MORNING
Yep, more flat tires in Florida than in my entire life before. I’ll recap the day so far. There has been a haunting windstorm for two days. Last night I got this flat and had to pull into the Holiday Bowling parking lot. It was too cold to work in the dark and my priority became to get the car out of there before Bernie starts charging me rent. Yep, more flat tires in Florida than in my entire life before.
I’ll recap the day so far. There has been a "haunting" windstorm for two days. Last night I got this flat and had to pull into the Holiday Bowling parking lot. It was too cold to work in the dark and my priority became to get the car out of there before Bernie starts charging me rent. The Taurus has no spare, so I biked back this morning to discover the tire leaks too fast to hand-pump. So I jacked it up and biked to the dollar store for a can of air. It leaks too fast for that, too, so I try to drop the car, but the jack wedges underneath. By the time I get it out, the tire is flat again.So I put the bike in the car, getting ready to move fast. Forgetting that I am moving equipment again, my amp is in the way. I get that rearranged, use a second can of air and hop in the car, hoping to drive the half-mile home in time. The cold car won’t start. If I get another can of air, it will have cost me more than fixing the flat, so I get my bike out to discover loading it in has slipped the chain off the sprockets. On that bike, it is very difficult to get it back on. How was your morning? Eventually, I got the car home and the leak is in the sidewall, meaning I need a new tire.
NOON
Reading the Antarctic book again, I may have been correct about the east-west directions applied to the continent. Like that rule stating the planets revolve counter-clockwise, it is a convention you are somehow supposed to know. Because, if you stood on your head, the planets would appear to go clockwise. If you go to the South Pole, isn’t that the same thing? There is a revelation about my reading habits here. Yes, I read such books twice. The first time I skim, hoping to find something new. If I do, I then go back and “deep read” cover to cover.
Two unexplained mysteries in the book. One is carved stone balls found on the “panhandle” and another is fresh penguin tracks hundreds of miles inland heading away from open water. Even if eons ago there was a land bridge to South America, the stones are too recent. How did they get there? And the penguins, even if lost, could not survive such a trip without starving or freezing to death. Like most birds, they must eat every day just to maintain body temperature. You don’t suppose they can really fly and are just joshing these scientists?
NIGHT
Here’s something you may find unsettling. I put an ad for the spare bedroom at the local college, and the replies told me that post-secondary education has become a far more social affair than back in my day. Where I had to conserve, today’s students seem convinced no matter how much they borrow, they will repay it with increased future earnings. Boy, have they been sold.
By social I mean it was once "a popular self-denial" that some people attended college to make contacts. I know most non-college women I’ve met were little more than baby machines. But today, the callers want to know if I have a Jacuzzi, waterbed and an ocean view. These aren’t exactly study aids. Students now expect and can afford amenities. I will either have to adapt the ad or put in a tennis court
ADDENDUM.
The Hippie came in today, looking for a fancy laptop and looking about five years younger than the last time I saw him. I’ll wager it’s clean living. (Turns out he'd been in rehab.) He needed some pointers on computer privacy and I find it ironic that some of the things he’s finally doing are far more stringent than what he called me paranoid over just five years ago. My measures were merely preventative, not reactive. He mentioned a gig with Mike, but I’ll believe it when I’ve got the time, date and place. I did not take the opportunity to remind all that I’ve had a steady gig for nearly two years and it has been a long time since I was available.
He also talked about backing tracks, a concept he hated up to a year ago. Well, this economy is gonna make a believer out of everyone. I hope he realizes how much he has to do to get a marketable show after such a late start. What I’m saying is look around and you will notice very few other guitar/track shows. Why? I figure it is because putting on a guitar solo act is already the cheapest musical endeavor possible. Start adding tracks and guitarists start losing money, not making it.
Last, Wallace called. He is experiencing different recovery pains than Big Mike (from basically the same hip-replacement operation). He says he limps worse than before, but it sounds like he is describing muscle trauma. He cannot find a comfortable position to sleep and that, too, if I read my medical text right, spells muscle bruising. I can only wish him the best and remind him that the warm weather has got to be more therapeutic than shivering. He has to get here as soon as possible to recuperate. (He will mess things up so badly soon that I will shortly wish he had stayed home in that basement he lives in.)
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