Bouncing

I got to throw out my first patron the other night, drunk fellow insisting we had his credit card, causing trouble for the servers, etc so the bartender told me to toss him. I hesitated for a second, then walked up and asked him to leave. He wanted me to call him a cab, which I did and then walked with him to the door. By the time he left, I was a "cool dude" according to him, a good friend. I just hope I can be a cool dude with everyone I toss out.

Been working alot. And more to come; I have been offered a contract to teach a wilderness medicine course in Leadville, CO for 9 days in september and also to teach a semester long wilderness medicine class here in town. So if I don't get the antarctica job (which becomes more likley every day), then I may be around until november, when the class ends. I'm pretty excited about it, I think it is one of the jobs I have enjoyed most, of the many I've had over time.

I finished the book about sex in evoluntionary biology (when ever the dating game gets you down, remember the plight of the norther european slime mold!) and now I am reading a story about the fellow who did the autopsy on Einstein and then removed the brain and kept it hidden for decades before making a cross country road trip to return it to the old mans grand-daughter. Yeah, I know it kind of falls into the travel lit genere, which I have studiously been avoiding, for fear of temptation, but it has Einstein's brain involved, so it gets a pass. I have a couple of books I am saving to read for when I judge the time to be right. They are about an aid worker in Chechnya and another about a doctor in central america, both I hope will help me work through the dilemna about where exactly it is I go from here, but not until I have time to simmer down here and determine my ass from a hole in the ground.

At least you're not an Australian seaweed fly

I'm reading an interesting book right now: "Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation", which dispite its racy title, is more of a text book on evolutionary biology, written in the guise of a sex therapists letter colum. For example, a green spoon work sponge writes in that she accidentally inhaled her husband, and Dr. Tatiana goes on to explain that for this particular species of sponge, the male is 200,000 times smaller than the female. She then goes on about gender determination through chromasome matching, and so on and so forth. Makes for interesting reading when you come across letters from the female spotted hyena with a phallus and a slime mld from northern Europe with 500 different genders. Kinda puts the dating game in perspective a bit.

In other news, we found a new roomate, a grad student who works for the Grand Canyon Trust, big nerd like us, should fit in well. And that means that with all the rooms rented out, I am free to wander off when the time comes. I have decided however to give it at least two months. I figure I owe it to myself to get grounded and be stationary for a spell before I meander off. I sure don't intend to be a doorman at Charly's forever, especially seeing how surly and curmudgeony the long time bartenders get, but it is a descent place to cool my heels 'till I figure out what I am doing.

And what I am doing this afternoon is making a batch of watermelon whiskey!

Working weary

Bikers, hippies, students, retirees, buisnessmen, drifters, grifters, local politicians, and pretty much a cross section of Flagstaff society make Charly's their watering hole. A historic building and bar, and down righ descent music on a nightly basis, as well as local family ownership all conspire to make it a pretty cool place to work. Plus, from the balcony you can see the frat bars across the street and the predictable debachery that ensues.

So the first night went well.

Today I had an inservice training as a substitute teacher for the school district. Kind of a differant world and line of work altogether. From co-workers with pale skin who rarely see the light of day and have been haunting the bars of northern Arizona for years, to older ladies with kids and grandkids, retired teachers, and discussions of nail polish and Martha Stewart.

Tonight a Zydeco band from New Orleans is playing downtown. SWEET!!!!

Strategic Career Move

You are now speaking to the newest doorman at Charly's Bar and Grill. Well, you're not actually speaking to him, unless you are actually talking to me while you read this, in which case you are quite a mulit-tasker!

Yep, after wandering around in a daze for awhile, I descided to seek out some new line of work other than substitue teaching and picking up the odd bit of work for the university. Don't get me wrong, I am still in a daze, and still working for the university and substituting on occasion, but now I will also be working three nights a week as a bouncer for a local bar. Wow, something with regular hours, this is quite a step for me.

Wandered off my map...

Managed to navigated hundreds of miles of wilderness through the Rocky Mountains, and thousands more on the black tops and dirt roads of the mountain west, but now that I am home, I am finally lost.

Short Mel was unavailable in Sante Fe and Tall Mel I missed by am inch, so I pushed on through to Flagstaff. And then? I don't really have any firm plans, any hard vision of what I am doing now. I guess part of that is because I know from experiance that despite my desire to come home and be in one place for awhile, to stop living out of ruck sack and truck bed and let the boots cool off, it is only a matter of weeks before I get itchy, twitchy, and start looking at maps, travelogues, guidebooks, and plane tickets. So I'm torn between the desire to settle in and the desire to rehab my kit and stand by to move out.

The roomates managed to kill the geese and the rubarb in my absence, though I can't fault them for the geese, the coppers finally got wise to our operation and raided the place. And by that I mean they left a notice taped to our door firmly but politly telling us we had 24 hours to remove them our they would do it for us. Actually, it may have been worth the cost of the citation to see a bunch to flatfoots trying to wrangle the beasts. But the rubarb, that will be slow to forgive...how can you honestly mistake the big red shoots and huge green leaves for weeds? The rest of the garden does look good though, and remarkably free of weeds.

The roof leaks and monsoon is here, saturating the streets, forests, and my laundry room. Told Nick to make sure the roofers kept their appointment, to call them if they didn't show. Weeks passed. Months passed. The roofers didn't come and Nick didn't call, so now I await the coming tide and the roofers estimate with trepidation.

I am considering moving into the garage. Nic had a friend come to visit while I was gone, and he made a corner of the garage into a fairly respectable little den, and I am considering moving into it, as opposed to moving into and out of what ever bedroom happens to be vacant or sleeping on the couch for a week when I am returning from or departing on some journey, whichever the case may be. Unfortunatly the garage is packed floor to ceiling with...well, all sorts of stuff, belonging to an assortment of folks, many of which don't live here anymore. We do have a community garage sale coming up, but not for another month, and by then I may well have either left the country or conducted a perscribed burn. We are planning a part however, round the 10th or so of September to celebrate Nick's leaving, Jared's returning, and my eminant birthday.

High Plains Drifting

A herd of buffalo in the Badlands, midnight in a bar in Sturgis during the rally, free ice water and 5 cent coffee in Wall Drug, and the highest peak east of the Rockies and west of the Spanish Pyranese, these are some of the cool things South Dakota has offered up in the past few days.

So after taking leave the the sandhills,visiting the family in Wyoming, and wandering all over South Dakota, I am bee-lining it south for New Mexico and then, now tantilizingly close, home. After a quick detour to visit the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, CO.

Back at the ranch

Made it to the ranch, been here for a few days, riding horses, checking windmills, visiting friends and family, trying to figure out where things go from here. That's the hard part. For now, things go north, to south dakota and a particularly high and prominent bluff known as Harney Peak, 7,800 feet above sea level and the highpoint of SD. Then it will be south to Wyoming and more family and then New Mexico to visit the Mel the Shorter. I had hoped to visit the Corn Palace in Mitchel, South Dakota, but it is a bit out of my way, so I'll have to settle for CarHenge in Alliance, Nebraska (a replica of Stonehenge made of wrecked cars) and Wall Drug, South Dakota (home of the free cup of ice water).