Nah. Too Daunting.

Writing all that "catch up" stuff I referenced in the last blog is what I'm talking about.  Too daunting.  And, more than likely, too boring.  I mean picture a guy packing cardboard boxes with essential stuff, clothes, shoes, favorite coffee cup, CDs and DVD's that had gone un-played for years, and of course, all those items that had they been lost in a fire you wouldn't even remember you had.  Nothing really there to go on about unless like so many writers trying to flesh out a short story to novel length, I plunge into mind numbing detail. 

 Doc held the left sock, yes he could tell left from right, it was a gift he had seemingly from birth, to his nose where he could better inhale its fragrance and match it with the correct white partner among the many his sock drawer had to offer, before carefully placing it atop the growing pile of clothing that stretched tightly from one side of the cardboard box to the other.  This particular sock brought with it not only the scent needed to reunite it with its significant other but a distant reminder of the day it was worn before Doc had successfully balled it up and tossed it into the dirty clothes hamper from a distance measuring some eighteen feet. "Three!" he had shouted that day and "Three!" it was that he said again as the sock in its fading white to slightly gray glory was placed in the box.

There is one episode having to do with dogs I could, I suppose, give some time to, but something happens to my eyes when I think about  the dogs that makes me unable to see the keyboard.  Suffice, yes suffice for now, to say they are well and adjusting to new happy circumstances and pack members.


So put me at the David airport explaining to Panama's version of a TSA person that my money clip is a tool and not a weapon.  It does have a small blade about an inch in length, but seriously people, I've seen women with longer fingernails than that sporting high hills that are actually called stilettos!  No matter, they broke my blade off the money clip that I had carried for close to forty years.  It was either that or confiscation of the whole thing.  The word that came to my mind but went unsaid at the time was substantially stronger than bummer. 

After that it all went well apart from the driver who picked me up at the Panama City airport and insisted on texting and driving all the way to my hotel...in traffic.  (My spell check doesn't like the word texting.  C'mon Spell Check, join the 21st Century)  (I say this as if I have.  Joined the 21st Century, that is.)  (Hey, I try!  I recently acquired a "Smart Phone."  All the world's knowledge is stored within it and at my fingertips. I use it to play Word Feud with my kids.) 

The longest journey begins with a single step.  Remember that.  You heard it here first. Just kidding. Confucius said that and he stole it from Marco Polo the guy who the sport and T-shirts with collars are named after. Marco passed it down to a distant relative of mine who actually started his journey by buying a train ticket.  Truth is he wasn't much of a walker.  My own journey began with a lift from friends to the airport, but you know we really shouldn't fault Confucius on this score because on other matters he was often spot on.

I eventually made it from Panama to Florida without further incident except for the one upon arrival.  My plane touched down (Yes I did own it, or at least I should have, considering the ticket price) fifteen minutes early.  Hooray!  Hold on there Mr. Hoorayer.  My fellow owners and I then sat for an hour on the runway because an electrical storm made pretty fireworks in the sky above the airport and kept departing planes out of the air. As a consequence there was no place for our plane to park and discharge its passengers.  This in itself was annoying but was really just a low level precursor to the top level of annoyance known as Really Pissed Off.  I would arrive there awhile later.  In order to achieve that lofty anger plateau I had to first have the sole of my right shoe  come half unglued.  The front half.  Walking - how should I say this? - became a bit of a struggle.  Step with the left, flip up with the right and quickly step down while the sole was momentarily in position.  C'mon, you've done it. (If you haven't, you  were never a poor kid.)  Anyway, it's doable. Doable, that is, until you have to carry and drag things along with you, a circumstance that occurred about a hundred yards from the airplane.  At the end of that hundred yards, we the deplaned, found a carousel spitting out our luggage.  How curious.  Aren't they supposed to be in another time zone and a parallel universe?  Even though my largest and heaviest piece of luggage - think about the word luggage. It means stuff you must lug. - two sets of golf clubs in a bag designed for one was the last item to be disgorged from the carousel's mouth onto its snaky tongue, I was happy to have it so quickly.  Now all I had to do was schlep my suitcase, my carry-on, my golf clubs and my computer bag around the corner somewhere where my beautiful wife and two daughters had said they would be waiting.  The problem with my shoe would be short lived.  Well alrighty then!  I intended to make that happen.

Turns out the Law of Intention has loop holes.  All I found around the corner was that I was trying to keep up with my fellow lemmings as we trudged for miles to the cliff known as Immigration.  Along the way I had tried to walk with one shoe off, but that left me limping and my back hurting, both shoes off, but that gave me one too many things to carry, and then eventually back to plan one which was the flip it up in rhythm technique now only successful about one in every three steps, the failures resulting in an uncomfortable stumbling when stepping on the folded back sole.  We lemmings all somehow survived the fall into the sea but were now faced with swimming to our next unknown destination some further twists and turns down long, did I mention long, passages to...are you kidding me? A train, a freaking train!  We had to board this subway to get to the main terminal!  Well, OF COURSE my golf clubs got stuck in the door and OF COURSE the robot voice began tolling, "Please clear the doorway Butthead Traveler, so we can close it and depart" or something real close to that.  Eventually, though, the world still holds wonders, I did make it to the central area of the airport and found, you guessed it, no one I knew.  I kerschlepped over to an information kiosk and asked a kindly woman there if she would page my people.  She obliged.  A couple of levels below in a luggage retrieval area where the airport signs mistakenly had told them I would be ultimately found, Woowoo Charly, Lala and Special K heard the page, but were unable to respond because the line to Information was busy.  

Okay, enough.  To get to the end of this tortuous tale, because I really want to get to the end of it, me and my lovelies were eventually reunited.  As we trekked to the parking lot I had a thought.  As these so rarely occur to me it took me awhile to realize what it was and tune in to what it was telling me.  There are golf shoes in you golf bag!  Soft spiked golf shoes!  I could have put them on the moment I got off the plane!

Sheesh. What an idiot.   

The Urge to Write

The urge to write.  What the hell is that anyway?  Why am I afflicted with this particular urge and not some other that might serve or have served me better?  The urge to make vast sums of money comes to mind.  Apart from the ordinary urges we all share,  like the urge to eat and drink, have sex with super models and quack like a duck during the dessert course at four star restaurants, we all, additionally, seem to have our own personalized set of psychologically compelled motivations.  (I just made up that last so I wouldn't have to say urges again.)  I would give you my list of compulsions, that's a good synonym isn't it? but fear of reprisals, incarceration and a post life heat wave give me pause. Fortunately, I am able to resist the worst of those for the most part else I would have already tossed this computer out the nearest window for its insistence on changing my type size without proper and formal notification.  The urge to write, however, cannot be resisted for long despite the nagging knowledge (I like that phrase, nagging knowledge) that I have nothing to say.  I mean if one has nothing to say why should one be compelled to say it...aloud or on cyber paper?  Take politicians ("Please!" as Henny Youngman would say) who say nothing on a regular basis when confronted with difficult questions.  Theirs, however, may be a practiced art and not just giving in to the urge to say nothing.  My too  insistent desire - another good synonym I'm thinking - to write falls more into the category of mental illness. Oh, not the run through the park naked kind or the vote Republican kind of mind disorder, but a more subtle and mostly harmless manifestation of brain cells gone awry.  More akin to people who whistle tunelessly than people who watch reality TV.  That latter group is truly "'round the bend."

Okay, so now that you understand I am helpless to not do this thing, I will commence with the doing of it with but just one more disclaimer:  The following example of my dysfunction is an attempt to catch up on all the events that have occurred of late and that I have unwillingly failed to report until now thus further feeding my most urgent urge.  Read it at your own risk. 

Hmmm.  All that said, you will have to wait a bit for the catch up part. The above blabber has sated my current urge to write. Tomorrow, perhaps, I will be afflicted once more.  At least I hope so.