Out of St. Petersburg, I took the toll bridge. When I realized how big Tampa Bay really was, I figure the $1.25 was a deal. The highway was another truck route, so I turned onto SR (State Road) 70 and drove cross-country to Okeechobee. That’s the town on the lake that has no view of the lake, which is three miles south of town. The drive inland from the west coast goes through a lot of wild bush, kind of like Florida’s empty quarter. See if you can find Wyakka, which is where I stopped for breakfast still early morning.
These long return trips give me hours to think, something I tend to enjoy. No radio, no input, nothing but brainwaves. I learned that the sidecar is not for long-distance anything. One or two short hours in town is plenty, otherwise, the sidecar is more for one person travel. The passenger section is not that comfy. From just after sun-up there was a fresh to strong (Beaufort) breeze across the highway. This came from the southwest, so I had to fight it with the handlebars all day long. That’s a good workout.
One priority on return is to update the books. It takes an hour of routine maintenance after being neglected for over a week. Remember, it is this budgetary control that makes these holidays possible. When I worked for a living I was always short money somewhere along the line. Here is an item. You know how hard it is to get the lowest possible price when competing with the entire world on-line? Well, some lucky bastard managed that. He picked off ten ounces at the recent record low silver plummet of $22.41. Here is a picture of it.
Manana, manana. Always leave it to the last minute and do a rush job, that is the motto of Miami. I’m turning in early, that’s all for today. Well, except this classic composite photo of my travels in the past two weeks.
Today’s comments here concern the theme of meeting women that recurs in this blog. First and overriding fact is that this blog is written by a bachelor looking, not for the perfect woman, but a replacement for what went before. (I know that will never happen, but it serves as a standard.) She was not perfect nor was she expected to be. The concept here is that she was overall enough for me to never mind what she was not because she made up for it every day. When she crabbed at me, which happened, I could only smile knowing where it was leading, that she would never hold out on me when it counted.
Also, the original readership of this blog was 100% bachelors, but quite a different sort of person than myself when it came to dating, travel, and the admixture of the two. I’ll explain that further. I am not the playboy type, never was. The defect in most articles written by bachelors is the authors are the hero-types with boats and cars and perfect teeth. That’s fine for Harlequin romances, but a far cry from the reality of most of us non-millionaires who are not six-two Marlboro cowboys.
So if I lapse into a description of the woman-search of my journeys, don’t get uptight. It is an integral and expected part of my travel documentary that goes way back. If my entire journal ever gets published, you’d see a thirty-year record of the phases of my travels, from optimistic youth, through the decline of middle life, and now to the vast empty wasteland of approaching old age.
Who recalls when I used to ask the airlines to sit “a young single gal” next to me when the other passengers check in? How I noted that at age 28, the airline definition of “young single” changes to something with “nice personality” and “age appropriate”. The opposite of what you asked for. Now, I put a wet tissue on the next seat so nobody will sit beside me.
On this trip I did not even see, much less hit on, one attractive single woman. For me “attractive single” is not a phrase to parse into components. Both must be present in the right combination. And don’t squeal about sexism, women choose their men by precisely that method. I saw some attractive women, but they were obviously paired off. I went to every nice club, every park, every upscale coffee shop, every downtown art show. Nothing, not even one lady I would chat up. Ah, c’mon, there must have been one. Nope, I’d have been all over her like a herd of turtles.
So be careful not to read anything into what I’m saying here. I did NOT say I met lots of women who turned me down. (I’ve only been turned down once in the past twenty-some years, by an English lady from Churchill’s.) I’m saying I did not even see any candidates to talk to. No, my standards are not too high, in fact they are as reasonable as you’ll ever find—I ask for nothing that I do not have to offer in return. As for my public persona, I’m out-going, gregarious, approachable, talkative, and supremely extroverted. But I’m also aware that I project a tough aura of don’t-waste-my-time. It repels the triflers.
I’m going to bring up a scenario with a supervisor at the phone company when I was in my early thirties. One of the ladies [there] complained that I did not treat her as “nicely” as the young pretty things. Really? I say again there is nothing wrong with the way I treat women I don’t desire (it even has a name: selective indifference). But yes, the way I treat women I like is very noticeably different, and nobody is saying otherwise. For example, I take them out and visit them and am always ready to talk. Any lady who complains about that needs to go to hell. For a long time. To think things through.
Having said all that, let’s not listen to anyone who says I don’t have what it takes. Unlike 99% of men, I have no fear of rejection. I could care less what other men think or do most of the time. The other 1% where I care are usually supposed to be fixing my motorcycle or something. I will walk right up to any woman I find attractive and talk to her like her best friend, right on the spur of the moment. But the women have to be present first. They were not on this trip and that is nobody’s fault. These things happen.
