Someone sent me a link to a blog post soliciting lost wallet stories. So I wrote one up.

“I was driving cross-country from Arizona to New Jersey in a rented minivan containing everything I owned at the time - it was the first leg of the trip, I’d completed most of the first leg through AZ/NM and I was headed north into Albuquerque late at night on Rte. 25. There I would meet friends who would put me up for the night.

Once in ABQ, I exited the highway an drove down an off-ramp that made a steady decline to a four-way stop intersection. As I approached, I realized I hadn’t gauged correctly the weight of my payload, and had to hit the brakes rather hard to make the stop sign. I felt the weight of my possessions lurch forward in the backseat. Worse, I heard a wrenching, popping sound coming from the front of the vehicle.

As I accelerated, I realized the tranny was blown. I ended up pushing the vehicle to a nearby service station, then called Avis to swap out their vehicle, waiting a good few hours for a new one to arrive.

When the new minivan arrived, my ABQ friends (who were kind enough to come down to help me) and I transferred all my stuff the new van, and the Avis guy took the old one away. All my stuff - minus one critical piece. Cavity searches of living and dead vehicles revealed nothing of the blue Eagle Creek velcro wallet, stolen and recovered in Prague five years earlier in an even odder story.

Flash back to an ill-fated stop in the Truth or Consequences a few hours earlier for grub, gas, and a hurried pee somewhere in the dark bushes, hearing the faint plop of something falling in the grass mid-urination but thinking little of it at the time.

I ended up at the local branch of my brank, draining my account of it’s final couple hundred bucks in order to get me through the duration of the trip. Once back on the east coast, I bought another blue Eagle Creek, which I have to this day.

So there you have it. Left my wallet in the Truth or Consequences. Made me feel like an Elephant Butte.”

boils it down to a time and a place. but that’s still vague in terms then eventually it becomes about a handful of people. so that’s the thing of memory. so the whole exercise becomes one of collective, not personal, memory - like i told john -

“dude. i need to wrack your brain for a sec about a show in 1991 - yeah, yeah, that’s the one - remember when the sky turned red during slayer? or lollapalooza, when angelo moore sold us a poetry book in the chillout tent? or the show when chris cornell was hanging from the rafters and i got the heel of a doc martin implanted into my forehead? I didn’t shower for a week after that, and you better believe i showed that lump off like a badge at school.”

if you’ve known me any length of time, you most likely have been rewarded with your own name scrawled on a bag with a few shards of paper. a little god warrior iron-on, or a postcard saying “ik mis je” or a picture of an idaho spud. even if you never sent a thing, i can still divine out of a worn ticket stub an image of you. you and me and our dated, unfortunate haircuts. so then you give each person their own ziploc bag. seals in the freshness, or in the case of rock shows of the 90’s, the ripeness - so you can break the seal and smell the glove over and over again.

the physical world is confining. but on the magic of the internets (thank you TBL, the good folks in champaign, etc etc) you can put things in several places at once and knit them all separately together. it’s remarkable.

so i can sit here, tapping away - and my own personal vinnie delpino (like a personal jesus, but shorter and with pizza-breath) is gonna pop thru the IM window shortly. “doog.” and I can tap back on the screen “vin - you remember that show back when” and he’ll say “hell yeah. that fuckhole stranded my sweaty ass on the garden state parkway?” and i’ll reply “omg - i totally forgot that happened” and two days letter i get an email attachment, the pixels, the proofs, the mental image of a monte carlo smelling of vulcanized rubber. thrown up on the web, then printed on acid-free sheets and into the ziplocs they go. and despite all the wonders of replication, it still boils down to one time. one place. and of course, one person (or posse, as the case may be). and i get sad, cause I’ll never see that same person at that same place at that time ever again.

a bloodied bus schedule from Northern Spain. A photo of a goulash shop in Prague. Questionable Dutch video memberships. The physical act of unpacking, breaking this mass into the scantest shards of paper is the easy part. Unpacking the story from that little piece of paper, loaded with meaning, is volatile. Like the big bang. Unpacking a memory can be like defusing a bomb.

Cards. The collection of cards that you stick in your wallet until you can’t shut it anymore, you put the cards in some drawer somewhere (or a grey suitcase) and go about collecting more cards. Fill wallet again, empty wallet again (assuming the gypsies don’t steal it), repeat - until the discarded cards pile up in a stack in the drawer and its 10 years later. Same goes for menus, tickets, playbills, x-mas cards from x-tended family, etc. Do you sort all these things by type? — so all cards, menus, tickets go together but are of different age and origin? Or do you sort by provenance with all various types mixed together? And do you then keep these birds of a feather in unruly piles on a table, or neatly in laminated sheets in an album, or splayed out on a corkboard for wall display, or stuffed into a Hollinger box? or back into the gray suitcase?

Or do you scan them, upload them into various social software packages and hyperlink them together across domains, making your life accessible again to all the people who made these stories matter, and who can then perhaps enhance the gaps in your stories and in your own fuzzy memory?

Right now, everything’s just in piles. A forty-pack of ziploc bags on the kitchen counter, a sharpie, and a roll of scotch tape. I’ve got to clear this space, and looking at this stuff makes me want to reach for the wine - but - provenance it is. Who cares if I mix the cards, photos, and letters. It’s the experiences that count.

Signing of now. Polished off a bottle of riesling. I’m typing this into an old school green-screen word processor called darkroom, because I’m less fond of cryptic european-street-sign buttons when all want to do is write. I feel like Doogie Howser. [cursor flashes pensively]. If you get that last sentence, you’re old, like me. Cue the synthesizers, outro.

Oh, no. Hell no. No way. Far from that state, thanks. I just really wanted to use this picture.

So yeah, I am the blogging tortoise, bringing up the rear while my fellow bloggers run circles around me. But it’s been an eventful few weeks.
Spent a weekend in Philly lurking around the ALA conference (but mainly to see S.) Burmese food was had. Landmarks were spotted. Wawas were in full effect. Drunken, disoriented libs everywhere (well mainly in the bars :-). Italian and Reading markets did not disappoint.

And getting lost in the dark on a rainy night was just an excuse to say the word “Schuylkill” many times over, and mispronounce it slightly differently each time. So satisfying. Skoo-kull! School-kill! Shoe-kill! Yeah!! Beetle-fuck! Whatever!! Say it ten times fast, tap your Converse All-Stars three times and end up in the ghost of the civic center, shooting jumpers with Dr. J. School-cool!

The next weekend, New Mexico, to see M. After some I finally got into ABQ and met M, and promptly scheduled a mini road trip (yay!) Hit Santa Fe the next day. Beautiful city. Drove into Taos at night. I should say that the sight of snow capped mountains emerging at night, the hint of jagged white slivers against a starry sky, never fails to enchant (even in a state known for such things). And a trip to the Earthship Biotecture was very cool. Because deep down, I want to live in the middle of nowhere in a house made from mud and recycled bottles. Seriously. I want an earthship. Will have to save that for retirement, I guess. Back in ABQ, a trip up the Sandia tramway and a hike in the mountains.

Interspersed with some truly inspiring food. Green chile breakfast burritos at Frontier and Golden Pride. Blue corn enchiladas at Maria’s in Santa Fe. Chile burgers at the Lotaburger.

Then. The bible study. Yeah. A post unto itself, but better to ask me in private. Over beers. It’s a good story but not for here. A great time had overall. Very refreshing.

And THEN. The coup de grace. The successful move BACK to Washington DC. The heart of Capitol Hill, in the shadow of the monuments. Thanks so much to my brother Rob for assisting me here. And the movers, yes, the movers. Getting a sectional sofa into a third story walkup apartment is something best left to professionals.

So. I’ve explored a bit. Already know the neighborhood well. Ate way too much BBQ the first few days (doesn’t help that the best joint in the city is across the street). Spent time on the rooftop deck. Bought some freshly ground coffee from the local beanhouse. Ethiopian yummy. And just now getting settled. And I’m wired up. So I can post from home sweetness home!

*Home* punctuated by a slip on the icy pavement. Oomph! A nice welt. But it’s a DC welt. I’ve been rubbing it fondly.

There was no goat. Whether it was chupacabra that got him, or that the five residents of Falmouth (not pronounced “fal-məth” like in Cape Cod, but “foul-mouth”, according to a local convenience store clerk) just decided to get drunk instead (or just got hungry), the thing I’d driven over an hour to see — the ceremonial dropping of a stuffed goat at midnight — was not there. Furthermore, there was no hint of a party, nor people to even ask where the party might be?! Up and down the one wretched street in Foul-mouth five times and checked my watch. It was 11:30. The rest as it happened.

11:31 — My goat dreams crushed and in the middle of nowhere, I got depressed. A sign said “Elizabethtown, 4 miles” and I think, maybe, I read somewhere that someone might drop or raise something interesting and unique in E-town (an M&M? Or maybe Kirsten Dunst?). I drove the four mile stretch to check out the scene.

11:36 — pulled into E-town — the place was dead. (turns out these folks do raise their M&M, but early … 7PM, wtf? I wonder if the goat was dropped early too?)

11:38 — really depressed now. Humming “nothing ever happens in … ” , I drove up and down the deserted streets of E looking for some kind of party that I could drop in on. Something. Anything?!

11:42 — On the outskirts of town, I saw the sign that would change my night. Dreams of a giant silver foil package with a little white paper tail danced in my head. Checked the map and my watch. Eight miles. Eighteen minutes. A 35 MPH back road to Hershey. This is gonna be close. Could I make it?

11:43 — Peace out E-town! And enough techno music. I threw in the White Stripes and hit the accelerator. I’m gonna go get me a Kiss. (sadly — or perhaps fortunately? — I had no KISS to jam out to)

11:51 — entered Hershey.

11:53 — Stopped at a Turkey Hill somewhere in Hershey. Two attendants were standing outside smoking cigs. I asked them “where’s the party?” A woman running in the store laughed in a “yeah, right, you’ll make it” tone. One attendant said “Son, that’s the other side of town! But here’s the quick way around — take a left, then a right, pass Cocoa Ave., hang a right on Chocolate Ave.” [looks at watch] … “an’ you’d better hurry up!”

11:57 — The police had a roadblock detour set up shortly after Cocoa Ave. Whatever. Swerved through a bank parking lot and down some side streets to get on Chocolate.

11:59 — Parked with a screech. Jumped out of my car and headed toward the main square. As I ran, I pulled my camera out of my pocket, switched it to video mode and hit ‘record’. You can see the rest here. Or maybe you can’t, the vid quality isn’t the best — in any case, at the strike of …

12:00 — Hershey raised its candy into the air, and shot off some fireworks — and I made it in the lick of time. Def Leppard played over the loudspeakers as I claimed my complimentary candy bar. Hit the bar for a libation or two, made a few calls, then hopped back in my car, satisfied.

Happy New Year.

p.s. — as I drove the long drive on 896 through Amish country back to Delaware, I passed more than one horse-and-buggy shuffling down the road in the wee hours of the morning. Too funny. Party on Amish!

I’d been carrying the psychic’s card in my wallet for a couple of weeks, ever since she’d approached me from a minivan in a rainy strip-mall parking lot. Today I drove down to Wilmington to her office.

Arrived to a cramped second-floor commercial space that she’d converted to double as a family abode. As I entered, two burly Indo-European men sat at a table, drinking tea from tiny cups. One wished me happy x-mas. Her granddaughter ran out from the makeshift kitchen and promptly ducked into the bathroom.

I was then rushed into a back office. Spare in decoration. Low light, but not ambient light, just the gray light from outside, really — I was hoping for something a bit more spiritual, or even quasi-spiritual. Something to react to? I sat down in a steel office chair facing a desk. She sat across from me. There were introductions, and money was exchanged. She took a set of tarot cards and put them on the desk between us. Then she brushed them aside.

“I’ll be honest with you, Ray. The tarot cards, they are fine, they’ll give you a surface analysis. But I think you would benefit from a psychic reading — readings are $[x+1] but I’m only going to charge you for tarot, which is $[x] — I am getting a strong feeling of unease with you. I’d like to try to really dig deeper, to really … penetrate your soul.”

I crossed my legs, and clenched my wallet under the desk. “Shouldn’t you buy me lunch first?”

“I’m sorry?” she winced, flashing a gold tooth.

“Just kidding.”

She shot me a “don’t be fatuous” look.

I kept staring at the cards sitting there untouched. Something about the ritual of it I was anticipating. I wanted the ornate, the incense and beaded curtains and all the theatrics and hoodoo-voodoo, my gypsy mystic vision brought to life. Maybe it was because I didn’t really want to engage in an unadorned face-to-face with her. And I didn’t want to be challenged or “penetrated” or upsold. A “surface” card reading free of emotional heft was fine with me.

But engagement was in the cards, so to speak. She rubbed her forehead and stared, burning holes into my eyes. And she started right in with the reading.

“You have had something really major happen to you in the workplace. Someone put you down, you were demoted, put in a position you didn’t like.”

“Umm. Not really.” I said.

“Oh. Well. So …. I’m getting another image. there is a person you really love. But … ” deep stare into my eyes “this person has been very abusive to you … mentally.”

“Uhhh … yeah, sorry.” I shrugged. “Just trying to think who that might be. I’m drawing a blank.”

“Right. OK. So.” she rubbed her eyes and scrunched her hands, the extent of the theatrics. “So there’s this woman. Older. She cares about you very deeply.”

“Romantically? Like, not my mom?”

“Yes, romantically.” she said, hopefully.

“Yeah, well … if there is, I don’t know about her.”

Three prophecies in rapid succession. And three misfires. Nothing to hang onto even with fuzzy logic. It was then that the mood turned uncomfortable. My fingers ran along the desk nervously. Her eyes darted. After a few seconds, to break the silence, I offered some details about my life and my current situation.

This was like chum to a shark. She picked up on all the cues and weaved some elaborate tale of my fate, at the same time “revising” her earlier work, essentially sketching out manifest destiny, a yellow-brick road for me leading, of course, to her and her office.

She upped the urgency, said I was suffering from a “block” in my chakras, an evil force, beyond my power and uncontrolled by my actions, that had been passed through generations like some new-age original sin. Something that only special crystals and a series of full cleansing rituals could even diagnose or cure — all of this normally costing $[x+3] but she would be willing to provide at the low low price of $[x+2].

I balked, then tried to squirrel out of it. I talked of time constraints, the difficulty of getting to the office, and x-mas presents straining my budget. She fudged my squirrel, said I could energize the crystals at home using a manual. Phone in the results. Fax them. Whatever. She said I was in grave danger. Her phone started to beep like a siren over her voice. and her granddaughter yelled at the TV in the next room. An ambulance wailed in the distance.

I grabbed my coat.

Twenty minutes later, I was downstairs at the sweets parlor, polishing off a serving of Belgian waffles with ice cream, the overdone presentation, whipped cream and cherries, empty calories and promises fulfilled, giving me the giddy exotic rush the mind-reader could not.

That purple, bloated thing we met on the 8 mile road — it wasn’t even a marmot. (It wasn’t a dog either, but that’s another story). But that’s not the issue — the thing in the movie wasn’t a marmot either. But that didn’t prevent it from being dropped in a bathtub now did it? And did it avert its brethren’s untimely demise at the hands of Robert Goulet? Who then meticulously wove the pelts together to wear during his maiden voyage in the newfallen snow? Leaving said marmots dead on the roads in Houston to rot in the winter heat?? I think not. Smarmy, Emerald-nut stealing, mustache-twirling bastard!!

But the marmot is not the issue.

But what about the dookie? Yes, we had fun at the infamous Bizarro Catbirds, sang some songs, relayed some taxicab confessions, generally living life by the drop. But all was not laughs. For later that night, thanks to lone star queso, I was to suffer the indignity of asking the shopgirl at Valero for milk of magnesia out of the side of my mouth ’cause it’s behind the counter next to the rubbers? And have her reply “yeah. that’s gotta suck, snicker.” Yeah? Ya think?

But all’s well that ends well, so … no, the dookie is not the issue either (not anymore :-)

Then there’s the company I keep out there in Houston, Texas. They’re the folks for their time and place. They fit right in there. And together we recycle the same lines from the same damn movies year after year and still make them sound fresh as the day they were put on tape. Cause that’s how we do it. My Houston peeps. They’re good people. And thorough. You’d be lucky to know them.

But exceptional as they are (and they are), they, too, are NOT the issue.

Dook of Earl is playing on the jukebox as I plot out the details of the ultra-secretive “Operation Marmot” (or “OM”, if you’re into the whole brevity thing.) The central mission and details of which, if I were to reveal them, I’d would have to kill you on the spot.

The operation. That’s the issue. Issue of all issues. Like I told the shoe shine guy at Hobby Airport — clean me up, so when I get off that plane in DC, I can say, confidently, and without hesitation,

“I’m BACK, bitches!!!”

Recovering from this morning’s root canal operation that brought an end to two weeks of often excruciating pain, and having just celebrated at the local German restaurant with a tasty hefeweizen, I can finally concentrate enough to write this post. and recap my Vermont trip from a week or so back.

Tickets through Southwest were dirt cheap, my friend Keith was a gracious host, even with my toothache, and we had a great time. We started with some snapshots of downtown Brattleboro which is where I spent most of my time. A cool town with some really nice breweries and bars. Since I’d been to Brat (as the locals call it) before with my dad, I decided to take some pics of things I remembered, notably a bridge across the Connecticut river to New Hampshire. This is where Keith and I encountered a lonely man in a bathing suit, towel and sandals sauntering towards us.

As our swimmer got closer to us I realized — there was no bathing suit, no loin cloth nor fig leaf to cover his wares. He looked at me and I looked at him (all of him) and then he whipped back the towel (advertising a nudist camp in upstate NY) that had heretofore been draped around him, and stunned me with a laser beam of pure hippie nakedness, rendering my camera impotent for several minutes. So I had to settle for a rear-end view.

You all have been spared the full frontal. I was not.

More highlights:

July 4 (ehm, illegal) fireworks in the neighbor’s backyard, which backed into an old quarry property. Fun stuff.

Japanese tourists at the Ben and Jerry’s factory in Waterbury. Probably more entertaining than the tour itself. For some reason, as they all shuffled from the movie room to the factory view room to the samples room, giddy and smiling and infectious, I kept picturing Roberto Benigni in that scene from Down By Law, singing “I scream! you scream! we all scream! for ice cream!” with me playing the jaded Tom Waits convict who eventually joins in the fun.Yay for ice cream!

Eating and buying souvenirs at the Miss Bellows Falls Diner in the town that shares its name, where my dad and I ate years back, as well as snapping photos of several other old school diner cars in the area. I also got to shoot a couple of notable covered bridges in the area. I plan to start a diner set on Flickr as well as a set for covered bridges.

Besides flying into Manchester, Keith and I were able to make visits to other towns in the area, namely Keene (NH), and Northhampton and Amherst (MA). All very enjoyable, and food and drinks were had in each stop.

Keith driving us to a BBQ joint in an old church he’d raved about, called “Holy Smokes” — we got there to find the place completely burned to the ground. There was free parking however.

Trivia bloodsport at Keith’s and at the bar outside Amherst. I expected to clean up. I did OK, but the man likes his trivia.

Four bags of Green Mountain coffee for my dad and some maple candies that were slated for assorted coworkers and friends but that somehow melted on the flight home :-(. And a jar of some good maple syrup which survived, but which I haven’t touched yet but may have to crack open this weekend.

A very nice, short hike in Miller State Park prior to departing flight, shooting some nice misty forest pics before getting trapped at the summit of Pack Monadnock during a lightning storm. Very surreal but pleasant ending to the trip.

(Some photoshopped images on MySpace are so ridiculously inspiring, they deserve their own backstory. So here it is, the latest entrant into Rick’s pantheon of funny. Enjoy. p.s. It helps if you’ve seen “Being John Malkovich.” If you haven’t, I highly recommend it.)

Craig Schwartz and Maxine are preparing to wind down another profitable day at “Being Glenn Danzig Enterprises”, their new, post-Malkovich startup. Maxine is counting the money. Craig is staring at Mexine legs lustfully. All of a sudden, a belch echoes through the hallway of the 7 1/2 floor. And who else but the man himself, Tony Danza, stumbles into the office.

He puts his arm around Craig and says “Look, Schwartz, I know you know who I am.” His breath stinks of vino. “And I’ve gotten word of your little business. Malkovich is a good friend of mine. But let’s not mince words here, capiche? I’ll give it to you straight, Craig.”

Danza looks at the floor and says, “I’m a washed up sitcom actor.”

“200 dollars” Maxine says, pointing at the register.

Craig nods empathetically. “Are you looking to escape for a while, Mr. Danza? We all need an escape sometimes. God knows I do. And, you know, this guy, Danzig, he’s a rockstar, he’s really buff. He works out at the East St. Y. He’s got that whole Satanic thing going. The women love that.”

Danza continues. “Yeah, I dunno what has happened lately, but my career has just gone down the toilet. First i flipped my go-kart while racing Rusty Wallace. Some guy put in on Youtube. and everybody had a laugh at my expense. Then, my show was friggin’ cancelled. Then, well, I showed up on that bitch Rachel Ray’s show — in MY old time slot — and told it like it is. Anyway, the whole story ended up on Letterman. Then on Youtube, again. Fucking YouTube. ….. so embarrassing.”

Maxine turns her head up again. “I saw that! hahahah.” She lifts a pretend wine glass and slurs, “‘Ziti my ass!!’ They made you sound like a total lush, hahah!”

“Uh yeah, thanks.” says Danza, shaking his head. He turns again to Craig. “So, yeah, I’d, like, give anything to be someone else for just a little while right now.”

Craig smiles and says “we can arrange that.” Danza pays Maxine the money and crawls into the trapdoor and down the chute. Fade out.

Fade into Danzig onstage, surrounded in dry ice, looking ultra-menacing, in his fishnet tank top, which gives his pecs and biceps maximum exposure. He belts out the lyrics to “Mother” in his signature black snake moan.

“Mothaaaaa … tell your children not to walk mah way …. tell your children not to read my words, what they mean what they say … mothaaa …. ”

Danzig tilts his head back. As he barks the line “and if ya wanna find hell with me” he starts to twitch, his eyes bug out, and he starts to shake uncontrollably. The audience thinks it’s all part of the act, until the man onstage, unidentifiable at this point, spins his head rapid-fire and all of a sudden, in a quantum leap, he faces the audience and wails.

“MOOONNNNAAAA!!!!!!!”

The guitarist stops mid-riff. The drummer drops his sticks and the audience is silent. All is heard is the faint squeal of feedback from the speakers. Tony Danza has taken over the room.

He grabs the mike again. With a big shit-eating grin on his face, rivalling that of a Glaswegian standup act, he screams,

“Who’s the boss now, motherfucker?”

At the very same moment, Glenn Danzig gets expelled like a bad egg out onto the Jersey turnpike. Craig Schwartz is there. Danzig grabs Craig by the nuts, and says “for god’s sake, shut it down.” Craig shakes his head “It’s my portal” Glenn says Malkovich style “It’s my HEAAADDD, Schwartz. It’s My HEADDDD!!!” He clenches a bit harder, and whispers as if into space, incredulously, “Tony Danza, Craig? Tony DANZA?! How could you?! My career is finished!”

Fear the Danza.

A couple months ago I went to the dentist — something I’ve been dreading for years as my last memory of such was of my last dentist. A Father Wonka type, extracting from my mouth very painfully, and with maximum guilt-tripping remarks about my dental hygeine, a medieval torture device called a bionator. This followed shortly thereafter by root canal.

This time, I specifically sought out the woman, acting off a years-old referral from a friend, in the hopes that I’d get someone who could deliver what I knew to be very bad news (that my teeth were literally falling apart) with empathy and compassion. And she was great. Not that she had to talk much. She spoke softly, and all the while flashing pics of cavity after cavity in front of my eyes like photos of bombed-out buildings. In the end, she told me that she’d help me rebuild the Sarajevo in my mouth, I said thanks, and she handed me over to the financial guy to sort out the details.

Depressoid after that. For about a month, I couldn’t even look at a Mountain Dew without cringing. This shit, this ubiquitous fucking caramelized, high-fructose crap that pumps fake energy through my near-diabetic frame, keeps me fat, nervous as hell, fucks with my self-image and rots out my teeth, and I’m hopelessly addicted. And it fucking has to stop.

All this being said, Tourette’s style, on a hiking trail in Delaware. Along with the typical through-the-teeth ranting about work, Washington, poilitics, superficial assholes, humanity, the scourge of technology even as it lures you in (and don’t look now, you’re soaking in it), and all the other work-week accumulation, scattering vitriol like animal droppings along the trail, up the hill, around the creek, down the hill … the droppings decrease … around a bend near a birdwatching stand, around the disc golf course … the seething chatter dissipating into the wind … and up out of the forest into a field, surrounded by flowers and butterflies, and all the fake energy, gone, replaced by a different kind.

As the weeks pass, the fructose, yellow #5, and gum arabic-fueled anxiety gradually makes way for a bug spray and sun block, cap, boots, daypack and walking sticks-fueled summer shimmering sun. And the pasty fat around the perimeter starts to give way and the muscles that laid dormant, open their eyes for the first time, like Han Solo coming out of the carbon freezing. That’s kind of how I feel as a whole right now.

A painted lady is pretty easily distinguishable from a monarch butterfly, when I was a kid I could recognize the difference in a second, but then again I was a bit closer to nature back then. They call painted ladies the thistle butterfly. As I started my hike yesterday, I was out in the field with my camera and I caught one, feeding away at the thistle’s nectar. I was so stoked. Slave to the nectar, ha ha, these painted ladies. Water for me, thanks.