The Joel Train

Ok.  How do I tell this story?

I was in Show Choir.

We sang and danced.  I liked singing.  I didn't mind dancing.  I liked the attention I got from the girls in the class.  One semester in my junior year, show choir was the only class I didn't fail.

In show choir we'd travel a little bit.  To Disney, to a retreat in the north Georgia mountains.  And we traveled to a show choir festival near Macon.

The festival was a proper affair.  There were schools from all over Georgia and Florida bused in to compete in the group and solo performance categories.  The Middle Georgia College show choir would close out the festival supported by a full orchestra.

There was never a chance we were in contention.  These were big crews with 20 members and fancy costumes, they had kick lines and raz mataz!  We were small and lopsided, all tenors and sopranos.   Our jazz hands were meek and we sang quietly over canned music with backing vocals.  I couldn't wait to get off the stage and hunker down to watch the other schools.

The group that won must have had 30 kids, stacked on risers.  They wore black sequined hats and white gloves that popped in the bright stage lights .  They moved as a single organism on stage.  Every box step was perfect.  Every bladed hand was at the same gorgeous 45 degree angle.

It was the end of the day.  They'd announced the group winners and we'd watched each school rush the stage for their trophy.  And we cheered for them.  Then it was time for the final three singers in the solo category to perform.  The first two vocalists had the misfortune of selecting the same song.  It was the year of Shania Twain.  And boots. And jean skirts.  One of them wore a cowboy hat and we all thought that might put her over the top.

We were tired by the time the last solo singer walked on stage.  It had been a long day.  Some of the sparkle was beginning to fade in the grand auditorium.  The college show choir would perform next and then we'd pile back into our buses and head home.  The orchestra was setting up in the pit as quietly as they could.

From where we were sitting in the balcony the last soloist seemed very small.   He must have been a freshman, but looked even younger and he fidgeted nervously waiting for his music.  He waited.  And waited.  The whole room started to buzz. The silence was painful.  The poor kid, we thought, and watched his eyes searching the crowd for help. He looked to the sound booth.  The student at the controls put his hand up in a gesture to please wait, and we all held our breath. He pointed to the singer and the first melodic lines of The Colors of the Wind filled the hall.  He began to sing, but he was off to a bad start.  His voice was shakey, unsure.  In mid verse the backing CD made a squaking sound and abruptly stopped.  His voice trailed off.

Collectively we all looked between the sound engineer who was shaking his head, and the blond hair boy on stage.  He'd begun pacing.  Looking for a way off the stage.  The room began to buzz again with a mix of empathy and nervous energy.  After a confused moment the boy turned to leave the stage and a reached up from the orchestra pit and waved.  "Excuse me" said the voice, quietly, "but is this your song?" And all at once the members of the Middle Georgia College orchestra began to play.
For a moment we were all stunned.  What was happening?  But they were playing the intro to The Colors of the Wind.  It was perfect!  And we erupted! Clapping and whistling and hooting our pleasure.  And the boy began to sing.  Feeding on the energy of the crowd he sang clear and true.  No note misplaced.  The boy with his new found confidence and 30 piece backing orchestra slayed the crowd and tore the roof off the building.  We couldn't believe what had happened.

When he finished singing, and the audience finally quieted down, they brought the other 2 singers back on stage.  Poor Shania with the hat knew she'd lost.  They named the boy the winner and the crowd exploded all over again.

And then it was time for the college show choir to perform.  A few people laughed, but we all cheered as they began their opening number, The Colors of the Wind.

I think what I'm really doing is image transfer.  I'm basically taking all my old 8mm home movies and dumping them onto VHS.  And because they pass through the filter of my mouth brain, the images get distorted or the focus shifts away from what was important.

My Father is the second oldest in a family of five.  All boys.  He and his older brother Rick are maybe a year or two apart.  Which would make Rick 70 or 71.  They were born just after WWII and before my grandfather went to work for the postal service as a letter carrier.  I say that because that job afforded the family some financial stability and provided for the family as it grew.   Until then, my grandparents leaned heavily on my great grandparents.  At some point before the others came, my father, Phil, and Rick lived his grandparents.  I'm not sure what caused the separation, or were my grandparents were during that time, but it left a mark on my father.  He remembers his grandfather fondly, but can't seem to connect to his own parents in the same way.

Just getting this one in under the wire.  It's 10:30pm here in dumb hot Savannah.  An old family friend, Heather is visiting.  Micah is asleep and I've got a few moments to keep the streak alive.

Lisa, Joe, and Jamie were at the beach this week. They rented a house with some other Ashevillians and spent their time between the Ocean and the grill.  Not a bad way to spend a week if you like that sort of thing.

We spent a week near Morehead City one year, not long after we were married.  Maybe it was Atlantic Beach.  It was May.  We rented a big house and just said "come".  The turn out was pretty anemic.  We had a guest at the beginning of the week, and Ana's mom came for a few days at the end.  I ate trigger fish and saw my first civil war fort.  I dragged Ana to see Star Wars Episode 3 on opening night at a small beach town theater in a grocery store parking lot.

We went to Savannah one year to collect my father after a long bike ride.  I don't remember where the Bicycle Ride Across Georgia started, but BRAG ended in Savannah that year.  It was hot.  My dad looked very tired.  He set up camp one night on top of a mound of fire ants and spent the night in the hospital.  And still, it was better to finish the ride than come home to a house full of rowdy children.  Living in Savannah now, I can't imagine what body of water they dragged us to to splash around in.  I just remember that it was so hot.  There were splintered, broken pylons, like the stubs of telephone poles in the shallows that were difficult to avoid for some reason.  But mostly it was hot.

One year we went to Jekyll Island and I fell off of a stone wall I'd scaled and was knocked unconscious.  That might not be true, but I'll never know.  Mom was the keeper of those stories.

As a teenager we went to visit my Grandfather outside Holden Beach.  My grandmother, who we called Mom, had died a few years before.  It was a family reunion of sorts with lots of uncles and cousins on my father's side to pester as teens will do.  We drove the 20 minutes or so over the bridge to the beach.  My brother David wasn't planning on taking his shirt off.  Later, he changed his mind, and someone reminded him to apply sunblock.  David has red hair and pale skin and will cook on a cloudy day.  I watched him rub lotion on his chest and reach around to his sides and back.  I offered to assist, but he just shot me a look and wandered off down the beach.  We spent the rest of the day running in and out of the water.

On the car ride home David began to fall apart.  First he complained that he had a headache.  He kept fidgeting in the seat, leaning forward, stretching back.  He said he felt sick.  "Do I have a sunburn on my back?" He leaned over again and I saw the raised red hourglass from his shoulder blades to top of his swim trunks. His sunburn made an angry "X" across his back where his hands couldn't reach.  It would make him uncomfortable for days.  I was so happy.

There's this scene in M. Knight Shamaylan's killer plant movie, where Mark Wahlberg and company take refuge in some lady's home.  And then the wind blows and the lady gets swept up by the toxic pollen and commits suicide by smashing her face into a window again and again.

I don't know the name of that movie.  I won't bother to look it up now.  But that image of a woman in her house dress, face expressionless, intentionally throwing herself into the broken glass is the stuff of nightmares.  And for some reason makes me think of the political climate in our country right now.

I remember when the administration first presented the Affordable Care Act and held town hall meetings to discuss it.  I'd never seen such panic and anger.  I heard about a fight breaking out at one of these town halls where a man bit off the end of someone's finger.  There are lots of videos on Youtube of old white people yelling at Arlen Spector.

There will always be those young anarchists from the Rhianna video, who find love in a broken place, and then strap on gas masks and throw rocks at the police so we can all finally use bitcoins.  But since those townhall meetings in 2009 and the rise of the teaparty and now this white nationalist movement that seems to be Donald Trump's real base, I keep thinking of that lady smashing her face against the glass.  It seems like our country has been overrun with radicalized white people who are emboldened by the subtext of certain media outlets and public personas.  And they don't care how much damage they inflict on others or to themselves.  Some motherfucker in Tennessee is running for state congress with billboards that read "make america white again".  When asked about it he says on his website

"Of great significance, as well, is the reality of the Trump phenomenon and the manner in which he has loosened up the overall spectrum of political discourse"

And by that he means that he is now allowed to overtly race bait as a campaign strategy.  Loosened up the political discourse?  I hope we can survive this madness.

Ana wants to move to Raleigh.  Aside from moving to Raleigh, I'm all for it.  I also don't have a better idea besides living in Savannah and just doing more of this.  You know, living here and doing here stuff.

The truth is I'm in a bit of a rut.  I've worked for Children's for 9 years now.  I don't have an advanced degree or letters after my name.  I don't have prospects that would be comparable to my current situation in terms of salary or responsibility.  So if I can't offer up another plan, maybe I don't get to protest too much.

I shouldn't feel washed up at 38.  I still have plenty of time to find whatever thing is going to be my thing.  Look at Grandma Moses.  If I started a hobby or a garden even, from scratch today, I'd still have 20 years to tend it and watch it grow before I had to wear a knee brace and one of those floppy sun hats.  I hope my hair sticks around long enough to turn pale and sad.  Not the distinguished white that some are lucky to get, but an almost translucent limp gray.  Not even the fancy grey with the "e" in it.  There's something endearing about an older man who keeps trying but is literally falling apart in front of everyone.  I don't want to smell bad though.  At 69, my dad is doing a good job at being old.  I think he smells fine.

20 years to do something.  Build something.  Learn something.

I read half of a Sartre play once .  The gist, as far as I can tell is that you are trapped with yourself, for better of worse.  You can't escape YOU.  I feel the inertia of being me all the time.  Every nail I hammer sideways or board I cut in a wavey line I think, "oh that's right, I'm not good at this."  Every impulsive decision or awkward conversation or passive aggressive outburst follows a well worn groove.

I'd like to disrupt it.  Micah helps.  This writing helps.  The fence helps.  There's courage in keeping on.  That feels like a ridiculous thing to say as a 38 year old who still feels 15 much of the time.  But it's true.

I bought a computer with a Best Buy credit card.  $1,600 dollars and 24% interest.  I convinced my adult friend Mark Pitts to co-sign on the application.  It was the beginning of the end for me financially, but the beginning of the beginning for me and computers.  I'm so smart.

Isn't dreamt a word?  Like, last night I dreamt I was flying?  like drempt?

I'm taking tomorrow off.  We're headed to Asheville this evening and I'll be away from my rig.

Maybe I'll take today off too.

There's an older woman who works for Weight Watchers and helps run the Thursday meetings.  She might be in her late 60s early 70s.  She's tall and good looking.  She has short hair and a dresses in colorful flowing layers.  She says things like "Hey Sugah" when she greets the Thursday fold.  I don't know her name.  I've been going for a year and I don't know anyone's name.

Almost done with the fence.  There's a small kink in the layout of the last post that ruins the line a bit. I'm trying not to obsess over it.  If I had more time I'd remove all the boards from the last 12 feet or so and reposition them.  I might also try adding a trim piece at each post to break up the line so your eye isn't drawn to the place where it dips.  Maybe that will help.

I had a dream about Mom last night.  She was old and tired.  Maybe sitting on a bench outside somewhere.  I told her I'd be right back and asked her to wait for me, but she wouldn't.  She had to go.

Over the weekend a heavily armed man entered a nightclub and murdered 49 people.  It was a popular LGBTQ club on a Latin themed night.  Many of the victims were latino/a/hispanic.

The gunman, New York born Omar Mateen is of Afghan origin and has a history of violent and erratic behavior.  Mateen claimed affiliation with both Shiite and Sunni terror groups.  A fact that confuses many experts.  Hezbollah and ISIS (oh god, I'm going to end up on a list for even typing this) don't tend to partner up.

And now there is speculation that he was a closeted homosexual and his violence stemmed from an internal conflict, not some international cabal.

There is so much to consider here.  The seemingly open access to guns.  The strange override of our actual immediate safety in favor of the right to own guns?  Fear of the other whipped up by a new nationalism emerging in our country.  And then there's the prism from which I view all of it as a cis, white, male.

Fuck man.  This is some fucked up bullshit.

I'm going to guess that Antwan is 25.  5'10", thin, but I think he must have recently lost a lot of weight.  The polyester Subaru branded polo he wore wasn't forgiving of the extra skin on his chest and waist.  His hair and mustache were neatly trimmed, and his black framed glasses would have been perfectly professional had they not been paired with green khaki cargo shorts and sneakers.  I first took him for one of the technicians working on our car.  The shop manager introduced us.  Ana and I were sitting on a bench outside the sales office, enjoying the morning sun.  Antwan said hello to me, then leaning over in an awkward bow, took just the fingers of Ana's hand. "That's odd" I thought,  and noticed the crude checkerboard tattoo on the inside of his wrist.  He didn't leave with the manager.  Instead he just stood there making small talk.  Were we from Savannah?  Did we like it?

I took our Subaru Outback to the dealership on Wednesday.  The A/C has been working only sporadically for probably a year now.  The car blows cold for a bit, then hot.  Sometimes I hear a gurgling sound.  Sometimes I don't.  Once on the highway warm fog started blowing through the vents.  It's hot here in Savannah.  I'd like to fix it.

The first shop I took it to last summer said there was plenty of Freon.  Just in case there was a leak in the system, they injected a dye that shows up under black light and told me to bring it back when it started acting up.  Not fixed.  Issue not resolved.  Also, bring it back when it starts acting up?  Wasn't it already acting up?  Wasn't that why I brought it in to begin with?

But that place was too busy anyway.  You have to call them to make an appointment for a week in advance.  I feel anxious about how much time they have to spend on my car.  Are they so busy that they aren't as attentive as they should be?  Are they just pushing cars out the door to make room for the ones coming in?  So when the A/C went out again in March I went to the Subaru dealership instead.

The dealership said said there wasn't any Freon in the car at all.  That makes sense, I guess, if there was a leak.  But they weren't able to find any trace of the dye they other place put in; which doesn't make sense because if there was a leak, where did it go?  So they filled the car back up with dye and Freon and sent me home with the same instructions; bring it back in when it starts acting up.

When I brought it in this time, they told me that the Freon was full, and they couldn't see any traces of the dye.  It was probably the Evaporator Core that was causing the issue.  They'd recommend we pull the dash out and replace the core for around $1,500.

Here's where I made a mistake.  I said, out loud, to an employee of the car dealership, "Oh man.  $1,500 hundred bucks!  I could just use that money for a down payment on something instead."  I'm sure there is a button on that guys desk that sounds an alarm in the sales office.  The service guy told me he'd let Antwon, his salesman know.

This morning Ana drove me over to pick up my car.  Antwon was waiting for us.

This is cheating.  I'm sitting on the couch, punching out something with my thumbs while we watch Midsommers Murders on Netflix.  All because I don't want to break my streak.  

Oh accounting.

I wonder if I'll post something today?  Last night Micah decided we'd go to Home Depot before school.  I thought maybe he would forget about it in the morning, but Micah never forgets.

Whenever I read a story, I'm usually disappointed by the way the protagonist is written.  It's my fault for not connecting to the standard character arc.  Usually characters start out lacking or broken, then they have an adventure which teaches them the lessons they needed to heal or become amazing.  Or, another version, characters start out perfect and are perfectly equipped to manage any obstacle or mystery, which they overcome easily and remain perfect.

Gorge away.  You can gorge away.

I'm up 3 pounds since March.  I think I know what happened.  I flew to Minnesota and starved myself for a week.  Then I came home and ate for 3 months.  I'm not freaking out.  But I will.  If I don't fix this soon, I'm going to freak right out.  I'd like to either be skinny and hungry, or fat and full.  I'm tired of being chubby and hungry.

When I think about altering my state of mind, I've added being full to the list.  Drunk, High, Full.  That can't be good.

I dropped Micah on his head on Wednesday.  We were in the grocery store parking lot.  We play this game where I hold him in my arms and then let go and he has to hang on by himself.  It has always been a surefire hit.  He wraps his arms around my neck and squeals when I let go.  Until Wednesday when his hands slipped and he fell over backwards. His head smacked the asphalt.  It was a terrible, hollow sound.  So terrible that I scooped him up and explored the back of his head with my fingers for some devastating injury.  In retrospect, jabbing my dirty fingers into his open head wound would have been a bad idea.  Thankfully there was just a bump.

Micah found a small beetle in his hair one time.  He thought it was a rock or part of a pine cone and when it started wiggling in his hand he threw it and screamed.  I didn't know what was happening.  All of a sudden Micah was just screaming and screaming.  I literally started yelling and jumping up and down like a monkey.  I don't know why I did this.  Something about Micah being hurt sends me spiraling.  I can't think clearly.  As the responsible adult, I'm going to have to figure this out.

I think that will do for today.  It's a short week.  The fence is coming along nicely, but there's rain for the next couple of days.  So far I think it's going to cost about $800 smackers for my little 40 foot fence with no gates.  The next two sections are both twice that long and we've already spent what little savings we have 3 different ways.  So it will be exciting to see what happens next.  Not monkey-jump exciting, but still.  

I think about dying a lot.  I don't think that makes me particularly dark or special.  I'm just in constant fear of winking out into nothing.  No big deal.

I put Micah in the car this morning.  NPR started up on the radio.  Some announcer used the word perpetuate but their accent made it sound like "puh-petuate."  I thought that was funny so I said the word out loud.