Absolute Clownshoes

 I hike pretty often in New Hampshire - and as I live in southern Maine, this makes for a lot of driving.  On occasion I’ll make a call to return without a summit or, more rarely, without even setting foot outside of my vehicle.  Today’s one of those days.  The weather is dismal and it’s colder than I found online - my hopes for clouds dispersing or sun forcing a change have been sufficiency quashed - weather app gave me optimism but the practicality is grim. I courted pushing it - it’s 10.7 by way of AllTrials with 3.3^ AND monorail is likely nonexistent except for sheltered areas over 4K … so maybe some mud and definitely a lot of water, doable but prolly not a ton of fun. So the meta was and is: what’s the purpose?  Ultimately it will fall under the all-encompassing umbrella of “self-care” and the myriad vectors that gets to embrace - but did I want to check another notch for the summit club? Give myself permission to have some feels over 11 rough miles in th...

 Last year I had the opportunity to participate in a burlesque show to commemorate VD- I didn't catch any we just wanted to get a bunch of folks together who seemed like we might need our shots - just kidding, it was Valentines' Day and it seemed like fun. A few months ago, I heard from my friend who invited me to work last year's show - this year we would be in Auburn, otherwise same gig.  We had a dress rehearsal, which was a month ago or so, and which we just sat through as she didn't feel the need to prepare, and provided me the opportunity to meet the folks performing and responsible for the show itself - was pretty cool - and my friend left it that we would rehearse before the show, supposed to happen last weekend but due to a scheduling snafu at her job, she had to cancel- and I didn't think more of it.  ...Until yesterday afternoon when her boyfriend messaged me to let me know that she had mistakenly thought the show was tomorrow (Saturday) and not in three ...

 One of my flashbulb memories that really sticks is one of random violence - experienced by me one night while I was walking home from Little Caesar’s on Brighton Ave.  I worked there for a little over 3 years, having started that job during my sophomore year at Westbrook high, and wrapping up a month or so before graduating in June of 1994. This was my second pizza gig - my first job was at Pizza by Joe Angelone out at the mall when I was 14 - I had to get a work permit signed by the superintendent in order to effectively pay taxes as regulated by our government, and I also recall the chore it was tracking down open hours for his office that summer; I knocked on that door no fewer than three times before I found the office staffed.  Persistence? Idk. I needed money and this was the effective avenue. Plus my mom was tired of my lurking about and looking for trouble to get into with Josh Taber or worse, Mike Valliere - both guys I still love to this day for the number of t...

 I'm blessed to have a great summer gig at a local music venue. It's my fifth season going as I write this and I'm gonna be obscure about location and talent as I absolutely fucking LOVE this job and on the random and arguably off chance that my words put some kind of bad karma out there pertaining to my or others experiences as unsaid venue, well, I guess I'd be upset if it came back to me, so this is to appease those dark gods.  In the years I've been on board here, I've seen the concerts and festivals sell out time and again with a huge portion of ticket sales going to families - like mom, dad, kids being all packed up and toted around for shows that have a very  heavy lean on substance-misuse.  My first concert was AC/DC, the Blow Up Your Video Tour, google for the year. I was young. I ended up close to front row and I sure didn't have any protection for my ears at all. I remember the cannons set up for Those About to Rock  and how they blasted me near d...

 I heard the shots first. Not to say I  heard them first, as I was maybe five hundred feet, no more than 200 meters away when it happened. As it happened, I was running in that direction. June 19th was, if I recall, mostly cloudy with some moments of sun - it wasn't overly warm as I had worn my green EMS fleece over my black polyester "Wicked Muddy Mainer" tee - my last run over 5 miles had been in the rain and I was wearing a cotton tank, which chafed the hell out of my nipples and left me sore for a few days - so, cotton kills. Lesson learned. Not that I'm an amateur in anything but performance here, I've been running in various weather for years now, since 2018 or so really, but some lessons don't stick til you bleed.  I live off Brown, and had worked a loop from Myrtle to Bridge, past what used to be the Jr High to East Bridge, past the retirement community and the horse-farm, out to 302 and up to Riverside St, back down Warren to Cumberland Ave. Here I ha...

  So, what did Maslow’s first tier look like today? Well, campers. Since you asked.  Alarm was set for 8 I reset it in the predawn twilight for 8:45. I got up at 8:30 after jousting with unconsciousness for some undetermined period. Showered. Wiped blood outta the bowl. A lot but it’s lower GI stuff so I’m not super freaked out.  Back upstairs. 30 push-ups. Used to be 60 but that was like in May. Seven months ago and despite rigorous effort at maintenance, there continues to be at best a plateau with the only numbers showing improvement being average resting heartrate. Made it 35 pushups. HR i Right hand is numb. It’s mostly numb these days and I’m constantly fidgeting and massaging the warped tendons creasing the back of my hand.  Sigh.  Dress pants. I’ve got like one pair really and they might be the same ones I got married in.  The fabric seems to have shrunk over the years but it’s still passable formal.  Find a black shirt. Only have a t and it’s ...

Gah.  Ok. So I met a woman on tinder. We’ll call her duckface as that’s apparently how she looks at herself when snapping selfies.  It was a random match - her main pic wasn’t cringe so when she shot a message and seemed hot to trot (“let’s not be text buddies!”) I was accommodating. There were tertiary flags around texting - I guess she sent her phone number fast, meh., I’m cool with that. She texted a lot. Like frequently and rapidly - staccato-fire sometimes for 3-5 like she couldn’t finish a thought. But I was still optimistic, and made plans for Saturday. This was on…idk wed night or maybe Thursday. Today was absolutely fucking batshit.  Round I of the redflags (imagine, if you will, a series of Russian nesting dolls. Each construed from a papier-mâché waxen crimson bandana. Imagine a series of this continuing on into the the microscopic where you’ve got fuckin Ant-Man poking in to see if you’re crushing the little folks as you continue to shuck):  Undisclosed s...