I was then hounded by the teacher almost daily because the bike I’d gotten was apparently “too big for her” and because of that she couldn’t go very fast on it. I went down to the track at their school and watched her ride it and she didn’t go very fast but She’s only 4 years old and that didn’t really bother me. I told the teacher this and she rolled her eyes.

Today at her school they had track and field events that ended with a three mile bike ride that only the “big guys” did(6 year olds). Clementine and I have been talking about bikes a lot and she knows I’ve been going on long rides, I’ve done 2 40 mile rides just this week, and she’d mentioned that she wished she could be in the “big guys”(6 year olds) race.

During the track and field events I asked her teacher if she could do the race and a 6 year old kid said “Clementine’s too slow” but the teacher said if Clementine wanted to that it was ok and no one could make fun of her when she didn’t finish.

I’ve gotta say I was a little pissed about all this, it just seemed disingenuous and counter productive. I got Clementine and we walked the 1/4 mile track they were going to race and talked about every pothole and slant, when to pass and how to enter the turns to minimize slowing. I showed her how to pass other kids on the straight away and talked about doing everything you could, without endangering anyone,  to never let anyone pass her.
She won the race today a full lap and a half ahead of everyone. I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of anything in my entire life. She beat a bunch of 6 year old boys on a pink barbie bike. And that snotty 6 year old kid was BUMMED!

Well, not wanting to spoil the mood I wrote about the one real and meaningful experience I’ve had with Twilight.

Edwards Starry Eyes,

Eggs, free range, organic
Juice, apple, organic

There is one item that can not be spoken aloud or silently, it just is. The first time I purchased this I did so with a certain profound reverence. After that it  was everything I could muster to make this a menial task. It never has been.

Rice milk
Almond milk
Ground turkey, kosher

It’s cold out and I have to pull the zipper on my hoodie way up to keep warmth close to my chest, there are also feelings I’m tying up in there and I feel more secure, more protected with my armor all buttoned up.

Bread, sliced
Butter, salted

I walk with purpose into the store, eyes up and sure footed. Had you asked me why I was there that evening I might have replied “lunch items for my kids” or quoted you the price of tea in china…$1.84/25 bags. But I know the truth and I would have bet you knew it too. We can both see through my confident act.

Olive oil, extra virgin
Romaine, hearts

Back and forth through the fluorescence, the coupons calling to me, begging me to stray from my purpose. I hadn’t cared, the first time I read that word, I pretended not to read it again, but I hadn’t really cared and I kept telling myself that, hoping to eventually believe it.

Juicy juice, juice box
half & half

The normal internal dialogue has all but died, yesterday I would have silently asserted that the cookies in my cart are for my wife. Today you know what’s for who, today you see the mess of it all on my face, today there is no good explanation I can give to you or myself. It’s all too obvious.

Lunchmeat
Fruit

I couldn’t get them first, they would have sat alone in the center of my cart and called out to everyone I passed, having gotten them last creates the same effect but adds some altitude because they now sit upon an alter of groceries. Time slows, the checkout line, there is no refuge.

Gum
Mints

Our eyes met. I knew instantly where they belonged, that precious copy of GQ, my saviour. His starry eyes. I placed the blood sucker upon the box of blood suckers and was safe…

So as I ride away on the much easier to manage twitter I know that at some time in the future when I have less to deal with I’ll come back here and actually write something with more depth than 140 characters.

Thanks for understanding.

Anyway, soon enough we wanted to sing her ‘Oh My Darling’ but that song is about a little girl that drowns in a river. I thought singing her that song would be a little morbid so I kinda re-wrote it.

Oh My Darling as sung to my darling, Clementine.

In a canyon, in a cavern, excavating for a mine, dwelt a miner, 49er and his daughter, Clementine

Oh my darling, Oh my darling, Oh my darling Clementine,

I have loved you since I’ve known you, little darling, Clementine

I took you camping in the forest and we had the greatest time, we climbed trees and we chased bee’s and we sang the whole time

Oh my darling, Oh my darling, Oh my darling Clementine

How I love you little darling, precious darling, Clementine

Well we went walking on the beach and we had a real good time, we found rocks and we found shells and we danced in the foamy brine

Oh my darling, Oh my darling, Oh my darling Clementine

How I love you little darling, precious darling, Clementine

I took you skiing on a mountain and we had a chilly time, we had hot coco and some snow fights and cuddled close to warm our minds

Oh my darling, Oh my darling, Oh my darling Clementine

How I love you little darling, precious darling, Clementine

That’s as far as I ever got with it and it was kinda just made up on the spot. One day she’ll be horrified by the real version and I’ll have a lot of explaining to do. But that day is a long way off.

Sitting here at Gate 2 waiting for the inevitably unbearable flight to commence.

In this entire terminal there is 1 bathroom. In this singular bathroom there are 5 toilets, 8 urinals and 4 sinks. There was a line coming out of it as I approached and I figured, hey I’m early, I’m gonna keep going past my gate and find a less busy place to take a shit… No such luck, no such luck at all. It seems the airport imagine that the dregs that fly on southwest will cop-a-squat and relieve themselves amongst the filth that they must be used to by now. I traversed the entire terminal in hopes of finding something clean, in hopes of finding something slightly less over run by the mob, in hopes of finding something even just two decibels quieter, a place where my bowel could relax and breathe out this brewing mess. I was not successful.

I am in a slightly more secure Greyhound bus station. Secure from physical threats and bombs hidden in shoes. However there is a chaos and psychosis here that seems terribly dangerous. 

I am in a Disney alley where people have saved for the year in hopes of blowing their nest eggs on a Mickey hat and churros.

I am stuck in a bad acid flashback but I cannot for the life of me remember taking acid and this horror is linked to no false joy that comes to mind.

The woman at security gave me a hard time about my hat and glasses, that I don’t have hair in the picture on my drivers license and finally that I had two tickets. When I explained that I’m a big guy and don’t fit in one seat she said, jokingly I thought, “you’re not that big.” This went back and forth until I realized she wasn’t kidding, it wasn’t a compliment, a nice way of saying “well for a lardass you look ok pal!”, but rather she wanted a different reason, an explanation for the extra seat. I finally told her I didn’t like to touch people I didn’t know. To this she rolled her eyes but gave me back my tickets and allowed me to pass.

Sartre describes in his play No Exit, Hell as other people - and I must say I suspect that he was on to something. 

My wife asks me why she so enjoys laughing at my pain? 

It’s human nature I think. Mostly there is the joy felt in witnessing the suffering of another because we can then gauge the non-suffering of ourselves or the reverse - we can relate to it and thus have a comrade in suffering. It’s an exchange of sorts. I suffer and you either realize that you are not suffering as bad and are relieved or you see that you are not alone in your sufferance and are also relieved. I get to vent, thus relieving my own pain and misery and hope that you as well are suffering or that you realize how bad I really have it. It’s an exchange. Reciprocity.

Delayed and delayed and delayed and Gate 2 becomes the nightmare, where before there was only potential. The stewardess that would normally take your ticket without looking at you and allow you to pass from place to plane has begun “song trivia” so as to subdue the forming mob, the crowd, the dregs, the masses…. I am trapped and my extra ticket doesn’t buy me an extra seat in the terminal. It will buy me a foot and a half of relief for two hours of hell and headaches and stiff backs.

The Australian boy has moved, changed seats 6 or seven times. I find him staring at me from a new area of the room every 5 or so minutes. There are no open seats anywhere and yet he seems to be constantly in a new one. I signed his “diary” right under the title “day 1.”. Perhaps he decided to give the diary a go after spotting me, it is noteworthy after all. Other good times to begin documenting your life, graduating from high school, getting married, first experience with pregnancy and hell if you haven’t started, meeting that fat guy from that one show that you vaguely recall, PERFECT DAY TO START A JOURNAL! He pleasantly moved on only to play musical chairs or perhaps it was all just in hopes of finding a better angle to view me.

A smallish Asian woman approached me asking if I was “Ethan?” She seemed meek and all things standard with smallish Asian women. However, upon my admittance of identity she became almost clown like in the way people from the Mid-West can sometimes seem. “I’m Nadeeens friend!!!!!” The American Mid-West smile and gesture is cartoonish in its expressiveness. She explained that she and her husband were on their way to Orlando, their stop in Albuquerque is just that, a stop, for a Disney cruise with her father, its his 70th birthday after all!!! “SO HE GOT TO PICK!!!!” And they would be doing this with her sister and her sister’s kids. There was some disdain for children expressed.  The husband did all of his “talking” to me while looking at his wife. I must say that as they announced, for the first time, that the flight was delayed I felt gratitude because these two demons decided to return to the bar for a sweet flight anesthetic.

My bowel is in a state. I fear standing.

Some time passes and the inevitable takes place.

Have you used a public restroom and felt like you needed to take a shower and scrub your entire body? Has it been worse than that? You feel like your clothes need to be washed and your shoes probably thrown away? It was worse even than that. Not only do I need to throw away my shoes, wash my clothes in ammonia and bleach and scrub and scrub and scrub the first 3 to 4 layers of skin right off my body, not only that, I am probably in dire need of antibiotics at this point. I would say with  93% honesty that I was wading through the muck and mire of physically and mentally diseased people. It was as though people had dropped trow and wantonly sprayed the bathroom down with fecal matter in an attempt at recreating a Jasper Johns. When satisfied with the shit visual they went to work on the floor. The standard “wet floor” sign that seems to be an airport men’s room must was only misleading because it had gone so far beyond the point of merely being “wet.” I mean would you call the Pacific Ocean “wet?” A yellow hazard sign with the word “swamp” in red would have been vastly more to the point.

And so here I sit contemplating staph and the clap and also any mental defects, for if it was present in there, I’m sure I got it…

Francis Clementine doesn’t seem to mind.

This wonderful fellow sold beauty in hell. Most of the homes in this Cairo slum are built by placing a piece of corrugated tin upon the top of two tombs. Every home needs a fresh bouquet of flowers from time to time.