worse.
So I decided that a change of pace might help me refocus and get some work done. I went to the Champing Public library. What I realized on getting there is that there's lots of folks who come to Food Not Bombs that hang out there during the day to get away from the heat. More so than in Urbanana (Which actually has the better library) cause Champing stays open later.
And who do I run into but T, the train hopping drifter punk. He tells me that he is leaving town on Friday by bus. His ex-girlfriend emailed him and asked him to come home. Why is he traveling by bus? Because he wants to get there as fast as he can.
She is his dreadlocked hippy chick soulmate and he hopes that now that she is out of jail, the two of them can stay clean and maybe set up a squat with solar panels for electricity and a rainwater bath. "We'll put a white picket fence up outside our squat," he jokes. He recounts their fights and their travels. "The layer of dirt is cute. She can be as hairy as she wants. I don't care. And even when she smells, to me she don't stink," he confides. His face lights up saying that she has excellent aim. "If she throws a rock at ya, it's gonna hit ya!"
Perhaps the sky is falling down and everything is going to pot. Perhaps I am lost right now. The world keeps spinning and all of us on it are fighting and drinking and living and loving and it's a beautiful thing. Even when you haven't had a shower in days and you carry everything you own on your back. I wish him good fortune and joy on his journey.
4 comments:
LMAO.....breathe....ok, ok. That was very inappropriate considering your post, but I couldn't help myself! I just saw the save the mantee link! I've been thrown back into our radio days...
ANyways, perk up girl. You're still cute as hell throughout all of the crap you wade through. ;)
Jcrash: Agreed on questions of odor and agreed on following your dreams.
BBFK: Forget my beloved manatee? Never! =D
I guess as long as I keep moving I'm not drowning in crap, right?
; )
You'll get through this girl!
Sometimes I wish I could chuck all my stuff and live out of a backpack. Only I CANT stand being dirty. My squat would have to have running, heated water. Oh and walls, electricity, microwave, heat, a roof.
One of my ex's wife wrote in a card that she loved his stink. Me, I like my men clean and smellin like soap.
Surface dirt is one thing...but I always cringe when I'm watching a movie in which the main characters have been through some terrible ordeal in the jungle or some other place where no showers or toothpaste has been available for weeks, and then they get it on. Dirty orifices of any kind should be kept to oneself...
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