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toledo in vinyl siding
Hello Readers. When a week begins you often can’t predict where they will end. I have seen this proven again and again and yet I still persist in believing there is some kind of predictive regularity to life, though all evidence i have seen is in the contrary.
On Monday nigh I was hanging out with my friend Nancy and drank a couple of beers and shot the shit on her front porch. As I was walking home, I checked my voicemail and Chad Osborne, my best friend from highschool, had left a message that he had Pistons play off tickets for Wednesday if I wanted to go. Tuesday I cleared my schedule for the rest of the week, moved up my appointment for a 2nd viewing of the house on Leslie I want, worked, saw the house, signed a contract, packed, skipped my truck inspection (theres still 3 days in the month when i get back tomorrow night), and hit the road. So this week has largely left me with a surprise home visit to the home country. The trip up was uneventful except for an incredibly cheap hotel that was then a fairly reasonable place to stay. The pistons won which was nice as they dropped the game before and the next one last night. I’d never been to an NBA game, it was a lot of fun. I most enjoyed how they manipulated the crowd with alternating flashing messages to scream and yell and then buy stuff. It began from the parking lot where this was this huge disembodied deep and comfortable voice explaining the rules of the stadium. I thought i will be glad when that voice is broadcast everywhere and no one will have to think or remember, just wander and obey. I think the house hunting has permenantly scarred my brain. Its definitely changed how I look at the world. I went to my brother Bob’s whose had the same house for more than 25 years and I thought, “wow what a big living room and with a lot of light, its on a pretty quiet street, and the yard is huge, wish it had the hardwoood floors though”. I don’t think i used to think like this. The other thing i have noticed is how much more of the area is covered in vinyl siding. I’d barely heard of it a month ago and now i realize half the planet has become swathed in it. Really unfortunate, even giant old farmhouses i remember looking all boxy. Its disturbing, and Chad says it is cheap and of course its low maintenance, so i guess its just going to get worse. I have been telling everyone about my house. Three bedrooms, 2 baths, a split level with brick and aluminum siding, a 2 car attached garage, with the bedrooms above. Leslie is a little busier than a street i want to live on and it doesn’t seem to have much of a “neighborhood feel” although my boss lives across the street and she’s pretty neighborly but in the words of my realtor “Its a lot of house for the money”. I ok’d the price in Indianapolis Wednesday morning and faxed back the contract Thursday from Monroe. Everyone hear seems happy and healthy, I helped Harry move into his new apartment he is getting with his new girlfriend (both very nice, one painted in some wild colors). I got to help a little with the painting and got roped into moving some stuff on friday, the curse of pick up ownership. Friday night had a nice dinner with my brother Bob and his wife Pam. Bob grilled out venison steaks, which were excellent and some asparagus, which he gave me props on teaching him how back in my vegetarian days. Pam made among other things this asian shredded brocoli salad that was really yummy, didn’t even know there was shredded brocoli. Chad and Melissa have been delightful hosts, laid back and considerate, but I spent one night over at Harry’s as Bill, a co-op manager out of Marquette was visiting. We all played some Settlers of Katann which was fun. (I jumped out to the early lead and they all ganged up on me and Chad Osborne squeeked out a victory a roll or two before i was ready to go out). I also drove around Ida/Temperance with my niece Heather. We went to the graves and planned on getting my mom a bench some day. Also noticed the Grushchaw’s old house was in vinyl siding as well as the Cardell’s. What are you gonna do? Me, I’m going to Frankie’s of all places (the hipster club i went too when i was 19-23) to see Nick and Rebecca’s band, and then back to COMO tomorrow. Gotta get that car inspected.
a week in review
greetings constant readers. Its been a decent week. I think i am finally over the hump on not being horribly stressed and busy at work all the time. I actually got to leave an hour early on Thursday. Yesterday was strange, two of my clients had relapsed together and one had lost his berth at the homeless shelter because of it so it ate up my whole day finding him a detox bed and talking him into taking it. I had to pretty much drive him a hundred miles but we got ‘er done. Coincidentally it was his one year anniversary in our program. Our first client to make it a year. He’d been clean 4 months prior to this drinking episode his best run ever when he wasn’t in a facility. I have learned to stay positive. When they do well i think, i did this, i’m making a difference. When they fuck up i think, they did this, you can’t succeed for them. It keeps me sane. Later this morning i go out with the realtor and look at some houses. Wish me luck.
going crazy part 5
After a long night of restless wandering I returned to the mind spa. Everyone was up and rolling, cleaning up and packing. The first night we had arrived our host’s partner Rose had told us to “remember what it looks like” which in my then unspun mind was a simple admonition to clean the place up when we were done. Now i saw new implications of needing to remember what was here, what had transpired. I placed an Israel Regardie book on the shelf of metaphysical classics in thanks for the memories. Debbie seemed a little out of sorts as i put the last few of my things in my pack, doublechecked to make sure my ticket was still in my bag. I remember a couple of Aaron’s friends who hadn’t come over with us were there. I thought one of them might want to carry Debbie’s bag as they also only had one. I was remembering the Fishbone CDs left over from the show at the Melkveg. I was remembering Jennifer dipping CD sized sheets of hash into a large pot of boiling wax the night before. I was remembering that i’d brought Debbie’s bag over from the states. I felt very tired, that now i was ready to sleep, and told myself not yet. Its not yet safe. I’ll sleep on the plane when i know i’m safe. We left for the train station. Debbie was disgusted when i mentioned i was broke again. Jennifer asked what happened to the 100 guilders she had given me and i told her i spent it teaching an immigrant what “frivolous” meant. Debbie bought my ticket and we boarded the train to Schippol. I kept thinking about the 300 CDs, the CD sized sheets of hash, this whole extended dangerous practical joke i had fallen into, the vagaries of friendship – and who in fact where my friends? I had no clear plan but i knew i wasn’t rolling that bag through customs. My thoughts ran slowly through my sleep deprived befuddlement. As the train pulled into Shippol I pulled the roll away behind me, last in line, moving towards the door. I felt like i was walking through molasses. The doors closed before i could de-board the train with everyone else. Flooded with relief i waved to my dumbstruck friends as the train pulled away from the station. There was another passenger stuck behind me, seperated from her guy at the airport. She seemed nice and uninvolved in this mess. I thought i would ask her advice. We had decided, of course, to ride up to the next stop, change trains and return to the airport. On the ride I quickly explained i believed that i had fallen in with international drug smugglers and thought the bag i carried was filled with Hash and wondered on the ethics of checking. She considered my dilemma. She said, her guy would be at the airport when she returned however long it took because he loved her and would wait. If my friends were at the station i could trust them and if not then well….
We arrived at the airport and there was her guy, happy to see her and in a hurry to catch the flight. My “friends” were no where in sight. I pulled off my backpack to check the ticket for the time and gate. No ticket. I had seen it that morning, double checking it was in the flap it had rested through this whole ordeal, now it was gone. I checked the flight listings and went to the appropriate gate. We had been cutting it close and the flight was departed, no one was in sight. I was stunned, exhausted, not thinking clearly. I needed some air and went outside and sat on a bench to collect my thoughts. There was this rhythmic pounding of a huge piledriver at a nearby construction site. I felt drawn there. I had been thinking about the hypnotic quality of techno music and the risk involved in opening your mind to hypnotic suggestions enclosed in the “music”. I felt drawn there, i felt like our host would be waiting for some kind of final confrontation. As i walked towards the pounding i realized this was insane. He would not be there, trespassing on a construction site would only draw attention to me with possibly a huge amount of hash in my possession. I sat down more to think. I opened the large duffel and pulled out a cloth shopping bag with some of Debbie’s souveniers contained within. I consciously did not check the CDs. I felt it was safer not to know. I zipped the duffel back up, left it next to the bench and walked away. I saw an exit sign leading to a highway. I thought i would return to the known of hitchhiking. I saw i was on an on-ramp heading east. Home was to the West. Or was it, East would get me there too, it would just take a little longer. I felt ready for the journey. I felt beyond want, beyond fear, beyond even need. I walked as the 4 lanes of traffic, those funny little European cars whizzed by. I found a lighter in my pocket, from the Mind Spa. I wondered if this was how they tracked my movements? My sinuses were clogged, i felt like i could barely breathe, i felt exhausted. I thought if only my sinuses hadn’t been clogged i could have done progressive relaxation and shut off this barrage of thought and rested and i wouldn’t be so damn tired. I thought it would be over by now but here i was a stranger in a strange land still. I thought i didn’t know what was happening to me. Had I been drugged, hypnotized, had my mind blown by mindblowers. Had i touched the face of god? I felt powerful as i breathed air into my lungs. I felt i had to be a powerful magician to have survived or maybe i was an angel? I was uncertain, and i felt there was power in this uncertainty, that if i knew it would all crumble into dust. I realized i loved the unknown and did not fear it. I said quietly, “I whisper when i want to hypnotize and I shout when I want something”. I didn’t know if i was listened to by a microphone planted by mindfuckers or the god who made the universe or if i was being listened to at all but I was angry. Angry at my exhaustion, my clogged sinuses, my fear of pursuit as a drug smuggler though i had done nothing. I shouted, my spirit self grew to scrape the clouds, i found myself ten thousand feet tall and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that at this moment i wielded all the power of the universe. I shouted. “If i don’t get a ride right now! I will destroy Phillip Morris”. Bamn, instantly a van in the far left lane cuts through 4 lanes of heavy traffic. “Would you like a ride?” the driver asked.
Multiconstruct 
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