Greetings from the state where ALL the trend-setting extreme weather comes to party! Fifty-one weeks since the last kroniklescopy of our hardy protagonist, the Red Stripe, the time is nigh to share another specimen.
An invitation to do the work I do hit my inbox January 22 of this year. I, in the midst of an utterly mistaken fantasy regarding the dedication of the paycheck to the repair of the half-in, half-out hole in my backyard back into a modest swimming pool that once served as a center of familial paradise instead of a city of mosquitoes with a population density equal to that of Singapore, kept my head down, barely noticing the ticking clocks and flipping calendar pages until the very end of the school year. On Sunday, May 3, the car I hazily and reluctantly gained ownership of in the same way one secures student loan defaults, stray cats, and stalkers, unexpectedly died abruptly in the front on Papa Red Stripe's house, knowing that his backyard is the equivalent of an elephant grave yard to the family's deceased vehicles. For the remainder of the school year, I alternated between cadged rides from a science-teaching brewer from whom I would steal any remaining vestiges of a belief in American exceptionalism in exchange for his generosity and bike rides that only occasionally ended in six packs or me flying across the street with landings hard enough for us to leak fluids.
Papa Red Stripe, without saying a word, made it clear that vehicular self-sufficiency trumped my preference for floating in liquid joy, quietly contemplating the delightful interplay of light and shadow that the pecan tree overlooking the pool provided.
A cash infusion topped my short list of reasons to go not only because I apparently have to have a car but also because Roomie would not be participating in the work this year, attending instead to graduation arrangements of her children, now on the cusp of a journey toward lucrative professional sporting contracts that will allow them to have swimming pools in their backyards. Later in the week, one of the future hall of famers cut off his pinky finger. Fortunately, he is the soccer player so, although very disconcerting for both mother and son in the immediate experience, it is unlikely the injury will affect his participation in the 2022 World Cup. As I went about my luggage-finding and packing procrastination, the reality of Roomie's absence resulted in a furrowed brow on my face and trepidation in my heart mostly because, going to Kentucky to earn money and not spend it, I could not afford the extra charge to avoid a roommate. In my mind, having to deal with a fake Roomie sounded like an awful lot of work and, like the chances of Oklahoma voting for Obama as our next Governor, improbable that I would be assigned someone who dropped the F-bomb better than Truman did the A-bomb and talked politics long after lights out. I did what I could to put myself in a positive frame of mind and finalized the preparations for my departure.
I awoke on Travel Day, brushed my teeth, donned my black Outkast T-shirt and entered St. Jeanne's custody at approximately 4 AM. We chatted about my job on the brief ride to the airport. She did that thing she does where she gives me all her change and sent me packing. I headed to the counter, paperwork in hand, expecting a briskly moving line at the airline counter because of the time of day and previous experience. This year, I found a giant family (their number, not their size) blocking the movement in the line in a way very similar to the way dried up mustard blocks the nozzle the beginning of a cookout. Apparently, the entire family elected to go on a cruise in Alaska. This decision resulted in a number of controversies I did not even know were possible to have at an airline counter but line up and learn. I surveyed the other hostages . The family immediately in front of me consisted of a son and daughter in their older teens and (presumably) their father. The daughter had such lovely features that she would have not been out of place on an episode of Bonanza as Little Joe's Spanish princess love interest of the week. Then I looked at the dad. Immaculately groomed, with a collared, print shirt tucked into ironed cowboy jeans cinched by a conch belt and tucked into (what else?) cowboy boots. Lacking any observable luggage, his only possessions appeared to be a toothbrush, hairbrush, and Red Bull, each stuffed into one of the cowboy pockets. Mentally, I marveled and applauded his commitment to unencumbered travel. Unfortunately, the huge family in front of him disabused him of his noble efforts.
Finally, Oklahoma's equivalent of the Kennedy clan found satisfaction and went somewhere else. The security line moved fast and easy. I found my gate easily and sat down, cranking Bubba Sparxxx's The Charm and cracking open a collection of Charles Bukowski's articles so I could make use of the time prior to taking my medicine and boarding. I found the album positive and creative (neither a given in hip hop) and the book dated in its efforts to provoke the reader with vignettes of anti-bourgeois lifestyles, stubborn violation of the rules of grammar, and glorification of substance abuse. I looked up from this canceling out of expression and saw a woman that dramatically resembled Roomie, which I took to be a important sign about my upcoming experience and an obvious testament that the woman in front of me was evil since doppelgangers are ALWAYS evil. I gave her the stink eye until the distraction of boarding broke my attention. As I waited to board and for the pill to kick in, I reflected (once again) on how strange the false hierarchies built into the travel experience are and presuming that the ability to board first or to go through a different colored line labeled “Platinum” must goad some kind of person into sinking more money into their travel.
I passed out about the same time I sat down. I woke confused and fuzzy-headed. Some flashes of events that may or may not have happened filtered as I got my bearings. I had the thought that it might have taken some time to take off from the rainy runway in Oklahoma and that we may have sat in the plane for a long period of time. Eavesdropped conversations between pleasure travelers lamenting their abuse at the hands of the airline promoted my dawning understanding that we would arrive much later at the Dallas airport than initially expected. I, hopped down on anti-anxiety pills, figured that major, international transportation corporations probably have a Plan “B” in these types of circumstances and decided not to be anxious about it.
I disembarked and found one of those flight-listing boards that must have been a nightmare to update in the pre-computer days. I discovered the connecting flight was also delayed. So, no big deal.
I navigated my way through the enormous DFW (they do things big in Texas) and had enough time to nearly bust my reimbursable breakfast budget on some disorientingly expensive trail mix. I boarded the second flight with relative ease.
Since the second flight is the one with other teacher people on their final leg to the same destination, the overheard conversations centered on the upcoming task that, this year, had changed enough to make a significant number of participants nervous. Negativity attached to the words spoken and I decided I was not ready for all that. I drowned the conversations with musical ones. After determining that the pilot had not flipped his nut and decided to drive us instead of fly (he drove for four songs worth of time), got my sleep on again.
I woke up just in time for a ginger ale and my attention landed on a slight, young woman with a nerdy chic thing going—disheveled hair, librarian glasses, expensive knee-high boots. I noticed her because of her constant, twitchy nervous movement that ran the gamut from messing with her hair, or to opening her calendar to contemplate appointments and then stop to open a file to read and then stop to write notes (from what I over-read she seemed to be an academic focused on sexual relations) and then stop to drink her beverage. I wondered if her rodent-like movements caused eagles to confuse her for prey at the beginnings of their attack runs. That would explain a lot, actually. After we landed, she and I headed to Starbucks, independently of each other. I remain convinced she did not need the caffeine. But I really did. I purchased my small, black coffee that always surprises at any Starbucks and headed down the Rabbit Hole.
An invitation to do the work I do hit my inbox January 22 of this year. I, in the midst of an utterly mistaken fantasy regarding the dedication of the paycheck to the repair of the half-in, half-out hole in my backyard back into a modest swimming pool that once served as a center of familial paradise instead of a city of mosquitoes with a population density equal to that of Singapore, kept my head down, barely noticing the ticking clocks and flipping calendar pages until the very end of the school year. On Sunday, May 3, the car I hazily and reluctantly gained ownership of in the same way one secures student loan defaults, stray cats, and stalkers, unexpectedly died abruptly in the front on Papa Red Stripe's house, knowing that his backyard is the equivalent of an elephant grave yard to the family's deceased vehicles. For the remainder of the school year, I alternated between cadged rides from a science-teaching brewer from whom I would steal any remaining vestiges of a belief in American exceptionalism in exchange for his generosity and bike rides that only occasionally ended in six packs or me flying across the street with landings hard enough for us to leak fluids.
Papa Red Stripe, without saying a word, made it clear that vehicular self-sufficiency trumped my preference for floating in liquid joy, quietly contemplating the delightful interplay of light and shadow that the pecan tree overlooking the pool provided.
A cash infusion topped my short list of reasons to go not only because I apparently have to have a car but also because Roomie would not be participating in the work this year, attending instead to graduation arrangements of her children, now on the cusp of a journey toward lucrative professional sporting contracts that will allow them to have swimming pools in their backyards. Later in the week, one of the future hall of famers cut off his pinky finger. Fortunately, he is the soccer player so, although very disconcerting for both mother and son in the immediate experience, it is unlikely the injury will affect his participation in the 2022 World Cup. As I went about my luggage-finding and packing procrastination, the reality of Roomie's absence resulted in a furrowed brow on my face and trepidation in my heart mostly because, going to Kentucky to earn money and not spend it, I could not afford the extra charge to avoid a roommate. In my mind, having to deal with a fake Roomie sounded like an awful lot of work and, like the chances of Oklahoma voting for Obama as our next Governor, improbable that I would be assigned someone who dropped the F-bomb better than Truman did the A-bomb and talked politics long after lights out. I did what I could to put myself in a positive frame of mind and finalized the preparations for my departure.
I awoke on Travel Day, brushed my teeth, donned my black Outkast T-shirt and entered St. Jeanne's custody at approximately 4 AM. We chatted about my job on the brief ride to the airport. She did that thing she does where she gives me all her change and sent me packing. I headed to the counter, paperwork in hand, expecting a briskly moving line at the airline counter because of the time of day and previous experience. This year, I found a giant family (their number, not their size) blocking the movement in the line in a way very similar to the way dried up mustard blocks the nozzle the beginning of a cookout. Apparently, the entire family elected to go on a cruise in Alaska. This decision resulted in a number of controversies I did not even know were possible to have at an airline counter but line up and learn. I surveyed the other hostages . The family immediately in front of me consisted of a son and daughter in their older teens and (presumably) their father. The daughter had such lovely features that she would have not been out of place on an episode of Bonanza as Little Joe's Spanish princess love interest of the week. Then I looked at the dad. Immaculately groomed, with a collared, print shirt tucked into ironed cowboy jeans cinched by a conch belt and tucked into (what else?) cowboy boots. Lacking any observable luggage, his only possessions appeared to be a toothbrush, hairbrush, and Red Bull, each stuffed into one of the cowboy pockets. Mentally, I marveled and applauded his commitment to unencumbered travel. Unfortunately, the huge family in front of him disabused him of his noble efforts.
Finally, Oklahoma's equivalent of the Kennedy clan found satisfaction and went somewhere else. The security line moved fast and easy. I found my gate easily and sat down, cranking Bubba Sparxxx's The Charm and cracking open a collection of Charles Bukowski's articles so I could make use of the time prior to taking my medicine and boarding. I found the album positive and creative (neither a given in hip hop) and the book dated in its efforts to provoke the reader with vignettes of anti-bourgeois lifestyles, stubborn violation of the rules of grammar, and glorification of substance abuse. I looked up from this canceling out of expression and saw a woman that dramatically resembled Roomie, which I took to be a important sign about my upcoming experience and an obvious testament that the woman in front of me was evil since doppelgangers are ALWAYS evil. I gave her the stink eye until the distraction of boarding broke my attention. As I waited to board and for the pill to kick in, I reflected (once again) on how strange the false hierarchies built into the travel experience are and presuming that the ability to board first or to go through a different colored line labeled “Platinum” must goad some kind of person into sinking more money into their travel.
I passed out about the same time I sat down. I woke confused and fuzzy-headed. Some flashes of events that may or may not have happened filtered as I got my bearings. I had the thought that it might have taken some time to take off from the rainy runway in Oklahoma and that we may have sat in the plane for a long period of time. Eavesdropped conversations between pleasure travelers lamenting their abuse at the hands of the airline promoted my dawning understanding that we would arrive much later at the Dallas airport than initially expected. I, hopped down on anti-anxiety pills, figured that major, international transportation corporations probably have a Plan “B” in these types of circumstances and decided not to be anxious about it.
I disembarked and found one of those flight-listing boards that must have been a nightmare to update in the pre-computer days. I discovered the connecting flight was also delayed. So, no big deal.
I navigated my way through the enormous DFW (they do things big in Texas) and had enough time to nearly bust my reimbursable breakfast budget on some disorientingly expensive trail mix. I boarded the second flight with relative ease.
Since the second flight is the one with other teacher people on their final leg to the same destination, the overheard conversations centered on the upcoming task that, this year, had changed enough to make a significant number of participants nervous. Negativity attached to the words spoken and I decided I was not ready for all that. I drowned the conversations with musical ones. After determining that the pilot had not flipped his nut and decided to drive us instead of fly (he drove for four songs worth of time), got my sleep on again.
I woke up just in time for a ginger ale and my attention landed on a slight, young woman with a nerdy chic thing going—disheveled hair, librarian glasses, expensive knee-high boots. I noticed her because of her constant, twitchy nervous movement that ran the gamut from messing with her hair, or to opening her calendar to contemplate appointments and then stop to open a file to read and then stop to write notes (from what I over-read she seemed to be an academic focused on sexual relations) and then stop to drink her beverage. I wondered if her rodent-like movements caused eagles to confuse her for prey at the beginnings of their attack runs. That would explain a lot, actually. After we landed, she and I headed to Starbucks, independently of each other. I remain convinced she did not need the caffeine. But I really did. I purchased my small, black coffee that always surprises at any Starbucks and headed down the Rabbit Hole.