Homeless - 50

Aloha, campers,


Long time, no hear, eh? It's the work thing, it's the living thing and other things that I have to attend to while existing on this planet. No, there is no 'rent' or 'estate' thing that I have to contend with at this time. Hopefully, over the course of the next couple of weeks, or less, events will smooth out into a more manageable flow but until then I'm at the mercy and whim of the gods...as if I'm ever not.


I started a new part time job within the municipal infrastructure on 2/27/08. The part time work is a steady 25 hours a week, the hourly rate is more than what I was making, vacation and sick days are accrued, affordable medical/dental/eyeball insurance, 401k and pension. I know! I've had my share of part time jobs but none offered these benefits, at least not at these prices. I wonder what the full time employees get. Retirement and their own island after 10 years? And it is not as physically ruinous to my young self as the previous job. And the existing personnel are already used to my ...eh, ways ... well, kinda ...since over the past several months I interacted with them consistently on a weekly basis. There were even a few times that they threw some food down my throat. In fact, the alpha female of the installation was the significant factor in getting me the previous part time job, as she was instrumental in me obtaining my current employment position. I owe her a debt, as well as my other two benefactors, that I'm uncertain of how to repay. Without their assistance, my situation would be somewhat different, probably worse. I have no idea of what they saw in me to respond as they did to my situation They know of my plans and goals; maybe they want to see a happy ending, sort of a another success story that they took part in. I don't want to let them or myself down and hope that particular effort comes to fruition. I think it would be nice that, in the near future, that they could point at me and say, Ahhh, yes, I knew yon young fool back when...


One of the ID requirements for my current employment position is the possession of a valid Social Security card for verification of...me. I already have a original birth certificate, my parents and grandparents birth certificates, a valid driver's license (with picture), a go-cart license (obtained in Kansas City one night while hammered, with picture), a license signifying me as an ET (with real picture) and lists what spacecraft I can lawfully pilot (really!), a card verifying my Native American lineage (which entailed securing the roll numbers of my great-grandparents) and last but not least, a U.S. Passport (with picture) but I don't possess a SS card and haven't for decades. I had thought that having a valid Passport was the top tier in the ID business short of rectal probing or other orifice invasive assay. But no, they required an SS card. So I obtained directions to the SS office that is located just a bit south of downtown Dallas. Have I mentioned that I'm afraid of that part of town even in daylight? I had to navigate through winding streets with unfamiliar names, one way streets, streets under construction, signs, SIGNS, SIGNS everywhere, all in the late afternoon rush hour. People were honking and waving their encouragements with certain gestures. I don't know how I survived but I arrived at the SS building that is not located in the premiere section of town. It didn't get any better when I entered the building either. Let's just say that if I and those other people in that room were stranded on a desert isle, I would have to kill them all before sundown so I could sleep peacefully that night. And if you think that I may have been a little fidgety, please ponder why there were three cops present with more weapons in their utility belts than tits on a centipede. I told one of the cops that I was so glad that they were there, to which he chuckled and his 42 pound bicep concurred. Damn thing probably ordered off its' own menu at a restaurant. After a short wait (I don't know how and thank the gods!), I was able to talk with one of the the SS personnel, present my completed application for an replacement SS card and present my Passport for identity verification. You see what I mean? To get the SS card, I showed my Passport. Why then wasn't the Passport good enough initially? Anyway, I extracted myself from that part of town most expeditiously to my part of town to recover from that traumatic experience, cowering in BT with the blankets over my head, whimpering quietly. I think I need therapy...


I had to have Black Thunder's butt rebuilt; specifically, the bearings in the rear axle. At first, I thought the grinding sound that I was hearing was the brakes but the sound persisted after I had the brakes checked out. Brakes are very important; it isn't that speed kills, it is the uncontrolled deceleration that might leave a mark on tender flesh. Further analysis yielded the true nature of the evilness and would only cost $700 to put her rear aright, and everybody's rear needs to be aright. I was fortunate that I was able to use a benefactor's finance option and I am also fortunate that I have gainful employment to pay for it over the course of a couple of months. We took it slow for a few days before the repairs, actually doing the speed limit or less. Poor BT, having to publicly endure noisy butt problems. She probably needs therapy...


Last week, I treated myself to a Wendy's gut bomb. Those burgers are arguably the best fast food burger that money can buy. I took the opportunity to replenish the on board condiments as well - salt, pepper, some top of the line plastic flatware and napkins. One belch and the food molecules are undergoing processing. I read in the next day's paper that the largest beef recall in history was executed. These days, I eat beef once, maybe twice a week, and it just so happens that some questionable meat is somewhere within our food dispersal infrastructure when I decided to have a burger. Thankfully, no ill effects, no 'incident'...



In the early 90's, I spent a week at Mustang Island on the Texas Gulf Coast doing what people usually do while vacationing there - swimming, sleeping, basking, eating, drinking, etc. While we were out shopping, taking a break from the beach, I spotted a T-shirt that had many, many depictions of geckos in every intimate position a drunken sailor on shore leave could envision. I bought a couple of them (yes, they had a couple in my size) thinking that is a low probability that I would come across such attire anywhere else on this particular planet and were destined to become a collector's item. I've wore them sporadically throughout the years, always in adult situations and they were well received. At least, no one, to date, has come after me with torches and pitchforks in the dead of night. And I've never seen other similar attire worn other adults, possibly due to product shortage or a more mature sense of style. Anyway, I have both T-shits on board BT and since they are of thicker fabric, I've been wearing them under other torso specific clothing while enduring this brutal Texas winter. Last week, I was folding the clothes after whisking them out of the dryer and I was thinking of the social/economic mix of patrons in the public laundromat. Specifically, of entering the income levels, types of employment, religious orientations, other orientations, etc. as well as other personal factors into a matrix and see what correlations might arise. I told you I was a nerd. I know...Yodi would not be proud of me doing one thing and thinking of something else. In the past, such inattentiveness was the cause of judicially applied light saber butt burns, which did increase the desire to succeed at the subsequent levitation exercises. As I was folding one of these T-shirts that graphically represented our amorous reptilian friends joyfully practicing the arts of the Kama Sutra, a young women walked by and said nice shirt with a smile on her pretty face and a gleam in her eye. She was young enough that I could've fathered her nearly three times. AARRRGGG!!! In the future, I must exercise more caution when washing those shirts in a public arena.


Black Thunder had a birthday this past 2/29/08. She is 12 years old. Do you realize that she is older than a human born 11 years ago? She came into my life on 2/29/96 and has been a fine steed since then - butt problems and wet spots not withstanding. I promised her that when our economic situation improves to a certain point, she will be treated to several significant upgrades. Until then, I'm using her name in my other writing project as the designation of a non-organic intelligence controlling a battlecruiser-type hull under the command of a lone human female, working with others in a vast enterprise that staggers the imagination - a combat starship that is able to outfight what she can't outrun and outrun what she can't outfight, bristling with ship-to-ship armament that enables her to take on heavier capital units with a high probability of the enemy ship's destruction and...never mind.


Next time,


David

P.S.

I've never thought of the number of mammary glands on a centipede until I wrote those words. The fact that I employed time and attention to write those words and you, consuming the same resources to read those same words, may signal that both of us may need therapy...